Update: "We always do it nice and rough"

Updating a previous item:

Ike Turner, who was found dead in home Dec. 12, reportedly died of a cocaine overdose, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. High blood pressure and emphysema contributed to the death, but the overdose was accidental.

RELATED LINKS:
"We always do it nice and rough"

Vampire Weekend

A mention on this site might not boost a video to that "viral video" status, but if you've got a moment, check out this video by Vampire Weekend, "Punk." It's really a fun visual (almost like an OK GO on treadmills thing) and the song is really catchy. I imagine it'll be on some sort of commercial soon. Watch it!

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Baby popularity contest

The Baby Center recently released a list of its top 100 names for both boys and girls based on statistics, and frankly, some of these names are freaking ridiculous.

What I find even more ridiculous, though, is the fact that people are naming their children after Britney Spears' kids and Grey's Anatomy! Addison?? Come on...


Here are the top 10 for both sexes:

Girls' names	Boys' names
1. Sophia	1. Aiden
2. Isabella	2. Ethan
3. Emma	3. Jacob
4. Madison	4. Jayden
5. Ava	5. Caden
6. Addison	6. Noah
7. Hailey	7. Jackson
8. Emily	8. Jack
9. Kaitlyn	9. Logan
10. Olivia	10. Matthew

I guess some of these names aren't so bad, but look through the list and feel free to scoff at some of these references. You've got Tristan, which to me, is a Gilmore Girls reference all the way, but maybe I'm wrong. Jayden--Jayden James Federline, and Preston is on there too, guhh. Brody--Brody Jenner?

The one that really makes me cringe though? Nevaeh - heaven backward. Give me a break. And I'm hoping these people didn't get that from "Crazy" (Heather) from Flavor of Love, because that's incredible sad (it's sad that I even get the reference to begin with, but anyway...)

And my name isn't on there? My name had been in the top 10 since 1980, and just suddenly dropped off the list this year. Wtf.

Maybe I'm just overreacting, but don't be surprised next year when this baby list comes out and Audrina, Cohutta and Dannielynn end up at the top.

RIP Renfro

Actor Brad Renfro was found dead in his Los Angeles home tonight.

The cause of death is currently unknown, but the former childhood actor had been struggling with drugs and alcohol addiction for several years. In 2005, he attempted to buy heroin from an undercover cop and served time in jail during May 2006 for those charges and a DWI.

Renfro debuted in "The Client" at age 12, and also starred in "Sleepers," "Deuces Wild," "Apt Pupil" and "The Jacket. He just finished shooting a movie called The Informers with Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke and Billy Bob Thorton, according to IMDB.

This entry will be updated as more information becomes available.

Floating on Air

My laptop is cool and all, but getting my hands on the latest Mac laptop--the MacBook Air--would be phenomenal.

This thing is 0.76 inches thick when closed and 0.16 inches thick when open, and for comparison's sake, a regular DELL laptop is 1.26 inches thick.

(Photos courtesy of infoSyncWorld.com)

The computer also turns on as soon as it's opened, and it comes standard with an 80-gigabyte hard drive, with the option of a 64GB flash-based solid state drive as an upgrade. Because of the laptop's sleek structure, something had to be sacrificed, so the MacBook Air comes without a CD or DVD drive.

The Air will go on sale in two weeks and cost $1,800.

The laptop was revealed by Apple exec Steve Jobs at the Macworld trade show today. Jobs also unveiled an online video rental service that will allow users to download movies for $2.99 - $3,99 and watch them over a broadband Internet connection. They can also download and keep the movie for 30 days while having 24 hours to finish the movie once it's started.

If you didn't know it already, Apple is taking over the world.

I'm pretty sure there's a Lorena Bobbit joke in this somewhere...

You'd think a 25-year-old guy could handle a few dicks drawn on his face after passing out on his friend's couch. Isn't that just the way it goes when you're the first one down for the count?

Well apparently Scott Masse, of Tennessee, didn't like what his friends drew on him and drew something of his own: a knife.

Masse woke up around 1 a.m. and realized that "someone had drawn a picture of a male genitalia on his face with black marker while he was asleep," according to the police report. He allegedly pulled a pocket knife and said he would start cutting people if he didn't find out who drew on him.

Dude, chill out?

The man scrubbed away the marker...just in time for his mugshot. and now he'll face felony charges when he appears in court March 6.

There's no crying in football!!

This weekend brought some upsets in the world of playoff football.

Unfortunately, the Patriots remained perfect, beating the Jacksonville Jaguars and advancing to next weekend's conference championship game.

But in better news... How 'bout them Giants?? Eli Manning, whom I thought was totally due for a catastrophic week after two impressive showings, somehow pulled it together and led the G-men to victory versus the favored Dallas Cowboys, 21-17.

The most buzzworthy news, however, came after the game when everyone's favorite a-hole wide receiver Terrell Owens cried like a baby over the inevitable media slaughtering of Tony Romo, saying with black glasses hiding his tear-filled eyes: "He's my teammate. He's my quarterback." Whaa, whaa. This is the same guy who blasted Eagles' quarterback Donovan Mcnabb every Sunday when he was in Philadelphia, fighting with Hugh Douglas in the locker room and doing sit-ups on his lawn? Suddenly, he's found God and decides to back his headcase of a QB?

Oh well, not like we'll be seeing him again this season, haaaahaaaaa. And for another good laugh, check out the clip.



So it's Giants v. Packers, Patriots v. San Diego (who upset the Colts 28-24 yesterday).\

Super Bowl predictions anyone?

'Oh sh*t...'

A man who destroyed a neighbor's yard and fence while driving under the influence was pretty much shit outta luck Wednesday. That's because police found the proof they needed to tie him to the accident on the bottom of his shoes.

That's right. He was in deep doo-doo in more ways than one.

The yard that the Virginia man crashed into belonged to a man who owned four dogs and the suspect stepped in some dog doo before fleeing the scene, and proceeded to track it down the street. While police were following the poopsteps, they saw a white van swerving toward them and asked the driver to get out.

Josue Herrios-Coronilla, 18, reeked of alcohol and was charged with driving while impaired and drinking underage and released on $1,500 bail. That stinks, haaaaa.

TGIweekend

Hey, if beer pong has lost its jazz after 10 years of playing with the same group of people, perhaps you can try some mastery of the sport.

Check out this video of a skateboarder with arguably too much time on his hands. Some, or rather, most of these tricks are phenomenal, but please, if for some reason this is digitally mastered or completely fake, please let me know. It'd be like finding out Santa isn't real, but I'd still like to know so I can stop singing this guy's praises.

Watch and decide for yourself!

Hannah tries to pull a little switcheroo

Big news on the Hannah Montana front: Miley Cyrus is not the only bubbly adolescent bouncing around the stage during her "Hannah Montana" tour--there's an impostor, GASP!!!!

Yeah, this isn't really a big deal to me, but I know it comes as an uber shock to the bajillions of Miley Cyrus fans to find out that Miley is using a body double during shows.

When you check out the video below, you'll notice around the 2:20 mark that Hannah Montana is ushered into a trap door by a back-up dancer who blatantly covers her with a black cloak, and then suddenly, a Hannah lookalike pops out wearing gaudy sunglasses and hair covering her face and starts dancing like a complete moron. So obv not HM, duuuuhhh.

Representatives for Miley said the time is used for a quick costume change and otherwise, the teen superstar sings live the entire show.

I have two problems with this. First of all, what is the difference between Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus during the show? Someone please clear this up for me. Actually, I don't really care. My second concern is this: For all the money that this little girl and this franchise make, they can't come up with a better and less conspicuous way for the girl to have a wardrobe change?

I'm serious. Watch the video and see how awful the change is. Actually, this entire segment looks like a complete yawnfest. Why are people paying thousands of dollars and killing off their parents for this again?

IKEA Sweet IKEA

Comedian Mark Malkoff, who works as a ticket handler for "The Colbert Report," won't be staying at friends' houses or in a hotel while his New York apartment is fumigated this week.

Instead, the 31-year-old will be staying at an IKEA store in Paramus, N.J., and documenting the experience on his Web site: Mark Malkoff Lives in IKEA. The videos are a little scripted in parts, but it's still awesome. The guy is living in an IKEA storefront and jumping on beds and wearing bathrobes that don't belong to him.

And by the looks of the videos, he's making a lot of friends in the store--employees, staff, customers...

The sinks and toilets don't work in his room, though, so the comedian will be using the employee locker room and using the cafeteria to cook meals he buys himself.

Malkoff contacted the store three weeks ago and they agreed to the arrangement, saying that it'd be fun, but he has to be out by the time the store closes Saturday night (IKEA is completely closed on Sundays).

Oddly enough, Malkoff's wife opted to stay with relatives while the apartment is unavailable. Bad decision, lady. This setup looks awesome.

If you want to visit Mark, you've gotta get out to the store by tomorrow night:
IKEA
100 IKEA Dr.100 IKEA Dr.
Paramus, NJ 07652
201-843-1881

Forever and ever, even after do us part

A 66-year-old woman had been living with the corpse of her dead 85-year-old lover for nearly a year, APA reported yesterday.

Police found the man's remains in the couple's Austrian cottage wrapped in blankets Tuesday. The body was obviously decomposing and the smell of death was permeating the building.

Officials said the man probably died in March of natural causes, but final examinations were still being conducted.

The woman had told a local doctor and neighbors who tried to contact the man since last March that he was abroad.

It kind of sounds a little like Hitchcock's 'Psycho,' but still, for a split second, I thought this was slightly romantic in an extremely creepy way. Maybe she just really loved him and was waiting to die next to him.

...but then I read that police are looking into whether the woman concealed his death in order to collect his pension payments, and that just totally kills the sentiment.

'The Hills' in Paris, real? Je ne crois pas!

Sorry, 'Hills' haters. Just a little tid bit of news for those on Team Lauren who are salivating in anticipation for the next eight episodes of season three...

More tampering with reality going on in The Hills, according to The New York Post's Page Six. Before Lauren and Whitney went to Paris, apparently producers were “frantically calling publicists to see if anyone knew any guys to set the girls up with in Paris. If they had a love affair there, then it would look better,” a source told Page Six.

When we catch up with Lauren and Whitney in Paris, we'll see the girls being set up with a band called Rock & Roll - yes, the most creative band name known to man - and Lauren miiiight be hooking up with the band's guitar player, Matthias. Scandalous.

Sucks for Brody.

According to a bulletin Audrina posted on MySpace yesterday, the episodes will be airing in late February/early March, and I've seen on MTV.uk that the show is scheduled to return on Jan. 20.

And in response to recent reports that Lauren's bff had joined Team Heidi? As fake as the show itself (those obviously weren't her words, p.s.). Audrina says she's been spending time away from Lauren to be with her pregnant sister and if she runs into Heidi out in a club, they will acknowledge each other's presence but they are not friends.

UPDATED: Lauren and Whitney will more than likely not be with Teen Vogue during the fourth season, according to a spokeswoman. "The girls have moved on from Teen Vogue," she said, declining to say whether or not Teen Vogue will be part of the series next time.

Update: Hot for teacher, err, waitress?

Updating a previous item:

Debra Lafave, the 27-year-old teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy in Nov. 2005, was found in violation of her probation in a Florida courtroom Thursday after having contact with minors, but the judge did not send her to jail.

Lafave was arrested after a 17-year-old female coworker claimed to have had one-on-one and group conversations with Lafave about "non-work related issues such as family problems, friends, high school, personal life, boyfriend issues and sexual issues."

She also had physical contact with the girl, but claimed that it was "innocent" hugging because the work staff was almost like family. Lafave also said that she did not speak about her personal life in the aforementioned conversations, but that the teenager was very forthright "in a group setting" about her sexual life.

Lafave was forced to quit her job at the restaurant and is now working at her mother's beauty salon, where hopefully no one under the age of 18 comes in, because the judge actually told the woman, "Please don't come back."

"It's the Eryka Ba-don't"

WARNING: SPOILERS

I'm happy to report that the challenges have been getting better and better each week. Tonight's episode of Project Runway left the designers with 17-year-old New Jersey Catholic school girls as models. The garment: prom dresses!
Kinda makes you wish Elisa were still around, eh?

The challenge premise had the designers recounting their own prom experiences, which made for a few laughs. I'm not a Ricky fan, but I loved when the out-of-the-closet designer said, "When I had a girlfriend, I actually made her prom dress. That shoulda been a clue right there, right?"

The high school models remained relatively in the background, except for Christian's model, Maddey. Honestly, their relationship was like battle of the diva bitches, except I'm pretty sure that Christian could walk in high heels better than she can.

The girl wanted brown and gold and black and lace and sequins and any gaudy thing you could imagine. She also claimed to be an aspiring designer herself, so she snatched away the pencil and got to sketching herself. Yeah, Christian should have taken the helm a little bit more, but designers have been sent home in the past for not catering to the client.

There really hasn't been that much drama in the workroom this season, minus the episodes where designers worked together to produce a look. That's probably good for them, but it leaves viewers (or at least me) passively watching until the runway show.

What came down the runway was only moderately impressive, though if I were one of these girls, I'd be stoked no matter what my prom dress looked like, just as long as I got to have it made on the national television.

My personal fav was Chris March's (above, left) because the color was fabulous and he kept his costumeness in the closet on this one. Sweet P's was also gorgeous (above, center), and that landed her in the judges' good graces for a change. Victorya's electric blue and jeweled garment (above, right) put her on top and she was granted immunity for next week.

Unfortunately, the judges only liked Sweet P's and Victorya's dresses, and Kevin, Christian, Ricky and Rami all fell the bottom.

Rami had immunity from last week and was safe from elimination. Ricky, who has ceased to impress me at all this season, somehow escaped elimination even though his dress was as bland as can be.

Kudos the Christian for being a bitch and blaming his difficulty on his model, which was fine because that girl was annoying as hell. Thank God this challenge didn't get him sent home, but unfortunately, Kevin cannot say the same.
Kevin was criticized for the lack of hemming on the bottom of his dress (above), while also essentially making his model look like a cheap, old, Filipino prostitute. Sadly, his impressive designs in the past were completely ignored and he was sent home. Totally robbed.

When are they going to send Ricky home!!?! I can't stand his conductor's hat for another episode.

Seven down--eight to go. Make it work!

RELATED LINKS:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6

God's right-hand man?

An Idaho man who believed the biblical "mark of the beast" had appeared on his hand, chopped off the body part and cooked it Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

The mark, or number, of the beast is more commonly known as "666."

The Book of Revelation in the New Testament contains a passage in which an angel is quoted as saying: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink the wine of God's fury."

So the man, who is in his mid-20s, chopped off his hand with a circular saw and put it in the microwave. When authorities arrived, the man was reportedly calm, but they took him to the mental health unit of a local medical center. Couldn't imagine why...

"It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived. He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn't bleed to death. That kind of mental illness is just sad."--Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.

God is great and all, but oh man...this is the second body part cooking story this week!

Tequila making you sick?

I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing "Shot at Love" news, but because I've "reported" on everything I've heard about the show up until this point, I figured one more little brief couldn't hurt.

In an interview with realityblurred.com, Bobby revealed that he just didn't see himself in any of Tila Tequila's plans for the future and that she "was just too busy."

But when asked about the bulletin Bobby had posted on MySpace after New Year's in which he claimed Tila never called him and no one at MTV would give him Tila's number, he told the Web site that he took the post down for "contract reasons." Hmm, sounds a little shifty to me. Sounds like MTV caught wind of his post and made him take it down so people might believe that the two just broke up and not that MTV greedily caused another season of the show.

To read more of the Bobby interview, click here.

UPDATED: Tila posted a bulletin on MySpace directing fans to her Web site, which featured this incredibly awkward interview between Tila and an Extra correspondent. He reveals at the end that it's his first interview--gosh, we couldn't tell.

Stupid Cue-pids

Getting your head stuck between the bars on your stair railing is child's play: Two men in Prague had to be cut out of a pool table by a crew of firefighters.

The Czechs, who were playing billiards in the western Czech city of Karlovy Vary, stuck their arms into the table's pockets to search for a missing ball. At first they thought it was funny they couldn't initially get their arms out, but the men began to panic when they realized they were stuck...and also when they realized how embarrassing it is to be stuck in a pool table.

"Their trapped hands hurt them quite a bit. We have no clue at all how they could become stuck in there. In the end we had no other option but to dismantle the entire table." - a fire brigade spokesman.

Your barista today is: Ronald McDonald?

Years ago, no one would have seen a McDonalds v. Starbucks war brewing, but now, the battle is on.

Both companies have been totally cramping each other's style lately: McDonalds has beefed up its coffee culture and Starbs has installed drive throughs and started serving breakfast sandwiches. The competition has been heating up, but you can add one more point in the McD's column because the fast food company plans to add coffee bars and baristas in 14,000 U.S. locations this year.

The move, which the company sees adding $1 million in sales, will bring cappuccinos, lattes, mochas and the Frappe, a drink similar to Starbucks' ice-blended Frappuccino, to the menu.

I'm up in the air on this one. Most people who go to McDonalds are looking for cheap, fast food and drink. Even if you know what the heck a macchiato is, Starbucks can be intimidating and it can definitely take some time to get the beverage in hand. But apparently, McDonalds has already been testing out the system in Kansas, running ads that claim you won't get a nasty look for mispronouncing the size of your beverage--ooooh, Starbucks. Burrrn!

But even if McDonalds' sales fall shorter than expected, there's no way they're gonna tank as badly as Starbucks has in the last year.

Circle, circle, dot, dot

Please watch this video. I freaking love the sad little blond kid. "All I did was trade Lunchables [sad look downward]."