- Seth Meyers is having himself quite a 2014. After taking over for the
promoted Jimmy Fallon on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" in February,
Meyers has received largely positive reviews in his new capacity. He already
had an Emmy to his credit and earlier this week, he was chosen by Time magazine
as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. What does a man with
those credentials do with himself on a beautiful, sunny August evening in
southern California? How about host this year's Emmy Awards? The former
“Saturday Night Live” cast member will emcee the 66th Emmys, which are set to
air live Aug. 25 from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on NBC. In other words,
he’ll come out with a long, meandering monologue in which he mocks/tries to
engage without pissing off various famous people in the audience, changes fancy
suits numerous times throughout the evening and serve as traffic cop for the
A-list presenters who saunter out onto the stage and awkwardly read from the
teleprompter despite reciting words other people wrote for a living. "Seth
is such a talented performer and writer, and we know he will bring something
unique to hosting the Primetime Emmy Awards," said Bruce Rosenblum,
chairman and CEO of the Television Academy. Meyers will follow Neil Patrick
Harris, who did a respectable job as last year's Emmys host. Unlike his “Late
Night” gig, he won't have the advantage of a lead-in from his old pal Jimmy
Fallon, but given the current trajectory of his year, Meyers seems like he
should be all right in a gig that has proven difficult for more than a few
notable names………
- Find a new f’ing fruit, wannabe Tony Montana’s of the
world. The Man is clearly onto your sneaky ploy of shipping cocaine in crates
of bananas and if you want to avoid having your Bolivian marching powder
seized, it’s time to find a new food that conceals coke while also evading
detection in ports around the globe. This should have been painfully apparent
long before now, but the point was driven home this week as German
police seized 265 pounds of cocaine hidden among crates of bananas in a
container shipped from Ecuador — their second big seizure of cocaine from South
America this year. The Federal Criminal Police Office confirmed the find,
saying in an official statement that the bags of the Colombian nose candy were
stuffed into travel bags hidden among the boxes of fruit. Although carefully
hidden by what are undoubtedly savvy coke dealers, the drugs were found when
officials checked over 20 containers that arrived in the North Sea port of
Bremerhaven. This mess comes just three months after workers at Berlin
supermarkets found 309 pounds of cocaine packed into crates of bananas that had
been shipped from Colombia via the German port of Hamburg and at least this
time, the cartel shipping the drugs and their cohorts were busted by actual law
enforcement officials and not a bunch of minimum-wage grocery store dock
workers who only found the drugs because they made the boxes in question
heavier and harder to lift, thereby delaying their afternoon beer break. Police
office chief Joerg Ziercke said after the seizure that his agency is
participating in multinational projects in Peru to curb cocaine smuggling and
plans similar efforts in Ecuador. Your move, South American cartels………
- Do call it a condor comeback. Thanks to a Native American tribe
that lives along the Klamath River in Northern California and their joint
project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there is a concerted push to
restore California condors to Humboldt County. The Yurok Tribe, California's
most populous Indian group, resides in the 85-square-mile Yurok Indian
Reservation along the lower 44 miles of the Klamath River. The Yurok have
struck an agreement with the USFWS to release captive-raised condors in as-yet
undetermined locations in the wild country south of the Klamath River. As with
any project involving a government agency, this effort won't move quickly. The
first release won't happen before next year, but when it does, it will mean a
sixth territory for the critically endangered bird. The California condor’s
population fellow below 30 in the late 1980s, a paltry numbed compared to the
period pre-dating the 19th century, when the big birds ranged from Mexico to
Canada along the Pacific Coast. California condors are North America's largest
land bird and despite existing as scavengers, they have proved particularly
vulnerable to modern industrial society. Ahead of the new project, the Yurok tribe
has been surveying potential release sites for such environmental hazards,
going so far as to test turkey vulture carcasses for lead shot and checking washed-up
sea lions for DDT. The wildlife service has run a captive breeding program for
the condors since 1991 and during that time, the species’ wild population has
grown tenfold, with 232 birds in the wild as of March. Current California
condor populations exist in Big Sur and the Pinnacles National Park, in the
Grand Canyon area and in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir National Park in Baja
California. It’s been quite a rally for the butt-ugly bird……….
- Now THIS is a pastor that the faithful can rally behind.
Lake County (N.C.) pastor Rev. Leon Bloder of First Presbyterian Church in Eustis might seem like
your typical Bible Belt-dwelling, suit-wearing man of God who teaches Sunday
school before his sermon and dines at the nearest Applebee’s afterward, but
Bloder proved otherwise this week. Like so many men of God, he knew his
congregation could pull in bigger numbers last Sunday on account of drawing in
all of the Creasters (those who attend church only on Christmas and Easter) and
so he made a bold offer to members of FBC. Bloder promised his congregation
that if they hit a record attendance, he would get a tattoo of the church's
emblem and cut his hair. He is far from the first leader of a group to use the
promise of getting a tattoo to entice those under his leadership to reach for a
goal, but most of the time those people don’t make their living by preaching
God’s word and standing in a pulpit every Sunday morning. Sure enough, 850
people attended the Easter service at FBC, thanks in larger part to members of
a small church next door who walked over to join the service. That effort –
aided by ringers as it may have been – was enough to convince Bloder to honor
his word. He stepped up and inked up Thursday, getting his new tattoo to go
with his new haircut. He will debut both on Sunday and while this seems like a
nice, fun story, it’s worth wondering if the pastor has set a dangerous
precedent for future holidays, one that could end up with him looking more like
a Hell’s Angels member than someone trying to keep sinners from ending up in
the fiery pit………
- The Golden
State Warriors may not reach the second round of the NBA playoffs and they may
fire a coach who just led them to a 50-win season, but that doesn’t mean they
aren't still accomplishing important things. Namely, they are looking into the
possibility of changing their name after purchasing a 12-acre property in the
Mission Bay district of San Francisco that they plan to use for a new arena.
While the franchise will keep the Warriors moniker they've used since they were
founded in Philadelphia in 1946, they will solicit fan input on whether to
readopt the name for which they were known when they played in San Francisco
from 1962-71 -- the San Francisco Warriors. "We're very curious what our
fans think of that," Warriors president and CEO Rick Welts said. "I
couldn't imagine making that decision in the very near future, but we
definitely want to see what our fans prefer." In other words, we want to
know what fans like to market the team better and make as much money as
possible on new jersey and gear sales. The possible name change and definite
move out of Oracle Arena in Oakland to a state-of-the-art venue before the
2018-19 season are part of a chance Welts believes are vital to the team’s
long-term success. The move has nothing to do with the atmosphere at games, as
the Warriors routinely have the best home crowds in the league and make games a
noise nightmare for visiting teams. The proposed new arena will have 18,000
seats, down from the 19,000 at Oracle, but Welts said that the Warriors have
guaranteed that every employee at Oracle will have a chance to transfer their
job to the new building, located eight miles from the current one. Season
ticket holders have also been assured they will retain their seats during the
move from the oldest arena in the NBA to what will be its newest one for what
promises to be a limited amount of time. Its location near stops for the Bay
Area's Rapid Transit (BART) system is another part of the new arena’s appeal
and so are its promised unobstructed views of the San Francisco Bay………
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