Archives for September 2009

World recognition of Australia's new breed of pacemen has captain Ricky Ponting convinced his side can regain their mantle as the undisputed best in the world.

The gap between Australia and their rivals has narrowed over the past year, underlined by defeats in three Test series - to India last year, South Africa at home last summer and England this year.

While Australia have slipped to No.4 in the world Test rankings, they hold a narrow lead at the top of the one-day table.

A win in the Champions Trophy tournament would put Australia clear of their closest rivals, India and South Africa.

While Australia no longer carry the aura they did when Ponting took over the Test captaincy from Steve Waugh in 2004, he is encouraged for the future given the impact his younger players are having.

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Muslim-majority Malaysia has banned British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's raunchy comedy "Bruno" because it contains "a lot of sex," a senior official said Tuesday.

The film, which stars Cohen as a gay Austrian fashionista, has been a box office hit in some countries while being banned elsewhere for over-the-top scenes including sex acts and full-frontal nudity.

"The movie has been banned in Malaysia because of the sexual content. It was decided by a three-man committee. (There is) a lot of sex in it," an official with the National Film Censorship.

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We all have something that we are afraid of, even celebrities like “Jennifer’s Body” actress Megan Fox.

Me personally, I’m afraid of spiders and other creepy-crawlies, but according to examiner.com, Megan is afraid of the dark.

Megan has apparently revealed recently, that she is terrified of the “Boogie Man” and anything else that “goes bump in the night” to that matter.

The actress admits that she has been afraid of the dark, for the whole of her life. And apparently, Fox reportedly leaves all the lights.

On in her house, when she’s not there and says that if she goes into her house at night and the lights have been turned off, she has to run to the light switch quick, to turn them on.

But Megan doesn’t exactly help herself though. According to the reports, her favorite TV shows are the paranormal shows such.

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Sarah Palin’s first brush with China has not made her many friends. “Palin Gives Speech in Hong Kong, Called Boring, Members of the Audience Left Early” was how Ming Pao, a popular Hong Kong newspaper, put it in a headline today.

A commenter in a Chinese Web forum wrote of Palin’s speech: “This is such a joke. Since when does China need the U.S. to point the way to the future?”  Palin went to Hong Kong, which is the closest she has come to mainland China, to provide what she called “a view right from Main Street” to an investors’ conference Wednesday, and though she asked that it stay closed to the media, excerpts have crept out.

“We simply cannot turn a blind eye to Chinese policies and actions that could undermine international peace and security,” she said, according to a Wall Street Journal blog. “Here, China has some one thousand missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer though believes that it poses a serious threat to Beijing.”

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A trial that could reshape the music-downloading industry began Thursday, pitting the music publisher of hip-hop megastar Eminem against computer giant Apple Inc.

The case in U.S. District Court in Detroit is being watched closely by music industry and copyright experts.

Eight Mile Style LLC contends in its lawsuit against Apple that the computer company earned $2.58 million from downloads of Eminem songs.

Eight Mile attorney Richard Busch said during his opening statement Thursday that Eminem’s contract with record company Aftermath Records did not give the company the right to make his songs available for download on Apple’s popular iTunes service.

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Before he was an actor, Patrick Swayze was a ballet dancer. He began at his mother's dance school in Texas, and went on to study at the Joffrey and Harkness ballet schools in New York before performing with the Eliot Feld ballet. He turned to acting because of an old knee injury (from football), but his first film role, in Skatetown USA (1979), was nevertheless a dancing one: gang leader Ace Johnson, king of the roller disco.

In his breakthrough film, Dirty Dancing (1987), he also played a dancer: rough diamond Johnny Castle, a dance teacher at a middle-American holiday camp, in a story about sex – a teenage girl's first experience – and, powerfully, about romance. It was his most iconic role and most successful film, with an enduring cross-generational appeal to its largely female fan base.

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She is planning to launch her official website by the end of the year, but Katrina Kaif denies being on the social networking site Twitter and says someone has been impersonating her.

“Something has to be done to stop this sort of vandalism. I am not on Twitter or any other social networking website. I plan to start my own website by the end of the year,” Katrina told IANS.

Katrina doesn’t believe in half-measures. It comes as no surprise to know that she intends to start her own website after months of research, preparation and build-up before the Internet’s most ‘hit’ girl delves deeply into her own domain.

“I don’t want this to be something I start and then leave to others to take care of. Of course, there will be professionals employed to oversee my website. But I’ll pick and choose all the material and pictures that will on the site,” said the actress.

Katrina’s website will be called katrinakaifofficial.com and the actress wants it to be a one-stop all-purpose stopover for all her fans.

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Patrick Swayze personified a particular kind of masculine grace both on and off screen, from his roles in films like "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost" to the way he carried himself in his long fight with pancreatic cancer.

Swayze died from the illness on Monday in Los Angeles, his publicist said. He was 57. "Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," Annett Wolf said in a statement Monday evening. She declined to give details.

Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from an especially deadly form of cancer. He continued working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting "The Beast," an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot.

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The 2009 Video Music Awards air this Sunday, and in honor of the big event we have our version of the top ten VMA performances.

Check out the list along with the videos here! The MTV Video Music Awards are something I always look forward to.

The musical line up is usually awesome and the artists go all out for their performances. I have made a list of my personal top ten favorites.

Beware, Justin and Britney do dominate, ’cause in my world, they are solid (for the most part) performers who always put on an amazing show.

Of course it is all relative. Naturally, a great song usually makes for a great live show, but I also think choreography is a huge part of a live show, as are special effects, lighting, sound quality, and about a dozen other elements.

So let’s get started with number ten: Guns N’ Roses Ft. Sir Elton John Playing November Rain. This was done for the 1993 VMA’s, and was such a beautiful rendition.

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President Obama faces a big leadership test tonight as he tries to seize back the health-care debate from conservative opponents in an address to Congress, after a summer spent on the political defensive.

Sharp Republican attacks have accused Obama and his Democratic allies, in sometimes sensational language, of pushing a socialist agenda with their efforts to overhaul the health-care system.

The pregame furor over yesterday's presidential speech urging students to stay in school and work hard - some conservatives feared Obama would use the occasion to indoctrinate children with what they consider his statist philosophy - showed how charged the atmosphere is.

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