- Rarely do two irrelevant NBA teams light up the playoffs
with a battle between their respective suit-clad representatives. Neither the
Detroit Pistons nor the Cleveland Cavaliers were anywhere close to the
postseason in 2014, but the two middling Midwest teams are locked in a pitched
battle of words over something that really shouldn’t matter to either side. Cavaliers
owner Dan Gilbert started the scrap by saying he that the Pistons should remove
"Detroit" from its name because they play in Auburn Hills. That mild
shot across the bow struck a nerve with new Pistons coach and team president
Stan Van Gundy, who returned fire at the Detroit native and founder of Quicken
Loans. "Dan Gilbert has some selfish interests for saying what he
said," Van Gundy said. "I think we know what those are. Finally, I
think he has enough to worry about with his own team.” Gilbert could claim that
he’s merely looking out for his hometown and point out that he has invested
millions in downtown Detroit, but Van Gundy is correct in saying that Gilbert
has more than enough problems in Cleveland. Gilbert also claims to have spoken
to Pistons owner Tom Gores "four or five times at the owners meetings,"
where he's brought up the topic about a downtown move. "If you're gonna
convince someone like that, and I've said it to him, long term for business
reasons, that's not a viable place that you're gonna have a long-term
successful, profitable venture," Gilbert said. "People want entertainment,
a whole night of it, a whole experience." The Pistons’ current home in
Auburn Hills is located light years from anything resembling a downtown area or
an entertainment district, residing in the middle of a field and housing the
team since 1988. Location aside, bad basketball is bad basketball wherever you
play it……..
- Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh may be a millionaire, but he is
not the guy you want to sit next to on a plane. Bergh is not a fan of a certain
household appliance, at least as it pertains to the sewn-together sections of
denim that his company manufactures and which he faithfully wears. Wading into
the long running denim debate that has divided jeans-wearing people worldwide
for decades, Bergh put forth his official theory on the best way to care for
and maintain a person’s favorite pair of jeans. Simply put, Bergh wants Levi’s
customers to keep their pants out the washing machine. "These are one of
my favorite jeans. These jeans are maybe a year old and these have yet to see a
washing machine,” Bergh said. “I know that sounds totally disgusting. I know it
does. But believe me, you can spot clean it, you can air dry it and it is fine.
I have yet to get a skin disease or anything else. It works.” It works is a
fairly ambiguous term, largely because Bergh’s significant other and co-workers
were not in on the interview. Maybe the interviewer should have solicited input
from his secretary or people who have to smell Bergh’s stank as he walks around
in public as he rocks what he has dubbed the ultimate in "slow
fashion." That’s code for long-wear fashion, i.e. wearing something as
many times as possible without having to wash out all of the sweat and general
world filth that a piece of clothing absorbs over time. All of this comes as the
Levi's 501 jean marks its 141st birthday and the company readies to launch its
new "waterless" jeans,
which will get an acid-wash look without using harsh bleach or chemicals………
- Superheroes uniting dominate once more. “X-Men:
Days of Future Past” rode its comic book powers to $90.7 million in domestic
earnings to debut in first place, ousting reigning box office champion “Godzilla”
in the process. The beastly former earnings king added $31.4 million to its
coffers, making its two-week domestic total $148.7 million. It was not a
resounding debut for the Drew Barrymore-Adam Sandler romantic comedy “Blended,”
which could do no better than third place with $14.2 million in its first
weekend. “Neighbors” finished fourth with $14 million and has done much better
than a movie of its quality should with $113.6 million domestically in three
weeks of release. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” added a fifth-place finish to its résumé
thanks to a $7.8 million effort that upped its take to $184.9 million after one
month in theaters. Next on the list was “Million Dollar Arm,” which didn’t have
a huge budget at $25 million but hasn’t yet made all of that money back after
banking $7.1 million to elevate its domestic haul to $20.7 million. “The Other
Woman” somehow remained in the top 10 in its fifth weekend, earnings another
$3.7 million. Despite sucking abysmally, this cinematic dumpster fire has
amassed $77.8 million so far. “Rio 2” landed in eighth place thanks to a $2.5
million weekend, meaning it has animated its way to $121.6 million and
counting. Indie favorite “Chef” performed well in limited release, snagging
ninth place despite showing in just 498 theaters. In spite of its limited
reach, the Jon Favreau vehicle cranked out $2.3 million and has logged $3.5
million through three weeks. The top 10’s final spot belonged to “Heaven is for
Real,” the recipient of $2 million in box office cash and $85.7 million in
moviegoers’ money in its six weeks of release. “Captain America: The Winter
Soldier” (No. 11) and “Moms' Night Out” (No. 13) both dropped out from last
weekend’s top 10……….
- People in the middle of nowhere are finally going to get
an affordable alternative to their limited Internet options – and possibly a
break from those absurd and corny commercials from satellite Internet provider
Hughes Net. Thanks to a federal appeals court’s decision to uphold the agency's Connect America
Fund after challenges from smaller carriers, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) can go ahead with its plan to offer subsidies for providers or
rural connections to broadband service. In a purely self-serving argument, the
smaller carriers argued in court that a shift from subsidizing phone calls to high-speed
Internet access would hurt their bottom line. The court disagreed, ruling that
all claims made in court by these carriers were either too weak to carry the
day or blocked from legal consideration in the first place. Even with this
legal hurdle cleared, the FCC fund still has lingering opposition from critics
who fear that its $4.5 billion in subsidies will send phone bills soaring
thanks to increasing fees. Oh, and there are the worries that the pork and
fraud inherent in virtually every government program will filter into Connect
America, which seems like a reasonable worry because, you know, it’s the United
States government and that’s just how it rolls. If the plan can serve up
high-speed connections at an affordable price for people in isolated areas who
want to be able to post 10,000 identical Facebook photos of their children in
their store-bought Halloween costumes and Instagram pics of their delicious
French toast for breakfast, then all of this will clearly have been worthwhile……..
- Karma lives everywhere in the world, including Egypt. This
difficult lesson was the last one a suspected member of an
al-Qaida-inspired group learned before shuffling off this mortal coil and
leaving his father with a lasting reminder of what happened to morons who play
with makeshift incendiary devices in Third World countries. This would-be
killer ended up taking just one life with his plan to plant a bomb on a road
frequently used by the army. While Egyptian officials aren't disclosing details
about what went down, the militant was reportedly blown to bits by his own
roadside bomb in the country's combustible Sinai Peninsula. According to
sources close to the incident, the militant's father lost an arm in the blast
and both men are believed to be members of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has been
blamed for some of the bloodiest attacks in Egypt in recent years. Ansar Beit
al-Maqdis has stepped up its violent assault game after the overthrow of the
Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last July and without a credible government
in place to check them, they have become increasingly active in recent months.
While it its difficult to ask a man who just blew the living sh*t out of
himself – literally – one could hazard a reasonable guess that the bomb may
have some link to the fact that Egyptians will vote Monday and Tuesday in a
presidential election. Scaring the populace and flexing your bomb-making
muscles right before people head to the polls is a nice way of reminding them
to be scared of what might happen next………
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