tiger woods pr alert

what can tiger woods do to salvage his career. well, considering that no level of controversy could diminish his talent, we’re talking about all those lucrative endorsements.

from what’s flying around the internet, apparently/allegedly tiger woods’ wife, the swedish former babysitter elin nordegren, went ghetto on him and went after him with a golf club.

the first round of reports released from news outlets was that tiger’s wife had smashed out the windows on his ford escalade to get him out following an accident. which sounded sort of noble. but people then you start to wonder how a small woman like that could drag someone tiger’s size out of a car all by herself. it is possilbe. but why go through the back windon and not the window on the passenger side?

according to abc news, an eyewitness who took photos at the scene of the crash there were 2 golf irons in the street and both backseat windows were broken.

photos on WFTV show tiger’s front passenger tire lodged in a tree with a golf cart and blanket right nearby.

so what advice would you give tiger woods? well, from a p.r. perspective this story could spin any old way. if this is what is really happening, it’s good that somebody on his team is leaking information to gossip sites about his wife having whooped him over the head, if that’s what actually happened. because otherwise the drunk driving/drug taking rumours would immediately start which in the long run would have a far damaging affect on his endorsements than a man who can benchpress 300 pounds (apx 150 kg) being beat up with a 9 iron by a former babysitter.

now tiger and his people better make sure he talks with the police today, otherwise it could look like he is guilty of something and in hiding. if he is trying to save his wife, we suggest he do an obama and throw her under the bus.

yes she just might walk away with millions, but certainly tiger has a prenuptual agreement. and since elin was merely a glorified nanny when he met her, the odds are that she’ll run through that cash in no times. no matter how many zeros are attached to it.

since tiger has declared himself a cabalasian (sp?) he can’t contact oprah or reach out to reverend al. he’ll have to contact the cabalasian community and try to get them behind him so he can repair his image that is fraying by the minute.

and that new image is soon to become: legendary golf star beat up by petite blond swedish woman welding a 9 iron.

twilight new moon by the numbers

while twilight had a 140M dollar opening weekend, if you examine the numbers a bit closer, it’s performing pretty similarly to twilight. the big difference being the later debuted on 6000 screens with no special midnight screening while the former has debuted on over 8000.

from friday to saturday, both films (new moon, twilight). for the first film in the series friday-saturday saw a drop of 40% and a saturday-sunday drop of 41% on its opening weekend. with the sequel, there was an almost 42% drop drop in ticket sales on saturday with another further drop off of 34% saturday-sunday. statistically, the numbers are almost identical.

this could imply that the decline is due to fans of the twilight series of books viewing the film multiple times over the weekend. so it is conceivable that the film, which debuted to scathing reviews and had a rottentomato score of 29% isn’t drawing in any new fans or curiousity seekers. and defintely not men. more than 80% of its audience is female. and the 20% of the males who turned up were probably dragged kicking and screaming by their girlfriends.

but such a dramatic drop between friday and saturday would imply that the film has bad word-of-mouth. and that only the hardcore fans of the series are turning up for the film. because sandra bullock’s ‘blindside’ pulled in $35M. a female and guy friendly movie. but it looks like there are tons of hardcore twilight and stephenie meyer fans. so it looks like this film could do 300M in the u.s.

since the movie has been universally panned by non-fans. what does this mean for the actors in the franchise? and for summit entertainment? it’s clear from astro boy, sorority row, and band slam, that summit, minus the knowing, has zero ability when it comes to promoting most films outside the twilight series. in terms of the actors, it’s hard to say if they can bring along the twilight fans to their follow up films.

kristen stewart’s adventureland did like, no business. having grossed merely 16M dollars in the u.s. and 1M dollars overseas. and robert pattinson’s turn as the gay (or sexually ambiguous) painter, dali, pulled in about 680,000 dollars in the u.s. and might have cooled his tween fans. and pattinson’s first post twilight madness film, remember me has been pushed back from february to march and has no international release dates at the moment.

for sure, summit’s sales guys are working the phones trying to sell this title this week. can pattinson carry a film by himself? twilight and new moon are ensemble pieces centered around the female protagonist.

and what about taylor lautner? seems that a lot of twilight fans have switched from team edward (pattinson) to team jacob (lautner). and it seems that kristen stewart and robert pattinson have made the minimum amount of effort to fulfill their contracts for publicizing the film. they were out in full force the week of release and now taylor lautner and the supporting cast are making the rounds, with lautner slated to host saturday night live in december.

lautner is definitely the next action star. he’s got all the elements that made jean claude van damme, arnold schwarzenegger and bruce willis in their prime, bankable. and since he’s barely 18, he could have a long lucrative career.

roman polanski getting out of the pokie

a swiss court has decided that roman polanski can post a 4.5M bail. it’s not clear if that quote is in swiss francs, euros or dollars. money talks and the country of bankers responds. but apparently a higher court is appealing this and hopes to block this. the man, whose spent the past 30 years on the lam being tortured by living in a penthouse apartment in paris, forced to buy a chalet in paris and forced to accept money for directing such horrendous films such as ‘frantic,’ probably wouldn’t want to spend his few remaining years in prison.

kristen stewart great acting moments

kstew, as fans and foes and the tabloids like to call her, puts in a series of oscar winning performances in the following video:

newsweek’s palin cover

no debate about sexism here. the real deal is that newsweek, according to runner’s world magazine the company that originally commissioned tthe photos, ran the photo without the magazine’s knowledge and more importantly, without their permission. is time-warner (or whatever the company is called now) shaking in their boots out of fear of rodale, the publisher of runner’s world?

according to the caption in the above link, the image was given to newsweek by the photographer’s stock agency. so this could lead to a question regarding rights and copyright. who owns the rights to these photos? yes, they were commissioned by runner’s world. but what sort of contract does the photographer have with the magazine? and what rights does the photographer’s stock agency have? and what photographer aside from annie lebovitz, who barely even owns her own stuff anymore (was she foreclosed or not?) has his (we prefer not to use the ‘his or her’ or ‘their’ construct that one finds on twitter) own stock agency?

and yes, given the context of the image and that it’s no longer inside the covers of a running magazine but prominently featured on the cover of a (cough cough) real news publication, it is quite interesting that the editors were hardpressed to find another cover image. or that christopher hitchens, sexist that he usually appears to be, was given the honors of writing a scathing screed on palin.

michael sheen type cast as tony blair

how many times has this man played tony blair? for some who were never into blair, sheen’s turn as a vampire might seem to be appropriate.

oskar lafontaine chairman of germany’s communist party has cancer

oskar lafontaine, chairman of die linke political party and the man who has sewn confusion into the german parliamentary system by introducing a viable 5th party into the government has announced that he will undergo a cancer operation this thursday.

rupert murdoch versus google

rupert murdoch is showing his age. the old guy wants to block google from indexing content in his newspapers. we say, dude. that’s easy. you don’t have to block anyone. just don’t add any metadata to your pages and google algorithim (or however you spell that) won’t be able to find you.

it’ll be like the times doesn’t exist. is this what the murdoch family really want? the world has changed. and well, people have been quoting from newspapers in term papers for ages. does murdoch also not want this information available to academics as well.

it’s true. the free model sucks for people trying to turn a quick billion slaving away at the helm of a multi-billion dollar media company. but ultimately, the problem isn’t that you can find murdoch’s stuff on google. the problem is that young people aren’t interested in buying newspapers and magazines. and the advertising model is broken.

pattinson admits he and stewart are just friends

in an interview with bild zeitung robert pattinson, in munich promoting the second twilight film, new moon, is asked by the editor-in-chief (who one would think had better things to do than to interview an actor. but whatever) if he was in love with kristin stewart. and if he was with kstew as in ‘together – together.’

Sind Sie verliebt? (are you in love)

Er lacht durch den Rauch: „Ich bin Single!“ (he laughs through the smoke: i am single)

robert enke memorial in hannover 35,000

yesterday evening the german national football team, including oliver bierhoff and michael ballack, along with robert enke’s widow, attended a memorial for robert enke, the goal keeper of the german national team who committed suicide on november 10. enke, who suffered from depression had driven his car onto train tracks. earlier in the day he had left a suicide note for his wife. you can watch video of the memorial here which includes images of the 35,000 people who attended a memorial march in hannover.

oliver bierhoff cries during robert enke press conference

robert enke, goal keeper for germany’s football team (that’s soccer to north americans) committed suicide on november 10. oliver bierhoff, manager of the the team, shed more than a few tears during the press conference. more information with photos and video can be found on the berliner zeitung website.

rick astley versus nirvana

the bbc reports that some hackers have figured out a way to take over some iPhones and have created a risk astley worm which takes over your phone and creates a rick astley wallpaper on your phone. you’ve been rick roll’d:

obama pelosi and reid bring healthcare fines for all

there are those in the united states who are excited about the possibility of universal healthcare. but have any of these people examined the fine print, a 1900 page document? the government doesn’t bring healthcare to the masses, it brings the masses to healthcare. healthcare is half way to being mandatory in the united states.

the bill that’s just passed the house of representatives, headed by nancy (i’m a rich radical from northern california) will require REQUIRE all americans (and residents) to have health insurance. that means, you have to pay for it. the same way you’re required to have auto insurance if you have a car. the difference is, if you can’t afford car insurance, then you just don’t get a car. but you can’t just decide to not get health insurance. because come april 2013 (conveniently just 5 months after the presidential elections), you will be slapped with a fine of 2.5% of income. that will be attached to your IRS bill. what say you now?

these fines raise around $33 billion (yes, billion) windfall for the government –paid by you, the tax payer.

RT kristen stewart looks thirty

is the twilight franchise swiftly aging kristen stewart and robert pattinson? here’ kristen’s got dark circles under her eyes and while she’s only slightly speaking as if she’s jonesing for some seeed (here’s kristin stewart smoking a bong), she definitely looks about 30 or 31. or barely younger than gwyneth paltrow.

for 20th anniversary of fall of the wall u2 erects a wall

u2 has erected a wall around the brandenburg gate for their so-called, free concert in berlin. well, it is free. but either u2 or mtv or a combination of the 2 decided that they would only make tickets available online and only issue 10K tickets. some people mistakenly believed they could hang out on unter den linden and catch a glimpse of the show. but the brandenburg gate, one of the most popular landmarks in the city has been walled off for tonight’s concert.

member of bauhaus makes cameo in eclipse

the rumor mill starts. which one. actor bill burke has betrayed that he was actually (perhaps) a goth in his youth. as he says one of the members of his favorite bands in the 80s makes a cameo appearance in twilight 3 (eclipse) directed by david slade. is it peter murphy? you can watch the video billy burke goth child

update on foxy knoxy

of the trio that is accused of killing the british university student meredith kercher, rudy guede, who had a fast-track trial last year in italy, has been convicted. in court a taped telephone call was produced in which guede is heard saying that amanda knox had nothing to do with the murder. but during the same conversation, he also said he was not guilty. if you’ve got babel fish, you can try to translate this article on bild zeitung.