Odds & Ends: GWAR, Eagles, Justin Bieber

Although the National Football League has picked Bruno Mars to headline the halftime show at Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Feb. 2, one Kentucky football fan isn’t willing to roll with the choice.

Jeff Cantrell has posted a petition on Change.org addressed to NFL senior VP of communications Greg Aiello demanding that Gwar headline the Super Bowl halftime show in 2015.

Let that image float around in your mind for a few minutes – Gwar at the Super Bowl.  Imagine millions of people watching the telecast worldwide seeing Gwar in all its decadent glory taking the halftime stage.  Makes Janet Jackson’s nipple slip seem a little small time, doesn’t it?

“We don’t want another year of sitting around talking through a muted, boring NFL Super Bowl halftime show,” Cantrell posted on Change.org.  “We want something different.  We want a real spectacle that only Gwar can provide.  Doesn’t the NFL want more viewers?  Don’t advertisers want more people paying attention?  This way everyone wins.”

But wait, there’s more.  They also made a video.

As of this afternoon 18,680 Gwar-loving people had signed the petition. 

(Editor’s note: This story originally reported that the petition called for Gwar to headline the 2014 Super Bowl halftime show in place of Bruno Mars)

Vernett Bader of North Charleston, S.C., probably wasn’t singing the line from the Eagles’ “Hotel California” that goes, “They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast” when she allegedly knifed her roommate for playing the band’s music. 

It all started when 54-year-old Bader became angry with her roommate for watching TV with his brother while listening to the Eagles, reports The Post and Courier.  When the roommate told her to shut up, that’s when Bader turned to her cutlery.

At first she picked a knife with a serrated edge and swung it at her roomie.  However, after the two men managed to take the knife away from her, she went back to the kitchen and got another blade. 

Apparently, it was the second knife that did the trick for Bader.  Police say she admitted to the stabbing but claimed it was a case of self-defense.  As of Tuesday she was being held in the Charleston County Jail pending a bond hearing.

And this should come as no surprise but police say all three people – Bader, her roommate and the roommate’s brother – were intoxicated at the time of the alleged stabbing.  Ahhh … life in the fast lane.

A Middlesbrough, England, man has been sentenced to prison for posing online as Justin Bieber so that he could solicit sexually oriented material from children.

Robert Hunter, age 35, pleaded guilty to 15 charges of inciting children to engage in sexual behavior and 14 charges of creating lewd or indecent photos, according to the BBC.

Posting as Bieber, Hunter told girls that he would be their boyfriend if they stripped in front of their webcams for him. 

Apparently Hunter wielded some control over his victims and often threatened to blackmail them if they refused to do what he wanted them to do.  One 12-year-old girl is reported to have slashed her arms after Hunter posted an indecent snapshot of her on Facebook, complete with her address and phone number.

But Hunter wasn’t content to pose as Bieber.  Claiming he was a woman, Hunter convinced boys to perform sex acts in front of the camera.  Prosecutor Richard Bennett said Hunter used the videos to attract more girls.

Calling it the worst case of online child sex abuse he had ever seen, Judge Peter Bowers sentenced Hunter to 14 years in prison.  Yeah, we know.  Only 14 years?