Pervs in animal costumes, Riot Watch! on Trinidad & Tobago and Tom Morello finally finds something to do

- The Sacramento Kings may not be able to win basketball games, they may receive only the fourth best pick in the NBA draft lottery despite having the best probability of winning the top pick and they may not have a single player whose name the non-diehard NBA fan would know, but at least Kings players care about their fellow citizens. Kings' forward Donté Green was out boating with some friends Monday near Discovery Park in Sacramento and around 7 p.m., they decided to go home. A woman onboard was pulling up the ladder when the driver put the boat in gear, sending the woman flying off the back of the boat and into the chilly waters. "All I hear is somebody yelling, I hear a big splash," Green said. He was able to spot the woman and although the boat Green was on was turning around, he saw several other vessels in the way and decided to dive in. Plunging into the chilly waters of the American River, Green dodged some boats to get to the woman, then latched onto a life preserver that someone threw out to help keep he and the woman afloat. "I honestly don't even think I was thinking -- I was just reacting," Green said about jumping in after the woman. "I was pretty confident in my swimming abilities. It was only a minute, but it felt like a lifetime. It felt like it took forever. Once we got to the boat and everything, I was pretty happy.” Thankfully, unlike this past season for the Kings, the woman didn’t need serious medical attention or to be revived. She was fine, thanks to Green’s quick thinking and solid swimming skills. It’s nice to know that even if fans can’t count on the Kings to give them a good performance on the court, they can count on the players (at least one of them) to come to the rescue in times of danger……

- What to do on a nice early summer day when you and one of your girlfriends are laying around the pool in your bikinis, tanning and talking about the latest episode of The Hills? How’s about casing the nearest parking lot for unlocked cars so you can break in and thieve whatever is inside? Sounds like a lot of fun, if you ask me. It also apparently sounded like a lot of fun to two teenage girls in Lafayette, Louisiana. Early last week, Lafayette police released video of two bikini-clad chicks burglarizing vehicles in one apartment complex. The two can be seen wandering around the parking lot of an apartment complex off East Martial Avenue in Lafayette, pulling on car doors to see if they're unlocked. They are stoned over and over by people who actually remember to lock their doors, but finally the two amateur thieves find a vehicle that is unlocked. In quick succession, they find two other unlocked vehicles and clean out all three. They get away with a number of items including a GPS system, sunglasses and a wallet. Unfortunately, breaking into anything - vehicles, homes, businesses - while dressed only in a bikini doesn’t give one much chance to conceal their identity. As such, police were able to track down one of the thieves within a few days. A 16-year-old girl was arrested and charged with three counts of simple car burglary, while police are still looking for her accomplice. What, you’re having that much trouble getting some 16-year-old thief to roll on her companion? It can't be that hard to get her to talk, just take away her BlackBerry, ban her from watching Gossip Girl and threaten to tell all her friends that she shops for her “designer” clothes at the thrift store unless she gives up her accomplice. What’s actually sad about this story is that you just know there are a lot of dudes out there who would be so focused on two hot chicks in bikinis walking around the parking lot of their apartment complex that it would take them a solid five minutes to turn their eyes away and go call the cops. Why does something like hot chicks in bikinis robbing cars never happen where I live……..

- Maybe you’re asking yourself what the heck Tom Morello has been up to since Audioslave broke up. If you’re an Audioslave fan like myself, odds are that you’re still a little bent about the breakup and wonder if you should be tossing any blame Morello’s way. I can’t answer that definitively, but I can answer the question about what Morello is (and has been) up to. After being a part of great bands like Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, the Nightwatchman and the Coup's Boots Riley, Morello is stepping into another band with none other than Trent Reznor. The band is Street Sweeper Social Club, started when Morello and Reznor. came together for a tour. “We were finishing mixing our record when Trent called up and said, 'Hey, want to do the (Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction) tour?',” Morello recalled. "So all of a sudden the leisurely mixing process became, 'We gotta get this out right now! We've got to start rehearsing for the tour tomorrow!'” Morello also explains that both bands are friends from back in the day, so they have a good rapport. Street Sweeper Social Club was born in 2007, after Morello and Boots Riley played "innumerable" shows together, including benefits and Nightwatchman tours that featured Riley as the opening act. During the NIN/Jane’s Addiction tour, Reznor joined Morello, Riley and company on stage for a rendition of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams” (an awesome, awesome song, by the way). “When Audioslave broke up, we had dinner and I made him an offer he couldn't refuse," Morello remembered. "I told him, 'We're in a band. It's called Street Sweeper Social Club. It's revolutionary party jams.' Then I handed him a cassette tape of 24 song ideas and said 'Write to this.' He was given no choice in the matter -- and to date, he hasn't said 'yes.' But it's been going very well.” Whether you’ll like the "Street Sweeper Social Scene" album, which comes out June 16, depends on whether you’re a fan of Morello’s Audioslave sound or Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails sounds. The album features 11 songs with an overtly political slant and a style that’s a blend of rap and rock that's closer to Rage Against the Machine than Audioslave. Also appearing on the album are Galactic's Stanton Moore (drums), Tony Award-nominated David Gibbs (guitar) and Carl Restivo (Satellite Party, Freedom Fighter Orchestra) on bass. According to Morello, the group is planning a late summer/fall headlining tour of North America. Clearly a workaholic, Morello will continue playing with the Coup, his work as the Nightwatchman and with Rage Against the Machine. Right, because one or two bands would just be slacking off……..

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Today’s edition takes us to a place we’ve never been before: the small SOUTH Atlantic island Trinidad & Tobago. Formerly, T&T was known as the home of former Olympic sprinter Otto Boldon and little else, but no more. When angry prisoners stage a riot at the San Fernando Magistrates' Court and cause enough of a commotion that Crime Suppression Unit and Guard and Emergency Branch officers are called to subdue them and return them to prison, you’ve got something to talk about. As with all good prison riots, this one started because prisoners felt they were being treated inhumanely by the court system. And as always, I’m going to side with anyone who is lashing out at The Man. In this case, I’m going to do that, but I’m also going to stand a safe distance away from the rioting prisoners, mostly because in the course of the riot, they smeared feces on themselves. Yes, you read that right: dudes smeared solid human waste on themselves. I suppose they figured that the cops wouldn’t want to actually touch them if they were covered in crap, but that wasn’t all these rioting prisoners did. They also smeared feces on the walls of the holding bay, then tore down electrical fixtures and wires and used them as weapons to ward off riot officers. Resourcefulness….check. Anti-authority slant to your riot….check. Property damage…..check. Given the constraints these guys were working with, I’d say they scored a solid 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10 on my Riot-O-Meter. The man most responsible for inciting the riot is Deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington, who presides in the First Court. Inmates felt that Wellington failed to address complained that holding cells at the facility were too cramped. Obviously, I don’t care what the complaints and problems are, just as long as they’re enough to cause a riot. So well done, prisoners of the San Fernando Magistrates' Court in Trinidad & Tobago, riot on……..

- Be advised, this next story is revolting to the nth degree and not something to read if you’re likely to hunt down and do horrifically violent things to freaky, disgusting pedophiles who attempt to seduce young boys into sexual encounters involving animal costumes. Oops, did I give away too much? May as well proceed at this point and tell you about the freak that is Alan David Berlin. A.D. Berlin worked as a member of an Allegheny County state legislator's staff and had worked in the Senate about a decade, including the last several years with Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless. According to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, Alan Berlin allegedly had computer chats with a teenage boy about dressing in animal costumes and having sex. For some odd reason, Orie “immediately and indefinitely suspended" Alan Berlin with no pay or benefits when she learned of the allegations. Why? Just because dude was accused of being a pedophile, the lowest possible class of criminal in this or any other society? “As a former ten-year veteran prosecutor who specialized in prosecuting child abuse and child sexual assault cases and successfully convicted numerous sex offenders, I was shocked and appalled,” Orie said in a statement. “I fully and staunchly support the actions of the Attorney General's Office in investigating and prosecuting all child abuse and sexual assault cases -- including the work of the AG's Child Predator Unit.” Harsh words, senator, harsh words. So how exactly did Alan Berlin go about his freakery? Well, he allegedly used the chat name "alan_panda_bear" and talked about various sex acts with the teen, including the idea of traveling to Harrisburg and having sex in the boy's back yard while his parents slept. Sorry, but I just threw up in my mouth, give me a moment…..okay, back….no, I need to go throw up again……okay, I’m good. Are you freaking kidding me? You sick, sick, sick freak. Not only are you such a perv that you want to dress up in animal costumes and have sex with a kid, you get some sort of sick thrill from doing so while the kid’s own parents slept nearby? I know there are a lot of twisted freaks out there, but Alan David Berlin appears to be a match for any of them. “Berlin is also accused of attempting to arrange a meeting between the boy and another adult, and offered to get them a hotel room if Berlin could take photos of them having sex,” according to the criminal complaint. Hooray, another dimension of this guy’s revolting perversion. He also gets off from taking pictures of other people engaging in statutory rape, goodie. Thankfully, the boy's parents found the sexually graphic messages on his computer and contacted authorities. Oh, and the talk of animal costumes was apparently something that Alan Berlin was totally serious about. Investigators from Corbett's office found a wolf and cat-type costume in Berlin's home. He was arrested, arraigned before District Judge George Zozos and taken to the Dauphin County Jail on $250,000 bail - not nearly enough. I know people always say that inmates are especially cruel to anyone who harms children, but hopefully the inmates at whatever prison Alan David Berlin goes to are especially sadistic and receive a full briefing on just what sort of aberrant, horrific acts he was involved in……

Phil Spector set to implode, signs of hockey's irrelevance and a movie rating system change I can get with

- The parties may be divorced, but that isn’t preventing the University of Kentucky and former basketball coach Billy Gillispie from going after one another with vitriol. Gillespie was fired after only two seasons, mostly because UK has completely unrealistic, insane expectations that it’s men’s basketball program will reach the Final Four every year and Gillispie failed to deliver anything close to that sort of performance in his two-year tenure. He was axed, John Calipari was brought in and now Gillispie is going after the money he claims that the school owes him under the terms of his contract. Gillispie filed his claim Wednesday in Dallas, asking for at least $6 million in pay, punitive damages, attorneys' fees and court costs. It took the university all of one day to fire back, filing a countersuit Thursday in Franklin Circuit Court in Kentucky, which the school contends is the proper venue for any litigation involving the coach's former employment. Thee debate centers on whether or not Gillispie was ever formally under contract at UK. Seems bizarre, given that he was there two years and in no other job would someone work for two years without ever actually signing a contract. But the university contends that Gillispie never signed a formal contract but was working under a memorandum of understanding when he was fired after last season. The contract he either signed or was to sign, depending on whose story you buy, contained a buyout clause that Gillispie claims is binding. That would require the school to pay him $1.5 million for four of five years left on his contract. Additionally, his attorney maintains that there was a contract and now UK needs to own up to its end of that deal. "There's a public misconception that Coach Gillispie did not sign a contract with the University of Kentucky athletic association," Demetrios Anaipakos said. "He absolutely did. They drafted it. He signed it. They signed it and their board approved it. Whether you're in Kentucky or Texas, a deal is a deal.” I can find a lot of fault on both sides here, both in Gillispie for not signing the official contract (what were you waiting for, Bill?) and the university for its absurd expectations for its basketball coaches and refusal to honor the terms of whatever sort of agreement it did sign. Just an all-around ugly situation and one that does nothing to improve the image of a Kentucky basketball program that is a shell of its former self……..

- Score one for love. Father Alberto Cutie, the internationally known Catholic priest who admitted having a romantic affair and breaking his vow of celibacy, is jumping ship from the Catholic Church to join the Episcopal Church to be with the woman he loves. “I will always love the Catholic Church and all its members," he said Thursday. "But I want to start today by going into a new family. Here before this community where I have chosen to serve and where I live, I am going to continue to proclaim the word of God and my love for God.” He was welcome into the Episcopal fold at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Miami, Florida, where will pursue the priesthood in the Episcopalian faith. It’s too bad that John C. Favalora, archbishop of the Catholic Church's Miami archdiocese, where Cutie served, couldn’t have taken the high road on this one and let Cutie go without firing off a few final shots to snipe his old buddy in the back as he left. “Father Cutie's actions have caused grave scandal within the Catholic Church, harmed the Archdiocese of Miami -- especially our priests -- and led to division within the ecumenical community and the community at large," Favalora said in a written statement. "Today's announcement only deepens those wounds.” Now is that any way to talk about a guy who is often called "Father Oprah" because of the advice he's given in Spanish-language media? Take it down a notch, Favarola. How about some love, compassion and understanding? Yes, Cutie caused an uproar when photographs of him embracing a bathing-suit-clad woman emerged this month in the pages of TV Notas magazine. He’s admitted to having a two-year relationship with the woman, but Cutie insists that this is a relationship of substance and something he is willing to make huge sacrifices for. The Catholic Church got what it wanted when Cutie was removed from his duties at St. Francis De Sales Catholic Church in Miami Beach and ripped from the airwaves of the Radio Paz and Radio Peace Networks. Ideally, Favarola would just let Cutie go without having to attack him on his way out the door. Let the guy go to the Church of the Resurrection in Biscayne Park, where Cutie is headed, and allow him to begin rebuilding a struggling church there rather than engage in petty sniping. Step your game up, Archbishop Favarola……

- Never have I been more behind a movement than I am with the idea from the American Medical Association Alliance to drop an R rating on any movie with smoking scenes. I find it extremely offensive that smoking in youth-rated movies has not declined despite a pledge two years ago by Hollywood studios to encourage producers to show less "gratuitous smoking.” And while there is no one central cause for kids who start smoking, the fact is that seeing from their favorite stars on the big screen certainly doesn’t help stamp out smoking. “Research has shown that one-third to one-half of all young smokers in the United States can be attributed to smoking these youth see in movies," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, head of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. Fielding went on to cite another study that "found that adolescents whose favorite movie stars smoked on screen are significantly more likely to be smokers themselves and to have a more accepting attitude toward smoking.” Good enough for me, I’m sold. If Fielding and his peeps want to drop an R rating on any movie with smoking in it, that’s cool. If they say the current system of upgrading the rating of films with smoking in them isn’t working, I see no need to argue with them. The Motion Picture Association of America, which ratings for U.S. films, claims it factors smoking into its decisions. To quote Ron Burgundy, I don’t believe you. If putting an R rating on a smoking movie means no one under the age of 17 can (theoretically) see it without a parent or guardian, so be it. The fewer people that see smoking in any medium, the better. No one’s life is made better by smoking, not even the leather-faced, coughing, hacking, wheezing, black-lunged losers who choke down a pack or two of cancer sticks a day. They may think their lives are better, but they are wrong. They make everyone around them miserable any time they smoke and our lives are exponentially better the more places we can eliminate smoking from. So when the AMAA says it wants an R rating for any movie with so much as one smoking scene in it, I salute them and jump on board with both feet. I’m getting on this bandwagon early, but I don’t mind making space for the rest of you to cram on board…….

- How do I know that hockey is irrelevant in these here United States? Because if the sport mattered at all to Americans, NBC wouldn’t be bumping the NHL’s premier event of the season, the Stanley Cup Finals, from its airwaves in favor of five straight nights of the reality series I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! I don’t care if the uber-hot Torrie Wilson is a part of the show, if anyone in the U.S. of A cared about the sport I lovingly call soccer on ice, NBC would not a) be forcing the NHL to play two games in two nights over the weekend to get those games aired on the network and b) ripping the league’s championship series in favor of a reality TV show. I realize that reality series slamming famous people in unusual spots is becoming trendy (see I Get That A Lot, which put famous people in ordinary settings and had them lie about being their famous selves) in the reality TV world, but I don’t see Fox telling Major League Baseball to take the World Series to TBS, ABC letting the NBA know that the NBA Finals will have to be shown on ABC Family or CBS hitting the NFL with a notice that the Super Bowl will have to air on Nickelodeon. I realize some hockey fans will read this and take offense, but hopefully with the decision by NBC and not with what I’m saying. I’m merely commenting on the obvious, that when a television network treats your sport’s championship series with such utter disregard and indifference, it’s a definite sign that people just don’t care about your sport or league……

- This is going downhill quickly. While awaiting sentencing for his murder conviction, music producer Phil Spector wigged (pun intended) out because he wasn’t allowed to keep his favorite hairpiece on in the pen. He was a freaking basket case after spending just a few days in lock up, so how do you think it’s going to go for him now that he’s been sentenced to the maximum sentence of 19 years to life for the murder six years ago of actress Lana Clarkson? Allow me to do the math for you: Spector, 69, would be 88 before he would be eligible for parole. He’s spending nearly two decades in prison and for someone his age, that’s basically a life sentence. Heck, Spector looked near death Friday as he sat slumped and stone-faced throughout his sentencing by Judge Larry Paul Fidler. Fidler also denied a motion for a new trial by defense attorney Doron Weinberg, who said he would file an appeal. “The evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty for the simple reason [that] he did not kill Lana Clarkson,” Weinberg said. Well, I suppose you’re entitled to an appeal, D. “Obviously, he's not very happy," Spector's wife, Rachelle, said after the hearing. "I'm going to stand by him and get him out of that awful place so he can come home where he belongs.” Umm, no you’re not. You can stand by him all you want, but you’re going to be standing beside inmate #495011 as he spends the rest of his life in prison. You’ll also be standing besides his coffin when he dies in prison and the authorities turn his body over to you for burial. Nobody feels bad for Spector because we’ve seen much of the evidence against him and are fairly certain that P. Spector did indeed kill Clarkson in the foyer of his Alhambra, California, mansion with a gunshot to the head. The jurors surely were convinced of his guilty after deliberating for 30 hours in October and announcing a guilty verdict on the second-degree murder charge. Fidler even gave them the opportunity consider the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, but they chose not to. Not only that, this was Spector’s second trial on the murder charge, with his first murder trial in 2007 ending in a mistrial as jurors said they couldn't reach a verdict after 15 days of deliberations. For someone with two firearms-related convictions on his record, a fatal shooting isn’t something that seems too far-fetched for Spector. His own driver testified against him, claiming he heard a gunshot and Spector exclaim, “I think I killed someone.” Not exactly the end result you would have thought of for someone who was the producer for No. 1 hits like the Ronettes' "Be My Baby,” the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'” and the legendary Beatles’ album “Let It Be.” Enjoy the hole, Phil, because something tells me you’re exactly where you belong…….

Politics get interesting in the ATL, Jay-Z gets richer again and a big "Uh-oh!" at the U. of Memphis

- Uh oh. Not that anyone is actually going to be hurt by the fallout from this, but the University of Memphis men’s basketball program is currently in the NCAA’s crosshairs because the biggest-name player to come to campus in a long time - albeit for just one season, in 2007-08 - is apparently a test-dodging, transcript-forging fraud. Chicago Bulls rookie Derrick Rose may have played only one season for the Tigers, but if what is being alleged of him is true, he shouldn’t have even played that long. According to a letter sent to the university by the NCAA, an unidentified player - by all accounts Rose - was eligible to play for Memphis only after a) his transcript was altered before being sent to the school and changed back a month after that submission and b) had someone else take his SAT for him. Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson is circling the wagons and claiming that said the Tigers have no reason to believe a former player -- Rose -- took a fraudulent standardized test prior to enrolling at the university. "If we thought that we wouldn't have played him," Johnson said. Surrrrre. You just because you didn’t think Rose had ripped off a bad Saved by the Bell plot and found someone to take his SAT for him doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. I’d imagine you operate under the belief that anyone who submits an SAT result for admission attained their score legitimately. Thinking and acting otherwise would be impossibly costly and time-consuming: there just isn’t time to investigate every detail of the academic record of every recruit. However, when you give a guy (or girl) a uniform and put them on the field, court or track as part of your team, you tacitly accept any consequences that come if they became eligible fraudulently. The irony is that Rose is gone to the NBA, so the NCAA has no way to punish him. John Calipari has moved on from Memphis and is now coach at the University of Kentucky and by all accounts, the NCAA isn’t likely to charge him with any wrongdoing. The only “penalty” likely to come out of this is Memphis forfeiting its NCAA-record 38 wins from the 2007-08 season and having its participation in the Final Four that season wiped from the record books. At this point, nothing has been decided for certain. The NCAA sent Memphis a letter on Jan. 16, notifying the school of the investigation. The NCAA has asked Memphis to provide copies of the SAT and a Sept. 2, 2008, report by a forensic document examiner who studied the handwriting in the SAT. Yes, they’re going full-on CSI to break down the handwriting on the test. Why stop there? Dust that test for fingerprints or see if whoever took the test licked their fingers, touched the test booklet and left DNA on it. I’m not sure how the NCAA will go about proving that Rose’s academic record at Simeon High School was changed to improve his transcript and changed back a month later, but it can’t be all that hard. Just compare the transcript sent to Memphis with the final, official academic record from Simeon High and see if they match up. The hearing on this matter will take place before the committee on infractions in Indianapolis on June 6. Not that anything that happens to Memphis will hurt those currently in the program, but I’d have to imagine that this isn’t what new coach Josh Pastner hoped to be dealing with when he took the gig. Oh, and there’s also the alleged violation of allowing a person, according to sources Rose's brother, Reggie, to travel on the team plane at no cost on two different occasions. The value of the trips was $1,125. The same person was allowed to stay in the team hotel at no cost on five different occasions for a value of $1,135. Johnson’s counter was that fans are allowed to travel alongside the team all the time if they can afford to pay for it, but that’s not what the NCAA claims occurred here. What’s sad is that this appears to be a very blatant example of cheating and of a guy doing everything the wrong way, all to go to college for the mandatory one year before making the jump to the NBA, and no one is really going to be punished. Gotta love the dark side of college athletics, I guess…….

- Memo to everyone out there with enough of a disregard for their own health and well-being to eat at McDonald’s, ever: should the workers at your local McD’s get your order wrong, dialing 911 is not an appropriate response. You might remember that a few months back, a grmatically-stunted woman who wasn’t happy with her McDonald’s order called 911 because the restaurant wouldn’t give her a refund. When the dispathcer asked if there was a manager on hand to deal with the situation, the caller replied, “She say she are the manager.” Well done, and if that woman isn’t married or engaged, I think I may have found her soulmate: Raibin Osman of Hillsboro, Oregon. My man Raibin rolled through the drive-trough at McDonald’s with his younger brother and when they pulled away with their order, Osman reailized that the juice box that was supposed to be included with the order wasn’t there. So what did R. Osman do? You guessed it, he dialed 911. He said he called emergency dispatchers after the drive-through employee wouldn't come back to the window to give him the juice box. "We ordered some food and we went home and our order wasn't in there," Osman said in the 911 call. "And my little brother is crying for his orange juice and stuff.” No OJ in the fridge? Can’t make a run to the 7-11? Osman’s father, Raof, stepped to his son’s defense and claimed that the 911 call was an innocent mistake. Raof Osman claimed that things only escalated when the McDonald's employee laughed at his son’s poor English. He also said his son dialed 911 in hopes of having deputies help him get the food. Right, because that the job for the police to focus on, helping you get your McD’s juice box. I’m not that familiar with Hillsboro and maybe it’s a low-crime area where the police don’t have a lot of hardened criminals to battle, but even then I can’t imagine that busting local fast food joints who squeeze customers on their juice box orders is high on the priority list. What’s beautiful about this whole charade is that it actually netted not just one, but two 911 calls. The McDonald's employee who dealt with the irate Osman family also called 911 after feeling threatened by the men. When deputies finally showed up on the scene (and you just know they were thrilled to be there), Raibin Osman admitted it was not an emergency call but said he didn't know what number to use, according to the sheriff's office. "You need help from the police, you have to call the 911," Osman's father said. "I don't have any other number." Just a thought, but do you have a phone book? If so, the non-emergency police number is probably in there, Raof. Surprisingly, the Osman family has been going back to the same McDonald’s regularly since the incident. So say what you will about these tools, but at least they don’t hold a grudge. They also don’t seem to hold many collective IQ points in their heads, but I guess you can’t win ‘em all in life……

- File this under the heading of things that just don’t matter. Jay-Z is close to signing a deal that will bring his future recordings to Sony, but this deal is relevant only if you are involved in the business side of Jay-Z’s operation. For fans, his music is going to continue to be great and he will continue to be the top dog in the hip-hop game because of his great beats and even better lyrics and flow. As for that business side of things, the deal will link Jay-Z's Roc Nation releases with Sony's Epic Records for distribution and at this point, the agreement "is 95% complete" according to sources close to the negotiations. A formal announcement could come any time in the next few weeks, but the real angle on this story is Jay-Z’s departure from longtime label home Def Jam. The split cost Jay a reported $5 million (which is amount as big a deal as that whopping $750 fine Major League Baseball slapped White Sox pitcher Bobby Jenks with after admitting he intentionally threw behind a batter), but it does leave H.O.V.A. in control of his future master recordings. That’s a very big deal for a dude whose eleven solo records (including the live "Unplugged" album) and collaborations with Linkin Park and R. Kelly have sold more than 29 million units. The new record deal follows on the heels of last year’s pact between Jay-Z and Live Nation that included touring, publishing and albums. While the financial details of this new deal are still being hammered out, that contract with Live Nation totaled $150 million and includes a partnership in Roc Nation, as well as the rapper's own recordings and tours for the next 10 years. A key to the decision to sign with Columbia would seem to be Jay-Z’s close close relationship with Columbia co-chairman Rick Rubin. In the meantime, I guess Jay-Z can continue showing up courtside to watch his pal LeBron James try to save the Cleveland Cavaliers from a premature end to their season……..

- If you’ve spent the last few decades wondering if Archie Andrews would choose Betty or Veronica (and really, who among us hasn’t done that?), you finally have your answer. Comic book dorks, er, fans of graphic novels must be thrilled to finally know that Archie -- who spent decades in high school, flirting with girl-next-door Betty Cooper and heiress-next-door Veronica Lodge -- is getting married to Veronica. Archie Comic Publications, which produces the comic, announced this week that the August issue of the comic will be a marriage issue featuring the wedding between Archie and Veronica. Sadly, the publisher actually has blogs for each character in which some loser ghost writers actually pens words that are supposed to be from the characters. “I am so excited, I am getting Married to Archie. There is so much to do, so many plans to make. I wonder if Betty wants to be my Maid of Honor? I bet she is so happy for me!" “Veronica” writes on her blog. The marriage issue is due to arrive at comic stores in August and on newsstands in September, according to the publisher. “It's the milestone 600th issue and we're serving up the Archie story of the century as Archie marries Veronica!!!” the publisher says on its Web site. Props for the three exclamation points. You know something is exciting when there are three exclamation points at the end of a sentence. If there were only two, you wouldn’t be sure whether or not to be excited and four would just be overkill, but three lets you know you should be pumped. The issue in question will be 32 pages long and “take a look at Archie and his friends after they graduate college!” I know I can’t wait and will be sure that when the issue hits newsstands in September, I’m right there to….buy some other magazine and be glad I have better things to do in my life than be absorbed in a comic book romance…….

- Is it a problem when the leader of your city’s police union, and second-highest ranking member of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, says he wants to beat your city’s mayor with a baseball bat? Some people might see that as a big concern, but I actually enjoy the concept. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin walking around knowing that Sgt. Scott Kreher wants to cave her head in with Louisville Slugger adds a nice bit of intrigue to the political scene in the ATL. “I want to beat her [Mayor Shirley Franklin] in the head with a baseball bat sometimes when I think about it,” Sgt. Scott Kreher said earlier this month during a presentation he was giving to the city council. I thus find it very odd that within days of his hilarious remarks, the 17-year department veteran was suspended. Why? Because dude had the courage to speak his mind and be honest? Because he’s talking about exhibiting the very sort of violent, physical and abusive behavior that cops are commonly rapped for? He even explained what “it” was that made him want to treat the mayor like a Roy Halladay fastball: because police union contends the city is not honoring workers' compensation claims for cops whose careers ended when they were seriously injured on the job. That sounds like a good reason to go after someone with a potentially lethal weapon and bludgeon them into submission, no? Besides, Franklin admits to being badly rattled by Kreher’s words, which makes this even better. “Some people think I'll just shake it off," she said of the sergeant's threat. "I can't shake off an officer at City Hall -- not in his shower or in his front yard, but in official capacity -- threatening to hit me in the head with a bat. That is a severe act of violence. When you hit someone with a bat, you intend to kill them.” Again, the problem is? I realize that even if the claims by Atlanta police that NovaPro, a San Diego-based private insurance company, has refused or made it difficult for them to get the medication they need to alleviate pain and replace medical equipment are true, it doesn’t justify doing or saying whatever a person wants to say or making threats. It’s just that I don’t take issue with someone saying they’d like to go Ryan Howard on a political leader’s dome, that’s all. Mayor Franklin’s office has managed to ignore the pleas made by the officers thus far, so maybe someone needed to step up and say what Scott Kreher said. It’s a shame that Kreher was guilted into doubling back on his comments and apologizing to Franklin in a letter, which was published on the union Web site. Don’t worry about that, S. I know you were strong-armed into that apology by your superiors and that you didn’t really mean it when you called your words "inexcusable," explaining they were out of "frustration and anger.” As much as I despise law enforcement, I equally loathe The Man and in this case, I’m choosing to sit back and enjoy the beauty of those two squaring off……..

Absurdities in MLB All-Star voting, the Juice maintains his sense of entitlement and more rampant corruption in Mexico

- When I hear that a performance-enhancing drug-using, lying, cheating slugger is fourth in the National League All-Star balloting for outfielders, several thoughts cross my mind. First, I wonder whether the 442,763 (and counting) fans who have voted for Manny Ramirez are doing so because they are actually die-hard ManRam or L.A. Dodgers fans and are too blinded by their love affair to realize that Manny is a PED-using fraud or if they are voting for him ironically, reveling in the possibility of seeing the game’s most famous active cheater take the field in the All-Star Game. Secondly, I wonder if cheating has become so ubiquitous and such an accepted part of the game that fans aren’t even fazed by revelations that a player is ‘roiding up. Lastly, I wonder what commissioner Bud Selig must be thinking, knowing that a guy he dropped a 50-game ban on for using a PED could be in the outfield to start the All-Star Game the same week he’s eligible to come off the suspended list. I can't decide if I love the idea of ManRam in the ASG or if I really, really love it. Don’t get me wrong; anyone who cheats and uses ‘roids or any sort of PED is a certified piece of crap. That being said, I think it would be flat-out awesome in the most ridiculous, absurd sense of the word to see a guy who will have played less than half of the games for his team, was suspended for being a drug-using cheater (women’s fertility drugs, no less) and achieved his numbers thanks in large part to those PEDs start the All-Star Game. What would it say about the fans who vote for the game? As I said at the top, it would say that either a) they have an incredible grasp of irony and the absurd or b) are mindless sycophants with no morals or dignity who will support a player no matter how big a douche bag he is. Either way, it’s a triumph for the ridiculous and I for one could not be more excited about the prospect of women’s-fertility-drug-user ManRam starting in left field for the National League at the All-Star Game……

- Let’s just save some time and say which Mexican officials - at all levels of government - aren’t corrupt and in bed with the drug cartels currently running roughshod over their country. The latest incident involving corrupt Mexican politicos came over the weekend when more than two dozen Mexican public servants, including 10 mayors and several police chiefs, allegedly linked to illicit drugs and organized crime were arrested in simultaneous raids in Michoacan state. Because the sting to take down these allegedly corrupt officials was so secret, even the state’s governor was in the dark about the operation. Gov. Leonel Godoy said, that even he did not know about the raids until after they began. The arrested officials all have alleged ties to the Michoacan Family, a major drug cartel in Mexico. “This is an effort to take apart the protection nets that were operating in coordination with the Michoacan Family, an effort to recover the geographical spaces lost to the hands of organized crime,” said Ricardo Najera. The Michoacan Family is a particularly nasty group, having been blamed for some extremely violent, ruthless acts across Mexico in the past year, including the killings last September of seven people and the wounding of more than 100 others. The one major concern Godoy expressed about the sting was whether the legal rights of those arrested were observed. I can’t attest to that, but with that many arrests made in cities such as Morelia, Uruapan, Tepalcatepec, Apatzingán, Buenavista and several others, I’m guessing there is a solid to high chance that a right or two was violated at some point. In spite of that, the key numbers from the sting would be: those 10 mayors and police chiefs arrested, along with 17 current and former government officials, including five municipal presidents and two directors of municipal public security. So for all of my Mexican amigos y amigas out there, I’d advise you to be a little more patient than normal if you notice that your local municipality is operating even less efficiently than usual the next few days. After all, there’s an above-average chance that one or more of your local political leaders is now in the clink and it will take some time to find a new corrupt political leader, er, choose a new humble public servant to fill the opening…….

- It’s goats to the rescue for the state of Maryland. Faced with out-of-control plant growth along several highways around the state, the State Highway Administration dispatched 40 bearded goats to control plant growth. The goats were sent to one particularly overgrown area and have been munching in an enclosed area for a week; they will stay until September, but will be put back to work next spring. The goat brigade is part of Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's "Smart, Green and Growing" legislative package, aimed at reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020. At this point, it’s a pilot program that will be evaluated after two years to determine if it has the potential for application on a larger scale. So aside from the benefits of being able to pay goats much cheaper wages (How long until the ACLU steps in on behalf of the goats and demands better food, longer lunch breaks and higher salaries?), the state will also reap environmental benefits including a reduction of the state's carbon footprint and protection of the area's bog turtles, listed as threatened. The financial rewards are obvious - saving $10,000 over two years always helps. So how did the state’s decision-makers settle on goats? Other animals were considered, but cows were ruled out because they are too heavy, and their hooves could stomp the small, colorful-shelled bog turtles, while sheep are notoriously stupid and also have a penchant for eat moving things, like the turtles. Maryland isn’t the first to embrace the grass-cutting power of goats, either. Earlier this year, officials in Hempstead, New York, bought goats to trim the grass for a 50-acre park and preserve. The goats -- Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful, Happy and Doc may be named after the Seven Dwarves in “Snow White,” but in the town of Hempstead, they are a giant help in cutting maintenance costs. The movite for implanting a goat mowing unit in Vail, Colorado was a little different. Residents wanted to find an alternative to pesticides and chemicals, so officials introduced 500 weed-eating goats in public areas. In nearby Denver, you’ll actually see signs announcing "Goats at Work" to alert passers-by to the animals' presence on vacant lots managed by the park system. Environmental organizations are hailing the use of goats in lawn maintenance projects as a huge step forward, but I do have to wonder who draws the short straw of cleaning up the goat droppings once the grass is mowed…….

- M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel had a lot of success with their music venture last year, forming She & Him and releasing Volume One. You just knew that success would inspire other musically-minded actors and actresses to team up with alt/indie rockers and put out their own albums. Singer-songwriter Pete Yorn and smokin’ hot Scarlett Johannson have become the latest to embrace the trend. Yorn was already on track for a busy 2009, releasing his fourth album Back and Fourth on June 23, but he's also scheduled to release a duets record with Johansson this fall. Entitled "Break Up," the nine song set is set for a September 8 release, with the lead single, "Relator," is available starting Tuesday via iTunes and streaming on the album's website. Johannson has actually ventured into music before, releasing her first album "Anywhere I Lay My Head" in 2008 with direction from TV on the Radio's David Sitek. It wasn’t exactly a revolutionary piece of musical pioneering - the album featured 10 Tom Waits covers along with one original - and reviews were mixed at best. To date, Nielson SoundScan reports that "Anywhere I Lay My Head" has sold 19,000 copies. Yorn was working on "Break Up" two years before "Anywhere I Lay My Head" was released and he said in a prepared statement that the concept for “Break Up” came to him after a bout with insomnia. “When I finally passed out, it came to me in a dream. I woke up and the whole thing was in my head, fully formed,” he explained. However, it wasn’t until he previewed the recordings for some of his friends and received a positive response that Yorn finally decided to release "Break Up." Fans of older rock will enjoy the fact that the album features a cover of Big Star's "I Am The Cosmos” alongside eight Yorn originals. In the meantime, Yorn is looking to drum up interest for Back and Fourth by touring as the opening act for Coldplay on its current U.S. tour. The tour wraps up on June 4 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but that will be far from the end of a busy, busy year for Yorn…..

- This is freaking rich. O.J. Simpson may have lost his battle against armed robbery and kidnapping charges, but clearly the Juice has not lost his sense of entitlement or his belief that he can get off for any crime, no matter how guilty he may be. After a jury convicted him on charges including armed robbery and kidnapping in October and Judge Jackie Glass hit him with a sentence of up to 33 years in prison, with eligibility for parole after nine years, the Juice and his legal team decided not to give up the fight. Five months later, the Juice’s attorneys appealed his conviction to the Nevada Supreme Court, claiming his trial was "fundamentally unfair." I suppose that when you’ve gone to trial after turning two people into human Pez dispensers and been acquitted, being on the wrong end of a guilty verdict for any charge at all might seem fundamentally unfair. To fight the perceived injustice, Simpson's attorneys filed 47-page brief Tuesday, accusing Clark County, Nevada, District Judge Jackie Glass of judicial misconduct, saying her behavior constituted "cumulative error that was so egregious and prejudicial that the defense could not get a fair trial.” Riiiiiiight. Among the charges by the Juice’s legal team are that Judge Glass interjected herself into the trial proceedings, issued improper jury instructions, improperly admitted hearsay evidence and refused to allow defense attorneys to fully cross-examine witnesses or ask prospective jurors about their "known and unknown" biases. They also played the race card by alleging that Judge Glass allowed the prosecution to strike the only two black jurors from the jury pool. Now I’m no attorney, but to the best of my knowledge, both the prosecution and defense are allowed a certain number of strikes for jurors, to remove those jurors from consideration for the case without a detailed explanation. What I find laughable is the portion of the filing that whines about the court giving “no deference to the fact that Simpson brought a lot of baggage into the courtroom.” Baggage? What baggage? Your client was acquitted of a brutal double homicide, that sounds like a positive to me and not a negative. Also, he’s a former NFL player and people love ex-jocks. Again, I understand that it has to be impossibly difficult for the Juice to come to grips with the notion of being convicted of a crime he committed, but it’s true. He set up a memorabilia-rescue mission with new pal Clarence "C.J." Stewart and four others to retrieve items that O.J. believed had belonged to him from dealers Bruce Fromong and Al Beardsley. He was among the six-man posse that busted into a room at the Palace Station Hotel Room and Casino in Las Vegas on September 13, 2007, brandishing weapons and going all A-Team on Fromong and Beardsley. I’ve heard the audio recordings from that night and the Juice’s voice is clearly heard shouting out threats, instructions and demands that no one is to leave the room until he gets what he wants. Now you might want there to be judicial misconduct during the trial and you might need that judicial misconduct to rectify your world view in which the Juice has a deal with the devil that allows him to commit any crime and get away with it, but that doesn’t make it so……….

Why beards make America dominant, North Korea making up its own rules and the beauty of Drew Rosenhaus being fired

- U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Never has there been a moment to be more proud about being an American than right now. No, I’m not referring to the celebration of the many brave men and women who have given their lives over the years to defend freedom, although those are truly heroes. Actually, I’m talking about freaking Beard Team USA, which brought home the championship at the 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championships, held in Anchorage, Alaska over the weekend. Led by new world beard champion David Traver, the Americans administered a beard beatdown to the rest of the world. If you haven’t seen the pictures of these freaks yet, you’re missing out. Traver won the title by rocking a 20 ½-inch-long beard, cultivated over 2½ years. He was one of 300 competitors from around the globe who descended on Alaska to show off their hirsute countenances. Of course, he was the only weirdo who had a beard dyed several colors and woven into the shape of a snowshoe, which earned Traver a commemorative gold pan and a salmon fishing trip. Sadly, now that he’s reached the top of the beard mountain, Traver plans to shave off his face blanket. He says it’s because once you’ve reached the top of the facial hair world, there's nowhere to go but down. He'll shave for whoever writes the biggest check to Covenant House, a charity Traver is involved with. “I'm retired as of yesterday," he explained Sunday from Girdwood. "It's like my wife said, 'You can't go any higher.'” Yeah, I’m sure that’s why your wife was cool with you shaving off that thing you called a beard. Either that or she got tired of having to look at and be around that shaggy mass of ugly hanging from your face, bro. Overall, it turns out that Alaska is the best breeding ground for freaks looking to grow obscenely out-of-control facial hair/ A quarter of the international beard prizes went to Alaskans, with David Casswell of Kenai taking third in the shorter beard category, Douglas Renfro of Anchorage winning first in long beard and Norman Pendergraft from Eagle River taking second in the category. As for Traver, he doubled up by also taking first in the freestyle beard competition, the first such title for an American. Key in Traver’s success was his beard stylist - yes, beard stylist - Ledjha Carson. The two actually brainstormed on designs for the contest and considered - get ready for a laugh - eagle wings, moose antlers and a sled dog team. As you can see, beard and mustache competition is the next big sport in the United States, so I expect to see all of you out there wearing your David Traver jerseys…or whatever the frak those freaks wear when they parade up on stage with those wild animals they call beard on their faces……

- Drew Rosenhaus is easily the most hated agent in all of professional sports. Dude is well-spoken, interesting and colorful, but he’s also an incredibly arrogant, ruthless and disingenuous a-hole who squeezes teams for ridiculous amounts of money to sign his clients even though they’re not worth the dough. His clients are some of the top players in the NFL, most notably team-killer Terrell Owens. However, it’s another of Rosenhaus’ clients who is rapidly becoming my favorite NFLer. Pro Bowl receiver Anquan Boldin is in the midst of a showdown with his team, the Arizona Cardinals, because he wants to be traded. He’s not happy in Arizona and as such, he instructed his agent to get him out of the AZ. So far, those negotiations have failed and Boldin isn’t happy with Rosenhaus, which would explain why he’s firing the uber-agent. Boldin has informed Rosenhaus, the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL Players Association of his plans to fire Rosenhaus amid stalled attempts to force a trade or a new contract. I honestly couldn’t stop laughing and/or smiling when I heard the news, because Rosenhaus is that detestable. He can certainly afford to lose a client, as he still represents more NFL players than any other agent. “Regarding Anquan Boldin, let me say that I have great respect for him. I'm hopeful we can work this out and he can return to the Rosenhaus Sports family in the near future. We are proud to continue to represent his brother, D.J. Boldin," Rosenhaus said in a statement. The ass-kissing agent ‘til the bitter end, eh Drew? Don’t want to bash Anquan because a) you hope he might change his mind, return to your agency and make you some jack and b) it would make you look bad to potential clients. But what amuses the heck out of me is that you know Rosenhaus was pissed when he found out that Boldin had fired him, even if he can afford to lose a client. What I wouldn’t give to be in the room when Rosenhaus receives that notice from Boldin. Probably not so calm and professional then, eh Drew? As for Boldin, he’s arguably one of the NFL’s toughest players and a guy who is loved by fans and teammates. He returned to the field last season after literally having his face broken a few games prior, showing his toughness in case there were any doubts. He helped lead the Cardinals to the Super Bowl alongside fellow top-tier wideout Larry Fitzgerald. Of course, Fitzgerald is also a huge part of the reason why Boldin wants a new deal in the first place. After Fitzgerald signed a four-year, $40 million extension in 2008, Boldin began to look at his own contract and feel underpaid. In preparing for his breakup with Rosenhaus, Boldin has reached out to other agents in recent weeks, including Kennard McGuire, CAA agents Tom Condon and Ben Dogra, and two of Fitzgerald's agents, Eugene Parker and Paul Lawrence. However, any official decision on hiring a new agent will have to wait. Under NFLPA rules, a player must wait five days after firing his agent before hiring a new one. Really, it doesn’t even matter who Boldin chooses because he’s fired Drew Rosenhaus and that’s more than enough to make me happy……

- Some strange new faces could be making their way to Hardin, Montana in the months ahead. Hardin, population 3,400, sits in the southeast corner of Montana and it’s a small town with a big problem. Located in the state's poorest county, Hardin is being ravaged by a terrible economy that is choking the life out of the town. Making matters worse, Hardin borrowed $27 million through bonds to build the Two Rivers Regional Correctional Facility in hopes of creating new employment opportunities. The prison was up and running two years ago, but so far it hasn’t housed a single prisoner. The downtown area of Hardin is all but deserted at midday, the Hardin Mini Mall is already shut and residents are losing hope fast. With a new, empty prison sitting there as a reminder of their town’s financial woes, the city council last month voted 5-0 to back a proposal to bring Gitmo detainees to the facility. "It would bring jobs. Believe it or not, it would even bring hope and opportunity," said Greg Smith, Hardin's economic development director. So the town leaders approve of welcoming Gitmo prisoners, but the state's congressional leaders have lined up against the plan. “Housing potential terrorists in Montana is not good for our state," Max Baucus, the state's senior Democratic senator, wrote to Smith. “These people stop at nothing. Their primary goal in life, and death, is to destroy America.” In other words, when these people get a chance to blow up something American, we want it to be someone else’s state, not ours. Because let’s face it, if they aren’t housed in Montana, terrorists would never have a single reason to launch any sort of offensive targeting anything there. For what? So they can blow up some John Deere tractors and cows? Residents of Hardin are mixed when it comes to supporting the relocation of Gitmo prisoners to their town. While all of them want to see the 464-bed facility, state-of-the-art detention facility used, they also fear for their safety. All of the security equipment at the facility is in place, ready to be powered up. Bright orange prison jump suits emblazoned with the words "Two Rivers" are stacked in a storage room along with shoes, towels, blankets, even razors and underwear, for prisoners. The interior of the facility was designed using single, double, and dorm-style cells, but it could be modified to keep detainees separated from one another and despite being intended to be used as a medium-security prison, it meets maximum-security criteria. Those who oppose bringing in Gitmo detainees worry that the prison is only five blocks from city hall and thus puts the entire town in danger should any prisoners escape. Some Hardin residents have vowed to move away if any Gitmo prisoners are relocated to the Two Rivers facility. Personally I’m rooting for it to happen, partially so we can finally close down Gitmo and turn the page on that national nightmare and partially for the great mental picture of some small-town yokels caring for hundreds of angry, Middle Eastern terrorist suspects, good times……

- Was a real crime committed on the set of CSI? If you believe the lawsuit filed by a Southern California couple against CSI writer and producer Sarah Goldfinger, the answer is yes. However, there will be no need for DNA testing, fingerprinting or analyzing blood spatter patterns in this case. Real estate agents Melinda and Scott Tamkin contend that the crime in question was Goldfinger and her writers ripping off their names and likenesses for use in an episode of the show. The Tamkins’ claim that two characters on the show were modeled after them. They’re suing Goldfinger for defamation and invasion of privacy and seeking $6 million in damages, claiming that the episode hurt their business. In the episode in question, a Las Vegas real estate agent named Melinda dies mysteriously and her husband Scott is a suspect in her death. The CSI couple's last name was actually Tucker, but the Tamkins’ suit claims that their actual last name was originally in the script before a last-minute change. So where is the link between Goldfinger and these two? Apparently Goldfinger was shopping for a new home in 2005 and nearly bought a house from a client of the couple's. She eventually pulled out while the deal was in escrow, on amicable terms. It would seem that she did get something out of the deal, namely inspiration for a script. The question now is whether Scott and Melinda Tamkin can prove that Goldfinger intentionally used their names and likenesses and that the characters on the show were in fact based on them. CBS Corporation and Jerry Bruckheimer Television were also named as defendants in the suit, but of course neither party would comment on the case. Something tells me there will be a settlement on this one and that it will go quietly into the night, but Goldfinger should be more careful from here on out when appropriating names and life details from real people to characters in her scripts……

- Ah, North Korea, making up rules as it goes and giving a perpetual middle finger to the rest of the world in the process. As the rest of the “civilized world” fumes about the North’s recent actions in testing long-range missiles and allegedly firing up productions at nuclear facilities, North Korean leaders are taking an increasingly defiant stance. As concerns over its nuclear aspirations grow, the North is threatening military action and vowing that it is no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. "The Korean Peninsula is bound to immediately return to a state of war from a legal point of view, and so our revolutionary armed forces will go over to corresponding military actions," North Korea said through its news agency. That statement came after South Korea joined a U.S.-led effort to limit the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, so you know that the North is angry now. Don’t get me wrong, South Korea was absolutely correct in joining the 6-year-old Proliferation Security Initiative because of "the grave threat [that weapons of mass destruction] and missile proliferation are posing to global peace," as Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said. Taking nuclear weapons out of play is a huge priority for every world power, as unleashing one of those bad boys could very easily touch off a chain reaction that spawns World War III. Still, I can’t help but feel that the North was simply waiting and watching for something - anything - that would give it an excuse to declare war on its southern neighbors. "Our revolutionary armed forces ... will regard" South Korea's participation” in the PSI as a declaration of war," the North's official news agency said. Funny, but the rest of the world seems to view most everything the North is doing these days as a declaration of war. In turn, ever since the April launch of a North Korean rocket, Pyongyang has considered almost any opposition a "declaration of war.” I can see where the North might feel like a target, what with the U.N. Security Council sanctions and growing participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative. However, the problem is that a) they continue to operate under a veil of secrecy and b) they have a history of aggressive and irresponsible action in these sorts of situations. If it’s me and I’m condemned by at group from the U.N., I just laugh it off, but not the North Koreans. There is no body in the world less respected or feared than the U.N., largely because it has no real teeth behind its declarations. But in the North’s view, the security council’s sanctions are a declaration of war and must be met as such. North Korea is even being opposed by one of its closest allies, China. Firing five short-range missiles this week -- two Monday and three Tuesday -- isn’t going to help matter. Political posturing is rapidly escalating around the globe and it’s only a matter of time before someone switches from verbal salvos to actual salvos. Just don’t expect North Korea to play by any of the normal rules of engagement because they definitely do not feel like those rules apply to them……..

Reveling in last week's Mexican prison break, an NFL player channels his inner Randy Moss off the field and a crazy cat lady I want to hurt

- Let’s just say that I am 100 percent a-ok with this next story. If the resignation of a senior Mexican prison official is the price to pay for a great prison break story in which 53 inmates literally walk out of said prison without a shot being fired, I’m good with that. So when I heard that nearly a week after dozens of inmates walked out of a prison in Zacateca and that the central Mexican state's top security official has resigned because of the incident, I had no bad feelings at all. If Alejandro Rojas Chalico feels that he can no longer serve as the Zacatecas secretary of public security, so be it. Gov. Amalia Garcia Medina can accept Chalico's resignation or not; I simply don’t care. As long as exciting things like this prison break take place, I don’t care who goes down as a result. I am openly rooting for the continued success of the 53 escapees who left Cieneguillas prison in the city of Zacatecas on Saturday with the help of 20 men in evading capture. As I said before, these men broke out their amigos without firing a shot, so props to them for a great plan. The prison break took fewer than five minutes, which is extremely impressive. Yes, the escapees are believed to be connected to the Gulf Cartel, a powerful drug cartel operating in northern Mexico, but you can’t be choosy when it comes to enjoying prison breaks. They just don’t happen often enough to only root for incidents involving non-drug cartel members. Besides, it gives Mexican law enforcement a chance to hone its skills by tracking down men who are targets of the international criminal police organization Interpol and some of the most dangerous men in all of Mexico. These dudes are bad enough hombres to merit the issuance of an "orange notice," and even though I know nothing about Interpol’s color codes, I have to think that orange is a pretty solid color ranking. So to summarize, I don’t feel the least bit bad about Chalico’s resignation or the fact that 53 hardened criminals are now free and roaming around Mexico. I choose to find the silver lining, use these lemosn to make some lemonade and enjoy the excitement of a prison break……

- Randy Starks, this is no good. Channeling your inner Randy Moss (and can’t that mean so many things?) and going all slow-speed battering ram on a traffic cop is not only a bad idea, it’s not even a very badass move if you’re going to indulge your criminal tendencies. Starks, a defensive end for the Miami Dolphins, was arrested early Sunday after police said he struck an officer with a slow-moving Freightliner truck, according to a police report. He faces a charge of aggravated battery, hardly a reputable charge for any self-respecting thug looking to build some street cred. As do so many indiscretions by pro athletes, this incident took place on South Beach. Shortly after midnight, officers saw the Freightliner truck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on South Beach's Ocean Drive. What drew their attention to Starks’ whip? How about having some 13 people inside, a vehicle designed for four, including a woman sitting on the lap of Starks, who was driving? That was enough to draw the heat for Starks and his crew, so officers began pursuing the truck on foot for about a half-block and pounding on the rear driver's-side window. Not surprisingly, the vehicle kept on moving, probably because the music was cranked up so loud on Starks’ pimped-out sound system and he couldn’t hear anything other than his bangin’ beats. Eventually the officer caught up to the truck again, and it stopped after the officer pounded on the window a second time. “I slowly approached the side door and just as I reached it the vehicle accelerated and started moving forward and slightly to the left," the unidentified officer writes in the report. "The vehicle's path caused the driver's side of the vehicle to strike me in the chest pushing me back and pinning me against a vehicle stopped in traffic in the northbound lane.” In other words, Starks swerved to the left and pinned the cop against another vehicle. Was it intentional? I suppose that’s for the courts to decide, but Starks had better hope his actions weren’t purposefully trying to hurt a cop. Courts tend to look down on that sort of thing. Not only that, a second officer was pounding on the passenger's-side window, so the odds that Starks had no clue about what was happening are slim. He did eventually stop his truck and was arrested, but that was far from the end of his troubles. A police check showed that the truck's license plate was not assigned to that vehicle, so Starks faces a charge for that as well. Not exactly the night out on South Beach that Starks and his crew had in mind, I’m sure. The questions now are a) whether this will land him in jail and b) how long the NFL will suspend him for. Well done on all counts, R., you must be very proud of yourself…….

- This should absolutely eliminate that stereotype of the crazy cat lady. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been cursed/blessed to have a crazy cat lady in any neighborhood I’ve lived in, but the residents of one neighborhood in Lodi, Calif. know firsthand what the experience is like. In this neighborhood lives crazy Tina Teixeira, who clearly a) loves her cats and b) is certifiably insane and has no discernable relationship with reality. See, Crazy Tina Teixeira has a lot of cats on her property and she took great offense when she noticed people regularly speeding down her street - a 35 mph zone - at 20-30 miles over the speed limit. Was she concerned for her own safety or the safety of other human being in the area, especially kids? As you’ll soon see, not only was she not concerned with the safety of the neighborhood kids, she was actually a threat to their safety. In an insane effort to curb speeding on her street, Teixeira posed a sign with the words, "Hit a cat, I'll hit your kid." Yes, this nut bag is threatening to hit people’s children if they hit one of her cats. I literally don’t even know where to begin. First off, you psychopathic bitch, how do you get to the point of likening human life to cat life? And make no mistake, that’s just what this loon is doing. "You don't want me to hit your kid so don't hit mine. You hurt mine, that is just like if I went over and ran over your kid. Basically, that is what I was intending," said Teixeira. Dammit skank, they are CATS, not PEOPLE. Just because you are so desperate and pathetic that you can’t find an actual loving relationship with a human being doesn’t mean you can elevate your cats to the same status as actual humans. Second, if you can’t keep your cats out of the street, it doesn’t matter how fast people drive because if they are hit by a car going 35 mph, 45 mph or 65 mph, they are going to be dead, dead, dead. Second, is everyone who drives down your street a neighbor or someone you know? If not, how are you going to find out who they are and where they live? Thirdly, what about people like me, who don’t have any kids? What do you do then, you certifiable nut? You put this sign up in a neighborhood located precariously close to a school, which is very classy. Just be glad that I don’t live near you, because if you put that sign up and came out yelling at me about my driving speed, as Teixeira admits she often does, I’d probably speed up and aim for either you or your cats, b’otch…….

- So many potential suspects, where to begin? Police in New York may think they have an idea of who was responsible for detonating an explosive device that blew out the windows of a Starbucks coffee shop in an Upper East Side neighborhood over the weekend, but I wouldn’t be so sure. The blast rocked the Starbucks on 92nd and 3rd avenue. Early indications are that the time of day the blast- between 3:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. - took place echoed that of a pattern of unsolved early morning blasts that have occurred outside the British Consulate, the Mexican Consulate and the Armed Forces recruiting booth in Times Square over the past two years. “The similarity is the time. The Mexican consulate, the British consulate, the Times Square bombing event at the recruiting station, we have this event. They all happened between 3:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. that's the immediate similarity we are looking at,” said Commissioner Ray Kelly. That great Ray, but do you have any idea how many people out there who could be pissed at Starbucks? Customers who have been paying 200-300 percent too much for a freaking cup of coffee, fired baristas, loser musicians who can’t get their songs included on those lame music compilations Starbucks sells, owners of smaller coffee shops who have been squashed by the corporate coffee conglomerate that is Starbucks…..and the list just keeps going. The point is that when you’re charging $7.00 for a cup of mediocre coffee, pushing crappy music on your customers and employing freaks with an average nine piercings in various parts of their bodies, you piss off a lot of people. So go ahead and talk to potential witnesses, review security camera tapes and do what you feel you need to do. The fact is that no one was injured in the blast and Starbucks was closed at the time, so clearly whoever was responsible for the explosion didn’t want to hurt anyone. "We don't know the motive. Obviously it is a cause for concern, but we are going to do an in depth investigation," Kelly said. "Starbucks has been victimized in the past in other cities. So we are looking into that issue as well.” Seems like a good idea, the little guy striking back against the massive, greedy corporate giant. Good thinking, commish……

- So maybe Reaper isn’t completely dead…..yet. Sure, things look admittedly bad for what is the CW's lowest-rated hour-long show. One of its lead actors has landed a leading role on a new show on a different network, its own network hasn’t given it a spot on the fall schedule and there really aren’t any positive signs for the show. In spite of that, there is one small chance that Reaper survives and makes a comeback this fall. If ABC Studios, which produces it, is able to hammer out a deal to air it as a syndicated series, Reaper could be back come the start of the new television season in the fall. The reason the show still has a chance as a syndicated program is that the CW recently revealed its plan to turn its Sunday night programming over to affiliate stations. Thus, ongoing talks between ABC Studios and CW affiliates could land Reaper on Sunday nights on your local CW affiliate (any who isn’t proud to be a CW affiliate?). One issue even if the show does return is the status of Tyler Labine (who plays Sock opposite Brett Harrison's Sam). Labine has the lead in Sons of Tucson, a new Fox comedy recently picked up for the fall. Theoretically, Reaper would be his first commitment, but if the show is merely a syndicated show floating out in space and not attached to any specific network, his contractual obligation to Reaper could be rendered null and void. Oh, and then there’s the issue of show creators Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, who have signed a two-year deal with 20th Century Fox TV that calls for them to leave Reaper. So I suppose fans should be rooting for the show to come back in any form, but the question seems to be if it would be worth it to make a return if it’s a neutered, watered-down version of Reaper…….

Evidence of why people still love a flawed John Daly, a Greek recap and Iran goes all totalitarian dictator on its people

- Good to see that some 12 years after becoming famous as a statutory rapist, Mary Kay Letourneau has moved on to bigger and better things and finally made something of her life. Either that or she’s still the same classless, trashy skank, just 12 years old. After hearing that Letourneau spent her Saturday night hosting a "Hot for Teacher" night at a Seattle bar, I’m going with the latter. Making the story even weirder is the fact that her former victim and now husband was the DJ at the event. Yes, that wacky couple who came together when he was a sixth grader looking to get after it with his teacher and she was an elementary school teacher looking to commit child rape back in 1997. It’s impossible to say whether the affair would have come to light if Letourneau hadn’t been impregnated by sixth grade student Vili Fualaau, but the reality is that she was. She got knocked up, the affair got exposed and Letourneau served time in prison after being convicted of statutory rape of the then 12-year old Fualaau. Letourneau was arrested while she was pregnant with Fualaau's first child and served 6 months of a 7-year sentence. She somehow managed to get early parole and made good use of that nice break by getting caught having sex with Fualaau just weeks after her release. The second time around, the parole board was smarter about handling her and it wasn’t until she’d served five years behind bars that Letourneau finally got out prison. By that time, Fualaau was legal and the two were married a short time later. They dropped out of the spotlight for a few years (what a loss that was for the rest of us), mostly because at that point there wasn’t the whole statutory rape angle and they were just another May-December romance between a convicted felon and the man she loved. That changed when Fualaau decided that his great aspiration in life - aside from hitting it with his teacher, which he clearly accomplished - was to become a DJ. Because of that, Mike Morris, owner of the Seattle-area bar Fuel, decided to drum up some business by bringing in the Letourneau-Fualaau freak show. Despite outcries by many in the city who say the event sends the wrong message, Morris say the event is all in good fun. “They lived it and they also paid for it," says Morris. “People can look at it the wrong way, but we're doing it for fun. And because she served her time and her sentence and she realizes what she did was wrong, but now she's just trying to live her life.” Mmm hmmm. Look, it’s your bar and you can do what you want with it, but giving any opportunity to a scumbag like Letourneau based on a truly despicable act is just bad form, bro…..

- There is now one less hurdle standing in the way of a great eighth season of 24. And with that show, you can never be too sure of any given season coming off as scheduled. Whether it’s Kiefer Sutherland getting touched up for a DUI, shutting down production for script rewrites or a Hollywood writers’ strike, every season of 24 seems like a high-wire act, and that’s before you even get to the dramatic plots of individual episodes. This time, the hurdle cleared is the apparent resolution of the issues between Kiefer Sutherland and fashion designer Jack McCollough, who accused the 24 star of breaking his nose with a swift head-butt at an after-party for the Met's Costume Institute Gala in New York. The incident occurred on May 6 after a dispute involving the designer and Brooke Shields. Sutherland is alleged to have stepped in to defend Shields and gone all Mike Tyson on McCollough. Yet as the criminal case against Sutherland proceeded and McCollough debated civil litigation, the two somehow managed to resolve their differences, laying the foundation for criminal charges to be dropped. Sutherland's reps are professing his regret about the incident (What, Jack Bauer can’t say “I’m sorry” on his own?) and that McCullough was injured. For his part, McCollough wished the actor well and is seemingly cool with the dismissal of third-degree assault charges against Sutherland, who is still due in court June 22. So a bit of a curious resolution, but I guess in Hollywood, famous people still get away with acting like thugs, even if it is as a high-society gala…….

- Look at you, Iranian government, going all Big Brother and abusing the concept of censorship like nobody’s business! With the country’s presidential elections looming on June 12, the Iranian government has blocked access to Facebook, mostly because reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi -- a former prime minister considered a threat to current hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- created a Facebook page for his campaign that has more than 5,000 supporters on the site. Seeing a possibly legitimate candidate build support, the inner tyrannical fascist in Ahmadinejad came out and he quickly moved to shut down access to the site within his country’s borders. Those attempting to visit Facebook received a message in Farsi saying, "Access to this site is not possible.” According to news reports from the region, the Masadiq Committee, made up of representatives from Iran's intelligence ministry, judiciary and others had ordered the action. That’s cool, but I think we all know who was behind the decision. What’s bizarre is that after a few hours, the blockage was lifted, but was then reinstated. No explanation has been given for the block, but I suppose that when you are a repressive, dictatorial government that regularly tramples all over your citizens’ human rights, explanations aren’t your forte. Still, when you’re an opposition group looking to topple such a regime, going online is probably your best option. At least online, your country’s fascist dictator can’t actually run you over with a tank, tear gas you or sic riot police on your ass. Clearly cognizant of that reality, Ahmadinejad's challengers are increasingly turning to new technology to spread their message. In a country with an estimated population of more than 66 million and some 47 million Iranians with cell phones and 21 million with Internet access, it’s a good approach. So to all of the members of opposition groups in Iran who are clearly fighting a tough battle, stay strong. You are in the right and you cannot allow The Man to keep you down, no matter what. Fight the power……

- Bless John Daly’s heart. Dude may have more demons than any of us can ever comprehend, but he also has a big heart to match his outlandish personality, large appetite for women, alcohol and gambling and huge game on the golf course. He’s suspended from the PGA Tour right now because of his many indirections, but JD is playing abroad and even being out of the country hasn’t kept him from making a very cool gesture to a fellow player in peril. After Phil Mickelson's wife Amy was diagnosed with breast cancer last week, Daly decided to honor her during Sunday's final round of the BMW PGA Championship by donning a pair of bright pink golf pants. Sports leagues and teams often wear pink to show support for breast cancer research, so Daly’s tribute was a fitting one. “I had a pair, so I figured I'd do that for her today. I thought it would be a good gesture," Daly said of his trousers. "I know Phil very well and I know Amy. I've known them for a long time -- we've played the Tour together. She's a great lady. She has always been a sweetheart to everybody.” Aside from Daly joining the creepy category populated by anyone who actually uses the word slacks, he’s right on point. He also said that he has not yet spoken to Phil Mickelson, who is taking time off the Tour to be with his wife, but said he had been impacted personally by breast cancer. “I sent out a media message," Daly said. "He's probably surrounded by callers right now and I didn't want to bother him. I'm sure everybody on Tour and everybody in the world is thinking about her. There's been some [breast cancer] in the family and a lot of friends. It's just a tough thing women have to go through. But if they caught it in time, it is curable.” Agreed and agreed, J.D. It’s a small gesture but a very cool one and it underscores why Daly is still something of a beloved cult figure on the golf scene despite his many, many demons…..

- Ah, the stress of midterms. It was midterm week on Greek, but everyone’s midterm week was brutal for a different reason. For Rusty, Calvin, Dale and Jordan, it was their art history midterm. Knowing that a rugged slate of essay questions awaited them, the foursome took a unique approach to studying. Initially, Calvin, Rusty and Dale were setting up a study group of their own. Jordan invited herself in, partially to prepare for the exam but also because (as she later admitted), she missed hanging out with Rusty and having him as a friend after she decided they couldn’t hang out or be friends because she was with Andy, Rusty’s former Kappa Tau little brother, and she and Rusty couldn’t seem to be just friends. The study session is a way to begin rebuilding that bridge, but Andy isn’t cool with the arrangement. He calls Jordan numerous times while she’s studying with the group at Rusty and Dale’s apartment, calls she sends to voicemail. When Andy works around that by calling Calvin’s phone, Calvin doesn’t realize Jordan is avoiding Andy and he hands her the phone. IN the ensuing conversation, Andy breaks up with Jordan. It’s merely one of the myriad of distractions that throws the group off of Dale’s meticulous, neurotic study schedule. When memorizing dates, playing art history-themed board games and hashing over facts gets old, Rusty takes the group on an impromptu field trip. They take a walk to the lecture hall where their class takes place and Rusty uses the hall’s projector to put up a replica of the Cistine Chapel’s roof on the ceiling. The display definitely helps the group understand Michelangelo’s master work better and seems to score Rusty major points with the newly single Jordan, who calls it “amazing.” However, in a plot twist that wouldn’t have surprised even Stevie Wonder, Andy calls Jordan back and pleads for her to take him back. Once the study session breaks up and everyone heads home, Jordan tells Rusty about the phone call and repeats that she does still want them to be friends. In a man’s play, Rusty owns the fact that he can’t be just friends with her because he wants more. In an honest, straightforward way, he tells her that he likes her too much to just be friends. It seems like a kamikaze move, but it turns out to be the right one. The next day (actually later in the same day), during the art history exam, Jordan passes a note to Rusty (Passing a note? Is this college or fourth grade?) telling him that she feels the same way about him that he does about her and that she wants to be more than friends. Unfortunately, the professor sees the note being passed and is about to fail Jordan and Rusty for cheating, along with Calvin and Dale for passing the note. Jordan saves all four by asking the professor to read the note and see that it has nothing to do with the exam. The professor obliges and actually reads the note out loud, which of course a professor would actually do during a midterm exam. Even though the corny, sappy contents of the note draw a few laughs from the class, everything turns out well when the professor allows Rusty, Calvin, Dale and Jordan to continue taking their exams. Rusty and Jordan are both happy about their new relationship, so midterm week wasn’t so bad for them in the end. Same can’t be said for Cappie and Casey, who found themselves facing a tough women’s studies midterm. When Cappie suggests and all-nighter to prepare for the exam, Casey hesitates because of their history and the fact that she’s now with Max, who is still abroad for a month working on a research project. Her apprehension goes away when she finds out that their study session will also include Delia, a girl from their class who Cappie has apparently been seeing. That night, the group meets up at a local coffee bar and Cappie instantly regrets the decision to take part in the study group once he sees Delia approaching….along with another girl from the class he’s also been hooking up with lately. Things go smoothly for all of a few minutes, right up to the point where one of the girls asks Casey if she’s seeing Cappie. Casey says no, but the conversation then leads Delia and this other girl to realize that Cappie has been sleeping with both of them. He and Casey flee the scene because obviously they can’t continue studying with two girls who now hate him. They move things to the library, where the overflow crowd of procrastinating students looking to study for midterms and a crabby librarian who repeatedly hounds Casey for talking too loudly once she bumps into fellow Zeta Beta sister Ashleigh make studying impossible. Kicked out of the library by the overbearing librarian, Cappie suggests Dobler’s as an option. That works for a while, but the combination of alcohol and the bar closing sends them in search of yet another study location. Cappie suggests the Kappa Tau house, but by the time Casey stops for some coffee to fuel their all-nighter, Cappie is asleep on a couch in the house’s common room. Casey wakes up Cappie and the studying resumes - until Rusty pops in to tell Cappie about his decision to finally confront Jordan with the truth about his feelings for her. Rusty’s monologue prompts Casey and Cappie to examine the same issues in their own relationship. She asks if they can just be friends, mostly because she’s been told by Ashleigh that Cappie and Rebecca Logan broke up because he wasn’t over her. Cappie admits he still has feelings for Casey and suggests that she still has feelings for him too. She won't admit it directly, but it sure seems like he’s right. Ultimately, Cappie throws down the gauntlet and declares that they just won't work as “only friends.” A stunned Casey asks what he’s saying and Cappie declares that she knows full well what he means. So is it friendship over? I doubt it….in fact, I’ll go ahead and say no way on that one. Elsewhere, Rebecca Logan is having midterm problems of her own. After she parks in a faculty lot near the library, her car is towed the night before a big paper is due. Her laptop is in her car, meaning it (and her paper) are locked up in the impound lot. She asks Ashleigh to drive her there, but in order to allow Ashleigh to get some study time in, Evan Chambers offers to drive Rebecca to get her car. Getting to the impound lot is one thing, but getting the car back is another. The owner of the lot isn’t around and after hours of waiting for him to show up, Evan decides to try a different tact. Because Rebecca only needs her laptop, he tries to boost her over the fence so she can use her key to get into her BMW and get her laptop. Of course, any good impound lot has a guard dog. This lot has a German shepherd who startles Rebecca, causes her to drop her key and then eats the key. Evan’s next idea is to buy some hot dogs, come back and use the food to distract the dog. While Rebecca feeds the hot dogs to the guard dog, Evan sneaks over the fence. Unfortunately, the dog sees him and gives chase. Because Rebecca’s car key is a smart key and unlocks the door whenever it’s within a few feet of the car, the locks open when Evan and the dog pass by her whip. Evan opens the door and shoos the dog inside to save his own hide, then realizes that doing so wasn’t at all helpful. Now, the dog is in the car along with the laptop. Evan’s next bright idea is to let the dog out of the car, have Rebecca grab the laptop and get out while he distracts the pooch by running. Like his preceding plans, this one fails too. Evan and Rebecca end up inside the car, trapped there by an angry dog that goes about ripping, scratching and biting anything it can get ahold of on the outside of her nice, silver BMW. Ultimately, both of them fall asleep inside the car. In the morning, Rebecca wakes up first and actually manages to finish writing her paper. Using her laptop’s Internet connect card, she emails the paper to her professor and averts disaster. Shortly after Evan wakes up, the owner of the impound lot shows up and finds them, ending an interesting night/morning. I liked the episode for the most part, even with Dale on screen quite a bit. His presence usually annoys the crap out of me and makes the show less watchable, but not so much tonight. Tune in next week, when I’m sure there will be a new round of drama and more than enough of it to go around……

Telling homeowners' associations where to stick it, fall TV changes and why Judge Paul A. Magnuson is forever my hero

- I don’t know many people for whom prom ends up being a highlight of life. When you’re in high school, it seems like a huge event, but one you get some distance from it in your life, you see just how ridiculous it is. Kids spend a lot of money on clothes they’ll only wear once, they go through the agony of finding a date and show up for what is invariably a lame and ridiculous theme punctuated by crappy music and terrible dancing. With all of that said, why not do something to have a little fun with your prom and make it a unique experience? That’s the approach Maranda Smith of Cumming, Ga. took in preparing for the West Forsyth High School Prom. In looking for just the right prom dress, Smith decided to do some web searching. She discovered the idea to create an entire dress out of the tabs on top of soda cans and thought the idea was something she could replicate. The project began more than a year in advance, as compiling enough pop can tabs to fashion an entire dress isn’t something you can do overnight (unless you’re Kate Moss, of course). Smith convinced her mother to buy more canned drinks and slowly the tops started adding up, but not quickly enough. It was then that Smith enlisted the help of r friends and even some teachers at West Forsyth High School. "All my friends, they are pretty much the ones that gave me the majority of the tabs," Smith told. "I had friends who would put them in Ziploc bags. I had friends who would mail me those Ziploc bags.” Once Smith accumulated about 3,000 tabs, she began constructing the dress. Her construction technique consisted of attaching two tabs back-to-back with the scratchy sides facing each other, then weaving them together with plush ribbon to create a row. She would then combine rows to begin building the dress, which oddly enough has no lining and no layering. Smith says that the one row covers everything and she just has to wear a slip underneath it. Thankfully, Smith finished the dress in time for prom and she got the chance to be the one girl at the prom who didn’t have to worry about some other chick showing up wearing the same thing (which I’m told is a big concern for girls). So while prom is still lame and very much overrated, props to Maranda Smith for doing something to improve it at least a little bit……

- You may recall that back in December, I lauded U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson as a true American hero. Why? Because he helped keep my (and millions of other Americans’) dream of an 0-16 NFL season by the Detroit Lions alive. The Lions were 0-14 and about to play a game against the Minnesota Vikings. The problem was that the Vikings’ two mammoth defensive tackles Kevin Williams and Pat Williams, were facing a four-game suspension from the NFL over their positive test for a banned diuretic. Losing the Williamses would have dealt a massive blow to the Minnesota defense and given a much better chance for victory to the Lions, which was the last thing anyone needed. The Lions killed the same dream in 2001 and the Miami Dolphins did so in 2007, so having it happen a third time would have been catastrophic. Thankfully, Judge Magnuson was on the case - literally. He temporarily blocked the suspensions back in December because he needed more time to consider the case after hearing several hours of arguments from the league and the NFL Players Association. Well, Judge Magnuson has had time to consider the case and….he’s decided to throw out most of the Williamses' claims and dismiss a lawsuit brought by the NFL players union on behalf of the Williamses and three New Orleans Saints players also facing suspension. And you know what? I’m cool with all of this. Magnuson can throw out these claims and remand the case to state court if he wants, because the dream has already been realized. The Vikings had the Williamses on the field, they defeated the Lions and Detroit ran the table in reverse, 0-16 baby! I don’t have any particular affinity for Pat and Kevin Williams outside of their role in helping keep the 2008 Lions winless, so at this point it doesn’t matter if they’re suspended for four games, eight games or the rest of their lives. Whether the argument by their attorneys that league officials knew a supplement called StarCaps contained a banned diuretic back in 2006 and did not specifically notify players holds up in court now, I could not care less. So know that I bear no ill will toward you, Judge Magnuson. You played your part in making my dreams come true and I will never forget that…….

- So nearly every TV show worth watching has begun its summer hiatus, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still some news in the world of television. Obviously, most of that news comes as the various networks have their “up fronts,” which are basically staged news conferences where a network rolls out its falls lineup, introduces new shows and tries to build interest for the coming season. From the past week of up fronts, the key pieces of news for the shows I follow and write about here are: 1) NBC is thankfully bringing back Chuck, although the actual announcement didn’t come until after the NBC up front. Unfortunately, Chuck’s return won't happen until after the Winter Olympics in 2010, 2) NBC has basically cut its season in half, with Heroes remaining on Monday nights but moving at 8 p.m. and ending in time to make way for Chuck to take over its time slot, post-Olympics, 3) The CW is once again moving Smallville, this time to Friday nights. I can’t even recall all the times the show has been moving during its first eight seasons, but I’ve learned to roll with the changes. There is speculation that Smallville’s ninth season could also be its last, which seems like a solid decision if that’s how it goes down, 4) Reaper is done on the CW, meaning Tuesday night’s episode will be the series’ last one after two seasons. That’s ironic because when the show first appeared, I HATED it and ripped it. Over time, I would watch it here and there and have actually enjoyed it for most of Season 2. it’s still not a great show, but it’s decent enough that I’ll be slightly sad to see it go. So those are the main points of the network up fronts as they relate to what you usually read here. There are scores of new shows on every network and as I obviously haven’t seen any of them yet, I don’t have much to say about them at this point. But fear not, as they begin to air and reveal how crap-tacularly bad they are, you can bet on me being there to rip them mercilessly……

- Who among us hasn’t dreamed of dropping a ginormous, Bunyan-esque fork outside our business at some point? Anyone who has ever dreamt of owning their own business has had that dream and probably even people who have never wanted to own a business have had it as well. Damien Watel of Stone Oak, Texas not only had that dream - he made it a reality. Watel erected an 18-foot-tall silver fork outside his business off Stone Oak Parkway after paying San Antonio artist Gilbert Duran more than $20,000 create the oversized utensil. Watel calls the oddly shaped sculpture “art”, I call it the realization of a lifelong dream, but idiots at the Stone Oak Homeowners Association call it an “eyesore.” There always has to be someone there looking to ruin a good thing, but that doesn’t mean the SOHA is anything but a bunch of no-vision-having ass clowns. No, the organization is demanding that Watel either take his giant silver fork down or cover it up. What makes me even sadder is that rather than face a fine and possible litigation, Watel is erecting a massive cinderblock wall to hide the statue from view. No! Don’t cave in, weakling. Tell the Stone Oak Homeowners Association to f**k off and if anything, you build a special platform for that giant silver fork to make it stand a few feet taller. Heck, jam a giant silver spoon, knife and salad fork into the ground and complete the set. Whatever you do, don’t back down. Yes, Watel is doing all of this to attract attention for the Ciel and Caio2 restaurants he owns, but his reasoning for putting up the ginormous fork doesn’t matter. Oh, and what exactly is the SOHA so pissed about? As you might guess, it has to do with the sort of bureaucratic bullsh*t that groups like homeowners associations thrive on, namely that Watel failed to file an application with the HOA for the construction of the sculpture. I agree with Watel’s line of thinking that since the large fork is art, he doesn’t need permission from the SOHA to build it. Bottom line here, Watel is correct and the SOHA is wrong when it contends that the fork is an advertisement for his business and therefore needed to be approved by the association ahead of time. Heck, Watel did eventually file an application with the SOHA and it was summarily rejected. He then filed an appeal, which was also rejected. There is nothing sadder in this country than self-important, pompous groups like the Stone Oak Homeowners Association thinking they can go around telling people what sort of structures and items they can put up on their own property. You can suck it, SOHA, and if it were up to me, Damien Watel would take that 18-foot silver fork, dust it off, turn it sideways and stick it straight up your candy ass……..

- I’m torn on "Colin," a new zombie feature that is receiving rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival. On one hand, industry “experts” are praising this movie like they’re being paid to do so, largely because of that fact that it cost a mere $70 to make. Director Marc Price put the film together on a shoestring budget and if you believe the hype, it could be the next big thing at your local multiplex. However, my minds hearkens back to another low-budget, “revolutionary” movie that was supposed to be an amazing watch: The Blair Witch Project. I don’t remember the exact totals on what the cost for that train wreck was, but I do know how much I would pay to destroy every piece of film from it, rewind time and make sure its filming never happened: every cent I possess or have ever possessed in my lifetime. Blair Witch was a horrific abortion of a movie, uber-annoying from start to finish, without any real drama or intrigue and not nearly as scary as it was made out to be. The one chick in the movie (whose name I am not inclined to look up) I would literally have reached through the screen to choke the life out of two scenes into the movie if that were possible - she was that annoying. So maybe it’s unfair to tie “Colin” to “Blair Witch” just because both are critically acclaimed and made on the cheap, but I can’t help it. Price is receiving intense interest from Japanese distributors for the rights to the film, along with interest from some major American distributors. “We were almost fainting at the list of people who were coming [to the final market screening of the film],” said Helen Grace of Left Films who is helping the film's publicize the film in Cannes. “Representatives from major American distributors -- some of the Hollywood studios.” Some of the details about how Price put his film together are pretty interesting, including the fact that he advertised for volunteer zombies on Facebook, borrowed make-up from major Hollywood blockbusters - including 'X-Men 3' - and taught himself how to produce special effects on the cheap. “The approach was to say to people, 'OK guys, we don't have any money, so bring your own equipment,'" the director stated. Although he had plenty of help from a ragtag band of friends and volunteers, Price shot and edited the feature mostly on his own over a period of 18 months while working nights part-time as a booker for a taxi company. He took a unique slant on a typically cheesy genre by telling the story entirely from the zombie's perspective. Out of that vision came a movie that Price calls a zombie film "with a heart.” Response to his vision has been very strong, so hopefully “Colin” is able to end any similarities to “Blair Witch” at hype and production value and actually be a decent movie whose stars I don’t want to reach through the screen and bludgeon to death……..