Jay-Z and Alex Rodriguez

Quick pic: Jay-Z and Alex Rodriguez shared a few laughs during last night's Cleveland Caveliers win over the Orlando Magic.


I am strangely rooting for the Magic to win. I think it's because I believe they are the better team.

Jay-Z no longer with Def Jam, to sign with Sony?

Jay-Z has reportedly bought out his contract with Island Def Jam which is, of course, under Universal Music Group. He shelled out $5 million to become a free agent.

He has been postponing the release of his highly anticipated album, Blueprint 3, and it is now clear he will release this under his new label, Roc Nation. This label will feed printed money to Live Nation as Live Nation signed up Jay-Z in a $150 million multi-year deal that also gives them revenue from ticket sales and other ancillary sales items.

Now you may recall I was at the Kanye West Glow In The Dark Tour when Yeezy gave us a sneak peek of "Jockin' Jay-Z" which takes an Oasis riff and makes it into a dope beat. Even better was that Jigga man himself came out and spit a few verses, much to my delight.

This record may not be on the album anymore because it has had its time, as well as "Ain't I" produced by Timbaland or "Swagga Like Us" - this past fall's runaway hitfeaturing M.I.A. and the recently incarcerated T.I..

Kanye West recently spoke with MTV News and told them the new album will not have any auto-tune, which has been used, abused, and overused since T-Pain came on the scene. Kanye also will be the sole producer on the album. I wonder if it will beat Eminem's most recent release, "Relapse", which sold 610,000 copies in a week! It's like it's 1999 again! (Prince, where are you?)

Mandy Moore looks like the President's Daughter (on 24)

Does anyone watch 24 still? Well, I do. And this season it returned to its roots. Gun fights, torture, bombings, and more torture. What a great show. You can actually buy the whole season already on DVD!

The one hiccup, though, always seems to be the weak character development of its female characters. Take this year's Olivia Taylor, the President's daughter, played by Sprague Grayden. She is power-playing the whole season, only to be out smarted by the old fox (chief-of-staff) whose job she took.

I spotted this photo of Mandy Moore performing recently. She really does look a lot like Sprague, don't you think?

Tuong Ot Sriracha: It's American!

Now I KNOW you've tried Tuong Ot Sriracha with your food. You know, the Rooster Hot Sauce? In fact it does not matter whether you are a connoisseur of fine foods (Jean-Georges Vongerichten uses it) or a fan of American fast food (Applebees uses it too), you most likely have tried this sauce. I always thought it was Thai sauce.

Survey says...."Wrong!"

Started up by David Tran in Los Angeles, it has become the ubiquitious sauce for all purposes.

Here's a little write-up from the New York Times about it:

"For Mr. Tran, of Chinese heritage but born in Vietnam, neither sriracha-spiked hollandaise nor sriracha-topped tacos with kimchi translate easily.

“I made this sauce for the Asian community,” Mr. Tran said one recent afternoon, seated at headquarters, near a rooster-shaped crystal sculpture.

“I knew, after the Vietnamese resettled here, that they would want their hot sauce for their pho,” a beef broth and noodle soup that is a de facto national dish of Vietnam. “But I wanted something that I could sell to more than just the Vietnamese,” he continued.

“After I came to America, after I came to Los Angeles, I remember seeing Heinz 57 ketchup and thinking: ‘The 1984 Olympics are coming. How about I come up with a Tran 84, something I can sell to everyone?’ ”
What Mr. Tran developed in Los Angeles in the early 1980s was his own take on a traditional Asian chili sauce. In Sriracha, a town in Chonburi Province, Thailand, where homemade chili pastes are favored, natives do not recognize Mr. Tran’s purée as their own.

Multicultural appeal was engineered into the product: the ingredient list on the back of the bottle is written in Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. And serving suggestions include pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers and, for French speakers, pâtés.

“I know it’s not a Thai sriracha,” Mr. Tran said. “It’s my sriracha.” "

Full article

Ji-Sung Park: First Asian Footballer in UEFA Champions League Final

Tomorrow will be the first time an Asian player will be playing, let alone, starting in a UEFA Champions League Final. Ji-Sung Park who hails from Korea will be starting Right Midfielder for Manchester United, hopefully scoring himself or feeding balls up to Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney as they battle Barcelona for top honors this year.

Much has been said about the tireless approach to soccer by Park, and his nickname is Three Lungs because of his relentless running during matches. He grew up in a small town in Korea but rose the ranks and religiously ate frog soup fed to him by his father, who was a butcher.

Last year, Park was left off the roster for the UEFA Champions League Final even though he played an integral role in a win over Barcelona in the seminfinal. He took it very hard and called it "the most disappointing point of his career." His two best buds on Manchester United are Frenchman Patrice Evra, a defensive stronghold, and Carlos Tevez, the explosive Argentinian forward. Ironically, it may be Tevez who is dealt a short hand once Sir Alex Ferguson reveals his starting lineup.

Ji-Sung Park is featured in a new documentary, "Do You Know Ji-Sung Park."

Check out this recent goal vs. Aresenal!

Get Ready: Desperate Housewives of Washington D.C.

Rumor has it Bravo has chosen it's next location of its moderately successful series "Desperate Housewives." Right in Obama's backyard, Washington D.C. has been chosen and we cannot wait to see what sort of characters are out there.

Needless to say, we are probably going to not be getting an inside look into a politician wife's life due to the harm that it can do to someone's career. Just take a look at Kelly Bensimon from the Desperate Housewives of New York City show! She has been cut from Saks Fifth Avenue from being a model. Soon she may be saying her famous words more, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Fame has its price. Or should I say infamy.

Suhweeet Sighting: Karolina Kurkova

Suhweeet Sighting last weekend in Battery Park City in Manhattan of Victoria Secret Model, Karolina Kurkova. She was sitting, trying on shoes right next to us at DSW. Huh? (Don't ask why I was there).

I guess modeling has taken a nosedive. In fact, there are recent reports of models going out of business because the companies are spending much less on their marketing budgets.

Beware of Phishing on Facebook!

According to CNET, there is a crazy new phishing scam going on in Facebook's 300 million unique user world.

Deja vu: New phishing scam hits Facebook

by Elinor Mills

A new phishing scam is hitting Facebook users on Thursday that, like others in recent weeks, sends them to a Web site designed to steal their log-in information.

Facebook users reportedly are receiving messages from friends with a subject line of "Hello" and a prompt to check out "areps.at" or another one ending in .at

If you log in to the site, it steals your e-mail and password, logs you into Facebook and automatically changes your password and sends the same message to all your Facebook friends, according to the All Facebook blog.

"Whoever is behind the scam has been steadily amassing a large number of e-mail addresses and passwords over the past few weeks," the blog says. "Some days as much as three scams will spread throughout the site (possibly even more). Facebook rapidly shuts down all references to the site but by then the scam has spread to thousands of users."

The phishing URLs were blocked by Firefox and flagged as a "Web Forgery" as of 9:50 a.m. PDT. One of them was still up and downloading malware on Internet Explorer.

A Facebook spokesman did not immediately return a call and e-mails seeking comment.

Separately, some Facebook users reported difficulty accessing the site on Thursday morning. It was unclear whether the connectivity issues were related to the phishing scam."

Booking Jay-Z: A Costly Experience

According to some reports, Jay-Z is a little bit of a diva when it comes to his performance needs. Gone are the days where the dude rolled off the JMZ line from Brooklyn (where he got his name) and jumped on stage. In addition to shelling out $750,000 for him to come and peform, here is a detailed list of must-haves in order for Jigga man to spit the lyrics he has memorized in his head:

First the ride:

• It must be a chauffeured late-model Maybach car (either the 57 or 62) with tinted windows

Dressing Room:

• Must be heated to 72 degrees Fahrenheit and have "adequate" relaxed lighting.

Food / Drinks

• Sapporo beer
• Vodka
• Tequila
• Two bottles of $300 Champagne
• Two bottles (at $200 apiece) of 2004 Sassicaia
• "Good quality" peanut butter and jelly
• One martini shaker
• 12 shot glasses
• Pack of Marlboro Lights (I didn't know he smoked, but maybe it's for a posse member)

Jigga-man, ya heard!

Former NBA Star Brian Grant battles Parkinson's

If you have not read Michael J. Fox's first book, Lucky Man, you're missing out on how someone who was such a great star back in the '80s is now battling for his life every day. It is heartwarming and inspirational.

Now, former NBA star, Brian Grant, has been diagnosed with young onset Parkinson's Disease himself. He was featured recently on ESPN's Outside the Lines report, a more magazine-format show on Sunday mornings. He first started noticing the trembling last year and then in January, it was confirmed. Doctors delivered the tragic news of the disease. But, instead of shying away from the public as he was last year, he is now embracing the new battle, one that will pit a workhorse from the NBA against his own DNA. And now in the fight of his life, we think he will give it his all.



To donate to Parkinson's research via the Michael J. Fox Foundation, click here.

Whitney Port wears crazy pants

Whitney Port threw out the first pitch last night to the Mets vs Dodgers game in Los Angeles. She is wearing some crazy pants!

We want The Hills to go away and The City to come back!

Oh yea, btw, Chris Pine from Star Trek is dating Audrina. What the heck???

Kanye West does not Twitter, lashes out

It's true. Kanye West does not Twitter and even says so on his official blog.





If this is true, who else is fake Twittering out there? We know Britney's is fake, but is Hammer's real? I think so.

The Hills Update: "Lessons I Learned While Being on a Reality TV Show" by Stephanie

Did anyone else feel actually bad for Stephanie as she got the ax last night from LC? I felt a twinge of sadness for her, b/c it’s quite clear Kelly Cutrone just really had it out for her from the beginning and the producers probably begged her to hire her because of the inevitable story lines they could conjure up. But in reality, she did not come through on a simple task and you can chalk this one up as “lessons I learned while being on a reality TV show.”

In other news, Heidi’s cowboy father in yellow/orange pants descends on glittery LA to see for himself what Spencer is all about. It seems that he really loves talking about guns – such as shooting them, owning them, bringing them to LA. I wonder if he has one of those small pistols that he can attach to his ankle just in case Hollywood ended up bringing the drama.

We see a touching moment of Spencer and Heidi’s dad as he talks to Spencer about being out West means taking care of a man’s business. This prompts the Werewolf to say, “Well, I want to be out West then.” Hmmmm, not sure how much more West you can get standing on the beach of the Pacific Ocean.

Oh yea, Speidi gets engaged...again...and Heidi is more into the ring than the marraige.

Turns out another rock band from Chicago gets signed to EMI and shoots a video with Audrina assigned to…..to….hang out with the band? She and Stephanie link up with the lead singer and guitarist after the shoot, only to see Stephanie get pissed because the guitarist has a live-in girlfriend at home. Relax, I say. Just finish your drink and be friends. I guess she does not want to be a home wrecker, but it may have been just another hit for her.

Next week’s episode will being the ultimate smack-down of Stephanie from Kelly as she tries to blame her firing on the fact that her boss was never around to mentor her. Well, Stephanie, you know she does travel quite a bit between LA and New York? And that as an intern, your exposure to the prez of any company would be tough? No you don’t know. That is why you can chalk up next week as another “lesson I learned while being on a reality TV show.”

Samantha Who? Gets Cancelled

Well, although ABC is trumpeting the return of comedy during their annual showcase to advertisers (who are getting stingier by the minute), they have decided to pull the plug on Samantha Who? starring Christina Applegate. She was such a feel-good story and I'm surprised they did this, but I guess it's always "business, it's not personal" with these networks.

Needless to say, I did try to watch a few episodes myself, but I could not get into that show.

Suhweeet Sighting: MC Hammer

Man, I cannot get enough of MC Hammer. One of our sources (BG2) caught MC Hammer exiting the Good Morning America studio in Times Square. Hammertime - his new reality show debuts on A&E in July. Check it out!

"I've toured around the world, from London to the Bay..."

Diane Von Furstenberg Steals Designs!

Remember that jacket that Olivia pulled for the cover of Elle Magazine on The City? Oh wait, she didn’t. I meant Whitney. Anyway, it turns out that the jacket’s design was stolen from a much-less known design group, Mercy. Too bad for DVF it got much press and now it has come back to haunt them. By the way, Mercy’s version goes for $300. DVF’s goes for $1,500. Whoa!

The case here is especially succulent since Diane von Furstenberg is attempting to establish a law that strictly prohibits the very behavior that her shop performed. She is the President of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. I wonder if they don robes and masks at their meetings and they sit in a circle to discuss the issues.

But industry insiders tell me this happens all the time. It’s really a grey area, as many trends are first introduced through fashion shows which are seen by anyone who wishes to see them and professional trend services who can “direct” designs for head designers based on mounds of research.

I guess the good folks at Diane von Furstenberg decided to take a pass one day and stole the design. The designers at Mercy were interviewed and wondered out loud, “"As you (DVF) were tearing it apart with seam rippers, did you at least appreciate the effort and the workmanship?" Ouch. It turns out a settlement involving financial considerations has been reached. It always hurts when they have to literally “pay” for their crime.

Mrs. O(bama)

I came across a site today that sort of blew my mind. It follows what Michelle Obama wears everyday (or whenever she is seen in public). This is crazy! Can you imagine if it was of Laura Bush? It would be only 1 page with a picture of her in a really red suit.

http://www.mrs-o.org

"Were you surprised?" - Favorite question of all time

Have you ever noticed that the number one question asked by journalists on TV starts with the phrase, "Were you surprised?"

It's so easy! If you are every interviewing someone, you too can act like a well paid TV journalist! Throw everything else out that you learned in j-school. Go on! Try it!

Here are some examples to get you started:

Here's one I heard this morning from Meredith Veira while interviewing Randy Jackson of American Idol:

"Were you surprised that these final three contestants made it to the finals of American Idol?"

Or how about someone interviewing Leonard Nimoy about the recent Star Trek movie (which is great by the way).

"Were you surprised at how Zachary Quinto was able to capture your character?"

Or how about at work - you could even try it out in a casual conversation about lunch!

"Were you surprised at how hung-over you looked yesterday? Oh wait...you didn't know?"

Try it out. Write me back. Let me know how it goes.

Mindy Kaling lands new NBC Deal (Kelly from The Office)

According to some reports, NBC signed The Office's Mindy Kaling to a two-year, seven-figure overall deal. Cha-Ching!! She'll still get to write and appear in The Office for next season while developing a new series where she will star.

How sweet is that? Did you check out her Janet Jackson outfit on Casual Friday this past week's episode? She has the greatest lines and her on again-off again relationship with BJ Novak's character has been a highlight for me.

Another great episode was when ping-pong was played and she talked trash to Pam.

Here are some other fun facts about Mindy:

- She goes by Mindy, but that’s actually her middle name. Her birth name is Vera. “Mindy” comes from the TV show “Mork and Mindy.”

- She was born in Nigeria

- She's got brains! She graduated from Dartmouth, and also writes and produces for “The Office.”

- Mindy’s real parents appeared in an episode of “The Office” that she wrote

- Follow her Twitter and her blog

The Karate Kid Remake...in China?

What the heck? Will Smith, apparently a Karate Kid fan, is remaking the classic 1984 movie and is placing his son (Jaden Smith) in the role of Daniel-san played by the great Ralph Macchio. Now we all remember countless lines from The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid II ("Put him in a body bag Johnnie!" / "Wax On. Wax Off") as well as the wonderful Peter Cetera / Chicago-type songs ("Glory of Love") that were generated, so what does Will Smith think he is going to do here? Why mess with iconic stuff?

Who will play key nemesis and DB-extraordinaire Johnny??

There will be potential changes to the racial undertones of the movie but the basic concept of Daniel-san getting bullied will be the same. What do you think the soundtrack will include? How about "Gettin Jiggy Wit It (Mandarin Remix)" or "Wild Wild East (Karate Kid Remix)?"

Everyone knows that whatever Will Smith does in the box office is a hit (except for his last movie, Seven Pounds) but since he won't be in this movie, The Karate Kid (Will Smith Version) may not do so well.

One thing that would be great is if they recruit a new Cobra Kahn, but this time to have break-dancing battles against Daniel-san and Mr. Miyagi.

Crazy fan jumps on stage of Britney Spears Concert

What is up with these fans jumping on stage at concerts? Can they just not resist the notion of getting so close to the artists? In my recent post about Snoop Dogg's super-stupid fan of jumping on stage, you witnessed him getting his butt kicked by security.

Here, it seems that security posed as dancers actually drag off this dimwit. I wonder if they put the "Snoop" smackdown on him, or allowed him to dance along the rest of the song before being told to leave.

Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey: That's gangsta

How much power can you handle in one pic?

Ok, i was going to suggest P. Diddy + Jay-Z is pretty big and then when they jumped on 50 Cent's "I Get Money (Billion Dollar Remix)" I was impressed with all that hip-hop power behind the track. Too bad the track sucked. Good thing T.I. came out with "Swagger Like Us (Remix)" and got rid of P. Diddy and 50 Cent and put on Kanye West, while keeping Jay-Z.

But this is a new era: you can't beat these two! Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey catch up over dinner yesterday.

Kanye West on the verge of getting engaged!

Kanye West has reportedly gotten quite serious with his current beau, Amber Rose. In fact, they are so tight he is considering making it permanent, according to reports.

Some may remember his painful breakup last year which coincided with his songs written for his latest album, 808s & Heartbreak. All in all, we here at Suhweeet hope that Kanye makes the right decision, whatever it may be. But just remember the lyrics to one of your old songs!

"Now you ain't sayin' she's a gold digger..."