Young Thug's mosh drop, the CERN Christmas gifts for nerds and fixing NBA All-Star voting

- Relying on a bunch of (possibly intoxicated, potentially high or outright irresponsible) music fans to hold you aloft in the air as you ride the wave of their support - and the strength of their scrawny arms - is always a dicey proposition. Young Thug knows it and knows it well after suffering an ugly fall while crowdsurfing during his show in New York over the weekend. Footage from the show shows the Atlanta rapper falling on his head after being dropped by the crowd, which might be a memorable concert moment, but isn't the best way to ensure that you’ll be healthy and able to finish your current tour. Other than fans dropping him on his head, Young Thug is - pun intended - riding high, as he released three well-received commercial mixtapes in 2016, culminating in the much-lauded “Jeffrey,” which dropped - again, pun intended - in August. The rapper was performing at New York’s Terminal 5 venue when things all went wrong after he launched himself into the crowd mid-show and began moving smoothly across the crowd. He was pulled deep into the crowd as fans flocked toward him to be part of the mayhem and in the process, pulling Young Thug into a precarious position in which he was sent tumbling downward and leaving his upended legs dangling in the air. The good news is that he survived the show to crowdsurf another day, but maybe next time staying upright and on the stage is the best option……..

- World, it’s time to get our inner dork on and celebrate. Yes, we’re one step closer to answering one of the great riddles of the universe because the geniuses at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN - not great at creating accurate acronyms, but kick-ass at science - have used a laser to tickle atoms of antimatter and make them shine. The CERN folks and predecessors have spent decades figuring out how to create an antimatter version of the most basic atom — hydrogen — and trap it for long enough to perform tests and according to a paper published online Monday by the journal Nature, they’ve finally done it. As per their findings, when antihydrogen is stimulated with a laser it produces light on the same ultraviolet frequency as hydrogen and that opens up all sorts of doors for scientists when it comes to understanding the subtle difference that explains why the universe is made of matter despite the fact that theory stipulates that the Big Bang produced an equal amount of antimatter and the two cancel each other out. All of that sounds very complicated and hard to get a handle on, but the bottom line here is that a hell of a lot of money has been spent, cool scientific doo-hickies and whatchamacallits have been created and the perfect holiday gift,  an antimatter version of the most basic atom, is now trapped and available to present to that special, 190-IQ nerd in your life……..

- Dear basketball fans: This is why you can't have nice things. You’ve proven that you really don’t know what you’re doing when it comes to picking the NBA’s best players for the annual All-Star Game and now, the league is trying to mitigate your uninformed, biased impact on the game while not offending you by totally taking away your voice. In other words, the league is introducing significant changes to its All-Star balloting procedures that will give players and members of the basketball media a combined 50 percent of the vote in order to counterbalance biased fans. Fan votes will still to account for 50 percent of the vote total for All-Star starters, with players and a panel of media members accounting for 25 percent each. "I guess they're trying to fix the deserving factor, maybe," said Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving, a three-time All-Star who was left off the team last year. “Leaving it up to the players, that's good as well. Leaving it up to the fans, that's good as well. But the other 25 percent I think they need to throw out." So Irving doesn’t appear to be a fan of the media, or he believes that 75 percent is enough of the whole to count. Either way, All-Star voting is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET on Christmas Day, before the league's annual holiday slate of five games. When it does, players and select media members will be eligible to complete one full ballot each, with players indeed able to vote for teammates or themselves, while fans can submit one full ballot daily through NBA.com or the league's smartphone app, as well as through Twitter, Facebook and Google Search, and both Sina Weibo and Tencent Microblogs in China. Everyone will be voting for three frontcourt starters and two backcourt starters from both the Eastern and Western Conference for the game, which will take place Feb. 19 in New Orleans………

- Holidays and ham. They’re synonymous in America and for a Monroeville, Pennsylvania do-gooder, they’re the perfect way to spread holiday cheer loudly so that everyone can hear - and see, smell and taste. This local business owner decided to feed the masses this holiday season in the name of Sister Carol Arch, who has been a Catholic nun for 60 years, working as a teacher and principal at St. Bernadette’s Catholic School  in Monroeville for 40 of those years. The donor holds Arch in such high esteem that he made the decision to honor her life and career by donating 60 Christmas hams, one for each of her years of service, to feed local families in need. Add it all up and you have more than 1,000 pounds of dead pig, enough to feed a few thousand people. “I’m blessed over and over again by the wonderful people of St. Bernadette’s Parish. The ‘ham man’ goes to church here. It’s wonderful to know that other people bless my life,” Arch said. Rather than eat the hams herself - pig for days, yo! - Arch decided to donate the 60 hams to four different charities. Angels’ Place, Jubilee Kitchen and The Sisters of St. Joseph Mother House and Sister Carol Sister Place will give those hams to local families who need to fill out their Christmas table and the world will be a better, protein-filled place because of it……..

Venezuelan insecurity, Jennifer Lawrence's blue dreams and angry Dame DOLLA

- There’s only so many times the boss can rip his troops at work and expect them to respond. Portland Trail Blazers All-Star Damian Lillard is apparently going to test those limits this season and his team is just over one-third of the way through the season. Lillard, who earlier this season called out his team for their slow start and lack of defensive prowess, was at it again following a 45-point thumping at the hands of the Golden State Warriors, after which the star guard addressed his teammates in the locker room. After that, he spoke to the media and said the Blazers' performance was "ridiculous" and that the team's recent slide "is on us," not the coaches. Clearly peeved at a team that is a ho-hum 13-16 and a mere one game up on the Denver Nuggets for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference standings, Dame D.O.L.L.A. went off. "Man, it's OK to turn the ball over, it's OK to make mistakes, but we have to play with some damn heart and compete out there," Lillard said in excoriating his teammates following a 135-90 loss at Oracle Arena in which the Warriors shot 59 percent in the process. Being on the wrong end of the largest margin of victory in the NBA this season and having lost six of the past seven games while falling to dead last in the league in defensive efficiency (109.6) can't sit well with any Blazer with even the faintest whiff of a competitive spirit, so in a nearly silent locker room, perhaps Lillard’s angry words will have an impact on a squad that barely has a pulse right now………

- And this is how the price of an eight ball of coke goes up during the holiday season. Instead of blow getting into the hands of cartel leaders, drug dealers and addicts like the process is supposed to make happen more than 26 tons of cocaine worth $2 billion are now in the possession of the vigilant men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy. These two square-filled outfits seized the Colombian nose candy when approximately 100 suspected drug smugglers were apprehended at sea and turned over to federal authorities, said Vice Adm. Karl Schultz, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area. This rare inter-agency operation intercepted 27 shipments and five bale recovery efforts over the course of 10 weeks, Schultz said, and delivered the kill shot when 26.5 tons of cocaine were unloaded in South Florida. According to Schultz, the drugs came from several areas of South America, including "the Andean Ridge, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia." Coast Guard teams have been out terrorizing drug smugglers on the high seas since Oct. 1, so hopefully they’re really proud of taking the Bolivian marching powder out of the hands of those who so crave them. "This not only showcases the threat posed by dangerous cartels, gangs and criminal groups that make up extensive transitional organized crime networks, but it also highlights the commitment of the Coast Guard and its inter-agency partners...to detect, interdict, investigate and prosecute operatives for these criminal networks," Schultz said in a statement. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself, K…….

- Someone sounds like they’re soooo over those silly mutant movies, eh Jennifer Lawrence? One of the stars of the new, über-over-promoted outer space movie “Passengers” is out promoting her new film this holiday season and while convincing people to go see her and Chris Pratt star as two interstellar travelers who agree to be shot into space to live on another planet along with dozens of others only to wake up 30 years into what’s supposed to be a 120-year trip to their new home is a priority, Lawrence is also fielding questions about another of her prominent recent starring roles. Those questions zeroed in on her appearances as Mystique in three X-Men movies – “First Class,” “Days Of Future Past,” and “Apocalypse” – and the fact that she has been reticent to return to the franchise. When asked about taking the morphing, blue-and-mysterious character to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” universe - where Pratt is one of the stars, Lawrence was surprisingly open to the idea.  “I would love to. I would choose that over doing another X-Men movie maybe,” Lawrence said. “ “I won’t be Mystique in the X-Men movies, but I would love to be Mystique in Guardians Of The Galaxy. I wonder if I could do that.” None of this is new, as Lawrence went on the record back in 2015 as saying that “Apocalypse” would be her last X-Men movie, but she threw a wrench in that earlier this year when she said she was “dying to come back.” Make up your mind, J., which cash grab do you want to make first………

- Insecurity is thy name, Venezuelan government. President/despot Nicolas Maduro revealed as much over the weekend when he revealed the sudden decision to scrap the country's most-used currency bill and tried to sell it as an economic triumph over the country's enemies even as the government sent troops and police to cities where riots and looting broke out over the measure. Maduro has a weekly national radio and television broadcast in which he happily noted that his hasty action had flooded the country's banks with currency deposited by Venezuelans racing to get rid of the paper bills while also devastating Colombian-border currency traders he blames for the bolivar's precipitous plunge in value against "the criminal dollar." In the wake of last week’s big move that annulled all 100-bolivar notes, thousands of Venezuelans queued up at banks, many more latched on to electronic payments and skyrocketing poor among poorer people with no bank accounts and all their savings in the doomed bills. Making ordinarily common cash transactions such as buying food or gasoline was another side effect, along with riots and looting in several cities and the arrest of more than 300 people, including several members of opposition parties. Maduro had a ready explanation for that too, blaming it on  "a macabre" plan promoted by U.S. President Barack Obama to extract massive quantities of 100-bolivar notes from the country and stockpile them abroad. Maduro labeled it the final blow of Obama, a final blow to create chaos, violence, division,” while most (non-dictatorial, non-ass-hatted) economists blame the country's economic woes on price controls and falling prices for the country's oil exports, as well as heavy government spending and production-crippling policies that gave Venezuelans lots of 100-bolivar notes but not enough to buy with them. In response, the despot tasked with leading the nation is hatching conspiracy theories and trying to quell riots in places like Bolivar state, El Callao and La Fria……..

Good Rick Rollls, bad rick Rolls and France exposes its....history

- France is feeling mighty magnanimous this week, thus the French government has signed an accord to allow Holocaust museums in Paris and in Washington, D.C., to digitize the vast French World War II archives — so that the museums can more easily display information on the Vichy regime to the public.  French Veterans Minister Jean Marc-Todeschini said the "rise of populism in parts of the world" means that educating the younger generation about this period is paramount so that nothing like the Third Reich ever happens again anywhere in the world. Those who know know that France's Vichy-based government collaborated with the Nazis under Marshal Petain and helped deport Jews to concentration camp and that’s a part of history of which no nation is proud, yet France is cooperating with those who want to preserve and educate the world about that history. Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum Director Radu Ioanid said that the move by the French government could help uncover more information on war criminals and anti-Semitic crimes committed in France. Dozens of archivists will soon go to work on the project, looking to bring history into the modern era and connect those who prefer to access documents via touch screen and WiFi with information that has previously dwelt exclusively in the world of microfiche. It should be quite an endeavor for these bold historians……

- This is a Rick Roll no one needed to see. The man responsible for hooking and clowning more Internet users than just about anyone over the years pulled a real, raw and ugly Rick Roll of his own by covering a classic song by one of the biggest rock bands in the world and now, none of us can unsee or unhear it. Yes, Rick Astley has shared a video of him covering Foo Fighters’ classic track ‘Everlong,’ which really seems like nothing more than a shameless plug by the auteur of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ for  an upcoming charity gig he’ll be playing in London. In the video, which is one of the big singles from Foo Fighters’ “The Color and Shape” album, Astley does his best to rock out despite being a terrible ‘80s pop singer with no actual rock credibility. At the end, he strikes a pose with a quizzical face and says: “I’ll be playing the drums, not the guitar – so it will sound a lot better than that. Come and rock out with us, December 23, Shepherds Bush Empire. It’s all for Nordoff Robbins, a fantastic charity, come on. We’re going go to play a few Christmas songs as well. Can’t be better than that. Come on.” No Rick, it can be better than that. For example, it could involve someone other than you. Unless Dave Grohl and the fellas will be headlining rather than starting work on a new album and allegedly preparing to headline Glastonbury Festival 2017, then attendees would be better off staying home, clicking on an outlandish link online and being shoved face-first into the video for the only one of your songs that anyone actually knows…….

- Speaking of Rick Rolls, zero credit to Larry Johnson, a Connecticut man who RR’d a Waterbury, Conn. jewelry store by rolling into said store in a wheelchair, asking to see a $37,000 watch and when handed the watch, leaping out of the chair and sprinting out of the store. Unfortunately for this would-be Rolex wearer, time ran out on him quickly even though his flawless plan included him pepper spraying both a clerk and a security guard and knocking the guard to the floor on the way out the door. The only real flaw in his plan was the fact that a shiny, metal wheelchair is a very easy place to find fingerprints even for someone who doesn’t actually need one and probably doesn’t know too much about how to properly use or care for one and Johnson was soon tied to the theft by a fingerprint on the wheelchair. It’s hard to see how this brilliant scheme ever failed and that’s without hearing a surefire winner of a plan for what to do with the watch if he actually got away with the theft. In the end, Johnson was sentenced to six years in prison and eight years of probation beyond that after he pleaded guilty to robbery, larceny and assault. One has to wonder whether he’ll be allowed to be a fake cripple in prison, or whether one of his new cellmates will render him in actual need of one if and when he steps out of line and tries to thieve something that belongs to one of them. Use the time behind bars to better yourself and come up with a much better plan for how to become rich without deserving it, L……..

- One of the best scenes that will happen this entire college basketball season went down this week in Washington State’s rivalry game against Idaho. It happened because Washington State coach Ernie Kent bid $2,000 to win an item in a live charity auction that included an all-access pass to one of Idaho's games this season, complete with a chance to attend Idaho's pregame shootaround, pregame meal and pregame talk in the locker room, as well as sit on the bench and even call the first play of the game. He chose to cash that in with his team playing the Vandals and began the game seated on the Idaho bench next to coach Don Verlin. Kent won the package during the 15th annual Coaches vs. Cancer gala in Spokane, Washington and so he spent the first 30 seconds of the game next to Verlin before the two shook hands and Kent departed for his own bench. As odd as the sight was, Kent said it ranked near the top of his favorite coaching memories, as it brought awareness to trying to find a cure for cancer and both he and Verlin lost their fathers to cancer. "I don't think anybody's ever seen that anywhere in the country, where opposing coaches stood on one side of the field, sat on another team's bench, sat in another team's dugout," Kent said. "But that's not the importance of what transpired. It was the fact that you have coaches, again coaches, standing up for such a worthy cause." It added a fun twist to the oldest continuous rivalry west of the Mississippi, one in which the two campuses are less than 10 miles apart, and the two teams play every season, alternating home venues. Washington State won this round, 61-48, to snap a two-game losing streak to the Vandals, but the best takeaway from this one was clearly the sight of Kent on the wrong bench…….

Americans who don't like bacon, Paris' toxic air and MLB free-agency lies

- China, you have company. The Asian power remains one of the biggest polluters in the world and its cities routinely clog the skies above with billions of cubic centimeters of pollution and cause citizens to don protective health masks on their faces to safeguard their lungs, but Paris - site of a climate-change accord world powers agreed to in an effort to save the planet from imminent doom not so long ago - is jumping into the fray and its current plight has officials trying to fight the city’s worst winter pollution in a decade by banning many cars from the streets in a bid to clear the smog from the French capital. This sudden le-surge  in pollution is being caused by cold weather and windless conditions trapping exhaust fumes and smoke from wood fires in the atmosphere, according to the good air sniffers of the AirParif air monitoring service. Parisians are facing hostile skies as the current level of fine airborne particles is at 60 percent of the level in Beijing - much closer than anyone wants to be to the rare air occupied by one of the world’s most notoriously polluted cities. In response to the lung-threatening conditions, officials in Paris announced that private cars with license plates ending in odd numbers are banned from the streets between 5:30 a.m. and midnight. The rule has been in place for two days now, alternating between even and odd plates, and traffic police fined more than 1,700 drivers Tuesday for breaking the rules. To incentivize leaving the Smart Car or Peugeot in the garage, city officials are also offering public transit for free…….

- If you don’t think one of the top free-agent sluggers on the market will sign with you, just keep your mouth shut and move on, Baltimore Orioles general manager Dan Duquette. Duquette apparently felt like free agent Jose Bautista, previously of Baltimore’s division rival Toronto, wasn’t going to sign with the Orioles this offseason, so rather than accept that quietly, the GM decided to make up a thoroughly ridiculous story blaming/crediting his team’s fans with “inspiring” the team not to pursue Bautista. "We told [Bautista's] agent that we are not interested because our fans don't like him," Duquette said . "Our fans don't like Jose Bautista, with good reason." The former Toronto Blue Jays outfielder, now a free agent, has definitely clashed with the Orioles in the past, most notably a number of incidents with Orioles pitcher Darren O'Day and outfielder Adam Jones dating back to 2013, when O'Day and Bautista exchanged words after the slugger struck out. Following a Bautista homer later in the game, the two barked at each other again and the next year, O'Day plunked Bautista in what appeared to be retaliation for Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman throwing at an Orioles hitter. The hostilities continued in April 2015, when Jones took exception to a Bautista bat flip after a home run and they too shouted angrily at one another. Trying to couch his remarks, Duquette did note that the money Bautista wants could also be an issue, saying "of course, that may change. But the [qualifying offer] makes things difficult." Oddly enough, Bautista's agent, Jay Alou, said he never had such a conversation with Duquette, further upping the potential that the GM is either a) full of sh*t or b) trying to drive down Bautista’s asking price…….

- Normally, coating anything in the United States in anything bacon-related is cause for outright joy. But one group for whom that is decidedly untrue is Muslims, who definitely don’t want any pig-derived products on or near them because their religion views the muck-loving animals as unclean. That includes Galveston, Texas restaurateur Asad Khan, who owns ZaZa Bar And Bites. Khan and his community are definitely not cool with someone smearing bacon grease and bacon strips on his restaurant twice in the past month, including on the door handle. According to Khan, he has also received phone calls telling him to return to his native Pakistan, though police haven’t determined whether there is a link between the vandalism and the phone calls. Either way, it’s the sort of small-minded, xenophobic bigotry that flared up far too often during the just-concluded presidential election, yet that type of horrific hate has existed in America for as long as the country has existed, so discrimination is unfortunately alive and well with too many. North Texas is home to an armed group known for staging protests outside of mosques, so the Lone Star State isn't really representing itself all that well in the love, tolerance and understanding department of late. What’s surprising is that prior to these incidents, Khan didn’t have security cameras at his business, but he plans to install them to discourage similar ugly acts in the future. The Council on American-Islamic relations is calling on police to investigate and many in the community have been dining at the restaurant since the vandalism in order to show their support for Khan……..

- Memo to Londoners frequenting the sort of trendy pubs where a star of a popular cable television zombie drama might hang out: Keep your eyes peeled for a thick, bound stack of paper that looks like it might contain the intimate secrets of that show. It seems that “Fear The Walking Dead” star Frank Dillane, who plays Nick Clark in the zombie show, both enjoys beer and has a bad habit of leaving his scripts behind when he visits his favorite drinking establishments. Dillane admitted that since the show premiered last year as a spin-off to “The Walking Dead,” he hasn’t followed through on standing orders to shred his copy of scripts. “We have to shred our scripts – I’m forever leaving my scripts in pubs. I could get in trouble… I have done it numerous times,” Dillane said. “I’ve left them in a few pubs. There are probably a few [floating around]… they are very strict on that you are not allowed to [leave them lying around].” Given his absent-mindedness, Dillane admitted that he’s surprised that there haven’t been any leaks yet. He added that he’s willing to take the fall if they do, but at this point, maybe it’s best that no one knows what’s coming on a show spun off of a series whose ratings have plummeted in recent months. “The Walking Dead” is sinking in the ratings and that could rub off on “Fear,” even though the spin-off has shown that it has enough juice to stand on its own, at least for the time being……..

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…….

Romania v. Hungary v. UNESCO, Aquaman's movie debut date and idiots ring bells for weeks

- Why is it such a fight to get the NFL to not have its head up its legalistic ass? The league is far too militant about subjects that simply don’t matter at all, all in the name of micromanaging every aspect of the game and trying to control its image to a finite degree. Its uniform police have long operated on a Third World dictator-level of control, but this past Sunday, the NFL’s corporate stooges deigned to allow players to wear - gasp - unique, specially designed cleats promoting various charitable causes with which they’re associated. But wait, what of the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns, the two teams with a bye week and therefore excluded from the temporary relaxation of NFL uniform rules? Initially, the word was that missing the My Cause My Cleats weekend meant that Titans and Browns players wouldn’t get to take part, even by wearing their specialized cleats this coming Sunday. At least two Titans, cornerback Jason McCourty and tight end Delanie Walker, planned to wear their special cleats anyway in a wholly defensible “eff you” to the ass hats who run the league. McCourty would be promoting a joint charity he and his twin brother, New England Patriots safety Devin McCourty, have a joint charity called Tackle Sickle Cell. "I believe you should be [allowed], so I'll be wearing mine for the game," Jason McCourty said. Alas, the league has realized how bad it looked in all of this and has done a last-minute change of its stance. "We have spoken to both the Titans and Browns," NFL senior vice president of communications Natalie Ravitz said. "Players from the two teams on a bye last week can participate in My Cause/My Cleats in Week 14." How verrrrry munificent of you……..

- It’s another moronic example of someone doing an insane task in a lame effort to get their name in the Guinness Book of World Records. Sure, this time the idiot in question did so in the name of charity, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous. Enter Gulfport, Mississippi resident Jamie Richardson who is now a world record holder and should not be the least bit proud of it. For six-plus days, Richardson stood and rang a bell, over and over, allowed only a five-minute break every hour. He finally broke the 150-hour record at 7 a.m., surrounded by his friends and family, who should have been ashamed to be associated with this farce at all. "My hands are sore and cold from the wet but they'll be okay," Richardson said. The reason he rang that damn bell for so damn long and went without sleep for nearly a week is to benefit the Salvation Army, a charitable organization that means a lot to he and his family. He was once homeless and went to the Salvation Army for assistance. "We got through it. We went to the Salvation Army and they became family to us," Richardson said. Family friends said Richardson made it clear all along that he wanted the focus of his record-breaking effort to be on the organization and not on himself, but it’s pretty clear that all of the headlines are about a guy who didn’t work or sleep for nearly a week so he could unleash one of the most annoying sounds known to mankind, over and over again. After wrapping up his bell-ringing record, he went to church with his family and then headed home for some long-overdue sleep……..

- Warner Bros.’ water-based superhero finally has a debut date. Aquaman will finally get his chance to stand alone and shine in the running DC/Marvel superhero race for cinematic glory, as Warner Bros. has finally confirmed the release date for the film starring Jason Momoa as Aquaman and Amber Heard as Mera. That dynamic duo will hit cinema screens in October 2018, which is still a long freaking way off and three years after Momoa made his debut as Aquaman in this year’s “Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice.” Fans won't have to wait until 2018 to see them again, as Momoa will reprise his role next year’s Justice League movie, joined by Heard in her debut performance as Mera after she was cast in the role back in March. Aquaman and his cadre of water-based powers made their DC Comics debut in 1941, but amazingly, Momoa’s brief appearance in “Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice” represented the first time the character has appeared in a live-action film. The Aquaman movie will be helmed by director James Wan, who also directed “Fast & Furious 7” and “The Conjuring,” with “Batman v. Superman” director Zack Snyder serving as an executive producer. “I kind of don’t want to give too much away but know this: The spirit that I’m going for is like a classic sort of swashbuckling action adventure, sort of high seas adventure story,” Wan said of the film. “It’s ultimately a quest story in the spirit of Raiders Of The Lost Ark meets Romancing The Stone.” In truth, all of that matters very little because people love superhero movies and will fork over their movie dollars to see them no matter how good they are……..

- It’s Romania v. Hungary in a battle of small, eastern European countries most people around the world would struggle to locate on a map. But this fight isn't over territory, borders or even economic interests…no, it’s over a festival. The center of the drama is a senior ethnic Hungarian politician who says the Romanian culture ministry discriminated against the Hungarian community in failing to win international recognition for a religious festival. The individual throwing shade is Csilla Hegedus, deputy head of the Union of Democratic Hungarians in Romania, with claims that 100 Hungarian experts had worked six years to secure UNESCO protection for a Catholic pilgrimage in northwest Romania where 1.4 million Hungarians live. According to Hegedus, a Romanian culture ministry official failed to provide UNESCO with documentation it requested about the festival. Ah, nothing gets the blood boiling quite like a failure to submit the proper paperwork and undercutting a push for UNESCO protection of a religious festival. In truth, this is merely the latest escalation in rising tensions between the two countries, coming not long after Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Hungarian diplomats not to attend Romania's national day celebration. Add in the fact that Transylvania became part of Romania in 1918 after long existing as part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and you have all of the ingredients you need for a combustible mix that can go boom over something as simple as seeking United Nations recognition and protection for a religious festival………

L.A. Olympic lunacy, anti-holiday heroes in Arizona and a big start for The Weeknd

- Just keep putting more zeroes on those bills, eh Venezuela? If your country is coping with triple-digit inflation and a currency meltdown that have left your nation’s largest note worth just around two U.S. cents on the black market, drastic measures are needed and thus, Venezuela is issuing higher-denominated bills in an effort to stem the tide and turn its dismal fiscal situation around. The South American non-power’s central bank said in a statement that six new bills ranging from 500 to 20,000 Bolivars will begin circulating on Dec. 15, adding some more commas and zeros to the mix and maybe a nice dash of additional color to the wallets of Venezuelans who still have a hard time finding and buying many basic food and personal health necessities on a daily basis. As part of its brilliant fiscal strategy, Venezuela tightly controls access to American dollars, believing that America is evil and blah, blah, blah. This oil-producing nation all but forces the average Venezuelan to turn to the black market to acquire hard currency, along with simple hygiene products and other everyday household staples. At present, the largest-denominated bill is 100 bolivars and in a discouraging comparison, single U.S. dollar is worth as much as 4,400 bolivars. To further compound the currency crisis in a place where compounding interest is but a distant dream, cash has become harder to find within Venezuela’s borders and late last week, the nation's credit card payment system froze up. It’s almost enough to make a person wonder if maybe the country’s totalitarian regime is actually competent and able to do its job with even a modicum of proficiency……..

- There is nobody hitting more pop music home runs right now than Toronto native Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd. His recently-released third album, ‘Starboy,” is about as hot a commodity as there is in the pop music world right now and after the album dropped Nov. 25, every single from the project has hit the Billboard chats. The album features collaborations with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Daft Punk and Lana Del Rey and with 18 tracks from the project in the Billboard Hot 100 - a.k.a. the singles chart - it’s pretty clear that Tesfaye knows what the musical masses like to hear. The album itself elbowed its way to the top of the Billboard 200 album charts in its first week with 348,000 in equivalent album units, as well as breaking  the record for the most Spotify streams in a single day last week. All of that adds up to a whole lot of exposure and dollar bills for Tesfaye and at this point, the only mountain left to conquer is uprooting Rae Sremmurd’s ‘Black Beatles,’ which has a distinct advantage because it has become the unofficial anthem of the Mannequin Challenge ridiculousness sweeping the world. Oh, and if Tesfaye had simply included three more songs on the album, he could have wrested the record for most singles from a single album in the Hot 100 away from noted attacker of people in rehab for suicidal thoughts and depression Drake, who had a whopping 20 tracks from his latest album, “Views,” on the chart when it was released earlier this year. Still, not a bad run for a guy whose stage name is in desperate need of buying a vowel……..

- Props to the unidentified thief who struck a blow for opponents of Christmas over-decorating everywhere by storming the porch of a Glendale, Arizona family and giving this southwestern city something to be known for other than hosting College Football Playoff games. Now, Glendale can be known as the place where an individual some may pejoratively call a thief walked up to the front door of a simple residential dwelling and swiftly, ruthlessly grabbed a decorated tree right near the front door of the home. Why any family would stick a Christmas tree on its front porch - even in a warm, sunny place like Arizona - is unclear, but Dina Fimbres and her family made that fatal decision to make their Christmas tree an outdoor tree and in a wonderfully ironic twist, the whole family was home having breakfast when this anti-holiday hero carried out his covert mission in broad daylight. Maybe the Fimbres family was lulled into a false sense of security because they have a home security system that captured footage of the theft, but for now, they have no idea who took their tree. "My heart just sank. I just froze. I didn't think someone would do that," Fimbres said.  "Completely violated … to me he was like an intruder." Yes, except he didn’t come into your home and he didn’t take anything of value….just a damn tree with some bulbs and tinsel on it. The family hopes that with the police report they filed and the video they’ve made public, someone will recognize the thief and bring this holiday home decoration wrecker to “justice.” Until then, this iconoclast is free to terrorize the front porches of families across the greater Glendale area……

- California Dreaming seems to be the underlying theme for the just-released Los Angeles bid committee for the 2024 Olympics. The committee comprised of the only Americans who actually want the Olympics anywhere near these here United States have released details of a nearly unheard-of budget plan and these pie-in-the-sky kooks actually believe that $5.3 billion will be enough to cover both operational and infrastructure costs for an Olympics that won't need any new, permanent stadiums. To put that number in perspective, it represents less than half the money spent/wasted on the recently completed Rio Games and about a quarter of Tokyo's ballooning budget for the 2020 Olympics. It flies in the face of the bribery-laden bidding process that envelops most Olympics, as cities traditionally deal with two figures -- one for operational costs and one for "non-Olympics" costs that cover capital and infrastructure. The aspirational ass hats on the committee believe they can actually pull this magic act off because more than 30 venues already exist in the L.A. area and those that don't will be built as temporary structures. Their bid also folded in $1.2 billion for infrastructure, which would primarily be used for temporary venues and to bring existing ones up to Olympic standards. "If L.A. is chosen to host the 2024 Games, the IOC does not have to worry about changing or evolving budgets, shifting competition venues or uncertainty about the delivery of the Games," bid chairman Casey Wasserman said. For the rest of America - including Los Angelinos who want not part of even worse gridlock and logistical issues that come with hosting the Games - the hope is that Paris and Budapest, Hungary don’t wise up and pull out of the bidding, allowing one of them to snag the 2024 hosting gig so America can enjoy them from afar and take pride solely in winning the most medals and gold medals like we always do, without having to invite the world to hang out in our house for two and a half weeks……..

Nazi gates in Norway, Wu-Tang's strife and MLB fights tweakers

- And yet there will still be cheaters because there’s lots of money to be earned. It’s good that Major League Baseball is increasing penalties for using banned stimulants and is adding more random drug tests, but until a first positive PED test results in a lifetime ban and immediate forfeiture of any money owed under a player’s contract, guys will continue to cheat because they can make a lot of money by doing so. Under the terms of a change to the sport's drug agreement, the suspension for a second stimulant violation goes up from 25 to 50 games, while a third violation would result in a 100-game penalty, up from 80. The penalty for a first stimulant violation remains follow-up testing and the discipline for a fourth stays at up to a permanent suspension, with the first-offense penalty the glaring weak link in this armor. MLB did conduct 8,281 drug tests -- 6,634 urine and 1,647 blood -- in the year ending with this season's World Series, up 123 from the previous season and 352 from two seasons ago. With this new rule, random urine tests will increase from 3,200 to 4,800 in season and from 350 to 1,550 during the offseason, ensuring at least one offseason test for all 40-man roster players, while random blood tests rise from 260 to 500 in season and from 140 to 400 in the offseason. Dr. Jeffrey M. Anderson, the program's independent program administrator, issued his annual report this week, with 105 theraputic use exemptions for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and one exemption each for hypertension and hypercalciuria (calcium in urine) issued. In other words, best of luck to all of the cheaters out there in MLB working to scam the system this offseason……….

- If you can’t make real news by arresting real criminals, then why not make it up, eh Santa Maria Police Department? The SMPD is taking all kinds of heat after Chief Ralph Martin decided to throw a plot twist in his department’s war against local gangs by issuing a fake press release reporting the arrest of two gang members as a ruse to mislead rivals who planned to kill them. The fake news release infuriated some local news outlets, who worried that reporting bogus news fed to them directly by the local police would undermine their credibility with their respective audiences. Those outfits are already fighting a losing battle against the proliferation of fake news on social media and elsewhere, so taking on the long arm of the law only deepens that struggle. That argument didn’t faze Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin, who argued that his approach saved two lives and helped extend an investigation that took down 17 gang members for 10 slayings and plots to kill eight others, including the two men placed in protective custody and used as theoretical bait. Of course, the next time his department sends out a news release that demands immediate action by news organizations in order to relay an important message to the public and those news organizations ignore it, Martin may regret his tactics, but for now, he can revel in the temporary high of getting over on a local gang that now knows it can’t actually believe anything that comes out of his mouth…….

- Wu-Tang Clan has never been the most functional rap outfit. While extremely talented and even revolutionary within the hip-hop world, the Wu has been on the verge of imploding for virtually every day of its existence. Thus, it should surprise no one that Wu-Tang member U-God is reportedly filing a lawsuit against his own bandmates, claiming that he hasn’t been paid for his royalty payments on 12 Wu-Tang albums over the past six years and demanding his 2-percent share of the merchandising rights, plus his share of the $2 million the group received for selling the lone copy of its most recent album, ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” to infamous pharmaceutical entrepreneur /world-class d-bag Martin Shkreli. U-God is a founding member of the pioneering New York City hip-hop collective and is seeking $2.5 million from his fellow Clan members. He blames the supposed need for the lawsuit on group leader RZA and as part of the suit, he’s demanding a full audit of the group’s finances, supposedly to certify how much each member of the group will be paid in future. The Shkreli/“Shaolin” mess is one the entire group would probably like to forget at this point, given that Shkreli bought it under a contract that banned him from releasing the 110-minute-long album for 88 years after the purchase, an agreement he violated within a year by leaking parts of it after last month’s presidential election. Oh, and Shkreli has since been revealed to be a price-gouging piece of sh*t who raises the price of life-saving medication by 5,000 percent in the name of sheer corporate greed, so there’s that as well. All in all, right now is just not all that great a time for the Wu………

- It sounds like an absurd riddle, but it’s a true story and one Norwegian police apparently aren’t all that close to cracking. Police in the western city of Bergen are trying to determine how an iron gate stolen from the Nazis' Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany ended up in western Norway, but they’re not doing very well and according to police spokeswoman Kari Bjoerkhaug Trones , the investigation has hit a snag because "no useable evidence" has been found. The infamous gate is topped with the cryptic slogan "Arbeit macht frei" — "Work sets you free" — and it was found Nov. 28 under a tarp at a parking lot in a settlement north of Bergen, Norway's second-largest city. Why someone would go to such lengths to steal the gate, knowing its genocidal history as the imposing sight greeting Jews sent to live, work and eventually die at a Nazi concentration camp, and then abandon it in a parking lot on the far left coast of a frigid Scandinavian nation is befuddling and Bjoerkhaug Trones said the gate that was now in police care, but had apparently been in the parking lot under the tarp “for quite some time with some junk.” Bergen police have no suspects, no leads and no idea what to do next, other than getting that gate back to Dachau where it belongs. The concentration camp near Munich was established by the Nazis in 1933, with the missing gate originally set into a larger gate at the camp's entrance…….

Pirates and their parrots in court, Pirates invited to rule Iceland and Amy Schumer as Barbie

- There are just some mug shots that are infinitely better than others - here’s looking at you, Nick Nolte. But even Nolte may not be able to contend with Craig Buckner, a Washington County, Oregon man who made his presence felt this week with a court appearance and mug shot for the ages. According to Washington County Court clerks, Buckner was at the courthouse to surrender to authorities for violating a release order and believed he would receive leniency for willingly turning himself in. He figured that made it OK to show up for court with his trusty pet parrot in tow and in a move that might sound wildly insane to the average man but perfectly reasonable to a wannabe modern-day pirate, Buckner instructed his parrot to wait for him out in a tree in the courtyard of the courthouse while he had his day in court. The judge in his case didn’t exactly follow Buckner’s expected script and instead ordered him to be taken into custody. At that point, a visibly concerned Buckner wondered what would happen to his bird. Washington County Court Security Dep. Shoana McKelvey took Buckner into custody and said he started talking about his parrot right away. The deputy kindly offered to go outside and check on the bird, which she saw to be in distress with several crows circling it. "This was Mr. Buckner's pet. He has had this bird since it has been hatched. I could just tell how concerned he was when he went into custody, this bird was so special to him," McKelvey said. She then brought Buckner outside so he could get the bird out of the tree and to safety. With Buckner headed to jail, a friend will take custody of the bird until its owner is a free man again……..

- She’s a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world….life in a Sony Pictures feature film, it’s fantastic. Amy Schumer may not be the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of a studio cranking out a wholly ridiculous and unnecessary live-action movie about the world’s most famous plastic, proportionally ridiculous doll, but she’s precisely the one being tabbed to front Sony’s take on Barbie coming to life. Barbie has long been about wholly unnatural and anatomically impossible measurements as a bogus ideal for female beauty, while Schumer has rightly railed against critics who have tried to body shame her even though she’s a normal and even slightly better-than-average clothing size for a woman. But maybe that irony is what makes her the right fit to play Barbie and Sony has reportedly chosen from three separate scripts it ordered for the project and picked one penned by Hilary Winston that it believes provides a contemporary spin on beauty, feminism, and identity. Apparently in Winston’s vision of Barbie’s world, Schumer is living in a land of other Barbie’s, but is booted from that world and into our actual world. The project doesn’t yet have a director, but it’s expected that Schumer will rewrite the script with her sister, Kim Caramele. Sources close to the project believe it will be similar to projects such as “Big” and “Splash” and with Schumer involved, humor is bound to be a central value in Barbie’s new world…….

- One story after breaking down a would-be pirate in Oregon, let’s shift the focus to self-named pirates looking to loot, sack, pillage and plunder…the capital building in Iceland? Yes, the anti-authoritarian Pirate Party isn't going away and is sailing its Jolly Roger into uncharted waters after the country’s president has asked the party to try to form a government, after two earlier rounds of coalition talks failed. These pirates, sadly sans peg legs, planks walked, barrels of rum and canons, actually seek direct democracy and digital freedom, a plankform, er, platform they rode all the way to a third-place finish in Iceland's Oct. 29 election. The problem stems from the fact that no party won an outright majority, prompting President Gudni Johannesson to the first-placed Independence Party and then the second-placed Left-Greens to try to assemble a coalition. Both of them failed miserably and may now have to walk the plank…of cooperating with the third-place finisher in the election. Johannesson asked senior Pirate lawmaker Birgitta Jonsdottir to try to assemble a government with other parties, presumably without any swashbuckling involved. It will be interesting to see how a party founded by an assortment of hackers, political activists and internet freedom advocates and which holds just 10 seats in Iceland's 63-seat parliament will go about forming a working coalition, but given the public’s ongoing outrage over the prime minister's offshore holdings, which were revealed in the Panama Papers leak, someone had best get a working government in place and soon…….

- Congratulations on being fired without getting officially fired, now-former Indiana University head football coach Kevin Wilson. Wilson was allowed to “resign” from his post due to "philosophical differences," the school announced. Rumors have swirled for weeks that at least five current IU players were interviewed about Wilson's treatment of players and all were questioned by athletic department officials and university lawyers during the past two weeks. Stories of players being mistreated, rushed back too soon from concussions and other misdeeds circulated during recent weeks and it’s ironic because athletic director Fred Glass handed Wilson a contract extension in January, a move he now claims because he was assured following an outside review from legal counsel that no players' medical issues were compromised under Wilson. He believed those issues were resolved, but shock of all shocks, a coach who (allegedly) mistreated players on a disturbing level didn’t immediately or permanently change his ways overnight and last month, Glass said, "it came to my attention that some things I thought we'd put behind us had bubbled up again." The AD insisted there was no one incident that led directly to the firing, but painted it as an accumulation of infractions over time while also wrapping his allegations in a bullsh*t statement in which he praised “Coach Wilson's many positive contributions to our football program.” Yes, nothing says appreciation quite like firing, er, allowing a coach to resign in a flurry of ugly allegations. In the wake of Wilson’s firing/resignation, defensive coordinator Tom Allen was immediately given a six-year deal to take over the full-time job…….

Kid Cudi rises again, a leprechaun at large in Manhattan and MLB finally stops being stupid

- A stint in rehab and a wholly unprovoked and classless social media attack from Drake may have knocked him down, but Kid Cudi persists. The Cleveland rapper has announced the release date for his much-anticipated new album ‘Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin,” giving a firm timeline for his sixth studio album. The album was originally slated to drop back in September, but Kid Cudi delayed it and cited “sampel clearance issues,” which were further muddied a few days later when he checked himself into rehab after suffering from “depression and suicidal urges.” During that rehab stint, Drake insensitively trolled Cudi on social media, pulling from his rival’s lyrics and persona to craft a hateful message that was totally uncalled for. Despite that hate, Cudi left rehab last month and issued thanks to a few famous faces who didn’t act like giant ass hats during his time in therapy, namely Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and A$AP Rocky, before making his live return on stage with Williams and Travis Scott. With that return to the stage accomplished, he is ready to move forward with his next album, which will be released digitally on Dec. 16 and will drop in a physical form one week later on Dec. 23, just in time for Christmas. Here’s hoping the album has a late addition in the form of a dis track aimed at Drake so Cudi can finally fire back at a peer who seems to have forgotten what basic human decency is about…….

- Someone is a bit insecure about their economy and their country’s ability to compete with products from abroad, eh Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi? El-Sissi threw down an economic gauntlet this week when he announced, through government publications, a second increase of tariffs on hundreds of imported products. The president’s decree contains a long list of over 350 items including fruits, foods, perfumes, furniture, and others, all of which will be subject to an increase in customs duties of between 40 and 60 percent. Those increases would be bad enough, but they come on top of a previous increase earlier in the year on items the government generously - i.e. falsely - views as luxury items. Yes, because fruit and basic food staples are luxuries. Oh, and nothing is quite as luxurious as a simple piece of furniture, so you need to make sure people pay the price of they want to live such a lavish lifestyle as to have a chair to sit on or a table on which to place their books, plates or papers. This new piling-on against foreign products comes just  a month after the government floated its currency and raised fuel prices to qualify for a $12 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, which the government hopes will improve Egypt's economy after years of unrest. Forcing people to buy domestic items regardless of their quality compared to options from overseas by sending tariffs on imports soaring is always a solid idea too, eh el-Sissi? Maybe just refuse to accept imports at all and really stifle the competition…….

- After 14 seasons of stupidity, Major League Baseball is finally getting it right. MLB’s outright ass-hattery began after the 2002 All-Star Game in Milwaukee, which memorably ended in a 7-7, 11-inning tie when both teams ran out of pitchers. Then-commissioner Bud Selig was booed in the stadium of the very team he once owned and quickly responded with the worst and most overreactive idea possible. The tie begat the "This Time It Counts" innovation, which mandated that the league that won the ASG would get home-field advantage in the World Series, which was moronic because a second baseman from a last-place team could get a game-winning hit off an anonymous middle reliever from a last-place team in the other league and earn home-field advantage despite neither of their teams ending up within 30 games of the playoffs. Meanwhile, teams such as last season’s world champion Chicago Cubs could finish the regular season with a league-best 103 wins only to miss out on home-field advantage to a World Series opponent such as the Cleveland Indians, who won nine fewer games. That meant Game 7 was played in Cleveland instead of at Wrigley Field, although the Cubs overcame that disadvantage and won anyhow. Now, as part of MLB's tentative new collective bargaining agreement, home field will now go to the pennant winner with the better regular-season record. There are other, lesser elements of the deal, such as the minimum stay on the disabled list being reduced from 15 days to 10 and the expansion of the season by five days, but the real story is that the ASG will have nothing to do with the World Series, nor will home field rotate between the National and American leagues, as it generally did up through 2002. Commissioner Rob Manfred and the players’ union got it right where Selig never did and baseball is better for it………

- Is there a leprechaun in Manhattan? When a tale of someone making off with a pot o’ gold in Midtown emerges, it’s a question worth asking and it continues to be as police persist in their search for a suspect who was seen on surveillance video stealing a bucket of gold flakes off an armored truck smack dab in the middle of New York City recently. The theft happened around 4:30 p.m. as the armored truck was parked on West 48th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. Guards foolishly left the truck unattended for a short time and the opportunistic suspect jumped in and seized the day by seizing that pot of gold. “The helpers actually left the truck to do a pick up, and the one that was securing the vehicle from the rear stepped away,” said Det. Martin Pastor of the NYPD’s major case squad. According to the NYPD, the suspect first scoped out the truck, focusing on its open back door before grabbing an 86-pound, unmarked and sealed black metal bucket containing $1.6 million-worth of gold flakes and escaping east on West 438th Street toward Third Avenue, winding his way through the mass of people who clog the streets of Manhattan on a daily basis, with those around him not bothering to notice a man lugging a giant black pail because there are about 75 more interesting things going on along your average New York City street at any given moment. Eventually, carrying the heavy bucket wore the thief down and he can be seen on surveillance footage setting it down, picking it back up and loading it into a white Ford sedan he then drove away. The walk to the car took nearly an hour, while guards from the truck noticed the bucket’s absence after the driver returned to the truck and sat on another bucket in the rear. That was weeks ago and police are still trying to find the suspect, which isn’t exactly a reassuring fact for New York’s finest………

Houston Cougar bitterness, Australians for democracy and the first of many Prince documentaries

- It’s one of those stories that makes you stop, wonder and ask, “If you’re skilled enough to hack an entire computer system, couldn’t you find a better target?” That question goes out to the hacker or hackers who elbowed their way into the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority system and decided to make use of the access they had granted themselves by shutting down fare gates and allowing people to ride for free. According to sources close to the situation, the hackers have had access to the system for several days, but the public became aware of it over the weekend when people showed up to ride the metro and were greeted by computer screens that read, ‘You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted.’ The grammatically butchered nature of the message suggests it’s someone who doesn’t speak English very well, but SFMTA authorities insist the hack hasn’t affected service. “There’s no impact to the transit service, but we have opened the fare gates as a precaution to minimize customer impact,” said Muni spokesperson Paul Rose. During the hack, the system hasn’t been able to read riders’ payment cards and ticket kiosks were also out of service. The real reason the hack was a top priority for the SFMTA to solve, though, is that workers were unsure if their paychecks would be affected by the hack. If workers’ dollar bills are affected, you can be damn sure they’re going to do everything they can to make sure the issue is addressed and that it’s addressed sooner rather than later……..

- The first of what will surely be many is on the way. Prince is no longer with us and that assures us of a few things: plenty of suddenly found, previously unreleased music he had stashed away, a tribute album or 10 and of course, lots of documentaries purporting to tell the true story of various portions of his interesting life. “Prince: R U Listening?” is the first in that surefire parade of documentaries and it will come out next year, documenting the musician’s early years and his rise to one of the most prominent recording artists and entertainers in the world. There are some big names attached to the project, as it will feature interviews from friends, family and collaborators like Shelia E as well as reflections from Mick Jagger, Billy Idol, Bono, Lenny Kravitz. Producer Michael Kirk has done plenty of big-name projected and will direct the documentary, which will also include personal recollections of working with Prince as told by former bandmates including Dez Dickerson, who toured with Prince during the’ 80s, and André Cymone, who played bass in Prince’s teenage band Grand Central. Given that Prince had decades in the music industry, released so many singles and albums and had so many memorable performances, this film leaves plenty of additional ground for future Prince-centric documentaries to explore, meaning that those who’ve always wanted to know more about his mysterious existence - crazy adult pajama party/concerts and all - should be in for some great viewing…….

- Wow, The Man certainly knows how to be ungrateful when citizens actually make the effort to get involved in politics. For all of the b*tching government officials do about the common man not voting and not taking the time to participate in the democratic process, it’s funny to see security officers in Australia’s Parliament evict some 30 loud, animated protesters demonstrating against Australia's treatment of asylum seekers. These democracy lovers exercised their right to free speech by sitting in a public gallery and using the voices God gave them to drown out the House of Representatives, where lawmakers had gathered for a combative, daily 90-minute session in which opposition lawmakers questioned government ministers about their portfolios. The protestors came prepared and in order to prevent security from getting rid of them too easily, several of them actually glued their hands to a railing at the front of the gallery. When it became clear that the protestors were not going to be silenced when it came to Australia looking to permanently ban anyone who had attempted to flee various refugee crises in Africa and Asia in recent months and prevent them from ever becoming Australian citizens, Speaker Tony Smith adjourned the meeting after the first question. In its aftermath, Government Minister Christopher Pyne described the 40-minute disruption as "the most serious intrusion into the Parliament" in 20 years and asked the speaker to investigate. Given the way this turned out, the Australian government had best not complain the next time it feels like too few people showed interest in being a part of its democratic process………

- Bitter much, University of Houston board of regents? Just a few months back, you were feeling pretty damn good about yourselves. You had a football team that was ranked in the top five in the nation, you had the next big thing in head coaches and you were expected to be one of the leading candidates to be added to the Big 12 as part of the conference’s expansion plans. Fast-forward to now and Houston is on the tail end of a disappointing 9-3 season that featured losses to three teams the Cougars were favored to beat, head coach Tom Herman is on his way out the door and oh yeah, his new school is one of the members of the Big 12 Conference that rejected you and other expansion candidates when it decided to remain numerically incorrect with 10 teams. In that spirit of bitterness, Houston board of regents chairman Tilman Fertitta lashed out at the Big 12 in the wake of Texas' hiring of Herman, who went 22-4 in two season at Houston, including a 13-1 season in 2015 that included a Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl victory over Florida State and six wins over top-25 teams. "It's disappointing that the University of Texas -- who wants to open a campus in Houston and said they would never do anything to harm the University of Houston, with all the football coaches in America, who said that they would stand up for us to get into the Big 12 and then didn't even vote for us when they met with the commissioner and all the schools -- had to come take our little football coach," Fertitta whined. “But that's business and it's a great opportunity for Tom and I wish him the best. I hope they all do well, but I just hope we do better." Hearing this guy whine makes a lot more sense - and draws a lot less sympathy - when you know that he’s a big-money booster who throws around millions of dollars to slap his name on buildings and buy access to Houston athletic so he can be a glorified jock sniffer, but hearing him bitterly call the Big 12's expansion vetting process "a sham” is still amusing on some level………

College basketball math problems, drunks v. Nickelhack and bounty hunters in Hungary

- You can get into an elite institution of higher learning, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can count. As evidence, take the curious case of Bryant University basketball player Ikenna Ndugba, who received an emphatic reminder to always double-check the scoreboard in end-of-game situations, lest you end up as the guy getting clowned on all of the sports highlight shows for dribbling out the clock to end a game in which your team trailed by a point and needed a basket to win. Ndugba and the Bulldogs were trailing Brown by a point, 91-90, after the lead changed hands several times in the final minute of the game in Providence, Rhode Island when Ndugba, a freshman from Boston, lost track of the score after a layup gave Brown a one-point edge. Thinking his team still had the lead, dribbled the ball circuitously to half court and heaved it into the air and went looking for a high-five from a teammate after releasing the ball. What he encountered was a befuddled teammate who wondered how the hell someone so stupid was on his team as Brown players mobbed the court in celebration. Instead of Ndugba attempting a game-winning shot, Tavon Blackmon's last-second layup helped Brown improve to 3-4. The good news for Ndugba and his unfortunate teammates is that the game was a non-league contest and will have no bearing on the postseason fate of a team that is now 2-5. In between now and that postseason, Ndugba’s coaches and teammates might want to do a little bit of math education with their teammate…….

- Where are you when the world needs you, Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman? Chapman and his motley family crew of tattooed, mulleted, pony-tailed, leather-clad bounty hunters spend most of their time tracking down troubled bail jumpers in America’s most pleasant state, but maybe it’s time to leave the comfortable confines of Hawaii behind and head due east, all the way to eastern Europe, where a Hungarian lawmaker says the government will spend up to 100 billion forints ($340 million) to provide equipment and basic supplies for 3,000 "border hunters" being recruited to guard border fences built last year to stop the flow of migrants trying to enter the country. Lajos Kosa, head of the governing Fidesz party's parliamentary group, laid out the case for rolling out big money, noting that the expenditures will be exempt from having to comply with public procurement rules. When it comes to keeping undesirables out of your country, it’s clear that rules and standards cannot stand in the way. Kosa and his compatriots are clearly on edge after some 400,000 migrants and refugees passed through Hungary last year on their way to Western Europe. In response, Prime Minister Viktor Orban ordered fences built on the country's southern borders with Serbia and Croatia, with migrants who get past the fence but are caught near the border typically expelled right away. In trying to drum up support for his new policy, Kosa said the government was expecting another wave of migrants next spring. Somewhere, Human Traffic Cone-Elect Donald Trump is smiling……..

- Canada, weren’t you supposed to be the world’s most polite country? It’s fine if you no longer want that label and this is a damn fine way to show it, by clowning one of your very own, a native band that has sullied your already-tarnished musical reputation almost beyond repair with its special brand of d-baggish, lyrically stunted, incredibly unsophisticated arena rock, but it’s still a cold hustle. It comes courtesy of the Kensington Police Service, which serves the 146,283 residents of Prince Edward Island and is sick and tired of liquored-up Canucks who down one too many cases of Labatt’s Blue and get behind the wheel. The department knows that Canada’s 10-month winter is about to enter its most punishing, depressing stretch and realizes that could drive people to drink and drive. In a preemptive strike, the department announced a truly terrifying deterrent to would-be drunk drivers: Nickelhack. “When we catch you, and we will catch you, on top of a hefty fine, a criminal charge and a year’s driving suspension we will also provide you with a bonus gift of playing the offices [sic] copy of Nickelback in the cruiser on the way to jail,” the department wrote in a Facebook post, complete with a picture of the poseur rockers’ third album, “Silver Side Up.” “Now, now, no need to thank us, we figure if you are foolish enough to get behind the wheel after drinking then a little Chad Kroeger and the boys is the perfect gift for you. Please, lets not ruin a perfectly good unopened copy of Nickelback. You don’t drink and drive and we won’t make you listen to it.” It’s a fair bargain and one that should ensure that someone walks away very disappointed at the department’s annual white elephant gift exchange…….

- Someone in Paradise Valley, Arizona has a f*cked-up, racist and possibly illegal sense of humor. That person turned what was supposed to be a special moment in the life of a local Jewish teen into a lesson on idiocy and intolerance. The teen’s birthday party was marred because some partygoers decided to decorate their cupcakes with swastika symbols. The incident went from a reason to never be invited to another party again to a major social media scandal after the teen’s mother posted images of the Nazi-themed cupcake on Facebook, writing that she hoped it could be used as a teaching moment for parents. The best part is that all of the girls involved in the incident are friends, according to the post, and they told the victim’s mother that they drew the symbols of hate on the sweet treats in an effort to be funny. Here’s a life lesson, ladies: If you’re old enough to be labeled a teenager, then you’re old enough to understand the general concept of what a swastika means and how much hate, anger and evil that symbol carries with it, especially for a Jewish person. So you drawing it on a cupcake isn’t some bad joke that didn’t go over well - it’s proof that you’re clueless, oblivious and probably not that smart. Where did the inspiration for this sad display come from? Apparently, the girls at the party had just had a lesson on the holocaust, so it was fresh in their minds. In a subsequent Facebook post, the victim’s mother said the girls had apologized and that their parents had spoken with them about the severity of using symbols such as a swastika. Sadly, it’s hard to cure someone of any age of being a moron………