- This is a new low, even for terrible new comedies on
network television. Networks axe new shows all the time, often before they
reach the midway point of their first season, but preemptively pulling the plug
on a show already in production is original. Fox’s new series “Us & Them,”
a remake of the British series “Gavin & Stacey,”
is not going to have a long and productive run on the air. After originally
ordering 13 episodes of the remake, Fox has now decided it only wants the six
episodes that have already been filmed. None of the episodes has aired, but Fox
is convinced that it doesn’t need to see any more. What’s great about the
decision is that the network hasn’t officially canceled the series, but it has
let all of the cast members know that they are free to take new jobs. It’s the
television equivalent of telling your girlfriend you don’t want to break up,
but you want to see other people. So why is the show being canceled so quickly?
Sources close to the show say Fox is concerned that the "tone" of the
series does not compliment the edgier feel of its other new sitcoms, but
intends to air the half-dozen completed episodes early next year. It’s tough to
blame the show’s premature failure on its executive producers, as series creators
James Corden and Ruth Jones have served as executive producers on the remake
and Fox had to know what it was getting when it green-lit the project. Alexis Bledel (“Gilmore Girls”) and Jason Ritter (“Parenthood”) are/were the stars of
the show, filling the roles made famous by Joanna Page and Mat Horne. Other
than relocating the setting for the show from Billericay and Barry Island to
New York and small town Pennsylvania and tweaking a few character names, not
much has changed as the show makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean………
- The Tampa Bay
Buccaneers may be one of only three winless teams in the NFL after Week 6 of
the season, but coach Greg Schiano has a strong message for the fans who loudly
booed him as he left the field Sunday. Despite a chorus of well-deserved boos
raining down upon him following the 31-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles,
Schiano wants the masses to know that his team is on the way up. "The only
thing I can say to the fans is, if they can hang in there, we're going to be
good," Schiano said. "If they can't, we're still going to be good,
and they're welcome back. I'm not being smart; I mean that." In some
sense, the controlling, overbearing second-year coach is correct. The
Buccaneers will be good, although it will probably be once they fire Schiano and
bring in another coach. The next coach probably won't have a public feud with
the franchise quarterback, leading to said quarterback being benched, shopped
around the league and ultimately released less than two years removed from his
best season and while still in his mid-20s. Schiano famously had his battle
with former Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman, who was cut by the team and signed with
the Minnesota Vikings. Amidst Schiano’s insistence that all is well with his
squad, he and general manager Mark Dominik said the team "would
welcome" an investigation into how Freeman's status in the NFL's
substance-abuse program was leaked to the media. Oh, and there is also the
growing MRSA epidemic in the team’s training room, with the NFL Players
Association involved after three infection in recent weeks. Hell, even a member
of a man band (Backstreet Men pop-and-locker Nick Carter) is calling for
Schiano to be fired. "At the end of the game, I'm disappointed just like
they are," Schiano said. "I understand anything and everything that's
disappointment. The fact that our fans care as much as they do, I think that's
awesome. When we get it turned around, it's going to be really special."
Sadly, the turnaround is something Schiano will have to witness as a bystander
next season or beyond……
- How many times have you been diving deep beneath the
ocean and thought, “Dammit, I need to check my bank balance or get directions
to Jimmy’s soccer game on Saturday,” only to realize there is no wireless
signal ‘neath the rushing waters above? The problem perplexes all mankind and
thankfully, University
at Buffalo researchers are working to fix it. Tommaso Melodia, UB associate
professor of electrical engineering and the project's lead researcher, is
heading up an effort to develop deep-sea Internet. If it materializes, the technological breakthrough could lead to
improvements in tsunami detection, offshore gas
exploration, pollution monitoring and even surveillance. "A
submerged wireless network will give us an unprecedented ability to collect and
analyze data from our oceans in real time,” Melodia said. "Making this
information available to anyone with a smartphone or computer, especially when
a tsunami or other type of disaster occurs, could help save lives." The
professor and a team of his students plan to present their findings at the
nonstop rager known as the 8th annual International Conference on Underwater
Networks & Systems, to be held Nov. 11-13 in Taiwan. Their research is
based on the idea that radio waves, which transmit data via satellites and
antennae on land, work poorly underwater. Agencies such as the United States
Navy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use sound wave-based
techniques to communicate underwater, but tsunami sensors on the sea floor and
acoustic waves converted to radio waves don’t work for everyone on a wider
scale. These systems also have trouble sharing data because each of them tends
to have a different infrastructure. Melodia’s system would transmit data from
existing and planned underwater sensor networks to laptops, smartphones and
other wireless devices in real time. He recently tested the system in Lake
Erie, a few miles south of downtown Buffalo. With help from two doctoral
candidates in his lab, the professor dropped two 40-pound sensors into the
water. One of the students then typed a command into a laptop and seconds
later, a series of high-pitched chirps ricocheted off a nearby concrete wall, proving
that the test worked. If the setup is proven on a larger scale, it could assist
in tasks such as linking together buoy networks that detect tsunamis, collecting
oceanographic data and monitoring pollution……..
- There are too many kooks wandering around London lately.
Those kooks are finding their way to Buckingham Palace with increasing frequency and an
incident at the queen’s royal residence on Monday is the latest example. British
police arrested a man carrying a knife as he tried to enter at through the main
North-Centre gate at the front of the building. Proving that he wasn’t exactly
a sophisticated evildoer intent on harming the queen, the man simply attempted
to stroll through the gate and was arrested at around 11:30 a.m. He was
searched and found to be in possession of a knife, which was seized, after
which he was arrested on suspicion of trespassing on a protected site and
possession of an offensive weapon. While this particular weirdo remains in
custody at a London police station, his arrest is the second security scare at
Queen Elizabeth’s main residence in little over a month. In early September, a
man was found in the palace having scaled a fence to get into the grounds. He
was found to be working with a second man on an attempted theft and was
arrested for burglary, trespass and criminal damage, while his cohort was
arrested outside the palace on suspicion of conspiracy to commit burglary.
Perhaps on edge because of the incident, Prince Andrew, the second-oldest son
of Britain’s queen, was challenged by armed officers in the gardens of
Buckingham Palace less than 48 hours later. None of this incidents reached the
severity of Michael Fagan’s famed 1982 break-in, which ended with Fagan being
arrested after wandering around the palace and sitting down on Queen
Elizabeth’s bed for a chat with Her Highness before he was apprehended by
security. Mix in the guilty plea of David Belmar,
who admitted to trespassing and possession of a bladed article for Monday’s bit
of drama and told the police that he wanted to see the queen and was "not
happy" about his benefits and it’s becoming clear that it might be time
for the queen to get a low-key flop house somewhere and lay low for a while……..
- The Chicago Marathon went off without a hitch on Sunday
– even if it took a little longer than expected. Normally, a man taking 17
hours to finish a 26.2-mile race is not only a problem, it’s a non-starter.
Most marathons close their course after six hours on the assumption that anyone
who can't finish in that window shouldn’t be running. Venezuelan native Maickel Melamed is the
exception to this rule and not only did no one have a problem with him taking
three-fourths of a day to complete the course, he was cheered wildly for it.
Melamed, 38, suffers from muscular dystrophy. He was unquestionably the last
person in any age group to finish the marathon, doing so with a support team
that included a physical therapist, trainer, coach and volunteers who encourage
him. When he finally crossed the finish line, his physical fatigue didn’t
obscure his excitement over completing the race. "Because I can do it.
That's the point. If you can do something, you discover you can do it, and then
you have to do it," Melamed said. Chicago was Melamed’s third marathon,
but he said afterward that it was his most challenging because unlike race
officials in New York and Berlin, Chicago organizers insisted he use the
sidewalks, rather than the streets. "We have to go up and down. It's not
flat at all. My muscles were weakened in a way," he explained. His race
began early in the morning with the thousands of other runners who took to the
streets, but his was the only one that continued through the afternoon, evening
and into the night. His message is one of human dignity and teamwork, Melamed
added. He expressed appreciation for the fans who showed up to cheer and
challenged them to step their game up and run a marathon. "When you cross
the finish line, you think, 'I can do anything in life,'" Melamed concluded.
Next on his agenda is the Tokyo Marathon in February and then on to Boston to
run as a tribute to the 2013 marathon bombing victims……….
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