- Los Angeles still doesn’t have an NFL team. But
preparations for as many as two teams to call the City of Angels home are
plodding onward and they certainly are stylized. Those involved in a $1.7 billion
joint stadium proposal by the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders released
new designs for a proposed NFL venue in the Los Angeles area and they’ve
certainly added some interesting touches. There are simulated lightning bolts
for the Chargers and a flame honoring late Raiders owner Al Davis for an overhauled
look just two months after the project and an initial set of designs were first
announced and two days after it received approval from the Carson City Council.
The new design calls for a flowing, metallic modern stadium with a common horseshoe-shaped
seating arrangement that is open on one end. "We wanted the building to be
iconic and sleek, like a luxury sports car," said David Manica, president
of stadium designer Manica Architecture. The stadium’s calling card is a
120-foot-tall tower that will give off lightning bolts during Chargers games
and will feature a flaming cauldron in Davis's honor during Raiders games. Oh,
and in the event/certainty that the league gives the new venue a Super Bowl,
the tower can also become a Lombardi Trophy. Many of the features of the
stadium, including the color of the seats, will be changeable based on which
team is playing in it. Both potential teams would have a multilevel high-rise
of suites on one side and a peristyle on one end that echoes the L.A. Memorial
Coliseum, former home of the Raiders and Rams and the most storied football
venue in the Los Angeles area. Chargers spokesman Mark Fabiani in a statement
called the design “the result of two months of close collaboration between the
Raiders and Chargers." It’s amazing what two bitter rivals can band
together to accomplish with a sweetheart stadium deal and boatloads of cash are
on the line………..
- Ramp the oversensitivity down a notch, Poland. There are a
lot of things that can piss a nation off, but a freaking Mattel board game
should not be one of them. Yet here are Polish officials, b*tching about a party
game with a card that refers to "Nazi Poland.” The Poles are pissed enough
that their government has demanded that toy producer Mattel recall and correct
the game because it incorrectly implies that Poland was allied with Germany
when in fact, it never was and was actually subjected to a brutal occupation by
Nazi Germany throughout World War II. Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna said
the government has asked Mattel to withdraw "Apples to Apples," a
game in which players compare different things. A strongly worded statement
noted that the card’s wording is "completely inconsistent with the
historical truth and detrimental to the good name of our country." Not only
is Poland pushing Mattel to make the change, but Warsaw is also using Twitter
to call on people to protest the game. The offending card is designated as "Schindler's List" and says:
"1993 Steven Spielberg film. Powerful, real-life story of a Catholic
businessman who eventually saved over 1,000 Jews in Nazi Poland." To be
fair, Poland was already rankled this week on account of remarks made last week
by FBI director James Comey in which he seemed to equate the roles of Poland
and Hungary in the Holocaust with that of Germany. Comey tried to calm the
chaos by sending a conciliatory note to the Polish ambassador in Washington,
but that sort spot that exists because Poles feel that they are repeatedly and
unfairly blamed for the German atrocities that were carried out on Polish soil
by outsiders and that isn't going to change any time soon. Yes, there were a
few individual Poles who helped the Nazis track down Jews to murder, but Poles
had no role in running the ghettos or the death camps in Poland. Let’s get it
straight, world…………
- Christopher Edwin Breaux is no more. Frank Ocean, however, is here to
stay. The R&B singer has officially changed his name to make his stage
moniker the only one that’s legit. He initially filed the legal papers in March
2014, but driver's license issues have delayed the change for nearly 18 months.
Now, a Los Angeles judge has approved the album and it comes at a mighty
convenient time. See, Breaux/Ocean will release a new album expected to be
called 'Boys Don't Cry' in July, along with a book of the same name, and
changing your name is a good way to drum up a little publicity while you’re
getting ready to drop your first new album in three years. In Ocean’s defense,
“Channel Orange” was a kick-ass album that received plenty of critical praise
and fan support, so taking a few years to make sure you get the follow-up just
right is a solid idea. “Channel Orange” came on the heels of his “Nostalgia,
Ultra” mixtape that dropped the previous year, giving a false illusion that
fans could expect a regular flow of quality tunes from Ocean. He further teased
those hopes when he released a new song titled “memrise” last November, but relative
silence followed despite persistent rumors that he was recording a new album
with producers Hit-Boy and Rodney Jerkins. Ocean himself hinted that he was
close to finishing his new album in time for last year’s Coachella festival,
but banking on that promise was a bit sketchy given that one year prior he responded
to a fan question about new material on his Tumblr blog, saying "when
summer comes round again", when asked when he'd be releasing new music. In
other words, the new Frank Ocean joint may drop later this year, but recent
history suggests that it’s not wise to rely too heavily on that claim and get
your hopes up amidst a sea of pop drivel and boy band garbage……….
- Being a police officer is such a badass job. You get to
tangle with bank robbers, you have the privilege of slapping the silver
bracelets on scumbag domestic abusers and dragging their worthless asses off to
jail….and if you play your cards right, from time to time, you get to trek out
into the middle of nowhere and try to round up a small herd of buffalo that
escaped from a farm and crossed a busy stretch of the New York State Thruway. That
chance to keep the world safe from chaos came the way of police in the
Rensselaer County town of Schodack. The cops’ lives got a bit more interesting
when 15 of these meandering beasts got loose from a farm along the east bank of
a river a few miles southeast of Albany. The buffaloes’ owner believes they
swam across the river to the town of Bethlehem, where they wandered Friday
morning between Interstate 87 and the river's west bank. It was a bold and
daring daylight escape by these inspired animals, who seem to not want to be
made into delicious burgers and other cuts of meat and are willing to put
drivers in danger in order to get away. The herd crossed a local road at about
11:15 a.m. and rumbled onto the Thruway in a spot 10 miles south of Albany and
was able to safely cross the northbound lanes and before ambling south on the
shoulder into some nearby woods. Drivers were able to slow down and avoid
belting a buffalo with their Buick, but a few did find time to snap a picture
with their smartphone and share the sight with the world. The search for the
AWOL quadrupeds is ongoing, but police and the owner are hopeful all of the
animals will be found and returned home……….
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