- Her music may not be good, her lyrics and songwriting skills may be nonexistent, but she is a walking freak show and the world always loves those and thus, there was a digital mob scene Tuesday when online retailer Amazon offered fans Lady Gaga's new album for download at just 99 cents. Her second album, just as awful as her first but with much more hype, dropped worldwide Tuesday. Fans in the United States were given an inside track on the album in the form of being able to pay about $5 more than they should have to for the garbage Gaga calls music and they came in en masse for the opportunity. As part of Amazon’s push to promote its new Cloud Drive service, which allows users to store music files on remote servers and stream them over the Internet to their computer or smartphone, the discounted version of “Born This Way” was a mere 99 cents. So many fans responded to the offer that by early afternoon, the retail website's servers had stalled and thousands of fans were saved/crushed after they were unable to download the album in full or listen to its 14 tracks. Within an hour, angry Amazon users began lighting the site up on Twitter and Facebook and verbally excoriating the site on its own review section. One angry user wrote: 'Very disappointed. I guess next time I will pay full price and get the album immediately on iTunes.' Amazon quickly denied that its heavy promotion of the special offer led to the high volume of purchase and downloading delays. It issued the requisite, hollow corporate thank-you to customers for their patience. Amazon posted a message on its Twitter feed saying that the site was 'experiencing high volume' and added: 'If you order today, you will get the full @ladygaga album for $.99. Thanks for your patience.' Those who wanted a physical copy of the album could simply hit up their local Sam Goody, Tower Records or Best Buy and at a Manhattan Best Buy location, the freak show herself turned up to meet fans, pose for pictures and sign autographs. Gaga, real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, showed up like the true freak show she is: in a leather dominatrix-style leather contraption adorned with gold chains, fishnet tights with fishnet hold-ups over them and knee-high lace-up boots. Some fans pathetically began lining up outside the store more than 24 hours before the album dropped for a chance to meet their favorite talent-deprived pop hack. Taken in total, it’s another reminder of why music is quickly heading in the wrong direction and doesn’t seem destined to reverse the trend any time soon……….
- Quickie weddings, fast-food drive-thru style while you sit comfortably in your car aren’t just for Las Vegas anymore. Because not everyone can swing a Vegas run when they want to elope, there has long been a need for cheap, quick and tacky drive-thru weddings in other parts of the country. That need has been filled in tiny Quincy, Mass., where the Lydon Chapel has stepped up to help lovebirds who don’t want a big ceremony but also don’t want to hop a redeye to Vegas or make a cross-country drive while paying $4 per gallon for gas just to have some dude dressed in an Elvis costume pronounce them husband and wife in some 40x40 shack just off the Strip. Lydon Chapel, which has existed for normal chapel-like functions for decades, is now in the business of quickie weddings at its new drive-thru. “Probably I do two or three drive-thru's a week,” said owner Michelle Lydon. Lydon is also a justice of the peace and figured that drive-thru weddings were a good way to expand the business. After all, the cost is next to nothing for the chapel, as all Lydon needs to do is show up, read a few things, make a proclamation or two and that’s all. Plus, adding quickie weddings to the mix has garnered the attention of some of society’s biggest bottom feeders, reality show producers, and one production company filmed a pilot for a show at the chapel last year. The pilot is now being shopped around the major networks and cable networks, meaning Lydon could parlay her decision to add five-minute, in-car weddings into the sort of 15-minutes fame and notoriety that have lifted The Situation, every Real World cast member ever, all D-list celebrity ballroom dancers and all of American Karaoke’s aspiring karaoke champions to their own brief time in the spotlight. Reviews for the drive-thru weddings have been positive so far, Lydon said, and several newlyweds have mentioned that they wanted to have their special day at a Vegas drive-thru chapel but elected to have the big day at Lydon Chapel because their family couldn’t make the roadie to Sin City. And to think, all of this could soon be coming your way on some basic cable network in the form of one more (unnecessary) reality show…………
- Serving time in any prison is difficult, but Chinese prisons definitely have a reputation for being among the most brutal in the world. Still, no one could have imagined the sort of atrocities and human rights violations that were going on in the Chinese prison system, at least according to a story that broke this week. As the story goes, after a long, hard day of manual labor, many prisoners would be subjected to even harsher treatment - being forced to engage in 12-hour sessions of online gaming to rack up credits. Why, you ask? Because the guards at those prisons would then take the online credits and trade them for real-world money, that’s why. There are enough gaming losers out there desperate for credits for their favorite online games that selling credits can be profitable and with a free source of labor handy to game virtually around the clock, the guards saw an opportunity they couldn’t pass up. The story broke because a former prison, speaking under a false name, came forward to tell his harrowing tale of being imprisoned for three years from 2004 to 2007. "If I couldn't meet my work quota, they would punish me physically," the prisoner said. The practice, whether taking place in a prison or in society, is known as gold farming. Gamers the whole world ‘round pay big money for the credits in order to gain control over their favorite games. One game the Chinese inmates were allegedly forced to play was “World of Warcraft,” a renowned dork magnet of a game played by pale, pasty, never-kissed-a-girl losers in countries near and far. The job they did for no pay is one that many free members of society do for a living, but the threat of being beaten or denied food or other modest prison amenities was clearly the motivation for these free laborers. Not that the image of same worn out, dirty and demoralized prisoner being dropped in a chair in front of a flat screen for 12-hour gaming sessions is that far beyond the sort of human rights oppression one would expect from China, but it does show that there are likely many different methods of oppression going on there that no one has found out about just yet…………
- The economy may be having a terrible year, states around the country might be suffering through some of the worst weather in decades and America’s currency and overall international reputation may be taking a beating, but at least one entity in the United States is having a banner year in 2011: measles. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in a report this week that 2011 is one of the worst years for measles since 1996. The CDC is seizing on the outbreak as an opportunity to remind the public to get immunized against the possibly deadly disease even though the public will undoubtedly ignore that advice. After scoring big with its hurricane preparedness campaign by linking it to the idea of a zombie apocalypse, the CDC is playing it straight with measles. The raw numbers are fairly disturbing, as a higher rate of infection this year has resulted in 118 measles cases across 23 states in the period from January 1 to May 21. In a normal year, the average number of measles cases in 56. The outbreak is especially disturbing given that the CDC declared measles “eliminated” in 2000. Additionally, the agency thought it had zeroed in one the cause of any cases that have occurred since then, attributing them to people travelling abroad and bringing the disease home. That assessment actually fits well with an outbreak of the disease worldwide. In France, a whopping 10,000 cases of measles have been reported from January through April. Measles, for the uninformed, is an illness easily spread and contracted because it is airborne and can remain in droplet form for up to two hours in closed spaces. To prevent its contraction, the CDC recommends immunization for infants from six to eleven months with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Anyone one year old and older needs two doses of the vaccine received at least 28 days apart before travelling. Those unfortunate enough to be infected will get symptoms that include rashes, fever, muscle pain, pink eye and sore throat. For an unfortunate few, measles can also lead to complications such as pneumonia or encephalitis. So far, measles has failed in only one respect in the U.S. in 2011: it hasn’t killed anyone, although 40 percent of people with the disease have had to be hospitalized…………
- Ink is forever. It’s why any good tattoo parlor will make sure a person a) is sober and b) gives final approval before tatting up. Dallas Mavericks guard Jason Terry was both sober and in his right mind when he went under the needle prior to the season and he was also supremely confident. In fact, he was so confident that on Oct. 19, 2010 -- a day before a preseason game against the Orlando Magic -- when teammate DeShawn Stevenson had a get-together for his Mavericks teammates at his house and brought his chef and his personal tattoo artist for the players as a team unity exercise, Terry made an extremely bold move. Not bold in the way that Stevenson is bold - his chest, neck and arms are covered with tattoos and he has a bitchin’ Abraham Lincoln tattoo on the front of his neck - but bold in a way that wowed his teammates. Terry got ink of the Larry O'Brien Trophy, given to the winner of the NBA championship, on his right biceps. It was a bold proclamation of his expectations for the veteran-laden Mavs, one that had even Stevenson doing a double take. "When he first got the tattoo, I said he was crazy," Stevenson said of the tattoo. "I didn't say it to him. But I've never been to the [NBA Finals], and for him to have that now. Wow. And he got that tattoo in October, and it means a lot with what we've been through." The tattoo story resurfaced Wednesday night following the Mavericks' 100-96 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder that advanced them to the NBA Finals. It’s the second NBA Finals appearance in franchise history and Terry was on hand for the only other one in 2006. He said he got the tattoo because he had an inkling his team was destined to play for the championship. "Everybody laughed and they thought it was a joke at the time," Terry said of the tat on the inside of his arm. "When they actually see me get it, they were like, 'This boy is serious.' And our whole talk and conversation was about right now, about us getting to this point and winning it all." The Mavs have an excellent chance to do exactly that against the winner of the Eastern Conference finals between Chicago and Miami, with the series starting in one week. Should they finish the task, the tattoo will become that much more legendary, both in the Mavs locker room and beyond…………
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