news feeds oct 22

Tonight is the third and final debate leading up to the November election between  incumbent Barack and challenger Mitt Romney is what has already been dubbed "Get It On In Boca Raton," named after a popular local slogan. Obama was much better prepared for the second town hall style debate after being shown up pretty bad at the first one. The third one they will be sitting at a table with moderator Bob Schieffer (CBS News) acting as referee. The key issues will be on foreign policy (in particular current situation in Libya and Iran) with most experts saying Barack to have an edge on the issue since incumbents have access to more privileged intelligence and get more comp trips than senators. If you can peel yourself away from the Bears and Lions Monday Nighter game then take in a minute or two of the debate. Or switch over to the Giants and Cardinals game.

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If you use AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner or Verizon as your internet provider and you enjoy downloading episode of Seinfeld via Bit Torrent, you could be getting a threatening letter. That's right.. after years of trying to impose legislature against illegal downloads, they have taken their first step. First time offenders get a mild warning which also includes information to steer the guilty party away from a life of crime (what? really?). After the 'educational' phase of the warnings, if material is still downloaded illegally then they slow (throttle) your internet connection down so you can't download large files. Terminating the internet service to a customer does still appear unlikely however since copyright infringement is alright so long as you don't miss paying the bill by two days (in which case it will be promptly cancelled.)

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I had to make sure that I finished the entire series of Peep Show (seven seasons) before November 9th since, hallelujah, there is going to be a new season debuting on that very day. The show is basically a take on old Odd Couple premise with David Mitchell's Mark Corrigan playing Jack Lemmon's Felix, and Robert Webb's Jez (Jeremy) playing Walter Matthau's Oscar. Throw in the best bits of the British version of The Office (after all Mark works in a similar work place, JLB Credit), and constant interior thoughts of the two main characters and you have absolute comedy gold. From pee dripping through floorboards at a wedding, to eating a semi-charred dog or even helping a bandmate score some crack this is definitely one of the funniest shows I have ever seen. Again, season 8 starts November 9!

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Say it ain't so Lance! I have tried to years to always take him at his word. He seemed honest enough, and you always seem to have sympathy for a man with one testicle. It appears the evidence is stacked too highly against him, and in the wake of him stepping down from his own charity, being stripped of his Tour De France titles and losing his endorsements, his credibility seems to have been blown to hell. Too bad, he was a real source of inspiration for, well for people looking for that sort of thing in a cyclist. "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," said Pat McQuaid, the president of the Union Cycliste Internationale. Remember Lance's scene in the movie Dodgeball? It was great.

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The Red Sox have gotten their man, finally. After their worst record since the 60s, Boston axed skipper Bobby Valentine after one nightmarish season. John Farrell had been Boston pitching coach prior to being named as Blue Jays manager before the 2011 season. Boston had tried to hire him before this season but the Blue Jays were reluctant to let him go to a divisional rival. But after the Jays had a season almost as bad as the Red Sox (and with just one year left on Farrell's contract) Jays GM Alex Anthopolous was more open to the lateral divisional more and picked up Mike Aviles from Boston as compensation. Farrell pitched for the Indians, Angels, and Tigers over his seven year career cut short by injury. Welcome back to Boston, John!

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The American League champion Detroit Tigers are waiting to see whether they are headed to St. Louis or San Francisco for the start of the World Series on Wednesday night. Game 7 of the NLCS between the Giants and Cardinals goes tonight in San Francisco to see who gets to represent the National League in a face-off again the powerful Tigers. Pitching for the Giants tonight is ace Matt Cain facing off against St. Louis Cardinals' right-hander Kyle Lohse who, over 18 innings has given up four runs of a tidy ERA of 1.96 while Cain's number show he's been roughed up a bit more to the tune of 9 earned runs allowed over 17 innings. First pitch is tonight at 8:07 at AT&T Park.  In a semi-related note: Remember the season Melky Cabrera was having for the Giants? He was leading the league in batting average and was the All Star Game MVP then he got a 50 game suspension by the MLB, and despite eligibility to be reinstated, he was left off the Giants playoff roster. The interesting part is that his heroics in the All Star Game guaranteed home field advantage for the National League champions, possibly the Giants. So he's even helping them while not being in the line-up. That's a dynamic player. Just saying..

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There's no hockey on. We know that. One year ago tonight, was a night the Leafs played the Canadiens in Montreal and Toronto won 5-4 on a gorgeous goal by Grabovski in overtime. Other Leaf scorers were David Steckel, Phil Kessel, Dion Phaneuf and Nik Kulemin. Anyways, here is some highlights from the game for a mild hockey fix.

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Song.

news feeds october 9

After a very sting showing at last week's debate, new polls show that Romney has made the race a lot tighter, with both candidates tied with 47% support. Romney was strong and confident in his answers while Obama was staring at the floor while Mitt spoke. Obama poked fun at his poor debate performance at a concert Sunday night with Jennifer Hudson, Bon Jovi, Katy Perry and Stevie Wonder saying "They're such great friends and they just perform flawlessly night after night. I can't always say the same." Barack and Michelle's anniversary also fell on debate night; "There was some speculation as to whether this had an impact on my performance. But I did make it up to her on Saturday." The second debate is scheduled for October 16 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, taking on a town meeting style format where citizens will ask questions to the candidates on foreign and domestic issues. The folks who are asking the questions are undecided voters, looking to have their minds made up, and those nation wide who are on the fence would love any reason at all to not vote for Romney better hope that Obama comes better prepared.

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A skydiver by the name of Felix Baumgartner is attempting a jump from 120,000 ft up in the air, on the edge of space with nothing but a helmet, a space suit and a parachute (and a set of balls the size of Cincinnati). The jump took place this morning (Tuesday) at dawn. "I'm not nuts. You know, our records are meant to be broken, and I'm a very competitive person. I like the challenge," said Baumgartner. He and primary sponsor Red Bull Energy Drink have been working years on taking care of any precautions and insurance (I hope) risks. His ascent will be in a capsule hanging from a helium balloon rising for two to three hours before he climbs out of the capsule and does a swan dive off a step, tucking into a couching "delta" position that will maximize his speed. He then will fall 115,000 feet in five minutes before deploying his parachute for the final 5,000 feet. The apparent risk without the space suit include jumping through temperatures of 70 degrees below Fahrenehit and going through an atmosphere so this that his blood would vaporize. UPDATE: Still on live, but they are saying that the jump isn't happening today because of too brisk winds, and then there was problem with one of the capsules two radios going down. Here's some video from a test jump:

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Star Wars for the upper crust. George Lucas' icon franchise now has an exhibit in the Louvre. There's no actual art involved. It is actual the private toy collection of toy vendor Arnaud Grunberg who has been collecting memorabilia from the series since he saw the original film when he was 11 years old in 1977. The exhibit shows off more that 450 items from the franchises' 35 year history. The goodies include action figures, Yoda masks, Chewbacca coffee mugs, film posters, C-3P0 tape dispensers and Darth Vader Who's Your Daddy (unused) condoms. They also featured recreations of scenes including the attack on the Death Star and the Jedi arena lightsabre battle) made out of action figure and their accompanying vehicles. 

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The Beatles first single "Love Me Do" hit record stores all over the UK on October 5, 1962, or 50 years ago (not to mention John's 72nd birthday would be today). The song was written, or at least started by Paul McCartney in 1958 when Paul was 16 years old playing hooky from school. He sat down with Lennon and fleshed out the rest of the song. "It was completely co-written. It might have been my original idea, but some of them really were 50-50s, and I think that one was. It was just Lennon and McCartney sitting down without either of us having a particularly original idea." Lennon's take on the song in a 1980 interview differ from Paul's account. "'Love Me Do' is Paul's song. Let me think. I Might have helped with the middle either, but I couldn't swear to it. I do know he had the song around, in Hamburg, even, way, way, before we were songwriters." George Harrison said "First hearing 'Love Me Do' on the radio sent me shivery all over. It was the best buzz of all time… After having got to 17, I don't recall what happened to it. It probably went away and died, but what it meant was the next time we went to EMI they were more friendly: 'Oh, hello, lads. Come in."

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Cornelius Crane Chase is 69 years old yesterday, October 8th. This funny man was born to an upper crust Manhattan family in 1943 and the name Chevy was bestowed by his grandmother after "The Ballad of Chevy Chase." Chevy always saw himself as a doctor, but had a change of heart, perhaps after attending a school careers worth of stuffy shirts at private schools and wound up playing drums in a band called the Leather Canary with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen who would later found Steely Dan. Chevy then played drums and keys in a rock band called Chamaeleon Church who put out one major label album before disbanding in 1969. Chevy did many odd jobs, before finally being cast along with future SNLers John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and Brian-Doyle Murray on the National Lampoon's Radio Hour and appeared with Belushi in National Lampoon's revue called "Lemmings." Chevy was originally hired as a writer on NBC's new sketch comedy show "Saturday Night" in 1975, but shortly before the first episode he was made a feature player and quickly became a the most popular performer on the show. His early schtick included the opening "Fall of the Week" where Chevy falls in some ridiculous manner, then look up at the camera before he utters "LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT." He was also the original anchor on SNL's Weekend Update. He left the show after a season and change to peruse a woman and a movie career, neither of which worked out that well. Classics like the four films in the National Lampoon's "Vacation" series, "Fletch" (and "Fletch Lives") and "Caddyshack" have been negated too many times by crap like "Foul Play," "Funny Farm," or "Cops & Robbersons." After years of releasing movies over seas, not to mention numerous failed talk shows and pilots, Chevy has had a career resurgence playing Pierce Hawthorne on NBC's "Community" since 2009. Happy birthday Cornelius!

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Rush

Not that I usually care too much about the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, but that very institution has announced its 2013 nominees and I could help but take a look at the list. Pretty eclectic. Some worthy, some I'd like to bury underneath the HOF. Anyways, the nominees include Deep Purple, Heart, Donna Summer, Joan Jett, NWA, Public Enemy, Randy Newman and Rush. Randy Newman? Really? I still don't know how anyone can listen to his voice. He sounds likes [EXPLETIVES DELETED]. I don't see how Rush and Deep Purple don't make it. Mainly since they are the only bands I really listen to but I like the idea Flava Flav there rocking out with Geddy Lee and Ian Gillan whilst Randy plays a bouncy little number on the piano in the corner. The induction ceremony takes place on April 15 in Los Angeles since even Flav wouldn't be caught dead in Cleveland. 

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Later this month, October 21 to be exact, also marks the 20th anniversary of the release of "Reservoir Dogs.'" The directorial debut is now stuff of legends, because of both the rapid fire dialogue and brutal violence within the film, but also how the film miraculously got made. Tarantino had been working at Video Archives video store in Manhattan Beach, California a planned to shoot on a 16mm camera on a budget of $60,000. A script happen to fall off the back of a truck and into the hands of Harvey Keitel, who loved the script and was able to secure an additional $1.5 million in financing. The movie follows the aftermath of a diamond heist by six gangsters and their boss Joe, and his son "Nice Guy" Eddie. One of the six men is a cop who tipped off officers about the heist and the film show the events leading up to the heist in flashbacks, and despite the fact we know who the cop is long before any of the gang members doesn't take away anything from this dark, grisly, and surprisingly funny film, Empire Magazine's "Greatest Independent Film Of All Time."

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