We mentioned yesterday about Hayden Panettiere and her unfortunate tattoo, made all the tragic due to a typo. Times being tough, we’re all looking for ways to cut costs, and that’s no different here at the Home Office. Today, I’m going to cut labor costs by recycling a topic, and going back to yesterday’s post. We gave you a peek at the tat in question, but here it is in all its … glory … and in the correct orientation. Notice that there’s three little dots over the last word, betraying the presence of an extra “i” (feel free to click on the pic to get a decent look). I’m sure she’ll get over it, and if she doesn’t, she’s got Pam Anderson’s ex there with her to help.

I’m sorry, but if you’re young and rich and the best you can do is Pam Anderson’s infected cast-offs? Sad, indeed …

Anyway, I wanted to spend as little time as I could on this, because it’s a big weekend here at SCMO. In about 6 hours, we’ll be blowing up the current forums and hopefully rolling out the new and improved SCMO Forums on Monday. All your favorites will be there – along with the 10 years of posts – wrapped up in a nice new forum program. We’re adding Photo Hosting (finally!) and a new forums I’m really excited about – Ask an Expert. We’ll talk more about that next week, but for now, wish me luck!

To me, tattoos are one of those love ‘em or hate ‘em things. I’ve seen some very nice ones, and I’ve seen some pretty nasty ones. When it comes to women, I’d just as soon they leave the canvas bare, as it were, but that’s probably a generational thing.

Whether you like them or not, though, the one thing we can agree on is that they’re permanent. You shouldn’t go into a tattooing session on a whim, and you ought to have a pretty good idea of what you’re getting inked permanently onto your hide. Apparently, for at least one Hollywood starlet a good Italian dictionary might help, too.

In my mind, you can separate out all the tattoos that women get into three classes: artistic, trampy and unfortunate. Artistic tattoos are the little stars and butterflies, trampy are the ass-crack ones that serve to remind you who you’re doing from behind, and unfortunate are the ones that make you think, “what the hell was she thinking?” Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie are the reigning queens of the unfortunate tattoo, but there’s a new competitor on the scene – and apparently, she’s illiterate.

Hayden Panetierre was best knows as being Paris Hilton’s underage party buddy until she got her role in “Heroes”. That was enough to set her for life, so now she travels the world, saving dolphins and hanging out in Cannes. It was at the recent film festival where paparazzi shots of her flank revealed a brand new – and most unfortunate – tattoo. It’s in the form of a sentence running down her left side from shoulder blade to butt cheek – if she’s lying naked on her tummy, you’ll have no trouble reading it. It’s in Italian, and translates as “live without regret” – and admirable sentiment to be sure. Problem is, they got it wrong …

The Heroes starlet and sometime singer has no doubt spent a lifetime spelling out the preponderance of vowels in her last name, but she seems to have been less careful in directing her tattooist.

Panettiere, 19, got inked late last year but it was not until she lay out on the yacht that we could read the elaborate script. Vivere senza rimipianti, it reads, with an extra ‘i’ in rimpianti. The phrase is Italian for “live without regret”, but one cannot help imagining she would be feeliing a liittle of the stuuff.

Let’s face it – nothing says “I’m a dumbass” quite like a misspelt tattoo.

I’ve often wondered about some of the tats I see, particularly the preponderance of chick ink in the form of Chinese or Japanese symbols. Chances are the girl has no idea what it really means, and had to trust the artist to tell them. Makes you wonder how many girls are out there with tats they think mean “strong and powerful,” but actually translate to “cheap and slutty”?

Ashton Kutcher is famous for being able to give it, but apparently he can’t take it. Kutcher, the actor/producer who has become a pop icon for his usage of Twitter (and the first account to have a million followers) is threatening to leave the service if a plan goes forward to use the 140-character microblogging service to track celebrities in a new reality show.

Ashton Kutcher said he might give up Twitter if the Web site’s parent company participates in a reality show.

“It’s all fun and games until somebody gets stalked,” Kutcher wrote in a Twitter posting late Monday.

Variety magazine reported Monday that San Francisco-based Twitter.com had partnered with TV producers Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment on an unscripted show that would be “putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.”

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said there was “no official Twitter TV show” in the works, but “we have a lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement with the producers which helps them move forward more freely.”

Kutcher used Twitter to post a link to a news report about the partnership along with this message: “Wow I hope this isn’t true. I really don’t like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus.”

I find it somewhat amusing to see that Kutcher, who wasn’t afraid to do anything to advance his career via Twitter – including breaking into the CNN Center to hang a banner with his twitter account on it – is suddenly finding out what it’s like on the other side. There’s those old sayings about karma being a bitch, or what goes around comes around – well, I’d say this is “Punk’d” getting regurgitated right on his shirt.

C’mon, Kutch – where’s the sense of humor? Didn’t mind making someone else look like an ass on TV – or posting your cougar wife’s ass on TwitPic – but as soon as you don’t control the situation you cry foul? Man up, boy – man up!

Ever since the whole Manny Ramirez thing hit Major League Baseball, there’s been this dichotomy of opinion – is it right, is it wrong, should we even care? Looks like that simmering pot of gruel is coming to a boil as we approach the All-Star Game and the first vote totals have been released. Turns out Manny’s running fourth for the NL outfield, just outside the starting lineup. He’ll be off the suspension a week before the game, and now there’s a big push by some to get him elected. Jason Rosenberg has started a “Vote For Manny” blog and is actively seeking to have the suspended Dodger in the outfield for the July 14 game.

Voting began April 22, so it’s unclear how many were cast for Ramirez before the suspension. Baseball’s drug agreement states “a player shall be deemed to have been eligible to play in the All-Star game if he was elected or selected to play; the commissioner’s office shall not exclude a player from eligibility for election or selection because he is suspended under the program.”

“It would be too interesting, too funny, too pick-your-adjective to see Manny get elected,” Rosenberg said. “It’s got to be MLB’s nightmare that the two biggest stars who have implicated themselves or gotten implicated by this are now potentially starting in their signature midsummer moment.”

Baseball spokesman Rich Levin declined comment, saying: “People can do what they want.”

Like most people, my initial reaction is to want to keep Ramirez out of the game – and the Dodgers’ lineup. But the evidence – and the players’ sentiment – makes me believe that the performance enhancer usage throughout the game is much more widespread than anyone believes. Even the small number of high profile players that have been caught or are under suspicion skew the numbers so badly as to make their influence impossible to ignore. So, do we kick out all of the “cheaters”? Do we accept it as a part of the game, like the phantom double play and the brushback pitch? Or do we throw open the drugstore cabinet and let them have at it? I don’t know, but baseball will never be the game it once was in my mind … and that’s a very sad thing.

If you want to check it out for yourself – or vote your opinion, here’s the site link: www.voteformanny.blogspot.com

So much sports my eyes want to bleed …

- For at least a month now, the NBA pundits have been debating the outcome of the inevitable Lakers/Cavaliers finals matchup. Well, here’s a news flash – not only is that pairing in danger, there’s no guarantee either Kobe or LeBron will make it out of the conference finals. The Lakers have stumbled through the first four games of their series with Denver, and are lucky to be tied at 2. Things are even worse for the Cavs, with only LBJ’s desperate three at the buzzer in Game 2 standing between them and a 0-3 hole. The talk now is about the seeming disparity of the foul calls, and whether it reflects some corporate conspiracy to preserve the desired finals participants – how many Kobe v. LeBron commercials have you seen in the last couple of weeks. I’m not buying that one as much as two proud teams that are tired of being considered speed bumps on some other team’s trip to the finals. All I can say is more power to the Magic and Nuggets, and may the best teams win.

- Memorial Day is always the greatest weekend of motor racing of the year, with the Monaco Grand Prix, Indy 500 and World 600 all coming during one thrilling 12-hour period. Brawn’s Jenson Button did his thing in Monaco, and looks pretty much unbeatable for the title. Rain delayed the World 600 until today, when David Reutimann used a savvy pit call to take the title in a shortened race. But the real story of the weekend was at Indy, where Helio Castroneves completed the most amazing month of his live with a victory. This is a guy who was staring down 6 years of hard time just a month and a half ago, wondering if there’d even be a career once he got out. Even if acquitted, in the sponsor-fickle world of professional sports even the taint of accusation can be deadly. But car owner Roger Penske stood by Helio from the start, and was paid with interest on Sunday. Penske isn’t an emotional guy – even his fifteenth victory at the Brickyard barely raised a smile, and his response to an emotionally-overcome Castroneves slumping in tears back into the cockpit (“Are you going to be OK”) was underwhelming. But just ask Roger about his belief in Castroneves innocence and you’ll see the depth of concern and care. He never had a doubt in Helio, and never wavered in his support. In a world where loyalty is often limited to the next big payday, it’s a refreshing sight.

- All the talk today is about the selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next Associate Supreme Court justice, and a lot of focus is on her record. Among the more interesting facts are that she was the appeals judge who ordered an end to the 1995 Major League Baseball strike, and she overturned the ruling that temporarily gave disgruntled Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett the right to apply early to the NFL Draft – both decisions that continue to resonate today. Of course, she’s also a lifelong Yankees fan, so her judgement must immedately be called into question …

- Finally, could someone please just euthanize Jose Canseco? The latest in a long string of personal embarassments came a minute and 17 seconds in his MMA debut, as his ass was well and truly handed to him by a Korean behemoth by the name of Hong Man Choi – 7-ft-2 and oblivious to Canseco’s “Bash Brother” past. Canseco’s camp immediately claimed that a training injury caused him to trip after delivering his first and only kick of the match, but that doesn’t explain how his face opted to serve as a target for a half-dozen blows before the refs stepped in. It also doesn’t explain what his dumb ass was doing in the octogon in the first place – I thought steroids only made your nuts shrink, but in Jose’s case it would also seem to have shrunk his brain as well …

- Lots of attenton in the cycling world on the Giro d’Italia, where Lance Armstrong is riding as a domestique for Team Astana as he works himself into competitive shape (and is outriding several of his teammates). But the really interesting cycling story is the Tour de France. No, not that TdF – I’m talking about the one for prisoners of the French penal system. As a way to teach the value of teamwork and cooperation, 196 inmates will cycle their way around France, accompanied by prison sports instructors – ands 124 guards. There’ll be no rankings, and those who behave may receive sentence reductions. Obviously, breakaways are strictly forbidden …

It’s Memorial Day weekend here in the States, the unofficial start of summer. As you saw below, I started my long weekend early with a little Buffett celebration, but for everyone else, the party starts this afternoon!

It’ll be a three-day orgy of brats and beer, baseball and basketball, and soaking up as much sun as possible. But for a large number of motorsports fans, Memorial Day weekend means only one thing – the Indy 500!

This is being billed as the centennial edition of the race since, while not the 100th race it does mark 100 years since the first one. The IndyCar series has lost a lot of lustre over the years, due to bad management and too much time spent in courts, but there’s no denying the power of this race – indeed the greatest spectacle in motor racing!

That said, there are still things Tony George and the management team could do to … spice things up a bit. We at the MB would like to do our part, so I present to you that unique creature knows as the “Grid Girl”. Go to any racing event outside of the US, and you’ll find them all around – and on – the racetrack. Whether there to hawk products, as the case with this Aussie sweetie, or hold driver placards, their role is an undeniable asset to the overall racing product.

Tony, we’d be happy to help you with the judging on that first batch of girls. Think of it like “American Idol” with less singing – and clothes.

Have a great, safe weekend, everyone!

You’d think that if someone took the time and effort – and money – to purchase concert tickets and attend a show, they’d have some idea of what they were getting into, wouldn’t you? I certainly thought so – at least until last night.

I attended many concerts in my younger days – the record was something like 30 in 1982 – but as I’ve gotten older and my musical tastes mellowed somewhat, the number of shows that interest me has shrunk. The one show I never want to miss, though, is when Jimmy Buffett comes to town. It’s less show than experience, as tens of thousands of loyal Buffett followers (the infamous “Parrotheads”) invade the venue and set up shop in the parking lot. Six hours of partying, followed by a three-hour show – and another couple to get out of the lot – and it makes for a long day.

JB makes it a point to hit Irvine Meadows (or whatever the sponsors have called it this year) on each tour, and it’s clearly one of his favorite venues. He’s recorded a live album there, and has talked several times about the wild atmosphere. While I’m not the party-in-the-parking-lot kind of a guy any more, I still trek down for the show.

Last night was the show and, though a little earlier in the year than usual, I had high expectations – particularly when I saw the parking lot. The Parrotheads were out in force. I made my way to my seat and waited for the first song and the usual explosion of energy from the crowd. They fired up the Buster Poindexter to pump up the crowd, and out came Jimmy yelling to the crowd, “How ya feeling?” and …

Nothing.

The crowd was absolutely dead – they just sat there and stared. JB laughed it off and fired up the first song, but it was a sign of things to come.

Not being one to like surprises, I’d popped over to Buffettworld earlier in the week to see what songs he’d been playing at previous stops on the tour. It was a good mix, but I could see that there were a couple of old ones I didn’t know well, as well as three new songs. One of them, Summerzcool, was the name of the tour and has just been released, so I picked it up on iTunes and played it repeatedly to get the words right – singing and dancing are what it’s about at a Buffett show. That apparently wasn’t the case for everyone else, because once they’d go into a song they didn’t know, most of the crowd would just sit down, whip out their Blackberries and check their email. I was literally the only guy in my section singing the song, and dammit, that just made me sing louder – and really piss off a couple of them. Serves their asses right.

Over the years, a Buffett concert has become a form of theater. Much like a late-night showing of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” there are audience participation moments that the crowd all knows and loves. I’ve been to enough shows over the years to know when they’re coming, and love being a part of them, but on this night, I was clearly in the minority. Even during the Parrothead National Anthem – Margarita-freaking-ville! – half the crowd was sitting on their hands and wondering what all the yelling about “salt … salt … salt” was about. It was embarassing.

So here’s a friendly note for anyone who is thinking about attending a concert this summer: it’s a participatory event – you’re expected to be a part of it. Unless you’re older than the presenter (and last I checked, Jimmy’s 62 …), get your asses out of the seat and play along. The damned tickets are hard enough to get as it is; if all you want to do is sit quietly and listen to some pretty music, tune in Radio Margaritaville at home, or pop in a Yanni CD. Let the real fans enjoy the show they way it was intended to be – loud and proud with fins held high!

Here’s the setlist for any of you who didn’t follow along last night on my Facebook status – or were too busy checking your email in your seat to notice what songs he was playing …

Lage Nom Ai
Stars on the Water
Summerzcool (new)
It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere
Mañana
Conky Tonkin’
Volcano
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
Cheeseburger in Paradise
Come Monday
Son of a Son of a Sailor
Brown Eyed Girl
One Particular Harbour
A Lot to Drink About (new)

Intermission

My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don’t Love Jesus
Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit
Last Mango in Paris
I Feel Like Goin Surfin in a Hurricane (new)
Southern Cross
Coast of Carolina
Rhumba Man
A Pirate Looks at Forty
Gypsies in the Palace
Margaritaville
Fins

First Encore:

We Are the People our Parents Warned us About
Yellow Submarine

Second Encore:

Lovely Cruise (Solo)

I should say from the start that I’ve been a huge fan of all things space-related from the earliest days of my existence. Were I the type to follow boyhood dreams, I likely would have been the 49-yr-old commanding the current space shuttle rather than Scott Altman. That love of space encompasses the many attempts – both good and bad – to capture the fact and fiction of space travel by the entertainment folks.

I’m neither Trekker nor Trekkie, but definitely a lover of Star Trek. I can remember the moment back in high school when the local channel showed a grainy repeat of the last original Trek episode I needed to be able to say I’d seen them all (“For The World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Sky”, for those curious). I watched with glee The Next Generation, with tolerance Deep Space Nine, with patience Voyager and with groans Enterprise. I liked some movies (2, 3, 4, and the TNG series) and hated others (1, 6). Through it all, I was a loyal subject of the Federation and the universe Gene Roddenberry created for it.

So you might imagine my concern when it was announced that there would be a new Star Trek movie, one with an all new crew and produced by folks from outside the Trek circle. JJ Abrams, never afraid to do things his own way, decided he’d go back to the beginning, to explore the beginnings of the Kirk/Spock relationship … to “re-imagine” the Trek universe. We’ve seen some cases where reimagination has gone well, like Battlestar Galactica, but they’re pretty rare. It was nervous time.

Knowing that at some point I’d have to see the movie, I tried to stay open minded about it. I avoided the reviews, although with the full-court press of the media blitz it was hard to be oblivious. I’ll confess to having read a couple of the fanboy blogs where they argued with the whole continuity issue, but when my friend Anna and I plunked down our cash and settled into the seats at the AMC IMAX in Torrance, I didn’t really know what to expect.

Wow …

JJ, all I can say is that I’m sorry if I doubted you – you have not only energized the franchise, but have set it up for another good run (and signing the whole crew for a 3-pic deal? Brilliant …) Let’s be clear – this is not your dad’s … or my … Star Trek. Folks who live and die by continuity checks will doubtless have long sleepless nights over some of the things they’ll see (although, it’s hard to imagine why the aforementioned fanboys took umbrage with the idea of the Enterprise being fabricated in Iowa instead of San Francisco when there were other, meatier things to ponder … hello, destruction of Vulcan?), but I think things are best expressed by BSG’s Ron Moore:

‘It got too big for its own good,” says Ronald Moore, who used to write for Next Generation and Deep Space Nine before going on to reinvent Battlestar Galactica. ”We’d be sitting in the writers’ room pitching ideas, and you’d have to stop and check to make sure a plot point didn’t contradict something that happened in episode No. 25 of a different Trek show. It really started to constrict the creative process. At a certain point, Star Trek just choked on its own continuity.”

There’s no missing that this is Star Trek, and you’ll recognize the characters in an instant, but the plot twists of this first movie leave the door open to do things in a new way moving forward. That’s a good thing, too, because while there’s a lot packed into this flick, most of it is the typical stuff you’d expect to see in a TV pilot – character introductions, backstories and the like. Sure, there’s the whole “Nero’s traumatized and gonna make you pay, sucka” plotline, but it’s secondary to meeting the crew and understanding the dynamics between the players – dynamics that will drive the franchise forward for the next decade.

Pay the money, see the movie, and have a good time. If you’re smart, you’ll lay out the extra shekels for IMAX, which even made trailers for a movie about talking guinea pigs look awesome. Let me know when you want to go, ’cause I’ll see it again!

As an aside, after the movie we attended a watching party for the “American Idol” finale. Now, I’ve never seen more than 10 minutes of an AI episode, and had it not been for the company last night I’m sure I still wouldn’t have. That said, I can see what a powerhouse AI has become. It’s one thing to get big ratings, but to me it’s much more to get respect. And when you see the parade of musical royalty they trotted out on stage last night, it fairly screamed respect – KISS, Santana, Rod Stewart and Queen all performed with the contestants, who more than held their own. Pretty impressive. Just happy I missed the unfortunate Kara DioGuardi Bikini Incident – girl obviously really wants to keep her job. Note to KD – it would probably be easier to just sleep with Simon … that way you could at least keep a little dignity …

Astronauts onboard the space shuttle Atlantis today completed the repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope and released it back into space for what should be the last time in its long and successful career.

This was the fifth visit to the HST by repair crews, and was initially cancelled after the Columbia disaster in 2003. However, public outcry and advances in shuttle safety procedures allowed the mission to be scheduled and by all accounts it was very successful. The HST is said to have been left in better shape than ever, and is expected to continue to function for as long as 10 more years.

Having been designed for such on-orbit servicing, each visit to Hubble results in a certain amount of equipment being returned to Earth onboard the shuttle. In this case, one of the instruments being retrieved is COSTAR, the corrective optics deployed on the first repair mission to correct minute flaws in the HST’s main mirror that left the pictures fatally blurred. Considering the success of the HST over the years due to the corrections provided by COSTAR, I think the appropriate new home for that instrument would be the Smithsonian Institution …

Never doubt the power of a Subway sandwich …

After a couple of weeks of twisting in the breeze – and watching lesser shows (*cough* Dollhouse *cough) inexplicably renewed, word finally came down – “Chuck” has been renewed for a third season. The news is good, but not great, as there are some strings possibly attached.

One of the challenges all scripted shows face – particularly if they’re not produced by the content arm of one of the networks – is budget. It’s not easy paying the actors and writers, building sets or creating special effects. Everyone’s looking to make cuts where they can, and lately many of the renewal deals (like the aforementinoed “Dollhouse”) are tied directly to promises of making due with smaller budgets.

In the case of “Chuck,” the renewal is for a partial season run – 13 episodes – rather than a full year. The expectation is that the new episodes will start after the 2010 Winter Olympics, meaning they won’t hit the screen until March of next year – a long wait, to be sure, but not as long as cancellation. The real concern is about the cast – a fairly large ensemble. At the end of last season, several character lines were in flux – Morgan and Anna were leaving for Hawaii, and Chuck had quit the BuyMore, making the fellow employees there rather superfluous. We’ll have to wait and see on that.

There’s more disconcerting news for “Chuck” fans – product placement. Last season, Subway was a series sponsor, and at least once was thrust front-and-center in the plot. Also, they were targeted by fans who went en masse to Subway, ordered a sandwich, and filled out comment cards saying they were there because of “Chuck”. Apparently, Subway and NBC both got the message:

As part of the “Chuck” renewal, the Peacock also sealed a major marketing deal with Subway (which was at the heart of a massive “Save Chuck” campaign). Under the pact, Subway will be integrated in the show — one character will work for the sandwich chain — and other advertising tie-ins will be launched.

My guess is that Morgan’s Benihana dreams end up behind the counter of a Subway – which, frankly, is totally Morgan anyway. But as gross as product placement can be, better that than dead air, right?

The important thing is that we know we’ll have 13 more hours of butt-kicking, angst-ridden action adventure to look forward to … someday …