My Mini EW.com Shout Out!!

Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!! I made it onto EW.com!!! Sort of - my YouTube page did. But it's still me so it counts! :o) I was perusing the PopWatch blog (as I do everyday) when I saw this post on American Anthem. As I read it, I thought to myself "I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who's posted this movie on YouTube...." So I tested my theory, clicked on the link and VOILA!! It did indeed link to MY upload of 1986's masterpiece of gymnastics cheese. OH!! I was (and am) so excited - I had to call Robert and tell him about it right away. My life is small, people, leave me alone. I am stoked that I have a very small slice of obscure fame today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wheeeeeee!!!!


[I just hope this doesn't cause a copyright issue that ultimately shuts down my channel... it would not be the first time and it is a bitch and a half reestablishing and reuploading all my crap! Fingers crossed...]

My Week in a Nutshell

As we (very slowly) head toward the weekend, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on my week and share it with you. Mostly because there's a guy that's irritating the CRAP out of me and I need to vent... but I'll get to that later. The week started off awkwardly and it looks like it's going to end annoyingly. Yay.

The Awkward: Monday. I was wearing a cowl-necked top that was not revealing unless I completely bent over. I had Fashion Taped it into place and was quite cognizant of it when leaning over - it was not at all inappropriate for work. Anyway, I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business when my coworker, Melanie, waltzed in (as she is wont to do). I turned in my chair and here's a summary of events:

Melanie: "Whoa! You need to be careful in that top!"
Me: "Oh, I know, I always hang on to it when I bend over."
Melanie: "You need to watch it when you twist, too. I just got an eyeful... not too bad. Maybe I don't mind coming in here."
Me: "Er........ ummmm...... saywhahuh?"

Very. Very. Awkward. What the heck am I supposed to say to that?!! "Thank you"?!!! Or "That's harassment - please step away from my desk"?!! I have no idea. I just completely changed the subject and asked her how her day was going without addressing the boob comment. Yowza.

And now it's Friday. Time for The Annoying. I sit next to a public printer and usually it's OK. I mean, I am antisocial so I don't necessarily enjoy people constantly streaming in and out and chatting with me but what can I do? Anyway, today I'd really like to punch someone in the head.* This one guy has been in my office TWENTY TWO times in the last hour. (Yes, I've counted.) And every single time he does he doesn't find whatever papers he's looking for so he pokes every button on the printer multiple times, checks the paper tray multiple time and checks the ink cartridges multiple times. He does this every single time without exception. Now, I know the printer works. Everyone else, myself included, has been printing stuff all day - even in and around Dumbass McButtonPusher's "print jobs" - with no problem. I desperately want to shout at the guy "IT'S NOT THE PRINTER! IT'S YOU!!!!!!!!!!" but as yet I have not. Deep breath. If I injure someone at work, I will only have to stay here longer... ;o)

* My favorite, favorite line from The 40-Year-Old Virgin is "Then you punch her in the f&ckin' head!" (Just for your reference: Cal says this to Andy after Andy asks Cal what he should do if Trish laughs at him when he tells her he's a virgin.) Anyway, I've discovered a group on Facebook called 'I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head' - and I've seriously considered joining. I am not a bad person! I'm just really, really, really easily irritated.

Random Round-Up 15

I thought this article on Yahoo! sports was quite interesting. It's by Janet Evans and it tackles a few topic pertinent to the Olympic swimmers this year: the new swimsuit, the effect of the schedule flip (NBC is ga-ga for Michael Phelps and so paid beaucoup bucks to get the IOC to move the swimming finals to the AM in China so they can be broadcast live here in the U.S.) and the effect of the too-close-to-the-Games U.S. Olympic trials on the athletes. I'm not a huge Olympic follower - yeah, I'll watch what interests me and sort of keep tabs on things on the Web but it's safe to say I don't keep my finger constantly on the pulse of the Games! - but I do like to watch swimming and found the article to be very enlightening.

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I won't spoil the results of last night's So You Think You Can Dance just in case you haven't yet seen who won... but there was a lot of chatter on the message boards about why Sabra was not featured in the alumni video. I did a little Web searching and found an article with season 3's Danny, Sabra and Neil (from a magazine Danny co-founded, I guess) - but it didn't mention what Sabra's doing now. Helpful. So, I wandered around and found this behind-the-scenes video filmed by season 2's Ivan:

I always feel bad for the dancers that got cut early on (*cough* Jamie *cough*) because no one really remembers them and they hang around for 2 or more hours and only get to dance a total of 30 seconds. And we, the viewers, probably only see their faces for, oh, 5 seconds of that 30 seconds. :o( Poor little losers.

Oh, and if you have seen the finale already, here's a link to EW.com's recap of the show... and here's a link to their recap of Wednesday night's show. I found the latter much more interesting, if only because the recapper really goes to town highlighting what could be the producers' (not so) subtle means of voter tampering. Well, voter bias-ing, I guess I should say. If that was a real word.

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James McAvoy is on the cover of this month's Arena magazine (too bad it's a British magazine and I can't get a copy... boo!!!). That is all.

TV Tidbits 23: CSI, SVU, Daisies Scoopage

Blar. I have been in a general TV funk for a while now - oh, how I've loved the summer and its nearly non-existent TV watching demands - but since shows are going to be slowly creeping back onto the air with new episodes within the next couple months, I guess I'd better prepare myself for the onslaught. Boo. That being said, here are some spoilers for:

Law & Order: SVU (Season premiere: September 23rd)

• Luke Perry's appearing in the.... season premiere, an hour that also features guest turns by Sara Gilbert (Roseanne, ER) and Julie Bowen (Lost, Boston Legal, Ed). According to sources, the plot revolves around a couple (Perry and Bowen) that stands accused of abusing their foster child. Gilbert plays the boy's biological mother. [Ask Ausiello]
• The episode also marks the debut of SVU's new ADA, played by One Tree Hill knockout Michaela McManus, and deals with the repercussions of Benson's attempted rape, and answers some lingering questions surrounding the possible transfer of Ice-T's Fin. (Side note: Robert and I haven't watched the season finale of SVU yet - did I mention I'm sort of averse to watching TV shows right now? - but if Fin gets transferred, Robert will have a STROKE. I don't even want to be in the room if/when he finds out. The man loves him some Ice-T.)

• "Is this the season Benson and Stabler will finally go there?" Because that's the question I posed to executive producer Neal Baer yesterday, and behold his titillating answer. "In the first eight episodes, circumstances put them in a very interesting place," he hinted. Where might this, um, place be located? "Somewhere without clothes." [Ask Ausiello]

• Josh Charles and Teri Polo will play a married couple whose son becomes a suspect in — yep, you guessed it — some kind of grisly sex crime investigation.
  
• The episode is currently being shot and is slated to air on Sept. 30. [Ask Ausiello]

• There will be some serious Stabler drama this season. "We'll be meeting someone in his life who we haven't met before," teases exec producer Neal Baer. "As a result, he'll be dealing with some unexpected problems." [Ask Ausiello]

CSI (Season Premiere: October 9th)

You all already know that William Petersen/Gil Grissom will be leaving the show next season, so I won't go over all that stuff again. I do have some details on his storyline and potential replacement, however, so here goes...

• According to executive producer Naren Shankar, when Melinda Clarke's dominatrix returns in November to console an in-crisis Grissom, "This will be the most intimate that we have seen them." Shankar's partner in Crime, EP Carol Mendelsohn, takes it a step further, revealing that, "Grissom will go to bed at Lady Heather's. Whether he will go to bed with Lady Heather remains to be seen. But Grissom will spend most of that episode at Lady Heather's." [Ask Ausiello]

• Gil's replacement will have a "genetic quirk"- some funky (and potentially lethal) DNA. Hint: This isn't the first time a character in the CSI-verse had this specific abnormality. [Ask Ausiello]
• ...like a chromosome abnormality. (Think: One too many letters.) [Ask Ausiello]

• Film vet Laurence Fishburne is close to signing a deal to... fill the considerable void being left when [Gil] steps down after this season's 10th episode.
• Fishburne will play a doctor/scientist who comes into the CSI as an outsider, and not as the team's new boss, CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler revealed at the TCA press tour. As a DNA expert, this new character has identified a common profile among serial killers — and it's even in his own genes. [TVGuide.com]
  
  

• Just how many episodes will Jorja Fox/Sara Sidle be in? Ausiello says: "I don't want to give away the exact number, so let's just say she's doing two more than Gary Dourdan and seven less than William Petersen." I'm guesstimating that puts Gil in 10 episodes, Warrick in 1 and Sara in 3.

Pushing Daisies (Season Premiere: October 1st)

• The O.C.'s Taylor Townsend herself, Autumn Reeser, will guest star in the season premiere as a Southern Belle named Kentucky Fritz who has a deadly run-in with some killer bees. "She's the number one girl at Betty's Bees, who may or may not have been up to some mischief when she was stung to death by a swarm of bees," teases Daisies creator Bryan Fuller. [Ask Ausiello]
  

• Beloved Everwood curmudgeon Debra Mooney has been cast as Chi McBride's chain-smoking, no-nonsense mother... sources confirm to me exclusively. As of now, Mooney's on board for one episode, but I'm told the role has significant recurring potential. Mooney's character, Calista Cod, is one of the best private investigators in the biz. She arrives for a visit with her boy (and ex-partner) Emerson, and winds up helping him with a murder case. As the two begin to reconnect, Mama discovers that her chip off the old block has been keeping some vital information from her. And before you ask, no, Calista's not blind. [Ask Ausiello]

• Stephen Root has booked a four-episode arc on Daisies. His character "has a shared history with both Ned's dad and Chuck's dad," explains series creator Bryan Fuller. "He stirs up a lot of hullabaloo for everyone, particularly Aunts Lily and Vivian." [Ask Ausiello]
  

Celebrity Chefs Revealed

Ugh. I don't know why I attempt these stupid puzzles - they just make me feel dumb. As soon as the faces are revealed it seems quite obvious who they are and I feel like a dope that I didn't figure it out in the first place. But at least I got Nigella Lawson... that's sort of a random one, right? Eh.


1. Jamie Oliver
2. Anthony Bourdain
3. Rachael Ray
4. Gordon Ramsay
5. Nigella Lawson
6. Ted Allen
7. Alton Brown
8. Mario Batali
9. Julia Child
10. Bobby Flay

Good call on #10, Robert - nicely done!! If I don't mooch your guess as my own, I only got 5/10. Whee.

Movie Morsels 23 - Iron Man, Terminator & Transformers Sequels

TunaFlix has a blurb on Iron Man 2:

IESB has a few choice quotes from Robert Downey Jr. about what to expect from Iron Man 2, which we’ve got for you here: “Our goals are more of the same. The idea that he said he’s Iron Man in part 1…it’s one thing to say it, and it’s another thing to actually evolve to the point where you can live in a heroic fashion. You know, they say, ‘The superhero movie always needs to follow…’ and I said who is that guy? Get him out of here! We want to do what worked for us last time, in a way that evolves.” Indeed, one of the best things about Iron Man was the way the production made a conscious decision to move away from the typical superhero cliches towards something a little more satisfying - what made sense for the character, not the genre. “We’re talking about a guy who is put in an extraordinary circumstance, and the people that are around him, and how that creates a sense of family, and how that disrupts whatever forces that we have to say that are working [in his life]. I like the idea of an Iron Man 2 that you’re able to understand various points of view. You’re able to touch on some subjects that are a lot more far reaching, while still grounding it in entertainment.” Is that a tease Iron Man 2 may touch on Stark’s alcoholism, a subplot director Jon Favreau has mentioned before? It might not be as commercially viable (then again, consider Hancock…), but it sure as hell would be interesting.

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Movies Online posted an interview with McG re: Terminator Salvation which you can access here. It's a sorta-lengthy interview, so I won't repost the entire thing but I will say that, if you're interested in the movie, the interview is a good and worthwhile read. McG addresses several topics including how the movie fits in relative to the first three movies and the TV show:

The continuity in the Terminator films was always a little flexible and no one really minds because they’re such wonderful stories. T2 is 10 years later and John looks like he’s 13. What's your take on the timeline when this starts?

MCG: Well there's no doubt that at the beginning of T3, for example, begins with a bit of a punt as to what happened at the end of T2, and there's some rejuggling of the timelines. We're largely treating it as though the bombs have gone off. I'm not going to share with you what the date is when the bombs go off, and we come into the picture in 2018. We’ve done the best we can to honor the timelines that have been put into place and I think it ultimately feels very satisfying. If we've done our job properly, then this will be regarded as the statement of the time and the place and the where and the when and the why and the how. And it comes from a place of doing a lot of research with, you know, futurists, with scientists who talk about how long it would take the atmosphere to clear itself out so you could actually go back outside and do your thing. We're trying to just sort of amalgamate the three pictures and amalgamate the intention, and then answer that to the best of our ability. Again, there are certain things that are in stone. The T800 comes in 2029, you know. We're building towards that place. Therefore, if hardware should show up in 2018 that was supposed to be around in 2029, that's a problem for John Connor.

I definitely recommend the article - and no, it's not Christian-centric. :o)

The character Marcus has been talked about for a long time, with debates running about whether or not he's really the 'main' character of the movie and whether or not he's a true Terminator. (Marcus is played by Sam Worthington and is the other dude in the photo above.) I found an old bit from christian-bale.org that has some choice quotes from an Entertainment Weekly interview with Derek Anderson, Victor Kubicek, and Moritz Borman (the three producers on the film):

The three go on to also clarify just exactly what Connor’s involvement is in the film, considering the rumor that he was just a supporting role. ANDERSON: John Connor is an ongoing, very central character throughout the next trilogy.

KUBICEK: Exactly. The mythology, really at the root of it, is the birth of the hero. John Connor is this modern-day, messianic figure that is going to lead our franchise forward.
ANDERSON: He’s leading the fight for the salvation of humanity against the machines. So he’s very important. “There’s gonna be another major co-star with kind of equal presence in this installment.” But who is this character? It’s not Arnold back as the Terminator, so who is it? “It is a new character introduced in the mythology that’s not replacing Arnold [Schwarzenegger]. It’s not like he’s stepping into Arnold’s shoes. It’s a completely new character.” Is it a Terminator at least? “No, not really. That’s one of the big twists…”

Obviously we won’t know the full answer to those questions until Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins arrives in theaters in 2009. But Kubicek teases, and confuses, with a bit more: “And it’s questionable if he’s an enemy or not. That’s not necessarily resolved.” However, to round things out and finalize the update, Derek Anderson delivers one final statement that definitely gets me excited. “It’s a really interesting time in the franchise because it’s where all the fans have always wanted the franchise to go, and it hasn’t to date, which is the post-apocalyptic world. It’s after judgment day. So because we’re in a different time in the mythology, it introduces a whole new set of circumstances and characters.”

I'm just glad the producers aren't sloughing John Connor off as a second banana. I'm excited for Marcus and Kyle Reese and all those guys but c'mon - John Connor is the whole point of the stupid movies!! He does save the world after all. What else does a guy have to do to get a little attention?

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CHUD (I know, it sounds gross but it stands for 'Cinematic Happenings Under Development') has a couple snippets on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. They don't feature any actual quotes from real people associated with the movie but they still seem pretty legitimate. The first one is from June and deals with whether or not the Fallen of the title actually refers to the character of the same name. I posted about this earlier but this author actually cared enough to gather up some info on the character and blah de blah blah so here you go:

Some TransFans began speculating that the Fallen of the title was actually a character from Transformers comics, an ancient Transformer who seems to play the Devil in their mythology. (A dude called Primus is like God. I think. Maybe the better correlation is that the Fallen is like Darkseid).

The Transformers wiki provides backstory: At the dawn of time, Primus created new life, the 13 original Transformers, to crew his planetary form into battle against his eternal nemesis Unicron. One of these 13, his original name now lost to the mists of time, turned against his siblings, his creator, and his universe, and betrayed them all. ...this guardian of entropy became obsessed with the darker side of chaos and death, and in the black place these urges led him, the betrayer found a new god, more suited to his nature. He turned against Primus and became the Fallen. Now he is a being of power, darkness, and absolute dedication to Unicron.

Here's what Wikipedia says about him: Around 6.5 million years ago, a test of the experimental "space bridge" matter-transport system on Cybertron liberated the Fallen from his prison, and he materialised on Cybertron, where he quickly recruited the Chaos Trinity, three mystically-inclined Decepticons - Bludgeon, Mindwipe and Bugly - into his employ. Abducting Transformers that he identified as possessing "genetic potential" within their sparks - Grimlock, Blitzwing, Jetfire and Hot Spot - the Fallen planned to use their energies to awaken Primus from his self-imposed slumber, thereby alerting Unicron to his location, allowing the world-eater to renew hostilities with his old enemy. An attack from combined Autobot and Decepticon forces led by Shockwave and Prowl disrupted his plans, and Primus himself reached out and promptly destroyed the Fallen.

Ooh. I'm all atwitter. Anyhoo, the second piece is more current (posted yesterday in fact) and deals with a spoiler of sorts. Now, I don't want to ruin anything for anyone but seriously - did anyone really think Megatron wasn't coming back for the second movie? Oops. Secret spoiled. Eh. You'll live. Sooo... here's the scoop:

If the current incarnation of the script follows the beats of a previous incarnation (which did not feature The Fallen), Megatron may be getting brought back by the Autobots, who need him to conquer the new menace. But I've learned that this time he won't be that weird alien jet. This time he's a tank.

Megatron apparently was a tank in the Transformers Generation 2 comic or toys or something (I don't know, I just looked it up on Wikipedia and I still don't get it), so this has some precedent. I imagine this is as close as we'll get to seeing him be a gun, since the movies appear to eschew the sort of size shifting antics that the comics and cartoons embraced.

Somewhere, Wade and Robert are excited. My work is done.

TV Tidbits 22: Man vs. Wild

Yes! The wait is over! The new season of Man vs. Wild premieres tomorrow night!! Biji totally poo-poohed my love of all things Bear while he was in town but too bad - I love this show!! "Oh it's so fake blah blah blah." Shut up, Biji. I don't consider the fact that the dude uses a safety wire while scrambling down a sheer mountain face "cheating." I consider it a necessity to ensure that his two children do not grow up fatherless because people (like me) get their jollies watching a man do dangerous things. But whatevs - different strokes for different folks. ;o)

Anyway, tomorrow night's episode is one I've been waiting for since I saw this picture on Bear's blog back in May.

The first shoot I got whopped by some bees whilst raiding a nest to get honey. Hence the photo here. (although I did get the honey!)

But it meant that I had to spend the rest of the shoot looking like this, feeling terrible and only able to open my eyes with much effort.

I know - I'm kind of sadistic, I guess, but I was so disappointed that the bee sting episode wasn't a part of last season! So I'm psyched that it's the 1st episode of this season. Bee stings! Snakeskin urine canteens! Alligators! Nudity! How can anyone not love this show?!

Remember: Season premiere, tomorrow night @ 10, Discovery Channel. Good times!

Today's TDK Post

Okay, so I've changed up today's posts a bit. I've moved the two TDK-related bits from 'Random Round-Up 14' to this post and added a few more Batman-centric articles to boot. I think that, since I seem to be so taken with these articles and I highly doubt that anyone else is - or has the ample free time I do - I will now post all articles concerning TDK here. Any anytime I add one or two, I'll update the post and bump it up to the top of the queue. Now you'll be able to skip such interesting-if-you-have-time-but-definitely-skippable- under-most-circumstances articles with just one click!! Won't that be nice? :o) (*NOTE: This does not apply to Christian-specific articles. Deal with it.)
"And... here... we... GO."

__________ August 4 __________

Robert forwarded this cnn.com article to me this morning:

What's with Batman's voice in The Dark Knight?

He knew it would make me chuckle - and it did. (My favorite quote: "But here's the critique most widely held: Why does Batman talk like the offspring of Clint Eastwood and a grizzly bear?" Hee!!) As much as I love Christian as the Batman, I find his Batman voice sort of strange. I can barely understand him at times it's so grrrrrowly!!! I know it's supposed to be animalistic or whatever - and I am glad he at least distinguishes between his Bruce Wayne and Batman voices - but it actually makes me laugh out loud sometimes. I'd read somewhere (before seeing TDK the first time) that Batman's voice would be "better" in TDK than it was in Batman Begins. Hmm.... really? I wasn't getting that at all. But it's okay; he still looks pretty!

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The Curse of The Dark Knight

Michael Caine better watch his back! At this rate, he scheduled for some sort of tainted food or something (what with drugs, fights and car accidents checked off the list...)

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As many of my gossip sites have begun to note, a backlash to the uber-popular and oh-so-successful TDK has begun. Here's an article from The Detroit News summarizing 10 Things That Bothered Me About The Dark Knight. My favorite?

7. The mayor's obituary. In one scene in the film, the Joker somehow places an obituary for the mayor of Gotham City in the daily newspaper, as a threat. And not some sort of small classified ad, but a full, half-page article, complete with art. Since I work at a newspaper, I know what it takes to get an article in the paper, the amount of meetings editors partake in discussing pages, the layers of editing pages go through before they go to print; it's not like these things just appear. So how did this article get in the paper? Does the Joker have friends at the Gotham Times? Did no editors ever see the pages? Who designed the page? Who copy-edited the obit? And did no one think that if the mayor actually did die, it might warrant slightly more high profile placement than on the obit page? Put it this way: If some crazy makeup wearing villain were to stroll into The Detroit News asking us to place an obit of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, it would probably raise a few eyebrows, and the story probably wouldn't make it to print. My only guess is there's a deleted scene somewhere of the Joker hanging out in the paper's newsroom, peering over several of the top editors' shoulders and making minor tweaks to the page as deadline fastly approaches.

Do I find this particularly humorous because I'm living with an editor and thus better understand the minutiae of publishing? Gosh, I hope not.

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All the dudes I know that I've talked to about the movie all agree that they didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal's Rachel. Why? "She's not hot enough to be lusted after by Bruce Wayne." This, to me, is a shoddy argument. I'm not saying Maggie is gorgeous or gave a dazzling performance as Rachel that knocked my socks off. But I find it distressing that guys - or, at the very least, Robert, Biji and Wade - would blow Maggie off so nonchalantly simply because she isn't a giant set of boobs on a stick. Bruce fell in love with Rachel as a child - he doesn't care what she looks like! I mean, when I fell in love with Robert he had a full head of luscious hair and abs. Should I kick him to the curb just because both of those attributes have long since said bye-bye?!!! I think not. Same logic applies to Bruce and Rachel. If, in fact, he finds her so "ugly" in the first place. Hmm... what was my original point here? Ah, yes, that Best Week Ever has published a big "Eff You" to all the Katie Holmes haters. I'm not exactly sure how that ties into my Gyllen-ugly rant but oh well.

Eff All You Haters - Katie Holmes Should Be in The Dark Knight

Random Round-Up 14

Here's another face quiz from Ayyyy.com:



This time it's all about TV food celebrities. And it's ridiculously hard, I think. I mean, I have watched a lot of food TV in my day - heck, I used to watch the Amish lady on PBS back in '91! - but I'm almost completely stumped on this puzzle. Foo. I posted my very few (and shaky) guesses in the comments section, as per usual. I promise I won't cheat and look at other peoples' guesses but I do reserve the right to update my guesses should a moment of inspiration strike!!

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I enjoyed this play-by-play from jezebel.com on the People.com unveiling of the Holy Twins last night:

7:40pm: I'm getting dinner. See you guys in the ayem.
7:33pm:Breaking: They look like tiny babies. Shiloh, up in the upper right-hand corner, is similarly nonplussed.
7:30pm: THEY ARE HERE HOLY CRAP
7:20pm Still no twins. $14 million dollars and still no twins.
7:15pm: People.com claimed that pictures of the almighty Jolie-Pitt twins would be revealed today at 7pm. (See? It says so right in the red banner.) Anna called me; I am sitting here waiting for these damn miracles (or "Infant Deities," as one commenter called them ). But right now it is 7:14pm and Knox and Vivi are no where to be seen. WTF.



This amused me because the stupid "Come back Sunday at 7pm EDT!!!!!" banner started running on the site on, like, Thursday. Ridiculous. And then People.com couldn't even get their crap together by 7pm EDT? C'mon, now. I expect better. (Tiny silver lining: People.com may not have posted the photos on time... but they did remove the banner right at 7. :o) )

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Charles Van Doren - notorious Twenty-One cheat and subject of the 1994 film Quiz Show - has broken his 50 year silence on the subject and published an article in the New Yorker. It's a loooong one (8 pages) but should be an interesting read (no, I haven't read the whole thing yet). EW.com reports:

...Van Doren goes into detail about how he was recruited to appear on Twenty-One, how the deception unraveled, how he lied to interrogators before ultimately coming clean, how temptation returned in the form of an offer to be a paid consultant on Redford's movie, how he felt about the finished film and Ralph Fiennes' performance as him, and how he learned over the years the differences between fame, celebrity, and notoriety. Two mysteries remain: why he agreed to the scam in the first place (he hints that money and fame were factors, but doesn't actually specify what made him so quick to compromise his integrity) and why he's suddenly willing to talk about it now. Still, Van Doren's account makes for a fascinating tale, especially given how much fakery there still is on television.

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Coldplay has released two videos for their track Viva la Vida, one of which was directed by Hype Williams. But who cares about that when the other one is an "attempt at a video cover version, made out of love for Depeche Mode and the genius of Anton Corbijn." Woohoo!!! EVERYONE loves the Mode!!! :o) You can check out the boring ol' Hype Williams version here. Or you can not waste you time and go directly to the Mode homage below:

Here's the video that inspired the above Chris Martin fest, DM's 'Enjoy the Silence':

Chris and co. totally should've gone for the cropped leather jackets!! I consider their 'video cover' quite incomplete without them.

Random Round-Up 13

Yay! Keane's new album, Perfect Symmetry, is coming out October 13th. Wheeee!

(Unnecessary side note: it looks like Tom totally cut his hair. Boo.)

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HOW long has it been since a Hot Men post, hmm? I'll tell you - too long! (Actually, about 3 full weeks... if you don't count the Christian Bale argument-with-him-mom-blown-exceedingly-out-of-proportion story updates. Which I don't.) So, without further ado, please enjoy these photos of sexy beast Daniel Craig at the Pineapple Express premiere. I have absolutely no idea why he'd attend this particular movie's premiere but who cares? He looks HOT in that suit!! Yum.

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Maria turned me on to passiveaggressivenotes.com and I have to say - it is an excellent way to kill some time at work! It's basically a site that posts real notes left by and for real people like this:

As I said - it's an amusing way to kill time at work! :o) Anyway, I found the following comic at the site (the comic is actually originally from the New Yorker) and it struck a chord:


I HATE it when people do this! I mean, on the one hand, I'm happy that someone is actually bothering to hold the door open at all. It's definitely not a "sure" thing, as I'm sure many of you know. On the other hand, I absolutely feel like I have to scurry to make it to the door in time or else risk being rude and ungrateful. Conversely, if I'm walking toward a door and I can tell someone is behind me but they're at that just-a-wee-bit-too-far distance, I'll almost run to the door so I reach it just that much sooner. That way I don't feel like I have to hold it open for them and they don't feel like they have to rush. (If they're at a decent distance, however, I'll hold the door open; I'm no hypocrite, people!!) I know - my life is so complicated. It's no wonder I'm so tired.

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I always love the shorts that play before any Pixar movie in the theater - as I'm sure most people do. The most recent one, Presto (which debuted before Wall*E) is now viewable online at gamaniak. If you haven't yet seen it, you definitely should!!! Right now. Go.