• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, November 17, 2011

39 Bucks Buys a Lot of Netflix...

Google Offers, the Internet search giant's daily deals site, launched in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Brooklyn, N.Y., Chicago and Houston. For its first deal in Los Angeles, Google offered two movie tickets and a large popcorn at Grauman's Chinese Theatre or Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood -- up to a $39 value -- for $14. If you see “J. Edgar,” you will still feel ripped off.

Think of it as a Twitter-Based Laugh Track...

A company has an application out that allows viewers of television programming to have a second screen going simultaneously, allowing them to engage in running commentary with other users about the program being watched in real-time. Explains its CEO: “Viewers can just plop down on the couch, turn on both screens, and dive into the sea of snarky comments about their favorite shows.  The app allows users to watch live and time-shifted, to enjoy the entire delicious dish in sync with the episode you're watching on your TV or laptop.”  Kinda like watching TV with 2.5 million people who aren't funny and who won't shut up.

But January Jones Doesn't Age A Day...

The next season of "Mad Men"hasn't even started yet, but the show's creator, Matthew Weiner, already has an idea of what the series finale will look like (in about five more years) saying, "I always felt like it would be the experience of human life. And human life has a destination. It doesn't mean Don's gonna die. What I'm looking for, and how I hope to end the show, is like ... It's 2011. Don Draper would be 84 right now." Meanwhile, January and Jessica will have moved on to younger client brand managers who shave occasionally, presumably cheat less and have bigger, uh, incomes. 

What if LeBron Falls in the Woods and No One Hears It?

When the National Basketball Association put a "take it or leave it" offer on the table last week, the Players Association rejected it, disbanded the union and put its players' future in the hands of the federal court system. It appears increasingly unlikely that there will be an NBA season this year. It will be missed about as much as the NHL (an actual team sport), which likewise disappeared for a season.

Quik Quiz

Who the hell is/was John Zuccotti, whose namesake park they occupied, peed all over, got ejected from -- and now hang out forlornly waiting for the world to somehow change for the better? A:  Chairman of Brookfield Office Properties that owns the park, and deputy mayor of New York back in the ‘70s. Just old enough to have kids hanging out forlornly waiting for the world to somehow change for the better.

Origin of "Don't Bend Over for the Soap"

In Bob Costas' phone interview with Jerry Sandusky -- the former Penn State assistant football coach accused of sexually abusing underage boys over a 15-year period -- Sandusky said he thought there was nothing wrong with a middle-aged man showering with underage boys. Sounds like he is setting the table for an insanity plea.