- So far, so funny for Jimmy Fallon. The sample size is
small, but the new host of “The Tonight Show” has generated solid ratings to
this point and if he can hold even part of his current viewership, NBC will be
happy with its choice to replace the departed Jay Leno. Fallon drew 7.4 million
viewers for his second night, more than the combined total for his primary
rivals David Letterman on CBS and Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. His numbers come with
the caveat that he continues to have the powerful lead-in of NBC’s über-popular
Winter Olympics coverage, but one would assume not all of those watching for
the intense competition of curling and figure skating are staying up late
and/or sticking around to watch a late-night talk show once they’ve gotten
their athletic fix. Because of the Olympics running late and local news
broadcasts filling the half hour after the Games end with tales of home fires,
old people victimized by Ponzi schemes and pothole repair work, Fallon’s first
week of shows will begin at midnight instead of the 11:35 p.m. time slot he will step into beginning next
week. The ratings from his second show were down from the 11.3 million viewers
Fallon scored Monday night, when he brought out the big guns with Will Smith as
his lead guest and a performance atop 30 Rock by U2, followed by a sit-down
interview with Bono and the fellas that they topped off with an acoustic performance.
The second-night number Fallon posted almost exactly matched the number of
viewers the show averaged under Leno this season, which could be either very encouraging
or a reason to question making a change at all……..
- Google’s quest for world domination is rarely so overt,
but there are times in every crusade to abandon all pretense and go big. This
is one such time for the search giant, which has begun exploring the
possibility of expanding its ultra-high-speed Internet service into several other major
metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Phoenix, San Jose, Portland, Salt Lake
City and San Antonio. A company blog post laid out the possibility of extending
Google Fiber service into the regions surrounding these and four other larger
American cities, adding to a limited roll of cities that includes Kansas City
and impending stops in Austin, Tex. and Provo, Utah. Google Fiber was first revealed
in 2010 and was described as an experiment with the ability to offer Internet
speeds 100 times faster than typical connections. Along the way to 2014, that
experiment has expanded into a full-fledged service that Google hopes will provide
a very real alternative to connections from traditional communications giants
such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. Such a service would be a welcome
addition to the market given the news of Comcast’s agreement to purchase Time
Warner Cable, a merger that would combine the country’s two largest cable Internet
providers. If Google can turn Fiber into a legit offering, it could serve as a
nice counter-balance for the online monolith that a Comcast-Time Warner merger
would create. In the blog post, Google vice president of access service Milo
Medin claimed Google Fiber could eventually reach a total of 34 different
cities within its seven new target markets. Google plans to work with local
government leaders to determine whether it can viably offer service to each.
“We aim to provide updates by the end of the year about which cities will be getting
Google Fiber,” Medin wrote. “Between now and then, we’ll work closely with each
city’s leaders on a joint planning process that will not only map out a Google
Fiber network in detail, but also assess what unique local challenges we might
face.” Geography, local infrastructure and housing density will be the
determining factors for each location……..
- Members of the military are generally held in high
esteem in the United States, on account of them facing life-threatening danger
on a regular basis and fighting to keep this country safe from threats of all
manner around the world. If the tide ever begins to turn against those in
uniform, mark this moment down as the point of origin. This is the moment the
world found out that a certain solider from the Wisconsin Army National Guard gets her
jollies from clowning the funerals of other service members. Spc. Terry
Harrison -- a member of the 1st Battalion, 147th Aviation Regiment based in
Madison, Wisc., showed both her lack of class and her intelligence when it
comes to social media when she posted a series of photos on her Instagram
account that revolved around her finding humor in various aspects of soldiers’
funerals. The caption for one photo of soldiers happily posing around a
flag-draped casket reads: "We put the FUN in funeral -- your fearless
honor guard from various states." In another photo, Harrison poses alone
in a car with the caption: "It's so damn cold out ... WHY have a funeral
outside!? Somebody's getting a jacked up flag." For some odd reason,
Harrison has been suspended indefinitely from the funeral honors detail,
pending an investigation. She remains a full-time member of her unit, performing
other duties, said Maj. Paul Rickert, spokesman for the Wisconsin National
Guard. A second member of the unit, Sgt. Luis Jimenez, has also been suspended
as part of the investigation and he has been assigned to other duties pending
the outcome of the investigation, Rickert said. "He had made comments on
social media supporting Spc. Terry Harrison. He's not featured in any of the
photos," Rickert said. "A military funeral is the final show of
respect for our veterans and their families, and we take that solemn duty very
seriously.” You might, but Terry Harrison doesn’t. Rickert could not confirm
the identities of the other soldiers in the photos, but said they were from
other states and units and therefore, he did not know if any were under
investigation……..
- How’s that America-bashing habit of yours, world? You
know, the one where you rap the United States for being arrogant, lazy, stupid
and most of all, really FAT. At least one country needs to slow its roll on
clowning Americans’ girth because according to its official army newspaper, its
own soldiers are losing the battle of the bulge in a profound way. Here’s
looking at you, China. According to the official People's Liberation Army Daily
newspaper, the communist hell hole of a nation is in the process of shopping
for new tanks because its soldiers have bulked up considerably in the 30 years
since it made its last tank purchases. The report claimed the average Chinese
soldier is three-quarters of an inch taller and has a waistline two inches
bigger than his or her counterparts of 20 years ago. For the story, the army examined
more than 20,000 troops over five years and determined that the fatter, modern
soldiers could no longer shove their blubbery selves into tanks designed in the
early 1980s. Also, the greater average height means those cherubic soldiers
cannot adequately operate their rifles because the barrels are too short. This
leads to accuracy problems because, as mentioned, these guys are FAT and lord
knows they aren't going to be tracking anyone down on foot. To help redesign
the army’s tank fleet, officials took 28 different body measurements – some
top-notch clothiers don’t take that many – and used those numbers to design
both guns and vehicles. Overall obesity rates in China have almost doubled
during that same time, thanks in large part to the intrusion of fast-food
culture into the secretive nation. Back in 2009, the Chinese Health Ministry
found that the average 6-year-old boy living in an urban area was a whopping
6.6 pounds heavier than 30 years before. That extra weight seems to have
migrated upward on the age chart much quicker than anyone would have
imagined……..
- You can always count on the NCAA to keep its eyes on what
matters most. No, not the fact that it shamelessly exploits college athletes to
sell hundreds of millions of dollars in merchandise or the fact that it is an
inherently corrupt and hypocritical organization with no morals, principles or
soul that it won't abandon in the name of self-interest. Those might be
important issues, but not important enough to merit a spot on the priority list
above policing carbohydrate consumption among student-athletes. Whenever and
wherever a college athlete gorges on tortellini and fails to properly pay for
it, the NCAA will be there to bring down its judicial hammer. Just witness the
absolutely legal lockdown of University of Oklahoma offensive linemen Gabe Ikard and Austin Woods, who appeared on a list
of seemingly benign secondary violations that Oklahoma's athletic department
reported to the NCAA. They were among a trio of unidentified Sooners – at least
on the initial report who ate more food during a graduation banquet than NCAA
rules allow. Yes, there are rules about how much grub a 300-pound offensive
lineman can eat at a free buffet, even if no one is clear whether the limits
are on the number of return trips to the buffet, the total weight of the food
consumed, the number of calories eaten….or some other wholly arbitrary measure.
Pasta was the offending dish, so maybe the number of noodles was the real
culprit. The violations occurred on May 10, 2013 and to have their eligibility
reinstated, the three had to donate $3.83 each (the cost of the pasta servings)
to charities of their choice. Ikard took to Twitter to own his role in the spaghetti
suspense, as did Woods, with Ikard tweeting, “@SportsCenter that was some great pasta!
We felt we ate more than $3.83 so we donated $5.” Great. Now these guys are
down $5 worth of beer money for the weekend and who’s going to help them out………
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