Joe Strauss Passes Away

Joe Strauss, a sports columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch since 2012 and a long-time sports writer, passed away over the weekend. Strauss was 54 and had been battling leukemia for about a year. He had largely kept his health complications private.

Tributes to Strauss have poured in from around the country. Albert Pujols wrote on his Facebook page that Strauss was one of the first people to write about Pujols’s “talent”. Roch Kubatko, who worked with Strauss in Baltimore, wrote fondly of his “mentor”. Ben Frederickson, now a Post-Dispatch columnist himself at just 25-years-old, spoke of how “El Diablo”, as they called Strauss, was one of the first pros to make him feel like he belonged in his position.

The Ryan Kelley Morning After radio show on CBS Sports 920 dedicated their show today to Joe Strauss, who was a frequent guest on the show. The hosts of the show shared stories of their late friends, as did frequent callers to the program and other guests like Tony LaRussa, Jim Thomas, Ken Hitchcock and others. You can listen to audio of the show on InsideSTL.com.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Brings In $153 Million In Second Weekend

Star Wars: The Force Awakens easily topped the weekend box office over the Christmas weekend with an estimated $153.5 million in ticket sales in its second weekend of release. The seventh installment in the franchise has topped $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales.

Daddy’s Home was the top new release over the weekend with an estimated $38.8 million in ticket sales. Joy brought in $17.5 million and Concussion pulled in an estimated $11 million. The Big Short brought in $10.5 million in its first weekend in wide release.

Check back on Thursday for my Weekend Movie Guide. I’ll take a look at The Hateful Eight, which opens in wide release this weekend. I’ll also look at movies making their way to Keller 8 Cinema in South County this weekend and see what’s available to rent at your local Redbox.

Sony Letting Current And Former NFL Players See Concussion For Free

Sony is reaching out to current and former NFL players to invite them to see Concussion for free. Will Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu in the film. Omalu was the first doctor to make the connection between playing football and long-term brain damage. He coined the term chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Sony is inviting all NFL players to see the movie, along with one guest, for free at any Cinemark theater in the country. Sony also held screenings in advance of the release in many NFL cities, inviting current and former players to each one.

Breitbart has a story on the differences between Concussion the movie and the GQ article it is based on.

Many Americans Get Hoverboards For Christmas. Many Americans Hurt Themselves On Hoverboards This Christmas

Hoverboards, the self-balancing scooters that don’t actually hover, were the hot Christmas gift this year, apparently.  I guess many people already had them bought before reports started to surface of the hoverboards exploding and starting fires? While there were reports of retailers like Amazon, Overstock.com and Target halting sales of the products, there are current listings for them on the Amazon site. The option to buy the product on the Target site does appear to have been taken away.

Those that received these hoverboards of course took to social media to share pictures and videos of their new toys. Many of these posts included people hurting themselves riding these self-balancing scooters. The Verge has complied some videos. Buzzfeed has a collection of dads falling off of them. Many people went to the hospital for broken bones or really skinned up their knees.

Riding these are not like riding a bike.

Meadowlark Lemon Passes Away

Meadowlark Lemon, the legendary Harlem Globetrotter, passed away yesterday at the age of 83. Lemon realized a childhood dream of playing for the Globetrotters when he joined the team in 1954. He would go on to become a fan favorite on the team until he left the team in 1978.

St. Louis Rams Beat Seattle Seahawks In Seattle

For whatever reason, the St. Louis Rams have the Seattle Seahawks’ number lately. The Rams moved to 7-8 on the season with a 23-17 win yesterday in Seattle. The Seahawks dropped to 9-6. While it was the first win for the Rams in Seattle since January 8, 2005, it was the third Rams win in the last 4 games against the Seahawks. St. Louis is also 4-1 in the NFC West this season with only a winnable game against the San Franciso 49ers left to play. Despite that, the team is guaranteed to finish with its twelfth non-winning record on the season in a row.

Case Keenum completed 14 of 23 passes on the day for the St. Louis Rams, with 103 passing yards and a touchdown throw to Kenny Britt. Russell Wilson was 25-41 for the Seahawks with 289 yards, 2 touchdowns and an interception thrown. Todd Gurley carried the ball 19 times for 85 yards and scored his tenth touchdown of the season. Gregg Williams’s defense was strong for St. Louis, recovering two fumbles, including one that Akeem Ayers returned 45 yards for a touchdown early in the game. They also sacked Wilson four times.

St. Louis Rams punter Johnny Hekker made some headlines of his own after getting a personal foul penalty for hitting Cliff Avril of the Seahawks from behind. He then realized her is a punter, apparently. Hekker, to his credit, admits he screwed up. The Pro Bowl punter will probably be fined by the NFL this week for his action.

This is amazing from the Rams/Seahawks game. Punter dishes a hit, lives in fear thereafter pic.twitter.com/T3ANgf27yp

— Sam Monson (@PFF_Sam) December 27, 2015

Mark Zuckerberg Is Not Giving You Facebook Shares

If you have a Facebook account, you probably saw someone share a status that said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, was giving away shares in the company and they hoped to be one of the recipients.  In the unfortunate event that you didn’t know that was a hoax, be assured that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are not giving away those shares via Facebook. While they have pledged to give 99% of their Facebook shares to charity during their lifetimes, you aren’t getting any shares just for posting that on your Facebook page.

The X-Files Re-Opened Featurette Released

Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny and The X-Files return to Fox  for six episodes in January. A 21-minute featurette, titled Re-Opened, was released on YouTube today. iO9 has more on the six new episodes of The X-Files.

The X-Files Re-OpenedBrought to you by Mills Apartments