Sunday, May 19, 2013

Slow news Sunday

The weekend box office top spot no longer belongs to "Iron Man 3".  "Star Trek Into Darkness" apparently didn't reach warp speed at it went to #1 with $70.5 million.  That is good, but below the estimates of Paramount executives who expected receipts closer to $90 million.  The Marvel comics superhero did drop to #2 but with a very healthy $35.1 million.  And Warner Brothers has to be happy with "The Great Gatsby still bringing in $23.4 million in 3rd.  "Pain and Gain" and "The Croods" rounded out the top 5.  The indie film "Frances Ha" did an impressive $33,500 per screen on only four screens.

Richard J. Danzig was the Secretary of the Navy during the Clinton Administration.  Now he's a consultant to the President, the Pentagon and Homeland Security on bio-warfare.  He's also a director at a bio-tech startup here in California that has been awarded $334 million in contracts to provide an antidote to antibiotic resistant anthrax that probably can't be manufactured to use as a weapon against the U.S.

Avoid the 405 in West L.A. for the next two nights between midnight and five in the morning.  It will be closed at the 405/10 interchange for Northbound traffic during those hours. 

Netflix says that so far there are no plans to bring the "Arrested Development" banana stand to Newport Beach as some are hoping.  Mayor Keith Curry has promised to lend his support to the effort to bring the Bluth's Original Frozen Banana stand to the Orange County city.

Christine White, best known for being seated next to William Shatner aboard an airplane in a classic episode of "The Twilight Zone" has died.  She was 86.

Alan O'Day has passed away at the age of 72.  Best known for his #1 hit "Undercover Angel", he also wrote hit songs for other singers including "Rock and Roll Heaven" and "Angie Baby".

At the graduation ceremonies at Morehouse College, they called the name Dorian Joyner twice.  That's because father and son both graduated on that day.  Congratulations to them both.

Two members of the FBI's highly trained and specialized Hostage Rescue Team were killed in a "training accident" off the coast of Virginia on Friday.  The HRT has similar capabilities to the Army's "Delta Force" and the Navy's "SEAL Team 6".

Gerardo Parra of the Arizona Diamondbacks has hit homers to lead off games before.  But the one he hit last night is one for the records books.  It was on the first pitch of the game.  It was the only run of the game.  That was the first time that had happened since September of 1963, when Pete Rose did it.

Let's hope that Jake "The Snake" Roberts has more success with his attempt to become an actor than he did as a singer at Friday night's Dodgers versus Braves game in Atlanta.  He got a bunch of boos when he sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th inning stretch.

A Fortune 500 company has won its legal battle to buy a 104 year old home that is a shelter for women that it plans to turn into a boutique hotel.  But the women who live there can stay until a new building; albeit it in a not as nice neighborhood, is built to house them.

A recent study of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. shows that, as depicted on "Deadliest Catch", commercial fishing is the most dangerous of them all.  It also has the 2nd lowest median salary among the top 10 dangerous jobs on the list.