Saturday, September 21, 2013

MLB pool celebrations, gun-friendly eateries and South Korean water defections


- If only the Arizona Diamondbacks played baseball as well as they whine, maybe their current trauma could have been avoided. But because a team that led the National League West by 9.5 games a couple of months back has flamed out in spectacular fashion and give back all 9.5 of those games plus 11.5 more, the rival Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the division title Thursday night at Chase Field. Having a rival clinch the division on your home field is tough to swallow, as is the idea of them draping the visiting clubhouse in plastic, donning ski goggles and spraying one another with champagne just a few hundred feet from your home clubhouse. None of those images upset the Diamondbacks, but the sight of roughly half of the players from the newly crowned champs bolting from their dugout about an hour after the game and jumping the right-field fence, where they plunged into the small swimming pool just beyond the wall. Seeing fully-clothed baseball players belly-flopping into their (apparently) beloved pool and swimming around was totally not cool with Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall. "I could call it disrespectful and classless, but they don't have a beautiful pool at their old park and must have really wanted to see what one was like,” Hall said in a statement. That not-so-subtle dig ignores the fact that any team that installs a swimming pool in its ballpark cannot possibly expect anyone to treat it with reverence and respect because…..you know, it’s a freaking swimming pool. Sure, having beer- and champagne-soaked men doing the backstroke in your pool is unsavory, but not worth flipping out about. The Diamondbacks claimed they had asked the Dodgers to keep their players from returning to the field once the division-clinching celebration began, but the Dodgers claimed they misunderstood and believed the request was intended to keep them from celebrating in front of the home fans. The stadium was mostly empty by the time they took the plunge, but Diamondbacks infielder Willie Bloomquist was still pissed. "I think it's tired and disrespectful," Bloomquist said. "It's surprising, because they have a lot of veteran guys on that team that I thought were classier than that." You stay classy, Will……….


- It’s a burning question every Second Amendment-loving American has asked themselves at one point or another: What local eateries can I tote my firearm into when I’m looking for a good meal without having to worry that I won't be able to bust a cap into some fool who spills their coffee on my Skechers. The issue was thrust to the forefront recently when Starbucks announced it is asking customers not to bring their guns into its stores while purchasing their wildly overpriced coffee and horrendous mixed-tape CDs they push with prime counter placement. The problem has been solved for at least one state thanks to a new website that lists which restaurants allow guns and which don't. The list coincides with a new law in North Carolina that will allow holders of concealed-carry permits to bring their weapons of choice into restaurants that serve alcohol and don't have a sign prohibiting guns. The site is the creation of Trey Lewis, who is also the manager at BullZeye Shooting Sports in Wilmington. "It was a dry hole in this town, there were a lot of people that wanted this information and I got tired of it so I decided to give it to them," Lewis said. He believes his idea will save gun holders time and prevent them from getting somewhere and having to leave or lock their gun in a car, where it could be stolen and fall into the wrong hands. "What our site does, is it's going to tell you ahead of time where you can and can't go," Lewis added. His site, www.portcitygunfriendly.com, went live earlier this week and has amassed a lists of several local restaurants in a matter of days. Places such as Moe's and Buffalo Wild Wings are listed as gun-friendly establishments, while Starbucks and Wild Wing Cafe are listed as not. Wing lovers now have gun-loving and gun-free options, which is nice, and Lewis believes the site will benefit everyone, not just gun owners. It’s worth a shot……


- On the list of unintentionally suicidal activities, trying to swim across a river to North Korea has to rank near the top in lethality. A man who attempted the feat Monday afternoon found out how lethal it could be when he was killed by a rain of bullets fired at him by South Korean soldiers, a military official confirmed. The shooting occurred along the heavily fortified border that separates the two Koreas after the South Korean man managed to get past a barbed wire fence by the bank of the Imjin River, which flows through part of the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries. This kook then jumped into the water with a Styrofoam float, Brig. Gen. Cho Jong-sul said. Before he was turned into a human target, he had fair warning to stop and turn back. "We kept warning him verbally to come back to land," Cho said. . "The river was only about 800 meters wide where he jumped in. It wouldn't have taken long for him to swim across with the float. It was a very tense situation." When the kamikaze swimmer failed to heed the warnings, the entire unit of about 30 soldiers began firing at him. "Several hundred shots were fired," Cho said. In the battle of 30 trainer soldiers with guns v. lone idiot armed with only a Styrofoam float, the soldiers won and Cho was not about to apologize for the incident. "It is a regulation to shoot anyone who does not respond to the command and tries to escape in the controlled area,” he added. The two countries technically remain at war after the all-out conflict they fought between 1950 and 1953 ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty and the border remains among the most heavily fortified in the world. Authorities would only reveal the man’s surname, Nam, but provided no other details. Such defections are rare and according to South Korean media outlets, it is actually the first reported attempt to flee from South Korea to North Korea………


- In Hollywood, actors who are getting a bit older and don’t look as perfect as they did in their younger days must always have one eye on the horizon to see what the next chapter of their career will be. Cate Blanchett is preparing for her entertainment future by signing up to direct her first feature film. The Oscar-winning actress will pilot an adaptation of Herman Koch's novel “The Dinner,” a psychological thriller which centers on a restaurant meeting between two sets of parents whose sons have very probably committed a heinous crime. Blanchett hasn’t confirmed whether she will also appear in the film, but she is among the top early candidates for next year's Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Woody Allen's latest film, “Blue Jasmine.” In “Dinner,” she will tackle a story about "what you would do to defend your children," as Koch has described it. The novel was published in 2009 and Blanchett will help adapt it for the big screen after directing several plays during her five-year tenure as co-artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, which will come to a close later this year. She will have help from “The Messenger” screenwriter Oren Moverman, who is tasked with converting the psychological thriller from page to screen. Blanchett could also have some help from her husband, playwright Andrew Upton, with whom she has led the Sydney Theatre Company. In 2009, “The Dinner” reached the New York Times Bestseller list and has since been translated into a dozen languages, a tribute to the story its Dutch author created and the well-written nature of his psychological thriller………


- Heck yes. Jetpacks have been tantalizingly close to reality for too long now, taunting mankind with the chance to fly like a superhero without having to present their boarding pass, only to remain just out of reach. A New Zealand company is working to remedy this dilemma and turn a fanciful means of transportation in science fiction novels and movies into something the common (and über-rich) man can use. Martin Aircraft is pushing ahead with its plans to launch a jetpack by 2014 and predictably, pre-orders are already flowing in. Haterade-drinking aviation regulators from around the world have been all too quick to dismiss the company’s jetpack idea as a "flight of fancy" that didn't need special rules to guide its operation, but those doubters may now be rethinking their position on the issue after Martin Aircraft officials claimed their jetpack can fly up to 7,000 feet in the air with a top speed of 50 miles per hour. If true, those figures represent a significant improvement in performance over previous attempts to create a functional jetpack and Martin Aircraft CEO Peter Coker described the jetpack as a "motorcycle in the sky." Coker has spent the past 30 years developing the jetpack in Christchurch, New Zealand. His creation is actually not powered by rockets, a la “The Rocketeer,” but instead relies on a gasoline engine with two fans. The latest prototype is a sleek, streamlined version called the P12 and it can reportedly bring the pilot to new heights with a maximum half-hour flying time. That won't allow for any real long-distance trips, but getting to work and avoiding rush hour traffic would certainly be well within reach……..

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