Thursday, September 29, 2011

Trailer - New Year's Eve

Super Bowl 2014: Let it snow!

With fewer than 29 months left before the big day, the 2014 Super Bowl host committee unveiled its logo Tuesday, and it prominently hit on two themes important to organizers:

One is that the game is a joint effort between New York and New Jersey. It features the letters NY and NJ below a stylized image of the George Washington Bridge.

The other is evident in what is pictured between the states' initials: a snowflake.

From the start, those behind the first outdoor Super Bowl in the North have not shied away from the probability of cold, perhaps snowy, weather.

"We thought it would be both fun and direct to put the snowflake right into our major symbol," Al Kelly, the host committee chief executive, said at a Manhattan breakfast attended by the Giants' and Jets' owners and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Jets owner Woody Johnson openly has rooted for snow from the day the Meadowlands' bid was accepted. Goodell joined him Tuesday, saying, "A little snow would be great for us. Some of our most memorable games were played in unusual weather circumstances. Winter and cold are part of football, and snow is also."

The host committee logo is not the same as the official Super Bowl logo, which will be revealed at a later date. Speaking of dates, Super Bowl XLVIII still doesn't have one. Kelly hopes to get word from NFL owners next month.

"Certainly knowing the date when you're trying to plan something can be extremely helpful," he said.

Kelly announced 22 corporate sponsors and played a TV ad that will be shown before and after the Jets and Giants games this Sunday. The campaign emphasizes the bi-state effort, with the slogan "A Super Bowl so Historic, it Takes Two States to Host It."

Despite the New York power and money behind the 2014 Super Bowl, the weather and other logistical challenges have given organizers a bit of an underdog mentality. As Johnson said, "The world will be waiting for us to screw up."

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Bruno Mars - It Will Rain (from Breaking Dawn Soundtrack)

Toronto: The Worst Sports City in the World



Via ESPN's Grantland.

This past summer, ESPN The Magazine, in its annual ranking of sports franchises, identified Toronto as the worst city for sports in North America. Inevitably, the assessment provoked a fury of denial. Brian Burke, the Toronto Maple Leafs' president and general manager (and probably the best executive in the NHL) called the ranking, "absurd and offensive" and went on to claim, "I don't think ESPN knows squat about Canada. I don't think they know squat about hockey." I suppose Burke had to say that, being GM and all, but it was still an embarrassing comment. No sane person could disagree with that ranking. As Burke must know, the only problem with ESPN's analysis is that it focused almost exclusively on quantitative matters, the "bang for the buck," meaning the money gathered from tickets, concessions, and parking compared against the team's wins. Being a Toronto fan is so much worse than any algorithm could ever express. A merely numerical measurement fails to capture the daily spiritual trauma of following sports in Toronto.

It's a given that the true fan goes to games not for the necessarily occasional thrill of winning, but for the quotidian experience of losing — a truth articulated originally and beautifully by Nick Hornby in Fever Pitch. Losing in Toronto, however, is an unremitting condition. The CFL team, the Argonauts, is so bad that when I recently found a friend of mine betting on it, I immediately wondered if it was time for an intervention about his gambling addiction. As it stands, the Argonauts are 2 and 6 3 and 9. The Blue Jays this year aren't completely terrible, but when you've said that, you've said everything. They may be a rising power in the East, as many claim, but they sure haven't risen yet. The Raptors are still in their post-Bosh wilderness (not that the Bosh period was a golden age), and Toronto FC currently rests at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. The Leafs, who matter to Torontonians more than all the other teams combined, have not won the Stanley Cup since 1967, and they haven't made the playoffs in a franchise-record six seasons. The only team with a longer dry spell is the Florida Panthers. The Leafs' major source of hope seems to be Brian Burke himself, but when the major source of your dreams is a front-office guy, you are in a dark place. Cheering a GM, to me, is hitting rock bottom.

And this in Canada's biggest city, where hockey matters more than baseball in Boston or basketball in Indiana or football in Texas. The only other places where sports dwell so near the most profound and abiding national questions are rugby in New Zealand, which recoups the warrior culture of the Maori, and football in Buenos Aires, where the slumdog Boca Juniors battle the uptown Millonarios in a never-ending class war. Maybe Real Madrid against Barcelona could be added to that list, but nobody else. People who were surprised that Vancouver burned after the Stanley Cup playoffs last year are unaware of the history of the sport in Canada. Of the 10 biggest riots in Canadian history, six began at hockey games.

During the 2010 Olympics, more than 80 percent of the country watched the men's hockey finals. Our current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is legitimately an expert on the history of the game; the only reason he hasn't finished his book on the early days of the NHL is that he's been busy running the country. The history of the game and the history of the country are much the same thing: You can trace the rise of Quebec separatism, for example, to the Rocket Richard riots in 1955. On the other hand, hockey is the one mass-media phenomenon for which English and French Canadian have the same stars — not true of any other form of entertainment. Immigrants join hockey as fans and players as soon as they join the Canadian middle class. More than a hundred thousand people watch Hockey Night in Canada broadcast in Punjabi.

All of which is to say, we are so terrible when we should be so great. I wish I could say that the misery in Toronto follows that simple equation: the size of our passion divided by the grossness of our losses. Unfortunately, the torture of watching hockey in Toronto is nowhere near so easy. Everybody knows that Toronto loses not despite our love for the game, but because of our love for the game. The truism is by now well established, a local media commonplace. "Each man kills the thing he loves," as Oscar Wilde put it. The teams lose because they don't have to win. The Leafs have so many people on the waiting list for season tickets that they don't take new names anymore; no matter what happens they have a 99 percent renewal rate. Torontonians line up to pay tens of thousands of dollars to watch some of the most dreadful hockey played at a professional level.

So who can blame Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, the business that controls the Leafs and the Raptors, for following that oldest and truest of rules: Never give a sucker an even break? The most recently released financial reports, published by the Toronto Star in 2007 and which were neither confirmed nor denied by the privately held MLSE, suggest they run a profit margin of more than 20 percent. Before we start hacking away at the irresponsible evil-capitalist angle, however, we should recognize that the majority shareholder in MLSE is the Ontario Teachers' Pension Fund (although they are currently looking to sell); the profits of MLSE have paid for the retirement of a lot of hardworking people, so it's good that they're good at business. And they are excellent business people.

Nonetheless, I don't know how the executives at MLSE eat and sleep and walk around knowing how egregiously and consistently they have failed their city. For the past 14 years, the head of MLSE has been Richard Peddie, a mostly cheerful public figure with a hefty amount of charm and a disarming sense of humor. Of course, part of me wants to pin all those 14 disastrous years of failure on him. His retirement agreement stipulates that if Toronto wins the Stanley Cup in the next three years, he receives a championship ring. I have a better idea of how we should celebrate his upcoming departure: with an inverted statue, his image carved underground, a Peddie-shaped hole that all the fans could fill with leftover beer (or borrowed beer) in commemoration of all the victories he did not bring us. The names of all the vice presidents during his tenure could be carved there, as well.

Ultimately, Richard Peddie makes an unsatisfying scapegoat, though. In interviews and on television, he seems like a decent guy who's excellent at his job. At worst, he may be an embodiment of the Canadian technocratic blandness that concentrates on efficiency and deprecates personal glory. This same blandness is why Canadian banks are the most dependable in the world, and why, while the rest of the West is falling apart, we more or less have maintained a working government and a secure middle class. Besides, it's too easy to blame Peddie. It's too easy to blame MLSE even. The tragedy of the Maple Leafs runs much deeper.

The problem with hockey in Toronto is the nostalgia that dominates how the game is played and consumed here. More than winning, Torontonians love the style of old-time hockey, a spirit of straightforwardness, brotherly violence, and what for lack of a better word I will call "not-fancyness." Hockey commentators here love nothing more than explaining how hockey games are won by cycling the puck, driving at the net, ugly goals. "They don't look pretty, but they win games." They love saying that.

Despite having more money than any other hockey team in the league, the Leafs have not purchased any brilliant players in an era overflowing with brilliant players. What the Leafs specialize in is the great bush-league heroes — this is not an accident nor is it the fault of the suits. They know what their audience wants and they give it to them. The city never took to Mats Sundin, the magnificent Swedish all-rounder. The fans adored local boy Tie Domi, a butcher on skates. His definitive moment, perhaps the definitive moment of the Leafs franchise in the 21st century, was his entirely gratuitous hit on Scott Niedermayer in the dying seconds of Game 4 of the 2001 Stanley Cup second round. At the end of a game in which Toronto tied the series, Domi's dirty hit handed the momentum over to the Devils, ruining the best chance the Leafs have had in living memory to make the Finals. The symmetry is nearly perfect: the size of the failure matches the depth of a moral disaster.

Toronto fans like extravagantly ordinary players. How else to explain paying $3 million for Darcy Tucker? Or $5.5 million for Bryan McCabe? Sometimes I wonder if Toronto would even know what to do with the Sedin twins, who are less like quick-fisted farm boys and more like magical changelings conceived by elves in the Scandinavian forest. Would they even be welcome in Toronto? During the 2011 Stanley Cup, everyone felt they had to cheer for Vancouver — Canada's team — but secretly everybody wanted Boston to take it. The choice between Ryan Kesler and Tim Thomas wasn't really a choice at all, even if Thomas is American. I recently overheard a conversation in a bar about whether Sidney Crosby would ever return to hockey, and one guy said, "I told you he was made of glass." That's typical; Toronto wouldn't take Sidney Crosby even if he were on offer. Not tough enough.

This bush-league spirit extends from hockey to all other sports. Chris Bosh, who was adored when he played here, was a great Toronto story exactly because he was so hard-working and not at all stuck up or sophisticated. He wasn't great, but he was doing the best with what he had. In 2007, when Toronto FC arrived in the city, many believed that it would break the cycle, but the city is full of English and Italians and Portuguese and Trinidadians and Koreans who are so football-crazy that TFC doesn't have to win. The situation with the Leafs has been replicated nearly perfectly, the process beginning in its very first season. TFC's "star" player then was Danny Dichio — one of the slowest football players in the league. (Watching him play made it seem like your TV was broken just in the spot where he was playing. It looked like he was running through treacle.) Eventually, in TFC's fifth game, he scored the team's first-ever goal, in the 24th minute, and thereafter TFC fans sang the Danny Dichio song at minute 24. In the last game of that season, down 2-1 with nothing on the line, Dichio managed to catch a late ball and flick it over the keeper, which sent the Toronto fans into a hysterical frenzy. A midlevel player fluking the ball to achieve a meaningless draw — when you cheer such mediocrity, why should anybody give you anything better?

You may wonder: Why would anyone want to be a part of this? The answer is that there's little choice in the matter. My son first told me he was a Leafs fan when he was 3 years old. At first I was horrified; I wanted to shelter him, hoping it would all blow over. But lately I've realized that it's important for him to know this pain, so I bought him the Maple Leafs pajamas he thought he wanted. It's important for him to suffer with the city he lives in. Because suffering for a lack of beauty is right and proper. The bush-league spirit that infects Toronto's hockey also infects the rest of the city. We are a big, nasty, rich city that insists on acting like a small town. We're the size of Chicago, but how could you tell? Our mayor would be an amazing mayor for about 20,000 people. Our museums, our architecture, reflect little of the immense resources that flow through the city from half a continent. Our transit system is a joke because we refuse to plan for our success. It is obvious that Toronto won't be whole, won't begin to live properly again, until the Leafs win the Stanley Cup.

In the meantime, we deserve to lose. We deserve our pain. The pain is the only hope that we'll ever learn to win again.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Rihanna - We Found Love (Feat. Calvin Harris)

Facebook Changes a Coming



Facebook is dramatically redesigning its users’ profile pages to create what CEO Mark Zuckerberg says is a “new way to express who you are.”

Zuckerberg introduced the Facebook “timeline” Thursday in San Francisco at the company’s f8 conference for some 2,000 entrepreneurs, developers and journalists. The event is also being broadcast to more than 100,000 online viewers.

The timeline is reminiscent of an online scrapbook, with the most important photos and text that users have shared on Facebook over the years. It’s Facebook’s attempt at growing from an online hangout to a homestead, where people express their real selves and merge their online and offline lives. The timeline can go back to include years before Facebook even existed, so users can add photos and events from, say 1995 when they got married or 1970 when they were born.

Zuckerberg took the stage after a humorous skit, in which Saturday Night Live actor Andy Samberg impersonated him. The real Mark Zuckerberg looked considerably more playful and at ease than he has in past events, suggesting he is growing into his role as the public face of Facebook.

But he quickly got down to business as he introduced the timeline as “the story of your life — all your stories, all your apps and a new way to express who you are.”

Expanding on its ubiquitous “like” buttons, Zuckerberg said Facebook will now let users connect to things even if they don’t want to “like” them.

“We are making it so you can connect to anything you want. Now you don’t have to like a book, you can just read a book,” he said. “You don’t have to like a movie; you can just watch a movie.”

Modern Family has the X-Factor


Simon Cowell made a solid return to Fox last night, but his new show The X Factor was no match for the Dunphys and Pritchetts (and a far cry from American Idol).

X Factor debuted to 12.5 million viewers and a 4.4 adults 18-49 rating, while ABC’s Emmy-winning Modern Family delivered 14.3 million viewers and a whopping 6.0 series-high rating. The reality competition drew about half the audience of the most recent season opener of American Idol (which delivered about 26 million viewers and a 9.7 in the demo), a point of comparison that’s inevitable, but also arguably unfair given the top-rated legacy of the other show (though Cowell himself invited the comparison in July, when he suggested to reporters that the new show might top Idol).

X Factor was significantly higher, however, than the debut of NBC’s fall singing competition The Sing Off, and was higher than the debut of Hell’s Kitchen in the slot last year. While a one-hour Modern Family not only won the night, but was up 18 percent from its premiere last fall.

Trailer 2: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The old Toronto Blue Jays logo could be reincarnated.

Since Wednesday, a leaked version of what might don the jerseys of Toronto’s baseball team has caused a stir on the internet. Reports have suggested that the Blue Jays will embark on a new marketing strategy for next season, although there has been no official announcement from the team and some have questioned whether this latest design — remarkably similar to the logo of the 1977 expansion blue Jays — is an Internet prank.

Blue Jays spokesperson Jay Stenhouse was not immediately available for comment, but Uni Watch’s Paul Lukas, who also blogs for espn.com. claims he has confirmed the new logo “is the real deal.”

There could be more of a Canadian theme to the new design than a baseball one. Gone is the baseball backdrop of the 1977 logo. The blue jay, though a little thinner and darker, looks much the same, and the maple leaf, absent from the current design, returns with more prominence than it had originally.

The throwback logo has been greeted with enthusiasm on Twitter, on Internet blogs and chat sites and, presumably, by the New England Sports Network. The folks at NESN recently listed the team’s current logo, a stylized Jay nicknamed the Angry Bird by many, as the fourth worst in the history of the major leagues.

Via

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Weasley and Granger Kiss Reaction

In the video, David Yates, the director of the last four "Harry Potter" films, explains that the two actors had different approaches to filming the kiss. He said that since Emma Watson didn't want to have to do multiple takes of the scene, she was "going to get it right the first time." He tells how he could see her psyche herself up before the camera rolled, but Rupert Grint hadn't worked up to the same level of intensity. "I think Rupert wasn't quite expecting it," Yates said, "and then she just went for it." But then the kiss was quickly broken as the two friends burst out laughing.

While it might seem like kissing isn't a bad way to spend a work day, Grint and Watson explained to the UK's TelegraphTV why the scene was so difficult for them. "It feels weird saying this, because I'm sure loads of guys are just really jealous," Grint said. "I mean, she's lovely. I just felt so wrong, really. Kissing this person I've known since she was nine."

Watson said she also felt quite a bit of pressure to please the fans who had been waiting so long for the kiss to happen. She said, "Can you imagine, building up to a kiss for, like, ten years? We've been building up for this kiss for a decade. How am I going to do this justice? I felt like it's the most anticipated kiss of all time. So, it was intense."

There will be many more behind-the-scenes secrets revealed in the bonus features of the upcoming Blu-ray.

Leafs new 3rd Jersey Leaked

The Maple Leafs stand to make millions from revenue generated by sales of their third jersey, says one marketing analyst.

The Leafs are officially unveiling their throwback jersey - virtually the same design as the sweater worn by captain George Armstrong when the Leafs last won the Stanley Cup in 1967 - on Friday, after a picture of it leaked on the Internet over the weekend.

The Leafs will wear them at their home opener on Oct. 6 against the Montreal Canadiens.

"It's definitely going to be a hot item ... it's going to generate millions of dollars in revenue," said Keith McIntyre, a marketing expert based in Burlington, Ont.

"From what I've seen, it's pretty much identical to the jerseys worn by the last Leafs team to win the Stanley Cup. That in itself is going to generate a lot of interest.

"It's one that hasn't been on the market. The logo is very classy."

When the Edmonton Oilers introduced a third jersey in 2002, sales topped $100,000 on the first night alone.

On an average game night at the Air Canada Centre, Real Sports Apparel sells 20-30 Leaf jerseys, said Mike Gagurerriero, supervisor of the MLSE-owned store.

Real Sports Apparel will be selling the jersey exclusively for 10 days after Friday's announcement.

Authentic jerseys at the store sell for $300 or $380 with a number and name on the back. Regular replica sweaters are $129 blank or $189 with a name and number.

Jerseys worn by Phil Kessel and captain Dion Phaneuf were the most popular when they first arrived. Lately, goalie James Reimer has been the big seller at the store.

Reebok, the exclusive supplier of NHL jerseys, recently sent at least one box containing the Leafs' new third jerseys to at least one retail outlet.

Somebody at the Buffalo Sabres store inside their newly-named First Niagara Center opened the box and put the jersey on display.

A person snapped a picture of the predominately blue jersey with white stripes and it was posted on the blog icethetics.info

The jerseys are now packed away somewhere inside the Sabres store. A man who answered the phone, politely told a reporter it had been a mistake, not made by them, but by Reebok.

"Reebok shipped it to us. They're not allowed to ship anything before they're unveiled," he said. "How were we to know?"

Reebok didn't return Star calls seeking comment.

An industry insider said no retail store would dare sell a jersey before they're allowed to sell it so they believe it must have been shipped by mistake and opened by mistake.

Teams normally have exclusivity until the jersey is worn on the ice, and at that point the jersey is available to other retailers.

Chris Ciprietti of the Sports Obsession franchise said their stores won't receive shipments of the third Leaf jersey until at least the middle of the month.

"The sales generated from a new jersey and specifically Toronto would be extremely high," Ciprietti said. "Leaf fans are starving for success and there seems to be more optimism that they are moving in the right direction."

Judging by the interest of Star readers, retail outlets are going to sell a lot of them when they're officially allowed to sell them.

The Leafs haven't said how many times the third jersey will be worn.

The third sweater will sport a solid white banner with two thinner stripes at the waist.

And there's no patch on the shoulders. The "Toronto" on the crest is also curved, similar to how the name was curved on the 1937 sweater.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

JLS - She Makes Me Wanna ft. Dev

Magnetic boy?



"Mom, look what I can do!" David Petrovic, 4, stands in his garden in south Belgrade, Serbia as silverware sticks to his chest. David's parents claim the boy has a rare ability to attract metal objects to his body.

Show sucked, but Ashton smashes ratings with Two and a Half Men Premiere


Two and a Half Men premiere ratings are in. And they’re jaw dropping. Stunningly huge.

The ninth season premiere, starring Ashton Kutcher taking over for Charlie Sheen, delivered 27.7 million viewers Monday night — that’s in the ballpark of an American Idol premiere.

Even more impressive: The sitcom scored a 10.3 rating among adults 18-49. That’s easily an all-time high for the show, and up 110 percent over last fall’s eighth-season debut with Sheen. Everybody expected the sitcom’s first new episode back would perform strong, but not like this.

CBS’ entire comedy lineup was strong, with the night opening with back-to-back episodes of How I Met Your Mother (11.3 million, 4.7 and 12.2 million, 5.1, respectively) that were much higher than last fall’s premiere. Following Men, new comedy 2 Broke Girls did a giant 19.1 million viewers and a 7.0 rating — down, as one would expect, from its giant lead-in, but still likely to dwarf any other new scripted series debut this fall. The only CBS show that didn’t seem to benefit from the Men surge was Hawaii Five-0 (12 million, 3.4) at 10 p.m., which was down 13 percent from last fall, yet still won the 10 p.m. hour.

Over on NBC, another much-buzzed-about premiere had a very different fate: The Playboy Club has been drawing controversial headlines for its association with the adult magazine brand, but it bombed out at 10 p.m., drawing only 5 million viewers and a 1.6 rating. Its two-hour lead-in, the first fall edition of The Sing Off (5.2 million, 1.9), also performed weakly.

CBS also crushed the premiere of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars (18.6 million, 3.9), which has been some drawing press attention, too, for the inclusion of Chaz Bono. While ABC held up better than any other CBS rival, the two-hour premiere was down a sharp 24 percent from last fall’s edition. Good news at 10 p.m. for the network, though: The return of Castle (13.6 million, 3.3) was up 22 percent from last year and gave Hawaii a run for its money.

Also Monday: The season finale of Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen (5.8 million, 2.5) held up well under the bombardment of premieres.

Under Armour Footsteps-Tom Brady & Cam Newton Meet

Monday, September 19, 2011

Cobra Starship - You Make Me Feel

Trailer: Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn

Skylar Grey - Invisible

Never Drinking Again: The Musical

Difference between Boys and Girls explained by a cute kid

Modern Family dominates Emmys

Mad Men won its fourth consecutive Emmy and Modern Family claimed its second at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday that aired live on Fox.

Julie Bowen also won her first Emmy for Modern Family, but viewers probably didn’t hear her speech because they were too busy staring at her very low-cut dress. Her win was immediately followed by a prize for her on-camera hubby (and first-time victor) Ty Burrell, who performed a well-received stand-up act instead of muttering a bunch of ho-hum thank-yous. Early in the show, the ABC comedy also dominated in the directing and writing categories, prompting Lynch to quip, “Welcome back to the Modern Family awards!”







Here are the night’s winners:


Outstanding comedy series: Modern Family
Outstanding drama series: Mad Men
Outstanding miniseries or movie: Downton Abbey
Outstanding lead actress, miniseries or movie: Kate Winslet, Mildred Pierce
Outstanding supporting actor in a miniseries or movie: Guy Pearce, Mildred Pierce
Outstanding directing for a miniseries, movie or dramatic special: Brian Percival, Downton Abbey
Outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or movie: Barry Pepper, The Kennedys
Outstanding supporting actress, miniseries or movie: Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey
Outstanding writing for a miniseries or movie: Julian Fellowes, Downton Abbey
Outstanding lead actor, drama: Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Outstanding lead actress, drama: Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife
Outstanding supporting actor, drama: Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones
Outstanding directing, drama: Martin Scorsese, Boardwalk Empire
Outstanding supporting actress, drama: Margo Martindale, Justified
Outstanding writing, drama series: Jason Katims, Friday Night Lights
Outstanding variety, music or comedy series: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Outstanding directing for a variety, music or comedy series: Don Roy King, Saturday Night Live (host: Justin Timberlake)
Outstanding writing for a variety, music or comedy series: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Outstanding reality competition: The Amazing Race
Outstanding lead actress, comedy: Melissa McCarthy (Mike & Molly)
Outstanding lead actor, comedy series: Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
Outstanding writing for a comedy: Steve Levitan, Jeffrey Richman (“Caught in the Act”), Modern Family
Outstanding director, comedy: Michael Alan Spiller (“Halloween”), Modern Family
Outstanding supporting actor, comedy: Ty Burrell (Modern Family)
Outstanding supporting actress, comedy: Julie Bowen (Modern Family)



Wendy's set to unveil new burger

When Wendy's decided to remake its 42-year-old hamburger, the chain agonized over every detail. A pickle chemist was consulted. Customers were quizzed on their lettuce knowledge. And executives went on a cross-country burger-eating tour.

The result? Dave's Hot 'N Juicy, named after late Wendy's founder Dave Thomas. The burger — with extra cheese, a thicker beef patty, a buttered bun, and hold the mustard, among other changes — will be served in restaurants starting Monday.

"Our food was already good," said Denny Lynch, a Wendy's spokesman. "We wanted it to be better. Isn't that what long-term brands do? They reinvent themselves."

For Wendy's Co., based in Dublin, Ohio, reinvention is critical. That's why executives at the 6,600-restaurant chain spent the past two and a half years going over burger minutiae during an undertaking they call Project Gold Hamburger. That included deciding whether to switch from white onions on its burgers to red (they did), to change the fat/lean ratio of the meat (they didn't), or to go with plain or crinkled pickles (they picked crinkled.)

Wendy's is trying to boost lackluster sales and fight growing competition from much bigger rival McDonald's on one end and expanding fast-casual chains like Five Guys on the other. Part of the problem is that Americans in the economic downturn are being pickier about how they spend their dining-out dollars. But the biggest issue is that Wendy's, which hadn't changed its burger since the chain began in 1969, let its food offerings get stale while competitors updated their menus.

Still, it can be risky to tweak an old favorite. The past is littered with examples of this, including New Coke and Clear Pepsi, which were pulled from store shelves because customers didn't like them. Wendy's itself stumbled a few years ago when rolled out breakfast foods. The company now says its mistake was offering omelets and pancakes, which aren't conducive to eating on the go.

"We have a lot of catching up to do in some areas," said Gerard Lewis, Wendy's head of new product development. "But after we launch this hamburger there will be folks who need to catch up to us."

Demi Lovato covers Lil Wayne's How To Love in NYC



Who's Demi Lovato?

Friday, September 9, 2011

David Letterman - Two & A Half Men Top Ten

Puke.

NFL players may be fined for wearing unauthorized 9/11 tribute gear

If you remember that the NFL threatened to fine Peyton Manning(notes) for wearing high-top cleats to honor the late Johnny Unitas after Unitas passed away on September 11, 2002, you know that the league takes its uniform rules very, very seriously. Manning was threatened with a $25,000 fine if he wore the cleats in a game because he had formally been denied permission to do so by the NFL. In the end, Manning took a pass, though Baltimore Ravens quarterback Chris Redman(notes) flew in the face of authority and got popped with a $5,000 fine for his trouble.

It was a callous move by the NFL, but if what we're hearing about what players want to wear to honor the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is true, you haven't seen anything yet. According to the tweets of Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs, the penalties for players wearing specific 9/11 tribute gear could be fairly steep.

Reebok great job on these gloves and shoes..looks like I'm getting fined this week. Lol! By far the best fine I will ever have to pay. Thanks…Fines for gloves could be as much as 5k..the shoes 8-10k I think. not 100% on the shoe fine.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Hipster Potter



More here.

World's Largest Water Balloon Fight

Paramore debuts new song in NYC - Renegade

Charlie Sheen adds celebrity roasters: Shatner, Walsh, Lovitz



Charlie Sheen’s roast on Comedy Central has added a few more celebrity names: Icon William Shatner, Private Practice star Kate Walsh and onetime Saturday Night Live performer Jon Lovitz will take the stage. Comedians Patrice O’Neal and Amy Schumer have also been added to the bill, along with a guest appearance by guitarist Slash.

The motley assortment of performers are added to the previous batch of names, which include Steve-O and Mike Tyson, along with roast master Seth MacFarlane. The special airs on Comedy Central the same night as CBS’ Two and a Half Men premiere, Sept. 19.

Glee: Another Season 3 Promo

Entourage comes to "The End" this Sunday



Tuesday, September 6, 2011

David Guetta ft. Chris Brown & Lil Wayne - I Can Only Imagine

Oh Land - White Nights

Tom Brady would welcome Randy Moss

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said he spoke with Randy Moss just before the start of training camp this season and asked about a report that the wide receiver would be interested in coming out of retirement to play for New England again.

While Moss was not definitive in wanting to return, Brady was open to the idea of a reunion.

"Would it surprise me? You never know in the NFL," Brady told Boston sports radio WEEI during his weekly call-in Tuesday. "I talked to Randy just before the start of training camp. I love Randy. He's one of the greatest wide receivers in the history of the game, one of the greater players I've ever had the chance to play with.

"Unfortunately, I don't make personnel decisions. If I did, I'd still have all my friends here -- Troy [Brown], David Patten, Deion [Branch] never would have left. I've seen so many guys move on, then guys come back. Who knows? You never know what situation we'll be in here next week, for that matter.

"I can't get into [Moss's] brain at all. I love the guy. He's a great friend of mine. If he ever did have the opportunity to come back, I'd certainly welcome it with open arms."

Moss played 13 seasons with Minnesota, Oakland, New England and briefly Tennessee. The six-time Pro Bowler had arguably his best season as a pro with the Pats in 2007, catching 98 passes for 1,493 yards and a league-leading 23 touchdowns.

For his career, Moss has 14,858 receiving yards and 153 touchdowns, which is second only to Jerry Rice's 197 all time.

Trailer: Margaret (Sookie is always getting into trouble)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

JT and Biel are frolocking around Toronto

This makes me feel much better about the fact that Julianne Hough is in town and didn't come see me yet.

Timberlake, 30, and Biel, 29, were photographed riding rental bikes in Toronto -- and they were spotted brunching together at hip diner Swan restaurant. The pair, whose reps in March said “they mutually have decided to part ways”—were photographed by eTalk riding bikes in downtown Toronto—where Jessica has been filming Total Recall—along Queen Street West, known for its hip boutiques and restaurants.

“Justin and Jessica came into Ella’s Uncle coffee shop not once but three times this past weekend: Saturday evening, Sunday morning and just this morning,” an eyewitness told Life & Style. “They seemed so comfortable, happy and at ease every time.”

“They literally couldn’t stop staring and smiling at each other,” the eyewitness said. “Justin seemed completely smitten with Jessica, and she had this permanent smile on her face, and they joked around with each other. Jessica even recommended Justin get her favorite, the Americano, but Justin opted for the Ella, a double cappuccino with maple syrup.”

They were spotted together, also in Toronto, over the Fourth of July weekend eating pork tacos at the city’s Black Hoof restaurant.


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Julianne was in Toronto... whaaaaaa

Torontonians got a big surprise today courtesy of KISS 92.5 and Paramount Pictures, bringing in the stars of Footloose, Julianne Hough and Kenny Wormald, to the City along with Director Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow, Black Snake Moan). The Trio along with their large Entourage rolled into Toronto midday from Los Angeles and headed straight to the Canadian National Exhibition, greeting and signing Autographs for Fans, including some who had to dance their way to a Meet & Greet!

This video is awesome on many levels



Firstly the jumping is pretty cool, but I equally love the cut-aways to the dog running, and the girls in bikinis. Whoever directed this is a genius.

The ONLY reason I may watch the 2012 Summer Games



Darya Igorevna Klishina (AYAP : born 15 January 1991) is a Russian long jumper. She holds the Russian junior record with 7.03 m.

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