Digital City

After the passing of the "King of Pop" last week, rumors have been flying around about whether the public be allowed to say their own goodbye. At one point it was reported that tickets would be sold for a service inside a sporting arena with T-shirts even being peddled. Thankfully this proved to be untrue.

The free public memorial will take place at the Los Angels Staples Center at 1PM(eastern time) with a live simulcast at the Nokia Theatre down the road. 8,750 fans were randomly drawn out of a lottery to attend the service. Fans without tickets have been asked to stay away.

We'll avoid the obvious "Don't Panic" line that everyone seems to be throwing around (although, I guess we didn't so much avoid it as throw it right out there in the very first line). But it should be noted that two of members of Panic! At The Disco are quitting and this will not effect the scheduled tour dates already set by the foursome.

As the band posted on their official Website today, Ryan Ross and Jon Walker will be leaving the Las Vegas-born band to pursue their own musical interests. While the post goes on to insist that the remainder of Panic will appear with Blink-182 as planned, it also admits that the announcement has come "so out of the blue."

Nick Offerman is an accomplished actor who currently stars in the show Parks and Recreation. He is also in the upcoming movie The Men Who Stare At Goats, based on the awesome book by Jon Ronson.

When he's not acting or writing songs, he's diligently working in his wood shop making furniture. Recently, he has taken up boat building, particularly canoes. He is currently building his second canoe and documenting it for a how-to video. I got a chance to help out a little on his current project.

It is official. Absolutely nothing is safe from the clutches of reality TV, and art has reached a new level of commercialism. If you are a struggling emergent or mid-career artist, Bravo TV is looking for you to compete for $198 million.

The new show is creatively titled "Untitled Art Project" and is the brainchild of Magical Elves (of Project Runway and Top Chef fame) and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Today is the kickoff of Nude Recreation Week which advocates one of our favorite past-times, skinny dipping. Coordinated by the The Naturist Society, the week-long celebration of nudity started humbly as Nude Beach Day back in 1975 when the society's founder Lee Baxandall made the proclamation on Truro Beach in Massachusetts.

According to a release, skinny-dippers will celebrate at "oceans, lakeside beaches and in hot tubs and backyard pools across the nation."

"Hard economic times are causing Americans to look harder for nude and inexpensive places to visit. It behooves public officials to give skinny-dipping its designated place in the sun by authorizing enough nude beaches and good, safe locations to meet our growing needs," says Nicky Hoffman, spokeswoman for The Naturist Society.

Here are a few nude beaches we found. Before you go, check out the Skinny Dipper Shop at TNS.

In semi-unrelated July 6 news, today is the birthday of both George W. Bush and Herbert T. Fweep, inventor of the armpit fart.

This reads like a Kevin Smith movie: A 19-year-old kid from Denver, Colorado held up a Walgreens with a 30-inch long samurai sword. Doped up kids have no respect for the sword, also known as the katana.

He ran off with a load of Oxycontin, aka "Hillbilly Heroin" or the drug of choice of infamous radio personalities. He was caught by police about 100 yards away. No touchdown, just jail on suspicion of aggravated robbery of a controlled substance and felony menacing.

In Louisiana, a fierce legislative battle concerning restaurant rules and regulations is taking place between state and local officials. According to the State Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control, many restaurants are eluding the eyes of the law by charging for admittance and operating as late-night live music and bar venues without holding a bar license.

Bar licenses are significantly more difficult to obtain than restaurant permits. This practice is not only attracting the attention of local law enforcement, but also neighborhood residents who dislike the noisy and rowdy activities emanating from these late-night hot spots.

Transforming robots and animated 3D prehistoric animals combined to keep Johnny Depp from the top spot in the battle over the weekend box office dollar.

Transformers 2 in its second week out and the just released Ice Age 3 each earned a whopping $42.5 million each this July 4th weekend, deadlocked for first place. With the top 10 movies grossing more than $150 million, the numbers are pretty impressive numbers for a holiday weekend where most people are out watching fireworks. Some movie experts believe that once the numbers are crushed again that Ice Age 3 will have a very slim lead and Transformers 2 already has the #31 spot in all-time movie grosses according to Box Office Mojo.

Roger Federer won his sixth Wimbledon title and his record 15th Grand Slam singles title by beating Andy Roddick in five sets in what is the longest Wimbledon finals in history.

Even though Andy Roddick lost the American bid to sweep the singles Wimbledon championships on Independence Weekend with Serena Williams beating her sister the day before, he put up a strong fight. Roddick came out of the gate shooting taking the first set, He lost the second and third sets and it seemed like Federer was on his way to breaking his Grand Slam titles tie with Pete Sampras. Andy Roddick came back winning the fourth set sending the match into the fifth set.

The fifth set went back and forth for 30 games - there are no tiebreaks in the fifth set. Finally Federer broke Roddick's serve and took the fifth set 16-14. The fifth set also also set a record for lenght and notable for having more games than the whole of the ladies championship match.

When the Berlin Wall came down, it was a symbol of freedom. to contain Can a TV commercials for beer have the same effect in North Korea?

It appears that the country that has such disdain for the western world also likes to kick back with a cold beer at the end of the day. Television is state run in North Korea where ads are rarely shown. A beer commercial in a communist country seems like a something unheard of. Thank goodness some folks in South Korea were able to get a copy of this ground breaking ad.