Entertainment news & tidbits -- Irwin, Star Wars 5 changes, Frey Pays

I'll spare you yet another article about Steve Irwin's death. I think there are plenty out there already. Ok, maybe just one more...

Irwin Bringing Websites to a Hault
Apparently the world is so obsessed with reading every little snippet about dead Croc-Hunter, Steve Irwin, that the increased traffic is overloading some websites. Crikey! Already we've read about his death-by-stingray accident, that it's caught on video, that his dad lost "his best mate", that his wife was
hiking in Tasmania or something, when the funeral will be, that there will be a public memorial, that some crazy insensitive Aussie author wants to hate on Irwin even right after death, that some kind of fund has been set up in irwin's name to promote conservation and help his kids get through school (is this really going to be a problem?), and that people are leaving gifts outside the zoo of which Irwin was the director. Now we have news about the websites that feature news about Irwin. Before you know it, we'll have news about the people who watch the news about the websites featuring the news about Steve Irwin. I'll be sure to report on that also.

Lucas Shows SW5 Changes, Shot By Shot
In case you were wondering how many changes were made to the original Star Wars series when they were re-released in the 90s & 2000s, fret and wonder no more. Not only will you be able to watch the two versions of each movie when they are released later this month in double-dvd sets, but Lucas has also put a shot by shot comparison of the 151 changes made to The Empire Strikes Back on the official Star Wars website. Definitely worth a look. Some changes are clean up, which I don't mind so much. Some are removing large parts of the image and replacing it with CG images, which I do mind, and some are changing the shots altogether, which REALLY pissed me off. I am excited to see the original versions. I have pre-ordered my copies from Amazon, and will receive them in late september/early october. Whoopee! I can watch them and pretend that Lucas ceased to exist and therefore didn't mess everything up after the original trilogy was released.

Frey Pays For His Mistakes
Remember the "Million Little Pieces/Lies" author who was caught lying in his memoir? Well now there is a ridiculous class action lawsuit and Frey is paying people back because some readers believe that the lies amounted to "consumer fraud". Absurd. But he's actually paying. People lie in books all the time people! Come on! I still want to know why you think that just because it's a memoir it's absolute truth! Memories are scewed by perspective, time, memory lapses. No memoir can be 100% true and accurate. And again, what about Chuck Barris's autobiography that was turned into the movie Confessions of a Dangerous Mind? Some of that seems like it must have been embellished a tad. But no one is screaming there? How about consumer fraud that causes people to die and have failing health? Cigarette's aren't bad for you, Nutrisweet is good for you, milk does a body good. No one blinks an eye. But now, someone sucks you in and makes you thoroughly believe their story, and you find out it was embellished, now you feel a fool, and that is worth wasting the court's time over. Guess what? Everyone embellishes their stories just a little. Or they emphasize and de-emphasize for effect. They also select which parts to leave out and which to leave in. If not, then they don't know diddly about good story-telling. GET OVER IT!!!


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