When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was Labyrinth, starring David Bowie. The combination of Bowie and Jim Henson basically blew my mind. This week, Labyrinth turned 25 years old. Clearly, it didn’t just have an impact on me…

As most of you know, I wasn’t a huge fan of TRON: Legacy. One of the reasons was that it felt like a Matrix rip off instead of something that evolved from the visually rad original TRON. In addition, I felt like the characters and the plot were secondary to the effects. It had your run-of-the-mill action movie storyline and the characters were really just caricatures or stereotypes. Looking for an example? Just check out the eccentric chap in the clip below.

You might remember Diana Glazier from her awesome ‘Sex and the City Movie’ review a while back. Well she’s back again and this time she’s laying down the law for guys on first dates.

In my recent string of first dates, I have discovered that the chivalrous act of the guy paying on the first date has completely lost its charm.
 
Matt, a successful fitness instructor and model, asked me out to dinner a few weeks after he began calling me. He took me to a tasty downtown sushi restaurant on our first date. I eyeballed his body language as he proudly spoke about his portfolio and perfectly crafted abs. I deemed him to be successful, accomplished, and polite. He was not particularly my type, but I eased myself into the date delighted that the waiter had brought me a second glass of Chianti.

We ordered the sushi to go, and as the plastic bags were set down in front of us Matt exclaimed, “Do you want to split it?”

Gulping down the remaining contents of my glass, I quickly replied, “No that’s okay, I’m really not that hungry. Help yourself for as much as you like.

“No,” he smirked. “I meant the check.”

I will admit that his response was less then par. I figured that since he had asked me to dinner, the gentlemanly thing to do would have been to pay for both of us. After all, this was our first date, he presented me with the dinner offer and when has letting the girl pay for dinner on a first become the norm?

Had it been our third or fourth date, I would have willingly picked up the tab. So I tried to hide my utter confusion, and placed my credit card down on the table with a smile.

I was seething, but Matt did not have to know this.

At this point there may be some confused individuals as to why I was dissatisfied with Matt’s dinner arrangements. It was the principal of the situation that pushed my bottoms. We may never know who wrote the book on first date etiquette, but its rules have been passed down from generation to generation. Matt was not the first guy that completely floored me with his thought process. I was asked to a movie once where I was coaxed into slipping the cashier my credit card. I politely sat through the movie, but mentally put a big red X on the guy.

I quickly climbed out of his car when he dropped me at home, and ignored his follow up calls.I am sure that both of my examples were fine young men, with many other great attributes. Yet, the lack of good manners that was exerted on their end turned me off.

Some of you might think that I am too finicky, superficial, or just plain snooty. I protest that if a man cannot buy you a dinner, then he must have a ravenous streak in his personality. I work hard for my money and please others with it when I so chose and am glad to do it. I can most definitely buy myself a dinner or go see a movie, but if a man can’t spend the money that he will make more of on me as the classic and chivalrous gesture to win me over, then I give up!

A classic argument from many men is that if women want to be treated as equals then we should pay for ourselves. I think it’s a pathetic excuse for a man who is egotistic and classless. This issue is not about equality, it is again about chivalry and social norms. This is why still so many of the men that I have gone on first dates with have enthusiastically paid, and I admire them for that. In all truth, there is something to be said about a man who pays on a first date, and even more to be said about a man that does not.

It’s been a while since I last posted anything on this blog and I decided it was high time to update.

Since we last spoke, I moved Trashwire to a new web host. As many of you (and our Twitter followers) know, I’d been more than a little displeased with the annoying downtimes of our former host. I’ve got to deliver Trashwire to the people 24/7! I can’t have some company standing in the way of your ability to read our completely unimportant-but-amusing ramblings! So far, so good with the new host but let me know if you notice any problems or glitches by using the contact form on the site.

In other news, I decided to change the Featured Article block (that one with the larger picture off to the left on the main page) to include two feature stories. Most of you already know I’m a HUGE Michael Jackson fan and I was completely torn up by his death. The reason behind the change is that I just couldn’t bring myself to shrink down that lovely Thriller image and put that article off in the Recent News block before the memorial had even taken place! I’m thinking I’ll leave it there until July 25th so it can have a good 30 days of glory before I move it over.

On a related note, I’ve been weighing how much coverage I should give to the media storm that’s been kicking up around Michael’s death. I’ve seen some really touching clips on YouTube from news shows to fan vids, and even superstar tributes from Beyonce and Madonna, but I’ve been undecided on how to bring you all this news without trivializing the significance of what Michael meant to the world. His name, his image and his music are everywhere you look right now and I’m worried that people will get burnt out. I’ve made a conscious effort not to post videos like the “haunted Neverland” clip from last night’s Larry King or the dancing inmates tribute to the late King of Pop because I feel like that might dilute the real impact of the loss. Like I said, I’m still undecided on how much we should be posting about Michael Jackson, so I’d love to hear your opinions. Should we be posting the videos of the Beyonce and Madonna tributes? How about clips from Larry King’s interview with Michael’s brother Jermaine? Old clips of Michael from interviews or making-of videos? Links to download Captain EO online? Since my main goal is to keep the readers happy, let me know what you’d like to see.

To shift the mood a bit, I wanted to acknowledge some of the awesome people that have contributed to Trashwire over the years. Ann Rakowiecki’s article about meeting Johnny Depp on the set of Public Enemies has been getting a ton of hits with the release of the film and (my mom) Pat Sue’s interview with Arj Barker was a fun multimedia addition to the site. Our tweeps in Phoenix have been super rad with Greg Esposito sending us a killer article about the possible cancellation of NBC’s Chuck and Chris Coffel contributing a great review of Away We Go. Of course, who could forget our favorite contributor of all, Wil Chinchilla?! Wil’s writing has grown by leaps and bounds since he first started sending us articles way back in 2007 and now he’s kicking ass (and doing parkour) all over this site! Thanks so much to everyone who’s ever sent in an article! If you’re interested in getting your writing published on Trashwire, just use the contact form to send something over.

Anyway, I realized that what I intended to be a short letter has now become a sizable post, so I’ll end things there for now. Keep checking out Trashwire.com!

Alexis Gentry
Creator/Editor
TRASHWIRE.COM

MTV.com posted this today

… Rogen indulged the possibility of a “Pineapple Express” sequel. “Of all the movies we’ve done, that’s the only one that I would actually like to do a sequel to and we talk about it,” Rogen told us….

As someone who LOVED that film and is a huge fan of Rogen, James Franco and Danny McBride, I’d love another chance to watch them on screen together.

While browsing twitter today, I came across a link for this article about Myspace losing it’s grip as the dominant social media outlet. One particluar statement that caught my eye was, “MySpace suffered a drop in visitor traffic last month and is now less than half the size of its younger rival, Facebook.”

Read the rest of this article on Trashwire.com

Last time we read Megan McCain and Tila have an engaging conversation. Today we found a bf (Bitch-fit from White Chicks) between Lady Sovereign and Perez Hilton. Lady Sovereign totally bailed on Perez’s party in Austin. Her excuse, which he publicized on his blog, was that she had partied to hard. In the words of late Steve Irwin, Crickey, lets see what these animals are up to:

This bitch-fit seriously just ended. It ended with Lady Sovereign posting her picture. Oh Snap! Diss. We all know Perez is fuming pink mad!

If you needed more proof that Twitter is awesome, just take a look at what DListed (via showbizspy.com) had to say about John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston:

Star Magazine thinks they know the real reason why the fartytale romance of this generation was flushed down the toilet. The reason is TWITTER! Jennifer Aniston was apparently completely over John Mayer choosing his Twitter over her twatter.

Showbizspy went into detail saying:

A source says, “John suddenly stopped calling her or returning her emails and when she would finally catch up with him, he’d say: ‘I’ve been so busy with work. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call you back’.

“Jen was fuming. There he was, telling her he didn’t have time for her and yet his page was filled with Twitter updates.

Basically, this confirms two things: Jennifer Aniston is so boring that people would rather interact with strangers on the internet than talk to her….. and Twitter is like crack, you get hooked and can’t pull yourself away.

Occasionally, it dawns on me that a lot of people I know aren’t on Twitter and haven’t seen my frequent (and some might say incessant) updates from the last week. As a result, I’m writing this blog as a continuation of my first “Basketball Diaries” post–which has nothing to do with Jim Carroll,Leonardo DiCaprio, or heroin–to detail the action, intrigue and adventure during my most recent trip out to the desert to spend some time with the Phoenix Suns….

Read the rest of this entry at TRASHWIRE.COM

Due to twessages coming in from every direction I will do my best to find the most tweetarded conversations taking place in the celebrity tweets.

Welcome to the most Tweetarded convo ever between Tila Tequila and Megan McCain?

Ummm I thought your dad hated the gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people of the world. How would conservative paapaa feel you watching A Shot at Love?

And very Asian Tila, stop trying to brand yourself on alcohol Hispanic people made its kind of annoying. We gave you rice which is a bigger deal/win than what you think.