Johnny Knoxville opens up to CBS's Ken Lombardi at the movie premiere in New York City on Friday.
The new "Jackass" sequel dominated the box office racking up close to $22 million on its opening night Friday. The boys are back, crazier than ever, and the best (or worst depending on your view of the "Jackass" show) part is, it's all in 3-D.
"Everything's wilder and more intense," Knoxville said. "Just the spirit of the guys was so much better. And the 3-D just puts you in the center of everything. Whatever stunt we're doing, you're in there. It's our best one."
Director Jeff Tremaine says that 3-D was made for Jackass, according to CBS. Tremaine has been part of the behind the scenes "Jackass" team since its creation nearly ten years ago. He says he enjoyed doing the film with Knoxville and the gang.
The filmmaker admits, "[Knoxville] and I just sit in the office and draw little sketches and pass them back and forth like little school girls handing each other notes and like, 'Oh, that's a good one. Let's do it.'"
Knoxville has made promises that there will be more "Jackass" for us in the future. "We shot two films worth of footage," Knoxville said. "So there were so many great things that we had to cut out. With all the extra footage, it's going to come out in January with '3.5.' So once we start shooting, nobody wants to stop."
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Bruce Willis. Still around
BRUCE Willis is concerned he may be replaced in the ‘Die Hard’ franchise.
The 55-year-old actor — who is currently filming his fifth film playing action hero John McClane — admitted that while he thinks his job is safe at the moment, he will be hanging up his character’s white vest after Die Hard 6 to avoid being replaced.
“In the next few years they could easily find a replacement for me or call the character someone else,” he said.
“But for me, I want to do Die Hard 5, then one final Die Hard movie — Die Hard 6 — before finally hanging that white vest up for good.
“At the moment, I can run and I can fight on screen. But there will come a time when I no longer want to do that. That’s when I’ll step away from the Die Hard films.”
The actor also revealed he came up with his one of his character’s key lines after he had a disagreement with the film’s producers.
“Take the first Die Hard, I was the one who came up with the line, ‘Yippee ki-yay motherf****r!’ The producers were trying to give me their take on how I should say a certain line at that point in the movie, and I disagreed,” he said.
“So they said, ‘You do it’. So I did. Yippee ki-yay was some goofy thing that cowboys used to say in those movies, so I added the ‘motherf****r’ bit as I thought it was a nice, contrasting combination of the two images. And it worked. That expression’s really stuck around, that’s for sure.”
Willis recently insisted he “won’t retire” from Hollywood.
“I never thought of acting as work, and I don’t look at what I do as work so I won’t retire,” he said.
“There are a lot of people who do work hard, and have really difficult jobs — whether it’s digging holes in the ground or carrying cinder blocks up a hundred foot ladder up to a roof — that is something that feels like work to me.
“I just worked with Ernest Borgnine on Red and it was a blast. He’s incredible, and sharp. He’s awesome. Thank god we didn’t have any fight scenes with him, because he would’ve kicked our asses! And than have gone, ‘ Alright who’s next!’ But he really is unbelievable and he’s 93-years old.”
Bruce Willis, Emma Heming
The 55-year-old actor — who is currently filming his fifth film playing action hero John McClane — admitted that while he thinks his job is safe at the moment, he will be hanging up his character’s white vest after Die Hard 6 to avoid being replaced.
“In the next few years they could easily find a replacement for me or call the character someone else,” he said.
“But for me, I want to do Die Hard 5, then one final Die Hard movie — Die Hard 6 — before finally hanging that white vest up for good.
“At the moment, I can run and I can fight on screen. But there will come a time when I no longer want to do that. That’s when I’ll step away from the Die Hard films.”
The actor also revealed he came up with his one of his character’s key lines after he had a disagreement with the film’s producers.
“Take the first Die Hard, I was the one who came up with the line, ‘Yippee ki-yay motherf****r!’ The producers were trying to give me their take on how I should say a certain line at that point in the movie, and I disagreed,” he said.
“So they said, ‘You do it’. So I did. Yippee ki-yay was some goofy thing that cowboys used to say in those movies, so I added the ‘motherf****r’ bit as I thought it was a nice, contrasting combination of the two images. And it worked. That expression’s really stuck around, that’s for sure.”
Willis recently insisted he “won’t retire” from Hollywood.
“I never thought of acting as work, and I don’t look at what I do as work so I won’t retire,” he said.
“There are a lot of people who do work hard, and have really difficult jobs — whether it’s digging holes in the ground or carrying cinder blocks up a hundred foot ladder up to a roof — that is something that feels like work to me.
“I just worked with Ernest Borgnine on Red and it was a blast. He’s incredible, and sharp. He’s awesome. Thank god we didn’t have any fight scenes with him, because he would’ve kicked our asses! And than have gone, ‘ Alright who’s next!’ But he really is unbelievable and he’s 93-years old.”
Bruce Willis, Emma Heming
Terrell Owens Fined for Bad Tweet
Terrell Owens has been fined $5,000 for violating the NFL's prohibition on using social media shortly before games.
The Bengals receiver acknowledged that he broke the rule by sending out a tweet an hour before Cincinnati's 24-21 loss to Tampa Bay on Sunday. Players and coaches are prohibited from using social media 90 minutes before games, during games and shortly afterward.
Teammate Chad Ochocinco got a $25,000 fine for tweeting before and during a preseason game.
Owens, Ochocinco and Arizona's Darnell Dockett are the only players who have violated the league's restrictions, which went into effect before last season. Dockett was fined $5,000 for sending a tweet 20 minutes before a game.
The Bengals receiver acknowledged that he broke the rule by sending out a tweet an hour before Cincinnati's 24-21 loss to Tampa Bay on Sunday. Players and coaches are prohibited from using social media 90 minutes before games, during games and shortly afterward.
Teammate Chad Ochocinco got a $25,000 fine for tweeting before and during a preseason game.
Owens, Ochocinco and Arizona's Darnell Dockett are the only players who have violated the league's restrictions, which went into effect before last season. Dockett was fined $5,000 for sending a tweet 20 minutes before a game.
Peyton Manning
By Associated Press
Sunday, October 17, 2010 LANDOVER, Md. — Donovan McNabb can’t imagine Peyton Manning playing for anyone other than the Indianapolis Colts.
"He’s a guy that is going to go down as a Hall of Famer," McNabb said, "and he will probably be with one team."
Of course, McNabb always expected to be wearing the green of the Philadelphia Eagles, and that sure didn’t pan out. The first sight of him in a Washington Redskins uniform looked as weird as Johnny Unitas taking snaps for the San Diego Chargers, or Brett Favre throwing TD passes — and interceptions — for the New York Jets [team stats] and Minnesota Vikings.
But in a league where instability is a reliability, Manning is an exception, at least so far.
"He’s a lifetime Colt," Redskins linebacker Chris Wilson said. "Peyton can’t do anything wrong. Not at all. He can throw 10 interceptions this week, and he just had an off day — he’ll be back next week. And I agree with the people. Just his competitiveness along with his talent have taken him this far. He can play as long as he wants to, the way he’s playing right now."
Manning vs. McNabb this Sunday contrasts 13 seasons in one place and a stable offensive system against a sudden, stark change in surroundings. The Colts (3-2) may not be playing up to their usual standard, but Manning is having another off-the-charts year: 11 touchdowns, two interceptions, a completion rate of 67.6 percent and a QB rating of 102.6.
McNabb, meanwhile, is finding his way in his first year with the Redskins (3-2), whose three nail-biting victories can be credited to a few parts luck mixed with a bit of tenacity. He’s thrown four touchdown passes, three interceptions, has completed 56.5 percent of his passes and has a rating of 81.9.
Both sets of numbers could go up this weekend. Washington has issues on defense, and so does Indianapolis. The Redskins sit at the bottom of the league, allowing some 410 yards per game. They’ve allowed Tony Romo, Matt Schaub, Sam Bradford, Michael Vick and Aaron Rodgers to move the ball up and down the field, yet have somehow managed to clamp down enough to keep the points down in three of those five games.
Now they’re facing Manning, who reads defenses better than anybody.
"We couldn’t even really confuse Sam Bradford, so how can we go out there and confuse Peyton Manning?" Washington cornerback DeAngelo Hall said. "Sam Bradford was able to see where the blitzes were coming from, get rid of the ball. So you know, with Peyton, we’re just going to have to go to the drawing board, figure out what we want to do as a defense, as a staff, and try to execute it."
The Colts defense, having heard enough about how it was dragging the team down, figures it turned a corner last weekend when it kept the previously unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs out of the end zone in a 19-9 win.
"I just know we’ve got a lot of pride on the team and defensively," Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney said. "It’s never as bad as people say it is. It’s never as good as people say it is."
This week, Freeney was asked to consider how he would approach the challenge of facing his own quarterback. Suppose Manning were traded and had to face Indianapolis — the way McNabb was shipped to Washington and had to return to play Philadelphia earlier this month.
"That might have been something special. Probably a lot of emotion goes into that," Freeney said. "Donovan against the Eagles, he’d never say this, but I’m sure he was thinking ’I want to light up the scoreboard.’ I’m sure if something like that happened here, Peyton leaves and then he’s coming back and playing us, I’d like to get a good hit on him a couple of times."
But could that ever happen? Manning’s contract is up after this season, and the Colts have been working with him on a new deal that would keep him in Indianapolis for the rest of his career. The hang-up, though, is the contract’s structure because of the uncertainty of the league’s labor situation beyond this year.
Maybe that’s why the one person who didn’t want to speculate about Manning playing elsewhere was Manning himself.
Sunday, October 17, 2010 LANDOVER, Md. — Donovan McNabb can’t imagine Peyton Manning playing for anyone other than the Indianapolis Colts.
"He’s a guy that is going to go down as a Hall of Famer," McNabb said, "and he will probably be with one team."
Of course, McNabb always expected to be wearing the green of the Philadelphia Eagles, and that sure didn’t pan out. The first sight of him in a Washington Redskins uniform looked as weird as Johnny Unitas taking snaps for the San Diego Chargers, or Brett Favre throwing TD passes — and interceptions — for the New York Jets [team stats] and Minnesota Vikings.
But in a league where instability is a reliability, Manning is an exception, at least so far.
"He’s a lifetime Colt," Redskins linebacker Chris Wilson said. "Peyton can’t do anything wrong. Not at all. He can throw 10 interceptions this week, and he just had an off day — he’ll be back next week. And I agree with the people. Just his competitiveness along with his talent have taken him this far. He can play as long as he wants to, the way he’s playing right now."
Manning vs. McNabb this Sunday contrasts 13 seasons in one place and a stable offensive system against a sudden, stark change in surroundings. The Colts (3-2) may not be playing up to their usual standard, but Manning is having another off-the-charts year: 11 touchdowns, two interceptions, a completion rate of 67.6 percent and a QB rating of 102.6.
McNabb, meanwhile, is finding his way in his first year with the Redskins (3-2), whose three nail-biting victories can be credited to a few parts luck mixed with a bit of tenacity. He’s thrown four touchdown passes, three interceptions, has completed 56.5 percent of his passes and has a rating of 81.9.
Both sets of numbers could go up this weekend. Washington has issues on defense, and so does Indianapolis. The Redskins sit at the bottom of the league, allowing some 410 yards per game. They’ve allowed Tony Romo, Matt Schaub, Sam Bradford, Michael Vick and Aaron Rodgers to move the ball up and down the field, yet have somehow managed to clamp down enough to keep the points down in three of those five games.
Now they’re facing Manning, who reads defenses better than anybody.
"We couldn’t even really confuse Sam Bradford, so how can we go out there and confuse Peyton Manning?" Washington cornerback DeAngelo Hall said. "Sam Bradford was able to see where the blitzes were coming from, get rid of the ball. So you know, with Peyton, we’re just going to have to go to the drawing board, figure out what we want to do as a defense, as a staff, and try to execute it."
The Colts defense, having heard enough about how it was dragging the team down, figures it turned a corner last weekend when it kept the previously unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs out of the end zone in a 19-9 win.
"I just know we’ve got a lot of pride on the team and defensively," Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney said. "It’s never as bad as people say it is. It’s never as good as people say it is."
This week, Freeney was asked to consider how he would approach the challenge of facing his own quarterback. Suppose Manning were traded and had to face Indianapolis — the way McNabb was shipped to Washington and had to return to play Philadelphia earlier this month.
"That might have been something special. Probably a lot of emotion goes into that," Freeney said. "Donovan against the Eagles, he’d never say this, but I’m sure he was thinking ’I want to light up the scoreboard.’ I’m sure if something like that happened here, Peyton leaves and then he’s coming back and playing us, I’d like to get a good hit on him a couple of times."
But could that ever happen? Manning’s contract is up after this season, and the Colts have been working with him on a new deal that would keep him in Indianapolis for the rest of his career. The hang-up, though, is the contract’s structure because of the uncertainty of the league’s labor situation beyond this year.
Maybe that’s why the one person who didn’t want to speculate about Manning playing elsewhere was Manning himself.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Asteroid Collision
By Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com Contributor / October 14, 2010 Astronomers now have the first confirmed snapshots of what appears to be the aftermath of an asteroid collision in space.
When scientists first discovered the object dubbed P/2010 A2 in the asteroid belt in January using the Rosetta spacecraft, the fact that it trailed a tail made them think it was a comet. A closer look, however, suggested it was something more peculiar — images from the Hubble Space Telescope revealed it had a bizarre X-shape nucleus, for instance. [Photo of the odd X-shape in space.]
"When I saw the Hubble image I knew it was something special," said researcher Jessica Agarwal, a European Space Agency astronomer in the Netherlands
Astronomers suspect a rock maybe 10-16 feet (3-5 meters) wide slammed into a larger asteroid at speeds of about 11,200 mph (18,000 kph) with a detonation as powerful as a small atomic bomb, said researcher David Jewitt, an astronomer at the University of California in Los Angeles and leader of the Hubble observations.
"We have directly observed a collision between asteroids for the first time, instead of having to infer that they happened from million-year-old remains," researcher Colin Snodgrass, a planetary scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, told SPACE.com.
The smaller asteroid was vaporized, stripping material from the larger one. Pressure from solar radiation then swept the debris behind the remnant asteroid, forming a comet-like tail.
Hubble images suggest the nucleus of the object is 390 feet (120 meters) wide, with its tail containing dust grains 1 to 2.5 millimeters large, enough material to make a ball 65 feet (20 meters) wide.
Mystery space 'X' unmasked
When it comes to why this object has such a weird X-shape, "think of throwing a brick into a swimming pool," Jewitt told SPACE.com.
"The splash pattern will not be a smooth curtain, but a series of jets, filaments and other structures that reflect the shape of the brick, angle of impact and so on," he explained. "For the case of A2, neither the projectile nor the target are likely to have been spherical, so the 'X' arms probably reflect shape irregularities in an off-center impact."
The two asteroids that created the object were probably familiar with collisions, since they were most likely born from impacts between larger asteroids tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years ago, the researchers said.
Encounters between asteroids are thought to be common, with asteroids of modest size colliding into each other about once a year, Jewitt added.
"Catching colliding asteroids on camera is difficult, because large impacts are rare, while small ones, such as the one that produced P/2010 A2, are exceedingly faint," he said.
The two asteroids whose remains make up P/2010 A2 were unknown before the impact because they were too faint to be detected. Scientists did not witness the collision itself because it happened when the asteroids were in the same direction as the sun, but computer models suggest the collision took place around February 2009.
"We expected the debris field to expand dramatically, like shrapnel flying from a hand grenade," Jewitt said. "But what happened was quite the opposite. We found that the object is expanding very, very slowly."
The research will be detailed in the Oct. 14 issue of the journal Nature.
Asteroid billiard balls
These findings give new clues as to how asteroids behave when they smash into each other and how the debris from these impacts contributes to the dust that pervades the solar system.
"These observations are important because we need to know where the dust in the solar system comes from, and how much of it comes from colliding asteroids as opposed to 'outgassing' comets," Jewitt said. "We can also apply this knowledge to the dusty debris disks around other stars, because these are thought to be produced by collisions between unseen bodies in the disks. Knowing how the dust was produced will yield clues about those invisible bodies."
Astronomers plan to use Hubble to examine the object again next year to see how far solar radiation has swept its dust back and how the mysterious X-shape nucleus has evolved.
Future telescopes should find plenty of such asteroid crashes, with Jewitt expecting the planned Large Synoptic Survey Telescope to spot dozens of asteroid collisions shortly after they happen
Pink White House
WASHINGTON
The White House became the "Pink House" Thursday night for breast cancer awareness.
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.President Barack Obama announced via Twitter earlier in the day that the building will be bathed in pink light Thursday, just for one night.
Obama signed a proclamation at the beginning of the month designating October as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Last October, the Obamas hung a large pink ribbon on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the White House.
IN PICTURES: Inside President Obama's White House
The American Cancer Society says there are roughly 40,000 breast cancer deaths each year in the U.S.
The main entrance to Vice President Joe Biden's official residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory also was to be lit in pink Thursday night.
Kaplan Releases SAT Prep Game App for iPhone
Jennifer Van Grove Jennifer Van Grove – Wed Oct 13, 5:00 am ETTest prep giant Kaplan and game maker Aspyr Media have adapted their SAT test prep video game, FutureU, for iPhone and iPad devices.
The free FutureU SAT study game -- which includes four $1.99 in-app premium upgrades for additional levels -- will soon be available as an iOS application to students looking for a mobile interactive way to prepare for the SATs.
The application includes games designed around three key study areas: reading, writing and math.
The reading games are designed to improve player vocabulary and refine the app user's ability to find themes and arguments. When it comes to writing, FutureU games cover a smattering of topics to help users with run-on sentences, misplaced modifiers, tenses, subject-verb agreement and so on. The mathematics games focus on algebra, geometry, statistics and probability.
"Students are always on the go and busier than ever. So for us to work with Kaplan to develop a mobile version of futureU for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices that allows students to study -- even when they might only have a few extra minutes here and there -- just made sense," Aspyr Media CEO Michael Rogers says.
We haven't had the opportunity to test out the new app for ourselves, but FutureU for iPhone and iPad is modeled after existing SAT prep versions of the game for Nintendo DS, PC and Mac, and sounds like a promising way to get lackadaisical students a little more excited about SAT prep. Still, students looking for an easy way out of studying should be forewarned -- FutureU is only meant to complement traditional study methods, not replace them altogether.
Apple's mobile devices have already become handy educational and learning tools, a trend that will likely continue as even more respected educational publishers mold their textbooks and learning tools for iPhone or iPad.
The free FutureU SAT study game -- which includes four $1.99 in-app premium upgrades for additional levels -- will soon be available as an iOS application to students looking for a mobile interactive way to prepare for the SATs.
The application includes games designed around three key study areas: reading, writing and math.
The reading games are designed to improve player vocabulary and refine the app user's ability to find themes and arguments. When it comes to writing, FutureU games cover a smattering of topics to help users with run-on sentences, misplaced modifiers, tenses, subject-verb agreement and so on. The mathematics games focus on algebra, geometry, statistics and probability.
"Students are always on the go and busier than ever. So for us to work with Kaplan to develop a mobile version of futureU for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices that allows students to study -- even when they might only have a few extra minutes here and there -- just made sense," Aspyr Media CEO Michael Rogers says.
We haven't had the opportunity to test out the new app for ourselves, but FutureU for iPhone and iPad is modeled after existing SAT prep versions of the game for Nintendo DS, PC and Mac, and sounds like a promising way to get lackadaisical students a little more excited about SAT prep. Still, students looking for an easy way out of studying should be forewarned -- FutureU is only meant to complement traditional study methods, not replace them altogether.
Apple's mobile devices have already become handy educational and learning tools, a trend that will likely continue as even more respected educational publishers mold their textbooks and learning tools for iPhone or iPad.
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