Saturday, April 25, 2009

Say It Ain't So, Bruthah! Henry Ian Cusick from "Lost" Sued for Sexual Harassment

Maybe all that time-travel has finally taken its toll on Desmond. Henry Ian Cusick, the actor who plays Desmond Hume on the hit TV show "Lost," has been sued for sexual harassment by a former ABC employee.

Chelsea Stone, a former employee of ABC Entertainment, has sued Cusick for harassment and sexual battery, accusing the Scottish actor of a variety of offenses, from groping her to making offensive noises and gestures. (View the lawsuit against Henry Ian Cusick.) The charges date back to on-set incidents in October 2007.

It is claimed that Cusick, who first became known on "Lost" for pushing a button every 108 minutes to save the world, "'placed his hand on her buttocks' and then caressed her back 'while making moaning sounds.' He then put his face in her cleavage and wagged his head back and forth."

Is this true, or just a disgruntled employee making false accusations? We'll have to wait and see... if we can keep Desmond from further time traveling!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Oprah Winfrey to Land on Planet Twitter Friday

The talk of Twitter recently had been the ongoing battle between Ashton Kutcher (aplusk) and CNN Breaking News (cnnbrk) to see who could get to one million followers the first. But now the big news is that one of the world's biggest celebs, Oprah Winfrey, has joined the incredibly fast-growing microblogging service and is going to post her first "tweet" Friday, April 17th. You can find her at www.twitter.com/oprah.

As of Thursday night, Oprah's Twitter account has more than 50,000 followers, even though she hasn't posted a single comment yet. With the "O" joining the Twitterverse, will her familiar colleagues and feature be joining her in dispensing advice 140 characters at a time? If so, imagine the news Oprah's followers will be getting: Book reviews! Beauty and dating advice! Chatty insights about bowel movements from Dr. Oz!

It all could happen tomorrow, when The Big Oh lands on Planet Twitter...

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Easter 2009 Searches: Jesus, Food, Shopping, and a Certain Dog

As someone who enjoys seeing what's on the mind of people all over the U.S. (and the world), I often check out Google Trends to see what the most searched-for terms are. This exercise is particularly interesting around holidays or other major events, and Easter 2009 is no exception.

Today's top searches are a mishmash of things related to different aspects what people do on Easter, and what the holiday means to them. The religious tradition of Easter is of course prominent, with search terms like "Easter Bible verses," He is Risen," "Easter scripture," and "meaning of Easter" in the top 50 search terms, along with non-religious items related to the day: "Easter parade New York," "Happy Easter comments" (for MySpace and other Web sites), etc. And one odd item: "dirty Easter jokes" ... huh?!

Eating is a big part of Easter, so there are plenty of anxious cooks online. "How long to cook a ham," "ham glaze," "deviled eggs," and "leg of lamb cooking time" all show up, along with queries looking for the locations or hours of supermarkets such as Publix, Winn-Dixie, etc. And some people are clearly planning to have a good time on Easter; one term in the top 30 searches is "mimosa recipe."

Speaking of shopping, that seems to be almost as popular an Easter tradition as eating and going to church. In the top 25 trends there are more shopping-related than religion-related searches, with people looking for "Is Target open on Easter," "Target locations," "Walmart Easter hours," "Nordstroms," and even "Home Depot Easter hours" (maybe people are deciding to fix or replace broken fixtures before company comes over?)

One non-holiday topic is occupying people's minds, and that is the long-awaited First Puppy. Appearing in the top 50 trends are such terms as "Portuguese water dog," "Obama dog," "Obama puppy," and "first dog."

And some folks are clearly not used to dressing up: the search term that has remained in the number-one position on Google Trends is ... "How to tie a tie."

Happy Easter, everyone.