I LOL’d. This post is as good a place as any to note that the media response to Chat Roulette echos the response to Twitter around this time last year. Basically, they had been so burned by ignoring Myspace, and took too long to understand Facebook, they weren’t going to get fooled by Twitter and so they jumped in both feet first. Chat Roulette went from internet sensation to all over the media in record time. I imagine that the next platform to take off will get covered in the traditional media BEFORE it becomes popular online, thus creating an interesting paradox.

I really hope we don’t look back at this and say, “Then. It was then we knew the show had jumped.” I mean… it doesn’t mean anything, right? It’s nothing. Shake it off.

The dolls are part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults that Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection. Although there have been Barbies and Kens based on other TV series, among them “I Love Lucy” and “The X-Files,” the dolls will be the first licensed line for that collection, Mattel says, with a suggested retail price of $74.95 each.

James Wolcott profiles Alec Baldwin. It’s a good read, but nothing new, though I’m interested because Baldwin’s career is so interesting. He’s absolutely killing TV right now on 30 Rock, after killing Saturday Night Live all those years. He’s been great in a couple good movies (as Wolcott notes), but doesn’t have a big role in an important movie. How will we think about him in 20 years?

Oh, by the way, he’s talking about retiring after 30 Rock…

So perhaps the smoke signals he’s sending up about retiring aren’t a bluff. But I can’t help but think that if he gets the chance to work with Meryl Streep again he won’t say no. That would be like turning down dessert, and he’s a cat who can’t resist cream.

This guy in the Ford Focus commercial who says something like, “If I say, to my friends, give me $5 gas, they think they’re giving me a fair amount, but really they’re giving me way more than I need.” That kid’s an asshole. Why don’t you ask for the amount you need as opposed to seeing your friends as ATM machines. If they wanted to convey that it uses less gas than people think, why didn’t they just have him say, “When I drive and my friends give me money for gas, they give me $5 and it’s too much. I tell them sometimes, but not all the time.”

Why do they want to make Ford Focus drivers look like people who knowingy take advantage of their friends?

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Sigh. I don’t know if this can go on. I say that, but I don’t know if I mean it.

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Silicon Valley Insider has a long story on how Facebook was founded with some purportedly new accusations.

New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook’s servers to break into Facebook members’ private email accounts and read their emails–at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company’s systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful.

Ruh roh. It’s hard to tell how much of this was new information, though the fact that the accusations from ConnectU came a week after Facebook launched gives the accusers credibility in my book. Also, the $65 Million settlement… Well, yeah. That says Facebook is giving them some credibility, as well. And the accusations of using user data to login to the email addresses of users? That jibes pretty closely with how (un)seriously Facebook takes user privacy. I wonder if any of this will get picked up by the traditional media, and I wonder if the SVI investigation will hold up to journalistic standards…

Via Eric Andersen

We seriously didn’t get enough craptastic shark/octopus action in Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus? We need Sharktopus? I don’t think so SyFy. Of course I’ll watch it, but it has as much of a chance of being good as the St. Louis Rams.
Note: This movie has the rare distinction of earning the Unlikely Words “Crappy Movies” tag before I’ve even seen it.

It’s not clear why this performance isn’t more heralded. Break My Stride was the first song I remember thinking of as my favorite song and it was on the radio incessantly when I would be riding in the car with my mom. But this video. Wow. It’s from Matthew Wilder’s appearance on Solid Gold, which explains the numerous backup dancers. But there’s absolutely no explanation for his crazy shirt. Also, the 3 keyboards? WHAT THE HELL DOES HE NEED 3 KEYBOARDISTS FOR? Anyway. Enjoy.

Fun fact, Matthew Wilder was the producer for No Doubt’s 1995 hit Tragic Kingdom. I wonder if he’s available for interviews. Or if he was in the No Doubt Behind the Music?

During the Olympics, there was a commercial narrated by Morgan Freeman of the speed skater Dan Jansen skating a victory lap with his baby daughter after winning a gold medal in 1990. So I was wondering… Babies cry once in a while, so how is it that we never see people doing victory laps with a screaming baby who all of a sudden melts down? Is there video of that somewhere?

I forgot that “Meh” originated on The Simpons. Other commonly used words we owe a debt of gratitude for: “yoink”, “sacrelicious” (but really combining anything and delicious), “embiggen”, and “unpossible”.