Yearly Archives: 2011
Leftridge: Tales from the Tweet: Eric Berry’s Bad Blood, Wright is Wrong & Kevin Kietzman- Murderer?
Twitter was abuzz recently with player and pundit reaction to the Chiefs’ first victory, the enthralling start to the MLB playoffs, and the continued non-progress of David Stern’s newest drama, “The NBA Lockout: A Billionaires’ Catfight.”
I only managed to catch some of those things—well, the Chiefs’ stuff, to be precise. But I found some other funny crap, some of which was worth sharing.
Let’s jump right in, shall we?
@BFlowers (Brandon Flowers, Chiefs CB)
“Larry Bird is unstoppable in #NBA2k12 for the #PS3! Make sure you get your copy from @2ksports, in stores October 4th”
Wow… what a complete shill. I mean, I suppose he got a free copy for doing this, but really? I hope if I’m ever a multi-millionaire, I don’t resort to Tweeting for free video games. Wait… unless it WORKS. @FIFA12 is in stores now! Make sure to pick up your copy today!
Starbeams: THE TOP 5 FEATURES OF THE NEW SPRINT iPHONE
Overland Park-based Sprint is said to have agreed to pay $20 billion to buy 30.5 million iPhones from Apple over the next four years according to The Wall Street Journal. Sprint is betting the farm on this and will be the only carrier offering a truly unlimited data plan.
THE TOP 5 FEATURES OF THE NEW SPRINT iPHONE:
#5. The Angry Birds app comes pre-loaded with West Nile Virus.
#4. The Sprint iCloud that stores your documents is actually a tornado.
#3. Automatically blocks robo calls from the Kansas City Star.
Leftridge: So long, Farewell, auf Wiedersehen, Mizzou
So, I’m about to report the sort of thing that I’ve previously made fun of in no uncertain terms.
It appears that unless something drastic happens in the coming days or weeks, Mizzou and the Big XII are as good as Splitsville. After a four-hour curator’s meeting on Tuesday, MU chancellor Brady Deaton was given permission by the board to seek conference alignment elsewhere.
While it’s still far from certain, this feels, well, certain. Much more so than any of the previous speculation and rumors that have plagued the internet. Hey, when KC Star Mizzou beat writer Mike DeArmond (@sptwri) is throwing it out there (“My prediction: Missouri is out of the Big 12 Conference and into the SEC by next season.”) in his Tweets, it’s gots to be true, yo.
Hearne: Hold the Hype, Trader Joe’s Having Little Effect on Ward Parkway Center
When it comes to Ward Parkway Center, all that glitters is not Trader Joe’s…
Forget what you may have read, according to the retailers I interviewed Tuesday at the center, the much ballyhooed arrival of Trader Joe’s last summer had little to no positive effect on their businesses. And we’re talking about a fairly large cross section. Fom Sports Nutz to Green Smoke, Sprint to Claire’s, Bath & Body Works to Pier One.
Even the mall rental cop, when asked if the upstairs part of the mall had benefitted from Trader Joe’s said, "No. There’s not much traffic."
All agreed that Trader Joe’s has yet to bring any measurable additional business to their stores.
Glazer: The Humble Scribe Ponders His Mortality
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When we were really young, our parents used to tell us, "When you grow up things will be great."
Most of our memories started way back in those golden days. Remember, going outside, playing army, tag, baseball, hiding out and even talking to the neighborhood girls? Yuk! Oh yeah, and the beginning of trying to make a buck or maybe just a few quarters with a lemonade stand. If you’re like me, you lost money on that one. Sure liked drinking the kool-aid though – lots of sugar – don’t tell mom.
And we all dreamed of being big, like our moms and dads. Mostly so we could beat the hell out of the neighborhood bully.
Hearne: Will the World Wide Web End Retail As We Have Known It?
A moment of silence please for the dearly departed…
Including Circuit City, Movie Gallery Borders Books and Ultimate Electronics.
And now with Best Buy and Blockbuster, on the ropes, newspapers and magazines hanging on for dear life, it’s clear when it comes to the ravages of the World Wide Web, nothing is sacred. Raising the question of if we’re entering an era where local retail will be limited to a handful of specialty store survivors.
"If you had any doubts that nowadays people prefer to shop electronics online, the latest earnings report from Best Buy should make you a believer," CNN Money said last month. "The nation’s largest electronics ‘brick and mortar’ retailer announced a 30% decline in its net income for the second quarter. Same store sales slid 2.8%"
The flip side of that toe stubbing:
New Jack City: Chaos Reigns First Weekend @ New Nordstrom’s Rack
First Trader Joe’s, next Jack in the Box, now Nordstrom’s Rack…
Kansas City is on fire with trendy new businesses hitting town. So after writing about Nordstrom’s new Rack at 95th and Quivira a couple of weeks back I decided to take on the masses and check it out this past weekend…
Unfortunately, I went by Saturday afternoon—two days after its grand opening – not a good idea. The parking lot was jammed forcing me to park clear down by Gordman’s to the south and walk and walk and walk to the Rack.
New Jack City: The Case of the Missing Clock Hands or Time Flies in Downtown Overland Park
Been a while since we’ve given downtown Overland Park’s hallowed-if-unpredictable timepiece a second glance.
You may recall an earlier column this year in which I noted that the various times displayed on the towering clock tower’s four faces were out of whack.
Well, a check today found the following; the clock’s north and south faces are (finally) giving the correct time. And the east face of the venerable timepiece overlooking the city’s charming downtown is running approximately 13 minutes behind.
Confusing, but liveable.
Starbeams: Top 5 Reasons KC’s a Great Place to Retire, Cain Rules, Christie Too Liberal
Kansas City is the 9th-best U.S. metropolitan area to retire in, according to a ranking conducted by Sperling’s Best Places.
Top 5 Reasons Kansas City Is A Great Place To Retire:
#5. If you fall and break your hip in Westport, you’re just another patron.
#4. You can usually find a comfortable mattress on the side of the highway.
#3. The entire city drives 20 miles per hour in the passing lane.
#2. The highlight of everyone’s day is taking a nap.
#1. You have no risk of heart attacks from attending exciting playoff games.
Donnelly: Sporting Earn Point at San Jose As Playoff Race Gets Insane
Sporting Kansas City narrowly averted disaster Saturday with a late-game goal to salvage a draw against one of the worst teams in the league, the San Jose Earthquakes…
To put it bluntly, the game was horrible. In part, beause of to the postage stamp San Jose calls home, which gave me flashbacks to Community America Ballpark Side rant: How in the hell did we ever play there? And how much did opposing teams have to just dread going in and playing on that tiny field that radically alters the strategy and flow of games?
Praise be to LIVESTRONG!
Haley, Cassel, Succop Stave Off Executioner: Go Crazy Folks, Go Crazy
So I was giving some serious consideration to doing a Whitlock-esque, “Team Grades” for the Chiefs at the quarter point of the season. You know, “Defense gets a ___ because of blah blah blah, Special Teams get a _____ for the following reasons.”
And then it hit me: Truthfully, no facet of this team would get anything above a low D-. Most would be F’s. After all, one 100% on a pop quiz doesn’t negate the fact that you haven’t handed in anything else the entire year.
But I’m tired of the negativity. Really, I am. It’s no more fun to ridicule this team with spiteful words than it is to read about it.
Therefore, I’m going to devote this column to positivity. And this weekend, there was a lot to be positive about. Let’s start with the Chiefs, and the season’s first triumphant win.
Hearne: Local Movie Powerhouse Dickinson Theatres Drops Out of Star
Talk about gone in 60 seconds…
Just like that one the the Kansas City Star‘s premier advertisers – Dickinson Theatres – has gone missing. Sources say the heavy hitter, locally owned movie exhibitor quit the Star as of October 1st. Dickinson had been a seven day a week advertiser.
However its flight from print isn’t so much a sign of today’s difficult times, as the trend of moviegoers no longer consulting newspapers for movie times.
"I saw a survey recently that said that nationally 84 percent of moviegoers get their information on movie times from places other than newspapers," says movie industry veteran Jack Poessiger who writes for KCC. "And I spoke with someone at a movie convention in Las vegas who told me 92 percent of moviegoers were getting their movie times from places other than newspapers."
This isn’t the first time Dickinson or other exhibitors threatened to yank their ads out of the local daily, sources say.
Glazer: Chiefs Win, Now Kansas City is Out of Luck
Well, it finally happened…
The Chiefs pulled out a win over the 0-3 Vikings at home, 22-17. They played an inspired game. Todd Haley yelled at quarterback Matt Cassel on the sideline after Matt, threw one away. And Matt played much better after being bitch slapped by his coach.
A win is a win, however in this case that may not be a good thing.
There’s no doubt, the Chiefs are a very bad football team.
Even with this win, and maybe one or two more. If they finish 3-13 or 4-12, there will be no No. 1 pick, no Andrew Luck. In other words, Chiefs fans are in for more of the same. And they will continue to stink, with or without a new coach.
We must have a franchise quarterback – it’s not Matt.
Glazer: Weekend Pics; Humble Scribe Bets the Farm Because He’s That Kinda Guy
Well football fans, I’ve had a nice three week run..
Lets see if I can hold it together. My numbers have been so good, I’ll have trouble keeping them this high, but stick with me, maybe we’ll get lucky.
First let’s see how my season-long picks are going.
My number one pick for the season was Kansas City under 7 1/2 games and the Chiefs are 0-3, so that looks like a lock. Next I picked Detroit at over 7 games and that looks very good – they’re 3-0. Last I have Dallas at 9 with the under and they’re 2-1. That one’s still up in the air, but I still like the under. They seem to have issues, but they’re in a weak division, and the Eagles look to be in trouble as I predicted with Mr Vick. He will likely be out for the season soon.
In College Football the mighty are just that this year – way better than the rest.
Starbeams: Michael Jackson’s Security Head, Royals Trip on Road Trip & Bubba Starling & Brew
During the manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, we learned a very sad fact: Michael Jackson’s eldest children, Prince and Paris, saw their father die. Michael’s head of security, Faheem Muhammad, testified Prince and Paris watched as Murray desperately tried to resuscitate their father. Once again, our top story, a guy in charge of security in America was named FAHEEM.
*******
The Royals played their last game losing 1-0 to Minnesota. The team finished the year at 71-91. We haven’t been anywhere near the playoffs since 1985. The Royals just announced the entire team has been using a performance enhancing drug. It’s called ACID.
Hearne: Midland by AMC to Resurrect Vaunted Sandstone Entertainment Auction
One of KC’s most iconic entertainment institutions is poised to re-rear its long absentee head…
The music and entertainment biz fandango known as the Sandstone Auction – an event put on by former concert powerhouse Contemporary – will return in spirit to AEG‘s Midland by AMC.
Year after year the auction offered an array of supercalifragilistic, superstar autographed tschotskes. Items signed by the top artists who’d visited Kansas City stages that year.
What was it like?
Return with me to the October 1999 Sandstone Auction for a few highlights from my column at the time.
“We don’t have any weird stuff this year,” organizer Candy Chorice told me then. “But Olivia Newton-John signed a `Grease’ poster. And at the Lilith Fair I got a guitar signed by all of the mainstage acts, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, the Dixie Chicks, Indigo Girls and Deborah Cox."
Leftridge: Tales from the Tweet: Arenas Heads to Walmart, Kietz Gets Saucy & Wright Rants
In today’s modern media world, some of the greatest quotes come not from press conferences or radio interview soundbites, but directly from the horse’s mouth. And by ‘horse,’ I mean person. And by ‘mouth,’ I mean Twitter page.
Social media is a vast landscape of triumph and tragedy; ridiculousness and realism.
But who has the time for all of those Tweets? What lifeless loser has hours to spend looking up random athletes and sports media personalities, in search of gold but bogged down with a thousand unnecessary ‘lolz’ and a million punishing abuses of the English language?
I do, my friends. I do.
It is my pleasure to present to you, this installment of ‘Tales from the Tweet.’
Jack Goes Confidential: ’50/50′ Delivers Heartfelt Hilarity
Who would’ve thought it?
A cancer movie that works on many levels. Or as Seth Rogen tells best bud Joseph Gordon Levitt in ’50/50′: "If you were a casino game, you’d have the best odds."
’50/50′ is a bittersweet comedic approach to a pretty taboo subject.
Bottom line: A massive malignant tumor on his spine is what Rogen’s best friend and NPR producer Levitt is diagnosed with and doctors give him a 50/50 chance of survival. Something his girlfriend Bryce Dallas Howard has trouble dealing with in more than one way.
Donnelly: Sporting Rockets Into First Place, But Will Its Luck Hold?
Though still a bit out of sync, Sporting Kansas City vaulted into first place in the Eastern Conference Wednesday…
Sporting scored a 2-1 win over the Columbus Crew and is almost guaranteed now to see some playoff soccer in the next few weeks at LIVESTRONG. Prior to the match, KC and Columbus were tied for second in the division, so the three points from the win- combined with Columbus collecting zero from their loss- is huge with only three games left before the playoffs.
Was it pretty? No. Was it kind of lucky? Yes.
Is Sporting’s form over the last few games a bit troubling, even though they continue picking up points? You bet.
Sounds Good: Garage a Trois, American Royal BBQ, Sound Tribe Sector 9 & Bob Lockwood
Busy, busy weekend coming up – which is a good thing…
Yep, everything seems to be coming together. So long as you don’t mind not sleeping for a few days and existing solely off the nutritional value contained in beer and smoked meats.
I’m actually going to try and attend all the events I’m recommending this weekend. So if I go MIA for awhile, assume I ended up in some dirty van after the STS9 show and woke up somewhere in Colorado.
I’m also going to try and review the new Wilco album, "The Whole Love", (if I can find a solid 45 to listen to the whole thing) which dropped a day or two ago. On first listen, I like it, though you know how first listens can be.
On to the madness…
