Brandon Priest is an unassuming 23 year old. From Brunswick, GA, Priest works at a Ebay call center and is still a kid at heart who still loves to watch cartoons and does some cartoon animation as a hobby.
He’s in a local band named Midwayer too. And oh yeah, he also has a 4 year old daughter who takes up the rest of his time.
Trust me, this is important background info.
You see, Priest is a bit of a celebrity now- well at least an online celebrity. A photo of him has been circulating around the Internet close to light speed with thousands of shares on Facebook and other social media sites.
The only problem? Priest is in a Barney the Dinosaur costume and you have no that its him in there and you certainly don’t know the great life lesson that he learned by being goofy.
It just really went to show me how much you actually miss out on when you say no to opportunity and I think it was an amazing life lesson for myself.
Here’s our strangely poignant interview with Brandon Priest, the dude who dressed up as Barney and played pool at a Georgia bar.
Rise News: What is the story behind the viral photos?
Brandon Priest (Barney): Friday I had watched the Jim Carrey movie, Yes Man – the movie where he has to say yes to anything, and lately I hadn’t been getting out of the house at all. I had been just staying inside playing video games and turning down offers from hanging out with friends and the movie really reminded me how much I actually say no to things that might have ended up being fun so I basically made a post on facebook saying that I wanted to start saying yes to more crazy things and hanging out with more people that I wouldn’t normally hang out with.
Rise News: Why did you decide to dress up as Barney?
Barney: A friend of mine Mercedes actually immediately hit me up and said she had found a Barney outfit in her attic from her kids birthday party a couple years ago and asked if I would be down with wearing it around town and I just went for it haha.
I really enjoyed it. I spent the first part of the day just hugging kids and taking hundreds of pictures, riding around on the tour bike on St Simons island. I think I made a lot of people happy by just dressing up in a silly costume and that was awesome.
People kept buying me free shots and drinks when I hit up the bars and I ended up getting really drunk and some guys talked me into playing pool. I was so wasted I think I only managed to get one ball in (its also really hard to play pool when you’re in a suit that doesn’t have fingers).
Rise News: Did you post the photo on social media or how did it start to go viral?
Barney: I believe a guy named Kyle took the picture and put it on his reddit.
Rise News: What do you think about how viral it has gotten?
Barney: I had no idea I’d wake up the next morning and the picture would have 5 million views and all the facebook shares. So many sites and stuff have been hitting me up and I personally think its great. It just really went to show me how much you actually miss out on when you say no to opportunity and I think it was an amazing life lesson for myself.
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Photo Credits: Brandon Priest
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North Miami Now Has Its Own Semi-Weekly Night Market. And It’s Pretty Chill
Night markets are common fare in other parts of the United States.
But for whatever reason, they haven’t caught on in South Florida until fairly recently. (And are pretty commercial as well.)
Now, North Miami has its own grassroots night market that will be sure to make the hippie in your family jump for organic joy.
Launched just last week (Nov. 3), the NoMi Night Market had around a dozen vendors show up and a steady flow of interested passersby.
Located near the intersection of NE 123rd St and NE 13th Ave, the night market sits on a space used during the day as the Urban Habitat Farm Store.
Organized by North Miami resident and political activist Lauren Hill, the event is meant to be a weekly happening.
But not yet.
“Our beautiful opening was just a taste of what a night market can be in North Miami,” NoMi Nigh Market posted on its Facebook page on Nov. 8. “Unfortunately, we opened pre-maturely and have some hiccups in opening on a weekly basis as we had intended. We will not be able to open this Friday as intended. We will keep you posted and be back in the market business very soon.”
So while you wait for another chance to visit the night market, you can take a look at what it was like on its opening night:
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AT&T Disputes Miami Shores PD’s Version Of Station Call Outage
What’s News With This Story:–AT&T disputed the cause of the Miami Shores Police Department (MSPD) inbound call outage.
-AT&T blamed MSPD’s server for the outage while MSPD blamed AT&T’s phone line.
-It is not clear whether the station’s phone system is back to running as it was before the outage.
-Inbound calls to the police station were unable to go through for at least an hour and a half on January 3. The outage could have been longer, however.
-Residents of the village were directed to call 911 or the Miami-Dade PD who would then forward requests for assistance to MSPD.
-A MSPD spokesperson said that it wasn’t the first time the department has lost inbound phone service.
-She also said that the department doesn’t have the budget to get a more sophisticated phone system.
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Residents in Miami Shores were unable to directly reach their police department for at least an hour and a half on Jan. 3, and it’s not entirely clear why.
The Miami Shores Police Department (MSPD) said that AT&T’s phone line went down, causing them to lose connection to inbound phone calls.
But AT&T said that isn’t what happened.
The company blames MSPD’s server for the outage and say there was nothing wrong with their phone line connection.
MSPD sent out a text alert to residents signed up with the Nixle service at 10:53 AM on Jan. 3.
That alert said that inbound phone lines were down at the station and that residents would have to call 911 or the Miami-Dade County Police Department in order for “requests for assistance” to be forward to MSPD.
The next text alert indicating that the phone lines were working again didn’t come until 4:50 PM.
MSPD spokesperson Elizabeth Keeley told RISE NEWS that inbound phone service was only down for around an hour and a half, after the station was notified of the outage by a Miami Shores resident.
Keeley said that MSPD was investigating how long the lines were down in total.
Kelley said that the station implemented a “workaround” that is used as a backup plan in case the analog line goes down.
AT&T didn’t respond to the station’s outage call until earlier today, nearly 48 hours after it was first announced to the Miami Shores community.
But according to a AT&T spokesperson, when one of their technicians responded to the station, he was unable to find anything wrong with their phone line.
INSIDE: The Shocking Conditions That Condemned The Miami Shores Motel
“We sent a tech to the Miami Shores police department this morning,” AT&T spokesperson Kelly Starling said in an email to RISE NEWS today. “The issue the city experienced was with its server, not our network.”
Starling also said that when MSPD’s server went down, their IT department requested AT&T forward its lines until its IT team could fix the problem.
But MSPD spokesperson Elizabeth Keeley said that AT&T is wrong.
“Their information is not correct,” Keeley said. “They can not say who they spoke to. They didn’t speak to the chief. I don’t know how they came to that conclusion.”
Keeley said that AT&T’s analog system was the problem and that the station’s server indicated that it never went down.
When pressed, Keeley could not say whether the station’s phone system was back up and running in the way it was before the outage.
“It is running currently to accept incoming calls in a way that the chief is satisfied with,” Keeley said, while refusing to answer whether inbound calls on the AT&T analog line were now being received.
Keeley said that it wasn’t the first time that the station has lost inbound call service.
When asked why the station has to rely on an AT&T analog phone line for service, she said that it had to do with lack of resources.
“There’s plenty of options, but it all costs money,” Keeley said. “We don’t really have that budget [that Miami-Dade County PD has, for example].”
Keeley said there will not a report on the matter released to the public and that Chief of Police Kevin Lystad was en route to a conference and unable to answer questions about the situation.
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Is Peyton Manning Just A Backup Quarterback Now?
Full disclosure: I am a diehard Bronco fan.
I grew up in Denver and there are two rules to living in Colorado: go to the mountains as much as possible, and place your emotional wellbeing in the hands of the Denver Broncos.
Denver is a great sports town with four professional teams, but the Broncos have been nearest and dearest to our hearts for the longest. If Coloradans had the option to get rid of the Broncos or to ax the Avalanche, Rockies, and Nuggets, I have no doubt that we’d still be showing up at Mile High on Sundays.
Hell, Tim Tebow is more beloved than nearly every Avalanche, Rockies, and Nuggets player ever. Football is the subtext of our state.
Other than the Carolina Panthers’ run at perfection, the biggest story in the NFL right now surrounds the future of Peyton Manning.
NFL.com reporter Ian Rapoport reported last Sunday that Manning would not be happy as the Broncos’ backup quarterback, which was quickly rebuked by Denver’s Executive Vice President and General Manager, and unofficial Governor of Colorado, John Elway.
Peyton has never told Gary or myself that he doesn’t want to be the backup. Any report or rumor that suggests otherwise is incorrect!!
— John Elway (@johnelway) December 20, 2015
Later that day, the Broncos lost a heart-wrenching game in Pittsburgh where Peyton’s backup, Brock Osweiler, carved up the Steeler defense to the tune of 15/19 for 238 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 rushing touchdown in the 1st half. In the 2nd half, the Broncos didn’t cross the 50 yard line until 2:58 left in the 4th, running 32 plays that gained only 71 yards.
After the game, Peyton called Rapoport’s report “bullshit” and “insulting.”
Rapoport isn’t some random guy spouting nonsense on the internet; he’s a seasoned sports journalist, having been a beat reporter for Mississippi State, Alabama, and the New England Patriots.
Rapoport has covered the NFL as a whole since 2009, so it’s safe to say that this report was not plucked out of thin air.
The crux of the issue with the 2015 Broncos is that the offense Peyton has come to embody is fundamentally different from the one that new head coach Gary Kubiak wants to install.
Kubiak is a Bill Walsh disciple, and plugged Terrell Davis into his version of the West Coast offense en route to back to back Super Bowl titles as the Broncos offensive coordinator in the late 90’s. The Tom Moore offense that Manning ran in Indianapolis is primarily rooted in the passing game.
This is why the Osweiler vs Manning debate is less about each particular quarterback, and should be more focused on how their talents fit into the greater offense.
The Broncos are built to run the ball.
In short, Peyton wants to play fast and isolate certain matchups over and over again, while Kubiak wants to keep defenses guessing and chew up the clock with short passes and runs to set up a rolling play action that takes shots down field (If you want a terrific and more detailed breakdown of the difference between these offenses, read this piece from Mile High Report).
With Manning’s litany of injuries right now, he simply doesn’t have the mobility to run the kinds of plays that are integral to a Kubiak offense.
No sport is more dependent upon the system that the players play within than football.
For example, Demarcus Ware played outside linebacker in a 3-4 defense in Dallas and tore offensive linemen to shreds for a decade, reserving himself a spot in the Hall of Fame. He played last season as a 4-3 defensive end in Jack del Rio’s defense in Denver and was still good, but not the monster we had come to expect. He finished with 10 sacks, his lowest career output, save for his rookie season and his last injury plagued campaign in Dallas.
This year, until he hurt his back, Ware was arguably the best defensive player in the league, winning his first career defensive player of the month award in October. A big reason for this improvement? New defensive coordinator Wade Phillips replaced del Rio’s 4-3 with his aggressive 3-4 scheme.
This is why the Osweiler vs Manning debate is less about each particular quarterback, and should be more focused on how their talents fit into the greater offense. The Broncos are built to run the ball.
Both CJ Anderson and Ronnie Hillman are good running backs with complimentary skillsets, and their underwhelming offensive line is down to both their 2nd string tackles, which has led to some pretty ugly showings against good pass rushes (Khalil Mack single handedly destroying their offense most comes to mind).
Since Peyton likes to play out of the shotgun, the only way to meld Kubiak’s offense to what Manning is most comfortable with is to run the base formation out of the pistol, where the running back lines up around 7 yards off the line of scrimmage.
Basic logic dictates that the closer you are to the line of scrimmage, the easier it is to run the ball, and the Broncos have looked like a much more dangerous offense with Osweiler under center, executing the scheme Kubiak was hired to install instead of the awkward hybrid that Manning ran earlier this season.
That said, each players’ respective talents still matter quite a bit at the game’s most important position, and even though Osweiler is a demonstrably better fit for the Denver offense than Peyton is, he has not done enough to convince this partisan that he is a better QB than Manning at this moment.
Osweiler just doesn’t make enough big plays, as evidenced by his 6.71 yards per attempt, ranking him 30th in the NFL (to prove how weird this year has been, the three guys ahead of him? Joe Flacco, Peyton Manning, and Aaron Rodgers).
Photo Credit: Jullo Enriquez/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Osweiler has done more than enough to secure the starting gig next year, but if Peyton has recovered from his injuries (as much as he can, plantar fascia doesn’t go away quickly), and can run Gary Kubiak’s offense (the biggest question mark in all of this), he should be the starting quarterback.
Of course Peyton Manning wouldn’t be happy as a backup, he’s Peyton Freaking Manning!
But the implication in a report like Rapoport’s is his unhappiness will be disruptive, and given Manning’s reputation as the consummate professional, that isn’t likely to happen. Media-generated hysteria is what’s disruptive.
It’s why Tim Tebow can never be a backup QB.
Where this all seems to be headed is an amicable parting of the ways between Manning and the Broncos in the offseason, with Peyton either retiring or signing with a QB needy win-now team like the Texans or the Jets. If he does return, it will probably be at a dramatically reduced salary.
Denver has three of its most important defensive players entering their first free agency this offseason, and Malik Jackson, Derek Wolfe, and Von Miller won’t come cheap.
There is virtually no scenario where Peyton’s current contract stays on the books and all three of those guys return.
John Elway brought Peyton to Denver in order to win a Super Bowl and end his career much like Elway did, riding off into the sunset baked in blue and orange, but the closest this team has come to reaching that goal is being on the business end of a historic Super Bowl beatdown against the Legion of Boom (which this writer was present for, the Broncos performance forcing him to get drunk off of $14 beers).
RISE NEWS writer Jacob Weindling (L) at Super Bowl XLVIII in New York City in 2014. Photo Credit: Jacob Weindling
This is Peyton’s last shot in Denver, and just because the quarterback of the future has looked adequate to good in his first few starts does not mean that a healthy and able living legend should be sitting on the bench.
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Cover Photo Credit: Craig Hawkins/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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