- That did not take long. Within a day of the story
breaking that Notre
Dame linebacker and Heisman Trophy finalist Mantei Te’o was somehow involved in
an Internet hoax in which he claimed to have a girlfriend who died of leukemia,
businesses and sports teams were looking to cash in on the scandal. Discount
airline Spirit Airlines piled on first, posing an ad on its website
proclaiming: "No hoax. These fares are really low," written in Notre
Dame's blue and yellow just like the famed "Play Like A Champion Today"
sign players tap on their way from the locker room to the field at home games.
But perhaps no one has yet gone as far to the absurd side of the issue as the
Florence (Ky.) Freedom, an independent baseball in desperate need of an
attendance boost next season after drawing roughly 2,000 fans a game in its 3,100-seat ballpark last season. Even
though the season doesn’t start until April, the Freedom know the push for
getting people to give a damn about them begins now and that’s why they’re
looking to cash in on Te’o’s story with "Manti Te'o Girlfriend
Bobblehead Day." The promotion won't take place until May 23, but on that
day the first 1,000 fans will get an empty bobblehead box, there will be a
pretend kiss cam for fans to kiss their imaginary friends and there will be an
imaginary food fight in the kids' area, as well as an air guitar contest. "There's not a lot to do to get
attention in January," Freedom general manager Josh Anderson said.
"You have to find some way
to get the buzz." Even though this scandal won't be front-page news by
late May, the team insists it won't pull the plug. "I don't know who we'd
be offending," Anderson said. "It would just be isolated to the guy
who made his season based off this story." Offending? No one, probably.
But you also aren’t going to be entertaining much of anyone, assuming the team
follows through on this pub grab when it becomes clear there is no publicity
left to grab………
- They seem to be an unlikely pairing, but Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello and Bruce Springsteen are set to
revive a partnership that has been seen on stage before. Morello joined the
legendary rocker on stage at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. in December
and appeared on Springsteen’s most recent album, “Wrecking Ball.” At the December
show, he joined The Boss onstage for “Death to My Hometown,” “This Depression,”
“The Ghost of Tom Joad,” “Badlands” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” songs he
will likely play again now that he is set to join Springsteen on his Australian
tour. Morello will fill in for Steve Van Zandt on the Australian leg of the “Wrecking
Ball” tour while Van Zandt finishes filming Norwegian-American TV series “Lillyhammer.”
Van Zandt, who also
played Silvio Dante in HBO’s hit series “The Sopranos,” is expected to re-join
Springsteen on April 29 when the tour hits Oslo, Norway. Springsteen is once
again covering much of Europe in support of an album, which makes sense given
his love for the continent and especially Scandinavia. His famed 1985 show in
Gothenburg, Sweden that left the Ullevi stadium shaking to its foundations
fostered an abiding love of the city that still inspires Springsteen to visit
it regularly whether he is on tour or not. The Boss will also play several gigs
in the U.K. and Ireland this summer, including stops at London's Wembley
Stadium and Glasgow Hampden Park………
- U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (R-Fla.) is a man of action. When there is a
problem in his home state, Nelson doesn’t merely offer hollow words of false
hope from his ivory tower perch in Washington; he steps in and does something
about it. That’s why Nelson, the lawmaker who initiated the federal python ban,
has joined the hunt for the troublesome snakes in the Florida Everglades. State
wildlife officials have invited kooks/hunters from all across Florida to join
in the hunt for the dangerous beasts and Nelson joined the fight on Thursday
with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Ron Bergeron and a
researcher from the University of Florida. He could have simply shown up and
hunted without any fanfare, but what good would that do in inspiring the people
of the Sunshine State to step up and follow his example? That’s why the
senator’s office released a written statement in which he tried to position
himself as something of an anti-reptile version of John Wayne, Jason Bourne and
Rambo all rolled into one. “These snakes don’t belong in the Everglades,”
Nelson said in the statement. “They’re causing real problems in one of
Florida’s greatest treasures.” The Python Challenge – desperately in need of a
corporate sponsor, by the way, based on that unimaginative name - is supported
by the FWC, UF and the South Florida Water Management District. The challenge
is designed to get the public involved in controlling the snakes and it began
Saturday. Previous measures aimed at addressing the invasive snakes have fell
short of eliminating pythons, which are believed to have been introduced to the
swamps of Florida by pet owners who released the imported reptiles into the
wild. “We’ve got the policies in place to help correct the problem,
between the state’s regulations and the federal rules that Sen. Nelson helped
pushed through,” Bergeron said. “Now it’s time for boots on the
ground. It’s a great thing the state is doing here.” Boots on the
ground and boots to reptilian asses………
- Avoiding smelly armpits is a goal nearly everyone would
like to achieve. Sadly, deodorant and body sprays are the only options for many
to cover up their under-arm stench. However, a new study from the University
of Bristol in England has found a select few individuals with the ability to
duck smelly pits naturally may exist. Researchers identified a gene carried by
2 percent of humans that prevents their armpits from producing an offensive
odor. The rare gene, known as ABCC11, was discovered when the researchers examined
6,495 British mothers who have been part of a longitudinal health
study since they gave birth in either 1991 or 1992. Of that number, 117 of the
participants had the gene, which has been known for some time but never
associated with sweating. Its link to earwax has long been documented: People
with the gene variant are more likely to have “dry” earwax (as opposed to wet
or sticky). Even after the study, researcher Santio Rodriguez and his team are
not sure how the gene affects both earwax and sweat odor. They theorized that it
has to do with amino acid production, given that rapidly growing bacteria give
sweat its smelliness, and people with the rare gene variant appear to produce
less of an amino acid that engenders bacteria growth. In the study, researchers
actually analyzed how many of these individuals still
wear deodorant despite their genetic good fortune. Seventy-eight
percent of them reported wearing it on all or most days, versus 95 percent of
the others in the study. That indicates many of them figured out at some point
that they didn’t need antiperspirant or body spray to avoid smelling bad. “These
findings have some potential for using genetics in the choice of personal
hygiene products,” Rodriguez said. “A simple gene test might strengthen
self-awareness and save some unnecessary purchases and chemical exposures for
non-odor producers.” According to the study, this special gene variation is
more common in East Asian populations…….
- If you thought you heard the sound of tattooed Russian men
with bloody hands and automatic weapons weeping on Wednesday, you were not
imagining things. The Russian underworld took a hit that day when an assassin’s
bullet took out the underworld kingpin known as Grandpa Hassan. Wednesday’s attempt was
merely the latest in a series of efforts to end his life, including one plot
two years ago when assailants rented an apartment across four lanes of traffic
from his son’s house and then lay in wait for three months for the man whose legal
name was Aslan Usoyan. That attempt failed when the bullet struck Usoyan in the
abdomen but did not kill him. Wednesday’s hired gun was much better at his or
her job and fired from the House of Actors, a Soviet-era apartment building,
apparently from the attic. The killing is already being called one of the
highest-profile contract murders in the Russian capital in recent years even
though Usoyan was an ethnic Kurd from Georgia. According to sources, Usoyan was
walking out of an Azerbaijani restaurant where he often held meetings when he
was shot and survived long enough to reach the hospital before dying soon
afterward. No arrests have been made, but Usoyan had reportedly indicated to
those close to him since the the 2010 attack that no matter what he did to
protect himself, eventually someone who wanted to kill him was going to
succeed. In a way, the shooting was a sort of homage to the public, bloody
gangland wars in Russia in the early post-Soviet period, when car bombs were
common and drive-by shootings dominated the daily life of the city. Usoyan rose
to power during that era and according to experts on Russian organized crime,
he functioned as something of a banker for many different gangs and also mediated
disputes. Oddly, no one is quite certain how he became such a prime target
while more notorious organized crime figures were not singled out, but he must
have done something to piss someone off if three public assassination attempts
in the final 15 years of his life are any indication. The best theory comes
from prosecutors, who speculated that Usoyan may have been embroiled in a
dispute with his reputed former partner, who is now serving a prison sentence
in Spain for money laundering. Oh, and don’t look for police to wear themselves
out trying to find Usoyan’s killer. “The fewer bandits, the better for the
people,” said Aleksandr Mikhailov, a former deputy commander of Russia’s
antinarcotics police force……….
No comments:
Post a Comment