Here's Why William Shatner Returning for Star Trek 3 Makes Sense

Here's Why William Shatner Returning for Star Trek 3 Makes Sense

By Mike Bracken

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ppo5YIYwTM

 As is to be expected, the Internet is all a-buzz with the latest rumors concerning Star Trek 3. It’s been a crazy week for the third installment in the rebooted franchise – we’ve learned it will probably start shooting in February, that the story will most likely take place in deep space during the crew’s five year mission, and that the characters should hew more closely to their TV counterparts. That’s a lot of info – but the real bombshell was the revelation that William Shatner might re-don his Starfleet tunic and appear in the new film. Naturally, like all things Star Trek, this news provoked two distinct and opposite reactions: fan jubilation and fan derision. I think bringing Shatner in for a part in the new film is actually a good idea, and here are a few reasons why.

The most obvious rationale for bringing Shatner back into the fold is plain old fan service. I know some of the Star Trek fanbase is really tired of seeing the new films (which went out of their way to try to divorce themselves from original canon, then take every opportunity they can find to tie back into it…) present updated riffs on classic Star Trek. I can even sympathize with that viewpoint at times, if only because it doesn’t feel fair to the new crew to constantly have them playing second fiddle to fan nostalgia.

That being said, having Shatner return as Kirk is a bit more interesting than working Khan into the second film, or any of the other nods littered throughout Star Trek ’09 or Into Darkness. This is Captain Kirk – without him and Leonard Nimoy, we don’t have a Star Trek to reboot. We haven’t seen Kirk and Spock together since 1991. It’s time for this to happen, even if it’s just a tiny cameo. In fact, maybe it’s best served by being a tiny cameo where we can all have a minute to remember what made us love this franchise in the first place and then move on.

Abrams and company had an opportunity to do this with 2009 film, which gave Nimoy’s Spock a pretty prominent role, but excised Shatner completely. Had Abrams’ worked both characters into Trek ’09, we could have had our moment to acknowledge two beloved characters, then gotten on with getting to know the new crew. Instead, the Shatner omission has made it feel like there’s unfinished business to be addressed – business that should have been dealt with two films ago.

 There’s an issue of fairness and respect here, too. Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner are both irreplaceable parts of what made Star Trek into a cultural phenomenon. Life – and filmmaking – aren’t always fair. But bringing Nimoy back for both films (although, really, they shouldn’t have bothered with Into Darkness), while leaving Kirk dead in the older continuity was a horrible decision at the time – and has grown even worse in retrospect. Shatner made his displeasure with being cut out of the 2009 entry well known, and I can understand why he was stung by it. Star Trek is, and always will be, the thing we identify him with as an actor. Captain Kirk was his career-defining role. Including his friend/nemesis Nimoy in both of the reboots while keeping Shatner on the sidelines was a lousy thing to do, no matter how much of a jerk the man can be at times.

This is to say nothing of the fact that Paramount has already made a big deal about the new film opening in 2016 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original series. How can you have a 50th anniversary celebration without Shatner being part of it in some fashion? You really can’t.

If that doesn’t convince you, then maybe this will – William Shatner is 83 years old. He’s in relatively good health, but once you cross into your eighth decade, you’ve entered the latter stages of your life. There aren’t going to be a lot of opportunities left for Shatner to appear on the screen as Captain Kirk. Same goes for Leonard Nimoy, who’s also 83. If Nimoy were to be done, at least we could look back at the first reboot and happily acknowledge that we got to see Spock again. To see Kirk, we have to go back to 1994’s Star Trek Generations. That’s two whole decades ago. It’s time to change that, before time runs out once and for all. Let’s not have that happen, and give Shatner the sendoff he deserves should this be the last time he appears as Kirk.

What do you guys think? Are you onboard with a Shatner cameo in the new Star Trek, or would you rather move forward with the new crew and leave the past in the past?

 http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Here-Why-William-Shatner-Returning-Star-Trek-3-Makes-Sense-67341.html

Who Invented the Ice Bucket Challenge?

Who Invented the Ice Bucket Challenge?

Participants take part in the World Record Ice Bucket Challenge at Etihad Stadium on Aug. 22 in Melbourne, Australia. Over 700 people took part in setting the new world record.

“Where does a phenomenon begin?”

That’s the question ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi seeks to answer in a long SportsCenterfeature on the ice bucket challenge, which has reportedly raised more than $50 million for ALS charities in less than a month. Rinaldi says that it began “with one name”: Pete Frates. A former Boston College baseball player, Frates was diagnosed with ALS in 2011. On July 31 of this year, he challenged some friends and celebrities (including NFL quarterbacks Tom Brady and Matt Ryan) to take the ice bucket challenge to “strike out ALS.” As my Slate colleague Will Oremus pointed out, various outlets have since claimed that Frates invented or inspired the challenge, with the Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, and MLB.com joining ESPN in labeling Frates as the stimulus for the chilly, charitable fad.

This origin myth, while heartwarming, just isn’t true. The real story of how the ice bucket challenge came to dominate your Facebook feed takes nothing away from Frates’ inspirational message, or the fact that his personal struggle helped draw celebrities to the cause and drive charitable contributions. But focusing on “one name” obscures another fascinating tale, one that illustrates how movements mutate and evolve as they travel across the Web.

People have been getting wet and cold for charity for a very long time. “Polar bear plunges,” in which people willingly fling themselves into frigid bodies of water, are held all around the world, with Boston’s annual event dating back to at least 1904. There’s also a proud tradition of dumping buckets of liquid on people’s heads, with the Gatorade shower emerging as a canonical NFL celebration sometime in the mid-1980s.

So, who thought to combine charitable coldness with bucket-enabled dousing? Settle in, because this is a circuitous tale.

In his Aug. 12 Slate piece, Oremus says the challenge “came from a dare that was circulating among a group of pro athletes, including golfer Greg Norman and motorcycle racer Jeremy McGrath.” Indeed, pro golfers were pouring cold water all over themselves back in June. The Golf Channel’s Jason Sobel explains that Chris Kennedy, a golfer on a minor-league circuit in Florida, was the first, on July 14, to focus the freezing fundraiser on ALS research.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpJCWjs6kYA

Kennedy’s challenge found its way to Pat Quinn, who like Pete Frates has been diagnosed with ALS. Quinn, who has also been credited with creating the ice bucket challenge, brought the charitable splash-fest to his Quinn for the WinFacebook page, where it then reached Frates and rocketed to social media supremacy.

The golfers, though, didn’t instigate this bucket brigade. Three weeks before Chris Kennedy poured water on himself for ALS research, a motocross racer named Jeff Northrop issued an ice bucket challenge of his own on Instagram to raise money for his nephew’s medical problems. If you search for the hashtag #icebucketchallenge on Instagram, you’ll find a huge number of examples that precede that.

The earliest #icebucketchallenge I found on Instagram is this one, posted on May 29 by a user named standupguy06:

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/08/who_invented_the_ice_bucket_challenge_a_slate_investigation.html

But that’s a trip down another icy cul-de-sac. The real ancestor of water-dumping often eschewed the bucket entirely. The “cold water challenge” and the “24-hour ice challenge,” both of which traveled widely across social media earlier this year, were variants on the classic polar bear plunge. In this iteration of the challenge, participants had to submerge themselves in a vat, tub, or body of freezing water. (The “24-hour” part references the requirement to complete the challenge in a day’s time.) This version was particularly popular with firefighters, with a recentarticle in the Columbus Dispatch pegging charitably inclined fire departments as the likely origin of this frosty frenzy.

Or maybe not. The site Know Your Meme claims the cold water challenge “began as a fundraising campaign in March of 2014, for Madi Rogers, a toddler from Grundy County, Tennessee suffering from severe juvenile diabetes.” According to a local TV station, Tennesseans raised money to buy young Madi a service dog by filming themselves jumping into freezing water and putting the videos on Facebook. Know Your Meme found one such video that dates back to March 8.

Germany WINS

FIFA WORLDCUP 2014

World Cup 2014: Germany are ready to rule the roost for years to come

Depth of talent is such that, in ominous warning to their rivals, the ambition of also winning Euro 2016 title is already being openly discussed and planned for.

 Simply the best: Mario Götze celebrates scoring the winner against Argentina Photo: GETTY 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/germany/10967307/World-Cup-2014-Germany-are-ready-to-rule-the-roost-for-years-to-come.html

World Cup 2014: 5 Reasons Spain Lost So Miserably In The Group Stage

By IBTimes Staff Reporter
on June 18 2014 5:45 PM 

 

As the defending World Cup and back-to-back European Champions, Spain entered the 2014 World Cup with lofty expectations to repeat, as many experts considered Vicente del Bosque’s squad to be among the greatest national teams in history.
What followed in the group stage sent shockwaves through world soccer. Spain not only lost both games, but were outscored 7-1 by the Netherlands and Chile.
What could possibly have prompted such a flame out? How does such a talented team lose so early in the group stage?
Here are five reasons why Spain couldn’t reach the knockout phase:


Tough Competition
While Spain boast a world-class roster, they faced two very good squads. The Netherlands have an excellent attack, and entered the match with a chip on their shoulder after losing to Spain in the 2010 final in South Africa. Many experts were quick to point out that Chile boast several quality players, including Arturo Vidal, Alexis Sanchez, Eduardo Vargas, Mauricio Isla, and goalkeeper Claudio Bravo. As a South American team, they had a strong contingent of supporters in attendance in Rio de Janeiro.
Predictable Strategy
With the exception of striker Diego Costa, the 2014 roster looked rather similar to the 2010 roster. When a starting XI has a familiar look, it is not difficult for the opposing head coach to game plan. Spain probably needed a shakeup with young players like Jese, Asier Illaramendi, and Alvaro Morata to throw off the competition.

 Poor Goalkeeping
While Iker Casillas is considered one of the best goalkeepers in the world, he has been criticized by some for lackadaisical play. His former Real Madrid manager, Jose Mourinho, even benched Casillas in favor of backup Diego Lopez in 2013. Spain could have received a better effort from their man in the net against the Netherlands and Chile. Pepe Reina would probably have been a better choice.
Resting On Laurels
Spain failed to play like Spain, and it seemed as though the squad was expecting to cruise through group play. The overconfidence looked apparent in their passing, which seemed erratic compared to how they played in Euro 2012 and the 2010 World Cup. Their opponents looked one step ahead of them. It was a rude awakening in the second half against the Netherlands, when Spain surrendered four goals in 45 minutes.

 

Gunning For Goliath
After so much success, Spain may have had “success fatigue.” It’s difficult to maintain such great play for so long, as Brazil proved since Pele’s retirement (Brazil won just two World Cups since 1970). Spain also seemed to be a much different team without their star center back and unsung hero Carles Puyol, whose absence appeared to be too much to overcome. The Netherlands and Chile seemed to relish the opportunity to take down a somewhat vulnerable Spain squad and knew that the champions' reign couldn't last.
In some ways, Spain's downfall should have been expected. Three of the last four world champions couldn’t get out of the first round. Spain had a major challenge in defending their title, and their impressive run in recent years had to end some time.
 http://www.ibtimes.com/world-cup-2014-5-reasons-spain-lost-so-miserably-group-stage-1605344

FUNNY WORLD CUP BRAZIL 2014

FUNNY WORLD CUP BRAZIL 2014
#worldcup
#worldcup2014

Student Commits Suicide After Losing $3000 USD In World Cup Gamble

He gambled with money borrowed from loan sharks and committed suicide after losing it to World Cup bets

• Published: 26.06.2014
• Kukogho Iruesiri Samson

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Failed gambling led him to suicide

A second-year college student has died after jumping from the 7th story of  high rise building in his school  following heavy losses in World Cup gambling.

The student who, simply identified his surname Lin in news reports, committed suicide after losing a big bet, reportedly over$3000 USD.

A Debt And A Death

A witness who spoke with Information Times said the student might have committed suicide after pressure from loan sharks.

"I heard him say 'do not force me' and 'give me two more days and I'll return you the money'

"He talked on the phone for more than 10 minutes. I saw him hang up and stand up and then all in a sudden he just disappeared," Information Times reported the witness as saying.

An online media quoting a classmate and friend of the deceased student reports that Lin had gambled nearly $7,000 US dollars on several students.

“We heard that he borrowed quite a lot of money and the interest rate was rather high,” another student quoted in the report said.

Deadly China Betting

Lin is now the second Chinese to die in World Cup related circumstances after a 51-year-old former footballer, Li Mingqiang, died of 'over-excitement' while watching the Spain-Netherlands match which ended 5-1 in favor of the Orange boys.

China has become the World's gambling capital and just last week, police in Hong  busted an illegal World Cup betting ring which raked in an astonishing $600 million USD in one week - an all-time record.

http://pulse.ng/student_pulse/baba-ijebu-no-good-student-commits-suicide-after-losing-3000-usd-in-world-cup-gamble-id2944929.html?utm_campaign=baba-ijebu-no-good-student-commits-suicide-after-losing-3000-usd-in-world-cup-gamble&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Chinese fan dies after staying up too late to watch the World Cup

• Chinese fan found dead in his home after Holland 5-1 win over Spain
• Sleep deprivation from staying up to watch World Cup believed to be cause
• Parts of Brazil are 11 hours behind China, with games airing there in the middle of the night

By JOHN DRAYTON

A Chinese fan has reportedly died after after staying up for too many nights in a row to watch the World Cup. 

A 25-year-old man was found in his home in Suzhou, an area near Shanghai, sat infront of a TV set just hours after Holland's 5-1 thumping of Spain on Friday.

Salvador, the Brazilian city where the game took place on Friday, is 11 hours behind Shanghai, meaning fans in China have to stay up all through the night to follow the tournament.

With the game kicking off at 4pm local time, it did not finish in China until around 5 in the morning, and doctors believe his death could have been caused by the sleep deprivation.

Medical experts have now warned football fans in China about the dangers should they sacrifice sleep during the tournament.

It's not the first time a Chinese football fan has died after staying awake to watch the game.

During Euro 2012 one supporter spent 11 sleepless nights watching every game of the tournament and died from exhaustion.

Chinese hospitals also saw a surge in patients admitted with symptoms of exhaustion during the World Cups in 2006 and 2010.

Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben both scored twice as Oranje ran riot against the current world champions.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2014/article-2658967/Chinese-fan-dies-staying-late-watch-World-Cup.html#ixzz35zWGTJVU