Gossip Guy

Entertainment

Jon and Kate Plus Eight producers are secretly having graphics made up for the show which will read: "Jon and Kate Plus Nine." This is just in case the rumor about Jon having an affair is true. If it is true, scientists are predicting that the drama index for this show, based on a scale from one to ten, will grow from a five to an eight. Rumor has it that the producers also created a second set of graphics that read: "Jon and One Equals Two."

Medium writers are upset that the script for next season's finale has been leaked to the press. According to one source, Medium’s psychic character Allison discovers that she has sleep apnea. Once she starts using a CPAP machine nightly, her psychic powers disappear. And her husband, Joe, becomes a much happier guy.

A secret Escape to Chimp Eden source tells us that all the chimps have escaped and the producers are frantically switching the focus of the show. An elderly woman in Stratford, Wisconsin, will be starring in their new show called Escape to Cat Eden .

Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment filming for the third season stopped today because of a tragic accident. The producers flew into the show's wilderness campsite to check on things and discovered that the four remaining contestants had eaten the camera crew and some of the equipment bags.

The Celebrity Apprentice producer Mark Burnett fired Donald Trump today after it was discovered that Melissa Rivers, Clint Black, and Dennis Rodman are Donald Trump's illegitimate children. If Annie Duke's DNA test proves that Donald Trump is NOT her father, she will replace Joan Rivers as the new celebrity apprentice.

Grey's Anatomy actor Katherine Heigl revealed today that producers wanted to kill every character on the show in this year's finale and start over with a new cast, but because most of the actors' contracts were still in force, the producers' lawyers wouldn't let them. In a private meeting with Entertainment Tonight , the producers said they will try again next year.

According to a source close to Survivor winner, James Thomas, after being in the wilderness for 39 days, James will be using his winnings to buy a grocery store, a liquor store, and the affection of some women in Mobile, Alabama.

Weather

Hollywood studio heads are declaring that the drought is officially over and are predicting a heavy rainfall of great summer movies this year, which may cause flooding in some small, low lying theaters.

Dining

McDonald's Corporation has announced a new value menu featuring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But be forewarned, you will be expected to bring your own peanut butter, jelly, and bread to the restaurant and then make your own sandwich. Prices will vary depending on the quality of the sandwich.

Emeril's in New Orleans announced today that they will be offering a new value menu that will be more in tune with our economic times and their customers. The new dishes featured will be very similar to the items listed on the value menu at the McDonald's located two blocks away. And in the spirit of this new value menu, the wait staff will no longer ask you what kind of water you prefer.

The Economy

Because of the recession, sales are down for most store items. However, some items are selling quite well. According to the American Institute of Important Statistics, the average American is now buying five pounds of chocolate, three cases of beer, and two adult films every three days. The institute admitted that the statistics are probably being skewed by the unemployed.

The Texting Pandemic

Recent studies have shown texting is out of control and may eventually have a bigger impact on the planet than global warming. An emergency phone message was left for Al Gore, but as of this writing no response has been received.

Last Tuesday, I sat down with Dr. Gutenberg at the American Institute of Scribbling to discuss the results of his new research.

We’re all familiar with how texting is causing car accidents. How else is texting affecting our society?

Dr. Gutenberg: Here is just one example - unplanned pregnancies are on the rise. Our studies show that when people are heavy texters, they sometimes forget to use birth control or may not even notice that they are engaged in intimate relations.

A real surprise was that there were even a few women who didn’t realize they were pregnant until their labor pains became so severe they had to put their cell phones down. There also have been a few cases where the babies of heavy texters were born with freckles or spots on their foreheads that formed the letters “L-O-L.”

Wow!

Dr. Gutenberg: And we are now convinced that Swine Flu was probably caused by texting. We have evidence that a pig farmer was eating a sandwich near a pigpen when he suddenly thought of a new pork product: bacon Twinkies. We believe he put his sandwich down on a fence post in order to send a text message to his branding consultant. An unidentified pig then licked or took a bite out of the farmer’s sandwich. After sending his text message, the farmer continued to eat the sandwich and became infected.

What about the entertainment industry?

Dr. Gutenberg: One of our scientists observed an audience at a local theater texting instead of watching the movie. This certainly explains why the new Star Trek movie got such rave reviews. And recently, the Fox cable network has canceled the show Sit Down, Shut Up. What more can I say?

How has texting affected professional sports?

Dr. Gutenberg: We have inside information that Brett Favre, who played for the Jets last year, injured his shoulder texting, not by playing football. That explains why Brett didn’t tell his coach. We’ve heard some leagues are talking about randomly testing athletes for texting, and NASCAR is considering taking the severe step of banning all texting.

Has texting affected our economy?

Dr. Gutenberg: We poured over our satellite photos from last year and discovered that last fall’s presidential election created a tsunami of texting, which affected many of our low-lying areas. The surge from this perfect, texting storm kept people from spending, which plunged our nation into a recession. The exception to this, of course, has been cell phone sales.

Why is texting more dangerous than global warming?

Dr. Gutenberg: At a recent conference in Las Vegas, scientists from all over the world shared their findings and data. This sharing led to several discoveries.

First of all, every cell phone generates a small magnetic field. As more and more people on the planet buy cell phones, these small magnetic fields could combine and become one large magnetic field. This huge magnetic field could pull a large asteroid into a collision course with our planet and kill us all. Our last text message might read, "Oh, $***!"

How much trouble are we in?

Dr. Gutenberg: We need to make the American people and the world aware that we are in the middle of a texting pandemic. This disease -- graphic interruptus -- is spreading rapidly. We don’t know yet if it is spread through contact or is airborne. It will take years to develop a vaccine. Abstinence programs have proven to be ineffective.

What can we do to stop this pandemic of texting?

Dr. Gutenberg: New solutions will have to be established. For example, thick gloves that prevent you from pressing individual cell phone keys will be mandatory attire. Polarized glasses that prevent you from reading cell phone screens will have to be issued and worn. Some areas, like Starbucks and Wynot, Nebraska, will have to be quarantined. Most importantly, we will have to stop teaching our children to read and write.

Thank you, Dr. Gutenberg. It’s been an honor.

No Country for Old Trekkies

Time and/or distance can make a person homesick. After watching the new Star Trek movie, I was very homesick.

I was homesick for directors who could actually direct, actors who could actually act, plots that were actually plotted, and science fiction actually based on science.

A friend of mine, a truck driver by trade, sums up the typical plot line for many modern movies:
Fight scene.
Explosion.
Explosion.
Car chase.
Fight scene.
Explosion.
Roll credits.

JJ Abrams’ new movie, Star Trek, doesn’t follow this pattern exactly, but pretty damn close.

Before this movie, I enjoyed Leonard Nimoy’s performances but I never thought of Leonard Nimoy as a great actor. But compared to Zachary Quinto, Nimoy is a genius! I’ve liked Quinto’s performances on the TV show Heroes. But in this movie, Quinto’s voice is more like Mike Tyson than Spock.

And Chris Pine just didn’t do it for me. I didn’t expect him to imitate William Shatner’s characterization of Kirk. But Pine just didn’t project the Kirk I had hoped for: an overconfident, rascal of a star captain.

I loved Simon Pegg as Scotty, Karl Urban as McCoy, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, John Cho as Sulu, and Anton Yelchin as Chekov. Also, Eric Bana, who I’ve enjoyed in the past, just wasn’t menacing or evil enough to me. And what was up with Nero blaming Spock for the destruction of Nero’s home planet? Spock was supposed to stop a supernova??!!

Science fiction is the greatest transporter device of all time. Science fiction movies like Jurassic Park, Soylent Green, and Planet of the Apes (1968) have transported me to places far, far away from my home state of Wisconsin.

I expected the same take-me-away experience from Star Trek. But during this whole movie, I never left my theater seat. I was painfully aware of where I was. As a Star Trek fan, one would think I would find comfort in the old familiar faces, alien races, and conflicts, but I didn’t. Yes, the special effects were spectacular, but the rest of the time, I was bored. The time travel plot has been done to death.

Science fiction takes new technology and projects its impact and influence on our world. Every day, I see how technology is changing our world, and yet I saw little of this in this movie. Why weren’t the characters wirelessly linked to the ship’s network through some kind of implant? Why do the shuttles, which have to enter a planet’s atmosphere, still look like Kleenex boxes? Why wasn’t Uhuru sending tweets to Twitter? After all, this movie does take place on stardate 2233.

I was shocked at how bad the fight scenes were. After years of military training and bar fights, Kirk and Sulu couldn’t fight their way out of a room full of tribbles. I can’t believe Abrams has never seen any of the Bourne movie fight scenes or some of Steven Seagal’s early movie fight scenes. And why would you let your main character, Kirk, get his butt kicked in every fight scene?

It was interesting and boring that Abrams chose a very sterile Star Trek environment. Every set looked like a hospital room. The lesson to be learned from Battlestar Galactica is that space can be an incredibly dirty, smelly place, which can be much more interesting. And speaking of Battlestar Galactica, that show’s writers were the best on the planet Earth.

Out of curiosity, I watched a JJ Abrams interview on Youtube. He said that he and some guys got together in a room and just wrote the script. It really, really shows.

And the lesson to be learned here, Mr. Abrams, is: if you find drug money or a bad script in the desert, don’t even think about taking it home.