Xmas, Day 6: Steroid Bust

It looks like Hidetada Yamagishi won't be entering the 2008 Ironman Pro and Arnold Classic after all.

On December 8th, upon arriving at LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) from Tokyo's Narita Airport, Hide (34, 5'6", 200 or so lbs) was arrested for felony possession of a controlled substance. He is currently being held at the North County Correctional Facility in Saugus, CA on a $180,000 bond, with anupcoming court date of January 8, 2008 at the Los Angeles Municipal Court. Though it hasn't been disclosed exactly what he was in possession of, the boys on the boards are supposing it was steroids (huh? you think?).


Hide, the first pro Japanese bodybuilder to compete at the hallowed Mr. Olympia contest, was steadily rising in the pro ranks (including 3rd in Sacramento, 9th at the Atlantic City Pro and 7th at the Ironman) and had been gaining a lot of positive attention in 2007. How exactly his detention will effect (or is it affect) his bodybuilding career is yet to be seen, but much more importantly, what will become of his pending immigration status and will he ever even get a "get out of jail free" card?

Xmas, Day 5: 5 Naked Men!!!

Update: Gotta say I was pretty impressed with Janice's bawdy little update of the classic European Christmas carol. Taken from the 2006 holiday episode of Oxygen's The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, one of my guilty pleasures, I somehow only caught the episode this time around when my Tivo recorded it no less than five times (all on Christmass Eve I think).

Xmas, Day 3: Mikey makes the Tribune

United Airlines cancelled four of Mikey's flights over the Christmas break. All he was trying to do was get home for the holidays, to Cleveland, Ohio, to see his momma but was told that due to "scheduling problems with the crew" he wouldn't be able to make it home for two days. Luckily Mikey's mom has some connections and was able to help him find alternative flights, flights that the United ticketing people said did not exist!

Upon finally getting back to WeHo Christmas night Mikey immediately wrote a nasty letter to the airline, cc-ing a Chicago Tribune columnist, who subsequently contacted him for a follow-up story she was writing about the airlines scheduling miseries (Chicago being United's homebase). To see "Los Angeles-based architect" Mike in print click on through here.

Cloverfield 01-18-08

Northern Lights aka The Golden Compass

The world created by author Philip Pullman in His Dark Materials trilogy is, arguably, the thinking man's Narnia. An inversion of John Milton's Paradise Lost the books have come under much fire by Christian (and inparticularly Catholic) groups as being "written to promote atheism and denigrate Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism." In amongst his blatant criticism of organised religion, the zealots who run it and the lie that is the Chrisitan Heaven, Pullman's story centers on Lyra Belacqua (and later Will Parry) as they run amok cutting rifts between parallel worlds, flying with witches and befriending armoured bears, all so they can ultimately stop the flow of Dust.

The movie version of The Golden Compass, formerly known in the UK as Northern Lights (the title of the novel changed much like that of JK Rowling's first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone), debuted this past weekend to modest (if a tad disappointing) numbers. Minus the final three chapters of the novel (which having been already filmed will hopefully find light of day at the beginning of the proposed sequel), the film sadly limps to an unsatisfying conclusion. This is unfortunate since Nicole Kidman is delicious as Mrs. Coulter, Daniel Craig ever the stud as Lord Asriel, the polar bear fight is fantastic and little Dakota Blue isn't half as bad as I heard she was.

It's a great story with great effects so let's just hope there's some momentum of word of mouth (as we left the theater an inordinate number of people were of the "that didn't deserve the criticism it got" opinion), and better weather back east, that'll encourage New Line to at least give us part deux!

Now since I alread have my own daemon (my Bentley) the following was simply a fun little exercise to while away the minutes. Try it for yourself.