Things Overheard at the Live 8 Concerts

15> "Your Live 8 ticket price is going directly to helping the children of a poor TicketMaster executive go to a good private college. Please give, won't you?"

14> "I'm sorry, Justice O'Connor, only actual members of Pink Floyd are allowed on stage."

13> "How am I supposed to advance the cause of fair treatment for Africa when someone's forgotten to remove the green M&Ms from my bowl?"

12> "Check out our low interest rates on bottles of Aquafina."

11> "Careful dude, if we heal all the world's suffering now, there'll be no more kick-ass concerts!"

10> "I know you don't like coffee, but there are starving children in Africa that would kill for that Starbucks triple strawberry-mocha vente latte."

9> "All right, who stole Johnny Rotten's walker?"

8> "Thank you for your offer, Mr. Jackson, but we've got a very full lineup of performers already. Besides, to make room for you we'd have to bump Gallagher."

7> "I don't know about Africa, but I helped my personal debt by selling my tickets on eBay for $5,000."

6> "I'm so embarrassed -- I just called Annie Lennox 'Sting.'"

5> "I would have gladly paid the ticket price just to keep Motley Crue in retirement."

4> "What a rip-off! I paid $47.50 of my hard earned money to see Ted Nugent do a duet with Nelson Mandela."

3> "Is this the line to marry Britney?"

2> "Man, the lengths Bob Geldoff will go to get a gig."

and the Number 1 Things Overheard at the Live 8 Concerts...

LOST

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below.

She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're 30 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."

She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the man.??"How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist.

"How did you know?"

Top 10 Odd College Courses

College courses aren't all Econ 101 and The History of Europe: 1500-Present. A trend among many colleges and universities is to offer courses that are slightly off the beaten track. Many of these courses draw their themes from pop culture or sports, or they may be the brainchildren of professors who want to share their passion with students. They may be no less serious than traditional courses, but they certainly cover new academic ground.

Students take these offbeat courses for a variety of reasons--hoping for an easy A, to try something fun, or to explore a new interest. Underwater Basket Weaving 101 may be an urban legend, but these ten unusual courses are for real:

1) You can boldly go where no other philosophy student has gone before in Georgetown University's "Philosophy and Star Trek" course, where students discuss the nature of time travel, the ability of computers to think and feel, and other philosophical dilemmas facing the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

2) Discover how Brick really felt when Opal left him for his neighbor's best friend's sister in the University of Wisconsin's course entitled "Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles." Students analyze the plots, themes, and characters of daytime soaps and discuss their impact on modern life.

3) If you've been longing to research how hot dogs, theme parks, and the five-day workweek have impacted American leisure culture, check out the University of Iowa course "The American Vacation." This course pays particular attention to how American families' varying backgrounds shape their vacation experiences.

4) Bowdoin College students can delve into "The Horror Film in Context" in the school's English Department. Students read Freud and Poe and watch Hitchcock and Craven, all while discussing the horror genre's treatment of gender, class, and family.

5) At Williams College, students can learn more about those in the cement shoe industry by enrolling in "Comparative History of Organized Crime," which compares the work of goodfellas from the United States, Italy, Japan, and Russia.

6) If you've got a romantic urge for adventure, check out Barnard College's course on "The Road Movie," which studies Easy Rider and Thelma and Louise, while also discussing the genre's literary precursors, like On the Road and The Odyssey.

7) If hitting the road doesn't satisfy your rebellious streak, sign up for Brown University's course on "American Degenerates," in which students discuss how early British-American writers embraced the grotesque, monstrous, "not our kind" status bestowed on them by the mother country and reflected their zeal for cultural and physical degeneracy in their literature.

8) Those artsy types at the Rhode Island School of Design can put down their paintbrushes and take "The Art of Sin and the Sin of Art," which contemplates the relationship between sin and the art world. The course catalog invites you to "lust with the saints and burn with the sinners."

9) If talking about death several times a week in class sounds like a good time to you, try Purdue University's "Death and the Nineteenth Century" course. Every poem and novel in the course deals with the 19th-century conception of mortality and the world beyond.

10) At Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, students can take "Art of Walking," in which students not only read literature by noted perambulators like Kant and Nietzsche, but go for neighborhood strolls with their professor and his dog.

Billy Graham was returning to Charlotte after a speaking engagement, and when his plane arrived there was a limousine there to transport him to his home. As he prepared to get into the limo, he stopped and spoke to the driver.

"You know" he said, "I'm 87 years old, and I've never driven a limousine. Would you mind if I drove it for a while?"

The driver said, "No problem--have at it."

Billy got into the driver's seat, and they headed off down the highway.

A short distance away sat a rookie state trooper operating his first speed trap. The long black limo went by him doing 70 in a 55 mph zone.

The trooper pulled out, easily caught the limo, and got out of his patrol car to begin the procedure.

The young trooper walked up to the driver's door, and when the glass was rolled down he was surprised to see who was driving.

He immediately excused himself and went back to his car and called his supervisor.

He told the supervisor, "I know we are supposed to enforce the law, but I also know that important people are given certain courtesies. I need to know what I should do because I have stopped a very important person."

The supervisor asked, "Is it the governor?"

The young trooper said, "No, he's more important than that."

The supervisor said, "Oh, so it's the president."

The young trooper said, "No, he's even more important than that."

The supervisor finally asked, "Well then, who is it?"

Signs Your Life Is Running in Reverse

5> You find yourself spending hours speaking romantically to a woman after you've had sex with her.

4> You get married, then have a baby. (Alabama residents only)

3> After honestly proclaiming your innocence to the entire nation, you take that gullible little smitten intern to the Oval Office and bang her silly.

2> After your quintuple bypass, you celebrate with a big steak dinner.

and the Number 1 Sign Your Life Is Running in Reverse...

antera project

Rebel Meets Rebel, a project featuring former Pantera members "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, Vinnie Paul, and Rex Brown collaborating with country and western musician David Allan Coe, will surface sometime in the next few months, according to Blabbermouth.net. Coe told RollingStone.com that Paul "is tryin' to get that together. That's gonna be a great thing."

Coe and Abbott wrote all the music together in 2000, and recording took place shortly thereafter. Abbott was murdered onstage last December during a Columbus, Ohio concert by his and Paul's post-Pantera outfit, Damageplan.

Paul told MTV.com how the members of metal act Pantera came to work with country "outlaw" Coe: "Being from Texas, not only do we have rock roots, but we listen to country and blues...we went out to see him when he played Billy Bob's. He was just a super cool dude...We started hooking up and jamming and doing some tunes, and they're pretty unique."

Rob Zombieplans to phase music out of his career in the next few years to concentrate solely on writing and directing movies, according to the Boston Globe. Zombie, whose The Devil's Rejects arrives in theatres this Friday, told the newspaper, "My future is movies. The music is dwindling down, because you can't do both. There's just not enough time in your life. If you try to do both, both will suffer. So you've got to make the choice...And it's a new challenge. I've been doing music nonstop for 20 years and now I'm just fired up about movies."

Zombie, a Massachusetts native, is headlining the second stage of OzzFest 2005, which kicked off in his home state on Friday (July 15th). But he says that the metal festival is not his farewell tour. Zombie has been working on a new studio album and hopes to finish it this fall after OzzFest ends.

Anthrax anthologies

"Definition of "Stop"

A cop in the USA was demoted for his actions on a traffic stop. Based on the information from the statement from the subject complaint, and the officers report, the event played out like this.

A subject male person runs a stop sign and gets pulled over by a police officer.

Officer says, "License and registration, please."

Subject responds, "What for?"

Officer says, "You didn't come to a complete stop at the stop sign."

Subject responds, "I slowed down, and no one was coming."

Officer says, "You still didn't come to a complete stop. License and registration, please."

Subject responds, "What's the difference?"

Officer says, "The difference is, you have to come to a complete stop.

License and registration, PLEASE!" Subject responds, "If you can show me the difference between slowing down and coming to a stop, I'll give you my license and registration."

Officer says, "Exit your vehicle, sir."

cuthbert1776

Steven Wilde

Cream News

Colin Farrell Sues Woman Over Sex Tape

LOS ANGELES - Actor Colin Farrell is suing a woman for allegedly trying to distribute and profit from a sex tape he says the two recorded with the agreement they would never make it public.

The lawsuit filed Monday in Superior Court seeks general and compensatory damages as well as a temporary restraining order and injunction prohibiting the sale and exploitation of the videotape.

Farrell, 29, accuses Nicole Narain of trying to distribute the tape through an intermediary. The two had an intimate relationship 2 1/2 years ago and both agreed that the 15-minute tape that shows the couple having sex would be jointly owned by them and would remain private, according to the suit.

Narain could not be reached for comment. A call to a phone number listed for her revealed the number had been disconnected.

A message left for Farrell's attorney was not immediately returned Monday.

The lawsuit also accused the 31-year-old woman of working with the owner of an Internet pornography business and contacting the news media about the tape.

"Defendants' outrageous attempt to capitalize on the celebrity of plaintiff Colin Farrell ... through their unauthorized commercial exploitation of the highly private and confidential videotape exceeds all bounds of common human decency," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also said the release of the videotape would irreparably harm Farrell's reputation and career.

Captain Steve

Captain Steve

FUN FUn Fun fun (but is it really?)

Mötley Crüe DVD

Mötley Crüe has set an October 4th release date for Carnival Of Sins, a DVD shot during their Red, White & Crüe tour earlier this year. It features a full concert performance filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and guitarist Mick Mars said that Carnival Of Sins will also give fans a dose of Mötley both on stage and off: "It kinda shows, like, every guy, you know, doing their, like, ritual or whatever, like Tommy (Lee) blasting music, or, you know, me kicking back or meditating or whatever, and it's like how we prepare to go on stage and all that stuff. A bunch of behind-the-scene stuff, you know - putting on make-up and that kind of crap."

Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock DVD

Eminem's Early Retirement?

Has Eminem run out of encores?

The rapper is apparently ready to hang up his mike, at least according to a report Friday in his hometown newpaper, the Detroit Free Press.

Citing sources close to the platinum-selling hip-hop star, the Free Press says the real Slim Shady will play his last concert in Dublin on Sept. 17.

The report also speculates that the rapper's most recent release, Encore, will be his swan song, as he focuses on producing other rap artists.

'Star Trek' Star James Doohan Dies

LOS ANGELES - James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died Wednesday. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

A Smurfin' Movie Deal

Fans of a certain animated tribe of small, blue woodland creatures haven't gotten a lot of love lately: No new TV episodes, no old TV episodes on DVD (outside of a couple of import releases), no real news on a long-rumored movie.

Now, finally, things are looking rather smurfin'.

A 3-D, CGI-animated Smurfs feature film will bow in theaters in 2008, Daily Variety reported Tuesday. The extravaganza from Paramount's Nickelodeon Movies will be the first in a planned trilogy, it said. According to Newsweek, the project has been trying to get off the ground since at least 2003.

Word of the done deal comes a week after DreamWorks and Paramount set a July 4, 2007, release date for The Transformers, another animated TV series due for a big-screen makeover. But while Transformers fandom has thrived, fueled by new series and product, the smaller legions of Smurf faithful have waited.

"Dude, a Smurf movie?" went a message-board post on TheMovieBlog.com last month after Newsweek noted a film was nigh. "That's the smurfing best thing I've heard in smurfing forever."

Like the Transformers, the Smurfs were a phenomenon of the 1980s, unless one lived in Europe, where the characters have been mainstays since 1958, when Belgian artist Pierre Culliford, better known as Peyo, introduced them in the comic pages. The new movie's planned release date supposedly is tied to Smurfdom's upcoming 50th birthday.

Peyo's creations--the aforementioned small, blue woodland creatures who lived in homes shaped like mushrooms, whistled happy tunes, conjugated the word "smurf" in any way they saw fit, and named themselves Ramones-style (Papa Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf, etc.)--blew up as big as any Transformer robot in 1981 when The Smurfs debuted on NBC. The Hanna-Barbera-produced series won two Daytime Emmys, moved much merchandise, from Smurf-Berry Crunch cereal to countless figurines, and dominated Saturday morning TV until 1990. A 1983 big-screen adventure, The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, grossed $11 million, per the box-office site The-Numbers.com, even though it was nothing more than a retitled, redubbed version of a 1976 Belgian-produced movie.

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