- Picking George Clooney over Robert Downey Jr. may have
been an easy choice once upon a time, but that was before Downey got himself
relatively cleaned up and became a reliable, bankable box office force once
again. With his drug-addled days (theoretically behind him), Downey is one of
the biggest earners at the box office annually, yet a film nominated for 10
Academy Awards at this year's Oscars wanted Clooney for its lead role instead
of the man best known for playing Captain Jack Sparrow. “Gravity” was one of the biggest commercial hits in
2013 and the tandem of Clooney and Sandra Bullock proved to be a winning
combination in a movie about an outer space mission gone horribly wrong. Director
Alfonso Cuarón, who may be working on
multiple acceptance speeches for the Oscars, recently explained how he got from
his original casting choices of Downey and Angelina Jolie to pairing up
Clooney and Bullock. Jolie was forced to pull out due to scheduling conflicts
with her work on “Maleficent” and directorial duties on “Unbroken,”
but the story behind Clooney being selected over Downey is more nuanced. “"It
became very clear that, as we started to nail the technology, or narrow the
technology, that was going to be a big obstacle for his performance,” Cuarón said of Downey. “"I think
Robert is fantastic if you give him the freedom to completely breathe and
improvise and change stuff. [But] we tried one of these technologies and it was
not compatible. And, after that, we [had a] week that we pretended as if
nothing was happening and then we talked and said, 'This is not going to work.
This is tough.’” Telling an A-lister he’s not working out couldn’t have been
easy, but the end result was those 10 Oscar nods, including Best Film and Best
Director.......
- Don’t drink the water used to be advice aimed mainly at
those visiting Mexico. It now applies to anyone in or around the Charleston, W.
Va. area and may apply for some time. Back on Jan. 9, the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol,
or MCHM, was discovered leaking from a storage tank into the Elk River and from
there into Charleston's water supply. The licorice-like smell alerted residents
to the contamination and authorities issued a do-not-use order for 300,000 West
Virginians, many of whom could not drink or bathe in their water for more than
a week. Freedom Industries said late last month that about 10,000 gallons of
chemical had escaped and admitted to regulators that a second chemical -- a mix
of polyglycol ethers, known as PPH -- was part of the leak. In the aftermath of
the leak, residents have reported rashes that appeared when they washed their
faces or took a bath or shower. Still, little is known about the health effects
of the chemical, which is used to wash coal before market in order to reduce
ash. Local officials lifted the do-not-use order earlier this month, but a
recent survey showed that a mere 4 percent of residents feel comfortable
drinking the water in their homes. This week, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin asked the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct further studies on the
health effects caused by the spill. "It is critical this study is funded
and that work begins immediately," Tomblin wrote in a letter to CDC
Director Dr. Tom Frieden. Water tests in early February showed traces amounts of
MCHM, both in untreated river water and in tap water from homes in Charleston.
The concentration of less than 0.5 parts per billion to 1.6 parts per billion
fell well below the 1 part per million that the CDC has said it considers
unlikely to be associated with any adverse health effects, but that hasn’t
calmed the worries of the locals. Local restaurants still have signs warning
about water issues or informing patrons that the only use bottled water for
cooking………
- Kobe Bryant is suddenly very chatty. At NBA All-Star
weekend, he spoke at length about his future and the doubts he’s battling as he
attempts to recover from his latest knee injury. Now, the Black Mamba is
sounding off about the Los Angeles Lakers’ decision to ship out a role player
from a team headed nowhere this season – or any season in the immediate future.
The Lakers sent Steve Blake to the
Golden State Warriors for a pair of reserve guards in Kent Bazemore and MarShon
Brooks -- saving them $4 million in salary and luxury-tax implications in the
process – and for a team that is 18-36 and mired in last place in the Western
Conference, it shouldn’t be a big deal. Blake is a role player averaging 9.2
points per game and he isn’t putting any team over the top in any playoff or
title race, but he clearly found a place in the heart of the Lakers’ biggest
star. “Not
cool with @SteveBlake5 being gone AT ALL One of my closest teammates and psycho
competitor GS picked up gem #smartmove,” Bryant tweeted. The tweet seems
slanted more in support of Blake than in critique of the team, but it’s tough
to imagine Bryant caring that much about a teammate and not being at least
slightly angry at his team for getting rid of that teammate. He has repeatedly
praised Blake for his hard-nosed approach
to the game, even dubbing him "Vino Bianco," a mash-up of his own
self-appointed monikers of "Vino" and the "Black Mamba."
The two were teammates for nearly four seasons after Blake came to L.A. as a
free agent in the summer of 2010. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak insisted
the trade was done not for salary cap relief, but rather to give the Lakers a
chance to look to the future and evaluate young talent that could be a part of
the team moving forward. "It really got to the point where we needed to
free up some time in the backcourt to look at Jordan [Farmar] and give Kendall
[Marshall] the time that he's earned and let's review and evaluate where we are
with those two players," Kupchak said. Maybe you need to explain that to
Kobe one more time, M……….
- Good beer and lederhosen can't fix everything. That’s
the lesson to be derived from the standoff between security workers and
management at Europe’s
third-busiest airport. Frankfurt International Airport, operated by Fraport AG,
closed access for outbound passengers after strikes of security staff congested
safety checkpoints. “We kindly request that originating passengers no longer
come to the airport, because they will have no possibility of getting to their
flight,” the company said on its website. Seventy-four flights were canceled
Friday, most of them operated by Deutsche
Lufthansa AG. The company planned to handle 149,000 passengers,
according to spokesman Dieter Hulick, with 60 percent of that number being
transfer passengers who can get to the gates if their flight is still scheduled.
The remaining passenger balance is comprised largely of inbound travelers
largely unaffected by the strike, but that leaves an undisclosed number of
outbound travelers who were turned away because the union representing the
workers called upon about 5,000 security workers to join a protest for higher
pay. The airport has been hit by numerous strikes in recent months as wage
disputes have impacted Lufthansa’s biggest hub. The Ver.di union all but
grounded the airline’s fleet in a fight for higher wages for ground personnel
last April and another strike could be looming as Lufthansa’s pilots are
currently voting on a walkout that may occur next month. Lufthansa has replaced
some of its domestic services in Germany with trains, which are both a
wonderful way to see a beautiful nation and not at all the expedient travel
folks are seeking when they buy a plane ticket………
- Netflix is soaring…..and crashing at the same time. The
video streaming service is riding high with its popularity skyrocketing thanks
to original shows like “House of Cards” added to its existing video library. At
the same time, Netflix subscribers in the United States have been
noticing a troubling trend in recent weeks. Despite accessing their favorite TV
shows and movies on super-fast connections, video quality been on a downward
trajectory of late. Internet service providers are notoriously tight-lipped
about such issues, but numerous industry observers have alleged that the slowdown
is part of a standoff over the cost of carrying the increased Netflix traffic.
In other words, outfits such as Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner and their peers
are more than willing to let Netflix’s streaming quality take a hit on order to
prove their point. Netflix itself confirmed the streaming speeds of major ISPs
for its offerings have declined by 14 percent in the past month and that is
more than enough to downgrade a true high-definition stream to standard
definition. Some subscribers have
seen their streaming speeds sag so much that they can’t even watch video
without constant buffering. Netflix traffic through Internet backbone provider
Cogent has quadrupled in the last six months because Netflix has expanded 1080p
HD streams to all customers. ISPs have been sufficiently outraged over the
increased cost of delivering those bits to subscribers and want Netflix to pay
additional fees to cover its usage. To communicate that point more forcefully, ISPs
have allegedly delayed connection upgrades that would alleviate the increasing
congestion. The situation has upset the normally harmonious relationship between
ISPs and bandwidth providers like Cogent. Both carry certain amounts of data
for the other without charging one another, but the surge in Netflix traffic has
unbalanced the agreements and could lead to ISPs paying larger bandwidth bills.
It’s a bill no one wants to foot……..
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