Rubiks Cube alarm clock is retro cool

This clock looks awesome and it reminds you of the 80’s immediately and the fact that you couldn’t solve this thing to save your life. Have no fear, this one will be easy to solve since only the top row twists to switch between time, temperature, alarm and date modes.

It’s also very affordable at $24.98. Just think, now when you wake up, if you are out of it enough you might think it’s the 80’s again, just for a second or two. Just thank your lucky stars that it doesn’t require you to fully solve it in order to shut it off. If that were the case, it would have to hit the wall very hard one morning.
What On Earth

Woman faces Cusack stalking trial

A 33-year-old US woman must stand trial on charges of stalking actor John Cusack, a Los Angeles judge has ruled.

Emily Leatherman, who had previously been ordered to stay away from the Better Off Dead star, was recently arrested outside his Malibu house.

Ms Leatherman faces up to three years in prison if convicted of stalking. She is also charged with petty theft.

Cusack was granted a restraining order in 2006 that stated she must stay at least 500ft (152m) away from him.

In court papers, Cusack said Ms Leatherman was "showing unusual interest by stalking, throwing long letters of interest over my fence in bags with rocks and screwdrivers inside".

She was arrested at the beginning of April after a taxi driver alerted police that she did not have enough money to pay her fare.

According to police, Cusack approached officers and said Ms Leatherman had been following him.

Queen plan second stage musical

Queen guitarist Brian May has revealed a sequel to the stage musical We Will Rock You will be bought to the stage.

"We are planning the sequel," he said. "It is a real challenge."

The 60-year-old said about two million people had seen We Will Rock You, written and directed by Ben Elton, since it opened in London in 2002.

May also said the band were preparing for their autumn tour and new album. "The long arm of Queen has pulled me back in at the moment. It is a beast."

He added: "We've pressed the button to go on tour this autumn so already the preparations are very consuming.

"We've chosen our set, we've chosen our environment on tour. It is very exciting, very exciting indeed. Very time consuming but Queen always was consuming."

Productions of We Will Rock You, based on the songs of Queen, have since opened in Australia, Spain, Russia, the US, Japan and Germany.

Vanilla Ice released after arrest

Rapper Vanilla Ice has been released from jail after being arrested for allegedly pushing his wife.

The 39-year-old - real name Robert Van Winkle - was held on Thursday night at the couple's home in Florida.

Police said his wife called emergency services, saying she had been kicked and hit during an argument. Later she told officers the star only pushed her.

The rapper denied pushing her, according to police, and he was charged with simple domestic battery.

He was freed on Friday after appearing in court. His agent, Tommy Quon, said he had not heard about the arrest and could not comment.

Mr Van Winkle, who sold 15 million copies of the single Ice Ice Baby in 1990, spent a night in jail in 2001 after being arrested following a domestic dispute. Hooked is the debut album by American rapper Vanilla Ice, released in 1989.

New York Mets fall victim to Rick Astley online prank

For many years the Mets were New York's underdog team, the scrappy poorer cousins of the wealthy Yankees. Now, it seems, they have unwittingly chosen an underdog of their own, a long-neglected 1980s English pop star, to represent them.

When the baseball team asked fans to vote online for a new eighth-inning sing-along tune, five million voters bypassed classic American hits like Jon Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer and Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, instead writing in ballots for a chart-topper from a 1980s Lancastrian pop star.

New Yorkers, it seemed, thought Rick Astley’s 1987 hit Never gonna give you up would best rally their team.
It was only when chatrooms and blogs began buzzing with reports of the 42-year-old Lancastrian’s surprise success that organisers realised they had been “rickrolled”.
The baseball team has become the latest victim of the online prank that aims to play the song, which topped UK charts for five weeks in 1987, as often as possible.
Shortly after the Mets posted the poll on their website last week, online communities including fark.com and digg.com rallied their readers to vote for Astley’s song, swamping the team's website with votes for the 1980s hit.

Rather than commit to the results, however, the New York team will stage a run-off of the top six songs, including Livin’ on a Prayer, Sweet Caroline, The Monkees' I’m a Believer, Billy Joel's Movin’ Out, and Build Me Up Buttercup by The Foundations.

Rickrolling started as an online in-joke: community members posted links with enticing titles, luring readers in with offers of celebrities or sex, or both, but the link was, in fact, directed to YouTube clips of the camp pop star’s dated music video.

As the phenomenon has grown, the song has been revived as a widespread in-joke in the real world, too, and has been played at sporting events and protests alike in “live rickrolling” events. Last month four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University were rickrolled, and anti-Scientology protesters blasted the song from boomboxes in London, Edinburgh, New York and Washington.

Rickrolling is only the latest, and perhaps most popular, example of the Internet “meme”, the repetitive transmission of ideas across the web, and follows the more rudimentary duckroll, in which readers were re-directed to an image of a duck on wheels.

The 42-year-old Englishman seems slightly bemused by the rickrolling phenomenon.

“If this had happened around some kind of rock song, with a lyric that really meant something -- a Bruce Springsteen, 'God bless America' ... or an anti-something kind of song, I could kind of understand that,” Astley told the LA Times Web Scout blog.

“But for something as, and I don’t mean to belittle it, because I still think it’s a great pop song, but it’s a pop song; do you know what I mean? It doesn’t have any kind of weight behind it, as such. But maybe that’s the irony of it.”

Astley fans' rush hour 'flashmob'

Fans of pop star Rick Astley descended on London's Liverpool Street train station for a "flashmob" event.

The "flashmob" - where a group of people assemble in a public place for a brief period of time - happened just before 1800 BST.

Some of the fans donned Astley masks in honour of the 1980s hitmaker, before the crowd sang his trademark hit Never Gonna Give You Up.

Police said the incident passed peacefully - if not quietly.

'Really funny'

Witness Paras Barot, 22, from Golders Green in north London, said he heard about the event on social networking site Facebook and decided to head to the station.

"I got there with some friends just before 6pm, and there were lots of people there - the whole station was at a standstill."

He said he thought there were some 300 or 400 people taking part in the event.

"There was a countdown from 5.59 to 6pm. Some guys put their masks on, and a lot of them started singing the song.

"For those of us who knew what was going on it was really funny."

Mr Barot said he did not join in the singing. "I don't know the words."

A British Transport Police spokeswoman said: "We monitored the incident. There were no problems, no arrests. They did what they had to do and then left."

An estimated 13 million internet users have been tricked into watching the video for Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up in recent weeks.

Blondie tour to mark anniversary

US pop band Blondie are to embark on a tour to mark the 30th anniversary of their album Parallel Lines.

The group will play a string of US dates in June before moving on to the UK in July, performing in Glasgow, Liverpool and the Guilfest festival.

The album propelled Blondie, fronted by Deborah Harry, to stardom, spawning hit singles including Heart of Glass and Hangin' On The Telephone.

Parallel Lines topped the charts in the UK and reached number six in the US.

The tour will kick off in Baltimore on 5 June and the US leg will wind up at Milwaukee's Summerfest on 28 June.

The band enjoyed global success in the late 1970s and early '80s

The band will co-headline their concert in Liverpool on 22 July with The Stranglers and are also due to perform two gigs in Norway at the start of August. More shows are expected to be added.

After five UK number one singles and six studio albums, Blondie split in 1982.

They reformed in the late 1990s and returned to the charts after an absence of 17 years with a sixth UK chart-topper, Maria, in 1999.

The band were inducted into the US Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

Nicolas Cage is No Chihuahua Thief!

Cage took action against Turner after she alleged he was arrested twice for drunk-driving while they were making the 1986 film Peggy Sue Got Married.

Turner also alleged he was arrested for stealing a Chihuahua.

Cage accused Turner of "defamation, libel and slander" by including the allegations in her recent book, Send Yourself Roses: My Life, Love and Leading Roles.

The action was brought in the UK because an extract of Turner's book was reprinted in the Daily Mail and on its website.

'Gratified'

Cage's UK solicitor Simon Smith said the Oscar-winning actor was "extremely pleased" with the outcome of the case "since he has never been arrested for drink driving, dog theft or anything else".

"As an actor who stars in many family-friendly films and who has a young child and teenager of his own, Mr Cage was understandably upset at having been wrongly depicted as condoning that sort of reckless, dangerous and criminal behaviour."

The actor, he continued, was "gratified that the defendants have done the right thing by acknowledging their errors and making amends".

The donation will be made to the National Adult Protective Services Foundation, a US charity which benefits vulnerable adults.

The Daily Mail has agreed to publish an apology and remove the article from its website.

Headline has also agreed to insert a correction and apology into copies of Turner's book.

McConaughey to play Magnum P.I.?

I'm a fan of Magnum P.I..

As one of the most iconic television shows of the 1980's, I'm glad that I was there to see it first time around. Tom Selleck was the definitive Thomas Magnum, He was Magnum! To show how much of a fan I am... I have a Tom Selleck section in my DVD collection!

For the past decade or so Universal Pictures have been trying to bring Magnum P.I. to the big screen, as usual names such as George Clooney and Ben Affleck had been mooted for the part, but now Entertainment Weekly state that the script for the Magnum film has been passed to the world's most famous bongo player Matthew McConaughey.

My thoughts on this as a Magnum fan?

Frickin' awesome!!!

Why?

Read on.

There was once a time when I hated Matthew McConaughey. The guy was seen as the next big thing, and there is nothing that I hate more than being told that you should like somebody because the press tells you to. It makes me want to turn and run in the opposite direction.

A few years and a couple of bombs later, McConaughey was almost Hollywood's next has-been. Then he was arrested for playing the bongos too loud in his own home. Not only was he arrested for playing bongos too loud, but when they arrived at his house he was prancing around his living room. Check the photograph with this article for his mugshot.

I play like to play the bongos, I will be honest... I've never conducted any naked dancing that was bongo related, but one can get carried away with the rhythm!

Anyway, before I get side tracked, that was the moment that I thought that McConaughey might be cool. He followed this arrest up with Ed TV, U571, Frailty and Reign of Fire (the best ever post-apocalyptic dragon film). I also really like Sahara, and I'm furious that it never made enough money to warrant a sequel. Shame on you movie goers!!

As much as I like Clooney and Affleck I feel that McConaughey is the best fit for the role.

In fact a couple of years ago I once said that he was my dream casting for Magnum. So I'm over the moon with this news. It's pure McConaughey material. He's a man of action, laid back, he hangs on the beach and the chicks love him. If it wasn't based on a television show I'd swear that it was McConaughey's autobiography.

There is no word yet on whether or not "Bongos" McConaughey will accept the role, or even if he will grow Tom Selleck's trademark mustache. I just hope that he does both.

The script has been written by Dodgeball writer/director Rawson Thurber.

I will keep you posted on any future developments. However, in the meantime I think I'll just watch some of my Magnum series box sets.

Commando on Blu-ray

I not-so-fondly remember watching the John Cena film "The Marine" a while ago and detested the picture for its mindless screenplay and unimaginative action sequences. I wondered to myself, "Who watches this garbage?" Then, I found myself watching "Commando," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. A realization swept across my conscious that the answer to my question was "I do." "Commando" is a nearly quarter-century old film where the governor of California goes on a seemingly impossible raid to save the life of his daughter. When I compare the script and the action of "Commando" to that from "The Marine," this film really doesn´t improve much over that horrid Cena picture. However, there is something that makes "Commando" infinitely more likable.
The answer to that puzzle is simple. "Commando" features Arnold Schwarzenegger, a far more likable and entertaining action hero. Arnold (bad style, but we´ll use first name instead of retying Schwarzenegger a large number of times) and his heavy Austrian accent made cheesy one-liners cool. He made poorly-scripted dialogue fun. And! We didn´t care about how many rounds of ammunition were left in his clip and how many bullets amazingly didn´t hit the very large man when a dozen enemy soldiers were firing at him in full auto. We didn´t care because watching Arnold kick some serious ass was something that made the Eighties cinema truly remarkable. He is an action hero. Cena is a wrestler. There is a world of difference.
"The Marine" had the Camaro of Doom. That car was nearly indestructible. It´s resilience bordered on absurdity. I know. I have always owned Camaros and I know they have not-so-bullet-friendly bodies. The car was hurt, but it kept going. I felt the entire chase that revolved around that car and its amazing re-inflating (they were not Goodyear Runflats) tires was simply ludicrous. However, I find myself loving and rooting for the Austrian of Doom in this film. He has amazingly re-inflating biceps, but I never once found myself stopping to question how he could handle a very physical encounter after being shot in the arm. Arnold isn´t a car, but his resilience in this film is just as absurd as the Camaro. Again, I didn´t care because Arnold is a prototypical action hero.
In this film he portrayed retired Special Forces commander Colonel John Matrix. Matrix lives an overly happy and peaceful life with his daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano in her second role). One day that peace is compromised when his former boss General Franklin Kirby (James Olsen) shows up and tells Matrix that his entire former unit has been killed. Of course, the bad guys have impeccable timing and show up as soon as Kirby is safely away. Jenny is kidnapped and Matrix is told that he must help Arius (Dan Hedaya) attain a presidency by assassinating the current president. Matrix learns that his former war buddy Bennett (Vernon Wells) is not only wearing the worst shirt in Hollywood history, but also helping Arius attain his goals. Arius and Bennett are aided by Sully (David Patrick Kelly) and Cooke (Bill Duke).
With Arnold now running the state of California and nobody stepping up to replace Schwarzenegger, Stallone or Willis, box office heroes have been in short supply in recent years. I enjoy Brendan Frasier and think the "Mummy" films are homage to the action films of the Eighties. Somebody along the line seems to have misplaced Vin Diesel. There simply is nobody with the same action charisma and physical presence as the Governator and this is a big chunk of why a film like "Commando" can succeed and the far more recent "The Marine" fails to entertain. There was a time when Hollywood had a good grasp on how to make silly action films entertain and they are trying hard to recapture that magic, but it is Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis that are forgoing the retirement home and still doing their own stunts.
Bullets fly. Bad guys die. Arnold survives. And I never care to ask any questions regarding the feasibility of anything contained in this film. I could care less that the character portrayed by Rae Dawn Chong is about as convenient a plot device as you could ever find. Matrix needed a pilot and he found one in a sexy flight attendant. Sure, it seemed like he was just as capable of flying the seaplane as Cindy was, but that would have limited the testosterone producing abilities of the film and not provided the pre-requisite love interest for our favorite action hero. Nobody could possibly remain as unscathed as Matrix during the assault on Arius´ compound. It is just impossible. But, it just doesn´t matter. "Commando" is escapist fun. It is a film about Arnold kicking ass and flexing his big muscles. It is about over-the-top thrills and bad dialogue sounding good.
"Commando" could be called a dumb film with a paper-thin plot and silly action. Those deriding the film with such harsh words are not sitting back and enjoying the film as it was meant to be. It isn´t intended to tell a provocative and award-winning story. It is not meant to deliver realistic warfare. That would hardly fill nine minutes, let alone ninety minutes if one man took on an entire terrorist camp. "Commando" was a film solely created to showcase the humor and muscles of its star, which was slowly rising through the box office stratosphere when "Commando" hit theaters. Arnold Schwarzenegger embodies the muscle-bound action hero of the Eighties and Nineties and this film was created to showcase his physique and talents. It is meant to be enjoyed as something to laugh at and enjoy the heroics of a superhero-type protagonist. It was never meant to be taken seriously.

George Michael ready for retirement?

At the height of his comeback, George Michael now says he's ready for retirement.

According to the always reliable Indo-Asian News Service, Michael says his upcoming U.S. tour will be his last, so he's urging fans to make the most of it.

"I want to divorce myself from pretty much everything public after the tour," Michael said. "In the future, I don't want to be making and releasing physical CDs, and I don't want to be charging people for my new music."

It's odd timing -- George is hot right now. He just announced he'll tour the U.S. for the first time in 17 years, starting this June. And his frequent acting and singing appearances on TV's "Eli Stone" has expanded his fan base further.

In addition, his latest album -- "Twenty-five" -- hits stores today. And he only recently announced a multi-million deal to write and publish his autobiography.

Rickrolling - Rick Astley

Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up

To the list of inexplicable web phenomena that spring up—only to disappear just as quickly—that includes severely grammar-impaired felines and some truly awful doings involving two girls and one cup, you can now add Rick Astley.

Astley, 80's one hit wonder of British soul, has lately been used as a punchline for a particular web joke called Rickrolling, wherein a disguised link sends unsuspecting web surfers down the blandly soul-inflected rabbit hole of his 1987 Lite-FM staple "Never Gonna Give You Up."

An article in Monday's New York Times addressed the trend via a YouTube video of a public Rickroll that Mediabistro's FishbowlNY insists is a fake. (A prank in an article about a prank! Is it April Fools' Day yet?) After musing about Rickrolling--"Rickrolling is a descendant of an older Internet joke called duckrolling. A Web site or blog post would offer a link to something popular — say celebrity photos or video gaming news — that led unsuspecting viewers to a bizarre image of a duck on wheels"—the Times' Evelyn Nussenbaum, writes, "It is not clear what Mr. Astley himself thinks about rickrolling."

After a long day's wait, readers of The Los Angeles Times' Web Scout blog now know just what Mr. Astley thinks about his namesake prank: "I just think it’s bizarre and funny," the surprisingly good humored singer told the Web Scout. "I think it’s just one of those odd things where something gets picked up and people run with it... But that’s what brilliant about the Internet." Yes, brilliant. Until the next thing.

The Edge of the Eighties A Nice Box set

There are so many 80s music collections being released these days that I must admit to being more than slightly bored by most of them. The trouble is, so many of them are either padded out with singles that are so obscure that I can’t even remember them or they have the same repetitive handful of hits from the likes of Culture Club, Duran and Dead Or Alive. If I get one more CD with ‘You Spin Me Round’, I swear I’ll tear up my leotard!
I’m glad to say that the newly released Edge Of the Eighties (3 CD) set is a good deal better than the average. It begins magisterially with two of the truly great songs of the early ‘80s, Ultravox’s Vienna and Visage’s Fade To Grey… But then it branches out into some less obvious highways and byways of 80s music. There’s Soft Cell singing the wonderful ‘Torch’ rather than the more frequently anthologized ‘Tainted Love’. There’s David Bowie singing the far from obvious ‘Up The Hill Backwards’ - and there is, inevitably, Dead Or Alive but (for a nice change) singing one of their other hits - ‘That’s The Way (I Like It)’.
There is a pretty good mix of 80s music here, as a matter of fact - ranging from the super well-known performers such as Adam and the Ants and Siouxsie and the Banshees to the unjustifiably forgotten (by all but their fans, that is!) bands such as Telex and Swansway.
Here is a full track listing.
Disc: 1

1. Ultravox - Vienna

2. Visage - Fade To Grey

3. Soft Cell - Torch

4. Passions - I'm In Love With A German Filmstar

5. Japan - Quiet Life

6. Landscape - Einstein A Go-Go

7. Simple Minds - Glittering Prize

8. Adam & The Ants - Dog Eat Dog

9. Bow Wow Wow - Go Wild In The Country

10. Altered Images - Don't Talk To Me About Love

11. Fiction Factory - Feels Like Heaven

12. Furniture - Brilliant Mind

13. Lotus Eaters - The First Picture Of You

14. David Sylvian - Red Guitar

15. Associates - Party Fears Two

16. ABC - That Was Then

17. Haysi Fantayzee - John Wayne Is Big Leggy

18. Haircut 100 - Favourite Shirts

Disc: 2

1. New Order - Temptation

2. Propaganda - Duel

3. Swansway - Soul Train

4. Joy Division - Atmosphere

5. Cocteau Twins - Pearly Dewrdrops\x{2019} Drops

6. Mobiles - Drowning In Berlin

7. Pretenders - Talk Of The Town

8. Susan Fassbender - Twilight Café

9. Art Of Noise - Beatbox

10. SPK - Metal Dance

11. A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran

12. Tears For Fears - Pale Shelter

13. Blue Zoo - Cry Boy Cry

14. B-Movie - Remembrance Day

15. Thompson Twins - In The Name Of Love

16. Blancmange - Living On The Ceiling

17. Men Without Hats - Safety Dance

18. H20 - I Dream To Sleep

Disc: 3

1. Siouxsie & The Banshees - Dear Prudence

2. The Cure - The Walk

3. Scritti Politti - Absolute

4. Talk Talk - It's My Life

5. Japan - Life In Tokyo

6. David Bowie - Up The Hill Backwards

7. Devo - Whip It

8. Our Daughters Wedding - Lawnchairs

9. Bauhaus - Kick In The Eye

10. Spear Of Destiny - Liberator

11. Echo & The Bunnymen - The Back Of Love

12. Bow Wow Wow - Chihuahua

13. Dead Or Alive - That's The Way (I Like It)

14. Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way

15. Stranglers - European Female

16. Telex - Moskow Diskow

17. Laurie Anderson - O Superman