Saturday, May 21, 2016

More "Arrested Development," McDonald's apple pie brawls and MLBer v. Colonel Sanders


- This is why you don’t want to join the club, Belarus. You’re not part of the 28-member European Union and while that might sting from time to time, occasions such as this one are an excellent reminder why sometimes it’s OK to be on the outside looking in. That’s because the EU is b*tching out the former Soviet Bloc nation on account of its uptick in death sentences over the past few months. The United Nations has already piled on Belarus for reneging on its international commitments, including a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and now the EU is jumping into the fight, noting that Belarusian courts had already passed three death sentences so far this year. Again, it’s important to note that BELARUS IS NOT PART OF THE EU, so it is under no obligation to give a damn about what the union thinks. Sure, European-based companies have created problems for various municipalities in the United States by refusing to sell them drugs that are used in executions in order to prevent the death penalty from being carried out, but this is Belarus, where you can certainly still get away with more rudimentary methods of offing a human being. Still, the EU issued a snarky statement in which is said the EU nations "expect Belarus, the only country in Europe still applying capital punishment, to join a global moratorium on the death penalty as a first step toward its abolition." Let them in your little economically troubled club and then maybe you can have that conversation, European Union………


- The Atlanta Braves are losing enough to teams on their schedule right now. They don’t need to take more defeats from the value menu at KFC. The worst team in baseball this season just fired manager Fredi Gonzalez  by email when he received a flight confirmation in his inbox for his flight back to Atlanta while the team was right in the middle of a long road trip, but the bad news kept rolling when shortstop Erick Aybar was removed from the starting lineup for Thursday night's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates after a chicken bone got stuck in his throat. On the upside, he didn’t notify the team of the problem by email, but he did have to get a quick assist from new manager Brian Snitker, who said Aybar arrived at PNC Park in discomfort and was taken to a doctor, sedated and had the bone removed. Aybar was in the lineup, but was replaced by Daniel Castro, who went 0-for-4 in Atlanta's 8-2 loss. "That poor guy had to be scared to death," Snitker told. "He looked OK when he left, but I don't think he's feeling very good. Let's just hope everything works out all right." Aybar reportedly had blood coming from his mouth and was unable to lift his shoulder because the bone had caused so much discomfort. His season, like that of his team, has been a total dumpster fire, as he’s hitting just .174 with five RBIs and a .412 OPS. His team is an MLB-worst 10-31 and continues to find ways to make itself a punch line by virtue of its organizational ineptitude and embarrassments at the hands of Colonel Sanders………


- At least we finally found two McDonald’s employees who can be bothered to give a damn at work. Granted, these two minimum wage-earners were brawling over apple pie, but passion is passion and these two grease-soaked idiots have plenty of it. The two female employees got in a physical fight at a Chester County (Pa.) McDonald's during an evening shift, with the younger employee arguing with the older employee about some pie-related issue. That exact nature of the dispute is unclear, but eventually the older employee told her younger counterpart to leave the restaurant, saying she would cover her shift. Rather than take a few hours off, the younger employee refused to leave and the dispute escalated to the point that her co-worker called the police. Then, and only then, did the younger employee get in her older co-worker’s face and inform her that "if she went to jail she would beat her ass," according to the police report. A third employee tried to covnice the younger employee to leave, but that too failed and instead, the woman approached the older employee and struck her in the face, knocking her glasses off, the report alleges. A full-on kitchen brawl ensued and was eventually broken up by other employees. Police are still investigating and deciding whether to file charges, but this can’t rank too high on their priority list. Meanwhile, the McDonald’s corporate office released a statement about the fight and video. "We take the care and safety of our employees very seriously and have zero tolerance for violence. At this time, we are cooperating fully with the police during their investigation into this matter," said Chris Sparks, McDonald’s director of operations. Thanks for saying nothing at all, C………


- The cult following of one of the ultimate fan favorite shows in recent TV history continues to power the Bluth clan to additional air time. “Arrested Development” could be getting another season, according to creator Mitch Hurwitz, marking the umpteenth time the show has been counted out but bounced back. It was literally a decade ago, way back in 2006, that the show was canceled by Fox after three seasons. Yet Netflix commissioned a fourth season in 2013, consisting of 15 original episodes. Most agreed that season didn’t quite live up to the colossal expectations that most fans had for them after a seven-year wait, but they were still solid and fans have spent three more years clamoring for a fifth season. Hurwitz is on the record as saying that a fifth season will "definitely happen” and that Netflix is fully on board with the plan. "It'll happen. It'll definitely happen. Not before the election, but it's definitely going to happen," he said. "I say that because the actors want to do it, the studio wants to do it, Netflix wants to do it, I want to do it. It's just making it happen. There's no one resisting.” Hurwitz added that Season 4 had been re-cut and that the redo was "like the old Arrested Developments," explaining that they "redid all the narration and reshot a few little things. Now we have 22 episodes, and they're delightful to watch and they're much less work than the Netflix series.” It’s unclear where those will air, but producer Brian Glazer revealed that he and Hurwitz were planning to make "another 17 episodes" of the show, which means there’s plenty of time to build the hype up to absurd levels that those episodes have no actual chance of ever living up to no matter how well they’re done……..

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