Friday, April 08, 2016

Spanish secession snarkiness, 50 Cent casts himself in 'Predator' and the Padres are historically inept


- If you believe 50 Cent, then 50 Cent will be involved with the upcoming “Predator” sequel. Bit actors vying for peripheral roles typically don’t make casting decisions, but the rapper has been telling most anyone who asks - and some who don’t - that he will score a role in the fourth film in the franchise. No, the studio, 20th Century Fox, or the director, Shane Black, has confirmed anything remotely resembling this news, but 50 has been saying in every interview he does things such as him “doing some new feature films and stuff like that too. I'll do Predator.” Being attached to this project would be a big deal for 50, who has done plenty of acting, but has never really been a cornerstone in a blockbuster film. “The Predator” could be that movie, as it’s the latest sequel to the 1987 action classic “Predator,” which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Major Alan 'Dutch' Schaefer, who leads a crack team of American special forces soldiers into the South American jungle. The Gover-nator has suggested that he’s open to being part of the new sequel and Black was a part of the cast for the original, so there is a dose of continuity for this one. Word on the street is that this well be a straight-up sequel and not an attempt to reimagine the original with much better effects and technology, but Black’s history with “Iron Man 3” and other such films of recent vintage suggests that he’s very much going to make use of the CGI tools, high-definition views and other weapons at his disposal to make this one sparkle. Now the question is whether a past-his-prime rapper is one of those weapons………


- Fatties, stop acting all offended and surprised when the world pushes back against the problems your immense girth creates. By now, you know that the rest of us aren't down with you consuming 70 percent of the space on a bench seat on a subway or bus when that seat is intended for three people, not you and a waifish elderly woman who can barely squeeze her 85-pound frame into the room left once your blubbery ass sits down. If you would take some of the very simple steps to eat less unhealthy food, do even a few minutes of basic exercise a day and shed even a few pounds, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. All of this comes to a head when we hear about the story of someone like Errol Narvaez, a Jersey City man who says he was publicly humiliated and kicked off a packed flight because of his weight. Navarez, who weighs in at 385 pounds, is that guy you hope doesn’t end up in the seat next to you because you know he’s going to be oozing over that armrest and into your space for the duration of the flight. He was returning from Las Vegas after celebrating his birthday there and had a confirmed aisle seat on a United flight to Newark. However, the plane to be used for the flight was switched at the last minute and with the new aircraft came a new seating arrangement. Nearby passengers complained and that’s when sh*t went down. An airline supervisor came on board, according to Navarez, and asked him to get off the plane without offering any other solutions. He was put on another flight six hours later, but insists his feelings were hurt by all of this. "I'm already big and growing up you always get those big jokes and what have you and 31 years of living with myself I know how I am,” Navarez said. “I still look good, I still look good, I don't care what anybody says.” And therein lies the problem. No one but you and others in the same spot think you look good and against a backdrop of increased health care costs and other burdens on society by the morbidly obese, looking good is something you’re definitely not doing………


- Thank God that Southern Californians have plenty to do and that San Diego is America’s self-professed most beautiful city…because the only one of the city’s professional sports teams currently playing is submitting some record-breaking ugliness to start its season. The San Diego Padres are just three games into the new Major League Baseball season and their futility at the plate is fast becoming the stuff of legends. In the three-game, season-opening series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Padres became the first MLB team to be shut out in its first three games of a season. They capped their punchless performance with a 7-0 loss to set the MLB mark with 27 consecutive scoreless innings to open a season. In so doing, they eclipsed the old mark of 26 innings by the 1943 St. Louis Browns. San Diego came oh, so close to ending its scoreless streak in the third game when Cory Spangenberg was called out trying to score on a grounder to first, but the Padres appealed and the replay appeared to show Spangenberg got his foot across the plate before being tagged by Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis. The umpires upheld the call after a three-minute review, thwarting the would-be sixth-inning mini-rally. "The reality is this: We had ample opportunities to score runs, and I'm not going to cry about a call that is made in New York," rookie Padres manager Andy Green said. "We still do have 159 games left, and we will score runs this year. And we will win series this year." Yes, but not being able to score a single run against an archrival who limped into the series with 10 players on the disabled list doesn’t really inspire much confidence in your future competence, skipper………


- Maybe they don’t want to give up their midday siestas? Either that or ruling pro-independence parties in Catalonia have reaffirmed their declared intention to disconnect from Spain despite a Constitutional Court ruling suspending that declaration because they’ve been pushing that agenda for months and refuse to break free from their desire to break away. Lawmakers in the regional parliament in Barcelona gave their thumbs up to a motion put forth by the "Together for Yes" group and its anti-capitalist coalition partner, CUP, marking the next step in a contentious process that has put Catalonia at odds with the national government even as it deals with its own various crises, both big and small. Interestingly, the same Catalan parliament that voted yea on this measure also rejected calls by CUP for regional lawmakers and institutions, including local police, to disobey Spanish courts. This particular vote came as a response to the Constitutional Court's rejection of the original announcement of a road map for independence by 2017 that was approved Nov. 10. Right now, pro-secession parties hold a slim majority in the parliament, but the 7.5 million people they represent in the region are evenly divided over splitting from Spain. The rest of Spain is hell-bent on keeping the region as part of the country not because they’re jazzed about the unique way it pronounces “gracias” or its many cultural contributions, but because Catalonia accounts for nearly a fifth of Spain's economic output. You know, just in case you forgot that it’s always about the money……….

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