Take it from me, asking famous actresses you’ve never met out on dates via YouTube usually doesn’t work. But that didn’t stop Marine Sergeant Scott Moore, who gave the rest of us hope when Mila Kunis agreed to accompany him to the Marine Corps Ball in November. I think the secret is that you have to be holding a gun.

Sgt. Scott Moore, of the 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines in Musa Qala, Afghanistan, last week set up a YouTube page and posted a video [after the jump] asking the “Friends With Benefits” star to accompany him to the Marine Corps Ball on November 18th in Greenville, North Carolina.

And when FOX411 asked Kunis about the invitation over the weekend, her “Benefits” co-star, Justin Timberlake, assured Moore he was going to make it happen.
“Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? You need to do it for your country,” Timberlake asked Kunis excitedly, before sending out a direct message to Moore. “I’m going to work on this, man. This needs to go down.”
After questioning her publicist if she knew about the invitation, the clearly flattered 27-year-old actress agreed.
“I’ll go, I’ll do it for you,” she said, turning to Timberlake. “Are you going to come?”
“They don’t want me! They want you,” Timberlake responded. “You need to do it for your country.”
Kunis nodded.
“I’ll do it,” she confirmed. [Fox411]

QUIT BEING SO GD COOL, TIMBERLAKE! If I took one lesson from this, it’s that walking through a military base holding your rifle is a lot more impressive to the ladies than walking through their backyard holding the severed head of their pet. Who knew? Hey, Diora Baird, Fluffy says I love you (*manipulates dead cat mouth*).  Seriously though, a hot, famous actress overlooking a potential date-rape threat to fulfill a wish from a combat veteran is the best recruitment commercial the Marines could ever get.  Way better than that one where the black guy learns to swim.

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Soul Surfer, the inspirational true story of a young girl who courageously got her arm bitten off by a shark, became the surprise hit of spring, grossing almost $41 million thus far on a modest $18 million budget, and winning fans along the way.  Apparently one such fan is former UFC lightweight champ BJ Penn, seen above licking an opponent’s blood off his gloves (oh sure, but when my doctor does the same thing, he gets fired).  As Penn recently told Inside MMA’s Ron Kruck:

BJ: “You know what? People might think it’s a long shot from this point out, but I really would like to be the world champ again at 170 pounds, you know, and I try to hold out as long as I can and when I get knocked off, because everyone’s going to get knocked off, I’d love to go back to 155 and win one more time. If I could do that, I can go to sleep at night. It would be much easier, you know, I don’t know any specific names or whoever the champion is at that time, you know. … I really want to be world champ again. You know, I was watching that Soul Surfer movie the other day, the girl (Bethany Hamilton) who lost her arm… and if she can go out and keep surfing professionally, I can go get another world title.” [BloodyElbow via Fightlinker]

I won’t bore you with the details, but BJ Penn is an eccentric dude, and it is highly unlikely that he was being anything but completely earnest when he said that.  It’s funny to think of a blood-drinking nutjob who fights people for a living being inspired by the story of a 14-year-old surfer girl, but I’m sure this happens all the time.  It’s like Ben Roethlisberger always used to say, “So I was in the women’s sh*tter, trying to get this skank to give me a beej, but she was being a prude.  And at first I was like, ‘Oh well, there’s other whores who’ll need to use the toilet.’  But then I thought, wait, f*ck that. You know who wouldn’t have taken no for an answer? Seabiscuit.”

If you’d been in my apartment five seconds ago, you would’ve heard me make a high-pitched noise like a dolphin and fall to the floor.  To make a long story short, Dolphin Tale has a trailer.  To refresh your memory, Dolphin Tale is the heart-warming, real-life story of a bionic dolphin created by Morgan Freeman and Marine Biologist Harry Connick Jr., a dolphin whose never-say-die attitude inspires a nation of wounded soldiers and disabled kids.  I don’t know what else to say, because nothing I write here could be better than the screengrab at the top of this page.  My God, it is magical.  Oh, I also made it a gif.

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UPDATE: Now with audio of the job offer

A guy who was homeless yesterday has a house and a career today, and he owes it all to Al Gore, inventor of the internet.  After being featured on this site and countless others (all of whom totally copied me), Ted Williams, Columbus Ohio’s golden-throated hobo, was inundated with job offers.  I didn’t want to be the d*ck who pointed out that radio jobs pay about the same as panhandling, but the happy ending is that the job came from the Cleveland Cavaliers, who offered him a position doing voiceover work and a house. A house in Cleveland? That’s like a $10,000 value right there.

“The Cleveland Cavaliers just offered me a full-time job and a house! A house! A house!,” repeated a stunned Williams, 71, 53, on local radio station WNCI. [video of the latest interviews below]

A caller to the show who said she represented the Cavs offered Williams a full-time job doing voiceover work for the team and parent company and a free home in Cleveland.

The Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, native trained to be a radio announcer before drugs and alcohol ruined his chances at a career, and he was reduced to begging on the side of a road in Columbus, Ohio, before the newspaper found him.

Local police would refer to Williams as “Radio man,” when chasing him from his usual begging spots, where he earned around $30 an hour, Williams said.

THIRTY DOLLARS AN HOUR???  This guy didn’t need a job, he needed an accountant. [Update: the video below puts the figure much lower, but don't think that means I'm rewriting my joke]

“I’ve been out there about a year; I just didn’t know anything like this would ever happen,” an overwhelmed Williams said earlier in the show. “There’s so many words. I’ve already been compared to Susan Boyle [that was me! -Ed] … I’m just so happy.”

Before the Cavs made their bid, the station said a group of credit unions offered Williams a contract worth up to $10,000; a caller claiming to rep MTV expressed interest in having him guest-announce a show; and callers who said they were the voiceover actors behind plugs for “The Simpsons” and “Entertainment Tonight” said they wanted him to compete on their upcoming “America’s Next Voice” — where the prize includes a home studio. [NYPost]

It’s kind of anticlimactic after the thing about the job and the house, but he also has a website and a Twitter page.  Anyway, I wish the guy all the best.  He has an amazing voice, and that makes the story so much nicer because it doesn’t give you that icky feeling you get when people do something solely out of pity, like when the retarded kid wins the dance contest.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to embark upon a far more lucrative career in the field of alcoholism and panhandling.  Though I suppose I could just say “a career in the field”, couldn’t I. 

(I’ll post the latest videos below as they come)

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While patrolling the Syrian border, Marine Major Brian Dennis found a stray dog he named ‘Nubs’ because Iraqis had cut its ears off as a puppy.  He later nursed it back to health after it was stabbed in the side with a screw driver (lovely people, those Iraqis, I’m sure).  Later Dennis was ordered to move his unit and had to leave Nubs behind, but Nubs tracked him 70 miles through the desert while wounded.  Now someone wants to turn the story into a movie ,and in related news, I think something’s wrong with my eyes.

Warner Bros. is [cutesy pun omitted] signing on to acquire and develop “Nubs,” a feel-good story of a pooch and a U.S. Marine based on a publishing sensation.
In addition to Dennis’ life rights, filmmakers have acquired the top-selling children’s book “Nubs: A Marine, a Mutt and a Miracle,” which Dennis wrote with Mary Nethery and Kirby Larson. The Little, Brown Books for Young Readers title was published two weeks ago and sits at No. 4 on the New York Times children’s best-seller list. Justin Zackham (“The Bucket List”) will write and produce the film. [Yahoo]

I think it goes without saying that animal stories are way cuter than human ones, probably because of the soft fur.  Oh yeah, you’re homeless and hungry?  Well maybe you shoulda thought of that before you got schizophrenia.  What’s that? Your lab puppy has a hurt paw? Quick! Take my whole wallet!

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