-- I thought this was a current story. Nope. Russian reality TV let people try to steal cars 15 years ago! Why? Because it's all a game. In fact, it's a game show: The Intercept. An estimated 85 million Russian viewers are riveted to their TV screens every Sunday night as contestants try to outwit police to win the coveted prize. But now Russia's second highest rated television show may fall victim to a different kind of cops and robbers conflict.
-- That awful wreck on 75 the other day, the guy MAY have been texting (as of me posting this at 925a). “We are investigating whether he was physically texting. We are working on trying to figure out what exactly ... was going on,” he said, adding that he plans to do a follow-up interview with the witness, who told police Mr. Harder did not appear to be speeding.
Deanna Harder, 33, of Oregon said her father was not a texter. His phone was a model that had no keyboard or other features that make it easier to send text messages, she said. “He did not know how to text, so that’s what we are trying to figure out here,” she said. “It’s not making sense.”
-- We all know someone in our lives who could get arrested for this. Robert Schiavelli, 42, was recently slapped with two “absurd” summonses because his next-door neighbor complained that he could hear his hearty guffaws from across the driveway.
“I didn’t know it was a crime to laugh out a window,” said Schiavelli, who is considered disabled because he has frequent seizures and suffers from neurological impairments.
-- Chavez drank 40 cups of coffee a day. Something to aim for? One DD or Sbux would've done? Columbia poisoning him!? Chavez acknowledged after he was diagnosed with cancer that he had been recklessly neglecting his health. He had taken to staying up late and drinking as many as 40 cups of coffee a day. He regularly summoned his Cabinet ministers to the presidential palace late at night.
College kids are laughing at him. 'Ha, I do that for finals! Toughen up Mr. Supreme Overlord.'
-- Someone find me a positive review of Oz. It doesn't help that most of the actors in the film seem so uncomfortable with their synthesized surroundings. Oz is played by James Franco, an actor who is only good in theory as far as I'm concerned, and he brings the same smirking "Guys I'm not taking this that seriously" attitude to this project as he has to everything else he's done in recent years. (127 Hours excepted, I suppose.) He's so incongruous to the plucky story and cheery "scenery," largely by his own doing, that the magic glamour of all the expensive special effects seemed to fade from my eyes; it was as if I could see Franco wandering around some warehouse covered in green screen plastic.
-- Blondeyonce? No? Doesn't work? Sorry.
-- Terrence Howard joking that getting fired from Iron Man killed his career? Notice the question mark. Is he bitter? Probably a little. He wasn't TERRIBLE in the movie. It's not like Don Cheadle PWNED the role. "I love the fact that 'Iron Man' put me on a world stage and tested my strength of character," Howard said (translation via Nerd Reactor). "I chose not to fight back, not to deal with the allegations, but to continue forward and do what I had to do. I had to start all over: went from making $6 million a movie, back to $60 thousand a movie. But as long as you don't give up you are able ... I'll make $20 million soon. Because I have learned the lessons of yesterday."
-- Maybe it really was Miss Teen Delaware after all.
GirlsDoPorn.com has also revealed additional details about King's video, including that the beauty queen reached out to them, and that she was paid $1,500 for services rendered.
$1,500 also happens to be the amount of money King was looking to obtain at the time to cover travel expenses related to her participation in the Miss Teen International 2012 pageant.
-- Oscar Pistorius on the cover of Time. Outage?
-- I advise Taylor Swift not to engage in a battle of words with Amy Poehler. You. Will. Lose. Reached by The Hollywood Reporter for comment, Poehler, who is active in women's causes -- including a Smart Girls YouTube channel dedicated to empowering younger girls -- said: "Aw, I feel bad if she was upset. I am a feminist, and she is a young and talented girl. That being said, I do agree I am going to hell. But for other reasons. Mostly boring tax stuff. "
-- Carrie Fisher will be back as Princess Leia for Episode VII. Rumors have swirled that original stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Fisher would return to ease the transition to a new generation of freedom fighters. With Fisher’s return (apparently) confirmed, its likely the rest of the gang will also be back in some capacity.
-- Magic Johnson offered Lebron $1 million to be in the dunk contest. He's wavering at this point, which is fine by me. Those porn companies with their timely marketing (and it's marketing at its most elemental level), in this case Sex.com, offered Kobe Bryant $5 million to participate. In the dunk contest, not a porno...though it took me a couple seconds to process that myself. FWIW, Kobe's probably not worth watching dunk anymore. Offer it to Blake Griffin.
