FREE ARMIN TANZARIAN! Having now witnessed it, it's time for a Simpsons Movie spoiler thread. Sure, it's no South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, but very few things are. Kudos to the entire team for making a movie that's filled with a lot of laughs, and quite a bit more heart than you might expect (I join Alan in giving kudos to Julie Kavner in particular). Sure, there's some lazy storytelling--a couple of characters disappear after the first act and don't return, and the character turn of one member of the Simpson clan in the final act seems a bit abrupt--but still, a good time for all who've loved the show.

With a purr, death comes on little cat feet - The Boston Globe

NO, HE IS NOT HERE FOR CUTIE: Meet Oscar, the death cat of Rhode Island.

MASTER OF PUPPETS IS PULLING MY STRINGS: The greatest cover band since The Beach Balls... it's Harptallica.

CLEARING MY CACHE: I'm heading to the Michigan shore for a week of family fun, thus the relative silence (that and the fact that I still haven't gotten past p. 60 of Goblet of Fire). Here's a bunch of things I have been hanging on to for too long:

• The Onion's AV Club choo-, choo-, chooses 15 Simpsons episodes that defined their era (it frightens me a little to think about the fact that I watched the premiere of the show when I was a senior in college and I will be taking my five and seven year old to the movie next week.)
• And speaking of Simpsons, VH1's Best Week Ever picks the 10 best Simpsons endings. My five-year-old daughter drew me a picture of spider-pig with Homer and Marge tonight and forced me to go to Burger King so we could get talking figurines of Lisa, Chief Wiggum, and Krusty (alas, no Ralph), so Fox marketing folks, you've done your job well.
  
• Here's a list Barney would love...Modern Drunkard's 10 greatest alcohol advertising icons of all time. Duff Man was robbed.
  
• Some fella picks the 10 greatest fictional bands and leaves off the Party Posse and the Be Sharps.
  
• And I am running out of clever Simpsons references, so I will leave you with the New York Post's top 100 cover songs, EW's top 25 love songs and Blender's list of wacky cover versions.
  
• One last one...you may have read that Oprah tops the list of the highest paid TV stars (she made a cool $240 million last year), but how about the fact that Judge Judy clears $30 million a year?
  

"IF WE WERE DOING THE EDGY GREASE ALL IN BLACK WITH THREE CHAIRS, PEOPLE WOULD SAY IT'S RADICAL": There's a long piece in New York Magazine about last summer's ThingThrower favorite Grease: You're the One that I Want (although I must point out, with due credit to ThingThrower Jenn, that "Project Broadway" kicks the snot out of "GTO"). Sounds like director Kathleen Marshall and leads/winners Laura Osnes and Max Crumm are expecting a passel of negative reviews (which I have to assume will be an accurate prediction, all things considered) and that Laura and Max are undergoing the proper period of adjustment to living in Manhattan. (My favorite quote from the article: "Each had learned, separately, that Broadway stars do not invite people out for drinks at Chevys or Applebee’s.")

(Incidentally, I still don't have tickets. I will hopefully not make the same mistake when tickets for the SYTYCD tour go on sale.)

POPCULT SIMILE OF THE WEEK: In his column harping on his old reliable theory on the correlation between the price of a plain slice of pizza in Midtown Manhattan and the price of a single subway ride (seriously, the exact same basic column ran in January 2002, July 2002, and June 2005), Clyde Haberman notes that "the $2 fare seems as shaky as Lindsay Lohan’s hold on sobriety."

In related bizarre theories, at least one columnist claims that Lohan's DUI arrest and related shennanigans will actually boost the box office of I Know Who Killed Me, her stripper thriller which arrives in theatres (unscreened for critics) today. Of course, I rather expect another film will be soaking up much attention this weekend (I'm sure a spoiler thread will go up after someone here has seen it).

SOMETHING ELSE TO SINK INTO THE COUCH WITH: With most of us having finished Deathly Hallows and (for some) with long days on the beach ahead, seems like an opportune time to have yet another of our "what are you readin'?" threads. Fortunately, just before Hallows hit, I ordered and received much bounty from Amazon, including the new Stephen Carter novel, one of the much-acclaimed Inspector Rebus novels (inspired by my trip to Edinburgh), the much-buzzed Chambermaid (aka The Devil Wears Federal Judicial Robes And Sits On The Third Circuit), and best of all, I Love You Beth Cooper, which tells the story of the aftermath of Denis Cooverman, valdectorian and debate team captain, making the title proclamation to the head cheerleader in his graduation address. It's kind of a cross between Mean Girls, an 80s John Hughes comedy, and Judd Apatow--thus making it the perfect warmup for Superbad (YouTube video contains NSFW content). Plus it has an awesome "soundtrack" referenced in the book and available on iTunes. I suspect you fellow ThingThrowers will quite enjoy. What do you have to suggest?