Yesterday’s video of a 7-foot bear learning the coldness of the human heart was pretty funny, but today’s video amps up the hilarity by making every possible aspect of a mascot’s missed high-five sadder. Watch as a mascot from the United Way (aw) tries to get a high-five from a person carrying the Olympic Torch (aw) while wearing a MITTEN (AWW) and gets it, only to be denied by a security guard who allows the hands to get SUPER CLOSE but stops it, because there is no time for them to actually touch. “No, you need to go!”

I didn’t think this kind of thing happened in Canada. YOU JERK, THAT POLYWHIRL-LOOKING THING WAS WEARING A MITTEN. The only way it could be sadder is if a puppy was about to die and the mitten-to-mitten interspecies high-five would’ve saved it. This is why your opening ceremony pillar contraption didn’t work, Vancouver. Because of this guy.

Michael Phelps was in Las Vegas over the weekend to serve as the celebrity face for the launch of the 2011 Encore Beach Club season. If that means as little to you as it does to me, it means that he got paid to swim around in a pool full of half-naked, father-hating girls. Phelps even played DJ for a bit, which automatically makes him as cool as Danny Masterson.

But this sort of behavior can only be detrimental to his public image, right Daily Mail?

In 2009 Phelps shattered his good boy image when he was pictured using a bong.

He admitted to ‘behaviour which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgement’ but his was not prosecuted in connection with the incident because there was insufficient evidence.

USA Swimming suspended Phelps from competing for three months and his endorsement contract with Kellogg’s was not renewed.

Oh yeah, that whole bong picture thing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – any man or woman who wins 14 gold medals at the Olympics should have free reign to behave however he or she pleases. If Phelps wants to roll down Sunset Boulevard in Gravedigger with a Roman candle shoved between his butt cheeks while he throws gasoline at homeless people, then I’m all for it. In fact, we should be required to sing “God Bless America” while he does.

Picture lazily related.

*This isn’t really about the Olympics.

I don’t know what’s being pumped into the water in France lately, but those baguette-eating wine-sniffers are really earning some street cred. First, they didn’t bother waiting to take the first shot at Libya, and now their firefighters are telling the rest of the world to embrasser mon derriere. While this is apparently news from February, our reporters in With Leather’s French bureau have been drunk since 2008 so we’re just now discovering the awesomeness of the “Jeux Olympiques des Pompiers”, or the Olympic Games of the Firefighters.

In the video below you can witness the awesomeness of the French firefighter competition, as they run around with ladders and hoses while jumping walls like jungle cats. But in the end, these Olympics aren’t about who wins, mainly because they all surrender when the German firefighters show up.

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Noted Olympian and marijuana experimenteur Michael Phelps is now rumored to be romantically linked with model and reality TV “star” Brittny Gastineau, seen here presumably getting ready for another tough day of processing payroll at the office. I feel so weird not adding an “e” or an “a” in that first name, or not writing it on my monitor in crayon.

[TMZ's] photog spotted the pair together at the Grove in Los Angeles … and as soon as our camera started up, they split in opposite directions.[..]

A source close to the pair tells us the whole thing is kind of new, but the pair hung out at the Mondrian Hotel on Friday night and were “very cozy.”

So they’re OBVIOUSLY an item. Brittny [ugh] is of course the daughter of former New York Jets defensive lineman Mark Gastineau, who had 107.5 career sacks after ten years with the New York Jets. Brit-Brit and Mark’s wife were the subjects of “The Gastineau Girls,” a series that ran 18 episodes on E!.

And I guess she models or something. Of course she does. I guess I should try to make up a fun tabloid-y mashup name for them. What about…Phelpsny? Potsmokiny? Wow, I really suck at this…

I’ll admit that these new mascots for the 2012 London Olympics are a bit buggered, but I’m not taking it nearly as badly as BBC blogger Robbo Robson, who’s doing everything he can in this post to maintain his English sensibilities and avoid swearing. Emphasis mine:

OK. First of all, why do we need to spend a shedload of cash on mascots for 2012?

What are they going to do exactly? Flounce about being really flipping annoying. Couldn’t we have just used Timmy Mallet?

Incidentally, if there are some poor saps getting paid for dressing up as Wenlock and Mandeville, then can’t we make some lunched-up, fizz-sorted, pin-striped city bankers do it while we toss IOUs at them or, even better, rotting fruit.

Whoops, I thought he meant “gays” on that last one. Anyway, these things look like they fell out of a Pixar movie. But I like how Mandeville’s crotch is completely blue. That takes me back…

American skier and Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn made a guest appearance on “Law & Order” last night, and she was so bad that they decided to cancel the whole show. Actually, she had filmed her scene before the decision not to renew the show for a 21st season was made, so it’s not like she cut the show with a broken champagne bottle or anything.

Upon learning on Thursday that her favorite show was in danger of being canceled, Vonn started a “Save Law & Order” page on Facebook. By Monday, the page had more than 15,700 Facebook users supporting her online effort. Vonn has more than 142,000 users connected with her own Facebook fan page. –Examiner.

Vonn played a secretary (bow chicka wow ow) who helped the detectives find some guy who was going to blow up a school, which is too bad, because I would have loved to see the show go out with a bang. But it’s not like the show won’t be on TV anymore. It’s in syndication everywhere. It’s as if Jerry Orbach never died.