news feeds april 18

CRAZY STUFF! Dick Clark, 82 dies of massive heart attack.  Dick Clark was a five time  Emmy Award winner, and hosted many game shows and musical revues throughout his career including Pyramid, American Bandstand among others, and of course since 1972 his Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, which has been an institution since it's inception, with the famous ball at Times Square in New York falling.  The first blow to his health was a stroke in 2004 that partially impaired his speech. 

"For Now, Dick Clark... So Long"

Richard Wagstaff "Dick" Clark 1929-2012

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For DVD enthusiasts in Canada, you should rush out to your neighbourhood Rogers video store since they have gotten out of the renting of physical copies of films and are selling off all their stock.  The 93 remaining stores are selling off their stock, but retaining the property for their cable and wireless services.  This comes a year after 400 Blockbusters stores were shut down.  The renting of the actual hard copies of movies is now (if not before!) a thing of the past.  How long do you think it will be before HMV and other big name DVD retailers will be going the way of the buffalo?

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Toronto's dying monument of consumerism, the Eaton Centre turns 35 years old today.  Despite the renovations that have happened in recent years, I still believe it's in an attempt to stay relevant with Yorkdale who have been bringing in many more high ends shops, doing significant renovations at a pace greater than that of the Eaton Centre and the more desirable locations near highways, with ample parking space.  The Eaton Centre actually does park pretty well considering it's location but the traffic in general around Yonge and Dundas streets are enough to deter a lot of uptowners and 905ers from making their way downtown.  Malls have taking a hit over the last few years with big stand alone box store plazas killing what was once supposed to a replacement to the town square and market place.  Now seen largely as a relic from the 80s culture there is a fantastic website dedicated to dead, abandoned and malls on steep decline that may or may not include the Eaton Centre in the years to come. Also, a clip on the subject from a documentary with one of the founders of deadmalls.com

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Portman

Mitt Romney is currently in the market for a good man (or woman) to be his vice president.  The front runner, however, appears to be a man, the governor of Ohio by the name of Rob Portman.  One of the main reasons that Romney overtook the important state  of Ohio with the help and endorsement from Portman to beat Rick Santorum in the Ohio primary.  Also on the short list is a member of the golden family of America politics, potential ballot stuffer Florida governor Jeb Bush.  Not really a bad call for Romney since Mr. Bush is quite popular with Floridians and Hispanics and could be a powerful ally.  The leading female candidate is Kelly Ayotte, a senator from New Hampshire and the states former attorney general who knows Romney quite well.  There is a lack of geographical diversity though since they are New England neighbours and is doubtful that the Republicans would pick an all New England ticket.  And that isn't Newt Gingrich's nominee for VP hanging with him at every event and rally, that's Death looking at his watch waiting for his campaign to be taken off of life support.

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Not even going to comment on the photos with US soldiers desecrated corpses in Afghanistan, so I'll stick to measures that are taken stateside to make their nation safer for it's people.  Police rushed to a situation in Milledgeville, Georgia where eyewitnesses say 'a tantrum' was thrown.  They threw themselves into the classroom situation full throttle, and although no charges we laid, they did feel threatened and were forced to cuff the woman, said to be six years old for their own, and her own safety.  She was taken 'downtown', was put in a briefing room and waited to be picked up by her aunt.  "She might have misbehaved, but I don't think she misbehaved to the point where she should have been handcuffed and taken downtown to the police department," said the girls aunt.  The police department said it was necessary after their tranquillizer gun jammed, and the rookie forgot the taser on the charger back at the office.

Original Story

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The shuttle discovery was piggy backed into Dulles airport in Washington, DC for it final flight on the way to the Smithsonian museum.  In a related piggy backing story,  turtles also enjoy piggy back rides in Central Park.  It was not confirmed whether NASA or Washington officials stole the idea for the turtles, or whether the Discovery should have made one more flight to maybe see where Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Alien Turtles actually came from.

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Great NHL playoffs so far with two genuine upsets going on right now.  The Los Angeles Kings are poised to sweep the Presidents Trophy winning and defending Western Conference champion  Vancouver Canucks right out of the playoffs at home tonight.  The question is does Coach Alain go with Bobby Lu or Corey Schneider in goal tonight.  Let's put it this way, all due respect to Schenider, he's a great goalie and I would love to see Burkie bring him to Toronto, but if they can't start Lou in the most important game of the year they aren't going to win ANYTHING anyways.  Possible return by Daniel Sedin could give the Canucks a boost, but let's hope not.  In the state of Pennsylvania the Flyers are hammering their hated rival Penguins, scoring eight goals in each of the last two games and have game four at home as well.  Pittsburgh have been putting the puck in the net at an alright clip (12 goals in 3 games) but can't keep it out of their net to save their life.  If arguably the two best teams go out in the first round the Cup will be up for grabs, possible front runners being the Bruins and Rangers, but basically it's anyones Cup.
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Guess I'll end this with a little personal stuff.  Not like that personal or anything just totally weird.  So I just got back from New York yesterday.  I stayed at the Edison Hotel at Times Square, great spot, really old but kept up great.  Neil Simon has a play based on the cafe in the hotel called 'Forty Five Seconds From Broadway,' but it's also featured on an episode of Seinfeld.  In "The Subway" episode the gang are all going to different destinations on the subway and George meets a woman who appears to be flirting with him but her intention is to rob him.  Anyways, he goes to the Edison with her and she ties him up to the bed and steals his eight dollars ("I wasted my whole morning on you for EIGHT dollars?").  So I flick on Fox at ten and that episode is on.  What does it mean? I don't know.  But the universe is funny sometimes!
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