Movie box office news now. For a long time, all the top talk was about how Alita: Battle Angel was going to be this huge expensive flop at the cinemas. This is despite the fact that its producer James Cameron and its director Robert Rodriguez were both involved in its making. The numbers are in…
Weather report: it’s not winter everywhere
Watching the Daytona 500 today makes me crazy and jealous. My current location is under a pile of snow (after being under extreme cold warnings for days), but it sure looks nice today in Florida. Daytona Beach is currently 26 C. Not far away in Orlando it is 29 C. Other current temperatures for popular…
Trump declares a national emergency! An “invasion” at the southern border? Really?
On the heels of yesterday’s left-wing lunacy with the killing of the Amazon-to-NYC deal comes today’s right-wing lunacy, as Pres. Donald Trump declares a national emergency at the southern border as (a) a way to bypass Congress and fund his “wall” and (b) his way to approve the deal to keep the government from shutting…
Third-rate hack politicians have driven the new Amazon HQ out of New York!
Aaargh! This is surely the reaction in New York City today. The news is that Amazon.com has buckled under the weight of local political opposition in New York, and have scrapped plans for locating their headquarters there. That is 25,000 jobs that were coming to New York, gone, just like that. Who is to blame?…
Happy Valentine’s Day, Gritty! Philly’s crazed mascot gets dumped
I hate Valentine’s Day, it is the one day of the year where I get reminded that my love life is pathetic. Fortunately, we are also reminded a lot of other people are in the same boat, and so we can all find a way to laugh about it. One video that gave me a…
Here we go again! It’s duelling political rallies tonight near the USA-Mexico border, in El Paso!
Oh, good grief, here we go again. More political rally idiocy tonight, this time in El Paso, Texas where the burning issue is, you guessed it, Mexico. Specifically, the Mexico border and the “wall.” Holding one rally is Democrat star and possible presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, while the other one is yet another GOP “MAGA”…
As Democrats implode, the Trump GOP finally finds its issue this week: Socialism.
Well, it was quite a week in American politics, and you get the sense that momentum has suddenly shifted to the Republicans, in a big way. Partly, it is because of the seeming momentum from Pres. Donald Trump’s “State of the Union” speech. Mainly, though, it is because the Democrats are imploding and the Trump…
If you’re desperate for football, the Alliance of American Football is for you!
How do you like the football off-season? Guess what, folks: there is no off-season. Just when you thought last week’s bad and boring “Super Bore” game in Atlanta was the merciful end of football for a while, along comes yet another launch of a spring football league. Did any of you watch the Alliance of…
NBA Trade deadline: Gasol a Raptor, Davis still a Pelican, and LeBron is embarrassing
I tuned in to some of the NBA trade deadline coverage today and it was pretty interesting to see the Toronto Raptors go all-in as much as they did, making the deal with Memphis to acquire Marc Gasol. In exchange, they send to the Grizzlies Jonas Valančiūnas, Delon Wright, CJ Miles and a 2024 second-round…
Trump’s State of the Union speech had the Super Bowl all beat for excitement
Last night State of the Union speech by Pres. Donald Trump may not have been on the level of his infamous rallies. Still, it shows you what Trump is capable of if he calms down with the rhetoric and acts “presidential.” For a change. Take his speech last night. Trump came off looking like such…
The world is a mess! USA-Russia nuclear missile pact gets tossed into the trash!
Our current world leaders everywhere in the world are driving this planet off the cliff. More proof: the USA-Russia nuclear missile treaty that Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987, the one that thawed USA-Russia tensions and eventually helped end the Cold War, is being tossed in the trash by Trump and Putin. This, my friends,…
Demoralizing times in digital media: Vice the latest to carry out mass layoffs.
I did not get to vent last week about the 1,000+ media layoffs at BuzzFeed, HuffPost, Yahoo! News, Gannett and other places. But now Vice has joined the fray and has whacked 250 folks, so I have to say my piece on it. All in all, this does not say much about the state of…
It has been a sad week hearing from the victims of the Humboldt Broncos tragedy
The news media in my province has descended on Melfort this week, for saturation coverage of the sentencing hearing of the semi-truck driver charged in connection to the Humboldt Broncos bus tragedy of last April. He is being sentenced for 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 13 of dangerous driving causing bodily harm….
We go from “big snow” head-first into “big deep freeze”!
Howdy, folks, how are you enjoying “Polar Vortex 2019?” Especially all of you in Chicago? By the way, the abominable freezing cold gripping a good chunk of the Midwest USA is actually considered “normal” for this time of year in frozen-tundra Saskatchewan. Which, by the way, is frozen solid today. (And you folks down there…
Old Man Winter is burying North America under a heap of snow!
Happy Winter 🥶, folks. It seems as if the cold and the white stuff is socking North America today. I understand Toronto is getting upwards of 15 cm of it, in fact the latest report from Pearson airport is 23 cm — reminding people of the good old days when Mayor Mel Lastman had to…
All-Star this, Pro Bowl that; this is a really boring weekend to be a sports fan!
Well, sports fans, if there was ever a weekend to reach into the old DVD vault to watch movies, this is it, because this is an utterly boring weekend of sports. It’s NHL All-Star Weekend with that annual waste-of-time effort going tonight in San Jose — or maybe it should be called “No-Star Weekend” after…
The wall comes crumbling down on top of Trump
Yesterday was a very bad day to be the President of the USA. First, the FBI takes down Trump loyalist Roger Stone and arrests him in a takedown shown exclusively on CNN (gee, how did they manage that?). After he is released on $250,000 bail, Stone then emerged from a Ft. Lauderdale court with his…
What now for the Edmonton Oilers?! Peter Chiarelli latest to get the boot
So yesterday, for a change, instead of listening to local sports talk radio with fans moaning about the Saskatchewan Roughriders, I tuned in to Edmonton sports radio to listen to fans moan about the Edmonton Oilers. The team had just fired Peter Chiarelli as GM going into the NHL all-star break, so fans were ranting…
Masses take to the streets in Venezuela; Maduro struggles to hold on
I have been following what’s been happening in Venezuela with the recent coverage of all the protests in the streets, with the opposition leader Juan Guaido declaring himself President and the considerable international recognition that has followed (including Pres. Trump). Meanwhile, Pres. Nicolas Maduro continues to attempt to hold on to power, as he ordered US…
Court TV is coming back! Anchors, reporters announced today.
Last month was the big announcement that CourtTV was being revived after a decade, with Vinnie Politan signed on as their first anchor. Today, they added five more on-air people including four lawyer/journalists: Seema Iyer (out of WSYX Columbus, but also previously a TV legal analyst), Julie Grant (out of KDKA Pittsburgh), Chanley Painter (out…
Now, the last word on Rod Pedersen leaving as Voice of the Riders
All chaos broke loose in Saskatchewan during my time in Las Vegas last week. Just a day after coach/GM Chris Jones quit the Saskatchewan Roughriders to go to the Cleveland Browns, it was Rod Pedersen who resigned from Riders flagship 620 CKRM, leaving as the play-by-play “Voice of the Riders” on radio and also leaving…
Now, a few words about my latest Las Vegas getaway
Hi. This is where I was this week, in Las Vegas. Yes, right after the curling wrapped up in North Battleford I did the typical Saskatchewan thing and headed south. In fact, the Saskatoon airport was full of snowbirds on the day I left, mainly heading to Arizona. Everyone was getting away from the ice…
Media takes a hit after latest anti-Trump piece gets slammed by Mueller
Folks in the news media, next time you accuse Pres. Donald Trump of something in print, would you please get it right?! For a change? On Friday, BuzzFeed ran this story citing law enforcement people, claiming Pres. Donald Trump had ordered Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower project in Russia. This…
Now the weather; the last word on the latest Snowmageddon to hit America
I have been looking at some of the coverage of the latest Snowmageddon to hit the United States this weekend, I understand St. Louis got the brunt of a lot of it. I guess the snow also fell in Kansas City during the NFL playoff game the other day, and some yahoos there decided to…
Starting today: coverage of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling all this week
Just so you know, the next few days will be busy for me personally. Starting tonight, I will be covering the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event in the Battlefords, the Meridian Canadian Open, which will be shown on Sportsnet across Canada. My plan is to file daily reports for our newspaper’s website, and also…
Kevin Spacey has his day in court
I just found this Kevin Spacey court coverage today to be fascinating, because it reminds me of all the times I would sit in our local provincial court house as a reporter, watching the parade of accused people get hauled up before the judge. What happened here was exactly the same, EXCEPT this is big…
Tonight, Alabama and Clemson play for the title, AGAIN.
Seriously, folks, NCAA Division 1 College Football is getting to be even worse than the NBA for predictability as far as the title game is concerned. It is Alabama and Clemson, yet again! Aargh! Even a trained seal could have predicted this matchup for the title at Levi’s Stadium!! Anyway, I guess I am tuning…
PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is on in the Bahamas!
Exciting stuff for poker fans as day one of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is under way at The Atlantis in the Bahamas. Today is the first day for the PokerStars Players Championship, where established pros go up against online qualifiers. One of those online qualifiers is Travis Nesbitt, an online pro from Saskatchewan, who won…
My annual Box Office Year in Review is now up!
My Cairns on Cinema column on 2018 at the box office is now up! Congrats to domestic box office champ Black Panther, $700 million, and to the worldwide champ Avengers: Infinity War, $2.05 billion! And to the year’s flops, my condolences. Onwards to 2019, movie fans.
Bad News Roundup: Mean Gene, Super Dave, Team Canada
It has been a big day for bad news. First, legendary wrestling announcer/interviewer “Mean Gene” Okerlund, Dead. Next, comedian Bob Einstein, better known as Super Dave Osborne. Dead. Finally, Canada lost at the World Junior quarters to Finland 2-1 in OT tonight in Vancouver. That result eliminates the Canadian juniors, and that means all Canadian…
It’s official, Regina will host the Flames-Jets at Mosaic Stadium on Oct. 26!
Tuned in the Winter Classic this afternoon on NBC from Notre Dame Stadium and saw the big announcement by Gary Bettman that Regina, Saskatchewan will host a Heritage Classic outdoor game at Mosaic Stadium between the Calgary Flames and Winnipeg Jets on Oct. 26. #NHLJets share their excitement on playing the #Flames in Regina, SK…
Good riddance to 2018 and Trump’s tirades in this edition of News from Nowhere
Welcome to the final News from Nowhere for this year. It is almost over for 2018 in the North American time zones. In many parts of the world 2019 is here already, which means they have already bid farewell to the year of President Donald Trump’s tirades. Yes, indeed, the US government is still shut…
$751.8 million worldwide for Aquaman as we end 2018!
Here is the story from Hollywood Reporter on the box office numbers so far for Aquaman, as it enters 2019 having grossed an incredible $751.8 million worldwide. Over $188 million of it is from the domestic market where it just finished No. 1 for the second weekend in a row, with a haul of $52…
NFL regular season ends; so do plenty of coaches’ jobs
The final Sunday of the NFL regular season is always a depressing affair for most of the league. Sure, there are a few teams who get to celebrate the thrill of victory (ie. Indianapolis), but for the other teams and their fans it’s a day of shattered dreams and lost opportunities. For players and coaches…
Christmas comes early for Aquaman at the box office: $67 million weekend
Well, it was a big weekend at the movie box office as Aquaman led the way with a domestic haul of $67 million this weekend. All the talk about Aquaman up to now had been about the $483 million-plus it has made worldwide; now the domestic market has followed suit. But still, this version of…
US government shuts down, Mattis leaves in disgust in this week’s News from Nowhere
It is time for News from Nowhere again as we report in yet another week of chaos in the USA, with Pres. Donald Trump refusing to sign off on a deal with Congress that would have averted a government shutdown. Why? Because of his continuing demands for money for “the wall.” $5 billion, to be…
Aircraft sliding off the taxiway at the Saskatoon airport on Friday
Hi folks, yesterday was a hairy day of travel as I tried to fly out of Saskatoon airport in the middle of what turned out to by an icy day of freezing rain and bad road conditions. Conditions were so bad that there were travel warnings on all the roads coming in and out of…
This week, I am spending my free time sitting at home watching bowl games
Just for my own benefit I am posting the Bowl game and Playoff schedule here. And yes, I know the game tonight is San Diego State vs. Ohio at the Frisco Bowl, a true nothing postseason contest. I don’t care. I just want to give my brain a rest for a change by watching football….
Pres. Donald Trump looks all set to be “investigated” right out of office!
With the exception of the news that a judge declared Obamacare unconstitutional, it has been a generally lousy few days for Pres. Donald Trump. Last week his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in jail, and it sounds like he’s really been spilling the beans on Trump and all the goings-on with the…
The top supermodel in the world? You’re looking at her. Kendall Jenner.
This is more sure-fire proof that being a half-sister to the Kardashians is always a good career move. The list of the top-earning supermodels for 2018 is topped by Kendall Jenner, who earned $22.5 million. Karlie Kloss, best known for being pals with Taylor Swift, is a distant second at $13 mil. I post this…
