Monday, May 26, 2014

NBA Midwest beefs, karma blows up in Egypt and weekend movie news


- 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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