T-Time Weekly News Update for the Week of July 14th-21st 2008

Do you work all day and have no time or energy to find out what's going on in the world? Do you get bored and impatient watching TV anchors tell you over and over what's going on? Do you sometimes care more about what Britney Spears is doing than what President Bush said during his State of the Union address? If you answered yes to even one of these questions this is what you've been waiting for! Every week I'm going to give you a quick rundown of the past week's biggest headlines. I won't bore you with minute details and shove tons of information down your throats. These are just the facts with a little humor for measure! And if you want to know more you can always just Google it or ask me.

Oh My I’m Seeing Stars:

Baby fever doesn’t even begin to explain what’s been spreading through Hollywood. The gods that are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt finally gave birth to the 2nd and 3rd coming with their twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline. Nicole Kidman and country singer Keith Urban had their first child, daughter Sunday Rose. And Matthew McConaughey and girlfriend, model Camilla Alves welcomed their first son, Levi Alves to the world. But don’t worry cause a fresh new crop of celebrity babies is on the way. According to her former costar Victor Garber and a protruding belly, Jennifer Garner is 5 months pregnant with her 2nd child, and Naomi Watts is also pregnant with her 2nd child. Both actresses were super private about their first pregnancies so I doubt we’ll know anything till the babies are popped out!

The biggest headline after all the celeb babies has been the Madonna/A-Rod scandal. These are the “facts” that T-Time has managed to pull together. Madonna and Guy Richie are not getting divorced yet…but it wouldn’t come as a shock if that were announced within the year. Madonna and A-Rod are just friends who share a manager, Guy Oseary, and A-Rod has been seeking solace in his new friend Madge during this difficult time in his life. Alex’s wife Cynthia did not run off with Lenny Kravitz, another client of Guy Oseary, but has filed for divorce. On top of it all Madonna’s brother Chris Ciccone, who is probably already cut off, released a tell-all book about his sister’s life. And although he spills the beans on a lot of her deep, dark secrets he doesn’t think that there’s anything going on between the superstar and super athlete.

Britney Spears’ stock is looking up these days. Ms. Spears just shot a mini video that will be part of Madonna’s ‘Sticky & Sweet’ tour. According to her record label she is currently in studio recording a new album…it’s nice to see that her people gave her all of 1 month to “fully” recover from her psychotic episode before forcing her back to work. And she finally settled her custody case with K-Fed (he gets sole legal and physical custody while she gets visitation rights). And to top it all off she showed up at a charity event almost looking like her old self (http://www.popcrunch.com/photos-britney-spears-generation-rescue-charity-event-hosted-by-jim-carrey-jenny-mccarthy/) . You go girl! I’m sorry I totally doubted your ability to ever be normal, let alone successful again!

Former supermodel Christy Brinkley has legally freed herself of husband #4 Peter Cook. After she caught him having an affair with his 18-year-old secretary a long and dramatic divorce ensued. Well she managed to prove to the court that he was a perv and she should get the kids. Comedians Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel called it quits after 5 years. After all those “I F*cked Matt/Ben” videos I really thought they would last. And Salma Hayek has called off her engagement to French billionaire/her baby daddy Francois-Henri Pinault.

The 2008 Emmy nominations were announced. The actual awards show will air September 21st. If you want to check out all the categories you can go here: http://cdn.emmys.tv/awards/2008pte/60thpte_noms.php. But for the majority of you who only care about the major categories here are the nominees (I’ve bolded my guesses for winners):

Outstanding Drama Series
Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
House
Lost
Mad Men

Outstanding Comedy Series
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
The Office
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
James Spader, Boston Legal
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Hugh Laurie, House
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Jon Hamm, Mad Men

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer
Glenn Close, Damages
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Holly Hunter, Saving Grace

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Tony Shalhoub, Monk
Steve Carell, The Office
Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Charlie Sheen, Two And A Half Men

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

Shake It to the Left, Shake It to the Right:

Senator Barack Obama has had quite the controversial week. Despite saying he wanted to keep his family private the Senator allowed his daughters to be interviewed by an Access Hollywood reporter during a family outing. After a media firestorm broke out he acknowledged that he regrets allowing the interview and will make sure to not do it again. The “New Yorker’ thought it would be funny to depict Obama and his wife encompassing all the stereotypes that have been plaguing them. The resulting cover and controversy proved that not everyone gets that level of humor. You can check out the image here: http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gawker/2008/07/original.jpg. And after tons of pressure and criticism for his lack of experience Senator Obama has gone on a multi-country tour that includes France, Germany, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Afghanistan and possibly Iraq.

Senator John McCain is busy fighting a serious fight against the “New York Times”. The Times published an op-ed by Obama regarding the war in Iraq but refused to run one by McCain that was basically a response piece. Op-ed editor David Shipley’s excuse is that McCain’s piece did not offer enough of a solution to the war. Op-ed stands for opposite editorial, the opinion of the writer (not the editor), and if the Times believes in our right to free speech they should print McCain’s piece. McCain’s daughter Meghan has also been keeping busy gathering support for her dad’s campaign. She had lunch with ‘The Hills’ star Heidi Montag. I can only imagine how deep that conversation was. Want a fun political pick me up? Check out http://sendables.jibjab.com/?

Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow died at the young age of 53 after battling colon cancer for 3 years. Snow was a political commentator as well as a TV news anchor and radio host for Fox News. During his time as President Bush’s Press Secretary he had a very positive and lively relationship with the White House Pres Corps. He was highly respected as a professional and as a person. He is survived by his wife and 3 children.

What you didn’t register/re-register to vote yet? Must have slipped your mind…I’m sure. www.rockthevote.com. T-Time did it and so should you!

News Potpourri:

I'll leave you with some quick news tidbits that couldn't fit either here or there so they're getting their own paragraph! Caffeine junkies are FREAKING out! Over 600 Starbucks across the country are shutting off their espresso makers and closing up shop. Now people will have to pay $2 instead of $6 for their coffee. Budweiser has sold out to a Belgian company for $52B. How do you say “Bud-Wei-Ser” in Dutch? Miss Venezuela, Dayana Mendoza, won the Miss Universe title. That makes her the 5th Miss Venezuela to win the title…there’s definitely something in that water (and I want some!). And for the 2nd year in a row Miss America slipped and fell straight on her bum. I smell tons of hairspray and a conspiracy! It’s official. Jay Leno is leaving NBC and ‘The Tonight Show’ next May (Conan O’Brien is taking over), but where Leno will end up is still unknown. The last MLB All-Star game at Yankees Stadium was played after a red carpet parade down 6th Avenue in NYC. The league’s top players split into 2 teams, the American League and the National League, and the AL came out victorious after the longest All-Star game in history. The new iPhone 3G was released and is still sold out. The main differences are faster Internet and a GPS system…big woohoo. The mortgage crisis hit another low when the gov’t announced it would bail out home loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. ‘The Who’ were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have been offered to go back on tour which could net them over $100M, but there’s one tiny glitch; lead singer Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend aren’t on speaking terms. The new Batman film, ‘The Dark Knight’, is beyond killing at the box office. In its opening weekend the movie has grossed over $155.3M beating out ‘Spiderman’ for the opening weekend record. Even though the folks at PETA can be a little crazy you gotta give ‘em props for this ad. Here’s your video of the week: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2jokL4H3_4Q.

I hope this gives you an idea of what's going on in the world. Buck up…it's not so bad! T-Times are back in session! All is right with the world!

Now go and have an intellectually stimulating conversation with your neighbor about what you've just learned.

~t