- The season is over, the suffering for fans has ended and
the losses have finally stopped accumulating for the 2013 Houston Astros, but
the worst team in baseball has left a steaming, stinking turd of a reminder for
their just-completed campaign. As they lost their season finale to the New York
Yankees in extra innings, predictably making everyone suffer for five wholly
unnecessary additional innings beyond regulation time, the Astros smashed the major league record for strikeouts by
batters in a season. The record-breaking whiff came when J.D. Martinez took a
called third strike from New York Yankees reliever Dellin Betances that ended
the ninth inning Sunday. That strikeout gave Houston 14 for the day (a total
that jumped to 19 in extras) and 1,530 for the season. Their season total of
1,535 broke the previous mark of 1,529, set by the Arizona Diamondbacks in
2010. Betances played a key role in the feat because entering the ninth, there
was a disturbing chance that the Astros might get on a roll at the plate (not
really), string together a few hits without any strikeouts (not really) and
score a run to win the game before they could break the record (definitely not
possible). Give some love to Yankees starter David Huff, who had seven
strikeouts in five innings, and reliever Brett Marshall (three), as well. The
king of the swing-and-missers for the year was first baseman Chris Carter, who
rounded out his season in fitting fashion by striking out three times in his
first four plate appearances, raising his season total to 212. That left him
third in the all-time season strikeout rankings, behind only Mark Reynolds (223
in 2009) and Adam Dunn (222 last year)………
- Samsung is throwing a curve at the smartphone world –
literally. The tech company plans to introduce a smartphone with a curved display
screen, according to D.J. Lee, Samsung's head of mobile marketing. Lee made the
announcement at an event in Seoul to debut the Galaxy Gear smartwatch and
Galaxy Note 3 smartphone. He promised the phone would be available some time in
October, with a limited release in Samsung’s home country of South Korea the
most likely plan. The promises ended there because Lee did not provide a
release date, tech specifics on the actual design of the phone, a price or
details on where this mystery phone will be available. Curved-screen smartphones
are rare in a world full of flat, rectangular displays, but Samsung has been
quietly working on the concept for a next-generation, curved screen for some
time. Earlier this year, the company showed off prototypes of a line of
flexible display screens at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The
screens, dubbed YOUM by Samsung, will allegedly revolutionize how folks
interact with their phones – at least according to Samsung executives. "This new form factor will really begin
to change how people interact
with their devices and open up new lifestyle possibilities," Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of Samsung's display lab, said at the event.
"And it's only going to get
better." A video shown during the CES presentation showed a smartphone
with a bendable screen that
opens up into a smallish tablet. Berkeley also demonstrated how a phone display
screen with curved edges could expand significantly to provide a larger space
to view content. Samsung already has a 55-inch television with a curved screen,
but it retails for an absurd $9,000. Expecting most consumers to pay a
similarly exorbitant price for a curved-screen smartphone would be a recipe for
disaster……..
- The good news from Mumbai is that authorities say
they now know what may have caused a five-story building in Mumbai to collapse
last week. The bad news is that the cause is incredibly asinine, was easily
avoidable and will leave everyone affected by the collapse equal parts furious
and incredulous. The root of the catastrophic event is a decorator who removed
a central wall and supporting beams without permission. Yes, some artsy
interior decorator who didn’t like that ugly wall and wanted to open up more
space, but did so without consulting anyone who knew a damn thing about
architecture, is responsible for a collapse that killed 66 people and counting.
Officials ended their rescue operation over the weekend and the focus has
shifted to Ashok Kumar Mehta, owner of Mamamiya Decorators, who has been charged
with culpable homicide not amounting to murder -- a charge equal to unlawful
negligent killing. Mehta's business was on the ground floor of the crumbled
building and according to Mumbai Mayor Sunil Prabhu, Mehta removed a central
wall and supporting beams in the residential building, which is owned by
Mumbai's city council. The building had been a source of concern since November,
when the city council conducted a structural survey and determined the building
was in bad condition and in urgent need of repair. Funds were approved in
April, but the money has not been spent. Yes, residents of the building were
asked twice -- in November and April -- to vacate and most failed to do so, but
they can’t shoulder most of the responsibility for one ass hat causing the
entire structure to tumble to the ground in a heap of death and chaos by
removing a wall he had neither the permission nor the construction knowledge to
take down. As always, at least there was a good reason for 66 people to die in
horrific fashion……..
- Let the first of many, many image changes commence for pop
hack Katy Perry. Perry, who has sung horrific pop songs written for her by
others and crooned poorly about topics such as making out with other chicks and
being a pyrotechnic, has decided that her career is going to morph from her
current artificial, contrived pop image into something much different.
According to Perry, she will "turn into more of a Joni Mitchell" as her career
progresses. Like any disposable pop star, she realizes that her relative lack of
actual musical talent and originality will necessitate a shift in her persona.
She also knows that saying something potentially controversial ahead of the
release of a new album is also a smart move and with her new project “Prism”
set to drop on Oct. 28, saying that she will swap out her mainstream pop sound
for a folksier direction in the future is a shrewd marketing move. "I love
Madonna to death, but she's never going to give me that damn baton," Perry
said. "I'll probably turn into more of a Joni Mitchell. As I inch towards
my 30s, I think my fourth record will be more of an acoustic guitar album.
That's where I started when I was first discovered by Glen Ballard and got my
first record deal." Ironically, going through gimmick after gimmick is
exactly what Madonna has done and Perry is likely correct in saying the
Material Skank won’t step aside any time soon. It was funny to hear Perry cite
John Mayer as one of the influences on her musical philosophy and point back to
the style of music she played before selling out, whoring out and becoming the
quintessential pop hack without a shred of originality and even funnier to hear
her talk as if she can somehow reclaim her musical credibility and integrity
merely by changing her persona again………
- New York City is an expensive place
to live, even if one happens to be an incarcerated felon. According to a
disturbing new report, even those behind bars rack up a huge bill for their
annual living space, albeit a bill paid by the non-incarcerated folks in
greater Manhattan. The report, authored by Martin F. Horn, who in 2009 resigned
as the city's correction commissioner, found that the city's annual cost per
inmate was $167,731 last year. For that money, a person could attend Duke,
Stanford or Harvard for four years. Horn’s report singles out New York's most
notorious lockup, Rikers Island, and the costs that go along with staffing,
maintaining and securing the facility as the biggest culprit in the situation.
Many of those costs are a result of the facility literally being an island unto
itself. "Other cities don't have Rikers Island," Horn said of the
millions of dollars a year that are spent to run the 400-acre island in the
East River next to the runways of LaGuardia Airport. Rikers Island has 10 jail
facilities, thousands of staff and its own power plant and bakery, which may or
may not be known for its famed Cell Block D blueberry muffins. The city's
Independent Budget Office annual figure of $167,731 averages out to about $460
per day for the 12,287 average daily New York City inmates last year. It is
part of a $2 billion budget for total operating expenses for the Department of
Correction, which included salaries and benefits for staff, judgments and
claims, plus debt service for jail construction and repairs. Rikers Island
racks up $30.3 million annually
alone on transportation costs, owing to its three bus services that usher
inmates to and from court throughout the five boroughs and ferry staffers and
visitors around the island. Horn suggested replacing Rikers Island with bigger jails next door to courthouses, but that plan has been rebuffed because
of political opposition from residential areas near courthouses. He chided the
public and government for being willing to accrue more expenses just to have
inmates “out of sight.” How out of line are those expenses? Well, Los Angeles
spent $128.94 a day per inmate last year and Chicago spent $145, so like
everything else in New York City, they are ridiculously out of line……..
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