Jessica Bruinsma is a 24 year old Colorado woman who fell over the side of a cliff while hiking in the Bavarian Alps. The injured hiker was missing for three days before her resourcefulness led to her rescue from a remote mountain ledge in southern Germany.

Bruinsma set out for a hike on June 16th. During her trek, she lost her footing and fell 16 feet to a narrow overhang, spending the next 70 hours waiting to be found. She was able to get water by prying open a locked storage box that was located on the ledge.

Jessica badly bruised her leg and dislocated her shoulder in the fall. An out of commission timber transport system, used by area lumberjacks, was the catalyst for signaling others of her position. She secured her sports bra to the limp cable with the hope that it would eventually travel down to the base of the mountain, where it would be discovered. She realized she needed her shirt and jacket for warmth but the bra might serve as an appropriate signal to those on the ground.

The cable system was eventually repaired and the bra did travel down the slope where workers immediately contacted authorities. An Alpine rescue team, with the aid of a helicopter, followed the cable line up the cliff side until they discovered her standing on the ledge, waving her good arm. They circled once and then plucked her to safety by lowering a winch for Bruinsma to secure around herself.

The Colorado hiker had been in Germany to learn the language. She has since decided to return home where she hopes to recover quickly enough to participate in an upcoming marathon. Her goal is to run the 23 mile course in three hours and ten minutes. Bruinsma’s great physical conditioning served her well during the ordeal.

Check out the alpine terrain below.

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Joran Van der Sloot and two other previously detained suspects in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway have been arrested. Van der Sloot was picked up in the Netherlands where he is attending university and brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe in Aruba.

They have been charged with suspicion of involvement in manslaughter and causing serious bodily harm that caused the death of an 18 year old American. Van der Sloot is expected to be extradited back to Aruba where the crime took place.

Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005 while on a senior class trip to the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba . She was last seen leaving a bar with the three men.

UPDATE – November 23, 2007

Prosecuters said that the three were rearrested because of significant new information in the case. Aruban officials had asked Dutch police to undertake a separate investigation which apparently uncovered new evidence. The families of all three men have been questioned again recently.

The investigation has remained open for 2-1/2 years though the lack of new information caused the case to have very little activity in 2006.

Van der Sloot was said to be bitterly surprised by the latest turn of events. On Thursday, a district judge in the Netherlands ordered the 20 year old university student to be extradited to Aruba for questioning. This is to take place as soon as possible.

The Aruban criminal justice system follows Dutch law. If a judge determines that the trio must stand trial, there will be no jury. All decisions of guilt or innocence are solely at the discretion of the presiding judge.

A New Zealand beer brewing company is offering a lifetime supply of their product in exchange for a laptop computer stolen in a recent break-in.

The owner of Croucher Brewing Company in the North Island tourist town of Rotorua reported that the computer contained all of the company financial information, business contacts and product label designs.

The brewer is so motivated to get back the missing device that he has put up a reward. He is offering 12 free bottles of beer a month for life – no questions asked.

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Paul Croucher is running what he termed a young business – still getting on its feet. His company produces an English style pale ale, a Czech style pilsner and a cloudy German wheat beer. He said that the information on the laptop is critical to his micro-brewery. He believes the offer of free beer will be the perfect motivator.

Since offering up the reward Croucher has received several phone calls from people who have heard about the reward and are actively searching for the missing computer.

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CROUCHER BREWING COMPANY LINK

Don’t forget to enter to win a free copy of James Blunt’s “All the Lost Souls” CD

Fergie OutFugs Herself – Celebrity Dirty Laundry

Ashton and Cameron Get Cozy – Celeb Warship

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Some Kingston Cuteness – Faded Youth

Keira Thinks Lindsay and Britney Have No Class – Gabby Babble

Jodie Foster is Hot!  Who Knew? – Popbytes

Jennifer Garner is Too Hot – Top Socialite

So who is Cameron Diaz supposedly dating this week today? Former “Alias” star Bradley Cooper is the latest in Cameron’s revolving door of dating, if you believe the rumors.

According to sources, Cameron and Bradley have been sending flirty text messages to each other throughout the day and spending quite a bit of time together.

I have to say, I like this match-up the best so far.  They both have the most stunning blue eyes, but isn’t she supposed to be flying off to Hawaii tomorrow for a romantic getaway with Jude Law? He might not take kindly to all that flirty texting while they’re away together.

Honestly, I can’t keep up. Her love life is making me dizzy.

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6l1xwL-004[/youtube]

According to a Justin Timberlake insider, things are heating up between JT and Jessica, and Justin is searching for a promise ring as a “symbol of his affection and love.” He has reportedly been checking out platinum rings with diamonds and sapphires at Neil Lane and Rafinity in Santa Monica.

The insider says that although Justin is not ready to propose, he wants to make a commitment to Jess. “Justin says Jess is his dream girl.

You may also want to read: Your Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel Fix

Yeah, I know I’m getting ready to get blasted for this one, but this story just hit waaaay too close to home.

Jeremy Blake, a a rising star on New York’s art scene, and his blogger-filmmaker girlfriend Theresa Duncan, apparently took their own lives. The events leading up to their deaths, and their double suicide is confounding those who knew this glamorous couple, and it is eerily reminiscent of the double suicide of a very successful, intelligent couple in my hometown who had displayed similarly erratic behavior after their involvement with Scientology.

Considering the similarity of these two stories, I think it is worth noting.

According to several friends and art world peers, the two believed they were being stalked and harassed by Scientologists, an abiding fear that soured old friendships and made some of their respective working relationships difficult.

Christine Nichols, a colleague and friend of Blake’s since 1998, produced two art exhibitions, two books and a record in conjunction with the artist through the New York art gallery she co-founded, Works on Paper Inc. Nichols dates the couple’s rising sense of “paranoia” to around 2004, two years after Blake created an album cover for alternative-rock star Beck, who is a practicing Scientologist.

“They thought Scientologists were really harassing them,” Nichols said. “They would say, ‘They are following us, harassing our landlord.’ I did not see any evidence of that.

“But it got to be something that was huge to them — a ‘You’re either with us or against us’ thing where if you didn’t believe them, you weren’t on their side. The story they had woven in paranoia and conspiracies took over part of their lives. A lot of us couldn’t understand that acting out.”

Two other art world sources corroborated Nichols’ characterization but declined to speak on the record out of concern that Blake may still be alive.

To read the rest of this bizarre story, continue reading this post.

Beck was unavailable for comment, but his manager, through a publicist, let it be known that things were “extremely cordial” between the singer and the artist the last time they talked three years ago.A spokesman said the New York Police Department was not investigating any involvement by the Church of Scientology. Karin Pouw, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology, denied the allegations, saying, “Never heard of these people. This is completely untrue.”

Puzzling turn of events

Duncan and Blake, who were together for 12 years, are recalled as an impossibly good-looking, intellectually vigorous and socially popular pair of soul mates who moved gracefully among a set of likewise brainy, moneyed people who occupy the intersection of art and technology on both coasts.

According to Lance Kinz, director of Kinz, Tillou and Feigen gallery in New York, which shows Blake’s digital paintings and films, Duncan’s suicide and Blake’s disappearance have confounded many people.

“They were both highly ambitious and successful and had achieved a lot. They were energetic in their creative pursuits,” Kinz said. “The biggest surprise is that Jeremy would sacrifice what he had worked so hard to achieve and had been so excited about.

“On the other hand, for those who did know Jeremy and Theresa, they were very close, seemingly very much in love and extremely close. One could assume the loss was too much to handle.”

The couple had moved in February from Los Angeles back to New York, where Blake had accepted a job as an in-house graphic designer forvideo game manufacturer Rockstar Games. A source at Rockstar, who declined to be identified for fear of violating company policy, recalled the artist as someone who “looked like a rock star. He wore sunglasses indoors. Sometimes he sipped whiskey at work.”

On July 10, the day she was found dead, Duncan, 40, posted a final blog entry, a two-sentence quotation from author Reynolds Price: “A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens — second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter.”

Blake, 35, was well on his way to bona fide star status with museums including Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art; the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art collecting his work. Blake took part in three consecutive Whitney Biennial exhibitions from 2000 to 2004.

“He was a pioneer in so many ways,” Kinz said. “His works weren’t film and they weren’t paintings. It wasn’t computer art; it wasn’t animation. And though it was painterly fine art, it was a hybrid of many things. In the future, I think he’ll be considered a first explorer in a new territory of art making.”

A Washington, D.C., native, Blake had turned recently to an abstract form of portraiture, doing a piece on Ossie Clarke, a fashion designer from 1960s “swinging London” who is never seen, but readings from his diaries form the soundtrack. Another piece, “Sodium Fox,” interprets Nashville poet and rocker David Berman of the band Silver Jews. They had been chosen for an upcoming exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, along with a new piece, “Glitterbest,” about London punk rock mogul Malcolm McLaren, that remains unfinished.

Katie Brennan, who operates Sister Gallery in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, frequently socialized with Blake and Duncan and mounted an exhibition of Blake’s work in 2004. Brennan said the couple mutually inspired one another in their creative pursuits.

“They were very happy together and extremely supportive,” Brennan said. “I don’t think anyone can interpret what happened. It’s a great loss. It tends to happen in the art world more than other areas. It’s tragic. They were brilliant, complex people. I think everyone is shocked.”

CD-ROM creator

Blake and Duncan met in the mid-1990s, according to a 1998 USA Today feature about her work as one of the few writer-producers creating CD-ROM games geared toward girls. A reviewer for Entertainment Weekly described “Chop Suey,” Duncan’s 1994 adventure CD-ROM, as an “unsettlingly brilliant” work that was “a little like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as performed by the B-52’s for NPR.”

Duncan, 40, the daughter of an art teacher, grew up near Detroit and graduated from the University of Michigan after writing a thesis titled “Electric Fairy Tales: CD-ROMs and Literature.” Romance bloomed when Blake began creating art for Duncan’s independently produced discs, and the two collaborated with artist Karen Kilimnik on “A History of Glamour,” a short animated “mockumentary” about a girl from the Midwest who becomes the sensation of a Warhol-like big-city art scene, then sours on the glittery life.

Blake and Duncan moved together from New York to Los Angeles for what they expected to be a brief stay while the artist worked on the abstract film sequences for “Punch-Drunk Love,” director Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2002 giddy romantic comedy.

Duncan had sold a script called “Alice Underground” to Fox Searchlight, about two teenage girls whose kidnapping of a rock star boosts his fame, Variety reported in 2001. In 2005, she began a blog called The Wit of the Staircase that quickly became a must-read among literary-minded Angeleno web logs.

“The thing that stands out most is the depth and breadth of her interests,” said Jim Ruland, a fiction writer behind the lit-blog and reading series Vermin on the Mount, in an e-mail. “I solicited her for a response to Thomas Pynchon’s novel ‘Against the Day’ and her response was very smart yet felt extremely personal. Her blog was full of that kind of writing: oddly moving prose on a wide range of subjects.”

Duncan’s reputation as an intellectual firebrand sometimes belied her appearance. “I don’t know how glamorous she was; she was pretty, she was sexy,” said Kevin Roderick, editor of the media blog LA Observed. “She did put a lot of herself on her blog.”

New York police Tuesday said there was no new information on the case. They were alerted late on July 17 by a woman who witnessed the 6-foot-2 Blake walk into the ocean. He was not seen coming out. His clothing, wallet and a suicide note were found under a nearby boardwalk, police said.

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OK magazine is pulling no punches in the upcoming issue hitting the newsstands this Friday. During an exclusive interview and photo shoot gone wrong, Britney Spears had a total meltdown and forced the magazine to decide between pissing off the former pop princess and maintaining their journalistic integrity.

OK! Editor-in-Chief Sarah Ivens has said, “OK! Magazine spent a heartbreaking day with Britney Spears and witnessed first-hand an emotional cry for help that will leave you shocked and sad. This week, on newsstands Friday, the truth will be told.”

I don’t know. Biatch is crazy. I may have opted out on this one. Who knows how many umbrellas she’s got stashed away.

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