- Football strength coaches are a wild lot. Their job hinges
on being really ripped, really jacked up and extremely intense in order to
inspire and direct the strength-building efforts of some of the most macho
jocks in all of sports and therefore, strength coaches are often part
motivational speaker, part drill sergeant and part stereotypical gym guy. Or in
the case of Florida State strength and conditioning coach Vic Viloria, they’re
also one part Johnny Walker Blue or Grey Goose. Viloria finds himself suspended
without pay for more than one-third of the Seminoles' season because of a
liquored-up night in which he allegedly drove off the road, up an embankment
and into a traffic sign while intoxicated, then ended up passed out behind the
wheel of his truck late at night. His unraveling began when he began drinking
whiskey with members of a video crew on hand to film "A Season With
Florida State Football" for Showtime. The crew clearly knew their target
audience because Viloria was soon plowing through the bottle like a
muscle-bound weightlifter powering down a protein shake after a workout. He
began drinking in his office and when he realized that getting liquored up at
work may be wrong, he and his drinking buddies moved to a Showtime trailer. The
night got away from him and next thing he knew, he was passed out and a
Tallahassee police officer was knocking on his window and he was telling the
cop that he was coming from work where he had consumed "multiple alcoholic
drinks" and had "three 'big' drinks" while in his office. The
university felt all of this constituted a "gross violation of the
University's standards for employee conduct and expectations of your position”
and his him with the five-game ban. Wait…having blood-alcohol levels of .124 or
.125 when the legal limit is .08 and then trucking a traffic sign before
passing out behind the wheels isn't what Florida State is all about? My, how
the world has changed………
- The Transportation Safety Administration takes a lot of
sh*t away from travelers - it’s about time TSA agents started giving something
back. Melinda Ollerton of Rexburg, Idaho might be the first person on the
receiving end of an unusual TSA gifting program, but here’s hoping she’s not
the last. Ollerton was making return plane trip from Long Beach, California, to
Salt Lake City when something unusual happened with her luggage. Well, several
unusual things. First, her luggage wasn’t lost, heavily damaged or destroyed by
airline baggage handlers, but that wasn’t the end of it. No, when Ollerton
reached her destination and started to unpack her suitcase, she immediately
noticed an item inside that she most definitely had not packed and to the best
of her knowledge, did not own. It was a yellow box cutter, sticking out from
her neatly-folded clothes. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh!’” Ollerton said of the scene.
“It was actually open — all the way open — which is kind of disturbing on its
own.” Having flown from Long Beach Airport to Salt Lake City International
Airport on a Delta flight, Ollerton tried to determine how the foreign object
made its way into her bag. She made multiple calls to both airports, Delta
Airlines and the TSA, but none of them was able to explain how the box cutter
came to be in her bag. One person she spoke to recommended that she simply
discard the box cutter. “Best case scenario, I thought maybe it was a worker —
a TSA worker — that forgot to put a card in my bag and it happened to just fall
out of (a) pocket,” Ollerton said. It’s a reasonable theory, but Ollerton was
more concerned with the feeling of being “violated” because someone had gone
through her belongings. All in all, another memorable travel experience
courtesy of the airlines and TSA………
- She’s pretty much been in a semi-fictional television show
for more than a decade, so Judge Judy may as well go all the way and make it
all up. Judith Sheindlin (a.k.a. Judge Judy) and CBS are reportedly set to
partner up for a semi-autobiographical drama based on the judge’s life. The
series, which will follow the youngest judge in New York as she capably handles
Family Court cases while juggling an uneven personal life, is to be called “Her
Honor.” Believe it or not, Sheindlin is currently the most profitable star on
television, reportedly earning more than $47 million a year. She’s written
books and those badass courtroom monologues she delivers to the many dopes who
actually agree to appear on her show, so it makes sense that she will also co-author
the pilot episode along with “Chicago Justice” show runner Michael Chernuchin. On
the surface, the general parameters and concept of the show seem eerily similar
to that of CBS' upcoming drama “Bull,” which is inspired by the early career of
another person who has made their career on delivering harsh opinions and
scathing criticisms to fools who have screwed up their lives and are now going
on a semi-real network television show to get the wisdom dispensed to them by a
loud, extremely opinionated public figure - Dr. Phil McGraw. “Bull” is
scheduled to premiere this fall, while Judge Judy premiered in 1996 and has
been renewed through 2020, making it one of the longest-running television
shows ever. Sheindlin’s latest contract renewal included a first-look
production deal for her company Queen Bee Productions and this new show is one
of the fruits of that agreement………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! This one is truly international,
as a Dutch company is claiming that protesters in Ethiopia are torching flower
farms as they target businesses with links to the government. Flowers are an especially
cruel target because they’re oh, so pretty and they really haven't done
anything to anyone, but the simple fact that in a war, there will be casualties
and in this case, it’s flowers that are going up in flames. Esmeralda Farms is
the company at the center of this and its official statement on the fires comes
amid anti-government protests in the Oromia and Amhara regions in recent weeks
that residents and rights groups say have left dozens dead. According to the
company, its 10 million Euro investment went up in smoke this week in Bahir Dar
city. Several other horticulture companies were reportedly affected by the
attacks staged by demonstrators who have been calling for wider freedoms in
this East African country. Freedom is a wonderful thing and one often has to
fight to gain it, but do we really need to have a bonfire of the posies to make
it happen? Sure, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council has said government
security forces are using excessive force against opposition groups and Ethiopia's
government, a close security ally of the West, is often accused of silencing
dissent, even blocking internet access at times, but this is all going to a very
dark place and once a carnation is no longer allowed to survive the mayhem,
maybe it’s time to reassess the entire messy situation……..
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