samhexum

WHEN will poor older guys learn??????? A 60-year-old man died after a 21-year-old man he met up with in Brooklyn bashed him in the head with a dumbbell. ... The 21-year-old suspect, whose name wasn't immediately released, met Clifford Williams for a rendezvous outside his apartment on Willoughby Ave. near Marcus Garvey Blvd.

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a week after it was announced that Sarah Drew would be leaving Grey’s Anatomy at season’s end, the actress has landed one of the two lead roles in CBS’ Cagney & Lacey reboot. In the prospective series, Drew, who has starred on the hit ABC drama as April Kepner for nine seasons, will star as Cagney. The easygoing LAPD detective is the protégée of Lacey, the straightforward veteran detective set to be played by Blindspot alum Michelle Hurd, who was part of the original cast of SVU, but was replaced by Ice-T. Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly starred in the original series, which ran from 1981-88. Written by Friday Night Lights alum Bridget Carpenter, the reboot finds the two female detectives and friends trying to keep the streets of Los Angeles safe. Rosemary Rodriguez (The Good Wife) will direct the pilot.

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a week after it was announced that Sarah Drew would be leaving Grey’s Anatomy at season’s end, the actress has landed one of the two lead roles in CBS’ Cagney & Lacey reboot. In the prospective series, Drew, who has starred on the hit ABC drama as April Kepner for nine seasons, will star as Cagney. The easygoing LAPD detective is the protégée of Lacey, the straightforward veteran detective set to be played by Blindspot alum Michelle Hurd, who was part of the original cast of SVU, but was replaced by Ice-T. Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly starred in the original series, which ran from 1981-88. Written by Friday Night Lights alum Bridget Carpenter, the reboot finds the two female detectives and friends trying to keep the streets of Los Angeles safe. Rosemary Rodriguez (The Good Wife) will direct the pilot.

Taco Bell may have found the secret to Tex-Mex fast food success — french fries. Nacho Fries, one of Taco Bell’s newest product launches, has been crowned as the chain’s most successful new menu item, dethroning the Doritos Locos Taco that had sold 100 million tacos in 10 weeks after its 2012 launch. Since the Jan. 25 launch, the seasoned fries have been dominating the menu, selling more than 53 million orders in the first five weeks. “We’re seeing fries in one out of every three orders, compared to one out of every four for DLT,” Taco Bell spokesman Matt Prince told Nation’s Restaurant News in an email. The fries — which come with a side of nacho cheese sauce — are also increasing overall menu purchases, Nation’s Restaurant News reports. Though the fries are only around for a limited time, Taco Bell has confirmed they will be staying on the menu at least through early April. The Nacho Fries are part of the chain’s plan to add 20 new items to the menu during 2018. I say it's all due to their choice of celebrity used: http://sbantvc4fq2.hollywood-xposed.com/members/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/542x420jd.jpg

One of the less obvious products being unveiled this week at SXSW is a small concrete house. On the outside, it doesn’t look like anything particularly special, although the covered patio and spacious windows are less common on tiny poured-concrete buildings. That’s because the innovation isn’t in the structure or materials — it’s in the design and building. ICON, the company that builds the 650-square-foot house, claims it costs just $10,000 to build and can be 3D-printed by a Vulcan printer in 12 to 24 hours using the most common building material on Earth. ICON has built a model at SXSW that features a living room, bedroom, bathroom and curved porch. The company’s co-founders told The Verge that it will be using the model as an office for the immediate future to see how it performs. “We are going to install air quality monitors. How does it look and how does it smell?” founder Jason Ballard told The Verge. In the longer term, ICON has partnered with housing nonprofit New Story to take its technology to the developing world. The plan is for ICON and New Story to build a community of 100 homes in El Salvador next year using the Vulcan printer. Although 3D printing has been used in building fabrication before, printing on-site using a universally available building material is a new step. That said, ICON’s structures still presumably rely on a goodly supply of available labor and talent and a structure won’t be taken from bare earth to habitability with no human interaction. Excavation still has to happen for concrete foundations, and the windows, roof and interior mechanicals like electricity and plumbing can’t be poured by a printer.

Bryan Roof looks like he has nice arms...

DEAR ABBY: I have been trying to get healthy for years and recently lost a lot of weight. Every job I have, I work with grossly obese women. At my present job, one of them keeps coming to work dressed like me. It has happened before and I am sick of it. You have no idea how insulting it is to come to work, ready to do my job and find myself in this embarrassing situation. I just started working here and I need the job. To me, this is a form of harassment, and I don't understand where she's coming from. It's not my problem if she is unhappy with her self-image. I like myself; I mind my own business and do my work. Also, I worked in fashion for years. If she wants my fashion expertise, she should pay me for it. Copying the way I dress is not a compliment. It's identity theft. She is not me. I do not appreciate her imitating me. Please help! -- ONE OF A KIND IN ILLINOIS DEAR ONE: I'll try, but it may not be the kind of help you're asking for. Have you never heard the saying, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"? It's a principle the fashion industry is based upon. Instead of being offended and angry, why not help the woman by offering to assist her in making distinctive fashion choices of her own? I'm sure she'd welcome it, and I'm also sure it would lighten and brighten the atmosphere in your workplace. GET OVER YOURSELF!

DEAR ABBY: My mom was involved in a serious car accident a while back that required multiple surgeries and hospital stays. She's still dealing with the repercussions. The problem is that she doesn't seem to have learned from it. She still texts and looks at her phone while driving. It has reached the point where I refuse to ride with her or allow her to drive my child in her car. I've asked her repeatedly to not use her phone while driving, but she seems to think she's invincible even after having proof she's not. What should I do to make her understand she's putting herself in danger again, not to mention those who ride with her? -- CONCERNED DAUGHTER DEAR CONCERNED: Because your mother didn't learn after the accident she caused by not turning off her cellphone, it's time to accept that nothing you say will change her. Continue to refrain from riding with her or allowing your child to. And pray that if she causes another collision, she doesn't kill herself or someone else. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: Here comes the bride into the cop car... While en route to the altar Monday, Amber Young, 32, was arrested for reportedly causing a three-car crash in Marana, Arizona. Authorities said they detained the bride — who was wedding-ready in her floor-length white gown — on suspicion of driving under the influence. The pre-nuptials crash sent one person to the hospital with minor injuries, police said. Officers apprehended Young at the scene and later released her after she submitted to a blood test. “Don’t drive impaired. Till death do we part doesn’t need any help,” Marana Police Sgt. Chriswell Scott tweeted. It wasn’t supposed to be a drive-through. A woman drove her sedan into the front of a Long Island restaurant on Sunday morning when she accidentally pressed the gas instead of the brakes, police said. The 66-year-old female driver was heading east on Herzel Boulevard in her Mercury Grand Marquis around 11:30 a.m. when she mistook the gas for the brakes. The woman hit another vehicle near Little East Neck Road before driving straight into the front of Giovanni’s Pizza, a Suffolk County Police Department spokeswoman said. Photos from the scene of the crash show almost all of the light blue sedan inside the West Babylon restaurant, underneath an awning bearing the pizzeria’s name and the words “Parking in Rear.” A restaurant employee was taken to a local hospital after the Marquis drove over her foot in the midst of the mayhem. Two other occupants were taken to the hospital for evaluation. Neither driver was injured, police said. No arrests have been made and the driver who crashed into the eatery is not expected to be charged. Giovanni’s Pizza did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Me I turn my flip phone on once or twice a month to make a call, then turn it off. Charge it every couple of months. Only receive calls when I know one's coming, so I turn the phone on. Have texted maybe 5-7 times in my life. I prefer my landline and answering machine. And desktop computer. I still have a vcr set up, but haven't used it in about a year.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but can you teach an old dog to turn tricks? You sure can — at least in the case of Norm Self. The 83-year-old just starred in his first gay porn film. “It was splendid!” Self tells the Huffington Post. “How could it not be? [i was in] a blessed rural setting, surrounded by a cast and crew of loving, competent, supportive brothers intent on sharing the good news of the healing power of pleasure.” In the video, Self, a “sacred intimate” — or, a teacher who helps all individuals explore the healing power of pleasure — appears alongside two younger porn actors, and is shown masturbating. In a video posted to YouTube, he recounts his first time masturbating at age 12. “I remember that when I masturbated . . . it was, like, the doors of heaven opened up,” he says. “And then all of a sudden, wham! The gates of hell opened up.” He maintains his sex life at age 83 is the best it’s ever been and takes issue with the general perception that seniors don’t get freaky. “I think it’s sad and destructive that our society has an image of elder human beings as ‘sexless,’ ” he tells HuffPo. “I have been a facilitator with at least three women and a great many more men in the recovery/restoration of their erotic/sexual response and their joyful delight at the discovery that ‘it ain’t over until I say it is!’ ”

Scientology is launching its own TV network Monday at 8 p.m. EST. The details of the programming — which will be available on platforms such as Apple TV, Roku and DirecTV — are as cloaked in secrecy as the church itself. But its app is already available on the Apple store. It’s also unclear how the church plans to use its stable of dazzling celebrity members including Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Elisabeth Moss. (Presumably, “The King of Queens” actress Leah Remini will not be welcome.) The venture has its own Twitter account. Recently, it teased the venture in a video, stating, “The only thing more interesting than what you’ve heard is what you haven’t.” Rumors of such a project have circulated since 2011, when the church bought a nearly 5-acre studio in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz neighborhood that once housed public TV station KCET. They poured $50 million into a renovation that church leader David Miscavige unveiled in a 2016 ceremony.

A California woman and her daughter are suing a New York City parking garage and a couple of its employees over a violin that got run over. Beth Bergman filed the suit in Manhattan on Friday. She claims she and her daughter were taking their possessions out of a car at the West 51st Street garage in August. They had put the expensive Degani violin in its case on the ground. The suit says an employee drove over the instrument and caused damage in excess of $85,000. A call to the garage company was not immediately returned on Sunday. An employee named in the suit, Victor Asitimbay, told The New York Post, “We didn’t do anything wrong. If you have something very special, you don’t put it on the floor.”

Singer Lorna Luft, the daughter of Judy Garland, has been diagnosed with a brain tumour after collapsing following a performance in London. The singer, 65, was "forgetting lyrics and monologue" before she collapsed back stage at the Pizza Express Jazz Club on Friday night. She was rushed to hospital by her husband, Colin Freeman, who had been concerned for Luft during her performance, spokeswoman Victoria Varela said. Luft, an Emmy-winning TV producer and Broadway star, is currently in remission from breast cancer which she has been battling for more than six years. "Further information will be available following additional medical tests and examinations." Luft's performance at the Jazz Club on Friday was the second of four sold-out shows at the venue. Her father is producer Sidney Luft and she is the half-sister of actress and singer Liza Minnelli.

Singer Lorna Luft, the daughter of Judy Garland, has been diagnosed with a brain tumour after collapsing following a performance in London. The singer, 65, was "forgetting lyrics and monologue" before she collapsed back stage at the Pizza Express Jazz Club on Friday night. She was rushed to hospital by her husband, Colin Freeman, who had been concerned for Luft during her performance, spokeswoman Victoria Varela said. Luft, an Emmy-winning TV producer and Broadway star, is currently in remission from breast cancer which she has been battling for more than six years. "Further information will be available following additional medical tests and examinations." Luft's performance at the Jazz Club on Friday was the second of four sold-out shows at the venue. Her father is producer Sidney Luft and she is the half-sister of actress and singer Liza Minnelli.

My former roommate (female) danced with him at a party years ago. Nothing to report; just thought I'd mention it.

I’ve always disliked KFC’s revolving celebrity Colonels ad campaign, but Reba McEntire with her sibilant twang drives me up the @&*#ing wall! The maker of the Veg-O-Matic, the Showtime Rotisserie oven and the 5 Minute Pasta Wizard has been cooked again. Ronco — whose TV spots hawked gadgets like Mr. Microphone and the Beef Jerky Machine, a dehydrator it called “a one-way ticket to meat-lover’s heaven” — filed for Chapter 11 this week, its third trip to bankruptcy court since its founding 49 years ago. The filing comes a year after Ronco’s failed attempt to raise $30 million in an IPO that sounded like one of its late-night pitches: Buy $1,000 in shares, and get a 20 percent discount on its website. Spend more than $5,000 and get a Ronco Rotisserie, too. That was despite a warning in the IPO filing from auditors at the time, who raised “substantial doubt” about whether the company was viable. Ronco’s founder and TV pitchman Ron Popeil, who sold the company in 2005 for nearly $60 million, said Friday he has an inkling about what led to the most recent demise of the brand he launched in 1969. “The Showtime Rotisserie did over $1 billion in sales over its lifetime, and the current owner changed it,” Popeil, 82, told The Post. “They retooled and started over in China. They had a winner. Why would you take your best product and change it?” The prolific inventor, who now lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., said that Ronco — which was sold at least three times after he left it — added other products to its line “to make it look like they were a bigger company than they were,” but that the products were “really worthless.” The Chapter 11 filing lists the company’s assets and liabilities between $1 million and $10 million. The $30 million in cash that Ronco tried and failed to raise in its IPO last year “was key to keeping the lights on in a business that was losing $4.5 million per year,” Adam Stein-Sapir, a bankruptcy expert at Pioneer Funding Group, told The Post. “Without it, they were forced to file for bankruptcy.” Ronco owns the rights to Popeil’s former products and the rights to use his name and likeness, but not for any new Ronco products. Popeil’s name and image are so important to Ronco that at one point the company took out a $15 million life insurance policy on him. “I remember that someone asked me permission for the policy many years ago,” Popeil said, adding that he agreed. The policy “still exists, but I don’t know who owns it,” he added. The Austin, Texas-based company’s lawyer did not return a call for comment, and its president, William Moore, could not immediately be reached on Friday. “I know the current owner and I’m a good friend of his,” Popeil said. “But running a business is not his talent.” But wait — there’s more: Popeil is still plying his trade as an inventor, and recently produced a turkey fryer that can be used on a kitchen counter. He is close to inking a deal with an investor who wants sell Popeil’s new inventions on TV, like in the old days. “I might do walk-ons to talk about my new products,” he said, adding, “I look a little older now.”

Jessica Crapshaw & Sarah Drew are being written out at the end of the season.

Thank You, Jean Nidetch.

He's on CHICAGO P.D. (which I don't watch), & was on the USA series THE 4400 (which I DID watch). I've liked him since he slept with his half-sister on SVU.

And she says the nicest things about you!

Didn't know there was one. Though I guess nowadays there's one for everything & everyone.

Disappointing your parents:

Tommy Lee will press charges against his 21-year-old son after a brutal brawl left the Mötley Crüe rocker with a fat lip. Tommy, 55, initially planned to withdraw the police report he filed Tuesday night after son Brandon Thomas Lee allegedly slugged him and knocked him unconscious, TMZ reported. It was reportedly only after Brandon refused to apologize that Tommy decided to pursue criminal charges and a restraining order against his son. The altercation started as a heated argument over Tommy’s social media posts about Brandon’s mother and Tommy’s ex-wife, Pamela Anderson. Tommy lashed out after Anderson, 50, spoke about his past spousal abuse in a Piers Morgan interviewlast week. Tommy assaulted Anderson during an argument in February 1998. He later pleaded no contest to corporal injury to spouse, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 hours of community service, but was released after four months. He later served an additional five days in 2000 after violating the terms of his probation, the Los Angeles Times reported. Brandon’s account of the fight differs vastly from Tommy’s: Brandon claimed that Tommy lunged at him and that he fought back in self-defense; Brandon also accuses his father of being an alcoholic. “I’m devastated at the events of the last several days that have been a result of my father’s alcoholism,” Brandon’s rep told People in a statement on Wednesday. Pamela Anderson with Brandon Thomas Lee and Tommy Lee in 1997 “I’ve worked tirelessly organizing an intervention and it’s incredibly upsetting that it never came to fruition. I wanted my dad’s hopeful sobriety and recovery to be a private family matter but, as a result of his accusations on social media, I feel forced to speak out,” he continued. “I have and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement as needed. I love my father and just want to see him sober, happy and healthy.” Tommy denied the alcoholism accusation,tweeting, “LMAAAO!!!! I’m happier than I’ve been in my entire life. I have a few drinks here & there because I’m f—kin retired and enjoying my life. I worked 30+ f—kin years I deserve it. You didn’t arrange any intervention, you barely spoke to me while u were here. Just coverin ur ass!!” Tommy’s fianceé, 31-year-old former Vine star Brittany Furlan, told 911 dispatchers that Brandon threw the first punch and knocked Tommy unconscious. “My stepson and my fiancé got into a fight … [Tommy] didn’t hit his son, his son pushed him,” Furlan said in audio obtained by TMZ. “Then [Tommy] asked him to leave and was like, ‘Here’s the door’ and put his arm on his son’s shoulder. His son punched him in the face and knocked him out cold. He’s bleeding,” she continued. “[brandon] punched him really hard in the face and he went flying backwards. He’s totally out like a light.” Furlan continued, “My stepson has guns in his room and that’s why I’m freaked out; I just locked the door.” When Tommy came to, Furlan told dispatchers that he wanted to cancel the call, but paramedics were already en route to the property. Brandon is currently a person of interest, not yet a suspect, in a battery investigation.