- Today
is a damn good day to be Pawel Fajdek. It has just a little bit to do with the
fact that the hammer thrower won gold at the World Athletics Championships in
Beijing and much more to do with the way this champion likes to get down when
it comes to celebrating his triumphs on the track. It seems that after
dominating the field with a throw of more than 265 feet, Fajdek headed out for
a night on the town and what happened from there depends upon who you ask. The
official story is that Fajdek went out to a restaurant to celebrate and as a
hearty Polish athlete with an affinity for hard liquor is wont to do, he poured
a fair amount of adult beverages into his system. The night must have gotten a
little hazy from there because after Fajdek finished celebrating and headed
back to his hotel, he and his gold medal became separated somewhere along the
way. When he sobered up and woke up the following morning, he realized he was
sans medal and called police to seek their help in getting his trophy of
athletic excellence back. Beijing police assisted Fajdek in the search and it
didn’t take long to track the medal back to the taxi driver who took the
thrower to his hotel the night before. That’s where the story gets good. The
driver claimed the Polish athlete was willing to pay his fare with his gold
medal, which totally sounds like the sort of deal a drunken, desperate dude
lost in a foreign country would make at 1 a.m. when he has no other
options. "We tracked the taxi down
after checking a large number of surveillance tapes in that area and got a hold
of the driver. The driver then sent to the medal to his (Fajdek's) hotel. It
only took an hour to sort the whole thing out," police officer Zhang Bo
said. Reports quickly surface of Fajdek drunk at a party before losing his
medal, but he disputed those reports on his Facebook page and said the taxi
driver actually stole the medal after the two posed for a photo………
- When,
oh when, will there be peace between two warring factions that are mortal
enemies locked in an eternal struggle for mutually sacred territory both
believe belongs to them? No, this isn't a musing on the war between Jews and
Palestinians for Jerusalem’s holiest grounds, but the battle is heated
nonetheless. It’s the showdown between the purveyors of greasy fast food, cheap
toys and oversized soft drinks who fuel so much of America’s obesity epidemic -
McDonald’s and Burger King. The two fast food titans duke it out daily for the
stomachs of the world’s eaters, but in honor of National Burger Day in the
United States, Burger King suggested that the two restaurants put aside their
rivalry and make the McWhopper, a blend of the Big Mac and the Whopper, the
best-selling burgers at McDonald’s and Burger King. The idea was to operate one
restaurant for one day staffed by employees of both companies and selling the
McWhopper to raise money for Peace One
Day, a nonprofit group seeking to raise awareness of the International Day of
Peace, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1981 for
the opening of its annual meeting. Burger King took out ads in multiple
national publications proposing the pop-up store Sept. 21 in a parking lot.
Fernando Machado, the company’s senior vice president for global brand
management, urged McDonald’s to help “make history and generate a lot of noise
around Peace Day.” It seems like a reasonable idea to support a solid cause, so
McDonald’s moved past pettiness and said yes, right? Of course not. “We love
the intention but think our two brands could do something bigger to make a
difference,” McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook said in a statement. My man, no
you can’t. You’re McDonald’s, not Mahatma Gandhi. Swallow your pride - easier
than swallowing the garbage that comes out of your kitchens - and accept the
offer………..
- You
were wrong if you thought that Tim Burton’s disastrous attempts at a Batman
movie couldn’t have possibly been worse. The films Burton made, 1989’s “Batman,”
1992’s “Batman Returns,” were horribly acted, terribly written, had cheesy
effects and lame plots, with Michael Keaton holding down the title role in the
first two movies in some of the worst acting of his career and Val Kilmer
taking the character to new lows for the final of the three movies. So how
could these films possibly have been worse? If the first choice for the Batman
role had said yes, that’s how. That first choice was Pierce Brosnan, who
single-handedly attempted to murder the James Bond franchise with his stiff,
stuffy portrayal of 007 in the few Bond films he was tasked with fronting.
Brosnan mercifully rejected the Batman role after Burton approached him prior
to the first of the three movies. The actor shot down the idea "It was the
beginning of these huge movies, and I just thought, Batman?" Brosnan said.
"Batman held such an indelible place in my own childhood, but I said
something flippant to Tim Burton like, 'Any guy who wears his underpants
outside his trousers cannot be taken seriously.'” Yes because Brosnan’s many
yeears of distinguished acting in great films like….umm….err….uh….never mind.
Keaton ultimately took the gig and after his casting was announced, skeptical
comic book fans sent more than 50,000 protest letters to Warner Bros. Those
fans knew what they were talking about, but probably should have extended their
anger toward everyone involved with three of not just the worst Batman movies
ever made, but three of the worst superhero movies ever made. Keaton ultimately
quit when Burton was asked by Warner
Bros. to relinquish the director's chair for 1995's “Batman Forever,” which did little to increase the quality of the movie
but at least provided the temporary burst of hope that comes with a fresh
start. It wasn’t until a decade later that Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale
would bring much-needed quality back to Batman with their trio of movies that
were so superior to Burton’s work that they almost seemed to occupy different
cinematic universes………..
- Conspiracy
theories and the kooks who spout them are awesome. Being out of touch with
reality to the extent that you’re willing to wholeheartedly espouse and promote
wild theories of some unknown adversary out ther being out to get you makes the
world a more entertaining place, so men like Polish Deputy Culture Minister
Piotr Zuchowski are world treasures. Zuchowski announced this week that he is
"convinced" of the existence of a Nazi treasure train that has been
missing for 70 years and which two men claim to have found recently. Petey Z
also warned treasure hunters in southwestern Poland to stop looking for the
"so-called `gold train"' because it could be mined and dangerous,
which of course is going to stop no one at all. Local Polish legend has long
held that a German train filled with gold, gems and armaments went missing
around the city of Walbrzych while fleeing the Red Army in 1945 and
predictably, treasure hunters have spent seven decades looking for it. Hell,
during the communist era, the Polish army and security services even carried
out fruitless searches for it. Earlier this month, two men, a Pole and a
German, said they found a train with armaments and valuables that could be the long-lost
mystery train. However, the meh have not provided any evidence of the train's
existence. That didn’t stop Zuchowski from suggesting that there's something to
the men's claims. “Inside the hidden train -- of whose existence I am convinced
-- there could be dangerous materials from the time of World War II. There is a
great chance that the train is mined," Zuchowski said in a statement. ."
Dream big, eh Piotr? Dream big………
No comments:
Post a Comment