CATS AND DOGS, LIVING TOGETHER: A disaster of Biblical proportions in Provo, Utah... but that is about to change.

ON THE PITCHFORK: IGGY & THE STOOGES (with Mike Watt!) pay tribute to Delta bluesman Junior Kimbrough on a CD to issue in January.

WHAT IS HIP? Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver," as remixed by the Supreme Beings of Leisure?

FEMALE INFIDELITY may be linked to genetics. My bad eyesight also may be linked to genetics, but I wear eyeglasses. Just sayin'.

JULIA'S TWINS: I previously wrote that they might be boffo PR for Ocean's 12, but Defamer turns that joke up to eleven.

PROTEIN WISDOM has a unique definition of "agape." A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but a picture plus a few well-chosen words is even better.

HUCKAPOO: New York Magazine's piece on the making of a girl group reveals that there is something in a name.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, set to replace Tom Brokaw as anchor at NBC, thinks that bloggers are "on an equal footing with someone in a bathroom with a modem." Tell it to Rather, Brian. UPDATE: Bill Ardolino, the blogger who got one of the country's foremost forensic document examiners to opine that he was at least 90% sure the memos Rather used were fakes, has a fun response to Williams.

PAGE SIX claims that Pam Anderson was "caught doing the 'walk of shame' on her way out of skirt-chasing actor Stephen Dorff's Malibu pad Sunday morning." I doubt Pam could find the "walk of shame" with a map.

TIME-WASTER OF THE DAY: Just let your eyes glaze over.

BRAIN SCANS may make lie detectors scientific. UPDATE: Jim Lindgren of the Volokh Conspiracy notes that either the study or the news story is flawed.

GROVER: BEHIND THE MUPPET

END OF THE WORLD UPDATE: The locusts are now swarming the Canary Islands.

TRUMAN CAPOTE: His first, unpublished novel, long thought destroyed, surfaces for auction.

ROBOTIC AIRPLANE is doing remarkable work in Iraq: "It travels above insurgent positions and sends real-time video images to Marines on the ground. The unmanned device can relay facial expressions on enemy soldiers, and can transmit in such detail that it shows steam rising from their coffee.

TV ROUNDUP: Bravo has compiled a list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters, another argument starter. Apparently, there's also a book out titled Prime Times, in which famous writers essay their favorite TV shows. And TV network execs are looking to shake up tired formulas: "Fox brass are said to be particularly high on a project that one could dub 'hat '70s B.C. Show': It imagines Jesus as a slacker teen under pressure from his parents -- God and Mary -- to enter the family carpentry business." Eek.

THE ELECTRIC SIX has a video for their cover of "Radio Ga Ga" that pretty much defies description. And the cover ain't bad, either.

THE CELL is a forthcoming multi-microprocessor ten times more powerful than conventional chips and able to shepherd large chunks of data over broadband networks.

LILEKS notes that it's decoration season and solicits your input on Christmas songs for his Sunday newspaper column.

STACY'S MOM (Rachel Hunter) and Baywatch bunny Nicole Eggert are Gingers on The Real Gilligan's Island, which premieres tonight.

FILM STEW reports that people are upset that Natalie Portman will not be topless in Closer when it opens this Friday.

ON THE PITCHFORK: Warner Bros. to squeeze REM fans.

WILLIAM A. MITCHELL, inventor of Cool Whip, quick-set Jell-O, Tang, Pop Rocks and more, dead at 92.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY backed the Nazis. Who knew?

THANKSGIVING AFTERMATH: Dispute over turkey blamed for stabbings. Also, a car collided with a tractor-trailer carrying 11,000 pounds of frozen turkeys, killing three people.

BOFFO PR FOR OCEAN'S TWELVE: Julia Roberts delivers her twins. They are named Hazel and Phinnaeus, thereby ensuring that at least one of them will resent her in later life.

THE UKRAINE is still not a sitting duck. Daniel Drezner is blogging the story at length, with plenty of links to outside media.

MARTHA STEWART is a hit at her prison mess hall. But guess where Martha stashes her ingredients.

RECORD CDs on your own homemade gramophone!

ALEXANDER THE HORRIBLE: Oliver Stone's latest debuts at number six, beaten out by Spongebob; The Incredibles digs in at number two.

MINI-REVIEWS: Skipping Alexander, I caught Finding Neverland and Sideways. The former was probably greenlighted by Miramax after the success of Shakespeare In Love as Neverland uses the same parallel structure to show how the life of a famous author -- J.M. Barrie, in this case -- influenced the creation of a work of art. And with the darker aspects of Barrie's life dismissed as rumor, this movie bears as much relationship to reality as Shakespeare In Love. Nevertheless, there's plenty to like in this movie. Depp is fine as Barrie, though not a revelation, as the role calls for some of the same Keaton-and-Chaplin whimsy Depp served up in Benny and Joon, albeit with more subtlety and an accent. Better are Kate Winslet and Radha Mitchell as the women in Barrie's life. It would be cruelly ironic if Winslet is nominated for an Oscar for this role and for Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as she would split her own vote. Mitchell is good enough as Barrie's restrained, social-climbing wife that it took me a few minutes to place her as the spaceship captain in Pitch Black.

Sideways is also about an author... sort of. The main character, Miles Raymond, is also a middle school English teacher and oenophile -- a wine-tasting fanatic. Though both Miles and his friend Jack have plenty of bad traits, the audience comes to like Miles for what we see when he speaks of the passions that move him. Jack seems to be the more normal at the outset, but is ultimately seen as a man without passion. Sideways is a tour de force for Paul Giamatti; though my description of Miles may sound like Giamatti's take on Harvey Pekar in American Splendor, the actual performance is far different, but equally good, if not better. Thomas Hayden Church is good as Jack, though the backstory may not be much of a stretch for him. Virginia Madsen, who started her acreer in more intense roles, is charming as Maya; I even liked Sandra Oh as Stephanie (and I generally do not like Sandra Oh in anything). It's a romantic comedy or dramedy, I suppose, but there is nothing saccharine about it. Sideways continues a winning streak for director Alexander Payne, who previously directed Citizen Ruth, Election, and About Schmidt. I do not know whether critics will rate Sideways above About Schmidt, but I found it much easier to watch.

WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCATION, just a royalty check, please.

NO CHEERS: Shelley Long hospitalized for an overdose? UPDATE: Long's manager denies it was a suicide attempt.

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA is bedeviled by blogs.

THE UNITED NATIONS OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL, in which Saddam Hussein's regime reaped over 21 billion dollars through oil surcharges, kickbacks on civilian goods and smuggling directly to willing governments, continues to fester and gets nearer to the top.

QOTD: "I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (via Pejman).

And to briefly respond to Ron and others, the links are culled by scanning Yahoo! News, Google News, and a list of bookmarks accumulated over the years. Many of my bookmarked sites tend to be niche news sites or blogs that provide links to various types of stories: gossip, Hollywood, the media business, etc. Also, if I hear or see something funny on radio or television, I'll take a stab at finding it on the web and posting a link. There is a fair amount of stuff I don't post because, for example, it might be too political, or too pornographic, or both. Or not really relevant to the Pate site; for example, I often look at the sites of web designers, just for the artistry.

Also, having a government job, not getting married and not having kids (afaik) probably gives me a few more moments during the day for reading web sites than many people have.

Ron's post also makes me think that I may be a bit light on the tech-oriented links, other than the occasional nanotech link in case Jon Pratt misses it. I'll try to pick up some slack there. However, if folks have links of any sort they would like to share, they should feel free to submit them directly (as Ron and Dave Ewoldt have done) or send them to me for posting. I post the links to keep the site fresh and encourage folks to visit more often, but the more people want to add their two cents, the better!

I am always amazed at how Karl is able to find so many tibits on the Internet. I find it challenging to post things here since I pay attention to computer related things. But I found this little tidbit on what you can do with your AOL disks that you get in the mail all the time.

The AOL Throne