- Hos, strip clubs, Ferraris and multimillion-dollar
mansions have no appeal to Wisconsin junior forward Frank Kaminsky. The 7-foot junior center with a silky outside shooting
touch led the Badgers in scoring (13.9 points per game) and rebounds (6.3) last
season, both career highs, and averaged highs in minutes (27.2 per game) and
field goal percentage (.528). He earned the most outstanding player award in
the NCAA West Regional and was a first-team all-Big Ten selection. In
other words, he is a talented and improving player who could viably enter the
NBA draft and expect to find a team willing to draft him. That would mean
millions of dollars, the NBA lifestyle instead of ramen noodles and cheap beer
and of course, the finest skanks that a professional baller’s lifestyle can
draw. According to a blog post Kaminsky authored this week, those incentives
are nothing compared to the pull of playing in front of thousands of drunk frat
boys and soror-stitutes and then hitting an off-campus kegger to power down a
half-dozen Keystone Lights. "I
am at the pinnacle of my basketball playing career, at least in my eyes. I know
the NBA has their crazy fans and all, but if you look at all of their games,
there are games when teams like the Bobcats get hardly any fans, and it looks
flat out boring," Kaminsky wrote. "At the Kohl Center, we play in
front of nearly 17,000 fans every single time we step onto the court. When we
travel, we play in front of sell out crowds who absolutely hate us. Not because
of who is on the team, but because of where we go to school. Who could leave
that?” Yes, he just talked junk about an NBA playoff team owned by Michael
Jordan and he opined that living in Madison, Wisc. is better than balling in
Miami, New York, Los Angeles or Dallas. For the record, Kaminsky has previously
expressed a desire to play in the NBA and expects to be drafted eventually by
an NBA team, just not yet…………
- It’s the age-old question: What do people with bat-sh*t
insane levels of wealth do with their disposable cash once they’ve purchased
all of the yachts, luxury cars, palatial estates and jewelry they desire? Buying
an NFL or NBA team is one option, but there are a limited number of those and
it can be a long wait to get to the front of the line of rich, old, bigoted
white dudes for the right to spend $500 million on a franchise. NASCAR mogul Bruton Smith doesn’t feel like
waiting – or being associated with an actual sport – and so wants to pour a huge
chunk of his massive fortune into something else. Just kidding. He wants the public to pony up the cash necessary to improve his
Concord-based racetrack. Smith told North Carolina Gov.
Pat McCrory the he wants to spend a whopping $100 million on track improvements. The governor was at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on
Monday to proclaim May as "Motorsports Month" in North Carolina and
with the Coca Cola 600 later this month, Smith is thinking big. "Racing
and motorsports have helped define our state and drive our economy," McCrory
said. "We are proud of the rich history of motorsports in North Carolina
and that so many teams, tracks and events call our state home. Today we
celebrate that legacy, as well as the industry's bright future." With
Smith, NASCAR Hall of Fame member Richard Petty and NASCAR driver Marcos
Ambrose on hand, the billionaire bigmouth dropped some knowledge on his state’s
highest elected official. "While you're here, I've got to find some time
to talk to you," Bruton said to McCrory. "We want to spend about $100
million here to improve our situation and I certainly would like to have you to
say, 'You know, well, that's a good thing.’" It wasn’t exactly an eloquent
proclamation, but McCrory laughingly promised to fight for that plan. Smith
added that he would talk about his plan right on the spot, but McCrory took the
microphone from Smith and said he'd just come from a prayer breakfast, so they
should chat later. Awkward……….
- There will no more hostility directed against the machine.
Rage
Against The Machine hasn’t performed together live since 2011 and according to drummer
Brad Wilk, that won't be changing. Wilk said the band have played their last
show together, with that show being their set at LA Rising Festival three years
ago. "As far as I know, we played our last show in 2011 at the Coliseum,
and if that was our last show, that’s a good way to go out," Wilk said.
"I had sort of had to put it in my head that that band is over in order
for me to just move on with my life, to be honest with you, so that’s kind of
where that lies. The Coliseum — awesome way to go out." His comments add a
degree of finality to guitarist Tom Morello’s statement’s last July that the
band's future was "unknown." Morello previous said Rage Against The
Machine had no plans to release new material. "When bands make albums it's
because everybody wants to, and that's not the case with Rage Against The
Machine at the moment,” Morello said at the time. “Everyone in the band gets
along very well, we consider each other friends and comrades in arms, but
people sometimes don't feel ready to do it.” It’s actually nice to think that a
band may have simply reached its terminus together and walked away on good
terms, without imploding or trying an ill-fated cash grab of a comeback in
their twilight and Morello has been busy as both a political activist and a
musician, including a recent collaboration with Bruce Springsteen and a guest
spot on Linkin Park’s new album “The Hunting Party.” Wilk drummed on Black
Sabbath’s most recent album and the remainder of the band has led a relatively
quiet existence in the past few years……..
- Going into space is kind of a big deal. When a person is
about to venture in the great beyond, they should look good and as unfortunate
as it is, most of the time, space suits look like crap. Built for functionality
rather than form and for substance above style, they neither flatter the wearer
nor make that person look like the boundary-pushing pioneer they truly are. NASA
may no longer be in the business of shooting human beings into space, but it is
still at work on this problem of space fashion. The result is a prototype of a
flashy new spacesuit
that could be similar to those worn by the first people to walk on Mars. The
suit features a hard composite torso and luminescent wires for high visibility
and at this point, the biggest flaw in its game is a truly lame and
unimaginative name: Technology. Technology expected to debut in November and
will include vacuum chamber tests at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to
asses how well it performs in zero-gravity conditions. NASA picked the
Technology design over two other possible winners in a public contest that
included several entries by art design students at Philadelphia University.
When it officially debuts, Technology will replace the Z-1, rolled out in 2012
as the first major overhaul of NASA space gear in about 30 years. There are
legitimate questions about needing to replace a 2-year-old suit in the same way
taxpayers would doubt an NFL owner demanding a new arena 10 years after building
a new one, but NASA is geeked about the chance. “With the agency laser-focused
on a path to Mars, work to develop the technologies astronauts will one day use
to live and work on Mars has already begun,” the said in a statement………
- For those who haven't traveled significantly abroad, the misguided
notion about Europe is that a bunch of attractive people are running around on
nude beaches, being cool and living the dream. That reality rarely plays out in
real life, but it is a common sight on the Spanish resort island of Mallorca,
where the beaches are beautiful and the locals are running short on patience
and tolerance. After years and years of scantily clad tourists bringing their
beach attire to the entire island, the pushback against overexposure has
reached a crescendo. A proposed new law, reportedly close to being enacted,
would ban the wearing of swimwear outside bathing areas in the island's
capital, Palma. Ever mindful of the importance of tourism dollars to their
Mediterranean paradise, city officials insist they have no problem with
visitors going high exposure at the beach, but they are at their breaking point
when it comes to people refusing to cover up once they head into town. "I
do not know of any upscale resort town that allows this practice," Alvaro
Gijon, deputy mayor of Palma, said at a recent press conference. The
anti-semi-nudity law is part of a wider set of measures aimed at tackling what
is seen as anti-social behavior on the island, which draws in plenty of
tourists from both northern Europe and beyond. So far, no specific penalties
have been announced, but speculation has pegged the number at approximately
$800 depending on the severity of the offense. "Ordenanza Civica" --
also known as the "good citizen plan,” states that it'll be forbidden for
anyone to be "naked or nude" in public places or "devoid of
superior clothing." The superior clothing part could be a linguistic
tripping point for foreigners, but the simple idea of putting on a shirt or
sarong when exiting the sandy parts of Mallorca shouldn’t be difficult to grasp……….
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