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srijeda, 02.03.2011.

'Men' crew to be paid; Sheen calls it 'a start'

Warner Bros. Television agreed Monday to pay the runescape items for sale crew of "Two and a Half Men" for half of the eight episodes of TV's top-rated comedy that were canceled by producers upset about the off-screen antics of star Charlie Sheen.
The troubled star called the agreement a "start" in his escalating battle against the show's producers.
"Clearly my efforts are paying off," Sheen said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "I won't sleep until I get all eight."
Warner Bros. last week canceled the remaining episodes of this season of "Men," citing Sheen's public behavior and negative comments about executive producer Chuck Lorre.
The troubled actor dominated the entertainment media Monday with threats of a lawsuit, two riveting morning show interviews and a rambling live stream on an Internet website.
By midday, his veteran publicist had quit.
In Sheen's interviews with ABC's "Good Morning America" and NBC's "Today" show, he boasted about his "epic" partying, said rs power leveling he's fueled by "violent hatred" of his bosses, claimed to have kicked drugs at home in his "Sober Valley Lodge" and demanded $3 million an episode to return to work.
Those expecting Sheen to go silent at some point will likely be disappointed. Cameras crews were seen throughout the afternoon entering the gated community where Sheen lives.
"The more he does, the more insane he looks," said Michele Cohen, a technical editor from Cary, N.C., an occasional viewer of the CBS sitcom who has been watching the offstage drama with interest.
Warner Bros. spokesman Paul McGuire confirmed the crew payments but denied that Sheen's war of words against the studio and series producers prompted the move. "False," McGuire said of Sheen's claim of credit.
Sheen said he's not concerned with his own sizable paychecks at the moment, which are reportedly worth $1.8 million per episode. "I don't care about me right now," he told the AP.
Asked about reimbursements for fellow series actors Jon Cryer and sell runescape gold Angus T. Jones, Sheen said, "They're next."
Sheen's dueling interview with morning news shows managed to upstage the post-show buzz for the Oscars.
However, what may be amusement for fans is serious business in Hollywood. There's a strong likelihood that "Two and a Half Men" will never be back, putting fellow cast and crew members out of work and costing producers Warner Bros. Television tens of millions of dollars.
"I'm supposed to be out there all humble and asking for my job," Sheen said during an interview at his home with Mike Walters that was streamed live on TMZ.com. "No, I don't do that. I don't understand what I did wrong except live a life that everyone is jealous of."
Sheen's publicist, Stan Rosenfield, resigned shortly after the TMZ interview. Rosenfield has been with Sheen through three hospitalizations in three months related to the star's wild behavior.
In the interview, Sheen implied that Rosenfield had lied to the media by saying he had been hospitalized for an allergic reaction buying runescape gold after trashing a room in New York's Plaza Hotel.
"I have worked with Charlie Sheen for a long time and I care about him very much," Rosenfield said in a statement. "However, at this time, I'm unable to work effectively as his publicist and have respectfully resigned."
Both the ABC and NBC morning shows carried excerpts of Sheen interviews conducted over the weekend, and promised more on Tuesday. ABC aired the interview excerpts before even wrapping up the Academy Awards results.
The New York Post's front page blared: "Sue & a Half Men," with Oscar coverage a mere side of the page.
Sheen told NBC interviewer Jeff Rossen that he's spent years trying to be cheap runescape money the "nice guy" on his show and get along with everybody, and now that's over.
"I'm tired of pretending I'm not special," he said. "I'm tired of pretending I'm not a total bitchin' rock star from Mars."
Rossen appeared startled when Sheen said he wanted to be paid $3 million an episode to return to the show. He's already one of the highest-paid actors on television.
"You want a raise?" Rossen asked.
Replied Sheen: "Yeah, look what they put me through."
On ABC, Sheen said to correspondent Andrea Canning that he planned to sue his bosses.
"Wouldn't you?" he said. "I've got a whole family to support and love. People beyond me are relying on that. I'm here to collect. They're buy rs gold going to lose. They're going to lose in a courtroom, so I would recommend that they settle out of court."
Sheen said he's bored now with cocaine. But he said he "exposed people to magic" when they partied with him and that he loved doing drugs.
"What's not to love?" he said on ABC. "Especially when you see how I party. It was epic. The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards just look like droopy-eyed armless children."
ABC and Radar Online had Sheen's blood and urine tested for drugs over the weekend.
The results were "a big win for Charlie Sheen, no question," said Radar's Dylan Howard. He said the dual tests revealed Sheen hadn't had drugs in at least 72 hours.
"I am on a drug," Sheen said. "It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."
Jim Bell, executive producer of "Today," dismissed any suggestion that the morning shows were being enablers for Sheen.
"It's a great story," he said. "We don't have this much interest (from television writers) when we have a big cheapest runescape gold interview on Libya or a powerful, smart series on the brain.'

utorak, 01.03.2011.

Why booze ruins women's sleep

From disrupting sleep cycles to improving bone sell runescape gold density, researchers are discovering that drinking affects women differently than men in all sorts of unexpected ways.
For the sleep deprived, alcohol is a fickle mistress. A glass of wine may help you go down for the night, but a few too many can send your sleep cycle into a tailspin. But until very recently, what no one knew was that for women, this is particularly true. It's just one more way in which scientists say alcohol affects women differently than men.
The study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research indicates that women's sleep is more easily disrupted by alcohol than men's. Ninety-three subjects were given either a placebo or enough alcohol so that their BAL was .11 (most states consider .08 to be legally impaired), then monitored as they slept. Women reported feeling more tired before they went to bed than men did, and woke up more often during the night and stayed awake for more minutes, says Damaris J. Rohsenow, Ph.D., one of the study's authors. Interestingly, the women did not report feeling sleepier than the men did after their night of tossing and turning. "They had worse sleep quality, but didn't notice," says Rohsenow, an associate director at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University. (The mechanism for why women had more disrupted sleep than men did was not explained.)
Until 15 years ago, very little research had been done on women's response to alcohol, says Elizabeth Epstein, Ph.D. a research buying runescape gold professor for the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers. Prior to that, our understanding of how humans processed alcohol—and how we dealt with any subsequent addiction issues—was based on research in men. That was the case for most medical inquiries, which often limited their studies to male subjects both out of centuries-long habit and because women, with their pesky hormones, were viewed as liable to skew study results. At some point, however, the medical community started to realize that the response of half their patients might not be skewed, but significant, and integral to understanding successful treatment options.
When scientists did eventually begin to delve into the differences between men and women when it comes to drinking, they found some interesting differences. First, even when a man and a woman weigh exactly the same amount, a woman only needs 90 percent of what a man consumes to achieve the same blood alcohol level. (How drunk the woman will feel compared to the man depends on her individual tolerance.) The exact reason why this happens is unknown, but it may be cheap runescape money because women have less body water. Women also have significantly fewer stomach enzymes that facilitate the breakdown of alcohol than men, which means that "more unmetabolized pure ethanol is going into the organs," says Epstein. "For women, since there's less being metabolized, more alcohol is directly affecting the liver, heart, brain, and intestines." Female alcoholics often start drinking later in life than men, but because of this phenomenon, known as the "telescoping effect," these women often show comparable organ damage to male alcoholics who have been drinking much longer.
Even when a man and a woman weigh exactly the same amount, a woman only needs 90 percent of what a man consumes to achieve the same blood alcohol level.
Coincidentally, a second study released this week in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that alcohol consumption later in life can have a protective effect on bone density—but what type of alcohol was beneficial depended on one's gender. This is particularly compelling news for women, who lose bone density faster than men do. The researchers followed 862 subjects, all over 50, for two years. They found that in men, drinking red wine correlated with less bone loss, and frequent liquor and spirits consumption was connected with more. Women, buy rs gold however, showed none of these effects. But what women did see was a positive correlation between drinking and bone density if they consumed low-alcohol beer. In this study, quantity may have played a role: red wine is associated with moderate drinking, while liquor and spirits are correlated with heavier drinking.
When it comes to the psychology of drinking and gender, there is much more research. In those cases, however, it's difficult to parse how much of the findings are based on the physiology and brain chemistry versus how many are rooted in external cues. For instance, one study found that after experiencing a stressful or upsetting event, men were more likely to crave alcohol, while women were more likely to report feeling depressed or anxious. "There are certain neural circuitry that are associated with stress and neural circuitry associated with reward…and they might be more closely linked in men," says study author Tara Chaplin Ph.D., an assistant professor of cheapest runescape gold psychiatry at the Yale school of medicine. On the other hand, "It could also be connected to social pressures that girls and women feel—it's more acceptable to cry or feel anxious about things. Men might be pressured to minimize, so perhaps they turn to drinking."
In her studies of problem drinkers, however, Epstein found that too much depression and anxiety can lead women to alcoholism, while men were triggered by specific stressful incidents, like the loss of a job. She also found that while women respond better to single-sex group therapy and team treatment approaches then men do, women are much less likely to seek help. "They have barriers to treatment that men don't have—childcare, fear of losing their children, and women on the whole are less likely to have medical insurance," she says.
There's still a lot scientists don't understand about alcohol (though Rohsenow and her colleagues found that there's no difference in drunkenness between dark and light liquors, no matter what your mother told you). And there's even less that they understand about how booze breaks down in men vs. women. But the one tried and true rule of drinking was further confirmed by the participants in the sleep study, and it didn't matter whether they were male or female—every subject who'd been given the alcohol reported feeling lousy the next day.
Kate Dailey is a senior articles editor at Newsweek, where she covers health, lifestyle, society buy cheap runescape gold and culture.

ponedjeljak, 28.02.2011.

Great acting and filmmaking the Academy ignored

As the 83rd Academy Awards approach, heralding rs power leveling the moment when critics will finally stop rehashing the year that was and start paying attention to new movies again, it's time for one last look at films that didn't get the love they deserved when they played in theaters during 2010. The goal of this survey isn't to denigrate the films and performances that received nominations, because pictures from The Social Network to True Grit earned every bit of praise they have received. Instead, the purpose of this article is to draw your attention to movies and performances you might enjoy as much as the ones that are competing for statuettes.
You'll notice, by the way, that I haven't proposed an alternate nominee for Best Picture. I'm ambivalent about the Academy's recent choice to include ten nominees in that category instead of five, so I feel peculiar about suggesting that eleven films deserved spots in the big race. If pressed for an answer on the subject, however, I would say that Fair Game, The Ghost Writer, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Solitary Man impressed me more than 127 Hours, Black Swan, The Kids Are All Right, and Winter's Bone, so if I were making the list of nominated movies, it would look a bit different. That said, here are my nominees for this year's Alternate Oscars.
Best Actor: Michael Douglas, for Solitary Man. Looking beyond the nostalgic interest in his reprise of the Gordon Gekko character for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Douglas' biggest onscreen accomplishment this year was delivering his most fully realized performance since his great turn in Wonder Boys, way back in sell runescape gold 2000. For the criminally under-seen Solitary Man, Douglas slyly revisited and updated the type of irresponsible lothario character he played so well in the '80s and '90s by portraying Ben Kalmen, a car salesman trying to bounce back from scandal. As arrogant, horny, and swaggering as a man half his age, Ben goes way too far by sleeping with his girlfriend's college-age daughter, only to discover how few true friends he really has after a lifetime of self-indulgence. Douglas hits notes ranging from ambitious to forlorn to pathetic, but by staying true to his characterization, he never makes a cheap play for audience sympathy; instead, he earns a kind of grudging respect as viewers discover why he's clinging to his lost youth so desperately. Mature and sophisticated, Douglas' performance was a triumphant demonstration of the craftsmanship he has developed over the course of four decades spent in front of the camera.
Runner-Up: George Clooney, for The American. Clooney didn't exactly break a sweat in this elegant thriller/character piece about a hit man on the run in Europe, because director Anton Corbijn's style is so minimalistic that Clooney mostly just moves through frames looking impressive and stoic. Yet beneath the film's slick surface, Clooney does some fascinating things, efficiently sketching the tortured soul of a man trying to break free from his steel-hard shell in order to find emotional connection. Performing double-duty on the picture as one of its producers, Clooney deserves praise not only for delivering a fine portrayal, but also for defying expectations by tackling material 180 degrees removed buying runescape gold from what one might reasonably expect of a likeable movie star. Anchored by Clooney's quietly impressive work, The American is like Solitary Man: A simple but beautifully realized film that didn't reach a wide enough audience.
Best Actress: Naomi Watts, for Fair Game. Impeccably personifying real-life CIA agent Valerie Plame, who was "outed" by vindictive operatives of the Bush administration, Watts reiterates that she's one of Hollywood's strongest leading ladies, a glamorous movie star capable of digging into challenging dramatic material in a way that blends artistic credibility and high-wattage charisma. Therefore it's a shame that so few people saw Doug Liman's excellent film, which also boasts a fiery co-starring performance by Sean Penn as Plame's hot-tempered husband, political consultant Joe Wilson. Comfortably occupying Plame's stylish garb of slick Armani suits and gleaming blonde hair, Watts displayed equal amounts of strength and vulnerability in a performance that could easily have slipped into empty grandstanding. Her restraint is as impressive as the sparks she strikes in the movie's many heated confrontations.
Runner-Up: Emma Stone, for Easy A. Borrowing a word from the film's title, it's easy to dismiss a charming lead performance in a light comedy by presuming that all the actor has to do is look pretty and smile. As rising star Stone demonstrated throughout every moment of Easy A, creating the correct light-comedy mood is a delicate balancing act. Playing cheap runescape money a whip-smart high-school student who lets a rumor about her alleged sexual activities grow out of control, Stone had to be ambitious, approachable, funny, intimidating, intelligent, likeable, nonthreatening, sexy, and threatening all at once, without ever teetering so far into melodrama that she killed the inherent comedy of her character's fraught situation. Does that sound easy? No, but Stone ruled the school from the beginning of the picture to the end. It remains to be seen whether the actress will be able to match this level of incandescence in subsequent performances, but she should be thrilled that her star-making turn allowed her to showcase so many different aspects of her talent, since few young actresses get famous without simultaneously getting typecast.
Best Supporting Actor: John C. Reilly, for Cyrus. Although Reilly's character is really the protagonist of this offbeat indie comedy, I'll use the fact that the movie is named after Jonah Hill's character to slide Reilly into the supporting category. A priceless actor with innumerable great performances under his belt, Reilly outdid himself in Cyrus, a heavily improvised character piece about a middle-aged slob (Reilly) who falls in love with a woman (Marisa Tomei) who is way too attached to her adult son, Cyrus (Hill). All three actors did amazing, vanity-free work, but Reilly commanded the movie with his painful portrayal of a self-destructive, self-loathing loser who freaks out when he realizes that his good fortune of landing in a relationship with Tomei's character will be complicated by Cyrus' creepy mother love. Reilly is believably sad and stupid as a man hard-wired to make bad decisions. Once it becomes buy rs gold clear that Cyrus is a maniac, we learn to appreciate and root for Reilly's doofus character because we all know what it's like to be stymied by a formidable opponent. Additionally, it was a relief to see Reilly escaping his rut of silly big-budget comedies, even though appearing in those comedies has probably been quite beneficial to his bank account.
Runner-Up (Tie): Kevin Costner, for The Company Men, and Oliver Platt, for Please Give. In John Wells' smart but schematic downsizing drama The Company Men, Costner gives a winning performance as an unpretentious contractor who hires his brother-in-law (Ben Affleck) when the brother-in-law's cushy corporate job is eliminated. Costner's Boston accent is a bit dodgy, but in every other respect he hits the right notes as the film's exemplar of working-class decency. In Nicole Holofcener's biting social satire Please Give, an exploration of guilt and self-loathing among the upper middle class, Platt is characteristically edgy and funny as an antiques dealer who falls into a disastrous affair with a cosmetologist (Amanda Peet). Always willing to humiliate himself for a role, Platt uses every imaginable color as he paints a portrait of middle-aged denial and desperation.
Best Supporting Actress: Juliette Lewis, for Conviction. Delivering one of those potent mini-performances that raises the level of an entire movie, '90s wild child Lewis did unexpectedly disciplined work in Conviction, the earnest but ordinary true-life story of a blue-collar woman (Hilary Swank) who becomes a lawyer in order to free her wrongfully imprisoned brother (Sam Rockwell). Even with dramatic powerhouses Minnie Driver, Rockwell, and Swank playing larger roles, Lewis stole the movie with her showy role as a skank with key information related to the brother's case. Wearing grotesque makeup on her teeth and spewing hilariously harebrained ad libs, Lewis was funny and real as a white-trash opportunist who seems trivial because she's constantly cheapest runescape gold distracted by television, then reveals surprising savvy by intuiting that she's about to ender a legal trap. That's a lot of narrative ground to cover in a handful of minutes, but Lewis did so with memorable inventiveness and vivacity.
Runner-Up: Catherine Keener, for Please Give. Complementing Platt's terrific performance, Keener soars as his equally befuddled wife and business partner, a well-off New Yorker wracked with guilt that she's not doing enough to help others, and oblivious to the fact that her marriage is in trouble. Working with frequent collaborator Holofcener, Kenner skewers all sorts of upper-middle-class foibles, from the ridiculous extremes of unchecked political correctness to the equally ridiculous extremes of unchecked narcissism. It's tricky to pull off vain and vulnerable at the same time, but Keener does that and so much more.
Best Director: Edgar Wright, for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Frenetic, inventive, and tuned into the postmodern DNA of the Information Age, Wright's exuberant filmmaking style turned this adaptation of an offbeat romantic comic book into a spectacular celebration of short attention spans. Taking viewers deep inside the mindset of contemporary kids who think in terms of 24/7 digital connectedness, Wright used clever visual devices, sly sound snippets, and whiz-bang editing to tell the story of Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a young indie rocker who falls for a sweet stranger (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), only to discover he must face her "evil exes" in over-the-top videogame-style duels. Unlike the year's other big "inventive" Hollywood feature, Christopher Nolan's Inception, Scott Pilgrim is a movie that could only have been conceived and executed in the current historical moment, because its narrative is inextricably linked to the way people act and think right now. Also unlike Inception, Wright's movie presents its story clearly and enjoyably, reveling in accessibility instead of opacity.
Runner-up: Roman Polanski, for The Ghost Writer. Returning to his roots as one of Europe's true masters of suspense, Polanski demonstrated ruthless efficiency in crafting this deft political thriller about a writer (Ewan McGregor) recruited to clean up the memoirs of a former U.K. prime minister (Pierce Brosnan); the buy cheap runescape gold writer discovers the ex-PM's darkest secret and becomes a target of international conspirators. Employing the same chilly cynicism and ingenuity he brought to '70s classics like Chinatown and The Tenant, Polanski puts viewers inside the skin of McGregor's character, who is desperately trying to discover not just who is after him, but what exactly is happening since his situation is cloaked in one layer of mystery after another. Nobody evokes the feeling of bewildered disorientation more effectively than Polanski, and the filmmaker draws fine performances from consistent performers (McGregor, Tom Wilkinson, Olivia Williams) and inconsistent performers (Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, even Jim Belushi) alike.
Best Documentary: The Tillman Story. Now that we're more than two years into the Obama era, it may seem like old news to explore the misbehavior of the George W. Bush administration, but because it seems as if none of the biggest Bushies will face real prosecution for their crimes and misdemeanors, then the court of public opinion may be the forum in which runescape powerleveling those miscreants stand trial. Case in point: Fiction movies like Fair Game and nonfiction pictures like The Tillman Story, a scorching exposéof the manner in which Bush operatives knowingly misrepresented the circumstances surrounding the death of Pat Tillman Jr., the NFL player who quit football to serve in Afghanistan. Methodically detailing the unfortunate SNAFU that resulted in Tillman's death, probably by friendly fire, the picture then explains how the Bushies insidiously spun Tillman's demise into a "heroic" sacrifice that served their desired war narrative, even though doing so spat in the face of Tillman's stalwart character and the truth of his demise. Infuriating and provocative, The Tillman Story is a sobering reminder of how easily the truth is manipulated by those with influence over the world's media—and also a potent celebration of the Tillman family, unconventional patriots whose love of country put them at painful odds with unscrupulous government officials.
Writer/filmmaker Peter Hanson is the author of "Dalton Trumbo, Hollywood Rebel," "The Cinema of Generation X," and powerleveling rs "Tales from the Script: 50 Hollywood Screenwriters Share Their Stories."

subota, 26.02.2011.

Lady Gaga breaks iTunes records, says on "drunk diet"

Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" has become cheap runescape money the fastest-selling single ever on Apple's iTunes store worldwide, racking up more than one million downloads in five days, Apple said on Friday.
Apple said the song -- a Madonna-influenced dance track that the 24 year-old singer performed after "hatching" from a giant egg at the Grammy Awards -- had hit the No. 1 spot on iTunes in 23 countries.
"Born This Way", the title track of a new album to be released in May, also went straight to the top of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles charts earlier this week.
The flamboyant performance artist also revealed her secret for staying so thin, and how she gets her creative juices flowing.
"I am on the drunk diet," she told Sirius XM radio on Friday.
As preparations for next Sunday's Academy Awards move into high gear, the show's producers have booted a number of buy rs gold familiar elements.
Gone will be the movie montages -- like last year's salute to horror movies -- that often contribute to the broadcast's unwieldy running time. While there will be film clips from the ten best picture nominees and brief filmed introductions to different segments of the show, "Within the body of the show, we are not doing any film montage sequences," said Bruce Cohen, who will produce with Don Mischer.
Gone too will be the relatively new tradition, established just two years ago, of using five presenters to offer tribute testimonials about each of the best actor and actress nominees. "We're not going to do that this year," Cohen told the Hollywood Reporter. "What we did love about it was that it was a moment where each of the nominees really gets their due. (But) we found a version of that, without using the five people on stage, from the 1970 Oscars, and we stole it."
The producers also have enlisted the nominees' mothers to participate in cheapest runescape gold promotion and pre-show activities, and some of them will be in the audience for the telecast.
This year's producing team is restoring individual performances of the four nominated songs, which were eliminated last year. Producers were upset that Cher, a major audience draw, was not nominated for her Burlesque ballad, "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me."
"We were surprised, and we were disappointed," Cohen says when of the song, which won its composer Diane Warren a Golden Globe but failed to earn an Academy nomination.
They have lined up most of the other names associated with the songs that were nominated, though: Oscar perennial Randy Newman will perform his "We Belong Together" from "Toy Story 3"; Mandy Moore and Zachary Levy, who sang the duet "I See The Light" on the "Tangled" soundtrack will reteam with composer Alan Menken; and Gwyneth Paltrow, who buy cheap runescape gold sings "Coming Home" in "Country Strong" will reprise that tune on the broadcast.
Because English pop singer Dido, who was nominated along with Rollo Armstrong and A.R. Rahman for the song "If I Rise," from "127 Hours" was not available, the producers have drafted Florence Welch from Grammy-nominated act Florence + the Machine to appear with Rahman.
"We feel we really lucked out, and this is a good year to bring the best song performances back," Cohen says.
"I live my life as I want to, creatively. I like to drink whiskey runescape powerleveling and stuff while I am working. But the deal is I've got to work out every day, and I work out hung over if I am hung over. And it's about the cross-training and keeping yourself inspired. I have to say, I do a ton of yoga," she added.
The singer said in a television interview last weekend that she also smoked marijuana while writing her songs.
After headline-grabbing outfits, live performance stunts and a best-selling tour, Lady Gaga may be turning her thoughts to a possible new career -- in movies.
Asked if she saw herself becoming an actress, she told Sirius XM ; "I think at some point, yes. I think I'm sort of destined for that screen at some point."
But if there was a movie of her life, Lady Gaga said she would like to be played by Marisa Tomei -- the Oscar-winning actress from "My Cousin Vinny".
"I am such a Marisa Tomei fan. All my friends call me Marisa when I get angry. Because my New York accent just flies out of my powerleveling rs body and I start smacking my gum," she said.

petak, 25.02.2011.

Blockbuster gets US$290 million “stalking horse bid”

Movie rental chain Blockbuster Inc, which filed for runescape items for sale bankruptcy last year, said it has started the process to sell itself and has entered into an agreement with "stalking horse" bidder Cobalt Video Holdco for $290 million.
Cobalt is a limited liability company formed by funds managed by Monarch Alternative Capital LP, Owl Creek Asset Management LP, Stonehill Capital Management LLC and V?rde Partners Inc.
A "stalking horse" bid is used as a starting bid or minimally accepted offer that other interested bidders must surpass if they want to buy the company.
Cobalt has agreed to purchase substantially all of the assets of Blockbuster and its U.S. and international subsidiaries for $290 million, subject to adjustment.
Blockbuster also filed a motion seeking approval from U.S. bankruptcy court for Southern District of New York to conduct an auction for the company.
"The auction process is designed to achieve the highest and best offer for the company's assets and would be conducted under the Court's supervision," Blockbuster said in a statement.
The bidding procedures, if approved by the bankruptcy court, would require other interested parties to submit binding offers to acquire powerleveling rs Blockbuster within about 30 days following such approval. Assuming qualified bids are submitted, an auction would be held within about one week of the bid deadline.
A final sale approval hearing is anticipated to take place shortly after the auction with the closing anticipated to occur no later than April 20, 2011. Blockbuster and its domestic subsidiaries filed voluntary Chapter 11 petitions on September 23.
Blockbuster said expects that its U.S. operations, including a majority of its stores, DVD vending kiosks, by-mail and digital businesses, to continue to serve customers during the sale process.
The company's international operations in Canada, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom are also expected to conduct business as usual during the sale. Blockbuster said its franchise locations in both the U.S. and abroad are independently owned, operated and funded, and will also continue runescape powerleveling normal business operations.
Last week, four landlords asked a Manhattan bankruptcy judge to order immediate rental payment for 38 stores, including one in Blockbuster's hometown of Dallas, or allow them to evict the company.
Blockbuster is already facing demands from the film studio behind the hit "Twilight" vampire series that it pay its bills or liquidate.
Earlier this year, Blockbuster told Summit Distribution LLC that it would not pay $6.8 million it owed for DVDs, including "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," that were shipped since it filed for bankruptcy in September because it did not have the money, according to court documents.
The bankruptcy court previously allowed the company to borrow $125 million to pay for operations while it was under Chapter 11. The loan was provided by billionaire investor Carl Icahn and a group of hedge funds.
The company filed for bankruptcy with a plan to swap its senior secured bonds, which are owned by Icahn and the group of hedge funds, for ownership of the company.
Blockbuster has not met deadlines for providing details on its reorganization plan as originally planned when it filed buy cheap runescape gold for bankruptcy.

Blockbuster gets US$290 million "stalking horse bid"

Movie rental chain Blockbuster Inc, which filed for runescape items for sale bankruptcy last year, said it has started the process to sell itself and has entered into an agreement with "stalking horse" bidder Cobalt Video Holdco for $290 million.
Cobalt is a limited liability company formed by funds managed by Monarch Alternative Capital LP, Owl Creek Asset Management LP, Stonehill Capital Management LLC and V?rde Partners Inc.
A "stalking horse" bid is used as a starting bid or minimally accepted offer that other interested bidders must surpass if they want to buy the company.
Cobalt has agreed to purchase substantially all of the assets of Blockbuster and its U.S. and international subsidiaries for $290 million, subject to adjustment.
Blockbuster also filed a motion seeking approval from U.S. bankruptcy court for Southern District of New York to conduct an auction for the company.
"The auction process is designed to achieve the highest and best offer for the company's assets and would be conducted under the Court's supervision," Blockbuster said in a statement.
The bidding procedures, if approved by the bankruptcy court, would require other interested parties to submit binding offers to acquire powerleveling rs Blockbuster within about 30 days following such approval. Assuming qualified bids are submitted, an auction would be held within about one week of the bid deadline.
A final sale approval hearing is anticipated to take place shortly after the auction with the closing anticipated to occur no later than April 20, 2011. Blockbuster and its domestic subsidiaries filed voluntary Chapter 11 petitions on September 23.
Blockbuster said expects that its U.S. operations, including a majority of its stores, DVD vending kiosks, by-mail and digital businesses, to continue to serve customers during the sale process.
The company's international operations in Canada, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom are also expected to conduct business as usual during the sale. Blockbuster said its franchise locations in both the U.S. and abroad are independently owned, operated and funded, and will also continue runescape powerleveling normal business operations.
Last week, four landlords asked a Manhattan bankruptcy judge to order immediate rental payment for 38 stores, including one in Blockbuster's hometown of Dallas, or allow them to evict the company.
Blockbuster is already facing demands from the film studio behind the hit "Twilight" vampire series that it pay its bills or liquidate.
Earlier this year, Blockbuster told Summit Distribution LLC that it would not pay $6.8 million it owed for DVDs, including "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," that were shipped since it filed for bankruptcy in September because it did not have the money, according to court documents.
The bankruptcy court previously allowed the company to borrow $125 million to pay for operations while it was under Chapter 11. The loan was provided by billionaire investor Carl Icahn and a group of hedge funds.
The company filed for bankruptcy with a plan to swap its senior secured bonds, which are owned by Icahn and the group of hedge funds, for ownership of the company.
Blockbuster has not met deadlines for providing details on its reorganization plan as originally planned when it filed buy cheap runescape gold for bankruptcy.

četvrtak, 24.02.2011.

Hot or Not: The Effect of Hormones on Attraction

It’s said that women are prone to change their minds at runescape items the drop of a hat, which may have some truth to it, at least among many of the ladies in my life (myself included). But if men had the same surges of hormones month after month that women do, they’d be a little indecisive, too. Our monthly cycles introduce varying degrees of hormones into our systems that have an effect on mood, pain (hello, cramps and swollen body parts), and even attraction. We may have types we’re drawn toward regularly—tall, dark, and handsome, or intensely pensive artists, for example—but all that changes with the flip of an estrogen switch. Depending on our cycle stage, we might go for masculine over sensitive or “Mr. Take Charge” over “Mr. Nice Guy.”
Near Ovulation, Estrogen Likes Testosterone
During a woman’s monthly cycle, various hormones are released at certain times to prompt ovulation. These include luteinizing hormone (LH), estradiol (a steroid/sex hormone that’s part of the estrogen group), and progesterone (another steroid hormone). Throughout the years, studies have been somewhat contradictory runescape accounts as to what effects these hormones have on attraction, but as of late, consensus seems to be that they do affect how women see men, especially near ovulation.
A 2004 study published in the Journal of Sexual Research showed that women have stronger sexual desire and more sexual fantasies near an oncoming LH release, which happens around mid-cycle and triggers ovulation. Researchers believed that the large amount of estrogen in the female system that stimulates the LH surge also increased sexual thoughts. A study performed at University of California, Santa Barbara concluded similarly, linking estradiol with a preference for men with higher testosterone levels. It was actually the first of its kind to directly show that connection between sex hormones. Researchers asked seventy-five women to rate pictures of men by attractiveness. Both the women and photographed men gave samples of their saliva to test their hormone levels. The women with higher estradiol levels liked the faces of men with higher testosterone levels the best.
Macho Men vs. Sensitive Souls
Masculine personality traits also become more desirable for women around their ovulation runescape power leveling times. A 2004 study conducted at the University of New Mexico and published in Psychological Science found that ovulating women are attracted to men who display “social presence and direct competitiveness.” When female volunteers were shown videos of men competing for lunch dates, those in the highly fertile part of their cycles reported being more interested in the men who were aggressive and confident. However, that was only in short-term situations; when asked about attractiveness in terms of longer partnerships, they rated less positively.
Some scientists believe this is related to our natural instincts as a procreative species—when we’re most fertile, we look for members of the opposite sex who can provide the best genes (i.e., the strongest, the most symmetrical faces, etc.). But otherwise, supportive figures who nurture and help out become hotter commodities. British and Japanese researchers found that to be true in 1999; their findings, which were published in Nature, showed that right before, during, and after a woman has her period—which is also when she’s least likely to conceive—she’s more attracted to feminine faces than masculine ones. During ovulation, women tend to desire macho, robust men, but after that ship sails, women want men they’re compatible with personality-wise.
So what does all this mean if you’re already with someone? Are you as attracted to your mate if he doesn’t fall under the “man’s man” designation? According rs power leveling to one study, it depends. The aforementioned researchers at the University of Mexico held another study in 2004, this time to see if women lost interest in their partners during their cycles. Results showed that attraction levels only dipped during fertile days if their partners were less attractive (or as they so politely said, had “high fluctuating asymmetry”) in general. The women who were with conventionally attractive men (as in those with symmetrical features) were less likely to be more attracted to men outside of the relationship during ovulation. But overall, the women participating in the study on average just weren’t as attracted to their mates when at their most fertile. Again, this could be because our standards for settling down with someone are different than who we instinctually recognize as carrying good genetic material.
It’s important to note that all of these studies are based on women with regular menstrual cycles. If you’re on birth control, you don’t have the same influx of hormones, and therefore might not experience any differences in attraction levels. But if that’s not the case, see if you notice a surprisingly strong predilection for deep voices, manly smells, male bravado, and typically masculine features like strong chins and brows as you near ovulation. Studies have shown increased attraction to all of these characteristics among women in the later stages of their cycles. Clearly, our hormones like us to mix things up throughout the month and make life a little spicier. And if they say we should spend a few days fantasizing about super-masculine runescape coin guys who might be all wrong for us any other time of the month, who are we to argue?

srijeda, 23.02.2011.

Pets win prizes for beautician grad

Tang, 22, a broadcasting and hosting arts senior at cheapest runescape gold Wuhan Media and Communications College of Huazhong Normal University, has netted about 500,000 yuan ($75,850) since 2009 through his pet dog sup-ply business.
He now manages two online shops and two entity companies - one in Wuhan and the other in Hong Kong, selling imported pet supplies such as shampoo and combs, and even recently opened a beauty salon in Changsha, Hunan Province for both regular dogs and those who participate in dog contests.
Puppy fans
Tang has liked canines since childhood. But as a doctor who cares much for personal sanitation, his father did not allow him to raise one at home. It wasn't until Tang entered university and got his own living space that he spent his allowance of about 1,000 yuan ($149) to buy a Bichon Frise named Xiaoguai, and sent it to a buy cheap runescape gold friend's home to look after.
In Tang's opinion, this purchase changed his life.
"I love Xiaoguai so much and always use the best pet supplies for him," Tang told the Global Times. He feels strongly about topics such as animal cruelty and the fur trade.
"On the street, seeing those in expensive fur, I don't think they are fashionable or noble. They are ignorant because they don't know what the animals go through before their fur comes onto their bodies. They should feel guilty," he told the Global Times.
With domestic products not of top quality, Tang used to ask his friends from the US or Britain to bring some over when they returned home.
The first product his friend brought to him was a bottle of shampoo from the US runescape powerleveling costing $13. In China, similar ones cost about 340 yuan ($51). Tang also found a lack of any imported pet supplies in the domestic market. He invested about 10,000 yuan ($1 ,492) to buy more pet shampoo from the US and sold them for about 238 yuan ($36) in China.
"Instead of my expectation, the shampoos sold out in only few days, and I earned almost double the original cost," said Tang.
From then on, Tang worked as agent for various international brand pet supplies, such as the US's Crown Royale.
Dog beautician
Due to Tang's reputation in the business, he has now got a stable group of clients and made friends with them. Tang found that most of the clients who buy his international brand products are owners of dogs who participate in contests. These people are much concerned with the quality of products and the health and comfort of their pets.
With their help, Tang began to visit all kinds of contests and took the opportunity to promote his dog supplies. His passion has gained him lots runescape power leveling of social contacts in this field.
Tang has since switched his role from being an appreciator to a beautician but mainly focuses on the cosmetology of Bichon Frises. A proper cut and treatment lasts from one to two hours and costs 100-120 yuan, with contestant dogs costing 400 yuan.
Tang said that as a professional pet beautician, besides excellent skills and passion, patience is also needed.
"Dogs don't like others to touch their bodies with a pair of scissors. They rs gold struggle and resist," he told the Global Times.
Animal protector
Tang's road to start his business was not smooth. For a long time, he was thought to be fooling around, a playboy without ambitions. But Tang believed that doing what one is interested in is a kind of life experience as well as happiness.
"At the start, I was also worried my business would affect my study. But I found that there is actually a lot of spare time at university. As long as I arranged it properly, I could balance work and study," he told the Global Times.
Tang is now doing an internship at a TV station in Changsha. He admitted that although he loves his pet business, he could not break through traditional conceptions.
"Traditionally, a pet beautician seems improper for a university student's career. As my mum expected, I will treat it as my hobby. In the future, I still want to be an rs2 items TV anchorman," he told the Global Times.

petak, 18.02.2011.

He's ready to work on "Two and a Half Men"

Charlie Sheen is off work from "Two and runescape power leveling a Half Men" but still making jokes, including about when his top-rated sitcom might resume production.
The CBS series went on hiatus last month after Sheen was briefly hospitalized following an emergency call in which a neighbor said the actor was intoxicated and in pain.
In an interview on "The Dan Patrick Show," which airs in syndication on radio and on satellite TV provider DirecTV, Sheen said he was prepared to get back on the set but those in charge of the series weren't.
"They said, `You get ready and we'll get ready.' And I got ready and went back and nobody's there," he said. "I'm here and I'm ready. They're not. Bring it, you know?"
Sheen said he tends to "unravel pretty quickly," so suggested producers should runescape accounts put him to work now.
Asked about when shooting would resume, he joked, "I believe August of 2014 at this pace. I don't know, it's supposed to be like the 28th or the 29th. That's what it is! It's the 29th in a non-leap year."
A spokesman for Sheen said previously he hoped to return to work by the end of February.
CBS and producer Warner Bros. Television declined comment on when production might resume on the Monday night sitcom that has filmed only 16 of the season's planned 24 episodes. The network and studio have expressed concern for the actor's well-being.
In the interview with former ESPN anchor runescape items Patrick, Sheen acknowledged that he's had "some problems lately" and said staying away from crack cocaine is good advice unless a person can "manage it socially."
Asked if he could, Sheen replied, "Yeah, yeah, but that kinda blew up in my face ... like an exploding crack pipe."
He said he is sober now.
Sheen's publicist, Stan Rosenfield, initially cited the actor's history of hernia problems when Sheen was hospitalized. He later said his client went into rehab, but he did not say why.
Last week, a judge finalized Sheen's divorce from Brooke Mueller Sheen. The judgment followed several tumultuous months for the actor, including a New York hospitalization that came after he was taken by police from a room at a luxury New York hotel that was left in shambles.
Sheen signed a new two-year contract at the end of last season that makes him one of the rs2 items highest-paid actors on prime-time television.

četvrtak, 17.02.2011.

Scientists find genetic basis for sleepwalking

Scientists studying a large family rs power leveling with four generations of sleepwalkers have traced the condition to one section of a single chromosome: chromosome 20, and have found that carrying just one copy of this defective section of DNA will make its carrier a sleepwalker.
Around one in 10 children are sleepwalkers and one in 50 adults. The condition, known as somnambulism, is usually benign but can be frightening and even dangerous, with some adult sleepwalkers even being able to find their keys and drive off in their cars while asleep.
Somnambulism is poorly understood. It generally occurs shortly after the person falls asleep, and takes place during a deep, non-dreaming, non-rapid eye movement phase characterized by cheap runescape powerleveling slow brain waves. A sleepwalking episode usually lasts only a few minutes and it usually ends with the sleepwalker returning to bed, often without waking, and with no recollection the next day. Stress is a known trigger.
To learn more about the condition, scientists from the Washington University School of Medicine department of neurology, led by Dr Christina A. Gurnett, enlisted the aid of a family in which nine of the 22 members of the four generations were sleepwalkers, including Hanna, 12, who had been sleepwalking regularly, wandering outside the house during the night. One of Hannah’s uncles was also a rs2 gold sleepwalker, and regularly woke to discover he had donned eight pairs of socks while asleep. Some of the family had sustained injuries during sleepwalking.
The researchers carried out a genome-wide search to see if they could find a genetic basis for the condition. They found a section of the DNA on chromosome 20 was related to sleepwalking: those who had the faulty DNA section sleepwalked, and those who did not were not sleepwalkers. A person with the condition had a 50 percent chance of passing it on to their offspring.
Dr Gurnett and the team have not yet identified the specific genes or gene involved, but runescape gold think of the 28 or so likely candidates the most promising is the adenosine deaminase gene, which has been linked to the slow wave stage of sleep in which sleepwalking occurs. Since most people grow out of sleepwalking, Dr Gurnett said several genes are likely to be involved, and added that what the team had found was the “first genetic locus for sleepwalking.”
The paper was published in the journal Neurology. Future research will focus on identifying the exact gene or genes responsible for sleepwalking, since this may lead to ways of treating the condition. At present most cases are not treated because the drugs that are available have unwanted side rs2 items effects.

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