- Being hot might not be enough to get actress Mila Kunis off on this one. The "Black Swan" actress received some friendly encouragement from her "Friends With Benefits" co-star, Justin Timberlake, on Monday to accept one Marine’s YouTube offer to attend the Marine Corps Ball with him. Sgt. Scott Moore threw up a Hail Mary in asking Kunis to be his date for the event and the plea came to Timberlake’s attention Monday. He passed word of the offer along to Kunis and urged, "You need to do it for your country." Kunis replied to Timberlake, "I'll go. I'll do it for you. I'll do it." Perhaps she should have taken some time and consulted either her agent or her BlackBerry before responding and committing to something she might not be able to do, because it turns out that Kunis will not be attending the Marine Corps Ball with Sgt. Moore in November. Why is she breaking this brave military man’s heart? Because she has filming commitments that will keep her too busy for traveling. Instead of going to the ball with Moore, she will be filming her role as Theodora in the upcoming Sam Raimi "Wizard of Oz" re-imagining, "Oz: The Great and Powerful," for a 2013 release. She reportedly has another project filming around the same time, although it is unclear what that other project may be. Her publicist has yet to respond to requests for comment on the story, although it would take an extremely ballsy and bold PR flack to look into a camera or speak into a microphone and attempt to offer a serious reason why a hot, famous actress would get a Marine’s hopes up for his dream date only to dash those hopes because she’s either too ADHD to remember what movies she’ll be filming in the coming months or too lazy to double check before saying yes to the request. Maybe Timberlake will handle his own Marine Corps Ball request better, as he has an invitation from Cpl. Kelsey De Santis -- the only female posted at the Martial Arts Center for Excellence at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia -- who posted a video Tuesday asking Timberlake to be her date. Think (and double check your schedule) before you respond, JT…………
- Every professional sports franchise and most colleges are doing it with their home venues, so why not the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority? Selling naming rights is a surefire way to make money without actually having to provide anything tangible to the person handing you millions of dollars. Yes, that leaves your field or stadium with an awkward-sounding name of some insurance company, tech firm or mortgage broker attached to it, but you’ve got the infusion of cash and that’s that. Like any business operating in the United States these days, the MBTA is in dire financial straits and to dig out of its financial hole, is looking to sell naming rights to stations along its routes. MBTA officials say the maneuver would be one way to avoid raising rates, which they claim is a last resort. "You know we won't be putting Yankee names for example," said MBTA General Manager Richard Davey. "But things like Alewife station sponsored by X brand." In exchange for their naming rights dollars, companies would be able to rename -- and brand -- some of the most popular stations like Fenway, Downtown Crossing, and Park Street. Some locals have actually responded favorably to the plan, saying it might be nice to see something different in stations they pass through day after day with no change and nothing of interest to see. Selling naming rights comes on the heels of the MBTA’s launch of an online store that sells Charlie-doctored souvenirs including flip-flops and sweatshirts. Davey said several institutions have already approached the MBTA about branding, including several of Boston’s 577 (approximately) colleges and universities. With that level of interesting, the MBTA would be well-advised to actually set prices for renaming, something it has yet to do. If successful, the effort could actually achieve its stated goal of raising millions of dollars to help in whittling away at the authority’s $137 million deficit……….
- The hordes of would-be all-stars who bailed on Major League Baseball's All-Star Game clearly were not the only ones who wanted nothing to do with the midsummer classic. With big-name players like Derek Jeter and Ryan Braun bailing on the contest and leaving one of the sport’s biggest events without a large portion of its expected star power, fans didn’t exactly flock to watch the game Tuesday night. In fact, the broadcast of the National League's 5-1 win Tuesday on Fox earned a 6.9 rating and 12 share, setting a new record low for ratings for the second straight year. Those numbers represent an 8-percent decline from the 7.5/13 in 2010, which in turn stepped under the bar set by the 2005 game, which had been the standard bearer for unwatchable MLB All-Star games with a rating of 8.1/14. For the ratings illiterate, ratings represent the percentage of all households with televisions tuned into a program, and shares represent the percentage of all homes with TVs in use at the time. What these numbers say is that fans saw the mass exodus of stars from the game and either scanned the TV listings to find something else to watch or had better things to do with their time than watch television on a nice summer evening. Given that baseball’s all-star game isn't an all-weekend event like the NBA’s version of the concept, the low ratings aren’t a surprise. Mix in baseball’s declining place of prominence on the national sports interest scale and, well, you get a new record that no one wanted any part of setting…………
- Life doesn’t seem extremely pleasant in Syria right about now, not if you happen to disagree with the powers that be. The military’s rampage against opposition forces continued Wednesday as Syrian forces killed four villagers near Turkey, rights campaigners claimed. The attack is allegedly part of a growing military campaign to crush dissent against embattled President Bashar al-Assad. The scene in the Jabal al-Zawya region in northwestern Idlib province near the border with Turkey was ugly, with tank-backed assaults on at least four villages, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Assad and his supporters have been struggling to put down widening demonstrations in Syria’s outlying rural and tribal regions. Voices demanding an end to his autocratic rule have grown progressively louder and rather than accept the reality that his time has ended, Assad has deployed massive numbers of security forces and made mass arrests a common sight. Military assaults on small towns and villages have raged on for more than five weeks, sending thousands of refugees fleeing across the border into Turkey to escape the chaos. The arbitrary arrests are hallmark of any campaign of terror and oppression for a dictator whose grasp on power is slipping and they have continued even as authorities have convened what they described as a "national dialogue" conference composed mostly of Assad supporters. Their rage was also directed at the U.S. and French embassies in Damascus, both of which have been under attack this week. A similar scene unfolded in the coastal city of Latakia, where Assad loyalists in surrounded the British Council on Wednesday. These sycophants hurled eggs and tomatoes into the compound while shouting profanities against Britain and Prime Minister David Cameron. Meanwhile, Syrian security forces arrested at least 30 people, including prominent film directors Nabil Maleh and Mohammad Malas, during a pro-democracy protest in Damascus on Wednesday. Of course, getting arrested is always preferable to the fate suffered by singer Ibrahim Qashou, who had composed a song entitled "Assad leave" that became something of an anthem for anti-Asssad groups and was found dead earlier this month in the Orontes river in Hama with his throat slit. Violence is erupting all across the country on a daily basis and the international community has condemned Assad’s government for its actions, but thus far the regime seems fairly indifferent to that condemnation…………
- Virgin Mobile has good news for some of its customers and really bad news for those same customers and many others. On the one hand, the company says it is lowering the price for its smartphones' unlimited data plans. However, it is also planning on slowing the Internet connection speeds for some heavy data users. Wednesday’s announcement falls in line with the wireless industry’s gradual move away from unlimited data plans to penalize the small percentage of heavy users who consume massive chunks of bandwidth and strain carriers' networks. Virgin Mobile can claim it is still offering unlimited data plans while also imposing a performance - instead of financial - penalty for users who go beyond 2.5 gigabytes per month. Rather than the ugly sting of charging people extra for using too much data, Virgin Mobile can say with a smile that it isn't charging heavy data users a penny more while also extricating some serious revenge by forcing those data hogs to wait…..and wait……and wait for what they want. Also, the company seems content to stick by the party like that the new rules affect less than 3 percent of its users. To add another selling point for the change, unlimited data, texting and voice calls will drop $5 to $55 per month and existing customers as of July 19 can keep their current plans as long as their accounts are current. "We are all facing the same situation and this is the best way for Virgin Mobile to maintain the best network experience as data usage explodes," David Trimble, vice president for Virgin Mobile USA, said in a statement. Virgin’s plan falls in line with that of Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless carrier, which ended its unlimited data plan for new smartphone customers last week. AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA, the second- and fourth-largest U.S. carriers, respectively, have already set limits on monthly data usage, leaving Sprint Nextel Corp., the country's third-largest carrier and which owns Virgin Mobile, as the only one offering a truly unlimited plan…………
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