Drink Cristal, Play 24, Forget Naptime and Learn about HIV!

"News" for St. Paddy's day...

1. Apparently Tom Cruise got the South Park episode on Scientology pulled on Wednesday by threatening to not promote Mission Impossible 3. Paramount Pictures, which is banking on MI3 to be a hit, is also owned by Viacom, which is the parent company of Comedy Central. Viacom officials might have also ordered South Parkers Matt Stone and Trey Parker to not discuss the reasons behind the episode's cancellation. The episode makes fun of Tom Cruise's constant gay denials and Scientology as a religion. (Page 6 and Hollywood Interrupted)

Not to fear. YouTube has not been threatened (yet) so feel free to enjoy the episode whenever you please.

2. 24 fans can rejoice...well, if they are gamers and have PlayStation 2. The creatively named 24:The Game comes out today and is set between seasons two and three. Plugging some gaps in the story, i.e. how Kim Bauer started working at the Counter-Terrorism Unit, the game also is complete with the essentials of the show, including the digital clock countdown and multi-panel scenes. Great, something else 24-heads can get addicted to.

3. When Cristal Champagne's managing director, Frederic Rouzaud, was asked how he felt when he saw 50 Cent pouring the drink over a dancer's bum in a video, he said, "I would prefer to drink it...

... They should drink it." (BBC)

4. March Madness is notorious for being an office productivity drainer, but Forbes is calling out consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas' estimate of a $3.8 billion productivity loss as overblown. Challenger quadrupled their 2005 costs this year due to broadcast channels' offering of free (advertisement-funded) viewings of the games from the first three rounds (56/64 games) online. While it is doubtful that employees will be brazen enough to sit and watch the whole games at work, Forbes' resistance to the near $4b number wasn't particularly well-articulated:

"But not every college basketball fan has Internet access at work... And many workers would have wasted those 13.5 minutes anyway, playing FreeCell or Googling their ex-girlfriends."

Maybe Forbes should check on their own employees.

5. A virtual god does exist. Go to www.complaints.com to post and read complaints on a product/service/company. So much easier than figuring out the whole Better Business deal... which I never did.

6. Who is Saint Patrick and why should you celebrate him like he is Dionysus? Because that's what you do with patron saints who return to their country to convert the Celtic people to Christianity. Learn more at this U.S. Embassy website, and find out that the story of St. Patrick's chasing out snakes from Ireland is "probably not true."


7. NYC -public-schooled kindergartners will learn about HIV starting Monday. Lessons include HIV is "a germ", "not easy to get", could lead to AIDS, which is not easy to "get well" from. The kids won't learn that HIV is sexually transmitted (and uh, needley transmitted) and if asked, teachers will respond, "When you are older, you will learn more." (Daily News)