- Somewhere, Ron Burgundy is beaming with pride and chugging
from a gallon jug of milk. America’s oldest warship currently floating on
a body of water will go into dry dock next month at the Charlestown Navy Yard
in Boston, but not everyone can make a trip east to see the boat. Thankfully, Google
Maps and the U.S. Navy have teamed up to
allow anyone with Internet access to digitally visit the USS Constitution. After
offending locals in every corner of the world with its mapping project to cover
every street, nook and cranny on the globe, the search giant has made it
possible for people to tour above and below deck on “Old Ironsides,” the
still-commissioned Navy warship that made a name for itself in campaigns
against the French, North African pirates and the British. Cmdr. Sean Kearns,
commander of the historic ship, noted that the project comes just ahead of
planned restoration work on the ship. “It enabled Google to photograph the ship
pierside in her normal fully-rigged configuration before we down-rig the ship
and move her into dry dock for restoration work,” Kearns said in a statement. The
captain and crew are Navy officers, sailors and Marines and their vessel will
see a major overhaul that inlcudes replacing the vessel’s copper siding and
making major restorations to the hull, interior and stern. The Constitution was
constructed at a private ship yard at Boston’s North End and launched way back
in 1797, posting battle victories against France, Arab pirates and the British
and earning the nickname Old Ironsides during a battle with the HMS Guerriere
after British cannon shot simply bounced off its 21-inch hull. Some 500,000
people visit the ship annually, according to the Navy, and it remains part of
the Freedom Trail, a list of monuments and historic sites related to the
Revolutionary War and the early years of the republic. It also takes part in
one cruise a year, including a demonstration that includes a gun drill. Now,
one need not be at the harbor for the cruise to see the ship in all its glory……….
- If you were among those anxiously awaiting the day one
half of Daft Punk partnered with Mike Tyson, feel free to high-five your
nearest friend and celebrate the realization of a truly pathetic dream. Daft Punk helmet
head Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo has penned music for “Gates Of The Sun,” an upcoming Algerian film whose cast includes
Tyson. De Homem-Christo wrote the music for the film with Eric Chedeville, his
partner at the Crydamoure record label as well as the late '90s and early '00s
musical act Le Knight Club. "Guy-Man has made music in this film.
Initially it had to be for a fight scene with Mike Tyson, but now it's the
final scene inside a club,” Chedeville said. “It should not exceed two minutes,
I think. At least 80 percent of the soundtrack was made by the two composers,
Matteodo Patrick and Jean-Jacques Ipino." In typical Daft punk, elusive
and pompous asshole fashion, the music will not be under the heading of Guy-Manuel
De Homem-Christo, but rather Knight Club. De Homem-Christo is a close friend of
the film’s director and clearly has plenty of time between polishing his
purposeless helmet and acting like a super-cool French prick to work on the
soundtrack for a movie in which “an Algerian secret agent has to destroy an
undercover paramilitary organization that plans to strike against the country
and its people." If this work is anything like every last song or album
Daft Punk release, it will be wildly overrated and turned into a critical
darling without any justifiable cause, even if the philosophical awesomeness of
known pigeon trainer Tyson is attached to it………..
- China’s crusade against opposition voices is a bunch of
crap. It became that long ago, but the message was emphatically reinforced when
Chinese authorities seized about 8,000 rolls of toilet paper
printed with the image of Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing chief executive, Leung
Chun-ying. An official with the Hong Kong Democratic Party confirmed the
hygiene product seizure, saying police seized the toilet paper and another
20,000 packages of tissue paper from a factory in the Chinese city of Shenzhen.
The entire situation is so bizarre and sketchy, starting with a friend of the
HKPD placing the order so as to obscure the identity of the actual buyer, with
the hope of preventing exactly what happened. The idea of having someone you don’t
like’s face printed on rolls of toilet paper screams of a fraternity prank or
getting revenge on some dude who stole your girlfriend, but instead it’s
happening on a national level and there are police and major political party
officials involved in the mess. As one would expect, Lo Kin-hei, a vice
chairman of the liberal party, confirmed that Chinese officials gave no reason
for the seizure of the rolls, which were to be sold as a surefire high-demand
item during Chinese New Year's later this month. A TP seizure falls right in
line with Beijing’s recent uptick in intolerance on pro-democracy
demonstrations against Leung in Hong Kong, raising the question of which
bathroom or personal care product China will be taking possession of next in
its hopes of silencing anyone who dares to speak out against its über-oppressive
methods of governance………
- Major League Baseball wants to be wooed. Like a woman
who’s holding out for flowers, candy and a better dinner reservation than
Applebee’s on a Saturday night, MLB wants possible host cities for its annual
meaningless exhibition it attempts to infuse with artificial significance,
a.k.a. the All-Star Game, to bid for
the right to hold the contest. New commissioner Rob Manfred said MLB intends to
stop awarding the by alternating leagues and will move toward a Super Bowl-type
bidding process beginning with the 2017 game, as the 2016 game has already been
awarded to San Diego. Baseball has historically been slow to accept change – hi
there, instant replay! – and this alteration would change a practice that has
been in place for the last 82 years, in which All-Star Games were generally
awarded by alternating National League and American League cities. Outgoing
commissioner Bud Selig said he was in favor of continuing to alternate leagues,
but the old man is gone and Manfred is in charge now. He didn’t lay out how the
bidding process would work, but said future All-Star Game hosts will be chosen
in the future based on the merits of the city and ballpark, as well as which
franchise and city can produce the best "All-Star experience." The
process does have its tangles, specifically past promises made by Selig about
who would get to host a game. Those teams, including the Miami Marlins and
Washington Nationals, are expected to still have their chance to host, but
beyond that, it’s time to throw open the doors, let the bribes (allegedly) flow
and see if we can turn this thing into a morass of moral depravity on par with
the Olympics and World Cup………..
No comments:
Post a Comment