Monday, September 12, 2016

Billy Corgan deigns to speak, Lima tries to kill olive tree icons and college football officiating ineptitude


- Stop watering the damn olive trees, Peru. It’s a hard concept to grasp because people tend to think it’s always wise to hydrate flora, but overwatering is causing some major problems for the trees of El Olivar, a park in Lima, Peru, which is built around the olive trees that are its stars. The trees took root four centuries ago, when the Count of San Isidro planted nearly 2,000 specimens from his native Spain in a sprawling grove on the edges of Lima, the capital of colonial Peru. The trees took well to the arid climate and thrived as the city grew around them and their twisting, knobby trunks and shady leaves became major attractions for all visitors to the city. Yet in a moronic display of bureaucratic ineptitude, officials surrounded the trees with a 25-acre carpet of crabgrass that every week receives more than 2 million gallons of water and that downpour of H20 is all but drowning the 1,700 trees. This has gone on for a century and now, he slow-growing trees are at risk of dying. One went to that great olive grove in the sky in 2014 and 11 more have exposed roots and are in danger of falling. With nearly a dozen trees in danger, city officials and residents are trying to resolve the problem in a city that was built atop a desert and whose water resources are scarce. Believe it or not, the district of San Isidro, Lima's wealthiest and best-organized, is actually doing what rich people rarely do by taking action in trying to fix a problem created by previous administrations. Potential ideas including substituting the current grass for a less thirsty species or using targeted irrigation techniques to prevent overwatering. If not for the city’s previous leaders f*cking it up, the trees could live more than 1,000 years. Instead, some of them will be fortunate to survive a few more years if the tools tasked with maintaining them can’t find a solution………


- Ah, the ego has deigned to speak again. Billy Corgan is back and he’s dropping heavy hints about blessing the rock-loving segment of music fans with a new Smashing Pumpkins album he claims just might feature the band's original lineup. Corgan let it slip last month that he was "back in contact" with bassist D'Arcy Wretzky and upon saying he wants to make a Smashing Pumpkins album in the vein of 'Gish' and 'Siamese Dream,’ he addressed the reunion rumors in a Facebook video. “Well, last time I said anything about SP news, it turned into a big story about how the band was reuniting, so I guess I'll just let people read my facial ticks," Corgan said in the video. “Is the band reuniting? I don't know, but definitely making plans for next year, definitely making plans to tour next year under the name Smashing Pumpkins. Who will be on stage? We shall see [makes facial tick] There's my tick." Ah, the ol’ “scrutinize body language” trick, the one rock stars have been using for ages in an attempt to slide covert messages to fans on the down low. "I find myself obsessing on riffs in my head," Corgan said later in the video. "I would say if I was going to make an album of SP music again, it would probably be somewhere between 'Gish' and 'Siamese Dream' type styles. I think I'm ready to get back to big riffs, big choruses.” Big riffs, big choruses and even bigger egos….sounds exactly like a Billy Corgan-helmed project. The outspoken rocker also said he has recorded a new solo album with producer Rick Rubin and its 12 or 13 songs are done "for the most part,” but that album doesn’t yet have an official release date…….. 


- This is why you don’t help people, even if they look like they really need your assistance. Sure, you have decent odds of stumbling across someone who is legitimately down and out and being able to brighten their day by changing their tire, carrying their groceries to their car or paying for their meal when they have insufficient funds….or you could get a gun pulled on you, have your car stolen and wind up standing their like a chump at a Texas gas station wondering where it all went wrong. No one needs to share this lesson with a would-be good Samaritan in Fort Worth who tried to help a trio of men when he saw them by the side of the road in need of a lift. This sucker picked the three up and drove them to the Valero gas station on Oak Grove Road and that’s where he made his fatal error. Two of his passengers went inside to pay for the gas, but that caused the car’s owner to take his focus off the third man, who used the opening to jump into the driver’s seat and start the car. His two companions returned, seeing their haphazard plan come together with one of them pulling out his gun and firing a shot into the air because, well, #idiots. Here, the owner of the car made one of his few wise decisions of the night, electing to stand aside and allow the armed robbers to drive away with his ride rather than try to stop them. The men drove off into the night, but apparently they didn’t really need the car for that long because they appear to have ditched it a short time later and it was eventually recovered by police. Before returning it to the owner, the cops should have forced this fool to go through a driver’s education class just like a teenager who gets a speeding ticket, except this class should teach valuable lessons about never, ever picking up hitchhikers, even if they offer to pay with gas, grass and ass…….. 


- Nothing infuriates people quite like ripping a win from their favorite college football team via incompetent officiating - except, of course, having that incompetence officially validated after the game by the associated governing entities for said officials. That makes the officiating and instant replay crews who worked the Central Michigan-Oklahoma State game over the weekend an especially unpopular group right now. The good news for these guys is that no one really knows their names, only that the Big 12 and Mid-American conferences both announced that the eight officials who worked the game have been suspended for two games. Their collective f*ck-up came at the end of the contest, when they wrongly awarded Central Michigan an extra play after time had expired, resulting in the Chippewas' winning Hail Mary-and-lateral touchdown. "After a thorough review and evaluation of the entire Central Michigan at Oklahoma State contest, we have decided to suspend the officiating crew for the next two consecutive weeks," Bill Carollo, the coordinator of football officials for the Collegiate Officiating Consortium, said in a statement. The Big 12 took is a step further, suspending its two-man instant replay crew for two games and banning that group from working a bowl game this season. The good news for Oklahoma State fans is that some justice is being served, but the bad news is that the outcome stands after CMU wide receiver Corey Willis grabbed a lateral from fellow receiver Jesse Kroll at the 12-yard line after a Hail Mary and raced into the end zone with no time remaining deal then-No. 22 Oklahoma State a 30-27 defeat. Here’s hoping part of the crew’s punishment isn’t being forced to work another Oklahoma State game for the rest of their careers………

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