Marilyn Manson And Shia LaBoeuf Explain ‘Born Villain’ Collaboration
(source: ology.com & YouTube.com)
Anybody still reeling from watching Marilyn Manson’s graphic,
disturbing new video yesterday? Yes, it’s an exquisite corpse of
everything from Macbeth to Jodorowsky and Buñuel, but it’s also
the most interesting, transgressive thing Manson has released since his
parent-scaring MTV heyday. For fans like us who tuned out during the
past two or three albums, Born Villain (also the name of his
upcoming eighth studio album) is an exciting return to the
button-pushing, dangerous sights and sounds of Manson’s early work.
Watch Marilyn Manson’s New Video “Born Villain”, Directed By Shia LaBoeuf“Born Villain is the title of the new Marilyn Manson album,” writes Manson on his official website,
“While looking to experiment in unlikely collaborations, I met Shia
[LaBoeuf], and we spent a long night at my studio. After seeing Maniac, his short film, which is somewhat inspired by Man Bites Dog,
I was astonished by his directing ability. So I shared quite a few of
my favorite inspirations in art, literature, and obviously…film. I was
impressed with how Shia digested my world, and made what I’d like to
think, is both an homage and a mockery of the history of Cinema. We
ended up writing a short film, and just recently released a trailer. The
score is from my new album, and is, in the words of Macbeth, ‘full of
sound and fury.’”
Shia LaBeouf Spits On His Date And Marilyn Manson"Marilyn Manson to me is an indelible figure," Shia LaBeouf explained to MTV News
recently, "He's a big deal to me, and in my childhood, I don't know of a
scarier figure in art. He, in my teenage years, was the scariest thing
in the world, so part of me has always been intrigued… I also think
there are fans of mine who aren't fans of Manson's and vice versa;
that's why I think our collaboration is interesting. I don't really see
it on paper… I don't think my audience is the only thing I should
exercise my artistic muscle for. I don't necessarily always do things
for the audience; this is one of those.”
Once more with feeling, here’s the Shia LaBoeuf directed new short film Born Villain (again, completely and totally NSFW):
12 McDonald's Menu Items That Failed Spectacularly
(source: finance.yahoo.com)
New product development always has a level of risk attached to it, and for fast food companies like McDonald's (NYSE: MCD - News), the pace of the business requires the constant creation of new menu items.
McDonald's
has hundreds of different products that are offered in locations
worldwide, but for every tremendously successful one like the iconic Big
Mac, there's a spectacular failure.
Why? Ineffective marketing,
bad product launches and consumer reluctance for change are common. But
when you're dealing with food, there's always the simplest of reasons:
people just don't like the taste.
We've compiled 12 of the biggest
failures McDonald's has ever had. Some fizzled into obscurity, while
others vanished completely. McLobster
The McLobster is pretty much lobster meat shoved in a hot dog bun with
"McLobster sauce" and shredded lettuce. Like its much more successful
compatriot the McRib, it appears every once in a while across the
country as a promotion, only to vanish weeks later.The fabled
McLobster drew some hype earlier this year when rumors swirled about its
reappearance nationwide. It's currently only available in parts of New
England and eastern Canada.
There are a couple factors that gutted
the McLobster's hopes of making it to the big time. It costs a hefty
$5.99, which consumers are reluctant to pay for a single sandwich. Plus,
it's incredibly difficult to market a "quality" shellfish item at a
fast food joint. McGratin Croquette
The McGratin
Croquette (known as Gurakoro in Japan) was a particularly strange item,
specially created for the Japanese market. It contains deep fried
macaroni, shrimp and mashed potatoes. 8tokyo.com describes the texture
of the inside of the croquette as "fluffy and creamy."
Most
attribute its failure to its taste, but the marketing of the McGratin
Croquette didn't match up well with the Japanese audience either.
Somehow, it still manages to make a surprise appearance every so often
in Japan only. Hula Burger
McDonald's founder Ray Croc had countless successes with his items, but this wasn't one of them.
The
meatless Hula Burger was meant for Catholics who abstained from eating
meat every Friday. Instead of a beef or chicken patty, its bun contained
a grilled pineapple slice, topped with cheese.
The idea behind it
made sense — the execution just didn't work. People simply didn't like
it. McDonald's killed the Hula Burger early on, as it became quickly
evident that its alternative, the Filet-o-Fish, was getting much better
traction. Pizza & McPizza
McDonald's
developed new pizza items in the late 1980s in its push to start
offering dinner items, but it had some inherent problems right from the
get-go.
The made-to-order pizza took far longer to make than the
usual McDonald's fare, and consumers just weren't willing to wait for
food that was supposed to be fast. There was also the McPizza, which
resembled Hot Pockets and failed miserably.
Competition in the
pizza industry was intense, and McDonald's pizzas didn't have the pull
to take customers away from the big chains like Domino's and Pizza Hut.
But also, it just wasn't consistent with the McDonald's brand. People
went to McDonald's for burgers and fries, not pizza. McSpaghetti
Another
one of those dinner items, McSpaghetti just couldn't get it quite
right. There was also lasagna and fettucini alfredo, along with side
dishes in the form of mashed potatoes with gravy and a vegetable medley.
It went down quickly with the rest of that dinner menu.
It's still available in some international markets, and even has a bit of a cult following. McAfrika
The
McAfrika was one of the biggest marketing catastrophes McDonald's ever
caused for itself. It contained beef, cheese, tomatoes and salad in a
pita-like sandwich.
It was released in 2002 during a slew of
famines in southern Africa. McDonald's apologized and pulled the item,
once the PR crisis heated up.
McDonald's did it again with the
McAfrica in a 2008 promotion for the Olympics. Unsurprisingly, it
received a similar negative outcry. Arch Deluxe
The
Arch Deluxe debuted in 1996 and was meant to target (and only target)
McDonald's adult customers, but it bombed massively. The burger was a
quarter-pounder with peppered bacon, lettuce, tomato, cheese, onions,
ketchup and a secret sauce.
It's been considered one of the most
expensive product failures in McDonald's history, primarily due to the
$100 million marketing campaign that accompanied it. Advertisements
depicted children disgusted with the burger, and Ronald McDonald playing
adult sports.
A decade later, McDonald's tried a similar sandwich in Japan, called the Tomato McGrand. It failed too. McHotDog
The taste of the McHotDog was acceptable to consumers, and there were no scandals behind the scenes or within the bun.
But
the failure McHotDog was a branding issue. Even what seemed like a
low-risk, simple product never caught on because McDonald's consumers
just didn't equate the brand with the type of food. It made a few
comebacks during the mid-1990s as a seasonal item in select mid-western
US restaurants.
It has since reappeared in Japan, where consumers are used to McDonald's offering a wider variety of options. McDLT
McDonald's
introduced the McDLT in the mid-1980s. It was a simple burger with
lettuce and tomato, but came in a styrofoam package with separated the
lettuce and tomato from the beef patty, keeping the veggies cool and the
meat warm.
All was going well for the McDLT until a PR crisis
squashed it. The country was becoming increasingly conscious about the
environment, and the double-container caused double the damage.
McDonald's pulled the ill-fated McDLT from its menu in 1990, after a 6-year run. McLean Deluxe
The
McLean Deluxe was another one of McDonald's earlier efforts to be
perceived as more health-conscious. It was more a cousin to its
predecessor the McDLT than the similarly-named Arch Deluxe which
appeared half a decade later.
Introduced in 1991, the burger was
advertised as 91% fat-free, but what doomed the McLean Deluxe was what
McDonald's did to get it that way.
McDonald's replaced much of the
fat with water and injected carrageenan (seaweed) in order to get the
patty to stay together. It performed well in initial taste tests, but it
didn't sell well once it went live. Big N' Tasty
The
Big N' Tasty was yet another attempt to defeat Burger King's Whopper, a
feat its predecessors — the McDLT and Big Xtra — failed to do.
While
not a complete failure, consumer preferences had leaned towards another
line of McDonald's items in recent years — the Angus burgers — and the
company decided to cut the Big N' Tasty from its menu earlier this year. Super-size
McDonald's
started offering super-sized meals in 1993, and fast-food-goers gobbled
it up. But it all went downhill in 2004 when independent filmmaker
Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me was released. The film
showed Spurlock eating nothing but McDonald's for a month, and how it
negatively affected his body.
It was a PR disaster
for McDonald's, and the company had no choice but to start pulling
super-sizing from its menus. By the end of 2004, super-sized portions
were gone forever.
Droid Bionic ad has pretty much everything but a phone
(source: engadget.com)
The new Droid Bionic ad sure has it all: a Portman-esque lady in an illuminated leather blouse, brandishing a giant sword against a Terminator-looking
'bot shooting lasers from his hands, all taking place in some crazy sky
coliseum thing. As for the actual handset?
Not so much on that front,
save for a name at the end and a promised September release date -- oh,
and the implied promise that the phone will literally slice the heads
off of its Android brethren. Video after the break.
The European Space Agency announced a team using
the Very Large Telescope (VLT) recently zoomed in on a faint Milky Way
star in the constellation Leo that has so few elements it falls into the
"forbidden zone" of a widely accepted star formation theory.
Composed mostly of
hydrogen and helium, with only the tiniest traces of heavier elements,
the star SDSS J102915+172927 is probably more than 13 billion years old,
yet would have been thought impossible by many scientists, according to
the ESO astronomers, whose findings appeared September 1 in the journal Nature.
The researchers found this visually unremarkable galactic halo star, glowing faintly in the Milky Way's Lion, chemically bizarre, because it contains the lowest amounts of metals of any star studied to date.
The astronomers used the VLT's X-shooter and UVES instruments to analyze
the unusual chemical composition of SDSS J102915+172927, and found the
proportion of metals in the star was at least 20,000 times lower than the Sun's.
ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2
This pie-chart shows
the strange, metal-poor composition of the ancient star SDSS
J102915+172927, discovered in the constellation Leo (The Lion) by
European Space Agency astronomers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT);
it is almost entirely made from hydrogen and helium, with only tiny
traces of heavier elements.
According to the researchers, most cosmologists believe the lightest
elements, hydrogen and helium, formed immediately after the Big Bang
along with some lithium, while most of the heavier elements were
generated by stars later, then dispersed by supernova explosions, so
that newer stars formed within the element-enriched interstellar medium
since then have higher proportions of metals.
ESO astronomer Lorenzo Monaco explained, “The star we have studied is
extremely metal-poor, meaning it is very primitive. It could be one of
the oldest stars ever found.”
The star's extremely low lithium content also surprised the team,
because scientists expect the oldest stars to be composed mostly of
hydrogen, helium and lithium, plus a few metals, matching the widely
theorized composition of the earliest Universe.
“It is a mystery how the lithium that formed just after the beginning of
the Universe was destroyed in this star, " project supervisor Piercarlo
Bonifacio remarked.
But the team concluded there may be many "freakish" stars like this out there.
Lead author Elisabetta Caffau stated,
“We have identified several more candidate stars that might have metal
levels similar to, or even lower than, those in SDSS J102915+172927. We
are now planning to observe them with the VLT to see if this is the
case.”
Alyssa Milano is pregnant: Actress and husband Dave Bugliari expecting their first child
(source: nydailynews.com)
The actress, 38 and husband Dave Bugliari, 32, are expecting their first child together, Milano's rep told:
"They're just over the moon," a friend of the "Who's The Boss" star told the mag. "They are so excited."
Milano also took to Twitter on Tuesday to confirm the happy news.
"Yes, it's true. And we couldn't be happier," she wrote. "Thank you for your warm wishes and love!"
Milano
and Bugliari, an agent at the Creative Artists Agency, exchanged vows
in August 2009 at his family's estate in New Jersey after three years of
dating.
Now
don’t get ahead of yourself there! We all know Bono made some admirable
charity acts and we give him praise for that. But sometimes, even the
best of us have to suffer! Here’s what happened in one of their shows:
At a recent U2 concert in Glasgow, Scotland, he asked the audience for total quiet.
Then, in the silence, he started to slowly clap his hands, once every
few seconds. Holding the audience in total silence, he said into the
microphone, “Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies.”
From the front of the crowd a voice with a broad Scottish accent pierced the quiet …
“Well, fuckin stop doin it then, ya evil bastard!”
(source: dslserviceproviders.org By: Laura Backes)
If you have a teenager on facebook, and you do not want them on there anymore, it is pretty easy to embarrass them enough to get them off. You may even have an adult child whom you wish to seek a little friendly revenge on, to get them back for all the times they embarrassed you in public. Whatever your reason, there is plenty of ways to embarrass your kids on facebook. Listed below are the top ten.
1. Add Their Name to Yours. You have probably seen how some women put their maiden names in parenthesis to help old friends identify them. Instead, put your kid’s name in the parenthesis instead. So your name is now Suzie (Johnny Smith’s) Mom. Be sure to be on their ‘friends’ list to get the full effect.
2. Profile Pics. Posting their childhood photos to your photo albums just isn’t good enough. Find the most embarrassing photo you can of them as a child, and use it as your profile pic. Make sure to include a note to the photo telling how it came to be.
3. Friend Their Friends. In order to properly embarrass your kids, you need someone to embarrass them in front of. Go ahead and friend request all of their friends. You will not only have an audience, but you can keep tabs on your younger kids’ friends this way as well.
4. Day to Day Conversations. Instead of picking up the phone, or talking to them in person, use facebook as your new medium for keeping in touch. Post embarrassing conversations on their wall such as, “Johnny, please remember to put the toilet seat down when you are finished, I fell in this morning, AGAIN!”
5. Fan Pages. Find some outrageous fan pages and like them. These will pop up on your kids’ news feeds and the feeds of their friends that you friended. Remember your child’s name is in yours, so now it will say “Suzie (Johnny Smith’s) Mom Likes Women with Flatulence Problems”
6. Like or Comment to Everything. Anytime your kids post a photo or status update, make sure you click like and comment on it. If they post a photo of themselves rock climbing you might respond with “That looks dangerous honey, did you get scared? It looks like your pants are wet.”
7. Suggest Dates. Anytime someone of the opposite sex posts on your kid’s wall, take advantage of it. Comment after theirs saying, “You seem like a nice boy (girl), why don’t you and my daughter (son) get together for a date?”
8. Use Shorthand Aggressively. Using text speak SMS shorthand comes in handy when sending a text, IM’ing or for a quick response online, but can get real annoying if you over use it. So go ahead and LOL, TTYL and CYL8R all over your kids facebook page.
9. Intercept Messages. If one of your teenage kids gets a message on their wall from another friend to call, text or message them, you have a chance to really embarrass them. Reply back for them saying, “Sorry Sally, but Johnny is grounded and will not be able to meet you at the movies on Friday.”
10. Threats. This is a great one for dad’s to use on their daughters. Anytime a guy posts something to your daughters’ wall, make sure you add your comment to it. If a guy comments on a photo saying “You look hot” you can respond back with “Dear guy friend, have we met? If not, we need to, SOON.” A profile pic of you holding a shotgun will add well to the embarrassment and fear factor of this type of comment.
I would highly suggest using a few of these ways to embarrass your kids on facebook, but not all. Unless of course, you are wanting to alienate them or remove yourself completely from their lives.
“Lemme tell ya, these ain’t no ordinary finches we’re talkin’ about. These here are the Angry Birds, the ones that’s gonna kick you in the ‘nads. And they’re the ones on your side. They must be from Galapadapados, or sumptin’.” – Col. Angus, Bird Expert.
The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake. Dish out revenge on the green pigs who stole the Birds’ eggs. Use the unique destructive powers of the Angry Birds to lay waste to the pigs’ fortified castles.
Angry Birds features hours of gameplay, challenging physics-based castle demolition, and lots of replay value. Each of the 120 levels requires logic, skill, and brute force to crush the enemy.
Protect wildlife or play Angry Birds!
Wacom Inkling May Become My Favorite Gadget of All Time
(source: gizmodo.com)
Being an obsessive compulsive sketching bastard, I'm all shades of erect looking at the new Wacom Inkling. With an exquisite design and 1024 levels of pressure, it looks like the perfect device for anyone who sketches anything, from illustrators to architects.
While there are other ink-to-digital pens out there, the difference here is Wacom's pressure technology. Recording 1024 levels of pressure, the Inkling will capture ever nuance in your drawings.
This is how it works:
• Take the stylus and receiver out of the neat portable box.
• Clip the receiver on top of any paper notebook and start drawing. Don't worry about space: the receiver can store thousands of pages, according to Wacom.
• When you are done after a day, connect the receiver to the computer via USB and browse all your drawings, exporting the ones you like to Photoshop or Illustrator or any typical graphic format, from TIFF to JPG.
That's one of the beauties of this. From their Inkling Sketch Manager you can rasterize your drawings at print resolution and export them to Photoshop. Or even better: you can export as a vector illustration to Adobe Illustrator, which will allow you to re-work your lines in any way you want.
The Wacom Inkling comes with a pen, receiver, rechargeable batteries, four spare pen ink cartridges, charging case and the Inkling Sketch Manager Application, which is neatly store in the Inkling receiver. I'm so spending $200 on this when it comes out in the second half of September.
Talitha van Zon the ex-girlfriend of Gaddafi's son escapes rebels after they threatened to 'burn her alive'
(source: dailymail.co.uk)
The glamour model ex-girlfriend of Colonel Gaddafi's playboy son has told of the terrifying moment she was captured by rebels who threatened to 'burn her alive'.Talitha van Zon had been with Mutassim Gaddafi just over a week ago as he calmly drank Jack Daniels whisky and coke as he toasted a victory over the rebels. But the next day the rebels backed by Nato airstrikes launched a surprise attack on Tripoli and Mutassim joined fighters. Talitha was ambushed as she tried to leave the country was forced to turn back and take refuge at a hotel. But the Dutch model was then paraded in front of rebel fighters who chanted 'petrol'. She feared they would 'burn her alive' and then made a desperate escape by leaping from the hotel's balcony. 'I was shocked when I met Mutassim. He had changed,' Talitha told the Sunday Telegraph this week from the hospital where she was being treated for her injuries. 'It was the first time I had seen him since just before the February uprising. He had a beard, he was sitting on a couch strewn with automatic weapons, and he was guarded by unsmiling 16-year-old boys with sub-machine guns.' Talitha said that on her latest visit to Libya, Mutassim's eyes were 'cold'. She said he looked capable of 'killing someone '.
A young girl volunteers to take her sister's place in a fight to the death in a dystopian future.
Director: Gary Ross
Writers: Suzanne Collins (novel), Gary Ross (screenplay)
Stars:Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth
Storyline
In a not-too-distant future, North America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcast throughout Panem. As the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss' young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district's female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives.
RIHANNA'S father feared he was going to die after being struck down by a killer tropical disease.
The clothing salesman fell ill just days after the singer visited him at home in Barbados.
Deadly ... Dengue fever
Speaking as he recuperated, Ronald said: "It was horrible. I thought I was going to die." And he revealed he had no way of contacting Umbrella star Rihanna, 23 – real name Robyn – until one of his daughter's pals lent him a phone.
He said: "I was actually in a hospital ward that Robyn's friend worked in as a doctor. She offered me her BlackBerry to call Robyn. I called her and she was worried – she said, 'Daddy, what's wrong with you?'."
Despite the peril, Ronald reassured his daughter – now back in LA after a pals' holiday in Europe – that he would be fine. He added: "Luckily I pulled through after a scary few days."
Reconciled ... star Rihanna with dad Ronald Fenty in 2006
The pair were once estranged over Ronald's crack addiction but are fully reconciled.
Rihanna's half-sister Kandy – who, like Ronald, lives in the island's capital Bridgeton – said yesterday: "It was dengue fever. He was bad. We were worried."
She added: "He's a good guy. He's made mistakes like everybody does but you learn from them. He loves all his children but he's very proud of Rihanna."
Beyonce is pregnant! She confirmed her pregnancy on the red carpet at the 2011 MTV VMAs and finally, Beyonce and Jay-Z are expecting their first child.According to MTV, Beyonce just dropped the bombshell on the red carpet. Bey showed up in a flowing red dress holding her baby bump. Beyonce has been hinting to being ready for motherhood and now is the time. We cannot wait to see how Beyonce handles her pregnancy.She'll be business as usual for awhile considering that she just did four amazing nights at Roseland Ballroom in New York City. GlobalGrind would like to send a big congrats to Jay-Z and Beyonce on their blessing!!
Partly Blue Skies in Lower Manhattan After Irene Passes as a Tropical Storm
(source: abcnews.go.com)
Irene made landfall in Coney Island, N.Y., at 8:45 a.m. this morning as a tropical storm with 65 mph winds, but by 10 a.m. patches of blue sky and sunshine began peeking through in lower Manhattan.
The storm, which created flood conditions across the East Coast and left millions without power and at least 11 people dead, is still accompanied by heavy rainfall and powerful winds. But Irene appeared to have caused less damage than anticipated in the New York area, and forecasts indicate the tropical storm will weaken in New England and become a post-tropical cyclone tonight or early Monday.
Philadelphia experienced significant local flooding in several areas, but subways, elevated trains and bus service in the city were beginning to return to activity, with full local service expected to be back up by noon today. The state of emergency was also expected to be lifted by noon, and the airport was scheduled to reopen later today.
At least 3.1 million homes and businesses are without power and thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. Approximately 9,600 residents in New York City are currently in evacuation shelters.
More than 270,000 in New York have lost power, while in New Jersey at least 460,000 statewide are without power. The National Grid reported that 19,000-plus homes in Rhode Island lost power, and 6,000-plus homes are already without power in Massachusetts.
Anybody still reeling from watching Marilyn Manson’s graphic,
disturbing new video yesterday? Yes, it’s an exquisite corpse of
everything from Macbeth to Jodorowsky and Buñuel, but it’s also
the most interesting, transgressive thing Manson has released since his
parent-scaring MTV heyday. For fans like us who tuned out during the
past two or three albums, Born Villain (also the name of his
upcoming eighth studio album) is an exciting return to the
button-pushing, dangerous sights and sounds of Manson’s early work.
Now
don’t get ahead of yourself there! We all know Bono made some admirable
charity acts and we give him praise for that. But sometimes, even the
best of us have to suffer! Here’s what happened in one of their shows:
The Wacom Inkling comes with a pen, receiver, rechargeable batteries, four spare pen ink cartridges, charging case and the Inkling Sketch Manager Application, which is neatly store in the Inkling receiver. I'm so spending $200 on this when it comes out in the second half of September. 
