Wednesday, April 16, 2008
KEEP UP THE CATS, JAMES BLUNT!
4:42PM Jess McGuire | And now for some late afternoon idiocy…
Earlier today we wrote about the adorable feline fisting James Blunt’s broken pinky, and in the piece described his music as “boring” and “rubbish”.
Shortly afterwards, Frances M Benz – a devoted James Blunt fan – piped up in the comments section for the post “OBVIOUSLY, YOU MUST ALSO DISLIKE THE LIKES OF JAMES TAYLOR ect. IF YOU ARE SO BORED WRITE ABOUT YOUR MOM!!! JAMES KEEP UP THE CATS & IGNOE IDIOTS WHO HAVE NO EAR FOR MUSIC!!!!”
Cut to your Editor and Associate Editor chuckling about the comment later in a Gmail chat, basically dwelling on the “KEEP UP THE CATS” bit because it reminded us of the infamous All Your Base Are Belong To Us phenomenon’s use of English.
Clem: IF YOU ARE SO BORED WRITE ABOUT YOUR MOM!!! JAMES KEEP UP THE CATS. I am so intrigued as to what “keep up the cats” may mean
Jess: Oh, because I said James Blunt’s music sounded like a cat getting fisted while someone plays acoustic guitar. Arf!
Clem: oh. HAHAHAHA – so in essence they are admitting it sounds like that
Jess: HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN – KEEP UP THE CATS
Clem: FOR GREAT JUSTICE
Jess: I feel like making James Blunt tshirts now
Clem: KEEP UP THE CATS! with Blunt giving a thumbs up
Jess: WAIT MINUTE FOR ME PLEASE GREAT JUSTICE
And so, for no real reason whatsoever other than the fact we’re mildly bored, we present the closest thing to a picture of James Blunt giving a thumbs up besides text saying “KEEP UP THE CATS”
We’ll let you know when the t-shirts are ready for purchase.
(Please feel free to make your own James Blunt KEEP UP THE CATS picture and send it in, your Editor has the Photoshop skills of a drunken mentally impaired Colubus monkey…) More » 
Al Pacino And His Interminably Boring Stories
2:00PM Mark Graham | Al Pacino made a guest appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman last night to promote his new film, 88 Minutes (aka Nick Of Time 2: Nicked Again!). Let this clip of Al Pacino putting Dave Letterman and the rest of the viewing audience to sleep with his Ted Striker-esque stories be a lesson to all of you up-and-comers in Hollywood; should you ever get called to sit on the chair next to Dave, Jay, Conan, Jimmy or Craig, the most important thing you can do is to PRACTICE YOUR ANECDOTES. And if you get called to do Carson Daly’s show? Don’t worry, no one is watching. [CBS, video by Molly McAleer] In an unprecedented move in the nearly 100 year history of Hollywood, Marvel and Paramount are banding together to turn the phenomenal trailer for Iron Man into a full-length movie. We can’t wait! [The Onion] The thing about Scientology that creeps us out the most is the fact that even the ones who get away are crazy. [YouTube] If they cast the Yo Quiero Taco Bell dog in Beverly Hills Ninja instead of Chris Farley, you’d have yourself Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Unholy. [/Film] Wondering why Short Ends came to you a few hours late tonight? Well, it’s because your Uncle Grambo was finishing his taxes. Let this serve as a reminder to all of you West Coasters, there’s only three hours left to file your taxes! That is, unless your first name is Wesley and your last name is Snipes. In that case, don’t sweat it. [IRS] More »
God, Even James Blunt’s Rock And Roll Related Injuries Are Dull
10:51AM Jess McGuire | Look, we’ve nothing personal against James Blunt, really we don’t. As a person, he seems to be quite a lovely chap. We’ve read loads of interviews with the man where he seems charming and quick-witted and he certainly doesn’t take himself seriously, and the fact he is worth gazillions and lives in a mansion on a party island in Spain with his own discotheque is the perfect riposte for those breathlessly banging on about how boring and rubbish his music is.
That said, his music is boring and rubbish, and we honestly can’t fathom why a sane person would voluntarily purchase a record which sounds like a cat is being fisted while someone plays acoustic guitar in the background. Whatever. Different strokes, different folks.
But we couldn’t help but sigh when we learned of a recent injury James suffered whilst indulging in the thoroughly EXCITING and NOT-BORING act of stage diving!
James Blunt, who will tour New Zealand later this month, has broken his little finger while stage diving.
He said: “I don’t know what made me do it. I jumped off stage at the end and was chased by women, and men, in the crowd. I started running, and the next thing I knew I had broken my finger.
“I don’t even know how I did it. I can’t play the piano but I can still play the guitar with my remaining fingers!”
THANK GOD, NO ONE WILL EVER STOP THE MUSIC.
Funnily enough, Goodbye My Lover makes us want to jump off something too. More » 
It’s Nice To See John Howard’s Been Keeping Himself Busy
10:26AM Jess McGuire | Reader Rach emailed us a link to the following picture, saying “Well, at least we know the former Prime Minister now has a lucrative career in modelling.”
It’s fair to say that we were slightly hesitant about clicking and learning just what John Howard has been doing with his spare time (please, no porn… please, no porn…) but finally we mustered up all the courage we could, tapped the aforementioned link, and discovered this.
Bless him, it’s lovely to see him looking so happy after such a disastrous end to his long political career. Also nice to see he’s finally ditching the green and gold tracksuit set. Retirement from politics doesn’t mean retirement from life – give this modeling malarkey a fair crack. We look forward to seeing you donning Target-brand winter casuals when the next catalogue arrives in Defamer Australia’s mailbox. More » 
Channel Nine To Be Boned By… ‘Boned’?
10:21AM Clem Bastow | We’re beginning to think it might be worthwhile getting the tech dudes to create some sort of “trouble at mill” generator for Channel Nine stories, since they’re coming thick and fast these days.
The latest woe-betide-those-at-the-happy-network tale concerns an “anonymous” novel, Boned (comedy platinum!), the thinly-veiled contents of which could potentially blow the place to smithereens.
You know, with the power of readin’ ‘n’ shit.
Nine publicists refused to comment on the text when contacted today, but insiders say executives have been nervous about its pending publication for some time.
It is due for release in June – and this is how it is being plugged by publishers Michael Joseph:
More » 
German Schoolboy Happy To Confirm Humanity Is Roughly 100 Times More Rooted Than First Thought
9:53AM Clem Bastow | We will return you to the usual programming in just a moment, but we thought it pertinent to let you all know that we now have a one-in-450 chance of being wiped out by tsunamis and sun-blocking dust clouds in either 2029 or 2036.
How do we know this? Because some smartarse little German schoolboy, Nico Marquardt, “corrected” NASA’s calculations regarding the Apophis asteroid, which was previously thought to have a one-in-45,000 chance of totally ruining humanity’s party.
Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with Earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.
The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.
The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: “Apophis – The Killer Astroid”.
Whaddya reckon, is Nico likely to be being hoisted on the shoulders of his schoolmates right now, or being pelted with sandwiches and rotten apples for more accurately predicting that we’ll all die in a Michael Bay-esque doomsday scenario? More » 
Another Australian Doesn’t Win Something – But Does Win Dolly Parton!
9:41AM Clem Bastow | We were all set to unleash a can of eye-rolling whup-ass when we read this morning that Australian American Idol contestant Andrew Johns (you know, the one they said would win it) had evidently not won the talent quest – but then we got all excited on his behalf because it looks like a duet with Dolly Parton could be in the works!
Defamer Australia are massive Dolly fans, so we feel a mixture of excitement and raging jealousy on behalf of Johns.
A few hours after the jaws of American Idol’s 30 million TV viewers dropped to the floor when Johns was asked to leave, his own idol, country singer Dolly Parton, called his mobile phone.
“There was a voice on the phone and it said ‘Michael, this is Dolly’,” Johns, a guest on US TV talkshow Regis & Kelly recalled.
“She said ‘You have a great career ahead of you and I’d like to write with you and maybe do a duet’.”
Well, we daresay that ending up with a possible collaboration with Dolly is probably a fuck sight better than whatever fate awaits the “winners” in these dying days of the Idol franchise.
For once we’re glad join the Aussie press in making sure we all see an Australian fail! More » 
Breaking: Film Industry Sources Still Cannot Predict Future as Scary Summer Looms
9:30AM Defamer US Edition | We always love a good box-office panic story this time of year, with studio execs smiling in your face and shitting in their pants while some exhibition insider somewhere blames the coming collapse on a batch of rotten tentpoles. Thank goodness for Carl DiOrio, whose Hollywood Reporter survey today notes that the spring season is down 19% from 2007 while summer promises even spicier drama to come: More »
‘LAT’ Oscar Blogger Rehashes 80 Year Old Argument For Reasons No One Quite Understands
8:30AM Defamer US Edition | The Uwe Boll of Oscar bloggers, Tom O’Neil, is at it again over at Gold Derby, where his idle hands on the slowest of slow news days has him making all kinds of trouble for one of the undisputed classics of American silent cinema. “Undisputed,” that is, until today, when O’Neil asked and (regrettably) answered the positively unessential question: What was the real Best Picture Oscar winner of 1927-28?