Larry Birkhead fires his lawyer So the guy whose little swimmers lucked him into Anna Nicole Smith's massive fortune has a problem with his lawyer doing to him what he did to the late Playmate. Debra Opri has about $650,000 of Leisure Suit Larry's money stashed away in her client trust fund account.

TMZ.com has the sad, sordid story...

Behind the scenes, Opri and her agent, Babette Perry (who works at the IMG Agency) were negotiating the deal for Birkhead. NBC Universal agreed to pay Larry $1,050,000. Birkhead subsequently appeared on a Bravo special. He also repeatedly appeared exclusively on "Access Hollywood" and "Today."

But something weird happened after the check was cut. Although the money was negotiated for Birkhead, the first installment -- $850,000 -- ended up in Debra Opri's client trust fund account.

Devious Debra cut him a check for $200,000, then sent him a bill for over $620,000. Which is pretty close to the money she just happens to have tucked away from his NBC payoff.

Meanwhile, Larry stands to make a freaking mint off of Anna Nicole's do-me fortune. I don't know who to root for here. I'm going to root for a meteor to hit Debra and Larry.

Wal-Mart Julie sued for defamation The whole Julie Roehm firing has been fascinating to watch. They ought to make her nonstop fight with Wal-Mart some kind of reality series. I'm sure her alleged boy toy Sean Womack would be willing to make an appearance on the set.

But first, she'll have to deal with a little bit of a defamation lawsuit. She had accused Irwin Jacobs (Irwin? Sounds like a hesitant cheer. Yes I know it's from a Fletch novel.) of being fast and loose with the personal favors and services to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott.

Like one CEO giving another a few breaks is some sort of federal case? Ok, it's actually a state case, that's where lawyers for Hesitant Cheer filed suit in Minnesota...

In May, Roehm claimed in a court filing that Scott violated the company's ethics policy and accepted trips and received discounts on yachts and jewelry from Jacobs. She said in the filing in U.S. District Court in Detroit that Scott and his wife frequently used private airplanes provided by Jacobs to travel to their residences in Longboat Key, Fla., and Las Vegas. Through his relationship with Jacobs, Scott was able to purchase a large pink diamond for his wife at a preferential price, she claims.

Jacobs flatly denied all of Roehm's claims, including her accusation that he gave Scott a discount on a diamond.

My favorite marketing executive has until Thursday to retract her choice accusations or face the wrath of Hesitant Cheer. I'll be kicking back in the Futon Of Love hoping she'll do another video with Sean announcing the trial will be part of her new reality series, to appear on YouTube and Fox.

Call for boss firing backfires on profs A couple of non-tenured professors should have paid a little more attention to their non-tenured status. See, when you take part in a panel that recommends your boss be outfitted with a pink slip and a swift kick out the door, you need to be sure that the panel can make that happen.

If it can't, well, guess what Professor? The retaliation will come...

Back in April, a 10-member faculty committee at Mississippi Valley State University called for the dismissal of its president, saying in a sharply worded report that a “serious void in leadership exists at MVSU.� The move followed a no-confidence vote by faculty members.

Six weeks later, the president, Lester C. Newman, is still at the helm, but two of the 10 professors have lost their jobs. Vickie Curry and Orian Cathey, both nontenured faculty members, have been dismissed, according to The Clarion-Ledger, a local newspaper.

That non-tenured status made it easy for Lethal Lester to bust a cap in both prof's careers, as neither of the fired people had finished their terminal degrees. You gotta have those to get tenure, but even more, you have to have the freaking common sense not to provoke a college president without tenure.

He knows just how soft your career's belly is, and just where to stick the serrated knife.

Game over for Sony and Nintendo staffers The disastrous debut of the PlayStation 3 has rippled through Sony like a tainted burrito through a fat guy's colon at 2 a.m. After toasting hundreds of jobs at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, they unleashed the layoff thunder on the American side...

Roughly 80 to 100 employees of Sony Computer Entertainment of America's Foster City headquarters were laid off today, Kotaku has learned from a source who was among those asked to hand in their badge and keys before leaving the premises.

The lay-offs, which were preceded by a months long hiring freeze, were prompted by SCEI's call for cut backs which in turn was spurred by the company's multi-billion dollar losses and the sky-rocketing cost of PS3 game development, upper management told those who remained at the office.

http://www.gameinformer.com/NR/exeres/DBDBAA74-D8AD-4175-8286-3E54EB0494F1.htm I'm mystified at the story of people fleeing Nintendo of America. They have the chance to ditch the sticks of Redmond, WA, for their choice of San Francisco or New York.

I would think sales and marketing people would gladly sell other people's souls for the chance to work in either big city. Nintendo's people would rather quit. I guess high taxes and street crime isn't for everyone.

Neither Sony's CEO nor its Japanese executives were harmed in the past two bloodlettings.

Orioles clip manager's wings Sam Perlozzo finally got the expected axing by Baltimore. The only way Baltimore's season could be worse for the fans is if Boog Powell decided to shutdown his barbecue spot on Eutaw Street.

The crew at Deadspin say Sam's whacking was a courtesy assassination for incoming executive Andy MacPhail. That way he can make Joe Girardi the next unfortunate bastard to work as manager under Peter Angelos.

Baltimore's behind Tampa Bay and everyone else in the AL East. They're average at hitting, no worse than a lot of teams at hitting, and lead the AL in fielding. They manage to find more ways to lose than anyone not watching games in Texas or Kansas City. Or Cincinnati, which has redefined the phrase "crappy baseball" for everyone this year.

Cal Ripken Day on July 24th should be a lot of fun. The Ironman probably wishes the O's would just send him a cake instead of making him come out to the park.

Lights, camera, fired I caught the new Fantastic Four movie at a 12:01 showing, and I liked it. So did a bunch of other people, since it did like $54 million over the first weekend and Variety says it's up over $63 million now.

Before Jessica Alba and the rest of the foursome were onscreen for the unwashed masses, a major movie fan named Jesse 'Memflix' Morrison got a peek at FF2. He used to work in Memphis as a projectionist, with an emphasis on the "used to" part.

His shredding of FF2 showed up on Ain't It Cool, and it didn't take long for his review to cause ripples in Hollyweird...

20th Century Fox saw the review and was very displeased. They were so displeased that they tracked down Morrison and filed a complaint with his employer. Morrison's employer, Malco movie theaters, has suspended him until further notice. The senior vice president of Malco movie theaters told WMC-TV in Memphis, TN that Morrison "violated policy by writing a review on a movie that had not been released to the public yet."

I think if Malco wanted to really punish Memflix, they'd make him watch Deck The Halls and Basic Instinct 2 over and over again.

Peek-a-boo, the guard sees you He also got fired for his voyeurism. The tedium of working as a security guard, the cool remote control security cameras, a nearby condominium complex undoubtedly teeming with the fairer sex, it couldn't possibly end well. It didn't...

Ron Wells, architect of the pricey West 809 condominiums, said he was contacted June 12 and told of the alleged spying.

"I do know that authorities are investigating it," Wells said. "The reality is that this could happen anywhere even in suburbia, because there are cameras everywhere today."

No one's naming names, either of the fired private security guard, or the owners of the condo. I was wondering how the condo people knew they were being spied on, but then I saw that the cameras have extension booms.

I think the condo owners must have noticed the cameras being extended in the direction of their windows. I don't want to think about what else the guard was extending at the time. Ick.

Grey's Anatomy star gets his career flatlined Isaiah Washington says they fired the wrong guy in kicking him off the TV show.

He sounds like Krusty the Clown. "Don't blame me. I-I-I-I didn't do it!"

Except that he did, dropping a slur on T.R. Knight. Incredulous Isaiah says T.R. made a big deal out of it...

Washington, who said he is considering a lawsuit, accused Knight of exploiting the controversy in order to get a salary increase and to enhance his role.

Washington drew fire after using the anti-gay epithet backstage at the Golden Globe Awards in January while denying he'd used it previously against Knight, 34, during an on-set dustup with co-star Patrick Dempsey.

Incredulous Isaiah would have been better off spitting on The King's grave at Graceland on Elvis's birthday in front of a crowd of Presley fans. Good luck on getting another gig in Hollywood, dude.

Hey barkeep, don't flag the Senator This case should be fun to watch. In Austin, Rebekah Lear sued the bar that fired her after she refused to bring state Senator John Whitmire another drink because he appeared intoxicated.

The Senator took it with the customary grace and dignity of the overprivileged Texas politician. As in 'not well'...

Lear said she served Whitmire a J&B and water, but when he asked for another scotch, she gave him a glass of water instead, telling him she couldn't serve him another drink because he was intoxicated.

Things went downhill from there, Lear said: She claims Whitmire threatened to call the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and have her fired, saying he "would have her job" if she didn't bring him another drink. Lear reportedly told Whitmire she would call the police if he didn't simmer down, and she said Whitmire "responded that the police would not come because all he would have to do was to make a phone call."

The Senator's sycophants are accusing Rebekah of making up the whole thing. Someone tell me again why term limits in government are a bad idea?

Bears reloading after they fire Tank When Tank Johnson got busted for having handguns in his home, I thought that if he were in a different state than Illinois, maybe someplace in the South, all those guns would be considered part of the interior design. Ex-felon Martha Stewart probably has things to say about shiv cozies and the use of broken Glock magazines as bud vases.

Tank will get to look for a new place to play and live, once his suspension ends, now that Da Bears have waived him...

"We are upset and embarrassed by Tank's actions last week," general manager Jerry Angelo said in a statement. "He compromised the credibility of our organization. We made it clear to him that he had no room for error. Our goal was to help someone through a difficult period in his life, but the effort needs to come from both sides. It didn't, and we have decided to move on."

Police in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert said Johnson was stopped for driving 40 mph in a 25 mph zone at 3:30 a.m. Friday and the officer made observations that led him to believe Johnson was impaired.

Tank already had an eight game suspension waiting for him, with the possibility of it being dropped to six for good behavior after his gun charge sentence ended. New commish Roger Goddell probably has to bust him for the rest of the year now.

Oh yeah, Bears fans, Lance Briggs is still ticked off at your front office. The only way you're seeing number 55 on the field is if Urlacher wears it again like he did at the mini-camp.

Teacher fired for flunking screwups Doesn't poor work in college deserve a failing grade? Heather Flowers thought some of her microbiology students at the University of Mississippi Medical Center got what they deserved: big, fat F's on their transcripts for flunking her class.

The school thought differently and asked her to change those grades to incompletes. Heather F refused. A firing ensued.

She's not happy...

Flowers said she refused to change the grades to incompletes out of a sense of responsibility. The students who go through the program in which she taught go on to become medical technologists.

With no state governing body for med techs, once they graduate they are free to work in doctors' offices and hospitals.

Med techs work on samples collected by doctors and nurses.

"The only way to regulate this is through their education," Flowers said. "There's nothing (else) stopping them from killing patients."

She and the school are peaceably working out their differences. Yeah, right. She's put the school on notice that she plans to sue them for wrongful termination, defamation and violation of the state's whistleblower law just as soon as she legally can.

Heather F says she knows why the school prodded her to fix those failures...

"They're changing grades to keep students from losing financial aid," Flowers said. "They're all about tuition, tuition, tuition. If you fail a student, what do you lose? Tuition."

Sounds like she just learned a valuable lesson about the real world. People are temporary, but cash flows are forever.

He didn't account for the Feds When the federal government is all up in your grill, doing things to make their jobs harder just isn't on the smart list.

Michael Rand must have decided that his job as chief accounting officer for Beazer Homes included "confound the FBI and SEC" in his job description. He tried destroying documents while the feds looked for evidence of fraud.

Even better, Beazer had already agreed to cooperate with investigators. And best of all, he's not the only corporate big shot that Beazer had to can...

Rand is the second senior official at Beazer to be fired this year. In February, the company fired General Counsel Kenneth Gary "for a pattern of personal conduct, which includes violations of company policies." Further details were not disclosed.

They're minus the top lawyer and the chief accountant. Plus their chief financial officer hit the eject button in March. The forecast for this investigation? Brutal and detailed.

You can't treat prison like Vegas The red lights that entice tourists in Sin City are just a wee bit different than the ones cops have on their cars. Norberto Cappas must have been confused by the flashing red when he decided a couple of female prisoners needed to do an impromptu version of Chained Heat...

Internal Affairs investigators found that Cappas ordered the two women to kiss and touch each other and expose their breasts in September 2003. The two had been picked up on suspicion of drug possession, but they had no drugs and were not charged with a crime.

Naughty Totally Fired Norberto compounded the problem by allegedly lying to investigators. If the Philly Inquirer hadn't nosed around about the case last year, he'd probably still be cruising around with his mobile red light district.

I wonder if this is why we have people wanting to build new prisons all over the country. They don't want a full-time inmate population, they just want to be able to pull a bunch of random drunk women into jail and have them act out the better parts of Zumanity in exchange for their freedom.

From 'you're busted' to 'fries with that?' I'm getting closer to the 300 post mark on the Fired Blog, with less than two months to go to mark my anniversary of writing about weird firing-related stuff. Hands down, the cop stuff consistently buries the needle on the weirdness meter.

It's always fun to kick back on the Futon Of Love and dig up cop-firing stuff. I haven't heard of a whole department being fired until today. See ya, Gold Hill, Oregon, PD...

As of midnight Saturday, Chief Dean Muchow and Sgt. Hank Hobart are out of jobs, and the unpaid reserve officers are dismissed.

"My career statement may have just gone from, 'You're under arrest,' to 'Do you want fries with that?' " Muchow said with a laugh.

The town's insurer threatened to drop liability coverage unless the department was shut down, so the City Council voted May 30 to disband it.

Ten years ago, they had a chief who sold Mary Kay while on duty. When she wasn't trying to pray the evil spirits out of a possession victim.

The current chief only had to deal with allegations of fraud and harassment. No cosmetics were harmed in the course of his duties. I guess.