- 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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