Have you seen the fake news reports of celebrity deaths via snowboarding accident in Switzerland? Earlier this week, a friend posted them on Facebook. I saw one about Charlie Sheen and MathMan saw one about Adam Sandler. Both allegedly died from slamming into a tree while snowboarding in Switzerland. No drugs or alcohol were believed to be involved, but damn if that isn't some coincidence! If Sonny Bono can die while skiing then it seems perfectly plausible that Charlie Sheen might die in a snowboarding accident. Or at the hands of an angry prostitute. But no prostitutes were mentioned in this particular online news story.
I asked MathMan to vet it for me because I had really important things to do. Like read or watch a movie or eat something. Or maybe I didn't trust myself to use Google because things seems so complicated lately. MathMan found nothing. Even a couple of hours later, after he checked again, he found nothing.
It's not like we're huge Charlie Sheen fans or anything. We're not anti-Charlie Sheen either. We just don't talk about him much around here. We don't watch that show he's in with that other guy...who is it? Ducky? Jon Cryer? Or is it Neil Patrick Harris? I can't keep track anymore.
After all that ambiguity about whether I should be sad about Charlie Sheen, I decided to go to the great arbiter of who's in and out when it comes to celebrities kicking it. No not TMZ. I don't even know their url. I mean Facebook and Twitter. Seriously, people. Even the most minor celebrity-ish person (read: anyone with an IMB page) can't be issued a death certificate until at least 10,000 fan-strangers have posted an R.I.P on their Facebook status. In some counties in California and New York, famous folks aren't declared dead until an additional 5,000 fan-strangers have posted accompanying video links of the celebrity on their Wall. It's a law. Look it up.
Tweets, while effective in starting death rumors, don't count toward official death declarations because they zip by so fast no county employee could be convinced to try to count them, but the celebrity's families are surely grateful that @buffbabe1977 managed to tap out R.I.P. (fill in minor, obscure celebrity name here) with her newly manicured French tips.
If you haven't been memorialized on social networking sites, you're not dead. It's that simple.
Which reminds me - when Charlie Sheen or that girl with the new face, what's her name? Oh yeah, Jennifer Grey, when either of them do finally pass on to the great John Hughes film in the sky, I want to post my favorite scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off along with their R.I.P.s on my Facebook. (minute 1:10)
As for Adam Sandler, well, maybe this.
Now that I have those three sorted out, I might just spend the remainder of 2010 developing my list of potential R.I.P. video links for the coming year. It would help if I knew ahead of time who might die in 2011, but damned if I can find a list of people. Too morbid?
That has to be more entertaining than coming up with my top ten list of anything for 2010. All I have so far are a top ten list of places to hide chocolate from my children, my top ten list of movies I meant to see, a list of ten candle fragrances no one should ever purchase, and my top ten list of things I should never suck up with the vacuum again.
How do you plan to finish off 2010? Celebrity death predictions for 2011 to help me get a head start?
