Pulse: Quick Takes
T.O.’s Next Act
Will the locker-room dalliance with Nicolette Sheridan be remembered as the start of a great dramatic career for Terrell Owens? Owens will likely appear this spring in an episode of former Eagle Fred Barnett’s new online-only sitcom City Livin’: Philadelphia. Barnett pitched the idea for the show to Greer Lange, a Bala Cynwyd talent agency representing him for modeling work. The first episode, now online at citylivin.com, is filled with only-in-Philly celebs: Ed Rendell, Gervase Peterson, Angelo Cataldi. Owens was scheduled to tape a part in October, but canceled and seemed uninterested in the project — until after the Monday Night Football scandal, when his agent started calling to get him in a future episode. “I think he has the acting bug,” says Greer Lange’s Stacy B. Rosen, the show’s executive producer.
Streaking Triplets
Dating back to the sixth grade, 18-year-old Lauren, Ashley and Missy Walls, of Berlin, New Jersey, haven’t lost a single field hockey game — an unbeaten streak that’s carried their high school, Eastern, to a national-record 138-win tear, and a sixth consecutive state championship. The Walls girls have committed to James Madison in Virginia, and sound cautiously optimistic about keeping The Streak alive. “It would be nice, but it would be really hard,” says Lauren. “We just hope to start, win some games and have fun.”
Honeymoon in A.C.
Attention, Britney Spears: This is the last Valentine’s Day when Las Vegas will stand unchallenged as the place to gamble, get drunk, and exchange vows you’ll later regret. The Pier at Caesars, a retail complex scheduled to open on Atlantic City’s Boardwalk this fall, will feature a wedding chapel that will probably open onto the beach. It will not, however, feature quickie nuptials with impersonators of local heroes: New Jersey law requires that marriage-license applications be filed 72 hours in advance, and who wants to hire a Steve Lawrence look-alike? “A lot of people are looking for a unique location for their wedding,” says Tracy Fauntleroy, marketing director for developer Gordon Group. “It would not be typically Vegas-style.”
Philly Papers Stopped by Great Firewall of China
Much has been made of the Chinese government’s habit of keeping foreign websites inaccessible behind a firewall, but a recent perusal of media pages — from the New York Times, the Washington Post and ABC News down to PoliticsPA, the Philadelphia Weekly and Philebrity — from a public computer at a Guangzhou café yielded only one American news outlet that was blocked: Philly.com. What in the Inquirer or Daily News could possibly be tweaking Beijing? Experts say the firewalls tend to block coverage of controversial topics like Falun Gong and Tibet. Last year, according to Knight Ridder Digital’s Nava Bromberger, Philly.com had only 109 visitors from the world’s most populous nation — compared to 123 from Zimbabwe.
