- There could not be a better place for a massive freight
truck accident to happen. The city that is just emerging from bankruptcy and
still inhabited by the poorest big-city populace anywhere in the civilized
world is the ideal setting for a semi-truck to overturn and spill hundreds of
boxes of food scattering across a frigid highway. That was the scene along a stretch of I-75 in
southwest Detroit that was closed for hours as crews cleaned up an early
morning accident that decked the highway in piles of frozen meat product. The
accident occurred around 1:30 a.m. on northbound I-75 just past the I-96
interchange as the truck, loaded with hundreds of cases of frozen chicken
wings, apparently lost control and crashed into the median wall. There is the
chance that starving Detroiters made it look like an accident when they
launched a hunger-inspired assault on the truck, but either way, when the truck
hit the median, the wings went flying all over the road. The truck ended up
impaled on the concrete median in such an gnarly position that emergency crews
literally had to bring in a saw to cut out part of its floor in order to lift
the trailer off the median. According to authorities, cleaning the crash site and
restoring traffic flow took longer than expected because crews had to offload
the chicken wings before the vehicle could be removed from the scene. Did
anyone check if those crews were legit, or merely impoverished Detroit
residents posing as emergency workers to score free wings? Either way, traffic
was diverted for a few hours before the affected stretch of road reopened and
the impromptu free wing buffet closed……….
- Which band logged the most miles and stage time in 2014? That
would be the British quartet known as The 1975, who have been named as
the hardest-working band of 2014, beating out fellow up-and-comers Jake Bugg,
Future Islands and Bombay Bicycle Club. The rankings were compiled using data
from Songkick and they show that The 1975 earned their title by playing more
shows and covering more ground within the calendar year than any other band.
This should surprise no one, as the band has played more shows and traveled
more miles than any other act since the rankings began in 2010. Hailing from
Manchester, The 1975 played 195 shows this year in 29 countries, averaging a
gig every 1.8 days. Those shows took them down 155,000 miles of road, which
equals a trip two-thirds of the way to the moon and amounts to six laps of
Earth. Their closest rival historically was Foster The People, who played 189
shows in 2011 and covered less than 154,000 miles. "Touring this past year
has been a really humbling experience. Our album was pretty much the story of
the last decade of our lives, to see so many people around the world connecting
with it has been incredible,” the band said in a statement regarding the honor.
“We are very proud of our fans, they really understand what we are doing and
the shows are an extension of that feeling." The last part of that
statement is ironic given that The 1975 were forced to interrupt their secret
set at Glastonbury Festival after a fan threw a can onstage. "Ladies and
gentleman I'm sorry to disrupt your peaceful Glastonbury but someone just threw
a can onstage," frontman Matthew Healy told the crowd mid-way through the
set. "I won't have people fighting at my Glastonbury.” Well said, Matty………
- China really is trying to take over the world. If those
rights-trampling Communist assholes are snagging deals to construct a high-speed train
link between Serbian and Hungarian capitals, then you know they’re damn serious
about global domination. The proposed high-speed rail line would cut travel
time between Belgrade and Budapest from eight to less than three hours and as
bitchin’ as European train trips tend to be, slicing five hours off a long
journey is a great achievement. The 250-mile railway is merely one cog in China's
ambitious plans to speed up the delivery of its exports to central Europe
through Greece's port of Piraeus. In other words, China isn't doing this because
it loves Serbians and Hungarians and hates the idea of them having to suffer
through an eight-hour train trek to move from one capital to another; its
motives are as greedy and capitalist as possible. Regardless of its motives,
the Belgrade-Budapest line is to be completed by mid-2017. Chinese Prime
Minister Li Keqiang attended the signing of rail and customs documents
Wednesday by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and his Hungarian
counterpart Viktor Orban in the festive atmosphere of an economic summit in
Belgrade between China and 16 central and eastern European states. These are
nations that don’t spend nearly enough time hanging out together in über-formal,
uptight settings, so it was nice to see……….
- Tiger Woods is no longer one of the best golfers in the
world. It’s about time he started looking at a life post-glory and finds his
next move for when he hangs up his spikes and turns in disappointing rounds
full of spewed profanities and slammed clubs only for fun. In that vein, Woods
has officially opened the first golf course he designed, capping a process that has been eight years in the making.
The course, on the Baja California peninsula, was one of several courses the
former No. 1 player in the world laid out for his Tiger Woods Design group that
he launched in 2006. None came to fruition until he hit the opening tee shot
and played 18 holes at El Cardonal, part of a five-year-old development called
Diamante that already has a Davis Love III designed-course on the property.
Woods is also in the process of building a second course, dubbed “The Oasis,”
at Diamante, and maybe this one will actually happen unlike projects in Dubai,
North Carolina and Mexico. "We knew this day would come," Woods said
to more than 300 Diamante members who paid to attend the opening. "We as a
design team probably didn't think it would come outside of the United States.
North Carolina didn't work out, then Dubai, then the economy. You want to have
a first some time. To do something that I think where people will find a
different experience." Actually Tiger, we didn’t all know this day would
come. For all we knew, it would be like that supposed 15th career major win
that many thought was inevitable after you returned from bouncing your SUV off
a tree and fire hydrant while fleeing your now-ex-wife on Thanksgiving night
six years ago…i.e. it would be teased, but never happen. The new course is
par-72 and stretches out to 7,300 yards, flanked by pricey domiciles and frequent
views of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding dunes. For Woods, the event also
showed he was past the flu that waylaid him in a terrible performance at the
recent Hero World Challenge. It also gave him a glimpse into his professional
future……….
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