Sideshow stunts closing down California highways

By Pete Bannan
pbannan@mainlinemedianews.com

In New York City's Times Square, the land of pedestrians, a visitor can often be entertained to a piece of performance art, a mime or street musician. In California, land of the auto performance, art is also taking hold but in a different public setting. Packs of cars and motorcycles blocking interstate highways with stunts and claims of endless love - and all filmed for the YouTube generation.

In Oakland this past weekend three cars blocked Interstate 880 "drifting" in circles. Drifting is the burnout of the 21st century. A KTVU reporter called them sideshow stunts.

Sgt. Rob Barrera told the Associated Press  that the California Highway Patrol is confident that someone will be prosecuted for the brazen sideshow that stopped traffic on Interstate 880 near the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday afternoon. Barrera declined additional comment.

YouTube poster iitreatedii was caught in traffic behind the drifters and called them "idiots" on his channel, though he did have over 230,000 advertised views as on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, Sunday Jan. 27 hundreds of bikers stopped traffic in the middle of the Interstate I-10 freeway in West Covina, Los Angeles County. The six-minute video is a Unity Ride in which biker Hector Martinez proposed to Paige Hernandez in front of his friends, family and unfortunate motorists stuck behind him.

San Francisco 49ers win Superbowl in Tecmo arcade video game

The San Francisco 49ers are Super Bowl XLVII champions!
Well at least according to Tecmo Bowl, the football arcade game originally released by Tecmo in 1988.
The 8-bit game, which also made its way to the Nintendo system, has been revamped by a group called the TecmoBowlers, who posted a video on YouTube where they took the same basic design and incorporates the players who will be fighting to be crowned Super Bowl champions.
The teams play tight defense heading into the fourth quarter as the score is locked at 17-17 with the Ravens driving down the field. Joe Flacco throws an interception on third down to 49ers safety Donte Whitner.
“The 49ers pull out the win by capitalizing on Joe Flacco's costly mistakes,” the description for the game said as to why the 49ers win their sixth championship in team history.
After the interception the 49ers score on a touchdown pass from Colin Kapernick to wide receiver Michael Crabtree—Crabtree’s third of the game. The 49ers would cap the game with a touchdown run by quarterback Colin Kapernick to give the 49ers the 31-17 victory in Super Bowl XLVII.
Now for all those old school gamers who miss the techno music in the games and where the players look like blobs on the screen, check out the entire simulation below.

Video, Surfing the icebergs with pengiuns

Spanish surfer Kepa Acero is on a quest to surf the world. In recent years, he has surfed in oceans across the globe. He traveled in January to the bottom of the world to surf the waves of Antarctica. Aboard the sailboat Pakea Bizkaia he travels from Ushuaia the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina south. During a trip on Jan. 17, 2013, it is summer in the Antarctica but the water is still 1’ Celsius. Acero didn’t find many waves to ride but he did find icebergs and on the iceberg, penguins. “It was so cool when you got there,” Acero said in the translated video. “At first they were very afraid of me but then they came up and played with me.” “Having an intimate relationship with nature,” is the way he describes the experience as the penguins jump in front of his surf board. “They are so nice. For a moment they were everywhere. Coming from everyplace. In the middle of the iceberg it has been unreal! Unreal!” To follow Kepa Acero's adventures Kepaacero.com

White House most likely won't build Death Star anytime soon

A petition to the White House to “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016” has made waves over the past two weeks, after a White House official shot down the idea with a destructive energy beam response titled “This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For.”

The petition, which gained 34,435 total signatures, asked for the White House to focus U.S. “defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star,” the petition reads.
The author of the petition even points out the potential for job creation.

“By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.”

Read the response from Paul Shawcross, chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget

RAZZIES nominations for worst movies of the year announced

By Michael Davalos 
mdavalos@mainlinemedianews.com 
Twitter: @michaelidavalos

While locally-filmed “Silver Linings Playbook” was picking up eight Oscar Nominations earlier this morning (like Best Actor for Bradley Cooper), there were quite a few other movies that were receiving movie award nominations—just not in a positive way.

On their official YouTube page, the RAZZIE AWARDS (an award show that honors the worst movies of the year) released their nominations for the 33rd Annual RAZZIE AWARDS.

33rd Annual RAZZIE AWARDS NOMINATIONS:
“The worst achievements in film for 2012 include several repeat offenders, returning for more pie-in-the-face/light-hearted joshing in the one tinsel town trophy derby no one wants to win,” the RAZZIES website said of the award show that finds the worst of the 727 movies that were released this year.

Movies with multiple nominations include: Adam Sandler’s “That’s My Boy,” “Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2” and Eddie Murphy’s “A Thousand Words,” which received a perfect zero percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes—a movie review website that teams up with the RAZZIES to compile the list of nominees.

Kristen Stewart, Tyler Perry and Nicolas Cage were both nominated for Worst Actor/Actress for not one, but two different films that they starred in during the 2012 calendar year.
Check out some of the list below:

Worst Picture:

• Oogieloves the Big Balloon Adventure
• A Thousand Words
• Battleship
• That’s My Boy!
• Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Worst Actress:

• Katherine Heigl (One for the Money)
• Tyler Perry –in drag- (Madea’s Witness Protection)
• Barbara Streisand (Guilt Trip)
• Kristen Stewart (Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 and Snow White and the Huntsman)
• Mila Jovovich (Resident Evil #5: Retribution)

Worst Actor:

• Eddie Murphy (A Thousand Words)
• Tyler Perry –Not in drag- (Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds and Alex Cross)
• Robert Pattison (Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2)
• Nicolas Cage (Ghost Rider 2 and Seeking Justice)
• Adam Sandler (That’s My Boy)

Visit www.razzies.com for the complete list.

Drive-thru Invisible Driver Prank

By Michael Davalos
mdavalos@mainlinemedianews.com
Twitter: @michaelidavalos
Rahat the Magician Prankster has become the newest sensation in the realm of pranks with his newest video "Drive-thru Invisible Driver Prank," which now has more than 3 million views on YouTube since it was published on Tuesday.



At the beginning of the video, Rahat describes how he built a costume that resembles a car seat which makes him seem invisible to unsuspecting employees working the drive-thru window.
“Let’s see how people react when a car with no driver rolls up to their drive thru window,” Rahat said at the beginning of his video.
The reactions are priceless.
“What the heck is going on,” one employee has as she laughs and calls over her fellow employees to confirm that a driverless car had just pulled up.
Each of the seven drive-thru windows that Rahat visits cause hilarious reactions from the employees.
“Oh snap! What just happened”
How would you react if you were working one of these drive-thru windows?

Baby Nevaeh grabs Doctor Allan Sawyer's finger during birth

By Michael Davalos
mdavalos@mainlinemedianews.com

As baby Nevaeh was preparing to enter the world, she latched onto the finger of Dr. Allan Sawyer and the special moment was captured by her father for the world to see.

Randy Atkins, Nevaeh’s father, snapped the photograph after Dr. Atkins told him the baby had grabbed a hold of his finger.


(Credit: Facebook/Alicia Atkins A Classic Pin-Up)

"The doctor called me over and said, 'Hey, she's grabbing my finger.' So I ran over there and just grabbed the shot and I was just in awe looking at it. It was such an amazing picture," Randy Atkins said in an interview with azfamily.com. 

Nevaeh, heaven spelled backwards, was born in Oct., but her parents Randy and Alicia Atkins waited until the day after Christmas to post the photo to A Classic Pin-up’s Facebook page, which is Alicia’s photography business.

“I can FINALLY share this!!!” she wrote as the description to the photo that has now gone viral. “This was 10 weeks ago when I was having my C-section and Dr. Sawyer broke my water and my daughter reached up out of my stomach and grabbed the Dr.'s finger and my hubby caught this special moment.”

Since the photo has been uploaded, it has been liked more than 6,000 times and A Classic Pin-up has been viewed by more than 36,000 people in the seven days following its posting. The photo has also been shared by nearly 4,000 people worldwide.

“We didn't think we were going to get such positive feedback. We thought we would get more negative ‘that's disgusting…’” Alicia said during the news interview with Jason Volentine of azfamily.com. “[Instead] everybody just thought it was the best thing in the world.”

Ketchup on cheesesteak request causes ruckus

By Michael Davalos

mdavalos@mainlinemedianews.com

Twitter: @michaelidavalos

A man in Florida was craving a Philly cheesesteak and went to Subway to get his usual, “American cheese, onions and ketchup.”

Luis Martinez’s order seems like a completely acceptable combination for a cheesesteak, but for Subway employee Lawrence Ordone, ketchup was not an option.

“He wants ketchup on the Philly cheese steak and I have never put -- we don't even have ketchup at Subway -- I've never put ketchup on anybody's sandwich," said Ordone in an interview with WFTV, an Orlando-based television station.

After the employee refused to put ketchup on the sandwich, then things really started heating up. Martinez recalled Ordone shoving a chair to the side and was ready to attack the customer.

"I was scared,” Martinez explained. “Next thing, I'm thinking a gun's going to come out.”

Ordone said that he blocked the man from leaving the Subway and said, “Let’s go, fight me like a man.”

As a result of the incident, Ordone was fired from his job at the Orlando Subway that was located in a Wal-Mart.

Again, this all started over ketchup. And, according to Ordone, if Martinez really wanted ketchup that bad, he knew exactly where he could go get it.

"There's ketchup three aisles down. You can go buy your own ketchup,” he added about the request, “and I promise to God, you can put as much as you want on it and nobody's going to say nothing."