Friday, April 18, 2014

Portland teen takes a piss and costs everyone 38 millions of drinking water (and other headlines)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Q0cyJSs04

A 19 year old decided it would be fun to urinate into a Portland, OR reservoir holding water to serve the city's 600,000 residents.  As a result, even though tests showed the water to be "clean", water officials will dump 38 million gallons into the Columbia river.  The 19 year old was cited for public urination.

Sim Bhullar is of Indo-Canadian descent, stands 7 foot 5 inches, and is leaving New Mexico State to declare for the NBA draft.  He will be the tallest player in the league, although many think he won't be drafted and will sign as a free agent after the draft.  Reporter's note:  You can teach a basketball player a lot of things, but 7'5" isn't one of them.

Mara Wilson won't have anything to do with the "Mrs. Doubtfire" sequel but one of the other actors who played a child of Sally Fields in the original is in, if asked.  Matthew Lawrence is ready to sign on.  Here's a clip of him about 10 years after "Mrs. Doubtfire" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE1eJPMG9aI.

A 21 year old Australian woman who was texting and driving, which allegedly caused her to hit a cyclist is angry.  She said "I'm kind of pissed off that the cyclist hit the side of my car."  The injured cyclist spent three months in the hospital recovering from his injuries.  This week a judge fined her $4,500 and suspended her drivers license for nine months.

Want to meet and greet Brad Pitt?  If you spend $10 through Groupon, you might win the opportunity.  All proceeds going to one of his charities.  Or if you really want it, you can buy the opportunity outright for only $25,000.  Of course there is a catch.  The deal is for you and a guest to attend a May 17th event for Pitt's "Make it Right" in New Orleans.  The "meet and greet" is not guaranteed and depends on the "availability of all parties."

A man convicted of armed robbery in 2000 and sentenced to 13 years in prison was told that he should go home and wait to be contacted with instructions on where to report to serve his sentence.  Over 13 years later, a SWAT team showed up at the home where he, his wife, and three kids he fathered during those years lived.  Now he's seeking to be released, with his attorney arguing that he has rehabilitated himself.

Wide receiver DeSean Jackson vows to appeal the result of an NFL Player's Association arbitration that ruled he owes his former agent more than $500,000.

Rumors are that Tom Cruise is dating Laura Prepon.  Like Cruise's two most recent ex-wives, she is at least 5'10" which makes her taller than he.

Chet Kanojia is the CEO of Aereo, a company that delivers over-the-air television programming to its subscribers.  Next week the U. S. Supreme Court will hear a case where CBS, Fox and others are seeking to have Aereo's operations defined as a public performance.  That would force Aereo to negotiate with the networks for the right to retransmit their programming.

A study done by the Fraunhofer Institute (a research organization in Germany) reveals that it may well be that airline food tastes just fine, it's our ability to properly experience it that may be why it seems to taste awful.  Their research shows that the pressurized cabin altitude mutes the taste buds and hampers the sense of smell, the two key factors in how we perceive the taste of food.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982 has passed away at the age of 87.  If you have not yet read any of his works, do so as soon as possible.  It will enrich your life.

In today's L. A. Times there is a column by David Lazarus about a plastic surgeon who worked very diligently to obtain insurance coverage for a 26 year old woman's breast reduction surgery.  Only after spending weeks providing the insurer with proof that the woman's outsized breasts were the cause of her slipped disc and the resulting pain and loss of function did the insurer inform the doctor that any breast reduction surgery simply wasn't covered.  Reporter's note:  Insurance companies do this because most doctors and individuals eventually give up the fight and just go without or pay for things themselves.