Unless you're one of the seven people in this country currently employed full-time and therefore far away from a television set, you've probably been lounging around your apartment during the day, desultory and shiftless. Busying about in your housecoat with curlers in your hair, day-drinking lukewarm zinfandel, smoking clove cigarettes, and peripherally watching your stories, you've got the makings of a 21st century Edie Beale. You may even take a little time out to periodically prod the cat with a yard stick to get her to stop mewling. That is until yesterday. Yesterday presented a glimpse of Franco on General Hospital. That's when you busted out the catnip. So you could have a 60-minute slice of you-and-James Franco special alone time. Perhaps you even opted to heckle your TV when the camera panned away to the blonde. After a bombastic debut, the actor's reasoning for coming onto the soap suddenly seems unimportant. His arc on the soap means that you can stop feeling bad about being a shut-in and can stop seeking out more enriching pursuits. Sometimes, it's enriching enough to simply support the arts. Franco's first few moments on GH after the break.

Today, Robert Pattinson runs to Dover cliffs, the wind whipping his unruly mane. He looks out across the Strait of Dover, unwraps a tasty chocolate New Moon bar. In between delicate nibbles of this candy morsel, he asks the world, "Why!" As in "Why does New Moon have to suck so much!?" Because despite record projections, the actor is still itching for "serious roles" that "showcase" his "talents" as an "actor." To which end, his native Britain is barren. Even for such an accomplished player like him.

I’ll admit straightaway that my take on Tim Burton’s show at MoMa is biased for two reasons. One was the crowd. I’ve been regularly attending the museum’s openings a couple years now, but have never seen the rank-and-file turn out like they did on Wednesday night. There were 20 times as many people as there were for say, Monet’s Water Lilies, and the long wait in a blue-lit corridor (which doubled as some hideous fiend’s esophagus) eventually lulled me into thinking I was waiting for something far more Space Mountain than museum exhibition. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing -- I like Space Mountain -- but after all the jostling with strangers, I expected an exhilarating ride.

Arrested Development has become the poster child of TV critical darlings that couldn’t win mass appeal. In the show’s final episode, after the show was officially cancelled, executive producer Ron Howard mentioned, with a wink and nod, that a movie was a possible next step. Since then, the development of the Arrested Development movie has been a soap opera of sorts, with several reports claiming that Michael Cera was holding up the project. Cera has been quoted as saying that he wasn't confident that an Arrested film adaptation would work, and he decided to spend his time instead on other film projects. Fans of the show took to the virtual streets, though, and apparently convinced both Cera and the film's backers to move forward.

With peer-to-peer music sharing platform Spotify gaining attention and whetting the American palate for US inclusion, one can’t help but reminisce of the Muxtape and Mixwit days before the RIAA shut that shit down. Back in middle school, we made mixtapes (well, depending on the year you were enrolled, or repeating those grades). And, in high school, mix CDs proved our hip factor to the world. Sure, there are still those of us who invest the time and energy in making and distributing mix CDs, but usually once the time comes to burn your masterpiece, the apartment/officewide hunt for blank CDs begins. Forget that noise -- making playlists online is the most magical way to share your musical taste and gain cred for being in the know and possessing the skill to make a good list.

Show me the money! He’s just not that into you. You can’t handle the truth! For most people, these are cinema’s potent quotables. But I prefer the underdog sloganeers, like Kim Basinger in 8 Mile, who says to a belligerent Marshall Mathers, “What are you doing with your life that’s so great?” Or that hooker in Fargo, who insists to Frances McDormand’s pregnant cop, “He was kinda funny lookin’.” This year, there were so many amazing movie catchphrases. But never mind the obvious choices, because frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Wow, people do some crazy sheeeet to themselves. Take a look at the fools on Pale is the New Tan and think about how they once decided, “This, this right here, my skin being the color of burnt flesh, pumpkins, hunter’s jackets, it looks really, really good. I’m gonna get laid tonight.” Because that actually happened. These folks are enough to keep even the most aesthetically careful fake tanner from the tanning bed/spray shower and are a really good advertisement for the sun. More pics after the jump.

Journalism is a venerable institution with a shrewd eye towards breaking news stories and trends. Cutting-edge coverage like pumpkin shortages and sad Santa stories. Who knows why, with such breakthrough coverage, this towering industry tipped over so easily, shaking out a class of journalists who now wriggle around for SEO traction. Or maybe they've just reached their limit of Miley Cyrus' unlikely chokehold on headlines. Also unknown is how the minutiae of this popsicle's life continues meriting front-page attention. Like pretending to be a Big Apple princess or hatin' on Twilight or fake-dying last week. On that last disturbing note, it seems that many mass media outlets really want to marry Miley Cyrus off to the Grim Reaper. Especially with their awkward coverage of a tour bus of Cyrus' entourage that tragically overturned, killing a single person. Who was not decidedly not Cyrus. Awkward headlines and keyword positioning after the break.

Most reasonable people shouldn't have to be dissuaded from engaging in horrific acts of domestic violence by treats and high praise. Typically one doesn't have to make a fist, pretend to dangle some beef jerky above his nose, and yell, "Sit, Chris Brown, sit! Good boy!" in an attempt to keep the pop singer or any similar-minded dude from succumbing to whatever chemical imbalance makes them predisposed to senseless acts of brutality. But the idea of Chris Brown as a reasonable man kind of flew out the window in February and never really made its way back in the house. There were a few lame attempts. Like this, well, misguided apology. More recently there was this irksome tweet that reads, "Good NEWS: my album date has changed .. December 8. Graffiti. If u love me get it twice and if u hate me still get it." Which demonstrated how Brown still remains clueless. If not about his actions, then the waves his actions created in the world around him. Still, the man's gone a number of days without black-eyeing someone and he deserves a judge-approved gold star and a free dinner at Red Lobster, right? Right.

● The end of the world won’t be coming in 2012; it’s happening September 2011, when Oprah goes off the air. [WSJ]
● Mariah Carey’s demand to be surrounded by 20 white kittens and 100 white doves for the Westfield Christmas Lighting ceremony was denied, although she will be chauffeured in a Rolls Royce and escorted by 80 security guards. [DailyMail]
● Pamela Anderson finally had "the talk" with her kids. No, not the sex talk, the "your father and I made a sex tape" talk, telling her sons that: “Mommy and Daddy were massively in love, we videotaped everything and you’re probably going hear about [it] at school.” [RadarOnline]