HI, GILBERT. I'M A NERD TOO. I JUST FOUND THAT OUT TONIGHT. WE HAVE NEWS FOR THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. THERE'S A LOT MORE OF US THEN THERE ARE OF YOU. I KNOW THERE'S ALUMNI HERE TONIGHT. WHEN YOU WENT TO ADAMS YOU MIGHT'VE BEEN CALLED A SPAZZ, OR A DORK, OR A GEEK. ANY OF YOU THAT HAVE EVER FELT STEPPED ON, LEFT OUT, PICKED ON, PUT DOWN, WHETHER YOU THINK YOU'RE A NERD OR NOT, WHY DON'T YOU JUST COME DOWN HERE AND JOIN US: Floating around the Internets today is the definitive Venn diagram on geeks, dorks, nerds and dweebs.

Lamestains and cob nobblers will have to wait for their classification.

UP, SIMBA: ThingThrowers of the Delaware Valley would be well-served to make their way to the Academy of Music over the next month while The Lion King is in town. Took Lucy and a friend tonight, and it remains as visually stunning as when Ben Brantley originally reviewed the musical in 1997:

Suddenly, you're 4 years old again, and you've been taken to the circus for the first time. You can only marvel at the exotic procession of animals before you: the giraffes and the elephants and the hippopotamuses and all those birds in balletic flight. Moreover, these are not the weary-looking beasts in plumes and spangles that usually plod their way through urban circuses but what might be described as their Platonic equivalents, creatures of air and light and even a touch of divinity. ...

Throughout the show's 2 hours and 40 minutes (as against the 75-minute movie), there will be plenty of instances of breathtaking beauty and scenic ingenuity, realized through techniques ranging from shadow puppetry to Bunraku. Certainly, nowhere before on Broadway has a stampede of wildebeests or a herd of veldt-skimming gazelles been rendered with such eye-popping conviction.

Give the Mouse credit -- by empowering Julie Taymor to take on this project, The Lion King became far more inventive, more striking and more African than it perhaps needed to be -- but that made all the difference between a short-term success and a classic.

NOBODY TALKS, EVERYBODY WALKS: In chronological order, my favorite things about last night's NBC lineup, which wasn't always great but made me laugh a lot:

• Danny Pudi's monologue in the Dean's office
• The beautifully-acted montage of reaction shots to the Park's Department's Summer Catalogue
• The only decoration in Darryl's office (see title)
• everything Darryl said to Oscar
• The Office tag, which was as out-of-left-field as anything the show has ever done
• Making fun of Canadians

Am I missing anything?

FREAKONOMICS, THE SQUEAKQUEL: Linda Holmes uses movie ticket price changes to explore a pressing question--"What is the price elasticity of demand for Paul Blart: Mall Cop?" Further empirical studies are awaited.

OLD TEN COMMANDMENTS GOOD; NEW TEN COMMANDMENTS BAD. IF IT'S CLOSE, ASK JUSTICE BREYER: In conjunction with an upcoming symposium on technology and the law, the Connecticut Bar Foundation is sponsoring a contest for which nominal prizes will be awarded: summarize a favorite Supreme Court case in 140 characters or fewer on Twitter.

My submissions so far, all with the required #CBFtech hashtag, include:

• Pleasant Grove City v Summum: Put up your wacky religious monument in your own damn park, freaks.
• Marbury v Madison: Yes, you deserved your judicial commission, but we can't give it to you. Sorry!
• DeShaney v. Winnebago: Dept. Social Services fails to protect 4-yo from violently abusive dad? Tough shit, Joshua.

IT'S FUN, IT'S SAD, AND IT'S KIND OF SAD THAT IT'S SO MUCH FUN: Tony Scott, Roger Ebert, Nathan Rabin and Carrie Rickey all review "Hot Tub Time Machine," ranging from it's-a'ight-but-disappointing to "a goofy, lusty, uninhibited lark."

Ebert concludes with a debatable proposition: "'Hot Tub Time Machine,' which wants nothing more than to be a screwball farce, succeeds beyond any expectations suggested by the title and extends John Cusack's remarkable run: Since 1983, in 55 films, he's hardly ever made a bad one. Well, I never saw 'Grandview, USA.'"

[See, contra, Isaac Spaceman, 9-7-07: "John Cusack thinks that 'I've made 10 good films.' That many?"]

added: NYMag slideshow on the history of the jacuzzi in pop culture. ("Should I get in the hot tub? Yeah! Will it make me sweat? Yeah!")

DOES THE MAN WHO MAKES THE SHOES OWN YOU, CLOWN: As Fienberg tweeted, Hitfix has (among other related things) the poster for the upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Let me tell you, that is an absolutely gorgeous poster, really a piece of work. The color is wonderful, the title font is perfect, and the pose -- both the vigor it conveys by catching Cera mid-movement and the unusual choice of obscuring his face as he curls into himself -- is both daring and evocative. My only complaint is that the shadow doesn't match up with the pose and the light source. Anyway, somebody should win an award for that one.

It is not in any way to detract from that that I caught myself counting how many of my buttons the marketer was pushing with that poster. My first thought was, "hey, Rickenbacker bass -- nice choice" (and nice specimen, too -- a real beautiful bass). And then I wondered why Cera was soloing on a bass, and why he was using a pick. I realize that bass solos exist, and that some people play basses with picks, but this seemed a little odd to me, because ... hey, wait a second, this poster is drawing me into an associational reverie, isn't it? Well, anyway, there are also the vintage Adidas, which seem to use the Rod Laver cut but have the Superstar stripes -- are those vintage or retro, I wo--whoops, doing it again. Hey, the posture is kind of an amalgam of My Aim Is True and London Calling (or this?), but wouldn't Combat Rock have been the more appropriate sourc -- guh. And the sweatband on the wrist, and the ringer tee -- you get the idea. I wonder at what point Hollywood stopped marketing Michael Cera movies to people like me and just started marketing them directly to me.