Hyper inked.

There’s a new weight problem emerging in America: sleep eating. Apparently, the often-used sleeping medication Ambien (r) can cause the problem in susceptible people.

The story is chronicled in an article in The New York Timesthat tells of “emerging medical case studies that describe how the drug’s users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators like animals and consume calories ranging into the thousands,”

The patient eats food in the middle of the night and has no memory of the snacking.

But there are undeniable clues: a mouthful of peanut butter, Popsicle sticks and candy wrappers on the floor, crumbs in bed. More worrisome are the lit ovens and stoves found the next day. One woman taking the drug was discovered by her son frying bacon and eggs in her sleep, even though she was hampered by a body cast. “During the day, I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom by myself,” she said, according to the Times reporter.

Dr. Carlos Schenck, a sleep disorders specialist in Minneapolis has found 32 people with the nighttime problem, all of whom have total amnesia of the nightime meals. One patient with the problem gained 100 pounds. Often the patients know they have an eating problem, but have no idea of the link between night eating and the sleep medication.

Ambien, or zolpidem, is a $2.2 billion seller in the U.S. alone, making it the best-selling sleeping medication in America. This has been helped by $130 million advertising budget in 2005. (We’ve all seen the tv commercials.) In other countries, the drug is sold under the brand names Stilnox and Stilnocht. When I recently heard an Ambien spot, I did notice any warning about the weight gain issue.

Now if they can just synthesize a drug with the opposite effect on weight, they will have a real winner.

Read the article the Times’ site. There’s an editorial or two, and letters as well.

Matt Drudge and others on the net claim the Today Show icon is heading to CBS to anchor the Evening News, a post once held by Walter Cronkite. Makes you a little queasy, doesn’t it?

The blog entry above claims CBS staffers are creating I hate Katie Couric t-shirts.

Luane Calvert, who brought a billboard to life in Times Square for CK One, has put on the world’s largest picnic in San Francisco, With free food for the first 500 attending, the picnic featured an almost 10,000 square foot red and white blanket. The festivities celebrate the opening of an Oakville Grocery in the city by the bay. Ms. Calvert’s company is Mixed Marketing.

There’s a peaceful town in England, Swaffham hometown of archeologist Howard Carter who discovered King Tut’s tomb, that’s had to put up with a lot from its most famous living citizen. He’s Michael Carroll, better known as the Lotto Lout, a petty criminal and long-term vandal, who has achieved the dream of a lifetime: he won 9.7 million pounds in the national lottery. At the time, that was $15 million, more than enough to finance his hooliganism. (He collected his prize wearing a house-arrest electronic ankle band!)

He has appeared in court more than thirty times in the last three years: for drug charges, vandalism of property including shooting ball bearings through shop windows, and generally being a huge nuisance. He is what the Brits call a chav: a person wearing gaudy jewelry and clothes and behaving in a corse, obnoxious manmner. Mr. Carroll must relish the term for he has painted “King of Chavs” on his Mercedes.

There are rumors that a chav reality show is in the works with Mr. Carroll as the star. Stay tuned.

Read more of the story in The New York Times.

Now that Martha Stewart is out and free of house arrest, she is retaking the media.

I’m more of a pessimist: I really thought her conviction would put her down for the count.

But she has a new TV talk show and of course — who’s more Donald than Mr. Trump? — The Apprentice Martha Stewart. (I heard about the show before it started and I was certain it was a joke.)

I’m glad she’s back as the kitchen CEO, but maybe not so much in our face? Please?

If the attorney general of California has his way, your “fries with that” may come with an unpleasant bit of copy: a cancer warning. That’s according to a New York Times article.

Bill Lockyer, the state’s AG, says that studies have proven that French fries and most fried potato products contain acrylamide, a known carcinogen. (Both chips and fries are already known for their saturated fat, trans fats and sodium levels.)

The chemical is not an additive, but forms when starches are subjected to high heat.

According to one survey firm, NPD Group, fries are the food most frequently eaten in restaurants. In fact, $7 billion a year are spent on fries and chips in the US. Therfore, the new California warning could change America’s eating habits.

Will there be scarey commercials urging kids to stop that nasty, smelly French fry habit. Will parents be urged to talk with their kids about the dangers of fried potatoes in any form?

Maybe not, but Lockyer has filed suit against McDonald’s, Burger King, Frito Lay anbd six other food companies to force them to include warning labels on their products. The label might say “This product contains a chemical known to the state of California to cause cancer.”

The FDA opposes the labeling law on the grounds that the no one knows what the dangerous levels of acrylamide in food are. More studies are needed, according to the agency.

A food industry research group says that California is singling out junk food unecessarily, as other foods such as whole wheat toast, and black olives contain the substance. (Lower levels are in bread, crackers, and peanut butter.) By the California attorney general’s office counters that fried potato products contain higher levels and constitute a larger portion of an average America’s diet.

The Drudge Report has a transcript of the wild Tom Cruise interview where he attacked Brooke Shield’s use of psychiatry and psychoactive drugs to help with her depression. Instead, he recommended vitamins and exercise.

This line of thinking is based on Scientology, though it is not mentioned in the interview.

Radar Magazine, which I think I’ve quoted before, has just come out an issue featuring Tom Cruise.

He’s the cover boy of the magazine. But the article is not too kind, as the topic is Mr. Cruise’s recent ravings about Scientology in the media while supposedly promoting the movie of H. G. Well’s classic novel, War of the Worlds.*

The article has a picture of Tom’s jump-up-on-the-couch-and-scream TV appearance. Rather than attacking psychoactive drugs, he needs them. Valium ™ can be a great comfort.

The article details his rapid rise up the Scientology “Bridge,” I mean, ladder. (Founder L. Ron Hubbard was fond of ships. A 500-acre Scientology resort features huge ship replicas. The highest levels of Scientlogy staff are called the Sea Organization.) After a rough time at some of the lower levels of the church, Cruise was given a respite, because the church didn’t want to lose its most famous believer.

Why would anyone need a break from Scientology? At one level of its teaching, you are told about history of the evil thetans — aliens survivors from an intergalactic disaster — who have poisoned the human spirit for many centuries.

The article is excepted on the Radar website.

* Note: I have real problems with that film separate from Cruise’s starring role: it exploits 9/11 images to give authenticity to its horrors. Of course, they are not actual 9/11 images — which would kept audiences away — but Spielberg’s recreations of them: for example, the posted photos of missing people.

CBS television is about to separate from its parent company Viacom next year. CBS announced they’re going to start a new print magazine, WATCH!. The magazine will feature interviews with stars and news about the entertainment industry.

The magazine will be ad supported, and available free at Paramount theme parks, CBS show tapings, and CBS affiliates.

Will it be TV Guide ™ meets Entertainment Weekly ™ ? One blogger commented, “Why bother?”

To promote their new gossip celebrity publication, OK Magazine has turned a newstand into a big media event.

C omplete with red carpet, anyone buying a copy of the new magazine gets treated to paparazzi, screaming fans, and gawking tourists, confused — I suppose — by all the hype over buying a magazine.