- Getting people to go to a minor-league baseball game in
Davenport, Iowa shouldn’t be extremely difficult. After all, it’s Davenport,
Iowa. Jay-Z isn't opening his next 40/40 Club there and Davenport isn’t exactly
on the must-visit list for the biggest tours and concerts crossing the United
States, meaning minor league baseball should draw well. Just in case it doesn’t,
the Quad Cities River Bandits are looking to upgrade the fun quotient at Modern
Woodmen Park and are set to receive a solid boost from the city’s aldermen, who
are poised to approve plans for a million-dollar, 90-foot tall Ferris wheel at
the stadium. The River Bandits, under the direction of owner Dave Heller, will
front the cost of the project and the city of Davenport will reimburse him at $220,000
over five years. That amount is money from the team’s lease designated for
stadium improvements and now that the council is set to approve the project,
the team hopes to have everything up and running by June. Not only does the
plan call for a Ferris wheel, but the project will also include carousel and
zip line rides in or near the historic ballpark. With that sort of enjoyment
awaiting them at the stadium, fans will scarcely have to pay attention to the
game or be reminded too often that they’re watching crappy minor league
baseball. “I think it’s going to be a great way to bring people together,” Heller
said. “Bring them downtown and provide families with an affordable
family-friendly way of spending an evening in the summertime together.” Ferris
wheels also have plenty in common with baseball in America. Both are largely
forgotten relics of bygone eras and few people still enjoy them anymore. If
baseball is going to hang around, it may as well bring a Ferris wheel to the
party and together, it could be the most exciting entertainment option in Iowa
this side of the local butter churn……..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Bangladesh is a hot mess of rage
and uprising at the moment on account of a war
crimes tribunal that has sparked deadly clashes between The Man and
supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, one of whose leaders was convicted by
the tribunal last week. In response to the conviction, Jamaat-e-Islami
supporters took the fight to police in
the Bangladeshi city of Cox's Bazar and three were killed in the chaos. The
death toll was higher in Cox's Bazar than in the capital Dhaka, where tens
of thousands gathered to demand the death penalty for those convicted. What
makes the story remarkable is that the tribunal is investigating crimes dating
from the 1971 independence war and most tribunals aren't looking into crimes
that happened more than four decades ago. According to police officer Mohammad Azad
Mia, the deadly clashes with protestors included a gun battle in which supporters
of Jamaat used fire arms and crude bombs against the police. "We first
used rubber bullets and tear gas shells to disperse them. But they kept on
attacking us. So, we opened fire on the protesters. Three people were killed
but we are not sure whether they were killed by our bullets," Azad said. A
local Jamaat leader denied that firearms were used against police, but
guaranteeing that no one brought a gun to thus crude bomb fight when hundreds
of people are gathering to rise up is difficult. The riot was merely one step
in the process for Jamaat, with the party also calling for a country-wide
general strike on Monday in protest over the deaths. Demonstrations of varying
sizes and ferocity have been going on for the past 11 days and Friday’s was the
largest yet. The festivities began at a busy intersection started after Jamaat
leader Abdul Kader Mullah was sentenced to life in prison in connection with
mass murder and torture during the war. Ten others, including eight Jamaat
party leaders, remain on trial at the International Crimes Tribunal set up by
the Bangladeshi government. Jamaat supporters view the tribunal as part of a
wrongful crusade by current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose party is a bitter
rival of Jamaat ally BNP, a leading opposition group……….
- How cheap and desperate are city officials in Milford,
Ct.? Cheap and desperate enough that they expect citizens to show up out of the
goodness of their hearts, bring their shovels and volunteer for manual labor
with nothing more than a pat on the back and a word of thanks from their
community as a reward. Borrowing a tactic from the nearby town of Waterbury,
Milford officials are asking residents to complete the work its crews were too
lazy or simply took too many coffee breaks to complete and finish cleaning up
the wintry mess left by Blizzard
Charlotte. The call went out Thursday for any able-bodied men and women willing
to volunteer their time to clear sidewalks and make them safe to use throughout
the day Friday and heading into the weekend. "As Milford digs out from
this unprecedented, record-setting blizzard, and as public works continues to
clear snow from our roadways and public areas, volunteers can help the
community by lending a hand in those neighborhoods where help is needed to
shovel sidewalks," Milford Mayor Benjamin G. Blake said in a statement
Thursday. The plea came two days after Waterbury Mayor Neil O'Leary recruited
local teens and adults through social media to help shovel out the city's
schools on Tuesday and was actually able to recruit more than 300 teenagers for
a so-called “youth brigade” that showed up and spent several hours assisting with
the cleanup effort. Milford needs the help because even after local, police
sent an alert to residents and business owners to clear their sidewalks, areas
in front of the city’s vacant buildings and neglected areas went unshoveled. Coming
out to help the city dig out could be viewed as a hassle, but keeping sidewalks
and streets clear could help avoid incidents like the one that took placed
earlier this week when a Milford man died after being hit by a snowplow truck
Monday morning while crossing Bridgeport Avenue with his relatives. If the
sidewalks are clear, people can use them and avoid the roads, thereby averting
a potential run-in with a plow………
- How old is too old for one of Hollywood’s biggest names to
reprise a role he last played nearly three decades ago? If there is enough cash
on the table, clearly no age is too high for Harrison Ford. Ford is
reportedly returning in “Star Wars: Episode VII” to play Han Solo, the iconic
role that he last played in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.” With J.J. Abrams set
to direct the seventh installment of the franchise and become the first person
other than George Lucas to sit in the director’s chair for a “Star Wars” movie,
Disney could well be counting on Ford to provide at least a tangential link to
the franchise’s previous existence. Ford is now 70 (seriously) and his decision
to take the money, er, reverse field and return to the “Star Wars” fold is a
marked departure from his previous stances on a potential comeback. In 2010, he
suggested that keeping his character alive was a mistake and expressed regret
that Lucas had not given Han Solo a proper big-screen death. “I thought he
should have died in the last one, just to give it some bottom; some gravitas.
George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys,” Ford said at the
time. When the idea of reviving the franchise and having Han Solo as a part of
it was raised, Ford didn’t seem enthused by the idea. “I don’t think there’s a
way to weave him back into the story,” he added. Amazingly enough, his deal to
return to the franchise was reportedly “significant,” which is weird because big-name
actors never demand massive paydays for relatively small amounts of work. Ford’s
changing views seemed to shift in November, when he initially expressed
interest in being a part of the new series of films. It is unclear how much
screen time he will have or how integral his role will be in the story Abrams
and his writing team are penning, but the check should be massive………
- There is an app for nearly everything a person could use
an iPad for, but as long as Apple’s popular tablet has existed, there has been
at least one significant hole in its list of offerings. Microsoft Office, the
one Microsoft product that is remotely useful on a regular basis, has never
been offered for the iPad despite numerous reports that Bill Gates’ company has built an
iPad version of its Office suite of programs. Those versions have never been
released and as a result, iPad users have never been able to use Microsoft
Word, Excel and PowerPoint on their tablets. Finding a way to work out the
differences between the two companies and bring the popular programs to the top
tablet on the market would seem like a win for both sides, but until now, no
one has answered the question of just how much Microsoft is missing out on by
not having Office for the iPad. Leave it to someone whose job is to make as
much money for himself as possible while also turning a small profit for his
clients if it isn’t too much trouble to answer that query. Morgan Stanley
analyst Adam Holt has done the calculations and determined that not having
Office for the iPad costs Microsoft about $2.5 billion a year. Holt sent out a
message to investors claiming that if Microsoft released Office for the iPad,
as many as 30 percent of iPad users would purchase the software. If that number
continued to increase with the growing number of iPad users and the number of
Office purchasers rose to 200 million in 2014, Microsoft would make $2.5
billion even after Apple deducted its 30-percent cut for selling the app on the
App Store. Those numbers don’t even include possible additions of Office for
the iPhone and iPod Touch and it makes one wonder why there isn’t more traction
for developing this idea by either party………
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