Natalie Portman's double says she did most of the dancing in "Black Swan"

Believe who you want on this one. My bet is on the double, Sarah Lane. Having just watched the film last night,  I wondered how much of the dancing Portman could have actually done. My intuitive answer was "not much." Maybe yes,  then again according to Black Swan” dancer – choreographer Benjamin Millepied, who is expecting a child with Portman, maybe no.  (see Wall Street Journal excerpt at bottom of post)

This from Entertainment Weekly:

"The ballerina who served as a dancing double for Natalie Portman’s Oscar-winnning role in Black Swan tells EW she has been the victim of a “cover-up” to mislead the public about how much dancing Portman actually did in the film. “Of the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie,” says Sarah Lane, 27, an American Ballet Theatre soloist who performed many of the film’s complicated dance sequences, allowing Portman’s face to be digitally grafted onto her body." 

 .... and this from a Wall Street Journal story:

"“Black Swan” dancer/choreographer Benjamin Millepied, who is expecting a child with Portman, told the Los Angeles Times this week “Honestly, 85% of that movie is Natalie.” (Lane says that if she had to quantify it, Portman did “about 5%” of the on-screen dancing.)"

Beautiful video of northern lights in Russia

I'm not sure where this came from, but have a look at this stunning video of the northern lights in Russia.

"Fat Ho Burgers" has Texans stompin' mad

Waco, Texas native Lakita Evans, 23, decided to fulfill her dream and open a restaurant. The locals did not take well to it. It could be because her restaurant is named "Fat Ho Burgers." Evans says the name is in good fun and people shouldn't get upset. “It’s not calling people a ho. It’s just like they say, 'Oooh that ho is big,' or, 'That ho is tight!’” said restaurant’s owner Evans."Look what's going on in Japan. It's clear this world is not gonna get any better. Why cry and be depressed? ... Somebody's gotta keep a sense of humor around here." Patrons of the Gospel Cafe, volunteer-run religious café and bookstore around the corner are not amused. “Would’ve been nice to think a little more sensitively,” said Pastor Marsha Martie.

'Fat Ho Burgers' Opens in Texas: MyFoxDFW.com

Nuclear fears prompts Chinese man in Japan to turn himself in to police

Lin Jian Ming, 48, came to Japan on a 90 day visitor's visa in 2000 and liked it so much he decided to stay on – illegally. Fast forward to the nuclear crisis at Fukushima. Lin, fearing for his safety from radiation, turned himself in Nagasaki Prefectural Police Saturday afternoon asking to be repatriated. Lin said he had fled from Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, one week earlier to avoid radiation contamination. He apparently thought he would be safe from leaked radiation if he traveled to Nagasaki. Police have arrested Lin for staying illegally in Japan.

Fukushima reactors

Oops: Reports that Fukushima radiation 10 million times above normal was mistake

Things were looking extremely bad at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant when officials said that radiation levels were spiking at 10 million times above normal on Sunday. This led to an evacuation of the workers at the plant. Turns out the reading was a mistake. Oops. 

MySpace loses 10 million unique visitors in a month

MySpace

In 2006, MySpace was the most popular social networking website in the the United States, likely the world. Now, they are barely clinging to life, hemorrhaging over 10 million unique users between January and February, according to Tech industry analysts comScore. Year over year the site has lost almost 50 million users, down from close to 110 million in February 2010. Rupert Murdoch must be cursing under his breath having bought MySpace for US$580 million in 2005, only to wake up and realize he bought the now defunct "Friendster" by accident. Remember them?

Made irrelevant by Facebook, MySpace decided in 2010 that is was not a social networking site competing with Facebook, but a music site targeting young people. BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said, "Most investors have written off MySpace now."

It appears to be a case of too little, too late. With a new round of layoffs MySpace seems to be in a death spiral. I think the music focus is a great idea, albeit likely too late. Had they focused in this direction earlier, they may have pulled it off – there is a huge market for indie music but unfortunately a lot of competition for it now.

Do I have a MySpace page? Yes. When is the last time I accessed it? Can't remember.

Useless: Forget about designer vaginas – woman invents the camel toe guard

camel toe (Wikipedia)

I can't wait to see the infomercial got this product. A British woman invented a camel toe guard, that is essentially a small piece of plastic that goes into womens' underwear. The name of the product: "SmoothGroove". From the SmoothGoove website:

"Women can rejoice - our very last wardrobe malfunction has now been addressed! At last, there’s a product that sensibly alleviates the most embarrassing taboo there is for us girls – the crudely named Camel Toe. SmoothGroove is the brainchild of north east businesswoman Susan Laurie, whose love of wearing figure hugging clothes was often blighted by this imperfection.  After finding no credible solutions, Susan’s ongoing frustrations led her to determinedly produce a product that would finally improve the confidence of thousands of women like her.  After all research has shown that a staggering 55% of UK women, irrespective of age or weight, will suffer from Camel Toe at some point .... Many females in our increasingly image obsessed society have even gone to extreme lengths to rectify the problem, resorting to expensive and risky surgery to create a ‘designer vagina’."