- Spaniards have never been known for their punctuality. Theirs
is a culture full of life, energy, color….and showing up an hour late to
everything and believing they’re still on time. It’s why no one should consider
it a big deal that will take Spain 144 years to complete what is known as one
of the most intricate and ornate works of architecture on Earth. Antoni Gaudi's
La Sagrada Familia, the iconic emblem of Barcelona, Spain, has remained a)
unfinished and b) one of Europe's most popular tourist attractions for many
years. It still isn’t finished, but a work that began in 1882 at least has a
projected completion date. That date isn’t for another 13 years, but now the
world can look forward with great anticipation to 2026, when the cathedral will
(allegedly) be finished. The foundation that supports the facility has produced
a video that combines helicopter footage with 3D animation, showing how the
basilica will appear when the cranes are finally taken down. The video allows
viewers to see a rendering depicting the current main cupola rising along with
several new spires and an entire new façade, all seeming to appear out of thin
air. The president of the committee in charge of finishing the building vowed
it would be completed in full for the centenary of Gaudi's death in 1926, when
the work was only a quarter finished. Gaudi himself was never in a huge rush to
get to building done and the man known as “God’s architect” once famously said
of the basilica, “my client is in no hurry.” Not everyone is a huge fan of La
Sagrada Familia and George Orwell wrote in his memoir of the Spanish Civil War that
the basilica was “one of the most hideous buildings in the world.” Good
architecture always has its haters………
- Keep “Breaking Bad” alive, BITCH! Fans clearly weren't ready
to see Walter White die or their favorite series go the way of the dinosaurs
when the final episode of the cult favorite drama aired Sunday night and while
a spin-off for one of the show’s characters (Saul) is in the works, that may
not be enough to satiate the meth-fueled desires of “Bad” fans. Maybe the next
great creative effort from one of the show’s stars, Aaron Paul, can help. Paul played Jesse
Pinkman on the series and unquestionably made the role his own largely by
uttering the word “B*tch” more times in five seasons than any character has in
any show at any time, no matter how long it aired. While there are countless
YouTube compilations of Paul’s many utterances of the word, getting creative
with it always counts for a little something extra and that’s exactly what
Jesse Pinkman fans can have thanks to the new club/dance track “Dance Bitch.”
The track, crafted by the digitally adept hands of Tom Neville and Zen Freeman,
features Paul uttering an EDM take on his infamous catchphrase from the show.
It’s profanity like you’ve never quite heard it before and the chance to dance
to a song inspired by a show propelled by blue meth and a crazed madman making
the drug while facing his own mortality is both bizarre and somewhat cool. “Dance
Bitch” sounds nothing like Badfinger’s “Baby Blue,” which producers chose as
the last song to air in the series finale. Picking a 42-year-old song from a
relatively obscure British band was a solid choice for a show that always managed
to stay a few shades different than the norm……..
- You gotta fight…..for your right…..to take your clothes
off and have desperate, pervy strangers ogle your rack in the privacy of their
dimly lit basement. Kasson, Minn. resident and wannabe porn star Jessica
Zelinske embodies this lesson and it’s why she is suing her employer after
claiming she was wrongfully fired for posing for Playboy, according to a
complaint filed in Dodge County on Tuesday. According to court documents, Zelinske
applied for a casting-call session with Playboy Magazine in January of 2011.
She and her exhibitionist ways were accepted and Zelinske was slotted for a
photo session on April 14-15 in Chicago. Before heading off to take her
clothes off, Zelinske said she asked her supervisor at Charter Communications
if posing for Playboy would violate the employee handbook or compromise her
employment with Charter. She allegedly received permission to do the shoot and
it went off without a hitch. Playboy told her pictures would be published in
the August edition of the magazine. After it hit news stands, Zelinske said she
was informed that her decision to pose nude in Playboy violated Charter’s
common decency and conduct policy. She was summarily fired and her life went
the wrong direction quickly – at least according to her lawsuit. The suit
claims she’s suffered damages of more than $50,000 because of her termination.
That’s probably why she is also claiming intentional infliction of emotional
distress, saying the act of breaking that promise and firing her after saying
her job would be safe was extreme and outrageous. For that egregious offense,
she is asking for a minimum of $100,000 in damages for a total haul of $150,000.
For its part, Charter is declining comment while insisting that it complies
fully with all applicable employment law and denies any wrongdoing………
- Derrick Rose has been questioned by nearly everyone when
it comes to his über-slow comeback from torn ACL. He missed the entire 2012-13
season despite routinely practicing with his team and working out in full view
of fans and media on the court before games. Rose held out on his return to the
court and his toughness was questioned because of it. Now that another NBA
season is beginning, Rose will (allegedly) be ready for the start of the season
and he wants everyone to know that he has his mental toughness firmly intact. "I'm a guy where whoever's on the
court I'm going to go at them," Rose said. "If it's my teammates, it
could be my mom on the court, she's going to get killed. I could care less who
[is out there]. For me, I'm just trying to build that mentality where I don't
care who's out there, I'm going to play the same way." Yes, he vowed to
off his mom if Mrs. Rose is standing between her son and the basket in crunch
time. Telling everyone you’re ready to play again after a catastrophic injury
is one thing, but promising to truck mom if she tries to check you late in a
close game is quite another. Rose made it clear he is physically ready to roll
as well, knee and all. "I'm ready," he said. "I'm just ready to
go out there and play. Every day I'm getting stronger, I haven't had any
setbacks. I'm just looking forward to the day where I step on the court."
As such, pay no mind to the fact that he sat out of the scrimmaging portion of
Monday's practice for what Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau called "planned
rest.” Both Rose and the team have said he will be on the floor for Saturday
night’s preseason opener against Indiana. Thibodeau said Rose looked
"great" in Wednesday's practice and Rose said he supported the team’s
decision to give him rest earlier in the week because he “wasn’t going to fight
it” when it comes to trying to do every last thing he can on the court with the
rest of his team…….
- Greenland caribou are in a tough spot….namely because
they have fewer spots to be these days. According to a new study, melting
Arctic ice has led to fewer and fewer caribou being born even as the
population's mortality rate is higher. A changing climate and
melting ice have impacted the timing of plant growth, which in turn has
affected the animal's lifestyles and resulted in a lower production rate of
caribou calves. Eric Post, a Penn State University professor of biology, has studied
the local plant growth and its effect on the number of caribou calf births for
two decades – mostly to pull chicks. His success in that area has not been
documented, but what he’s learned about caribou has. "I initially was
interested simply in determining how closely timed the calving season was to
the onset of vegetation green-up," Post said. "Without a thought as
to how this relationship might be affected by climate change." During
his research, plants have begun growing earlier in the year, but caribou births
have not followed the same pattern. "Until this study, identifying the
environmental driver of this change has been the biggest challenge, one that
we're getting a better understanding of now that we have more years of
data," Post added, noting the decrease in sea-ice coverage has been linked
to higher temperatures in the Arctic inland. "We therefore hypothesized
that sea-ice decline was involved in local warming and the associated
advancement of the growing season for plants at the study site, and so we set
out to test that hypothesis." Earlier plant growth means earlier
reaching of peak plant nutrition, making the plants less nutritious by the time
the hungry caribou arrive to eat them. None of this is good news for
caribou, but the positive development here is that declining literacy rates for
caribou have left most of the herd unable to read any of this bad news…….
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