- Never has a band needed a name change, an image change and
a fresh start more than the remaining, non-incarcerated members of the band
formerly known as Lostprophets. Their former lead singer, Ian Watkins, has been
convicted of child sex charges and while the other members of the band aren't
connected to those charges at all, the looming black cloud over them remains.
In order to shake that darkness, the five other members of the band – Lee Gaze,
Mike Lewis, Stuart Richardson, Jamie Oliver and Luke Johnson – are working on a
new project with former Thursday frontman Jeff Rickly. Starting a new band with
a new name but virtually the same lineup didn’t work for New Kids on the Block
(N.K.O.T.B., anyone?) or Green Day (Foxboro Hot Tubs, people?), but maybe it
can do the trick for Lostprophets. Rickley said that Watkins' former bandmates
"deserve a second chance" and compared the new music they have made
to The Cure and New Order. "I think if ever there was a group of people
that needed a second chance, it’s those guys – and they’re going to take full
advantage of it,” Rickly added. “People don't really think of what happens to
the other members. That took away their life. What happened is just devastating
for them.” Rickly did not confirm whether this is a one-off gig for him or if
he will be a permanent member of the band, but he is working with them through
his label, Collect Records. "It’s been my honor to work with them on their
new band from a label perspective," Rickly continued. "People are not
going to know what hit them when the new band comes out.” Watkins has applied
for permission to appeal against the length of his jail term for child sex
offences, which include the attempted rape of a baby, probably because the
reality of his impending 29-year jail sentence has him realizing his life as he
knows it is over………..
- What is the hot new place to go for refugees fleeing Syria
and looking for a place to go/stay alive? How about the third – yes, THIRD - refugee
camp opened by Jordan in the middle of the desert? The camp opened its doors –
even though it doesn’t have doors because IT’S A REFUGEE CAMP IN THE MIDDLE OF
THE FREAKING DESERT – to tens of thousands more Syrians fleeing the civil war.
It is a sprawling facility, complete with prefabricated cabin-like shelters and
a supermarket, built to house up to 130,000 people and potentially become the
world's second-largest refugee camp. The Azraq camp is an ugly reminder that
the civil war is still alive in its fourth year and has hewn Syria's prewar
population from 23 million to approximately 14 million. According to the United
Nations, there are nearly 2.7 million Syrian refugees, mostly in neighboring
countries, and another 6.5 million who have been displaced in their homeland.
Thousands more people flee the country on a daily basis in the hopes of not
becoming part of the mounting carnage the war has produced in killing more than
150,000 people in three years. This week has brought more air strikes and more
allegations from both the government and rebels accusing one another of killing
civilians. "I hope this is the last refugee community," said Brig.
Gen. Waddah Lihmoud, director of Syrian refugee affairs in Jordan, as he
officially opened the Azraq camp. At a cost of $63.5 million, the camp is
expected to eventually dwarf the Zaatari camp, currently Jordan's largest camp.
For now, Zaatari is Jordan's fourth-largest city and the world's second-largest
refugee camp after Dadaab in Kenya, which holds nearly 360,000 people from
Somalia. Jordan is an oil-rich nation with deep pockets, but it and other
neighboring countries have grown weary over bearing the cost of Syria’s
interminable war. Turkey and Lebanon are dealing with the same problems, but
from the looks of it, neither side in Syria is too concerned………
- Everyone wants to leave their mark on the world when they
exit one chapter of their life and move into a new one. That can be extremely
difficult in college, which is both one of the most transient places in the
world and a place where large campuses and crowded lecture halls make anonymity
the order of most days. That leaves a man with precious few chances to make an
impact, which explains what was going through the clearly IQ-deprived brain of Davenport
University graduate Robert Jeffrey Blank when his relatively unknown
institution of higher learning held its spring commencement ceremony at Van
Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich. Blank was one of hundreds of eager young
minds to walk across the stage as part of an interminably long ceremony
anchored by a commencement speaker about whom they could not care less and when
it came time to get a little dap from university president Richard Pappas,
Blank saw his chance to add a little something something to the proceedings. In
a stunt he clearly planned out but just as clearly did not give any quality
thought to, Blank attempted a back flip. Amazingly enough, he failed. The face
plant that resulted was captured on video and will undoubtedly be used to mock
and humiliate this moron for many years to come. Sadly, Blank and his blank
mind were perfectly fine after the fall and just as sadly, his
sure-to-be-ashamed family neither bolted from the arena in horror nor stuck
around afterward to comment on what they had been subjected too. Blank himself
laughed off the fall in much the same way employers will laugh him off when
they realize who’s attempting to gain a job with them………
- Paul George’s home was treated nearly as disrespectfully
as his home court Monday night. As the eighth-seeded Atlanta Hawks traipsed into Indianapolis
and b*tch-slapped George’s Pacers in Game 5 to take a 3-2 lead in a series no
one gave them a chance to win, someone else was busy ripping George’s true
homecourt advantage by burglarizing his home. According to an Indianapolis Police
Department report, the theft occurred between 7:15 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. ET, just
around the time the top-seeded Pacers were falling behind by as many as 30
points en route to a 107-97 loss that left them on the brink of elimination.
According to the police report, a platinum NBA All-Star ring -- valued at
$15,000 – was stolen, along with a watch valued at $700, a pair of sneakers,
valued at $170 and a $20 bill. George's parents discovered the theft and
alerted authorities at midnight, with the estimated value of the stolen items
set at nearly $16,000. There were no signs of forced entry and the home alarm
system was not set, which is fitting because George and his team weren't on
guard either when the Hawks blitzed them out of the gate and put the game out
of reach with an offensive surge that would have seemed unfathomable for the
NBA’s top defensive team to allow just four short months ago. Sure, George led
the Pacers with 26 points and 12 rebounds, but that wasn’t nearly enough with
the rest of his team going AWOL for the entire night and playing with the same
intensity as a napping dog snoozing idly as burglars raid a home and make off
with every valuable under the roof. Losing a series that could get head coach
Frank Vogel fired, suffering through an offseason of questions about his
superstar credentials and trying to recover his stolen belongings seems like
quite a spring schedule for George………..
- Do you remember the day….the low-quality electronic music
coming from inside a tall, rectangular wood-and-metal box fueled by your
quarters and dorky obsession died? The people of Marshfield, Mass. do and they
want to reverse the outcome of a tragic day in their town’s history. For 32
years now, what is common in so many cities around the United States has been
verboten in Marshfield, where there are no arcade games….because arcade games
were banned back in 1982. That ban stood for more than three decades, but it
was no match for the determined dorkdom of the town’s top nerd, Craig Rondeau. Rondeau
led the charge to lift the 32-year-old ban on coin operated video games in
Marshfield and his message resonated with those assembled at this week’s town
meeting. The reason for the ban was an alleged concern about those who played
video games because in 1982, society’s biggest menace wasn’t cokeheads,
stoners, child molesters or serial killers, but rather the unsavory characters
who frequented arcades and played Pac-Man, Frogger and Skee-Ball. “It would be
bad for the people, it brings bad characters into town,” Rondeau said of the
logic for the ban. He added that the ban was challenged at least two other
times, almost making it to the Supreme Court, but for some reason it never
quite generated enough momentum to make it to the top. Those who supported the
ban claimed it would keep their children from wasting their allowance at the
arcade, but right around the time every child over the age of 5 got their own
iPhone and started downloading apps and games at a blazing clip, the ban lost
its relevance. Just don’t tell Rondeau that getting the ban lifted doesn’t
matter because he’s under the impression that it really, really matters. “It is
a big deal because if it ruffled so many feathers that it took 32 years to get
it done we did something important,” Rondeau said.
The ban should be
officially lifted by this summer and Marshfield can boldly step into the
1990s……….
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