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."