- Two months ago, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison was enjoying life after football,
possibly by going down to the local park and looking to concuss total strangers
with blindside hits just for the hell of it. But the Steelers coaxed the 36-year-old
out of retirement and on Sunday night, he stepped back into one of the
hardest-hitting rivalries in the NFL when the Steelers took on the Baltimore
Ravens. As usual, there were scores of hard hits, but one made more waves than
the rest and it had the loquacious Harrison pointing fingers and throwing
around accusations like nobody’s business in the aftermath. Harrison, who has
made a career out of dirty hits and borderline felony assaults on the field, blasted
Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs for a hit from behind on Steelers running back LeGarrette
Blount, saying it appeared that Suggs was trying to injure Blount. It’s a
comment worth considering because if anyone knows what a hit intended to injure
its target looks like, it’s Harrison. "That was unnecessary,"
Harrison said after the Steelers powered on for a 43-23 victory.
"That looks like you're trying to hurt somebody. I believe there will be a
fine.” The hit came in the third quarter, when Suggs arrived late and delivered
a low shot on Blount. He didn't hit Blount's knees but did receive a 15-yard
penalty for unnecessary roughness. Harrison, who has amassed fines of more than
$100,000 in his career and was suspended for a game in 2011 for repeat
violations of a rule that prohibits helmet-to-helmet hits and unnecessary
roughness. "I don't know what [Suggs] was doing," Blount said.
"I don't know what he was thinking. He's known to be a dirty player.” Ravens
coach John Harbaugh rallied to his guy’s defense, calling Suggs “a very
respected player in this league” and said the linebacker was merely trying to
get Blount to the ground. Sure thing, all……………………
- How many times have you seen a billboard by the side of
the road, totally ignored its message because who the hell cares about
billboards anyhow, but thought, “Man, that’s a place where we could totally
stick a person who has nowhere else to live?” Thankfully, there are men like Michal
Polacek around to take these nebulous idea and turn them into realistic plans
that better the world. Polacek has come up with “Project Gregory” would create
wooden billboard structures fitted with noise and thermal insulation as a
source of housing for the homeless. These makeshift homes would have two rooms,
one with a table, bed and two chairs and the other a bathroom with a toilet,
sink and shower -- all in less than 200 square feet. This all grew out of
Polacek’s master's dissertation at the Academy of Art in Banksa Bystrica,
Slovakia, about three years ago. Because he doesn’t speak English, he enlisted
the help of Matej Nedorolík to assist with communications and together, the duo
runs their own architecture and design firm. Like anyone who has a good idea
but little money, they decided to capitalize on their concept using a
crowdfunding website. Project Gregory launched as a Kickstarter campaign to
raise 41,000 euros (roughly $50,000) to build a prototype for the billboard
homes and the goal is building the prototype by next spring. From there, 10
homes would be built in Slovakia and advertising on the homes would go for 150
euros a month, according to the project's Kickstarter page. The structures
would be connected to the nearest city’s water and electricity grids and because
billboards are wired to stay lit at night, they'd be able to optimize energy
use. "We'd like to spread it to other countries," Nedorolík said.
"The whole idea is that after [the funding is raised], the project will be
able to develop itself." With 4 million people homeless across the
European Union, it’s an idea worth chasing, even if the companies Nedorolík and
Polacek initially contacted about investing selfishly passed on the idea………
- You may not know who Swedish rockers Refused are, but you
should care that they’ve given one of their members the boot. Why should you
care? Because not many bands fire one of their members and then have said
member go on a social media rampage in which he or she lays the remaining
members of the group out and proceeds to throw them under the bus, back the bus
up over them and run them over a second time. Enter former Refused axe man Jon Brännström,
who broke the news that he was out as lead guitarist on Saturday with a
scathing message on the band’s own Facebook page in which he says he was not
given a reason for his firing and that he no longer considers the band members
his friends. By the way, did anyone consider changing the password on the
official band Facebook page once Brännström was fired? Ya know, in case he was
a disgruntled rock star who wanted to excoriate his former friends for all the
world to see. "I was fired from Refused a while ago. I wasn't given a
reasonable explanation and wasn't even invited to sit down and talk about it,
so I'm not completely sure why they decided to go on without me,” Brännström
wrote in his post. "We've always been better at punk rock than democratic
processes and dealing with conflicts, so I guess I'm not too surprised it went
down like this. Quite sad indeed, but perhaps it's all for the best.” Brännström
then took a passive aggressive swipe at the band by noting that he has
"always been more interested in writing music than reproducing it"
and that he "used to be proud to call these people my friends."
Rather than do the obvious and simply delete Brännström’s harsh words, the band
tried a carefully worded, bullsh*t diplomatic statement that read: "Any
collective effort will have its ups and downs, and when people really pour
their hearts into something, things get complicated. We cut ties with Jon
already in 2013 because he did not share our passion for the band. We don't
know why he decided to emit this narrative on Facebook or why he did it now,
instead of just calling one of us up, but we wish him the best in his future
endeavors." How’s about everyone stop being polite and start
getting real……….
- America, we’ve come to a dark place, a world wherein we
can no longer safely mail frijoles
saltarines to one another and be confident that low-level government employees
will leave them alone. Frijoles saltarines, for the record, are Mexican jumping beans. They’re what was inside a “ticking”
package a U.S. Postal worker delivering mail in Carlsbad, Calif. reported to
authorities. The drama began with a package that appeared normal, but could
have been a merchant of death and therefore, several homes were evacuated and
residents were warned to stay away as investigators blocked off the 3600 block
of Glen Avenue around 3:20 p.m. The San Diego Sheriff’s Bomb and Arson
Unit was called to the scene and using their years of incendiary device
expertise, they took a mere three freaking hours to determine that the package
was safe and could be opened. Once the package was pried open, police found the
beans, which are actually pods with larva of a small moth inside. When they heat
up, the pods move. This entire incident should be a bad joke, but maybe it’s
just the impetus the USPS needs to add an entry to its list of items that a
person cannot mail, right alongside any actual bombs or bomb-related materials,
weapons and other hazardous items including chemicals. Just scrawl Mexican
jumping beans on the list and make sure that all of your employees receive
proper training to handle such terrifying items. They could be the ones to help
avert these sort of non-disasters in the future……….
No comments:
Post a Comment