My "Z"s never end up on the triple letter box

Please forgive me for the painfully obvious word play I'm about to cough up right here: Scrabulous, my friends, is quite simply fabulous. (Yeah, Emily Dickenson, top that one!)

For those who have not been indoctrinated into the Scrabulous way of life, let me explain this wondrous creation. It's, um, basically Scrabble that you can play online with your Facebook friends. Yup. That's it. Big deal, you say, I can play Scrabble with my real life friends, sitting in a comfy chair while sipping sherry by the fire.

That's all well and good but for those of us without friends or fireplaces, Scrabulous kicks word-game ass. And here's why -- it lets you interact with people without actually having to come up with anything to say. For a socially inept individual like myself, this is manna from shy-person heaven. There's only so many times you can ask an old schoolmate what they do for a living before they start to suspect your short-term memory or your sanity. By clicking that little "Start a new game" link on Scrabulous, though, and inviting that old friend to play, you've now made a connection. There's even a little chat box so you and your friend (or friends) can trash talk about your respective inabilities to maximize the letter "Q" or create a convincing verb out of 7 "U"s. It's a dignified method of social connection -- and a great way to build your vocabulary. What more could you ask for?*

*To actually win a game, but that's a conversation for another day.

Wishing you all the best...

Here's hoping you're all recovering well from your Festivus celebrations. I just wanted to wish everyone a very merry Christmas, a happy post-Hanukkah, a festive Kwanzaa and for the athiests, an awesome Monday and Tuesday. And a heartfelt thank you to everyone who read The Park Bench this past year. It is truly appreciated.

I'll be posting a bit later in the week, but for now, I'll leave you with your choice of two holiday videos: first, a hopefully baked Carrie Fisher singing a song from the infamous Star Wars Holiday special while Harrison Ford looks on in agony and second, one of my personal holiday favorites, MST3K's A Patrick Swayze Christmas. (Unless you're a masochist -- which is a perfectly acceptable life choice -- then I'd go with Swayze. It's always safer with Swayze!) Happy holidays everyone!

Star Wars:



MST 3K's A Patrick Swayze Christmas:

News of the Day

+ Former Park Bench Nerd Men of the Month Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be returning to the airwaves on Jan. 7, following other late night hosts like Letterman, Leno and Conan. I have no idea what they're going to do without their writers -- read the real news? I've got my Wolf Blitzer action figure for that. Apparently, Stewart and Colbert aren't quite sure what they're going to do either, judging by the joint statement they released on Thursday: "We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."

+ Wow, I totally call bullshit on this news story from the BBC citing recent research that says "men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone." My penchant for comfortable shoes already makes me feel manish enough, and now I've got this hanging over my head?

+ And finally, manishly funny Tina Fey has been named one of the most influential women of 2007 by MSN. Yeah, suck on that, science. Why don't you go play with your glow in the dark cats while we turn our backs on evolution to spite you?

+ The Judd Apatow backlash has begun! Of course, this backlash is a guffaw-worthy backlash because Apatow conjured it himself. And yes, it's pretty much just an ad for "Walk Hard," but it's worth it just to see Paul Rudd and Justin Long playing Rock Band. (Not safe for work.)



+ The Aaron Sorkin/Mike Nichols/Tom Hanks flick, "Charlie Wilson's War" opens today. My love for Sorkin took a slight tumble after "Studio 60" but I'm prepared to love him all over if this movie lives up to my unreasonable expectations. I'm thinking it has to be good, though, considering this preview features music from both Scissor Sisters and Jimi Hendrix.

Goodbye, 2007. Don't let the space-time continuum hit your ass on the way out.

It seems these days everyone's doing their look back at the top whatsits and whosits of 2007. Just to be contrary, I decided to jump ahead in my time machine and compile a brief list of things I'm most looking forward to in 2008:

The return of "Lost"
Seriously, I don't care if we only get eight episodes of "Lost" next year, previews like this one have been whetting my appetite like crazy for the return of everyone's favorite incomprehensible, maddening and jaw-dropping island adventure. I mean, we're going to have to get at least a few answers, right? Like why did Future Jack give up on personal grooming, despite having what I assume is better access to Gillette products? Is the hobbit really dead? Why is Jacob played by Norman Bates' mother -- and is he/she really a ghost? Who gets off the island? Who gets left behind to groom the polar bear? All I know is, January 31 can't come fast enough.

So many good movies, so many chances they could suck
Jaded as I am, I know at least 50 percent of the movies I'm jonesing to see in 2008 are probably going to blow, but I still can't help being excited. First off, we've got "Cloverfield" giving us explosions galore on January 18. The monsters look like Gamera and J.J. Abrams is attempting to fuck with my head -- two things that always make me happy. Then on April 4, we get a tasty helping of John Krasinski, George Clooney and old-time football in "Leatherheads," a perfect way to satisfy the pretty boy quota. The big boys come out to play with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on May 22 -- hello Grandpa Harrison, you'll always be hot to me...even if it's getting kind of creepy. Then on July 25, Mulder and Scully return to fill my retinas with joy in the X-Files sequel. And there's another six or seven goodies after that, including the new Harry Potter movie, another James Bond flick with that Daniel Craig fellow who actually looks like a bad-ass, even when he's sipping a cocktail. It should be a good movie-going year. I estimate gaining another 7,000 pounds in Sno-cap consumption alone.

Cinematic Titanic, I'm prepared to love you...
You should know this about me: as a young impressionable wanna-be writer, "Mystery Science Theater 3000" blew my mind on a continual and herniatingly funny basis. Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff and the rest of the gang are comedy heroes. I still think back on things like "Manos: The Hands of Fate" (aka "Hands: The Hands of Fate") with equal measures of wonderment and horror. So you can imagine my glee at the reunion of these fine folks with their new project Cinematic Titanic, described as a "new movie riffing system." Honestly, I'm kind of stupid so I'm not even 100 percent sure what that means, but I do know that I want it, it's coming soon and I'm ready to laugh. A lot. Seriously, I'm doing extensive ab work just to prepare.

The Ron Paul/Mike Gravel Cage Match
Moderated by Wolf Blitzer, the Closet Libertarian and the Alaskan Contrarian, slathered in bear grease, beat each other senseless. Okay, the odds are pretty long on this one happening, but a girl who's sick of politics can dream, can't she?

Wait, it's got cars and it's funny?

For me, cars can best be described as four wheels and a big yawn. Unless they were built in the ‘30s and are pretty to look at, they just don’t hold my interest. There’s too many letters and numbers and mechanics involved – “it’s a Mark 12PDQ and it’s got a V-8 with 400 cylinders and a Belgian hamster fan belt.” My brain just doesn’t get it.

What my brain does get – and in fact, likes very much – is BBC America’s “Top Gear,” a show ostensibly about cars but much more about three British guys doing ridiculous things at unsafe speeds. For example, there was the episode where they painted “NASCAR sucks,” “I hate country and western” and “Hillary For President” on the sides of their cars and tried to drive through Alabama. I emphasize the word “tried” because, in true American fashion, a whole bunch of rednecks proceeded to chase them from a gas station and try to kill them. Welcome to the USA, British people! Then there was the time one of the hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, designed his own interior for a Mercedes. He wanted it to be homey, ergo he put in stone floors, plastered over the doors, added a wood burning stove – complete with chimney out the trunk – and replaced the seats with cozy dinner table chairs…that were not nailed down. For finishing touches, he added a book case, miniature globe and tea service. You can best imagine the test drive by picturing a doll house strapped to a turbo charged engine and driven be two adult men who should know better but thankfully, just ignore common sense. Oh, and then there was the time they played soccer with subcompacts:



There are some boring bits to get through each week – like when they talk about cars – but those moments are mitigated by the camaraderie and sly senses of humor of hosts Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, who you might recognize from another BBC show, “Brainiac. There are celebrity test drives, too, where they let everyone from Gordon Ramsey to Ewan McGregor drive crappy little autos around a track as fast as they can, pitting their best times against each other. They also feature interesting little items on new technologies for cars, explaining these gadgets in easy-to-understand terms that actual make them look interesting and desirable. I learned loads from watching their piece comparing the homing systems of carrier pigeons to the navigational innards of a GPS system.

So even if you’re not too wild about cars, don’t be afraid to take “Top Gear” out for a spin. (See what I did there?) The show underscores one of life’s most important lessons: funny British guys really can make anything fascinating.

Why, David Yates? Why?

(Warning: Serious whining ahead. Also, spoilers for folks who haven’t read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix or seen the movie.)

You know that feeling you get when Christmas morning comes and you look under the tree and the cat has vomited on the new cashmere sweater you’d been wanting for months? Yeah, that’s kind of the feeling I got after watching "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

I never got a chance to see this latest Harry Potter installment in the theaters, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting its release on DVD. Order of the Phoenix is hands-down my favorite of the Potter books. It had heart and depth and angst and a generous helping of Sirius, which makes me happy indeed. In fact, this was the only one of the books to actually make me cry – I got quite weepy and perhaps inappropriately angry at Sirius’ demise. (I just kept thinking, “But...but...that means no more Gary Oldman.”)

So you can imagine how excited I was to find how this installment had turned out on the big screen. Which leads me to one simple question: David Yates, what the hell did you do to my book? And yes, I’m choosing to blame him rather than screenwriter Michael Goldberg although I’d probably give Goldberg a glare or two as well if we met on the street. The thing is, I understand having to cut giant chunks out of an 850+ page book in order to fit it into a 2 1/2 hour movie. That’s fine. But good God, throw in a transitional scene every now and then. Without transitional scenes, there’s no opportunity to create an emotional build-up. You know, something that would actually make the end battle between Dumbledore, Voldemort and Harry matter.

A few expositional scenes would have been nice, too. As a viewer, I was too busy wondering what the hell was going on – and I’d read the damn book! -- to get invested in the characters. And my poor husband, who hasn’t read Order yet, spent most of the movie asking me what just happened – he didn’t even realize Sirius died. He just thought he got sucked into the mirror thingy (technical jargon) and disappeared. Now that’s bad – when you lose a main character, it’s supposed to mean something and, um, the audience is supposed to know it happened.

I’m completely willing to trade in all the arty camera angles and washed-out color palettes and set designs stolen from The Trial in exchange for some decent pacing, smooth transitions and quiet moments of character development. Is that too much to ask?

The thing that really blows here is that the last two movies before this one were so good. The whole series was really on a roll and now there’s this great big Phoenix-sized lump in the road and, well, it makes me sad. And to know that Yates is doing The Half-Blood Prince makes me even sadder. Like the cat just vomited on two sweaters.

It's art! Kinda...

If I ever lost my mind, bought a van and decided to paint something on the side of it, it would be this:

Nine Out of Ten Cougars Agree: Michael Cera Makes a Fine Nerd Man of the Month

On behalf of all women over the age of 25, I would like to start by saying, "Please God, forgive us for finding Michael Cera adorable. It's entirely your fault for giving him doe eyes. Amen."

And now, with that out of the way and with the merest hint of moral trepidation still resonating in our consciences, the old ladies of The Park Bench are pleased to name Michael Cera -- totally of legal age -- our December Nerd Man of the Month.

So, besides the doe eyes, what earns Cera this prestigious honor, coveted by so many and attained by so few? Well, for one thing, the kid's hilarious. His turn as George Michael Bluth in "Arrested Development" should go down in TV history as one of the funniest deadpan portrayals of teenage awkwardness ever captured on film. George Michael was the heart of that show, a good kid saddled with the most messed up family this side of a Meredith Baxter Birney Lifetime movie. Whatever happened to George Michael -- whether it was his hilariously unfortunate crush on his cousin or the forced bonding with his dad -- you just felt wonderfully sorry for the kid. In any other actor's hands, George Michael could have turned into a miserable little bastard. In Cera's capable hands, George Michael became the most sympathetic character on the show, enduring every unfortunate turn with that sad resigned smile, waiting to see what fresh hell awaited him next.

On the big screen, Cera has made his mark with two terrific performances in "Superbad" and "Juno." Tall and gangly, seemingly uncertain where to put those long arms and legs of his, Cera is the perfect nerd everyman. He's shy but self confident, willing to bend to keep the peace but not above showing those little flares of anger that give a character three dimensions. Watch those two movies one after the other and you'll marvel at the distinctive shades Cera gives each role. I'm telling you right now: the kid's going to win an Academy Award one day. Then again, I never saw the Fresh Prince and Marky Mark nominations coming last year, so what the hell do I know about the Oscars?

Cera wins nerd man honors, too, for the fact that he's a creative force unto himself. Just check out the online TV series he does with Clark Duke, and you'll find a guy still in his teens who can write subtle comedy with the ease and finesse of someone twice his age. Need some persuading? Watch his "Impossible Is the Opposite of Possible" self-help video:



And finally, he's Canadian and you know how much we nerds love the Canadians.

Review: Sweeney Todd

Hey, are you in the mood for a really, really dark, semi-depressing musical gorefest starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter's cleavage? Then Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is for you.

I just got back from a preview showing of the new flick and here are some important salient facts I learned and which I will consequently share with you:

1) This is a good movie. It pulls you in from the moment Johnny Depp with his white-streaked hair and raccoon eyes first appears on screen. There's a quiet little hiccup when he first starts singing and you're suddenly reminded, "Oh yeah, this is a musical." But almost immediately, this story of a barber driven mad by the loss of his wife and child and the horrifying acts he commits in the name of revenge will have you pinned to your seat.

2) Johnny Depp can sing. This really shouldn't be a shock because by now we all should just accept the fact that Johnny can do anything including but not limited to: flying, performing a flawless Heimlich Maneuver, building a computer from string and Scotch tape, and knitting.

3) This is a ridiculously gory movie. In fact, if Sam Peckinpah and Quentin Tarantino had a love child, it would be Tim Burton directing this movie. I'm not good with gore so I watched a good portion of it with my hands over my eyes, but as grisly as some of the images are, they're not entirely gratuitous. This is a Gothic, over-the-top Broadway spectacular -- this level of violence and the broadness with which it's portrayed seems necessary.

4) I say this as a completely heterosexual woman: Helena Bonham Carter's bosom is extraordinary.

5) I'm still not overly fond of Stephen Sondheim's work, and I feel quite guilty about it. I'm not saying the music isn't good. It's actually terrific music. My quibble is with his lyrics and I apologize in advance for this analogy: like Alanis Morisette, Sondheim is prone to cramming as many words as humanly possible into as small a musical phrase as possible. And while the lyrics are always endlessly witty and smart, the total effect just sounds a bit awkward to me.

6) For all you Buffy fans out there, Anthony Stewart Head makes one of those "blink and you'll miss him" cameos toward the beginning of the film. Thankfully, Giles does not get offed. I don't think I could have handled that one.

In short, this is a very dark and violent movie. At the same time, though, it's enthralling and genuinely different from anything else I've seen this year. And ultimately, it's worth the price of admission just to see and hear Johnny Depp create another unforgettable character. The dude's so good I'm surprised he has enough time to knit.

Three photos

Photos of the new Knight Rider car from the upcoming TV movie remake have been revealed. To me, it just looks like...well...a car, but hey, I'm a girl so what do I know?



And here we've got Heath Ledger in full costume as The Joker from the upcoming Christopher Nolan-directed Dark Knight movie. I kind of think he looks like Shakes the Clown in that scene when he made out with Florence Henderson, but hey, I'm a girl so what do I know?


Best of all, the first photos from the new X-Files movie have surfaced. Here's David Duchovny running like the sexy Fox Mulder he is. There's some chick named Amanda Peet next to him but that's not really important. Hello Fox, how I've missed you....

Review: Juno

Last night I went to a special screening of the new film, "Juno," which included a Q&A session with screenwriter Diablo Cody and was kind of like getting the DVD extras before the DVD actually comes out -- which is to say, it was great.

"Juno" is the first screenplay written by Cody, who started out blogging about her life as a stripper. She eventually wrote a book about her experiences and soon after that was invited to write the script that became "Juno."

Seeing this movie, you would not know this is the work of a first-time screenwriter except for the fact that the work has the integrity of a newcomer. This is a very funny and ultimately very touching film about Juno, a 16 year old girl who gets pregnant, as her stepmother says, for the true and mundane reason that sometimes "kids get bored and they have intercourse," and decides to give the baby up for adoption to a seemingly perfect couple played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. The emotional core of the film, Cody claimed, comes from director Jason Reitman. "I don't like message movies," Cody said. "I don't like movies where anything touching or moving happens. I like 'Anchorman' so that should tell you something."

I think she's selling herself way short there. The complexity of these characters and the situations they're in cannot help but generate emotion, from Garner's character who's desperate to be a mother to Bateman's character who's kind of a creep (sorta, maybe) to Juno who tries to be tough but who wants everything to be right so badly that it hurts to the father of the baby, played by Michael Cera, who just seems confused but good-hearted about the whole thing. This is a complicated movie with heart and charm and great jokes including my favorite, a description of the Roosevelts -- "not Ted," Juno says, "but Franklin, the hot one with polio."

The acting is uniformly outstanding. Ellen Page, who you may remember from a disturbingly inverted Red Riding Hood tale called "Hard Candy," plays Juno as a girl who is blisteringly smart about everything except how the world really works. Allison Janney as Juno's stepmother steals every scene she's in and I'm begging the powers that be to give her that Oscar nomination right now. Jennifer Garner is wonderful, too, as a woman who wants a baby so badly she becomes blind to everything else around her. And Michael Cera puts in another fine performance as a good kid in a tough situation. Jason Bateman does a fascinating turn, too, as a guy not yet ready to grow up. Despite the things he does, Bateman plays his character in such a way that you just can't hate him. As Cody said, "I want (him) to be happy, too, even though he's creepy."

As an aside, it was great to see "Arrested Development" co-stars Cera and Bateman in a movie together even though they never share the screen. As an "Arrested Development" fan herself, Cody said, "If I had known they were going to be in the film together, I would have written nine scenes with them together and totally fucked up the movie." It might actually have been worth it.

If you have a chance to see this film, do it. Now. Please.

I expect the Vienna Boys Choir will be singing this one next year

From the fine comedy makers of Supermasterpiece comes this insightful video weighing the merits of Christmas versus Hanukkah. Personally, I'm a Hanukkah fan -- it's eight days long, for cryin' out loud, that's some fine holiday longevity. Plus, potato pancakes. Mmmm....

P.S. If you watch this at work, you might want to slip on some headphones. There are naughty bits. Enjoy!

50 Nerdy Things to Do Before You Die...

Part wish list, part to-do list, part flight of fancy...but 100 percent nerd.

50. Have a fashionista compliment you on your outfit.

49. Get married on a replica of the starship Enterprise at the "Star Trek: Experience" in Las Vegas.

48. Be bold and take your action figures out of the box, value be damned!

47. Visit the grave of pioneering comic book artist Jack Kirby.

46. Live James Joyces' Ulysses by attending the Bloomsday Festival in Dublin. (Reading Ulysses first -- or at least buying the Cliff's Notes -- might be good here, too.)

45. See all of Shakespeares' histories performed. Yes, even the crap ones. (Helloooooo, King John!)

44. Visit the yet-to-be-made Harry Potter theme park.

43. Visit the yet-to-be-made Harry Potter theme park and try not to cry tears of girly joy.

42. Defeat King Koopa. Just once, damn it!

41. Have martinis and make witty comments at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, preferably at a round table.

40. See at least one game at all existing Major League Baseball ballparks.

39. Make a tour of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles. After that, make a tour of The Big Lebowski’s Los Angeles.

38. Draw a map of a nonexistent or fictional place.

37. Visit DC Comics’ office.

36. Check out the computer labs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, future birthplace of HAL-9000.

35. Go to the Superman Festival in Metropolis, IL.

34. Have dinner with Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin) and Linda Carter (Wonder Woman). Denigrate Gil Gerard.

33. Visit the respective castles that inspired Frankenstein and Dracula.

32. Match or out-do Eugene Andreev's record-setting freefall from an altitude of 83,523 ft (25,457 m).

31. Build your own lightsaber.

30. Visit Riverside, Iowa, future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.

29. Watch the sunset from inside the "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" dinosaur.

28. Convince Harold Bloom that Tolkien's Ring trilogy belongs in the canon just as much as that stuffy old Faerie Queene. Plus, hello, hobbits!

27. Go to an underground sing-along screening of the Buffy Musical. (When Buffy is outlawed, only outlaws will sing-along to Buffy.)

26. See the butter cow at the Iowa State Fair.

25. Spend an entire weekend watching Miyazaki films. Subsequently achieve outstanding bliss.

24. Witness a live space shuttle launch. Extra points if you're piloting it.

23. Create an elaborate, unnecessarily detailed wiki about a fictional universe or series of stories.

22. Smuggle your soul into a futuristic robot. One thousand years from now, mock the suckers who fell for cryogenics.

21. Kill a zombie.

20. Kick Eric Clapton's ass in "Guitar Hero."

19. Become an editor and get paid to correct other people's grammar errors.

18. Make a pilgrimage to the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida, and pet his six-toed cats.

17. Learn advanced Klingon.

16. "Accidentally" get locked in a bookstore for seven or eight days.

15. Watch 24 hours of "24" without falling asleep or hallucinating about Tony's soul patch. Seriously. It can't be done.

14. Understand a Tom Stoppard play on the first viewing.

13. Visit the International Space Station and go for a spacewalk.

12. Join the 501st Stormtrooper Brigade.

11. Memorize enough digits of pi to be impressive but not weird.

10. Be part of the first Wii Sport Olympic team. Be satisfied in the knowledge that your groin pulls will only ever be virtual.

9. Make out with Joss Whedon or J.K. Rowling. Extra points if you achieve a two-fer.

8. Gain at least one bionic limb or superpower

7. Feel again like you felt the first time you saw "Star Wars."

6. Correct Alex Trebek on the pronunciation of something French. Consequently hold him when he cries.

5. Figure out what the hell "Lost" is about. [This item also works for "The Prisoner," "Twin Peaks," "Cloverfield," and the popularity of Oprah.]

4. Solve a New York Times crossword puzzle...with your eyes closed. Just kidding. Doing one in pen with no mistakes in under 10 minutes is good, too.

3. Defeat those brainiac kids in the Scripps Spelling Bee Contest.

2. Get something published in The New Yorker. Have David Remnick call and ask where you've been all his life.

1. Live to see the day when smart and witty wins out over hot and shallow every single day of the week.

Contributors: Leonard Pierce, Meghann Williams, Annie, Scott, Kevin Church, One Pink Shoe, Ms. C

News of the Day

+ If you've ever wondered what R2D2 would sound like reciting the works of Shakespeare, now's your chance to find out, thanks to this R2D2 translator. (Spoiler alert: R2D2 reciting Shakespeare sounds a lot R2D2 reciting anything...but with a British accent. Totally classy.) [Found via Kristallin at Livejournal's We Love Geeks.]

+ From Wired, this is my favorite news story of the year:

Boy Survives Moose Attack Thanks To World Of Warcraft
By Earnest Cavalli
Hans Jørgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, recently survived a moose attack by feigning death, "just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft."

In WoW, "feign death" is a skill acquired by hunters at level 30 that allows them to take a page from the possum playbook, collapse to the ground, and convince their enemies -- who lose all ingrained animosity in the process -- that they've died.

According to Norwegian site Nettavisen , Hans and his sister apparently enraged one of the local moose (mooses? meese?) during a walk in the forest near their home. After shouting at the gigantic creature to ward it away from his sister, Olsen dropped to the ground, and presumably his lifebar plummeted to zero.

Moose have never been known as the wisest creature in the forest, and the boy's show of necrosis seems to have worked, as both he and his sister survived intact.

It's easy to decry video games as a menace to society but in a world where MMOs save adorable, tow-headed Norwegian children from a deadly moose, can they really be that bad?

+ This dude's created 56 geek posters showcasing all the different geek species. Sadly, he depict mostly guys -- except for the Scrapbrook Geek, which somehow seems slightly insulting. It's a pretty cool selection. I'm definitely this type, but with a better figure:


+ And finally, here's my moment of Zen: Puss N'Boots playing with a dangly ball on his stocking cap, courtesy of the "Shrek the Halls" Christmas special. Watch until the end for his last remark, which pretty much sums up my entire life:

Kellie Pickler offers us nerdy women a renewed sense of intellectual superiority...just in time for Christmas!

I know everyone in the entire world has probably already seen this, but I find myself unable to refrain from laughing at a blonde woman named Pickler...especially when she's not quite sure if France is, you know, a country.



When a fifth-grader and Jeff Foxworthy both look at you like you're a fucking idiot, well, that's just sad.

News of the Day

+ If you do just one thing you do for yourself today, please let it be this: watching a video of two-legged robots - including a kick-ass penguin - fighting each other. They do their own versions of the whole "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" dance, and I think I love them.

+ Did you hear they found a dinosaur fossil with skin? (No Bea Arthur jokes.) Here's what the dermally-enhanced critter looks like:


I think it looks like a tire track, which may explain why I'm not one of those paleontologists. Also, I would call everything we dug up "Barney." That's another reason.

+ I always knew recycling could be more exciting than just pulling wet Delmonte labels off of cans. Look at what this creative cat-loving, computer-gutting person made out of an old monitor and a feline:


+ For days, I was seeing these bright red eyes staring out at me from the TV every time I watched a show on Fox. Naturally, I assumed some sort of alien spirit was hunting me down and simply re-adjusted my tin foil hat. Now, though, I find it was just an advertisement for the new series, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," which I mentally pooh-poohed until I found out it stars Summer Glau from "Firefly." And look, she's joined Cirque Du Soleil:


Is it weird that I think her legs are telling me they're "this many" days old?

+ And finally, and perhaps most important of all, The Spice Girls have reunited...

...as The Village People. Welcome back, 1978!