Something is wrong with the permissions on my hard drive, such that Word is no longer allowed to save files to it. In spite of this I am keeping an unsaved Word document open, with my to do list in it, because that is who I am and how I live, every day. Word then tries to autosave this file every 10 minutes and squawks when it can’t. …

RULE #1: THE PRIME DIRECTIVE — It is unacceptable to display any book in a public space of your home if you have not read it. Therefore, to be placed on Matt Selman’s living room bookshelves, a book must have been read cover to cover, every word, by Matt Selman. If you are in the home of Matt Selman and see a book on the living room …

Mark Wahlberg is apparently getting ready to make a Max Payne movie. I don’t know how to reconcile this information with accepted models of physics and probability, but you can’t argue with the Internet: it’s always right. And in other white-boy rapper video game movie news, Eminem apparently almost made a Grand Theft Auto movie.

I …

Excepts from the Ocala, Florida tax fraud and conspiracy trial of Wesley Trent Snipes:

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The defense would like to call to the stand… Blade.

PROSECUTOR: Objection. Blade is not a real person, but rather Mr. Snipes in sunglasses and fake vampire teeth.

JUDGE: Overruled. I’ll allow it.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Mr.

…

By now you’ve heard the news: Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion. But have you managed to get excited about it? No? Not yet? Come on: it would be such a satisfying end to their When-Harry-Met-Sally flirtation. Microsoft’s got a massive war chest — Ballmer recently boasted that he was going to start acquiring 20 companies …

Quick plug for the 2007 Game of the Year Critics poll, a first-of-its-kind (as far as I know) project where they made lots of game critics (including me) pick their favorite games of the year using a point-allotment system, then totaled up all the points, then made a kind of meta-list out of all that data. The results are here.

No huge …

Plenty of sources have been reporting that Ender’s Game is going to be a video game. Which, you know, of course. It says ‘game’ right there in the title. But it kind of makes you wonder why it hasn’t happened already. The book was published 23 years ago and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, as did (inexplicably) its (horrible) sequel …

Okay, everyone. Settle down. I know you’re all bummed out about the recent series of planet-wide catastrophes. The plagues, the meteor, the tidal waves, the nuclear wars, the other, pointier meteor… What can I say? If you’ve never seen giant piles of corpses, now you have. Big time. Long story short, humanity is teetering on the …

I have not one but three horrific deadlines to meet today, which is why I was awake at one o’clock this morning exploring whether or not it’s possible to read a book and shave your head at the same time. (It is! Sort of.) On the bright side, it’s the 50th anniversary of the Lego brick today, the long-awaited international cyberagnarok …

Tim Long, a fellow writer on The Simpsons, has joined me in a desperate cause: slowing the rate at which soon-to-become-obsolete magazines become obsolete. That is, he also trying to prop up a dying medium with the miracle cure of ONLINE CONTENT. Here is Tim Long’s witty, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that piece for VanityFair.com.

It makes …

Steve Carell plays Michael Scott playing Agent 86! This is a much longer and more substantial trailer than the teaser that was already out there. It does not, however, resolve the question of whether the movie will actually be funny.