Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Ignoring man bands, Israel likes fences and intolerant MLB umpires


- Oh, how America has influenced the world. The idea of erecting massive walls along national borders to keep out undesirables has become the United States’ thing, but it appears one of America’s top allies has been inspired by the idea that just gives Donald Trump a hard-on and that ally is none other than Israel. Israel's Cabinet has approved funding for a fence to be built along part of the country's eastern border with Jordan and interestingly enough, the plan was coordinated with Jordanian authorities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke news of the big fence, which will run for nearly 19 miles from Israel's southern tip toward the site of a new airport that is under construction. Netanyahu did not announce whether the fence comes pre-pained with a sign warning, “Stay off my lawn, er, desert sand, you damn kids/terrorists,” but it would only be fitting. Still, the prime minister insisted the entire route of the fence will be on Israeli territory and will not infringe upon Jordanian sovereignty. Jordan and Israel signed a peace deal in 1994 and have maintained cordial relations since, which makes Jordan extremely unique among nations in the Middle East. Israel has grown increasingly fond of fences in recent years, constructing fortified barriers with Egypt to stem the flow of African migrants and in the Golan Heights to prevent infiltrations from Syria. The whole good fences making for good neighbors idea seems to be catching on worldwide and maybe if we all build enough barricades, we can totally isolate ourselves and finally avoid any outside influences whatsoever……..


- When your mother tells you to pick up your toys and you refuse, there are consequences. Same goes for Major League Baseball umpire Tripp Gibson, who does not tolerate insolence. If you believe Boston Red Sox first baseman Mike Napoli, Gibson has zero tolerance for lazy, uncooperative players who are called out on strikes in the second inning and refuse to pick up their bat because they disagree with the call. Napoli claimed after the game that he disagreed with the call and was walking back to the dugout when he was given the rest of the game off by the umpire. He alleged that Gibson tossed him because he didn't pick up his bat and carry it with him back to the dugout, but after the game Napoli was still more concerned about the call itself. "First of all, it was a ball,'' said Napoli, who took a 3-and-2 slider from Tampa Bay Rays starter Chris Archer that he believed was outside. "I thought I walked. That's why I dropped my bat. And I had a conversation with him, told him I thought it was a ball. He said it was a good pitch, so I started taking off my batting gloves and started walking back toward the dugout.'' Napoli had literally only taken a couple of steps from the plate when the umpire stopped him. "He told me I forgot my bat,'' Napoli said. "I stopped a little bit, and [then] he told me to come back and pick up the bat. I pointed at the bat boy, who picks up our bats, and he tossed me. So then, when he tossed me, I told him how I felt.'' Napoli proceeded to go ape sh*t on Gibson, but one has to wonder if this could all have been averted had the player remembered that bat boy or not, it’s never polite to point at people……….


- In case you were wondering, the world’s smartest people are still not pursuing careers as common criminals. Enter Cristian Osorio, a New York City man who decided that stealing cars and driving stolen cars sounded like a good idea. Oddly, it can be a good idea, inasmuch as one is able to evade police and use said stolen vehicle without arousing suspicion. Oh, and as long as the thief understands that when he or she steals a car, they do not steal an unlimited quantity of gas to keep their ill-gotten ride running. Osorio didn’t seem to grasp that when driving the car he (allegedly) stole, do when he took the wrong road and ended up lost and without gas in Pennsylvania, it was a predictable end to a joy ride for a man who appears to be lacking the sufficient quantity of IQ points needed to be a world-class thief. According to police, this fool left Queens early Friday and was headed to Syracuse, New York when he got lost and ended up on the side of Route 33 in Plainfield, Pennsylvania. In one of the worst twists of kindness ever, a state trooper arrived to help and discovered the car was stolen. The awkward interaction between these two before the cop ran a check on the car and discovered it was stolen had to be awesome, but not as great as Osorio trying to figure out what to do when he had a suspicious cop checking out his story - and with a fueled-up vehicle to use - and all this poor fool had was his own two feet and a clearly lacking supply of wits with which to formulate a plan of escape from the mess in which he found himself……..


- Well that was certainly awkward. Back in the 1990s, East 17 were one of a litany of terrible man bands plaguing not only Great Britain, but the whole world. They never achieved superstar status against the likes of One Degrees Direction Town 98 Men, but they did manage to pop and lock well enough to a few songs that someone else wrote for them to sell a few albums and convince half of the group they used to be that years after the end of their semi-relevance, it was time to reunite despite having not one, but two lead singers leave. Lead singers Brian Harvey and Tony Mortimer left in 2010 and 2013 respectively, leaving a shell of a crappy man band in their wake. Original members John Hendy and Terry Coldwell remained and in the new low point of lives that have to have seen many of them, these two ass hats got together and decided that they had nothing better to do than stage a reunion. So did they call Harvey and Mortimer and plead with them to abandon whatever better thing they’d found to do - shoe salesman, city bus driver, professional yodeler - and come back to the fold? Of course not. Instead, they added a new lead singer and tried to pass off their bastardized version of an awful group off as legit. Enter a gig at The Academy in Dublin wherein a venue with a capacity of 800 for shows was busting at the seams trying to contain the tens and tens of people who abandoned all personal dignity and self-respect and attended the show. That’s right, 30 people showed up for the gig and worse still, these losers waited around even though the group delayed their performance for an hour before finally taking to the stage. Maybe they were figuring that the Irish are a notoriously late-arriving crowd and giving them a few extra minutes would bump the crowd up from embarrassingly small to just pathetically tiny. They were wrong and fans who showed up lamented the fact that Mortimer and Harvey, who sang all their big hits were gone and in their place were a couple of dudes who were glorified backup dancers back in the day. If only this were enough to stop all would-be man band reunions and convince the world to unite in agreement to ignore that this, the second-ugliest era in musical history, never actually happened……..

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