NFL rage, things go boom in El Salvador and Beyonce wants more praise

- Google’s quest for world domination rolls on. With its many facets and tentacles, this unspoken quest is growing by the day and Google Engineering Director Scott Huffman recently announced its next phase. Huffman said the company sees its handy virtual assistant, Google Now, reaching past its current sphere of influence to the car and the living room. Google wants to battle Apple and Microsoft on those fronts and intends to do so by developing in-car technology for the luxury brand Audi. The partnership has not been officially announced yet, but the two companies and chipmaker Nvidia are reportedly in the process of developing e an Android-powered in-car system that will control everything from navigation to music to various other apps and services. Cars – with people spending so much time and doing so many tasks while in them – are becoming an intense point of focus for tech companies. In June, Apple debuted iOS in the Car, a system that mirrors the iPhone screen in the in-car display (assuming you have a fancy enough whip to have an in-car display) and allows Siri to – sadly, this is true – act as a driver’s co-pilot. Apple is already working with Honda, Volvo, Hyundai, Chevrolet, Kia and Ferrari and looking for other automakers to jump on board. Microsoft is also hammering away on such an effort and its Sync platform has been installed in over 10 million Ford vehicles over the past six years. Android’s global brand name could open some doors internationally, especially in Asia and Europe. Google’s best in for the market could be Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk announced it will be switching the in-car browser in the Model S car to Google Chrome in October. Musk is the kind of risk-taker who just might want to team up with Google on its latest endeavor……..

- Big whoop-de-doo. Beyonce Knowles (she still hasn’t earned the one-name right that all-time icons possess) releases a self-titled new album without any advance notice, has a huge release party with her rap icon husband and now she wants the world to be impressed that she (allegedly) recorded more than 80 songs for her new album. she In a promo video released on her website, Knowles says before the surprise release of fifth album, “Beyonce,” she cranked out nearly seven dozen tracks and had to work vigorously to cut that number down – lest she release the rare quintuple album that costs $59.99 on iTunes. "When I started picking the songs that I gravitated towards – because I recorded about 80 songs – it was the songs that were more effortless for me that stuck around that I still love that I loved a year ago when I recorded them,” Knowles said in the video. She went on to explain how “Drunk in Love,” one of the album’s most-discussed tracks, stemmed from a "really hard" beat producer Details brought to her and she recorded during a party with husband Jay-Z, Details and Timbaland. "I kind of freestyled the verse, and Jay went in and he started flowing out his verse. We just kinda had a party,” she added. “It was so great, because it wasn't about any ego, we weren't trying to make a hit record, we were just having fun, and I think you can hear that in the record.” The fun has extended all the way to illegal music downloaders, who have poached the album 240,000 times in the first 10 days since its release, resulting in $3.8 million of lost revenue for Knowles and eliciting zero sympathy outside the artist world for a woman who wouldn’t realize $3.8 million was gone from her money piles unless you told her………

- The message seems positive at best, innocuous at worst: Support our troops. Those words were plastered on a red, white and blue billboard posted by Simple Truth Church in Nevada County, Calif. recently. The billboard stands 20 feet tall and eight wide and resides along busy Highway 49 in Nevada County. “Nevada County is a very patriotic county, they love our troops,” Pastor Jeff Alaways said. The county may love America’s troops, but the powers that be there do not. If they did, they would not be ordering the church to remove the billboard immediately…right? Although church members insist they only wanted to help their community, county officials informed them that no person or group can simply renovate a neglected billboard, even if their message is one of love and support. County laws stipulate that no changes can be made to an existing sign without getting approval from the county planning department first. “(It) had nothing to do with what the sign is saying, what it has to do with is it’s out of compliance with county ordinance on signage,” Alaways said. The Nevada County Planning Department sent Simple Truth Church a letter stipulating that the sign be taken down until the proper permit is procured. Planning Director Brian Foss said officials spoke with the property owner weeks ago and told him the same thing they are now telling the church, a message that individual seems to have forgotten or ignored. Still, Foss insisted he is looking forward to meeting with church members, ironing out the details and making sure their newly legal billboard can be put up and look exactly the way it looks now……..

- Anger and blame were the operative words after the NFL’s regular season wrapped up over the weekend. With five coaches fired in a 24-hour span, scapegoats for failed seasons were plentiful as owners sought fresh starts and players wondered what was next. Even among teams that fell in the awkward gray area between being bad enough to axe their coach and making the playoffs were angry, perhaps none more so than the Pittsburgh Steelers. Mike Tomlin’s men entered Sunday with a miniscule chance to make the playoffs, needing to win and have three other teams ahead of them in the race for the AFC’s final wild card spot lose. Yet there they were, watching the San Diego Chargers in a late afternoon game like millions of other Americans, having already had two of those teams (Baltimore and Pittsburgh) lose. San Diego appeared headed that way despite playing a Kansas City team resting 20 of its 22 starters and as time ticked down in regulation, the Chiefs lined up for a potential 41-yard game-winning field goal. Kicker Ryan Succop missed wide right, the game went to overtime and the Chargers won, 27-24. Yet the drama was far from over for those involved. See, the Chargers should have been penalized for having seven players on one side of the snapper, a five-yard penalty that would have given Succop a second chance at the field goal from five yards closer. Twitter flew into a frenzy and within a few hours, the NFL felt compelled to release a statement acknowledging the missed call. That statement did nothing to appease Tomlin, who was clearly unhappy about the situation but refused to make excuses. "Obviously, there's a lot of work [to do] from an officiating standpoint," Tomlin said Monday during his season-ending news conference. "I think it's been well-documented in the last several weeks, not only in stadiums we've played in, but others [too].” As a member of the league’s competition committee, which considers and proposes rules changes or new rules, Tomlin literally could affect some sort of change if he can mount a convincing enough case. He tacitly admitted that he had some choice words for the television while watching the San Diego game when asked about his reaction. "I'll leave that between myself, my sons and our basement,” Tomlin said. One idea that has been proposed is making officials full-time employees, allowing them to ditch their regular jobs, focus fully on the NFL and receive more training to ensure they don’t blow game- and season-altering calls………

- Something just went boom in eastern El Salvador and coffee drinkers need to pay attention. The Chaparrastique volcano in the San Miguel region in the Central American nation belched a column of hot ash high into the air to celebrate the end of the weekend (possibly not the actual reason), sending terrified residents scurrying to get away and prompting authorities to order evacuations in the area. The good news is that there were no immediate reports of injuries….at least to human beings. The region is also known for its coffee plantations and with evacuations mandated for those living within 1.9 miles of the volcano, that leaves coffee beans in danger and no one around to care for them. Those who might tend to the beans were directed to emergency shelters to wait out the danger. "The evacuations began almost right after the explosion," said civil protection official Armando Vividor, adding that some 5,000 people lived around the volcano. Chaparrastique is located about 86 miles to the east of the capital of San Salvador and it spewed ash over a wide area, cloaking the region in the foul smell of sulfur and rendering nearby towns virtually uninhabitable. For those who didn’t reach an emergency shelter, authorities recommended breathing through moist handkerchiefs. Santos Osorio, a member of a local coffee growers union, confirmed the raining ash and said local coffee plantations would be checked for damage. That is ominous news for El Salvador’s coffee crop, which has already been blighted by an outbreak of leaf rust that has reduced output in all five of Central America's coffee producers. The eruption isn't a surprise, as El Salvador has 23 active volcanoes and the Chaparrastique volcano is considered one of the most active. This is believed to be its 26th eruption in the past 500 years………

Saudi post-Christmas gifts, a buried town surfaces in a drought and movie news

- When is an Oscar-worthy performance by one of the best actors of a generation not enough to make a splash at the box office? This weekend, it turns out. Despite much hype, positive reviews and Oscar buzz for Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Wolf of Wall Street” turned in a thoroughly disappointing effort and finished behind four returning films at the weekend box office. “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” remained in first for a third straight weekend, banking $29.9 million for an overall domestic total of $190.4 million. That was enough to outlast “Frozen,” which chilled its way to $28.8 million and second place, bumping its domestic total to $248.4 million through six weeks. “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” was solid and steady in its second weekend, adding $20.2 million to its bank roll for a cumulative total of $83.7 million against a $50 million budget. Fourth place went to “American Hustle,” which had a workmanlike $19.6 million weekend and has amassed $60 million in three weeks. “Wolf” could do no better than fifth in its debut weekend with $18.5 million and considering its $100 million budget, that simply isn't good enough. “Saving Mr. Banks,” another movie with raving reviews aplenty, was sixth after banking $14 million to pass the break-even point with $37.8 million in overall earnings. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” was one of the films standing between “Wolf” and the title of most disappointing new release, churning out a paltry $13 million that leaves it a solid $77 million from breaking even against its $90 million budget. “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” snagged eighth place with $10.2 million and has banked a whopping $391.1 million in six weeks. The winner, it turns out, of the biggest bomb of the weekend was the Keanu Reeves-led “47 Ronin,” which cost $200 million to make and brought in…..$9.9 million? That can't be right….but it is. Wow. That is….awful. “Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas” took the final spot in the top 10 with $7.4 million and has earned $43.7 million overall. Newcomer “Grudge Match” could do no better than No. 11 and “Walking With Dinosaurs” (No. 12) lost its spot from last weekend’s top 10……..

- South, keep doing what you’re doing….as long as you’re cool with holding down the title of America’s Stroke Belt. Yes, an alarming one-third of adults in the United States have high blood pressure and therefore a higher risk of strokes, but in the southeastern part of the country the rate is well over half, according to a new study. The research, led by Dr. Uchechukwu K. A. Sampson, an assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, found that little is being done to address the problem. The southeastern portion of the U.S. had grits/butter/shrimp/more butter-ed its way to the Stroke Belt title and the accompanying high rates of cardiovascular disease, but being aware of the problem has done nothing to alleviate it, Sampson and his colleagues found. "The rates have not changed," Sampson said. "The number of people who do not know that they have high blood pressure is the same.” He noted that this is true in spite of the fact that the U.S. has had treatment guidelines for high blood pressure since 1977. High blood pressure is an established cause of death from cardiovascular disease and accounts for up to 7.5 million deaths worldwide each year, inspiring the researchers to examine a large database with recent information on men and women in southern states covering the years 2002 to 2009. They zeroed in on 69,000 white and black adults with similarly low income and education levels - to eliminate poverty as a factor – and probed other possible causes for blood pressure issues. They discovered that 57 percent of the study participants had high blood pressure, with blacks nearly twice as likely as whites to be suffering from the disease. The racial difference was most pronounced among women, with a rate of  64 percent among black women and 52 percent among white women. Obesity was at the heart of it all (pun intended), as the most severely obese had more than four times the risk of high blood pressure compared to normal weight men and women. Amazingly, a large portion of participants were unaware that they had high blood pressure despite being overweight, thereby proving that cluelessness among the masses might be the bigger problem here……….

- Cleveland, your status as America’s most-accursed sports city lives on. Even when C-Town seems to strike it rich or take a quality gamble with huge upside, that gamble inevitably blows up in its face. As an example, take the case of troubled Cleveland Cavaliers center Andrew Bynum – literally, take him. The Cavs would love it after they suspended the enigmatic big man indefinitely Saturday for conduct detrimental to the team. The team is now actively shopping Bynum and has until Jan. 7 to decide if it will guarantee his contract for the rest of the season. It seemed like a good risk when the Cavs inked Bynum to a two-year, $24 million deal with the Cavs last summer with only $6 million in guaranteed money. The 25-year-old former All-Star has top-level talent, but terrible knees that forced him to miss all of last season. Bringing him in on a team-friendly contract appeared to be a win-win for the Cavs….assuming Bynum didn’t start acting up or reviving his old habits of double-parking in handicapped spaces and trying to decapitate opponents he had 12 inches and 125 pounds on. It isn't clear what specific circumstances led to the suspension, but Bynum has seen fewer minutes and touches of late and is reportedly not on board with the team’s plan of developing young players and building for the future. He was banned on Saturday and did not travel with the team to Boston for that afternoon’s game against the Celtics. "It's a terrible situation internally with our team," All-Star guard Kyrie Irving said. "It's something we have to get over." Cavs coach Mike Brown refused to disclose any details regarding the suspension but expressed concern for his players. "I'm worried about the guys in the locker room," Brown said prior to Saturday afternoon's game. "It's simple as that. In our business, there are a lot of ups and a lot of downs throughout the season.” The Cavs, currently 10-20, aren't exactly going to make or miss the playoffs based on the performance of a center playing 20 minutes a game and averaging 8.6 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting just 42 percent from the floor, but he’s become another headache for a team and city that don’t need one……..

- Where is your optimism, city of Folsom, California? You play a prominent role in one of music icon Johnny Cash’s most iconic performances and now, you have a long-lost city (and potential tourist magnet) resurfacing on account of record-low water levels. Sure, the low-water situation in Folsom Lake, at one-fifth of its total capacity, is a problem that has sparked restrictions on landscape watering. That’s a minor issue amidst the uproar over the driest year in more than 100 years of record keeping, especially when a late-19th century mining village called Mormon Island has re-emerged after years beneath the water. The village was located at the foot of what would become Folsom Lake but when the industry that sustained Mormon Island went away, the American River was dammed and the new lake was allowed to swallow the island up. Clearly, the powers that were back then never imagined a year of extreme drought that would produce a dropping water line that would spit the muddy rubble of the village back onto the growing shoreline. Amateur archaeologists are using the opportunity to explore and losers with metal detectors are scoring the shoreline around the lake in the hopes of finding precious metals buried in the dirt. Instead of coming to the area to ski or snowboard, outdoor enthusiasts are turning into explorers and coming the beach. Temperatures in the 70s are making such activities a lot more fun, even if Sacramento County is playing the role of worrywart and asking its residents to search for ways they can lower their water use by 20 percent. Couldn’t an amazing find of long-lost gold make everyone feel better? Grab the metal detector…….

- Someone is looking to play Middle Eastern, non-Christian Santa a few days too late, eh Saudi Arabia? The oil-rich kingdom in the middle of all of the region’s madness is giving the Lebanese army $3 billion in aid, Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman said on Sunday. Suleiman dubbed it the largest grant ever to the country's armed forces and in a televised address, the president said some of the money was likely to be spent on weapons from France. Lebanon’s army could use the cash, as it is one of the few institutions isolated from the country’s sectarian strife but is also ill-equipped to deal with internal militant groups, especially the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla and political movement Hezbollah. The motive for Saudi Arabia’s gift could well be strengthening the army against Hezbollah, as the Saudis are a Sunni Muslim kingdom and Hezbollah is the most effective and powerful armed group in Lebanon and funded by the regional Shi'ite power Iran. So yes, two foreign nations are fighting a proxy war using Lebanon’s warring factions as pawns. "The king of the brotherly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is offering this generous and appreciated aid of $3 billion to the Lebanese army to strengthen its capabilities," Suleiman said. French President Francois Hollande, conveniently on a visit to Saudi Arabia where he met King Abdullah, happily noted that his country would sell weapons to the Lebanese army if it was asked to do so. "France has equipped the Lebanese army for a while up until recently and we will readily answer any solicitation ... If demands are made to us we will satisfy them,” Hollande said. All of this comes as Lebanon continues to rebuild after its own 15-year civil war, a process slowed by the different factions constantly battling to undermine one another and gain control………

Hockey rage, robots in war and Canada helps hookers

- Canada, it’s time to get freaky with it. The Supreme Court of Canada has flung the door wide open for Canuck hookers of all shapes and sizes by striking down all current restrictions on prostitution, including bans on brothels and on street solicitation. The court declared the laws unconstitutional because they violate prostitutes' safety and the 9-0 decision will take effect in one year. That gives Parliament one year to come up with some other way to regulate the sex trade if it chooses to do so – or it could merely allow freakery and sexual desperation to take its course. While prostitution is technically legal in Canada, most hooker-related activities have been illegal, including living off the avails of someone else's prostitution. That paradigm has shifted because the court found that the provisions were overly broad or grossly disproportionate.  Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said many prostitutes "have no meaningful choice" but to "engage in the risky economic activity of prostitution.” Therefore, McLachlin added, the law should not make such lawful activity more dangerous. "It makes no difference that the conduct of pimps and johns is the immediate source of the harms suffered by prostitutes," she wrote. "The impugned laws deprive people engaged in a risky, but legal, activity of the means to protect themselves against those risks." The case involved a challenge by one current prostitute and two former ones, including a dominatrix, who initiated went to court to Canada's laws, arguing that sex workers would be safer if they were allowed to screen johns and operate in brothels with bodyguards if they chose. In response, the government argued that t it was prostitution itself, not the laws that govern it, that puts prostitutes at risk. For now, the ruling ends a six-year odyssey that began in 2007 following the trial and conviction of serial killer Robert Pickton, who preyed on prostitutes and other women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighborhood. With the ruling, Canada joins a growing world of trick-turning nations that includes the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and much of Latin America………

- This is a new take on the “previously unreleased music from a famous recording artist miraculously surfaces” scenario. Talking Heads were one of the seminal acts on the early punk rock scene in New York City in the 1970s and they were regulars at the famed CBGB’s on Manhattan’s Lower East side, just north of Chinatown. It is at the iconic and now-closed club that a never-before-heard Talking Heads song allegedly from 1976 was recorded and that recording has surfaced via a Dutch fan site, Talking-Heads.nl. The unreleased instrumental track was posted online with an accompanying claim that the New York group performed the song during a support slot for Television at a CBGB's show on July 30, 1976. The untitled, five-minute clip includes David Byrne introducing the song and interacting with an audience member. "We call it 'Theme', but then we just keep it to ourselves,” Byrne said when the audience member asked whether the track had a title. The band released their debut album, “Talking Heads: 77” the next year and went on to release some of the most important albums in the early days of punk, including “Remain in Light” and “Fear of Music.” Their too-short run in the spotlight ended just over a decade after it began with the release of 1988’s “Naked.” Byrne has remained an enigmatic figure floating around the fringes of the music scene ever since and in November, he popped up just long enough to blast music streaming services for the paltry fees they pay to artists. "I could conceivably survive, as I don't rely on the pittance that comes my way from music streaming, as could [Thom] Yorke and some of the others," Byrne said. "But up-and-coming artists don't have that advantage – some haven't got to the point where they can make a living on live performances and licensing. Wonder how Byrne feels about fan sites and rare, live tracks leaked online……..

- Let the wolf- and coyote-shooting derby in Idaho roll on. U.S. District Magistrate Judge Candy Wagahoff Dale gave the green light to the hunt, ruling it could proceed on public land this weekend because its organizers aren't required to get a special permit from the U.S. Forest Service. The coyote huggers of WildEarth Guardians and other environmental groups sought to stop the derby on the basis that the Forest Service was ignoring its own rules that require permits for competitive events. The agency disagreed and claimed that while hunting would take place in the forest on Saturday and Sunday, the competitive portion of the event — where judges determine the $1,000 prize winner for the biggest wolf killed — would occur on private land. In the end, Dale decided derby promoters were encouraging use of the forest for a lawful activity. "The derby hunt is not like a foot race or ski race, where organizers would require the use of a loop or track for all participants to race upon," she wrote. "Rather, hunters will be dispersed throughout the forest, hunting at their own pace and in their own preferred territory, and not in a prescribed location within a designated perimeter." Even organizer Steve Alder noted that dozens of people had already arrived in Salmon to participate and expressed excitement over the decision. “We won," Alder said. "You've got a lot of people who have driven from far distances to Salmon today…I don't want to send them packing home." Such derbies are common across the West and much of the rest of the country, but the inclusion of wolves has bleeding heart environmentalists angrier than usual. WildEarth Guardians executive director John Hornung said many people believes that in spite of Endangered Species Act protections for wolves being lifted two years ago, the large carnivores still face existential threats. "People are trying to kill as many animals as they can in two days in order to win the prize," WildEarth Guardians attorney Sarah McMillan told the judge during a Friday hearing. Thankfully, the judge swept McMillan’s argument aside and cleared the way for the offing of some of the estimated 680 wolves living in the Gem State……..

- Finding human beings willing to commit their lives to protect their country is tougher than it once was. Maybe that’s why the Pentagon is intensifying its push to develop technology furthering the role of robots in war. That push, the centerpiece of a new blueprint released by the Pentagon this week, has been dubbed the Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap. It is meant to provide the Pentagon with a “technological vision” for the next 25 years. That glitzy vision will be “critical to future success” of the military, according to its authors. “Over the past decade, the qualities and types of unmanned systems acquired by the military departments have grown, and their capabilities have become integral to warfighter operations,” the study says. “The size, sophistication, and cost of the unmanned systems portfolio have grown to rival traditional manned systems.” As part of the push, events like the one at a NASCAR racetrack in Miami earlier this month have become a focal point. The gathering united teams from NASA, Google and 14 other engineering outfits to test robots’ ability to complete tasks such as unscrewing a hose from a spigot, climbing a ladder and steering a vehicle. The Pentagon’s futuristic experimentation arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), organized the dork party with the idea that robots will eventually take on tasks both too dangerous and too mundane to commit serious manpower to in future wars. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps have long used robots to dismantle roadside bombs and haul soldiers’ gear in rocky terrain, but that role is expected to grow in the future. For example, the U.S. Navy wants more unmanned underwater vehicles to act as small scouting submarines and maintain port security. Its Air Force counterparts want to use stealth drones in “contested environments,” above countries that do have sophisticated air defense systems. The security of such devices and their communication systems is vital, unless of course having the enemy hack your robots a la “Iron Man 2” is cool……….

- Seriously….who kicks a coffee machine? That would be Rochester Americans left winger Frederick Roy, the son of Hockey Hall of Famer and Colorado Avalanche coach Patrick Roy. The younger Roy was playing internationally with his team, the AHL affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres, in a Spengler Cup game in Switzerland when the sh*t went sideways. The Americans were getting neutralized by Switzerland's Geneva-Servette 5-0 in the opening game of the international invitational tournament when Frederick Roy was tossed from the game after he attempted to fight an opponent as time expired. It had been a bad day for he and his team and traveling several thousand miles across an ocean to get your ass kicked is never fun, but what happened in those final seconds of the game – and beyond – made Roy’s day so much worse. After his attempt to fight was rebuffed and he was tossed, Roy yelled at the Geneva-Servette bench and threw his stick in anger. All of that would have been embarrassing and left Roy feeling bad about acting like a spoiled 10-year-old brat who just had his iPod Touch ripped by his parents for fighting with his brother, but he chased it with a big boot to an unsuspecting coffee machine. The coffee machine could not be reached for comment, but appeared to be minding its own business when a skate-wearing maniac kicked it out of nowhere. "Roy and his team lost, and they were frustrated," Geneva-Servette assistant coach Louis Matte said. "It happens in hockey." The next day, Roy and his team lost again, but he managed to stay out of trouble in the 4-3 defeat to CSKA Moscow…….

BBC's Sherlock teaser, a record-setting Batman fan loser and Shapchat security issues

- A trip to Argentina for Christmas sounds nice. Escape the cold, go to a place where the holiday can be celebrated in the right way – amidst sun, warm temperatures and a chance for all sorts of outdoor activities – and you have the recipe for a wonderful yuletide celebration. That’s in an ideal world, or at least a world where man-eating fish don’t bum-rush the beach where you go for a nice, relaxing Christmas swim. That fate befell 70 people at a beach near the city of Rosario, on the Parana River, in Argentina. The injured individuals were attacked by a swarm of carnivorous fish, described by officials as a relative of the piranha. No one was killed in the attack, but the swimmers suffered various injuries, including a 7-year-old girl who lost a part of one of her pinky fingers. Ricardo Biasatti, sub secretary of Natural Resources for the province of Santa Fe, downplayed the incident, calling it “isolated and insignificant” when the size of the river is taken into consideration. Julian Aguilar, president of a local fisherman’s group, also minimalized the importance of the incident and insisted the likelihood of any repeat attacks was low. That’s great on a more general level, but describing such attacks as “occasional” and saying they’re no big deal doesn’t help people who lost chunks of their flesh because a bad horror movie came to life the day they decided to have some fun at the beach. Biasatti and Aguilar had better hope they’re right because the area where the attack occurred a is a popular swimming spot this time of year in Argentina, where it is summer………

- There’s the Z-Bo we all know, love and fear instinctively. Memphis Grizzlies power forward Zach Randolph has been something of a loose cannon throughout his career, although he has toned down his abject rage in recent years. But the man who once fractured a teammate’s eye socket with a punch is still lurking in there somewhere and he showed up after the Grizzlies’ 100-92 loss to the Houston Rockets. Randolph could have simply owned the loss and admitted his team was outplayed, but chose instead to dump the blame for the defeat squarely on the three dudes canvassing the court with whistles for 48 minutes. After the Rockets shot 40 free throws – including 25 by leading scorer James Harden – to the Grizzlies’ 20 attempts, Randolph claimed it was "eight against five," referring to the officials being against his team. In the fourth quarter alone, Harden managed 11 points on just one field goal attempt. Randolph was bent with the officials long before his postgame rant, as he was whistled for a technical foul for complaining to the officials with 1:26 left in the game. Even though the Grizzlies did foul in the final minutes in an attempt to extend the game, only two of Harden’s 11 fourth quarter attempts came during that time. Houston had 20 free throw attempts in the final 12 minutes alone, matching Memphis’ total for the entire game. Cries of biased officiating are nothing new and given the erratic level of referee performance in the NBA these days, someone could make such a claim on a nightly basis. However, seeing it come from Randolph does have a certain nostalgic slant to it………

- Security leaks were not on anyone’s Christmas list this season – except for you, WikiLeaks-like sites – but scored of Snapchat users got one under their tree anyhow. Due to a loophole in its coding and API (application programming interface), the popular video chatting service inadvertently gave hackers access to the phone numbers and names of the its users. Security experts discovered the breach and noted that Snapchat was made aware of the vulnerability weeks ago, but chose to ignore it. That, according to tech experts, led the users having their names, aliases and phone numbers discovered via the Snapchat and iOS API -- even if the their account is private. Hackers would then be able to mine data and build profiles on users, then sell those profiles for a crap load of money. Similar data stealing services already exist wherein a buyer pays a few dollars and obtains the phone number and social media profiles of a person using only their username. That’s the benign version of the story. The more malicious slant is one in which a buyer could procure data for scams or use the information to stalk a person. Snapchat allows users to send photos and videos which can only be viewed for 10 seconds, then vanish once they are opened. Its executives turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook in November, but eventually a buyer will come along with a more enticing offer and they will sell for a colossal profit compared to what they have invested up to this point. In between now and that point, maybe Snapchat can put some time and effort into protecting its users’ personal data just for the hell of it……….

- Indianapolis resident Kevin Silva is not what you would call a chick magnet. Silva, 52, is the owner of a new world record – just not the sort of record that brings women running toward him looking to tear his clothes off. This overgrown nerd possesses more than 2,500 Batman items in the basement of his home and he’s pretty freaking proud of his collection. "This is the bat cave. The official home of Batman, at least in Indianapolis," Silva said. The collection includes typical fare such as action figures and toys, as well as phones, skis, guitars and other oddities. Silva’s fascination with the caped crusader began when he watched Adam West and Burt Ward on the 1960s television show. Some of hits Batman items have been around since that era, including a lunchbox his parents gave him when he was young. "It's got the scuff marks where I threw it down the hall.  This is a sought-after piece on E-bay.  The metal lunchbox.  They go for $180," Silva said. The obsession grew quickly and by the time he was 8 years old, he already had his bedroom walls covered in Batman paraphernalia. He briefly abandoned the Batman phenomenon as a teenager, but his interested was revived by the wretchedly awful 1989 Michael Keaton-led “Batman” movie. Most of the items in Silva’s bat cave come from eBay, including bat skates, a Batman gumball machine, shoes and a full Batman costume that he wasted $3,600 to have made. When word of his bizarro accomplishment leaked, the losers at Guinness World Records contacted him and Silva catalogued and photographer his collection. Earlier this month, he received the good news that his 2,554 items were 53 more than the existing record. According to Silva, his collection was appraised at $100,000, although if he wants to sell it for anything close to that amount, he probably shouldn’t mention to potential buyers that he has also written a song about his lifetime fascination with Batman………

- The BBC doesn’t want fans to forget about Sherlock Holmes. While a modern take on the franchise does solid ratings on U.S. television, the BBC is working hard for the third run of its own version and for the Christmas holiday, the network treated fans to a "mini-episode" teasing the super-sleuth's impending return. The seven-minute featurette is titled "Many Happy Returns" and to truly twist the knife of anticipation in the side of anxious fans, it has the show's supporting cast discussing the possible return of Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes. For those who aren’t diehard fans up to date on the most recent details of the series, the final episode of the show’s second run saw Sherlock tumble to his apparent death from a rooftop. Because he’s the linchpin of the series and fans tend to be a skeptical lot, many remain convinced that Sherlock is alive and will make a comeback very soon. In the video, one cast member references a series of tough cases solved in random, far-flung corners of the world and notes that the one common thread between all of them is that the methods used to crack them bear Holmes’ fingerprints. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat penned the featurette, which has generated buzz among fans. Cumberbatch hasn’t become too distanced from the show following his (bogus) death and recently defended the inclusion of a bomb plot in the series. Controversy is always a welcome inclusion when trying to maintain interest in a show in the midst of a hiatus and if the reaction so far is any indication, the cast and crew of “Sherlock” are getting exactly what they want during their respite……….

Cross-dressers v. airport security, Katy Pary + Rihanna and fake Finnish knee surgeries

- How much of an impact does one common knee surgery have? According to a team of Finnish researchers, little more than the effect of having no surgery at all. The researchers examined improvements in knee pain following a common orthopedic procedure and found that those positive repercussions seemed to largely due to the placebo effect. Dr. Teppo Jarvinen, who led the research team, looked at arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus. The meniscus is a C-shaped pad of cartilage that cushions the knee joint and tears are common among athletes. Some 700,000 people in the United States have surgery for a torn meniscus each year, a procedure in which orthopedic surgeons use a camera and tiny instruments inserted through small incisions around the knee to shave damaged tissue away. Cleaning out the affected area is supposed to relieve pain, but Jarvinen and his crew ruled that it does not. For the study, the researchers recruited patients between the ages of 35 and 65 who'd had a meniscal tear and knee pain for at least three months. Participants underwent an arthroscopic procedure to examine the knee joint. If the patient did not have arthritis and they were deemed eligible for the study, the surgeon opened an envelope in the operating room with further instructions. Seventy patients had their damaged meniscus removed, while 76 other patients had nothing further done. However, the surgeons carried out the rest of their faux procedure the same way they would a real operation. They mimicked the surgery, handling the same instruments and simulating the sights and sounds of a meniscal repair. Patients weren't told if they'd had their knee repaired or not and afterward, those who'd had the sham procedure reported improvements in pain and function that were nearly identical to those who'd had actual meniscal repairs. Both groups showed average improvement between 20-30 points on 100-point pain scales. "It's pretty obvious to anyone who really has an interest in this that what we've called a meniscal tear isn't really a tear," Jarvinen said. "It has nothing to do with the tears we talk about in a 20-year-old athlete who twists or sprains their knee." Behold the power of the Finnish Jedi surgery mind trick………

- There appears to be a fatal flaw in the multimillion-dollar detection system designed to protect New York-area airports. The weakness no one saw coming was exploited on Christmas Day when a cross-dressing weird breached a perimeter fence and wandered onto a runway at Newark airport. Yes, this state-of-the-art system has a blind spot for cross dressers and the police department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey clearly had no clue. It was the second known failure of the system and while authorities have yet to confirm if the first breach involved dudes who like ladies’ attire, it is definitely time to explore this theory further. What the agency did say about the incident was that there was no evidence the man jumped the fence. The union representing port authority police officers gave a conflicting story, saying the trespasser scaled a fence and ran across two runways to Terminal C. The freak in question may have been drunk, mentally troubled or simply overly enthusiastic about the chance to get away from his family and fly home to his normal life. His name is Siyah Bryan and the Jersey City resident was charged with trespassing and released. Newark Liberty International Airport as well as other New York-area airports are equipped with a Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, or PIDS, manufactured by the Massachusetts-based Raytheon Co. Raytheon Co. is probably not digging their newfound fame at this point, but when you charge $100 million for a system purported to “detect, assess and track intruders attempting to gain access into exterior secure areas” using ground surveillance radars, video cameras with motion detection and "smart" fencing, you’re going to be held to a higher standard. In spite of these supposed capabilities and the overwhelming evidence that the system failed, everyone involved is adamant that everything went just as planned. "The preliminary investigation indicates the airport's PIDS security system worked properly during the incident, and at this point, there is no visual evidence that an individual scaled a security fence," Port Authority Police Department Chief Louie Koumoutsos said in a statement. Something isn't adding up here, Lou, and it’s your math that’s suspect……..

- Despite several high-profile players having their seasons ended riding off the field on the back of a cart with a shredded knee,             the NFL says ACL injuries in the league are down this season. That is the message NFL officials passed along to their Health and Safety Advisory Committee earlier this week. In a memo sent to the committee, the league shared research showing 30 ACL injuries in games through the preseason and first 13 weeks of the schedule, down from 39 such injuries in 2012 and 35 in 2011. In fact, this year’s total is the lowest in the past five seasons. Knee injuries in general did not follow the same trend, as there was an increase in medial collateral ligament injuries (MCL), from 74 in 2012 to 89 in games this season through 13 weeks. Injury reporting service Quintiles/Outcome provided the numbers to the league, which in turn submitted them to the committee chaired by 49ers owner John York. The report conveniently came days after Patriots coach Bill Belichick claimed injuries were up and said it was "a matter of record not opinion" that injuries league-wide have been on the rise over the past three years. Belichick added that he believed the supposed uptick in injuries was due to stricter regulations on when, how often and to what level of intensity teams can practice before and during the season. He cited a decrease in the number of offseason, preseason and in-season practice sessions and workouts allowed under the league’s collective bargaining agreement as the cause. League spokesman Michael Signora rejected those claims and said there was no evidence to support them. "We carefully monitor player injuries," Signora said. "There is no evidence that the new work rules have had an adverse effect on the injury rate or that injuries have in fact increased." For the ACL injuries that occurred through the first 13 weeks, 68 percent involved contact with another player. Three of the ACL injuries happened to high-profile, skill position players: one tight end, one wide receiver and one quarterback. Conveniently enough, the tight end in question just happens to be Belichick’s All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski………

- Score one for the ladies. Women deserve every opportunity they can earn and no place on Earth knows this more at the moment than the small city in Bolivia's highlands known as El Alto. This bustling, impoverished sister city of La Paz is tucked away inside Bolivia's Andes mountains and it is here that city officials have hired indigenous Aymara women dressed in traditional multilayered Andean skirts and brightly embroidered vests to work as traffic cops and bring order to the city’s road chaos. These so-called "traffic cholitas" have been trained to direct cars and buses in El Alto and these 20 lovely ladies have already begun to make their mark. They don the bright petticoats and shawls of Andean indigenous women and in Bolivian slang, they are referred to as cholitas. Traditional cholitas wear bowler hats, but the traffic-directing version rocks a green police-style cap. A few even represent with fluorescent traffic vests. The experiment has definitely made an impact on El Alto, but it hasn’t been entirely positive. According to 24-year-old Sofia Colque, blowing her police whistle and waving her hands doesn’t always have the desired effect. "Some drivers don't obey us and try to flirt with us, but they are making a mistake. It is not easy but we make them respect us," Colque said. Some motorists and transportation workers have expressed doubt that the cholitas will have a significant effect on traffic flow in the clogged streets of the city as people hop on and off buses randomly and vehicles stop in the middle of traffic for no apparent reason. If nothing else, the cholitas can continue assisting the elderly across the roads and educate pedestrians on the rules of the road. Their hiring continues a recent run of success for the cholitas, who have snagged spots hosting television shows, working in offices and holding elected office in recent years……….

- Noooooooooooooo! Two of the most fabricated, artificial, contrived and hacky pop singers around do more than enough damage on their own. There is absolutely NO need for the authors of awfulness that are Katy Perry and Rihanna to combine their efforts and churn out the musical equivalent of the worst superhero team-up movie ever. Hopefully this will never happen, but it certainly seems a distinct possibility now that Perry has revealed she and Rihanna have discussed collaborating on a song together "for years." Perry spoke about this burning desire to unite and make some truly terrible music while guest hosting the American Top 40 show on Los Angeles radio station 102.7 KIIS FM and clearly, this threat is more real than anyone would ever want to imagine. "We've actually been talking about it for years so we can't let anyone down," said Perry. "We have to do the best song ever. Beyond that, I think we'll definitely get around to it and when it happens, you are going to know." Sadly, the last part of that statement is almost certainly true and at the same time, drenched in incredible hypocrisy. See, Perry has been on a mini-crusade of late against fellow pop hacks who do exactly what she does virtually every time she shows up on stage or in a music video: get naked. "Like, females in pop – everybody's getting naked, I mean, I've been naked before but I don't feel like I have to always get naked to be noticed,” Perry said of the trend. "I'm not talking about anyone in particular, I’m talking about all of them. I mean, it's like everybody's so naked.” Umm….I make a ton of money off of my huge rack and sex appeal, along with wearing incredibly revealing outfits everywhere I go, but girls who take their clothes off are sluts! Well said, K.P. Just know that the woman with whom you are so intent to team up is one of the biggest offenders in this area and the two of you aren't likely to be wearing burqas in the music video for the wretched song you two eventually produce……..

McDonald's McIssues, honor amongst jailbreakers and David Simon's Pogues musical

- Mixed martial arts is one sport where performance-enhancing drugs would seem to be most advantageous. Five rounds (or less) or trying to brutalize another human being into submission lends itself to the many benefits of PEDs and perhaps that’s why UFC heavyweight Antonio Silva tested positive and was suspended for failing a post-fight drug test following his wild five-round draw with Mark Hunt on Dec. 7. UFC officials also stripped Silva of a $50,000 bonus and in a statement, the company said all fighters on the card in Brisbane, Australia, were tested by an independent third-party laboratory and all but Silva passed. "Although Silva is on a medically approved regimen of Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT), and had been in compliance with therapeutic guidelines on all pre-fight tests performed prior to the event, the results of his test on the day of the event indicated a level of testosterone outside of [the] allowable limit," the statement said. Because of the positive test, the Brazilian star will have a no contest result on his record instead of a draw and Hunt will get Silva’s portion of the bonus money for the night. In response to his suspension, Silva said on his Facebook page that UFC approved his use of TRT under the care of Dr. Marcio Tannure, medical director of the Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission and UFC in Brazil. He added that he underwent exams two weeks prior to the fight and "my testosterone level continued to be low, so I was recommended by the doctor to increase the dosage." Silva argued that because he followed his doctor’s instructions, he felt that he had done nothing wrong and insisted he wasn’t trying to gain an unfair edge. It is the second time Silva has tested positive for a banned substance. He tested positive for Boldenone after a bout in 2008 and while he does suffer from the pituitary gland condition acromegaly, now might be a solid time to have an in-depth chat with the doctor about treating it in ways that don’t run afoul of the UFC rule book……..

- If an aborted first day is any indication of what lies ahead in the first day of former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf, it is officially time to buckle in…and put on your Kevlar vest and helmet. What was supposed to be the first day of Musharraf’s high treason trial was a nonstarter as the embattled former leader did not show up in court because of a bomb found near his home Pakistani security official Mohammed Ali confirmed that a bomb and two pistols were found about half a mile away from the former general's residence in the Islamabad suburbs. If someone hates you enough to try to blow you up before you even go on trial in a case that could ultimately see you sentenced to death, then you truly are a hated man. Due to the bomb, the start of the trial was postponed to New Year's Day, when Musharraf is due to be formally indicted in front of the court and Justice Faisal Arab. Kicking off the trial of a man you could later sentence to dwath is a festive way to begin the new year and the death penalty will be the likely target for prosecutors, who believe Musharraf violated the constitution when he imposed emergency rule in 2007. The trial is historic as the first treason court case held in Pakistan. "Under high treason laws the court may award [Musharraf] death or 14 years’ imprisonment," chief prosecutor Akram Sheikh said. How good is it that the prosecutor is talking smack about how the court may “award death” to Musharraf? The former general faces five charges of violating the constitution in November 2007, when he suspended the constitution, introduced emergency powers and deposed more than 60 judges of the supreme and high courts. Musharraf's lawyer Anwer Mansoor is already arguing his case with the trial weeks away, slamming the proceedings as  "biased, out of jurisdiction, and illegal." An international cartel of lawyers acting from London appealed to the United Nations on Mursarraf’s behalf last week, but so far that argument has had no impact. After Musharraf was ousted, civilian government was restored in Pakistan in 2008 and the general went into self-imposed exile. He tried to return and run for office in March, but was disqualified from standing because of pending court cases……….

- An odd entertainment industry marriage of sorts is unfolding between the creator of one of the grittiest television shows in recent memory and a folk-punk band from Ireland. David Simon, creator of the former HBO crime drama “The Wire,” has reportedly written a musical based on the songs of The Pogues. The Pogues and Simon aren’t necessarily a natural match, but he has reportedly completed the first draft of his tribute to the band and begun making plans to stage the production with The Druid Theatre Company in Galway, Ireland. Simon and The Pogues guitarist Philip Chevron worked together on the project before Chevron passed away earlier this year. There is much work to be done and the production likely won't see any stage for more than a year, but it should serve as a fitting tribute to Chevron, who passed away in October after a seven-year battle with cancer. Following his death, the band’s record label released a statement saying its members were "hurt terribly" by the loss of "a remarkable and fantastically talented colleague.” Simon’s link to the band stems from the use of The Pogues’ music in several episodes of “The Wire.” Additionally, band member Spider Stacy features in Simon's New Orleans set series “Treme,” playing a street musician called James “Slim Jim” Lynch. Unlike most of Simon’s television creations, his Pogues-scored musical isn’t like to feature a lot of drug dealing, murder and other felonious activity. Then again, this is the entertainment industry and creative license can be taken with just about any part of any story……..

- Even among hackers and jailbreak enthusiasts, there is (some) honor. So says the Evasi0n group, which announced earlier this week that it was refusing to distribute TaiG, a Chinese app store released alongside an iOS 7.x jailbreak. The decision came after users reported that the app store contained hundreds of pirated apps. Evasi0n conceded that it probably should have done its homework before jumping rashly into such a partnership and said the TaiG partnership was a mistake. “We terminated our relationship with them. We are very disappointed that they have decided to put up a cracked version of the jailbreak on their site that installs Taig. We did not give them any permission or source code,” Evasi0n said in a statement. Once the user concerns were brought to its attention, Evasi0n reverse-engineered the software to assess how TaiG handled user privacy. That allowed them to find out that the software sent no private data and that the software sent unique identifiers in encrypted form. After the deal’s demise, it was reported that Evasi0n was to receive at least $1 million from TaiG, although Evasi0n denied that any such arrangement was ever in place. “There have been a lot of rumors listing various amounts we’ve been paid. We have received no monies from any group, including Taig. We will not be accepting any money,” Evasi0n said in its statement. “Our donations are being given to Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure to help protect jailbreaking as your legal right.” Just make sure you do your jailbreaking in the right way………

- McDonald’s did not have a merry Christmas. That can happen when a company has an employee website that directly slams its own products as unhealthy food choices to be avoided at all costs. The revelation that the McDonald’s employee site featured a meal with a cheeseburger, fries and drink under the caption "Unhealthy choice” and a picture of a salad and water next to it under the caption "Healthier choice” was going to play poorly on any day, but Christmas Day was infinitely worse. Virtually every person in America having the day off and being able to laugh at you is rarely positive. Then again, the restaurant chain has been shooting itself in the foot for months now, ever since its McResource Line website went live. First, a McResource budget-planning guide for its employees was ridiculed in July for being out of touch. Not accounting for the cost of food and driving will do that for a budget’s credibility. Then in early December, the site served up a guide on how much one should tip a pool cleaner, housekeeper or nanny. On the heels of a study showing that 52 percent of fast food workers receive assistance from a public program like Medicaid, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, that knowledge dropping by Mickey D’s landed with a dull thud. Still, nothing is worse than McResource not-so-subtly advising McDonald's employees to not eat at McDonald's. "Fast foods are quick, reasonably priced, and readily available alternatives to home cooking. While convenient and economical for a busy lifestyle, fast foods are typically high in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt and may put people at risk for becoming overweight,” a message on the site warned. As news of the gaffe spread, the company quickly yanked it down and visitors were greeted with a statement: "We are temporarily performing some maintenance in order to provide you with the best experience possible. Please excuse us while these upgrades are being made." The upgrades, it turned out, was taken the entire site down so it could be “re-evaluated.” Well played, McDonald’s suits……..

When airplanes attack, Gnarls Barkley rides again and the Detroit Lions melt down

- Welcome back to the one part of your musical career that doesn’t suck, Cee Lo Green. The part-time reality karaoke coach and part-time crappy solo artist has revealed that he will reunite with bandmate/über-producer Brian Burton (a.k.a. Danger Mouse) in 2014 and bring back to life the musical outfit known as Gnarls Barkley. Green was asked whether he and Burton would ever work together again. The pair have not teamed up since 2008’s “The Odd Couple,” but Green suggested they would ride together again very soon, “Yeah man, like next year,” he said when asked about a reunion. Both of Gnarls Barkley’s releases – including their 2006 effort “St. Elsewhere” – were well-received, which is more than can be said for the garbage Green turns out these days as a solo artist. Two years after Gnarls Barkley went on indefinite hiatus, Green released his suck-tacular solo debut, “The Lady Killer,” and an even worse Christmas album, “Cee Lo’s Magic Moment,” which was not magical and more than a moment long. Since then, Green has been making a living as one of the coaches/karaoke judges on “The Voice,” judging and coaching alongside the hack-tastic man-bander Adam Levine, some country music signer and the artist formerly cared about as Christina Aguilera. Burton, on the other hand, has been producing for the likes of Frank Ocean, U2 and The Black Keys. He is also one-half of another alternative duo, Broken Bells, with The Shins frontman James Mercer and that duo will release their second album next month………

- Even small-town history can be torn down. In Ashland City, Tenn., this reality was hammered home early Monday morning. An old cantilever bridge had helped travelers cross the Harpeth River for more than 80 years, but like many once-useful relics (Mitch McConnell, please stand up) it has been replaced by something newer and better. Last year, the Tennessee Department of Transportation began constructing a new bridge. With the new span mostly completed, the old bridge was merely in the way and because “The Bridges of Madison County” has already been filmed and no one is coming to Middle-of-Nowhere, Tennessee to crank out a sequel, there was simply no use for what had become a landmark along the Harpeth River. With power tools roaring and heavy equipment operating, the bridge was torn down, ending its 83-year lifespan. Dozens of locals showed up to watch the demolition as crews shut down traffic on the new bridge so folks could park and brave sub-freezing temperatures for more than an hour waiting to see workers demolish the old bridge. As the parts of the old bridge tumbled to the water, a loud splash rang out along the river and 83 years of history were reduced to a heap of soggy scrap metal in a matter of seconds. The modern bridge that will replaced the old version is projected to be complete by June, with a very affordable price tag of just $8 million and change………

- The Detroit Lions have been a beautiful disaster over the second half of the NFL season. It’s only fitting that their campaign should end in a spectacular ball of flame with its captain losing his mind and screaming obscenities at those around him. After a 6-3 start and a nice hold on first place in the NFC North, the Lions have lost five of their last six games and were eliminated from the playoff race with Sunday’s loss to the New York Giants. The man captaining that disaster, head coach Jim Schwartz, is not exactly going down with class and dignity. Near the end of regulation, as his team took a knee to run out the clock and head to overtime rather than try for a game-winning drive using their two remaining timeouts, fans booed lustily. That prompted an irate Schwartz to turn and shout loudly and unspecifically in the direction of the fans, seeming to respond to their discontent with some of his own. A coach getting hooked by the fans is never a good look and doing so in a game that ended with his team completing a six-week tank job is even worse. Yet when Schwartz was asked about it the next day, he insisted he wasn’t yelling at the fans and was instead trying to fire up his team for overtime (by yelling at the fans). "Really it wasn't directed ... I didn't grab the microphone and make a crowd announcement," Schwartz said. "But it was a situation that, from a coaching standpoint, we looked at that situation, and we've had similar times in the past where we've run a very similar play to that and broken free and got yards and taken a timeout and had a shot at the field goal or a shot at the end zone." Trying to defend a failed trap play chased by two knees and an overtime loss looked almost as bad as the initial screaming, although Schwartz said his reaction to the boos wasn't meant as a "slight" to fans. He ducked a question about whether his bosses -- general manager Martin Mayhew or the team's owners -- have said anything to him about the outburst and admitted he'd thought about saying something to fans at the end of the first half but kept quiet. But perhaps his most absurd observation of all was the claim that his team’s season was not a failure. "We didn't make the playoffs and it's obviously anybody's goal when they go in, so we didn't achieve that goal," Schwartz said. "But I don't know if I'd be as strong as to call it a failure. That was the word you used. I don't know if I'd be as strong to call it that.” If only you were as strong now as when you were screaming down your own fans, Jimbo……..

- This is different. Planes occasionally end up in parts of the airport where they should not be, but most of the time those situations occur when an aircraft lands in difficult circumstances and chaos ensues. Über-rare is the occasion when a plane crashes into a terminal before it even gets off the ground. That is precisely what happened late in the night as the wing of a jetliner carrying some 180 passengers sliced through a building at the airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, just as the plane was about to take off. No passenger or crew on board the British Airways flight were injured , according to Harriet Tolputt, a spokeswoman for the international aid agency Oxfam, who was on the flight. Four ground employees who were in the building sustained "minor injuries," Airports Company South Africa, which runs the airport, said in a statement. The flight was bound for London, but getting there took much longer and one more plane change than passengers were hoping for. Tolputt recalled the plane taxiing along the runway when a loud crash stunned all aboard the aircraft. Passengers told stories of seeing the wing hit the building on the edge of the runway at O.R. Tambo International Airport. British Airways confirmed that the Boeing 747 was damaged, but said the 189 people on board disembarked safely and that a “full investigation” was underway. Passengers were put up in nearby hotels overnight, with some shaken and in tears. Their flight was troubled from the outset, as they waited an hour for crews to put foam on a fuel leak. One would surmise that they were happy to get on a different plane with different pilots the next day……….

- The world may be short on water, but Greenland has plenty – and not just because it’s a frozen tundra that merely needs to be thawed. It’s also because there is a massive reservoir of melt water rapped underneath the frozen landscape of the Greenland ice sheet, where temperatures often hover below zero degrees Fahrenheit, according to new analysis. Some intrepid researchers from the University of Utah discovered the huge aquifer while drilling for core samples in 2011 and began studying the area further. This took some time, as the gigantic reservoir was found to be roughly 27,000 square miles, an area about the size of Ireland. Using ice-penetrating radar featuring two drills, the research team probed as deeply as they could and when they pulled their equipment back to the surface, it was pouring liquid water, despite air temperatures in the area were around minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Water was found at a depth of 33 feet in the first drill and 82 feet in the second, according to the team’s findings. "This discovery was a surprise," said Rick Forster, lead author and professor of geography at the University of Utah, in a statement. "Instead of the water being stored in the air space between subsurface rock particles, the water is stored in the air space between the ice particles, like the juice in a snow cone." Ooh, ooh… a snow cone? Everyone loves snow cones! But back to the point…the researchers mostly found layers of dry snow in a drilling expedition and because it was early spring, there was no possibility for surface melt to seep in through the cracks That means the water is likely trapped underneath the surface year-round. "Of the current sea level rise, the Greenland Ice Sheet is the largest contributor - and it is melting at record levels," Forster said. "So understanding the aquifer's capacity to store water from year to year is important because it fills a major gap in the overall equation of meltwater runoff and sea levels." These results suggest that a significant amount of the ice melting from Greenland’s glaciers is still being stored within the Greenland ice sheet, trapped and prevented from causing the global sea level to rise……..

Elfs v. Iceland, Charles Ramsey extends his 15 minutes and Vin Diesel gets a fitting gig

- Oh, Iceland. You’re so kooky and crazy. Your land of glaciers and ice bars is a magical place few dare to visit, but those who do rave about its beauty and natural wonders. Speaking of wonders…..right now, many people are wondering how the hell your curious belief in elves is f’ing up important road construction projects. Yes, elf advocates (they do exist) have joined forces with environmentalists to urge the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission and local authorities to abandon a highway project building a direct route from the Alftanes peninsula, where the president has a home, to the Reykjavik suburb of Gardabaer. These kooks fear disturbing elf habitats and claim the area is particularly important because it contains an elf church.  In a most amazing twist, the Supreme Court of Iceland will actually rule on this case, brought by a group known as Friends of Lava. The group’s lawsuit cites both the environmental and the cultural impact — including the impact on elves — of the road project. In their quest to stop the project, the group has enlisted the help of hundreds of human shields. It’s all in the defense of "Huldufolk," Icelandic for "hidden folk.” These cases spring up so often that the road and coastal administration has come up with a stock media response for elf inquiries, which states that "issues have been settled by delaying the construction project at a certain point while the elves living there have supposedly moved on." Countries such as Norway, Denmark and Sweden have abandoned their belief in elves, but Iceland doggedly holds to them. A 2007 survey found that 62 percent of the 1,000 respondents thought it was at least possible that elves exist. But hey, some people find insanity to be extremely charming……..

- Let’s go ahead and score this one as a win, world. Any movie in which the über-limited thespian that is Vin Diesel doesn’t have to actually appear on camera and try ferociously to show the one emotion he is capable of portraying is a positive thing. Diesel and his low-pitch, gravelly monotone won't be physically on screen in the movie adaptation of “Guardians of the Galaxy” from Marvel, but he will be a part of the project. Diesel will play the role of Groot, the tree-like cosmic hero who fights to save the universe. Marvel studios confirmed the casting and it will be extremely interesting to see where the film goes from here. Unlike its Marvel predecessors, “Guardians” is a franchise that does not have a strong fan following. It is wholly separate from the mega-successful “Avengers” franchise, so any success the Guardians have will be independent of what came before them and thus, this should be an excellent test of just how much the world has truly fallen in love with the superhero movie concept. James Gunn will direct the movie and you know it will be good because his last name has two n’s in it, which makes him badass. The film has a scheduled release date of Aug. 1 and after news of Diesel’s casting broke, Gunn took to Instagram to voice his enthusiasm over the development. He might be considerably less excited if he needed Diesel to play something other than an animated robot, but there are roles suited for virtually every actor and V. Diesel just may have found his perfect match…….

- Shazam is stepping its game up. The popular interactive app has updated its iPhone incarnation to tag songs, TV shows and more on its own, no longer requiring users to open the app and tap a button whenever they want to tag something. Known as Auto Shazam the feature is turned off by default, but users can turn it on by switching a toggle once they've downloaded the latest update. Even when it is turned on, Auto Shazam will remain on in the background and listen for audio that it can tag while users go about their day doing other things. It’s a creepy way of having a digital friend always listening and monitoring everything around you, which could be cool….maybe. "Shazam is already known as fast and easy, but we want to become effortless," Shazam chief product officer Daniel Danker said. "The only thing easier than pressing a button is not having to press one at all." When the app independently tags a song or show with Auto Shazam, it will send users a notification with the name of the audio that it has identified. It will be set to turn itself off if a user doesn’t interact with it for two hours so as to avoid draining the always-low iPhone battery. The upgrade comes with a recommendation that users fire it up at bars and coffee shops where music constantly plays and also while watching TV. To assuage privacy concerns, Shazam explained that the feature does not record audio and merely creates digital fingerprints that are sent back to Shazam's servers and matched with fingerprints that are stored there. The digital footprints cannot be converted back into audio, so Shazam Auto is never actually recording. This process also prevents the app from chewing up users’ monthly data allowance. This is the first time Auto Shazam has been made available for a smartphone………

- Signed at last, signed at last….thank God Almighty, Charles Ramsey is signed to a book deal at last. Ramsey became an instant Internet celebrity in May, when he famously told his tale of breaking Amanda Berry out of the home of kidnapper Ariel Castro, where she had been held captive for years along with two other women, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, and her six-year-old daughter. Ramsey explained to a borderline terrified local TV news reporter than he knew something was wrong when Berry – a white woman – ran directly into the arms of a black man. His quirky character vaulted him to his 15 minutes of fame and although those 15 minutes seemingly came to an end months ago, Ramsey is still here and he’s still doing things to make the world a better place. The Cleveland dishwasher and amateur lady saver has signed a deal to write his memoirs and it’s about freaking time. All three women who survived the ordeal have announced plans to publish books in the next two years and sure, they suffered unimaginable trauma and should be able to profit from it if they so choose, but don’t try to pretend that any of them have the “it” factor that Ramsey has. Since Castro pleaded guilty to 937 counts and then went über-coward by hanging himself in his cell rather than facing his punishment, there is an opening for another person involved in the saga to tell his story. Ramsey has already cashed in on his random fame by securing free hamburgers for life from McDonald's, but now he has a book deal with Cleveland publishing company Gray & Company. Thankfully, he will have a co-author and one would assume that Randy Nyerges, who served as a staff speechwriter in the U.S. Senate, would do most of the actual writing. The pair have been working together since early December and according to Gray & Company, Ramsey will “describe living next door to kidnapper Ariel Castro while unaware that the women were being held captive in his neighbor's house,” which should be riveting………

- The Brooklyn Nets are an unmitigated disaster…that currently sits two games out of first place in the NBA’s worst division. Their season has been a nonstop dumpster fire of injuries to key players, on-court hijinks by their rookie head coach and absurd proclamations of greatness by their billionaire Russian playboy owner. At 9-17, they have won barely one-third of their games and yet, they are two games out of first place in the Atlantic Division. They suffered another blow over the weekend when news broke that All-Star center was broken – specifically, the fifth metatarsal of his surgically repaired right foot. Lopez suffered the injury late in the fourth quarter of Friday night's 121-120 overtime loss to the Philadelphia 76ers and with one of their few good players done for the year and their record in the tank, the obvious logic is that they would start exploring trade options to unload salary and tank for a better draft pick. Shockingly, general manager Billy King says it ain't so. King said the News plan to replace Lopez internally and that any trade will be to improve the team, which could obviously mean making it temporarily worse in order to follow the reigning NBA blueprint for getting better by adding an elite player through the draft. "If there's a deal out there that we feel is going to make us a better team, we'll do it regardless of tax or the future, but we're not going to panic and do a move just to make a move because we feel we have to," King said. "I still believe in this group.” At this point, King is either lying or he’s proud to be the one fool who still believes in a ship that is 97 percent submerged beneath the waves. At this point, the Nets’ best hope is that their application to the NBA for a disabled player exception will be approved, allowing them to acquire one player via free agency or trade to replace Lopez. The odds of them finding someone even close to equal for the points (20.7), field-goal percentage (56.3) and free-throw percentage (81.7) Lopez brought to the court? Not so much………