Celebrities: Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow's "I Am African" ad (for African AIDS relief charity). Inevitable parodies at Gawker and Defamer.

Astronomy: Moon

NASA explains the Harvest Moon. It's the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. The Harvest Moon has the smallest difference in moonrise times between consecutive days.

Each month of the year has its own moon name. Which of them are song titles? "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young. "Pink Moon" by Nick Drake. "Hunter's Moon" by Thin White Rope. Incredibly, no one has written a song called "Beaver Moon".

So what do you call the big yellow moon that hovers over the horizon? I don't know. Big yellow moon? But why does it appear to be so big?

The "Moon Illusion" explained.

And what is a Killing Moon? It's a moon that will come too soon.

Videos: Humourous

Vh1's Best Week Ever presents a revamped trailer for Mel Gibson's "Signs (of Anti-Semitism)".

Lyrics Quiz: Bed

Bed-related lyrics quiz.

1. These are the days when you wish your bed was already made.
   
2. She got pictures on the wall, they make me look up from her big brass bed. Now I'm running down the road, trying to stay up - somewhere in her head.
   
3. Well by the force of will, my lungs are filled and so I breathe. Lately it seems this big bed is where I never leave.
   
4. Giving me head on the unmade bed, while the limousines wait in the street.
   
5. Sleight of hand and twist of fate. On a bed of nails she makes me wait.
   
6. I got up to wash my face. When I come back to bed, someone's taken my place.
   
7. But I kind of like the feel of this extra few feet in my bed.
   
8. I get up in the evening and I ain't got nothing to say. I come home in the morning. I go to bed feeling the same way.
   
9. I can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fire. Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire.
   
10. "Hey, that was great," he said, "I wish we could stay in bed. But I got to be at work in less than an hour."
    
11. Tuesday, Wednesday, stay in bed. Or Thursday, watch the walls instead.
    
12. ...Fifteen of those are nights. Can't sleep when the bed sheet fights its way back to your side.
    

Bonus: I don't know any of their songs but I like this line by the Handsome Family: "Liza Minnelli spent a month in her bed, certain that Skylab would fall on her head."

Baseball: Preppy Names

Who has the preppiest name in baseball?

• Lastings Milledge of the NY Mets. (Although the dreadlocks aren't very preppy.)
  
• Chase Utley of the Phillies (whose hitting streak came to an end at 35 games on Friday).
  
• Justin Verlander of the Tigers (he went to Old Dominion, which sounds like a preppy school).
  
• Kyle Farnsworth of the Yankees (born in Wichita, KS and attended Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, GA).
  
• J.P. Howell of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. (Any relation to Thurston Howell III?)
  
• Aubrey Huff of the Astros.
  
• Chad Billingsley of the LA Dodgers.
  
• Todd Hollandsworth of the Cleveland Indians - and formerly of the Texas Rangers, among many others. The video game MVP Baseball 2005 can't handle players with names longer than 9 letters.
  

I've got to give the nod to Chase Utley.

Media: Video Round-Up

• You may remember OK Go's video for "A Million Ways", a brilliantly choreographed dance routine in someone's backyard. They have outdone themselves with "Here It Goes Again", using eight treadmills (although the song is weak).
  
• "The View" discusses the Morning After Pill, and Elizabeth Hasselbeck is told off by Baba Wawa for showing passion. Silly wagon.
  
• Paris Hilton's single "Stars Are Blind" doesn't suck, but the video is a rip-off of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game".
  
• More fake reggae: Scritti Politti's "The Word Girl".
  
• Travelocity.co.uk's gay flight attendant commercial. The Roaming Gnome is a lot more subtle in his gnomosexuality.
  
• Robert Tilton with added fart noises. Funny, but some of the farts are too metallic.
  
• Ryan Adams: "Oh My Sweet Carolina" (solo acoustic), "When The Stars Go Blue" (video with RA as a cab driver), "So Alive" (on Letterman), "Answering Bell" (on Leno, with Adam Duritz - the cardboard cutout of Chewbacca is on the left, Duritz is on the right), "Let It Ride" (on Letterman, hiding his face), "Blue Hotel" (live in July, new song, not the Chris Isaak song), "Anybody Wanna Take Me Home?" (live from the same show).
  

Band Names: Numbers & Letters

Robb had an idea for a list of band names that include any alpha-numeric character. That seems a little broad to me, so instead, here are bands with both numbers and letters, but no actual words.

• UB40
  
• U2
  
• JJ72
  
• L7
  
• 10cc
  
• BR5-49
  
• D12
  
• M83
  

(Note: letters that spell a word are not allowed. So no 808 State or 10,000 Maniacs. No S Club 7 or The B-52s. And it's Us3, not US3.)

Movie Quote Quiz: F***

Name these movies that use the F-word.

1. F*** it! F***! F***! F***! F***! F***ity f***!
   
2. How the f*** am I funny, what the f*** is so funny about me?
   
3. Don't be tellin' me about foot massages. I'm the foot f***in' master.
   
4. Well, f*** me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa?
   
5. "What's your name?" "F*** you. That's my name."
   
6. Don't f*** with the babysitter.
   
7. I didn't ask for a f***ing psychological lecture. I only asked for a f***ing light.
   
8. You are the vulgarian, you f***.
   
9. Did you f*** my wife?
   
10. Go f*** yourself, San Diego.
    

On a related note, you haven't watched "Deadwood" until you've seen it on Sky with sign language. A guy stands in the corner and signs the dialogue. Despite its frequency, I couldn't make out the sign for "f***", but "c***s***er" was pretty obvious. What really cracked me up was when there was no talking, and the signer turned sideways to watch the action.

Movies: "Die Hard" tribute

Defamer has a musical tribute to the "Die Hard" movies". NSFW.

Drugs: Warnings

The Onion A.V. Club has a clip of Florrie Fisher warning about the dangers of LSD. YouTube has another clip. She was one of the inspirations for Amy Sedaris' Jerri Blank character (I hope to see the "Strangers With Candy" movie tomorrow.)

Music: Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Pitchfork has the commercial for Bonnie "Prince" Billy's new album - is it "too soon" for that punchline?

Cryptic Crossword: 7x5

1		2		3		4
5
6

Across

1. Achieve success in part. Altogether charming! (7)
5. Bill Trendy: bad habit is swallowing ring. (7)
6. Indulgent - let baseball team play inside. (7)

Down

1. Spin western girl, bump her head. (5)
2. Not applicable against an Irish town, either way. (5)
3. Nothing to live for, drab colour. (5)
4. The night before New Testament occurrence. (5)

Sports: World Cup

• Lookalikes: Portugal's Maniche and Slade's Dave Hill. The Rainbow Connection thinks so too. (He also has Lavolpe-DeNiro.)
  
• And how about Portugal's Brazilian coach Scolari and Gene Hackman? (Lots of people agree with that one.)
  
• Sports-appropriate name: Sweden's Marcus Allbäck (both first and last names).
  
• Something that always makes me laugh: when one Spanish commentator says to another, "Si senor." There's just something about their formality that cracks me up.
  
• Also funny: the name of the section on FIFA's official site, VIPs Love Football. And what a collection of VIPs! Film composer Ennio Morricone, US Olympic swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg, Scorpions lead singer Klaus Meine, Tunisian singer-songwriter Lotfi Bouchnak, Czech model Tereza Maxova, Spike Lee, Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, and Mikhail Gorbachev.
  
• Excerpt from "The Simpsons" with a Portugal-Mexico match. Riot ensues.
  
• In World Cup warm-up, Colombia's goalkeeper scores against Poland.
  

Feeble Attempt At Humour

Some comedy gold for my friend Chris. Feel free to try these nuggets out at Picchi Pacchi's Open Mic Night.

• What do you call a Dallas Maverick with a faucet on the side of his head? Erick Damp Ear
  
• Which Dallas Maverick gets people out of the way of a Honda Odyssey? Keith Van Horn
  
• Which Dallas Maverick has the most birds? Aviary Johnson
  
• Which Dallas Maverick has the least witzki? Dirk No-witzki
  
• What did the newspapers call it when the Mavericks' owner lost his Bible? The Cuban Missal Crisis
  
• What do they call IHOP in Germany? Jerry Stackhaus
  

Thank you. I'll be here all week - unlike the Mavs.

TV News: Slip-Ups

As seen on VH1's "Web Junk 2.0", the anchorwoman who miscategorised a blind mountaineer.

Lookalikes: Keanu Reeves

Did anyone else see Keanu Reeves on the cover of Parade magazine ("printed on the highest quality news-tissue") and think, "Hey, has Al Gore had some work done?"

Sports: World Cup

• Best football-appropriate name of the tournament so far: Iran's Yahya Golmohammadi. I'd love to hear what Andres Cantor could do with that name if he scored.
  
• Runner-up: Mexico's O. Bravo. I was disappointed to learn that the "O" stood for Omar, and not Oscar.
  
• Driven away by Tommy Smyth and US commentators who feel compelled to use other sports to explain the game, I've been watching Univision. I haven't a clue what they're saying, apart from "esquina", "falta" and "futbolística!". There's a helpful glossary here.
  
• In ABC's studio this morning, Alexi Lalas reassured us that the US team were watching TV in their hotel and "they know that the World Cup has started".
  
• Mexico's coach, Ricardo Lavolpe, works on his De Niro impression.
  
• Peter Crouch is a gangly freak who makes Dirk Nowitzki look graceful. As the unofficial World Cup song says, "Peter Crouch has/run like a spaz". (Thanks to Mark for the link.)
  
• Ugly footballers with beautiful wives.
  

Games: Flash

A whole bunch of cutesy Flash games. The game play isn't that great, but they're awfully well-designed.

Lyrics Quiz: Mystery Theme

Lyrics quiz from Eric - whatever can the theme be?

1. I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon.
   
2. Woke up this morning, what did I see? A big black cloud hanging over me. I switched on the radio and nearly dropped dead. The news was so bad that I fell out of bed.
   
3. I can't stand to fly, I'm not that naive.
   

With the help of Google, I can add these to the theme:

1. You don’t really love that guy you make it with, now do you? I know you don’t love that guy 'cause I can see right through you.
   
2. Hello? This is your Mother. Are you there? Are you coming home? Hello? Is anybody home?
   
3. I'll tell you right now. Any trick in the book now, baby, all that I can find. Everybody's hustlin' just to have a little scene.
   
4. I can't hold you down if you want to fly. Can't you see I'm all broke up inside?
   Well, just you use your two X Ray eyes.
   

Sports: Football

Oh look! Those bright young things over at Enterpool have launched a World Cup pool. Free to register, free to play. But shurely shome mishtake - they don't have Ireland among the 32 teams!