As part of its 2012 Olympic preview, the August issue of Outside charts the careers of several of the biggest stars heading to London this month — predicting their likely medal haul at the upcoming Summer Games.

The well-regarded mag’s gold medal forecast for Baltimore’s favorite amphibian, Michael Phelps, the guy who brought a record eight gold medals home following the Beijing Games? Zero. Zip. Nada. Okay, the magazine says Phelps may glom onto some gold as a member of one of the United States’ dominant relay teams, but it’s adamant: “No solo gold.” The short piece later refers to the “outgoing Michael Phelps and his heir apparent, Ryan Lochte…” Wait there just a second, mister.

Now, somewhat familiar with magazine deadlines, it’s only fair to note that the August issue, which I received last week, went to press before Phelps’ stunning performance at the recent Olympic trials where he bested Lochte, long his top American-rival, in the three of four head-to-head...

Got your power back? Ready to lose Internet access next?

Last year, the FBI shut down an Eastern European criminal ring responsible for infecting millions of computers worldwide with a virus known as DNSChanger. Since then, the FBI has been operating — along with the nonprofit Internet Systems Consortium — a routing system (a safety “net,” if you will) to keep infected computers online.

Well, that complimentary routing service ends Monday, July 9. And according to reporting by the Washington Post and PC World today, your computer — as well as the one I’m writing on at the moment — may have been infected without our knowledge some time over the past five years. PC World estimates that close to 70,000 computers in the U.S. may still have the bug.

A quick check via this link should let you know if your PC or laptop has been compromised.

(Yay! My office desktop just got a clean bill...

Watching ‘80s crooner Eddie Money, climb through the ropes, err, on stage at Dundalk’s Heritage Festival last year, I couldn’t get the image of another ‘80s icon, Randy “the Ram” Robinson (okay, fictional ‘80s icon) from The Wrestler, out of my mind.

The beauty of casting Rourke as the battle weary, playing out the string ex-star, of course, wasn’t merely that Rourke, the boxer-cum-actor-cum-boxer-cum-actor, knew his way around a gym and possessed a Stanislavski-willingness to ingest steroids. It was art imitating life with Rourke himself a seen-better-days ‘80s has-been.

Similar to Rourke and "the Ram," with his hair dyed, extra pounds squeezing into a pair of jeans, black shirt and black jacket, sax around his neck—looking like he’d weathered a tough decade or two—Money set out to prove he could hit the right notes as he delivered the songs his middle-aged fans came to hear. Needed to hear, maybe. Stiff-jointed, sweaty, Money mimicked the old moves—not well enough to make anyone in the packed crowd believe he’s still the...

Annie Solan, co-owner with her husband Barry of Video Americain, the three-store video and DVD chain, said that their iconic outlet in Charles Village will be closing for good in two weeks—July 15, to be exact. 

The store’s incredible archive is marked down 35 percent for sale and has been moving out the door for weeks, but much remains, Solan said, Thursday afternoon. “We have a lot of really good DVDs and VHS left, maybe 100 from the Criterion Collection, 500 other DVDs of foreign films, at least a 1,000 in our ‘genre’ categories, and another 200 ‘classics,’” reported Solan. “We also haven’t put out our other stuff, we probably have a 1,000 out-of-print movies we had been renting.” The Video Americain store on Cold Spring Lane and the one in Takoma Park will remain open, Solan said. I didn't want to ask for how long. 

While certainly not happy to shutter one of their stores, Solan said she was pleased at least that so many films had found “good homes.” She noted nearby Johns Hopkins bought 2,100 films from the store for the school's library collection.

“We have had great, loyal customers over the years and a knowledgeable, caring staff that built and...