Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Holy shit, Mill Woods.
EDMONTON — An armed robber shot himself dead outside a Mill Woods liquor store Thursday morning after shooting and killing a worker at a nearby spa.
Police say the man entered the Bella Tonic spa on Millbourne Road at about 10 a.m., pulled out a handgun and demanded money. When an employee confronted him, the man fired the weapon, fatally wounding the employee.
Minutes later, the man appeared again at a liquor store five blocks away, said spokesman Jeff Wuite. He robbed the store and left by the front door. When he saw police outside he apparently shot himself.
Amanda Gill, an employee at Bella Tonic, arrived for work at 11:30 and was shocked to find police tape.
“I just got back from a trip last night,” she said. “It’s a good thing I didn’t start at 10.”
Gill said the salon has been owned by Nina Bains and her husband for about the last six years. It’s a family business, she said, and Bains’s husband and son work inside.
“I’m just in shock right now,” she said.
Tamara, who used to work at Bella Tonic, identified a woman crying outside as Nina Bains. Tamara asked that her last name not be used.
In the aftermath of the first shooting, two nearby schools were locked down.
More than 400 students at St. Elizabeth Elementary and St. Hilda Junior High were kept inside for about half an hour as police raced to secure the scene.
Students at the school will be sent home with letters explaining what happened, said Catholic School Board spokeswoman Lori Nagy.
The lockdown started at about 10:30 a.m. and was over by 11 a.m., Nagy said.
Workers at a nearby day care also locked their doors after the shooting.
“We were terrified and my heart is still thumping,” said Indira Saroya, the co-owner of Shiva Day Care. “How many innocent people have to die? My heart goes out to the family.”
Saroya said the 40 children inside the day care didn’t understand what was happening.
After the shooting, an injured man left the spa and staggered into the Medicine Shoppe pharmacy next door, said Gusharan Buttar, who was at the scene. Hours later police were still inside that store.
At Millbourne Liquor five blocks away, a forensics unit was examining the scene at around 1 p.m.
A table sat propped up in front of the entrance, blocking the view of the body still lying out front.
A security guard inside the nearby Safeway said a woman ran into the store at about 10:15 a.m. and told him police needed them to lock their doors right away.
Tactical officers soon appeared in the parking lot outside, said Andy Zayat.
“You could see them running around with the guns drawn,” he said. “They looked sort of confused.”
Police have only identified the dead men as adult males.
Mayor Stephen Mandel said his thoughts go out to the family of the slain man.
"We have become a violent society. You don't change violence overnight. You change it by dealing with families, youth, kids, fetal-alcohol problems," said Mandel, who created a task force last September that's due to come up with a 10-year plan for community safety by June.
"It's a long-reaching solution — the challenge is to change the violent nature of society."
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
QUEST CREW ftw.
Week 7 Hip Hop Decathlon Challenge:
Required incorporation: 1) threading, 2) tutting, 3) waving, 4) housing and 5) krumping. They killed every single effing section, mannnnnn.
Hok's tutting section? D-trix's air flares on his elbows? Hirano tearing his shirt off?! Steve's hand-free backflip starting from a sitting Indian position? Oh, baby.
Special "OrQUESTra" dance:
Watch it while you can. Youtube moderators are a bitch.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
North Dakota givers legal rights to fertilized human egg.
A measure approved by the North Dakota House gives a fertilized human egg the legal rights of a human being, a step that would essentially ban abortion in the state.
Excuse me, my brain just EXPLODED. Like, I can't even think straight.
Can you say "can of worms?"
Because that's what this essentially opened up. A big fat can of ethical worms.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The Internet is for Porn
Yesterday was the second day of the infamous Pirate Bay trial. This trial will set a certain precedence for the rights and circumstances circling around the infamous torrenting communities, and whether the RIAA, the ADV, the MPAA -you know, all those fun companies- have the right to sue the innards out of online torrent tracking sites, its associates, and certain contributers (run, aXXo, run!).
Honestly, I even don't really like pirates in theory. I enjoy certain stories surrounding them -hell, Pirates of the Caribbean was fantastic, no lie- but the pillaging, raping, and plundering was never really virtues I tended to raise as high in my life.
In the epic battle against Ninjas vs. Pirates, ninjas will kick their asses (I still remember the '100%' I got in high school on that essay...).
Man, pirates are still kicking around right now jumping cruise boats and seizing Ukranian cargo ships. You know, all that jazz.
But I digress. I meant to continue with the fact that really, the only pirates I dig are the ones in the Pirate Bay. So I find it fantastic to hear that 50% of the charges being filed against the site's operators are being dropped:
There has been high drama on the second day of the Pirate Bay trial. Due to serious shortcomings in the prosecution evidence, around 50% of the charges in the case are going to have to be withdrawn. The defense describes it as a ’sensation’, seeing half of the charges being dropped on the second day.What rocks is this line:
The flaw in the evidence was pointed out by Fredrik Neij (TiAMO), who requested to comment on Roswall’s explanation of how BitTorrent actually works. Fredrik said that the prosecution misunderstood the technology, and told the court that the evidence doesn’t show that the Pirate Bay’s trackers are used.This has resulted in prosecutor Håkan Roswall having to drop all charges relating to “assisting copyright infringement”, so the remaining charges are simply ‘assisting making available’. “Everything related to reproduction will be removed from the claim,” he said.
The defense was happy to see that already half of the charges were dropped during the morning session of the second day. “This is a sensation. It is very rare to win half the target in just one and a half days and it is clear that the prosecutor took strong note of what we said yesterday,” said defense lawyer Per E Samuelson.
“EPIC WINNING LOL,” Peter himself later commented on Twitter.What kills me laughing is the fact that the prosecution had over 2 years to prepare for this case in gathering evidence. You'd think they'd last longer than one day. This is a consensus statement said by many following this trial.
I mean, despite the enormity of their implication in file distribution, it really seems that TPB will end off laughing this whole thing off and pay a "smack on the wrist" fee of a few thousand dollars, instead of the heavily implied hundreds of millions it's unintentionally(?) taken away from corporations and their legal affiliations.
LINKS:
1. Pirate Bay update: 50% of charges already dropped on second day of trial - http://torrentfreak.com/50-of-charges-against -pirate-bay-dropped-090217/.
2. 3rd day of trial: "If I have all this money they claim, someone has apparently stolen it from me” - http://torrentfreak.com/g-defense-090218/
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Back to the Basics
Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Flash - Neil Patrick Harris?
The thought both excites and scares me.
He's not really buff enough to play the Wally West (or if you prefer Jay Gerrick, Barry Allen or Bart Allen). His face, sure, I can imagine it. The attitude, I bet he could pull off really well too.
But as many a commenter has already said in regards to this, look at Jake Gyllenhaal. He has somehow managed to pull off [at least looking] like an amazing "The Prince," now dubbed "Dastan," from video game series, Prince of Persia. When I had first heard about Gyllenhaal's role last year, I was like, "Well, fuck. There goes another possibly awesome movie turned to shit."
But then I saw those photos. And hot damn.
There's a giant "ehhhh..." skepticism that clouds my judgment on how well the film overall could be pulled off.
The only saving grace seems to be Batman. The Dark Knight totally redeemed all the shitty/subpar/not-really-awesome comic book and/or video game movies that have come out in the past few years.
I can only imagine what the upcoming Street Fighter movie is going to turn out to be like...
