Silencing Perez Hilton

Internet Gossip Blogger Extraordinaire Perez Hilton aka Mario Lavandeira aka the Gossip Gangstar is a well-known pop fixture on the Hollywood socialite/drag queen scene. He’s not only accrued notereity through his blog and the legions of people (myself included) who visit each day to catch a glimpse of “The Hills” Heidi Montag’s breast and mouth augmentation, but he’s even relatively respected in media circles. He’ll be playing guest host over at “The View” later this month and made a special appearance at this year’s Canadian Much Music Video Awards (think MTV Movie Awards minus the Paris Hilton purgatory of paparazzi) earlier this month.

So it’s with a heavy heart that I say that Perez Hilton’s copyright infringement violations have finally caught up with him - at least for the short-term. Hilton has been accused of stealing photos in four separate lawsuits initiated by eight different photo agencies. It was reported earlier today by Variety that the site’s webhost Crucial Paradigm stated that if they received one more notice of copyright violation against PerezHilton.com they would take the site down immediately.

It looks like Crucial stayed true to their word because today they took official action and pulled the site down. And unfortunately for those of us gossip mongers, as of 9 PM tonight, you still can’t access the site’s archive nor are any of the links to the actual posts functioning properly. There is a skeleton in place but not too many photos, unless you could the one that likens the wrestler Chyna to former star of “The Practice” and on-and-off Jack Nicholson flame Lara Flynn Boyle. Quite honestly, the similarities are a bit disturbing. But I suppose with enough plastic surgery, Neil Patrick Harris might actually appear straight on “How I Met Your Mother.”

Is Gwen Stefani Channeling Marilyn Monroe or Madonna?

A Post Where I Get In Touch With My Sentiments About Starbucks

I hate Starbucks. (Click on this link’s “Small, Medium, Large” toon to watch a brilliant satire on Starschmucks) I don’t drink their coffee. It’s too bitter, too burnt, too unkind. I often get lumped in with the Dunkin Donuts coffee drinkers at those annoying networking get togethers where the world is insultingly and coursely divided into DD vs. Starbucks people. Truth be told I don’t much fancy the double DDs either. Give me a good ol’ cup of generic diner coffee any day.

Starbucks ambiance gets me too. Everyone sitting at a table is trying to look so studious and disengaged from everyone and everything going on around them and yet they are all bound together by that recycled white paper cup and a feeling of mild superiority at not being at the adjacent Dunkin Donuts or the alterna-coffee bar across the street whose patrons would have equally heightened airs just more piercings and tattoos. Don’t even get me started on those people.

I’ve come a few time in the past week to this Starbucks, mostly because I’m lazy and it’s easy and I know I can get internet access. It’s around the corner from my work and a change of scenery from the public library. I really do like the library but feared my presence with laptop was too distracting for people there. re: I used to wake up all the bums when my cell phone would accidentally ring. I felt bad about this, but contrastingly was always a bit put out when one of them would be occupying an entire table and give me a look of “Don’t you dare think of sitting here.” Why does one person need with four seats?

I guess the above scenario makes Starbucks look not so bad. You can always find a table and most likely there’s always people to gawk at (like the two gay men who were on a “date” only one had a wedding ring on and the other didn’t and they didn’t act “married”) if you can manage to squeeze past the 30 yuppie adults and children waiting in line to get to a table.

Explain to me what business a 5-year-old has with a mocha frapamijiggy. Aren’t we always trying to calm them down at that age? And isn’t it a mild form of child abuse, at the very least ushering in the early onset of obesity? But then I look at the Bratz girl attached to the whining and her adult version Bratz mom and I don’t care much either way. Wasn’t it Madonna who proclaimed, “Cause I’m living in a material world and I’m a material whiny Brat?

Yeah, something like that…