Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld have put out their second ad for Microsoft which only makes a moderate amount of sense. It features the two mega rich middle aged men living in a house with what’s supposed to be an average American family. It’s a bit more amusing than the last ad in which they struggled to try on shoes at a mall, which isn’t saying much. This commercial will not do much to improve the image of the most widely used and derided computer operating system. What are they trying to say? That Microsoft is middle America – that they’re middle America? As I mentioned in our article about the first ad, I liked the swirlie doodle ads about people’s business dreams better.

While I have to admit that Bill Gates is kind of funny and endearing, it still doesn’t make dealing with his software any more tolerable. It’s like they want us to embrace Microsoft despite its many flaws because it’s just like everyday life. Sh*t happens and it’s occasionally somewhat amusing if you have a low-key attitude about it. Now excuse me while my computer reboots because it’s just downloaded the latest Vista “update” which will force me to re-register several programs. I wish I was kidding.

When are you coming out with an operating system, Google? Please save us from this inane excuse for an OS. And don’t tell me to switch to a Mac, I’ve already paid for all this software. Do any of you use those free open source operating systems like Linux or FreeBSD? Can an average person work those or do you have to be a techie?

Let me take this opportunity to recommend a free Microsoft Office alternative called Open Office. It’s put out by Sun Microsystems and is just as easy to use and powerful as Office. It has a word processing program like Word, a spreadsheet program like Excel, and it even has a Powerpoint alternative. And you can save all your documents in formats that work in Microsoft Office for when you need to share them. I’ve used it for several months without a problem and it’s saved me hundreds on software. So bite me, Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. You wasted millions on these stupid ads that just cement how clueless you are.

Thanks to E! Online for the heads up on the video.

Jerry Seinfeld is said to have been paid around $10 million to represent Microsoft in a campaign that will cost the company $300 million. There are surely more ridiculous douche-tastic commercials coming, but this one takes the cake. Pretty much literally, considering the ending, which people on The Huffington Post are saying basically means “let them eat cake.” This commercial makes no sense, isn’t funny, and just brings it home how out of touch Microsoft is. Seinfeld isn’t funny or relevant anymore, but they figured they’d hire him and he does seem like an apt representative for their shitty brand.

I really liked those Microsoft commercials with the little swirlies and doodles that showed the possibilities with the software. And the Amy Sedaris bunny-run cakeshop ads were genius. Both made me feel a little better about putting up with Microsoft products for hours daily, but this ad just makes me want to switch to a Mac.

Humor is one of those things that is totally subjective and completely open for debate. A lot of people think that in order for something to be truly funny, it has to be risky or offensive. And while I don’t agree with that, safe humor is never quite as good as the jokes that walk a much finer line.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld seems to really be straddling that line lately. Over the last year he and wife Jessica have been embroiled in a heated legal battle over a cookbook, Deceptively Delicious, that Jessica appears to have blatantly plagiarized from author Missy Chase Lapine’s The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favourite Meal. Lapine has sued the Seinfields – but not just for plagiarism.

Though at the time she hadn’t made a single comment about the whole debacle, Seinfeld thought it appropriate to mock her mercilessly on late night television and make Lapine out to be some sort of whackjob; making some stupid joke that, “If you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins.” In addition to the ideas and the recipes, Celebitchy pointed out that Jessica also stole some of the “personal” stories from Chase Lapine’s book.

The Seinfelds are also being sued for slander, and are using just about the stupidest defense strategy I’ve ever heard of.

Jerry Seinfeld insisted yesterday he ought to be the master of his own comic domain. Seinfeld didn’t slander the woman who accused his wife of ripping off her cookbook, he said in legal papers filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court. He was just mining the legal system for laughs – and supporting the right of standup comedians to do the same, he said.

Seinfeld cited several episodes of the “show about nothing” where he mocked frivolous lawsuits – including an episode where Kramer wins free coffee for life in a court settlement because he got burned on gourmet roast. His lawyers, who are trying to get the defamation suit against him tossed, pointed out that his flick “Bee Movie” also has a plot that revolved around a silly suit.

In the movie, a bumblebee voiced by the comic sues honey manufacturers for exploiting bees. And rock star Sting is hauled in as a witness. Seinfeld was hit with the slander suit because he called author Missy Chase Lapine, who claims his wife, Jessica, copied her cookbook, a “wacko” and “mentally unhinged celebrity stalker” on David Letterman’s show. Lapine, author of “Sneaky Chef,” is suing Jessica, too. Lawyers for Seinfeld insisted his suit is no joke – because the First Amendment protects humor. And the attorneys said allowing Lapine’s suit to go forward would make it impossible for other comedians to get laughs out of lawsuits.

[From the New York Post]

First off, the utterly ridiculous ideas from your not-all-that-funny-after-all show don’t actually hold any ground in the court of law. And while free speech should be protected, there are also slander laws for a reason, and Ms. Lapine is in no way treading over Seinfeld’s free speech by insisting that he not needlessly attack her.

Missy Chase Lapine would look like the victim here no matter what. But it’s truly shocking to see the way the Seinfelds have come after her. Jessica stole the idea for her book. Then instead of apologizing or doing whatever version of “making it right” she could think of, her husband goes on national television to tell the world that Lapine is crazy. Again, keep in mind that although other people had made a lot of comments about the two books at this point, Missy Chase Lapine had acted with utter decorum and dignity and hadn’t said one single word.

That takes more restraint than most people could ever summon. So it’s not as though the Seinfelds were defending themselves or responding to anything Lapine had ever said. They were just using this poor woman – who they’d already taken advantage of in a terrible way – to try to get a few more seconds of publicity (and money) for themselves. Their behavior is utterly disgusting, and calling it a free speech issue degrades true free speech arguments. I hope they lose a ton of money.

Here’s a side-by-side book comparison that Celebitchy did. Header of Jerry and Jessica at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. Images thanks to PR Photos.

Jerry Seinfeld has been asked to do for Microsoft what Justin Long did for Apple – make it cool and hip with the young crowd. Or at least the middle aged crowd.

The $US300 million dollar campaign, which is one of the largest ever undertaken by the software giant, is aimed at establishing a cachet for the computer operating system and will feature Seinfeld along with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

The theme of the campaign will be “Windows not Walls,” the Wall Street Journal reported today, and will focus on “breaking down barriers that prevent people and ideas from connecting.”

The campaign is seen as Microsoft’s attempt to hit back at Apple’s long running series of Mac vs PC ads, which feature a nerdy PC guy losing out to a cool representative of Apple’s increasingly popular Macs.

Sydney Morning Herald

I think it makes perfect sense to hit back at Apple’s statement that PC users are dull – because it’s those dull, middle aged baby boomers with all the money to spend on new computer gimmicks. I know so many middle aged men who are indulging their inner computer geeks. You know the men I mean, they had cell phones in the mid 90s that were so large they’d pull their pants down if they put them in their pocket.

Of course, if you’re like me and been working with a PC for 10 years you really can’t be bothered moving all that stuff over to a new Apple Mac, even if it is possibly the better system, so Microsoft needs to recruit now to sell more computers later.

Jerry, who probably makes more money a minute on re-runs and syndications of his show than most people make in a week, has had success recently with his four year long project Bee Movie. He will be paid $10million for his role in the Microsoft commercials.

Note by Celebitchy: It seems incredibly fitting that Microsoft would pick such an annoying guy past his prime to represent their product. The next time my PC crashes with that too-long beep and the white text scrolling on the blue screen of death, I’ll think of Jerry Seinfeld. Now I have a face other than Gates to take my ire out on.

Here’s how to turn off User Account Control in Vista, which is one of the most annoying features of the OS.

Header image of Seinfeld was taken 11/2/07 outside the ‘Regis and Kelly’ show. Credit: Ray Filmano / WENN. That’s supposedly an actual Vista error message. Credit: Sensory Metrics

Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t exactly gotten the greatest reputation this last year. A lot of it had to do with his wife Jessica possibly plagiarizing the majority of her cookbook . And then Jerry making fun of the woman she plagiarized from on national television. Even though the original author had not said a single word about Jessica Seinfeld publicly. Which resulted in a much-deserved lawsuit.

There have long been rumors that Seinfeld can be rather aloof and distant, and it appears he’s even that way to his mother. Well, his television mother. Liz Sheridan played Jerry’s TV mom on Seinfeld for nine years, yet she can’t even get his phone number or get a message through to him because of all his “people.” So instead of being able to ask for his help directly, she had to do it via a rather circuitous route: radio.

Jerry Seinfeld’s “mom” is feeling abandoned by her superstar TV son. In a chat with BlogTalkRadio airing today, Liz Sheridan, who spent nine years playing Helen Seinfeld on “Seinfeld,” says “the most important thing in the whole world” is getting a movie made of her book, “Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean – A Love Story.” (That 2000 memoir recounts her brief engagement to Dean during the early ’50s.)

Moments later, Sheridan, 79, is asked, “If you had the ability to have dinner tonight with anyone in history, who would it be and why?” She replies, “Jerry Seinfeld. Why? I’d ask him to help me raise the money for my movie.” And when the interviewer says, “I’m sure that he would if you called him up,” Sheridan laments, “I don’t even know how to get in touch with him. He’s got so many ‘people’ in front of him, you can’t get to him. And I don’t have his phone number.”

[From the New York Post]

What an awkward situation. I’m sure Seinfeld gets hit up for money all the time, which is probably why he has so many people acting as barriers. But you’d think a co-star of nine years would at least have the guy’s number or be able to get in contact with him. You can’t blame an actress for wanting to do whatever it takes to get her movie made. The book doesn’t sound incredibly original, but it has good reviews on Amazon. Even if Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t want to be attached to the project, you’d think he’d still be reachable enough for his longtime costar to talk to him directly.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s vintage Fiat flipped over yesterday in the Hamptons after his brakes failed. He got up and walked out of the crash without any injuries, and his wife says he’s fine and was just a little shaken. Seinfeld pulled the emergency brake when the brakes failed and cut the car swiftly to the side to avoid oncoming traffic, which is when it flipped over. No other cars were hit:

The dramatic accident occurred at 7:40 p.m. Saturday on Skimhampton Road in East Hampton, said East Hampton Police Chief Todd Sarris.

Seinfeld was alone in the vehicle, driving north toward Montauk Highway.

“The brakes went bad,” Sarris said. But Jerry kept his head.

“He had to pull the emergency brake,” which Sarris said still failed to halt the two-door vehicle as it headed into traffic on the highway.

Seinfeld then cut the wheel to the right and “the car rolled over” and stopped yards from the intersection – just short of other vehicles.

The 1967 Fiat BTM rolled onto the passenger side, then the roof, and finally came to rest on the driver’s side.

“His actions probably avoided a very serious accident,” Sarris said. “I think he was a little shaken up, with justification.”

Police rushed to the scene, but the comic did not require medical attention.

The accident was chalked up to mechanical failure. Seinfeld had not been drinking and no summonses were issued, Sarris said.

A friend following Seinfeld in another car drove him to his nearby East Hampton mansion.

[From The NY Post]

Seinfeld made a stupid joke about the incident that brings home how dated and unfunny his skits are.

“Because I know there are kids out there, I want to make sure they all know that driving without braking is not something I recommend, unless you have professional clown training or a comedy background, as I do. It is not something I plan to make a habit of.”

I’m glad he got away unhurt and all, but couldn’t he have damaged someone else’s car or property and be faced with a massive lawsuit? The guy needs to be slapped with another one.

Seinfeld owns something like 47 Porsches, according to the NY Post, and had a huge multi million dollar garage built in NY city just to house his cars. Heaven forbid that building should burn to the ground or anything.

Jerry Seinfeld is making a comeback. Insert groan here ________. Thanks. Jerry’s going to be doing another show about nothing, or something close to it. Supposedly it’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” but with Jerry. Which is weird because “Curb Your Enthusiasm” was very much Seinfeld-like but with Larry David, and all the personality quirks and swear words amped up so it was “edgy” and fit for HBO. So essentially these two guys have one idea between them, and they just keep volleying it back and forth. Though we’ve been promised no insane “Bee Movie” promotion, I highly doubt that’ll actually happen, seeing as how yesterday when I was in Midtown Jerry Seinfeld was wandering up and down the sidewalks on 36th Street mumbling “Bee Movie Bee Movie Bee Movie Bee Movie I’m Jerry Seinfeld Bee Movie Bee Movie,” over and over again. But hey, at least this time he wasn’t wearing the costume.

Sources tell PageSix.com that the 53-year-old comedian is in talks for a new series on his old net. The show is being pitched as “just like Curb Your Enthusiasm, but with Jerry, instead of Larry.”

We guess it’s better than a show about nothing!

The series, which is aiming for a June premiere, will be set in New York and will feature Jerry Seinfeld playing himself in an exaggerated reality. The whole thing is a bit confusing for us — if Larry David in Curb was what would have happened had Seinfeld been called Costanza, what happens when Seinfeld goes Curb?

Thank goodness that as we speak, NBC is hiring people to answer these tough questions.

[From Page Six]

Awesome. Because what America really needs is more of this hack. I used to love Jerry Seinfeld until he got married. Why? Because 1) he first met and seduced his wife Jessica while she was on her honeymoon with her first husband and 2) several years later, said wife blatantly plagiarized a whole cookbook and 3) Seinfeld’s reaction to it was to call the plagiarized author, Missy Chase Lapine, a complete whackjob and make fun of her on Letterman even though Lapine had not made or commented publicly on the plagiarizing claims. What a class act.

In related news, Missy Chase Lapine eventually filed a very well-deserved lawsuit against both the Seinfelds – Jessica for plagiarizing the books, and Jerry for slandering her on Letterman – which the Seinfelds recently tried to have thrown out. Jerry claims that he was exaggerating for comedic effect – and while that was possible true, Lapine had done absolutely nothing to deserve being the victim of his barbs. She had at that point been silent while Jessica Seinfeld stole her ideas and made money off them! Interestingly, Jessica Seinfeld has the same literary agent – Jennifer Rudolph Walsh – as another plagiarizing author, Kaavya Viswanathan. Kind of makes you wonder.

Header of the Seinfelds at Madonna’s “A Night to Benefit Raising Malawi and UNICEF” (cough cough fake Kabbalah cult cough). Images thanks to PR Photos.

Update by Celebitchy: NBC and Seinfeld’s rep have both denied this report and say there is no show in the works.

Jessica Seinfeld recently published a book, Deceptively Delicious, about how to sneak healthy foods into your cooking, to fool your kids into eating them. Like muffins with carrots in them. Which works very well if you can get your kid to eat a muffin.

The book was published in October 2007, hot on the heels of another book titled The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favourite Meals which came out in April. The two books have a few of the same recipies, and The Sneaky Chef aka Missy Chase Lapine has a remarkably similar method for discovering how to add vegetables into mac and cheese.

Jessica Seinfeld’s book plagiarized Lapine’s in concept, cover art – including a similar picture showing hidden carrots – style and structure, according to the lawsuit that seeks unspecified damages.

When Seinfeld appeared on Letterman’s show, he said the books were published at the same time and implied Lapine was a “wacko” and celebrity stalker, comments the suit – filed in Manhattan federal court – described as “false.”

Seinfeld also joked that Lapine accused his wife of “vegetable plagiarism” and poking fun at Lapine’s name and mental condition, including contending that “if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins,” before citing John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman, the suit said.

The suit said the comedian later told E! News, “this woman is another kind of nut. You know, she thinks she invented vegetables. And she is accusing my wife of stealing her mashed-up carrots.”

Sydney Morning Herald

I checked out the two cover images on Amazon – The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious are both linked to each other because of their similarities – and I think the ‘hidden carrots’ aren’t really hidden, it’s just that both covers have carrots. What do you think?

I honestly think that it was completely wrong, but I do wonder if Jessica Seinfeld did actually come up with the recipe book concept herself. I have three kids (so does Jessica) that I cook for, and I can tell you right now that in between the cursing and yelling (that’s me) and the crying and naughtiness (that’s them) I am not experimenting in the kitchen. I am basically slopping food on the kids plates before spending three hours making aeroplane noises to get them to eat anything.

Meanwhile, Missy Chase Lapine is a former food magazine editor and creator of a baby goods range.

Recently the books have been criticised for creating poor eating habits. Experts say that hiding vegetables in your kids food means they never acquire the taste of veggies and create good eating habits for adulthood. Also, a little bit of vegetable mixed into the sauce of a dish is going to carry very little of the nutritional value that a whole vegetable would.

This hasn’t stopped anyone buying the books, and I hope that Jessica Seinfeld hands over some of the money she’s made from her book to Missy Lapine. What probably happened is that Jessica’s book was due to be handed in to publishers and she didn’t have enough ideas, so she ‘borrowed’ a few from other sources.

Also, some compensation is due from the Seinfeld couple using their profile to not only sell their book, but also to call Lapine ‘crazy’.

Picture note by Celebitchy: I made the header image, and I see a lot of similarities between those two book covers. Some may be a coincidence, but it’s hardly possible that all the similar recipes are just a coincidence too.

Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t exactly been ingratiating himself with the writers at Celebitchy lately. First his wife appeared to have plagiarized a lot of her new cookbook from former publisher of Eating Well magazine Missy Chase Lapine. That’s probably not Jerry’s fault, but we’re going to call him guilty by association. Then he mentioned that he spent some time studying Scientology, and talked about its good points. That’s like saying Hell isn’t really all that hot, just comfortably balmy. Finally on Monday night Seinfeld was on Letterman, where he called Lapine “a wacko.” As far as I know, Lapine hadn’t even commented publicly on the controversy at that point – and Seinfeld tried to make it sound like she was the one drumming it up. Considering how blatant the plagiarism appears to be, the Seinfelds should be apologizing right and left, and their publisher should have considered pulling the book in an attempt to avoid litigation. So Jerry Seinfeld has tried to smooth over one of the controversies – though I’m not sure it’s the one he should most apologize for. He explained his Scientology dabbling to “Access Hollywood” and wrote it off, saying he was flittering from one thing to the other at the time.

Among their topics of conversation? The stir Seinfeld recently caused when he revealed he’d dabbled in Scientology. “I did some Scientology courses about 30 years ago,” Jerry told Billy. “The only thing that bothers me about people knowing that is that it is not my complete wacko resume. It’s just one aspect! I am very interested in self help things,” Jerry continued. “When I was a young man in my 20s I would explore like meditation, and I studied Aikido and karate and yoga and I would just take little things from each of these things.”

“But everyone else takes from yoga and Aikido and all those things, but Scientology has this stigma around it. And you say it was very helpful?” Bush asked. “Yeah, well I didn’t do very much. I don’t know that much, I just did a little but I liked it,” Seinfeld said. “Why did you stop?” Bush asked. “I don’t know… I was kind of flitting from thing to thing. I was interested in exploring,” Seinfeld noted.

[From MSNBC]

I guess that actually does make some sense. Seinfeld was pretty vague about his reasons, but I think a lot of us flitter from thing to thing in our twenties. I learned about lots of religions trying to figure out which one made sense, and did read up on Scientology. Of course that’s also when I realized it was one of the craziest messes of nonsense I’d ever encountered. But their literature had to be some of the funniest stuff I’ve read in a long time. I’m telling you, Dave Barry has nothing on L. Ron Hubbard.

In other Seinfeld “Vegetable Plagiarism” news, Missy Chase Lepine and her publisher, Running Press, did respond to Seinfeld’s comments on Letterman.

“As the publisher of The Sneaky Chef we are troubled that a celebrity of Jerry Seinfeld’s stature chose to go on the Late Show with David Letterman last night and personally attack the book’s author, Missy Chase Lapine.

This controversy arose out of concerns expressed by parents on message boards who noticed that the recent book by Jessica Seinfeld is similar to The Sneaky Chef which was published 6 months earlier. Neither we nor our author have publicly accused anyone of anything.”

Statement of Missy Chase Lapine, author of The Sneaky Chef:

“It was painful to be called names on national TV when I am just a mom who wrote a cookbook to help parents get their kids to eat well.”

[From PRNewswire]

I think the Seinfelds are starting to look pretty low-class, and their timing couldn’t be worse. Promoting Jerry’s first movie and Jessica’s first book seems like a bad time to take the low road.

Picture note by Jaybird: Header image of Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld at the “Bee Movie” Los Angeles Premiere on October 28th. Image thanks to PR Photos.

Jessica Seinfeld wrote a book called “Deceptively Delicious” about sneaking vegetables into your kids’ food. It’s pretty popular, she got a special on Oprah, and more kids are eating butternut squash mac and cheese as a result. Unfortunately, another lady named Missy Chase Lepine wrote pretty much the same book, called “The Sneaky Chef,” a few months before Jessica Seinfeld, and now Seinfeld is being accused of plagiarism. Though she denies the charges, it seems like there’s a pretty strong case against her: some of the recipes and phrasing are nearly identical. Celebitchy wrote a great article comparing the two books.

Well Jerry Seinfeld seemed to think it was a good idea to brand Lepine a “whacko.” Even if Jessica Seinfeld is totally innocent and never saw the other book, Lepine is certainly not a whacko for noting the remarkable similarity between the two. But Seinfeld seems to think it’s a good idea to slander other people who I’m guessing are already feeling pretty litigious.

Jerry Seinfeld turned his wife’s recent cookbook controversy into a comedy bit Monday night, telling David Letterman he and Jessica Seinfeld are paying no mind to the “wackos.”

“One of the fun facts of celebrity life is that wackos will wait in the woodwork to pop out at certain moments to inject a little adrenaline,” he said on CBS’s Late Show Monday night.

The former Must-See star, 53, who was on the show to promote his Bee Movie, couldn’t help but chime in on what he’s dubbed the “vegetable plagiarism” controversy surrounding his wife Jessica’s best-seller Deceptively Delicious – namely, claims that some of the recipes weren’t hers.

“If you’re any good as a woodwork wacko, you’re patient. You pick your moment and then you spring out and go wacko,” Seinfeld told Letterman. “There’s another woman who had another cookbook. And it was a similar kind of thing. My wife never saw the book, read the book, never used the book. But the books came out at the same time. So this woman says ‘I sense this could be wacko moment,’ so she comes out and accuses my wife.

[From People]

I’ve pretty much decided that Jerry Seinfeld is a jerk. I was neutral before, then the whole “defending Scientology” thing made me edge a little towards dislike. Being married to a plagiarizer didn’t help things but her actions weren’t his fault. But calling a totally innocent person a whacko because your wife seems to have stolen her stuff pretty much makes you a jerk. I’d make a “Jerk store” joke, but it’d only be funny if you watched “Seinfeld.” Actually it wasn’t even funny then. So he’s pretty much just an ass.

Picture note by Jaybird: Header image of Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld at the “Bee Movie” Los Angeles Premiere on October 28th. Image thanks to PR Photos.