Saturday, January 23, 2016

British candy bar wars, Mos Def v. sanity and Australian Open tennis chivalry


- Stoners are the absolute best. They offer little hassle to the world most days due to their general lack of motivation and/or energy, they’re often hilarious when high and every now and then, they do something stupidly and unintentionally helpful, such as call police to let the fuzz know that they are trafficking illegal drugs across state lines and need to be arrested. Enter Leland Ayala-Doliente and Holland Sward, who were traveling from Las Vegas to Bozeman, Montana and brought a 20-pound stash of ganja with them for their journey. That kind of herb collection should be more than enough to last two potheads on that length of journey, but as they passed through Rexburg, Idaho, something went horribly wrong for the two men. Having smoked some of their stash, these two fools called police to turn themselves in. Court documents show the men were using marijuana during their trip and when they entered Idaho, they got a bit paranoid - no way! - and believed they were being followed by undercover police officers. Even more shocking, Rexburg Police Cpt. Randy Lewis said that at the time they weren’t being followed by anyone, but it’s all about what you believe and these two were convinced they were being tailed, so when they reached Rexburg, the pair exited U.S. Highway 20, parked their car and called 911. They told the 911 operator that they simply wanted the police to stop following them and this civil servant put the pieces of the puzzle together, got actual cops on the job and the pair were arrested and charged with various drug offenses………..


- The sports world may still be getting itself back into a tennis frame of mind, but at least one member of the men’s tour is already in top form in one aspect of his game. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, seeded ninth at the Australian Open, is clearly the best in the field when it comes to chivalry and basic human decency on account of his act during his third-round match in which he absolutely throttled Omar Jasika of Australia, 7-5, 6-1, 6-4. Tsonga became a social media darling when he came to the aid of a ball girl in distress and stopped the match before he was about to serve, walking over to the ailing girl to see what was wrong. He approach the girl, gently placed his hand on her back and she handed him a ball she was holding. Tsonga them looped his arm through hers and escorted her off the court to a warm reception from the crowd. "I saw she was in trouble," Tsonga said. "It was normal to help her out of the stadium. I hope she's OK." Tournament organizers confirmed that the ball girl was fine and was merely feeling ill, but a kind gesture is always welcome in a major sporting event and social media users took notice, with many calling the Frenchman a gentleman and praising him for his kindness. He went on to a straight-set win, so maybe a little bit of good karma will follow him through the rest of the tournament and maybe his new ball girl friend will even get the chance to work another of his matches……….


- Is Yasiin Bey engaging in some sort of bizarre, Shia LeBouf-like performance art or is dude simply losing his mind? Bey was most recently heard from when he was arrested for reportedly attempting to leave South Africa using a false passport. It was a bizarre incident because he either entered the country on a bogus passport good enough to fool customs or he entered on a legal one and tried to exit on the fake one, but either way he was detained at Cape Town airport. South African Department of Home Affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said Bey was trying to depart on an unrecognized “world passport,” which is vague and makes it sound like the rapper literally had a sham passport listing his nation of citizenship as “The World.” Bey has been living in South Africa since May 2013, but had overstayed the terms of his visa by mid-2014 and was issued a court order to get the hell out. He somehow managed to squat in the country for another year and a half, but now has 14 days to leave South Africa. He’s currently being detained in Cape Town, but managed to shoot off an audio recording to his pal Kanye West, who posted it on his website. It’s a riff on West's new track 'No More Parties In LA' in which Bey freestyles that, "I have committed no crime, the state must be out of their mind,” followed by various other claims of his innocence. Oh, and Bey added that he is retiring from the music and film industry "effective immediately." It seems like a bit of a rash decision for a guy who’s in a tough spot, but an arrest on foreign soil means his street cred is flying sky-high these days……


- Everyone who enjoys making tired jokes about British people having bad teeth will enjoy this one. A battle over who owns the right to a specific shape of candy bar has been waged in Britain since 2010 and at long last, that battle for exclusive rights to corrode the chompers of Brits old and young has a decision. Nestle, which has been trying to trademark the four-finger shape of its KitKat chocolate bar in Britain for more than five years, has lost a long-running court battle to secure said trademark. The food giant first tried to register the trademark in 2010, but has been opposed every step of the way by rival chocolate maker Cadbury U.K. Ltd. Nestle, like a disciplined child rushing from one parent to another, tried and had its case dismissed by other courts including the European Court of Justice. Its quest came to a screeching halt this week when Britain's High Court upheld those decisions, ruling that the shape of a KitKat bar has not "acquired a distinctive character" enough to satisfy trademark requirements. In other words, your four-pronged chocolate wafer creation ain’t famous enough to trademark - a fact Nestle immediately disputed and said it plans to appeal the decision. The company claims the snack has been used in Britain for more than 80 years, is well-known to consumers and that its shape deserves to be protected in the U.K., a dubious claim at best, but one worth a lot of money and therefore worth fighting over to the death no matter how impossible the fight……..

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