Tuesday, September 27, 2016

GoFundMe-ing a hot dog vendor, Rom Zombie hate and Rex Ryan thinks he's funny


- Maybe national air travel security agencies need to take a closer look at their list of banned items for passengers to bring aboard planes. Most nations ban anything weapon or weapon-like in carry-ons and heavily restrict how such items can be brought on board even in checked baggage, along with restricting any chemicals or other substances that could be combined to make a bomb on board the flight. However, regulatory agencies have definitely lagged behind when it comes to policing human body parts and especially internal organs in luggage and because of that fact, Austrian customs officials are dealing with a very peculiar problem that could have been avoided had they bitten the bullet and banned people from traveling with human intestines. Over the weekend, customs officials in the central European nation discovered the organ parts packed tightly in plastic containers and formaldehyde in a Moroccan woman's baggage. The find came at the airport of the southern city of Graz, so at least it didn’t gum up the works of customs and security at one of the country’s major airports. As to why someone was traveling with human intestines….the woman told police that she had brought the intestines of her dead husband to Austria to have them examined because she thought he had been poisoned. Perhaps giving her exactly what she wanted, the tissue is being subjected to a pathological analysis and Austrian medical officials said authorities in Morocco where the man died gave the cause of death as intestinal obstruction, a diagnosis they believe is plausible………


- Sooooo….not everyone is a Rom Zombie fan. The heavy metal icon and White Zombie frontman has largely shifted from edgy rocker to aspiring filmmaker in recent years and it’s safe to say that his dark, often morbid musical tendencies have carried over to his films. That would seem like a good thing for a guy who once remade a classic horror flick like “Halloween” back in 2007, but the man who led the original version of the film doesn’t sound too enamored with what Zombie did to his movie. Horror movie legend John Carpenter, speaking his mind in a video that surface recently, claimed in the footage that Zombie not only 'lied about him', but tarnished the legacy of the franchise.  “He said I was very cold to him when he told me he was going to make it," Carpenter said in an address to the New York Film Academy. "Nothing could be further from the truth. I said, ‘Make it your own movie, man. This is yours now. Don’t worry about me.’ I was incredibly supportive. Why that piece of sh*t lied, I don’t know.” But it wasn’t all accusations of lies, deceit and half-truths. Carpenrter also believes Zombie “took away the mystique of the story by explaining too much” about Michael Myers, the iconic character at the center of the story. In Carpenter’s view, Myers is supposed to be a virtually supernatural force of nature and Zombie ruined that with his presentation of the character. Zombie’s verison of the film didn’t go over well with many fans and critics and had a relatively poor showing at the box office, so maybe Carpenter is right……..


- Sometimes, social media doesn’t totally suck. Yes, most of the time it’s a hangout for trolls, idiots and hatemongers who get to hide behind the anonymity of their cloaked social media identity while spewing all manner of hate, idiocy and bile, but every now and then, someone uses their Instagram account to share the story of an 89-year-old popsicle salesman in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago who suddenly found he and his wife in dire financial straits because the adult daughter on whose income they depended heavily for their support passed away suddenly. When a well-intentioned citizen learned of Fidencio Sanchez’s story and shared it on social media, two men who didn’t know Sanchez at all decided to raise money to support he and his wife. They started a GoFundMe that quickly picked up steam and eventually raised far more than anyone would have dared to dream when the effort launched. By the time the campaign ended, $384,290 had been raised for the Sanchezes and the men who started the online fundraising effort were finally able to meet the stranger they stepped up to help when they presented him with a check for that amount in a ceremony held at the intersection of 25th and Pulaski. It’s more than a hot dog vender would make in a lifetime and the fact that all of that money was raised in the span of just nine days is uplifting. Now, social media trolls can go back to hate-memeing their lives away……….


- It’s kind of cute how Rex Ryan either a) still thinks he’s funny or b) has that much swagger after winning a single game to up his team’s record for the season to a whopping 1-2. Ryan has always been full of bluster and swagger and early in his head coaching career, it seemed for a brief moment he might have the coaching aability to back up. We’ve since learned otherwise, as he’s failed to break the .500 mark the past five seasons and has become more of a carnival barker than a good NFL head coach. His biggest struggles have come against Bill Belichick, who owns an 11-4 record against Ryan. The two men are a stark contrast in style, with the reclusive, mumbling Belichick on one side and the loudmouthed Ryan on the other. With their teams to meet on Sunday, Ryan kicked off the week one day after his team defeated Arizona 33-18 by poking fun at the Hoodie by doing Belichick’s signature mumbling delivery of generic, cryptic comments to the media.  "We're gonna start with the injury report," Ryan mumbled as he opened his news conference. "You'll get it on Wednesday. Simple as that. You'll get it [when we] turn it in." But Ryan, ever the aspiring comic with the thoughtful side, then said his “admiration is really for Belichick more than anything,” adding that in the NFL, “that's the guy.” That part is actually true, as Belichick is a thousand times the coach Ryan will ever be, a fact of which we’ll all be reminded five days from now when the Hoodie turns his bombastic adversary inside out against despite possibly starting his fourth-string quarterback to start the season 4-0 once more. It’s the way of the football world and it’s nice to know that there are constants on which to rely………

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