- Was the mane sacrifice worth it for a fighter who didn’t deliver
a main-event-level performance? Ahead of the Invicta FC 20 pay-per-view event
this weekend, fighter Samantha Diaz showed up for the weigh-in for her
strawweight bout against Miranda Maverick two ounces above the weight limit for
the fight. Like so many wrestlers, boxers and mixed martial artists before her,
she had a quandary to solve. She could either miss out on the fight and the
accompanying payday or find a quick, drastic way to shave off the excess
weight. Diaz, who has a pretty awesome mane she admitted has taken her years to
grow, elected to take drastic steps and chopped off several inches of her hair
on the spot. Fellow fighter Esther Lin posted a photo on Instagram showing a
towel-clad Diaz holding her lost hair and wrote, “So you wanna be a f***ing
fighter? I got to help Samantha Diaz make weight by cutting her hair. What a
boss she is!” The real question is how much hair Diaz would have been willing
to clip if that first cut hadn't been enough, but fortunately for her, she didn’t
have to find out. The impromptu cut paid off and she weighed in at 115.9 pounds
- plus she looked great with her new ‘do. Unfortunately for her, the good news
for the weekend ended there. The following night, Diaz stepped into the cage with
Maverick and didn’t even survive the first round, as Maverick won the bout via
submission thanks to a rear-naked choke at the 4:26 mark of the opening stanza………
- Way to stay outdated and ignorant, Spain. Not all of you,
of course; just the hundreds among your number who are clearly nostalgic for
the nation's fascist dictatorship of years gone by, the fools who gathered in a
Madrid square to commemorate the 41st anniversary of Francisco Franco's death. Celebrating
the demise of a despot isn't the worst thing in the world to do, but gathering
to lament his passing and wistfully musing about how the nation would be better
if it returned to that sort of dictatorial rule is both sad and delusional. There’s
nothing good to say about you, hundreds of misguided souls who turned out for an
outdoor rally in the Spanish capital organized by fringe right-wing parties.
The sights and sounds of these kooks singing songs and waving old flags from
Franco's four-decade reign that ended when he died in 1975 at the age of 83 was
simply a sad reminder of how inept Spain’s current government has been and how
much the country continues to struggle fiscally - along with a refresher on how
clueless and moronic humanity can be, lusting for a time when a horrific
dictator ruled their country with an iron fist. Fans of Francisco love
recalling how his forces won the 1936-1939 civil war to overthrow Spain's
democratically elected government with the help of Nazi Germany and fascist
Italy and some of those people even rallied at Franco's giant mausoleum north
of Madrid late last week, demanding that it become a memorial site for the
anti-fascist struggle during the civil war. All in all, a truly forgettable weekend
for a normally awesome country………
- Creative differences have finally affected change in the
director’s chair for one of the most-anticipated action movie sequels in some
time. “Deadpool 2” was to be the second collaboration between director Tim
Miller and star Ryan Reynolds, but that planned partnership went the way of
Shia LeBouf’s acting career because of creative differences that prompted
Miller to hit the eject button/be fired. Miller and Reynolds reportedly enjoyed
a close relationship while making the original film, but that relationship went
sour somewhere along the way despite a movie made for a mere $60 million - a
scant amount for a superhero movie - that went on to bank an impressive $780 million
worldwide. That much money should usually be enough to incentivize everyone to
return if possible, but it can also bloat egos and propel the power-hungry to
seek more creative control. In this case, it’s brought in “John Wick” director
David Leitch, who comes aboard a month after Miller exited stage left. Leitch
was offered the gig following a meeting with Reynolds in New York City, news
that won't sit well with “Deadpool” fans who had the pie-in-the-sky dream of
Quentin Tarantino taking over the franchise when Miller was shown the door.
Social media campaigns to bring Tarantino on board clearly came up short, which
is probably for the best because the famed director has a very distinct style
he impresses upon all of his films and that could have jerked with Deadpool’s
own established style. Even with the directorial change, writers Rhett Reese
and Paul Wernick remain from the original film and the project is set to begin
shooting early next year…….
- Maybe this employee will actually be bothered to give a
damn and help customers within half an hour of entering their local Bay Area
Lowe’s, unlike the other apron-clad slackers typically employed by the home
improvement store chain. LoweBot is a
robot that roams the aisles at several Bay Area stores, a bilingual helper who
can assist customers in finding what they need among the 7,466 different
departments, nooks and crannies in the 17-acre monstrosity that is your average
Lowe’s store “Can I help you find something?” LoweBot asks customers. It’s the
creation of Lowe’s Innovation Labs and according to the department’s executive director, this isn't the first step
in the robot uprising in which artificial intelligence slowly takes over and
human beings are subjugated beneath the metal, tread-covered feet of our
eventual mechanical masters. “Not at all. This was designed from the ground up
to be an assistant to the store helper,” executive director Kyle Nel said. “You
just tell it what you’re looking for.” Nel gave a demonstration of the robot’s
capabilities and although a request for help finding hammers initially stumped
LoweBot as it rolled down a busy aisle packed with products, the robot
eventually found the hammers by communicating with the store’s central computer
for the items’ location while using lasers and cameras to navigate. There could
be some kinks to work out and the yet odds of a LoweBot malfunctioning and
still being more helpful than the average Lowe’s employee remain remarkably
high………
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