- Now
that Disney has its claws in Star Wars, you know Mickey Mouse and his crew are
going to wring every last billion they can out of this blessed cash cow. That
means next week’s release of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is
merely the first of a deluge of projects coming from a galaxy far, far away and
that begs the obvious question of who will take up the mantle next. The two
planned sequels to Abrams’ project already have directors, Rian Johnson and Colin Trevorrow, but the “Anthology” spinoff
film series will offer more options for directors to become involved in the
franchise after Gareth Edwards’ “Rogue
One: A Star Wars Story” and the young Han Solo-centric project to be
helmed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. All of that inspired someone to ask
Abrams who he would pick in terms of a female director to break up the boys’
club of Star Wars directors. "The knee-jerk reaction, if I had to, is Ava
DuVernay, who I think would just kill it," Abrams said. "When you
look at her work in Selma,
which was as well told and as sophisticated and humane a film as I think has
come out in the last decade, if she can do that story that well, there's no
question she would kill this movie." DuVernay, who is best-known for her
work on the Oscar-nominated Selma
as well as a number of smaller projects, responded to Abrams by tweeting:
"The force is strong with this one." It was a heartwarming,
pocket-lining moment for all involved, as any movie associated with this
franchise in any way is going to draw the nerd army loyal to George Lucas into
theaters in massive numbers………
- There
are good places to work… and then there is Hilcorp
Energy, one of the largest privately held oil and natural gas exploration
companies in the United States. To say that morale is high at Hilcorp right now
would be an understatement of epic proportions - about the same outlandish
proportion in which the company doled out its year-end bonuses to every one of
its 1,381 employees. Jeffery Hildebrand, the 56-year-old billionaire owner of
Hilcorp, ponied up a cool $100,000 to thank each and every - EVERY - employee after
what the company called a positive year in terms of its growth. Giving someone
life-changing money as a holiday bonus is relatively badass, and if you have
any doubt about the impact made, just ask Amanda Thompson, a receptionist at
the company for 10 years. "It's just a true gift," Thompson said. "Some days I just kind of look down the
hall and say I can't believe these are my bosses, and they’re the best." Lest
anyone think this is a one-off, five years ago, the Hilcorp gave its employees
two options for a bonus: $50,000 towards a car or $35,000 in cash. After
doubling its output this year to more than 150,000 barrels each day, Hilcorp will
pay out more than $100 million in total bonus money. It goes without saying
that enough money to buy a high-end BMW or make a massive down payment on a
house is a potent motivator for employees, which is probably why Hilcorp was
named on the 'Fortune 100 'Best Companies to Work For' list for the third year
in a row………..
- Brett
Brown is damn good at his job and he’s been rewarded for it. Don’t be confused;
Brown coaches an NBA team and NBA teams are generally designed to win games and
compete for championships - just not Brown’s team. No, his Philadelphia 76ers
are a team built to tank and they accomplish their goal with great aplomb. Brown
has been tasked with leading a team that wants to lose as much as possible in
order to give itself the best chance possible for the No. 1 overall pick in the
draft each year. In that pursuit, he has presided over the longest losing
streak in major U.S. professional sports, seen talented veterans shipped out
lest they spark a winning streak and drafted a promising young center who is
two seasons into his career and has yet to play a game due to continued foot
problems. For most people in most jobs, failing 23 out of 24 times would put
them on a fast track to the firing line, but a 1-23 record to start this season
has netted Brown a multiyear contract extension. Citing his patience,
leadership and resiliency, Philadelphia will give Brown more time to keep the
franchise on its losing track. In his defense, it would be extremely unfair to
hand a coach the steaming, stinking pile of monkey crap Brown has been given
and then fire him when it loses the way it was intended to lose, but there’s
still something wrong about all of this. Maybe it’s the fact that a man would
willingly sign on for several more years with a terrible franchise that is run
even more poorly than it plays on the court. Then again, even if he’s fired
somewhere along the way as the Sixers lumber toward yet another record for
futility, Brown will still get all of the money he’s owed and millions of
dollars can salve a lot of wounds……….
- There
are certain situations in life where you really need to get it right the first
time. Surgeries for life-threatening conditions, firing any sort of gun at a
target and getting into the express lane on the highway are all solid examples
of this idea, but do you know what else is? Dousing a plane at the airport with
fire-suppressing foam to prevent it from going up in flames and creating a
legit crisis. In that respect, fire crews at Fuzhou
City Airport in southern China failed and failed miserably when they responded
to a call from crew members who reported sparks coming from an engine while
taxiing at the airport. To the credit of the first responders, eight fire
trucks arrived on the scene within minutes. Unfortunately, these tools covered
the wrong plane with white foam. It came as quite a shock to passengers and
crew of the targeted plane, but the firefighters soon realized their error and
turned their focus to the correct plane. By the time they got it all ironed
out, the wrongly targeted plane was delayed 10 hours and the entire incident
delayed 30 flights, the airport said in a statement. The spark-plagued Air
China flight had reported the problems in a right-side engine of a Boeing
737-800 for a flight headed to Beijing, but whoever called in the problem
either didn’t give explicit enough information for something was lost in
translation because four minutes later, everything went to hell. The mistake
may have occurred because by the time firefighters arrived, the Air China plane
had switched its engines off while a Fuzhou Airlines plane of the same make had
exhaust fumes coming from its tail. The real heroes here were the folks in the airport's
control center, who caught the mistake and made sure the spraying of the wrong
plane ceased and desisted immediately……….
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