News Round-Up

James Brown died on Christmas day, but his body has yet to be buried. While the singer's children and attorneys work to settle the issues surrounding his estate, Brown’s body lies in a sealed casket in his Georgian home, where the air is temperature-controlled and security guards man the doors. We’re kinda creeped out by all of this.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, HBO is developing a new series that will star Kayne West. The project will be overseen by Larry Charles, the executive producer/director behind Curb Your Enthusiasm, the first two seasons of Entourage, and the Borat movie. Looks like the Kayne show will be some sort of reality series based on the rapper’s hectic life, but HBO declined to comment. Oh well. Here’s to hoping Kayne’s egoism and super-fly sunglasses are enough to spice up the Emmy’s next year.

In other news, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled his company’s latest invention yesterday: the iPhone. The device basically combines your standard iPod with a Blackberry, meaning you can listen to music and surf the ‘net while receiving calls and e-mails. The thing costs $500, though, and we don’t really see why we should cough up that money if we already own both an iPod and a phone. Perhaps Rolling Stone explains it better:

"So you’re leaving The Shins’ show and you can’t get “New Slang” out of your head? Well, if you’ve got the newly unveiled iPhone, before you’re out the door you can go online, download it, play it, then call all your friends to remind them what a douche you are, all on one handy device only slightly bigger than a deck of cards."