FT Chronicle

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy have taken to Twitter to announce their breakup.

The two actors each tweeted Tuesday that they have ended their relationship after five years. Publicists for Carrey and McCarthy confirmed the split.

The 48-year-old Carrey says on the social networking Web site that he wishes her “the very best!”

The 37-year-old McCarthy tweeted that she “will always keep Jim as a leading man in my heart.”

Both say they were grateful for the time they spent together.

McCarthy also tweeted that she would remain involved in his adult daughter’s life.

LOS ANGELES (AP)– With a criminal charge looming, Michael Jackson’s doctor is negotiating his surrender to Los Angeles authorities, his attorney said Thursday.

A statement from Ed Chernoff said he was negotiating with the district attorney’s office for Dr. Conrad Murray to turn himself in, but there has been no agreement on specifics.

Murray has maintained that nothing he gave Jackson should have killed him.

Murray’s arraignment already has been set for Friday afternoon, a person familiar with the planning told The Associated Press. The person declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation.

The possible charge was not disclosed. However, two law enforcement officials have told the AP prosecutors plan to charge Murray with involuntary manslaughter, alleging he gave Jackson a powerful anesthetic that led to his June 25 overdose death at a rented mansion in Los Angeles.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, would not confirm or deny that Murray would appear Friday at the courthouse.

Murray, who has a practice in Houston, came to Los Angeles last weekend and has been strategizing with his defense team.

Police have been investigating Murray since Jackson’s death. The doctor told detectives he’d given the singer a powerful anesthetic and other sedatives to get the chronic insomniac star to sleep. Jackson, 50, died soon thereafter, and investigators have been gathering evidence to try to show Murray was negligent in administering the drugs.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Lawyers for Michael Jackson’s doctor were meeting Wednesday to talk about their client’s defense strategy in the event he’s charged in the death of the singer.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Conrad Murray and his lawyers had received no word from prosecutors about a decision from the district attorney.

Lead attorney Ed Chernoff was waiting for news in a Los Angeles-area hotel, and planned to meet with the other two members of the defense team later in the day.

Chernoff said Murray was at a friend’s house in Santa Monica, where a crowd of paparazzi was waiting outside. Fifteen miles to the east, a contingent of camera crews and photographers waited at the downtown courthouse, but by afternoon some were drifting away.

District Attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said she had no word on when any developments were likely.

Meanwhile, a lawyer who told CBS’ “The Early Show” on Wednesday that Jackson’s family believes involuntary manslaughter charges against Murray would be “just a slap on the wrist” later told the AP he was expressing his own opinions.

Attorney Brian Oxman said the only members of the family he has spoken to are Michael Jackson’s father, Joseph, and sister La Toya, and “they just want justice.”

“I speak for myself and only myself,” said Oxman. “I don’t speak for anyone else and never have presumed to speak for anyone other than myself.”

He said he sometimes reports what others in the family have told him but he is not authorized to be their spokesman.

“They’re not angry,” Oxman said. “They’re not vindictive. They have a loved one who they’ve lost and they’re heartbroken.”

The lawyer representing Jackson’s mother, Katherine, said his client felt the same way.

“Mrs. Jackson is really going to rely on the good faith of the authorities to make sure justice is done,” said Adam Streisand.

Murray told police he administered Jackson a powerful anesthetic and other sedatives shortly before the singer’s death June 25.

Murray maintains nothing he gave Jackson should have killed him.

What’s with the dreaded Vanguard?

Simply as what its description says, “the discarded mantlet of one of Gul’dan’s Death Knights, Vanguard defends its wielder from even the most vicious of attacks with ease. Gives +300 hit points, 6 hit points regenerated per second and 70% chance to block 40 damage.”

Its cost will total of about 2,225 golds.

To break the myths and fears, let’s break down what Vanguard offers to every hero that wields it.

Vanguard only blocks damage that’s reduced by armor (except Exorcism) anyway.

If you have more than one source of Damage Block, the chances will be calculated in reverse order of acquisition, and only one will take place.

Vanguard possesses a passive skill of Hardened Skin. Hardened Skin does nothing of weakening stun and silences, etc. Vanguard will NOT reduce the length of any debuffs, ever. Vanguard has no percentage to block spell damage but only physical damage.
This means that is you can have a greater chance to block if you have more than one Stout Shield or Vanguard, you will have a greater chance, but not double the chance.
With Kraken Shell, things are different, since it has 100% chance. So, in order to make it work with Vanguard or Stout Shield, you need to make sure it will be the last that is checked. So you’ll need to drop the items and pick them up again after you learn the first level of Kraken Shell.

2 vanguards = 140% chance of blocking
3 vanguards = 210% chance of blocking
6 vanguards = 420% chance of blocking

You might think of it but it’s not the way Vanguard goes.

They stack diminishingly and you can only have damage block of one at a time. The more Vanguards you have, the less the first one will be used since blocking items are checked in order of acquisition (or possibly reverse order) in a way so if multiple items proc only the last gotten one will take effect. That’s why it’s so bad to stack them.

Best thing to do, is to never get 2 vanguards.

If the first one doesn’t block the damage the second one will once again have another 70% chance to block the damage.

A single damage instance can’t be blocked twice by 2 different damage block skills. The damage block doesn’t stack, but the chance to proc will stack diminishingly.

The total chance to block damage is then 1-(1-x)(1-y)(1-z)….
where x,y,z and so on are the chances to block the damage from the singly damage block sources.

The damage block amount doesn’t stack. The damage block sources are checked in reverse order of acquisition. The first that procs defines the amount of damage blocked, all others are ignored.

With 2 vanguards you’d have a total chance to block of 1-(1-0.7)(1-0.7)=.91
equals 91% . Damage amount block-able remains the same with 40 but 20 with long-ranged enemies.
Vanguard and Kraken Shell both use the Hardened Skin ability to provide the damage reduction. Damage block is applied BEFORE Armor Type and Armor Value

See Order of damage calculations

Mathematics and logic… Amazing how far I can get by just playing DOTA. Blog out!

Source: DOTA-Allstars Forum

(CNN)– You see him dance, sing and act. But now, you will see him fly and kick some ninjas’ butt. South Korean pop star Rain, stars in “Ninja Assassin,” will show the world how a superstar should be.

Currently, he is preparing for a major Asian concert tour which tickets gone in just matters of minutes. He was hailed as one of People magazine’s most beautiful two years ago, and, despite being relatively unknown to most Americans, beat Stephen Colbert in a Time magazine online poll of most influential people in 2007.

Yet Rain’s climb from unknown backup dancer to a member of Asia’s A-list wasn’t easy: His lack of Western features caused many music labels to look right past him and getting his footing in the United States has been particularly difficult.

Despite having six albums under his belt and selling out a two-day Madison Square Garden tour in 2006, Rain’s “Justin Timberlake meets Usher” brand of bubble-gum pop never saturated pop charts here as it did in the East.

But Rain isn’t one to accept defeat. “The more criticism I get, the more it gives me a stronger urge to win. So I try harder,” he told CNN’s Talk Asia.

“The more times I was turned down, the more I believed I was getting closer to making it. A lot of people in Korea say that failure is the mother of success, so I believed that more times I failed, the more likely I was to succeed,” he said.

The 27-year-old tested Hollywood waters with last year’s “Speed Racer,” but the action film, which he now calls a “warming up period,” failed to give him cross-over recognition.

Now, Rain has a second shot at swimming in the American mainstream with another Wachowski produced film, the cut ‘em and gut ‘em “Ninja Assassin,” where the pop star does most of his own stunts.

“I put my heart and soul into this movie,” he said. Rain trained hard for months to get ready for the movie’s slick violence.

To get the opportunity to finally become an American household name, though, it’s worth it. After all, Rain isn’t the type of guy who shies away from a challenge.

“What I want to do now is start from the bottom again and build up a name in the U.S.,” Rain said.

“I’m hoping people expect a lot from this movie, because I think they will not be disappointed.”

via CNN

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. – Police have to shut down a mall appearance by young popstar Justin Bieber after a wild throng of young girls came rushing by.

People, girls and adults in the Friday crowd of about 3,000, started screaming and then afterwards, the crowd gone wild pushing each other as they waited for the 15-year-old to show at the Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City. Five people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries.

Police arrested James Roppo, a vice president from Bieber’s record label, Island Def Jam Records, for reasons of no cooperation with attempts to disband the mob.

Island Records, which released the Canadian teen’s first album, “My World,” this week, apologized to fans in a written statement.

Bieber’s appearance was still two hours away when things got out of hand and he never made it into the building.

“They are not allowing me to come into the mall,” he said in a message sent to fans through Twitter, the social networking service. He wrote that police had threatened to arrest him if he didn’t leave.

Bieber came to the attention of the music industry when he began posting videos of himself singing on YouTube in 2007.

Photo and news from Yahoo!

Agence France-Presse

LOS ANGELES – The hotly anticipated sequel to vampire romance “Twilight” scored a monster hit at the North American box office on Friday, shattering previous records for midnight openings, reports said.

Entertainment industry reports citing Summit Entertainment said “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” raked in $26.3 million from midnight showings, beating best marks set by “The Dark Knight” and the sixth Harry Potter film.

Batman sequel “The Dark Knight” took 18.4 million on July 18, 2008, and “Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince” earned 22.2 million earlier this year in midnight screenings.

If “New Moon’s” stellar opening carries over into the weekend the film could rewrite the record books further, threatening the opening weekend record of “The Dark Knight”, which took 158.3 million last year.

Based on the books by Stephenie Meyer, the “Twilight” franchise follows the fortunes of high school teenager Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart, and her vampire lover Edward Cullen, played by British hearthrob Robert Pattinson.

The first film in the franchise opened in November 2008, earning an estimated 383 million dollars worldwide.

While young female viewers are the key demographic behind the franchise’s success, analysts say the sequel may have successfully lured male cinema-goers with a marketing campaign emphasizing action as well as romance.

“This is extremely impressive,” said Jeff Bock, chief analyst at box office tracker Exhibitor Relations. “I don’t think anyone was expecting figures like this.

“This has become an event like a Harry Potter book being released. If it has crossed over demographically then we could see it challenge ‘The Dark Knight’ numbers, which would be extraordinary.”

Bock described the film’s appeal as “lightning in a bottle.”

“You’ve got the obvious appeal of vampires and werewolves, but it’s also the element of immortal love, which is timeless,” he said.

“The makers of this film always had females in their back pocket. They ramped up the action and that may have brought males into the picture.

“If they’ve been successful we could be looking at something like 130 or 140 million for an opening weekend.”

An unexpected $2.2 million estimated returns for a Tuesday in October was pulled in by Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” movie said Steve Elzer, senior vice president of media relations at Sony, the studio that acquired the rights to “This Is It” footage from concert promoter AEG for $60 million.

They observe a huge number of moviegoers to come in the theaters with the volume added by online tickets buyers will surpass Tuesday’s earnings.

At first, there are rumors circulating about the movie like Michael Jackson’s doubles but was denied by Sony Entertainment proving that there’s no other performer there nor impersonators but the real Michael Jackson himself.

Reviews of the film have been largely positive, and fans are mostly impressed, even Rottentomatoes.com rated the movie “80 percent fresh”.

The film features Jackson singing and dancing to some of his biggest hits, including “Beat It,” “Black or White”, “Man in the Mirror”, and “Thriller” proving himself the real King Of Pop despite of his age.

The film “This Is It”, which runs 112 minutes, will show in 99 countries, and early reports from overseas territories show strong audience attendance

Via CNN