- China is in a wonderful place financially. It owns a
massive chunk of the United States’ debt and is one of the world’s fastest-growing
economies, but the financial good fortune doesn’t end there. A certain Chinese
Maserati owner is doing fairly well for himself, so much so that he has enough
disposable income to hire four sledgehammer-wielding men to smash up his
$420,000 supercar in protest at poor customer service. Yes, a man identified
only by his surname Wang decided that the best way to let the world know
that he wasn’t happy with the service he received from his luxury car
dealership was to have four sledgehammer-wielding dudes to destroy it at the opening of
an auto show in the eastern city of Qingdao in Shandong province. The staged
attack on the Maserati Quattroporte took place in full public view. Video from
the attack was posted online, showing the four men enthusiastically bashing the
hell out of the car, leaving it with a shattered windscreen and mirrors, a
busted-up grille and serious dents all over its body. During the attack, the
car was draped in a banner accusing the Italian manufacturer of poor
decision-making. Wang’s sad story of woe began when he bought the luxury car in
2011 for 2.6 million yuan - around 100 times the average income of Chinese
urban residents last year. His problems began when he took it back to the
dealer for an unspecified repair. The dealership’s repair department charged him
for new spare parts despite using used ones, according to Wang. Later, the
dealership failed to fix a problem with a door and scratched the vehicle, he
added. "I hope foreign luxury car producers acknowledge clearly that
Chinese consumers are entitled to get the service that is commensurate with the
brand," Wang said. Maserati's China arm said the company and its dealer in
Qingdao did respond to Wang’s complaints and that it regretted its previous
actions. The staged attack was Wang’s response to that statement. "We
deeply regret that the customer decided to terminate bilateral talks in such a
sudden manner," the automaker said in a statement. Mazerati may regret it,
but Wang clearly doesn’t………
- Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin is angry. He’s
also extremely unoccupied at the time and the two things are directly linked. His
team just lost in seven games to the New York Rangers and was shut out in each
of the last two games. Ovechkin contributed heavily to those two losses, firing
30 shots on Henrik Lundqvist but scoring just one goal. The former MVP’s long
goal game on a power-play in Game 1 of the Capitals’ Eastern Conference
quarterfinal series and with the loss, the former MVP and team captain has yet
to reach the conference finals in eight NHL seasons. Add all of it up and you
have Ovechkin doing an interview with the Russian-language Sport-Express
newspaper in which he all but accused the NHL of rigging the series to ensure
that it would go the full seven games. : “The refereeing... You understand it yourself. How can there be no
penalties at all (on one team) during the playoffs? Ovechkin asked. “I am not saying there was a phone call from
(the league), but someone just wanted Game 7. For the ratings. You know, the lockout, escrow, the
League needs to make profit... I don't know whether the refs were predisposed
against us or the league. But to not give obvious penalties (against the
Capitals), while for us any little thing was immediately penalized.” Those
comments aren't likely to sit well with the NHL, which fined Rangers coach John
Tortorella $30,000 last season for suggesting that the refs “wanted” overtime
in the Winter Classic after conspiring with NBC, which broadcast the game. Ovechkin
also suggested that he was facing undue pressure because he was trying to win
as a virtual one-man team, comments that should inspire his teammates to try
much harder next season so he doesn’t continue his string of losing four
straight Game 7s on their home ice…….
- Life is not so good right now for NASA. Its budget shrinks
annually and the projects it can afford to keep running aren’t yielding superb
results. Specifically, the agency’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has been
crippled by the failure of one of the reaction wheels that keep it pointed.
NASA officials confirmed the bad news Wednesday afternoon and explained that if
engineers cannot restore the wheel or find some other way to keep the
spacecraft’s telescope pointed, it could spell a premature end to what had been
one of the agency’s most successful missions. Kepler has been busy searching for
Earth-like planets in habitable orbits around other stars and just last month,
astronomers reported that Kepler had found two planets only slightly larger
than Earth orbiting in the “Goldilocks” zone, where liquid water is possible,
of a star 1,200 light-years from Earth. More planet candidates are waiting for
confirmation, but may not get it if the probe cannot be fixed. Kepler was
launched in March 2009 with the assignment to determine the fraction of stars
in the galaxy that harbor Earth-like planets by surveying some 150,000 stars in
the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra. It was tasked to search for the dips in
starlight caused by planets passing, or transiting, in front of their suns.
So far, it has identified 115 planets and has a list of 2,740 other candidates. Because
Earth transits only once a year, NASA really needs two more years to get the
chance it needs to see more transits of the planets they are seeking. Not
getting that time will leave the data in a gray area. Kepler’s wheel problems
started in January, when engineers noticed that one of the reaction wheels that
keep the spacecraft pointed was experiencing too much friction. Kepler was shut
down for a couple of weeks to give it a rest with the hope that the wheel’s
lubricant would spread out and solve the problem. That attempt failed, but
Kepler kept plowing ahead with its mission, scheduled to last until at least
2016. It has been chugging along with three wheels since once of its original
four failed last year after showing signs of erratic friction. Three wheels are
required to keep Kepler properly and precisely aimed and project managers have
put the odds of that happening at 50-50………
- Ewan McGregor has changed his mind. The “Star Wars”
star once dead-set against a sequel to Danny Boyle’s cult-classic film
“Trainspotting.” He was one of the key cogs in the original, so doing
“Trainspotting 2” without him seemed like a bad idea. It likely still would
have happened, mind you, because Hollywood loves remakes and sequels because
they allow it to crank out “new” movies with a minimum of creative work. Thankfully,
a McGregor-less sequel won't have to become a reality as he has reversed course
and decided that he’s down with being a part of the neext chapter in the story.
Boyle recently revealed that he
is aiming to have “Trainspotting 2”
ready for 2016, 20 years after the release of his classic black comedy starring
McGregor, which was adapted from the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. Boyle explained that his
follow-up is "very loosely based" on Porno, Welsh's own sequel to “Trainspotting,” and added that “Trainspotting” screenwriter John Hodge is working on the script.
Why the change of heart for McGregor? "It's funny - Irvine Welsh's novel ‘Porno’ is set 10 years after Trainspotting, but I wasn't ready to
do it then, for lots of reasons," McGregor said. "But now there’s
talk of it happening in a few years' time, and I'm totally up for it. I'd be so
chuffed to be back on set with everybody and I think it would be an
extraordinary experience." Recapturing the momentum and enthusiasm for the
film two decades later, when most movie fans have either forgotten it or never
heard of it in the first place, will be difficult – even if the original is widely
acknowledged as one of the greatest British films of all time. Its soundtrack
featuring Iggy Pop's “Lust For Life” alongside tracks by Underworld, Primal
Scream and Elastica will also be tough to match……
- Most people, if they’re honest, have dreamt of being a
pirate at one point or another in their life. It’s the reason International
Talk Like a Pirate days exists. St. Charles, Mo. resident Tim Woodson
understands this. It’s why he has embarked upon a quest to become the Noah (or
Noah’s Ark fame) of a new time and generation. “I just wanted to do something different
with a boat and said, “Let’s build a pirate ship,’” Woodson explained. “That
was five years ago and here we are six ships later.” That’s right, the man
builds pirate ships. His love of all things pirate-y includes not only building
pirate ships, but also gives river cruises. It has morphed from a hobby into a
full-fledged business. “We recently sold the one we use last year for our cruises
to the History Channel,” Woodson added. “Shelby Singer from the Axe Men
bought it.” Yes, selling pirate ships to quasi-famous E-listers is quite the
accomplishment and now, that boat – dubbed the Gypsy Rose - will be featured in
a new reality show later this year. Not one to rest on his (insert pirate accent
here) laaaaaurrrrrels, Woodson is hard at work on the fifth and sixth Gypsy
Rose vessels and these will be bigger and better than the ones that came before
them. “This one is 60 feet by 15 feet wide, 68 feet long and its 30 feet tall,”
he said. Prior to becoming a pirate ship builder, Woodson worked as a commercial
artist for 30 years. He now works with a longtime friend he calls Barnacle Bill
(real name Bill Burkholder). “He’d go down and cut down between the railing and
the fiberglass boat,” Barnacle Bill said. “A beautiful perfectly good boat
and I would say man this guy is nutty as can be.” One of the boats the duo is
now working on was once onboard the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy………
No comments:
Post a Comment