Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Hong Kong protest quitters, blaming MLB injuries on fake grass and casting "The Walking Dead" spin-off


- The spin-off for “The Walking Dead” many not yet have a title - at least not one that’s not a) temporary and b) totally lame - but its cast is beginning to take shape. British actor Frank Dillane – who played Tom Riddle, a.k.a. Baby Voldemort, in “Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince” – has snagged a spot in the new “Walking Dead” spin-off, which is operating under the working (and terrible) title “Cobalt.” The new show is set in the middle of the same zombie apocalypse as its predecessor, but will take place in a totally different location that is still being overrun by zombies. The spin-off has been co-created by Robert Kirkman, whose graphic novel provides the tale off which “Walking Dead” is based. In addition to Dillane, several other members of the cast have been chosen. The show’s leading male will be a divorced teacher and its lead female will be a guidance counselor and Dillane will play the woman's son. Rising Australian actress Alicia Debnam Carey will play the guidance counselor’s daughter and the two primary roles are being kept under close wraps for now. Ratings remain sky-high for “Walking Dead,” which had its Season 5 premiere in October and drew the largest-ever audience for an episode of a drama in U.S. television history. The pilot for “Cobalt” has already been ordered and is expected to begin shooting soon, but there is no officially announced air date. Expect it to find a home shortly after or before a season of “Walking Dead,” so as to get the maximum chain-smoking effect from the original series’ great success………..


- Does being arrested and hauled off to jail feel slightly less day-ruining if the person doing the apprehending is really, really good-looking? The New York Police Department doesn’t seem to buy into that theory, otherwise they wouldn’t be pursuing possible penalties against several female officers for seductive selfies of themselves they posted on Instagram. The lady officers could be docked vacation days for posting pictures of themselves in their uniforms beside images of themselves in, um, less professional attire. The officers in the crosshairs posted photos to the Instagram account @blueline_beauties, which is “dedicated to law enforcement women” and features photos of female cops from around the United States. The president of the union representing the officers is against any discipline - shocker - because she says the photos merely show what the officers wear in when they’re off the clock. Unfortunately, the NYPD has a policy against officers posting photos of themselves online while in uniform, unless they’re at official ceremonies. According to an NYPD spokesman, this policy is aimed at both protecting officers and maintaining their credibility, which apparently takes precedence over sexiness. There was also a male counterpart to the Instagram feed, @blueline_beefcakes, but both accounts were taken down once the controversy around them boiled up. The odds of anyone who encounters one of the hundreds and hundreds of NYPD officers on the street actually having seen any of these photos and have said photos negatively affect their opinion of the officer in the images are ridiculously low, but props to the NYPD for showing its lack of a sense of humor extends even to its own……….


- Fake playing surfaces in sports have gotten much better over the years and nowhere is that more obvious than Toronto's Rogers Centre, which housed the most odious of all surface choices during its previous incarnation as the Sky Dome. The Sky Dome had old-school artificial turf, which amounted to a very abrasive form of synthetic carpet stretched over a concrete floor. It obliterated knee cartilage, shredded skin and generally made playing any sport a minimum of 50 percent less enjoyable. These days, the Rogers Centre uses Field Turf, just like every other professional sports venue in North America that doesn’t have actual grass. That’s still not good enough, according to the guy who just got done manning third base for the Toronto Blue Jays as he was traded to Oakland. New Oakland Athletics third baseman Brett Lawrie has his own theory about why he’s missed a robust 184 games since the start of the 2012 season. "It treats my body kind of silly and throws it off," Lawrie said of the artificial turf. "I just want to go out and be healthy, and I feel like this getting off the turf is a big step forward for me." Sure, because the only reason you played just 70 games last season, with only one at-bat after June 22 and sustained a broken finger and an oblique strain isn’t because freak injuries happen in sports or because you might be a bit brittle, but rather because the turf on which you played 81 home games was mean to you. Lawrie hit .247 for the season with just 12 home runs and 38 RBIs, but believes big things are in store for him in California. "Give me 550 at-bats. These are things I haven't had yet in the big leagues," Lawrie said. "Hopefully, getting off that turf will do my body wonders, and I really think that it will. "[Injuries] are part of the game, and I've come to grips with that. Really? Because it doesn’t sound like you have……….


- Say it ain’t so, three founders of Hong Kong’s protest movement who are now waiving the white flag and cowering in the corner rather than continue their nation’s violent push for long-overdue democratic reforms. Yet there were professors Benny Tai Yiu-ting and Chan Kin-man and pastor Chu Yiu-ming, calling for an end to street demonstrations to prevent further violence and to take the campaign for democratic reforms to a new stage. Yeah, a new stage of lameness, yo. All three men have decided that now is the time to surrender to police to take responsibility for protests that have shut down parts of the Asian financial center for more than two months. Unless responsibility is a bizarre synonym for credit in this case, none of these men should be apologizing for anything. Yes, they want to keep chasing democratic reform, but through lame means like networking among civic groups, community organizing and education in democracy and human rights. Booooorrrrrring. Guys, you three are founders of the Occupy Central movement to force China's central government to scrap its requirement that candidates for the semiautonomous region's chief executive be approved by a panel chosen by Beijing and while that’s a wordy way of saying China controls your government, it’s also total bullsh*t. The good news is that the surrendering trio represent only one faction of demonstrators, most of whom are students, and even their followers aren’t bound to accede to the leaders’ request. Joshua Wong, a prominent student leader, said he and two other members of his group plan to continue their hunger strike. "We admit that it's difficult in the future to have an escalated action, so besides suffering from batons and tear gas, we would like to use our bodies to direct public attention to the issue," Wong said. Meanwhile, the supposed leaders Wong has been marching behind were serving up weak sauce platitudes like their surrender serving as a "silent denunciation of a heartless government." Sounds like it’s time for new management here………

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