Okay so this was all super-secret until midnight EST today but now I can tell you guys.

No, I’m not filming a series for VH1. Or launching a record label. Or a fashion line.

It’s actually the company that owns my website, RealNetworks, that’s doing something cool this time.

Tonight they’re having a big fancy exclusive-style party to celebrate the launch of their new DRM-free Rhapsody music store.

What does that mean? It means you can download music from their store in MP3 format and play it anywhere. Even on an iPod! Or on whatever other music player you have. They have agreements with all four major music labels and a ton of the indie labels, so there are 5 million tracks available, and most are priced at 99 cents a pop.

The first 100,000 customers who sign up at www.rhapsody.com/mp3 get a free album. And you guys are hearing about this FIRST. Seriously. NOBODY ELSE KNOWS ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW. So get your ass over there and sign up to get yourself a free album.

There’s gonna be a kick-ass music act at the party tonight, and I’ll take a bunch of pictures and get all chit-chatty about it afterward.

Seriously they should just rename this thing Chernobyl.

It was a disaster.

First of all, a slurring, wobbly Amy Winehouse punched a fan. Hard. Multiple times. Video is above.

Then — while drinking on-stage during her set — announced that she is “not opening for a cunt like Kanye,” prompting Kanye to get predictably bitchy on his blog.

And Jay-Z’s answer to Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher bitching about how hip-hop has no place at a rock festival was an opening performance of “Wonderwall,” which is, of course, fucking awesome, and made even more so by the fact that neither Jay-Z nor the audience seems to know the words to anything but the chorus. That video is after the jump.

Okay, and now for important things.

I couldn’t sleep tonight, so I took Leo on a little walk around the city. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like dragging an adorable dog around Greenwich Village a few hours after the gay pride parade has ended. Leo was accosted by gay men, lesbians, transvestites and heteros, black people, white people, Asian people, Hispanic people, skinny people, fat people, young and old alike. Leo is equal-opportunity adorable. He could unite the whole world with his cuteness. Like, we would be walking past a group of teenage girls, half-drunk and cussing each other out all like, “Listen you bitch if you don’t want me to beat yo ass down right here then don’t you ever get up in my face again like … OH MY GOD LOOK AT THAT PUPPY!” I’m telling you. Leo could save the whole world.

The highlight of the evening was when I walked him past a uniformed NYPD officer and he said — and I quote — “That should be illegal, that dog is so adorable.”

It’s Leo’s first night in New York, and he’s already OWNS this city!!!

(more…)

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith are two of the founders of a new private elementary school in Calabasas called the New Village Academy. The school will incorporate a teaching method developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and employ some teachers who are church members, although students of any religious background will be welcome. Assuming they get accepted and can pay what is sure to be astronomical tuition.

This Hubbard-influenced teaching method is called “study technology.” It focuses on hands-on experience, mastering a subject before moving on and not reading past words students don’t understand.

The curriculum also includes living skills, robotics, yoga, etiquette and technology. The school has a no-sugar policy and encourages parents to limit their children’s television time.

“New Village Academy was born of a simple question, ‘Is it possible to create an educational environment in which children have fun learning?’” says Will. “Jada and I believe the answer is ‘Yes.’”

Anyway, I’m sure Will & Jada are going to take all kinds of shit for using Hubbard’s techniques, but my take on it is this: whatever we’re doing in the school system in this country right now isn’t working. So, while I certainly hope they’ll stop short of bringing any Xenu into the classroom, I applaud them for exploring an alternate approach to early education.

News that she may have a secret sister hasn’t stopped Lindsay Lohan from hitting the town with the love of her life, Samantha Ronson.

The two happy clams hit up Barney’s to do some shopping, then Sam dropped off Lindsay to shoe shop and returned in an hour to pick her up. What a great boyfriend!

[Image via Splash]

Not only is the show moving to Lifetime and to Los Angeles, but it looks like Bunim-Murray will be taking over as its producer. That’s right, the people who brought you The Real World for the past 63 seasons are getting their puke-and-semen-covered hands all over my precious Project Runway.

Grrrr.

The only glimmer of hope here is the distant possibility that one day we’ll have a Project Runway/Top Chef Challenge hit the air.

Remember Paris Bennett, the little belter who could from the fifth season of AmIdol? She was only sixteen when she first appeared on the show.

She’s nineteen now, and she’s pregnant.

No, not the married kind of pregnant. Just the pregnant kind of pregnant. She’s due in October, and she plans to name the little girl Egypt. Which is a stupid name but at least little Egypt won’t have to share her name with a trolloppy socialite. So that’s something.

She’s reportedly engaged, but no one will talk about who the guy is or what he does and the whole thing leads me to believe that she met him on Craigslist and the condom broke.

“I’m proud of how she did it. I was 16 when I got pregnant,” says her mother, Jamecia Bennett.

This statement makes my head explode.

What part of it, exactly, makes you proud? The fact that — even though she got knocked up out of wedlock and as a teenager — she held out for three years longer than you did? Are you proud because she was almost not a teen pregnancy statistic? Proud because your teenage daughter is fertile? Proud because she was doing it doggy-style? Proud because she could have had an education and a career and will now have to give up all these things — much like you did — to be a single mother? This is the stupidest statement in the world.

Congrats, Paris.

Well, Leo and I are safely in NYC, checked into our gorgeous hotel room in Chelsea, where Leo promptly pooped in front of the bellhop and then knocked his food bowl all over the room. I was like, “Uh, he’s not normally like this …” He was pretty quiet on the plane flight but I think the whole thing has been stressful for him. Maybe he just misses the cats, ha ha!

Anyway I was thrilled to find this clip of Alanis Morissette on Howard Stern. She won’t go so far as to actually talk shit about Ryan Reynolds, but there’s certainly the implication that she thinks he’s a worthless piece of shit. You know, I kind of like how this whole thing has really knocked Alanis down a peg. I was getting really sick of her whole “I’m so spiritual and life is beautiful and don’t you wish you were this spiritual?” act. She admits herself in this interview that the whole thing worked great in philosophy but not so hot in practice. But she’s much easier to listen to in interviews now that she seems to have realized that she’s every bit as human as anybody else.

And we’re off!

Leo and I are leaving early Sunday morning for our big trip to NYC. Leo in the City! It’s Leo’s first plane flight, and he’s very excited. He’s been running around the house all day barking to the cats about it. They are less excited, although they are delighted that they’ll have the house to themselves for a few days, without Leo’s face in their asses at all times.

I went to Petco today to get Leo a special travel carrier, and they had these adorable doggy shirts for Fourth of July. So now Leo has a new shirt that says “American Born and Bred” and he is going to wear it for the Fourth whether he likes it or not (note: he will not like it).

Anyway posting will be non-existent on Sunday, but I’ll be back for late-night Sunday and back full-time on Monday.