- Rhys Ifans gets it….kinda. Ifans, who played the main villain
in the 2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man,” Dr. Curt Connors a.k.a. The Lizard, is
on the other side of the umpteenth unnecessary remake of a franchise that
Hollywood seems intent on recycling at a rate that would exhaust most aluminum
cans and now that he’s emerged from the mire and had time to ponder, he’s
seeing the world more clearly. He’s still partially missing the point, but give
him credit for trying. Ifans, speaking about the new Spider-Man movie set for release on May 5, 2017 as the first to
be made by Sony in collaboration with Marvel, said the entire franchise "needs
a kick up its arse." The Welsh actor reflected
on his own part in the ‘chise, which ultimately failed to live up to his expectations.
"Anthropologically, it was fascinating. If I was an anthropologist, it
would have been very valuable... As an actor, it was a lesson," Ifans said.
"As I got into it, I remember looking into The Lizard and there was one of
the comics where Dr. Curt Connors goes home, and he's messing about with his Lizard-ness.
He takes his work home with him, and he eats his kids. "I remember thinking at the time, 'That's the film I
want to be in.'” That side of his character was never explored or developed in
the film and he seems a little bitter about it. "Whatever you're told and
promised at the beginning of something, when it comes to franchises like that,
it's never ever going to be what ends up on screen," Ifans concluded.
Asked about the latest remake of a remake of a remake with English actor Tom
Holland in the title role, Ifans first said he had no opinion, then said it “needs
a kick up the arse." Or a kick to the curb, but one or the other……..
- Welcome
to the big time, Kenya. Major world powers don’t run without running
inefficiently due to rampant corruption in the ranks and if you’re ever going
to ascend from Third World also-ran to legit player on the global scene (hint:
you won't) then you need to learn how to play the game the right way. If you
ask the chairman of a parliamentary committee in
Kenya charged with oversight on government spending, the country may be well
ahead in the quest to pork its way to the top. Yes, when hand-pushed wheelbarrows
have been purchased at $1,000 each and your government is buying up ball-point
pens that usually cost 10 cents for $85 apiece, it’s safe to say that there are
some inequities in the system. Oh, and it’s not clear which version of the iMac
Kenya bought from Apple and what sort of hardware upgrades they purchased for
it, but someone may want to check into that purchase of a desktop computer for
a cool $11,000. Committee chairman Nicholas Gumbo - he would be a rock star in
New Orleans - cited these and other good bits of news as examples of
misspending that the Parliamentary Accounts Committee is investigating.
According to Chef, er, Chairman Gumbo, the committee is investigating a
government department that had listed sex toys as assets, meaning that they had
been purchased using taxpayers' money. Duh. Obviously no one wants to pay for their
own sex toys, not when they have to spend $11,000 for a computer bro. It’s no
secret that corruption is endemic in Kenya, but this recent wave of revelations
about graft on a near-daily basis has somewhat pissed off the public as the
government says it's borrowing money to plug holes in the budget. Odds are
those holes were created by a worker swinging a $7,500 sledgehammer while
wearing $2,000 work gloves………
- Prepare
to be stunned, world. The former leader of a governing body for international
sports has been accused of being thoroughly corrupt and rotten to the core. No,
it’s not an ex-president of the International Olympic Committee or someone
associated with Sepp Blatter’s dirty tenure running FIFA. This time, it’s former IAAF President Lamine Diack who has been placed
under investigation by French authorities for corruption and money-laundering
charges. Diack, who stepped down in August after 16 years in charge of track
and field's governing body - trying to beat the authorities out the back door
before they can serve the warrant on you, L? - and is suspected of taking money
from Russia to hide positive doping tests. Yes, this story involves both dirty
athletes from a communist country and corrupt bureaucrats accused of taking
payola to keep those athletes eligible to compete. Track and field is already
one of the dirtiest sports around, right alongside swimming and cycling, so
this is arguably the least surprising sports news you could come up with if you
sat down and tried to type out the most predictable sports story ever. The
French office that handles financial prosecutions says a legal adviser to
Diack, Habib Cisse, is also under investigation by judges acting on evidence
provided by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Mix in Gabriel Dolle, who was the
director of the IAAF's anti-doping department and has been taken into custody
in the south of France, and you have yourselves a legit and wide-reaching
scandal that will result in exactly zero change happening in the sport because,
well, corruption is undefeated and dollars are the mightiest weapon of all in
the fight to keep sports filthy…….
- Denver
seems an unlikely candidate to become an honorary Californian city by having
exactly .005 percent of the usable water it needs to sustain its daily
existence. After all, the unofficial capital of Stoner-Topia is in the
mountains, surrounded by snow and a mile closer to the clouds than most towns,
so it should have no problems staying hydrated….right? Umm, then why, on a
recent weekday, was a massive drilling rig boring hole deep beneath the city and why was Leonard
Rice Engineers contracted to bore that hole by the Denver Water Department?
Because Denver Water is exploring the feasibility of pumping water far under
the city into the massive Denver Basin aquifer system to keep it there until
the next dry spell. According to Denver Water resource engineer Bob Peters,
drought is an imminent threat even for Denver because the city only receives 15
inches of rainfall a year and most of its water comes from the mountain
snowpack. That mountain snowpack melts and runs downstream, supplying water for
much of the nation, including the always-arid Southwest. Should the snowpack
fail, the effects reach far beyond the region and even a secondary source of water from underground
aquifers which nature filled over the course of millions of years don’t help
much because humans are draining them at an alarming rate. The aquifer system
under the city of Denver covers an area the size of the Connecticut, but the
Denver Basin ground water is non-renewable and just like a nice, hot plate of
pot brownies, once you plow through that water, it’s gone. Thus, the city is taking its renewable water supplies and
injecting them into the aquifer to keep the aquifer replenished. Denver is
merely following the example of cities such as Phoenix, Wichita and San Antonio,
which are already banking water
underground. If this wacky plan works, Denver will begin taking snowpack runoff
and pumping into the underground basin within the next year or two. If it fails,
well, there may not be enough water to fill everyone’s bongs soon………
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