Hopefully this site will be running smoothly again.

Please let me know ASAP if you’re still experiencing problems gaining access to the site.

I love you guys!

xoxo,
Beet

I am so, so, so sorry about this.

But we’re growing!!! STILL!!! And the great big huge server we switched over to just a few months ago can’t handle the traffic anymore, so we’re moving to a great big HUGER server tomorrow afternoon (hopefully — Thursday at the latest). There should not be any down time during the switch (hopefully).

This should resolve the issues you guys have been seeing lately.

Thank you all SO SO SO much for your loyal readership. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.

xoxo,
Beet

Happy Monday, ya’ll!!

I’m flying back from Miami this morning so I’ll be MIA until around lunchtime in LA. Get it? MIA? Miami? Ha ha. I slay me. I have had the most amazing time in this city — now I understand why Will Smith wrote an entire song about it. What a vibrant and friendly city. Thanks to those of you who sent me ideas about culturally enriching activities in which I might participate while here; instead, I alternated my time between three bars called Tavern, Sandbar and Mr. Moe’s. Talk about diverse. They were like a whole two blocks apart! Oh, and then Sandbar ran out of Red Bull and I really wanted Red Bull so I left to go look for a mini mart and wandered a little far and suddenly I was in this ghetto and this crackhead with one leg and a bicycle is like “Honey, you are walking in the wrong direction” and I’m like “I just want Red Bull!” and so the (nice) crackhead with one leg and a bicycle gave me an escort to the mini mart and I gave the crackhead two dollars to buy crack. So that was pretty cultural of me, I think.

Now on to other matters.

Over the past month or two, I’ve had a lot of you contact me about wanting to know more about who I am, what I look like, how I turned out this way, who raised me, etc. I think it’s kind of obnoxious when certain bloggers (not naming names, but you know who you are … ahem … Perez) pepper a celeb gossip blog with 100 photos of themselves every week. So I’m not going to do that. If you come here for the gossip and the snark, that’s what you’re gonna get. If you are one of those people who wants to know a little more about my life, I’ve added a photos section, where you can check out photos of me and my friends and my life. I’ve got a few pics of me up there now, and will add to it from all the pics I took in Miami, and we’ll go from there.

And now, the most important thing of all:

CONGRATULATIONS to Beet reader and my friend Emily, who got engaged to a truly wonderful man this weekend. Emily was one of our very first readers and fans, all the way back in the early days, so we know she has fantastic taste. Everyone here at The Beet wishes Emily and Adam our sincerest congratulations and all the best in the future. (And this is also the cheapest engagement present we could think up.) Welcome to the family, Emily!

The good news: Evil Beet’s grown by leaps and bounds in the past few months. Readership had sky-rocketed, and I love you guys for that.

The bad news: Lots of down time, as those of you who are regular readers have probably noticed. It’s become a little ridiculous in the past couple of days, and I’m sorry for that. So, we’re moving to a new server, better equipped to handle this traffic.

The really, really bad news: Starting at 11 pm PST tonight, the site will be down for up to 24 hours while the server migration takes place and the new IP address is propagated. Hopefully it will not take that long, and everything will be peachy by tomorrow morning, but I just want to give you guys a heads-up in case you can’t get on the site tomorrow.

xoxo,
Beet

Oh my gosh! This has been the craziest weekend! Moving into a place in New York City is definitely one of the more challenging logistical tasks I’ve faced in my life. Thankfully, everyone in my new neighborhood has been unbelievably outgoing, kind, helpful and … well … neighborly. I love L.A. and I always will, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I lived in a neighborhood before, so this is pretty cool. My roommates and I were blasting the very first Britney album tonight as we were setting the place up, and it made us long for the good old Britney days. I don’t care what anyone says, that was a great album.

Anyway, I’m all moved in here, and some anonymous tenant in my building was thoughtful enough to have an unsecured wireless network, so posting will be back to normal starting tomorrow. Many, many thanks to Lars and T for covering for me while my life was temporarily insane. Now … on to the links!

Brad and Angelina have their own stamp in Australia now. [popbytes]

Remember when Lauryn Hill was talented and crazy instead of just high and crazy? [Pop on the Pop]

Is David Beckham going to make his big Hollywood debut playing Robbie Williams’ gay lover on Desperate Housewives? Not if Tom Cruise has anything to say about it, I’m sure. [Holy Candy]

I’m really excited for the Ashley Tisdale DUI. [Celebrity Smack]

The pregnant Christina Aguilera cancels the remainder of her world tour due to illness. Get better soon Christina!! You have to have a healthy, adorable little baby so that Nicole’s doesn’t get all the attention. [Cele|bitchy]

I didn’t really need to see Leelee Sobieski in leather. [Drunken Stepfather]

Hello my loves!

Well, I know we have had quite a week, with all the drama with the layout changes, new advertisers, etc. I hope everyone can view the layout properly now. If the site still looks weird to you, do Ctrl-F5 on a PC, or Apple-R on a Mac. This should fix the problem. Thank you guys so much for hanging in there while we got all of that fixed, and for providing feedback. The poll is still pretty much all tied up, so I’ll be looking at it and making some executive decisions early next week.

In personal news, I am moving from beautiful, sunny Los Angeles to beautiful, sunny, sticky New York City today, which is very exciting but also enormously stressful. I won’t be around much the next few days, but you’ll have Evil T and Spiteful Lars around to keep you company, and I’ve invited a few other friends to join the mix, so we’ll just see how that goes. Make sure to heckle them lots, as they’re plenty nervous to begin with and should be easy targets. If all goes well, I’ll be back to spew my nonsense on Monday.

xoxo
Beet

There seems to be some difference of opinion on which background we should use moving forward.

The old one, with the faces of all the celebs, was popular, but it made for slow load times for people with slower connections (and on mobile viewers). The new one is definitely less interesting, but it loads a lot faster. Or maybe some of you like the solid color background, but you don’t like the pink. So we’re putting it to a vote. Let us know what you think.

Update: If you are still having trouble viewing the new layout, hit Ctrl+F5 (if you’re on a PC) or Apple+R (if you’re on a Mac). This will force a refresh in your browser and should resolve the problem.

Happy birthday, Evil Beet! This site was born a year ago today. Man, anything and everything has changed since then — The Beet has been about the only constant in my life over the past year — and I can’t stress enough how grateful I am to everyone who reads and everyone who links in here. You guys make my day, every day.

And thank you to Evil T and Spiteful Lars for coming along for the ride with me — you guys are talented and amazing as both writers and friends; I love you to pieces, and I couldn’t have done it without you!! Thank you also to the top-notch team at Film.com for all your support along the way.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEET! Looking forward to many more.

xoxo,
Beet