- This might seem odd, but it’s almost as if fictional
television judge Joe Brown isn't really a judge at all. If he were, odds are
that he would not have been legally b*tch-slapped by a Tennessee juvenile judge this
week. Brown, who presides over faux judicial proceedings on his daytime TV
show, was jailed on a contempt of court charge, according to a court spokesman.
Brown, 66, was sentenced to five days in jail because he became "pretty
raucous" and "challenged the authority" of Magistrate Harold
Horne. He was eventually released on his own recognizance, according to the
Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Brown is actually a former Shelby County
criminal judge, but he seems to have forgotten how a courtroom works because he
lost his f’ing mind when he was in court to represent a client in a
child-support case and was informed that his case was not on the afternoon
docket. Horne, who has a reputation for being very calm and low key on the
bench, reportedly gave Brown several chances to calm down before finding him in
contempt. Hopefully Brown screamed, “Do you know who the hell I am? I’m godd*mn
TV judge Joe Brown, asshole!”, but there is no record of such a remark being
made. Both court staff members and other judges were stunned by Brown’s
behavior and watched in stunned silence as he was taken into custody and booked
into the Shelby County jail in Memphis. The saga makes more sense in light of
the fact that Brown’s syndicated reality TV show based on court case
arbitration was canceled last year, ending its 15-year run and sending Brown
back into a real world he is clearly ill-equipped to deal with. On the upside,
he did get a lot of free publicity for his candidacy for the Shelby County
district attorney, although voters may or may not like what they saw………
- Album sales ain't what they used to be. Artists aren't
moving as many physical copies of their records as they once did as the music
world slants heavily to the digital side. Vinyl copies of releases that
hipsters love so they can add to the collection they show off to their fellow
hipster friends and CDs for people over the age of 50 who can't adjust to the
idea of buying music they can't physically hold in their hands amount for most
physical album sales. That leaves artists such as legendary hip-hop pioneers Wu-Tang
Clan in an interesting position. As the combustible rap outfit prepares to
release an album marking its 20th anniversary, the intrigue around the project
is building. Fans will still be able to hear the project by other means, but
there will be one and only one copy of the album – at least initially. “Once
Upon A Time In Shaolin” is a double album recorded in secret over the last two
years and it is in addition to the aforementioned anniversary album titled “A
Better Tomorrow.” “Shaolin” will come encased in a silver and nickel box
crafted by British-Moroccan artist Yahya and will probably sell for whatever
some rich fool is willing to pay for it. To ramp up the hype, the album will
tour the world and make stops at t museums, galleries and music festivals. Fans
will be charged a cost to attend a so-called “listening events," where
they'll get a chance to hear the album on headphones after they are searched
for any possible recording devices. "We're
about to put out a piece of art like nobody else has done in the history of
[modern] music," Wu-Tang
Clan member Robert "RZA" Diggs said. "We're making a single-sale
collector's item. This is like somebody
having the scepter of an Egyptian king." Leave it to Wu-Tang to liken
themselves to a pharaoh and auction their master work off for possibly millions
of dollars. The winning bidder will then be free to do what it wants with it.
They could horde it for themselves or generously offer the audio up to the
grubby masses. Regardless, co-producer Tarik "Cilvaringz" Azzougarh
says the purpose of the project is to “save the music album from dying.” A
worthy pursuit indeed………
- Reading between the lines, one might surmise that there
are folks in Thailand who are not a big fan of efforts to clean up their corrupt
government. When people support a cause, they typically do not hurl live
grenades – sans pins – into the offices of places that are promoting said
cause. Such is life in Bangkok, where police say a grenade was thrown into Thailand’s
anti-corruption office in what apparently was the latest in a string of
politically related attacks. Police Gen. Ake Angsananont said the grenade
slightly damaged a building in the compound, but because the attack took place
late at night, no one was injured. The National Anti-Corruption Commission in
Nonthaburi province, outside Bangkok, was the target for the attack. The war
against corruption has been a bloody, violent and ongoing one in Thailand,
where police also seized a cache of weapons and arrested four pro-government protesters
during an overnight raid at a house close to the office. They are still
investigating to determine whether those arrested in the raid were linked to
the grenade attack, but the odds of the two having no correlation whatsoever
aren’t exactly sky-high. The NACC has accused Prime Minister Yingluck
Shinawatra of negligence in failing to prevent corruption and contributing to massive
losses in the government’s rice subsidy scheme through her terrible decisions
and Yingluck is due to submit her defense to the agency on Monday. Perhaps that
grenade was her defense and the message is simply, “F*ck you,” but hopefully
Shinawatra has something a bit more substantial and less incendiary to say on
her behalf……..
- The one non-sucky product Microsoft makes is coming to an
iPad near you. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella used his first news
conference since taking charge of the company to announce that his company is
now making its popular Office software available on Apple's iPad. Most tech
analysts believe this should have happened years ago, but it took Nadella
stepping in for outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer on Feb. 4 to make it a reality.
Nadella explained that subscribers to Microsoft's Office 365 product will for
the first time be able to create and edit Word, PowerPoint and Excel
spreadsheet documents on their iPads. The move is part of a larger push to make
the company’s products available on a greater array of devices, including the
superior hardware made by Microsoft’s competitors. "Office on the iPad and
today's announcement marks one more step in that direction," Nadella said.
In addition to announcing a new direction for an old product, Nadella also promised
more new product announcements in the near future, saying that "over the
next three to four weeks, you'll get a much better picture of our innovative
agenda." In the aftermath of the announcement, analysts hailed the news as
a significant step in the right direction for Microsoft and a possible
harbinger for more positive developments. The company’s current philosophy is
built around cloud computing, tablets, mobile and future Windows releases and
Nadella has embraced all of the above in his short time leading the House that
Gates Built. Adapting Office’s features to a touch screen won't be easy, but
any potential bugs shouldn’t be that difficult to work out for users who want
to craft an Excel spreadsheet or pen a letter in Word on their iPad. Despite
its failed, laughable attempts at making quality hardware, Microsoft remains the
world's biggest software company and boasts 100,000 employees and a stock
market value of about $330 billion………
- Mike D’Antoni is on what one might call a downward
trajectory. Seven years ago, he was leading the über-entertaining Phoenix Suns
in a rapid-fire attack that yielded 50 wins on an annual basis and made them
one of the most entertaining teams in the NBA. Three years ago, he was leading
the New York Knicks and coaching in the world’s most famous arena. In 2012, he
replaced Mike Brown as the head coach of one of the most storied franchises in
American professional sports, the Los Angeles Lakers. That’s where any hint of
progress came to a crashing halt. The Lakers are 64-78 under D’Antoni and this
season, they have the sixth-worst record in the NBA at 24-46 and are headed for
the draft lottery. Virtually everyone who follows the NBA assumes that he will
be fired at the end of the season and hints that Kobe Bryant will not play for
him when Bryant returns from injury next year aren't helping his case. So
what’s next for a man who has presided over one of the most unwatchable teams
in the Association? How about a trip down memory lane to coach at his alma
mater, which just happens to be a mediocre mid-major college basketball program
in one of the least-appealing states in the country? According to multiple
sources, Marshall
University has reached out to D’Antoni to gauge his interest in coming back to
Huntington, W. Va. to coach the mighty Thundering Herd. They have done so any
time there has been an opening due to his place in the program’s largely
unsuccessful history, but until now there has always been a better gig at hand.
With two failed stints with high-profile teams, that likely won't be the case
if and when the Lakers break him off. Bryant recently admitted that he isn’t
sure D’Antoni should return even though he also said the coach hasn’t
necessarily receiver a fair shake in L.A. The veteran coach has always been
something of a basketball vagabond, with three stops in Italy and stints with
the Denver Nuggets, Suns, Knicks and Lakers in the NBA. He balled for Marshall
from 1970-73 and was selected in the second round of the 1973 NBA draft. His
brother, Dan, also played and coached at the school and to round out their
D’Antoni coaching family tree, the school wants to know if big brother wants to
replace Tom Herrion, who was fired after posting a 67-67 mark in four seasons. "My
job is to finish up as good as we can. Then everybody huddles ... and we'll see
what happens,” D’Antoni recently said when asked about his future with the
Lakers. Sounds like a return trip to West Virginia is still in the realm of
possibilities……….
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