Friday, May 30, 2014

Thai protest smackdowns, NFL QB's b*tch-slapped by punters and Marilyn Manson on "Sons of Anarchy"


- Charlie Whitehurst, give back your Clipboard Jesus moniker immediately. You can no longer rock any sort of cool handle after what went down this week during the Tennessee Titans’ organized team activities. Whitehurst, the former star Clemson quarterback-turned-career NFL backup, is now wearing Titans blue and red and is with his third NFL team in eight seasons. Like many players who join a new team, Whitehurst is partial to a certain uniform number and as so often happens in such cases, someone on his new team already has that number. A player who wants to pry a certain digit away from a new teammate must negotiate a fair price and then pony up some combination of cash and benefits that will satisfy the number’s current owner. Whitehurst found a way around paying out when it came to getting jersey No. 6 away from punter Brett Kern… but he still won't be wearing the number he has had on every team on which he has played since his college days. That’s because, as Whitehurst revealed via Instagram, he tried and failed to win No. 6 away from Kern in none other than am arm wrestling contest. A quarterback should never challenge a punter to an arm wrestling contest because neither winning or losing gains him anything worthwhile, but if you’re going to challenge the guy whose job it is to dropkick the ball away six times a game and not get trucked during the ensuing return, then you cannot lose. Whitehurst did exactly that and getting owned on some card table in the locker room by Kern is far worse than appearing in just 13 NFL games in eight seasons and average less than half a touchdown pass per season. If the Titans don’t cut Whitehurst on the spot, then they’re sending a bad message to their entire team……….


- You’ve done it again, Guinness Book of World Records. You have inspired another ass-hatted fool with no discernable skills capable of actually benefitting humanity to attempt a truly pointless feat just to secure a spot in your silly, silly pages. The latest kook to attempt a stunt along the lines of collecting the world’s largest ball of rubber bands or dancing backward to “Who Let the Dogs Out” for 48 straight hours is Plymouth, Mass. resident Matt Kenny, who saw a worthless world record he knew he could beat while accomplishing nothing of significance and thought to himself, “Dammit, now THAT is something I need to try.” And so it is that Kenny and his unique way of walking vaulted onto the world stage. “When I was a kid I always wanted to get in to the Guinness Book of World Records,” Kenny said. We all had moronic ideas and dreams as kids, Kenny, but we got past the idea of eating cereal for every meal and living on the moon with our best friends in a treehouse made of cheese. The record Kenny targeted was for the fastest inverted 50-yard dash. But Kenny knew reaching world-class status would take time and so he spent years practicing and honing his craft. He practiced through college and he turned 29, he finally broke the worthless record he had been chasing for so long. As the years went by, Kenny got married and started a family. Eventually, he realized that all his children knew of his feeble feat was the plaque and pictures they had seen. That inspired him to try for a second world record, this time walking down a set of stairs on his hands. He practiced for half an hour every day and when the time was right, he hand-sprinted down 77 stairs in a mere 30 seconds, setting a second world record in his life. “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not big enough, smart enough, fast enough, strong enough to do something. Because if you work at something, you can do it,” he said. Here’s hoping zeroes and zeroes more morons are inspired by your words, Matthew………


- It’s nice to see Marilyn Manson still has something to do and a role for himself that so well suits his talents. Manson, best known as an anti-religious shock rocker who grew up going to a Christian school in Ohio, has landed himself a respectable gig as a white supremacist on FX’s hit biker drama “Sons of Anarchy.” Venturing into acting is not new territory for Manson, who has previously appeared in popular cable dramas “Eastbound & Down” and Californication. Manson has also appeared in a number of films, including “Lost Highway” and “Party Monster,” and recently contributed a new song, entitled “Cupid Carries A Gun,” to the soundtrack of drama series Salem. In actuality, he has somehow morphed into a pop culture figure who is less known for tearing up Bibles on stage and more known for buddying around with A-listers and growing into a caricature of his old self. His “Anarchy” role will be that of Ron Tully, a powerful figure in prison who has a recurring role on the show. "‘Sons’ has been such a big part of my life, as well as my father's, so I was determined to make him proud by being involved in what will probably be remembered as the most amazing piece of television cinema,” Manson said in a statement. “After all, the very heart of SOA is about that relationship. So, now all I need is a motorcycle.” One would guess that finding a suitable hog for Manson shouldn’t be difficult and those looking forward to the seventh season of the critically acclaimed show have another reason to be curious about what lies ahead………


- Does Skype “Hablo Espanol” and “Sprechen Sie Deutsch” for its friends around the world? Not yet, but maybe soon… very soon. After Microsoft’s presentation this week at the inaugural Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, Calif., the world just might be a step closer to a universal translator that users around the globe have been hankering for. Microsoft announced plans to introduce real-time language translation on its popular video conferencing platform later this year and at the conference, a company presenter demoed Skype Translator with a real-time translation of an audio conversation from English to German and German to English. Obviously, German to English and vice versa is one of the simpler translations, but successful implementation of this new feature would clear the way for individuals from around the planet to communicate openly without them having to go through the pain and travails of spending years actually learning someone else’s language – perfect for lazy Americans who expect everyone else to know English in order to accommodate their unlearned asses. Obviously, the business applications alone would be extremely lucrative, all joking aside. This new feature is the result of a decade’s worth of development and it functions using Bing translation and voice recognition software for the Kinect. Gurdeep Pall, corporate vice president of Skype and Lync at Microsoft, explained that his team drew dork-tastic inspiration for the Universal Translator from Star Trek and will offer testing for their new gizmo as a Windows 8 beta before moving to other platforms like smartphones and tablets……..


- Oh no, you didn’t, ruling Thai military junta. You cannot tell the people that if they don’t like your violent coup to seize control of their country that they can f*ck off and stay home. Yet that is exactly what the powers that be have done in Thailand, where more than 1,000 troops and police sealed off one of Bangkok's busiest intersections to prevent a planned protest,  throwing down the gauntlet against any demonstrations against last week's military coup. In a ridiculous show of force, truckloads of soldiers blocked all incoming roads to the capital's Victory Monument at the height of evening rush hour in an area that serves as one of the city's commuter bus hubs. To show they were serious, security forces parked more than a dozen police prisoner trucks along the emptied roundabout, taunting anyone who would show up and stand up for their rights to dissent. Maybe protestors were lurking in the shadows, formulating their next plan to show defiance against an ongoing ban on political gatherings. Interestingly enough, the first person detained on the day was a Belgian man taken into custody for wearing a truly heinous T-shirt with the message, “PEACE PLEASE.” Two Thai women were hauled away after they showed signs with anti-coup messages, continuing a trend of small demonstrations in the aftermath of the ban being put in place. However, a planned gathering Thursday didn’t materialize and the fate of a mass rally scheduled for Sunday is now in doubt. Gen. Somyot Poompanmoung, the deputy national police chief, ass-hattedly declared that small protests would no longer be allowed. "We know their rally is mainly for symbolic reasons, but it's against the law," he said. "We have to keep the law sacred." Wrong answer, Somyot. He warned that police are ready should protestors take a new approach and here’s hoping they do, because the sh*t needs to get real, real fast. This fight is light years from over………

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