Timothy Tackett, The Burger King Bather, Fired

My college professors always warned us to be careful what we publish on the Internet. As it turns out, Timothy Tackett never got that piece of advice.

If he had, he may have thought twice before posting a video to his MySpace page, showing him bathing in his employer's kitchen sink.

In the nearly four-minute video, Tackett, 25, who more famously goes by the alias Mr. Unstable, is seen basking in a sudsy utility sink in the back of the Xenia, Ohio, Burger King where he works. That is, used to work.

Just days after the video was posted, the company fired Tackett and four to five other employees working the graveyard shift, when the unsanitary hijinks was filmed, Tackett said.

Some say it's not unreasonable to assume someone at Burger King might search the Web for clips relating to the restaurant franchise and happen upon Tackett's posting.

Now increase those odds by 868,000 -- about the number of hits so far to the various versions on YouTube. Yes, the footage lives on even after MySpace removed it without Tackett's consent and has even spurred a few parodies, ranging from funny to confusing.

Burger King's reaction to seeing a seemingly nude employee -- even though he was wearing a Speedo, he assures -- bathing in the restaurant's sink, the same one used for washing dishes and utensils, isn't surprising. But Tackett argues the other employees on duty were punished unjustly. "None of these people had anything to do with the situation," he said. "I don't see what anybody could have done." Sadly, all is fair in YouTube and fast food.

Puente de la Mujer

Donated by Alberto L. Gonzales and his family to the city of Buenos Aires, Santiago Calatrava's Puente De La Mujer (Bridge Of The Woman) is the architect's only work in South America. Completed in 2001,the 335-foot-long suspension pedestrian bridge is broken up into three sections, two static and one mobile. The central portion of the bridge was designed to rotate 90 degrees to allow water traffic to pass, with the two static portions connecting to pedestrian streets on either side of the dam. Most of the bridge's weight rests upon its central support, in which motors are located allowing the bridge to rotate. The bridge was primarily built in Victoria, Spain and taken to Buenos Aires in parts over five months. In its design, Puente De La Mujer is somewhat related to the Alamillo Bridge in Seville in its radical asymmetry and expressive tension, though its scale and angles are admittedly less grandiose and its asymmetry is reversed from the Seville bridge.

California Beaches

Santa Ana winds create a dramatic scene as they lift the spray off large breaking waves, much to the delight of surfers at the Huntington Beach Pier.

Theatre means Comedy and Tragedy

This winter and spring we at Tsevis Visual Design had the honor and the pleasure to collaborate with one of the major and the best latin american advertising agencies. Our brazilian friends at Neogama BBH asked us to provide them 10 mosaic illustration for an important project of the Fortune 500 company, Bradesco Bank. Bradesco is the major brazilian bank and one of the main cultural sponsors in this beautiful country. After almost 3 months of a perfect collaboration we can upload the first results of our project.
This is just one of the 10 illustrations.

Illustration by Tsevis Visual Design
Bradesco and Neogama BBH team:
Customer: Bradesco Prime
Product: Prime Arts
Creation: Márcio Ribas, Patrician Leme and Isabela Laloni
Direction of creation: Márcio Ribas and Wilson Mateos
General direction of creation: Alexander Gamma
Graphical production: Kyioshi Takahashi and Eliana Barros
Treatment of image: Carlos Alberto Morelli
Attendance: Silvia Tommasini, Adriana Nigro and Guillermo Fracaro
Approval: Bradesco marketing

Michael Phelps for The Los Angeles Times

The comments below are those of Greek visual designer Charles Tsevis:

"Last Thursday I received an e-mail from Derek Simmons, Deputy Design Director of Los Angeles Times. Derek proposed to me an exciting as well as very honoring job. He wanted me to produce a portrait of the incredible Michael Phelps for the Monday's Edition of The Times. Let's hope he is going to make it, wrote Simmons to me. The whole last week, Derek and I exchanged rough sketches, photos, ideas while Michael was beating one record after the other. We had so little time, as Michael was racing almost every day and we had to keep the portrait updated. Finally, he did it in the already known incredible way. So, this is our tribute to him and his incredible record. It's published in today's (Aug 18th, 2008) edition of the Los Angeles Times."

"Credit must go to Derek Simmons for this great collaboration, his suggestions and ideas and to all the photographers of these great Michael Phelps photos (Sorry, it's quite impossible to name them all)."

Click on the image to see a larger version and you can click on the link below to see a very large version of the image on Flickr.

Sierra Vista Scenic Byway

The Jesse Ross Cabin, built in the 1860s, is one of the historic stops on the Sierra Vista Scenic Byway, south of Yosemite National Park. The cabin was moved to this site, a sweet spot of forest land, and still has about 75% of its original materials. A nearby trail leads deeper into the woods.
(Mary Forgione/Los Angeles Times)

A view of Utah's Angel Canyon after a rain

"Woody’s Women"

They say it’s best to keep your professional life and your love life separate, but Woody Allen never thought so. Many of the female leads in his movies were the female leads in his real life too. Diane Keaton was one of his favorites.

By the 1970s, Diane Keaton was Woody Allen’s leading lady, on and off screen. Her roles in “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall” (pictured) are among the most celebrated in Allen’s films.

One or Two or Maybe a Few ???

Honda MotoGP rider Shinya Nakano of Japan, followed by Ducati's Toni Elias of Spain cuts a curve during the second practice session of the Czech Grand Prix at the Masaryk Circuit in Brno August 15, 2008.
REUTERS/Petr Josek (CZECH REPUBLIC)

"Stepping into the Sky"

On the morning of Aug. 7, 1974, after months of preparation and years of dreaming, a French daredevil named Philippe Petit stepped into the sky above Lower Manhattan. For almost 45 minutes he ambled back and forth on a metal cable strung between the towers of the World Trade Center, a feat of tightrope walking that, according to a New York Police Department sergeant who recounted Petit's act of physical poetry in dry press conference prose, would more aptly be described as dancing.

For many years after, Petit's stunt was a cherished footnote in the annals of New York history. The destruction of the twin towers in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, revived the memory of that earlier, aesthetic assault on the buildings, which is now the subject of "Man on Wire," James Marsh's thorough, understated and altogether enthralling documentary. The film is being released this summer in Britain and the United States and in the Netherlands in February. Wisely, Marsh, who based his film on a book Petit published in 2002, never alludes to Sept. 11. That would have been both distracting and redundant, since it's impossible, while watching a movie so intimate in its attention to the towers, not to be haunted by thoughts of their fate.

"Angelino Heights Beauty"

Usually, the Home of the Week in the Los Angeles Times' real estate section is priced so high into the stratosphere, it veers between insult and oddity. This recent selection, a lovely Victorian moved from its original spot on Bunker Hill to its present digs in Angelino Heights, seems a downright bargain by comparison: only (and I use the word loosely) $1.5 million.

Egrets ruffle feathers

WILLOWS, CALIF. -- Nobody knows why the birds have staked their claim on this farm town 90 miles north of Sacramento.

But it's the third consecutive year and, by all accounts, the worst.

"The community has had enough," said Steve Holsinger, Willows' city manager. "They're just fed up."

Memorial Park, a square-block stretch of green near the center of town, is encircled with yellow police tape and is off limits to normal use. More than 1,000 birds, mainly snowy egrets and some black-crested night herons, are nesting there, turning patches of lawn a lunar gray and showering the grass with broken shells and feathers. Officials say the guano is slowly killing 60-foot-tall redwoods and pines.

"A steamy love affair" like "mist through a manhole cover"

A grotesque comparison of a steamy love affair to mist through a manhole cover has won a Washington man this year's grand prize in an annual contest of bad writing.

Garrison Spik, a 41-year-old communications director and writer, took top honors in San Jose State University's 26th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this opening sentence to a nonexistent novel:

"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped 'Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.' "

The contest is named after Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" famously begins "It was a dark and stormy night."

Entrants are asked to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. The top winner receives a $250 prize.

From the Associated Press

Pagani Zonda F

If you need a car that looks and performs like a spaceship -- and have $700,000 squirreled away under the mattress -- the Pagani Zonda is for you.

The Pagani Zonda F is one of the fastest supercars ever made: a staggering 214 mph. It was built using Pagani's extensive experience in carbon fibre construction. With this car, Pagani is among a small group of independent supercar manufacturers that challenge more established competition such as Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini.

The Zonda F is a special edition car that will be built alongside the regular production model. It takes modifications adapted to the C12-S Monza and refines them into a more appealing package. This makes the Zonda F lighter, more powerful, and faster.

Aerodynamics play large role in shaping the new Zonda. More traditional devices include a one piece fixed wing. To help airflow underneath, a larger front splitter and rear diffuser with twin stabilizing wings create even more downforce. Finally at the front is a much larger Air intake to increase cooling effectiveness of the more potent V-12.

The highest model features a huge 650 BHP which allows the car to easily rival cars including the Porsche Carrera GT and the Ferrari Enzo.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a riot!

The annual International Comic Convention, Comic-Con 2007, took San Diego by storm. The convention is something of a mecca for comic and pop culture lovers.

Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's … Richard Zak from New Jersey. This year Zak attended Comic-Con 2007 in his red and blue best, making sure the "Man of Steel" is well represented.
(Mike Blake / Reuters)

Broadway-bound

The Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles will host the world premiere of "9 to 5", the Broadway-bound musical based on the 1980 movie starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton has written the music and lyrics for the show — her first-ever musical. The show opens Sept. 3 through Oct. 19 at the Ahmanson Theatre.

A Return Visit . . . but not for long

Assassins — based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. — features a book by John Weidman with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Paul Gemignani — who was involved with the original Off-Broadway run at Playwrights Horizons in 1990 — served again as musical director. Orchestrations are by Michael Starobin. Musical staging is provided by Jonathan Butterell (Nine)

The original staging of "Assassins" in 1990 at Playwrights Horizons featured Jace Alexander as Oswald, Patrick Cassidy as Balladeer, Victor Garber as Booth, Greg Germann as Hinckley, Anne Golden as Fromme, Lyn Greene as Goldman, Jonathan Hadary as Guiteau, Eddie Korbich as Zangara, Terrence Mann as Czolgosz, Debra Monk as Moore and Lee Wilkof as Byck. The Jerry Zaks-directed staging lasted 71 performances.



Assassins' "Gun Song" quartet Denis O'Hare, Michael Cerveris, James Barbour and Becky Ann Baker.

photo by Joan Marcus

"Welcome Danger" -- Two versions, one with sound, one without.

The 1928 comedy classic "Speedy" (famous scene shown below)is officially known as clown genius Harold Lloyd's last silent film. But was it really?

His 1929 comedy "Welcome Danger" (above) began filming as a silent, but Lloyd realized during production that sound wasn't just a fad, it was more along the lines of a cinematic revolution. So he revamped the story, changed casts and directors, and shot two versions.

Theaters that weren't yet equipped for sound saw the silent version. But the "talkie" version became one of Lloyd's highest-grossing films because audiences were eager to hear the popular silent comedian talk for the first time. Over the decades that followed, the silent version of "Welcome Danger" became a forgotten curio until it was restored a few years ago by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Both versions of the comedy screen for the first time back-to-back tonight at the Billy Wilder Theater.

Though "Welcome Danger" in both forms is rather minor Lloyd, the silent version actually works far better than the talkie.

"Lloyd has an annoying quality about him in the sound version -- he is not the Harold we know," says Jere Guldin, film preservationist for the UCLA archive. Guldin preserved the silent version, which played recently at the UCLA preservation festival. UCLA's Robert Gitt had restored the talkie several years earlier.

"Welcome Danger" finds Lloyd playing the meek botanist son of a legendary former San Francisco police chief who returns to the City by the Bay and ends up uncovering a dope ring in Chinatown.

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Cup Stacking Champion

/

Josephine and Black Cinema

"Princess Tam-Tam," a 1935 film starring Josephine Baker, is one of five movies recalled on a set of U.S. postage stamps recently released to honor vintage black cinema.

Ceremonies marking the sale of the stamps were held at the Newark Museum in New Jersey, which held a black film festival.