Morning, readers.
*Vanity Fair reports on the more prevalent issue surrounding health care reform: How will the plots of movies be affected if there are no asshole insurance companies? Among the films that would have never been able to be made: As Good As It Gets, Domino, Erin Brockovich, Sicko, and the most recent release, Repo Men. I’m glad someone is finally looking into what matters.
*Kotaku announces that a new site called GameCrush (warning: NSFW) launches today, where members essentially pay women to play Xbox or Flash games with them via webcam. Players can choose whether or not they want their partner to be “Flirty” or “Dirty,” but no word yet on whether not they can choose them to be “Alive” or “Interested.”
*Gossip site OhNoTheyDidnt posts a compilation of “real rap bitches” dissing up and coming female rapper, Nicki Minaj. Rapper Rye Rye suggests she’s heard it all before; MC Ms. Hustle imitates Nicki’s signature “Barbie” style, claiming it’s too easy; and lyricist Keys singlehandedly destroys Nicki’s barbs that she’s killed every other “rap bitch in the building” by freestyling to the beat of Nicki’s own “Itty Bitty Piggy.” My personal favorite lyric: “Then I said he’s talking about his new own rap bitch/I told him ‘hold tight, I just had to click that shit/Then I’m like ‘What? My shit must got a virus’/This is not a rap bitch, this is Miley Cyrus.” Boom, roasted. (Here’s Nicki’s original version for comparison.)
*DCistreports that local District musician We Were Pirates‘s (real name Mike Boggs) song “Settle Down” was used on a recent episode of The Real World D.C., and another tune of his will be used in the forthcoming season finale on March 31. This ups the tally of things that are genuinely D.C. about this season of The Real World to one.
*Time Warner, Lions Gate, and Access Industries compete to buy debt-ridden MGM.
*Gospel and blues singer Marva Wright dies at 62.
*Jerry Springer starts taping for his new show on the Game Show Network, Baggage, next week. No word on whether said baggage involves midget strippers and incestual marriages.