- Not-so-big names have been named to the cast of the
much-anticipated “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie. British author E.L. James’
popular and extremely racy novel is being made into a film and that film has finally cast
its lead actor and actress. Dakota Johnson has agreed to be Anastasia in the
film adaptation of the tale about the sexual relationship between college graduate
Anastasia Steele and businessman Christian Grey. She is best known for her role
in short-lived sitcom “Ben And Kate,” which was canceled earlier this
year and is the daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. James
herself confirmed the casting and then chased that with a follow-up tweet
saying "So… Christian.” That led to the announcement that Charlie Hunnam
will be Christian Grey in the movie. Hunnam rose to fame in British TV series “Queer
As Folk” and now stars in hit FX drama “Sons of Anarchy.” Jumping from the
rough-and-tumble, ready-to-brawl biker drama to the steamy romantic ways of
Grey should be a leap, but Hunnam has some versatility, as evidenced by the
fact that he recently appeared in the flop-tastic dinosaurs-terrorize-the-world
movie “Pacific Rim.” The casting of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey had
sparked endless bouts of speculation and Internet rumors, with names such as
Emma Watson and Mila Kunis tossed around for the role of Anastasia and Robert
Pattinson, Henry Cavill and Ian Somerhalder all supposed favorites to play
Grey. British director Sam Taylor-Wood will helm the production, which is
tentatively set for an Aug. 1, 2014 release and a surefire debate over whether
it warrants and NC-17 rating, good times………
- Score one for resourcefulness, if not for intelligence. Elena Sava-Adams may not be the smartest
Manahattanite, but she did what she could to take care of a major life problem.
See, Adams found herself in a loveless, unhappy marriage and rather than shell
out a few thousand dollars for a divorce, she elected for an…umm….different
route. Adams (allegedly) hired a hit man to kill her husband in exchange for
$60,000 in rare stamps and jewelry. She was arrested late last week and police
claim she arranged to have her obese husband, former banker Irving Adams, to be
run over by a car because of an argument they had over finances. Adams, a
former executive with Israel Discount Bank of New York, was fired about five
years ago and has been out of work ever since. Sources close to the case said
the couple have “been at war” over money and that led the Romanian native to
conspire with a friend and tell that friend she wanted her husband lured out of
Manhattan to Brooklyn because she believed there would be fewer surveillance
cameras there. Her friend explained that the hitman would cost $10,000, at
which point she “upgraded” to a valuable jewelry and German stamp collection
because she couldn’t muster enough cash. Sadly, her cohort wasn’t trustworthy
and narced her out to the police. Detectives reached out to an investigator in
the Brooklyn district attorney’s office who has experience facing hitmen and a meeting
was set up Thursday in a parking lot in Sheepshead Bay. She and an undercover
officer got into a car and drove to Shore Road to discuss the murder, according
to sources. Adams was arrested once she incriminated herself by spelling out
the day, time and place for the hit. Instead of offing her husband, she has
been shipped off to jail and is facing charges of conspiracy and criminal
solicitation………
- Opening one’s mouth usually means listening stops. For
some of the tiniest frogs on Earth, that is untrue. These
tiny creatures have no middle ears or eardrums but can hear by using their
mouths, according to a research team led by Renaud Boistel of the University of Poitiers
and French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Boistel and his team
studied Gardiner's frogs, which live in the rainforests of the Seychelles, a
series of 115 small islands in the Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar. Unlike
most frogs, which have eardrums on the outsides of their heads that vibrate
when incoming sound waves hit, sending the vibrations to the inner ear, then
the brain, Gardiner's frogs hear in a unique way. These mini-frogs are just one
centimeter long and because of their lack of standard frog ears, researchers
initially thought they might be deaf. They tested that hypothesis by playing
pre-recorded sounds of other frogs croaking. In the study, male Gardiner's
frogs croaked back, as if in conversation, proving they could hear. Researchers
then took advanced X-ray images showing that neither the lungs or the muscles
of the frogs were helping transmit sound to their inner ears. They looked
deeper and found that the frog's mouth is what acts as an amplifier for the
sound frequencies the frog emits. The entire system is enhanced by a very small
amount of thin tissue between the mouth and inner ear. "The combination of
a mouth cavity and bone conduction allows Gardiner's frogs to perceive sound
effectively without use of a tympanic middle ear," Boistel said. "We
show that the presence of a middle ear is not a necessary condition for
terrestrial hearing, despite being the most versatile solution for life on
land.” Thanks for the knowledge, science………..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The sh*t is on in Mexico, where Mexican
lawmakers on Sunday approved the final part of a bill to reform an education
sector that badly underperforms global peers. That predictably led to massive
protests in the streets by thousands of angry school staff who are angry about so-called
secondary laws that regulate the tests that President Enrique Pena Nieto says
teachers should take periodically to ensure they are up to standard or lose
their jobs should they flunk. Yes, tests for teachers. If only Mexican students
rioted the way their educators did when asked to take tests….but that’s a pipe
dream. Both before and after the bill’s passage, thousands of teachers marched
in the capital, Mexico City, and they were joined on Sunday by groups of masked youths who lobbed rocks at police in
riot gear in the capital, who responded with tear gas. A more extensive
education bill was approved in December, mandating competency exams,
merit-based promotions and measures to muzzle e a powerful teachers' union many
blame for hurting school quality in Latin America's No. 2 economy. The final
part of the bill was postponed pending discussions with teachers because legislators
rightly feared that the issue could hold up the other bills it was debating
during the course of a packed legislative agenda. Pena Nieto has made the
education issue part of a larger package of reforms designed to boost economic
growth that has seen his country fall well behind the pace set by its peers,
with projected growth of just 1.8 percent in 2013. The president has also presented
a banking reform plan that aims to boost credit and an energy reform proposal
to help stem a slide in output by state oil monopoly Pemex. Oh, and there is
the always-fun topic of a proposed tax hike looming on the political horizon……..
- Haven’t the Chicago Cubs lost enough this season? They’re
headed for another last-place finish in the National League Central, they’ve
dumped some of their best players to get rid of large salaries and are in the
midst of a massive rebuilding project. So why are two of their fans piling on
by trying to thieve one of the biggest points of pride the Cubs have left? That’s
a question Kevin Burge and Steven
Gudknecht will have to answer once they are prosecuted for breaking into
Wrigley Field and attempting to steal ivy from the historic ballpark. This
dynamic duo were arrested and charged with misdemeanor trespassing after being
arrested at 3:45 a.m. CT at the stadium, according to Chicago police. The two
Chalfont, Pa. residents entered the ballpark by squeezing through metal
security bars but weren't stealthy enough to avoid detection by stadium
security guards on closed-circuit surveillance cameras. Police haven’t
commented on how many Chicago-brewed beers the two men had in their system at
the time of their attempted caper nor did they provide a motive for trying to
steal part of the iconic covering for Wrigley’s brick outfield wall. Cubs
spokesman Julian Green confirmed that the men were attempting to steal pieces
of the ivy from the outfield walls but insisted that there was no property
damage. "When you have two individuals intent on committing foul play,
they are going to find a way," Green said. "These were just some fans
who probably wanted to take a piece of Wrigley Field back home." Wrigley
is the second-oldest stadium in baseball behind only Fenway Park in Boston and
it was built in 1914. It has been the home of the Cubs since 1916 and its ivy
has blanketed the outfield walls since 1937……..
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