news feeds august 17

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All three members of Russian female punk band Pussy Riot have been sentenced to two years in prison after screaming in protest "Mother Mary, please drive Putin away" in Christ Savior Cathedral, one of the biggest churches in Moscow. The three young women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich have already served five months in detention which will count towards their sentence. The judge found them guilty of 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred', and was convinced they intended to insult the church and undermine public order. The support in Russia for them to be freed was a paltry 5% in a recent poll, even with heavyweights like Madonna lending her support. People have been more sympathetic in other countries, with rallies at 2PM Moscow time (6AM EST) in many major cities, and right here in Toronto a protest begun a noon today at the Russian consulate at Bloor and Church streets.  A call me juvenile, I like hearing straight faced news reporters saying Pussy Riot. 

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Remember how the late Steve Jobs' mansion was broken into a few weeks back? Well, his personal iPad has wound up in the hands of a clown. Kenny the Clown, a San Francisco area entertainer, was given the tablet by a friend who is now charged with burglary (along with the iPad he got away with iPods, Macs, jewelry and Jobs' wallet) and is due in court on Monday. Kenneth Kahn, his non-clown alias, loaded it up with songs to use in his act, but not once took a look through the photos or anything else on the device. The police had to confiscate the iPad. The clown, who had a sad face painted on the following day, went back to work with his Blackberry Playbook which crashed after playing 33 seconds of "Play That Funky Music."

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A well known activist in the Santa Monica area is suing the city because she says the city's new parking meters' wireless signal is deteriorating her health. Denise Barton's symptoms include ear infections, ringing in her ear and neck pain and is looking for $1.7 billion in damages to make up for it. "I know it seems a little big, but they can't do things that affect people's health without their consent. I think that's wrong." She is also asking for an additional $1.7 million each month that the meters are operational. The wireless signal she refers to is for the meters to process credit card payments, as well as to send out text messages to the driver when their time has almost expired. A USC professor says Barton is going to have a tough time proving these allegations, noting "there is no evidence that cell phones, wireless networks or other low-level emitters cause adverse health effects. The first cell phone was introduced in 1973, and the epidemiological data do not show significant changes in the incidence of cancers since that time. It is very difficult to prove that these energy sources do not cause health problems, but there is no data that they do."

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This is the strangest combination since Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg. Warner Bros are teaming up with the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment?) and the Scooby Do gang in an all-new animated feature. Apparently, what happens, is that Shaggy wins tickets to the Wrestlemania in WWE City (original) but a mysterious ghostly bear is there and might ruin the whole thing! OMG! The gang teams up with the wrestlers to solve the case. Featured wrestlers, and thank God other than Vince McMahon, I don't know any of them, include Triple H, John Cena, Kane, The Miz, Brodus Clay, Santino Marella, Sin Cara, AJ and the previously mentioned WWE CEO McMahon. STOP RUINING MY CHILDHOOD WITH TERRIBLE MOVIES! …and that's all I have to say about that.

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Does the NHL lock out after such a great season last year? Guess we'll see by September 15 at the latest.

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And just because I'm going to see Down By Law for the first time in years on Monday, here's a tune, Down By Law's Clash inspired single from their fourth album "All Scratched Up," here's "Radio Ragga." Enjoy!

news feeds june 29

It has been five years since the first iPhone was unleashed unto the world. At the time of its release Nokia was the world's largest phone maker and Blackberry was the only game in town for (semi) smart phones. Gone are the texting days where you have to hit your button three times to get to the third letter on your numeric keypads, and you no longer have to argue about who starred in what movie with IMDB and Wikipedia easily accessible. When the first phone came out, there was no app store, (it was launched in 2008) so it was packaged with the standard apps that you still get on a new iPhone (stocks, weather etc) and Apple sold a million units in just a couple months at the starting price of 600 large. The prices dropped once you signed up for term, and these days anyone can have one, 80 year old, 5 year old; it doesn't matter. Consumers were initially skeptical about the touch screen keyboard, saying they can't give up the physical keyboard, but you get on to that in a day of use, since when you first get it you can't put it down for that long anyways. Buyers did not beware, despite the keyboard concerns and to date 217 million iPhones have been sold worldwide. For better or for worse, it keeps us connected to our friends, family, work 24/7… There is literally an app for everything from a flashlight, to a guitar to Mega Man II. There was a survey conducted on a gadget website, the Gazelle, that found 15% of consumers would rather give up sex than go without their iPhones for the weekend. That about 15% too high. The iPhone can also be credited with inventing the tablet market, because the iPad is quite obviously just a big iPhone. But for every Blackberry (see next post) or Windows phone that have been murdered by Apple, there is companies, such as Google whose mobile operating system for Android at first seemed to be a carbon copy of the iPhone have made incredible strides, with some consumers swearing the best Androids are better than the iPhones in every facet and that Apple has to step up their game with the iPhone 5 and not release another phone just to release one (see the 4S), since other than Siri there was no really great improvements. That'd be sweet if they stepped it up like in this concept video:

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Blackberry have posted a wider than expected loss and are forced to lay off another 5,000 employees as well as delaying it's BlackBerry 10 operating system. During the first quarter of 2012, RIM reported a loss of $518 million and had sales of $2.8 billion down from $4.9 billion from the same quarter last year. Their Playbook tablet was an epic failure, with just 260,000 shipped to date (compared to the iPad's first day sales of 300,000) and that, along with another delay of the operating system may be the final nails in the coffin for the one-time leader of the smartphone market.

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Do you like good wine and have a spare buck or two kicking around? Australian winemaker Penfolds have a dozen ampoules (I had to google that myself science geeks) of a 2004 Block 42 wine running you a cool $168,000. No big deal. Included in the price is a senior official from the company who is sent to deliver then extract the wine from its blown glass casing into a "specially designed, tungsten-tipped, sterling silver scribe-snap." Yup. For the design of the bottle, glass, etc Penfolds employed a world-renowned glass artist, an designer-maker who did all the metal detailing, a furniture craftsman who designed the casing and a scientific glassblower who designed and engineered the ampoules. Twelve of them, perfect for the person who has everything. Or a person who has nothing. Whatever

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Duchess Kate Middleton will be sleeping on the streets after an altercation with Price William and he kicked her out of the palace when she… Just joking, could you imagine? No, the Duchess of Cambridge will be sleeping on the streets of London to raise awareness of the city's growing homeless problems. Joining Kate will be Lisa Maxwell, a regular on the British daytime show "Loose Women," after Maxwell convinced her, no doubt after a couple G&Ts, to trade in her million thread count bedding for a box and a can of beans. The charity that's putting on the campaign, called "Sleep Out," is called Centre Point. In 2009, Prince William bunked outside of an evening near London's Blackfriars Bridge (where in 1982 it became international news when the former head of a private Italian bank, who was charged with embezzlement, was found hung from one of the bridges arches with $14,000 in random currencies stuffed in his pockets - the death was ruled a suicide). William's mother Diana was also a supporter of the charity. 

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This isn't even funny. Ok, it's kind of funny. A woman at a Wal-Mart in Kentucky got superglued to a toilet in the washroom. She became stuck pretty quick since the glue was super, and struggled to peel herself loose, with minimal success. After another woman heard the struggling going on in the stall, she called paramedics who needed over an hour to remove the seat. What's worse is they couldn't do it at the store and had to detach the seat and take her to the hospital where they removed it in the emergency room. Officers suspect the glue may have been put there "on purpose" or a horse (that's what they make glue from right?) came in and peed glue all over the seat. Both reports are being investigated.

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I used to go to Darien Lake in the 90's.. way back when. It was great. Located between Rochester and Buffalo in upstate New York, I went there from probably four years in a row. Since that time, they have greatly improved their concert hall (which is now a 20,000 person venue run by LiveNation), a state of the art hotel, and this season $5 million have been sunk into the park for new rides and some of the old RV and tent sites have been replaced by log cabins. We tented it when we went, and it was pretty terrible camping, who are we kidding, probably even worse now with a gorgeous hotel staring you in the face. But that wasn't what it was all about. It was all about the Viper, a long steel coaster built in 1982. It has five inversions (first of its kind) and travels at a speed of 50mph (80km/h). Another great, but bumpy (least bumpy wooden coaster I've been on though) was the Predator which made it debut in May of 1990. I was there first season and it was super smooth, but these days, reports out there make the case that it's too bumpy and rough to really compete with any of the new rides. After the 2006 season, the ride went under extreme re-tracking, replacing most of the wood which had decayed over the sixteen years with new stuff, making the ride much smoother for guests. They added a Superman theme ride called Ride Of Steel in 1999 that's supposed to be pretty intense, but dangerous apparently, with a couple bad incidents already having occurred on the ride. But $5 million has installed many new rides, some family oriented, others a little bit more mature (or as mature as a roller coaster can get) so if you are in upstate New York.. check it out. If you've been there check it out again. Play Skee-Ball.

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The latest edition of Playboy's 20Q has Andy Samberg spilling his beans about his upcoming movie, which SNL host was his favourite to kiss (spoiler: ScarJo beat out Paul Rudd), his hippy parents, and his friendship with Adam Sandler. Just don't see "That's My Boy," I gave them the benefit of the doubt (especially Samberg) and I wish I didn't. Don't want to drive off that bridge again. Check the 20Q here!

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Toronto of the future?

news feeds june 19

Nik Wallenda completed his walk across a 5 cm wide cable from the American side of Niagara Falls to the Canadian side. It took him about 25 minutes, and he looked pretty calm during the walk, even fielding questions from his father and an ABC broadcaster. The walk was 550 meters long, and he was just getting peppered with mist from the falls below him. Always the patriotic watchdogs, Canadian officials greeted Wallenda after the walk to inspect his passport, which checked out. "I'm not carrying anything over, I promise, " said Wallenda, completely exhausted. They didn't check out to see if the safety tether was stuffed with narcotics or Philadelphia cheese steaks. Speaking of that tether, it has been a point of controversy, but ABC refused to air a man potentially falling to his death, and I think that's fair. Wallenda went on to say that the tether is extra weight that might throw him off, and although he was initially disappointed about the safety measures, he said it "is what it is." But safety harness or not, he didn't ever come close to falling so it is an incredible feat nonetheless. 

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Well, we're all doomed. Our very own Milky Way galaxy, home to Earth, is on a crash course with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy in about 3.75 billion years. I'm not saying we should move to another galaxy or anything, but they are thinking that the two galaxies might actually merge and for a super galaxy not unlike some kind of Star Wars or Star Trek scenario. Unfortunately, a galactic merger takes about ten years longer than a corporate one, (two billion years) giving the stars time to realign themselves into new orbits around the super galaxy's new galactic centre. Simulated collision from NASA: CLICK HERE

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An Apple I computer, circa 1976, just sold for $374,500 at an auction in New York this past Friday. The archaic piece of tech history was expected to fetch about $180,000, then doubled when a bidding war broke out between two buyers, then an anonymous telephone bidder phoned in and scooped up the computer. For that price, you could buy 750 iPads, 1880 iPhones or about 650 shares of Apple. The computers were sold at a Silicon Valley computer chain Byte Shop, when the store of Paul Terrell ordered 50 computers at $500 each (retail $666.66) and Steve Wozniak and the late Steve Jobs assembled them in 30 days. The duo also pieced together another 150 to sell to friends and other stores. The Apple I was basically a chipset that had no monitor, keyboard, power supply, casing, but boasted 4KB in memory (which couldn't run a calculator).

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In other tech stuff, Microsoft unveiled their new tablet called "Surface" to go along with their new operating system Windows 8 coming out later this year. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the new product was the ultimate merger of software and hardware. Ok. The models shown included a kickstand that allows the device to stand up and a cover, that's detachable and equipped with a keyboard. The device is also quite slim, at a mere 9.3 millimetres thick. The tablet is bound to do better than Blackberry's dismal Playbook, and one way they have a good chance of survival is full integration with the Xbox 360, which has sold over 67 million units world wide. Microsoft envisions the tablet as basically the nucleus holding together one's computer, video gaming console and TV. Not a bad idea. Would love to see Apple strike up a deal with Playstation then.. well I don't know what then. It would just be sweet.

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Sir Paul McCartney turned 70 on Monday, and what better way to celebrate his birthday then going over some of the best songs ever written (40ish years ago) by the man himself. Paul has 60 gold albums to his credit, with over a hundred million albums AND singles sold. "Yesterday" from the Beatles 1965 "Help!" album has been covered over 2,200 times - more than any song in history. Did you know Paul McCartney was in a bad before Wings? Old Simpsons joke.. anyways here are my favourite Paul (Beatles) songs in honour of his 70th. Sorry, can't do Wings.

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So, if I'm the only one old enough (or who cares) to remember this, stop me here. But Woody Allen and Mia Farrow got together in 1980, two years after Farrow and her ex-husband adopted an 8 year old Korean girl named Soon-Yi. Woody left Mia for his adopted step daughter in 1992. During this time they had a biological son named Ronan, now 24, who tweeted on father's day "Happy father's day - or as they call it in my family, happy brother-in-law's day." That is.. awesome. I love the Wood-man and pretty much everything he does artistically, whether it's writing, acting or directing, but as a person, he seems to have some baggage.

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I love Family Guy. I do… I know, it's really stupid. Not as well structured as the Simpsons. Not as satirically brilliant as South Park. But something about their sense of humour, just makes me laugh. But, something is wrong with teaming up with Kiss. The two iconic "brands" are coming together for "a line of products." Don't really know what that means, other than there is sure to be Stewie dolls with Peter Criss' cat makeup, and more guest appearances on the show, which has been touched on before, when it turned out that Lois and Gene used to get it on. Kiss have been a self-parody since they got back together in the mid 90s (even tho Ace and Peter left, their make up lives on) and for Family Guy to cross promote with Kiss, and for Seth McFarlane to put out that horrible talking bear movie, "Ted", makes me understand why the quality of Family Guy has declined fairly steadily for the last season or two.

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I just watched the best/worst TV special ever. Although I heard about it through various sources (the Simpsons barbershop quartet episode being the main one), I didn't want to know too much about it, and to spoil the surprise, even though I already knew the ending. I wanted to see it unfold. I'm talking about Geraldo Rivera's opening of Al Capone's vault. As the story goes, Capone moved into a suite the Lexington Hotel in 1928 until his arrest in 1931. In the 1980s, contractors were planning on renovating the old hotel and while they were surveying the building they came upon a series of secret tunnels (apparently one behind Capone's medicine cabinet too). The tunnels connected to nearby taverns and brothel's giving Capone a number of different escape routes. The was also rumoured that a "secret vault" was located beneath the hotel, and sure enough there was. The point of the special was to open the vault and live TV revealing riches, bootlegged booze.. bodies. Who knows what the most powerful gangster in Chicago in the 1930 put in such a vault? So the show starts with medical examiners on hand in case there were bodies on the inside, and agents from the IRS to collect any money that Capone may have left behind (I'm guessing he wasn't big on paying taxes). They finally open the vault to reveal… nothing. There was a bit of dirt, which probably seeped in over the 60 years, and some empty moonshine bottles. Thirty million viewers were left going 'what the hell was that?' as was a stunned Rivera, who just looked at the camera and said that they had "struck out." The special aired in April 1986 and essentially launched Geraldo's career. "My career was not over, I knew, but had just begun. And all because of a silly, high-concept stunt that failed to deliver on its titillating promise."

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