pixelbomb

Why is it that white people are described as finding food,

while non-white people are described as looting food?

Jessica is fat, Jennifer has nice biscuits, Scarlett loves Woody, Hilary hates sexy, Eva is shy, Katie wants to be a designer, Gwen is a designer, and Heidi’s got legs.

Off to a late start, so here’s a quick round-up.

• Jessica Simpson, after religiously following the South Beach Diet and sticking to a gruelling butt-tightening exercise workout, has admitted that she is allowing herself to have a few treats now that her movie has finished. She confesses that she has “cheat days now when I go to the movies and eat a bag of Peanut M&Ms.” Good gawd, a whole bag?! She should be locked up.
• Alias star Jennifer Garner has revealed that she and her sisters call their boobs biscuits. According to her, “Sometimes when I’m on the Alias set and the guys are setting up a camera shot, I’ll ask, ‘Is this a biscuit shot’ and they’ll say, ‘Yeah,’ so I’ll know.” That kinda gives a whole new meaning to biscuits and gravy.
• In a recent Cosmo questionnaire, goddess of the silver screen Scarlett Johansson has admitted that she thinks Woody Allen is the sexiest man in Hollywood. She also thinks “sex is appropriate on the first date, her favourite body part is her feet and she feels sexiest in ‘a man’s shirt’.” Scarlett lusts for Woody?
• Singer/actress (or actress/singer?) Hilary Duff is speaking out against looking sexy. She has called Jessica Simpson and Briney Spears immature and warned that they will regret their sexy on-stage antics. She doesn’t feel that “taking your clothes off or going out and getting wasted every night is a sign of maturity”. This all coming from someone who isn’t even 18 yet. She’s just upset that she now has bigger teeth than a walrus.
• Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria said she barely found the courage to wear a barely-there tangerine bikini on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards. She recalls that she had a nervous episode backstage just before stepping out and that her stylist had to push her out while her girlfriends were cheering her on — “it was (the outfit) classy and beautiful and looks almost like a dress - if you just put the bottom on… I was visually vulnerable.” Pictures of her in a bikini have been plastered around the interwebnet and she’s just getting concerned now?
• Katie Holmes has expressed the desire to play fashion designer and design the wedding dress of her dreams. The star who has graced many a magazine cover is “already browsing through fashion magazines in search for the inspiration for that perfect wedding dress.” Katie, really, it’s not too late. Escape while you still can, we’ll all understand.
• Meanwhile, singer turned fashion designer Gwen Stefani has come into her own. She will showcase her range of designs at the New York Fashion Week. Her plan is to “unveil the floral designs for her spring 2006 L.A.M.B. collection on the ramp as part of her first major fashion show.” She has expressed concern over the show, but has also remarked, “I’m not being treated like a celebrity wannabe fashion designer.” Perhaps Katie should ask Gwen to design her dress.
• And finally, Heidi Klum has said that her two legs are worth £2.2 million (€3.18 million, $3.95 million). Her employer insured them after a London auction house estimated their value. Should she choose to sell them, “she’d probably get less for one of them because of a small scar from a fall.” Actually, I think they’d be worthless without the rest of her attached to them, naked, but that’s just me.

Jessica Alba has confessed that she fantasizes about being president because she loves dominating men.

(My sexiest fantasy is) me in the Oval Office, in a suit, surrounded by male aides, smiling sweetly at the camera, knowing I rule everybody.

I’m all about female empowerment.

So, to date the presidential ballot reads:

[  ] Hillary Clinton
[  ] Christoper Walken
[  ] Macgyver
[  ] Jessica Alba

This would have been a tough decision had Christopher Walken maintained his running, but since he’s out, it’s a no-brainer. My vote is for Jessica Alba.

[via ContactMusic]

Two contestants on Martha Stewart’s new show, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, have been found to have questionable relationships. Contestant Dawna Stone was a former co-worker and classmate of Kelly Perdew, winner of The Apprentice: Season 2. It was also revealed that contestant Bethenny Frankel had romantic relations with the son of Charles Koppelman, the chairman of Martha’s company, who will also be a judge on the show.

“Apprentice” creator Mark Burnett conceded yesterday in an interview with The Post that Perdew recommended Stone — but that he had pushed her for the Trump edition of the show.

Burnett said he was unaware of the connection between Perdew and Stone — who is now a magazine publisher — until after he and Stewart picked her for the Martha edition.

“I certainly had no idea,” said Burnett. “I wouldn’t know who recommended anybody.”

So much for the so-called open casting call.

[via NY Post]

Producer Saul Zaentz has just received the largest payout ever earned by a producer for a film he didn’t even produce.

Zaentz purchased the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy in 1976, and statements in a lawsuit filed by the 84-year-old movie and music mogul against New Line Cinema, a division of Time Warner, reveal just how savvy a move that turned out to be. New Line paid his company an astonishing $168 million in royalties from the three movies.

You would think that Warner would have learned its lesson following the filing of that suit, but earlier this summer it was in the middle of legal woes surrounding the rights to its recent movie The Dukes of Hazzard. A $17.5 million dollar check was cut to settle that dispute. Somebody is obviously not doing their homework.

[via Forbes]

Starting today New Yorkers are being treated to tax-free shopping for clothing and shoes costing less than $110.

On different occasions throughout the year, the Governor and Mayor have designated periods of one week to be sales tax-free for purchases of clothing and footwear (and items used to make and repair these items) costing less than $110. These weeks are intended to encourage shopping and boost business, to the benefit of business owners and shoppers.

Clothing, footwear, fabric, thread, yarn, buttons, zippers, neckties, scarves, hats, uniforms, athletic clothing, and diapers are all exempt from sales tax during these periods. However, jewelry and watches, handbags, umbrellas, pet clothing, and sports equipment are not exempt during these periods.

The city’s 4% sales tax on the same items will be elminated for good at the end of the week, bringing the tax down to 4.375%.

[via NYC]

In an M.I.T. Cryogenics lab, a graduate student by the name of Teresa Baker has perfected carbonated ice cream using a flash-freezing process.

Baker’s work involves liquid carbon dioxide, bulky stainless steel cylinders, heat exchangers, and vanilla ice cream mix, and it may change the way ice cream is made in the $20 billion-a-year industry. For consumers, the novel device could popularize a new type of frozen dessert that combines the chill of ice cream with the explosive fizz of soda pop.

…

As Baker opened valves, high-pressure liquid carbon dioxide rushed through the tubing. It met the ice cream mix in a small steel chamber and the combination sprayed downward into the collecting cylinder with a soft hiss. There, the carbon dioxide expanded to a gas, instantly chilling to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The droplets of ice cream mix solidify into tiny flakes, each about 30 microns across, smaller than the diameter of a fine hair.

…

The powder is dry, extremely cold, and melts instantly in the mouth, releasing carbon dioxide vapor so quickly that the gas travels up the taster’s nose, producing an unexpected but pleasant rush.

‘’It’s like fresh fallen snow,” said Baker, ‘’but it definitely gets sharp.”

An associate professor remarked, “It has a carbonated bite, and it just kind of goes ‘whoof’ on your tongue.”

[via The Boston Globe]

Three men trying to steal fuel from a New Zealand farm Monday ended up setting fire to their own car.

Police said the trio had siphoned diesel into a petrol-driven vehicle. When their car would not start, they examined the fuel pipe using a cigarette lighter.

One click, a boom and the car burst into flames.

[via AP]

Fueled by sunshine and warm summer weather, nearly 500,000 people hit the streets of London yesterday on the second and biggest day of the 41st Notting Hill Carnival. Reuters reports,

From its humble beginnings in 1964, the carnival has grown from what was mainly a children’s festival with a few Trinidadian steel bands to one of the largest street celebrations in the world.

In recent years the carnival has drawn up to a million partiers, enjoying steel bands and West Indian street food in the West London neighbourhood that has become a symbol of the city’s diversity.

[thanks Ben]

[gallery: 41st Notting Hill Carnival]

Angry Flickr users are planning a “mass suicide” to protest new parent company Yahoo’s integrating of Flickr accounts into Yahoo accounts.

Now, angered by a new requirement to tie their member profiles with Yahoo accounts, some Flickrites say they plan to kill off their identities before they can be moved into the new family next year.

“If Flickr really forces me to join Yahoo in 2006 in order to still use my account, I will quit 24 hours before the deadline,” wrote Thomas Müller, a Hamburg, Germany-based artist who shows more than 1,400 photos at the site. On Wednesday, Müller created a protest group, Flick Off, that has attracted almost 400 members.

Yahoo has stated that it plans to migrate all Flickr accounts to Yahoo accounts in 2006. Any Flickr users that do not currently have a Yahoo ID will be forced asked to create one. Flick off!

[via Wired]