- The Oakland Athletics have been in a bit of a free fall
of late. Despite swinging two major trades to land front-end starters for their
rotation, they are clinging to a one-game lead in the AL West, barely
ahead of the hard-charging Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Near Garden Grove.
Taking on loads of salary and breaking their small-market mold and missing the
playoffs would be catastrophic for the A’s, so their players can be forgiven
for their desperation when it comes to seeking possible kick starters for their
stumbling season. One such burst of good luck may have come to light Monday
night in a 3-2, 10-inning triumph over Tampa Bay. No, not Derek Norris' heroic
bases-loaded hit with two outs in the 10th inning that delivered the win. That
was swell, but the real takeaway from the game was the presence of a possum
that briefly wandered into left field along the warning track in the bottom of
the 10th. Pitcher Jeff Samardzija, one of the pitchers the A’s traded for last
month, said he wanted to take the possum and give it a much bigger role with
the team. "He's been out here before," Samardzija said after the
game. "He was out when we were warming up before a few times." Norris
had his own theory about the rally possum, suggesting that its presence on the
field might be directly linked to the Oakland Coliseum's recent sewage challenges.
"I thought it was a really large
rat," Norris said. "Which would fit perfectly with the ways things
have kind of shaped up the last few years." The possum eventually
meandered off the field and back into the stadium’s underground, after which
the home team loaded the bases and walked off with the win on Norris’ hit. "We're
going to have to give him a name, get him a jersey," Samardzija said of
the possum. "We've got to keep feeding him." It’s one of life’s rules
that you never feed the animals – unless they’re a good luck charm for a team
chasing a pennant……..
- Wine aficionados are not the sort of people who tend to
engender loads of sympathy. That makes the just-concluded case of wine
swindler Rudy Kurniawan so complicated. Kurniawan was sentenced to 10 years in
prison Thursday for what prosecutors called a "grand con" involving
more than $20 million of counterfeit rare vintages sold to wealthy oenophiles
in a case where there simply are no winners. Prior to his conviction, Kurniawan
was one of the world's most prolific wine collectors. As it turns out, his act
was a sham and he sat emotionless as U.S. District Judge Richard Berman called
his crimes "a bold, grandiose, unscrupulous but destined-to-fail con"
in federal court in Manhattan. "Just want to say I'm really sorry," Kurniawan
said with no conviction (pun intended) before the sentence was read. The
sentencing came after he was convicted in December of two counts of mail fraud.
He was initially arrested 2 1/2 years ago and will receive credit for time
served, but must pay $28.4 million in restitution to his seven victims and
forfeit an additional $20 million as punishment. His attorney wisely noted that
all of Kurniawan's victims were wealthy wine enthusiasts whose lifestyles
weren't affected by his misdeeds and as everyone knows, if the people you rip
off are so rich they won't miss a few hundred thousand dollars in their bank
account, then there really is no crime. That doesn’t mean onlookers can’t laugh
at the excess and wastefulness of one victim spending $231,000 on a single
bottle of wine, so there is good news here. Also hilarious is Kurniawan’s
attorney arguing in court that his client has already "lost what's most
important, which is his reputation." Nice try, counselor, just not enough
to overcome prosecutor Stanley Okula’s argument the law makes no allowance to reduce
a sentence because the victims are wealthy. "Your honor, fraud is
fraud," Okula said. All in all, a story that makes the working people of
America shake their heads and get drunk to forget the idiocy………
- David Brent is coming back to life. The character made
famous in the original, British version of the hit comedy “The Office” inspired
the less-successful American take on the show and now, the man who made Brent a
household name is bringing him to the big screen. Ricky Gervais, with backing
by BBC Films, will turn Brent’s pathetic life story into a movie after more
than a decade away. The mockumentary will be called “Life on the Road” and the
resurrection of Brent comes after Gervais brought him to the stage for recent one-off
appearances on Comic Relief and
a series of spoof guitar tutorials on YouTube. "He’s a sales rep now,
selling cleaning products up and down the country, but has never really given
up on his dream of being a rock star,” BBC films said in a release. The film
will follow Brent's self-funded U.K. tour, with movie goers seeing a delusional
character who believes his documentary will be remembered like "Scorcese
shooting The Rolling Stones." According to the BBC release, Brent ends up
having to “cash in a couple of pensions because the session musicians in the
band are costing him more than he’s getting in ticket sales.” It will begin
shooting next year and to lead into it, Gervais recently performed in character
as Brent with his band Foregone Conclusion, cranking out a series of his
supposed “hits” from “The Office” while also introducing fake fans to some new
material as well. Factor in Gervais’ trademark snarky, in-your-face humor and
this is a mockumentary that may not win any awards, but should be an hilarious
experience for anyone who enjoys a good burst of confrontational comedy in
their day………
- Dammit, Brazilian police. A paramilitary militia group goes to all the
trouble of training, recruiting new members and pretending to be a real army,
only to have you come busting in and arrest more than 20 of its alleged
members. Inspector Alexandre Capote saidThursday that police have
"dismantled Rio's largest militia group” and he seemed mighty proud of the
arrests, claiming that the group forced residents in Rio's lower middle-class
district of Campo Grande to pay monthly fees for protection against drug gangs
and for services like illegal cable television connections. That might seem
like racketeering and general criminal scum-bagginess in a place where so many
people are impoverished and have a difficult time merely feeding themselves and
their families on a daily basis, but the reality of life is that the strong exploit
the week and if the strong have guns and delusions of military grandeur, their
exploitation is even bigger. According to police, the group tortured and
murdered those who didn’t pay and while eventually they may have run out of
people to kill, police were not willing to wait that long. The group allegedly
raked in more than $450,000 a month and while The Man is patting himself on the
back for shutting down this militia group, the reality is that there are many
more militias operating in many of Rio's slums, made up of active and former
police, firefighters, private security and off-duty prison guards. It’s a
bigger fight than most realize and one that won't be won any time soon……..
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