Volcano in Iceland hurts New York City: losing $250 million

Stranded in Europe 

The eruption of the massive Eyjafjallajoekull volcano April 14th has placed not just Europe, but much of the World's economy in slow mode.

This is true in New York City, where events like the Tribeca Film Festival have an international reach and thus draw an overseas audience.

Many of the stars of the 85 films of the Tribeca Film Festival are stranded in Europe according to DNAinfo, and that hurts the ability to draw patrons to see them. The film festival relies on producers and directors of the films to come and talk to the audience. But with the volcano in Iceland, that possibility is thwarted.

The Volcano in Iceland is harming tourist spending as well, with an estimated loss of $250 million from the reduction of visitors from Europe over the weekend. The NY Daily News reports that for every 1,000 visitors that don't come from Europe, New York loses $1.5 million.

But The Volcano will not stop The London Book Fair, which counts on visitors from England as a necessary part of its event. Director Alistair Burtenshaw says "Our view is that the show must - and will - go on and we will provide all the help we can to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible."

Stay tuned.

Space Shuttle Discovery landing delayed due to bad weather

Information Week reports that rain and clouds over the Atlantic Coast in Florida will cause a delay in the landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery early Monday. NASA officials say they will try a second attempt to land the spacecraft Monday morning.

Discovery just finished a 14-day mission docked with the International Space Station. Eight tons of cargo were delivered to the International Space Station during that trip using the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module.

The module was developed by the Italian Space Agency as a kind of "moving van" in space that takes cargo from the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station. For this trip it had science racks, new sleeping quarters, and other supplies.

Discovery pilot Jim Dutton, mission specialist Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, and mission specialist Yamakazi of the Japanese Space Agency are all on their first Shuttle flight.

Paris Hilton dissed at Coachella Music Festival

C'Mon dude.  Respect the lady!  

Popular Socialite Paris Hilton is without a doubt well-known, especially by people in the entertainment industry and security guards are no exception. According to TMZ.com, which created the photo, Paris Hilton was dissed by "security" guards at the Coachella Music Festival.

Paris Hilton had to give her ID before she was allowed in. Now these guys were just being mean. This blogger has attended thousands of events and gets waved in without showing his ID most of the time, but does so anyway.

TMZ writes "If the security guard legitimately didn't know who she was, we are jealous of the life he leads. Not in this corner.

That guy's probably told his friends "Yeah, I just dissed Paris Hilton. I don't like her." And it's probably the high moment of his life. That's the bet here. That's sad, but there are people running around who get joy from such behavior.

What they tend to forget is that if they're in a position and happen to need something from Paris, the tables would be turned. Rather than Paris thanking them for recognizing her, as others certainly did, it would be her option.

It's situations like this that are the reason some people own music festivals and others just, well, work security at them. Note to Paris: get to know the Coachilla Music Festival owners and make a workaround the security people.

Debbie Reynolds takes over for Ivana Trump at The Globe

The Globe, American Media's classic tabloid, replaced Donald Trump's ex-wife Ivana Trump with legendary actress Debbie Reynolds, it was announced today.

Ivana Trump was a fixture at The Globe for 15 years, and read by 5 million readers a week who grabbed the tabloid from cash register shelves in supermarkets and at newsstands around America and Europe.

Now it's Debbie Reynolds turn.

Her column "Dear Debbie: Got a problem? I want to help" takes on subjects like "My beau is showing his kinky side" and questions like "Is it OK to date my college professor?"

Maybe Debbie Reynolds has some advise for Taylor Swift?

Stay tuned.

"Taylor Swift's Promise" is a mean trick on Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift's the focus of another Internet photo scandal, but it's not her fault.

There's a photo going around the Internet that has country-pop singing star Taylor Swift wearing a red gym jacket and posing with a young man also in red and reportedly known as "Cheeks" and both are holding up a sign made from a napkin that reads "I Heart On TD."

Whatever that means.

That photo was doctored by someone to read something far, far more sexual and sinister that Taylor Swift would promise to do if "Alabama beat LSU this weekend" and then goes on to read "Who are you rooting for now? XOXO Taylor Swift."

Guess which photo's going around the Internet the fastest?

This blogger discovered the photo below after checking the social bookmarking site Reddit.com for news. Right there were the words "Taylor Swift's Promise" If you click on it, as I did, the photo, the doctored one, comes right up in your face. You have to dig through the comments to learn that the picture's not the real one.

Cheeks is reportedly part of a website called "OH NO THEY DID'NT" which has the tagline "the celebrities are disposable, the content is pricesless." But does that mean they replaced Taylor's original napkin with the fake one? If so, that's awful. It's terrible that it happened to her, but if the website created the fake photo they should apologize immediately.

For her part, Taylor's got to be careful. To this blogger, it's like the Swastika episode in that Taylor took a photo with a random fan and got in trouble for an image she wasn't aware of. The difference is that Taylor didn't know some real douche was going to mess with her image like that.

It's sad because Taylor doesn't know who to trust and it's harder to just hang and have fun with people around who are going to mar her image in this way.

Bad form.

Stay tuned.

Carrie Underwood gets Entertainer of the Year - Twitter update

Carrie!

Carrie Underwood not only scored the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year Award for the second year in a row, she scored Twitter points for her singing and her dress.

Carrie Underwood beat Taylor Swift and six other country music entertainers for the vote cast by fans using online and mobile platforms. Twitter celebrated the news, and while "Carrie Underwood" and "Taylor Swift" did not beat the more questionable hashtags of #TeamWhiteGirl and #TeamBlackGirl the tweets were certainly more fun, all over the place, and less disturbing to read.

Carries1fanOx Carrie Underwood...I love & I am so beyond proud of you! Congratulations on making history tonight! your my hero<3 goodnight #TeamCarrie <3 less than a minute ago from Echofon 

 natsraj23 wow carrie underwood looks gorgeous at the #45thannualacademycountryawards wedding_gown_id Carrie Underwood, Julianne Hough, Reba McEntire Fashion winners at the ACM ... http://bit.ly/a6XibD less than a minute ago from API 

 kaykeebakes Carrie Underwood won entertainer of the year yay!!! I'm so exited!!! :) less than a minute ago from Twitter for BlackBerry® 

SamanthaErin22 Woo carrie underwood Acm artist of the year! Not george straight:( But as long As it wasn't taylor swift Haha! 1 minute ago from txt

myniftynappy what? Carrie Underwood just won entertainer of the year! I like her, but come on! 1 minute ago from HootSuite 

Overall, the fact that Carrie Underwood's Entertainer of the Year win failed to hit the Twitter top trends and stay there for a while is a sign that the country music demographic isn't meshing with the young adult / teen set that generally uses Twitter. One way around this is to have Twitter as a major part of the voting campaign. The Academy of Country Music's Twitter account has just over 5,700 followers. Many of the top award nominees have thousands and in some cases millions of Twitter followers. Some kind of deal should have been struck to get the help of people like Taylor Swift, and the Twitter hastag should have been mentioned again and again on the television broadcast.

That didn't happen and because of that, the Academy of Country Music missed a golden chance to really make sure the awards show was a part of the Zeitgeist beyond Google Trends and with a wider demographic range.

Well, there is next year.

Carrie Underwood's legs and New Media beat Taylor Swift in ACM voting

After all that, Carrie Underwood's legs, and an assist from New Media, did beat Taylor Swift and six other country music entertainers - Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, George Strait,Keith Urban, and Zac Brown Band - in the ACM voting for American Country Music Entertainer of The Year at the 2010 Academy of Country Music Awards. That was just announced by show host Reba McEntire, and to a wowser of a yell of approval from the audience.

As of this writing there's no way to tell how much Carrie Underwood won by or who came in second, but it's a safe bet Carrie beat Taylor Swift.

But aside from Carrie Underwood's awesomely hot legs, she got a song that so matched her voice and style it's a 2010 hit: Cowboy Casanova. Here's the kick-ass music video:



But it wasn't just the legs, Carrie Underwood used New Media to advertise her desire for your vote. From the top of her YouTube channel to her website, CarrieUnderwoodOfficial.com, the words "click now to vote" were immediately visible.

And while Taylor Swift had the same notification and a funny video on her website, there was no such request on her YouTube channel and that may have been the difference.

I'll bet it was close.

Well, I like Taylor Swift's voice, but major congratulations to the newly engaged Carrie Underwood. She deserved it.

Stay tuned.