DudeAsInCool

By SEAN HAMILTON KYLIE Minogue claims rocker Michael Hutchence still communicates with her — from beyond the grave. The sexy singer says the INXS star returned from the dead to say “hello” to her. Kylie, 35, also claims to have been reincarnated several times and says she regularly speaks to the dead. Her claims mirror the plot of 1999 hit movie The Sixth Sense in which young star Haley Joel Osment tells Bruce Willis: “I see dead people.” Lovers ... Michael and Kylie Kylie said: “I’ve had one particularly intense experience that let me know Michael was still around. “Like he had come to say, ‘Hello’.” Kylie dated Hutchence in 1987. Ten years later — after falling for tragic TV host Paula Yates — Hutchence was found dead in a Sydney hotel room. Kylie said she has a stronger bond with Hutch NOW than when he was alive. She added: “Sometimes when people have passed you feel closer to them.” Visions ... Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense The pop princess — who had a hit with Step Back In Time — also expressed opinions on the afterlife, reincarnation, evolution, death, heaven and God. She said: “I believe I have lived before, but I’m not very advanced in my series of lives. I’m not even into double figures. I don’t have a visual memory of my past lives, but I believe I came from somewhere.” Kylie revealed her supernatural side in an amazing interview with American magazine Blender. She added: “From experiences with the deceased and with the sixth sense there must be much more than the here-and-now. I believe in a universal power. “I think we’re very early in the evolutionary scale. We don’t use a fraction of our brains yet. To be honest, mine is on economy some days. “The soul is the endlessness of our beings. The soul is infinite and we’re just passing through.” Talking about heaven, she said: “There has to be a peaceful place. I believe that people who have lived good lives will achieve peace. “God is either a universal energy outside of us or a life force within us. Or both.” Kylie has had a string of high-profile boyfriends. She dated Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan, photographer Stephane Sednaoui and models Zane O’Donnell and James Gooding. Briton James was believed to be her perfect man — but Kylie dumped him at the end of 2002 after a three-year relationship. He later confessed to flings with model Sophie Dahl and actresses Davinia Taylor and Martine McCutcheon. Kylie has found love again with French actor Olivier Martinez. She wrote a slushy love song for him on her new album Body Language and has flown him to meet her parents in Melbourn

Campus Life/On Top March 04, 2004 If diamonds are a girl's best friend, hand jobs are a close second. So, I was having lunch with my girlfriends and we were discussing important worldly issues. But, right in between John Kerry and gay marriage, we were disturbed by an issue that is sweeping LSU's campus -- the decline of the hand job. This is a serious issue that college women have on their hands -- or that's the problem, they don't have anything on their hands. I have asked around. Greeks, athletes, gays, the smelly girl in my philosophy class -- no one gives hand jobs. I'm talking about the disappearance of second base. We can't play baseball without second base! It's sad and we have to stop pretending that it doesn't exist. It's like the Mets, or Canada. Girls, think about the last time you gave a guy's snake the friendly handshake. Did he get off? Don't feel insecure about your inability to flog his dolphin. In a relationship, only a minority of guys enjoy this female's favorite pastime. The ones that do say it's additional entertainment and scenery that builds their excitement. And, it's not their first choice for their late night activities. But, some college guys can't get off from a hand job. Why? Well, there're several reasons. One is that it's elementary, my dear, Watson. Along with letter jackets, hand jobs are a high school thing. In high school we were on a sexual expedition. It was our chance to learn trigonometry, physics and how to pleasure our lover. And, when we learn new things we take baby steps. I'm just guessing, but I bet very few girls gave their first hand job and first blow job in the same night. Hand jobs are a respectable sex act. It's a way to be a little wild while maintaining your innocence. But, in college, if you go home with a guy and give him a hand job and then stop (because of the fear if you go any further you're a slut) the guy thinks you're a tease. Are girls now expected to go from kissing to kissing something else? Another reason why guys don't get off from hand jobs is most girls don't know how to give them properly. A discouraged freshman told me, "They tug on it like a stuck zipper instead of treating it like sensitive machinery." The third reason is that college guys are experienced. Most guys have seen the big apple and don't ever want to go home. Sure, some girls have the force, but once they substitute the hand for the mouth or the prize down below, the hand just can't hack it. The extinction of the hand job seems to be inevitable. So, unfortunately, I bid goodbye to that high school staple, the hand job, and look forward to next week's article: on top or bottom? http://www.lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v...a?in_archive=1%

Australia opens country-music academy. Courses include Fixin' yer Pick-up Truck with Bailin' Wire, Whisky Drinkin' 101 and Avoidin' the Devil.. Friday, March 19, 2004. 9:17am (AEDT) Country sounds a hit for school curriculum In what is believed to be a world-first, a southern Queensland high school is nurturing the talents of up and coming country music stars. Gympie is better known for its annual country music festival, but this year Gympie State High School has started lessons for budding performers. Teacher and local musician Geoff Walden says students are taught to play instruments such as the bass guitar, keyboards, banjo and mandolin, as well as sing which has been popular with boys. "One of the really interesting things about that class is we have a number of boys who are interested in singing," Mr Walden said. "That's pretty much a first that I've seen to have 13, 14-year-old boys to stand up in front of 600 people and sing a ... song from 60 to 70 years ago - obviously before my time," he said. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1069160.htm

JUST BROWSING Living Room Film Club, a Click Away By WILLIAM GRIMES Published: March 19, 2004 t so happens that I have a perfectly valid excuse for watching "Hercules in the Haunted World." The film, made in 1961, offered brief employment to a slab of beefcake named Reg Park, the British Steve Reeves, and at first glance it would seem to be a two-ton wheel of cheese. But somehow a genuine artist became attached to the project, a director named Mario Bava. And who is Mario Bava? Why, the seminal influence on Dario Argento, the cult Italian horrormeister. One by one, his stylized, incredibly violent films found their way into my home in a blood-soaked festival organized by my wife, an Argento fan who cannot bring herself to watch the leisurely stabbing scenes that take up about half of every movie. We made our way through "Inferno," "Deep Red," "Suspiria" and "Tenebre." Then it was on to Bava. Thank you, Netflix. Netflix, founded in 1998, is an online movie-rental company that could be described as the anti-Blockbuster. It deals only in DVD's, and customers pay a flat monthly fee of $19.95 to rent an unlimited number of films with no late fees. The sole restriction is that subscribers may keep only three movies out at a time. (The company also offers more expensive five-film and eight-film plans.) Advertisement As each movie is returned in its self-addressed, prepaid envelope, Netflix sends out the next film on a list that the subscriber maintains online. Since the company has 23 regional distribution centers, most movies arrive the day after they are sent out. In theory a fanatic customer watching three films a day could go through several hundred DVD's each year, whittling down the per-film rental cost to a dollar or less. In practice the average user watches about six movies a month. I became one of Netflix's nearly 1.8 million users several months ago, and I have never looked back. Overnight, life became much simpler. No longer did I have to make a mad dash to the video store, either to rent a film or to return it by the noon deadline. Late fees vanished and so did the check-out line. I cursed the endless hours spent prowling the aisles in search of misfiled films, or something — anything — to watch. Anything that is, except the dead-enders artfully arranged in the section labeled "staff favorites," a euphemism for "films that no one will rent, ever." Best of all, I succumbed to the pure pleasure of browsing endlessly through thousands of movies, making my selections with a click of the mouse and then seeing them slip through my mail slot, in their bright-red envelopes, just a few days later. Netflix not only changed my routine, it also turned me into a different kind of movie watcher. Culturally, I am no longer the same person. The flat-fee system elicits two responses: more frequent renting, and more adventurous renting. To justify the cost, you watch more films. But since four films per month averages out to the cost of four films at Blockbuster, every subsequent movie is, in a delusory sense, free, and therefore there is no risk. Why not roll the dice and order, say,"Russian Ark," a bizarre Russian film, part audioguide and part costume drama, that pulls the viewer through the Hermitage Museum in a single, extended camera shot, skipping from century to century. It's even more unwatchable than it sounds. But so what? I dropped it in the mailbox knowing that "Naked City" and "Adaptation" were on their way. So far I have not been sent any damaged discs, and only one has gone astray after being mailed back. I filed a "missing in action" report on the Netflix Web site, and a day later, it either turned up, or Netflix wrote it off. In any case, it was no longer listed as being out. A Few Catches There are a few snakes in this cinematic paradise. For one thing, Netflix cannot accommodate the moviegoer who needs instant gratification. If you simply have to see"Scarface" tonight, then only the video store can help you. Cable systems offer movies on demand, but the pickings tend to be slim. My metabolism doesn't work that way. Browsing through a vast library and clicking as the mood strikes feels plenty spontaneous to me. You see it, you want it, you add it to your queue right then and there. There are two other weaknesses in the Netflix system, one unavoidable, the other understandable. First, the company does not rent videocassettes, so its library does not include thousands of films, some of them obscure, but many of them recognized classics. Anyone hoping to binge on Barbara Stanwyck will have to do without "Ball of Fire."Preston Sturges fans will look in vain for "Easy Living." Even within the more limited universe of DVD, Netflix is not totally comprehensive. Its mainstream orientation has left an opening for GreenCine (pronounced GreenScene), an online rental company that specializes in art-house films, documentaries, Japanese anime and cult films. It does not have multiple distribution centers, but it does have "Cane Toads," an Australian documentary about, not surprisingly, cane toads. I scanned the first 20 titles listed under "film noir" and found six films not offered by Netflix. Wal-Mart, which entered the online DVD rental business last June, undercuts Netflix with a three-movie plan priced at $18.76 per month. Its library of about 12,000 titles passed the Dario Argento test with flying colors. Wal-Mart has 10 of his films, compared with five on Netflix. GreenCine, despite its alternative profile, offers only two Argento films, although it has two documentaries about the director. Netflix, too, has its niche side. An innovative program called Netflix First makes a small number of independent films available exclusively to Netflix subscribers for a limited period. The program, which started with "Croupier," has grown to include about 20 films. Netflix executives say their edge over the competition is not their library but the way the library is presented to users, who are asked to rate the films they have seen. By sifting through the ratings, about 400 million of them at present, and analyzing buying patterns, a company program called CineMatch generates rental suggestions specific to each user. Polishing the Profile " `Lost in Translation' will outperform most $300 million films for us, and that's because of our ratings and recommendations," said Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer for Netflix. " `Monster' will be huge for us, and that's not because our subscribers are more sophisticated than the general moviegoing public, but because our merchandising system is much more specific." My experience of CineMatch makes me an agnostic. Right now my account page tells me that, based on my rentals and ratings, I might like to rent "Aguirre, Wrath of God,""Stagecoach" or "The Vicar of Dibley." I see the logic, and it is primitive. The "Stagecoach" recommendation reflects my rental of John Ford's "Searchers," just about the only western I've seen in my adult life, unless you count "Blazing Saddles."CineMatch got lucky here. I found "The Searchers" riveting, and I put Howard Hawks's"Red River" on my queue. "Stagecoach" is indeed a viable candidate. "The Vicar of Dibley," a gentle and not very funny British comedy series, shows up because I rented two other British series, "Full Bottom" and "Thick as Thieves," both of them a lot less funny even than "The Vicar of Dibley." Three wrongs do not make a right. In theory, as I generate more ratings, CineMatch will develop a more complex taste profile for me, but I'm doubtful. I think it will just get confused. I don't blame it. At the moment, a domestic battle rages for control of the Netflix queue, which can be revised and reshuffled at any time. It is disputed territory. My wife likes very fat films or very slow films. It's either nonstop action, with a lot of gunplay, or painstaking, exquisitely nuanced psychological dramas, like the interminable "I Capture the Castle," a British film about an eccentric family living in Wales in the 1930's. My weakness is for pretentious foreign films. At the moment, I feel a creeping urge to rent"Andrei Rublev," a three-hour film about a medieval Russian icon painter. Frost Warning We each judge the other's selections harshly. I scored a major victory with "Mon Oncle"by Jacques Tati, a director I once dismissed as tedious, annoying and far too French. He is now a god in our house. But I have had my back against the wall after "L'Atalante," a film I had never seen but knew to be, by expert consensus, a towering masterpiece. Less than 10 minutes after the opening credits rolled, the atmosphere in the living room grew frosty. I lost control of the mouse for a week. At least I had the foresight to sneak off and watch "Russian Ark" on my own. That's the fun of Netflix. Along with savage recriminations, my home now resonates with high-toned animated discussion of directors, cinematographers and camera angles. Once again I'm the moviegoer I was in college, when Bergman, Fellini and Truffaut were in full stride, and adventure was in the air, and bright-eyed cinéastes could sit through a film like "El Topo" and not demand their money back. It's not available on Netflix, alas, but the Web site does propose an alternative, a compilation of "Ed Sullivan" shows featuring Topo Gigio. Close enough. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/movies/19NETF.html

Psilaxs at ZP says that the Finnish & Norwegian metal bands are the best. He touts the following bands: E.G Nightwish, Within Temptation, ET Do you agree?

Have you tried it, M77...

You're roomie/significant other/friend wants to fry your pet! Save the Goldfish! http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/goldfish.php

Interesting coupling..who would have figured?

I went to school with Jay Boberg. He brought the Police to UCLA and soonafter hooked up with IRS, before becoming President at Universal Music. He's out of the corporate schene now. It's a good thing he sees an opportunity for new bands and new means of distribution. He'd be well advised to listen to the people at ZP and Beatking...

US Internet population tops 200 million Thu Mar 18,10:35 AM ET NEW YORK (AFP) - The number of Americans with Internet access has topped 200 million, or nearly three-fourths of the US population older than two, a survey showed. Nielsen/NetRatings, said its survey from February showed 204.3 million people or 74.9 percent of the over-two population of 272.8 million. That was up nine percentage points from the same period a year ago. "In just a handful of years, online access has managed to gain the type of traction that took other mediums decades to achieve," said Kenneth Cassar, director of strategic analysis at Nielsen/NetRatings. The survey, which measured access as opposed to usage, found that women represent a higher proportion of Web surfers, with 82 percent or 34.6 million women between the ages of 35-54 accessing the Internet at home. Some 80 percent of men in this age or 32.4 million, had Web access, the survey found. Seventy-seven percent of females in the 25-34 age group are Web surfers, while 75.6 percent of males in this age bracket have Internet access. "Women make the majority of purchases and household decisions, so it's no surprise that they are utilizing the Internet as a tool for daily living," said Cassar. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid...53554&printer=1

Well put, Kooper - the world isnt black or white. Shawn appears to have a different perspective than you do Mike about this author and article, and like the good lawyer he's training to be, he's asking questions about the source. His comments have nothing to do with the pictures contained in the article... No one doubts there is a lack of freedom in Iran, or that there arent people fighting for a just cause. That doesnt mean that eveyone here should read one article and all of a sudden be behind them. If you're looking for a political fight, you arent going to get it here. At Beatking, we respect each other's opinions... Shawn was nice enough to view the post and to make his observation. You made yours, and we've respectfully read it. Next.

permission denied Try SHIFT-RELOAD if you suspect this page is stale (err 1,name watercooler,your IP abcdefgh) Do you have to be a subscriber?

Not sure how you win this game, but its very therapeutic :)

I cant figure out how to play this game, but the animation/song is cool :) http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/psycho.php

There is a God and those people who initially voted for the measure need serious counseling.

Well, I think the remarks out of the FCC's mouths are profane. What idiots? Bono makes an offcuff, not planned, remark...Sterns has edgy humor--big fu*king deal.

Maybe you should repost this article with 1) the lead story 2) the bio 3) the pic 4) your hell comment I have no sympathy for Al Queda--may they rot in hell and not lose their virginity

I read his post: Shawn suggested that a writer from San Diego might be more an observer; than an expert--he didnt say the pictures were staged--nor did he infer that. I looked at the pictures--What do the pictures have to do with Shawn's comment? I think there's a large part of the population that would like to be free from religious rule--I think a lot of people outside Iran would like to see that too. But i dont think the people of Iran necessarily want the US to do the liberation, and I certainly wouldnt support that. The reason the media isnt highlighting this story is the same reason they are no longer covering Afghanistan--the heat is on Iraq and Al Queda

Funny positioning and no doubt true.

With a title like "Pride and Prejudice", and coming from Maureen Dowd of the NY Times, it's crystal clear that this was an editorial. The political forum is open ended and not closed to just news--its simply a subsection there because that's the genre it's closest to. Given the fact that the writer takes swipes at both candidates, what's your beef, Mike? Or, didnt you bother to read it before commenting?

Unbelievable..

I've always liked Robin's presence on the show--you feel as if you've know her for years. ot an easy thing to pull off...

Yuck! I know people who did this when I was a teen and didnt get it I always thought it was dangerous.. Why not just have a beer or two?

Welcome to Beatking, Fatboy Trey :thumpin:

Welcome to Beatking, FBT :jammintwo: :jammin: