- Is less NBA a good thing? The Association is going to give
it a try on Sunday and use the Brooklyn
Nets and Boston Celtics as its guinea pigs. The plan is to evaluate if a shorter
game could be a better one by playing a 44-minute preseason game as the league
tests a format that features fewer minutes and fewer mandatory timeouts. As one
might expect with four fewer minutes than the standard 48 and four quarters in
an NBA game, the preseason game will feature four 11-minute quarters, one
minute shorter than normal. What’s interesting is that the concept for the
shorter game came from a suggestion by coaches to tighten up the games. Using a
preseason matchup at Barclays Center to examine if the shorter model flows
better is a safe zone in which to experiment and no long-term changes are
currently being considered, so the paradigm isn't about to be reinvented just
yet. Shorter games in theory would be one way to keep players healthier without
the über-greedy owners having to do the unthinkable and surrender any games
from the league’s current 82-game slate. "At our recent coaches' meeting,
we had a discussion about the length of our games, and it was suggested that we
consider experimenting with a shorter format," Rod Thorn, the NBA's
president of basketball operations, said in a statement. "After consulting
with our Competition Committee, we agreed to allow the Nets and Celtics to play
a 44-minute preseason game in order to give us some preliminary data that will
help us to further analyze game-time lengths." In the overhauled
exhibition game, there will be two mandatory timeouts per quarter instead of
the standard three in a typical NBA quarter. "I'm looking forward to
gauging its impact on the flow of the game. Since there is a shorter clock, it
affects playing time, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays into
substitution patterns," Nets coach Lionel Hollins said. Wonder how fans
will feel about four fewer minutes of their favorite stars…………
- Life is a harsh b*tch. Justin and Amanda Jarzynka were bound to
find that out at some point, but the newlyweds simply stumbled into it sooner
than expected. The couple united in holy matrimony over the weekend and before
leaving Omaha for their honeymoon, they headed to their hotel, the Comfort Inn
at 72nd and Grover streets. That’s also where they made the fatal mistake of
packing Amanda Jarzynka 's F-250 Super Duty truck with their wedding gifts,
gown and tuxedo. Shockingly, in an area where there have been 23 crimes in the
last month within a one-mile radius, someone jacked their ride and made off
with their wedding goodies. "It's a violation. It's your privacy. It's
people that want to wish you well for your life and how tell you how special
your marriage is and how they want all these great things for you and this is
how it starts," Amanda Jarzynka said. "So it had all of our cards
from everyone. You know well wishes, happy marriage and all this and that and
everyone's beautiful things that they had to say and we'll never know what they
had to say.” Yes, because you can't just call them up and ask them what they
had to say, because that sort of technology just doesn’t exist yet. The good
news is that the truck was found less than 24 hours after it was stolen, left
less than two miles from Amanda Jarzynka’s home. The bad news is that the
gifts, dress and tuxedo were gone. Police were able to determine that the thief
or thieves used a screwdriver to jam into the ignition and start the truck and
drive it away before cleaning out the interior and leaving behind nothing more
than a Walmart receipt. The thief also made off with all of the cash from the
wedding, meaning anyone who paid money to dance with the bride and groom could
have spent their cash at the bar and had just as much of a monetary impact on
the happy couple……….
- Robert Downey Jr. is almost there. The bombastic A-lister is
reportedly close to signing a deal with Marvel Studios to appear alongside
Chris Evans in “Captain America 3.”
As fanboys already know, the film will co-opt the Civil War storyline from the
Marvel comic books, pitting Downey’s Tony Stark against Evans’ Captain America
(a.k.a. Steve Rogers) on opposing sides of the Superhero Registration Act, which
forces anyone with superhuman abilities to reveal their identities to the U.S.
government and agree to act as a police force for the authorities. In the Civil
War story, Stark supports the initiative while Rogers argues that it threatens
civil liberties and is forced to go on the run to avoid arrest. In some senses,
the plot could definitely make Tony Stark a sort of villain in the story while
simultaneously allowing for the introduction of a long list of new heroes to
the Marvel movie universe in order to begin the phasing out of Downey, Scarlett
Johansson and their peers. Downey is on record as saying that he would not return for “Iron Man 4” and thinks
superhero movies were getting "a little bit old.” Making $50 million for a
movie, as he did for “Iron Man 3,” probably helps alleviate that feeling, as it
will certainly do when “Captain America 3” begins shooting next spring with the
targeted release time frame of April 2016. Oh, and Downey is a long way from
being done as Tony Stark, as he will also play the part in next year’s “The Avengers: Age of Ultron,” in
cinemas in April 2015………….
- Who’s ready to head to the polls on Oct.
26 to elect a new parliament and complete your nation’s transition to
democracy, Tunisia? If you’re not ready yet, maybe this will fire you up to
take your life into your own hands and head out to the nearest voting center
with the aim of choosing your elected leaders AND making it home alive. It’s
tough not to be fired up after Tunisia's Interior Ministry revealed that an
assassination plot against a top politician has been foiled and 12 people
arrested in the latest twist of a chaotic process that has seen Tunisia fight –
and lose to - al-Qaida linked extremists that have already assassinated two
politicians and killed dozens of soldiers. Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali
Aroui said the plot involved plans of a car bomb and while the entirety of the
conspiracy is still being determined, those arrested included a woman,
identified as Fatma Zouaghi, who allegedly had financed the plot and was
running the media arms of the banned Ansar al-Sharia militant group. The
government did not reveal the target of the bomb plot, but on Sunday, liberal
politician Ahmed Nejib Chebbi said on TV that he had been informed by police he
was the target of a foiled car bomb plot. No country makes the transition to
democracy without some bloodshed, but the combustible nature of this process
has to have many Tunisians wondering if it’s worth it to risk being shot, blown
up or otherwise maimed all in the name of picking leaders who probably won't represent
the will of the people anyhow……….
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