Article Archive for December 2005
Earlier in the year, we were sent word of a spiffy new band's MySpace page. The band was called Oppenheimer, and the songs on their MySpace page have stuck in our brains ever since.
Fuzzy like Joy Zipper, warm like The Spinto Band, catchy like the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Oppenheimer are a name you'd better learn how to pronounce properly because you'll be talking about them all the time next year.
We caught up with Shaun and Rocky from Oppenheimer for a quick chat about Belfast, eating breakfast in New York and your Mum wearing slippers to the chip shop...
You know, we're not too sure that Casino Royale will ever be made. After all the piff-paff about trying to find an actor to play James Bond, finding a Bond Girl was supposed to be a cinch.
But that's not the case. Nobody wants to be in the new James Bond film. Not Angelina Jolie, and now - if reports are to be believed - not Charlize Theron either. There's just one month to go before Casino Royale starts filming, which hopefully gives the Bond producers enough time to find someone suitable before the unthinkable happens and they unveil Code McCutcheon.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a tough guy. He killed bad guys in Predator, he was a villain turned good guy in the Terminator movies, and reigned supreme in the classroom for Kindergarten Cop. Such roles, however, could not have prepared him for the strange case that was Tookie Williams.
This is an odd unfolding tale readers, of murder, public repentance, and the aftermath of the death penalty.
Gwen Stefani's album was called Love.Angel.Music.Baby. And - now that it's been reported that she's - Gwen can cross the Baby part out. All that's left for her is to fall in Love, make some decent Music and, um, something about an Angel. We didn't think this through.
Anyway, Gwen Stefani and big in America rockstar husband Gavin Rossdale are expecting their first baby together in the June.
Today, Elton John gets married to his long-time partner David Furnish in Windsor on the first day that same-sex civil partnerships are made legal in England.
Elton John probably spent this morning doing the traditional male 'getting married today' routine. That usually involves waking up next to an anonymous stripper, experiencing huge waves of crashing guilt, deciding that you're not ready for marriage, only to realise that you don't have the guts to cancel the wedding at such short notice, and then confining yourself to a miserable life of depression and regret. Congratulations, Elton!
Elves, as you already know, are evil. All elves. Sometimes we pelt toddlers with handfuls of gravel because we think they're evil elves. But that's not the way you should go about things, as today's Slackerjack shows.
Today's Slackerjack is Evil Elves 2 - a game where you get to teach those pesky (and evil) elves a jolly good lesson. Well, we say that,
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Amidst all the terrible Hollywood films that came out this year was The Business - possibly the second best film about cockney gangsters in a hot country ever made (after Sexy Beast, obviously).
Once you've got over the novelty of watching a bunch of 1980s cockneys walking around a villa going "Fack! FACK! Fack! Fack off you facking cahnt! Bollocks!" all over the place,
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U2 frontman Bono has a lot on his mind.
He's so goshdarn busy - what with trying to save the world and singing formulaic songs in iPod adverts - that he occasionally puts his hat down and forgets to take it with him when he leaves.
"But wait," we hear you cry, "how will Bono keep his rakish flamboyant air without his hat? What will he do? What, for Christ's sake? WHAT???"
Not to worry. Because (according to an American newspaper) Bono - who wants you to cut back on the odd luxury and give all your money to the poor, remember - is more than prepared to spend $1,700 on flying his favourite bit of headgear from London to Italy.
First class, no less.
Here we are at the arse-end of 2005, and what have we got to look forward to in 2006? More of the same relentless drudgery combined with a growing sense of your own mortality, that's what.
But - hey - apart from that, things are looking up! Why? Because we've got a brand new set of 2006 music betting odds for you to place some money on.
The good people at SportingOdds.com have devised a betting market based on artists getting a number one single at any point before 1/1/2007. We'll be seeing the week out with these betting odds, starting today with the chances that Michael Jackson, Cliff Richard and Any Former Big Brother Contestant have of getting a number one record in 2006.
So here's part one of our 2006 music betting odds, with help from SportingOdds.com...
Today is probably the most pivotal day of the year in the race to become UK 2005 Christmas Number One - it's the day that X Factor winner Shayne Ward releases That's My Goal.
Until today, the Christmas Number One hunt had been mainly made up of a man pretending to be a baby singing a song about a digger and Westlife - a band who couldn't be more dull if you painted them beige and ordered them to sing about carpets.
Has the release of That's My Goal livened up the Christmas Number One race? There's only one way to find out.
Here comes today's batch of Christmas Number One betting odds, with help from SportingOdds.com...
