With these two ads, Tarantino joins a long line of U.S. celebrities who have flown across the Pacific to do zany Japanese commercials. If you'll recall, Brad Pitt did a few Softbank spots not too long ago too. This one though, by far, is the most bat shit insane of them all. [CNET]

In America, Brad Pitt's cool enough to dump gorgeous stars like Jennifer Aniston and walk away to a small pile of babies. In Japan, he's just sumo champion Musashimaru's butler.

But we must admit, Pitt does a pretty good job as a butler. If the whole movie star thing doesn't work out, we could use someone to hold our cellphone while cradling us tenderly. [via MobileCrunch]

This is like third-hand info, but supposedly, Angelina spouted nonstop to a production assistant on the set of her upcoming film Salt about the Palm Pre: "She likes the software better than the iPhone, she likes the thumboard for texting (although the keys aren't big enough), and thinks the screen is beautiful but can be too easily scratched." So there you have it—Angelina Jolie thinks the Pre has better software, but the screen is scratchy, which matches up with earlier reports about the screen, actually.

Ms. Jolie, if you ever want to hit us with some more impressions or gadget insights, please do. We'd love to hear them. [Palm Pre]

Update: A Palm spokesperson is telling us that this may be false, and they didn't give a Pre to Angelina. Interesting.

It turns out the phone belonged to a producer from Working Titles Films who didn't understand that when you sell a phone, all of the data stays on it. Oops! The purchaser sent the phone back like a good boy and in return will be getting a replacement BlackBerry and free tickets to see Billy Elliot. Awesome? [Without Papers via [Telegraph via The Daily What]

The beauty of Flickr is its serendipity. I found Mr Perverso's oh-so-perverse materials by innocently typing "I love Jesus" into the search box. Usually I'm on the hunt for stuff at work such as "Treo unboxing," "broken iPhone" or "computer dungeon," which gets you some guy's basement server farm, screenshots of PC-based RPGs, and, for some reason, a shot of a dude's first computer, an Atari 800. But "dungeon", all by itself, gets you into much more trouble: French châteaux, a shackles-and-rubber-gasmask outfit attached to a cross, a girl in stripy socks and a picture that is so NSFW I will only tell you that the person whose stream it is has a blog devoted to the art of the blow-job.

The crazy thing is that, unlike some photo sites, Flickr uploads are public and searchable. Why are people so interested in sharing their most tender or outrageous or embarrassing moments with the world? My theory is that beyond friends-n-family photo sharing, many people on Flickr are amateur photographers and artists who want to show off what they can do, but beyond that there are the crazy cakes just dying to have themselves a bunch of virtual friends who will write a testimony like "April-May's deep-throat technique just has to be seen to be believed." And what keeps me coming back is that it's always changing. A search from one day to the next can yield totally different results.

Here are some quick fun tag safaris to illustrate the point:
• Taxidermist
• Foshizzle
• Space Pants or, better still, Spacepants
• Repossession - Note the Jude Law cameo
• Disco Biscuit
• Junk In the Trunk

I get a tingly sensation looking into the private lives of random people. Sure it's mostly mundane stuff—weddings, parties, vacations—but on occasions you can get a sudden rush of tenderness mixed with guilt, like when stumbling on these secret stolen moments of a couple of strangers at Glasto.

There's a knack to celebrity stalking on Flickr. Direct searches turn up eclectic results. Bill Gates brings up pictures of bananas, a subway escalator—even windows as opposed to Windows—before fielding a couple of shots of the actual software baron with Michael Arrington, with Steve and Walt, and, heh, with an iPhone. There was nothing at all interesting for either Clooney or Madonna. Hayden Panettiere turned up a few shots of the saved cheerleader licking things, if you're into that sort of stuff. Looking for particular celebs, it seems, is a waste of time; you've got to cast a wider net (like using the actual word "celebrity" in a search") and just see which A-Listers (or B-Listers or C-Listers) get caught.

All of sleb life is here, from A(niston) to (Jay-)Z. Look! It's Tara Reid and Tommy Lee hanging out in a bar. What they might lack in make-up they sure make up for in drunkenness. Here's a giant, beige John Goodman queuing up for some bar-b-que. It's Twisted Sister's Dee Snyder actually looking cool, and Keanu Reeves actually looking irritated. Kirk Hammet from Metallica seems to have taken the time and effort to have his shirt match the shopfront he was photographed outside of. Here's a great back-of-the-head shot of Paris Hilton and a wax model of Lady Di that I thought was a tranny lookalike.

You can actually play games with Flickr as well. Rather than going on individual tag safaris like the ones above, you can embark on a sort of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: How far can you get from one subject in six moves? I started off with Porkins, going via POTUS, Pewkus, Poker and Bummer before ending up back in Star Wars country (sort of), at Clones.

I've made some peculiar discoveries. For one, Konaboy, whose Spring Clean picture cropped up in about 60% of my searches, seems to be Flickr's Kevin Bacon. Another, Pisces Romance, showed me how to say "I wuv woo" with roses and sunsets. Best of all (especially Jesus), I found a recently-uploaded pic of—I'm guessing here—the upcoming series of Flight of the Conchords. It's Brett and Jermaine in roller-disco mood. Because, my little friends, on Flickr, it's always Business Time.

...I don't really know how to turn on a computer.

Stars Customize PS3s in Vegas [Complex]

This is just a lesson. You never know what worthless, broken gadgets of yours will eventually become superstar celebrities on hit television shows. So get to Ebay and start selling that worthless crap. Hit the link to read the full, somewhat entertaining, story.

I'm a celebrity, you're not... [Summel]

Today I touched on some cellphone hacking/protection techniques, and the LG Chocolate phone. We have beat the Chocolate like a dead horse in the past, so you can find all of our coverage here. Don't forget to check out what Mossberg thinks of the Chocolate.

For cellphone hacking/tweaking for beginners I would recommend the Spoofcard. It is pretty much a calling card that allows you to display any caller ID number on outgoing calls, therefore being able to gain access into voicemails and such. It also allows for more efficient prank calls, and even recording of said prank calls. This was the same product that recently got Paris Hilton busted, for hacking into Lindsey Lohan's voicemail. If you don't feel like paying the money for these Spoofcards, just hit *67 before dialing the number to hide your caller ID info. – Travis Hudson

Hilton has been accused of this crime because the "wording of the messages sounds very familiar" according to Lohan's spokeswoman, Leslie Sloane. Hilton's representive essentially replied "She didn't do it, you sux0r." From which Lohan's crew replied "Nuh huh, st00pid n00b." Hilton is currently ganking Lohan up and down the streets of Hollywood. – Travis Hudson

Hinton Denies Lohan Blackberry Hacking [Via The Raw Feed]