Well... it's a very very very slow news day so don't be expecting a big article but considering that I said I might not even have been able to write tonight it all ended pretty well.

Oh yeah the computer is still buggy as hell... freezes up on me every so often... froze on me like 5 times last night while I was trying to resetup my windows. It sucks, I don't have everything set up yet either but at least I was able to get DMusic to run correctly again.

Lots of HUGE movies this weekend, we've got K-19; that Russian Submarine movie, Eight Legged Freaks is a movie about 4 of my ex-girlfriends and Stuart Little 2 for the kiddies.

Well good times... oh yes... good times... yeah. Lets get some news goin'.

Jay-Z Vodka
Credit Yahoo News

Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam recording artist Jay-Z and partner Damon Dash have purchased Armadale Vodka, spokespersons for the music moguls and the wine and spirits company confirmed.

Dash discussed their decision to venture into the liquor business in a statement. "Roc-A-Fella has always respected quality vodkas, such as Belvedere and Grey Goose," he said. "Just like we do with our businesses, we wanted to present a vodka that represented the best. And we feel Armadale is of elite quality."

Coincidentally, during the late '90s, Def Jam was owned by liquor giant Seagram.

In related news, Jay-Z is scheduled to kick off the Sprite Liquid Mix tour on August 20 at the Jones Beach Amphitheatre in Wantagh, New York. The 15-date run will also feature sets from Jay's Roc-A-Fella roster.

Yum... I guess... umm well Grey Goose is damn good Vodka. I'll try the Jay-Z stuff though.

Music Industry-"Let's blame the Chinese!"
Credit CNet News

International record labels have demanded that three Chinese-language Web portals halt fledgling music-related services because of alleged copyright infringements of mostly Mandarin and Cantonese pop hits, sources said Thursday.
The move to win back what major labels see as lost revenues in China--where the industry says music piracy levels reach 90 percent--is the most aggressive since a group of record companies sued local Web sites in 1999 for offering free music downloads.

In response, one of the portals, Sohu.com, shut down its music service on Thursday, a company representative said, suggesting that the portal may seek to resume the service.

An executive at rival company Sina.com said it was considering ceasing its version of the so-called "song dedication" service. The service offered by the three sites allows people to pick songs from the Internet and send them to someone who receives a call on a cell phone that is playing the song.

The London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents major labels, asked the two portals and Hong Kong-based portal Tom.com to stop playing songs to which its members owned the rights.

Tom.com executives could not be reached for comment.

In a letter seen by Reuters, the IFPI said last week the portals lacked certain copyrights and demanded that they stop selling one-time listens to the songs, as well as apologize to the owners of the rights and make up financial damages--or else face legal action.

The IFPI represents the music divisions of Sony, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, EMI Group and Bertelsmann.

An industry source in Beijing said he estimated that the portals had earned a combined $6.3 million (52 million yuan) during the last several months since they made available about 1,100 tracks, about 90 percent of which were owned by IFPI member companies.

"We have no idea how much profit they make. But we calculate that they have made nearly $4 million (in revenue), and they have not paid a cent," he said, referring to Sina.

A Sohu representative said she doubted some of the figures cited by the source. She said song orders contributed a tiny portion of revenue to the portal--about 0.3 percent of the portal's $6.1 million in revenue from the second quarter, she said.

The IFPI said in its letter that the portals had not received permission to use certain songs from their copyright holders.

Sohu said in a statement the threat of legal action had come as a "complete surprise" and said it had a contract with a licensing agent, which in turn had a related contract with the China Music Copyright Association, a nonprofit organization.

Nevertheless, Sohu pulled the plug on the service "pending the negotiations" with a law firm in Beijing hired by IFPI, the representative said, signaling that the portal may plan to resume the service.

Ummm... ok... you'd think the best way to INTERNATIONIALLY make stars would be to trade their music... ah F-it. You'd think these idiots would try to make a profit from all this FREE PR for their musicians.

R.Kelly is sued by his detective
Crediy Mtv News

Already facing criminal charges, R. Kelly has been hit with another civil lawsuit.

A private detective from Kansas City is suing the R&B singer, claiming that the singer hired him to locate a stolen videotape and didn't pay up in full. Charles Freeman filed his breach of contract suit on July 12 in a Jackson County Circuit Court in Missouri. He's seeking $75,000 in damages.

Last month, the singer pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of child pornography stemming from a videotape which Chicago police and Cook County, Illinois, prosecutors say depicts the singer having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

Freeman's suit claims Kelly hired him via private detective Jack Palladino last August and agreed to pay him $100,000 plus up to $40,000 in expenses to recover the stolen videotape, described in a contract as a performance tape.

Palladino's office, which has been working with Kelly on various sex tape and bootleg issues, would neither confirm nor deny Freeman's employment, saying, "That's not information we could or would give out."

According to their contract, Palladino hired Freeman on August 21, 2001, and gave him until August 23 to recover and return the sole copy of the tape. At this point, Freeman was to submit to a polygraph test to attest that "the stolen items he has recovered and will be turning over are all the material that exists, and that he knows of no other copies (whether in whole or in part) in any form." The contract also had one more condition — that Freeman was keep all information about the recovered tape confidential.

Freeman recovered the tape, his lawsuit contends, and passed the polygraph. He was then paid $65,000, he claims, and was told that the remainder of his fee would be forthcoming. Freeman, however, appears to have breached the contract, since his lawyer Gregory Vleisides said that his client made a copy of the tape and kept the original for himself.

Kelly's camp, meanwhile, said that the singer plans to defend himself vigorously against this latest lawsuit. "We're confident that when the facts come out," Kelly's spokesperson Allan Mayer said, "the suit will be shown to have no merit."

R. Kelly has been hit with four additional civil suits, the most recent of which involved a woman who claimed she was the subject of a sex tape which made its way into the bootleg market. The basis of the other three lawsuits involved accusations that he took advantage of minors and engaged in criminal sexual conduct. Two of those lawsuits were settled out of court, while a third is still pending.

I know I was going to stay out of the R.Kelly scandal but this one just gets a little bit crazy... so if R.Kelly denies sleeping with a 14 year old on that tape, then why did he hire a detective to look for it? His luck is getting worse and worse... what a weirdo.

Who the What is Guns n'Roses
Credit Movie Poop Shoot

Cdnow.com is reporting that the musician accused of breaking up the original GUNS N'ROSES has been replaced by guitarist Richard Fortus, co-founder of LOVE SPIT LOVE and later a member of the PSYCHEDELIC FURS.

A press release confirming GNR's just-announced London Arena show fails to mention Axl Rose cohort Paul Huge (a.k.a. Paul Tobias), and instead lists Fortus' name as a third guitarist, sans any detail. Sources close to the Furs confirm that he has indeed joined GUNS N' ROSES.

Huge was Rose's childhood friend from Lafayette, Ind., who was brought on board in the mid-'90s to fill the rhythm slot vacated first by Izzy Stradlin and then Gilby Clarke. Huge was openly despised by then-lead guitarist Slash, who quit the band largely due to his presence and was soon followed by bandmates Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan.

The release also names keyboard player Dizzy Reed (listed as an original member since 1991), guitarists Robin Finck (Nine Inch Nails) and Buckethead, bassist Tommy Stinson (the REPLACEMENTS), drummer Brian "Brain" Mantia (PRIMUS), and second keyboard player Chris Pitman.

Hmm... GnR eh? Wow... Comeback? Nah.

Yup see short news day... here's some other news for ya.

Big Mean Flying Lizard
Credit Yahoo News

Brazilian scientists Alexander Kellner and Diogenes de Almeida Campos on Thursday described a previously unknown type of pterosaur (pronounced TER-oh-sawr), winged reptiles that were cousins of the dinosaurs.

The find is important both for the oddity of its cranial crest and for the insight that the animal offers into how pterosaurs hunted for food, the researchers said. They named it Thalassodromeus sethi (pronounced thal-ahs-oh-DROH-mee-us SETH-ee), meaning "sea runner" and "Seth," for the ancient Egyptian god of evil and chaos.

Kellner said Thalassodromeus, which lived 110 million years ago, had a head that measured 4-1/2 feet long due to the size of its crest, a wingspan of nearly 15 feet and a body length of about 6 feet.

"If you didn't have the fossils, you wouldn't believe that such an animal would have ever lived," Kellner said in a telephone interview from Rio de Janeiro.

"Can you imagine such an animal just cruising over the water and skimming over the surface in your direction? It must have been, really, a vision of hell," added Kellner, of the National Museum in Rio.

Searching for food, Thalassodromeus probably glided low over the water in a brackish inland lagoon, its lower jaw skimming the surface of the water, ready to nab any tasty fish or crustaceans it encountered, said Kellner, whose findings were published in the journal Science.

Similarities between this pterosaur's flattened jaws, which end in a scissors-like beak, and the beak of a type of living bird called Rynchops prompted the belief that Thalassodromeus, like these so-called skimmer birds, skimmed over the water's surface, with the lower jaw slightly submerged, Kellner said.

"The new pterosaur from Brazil gives us important information about the feeding strategy of pterosaurs," Fabio Dalla Vecchia, a pterosaur expert at the Paleontological Museum of Monfalcone, Italy, told Reuters.

A REMARKABLE FAMILY CREST

The most eye-popping characteristic of Thalassodromeus is its large, thin, cranial crest that looks with its V-shaped end like a giant spearhead or knife blade. The bony crest makes up about three-quarters of the animal's head. Proportionately, it is the largest such crest of any known extinct or living vertebrate, with the exception of one other type of pterosaur.

"This is pretty close to the far end of weird," said Christopher Bennett, a pterosaur expert at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut who has seen the new specimen. "But pterosaurs are really weird animals."

The crest is covered by a network of grooves that Kellner said represented an extensive system of blood vessels that the pterosaur may have employed to regulate its body temperature -- in this case, cooling off.

Bennett called this "a reasonable conclusion," but said there is "an awful lot of evidence to suggest that crests were used for sexual display" in other pterosaurs.

Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs, although both were highly successful types of reptiles. Both appeared about 225 million years ago during the Triassic Period and flourished until 65 million years ago, when an asteroid or other big extraterrestrial object slammed into Earth. Some fossils suggest that pterosaurs had a fur-like body covering.

Pterosaurs were the Earth's first flying vertebrates, appearing many millions of years before birds or bats.

Thalassodromeus lived in the middle of the Cretaceous period -- the final chapter of the age of dinosaurs.

Little is known about pterosaurs because their lightly built bones do not lend themselves to fossilization. Kellner describes Thalassodromeus in the journal Science based on a well-preserved skull found in 1983 at the fossil-rich Santana Formation in northeastern Brazil. He said bones from other parts of the body have been found there, allowing him to determine the animal's wingspan and body size.

Angelina Jolie soon to be Single again!
Credit Yahoo News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from her husband of two years, Billy Bob Thornton, according to court documents made public on Thursday.

Representatives for Jolie, 27, could not immediately be reached for comment, but a spokesman for Thornton, 46, said the only comment from the actor-writer and musician was, "It's a sad thing."

Word of the divorce filing, first disclosed by the syndicated TV show "Extra," comes a day after Jolie acknowledged in a magazine interview released on Wednesday that she and Thornton had been living apart in separate hotels and had not seen each other since June 3.

In divorce papers filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Jolie cited "irreconcilable differences" and sought sole custody of their 11-month-old adopted son, Maddox, who was born in Cambodia. She also sought possession of "miscellaneous jewelry and other personal effects," as well as her earnings since the day the day she and Thornton separated.

The breakdown of one of Hollywood's most high-profile and eccentric marriages has been the subject of frenzied gossip and tabloid headlines for weeks.

"I'm angry. I'm sad. It's a very difficult and sad time," Jolie was quoted as telling Us Weekly in its Aug 5. edition.

"Sometimes you don't see things coming, even though they are happening," she told the magazine. "It was a real deep connection, a deep marriage, so it's not that simple to say this or that one thing caused the problems. It's clear to me that our priorities shifted overnight."

MET ON SET OF 'PUSHING TIN'

Thornton and Jolie met on the set of the 1999 air traffic control comedy "Pushing Tin," in which they co-starred as husband and wife. Several weeks after reports surfaced of their courtship, they married in May 2000 in Las Vegas.

It was the second marriage for Jolie and the fifth for Thornton, who reportedly had been engaged earlier that year to actress Laura Dern.

The intensity of the couple's romance and their public displays of affection drew ample media attention. They sported tattoos of each other's names, wore pendants filled with each other's blood, and she even reportedly purchased his-and-hers cemetery plots.

Previously, Thornton's publicist had insisted the two had spent long periods apart because of conflicting schedules.

Jolie has spent a lot of time in recent months on location in Thailand for her upcoming movie, "Beyond Borders" and traveling around the world as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. Thornton, meanwhile, has logged considerable time on the road with his rock band.

Jolie, the daughter of actor John Voight, won an Academy Award as best supporting actress for her role as a young institutionalized sociopath in "Girl, Interrupted." More recently, she starred in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" and "Original Sin."

Thornton sprang to prominence with the 1996 drama "Sling Blade," which he wrote, directed and starred in. The film earned him an Oscar for best adapted screenplay and an Academy Award nomination as best actor. He also received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in the 1999 drama "A Simple Plan."

Flying Lizards rule! Dinosaurs are pretty damn cool too. Maybe this new kind will be in the next Jurassic Park movie.

YES! Angelina Jolie is single again! That's good news to all of you delusional stalkers out there!

With that I'm done.

Joe

you got the psychedelic furs and love spit love in the wrong order.
(the joy of being a music geek)
btw; first post

I think she's beautiful!

ya she's alright

She's gorgeous and single again

It seems we have another four letter word, IFPI, although I can't tell whether it's a swear word as a 90% piracy rate is a pretty high rate to ignore. Gees, how much does music cost over there then?

Flying lizards? Sounds like one too many Cheech & Chong films been watched

For those of you who are wondering about the IFPI, it is headed by Jason (Jay) Berman former head of the RIAA and the person who recommended "the Hilary" for her position at the RIAA. The IFPI is based out of London, (Berman lives in NY) For more on this guy (He was very influential in the WIPO) read more about him
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/rogues/jberman.php

As for Angelina Jolie, she the type of girl my mom warned me about, and I never could find.

Guns-n-Roses changes their name to "Axl and whoever is lying around the studio" !!

Angelina really is that beautiful isn't she? And being such a lunatic only heightens things

Little is known about pterosaurs because a strange creature called a Milla Drive was said to rob their nests of eggs and eat their young although no written records of this exists.
It is believed that the Milla Drive may have hunted the pterosaurs out of existance.

I heard thet Slash has founded a new group called Cherry Roses in rollinstone.com

actually Cherry Roses is a combination of 2 groups... it is a benefit show and not an actual band.