Thursday, March 24, 2016

Will.I.Am has good news, snake-throwing sushi bar patrons and Ron Rivera is a moron


- So…..Uber has some work to do in building its brand around the world. While the ride service fights various battles with municipalities and taxi unions across the United States, it appears much more violent opposition exists in other corners of the globe. Specifically, the anti-Uber anger is running high in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, where a terrifying incident took place on the same day the ride-hailing service launched in the country’s second largest city of Mombasa. Police confirmed that four men torched an Uber car after a man hired the  car to take him to the outskirts of the capital and led the driver to a dark alley. Nairobi Police chief Japheth Koome confirmed that the driver told police he saw four men approach the car and managed to escape when they tried to restrain him His car was a total loss, burned to a crisp, but no arrests have been made yet. Uber’s office in South Africa issued a statement in which the company said it is in “open dialogue” with police regarding the incident. This is the second straight month in which an Uber car has been torched in Kenya and to find suspects, look no further than the fact that last month taxi operators asked the government to stop the operations of Uber, which has become popular because of its cheaper fares. All the government did to slow the roll of a company that now operates in nine sub-Saharan African cities, in countries such as South Africa and Nigeria, has been to say it would draft new laws on the regulations of online taxi operators. Taxi operators are clearly not impressed and have decided to handle the matter on their own………


- His team lost the Super Bowl by a wide margin and now, Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera is losing again. Rivera, like all NFL coaches, found himself facing questions about football at a time when there’s very little to talk about at the owners’ meetings in Florida. One of the questions Rivera received was about the 39-second, 13-question debacle of a press conference his quarterback gave following Carolina’s 24-10 loss to Denver in the Super Bowl last month. Newton was a petulant, spoiled brat who refused to answer questions and stormed off mid-press conference, delivering an even worse performance than his team had on the field at Levi’s Stadium. Asked about Newton’s effort this week, Rivera tried to have his quarterback’s back by putting together a truly asinine idea that should be insulting to every NFLer who has a shred of professionalism in his being. Rivera went as far as to suggest players from the losing Super Bowl team shouldn't have to do interviews after losing the big game, saying without saying that these guys shouldn’t be expected to have enough professionalism or character to listen to simple questions from media members and deliver more than a terse, one-word answer. Rivera’s best suggestion was that the league shouldn't have players from both teams being interviewed in the same room where they can hear each other as the Panthers and Broncos were. "Personally, I've always felt that in a situation like that there is only one person that needs to talk, and that's the head coach,'' Rivera said. Really? Hey Ronnie, how about this: No one died, no one was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, no one was unfairly deprived of their basic human rights….it’s just a damn football game, so let’s just say the losers answer questions like adults and stop b*tching and whining………


- Sushi restaurants can be weird places. They serve items most people would never consider eating, they charge exorbitant amounts of money for food that isn't even cooked and they offer menu entries that can occasionally be fatal if not prepared properly. Factor in a sushi joint being located in the greater Los Angeles area and…..well, let the weirdness begin. Said weirdness centers on a bizarro patron/odd guy just hanging around who was  arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats after customers of a sushi restaurant say he threw a large python at them. According to employees of the Studio City eatery, the snake chucker had shown the 13-foot-long reptile to children outside of the restaurant - always beware kooks asking to show you their big snake, kids - moments before it was thrown at customers. Before engaging in reptile tossing, the man ate and paid for his $200 meal. Somehow, the man had another, smaller snake in his possession and showed it to customers, who asked him to take it outside. The man left and returned with a larger snake and according to witnesses, he barged in the door screaming obscenities and slammed the snake to the ground. Employees claim they asked the man repeatedly to take the snake away and he refused, instead antagonizing other customers and forcing employees to call both the police and fire department. The snake, perhaps smarter than its owner, tried to slither away but became stuck before animal control officials freed it and took it away.  As for the snake tosser, he was arrested and taken to jail, though thankfully no one was injured in whatever the hell is was that he tried to do…….


- Focus on the positive, world. When Hack Eyed Peas member Will.I.Am claims to have a "hard drive full" of unreleased songs, the obvious worst-case scenario is that said unreleased tunes are either his or from his ear-assaultingly awful band of musical retards fronted by the most lyrically imbecilic artist in existence, Fergie. But no, the music Will.I.Am claims to have comes from some of the biggest pop stars in the world and while many of them are either wildly overrated or just plain suck, they are by and large infinitely better than Will himself. The “singer”/producer says his unheard recordings of are Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Britney Spears and more, the remnants of when he worked with those artists as an independent producer.  "I got a hard drive full of songs that just sit there and we could go through them,” he said. “There's Nicole Scherzinger folders, there's Britney folders, there's Rihanna folders, Beyoncé folders - just songs. When I work with artists, we record songs and write songs, and to get one song you have to record seven. So those other six are actually really good. Maybe there's two of them that are good, maybe there's one lingering one that just needs some touching up.” According to Will, going through the hard drive turns up some pretty impressive names and proving that he just doesn’t like to discard anything musically, the part-time “The Voice” coach also said he would even consider allowing the show’s aspiring karaoke-ers to record their own versions of the songs to save them going to waste……..

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