Wednesday, December 07, 2016

Where's Donatas Motiejunas, the Westworld wait and late-night Florida car twerking


- Twerk hard, especially when The Man tells you not to. No one had to tell that to Gainesville, Florida resident Danielle Jefferson, who just had herself quite a night. Gainesville Police responded to a noise complaint from a resident who was inexplicably angry because there was someone who had their music on far too loud at 3 a.m. It’s weird how that can rub some people the wrong way, but when officers responded to the scene, they encountered Jefferson, who subsequently refused their orders to turn her tunes down to an acceptable level. Not only did she refuse those demands, but she responded the way anyone does when they know how to party and they’re also facing wholly unreasonable demands from John Q. Law: She got up on her car and began to twerk, twerk, twerk, twerk, twerk. It was an inspiring display of insolence and even then, the officers managed to maintain a reasonable handle on their emotions and gave her 15 minutes to comply with a noise warning notice. Jefferson soon started dancing again and helpfully informed police they could arrest her if they wanted. After being apprised of their rights, the officers issued her a citation and handed the paper to her to sign. She politely took the paper and rather than slap her signature on it, she metaphorically slapped the officers in the face by crumpling the paper up and throwing it at the chest of one of the officers. That proved to be just enough to get her arrested for resisting an officer without violence and Jefferson got to spend the night in jail, where presumably she could get some more twerk work in…….


- What do the masses enjoy more than seeing one of the 1 percent hauled in front of a (proverbial) firing squad and be interrogated for their amusement? South Koreans know that to be true and that’s why a lot of them had a damn god time this week watching Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman at Samsung Electronics and the only son of the ailing chairman, get shouted down and admonished by lawmakers for the bulk of a 2 ½-hour parliamentary questioning tied to the country's biggest political scandal in years. The sight of one of South Korea's most powerful business leaders having one of the worst days of his life and to have it all broadcast on public television was a nice change of pace for those trying to grind out a daily existence while Lee lives in his ivory tower. Lawmakers berated Lee on a variety of issues, including why Samsung sponsored the family of President Park Geun-hye's confidante and Samsung's treatment of sickened workers. The entire hearing was broadcast live on major TV channels and Lee was one of nine leaders from South Korea's biggest business groups who faced unprecedented questions about their alleged roles in the scandal involving President Park and Choi Soon-sil, her mysterious confidante. Lawmakers are probing prosecution claims that South Korean President Park Geun-hye allowed a corrupt confidante to pull government strings and extort companies and corporate titans like Lee are obvious targets. Park is under scrutiny due to deep ties between politicians and the country's top family-controlled businesses, known as chaebol, and now prosecutors are trying to determine whether some of the 53 businesses that donated funds received any favors in return. Lee in particular was questioned about his company's business deal with the Choi family-owned company and a contentious merger of two Samsung companies last year. All in all, not a bad span of daytime TV……..


- Where, oh where, is restricted free agent Donatas Motiejunas? It’s a question the Houston Rockets and the basketball world at large would like answered after the Rockets matched an offer sheet for him less than a week after Motiejunas signed a four-year $37 million offer sheet with the Brooklyn Nets last week and expressed he could play for the Rockets or Nets. Now that they’ve chosen to match, the Rockets can either  keep the offer sheet open and wait for Motiejunas to report or they can pull it and Motiejunas returns to being a restricted free agent. However, it would be helpful to know his whereabouts after the power forward failed to show for his physical and is reportedly fighting for his free-agent rights, a claim that doesn’t have any factual backing at this point. It’s been a long, drawn-out tale for Motiejunas, who the Rockets have high value for as a stretch 4. "He's skilled, 7 feet, knows how to really play basketball, a hard worker," Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni said. "Above all, just his basketball intelligence will be great for any team; it will be great for us. We just got to fit him in and work it out and get him into shape. It's going to take a little bit, but there's time." Yet a player the team seems to hold in such high esteem doesn’t seem to have a similarly lofty opinion of them, otherwise Motiejunas would have reported for his physical and taken the next step toward getting back on the court with a team that has indicated its willingness to pay him more than $9 million a season. For now, it’s a fun game of “Where in the world is Donatas Motiejunas?” and the answer is that no one outside of Donny and his crew have any freaking idea………


- How long will the world have to wait for another round of robot-human drama in an artificial old West town? HBO and series creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy revealed that it will be a long freaking time before fans of the show will see new episodes. The first season of the show premiered on HBO in October of this year and wrapped up this week, with the show and its über-graphic displays of violence and sex eliciting strong reactions and a big fan following. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean those responsible for the show will rush to have the second season ready. “We won’t be on the air until 2018,” Nolan said. “We started that conversation with the network when we were shooting episode two and we realized the complexity of trying to write and produce the show at the same time.” That long wait could definitely dampen the enthusiasm for the sci-fi western thriller based on the 1973 film of the same name, but the prototypical difficult artist/Hollywood mindset of dedicating more time to each aspect of making the show rather than juggling them all at once prevailed and therefore, the world will wait. “Sometimes you find yourself in this place where you have to wear all these hats at once,” Nolan added. “You have to write, shoot and cut simultaneously. We wanted to in the second season spend more time writing, then switch gears into production, then cut. So we’re not going to follow the annual year-on-year tradition of television.” In other words, y’all can wait and we’ll have Season 2 for you when we’re damn well good and ready and we’re banking on the fact that you’ll come crawling back for more rather than move on to the next big thing…….

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