Fug or Fab?**

Forgetting Sarah Marshall will be:

A. One of those movies that looks like it will suck but then doesn't after all.
B. A mediocre excuse to consume inexcusable amounts of sugar and salt.
C. The final nail in the coffin of the art formerly known as Kristen Bell's career.
D. The largest piece of crap ever to be released from the bowels of the American film industry.

** Credit where it's due!

I'd Like to Meet a Lapel Pin Voter

Here are the four things that ABC moderators attempted to hammer Barack Obama on during the first half of tonight's Democratic debate in Pennsylvania:

- Not wearing a flag pin on his lapel (curiously, Hillary Clinton's bare lapel somehow eluded notice);
- Reverend Wright;
- Being "elitist"; and
- His so-called connections to a domestic terrorist group that was active in the 1960s (although strangely they neglected to ask Clinton about her connections to the same group, even though her husband pardoned two of them).

Here are four things that were not brought by the moderators at any point during the debate:

- The plummeting value of the U.S. dollar;
- Today's Supreme Court decision that use of lethal injection does not constitute not cruel and unusual punishment;
- Admissions this week that Still-President Bush was actively aware of his administration's approval of torture techniques; and
- Education, environment and the economy (okay, technically that's three, but they're linked — especially somewhere like Pennsylvania — and not one of them was brought up anyway).

But I suppose considering the fact that one of the moderators was former Bill Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos, I should settle for being pleasantly surprised that they didn't ask Obama if his wife's status as a Marxist Islamo-fascist baby-eater would adversely influence his presidency.

And Road Runner for Veep Veep?

Apparently Obama has offered the Treasury Secretary position to Hannah Montana. I can only say that she's bound to be a step up from the current guy.

Out of the Frying Pan into the Popper

Problem: Reliance on foreign oil.

Solution: Fuel cars with corn instead.

New Problem: Rapidly spreading global famine leads to accusations that biofuels constitute a human rights violation.

New Solution: Given our proclivity for invading four-lettered nation-states that begin with the letter I, move that we invade Iowa and nationalize all arable land.

Or, we could always do that potato famine thing again.

I've Changed My Mind about the Bosons

So regarding that whole god particle machine I was writing about — I would like to hereby issue a retraction regarding its coolness factor. Because apparently while the vaunted atom smasher might indeed open tiny little windows into brave new worlds thereby revolutionizing science and faith as we know it, it may instead give birth to a star-system-gobbling black hole. No joke. According to an article in the New York Times, critics (read: other people with PhD's in astrophysics) assert that the machine may well create a black whole that will instantly suck the Earth, all of its inhabitants, and possibly even Arthur Dent into it.

Um, hello, bad? Not only because I'd rather my skull not be condensed into the size of a nanobot, but also because if that doesn't happen, do you have any idea how many terrible faux-fi movies this will spawn? Seriously, deearthification might actually be preferable.

Retrieved a Nothing

In what I consider to be an unqualified success of a day, I spent the afternoon consuming, cover-to-cover, a full four of the 25 heretofore unread magazines decorating my coffee table. I read one each of Harper's, The Nation, NEA Today and California Educator.

Of the many excellent paragraphs I read today, the most fabulous by far was located in the "Findings" section of Harper's:

"A sex hormone was found in the drinking water of San Francisco, and anti-anxiety medications were found in the drinking water of Southern California. Prozac was revealed not to work, researchers demonstrated that placebos are more effective if the drugs for which they stand in are said to be more expensive, and a Scottish study determined that roughly half of a person's happiness is due to genetics. Physicists stored and retrieved a nothing."

Do Not Collect 200 Gajillion Dollars

And I quote: "Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is in talks with Microsoft about joining in its contested bid for Yahoo, according to people involved in the discussions."

Okay, first of all, "people involved in the discussions." "People" involved in the "discussions." What does that even mean? My husband and I are presently people involved in discussions. According to us, Dick Cheney's skin is made of calcified American cheese that hardened during his journey from the Death Star to planet Earth. Think the much-vaunted New York Times will pick that one up?

Furthermore, I find myself suddenly in the grip of a most terrible fright. If Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch breed, what will their children look like? Will there be horns? Glasses? Horn-rimmed glasses... that eat babies? Run, little Yahoo, run! Get thee to a nunnery!

Or at least a nice partnership with Papa Google. Although here again I am baboozleplexified by the odd lack of journalistic... journalism. Yahoo's own website is carrying a story that claims the company views Google as a potential alternative to the Microsoft buyout, but that very story contains the following quote: "A Google spokesman declined to comment, saying he was not aware of the story." So Yahoo is, what, floating the story in the hopes that the gods of Google will shrug and assume that they must not have noticed the Yahoo merger amidst all of their other corporate congealments?

All I know is that if I have to start typing my search queries into the image of Bill O'Reilly's gaping maw, I am going to officially become a Luddite.

Let There Be Bosons!

Scientists believe they are on the brink of discovering the intriguingly monikered "god particle" through a process of smashing atoms to bits with Mike Tyson's fists a very large machine. While the prospect of finally bringing to light what makes light, well, light, is indeed fascinating, I can't help but wonder if the millions of dollars allocated to the project might not have been better spent creating a machine that would bring to light socks that disappear in the dryer.

I'm just saying.

Death by Domesticity

Today's favorite headline: "Men Create More Housework for Women". According to the article, married women today spend an average of seven more hours per week on housework than single women. Conversely, married men spend an average of one hour less per week on housework than their single counterparts (although apparently they do more housework than they did in 1976 — hurrah).

As I sit here typing this, I am looking at not one but two empty glasses and a half-consumed can of Coke left scattered on the coffee table by either malicious gnomes or my husband.

Being liberated sure is awesome.

Gadgetastic

I have a new favorite toy — Google Reader! It's basically a ridiculously easy feed reader type thing with Googly goodness. Today I effectively smooshed The Huffington Post, Go Fug Yourself and my friends' blogs all into one gmail-inspired contraption.

Truly, internet, you are extremely diverting.