- Why
is it that Girl Scouts are such a popular target for low-level, low-IQ thieves?
Do these scumbags see a bunch of small, young girls with a lot of valuable
product, an unlocked collection box full of cash and little street savvy and
think, “Dammit, there’s an easy heist, I gots to get me some?” There has to be
an explanation because every year during the cookie sale season, there are at
least a few tales of knuckle-dragging morons rolling up on a Girl Scout cookie
sale table outside some sort of shopping establishment, overpowering a bunch of
11-year-old girls and trying to make off with a few hundred dollars and several
boxes of Do-Si-Do’s. The latest entrants into this club are Nicholas Delbrugge
and his sister Ashley Winters, who are accused of robbing a Girl Scout outside
a Walmart in Deltona, Florida. Let’s allow Volusia County Sheriff's Office
spokesperson Andrew Gant to lay out the scene. "There's not like there's a
theft where we say that theft is acceptable. But to steal money from a
12-year-old girl, a Girl Scout selling her cookies, I think we can all agree
that's pretty low," Gant said. “We had two people casing a Girl Scouts
cookie stand. The male suspect grabbed the [money] box out of the little girl’s
hands and took off with it.” According to the police report, Delbrugge was
"acting strange, asking questions about the cookies and staring at the
money box." Yes, strike up a conversation about the merits of the
Thin Mints versus the Samoas and when the Girl Scout lets her guard down, you
grab her $200 stash and run. Amazingly, given the sophistication of this theft,
law enforcement was familiar with Delbrugge from previous run-ins with the law.
It’s hard to imagine any of those encounters being more despicable than this
one………..
- Another
day, another spin-off, sequel or prequel for a superhero or comic-book-based
movie. This time, it’s the slightly delayed spin-off from the Spider-Man
franchise, an anti-hero flick for the Venom character. The film was originally
planned for 2014, but when “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” delivered a disappointing $709 million haul
that was the lowest global box office of any
Spider-Man movie to date, anything linked to the franchise was put on the back
burner for a bit. However, Sony announced late last week that the Venom project
is back in its plans even as a standalone Spider-Man reboot is slated for next
year. The new Venom movie will
be scripted by Dante Harper, who produced the script for “Edge of Tomorrow,”
which starred Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt was considered a financial success
even though pretty much no one would describe it as an especially good movie.
Harper is working with Spider-Man producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach and the
word on the street is that the Venom film will be in the mold of the
irreverent, sarcastic “Deadpool,” which shattered several box office records
last month with a foul-mouthed, anti-establishment anti-hero who spent much of
the movie breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience in a
never-ending string of profanity. While the Venom project has links to the
Spider-Man franchise, it will not be directly tied to the latest wholly
unnecessary re-do of the Spider-Man world. There seems to be a mandate to
re-cast the web slinger and make a new movie every two years or so at this
point, but Venom won’t draw on that story line……..
- Seven
miles is a long way for a horse to go to live up to its name. Don’t tell that
to Rebel Rover, an equine extremist who unseated his jockey
before heading off for a 6.8-mile swim off Brisbane's Sandgate beach. The
Australian racehorse's ocean adventure sent this animal viral following a
harried 90-minute rescue mission as the local water police and volunteers tried
to save the five-year-old gelding while the horse continued to paddle into
deeper waters. "It's not normal at all," trainer Brad Smith said.
"We use swimming as part of most horses routine training program however
this is in a controlled environment, in a pool and for no more than 5-10
minutes. It was a very unusual quite a frightening occurrence.” A rescue boat
helped guide the horseback into shallow waters, where Rebel Rover was reunited
with his jockey Jackson Morris and ridden out of the water. According to Smith,
the horse is known for its propensity to get into trouble. "He is a horse
who has had his problems," Smith said. "He is fairly highly strung
and takes fright easily. We call him Rebel because that's what he is. He is
generally a nice horse to do anything with but is prone to erratic behavior in
certain situations." Yeah, but if going for a swim that would put most
triathletes to shame just for the hell of it and forcing your owner and rescue
crews to spend a lot of money and time from their busy days all in the name of
keeping you from a premature trip to the great glue factory in the sky seems to
go beyond erratic and into the realm of downright irresponsible and insane.
Maybe next time, riding your horse on the beach on a warm, sunny Australian day
won't seem like such a great idea……..
- Olympic
unpreparedness: It’s not just an aquatic sports thing. Sure, the toxic,
waste-clogged waters of Brazil have athletes in sports such as sailing and
kayaking fearing for their safety and health, but that doesn’t mean the rest of
the Olympic scene in Rio de Janeiro are any further ahead. Take, for example,
the velodrome that will host Olympic indoor cycling events. According to the
president of cycling's world governing body, getting the velodrome ready in
time for the test event at the end of April will be "a challenge." In
other words, that place is nowhere close to completion and the fact that a construction
company has been appointed to finish the velodrome, confidence isn't exactly
sky high. The test event has already been pushed back and doesn’t even have a
firm date - only that it will take place
between April 29 and May 1. UCI president Brian Cookson is trying to put a
positive face on this steaming, stinking pile of monkey turds, saying that he’s
confident the track will be ready for the Olympics. That doesn’t jive with the
fact that he’s extremely concerned about the test event with less than eight
weeks to go. "We are assured by the Rio organizing committee that the
dates 29th April to 1st of May will still be deliverable but I think that's a
challenge," Cookson said. “I understand that the contractors are on site
now with timber and everything is ready to roll. They might have started in the
last 24 hours." Might have? The building isn't even done and the track
hasn’t been installed and given the startling lack of progress the past few
months, it’s not unreasonable to expect that there will be more snags and
setbacks in the days ahead. But there’s surely a fallback plan….right? “The
contingency plan is to have the Olympic Games in Rio and to have a track ready
and finished. There is no alternative. That's the straight answer,” Cookson
added. All right, then………
No comments:
Post a Comment