- Maybe the University of Alabama-Birmingham should have
shuttered its football program sooner. There’s nothing like shutting down a
program under bogus, fabricated financial circumstances to fan the flames of
support and get the dollars rolling into UAB football. On Dec. 3, 2014, the
school announced it was shutting down the football program despite an
independent report showing that the fiscal woes it cited as the reason for the
closure were largely over-exaggerated or even made up by the school. Current
and former players lashed out, ripping administrators for the decision and
vowing to raise the necessary funds to get their beloved Blazers back on the
field. Eventually, the school relented and agreed to revive football and that
process to another huge step forward this week when the UA system's board of
trustees gave final approval for the construction of a $20 million football
operations building and covered practice field. The new 46,000-square-foot
football operations building will feature a weight room, a dining area, locker
rooms, offices, meeting rooms and a study hall. Not only that, but the school
also will build a covered practice field and is planning to break ground in
August with a targeted July 2017 completion date. “We will have an indoor
practice facility -- but with no walls," UAB athletic director Mark Ingram
said. "It's a pioneering concept." Hmm, saving money by getting rid
of the walls. Interesting. "Eighteen months ago, they eliminated the
program, and we've raised over $38 million in gifts and pledges in the last
year," Ingram said. "It's absolutely mindboggling." Of that
amount, $20 million was designated for the football operations building and
covered practice field. If the school can rake in an additional $2.5 million,
UAB also will add two new practice fields. As for actual competitive football,
UAB's football program makes its return on Sept. 2, 2017, against Alabama
A&M………..
- Someone call the karma police. Justice must be served
after a mob of intolerant Muslims went full-on creep in Istanbul, attacking a
group of Radiohead fans who had gathered at a record store to listen to the
band's new album. As rock and roll fans often do, the Radiohead devotees were
hanging out and drinking beer to go with their favorite tunes when a mob of 20
assailants carrying sticks and bottles attacked them. The incident took place
at the Velvet Indieground record shop, where posters advertising the streaming
event of the album were ripped off nearby walls. Witnesses said the fans were
simply getting their beer on and chatting when about 20 men began to throw
glass bottles at them. Video of the incident was soon posting online, showing
the ugliness unfolding an suggesting that the attackers were angered by
participants drinking alcohol during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. In a
heavily Muslim nation, it definitely helps to understand the social and
religious climates and possible threats a certain behavior might pose, but it’s
also reasonable to think that going to a record store, grabbing a bottle of
beer and chilling with your fellow Radiohead fans as you get a first listen to
your favorite band’s newest album shouldn’t be a reason to have to fear for
your life. Radiohead issued a statement offering their "love and
support" to Istanbul fans, who will hopefully get a free ticket the next
time Thom York and his bandmates have a show anywhere close to Turkey’s capital
city………
- Shows used to appreciate and value their fans, not
threaten to wage legal war on them. With the rise of fan sites and social
media, simple fandom has turned into a rabid, excessive devotion to various
shows, a devotion bordering on the obsessive and sparking fans to predict,
speculate and debate what will happen to their favorite characters. Few shows
have more of a loyal following than AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” which ended its
sixth season in April with a cliffhanger based on who new villain Negan killed
with a baseball bat. In order to keep anyone from knowing who will actually die
in the final version of the scene, producers filmed 11 separate death scenes to
keep the identity of the victim a secret. The death scene will open season
seven this fall, and in the meantime, fans such as those on the fan site The
Spoiling Dead are speculating who the victim will be. That would normally be
nothing more than harmless speculation and a sign of how strong the show’s
following is, but AMC doesn’t see it that way and has threatened to sue the
site if it correctly guesses Negan’s victim on the grounds that the site has
insider knowledge on the show. “AMC has been harassing us for four days now by
contacting our homes, our family members and our employers; even posting on
this page and personal social media accounts,” the site’s organizers wrote in a
post. “We are fans of this show just like you and aren’t a commercial operation
that makes profit. We have families and careers to think about. No spoiler will
ever be worth compromising those things. If you think this makes us pussies
that are bowing down to AMC then so be it.” They claim to have no insider
knowledge and said AMC’s attorney has contacted them in recent days to warn of
what will happen should their prediction be accurate. Elsewhere in the post,
they suggest that the network “could have taken a more diplomatic approach that
could have given them the same results.” Or the network could have simply
chosen not to be ass hats and been grateful for how many people love their show………
- For those who don’t find riding the trains and subways of
the greater New York City area exciting enough, a developer has an idea for
making Penn Station a more thrilling place to be. Brooklyn Capital Partners,
which just sounds douchey based on its name and location, is looking to bank
some sweet coin with 1,200-foot high free-fall tower ride to be placed on top
of either the transit hub or on the back of the James A. Farley Post Office
building. It’s a big idea in a city that is full of people going big while
living in ridiculously small apartments as astronomically large prices, and boy
are the $5,000-suit-wearing money worshippers at Brooklyn Capital Partners
selling the hell out of this idea courtesy of an effusive, flowery message
posted on the project’s website. “This is New York’s high-tech version of the
Eiffel Tower: a thrill ride taller than the Empire State Building, and an
unforgettable icon on the skyline,” the post reads. Wow, overreaching much,
BCP? New York’s version of an historic, iconic landmark that millions visit
every year? Nice try. The ride, dubbed “The Halo,” would accommodate 11 rides
of varying speeds around the perimeter of the steel lattice tower. The fastest
of those offerings would be a six-second free fall at 100 miles an hour,
marking one of the first times in the history of Manhattan that anyone has
moved faster than 10 miles an hour in a vehicle of any sort……….
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