Karl THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS… HOT DOG! As Pate fans have fond memories of “Rope Around The Moon,” a reference to It's A Wonderful Life was inevitable. Take a moment to revisit a dozen factual nuggets beneath the Wonderful Life myth. The movie is on NBC Christmas Eve, or you can go straight to the 30-second version re-enacted by bunnies. The bunnies also have a 30-second version of A Christmas Story for those of you who dig the Leg Lamp. (Thanks, Debbie) ALSO: Clearly, all of the above prove that It’s A Wonderful Internet.
CHRISTMAS TIMEWASTER: Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees!
CHRISTMAS TIMEWASTER II: Goin' off the rails on a Crazy Sleigh!
CHRISTMAS TIMEWASTER III: Reindeer Training School.
SANTA CLAUS is interviewed by the Knoxville News-Sentinel. He's been podcasting. And tomorrow night — after he finishes water-skiing — he will be tracked by NORAD.
THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Somewhere, John Gibson's head just exploded.
PIMP MY NUTCRACKER: Word.
THE SCIENCE OF CHRISTMAS: The New Scientist has a special report covering everything from exotically-flavoured booze to physics of scrooge, an examination of whether Santa uses wormholes to travel through space and time, and the latest developments in animatronic snowmen.
THE PNC CHRISTMAS PRICE INDEX, based on the cost of goods and services gifted in “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” increased above the regular rate of inflation, as the cost of geese almost doubled this year, while the cost of swans increased by 20 percent.
CALVIN AND HOBBES: Snow Art Gallery.
THE CAROL OF THE CHINS… and they take requests.
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS Christmas Mash-Up. And the Chipmunks' voices are slowed… way… down…
RILO KILEY: Blake Sennett tells Billboard that the solo projects he and Jenny Lewis are readying for release will not force the group to go on hiatus.
INDIE ROCK HOTTIE (FEMALE) OF 2005 is revealed at Stereogum. It was a landslide. Better luck next year, Bea Arthur!
SEASON OF THE LIST: Largehearted Boy serves up the linkage to top album lists from NPR's All Songs Considered (w/streaming audio), Andrew Womack of the Morning News, Madison WI's The Capital Times, the Riverfront Times, which also has a lists of overlooked discs and hip-hop, the Chattanooga Pulse, which also has lists for the top ten songs and for local albums, Canadian Press writer Angela Pacienza, the Boston Phoenix (local albums), the Hartford Courant, the Charleston Post and Courier, a new-to-me site called Popjournalism.
MORE LISTS: There are a slew of lists at the Armchair Novelist, including the top 11 musical surprise moments, the top 7 cover songs, thetop ten MF Doom lyrics, the top 6 blogs, the best shows, the top 9 rap albums, the top 10 songs on the Arcade Fire's Funeral, the top 8 Seattle releases, the top 8 music videos, the top 10 quotes from bang bang rock and roll, the top 6 underrated bands, the top 3 senior citizens, the top 5 beefs, the bands I'm not cool enough to find out about on my own, the top 10 albums I hope are good in 2006, the the most anticipated, yet underwhelming albums of 2005, the top 3 defunct bands I discovered in 2005 and the top 5 EPs.
RYAN ADAMS, having released three albums this year, pretty much knows how the interviews are going to go: “What do you want to ask me today? 'Ryan, why are you so prolific? You are purported to be a kind of a jerk. Your hair is very disheveled…' I am kind of quite sick of people going, 'If he would have just taken all three of these records and dumped them down to one album he would have a perfect double album.' It's like, 'Well you guys be my … manager, then. I don't know, I like them all. I figure, you know, Mom makes too much meatloaf means we got leftovers. It doesn't mean that she did something wrong.” Next up: Makin' Meatloaf with Willie Nelson.
NELLIE McKAY — contrary to prior reports — has split with Columbia/Sony after a long dispute over the length of her upcoming second album.
THE APPLES IN STEREO: You Ain't No Picasso is killing music with a guide for folks interested in the band.
NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY? BUT WAIT… THERE'S MORE LISTS: Filter runs more Top Tens from Stephen Pedersen of Criteria, Andrew Broder of Fog, Jason Reece of And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, David Pajo and — finally — the Filter staff picks. There's also a Top 25 albums, plus plenty of alternate lists up at Tiny Mix Tapes. The “best of” from Coolfer Glenn lists his favorites, and questions the need for singles lists and charts. And Glide has a bunch of lists from artists, including Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers and Rhett Miller of the Old 97s.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: The video of the shamed supermodel snorting cocaine in a London recording studio has reportedly been turned over as evidence to police.
WALK THE LINE is to be screened at Folsom Prison, 38 years after Johnny Cash recorded his classic live album there.
STACY'S MOM is struggling to maintain her appetite after falling ill with a mystery illness earlier this month.
JANET JACKSON: In a shocker, Janet was the most sought-after term on Google News — ahead of Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami, Xbox 360, followed by Brad Pitt, Michael Jackson, American Idol, Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie and Harry Potter.
ELTON JOHN is still catfighting with Madonna. And vice versa.
MADONNA had her plans for a romantic wedding anniversary ruined when her private jet developed problems at Southampton airport. Oh, the humanity!
COURTNEY LOVE is broke and wants to raise cash by selling her rights to the song catalog of her late husband, Kurt Cobain, and Nirvana. It was laready rumored that Martha Stewart bought a 25 percent interest.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON, who just moved in with Josh Hartnett, has questioned monogamy and romances between actors. At least she hasn't dragged my name into it.
BRADGELINA UPDATE: New York Daily News gossip Lloyd Grove, who swore off mentioning the French Motel last year, is quitting Pitt forever: “I can well afford to live without him — just like Jen.” But I think he's left himself a Jolie loophole. Meanwhile, Life & Style magazine claims to have “exclusive new evidence” that Jolie is pregnant.
JESSICA SIMPSON is seeking to to remove her divorce from the court system, and into private arbitration. Both sides reportedly favor the motion. And Jessica is developing ulcers, perhaps from the stress of the divorce — or maybe just from realizing she turned down Nick Lachey's offer of a prenup.
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN wants to play the Penguin in the Batman Begins sequel.
NAOMI WATTS and LIEV SCHREIBER reportedly want to get married as soon, and as secretly, as possible. So people are speculating about Watts' BFF Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban taking a private jet to NYC.
MISCHA BARTON, part of the eye candy on The O.C., says: “Pretty people aren't as accepted as other people. It comes with all these stigmas.” Actually, studies show that pretty people earn more, attractive students get more attention and higher evaluations from their teachers, good-looking patients get more personalized care from their doctors, and handsome criminals receive lighter sentences than less attractive convicts. Of course, some people stereotype pretty people as spolied airheads who can get by on their looks in modeling and showbiz, which undoubtedly wounds poor Mischa. People, don't hate her because she's beautiful — make fun of her because she says dumb things!
IRAQ: Blogger Gregory Djerejian blurbs New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, with whom he shared a taxi during the NYC transit strike. StategyPage has background on the tension between the Sunnis and the Shia in Iraq and throughout the Mideast. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covers a campaign by 48th Brigade Combat Team's 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment to save the life of an Iraqi baby.
NSA INTELL: The Washington Post story on plans to brief the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) on the NSA's “special collection program” has some details about the program itself that may bear on its legality. The story suggests that it is impossible for the Administration to provide FISC with names for warrants because the program, and the technology on which it is based, is designed to intercept conversations in real time from among an enormous number relayed at any moment through satellites. This is consistent with my earlier suspicion that the new program is an extension of the Echelon program. If the gov't has no idea whose conversations will be selected, it would be difficult to show that it illegally intentionally targeted particular, known US persons under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
NANOTECH: The San Francisco Chronicle covers a report from California's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology, which is due to be published Monday. However, there's nothing on tiny reindeer.
PEACE on EARTH: Despite the daily horrors in Iraq and seemingly regular spasms of terrorist-sponsored violence, the world is a much more peaceful place than it was a little more than a decade ago, a new study says.
HUBBLE TELESCOPE finds rings around Uranus. Fish in a barrel.
CUTE OVERLOAD: Your one-stop blog for pictures of cute animals.
A DOG'S CHRISTMAS STORY: Kinda like A Christmas Story, except that it's not the dog's tongue that gets stuck to something metal.
PLAYING POSSUM in a Christmas Tree.
SASQUATCH caught on video in Sonoma County, California. Surprisingly, the camera work is jumpy and blurry.
…and to all, a good night. Hee-Haw!