Happy Birthday, Jim Thorpe

Today is the anniversary of Jim Thorpe’s birth, in 1888. Thorpe was voted “The Greatest Athlete of the Century” in 1950 by the Associated Press for his decades of excellence in baseball, lacrosse and football. Thorpe was a gold medalist in the 1912 Olympics, in the decathlon and pentathlon, but because he’d played semi-pro baseball in 1909 he lost his amateur status and they took his medals away (this was in the old days, when the Olympics was for amateur athletes).
His medals were returned to his family in 1983.

‘Sex and the City 2’: Bonus Slams!

Two more for the heap.The Washington Post:”An enervated, crass and gruesomely caricatured trip to nowhere.”The New York Post:

50 Cent: Get Thin or Die Tryin’

50 Cent: Get Thin or Die Tryin’

Rapper 50 Cent has dropped from 214 to 160 pounds — a whopping 25% of his weight — according to the ThisIs50 blog. He lost the pounds to play the role of a cancer-stricken football player in the upcoming movie Things Fall Apart, says the blog, which also says that Fitty is now back touring (and eating).

The Anniversary of the Human Fly

In my time zone I still have 70 minutes to celebrate the anniversary of George Willig’s climb up the South Tower of the World Trade Center buildings, on a Thursday morning in 1977.It took him three and a half hours, and when he got to the top he was arrested. But he had time to sign his name up there, as you can see here.And I found some TV footage of the event:

Which ‘Sex and the City 2’ Slam is the Nastiest?

Sex and the City 2 may be a train wreck, but at least the reviews are good for a chuckle.New York:The film is an epic eyesore. It’s as if they set out to make a movie that said, “You’re right! We are hideous!”Boston Herald:

Amityville Horror House For Sale

The house made famous by the 1977 book-n-movie The Amityville Horror is up for sale. The asking price is reported to be $1.5 million. It’s a big, beautiful home.
The murders in that house of the DeFeo family were said to be the cause of the “Amityville Ghosts” that haunted the home’s next residents, George and Kathy Lutz.

‘Frank Sinatra Jr.’s Vegas Memories’

For some reason this story headline just cracked me up.  I guess if Frank Sinatra’s piping-hot memories aren’t available, Frank Sinatra Jr.’s lukewarm memories are the next best thing.  Turns out that “Frank Sinatra Jr.’s Vegas Memories” are mostly of the shrugging-the-shoulders variety.