- A victory lap of a weekend resulted in huge numbers for “The
Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” which recorded a $161.1 million opening weekend
to trounce the competition at the box office. That was more than 11 times the
amount brought in by last weekend’s champ, “Thor: The Dark World.” The
superhero epic added $14.1 million to its overall domestic total and has banked
$167.8 million so far. “The Best Man Holiday” somehow managed to place third
despite being a terrible movie, banking $12.5 million to up its two-week
earnings to $50.4 million. Newcomer “Delivery Man” ranked fourth with $8.2
million in an uninspired opening weekend and that was just enough to beat out
fifth-place finisher “Freed Birds,” which dipped one spot and added $5.3
million to its bank roll, which stands at $48.6 million through four weeks of
release. “The Geezer Hangover,” a.k.a. “Last Vegas,” decrepitly limped its way
to $4.4 million and sixth place for the weekend and its overall earnings stand
at $54 million. Seventh place went to “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa,” which
added $3.5 million to its coffers for a five-week haul of $95.5 million. “Gravity”
hung in the top 10 for the eighth straight weekend, earning $3.3 million to
place eighth and make its total domestic earnings $245.5 million in eight
weeks. “12 Years a Slave” soldiered on in limited release and brought in $2.8
million, good for ninth place and an overall haul of $29.4 million. Another
film in limited release, “Dallas Buyers Club,” claimed 10th place with $2.7
million and has now accrued $6.5 million domestically. “Ender’s Game” (No. 11),
“Captain Phillips” (No. 12) and “About Time” (No. 13) all lost their spots in
the top 10 from last weekend…….
- In case you’re wondering, Egypt hasn’t settled down. For
two years, the nation has been in a state of upheaval and demanding the ouster
of one leader or another. The outrage of the masses hasn’t lessened under interim President Adly Mansour and seems likely to increase now that
Mansour has signed into law new rules on holding protests. Human rights groups
were quick to denounce the rules as “repressive” and while the final version of
the law hasn’t been issued, it will reportedly require permission from
the police in advance before protests can be held. One might suspect that with
protests having sparked the toppling of two presidents in the past three years,
the government is trying to save its own ass with this law. One would be right
in such a suspicion, by the way. Fittingly, protests took place in several
cities even as the law was signed. Some of the demonstrations were staged in
Cairo and elsewhere by thousands of supporters of deposed President
Mohammed Morsi. Protestors assembled to commemorate the 100-day anniversary since
security forces broke up sit-ins calling for Morsi’s reinstatement, gatherings
that saw hundreds killed. Fittingly, reports indicated that tear gas was fired
to disperse some of Sunday's protesters. Morsi is currently on trial alongside
other leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood on charges including incitement
to the killing of protesters in 2012. "The draft law seeks to criminalize
all forms of peaceful assembly, including demonstrations and public meetings,
and gives the state free hand to disperse peaceful gatherings by use of
force," a group of 19 Egyptian organizations said of the new protest rules in a statement.
Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi blew the requisite government smoke in regards to
the law, lying by claiming it is designed to protect "the right of
protesters" and required them to give "notice" rather than seek
permission………
- A new (and extinct) predator has been added to the
dinosaur kingdom. According to researchers from Chicago's Field Museum,
the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and North Carolina State
University, this massive killer lived about 100 million years ago, weighed four
tons and likely was at the very top of its prehistoric food chain. This
behemoth is Siats meekerorum, a dinosaur that stretched more than 30 feet long
and which had its remains discovered in eastern Utah. Based on its size and
other characteristics, the research team believes this new dinosaur ruled its
ecosystem in the middle of the Cretaceous, a period known as the last in the
so-called "Age of Dinosaurs. Peter
Makovicky, the museum’s dinosaur curator, said the researchers have not been
able to determine if Siats meekerorum existed alongside Tyrannosaurus
rex even though fossils found from the same patch of Utah's Cedar Mountain
Formation shows it did share the land with tyrannosaurs. However, tyrannosaurs
were much smaller than the T-Rex and much lower on the food chain. "At least 98 million years ago, we know
that (tyrannosaurs) were small and somebody else was top dog in the
neighborhood," Makovicky said. "(Siats meekerorum) is a large
dinosaur and we have no evidence -- nor do the teams that worked in this area
prior to us -- of anything bigger." The Siats meekerorum find is also
noteworthy because it (allegedly) t helps to fill in a roughly 30-million-year
gap in the geologic record in North America, a period for which relatively
little is known about dinosaurs on the continent. Siats meekerorum’s name means
“cannibalistic monster” and is derived from the mythology of Utes, a Native
American people who lived where it was found. "This dinosaur was a
colossal predator second only to the great T. rex and perhaps Acrocanthosaurus
in the North American fossil record," said Lindsay Zanno, the project’s
lead researcher……….
- The lottery is generally one big scam designed to fleece
fools out of their money based on the faintest chance of winning life-altering
amounts of money. The scam functioned a bit differently at the
Peninsula Deli & Grocery in Hempstead, N.Y. An unidentified, non-English-speaking
man recently purchased a $10 lottery ticket at the store and was thrilled to
find out that his ticket was a winner. When he took the scratch-off ticket back
to the store and handed it to clerk Karim Jaghab to scan into the New York Lottery
computer and confirm his winnings, Jaghab informed him that his victory had
netted him a cool $1,000. That would have been great….if it were true. In
actuality, the winning ticket was worth 1,000 times what its holder was told.
Because the man did not speak English, Jaghab and his father, who owns the
store, apparently felt like they could cheat him out of a lot of money. New
York Lottery payouts of less than $600 can be paid immediately by store clerks,
so the younger Jagheb made his first mistake by giving the victim $1,000. That
led the man to question his good fortune and so he returned to the store Friday
and questioned Jaghab, according to police. According to the victim, Jaghab
then told him, "I will pay you $10,000 as long as you don't involve the
police.” That’s when the father, Nabil Jaghab, told the victim the ticket was
worth $10,000. At that point, the man called police, who
found the ticket was a $1 million winner. The Jackoffs, er, Jaghebs, were
arraigned Saturday on grand larceny charges for allegedly plotting to cash the
ticket at a lottery office. Their lame-tastic argument is that the store's
lottery machine was not working properly and provided the wrong amount……….
- It may or may not have been the genesis for a resurgence
in the career of one of the best boxers of this era, but there is no disputing
that Manny Pacquiao’s impressive
victory over Brandon Rios on Sunday was a morale booster in Pacquiao’s
typhoon-ravaged nation. Pacquiao badly needed a win after successive defeats
and entered the fight after a year out of the ring and with his own trainer
publicly declaring he should retire unless he convincingly beat Rios. Mix in
the devastation wrought in the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan and Pacquiao’s
dual role as sports hero and political leader and a win was vital for the
Pac-Man. Two weeks after the Nov. 9 disaster that killed more than 5,000 people
and left huge numbers of the population homeless, Pacquiao delivered and then
some. As thousands of fans watched the fight on screens set up in the plaza of
Tacloban, the Philippine city hit worst by the typhoon, Pacquiao dominated the
bout at The Venetian casino in Macau. He looked like vintage Manny Pacquiao,
pelting Rios with a barrage of his trademark combinations to win the bout by
scores of 120-108, 119-109 and
118-110. "This is not about my comeback," Pacquiao said in the ring.
"My victory is a symbol of my people's comeback from a natural disaster
and a national tragedy. My journey will continue. I said we will rise again,
and that's what happened." Anyone who says the knew Pacquiao would bounce
back so effectively from back-to-back losses to Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel
Marquez is lying, especially after Marquez authored a resounding knockout that
left the Filipino lawmaker asleep on the canvas. Even with the win over Rios,
Pacquiao still hasn’t knocked out an opponent since 2009. Still, the victory
once again raises the question of whether or not the interminably discussed
super fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. will happen.
"Anybody who wants to fight with me, I can fight," Pacquiao said.
"I am willing to fight Floyd, but it's up to him, if he is willing
also." Let the pointless discussions begin…….
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