Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Solving the NBA's free-agent mystery, Riot Watch! India and burglar + meth = pizza and a shower?


- Drugs are a powerful thing. Sure, police aren't saying that meth, cocaine or some other mind-altering substance was a factor in a Palm Bay, Florida man’s recent, very peculiar break-in, but if this guy wasn’t peaking on something illegal, than he’s simply a far bigger moron than we should ever allow to walk among us. Timothy Tomlinson smashed his way into a house on Emerson Drive by breaking a kitchen window, but it’s his actions once inside the house that left everyone wondering what the hell he had just shot, snorted or ingested. Upon breaking and entering, Tomlinson elected not to do what most burglars do by stealing items of value from inside the house. Instead, he headed  straight for the bathroom and because no one likes a dirty, smelly criminal, he took a nice, long shower. After making sure he was clean and fresh, he then made his way to the kitchen, where he raided the fridge and found a leftover slice of pizza. Pizza is great when you’ve worked up a solid hunger with some mid-day breaking and entering, but you need something to wash it down and Tomlinson accomplished that by downing two bottles of water. At that point, he apparently had what he came for and left the house without actually stealing a single item of value. Amazingly, he was soon tracked down by police and charged with burglary for unlawfully entering the residence with the intent to commit petit theft and criminal mischief for damages to the window. The good news is that he can probably earn himself a nice, long trip to a place where he won’t have to break in and can regularly receive free food and water, along with a daily shower………


- Former child stars with delusions of musical grandeur have feelings too. Corey Feldman has been bouncing around the reality television world and trying to fashion some sort of musical career for years now, given that his roles in '80s films “The Goonies,” “Stand by Me” and “The Lost Boys” don’t have a lot of fuel left in them at this point. His most recent musical endeavor isn't going very well for him and as it turns out, appears to have left him with a tremendous amount of emotional pain. Feldman has spoken out after his musical performance on the “Today” show went viral for all the wrong reasons last week. He played his song 'Go 4 It' with his band Corey's Angels, a performance that was equal parts bad and bizarre, and the effort earned him all manner of social media scorn and derision. Apparently under the impression that his music is actually good, Feldman reacted angrily in now-deleted Facebook Live video in which he broke down in tears while addressing the backlash to the performance. "We just wanted to tell everybody that, like, it's been really painful," Feldman said. "We put ourselves out there and we did the best that we could. And, like, I've never had such mean things said about me. Like constantly. All we can say is that we tried really hard. Because we love our fans and we just wanted to give them the best show that we could. But we don't deserve... these things that are said about us are awful." It’s all part of the artist’s life, C., and by now you should know that when you perform, people will criticize…….. 


- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It got real in a hurry over the weekend near a national park in northeastern India as police clashed with angry locals protesting the demolition of their homes. Police spokesman Mukesh Aggarwal said authorities ordered the demolition of 300 houses in three villages to evict people living on the periphery of the Kaziranga rhino sanctuary to stop rampant poaching of the rare animal, but the reasoning behind tearing people’s homes down typically takes a back seat to the fact that those people are about to become homeless, at least in their minds. Thus, you have enraged villagers hurling stones at police in an effort to stave off the inevitable and police responding in totally logical fashion by firing their guns into the crowd. That oh, so predictable turn to use of excessive force turned out to be a deadly choice, as two people were killed and several others injured in the chaos. This battle is happening because an estimated 2,500 out of the world's 3,000 one-horned rhinos live in Kaziranga and those animals are a target because powder made from their horns is coveted in many Asian countries as a medicine or an aphrodisiac. Protecting them is an important issue, but maybe one that you don’t want to handle by displacing hundreds of people and then shooting them dead when they rise up against your short-sighted plan. This one isn't over and it also isn't going to end well for anyone involved……


- The mystery surrounding the NBA’s next great free-agent target has been diffused before it could even begin. Rudy Gay, like actual elite players like LeBron James and Kevin Durant before him, realized there might be questions about where he would take his talents when he became a free agent following the coming seasons, so he moved to eliminate the mystery. Gay, who averaged 17.2 points and 6.5 rebounds for the 33-win Sacramento Kings last season, has given the Sacramento Kings advance notice that he plans to depart from the franchise as a free agent next summer. He’s a good player to be sure, but has never developed even a decent ability to shoot from deep and won't ever be mistaken for one of the best in the league. So while it’s nice that he has informed the Kings that he will exercise a clause in his contract to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2017 and bolt a team that has not made the playoffs in 10 years, it really wasn’t necessary. The Kings suck, they keep cycling through coaches and general managers at an alarming rate and while Gay will make $13.3 million next season and has a $14.3 million player option for the 2017-18 season, he clearly sees the salary cap going up, players getting paid far more than their skills actually warrant and he figures that he can get some extra cash while also escaping one of the true outposts of the Association. "It's not rocket science," Gay said about his decision. No, and that’s probably why the Kings have let teams around the league know that Gay is extremely available in a potential trade any time now……..

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