- Congrats to the Southern
and Texas Southern women’s basketball teams. Before this weekend, no one knew
who any of you were or cared the least bit about your season finale to decide
the Southwest Conference women's basketball regular-season title. Now, the
whole world knows about you and is looking in your direction, even if it’s for
all of the wrong reasons. These two bastions of competitive integrity were
battling for the SWAC crown in an intense game when the sh*t hit the ceiling in
a big way. With Southern leading 51-49, Texas Southern's Miracle Davis took a
charge and what happened from there is the stuff of legends. "I just saw
two kids standing up looking at each other and someone else push and
yell," Southern coach Sandy Pugh said. "One of their kids throws the
first punch and one of our kids was on the ground and someone was just pounding
her. Next thing I know it was a melee." And a melee it was, with players,
cheerleaders, fans and security guards all in the middle of a scrum-tastic
display that saw punches thrown and officials ultimately decide to end the game
immediately as a double forfeit. The league's official Twitter feed said the
score would stand and the teams would share the regular-season title with 16-2
records, although simply disqualifying both for the entire year and ending
their seasons immediately would have been just fine too. For some odd reason,
Pugh wasn’t proud of what her team had accomplished. "I've been involved
with basketball for 30-plus years and I've never seen anything like this. It's
an embarrassment,” she said. Sure, because Southern missed out in its chance to
enter the SWAC tournament as the No. 1 seed and had to look on in terror as TSU's
Alexus Johnson had t be held back by security to prevent her from bum-rushing
the Southern locker room to continue the brawl………
- It’s amazing how much better people feel about public
transportation when it’s new, shiny and opening up for the first time after a
one-year delay. Generally, the level of disdain for any manner of public transport
is high on account of it being some combination of: crowded, unreliable, dirty,
smelly and dangerous. But throw the doors open on a new method of public transportation
one year after it was supposed to open and you can watch people flock to it in
droves, lining up for their chance to plunk down a few zlotys to jam into an
underground tube. Such was the scene over the weekend in Poland, where thousands
of Warsaw residents took their first rides on the Polish capital's second
subway line, just over a year later than expected. The 4-mile opened Sunday and
runs under the Vistula river, linking the eastern Praga district with downtown
and western districts. Like so many public works projects around the world
since the dawn of humanity, it took longer to complete than expecting, taking five
years to build and costing some 4.2 billion zlotys ($1.1 billion). This happy
day was suppose to take place in the fall of 2013, but it was put on pause on
account of the discovery of buried, unexploded World War II explosives and a
major water leakage that flooded a nearly-finished station. After those
problems were overcome, the M2 line slogged onward in pursuit of improving public
transport for Warsaw's 1.8 residents. Its importance was heightened in recent
weeks thanks to the unexpected closing three weeks ago of a major bridge that
was damaged by a fire. In other words, getting around Warsaw to find the best
pierogies is much more difficult these days, but help is finally here…….
- A weak-ass weekend at the box office led to a yawner of a
race for the top spot, with newcomer “Chappie” ultimately winning thanks to a
so-so $13.3 million opening. Maybe studios will figure out some day that movies
featuring Hugh Jackman and fighting robots aren't a recipe for big money, given
this low number and the returns for “Real Steel,” but that day doesn’t appear
to have arrived just yet. Last weekend’s earnings champ, “Focus,” dropped to
second place with $10 million and has banked $34.5 million domestically in its
first two weeks. The second new movie in the top 10 was “The
Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” which bowed to $8.6 million and third
place. “Kingsman: The Secret Service” ranked fourth with $8.3 million and
inched to the verge of the $100 million mark with $98 million in domestic money
in four weeks of release. “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” kept
swimming to the tune of fifth place in its fifth weekend, adding $7.1 million
to its coffers for a total of $148.9 million and counting after a month in
theaters. The free-falling “Fifty Shades of Grey” dipped another 49 percent to
sixth place and $5.6 million for the frame. In four weeks, the house wife porn
epic has scored $156.4 million. Seventh place went to “McFarland, USA” in its
third weekend, with a $5.3 million effort and a $29.4 million bank roll in
those three weeks. There isn't much life left in “The Lazarus Effect,” which
might need some CPR if it continues to trend downward as quickly as it did this
weekend. With a 50-percent dip in income, it managed a mere $5.1 million and
has just $17.4 million through two weeks. “The DUFF” kept underwhelming with
its $4.9 million weekend and it has a scant $26.1 million in three weeks of
work. The bomb of the week was the Vince Vaughn comedy flop “Unfinished Business.”
Unless a $4.8 million opening is what Fox had in mind for a movie with a $35
million budget, let’s go ahead and call this one a failure. “American Sniper”
(No. 11), “Still Alice” (No. 12) and “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” all dropped out
from last weekend’s top 10……….
- How many action movies, spy movies and TV dramas make use
of the rusty, abandoned warehouse as a scene for shady characters to set up
their base of operations, torture and interrogate captives and stash illicit
goods and dirty money? That’s precisely what a New Hampshire Girl Scout troop
is doing, albeit with slightly more altruistic motives. Troop 12115 in Salem is
like so many other sash-wearing, badge-earning groups of fresh-faced girls
around the nation, engaging in the Girl Scouts’ annual cookie sale that
capitalizes on Americans inability to eschew healthy foods and fascination with
gluttony by moving mountains of Mint Milanos and piles of Do-Si-Do’s. What
makes Troop 12115 different is that these scouts are selling cookies at a
vacant warehouse property and have set up a drive-thru operation to maximize
efficiency and selling power. Going big is a necessity because troop leaders
had the audacity to set their goals at 5,000 boxes for the drive, meaning that
drive-thru will need to be busier than the window at McDonald’s around
lunchtime on a weekday in order to make sure that number is hit. But can you
really put a number on scouts learning invaluable business lessons and people
skills while simultaneously showing a complete disregard for the health and
well-being of a nation that needs more celery sticks and less fudge bars in its
daily diet? Keep contributing to America’s obesity epidemic, Girl Scouts,
because lord knows it will still be there for many future generations of scouts
to take advantage of in their quest to raise money and further the mission of
their organization, whatever the hell it may be…………
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