A day after Billy Bob Thornton said Canadian audiences were like mashed potatoes without gravy, the actor professed his love for the Great White North.
“I love Canada, absolutely,” said the 53-year-old actor.
Thornton talked quickly to reporters on Thursday night before a performance with his band, the Boxmasters, in Toronto, Ontario. The group was opening for Willie Nelson.
The proclamation was a sharp contrast to comments Thornton made on Wednesday of last week when he was an uncooperative guest on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Q radio program.
During that appearance, the Oscar-winning star of Sling Blade sparred back and forth with host Jian Ghomeshi and found time to insult Canadian crowds.
Thornton, who was interviewed alongside his Boxmasters bandmates, took issue with Ghomeshi’s introduction, which included references to the star’s career as a Hollywood actor, director and screenwriter.
For much of the interview, Thornton refused to answer any of Ghomeshi’s questions directly, instead mumbling “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” or some variation thereof in response to most questions.
Thornton said Ghomeshi’s producers had been instructed ahead of time not to talk about his film career at all.
Thornton mainly seemed sensitive to any comment that implied that his band which he described as “cosmic cowboy music” was not his full-time passion.
When pressed for details on his musical influences, Thornton elliptically provided a non sequitur about a magazine he subscribed to called Famous Monsters of Filmland and a model-building contest he once entered.
The actor’s belligerent appearance on the show has already become a veritable viral sensation. More than 1.2 million viewers have watched the clip on YouTube.
From cosmic music to exploring the cosmos, NASA’s sense of humor is being put to the test. The US space agency is facing a serious dilemma after a popular television comedian, Stephen Colbert, hijacked an online contest sponsored by NASA to pick a name for a new module on the International Space Station.
Colbert’s suggestion for a name? His own.
His victory may have had something to do with his repeated appeals to fans of his show, The Colbert Report, to vote for him.
With the help of his fans — called the “Colbert Nation” — the comedian’s name easily won the online poll at nasa.gov, rocketing past NASA suggestions “Earthrise,” “Legacy,” “Serenity” and “Venture.”
NASA announced on Friday that astronaut Sunita Williams will unveil the name tomorrow on Colbert’s television show.
The space agency declined to reveal the name until the show and is not obliged to bow to popular demand. The contest rules state that while NASA will take into consideration the results of the voting they are not binding.
Voting online is also a way for people to choose their favorite Simpsons character. The US post office wants folks to vote early and often among the five new stamps honoring the nation’s funniest dysfunctional cartoon family.
The Simpsons stamps will be issued May 7, portraying Homer, his wife, Marge, their son Bart, daughter Lisa and baby Maggie.
The characters, created by cartoonist Matt Groening, have become pop culture icons in 20 years on television.
The US$0.44 stamps are on display at www.usps.com/simpsons and votes can be cast at that site until May 14.
American singer and actress Jennifer Lopez has won a cybersquatting case against a US Web operator who registered two Internet addresses that used her name for commercial profit, a UN agency said on Thursday.
The disputed domain names, jenniferlopez.net and jenniferlopez.org, directed users to a Web site that generated paid advertising revenues, according to the ruling issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
An independent arbitrator ordered the domain names transferred within 10 days to the Jennifer Lopez Foundation, which filed the complaint. The charitable foundation promotes better access to healthcare for women and children.
The Grammy-nominated singer, widely known as J.Lo, joins other celebrities in ousting cybersquatters through the dispute procedure, including Pierce Brosnan, Tom Cruise, Celine Dion, Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Madonna and Julia Roberts.
Lopez registered her name as a trademark in the US in May 1999.
Dec. 16 to Dec. 22 Growing up in the 1930s, Huang Lin Yu-feng (黃林玉鳳) often used the “fragrance machine” at Ximen Market (西門市場) so that she could go shopping while smelling nice. The contraption, about the size of a photo booth, sprayed perfume for a coin or two and was one of the trendy bazaar’s cutting-edge features. Known today as the Red House (西門紅樓), the market also boasted the coldest fridges, and offered delivery service late into the night during peak summer hours. The most fashionable goods from Japan, Europe and the US were found here, and it buzzed with activity
These days, CJ Chen (陳崇仁) can be found driving a taxi in and around Hualien. As a way to earn a living, it’s not his first choice. He’d rather be taking tourists to the region’s attractions, but after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the region on April 3, demand for driver-guides collapsed. In the eight months since the quake, the number of overseas tourists visiting Hualien has declined by “at least 90 percent, because most of them come for Taroko Gorge, not for the east coast or the East Longitudinal Valley,” he says. Chen estimates the drop in domestic sightseers after the
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo, speaking at the Reagan Defense Forum last week, said the US is confident it can defeat the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the Pacific, though its advantage is shrinking. Paparo warned that the PRC might launch a “war of necessity” even if it thinks it could not win, a wise observation. As I write, the PRC is carrying out naval and air exercises off its coast that are aimed at Taiwan and other nations threatened by PRC expansionism. A local defense official said that China’s military activity on Monday formed two “walls” east
The latest military exercises conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) last week did not follow the standard Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formula. The US and Taiwan also had different explanations for the war games. Previously the CCP would plan out their large-scale military exercises and wait for an opportunity to dupe the gullible into pinning the blame on someone else for “provoking” Beijing, the most famous being former house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Those military exercises could not possibly have been organized in the short lead time that it was known she was coming.
RSS