Saturday, January 5, 2008

Apple #291: Daily Apples in the News

Yesterday, I heard on NPR that the FBI had recently re-opened the cold case of D. B. Cooper, who hijacked an airplane in 1971 and got away without getting caught.

Immediately, my ears perked up, because I had done a Daily Apple about D. B. Cooper a while back.

For those of you who may not remember every single Daily Apple in as much detail as I do, you can check out the old entry, of course. But in sum, he was a guy in his 40s or so who, the night before Thanksgiving in 1971, took control of a Northwest Airlines plane on its way to Seattle, and demanded $200,000 or else he'd blow up the plane. The plane landed in Seattle, they gave him the money and some parachutes he'd also asked for, he let the passengers go, and then made the crew fly him to Mexico City. En route, he jumped out of the plane into a rainstorm. Nobody ever found him.


FBI and police sketches of D. B. Cooper. Except now, he'd look much older.
(Image from the FBI)



Many speculated that he died during the jump, but some people think he survived. He's kind of turned into a legendary figure. Now, though, the FBI has re-opened the case. They say he's no legend, just a mediocre guy in his 40s who couldn't think of any other way to take care of his family. But apparently, they also think he survived and that he has eluded them to this date.

[Edit: More recent news stories say the FBI are following up on a "credible" and "pretty interesting lead," but they won't give more details than that. 8/1/2011]

Original Daily Apple story about D.B. Cooper (scroll down)
NPR story with more details
FBI's official web page asking for help in solving the case



Having heard this news story, I wondered how many other Daily Apple topics have been in the news recently. So I thought I'd check in on a couple.


DAVID LEE ROTH

The first one that comes to mind is the fact that David Lee Roth is now, despite all Eddie Van Halen's assertions for years and years and years, touring again with Van Halen.

Faithful Daily Apple readers may recall that the original Daily Apple on David Lee Roth was prompted by the desire to answer one of my brother's favorite eternal questions: What do you think David Lee Roth is doing right now?

Well, now we know what David Lee Roth is doing with most of his time these days.


L to R: Alex, DLR who can't believe his luck, Eddie, & Wolfie (who looks a lot like his mom, Valerie)
(promo photo sourced from My San Antonio Blogs)


The band now includes Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's son, who is playing bass instead of Michael Anthony. Eddie's on guitar, and Alex is on drums, and DLR is on vocals, of course. The tour started in December, and is scheduled to last until early April.

I picked one of the places they're playing at random -- New Orleans on February 8 -- and asked Ticketmaster to give me a best available ticket.

They offered me a seat in row 20 of a a lower-level section next to the stage, but at the very left corner of it. Apparently all the floor tickets are sold out at this venue. Price: $147.50 plus $15.50 in fees, or $163. For one person.

Cheapest available was $47.50 plus all fees for a total of $60.85. This is for an upper level seat in row 8, which isn't completely nosebleed, but it's close.

True-blue David Lee Roth fans (headquartered in Hell, Michigan) are loving the tour. Van Halen fans, however, have given the shows mixed reviews. Many people said that Diamond Dave missed lyrics, sang the same verse over and over, or otherwise screwed up. But others said the show rocked and they loved it.

First official announcement that the reunion tour would actually happen
Van Halen's official website
Original Daily Apple about David Lee Roth
David Lee Roth sighted on The Sopranos (scroll down)



TUNA TARTARE

Kate Walsh, a star on the TV series "Grey's Anatomy," recently got engaged to her boyfriend Alex Young. He proposed to her in a restaurant in San Francisco. Knowing how much she likes butterflies, he asked the chefs to form a tuna tartare in the shape of a butterfly. After it was served, he asked her to marry him.


Tuna tartare: an aphrodisiac for Kate Walsh?
(Photo from The Incredible Shrinking Whimsical)



While Walsh was quoted as saying she likes butterflies, the article didn't mention whether she likes to eat tuna tartare, regardless of its shape.

News of Kate Walsh's engagement
Original Daily Apple on tuna tartare


BRETT FAVRE

Brett Favre, seemingly eternal quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, has been in the news a lot this fall. Most recently, sportswriters for the Associated Press newswires voted on the NFL's Most Valuable Player. Tom Brady, quarterback for this year's undefeated and seemingly iron-clad New England Patriots, got every single vote for MVP except one. And that vote went to Brett Favre.

In December, he passed Dan Marino's record for most total passing yards in a career. Referees stopped the play once he'd completed the pass so they could give him the game ball. Right after the whistle blew, Favre asked what happened, had been a penalty?


(Photo from Greta Van Sustern's page)


His current NFL records:
  • Total passing yards (61,655)
  • Career TD passes (442)
  • Pass attempts (8,758)
  • Pass completions (5,377)
  • Wins as a starting quarterback (160 as of 12/16/07)
  • Consecutive starts as a quarterback (251 as of 12/16/07)

News about the MVP voting results

Favre breaks Marino's record
Favre's current and career stats
Original Daily Apple about Brett Favre
(I just realized that was my 4th ever post and Favre's jersey number is 4. I don't think I did that on purpose. But I might have.)


LOCH NESS MONSTER

The Loch Ness Monster, who also seems to be eternally popular as well as immortal, is in the news again. This time it's because of a movie mainly for children called "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep." The movie draws on the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, except, instead of discovering the monster alive and well in the lake, the boy protagonist finds an egg which hatches and grows into a water creature very like the Loch Ness Monster, whom he calls Crusoe.


Alex Etel, the 13 year-old child lead in The Water Horse, apparently hugs a Loch Ness Monster-lookalike. Except that's a computer generated image, and he's actually touching nothing.
(Photo from the Washington Post)



Review of The Water Horse
Original Daily Apple entry on the Loch Ness Monster




NINTENDO

Finally, due to the enormous success of its video game system the Wii (pronounced whee), Nintendo has risen from the ashes like a phoenix. Just a few years ago, they were a near-dinosaur in the video game world compared to Sony and Microsoft. Now, Nintendo has the third largest market capitalization of all Japanese companies. In other words, they have sold boatloads of stock and people have bought it like crazy because they love the Wii. So the company is having enormous success right now.


Somebody boxing on a Wii projected on a big screen -- on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship.
(Photo from Siliconera)



Overview of Nintendo's current success
Original Daily Apple entry about Nintendo




There's no real rhyme or reason to how I picked these entries, or why I put them in the order that I did. I just picked a few topics, checked the news, and reported on what I found.

But the point is, even though your Apple Lady isn't always hip to the most current events all the time, your Daily Apple can still keep you in the know about the very latest.

When somebody brings up Tom Brady's MVP award, for example, you could maybe come back with some of Brett Favre's stats. Or when somebody says they saw "The Water Horse," you could say you saw the surgeon's photo and it's all bunk.

Or when you see some old guy carrying a briefcase with tattered twenty-dollar bills sticking out of it, you can say, "Hey, that's D. B. Cooper, and I recognize him because I read the Daily Apple!"

Or something like that.

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