DOPE SMOKERS ARE A BARGAIN: Matt Taibbi, of all people (yeah, I know), had an interesting think-piece on the NFL Draft in Men's Journal:

This is about as dark and freaky as our sanitized modern American mainstream culture ever openly admits to being. These are bloodless corporate enterprises using advanced scientific and economic metrics to measure the material worth of human flesh down to the half-pound, the 16th of an inch. Which would be horrifying and morally repulsive under normal circumstances, but when added to a strong rooting interest in your home team, can become for certain people one of those guilty pleasures you just can’t give up because you enjoy it so much....

All I know is that I don't feel nearly as good about having stowed away Justin Forsett on my dynasty league team as I did twelve hours ago.

THIS IS IT, JOEL. IT'S GOING TO BE GONE SOON: Anne Thompson performs a career audit on Jim Carrey, noting: "Carrey is too old to play the goofy adolescent and seems loathe to abandon big-budget star vehicles, even though stars aren't driving the gravy train anymore. Carrey's attempts to stretch in dramatic roles haven't connected with moviegoers, from the Capra-corny 'The Majestic' to the horrific 'The Number 23.' Becoming Tom Hanks or Jack Lemmon didn't work for Carrey, who just isn't beloved in the same way."

So what should he do? Claims one producer with whom Thompson spoke, "All Carrey has to do is step back into a role where he does that funny thing and he's back. He doesn't have to do leading men. Audiences would welcome him." Or are you finished with him?

CAN I BORROW YOUR ODORANT? Disney/Pixar to release Monsters Inc. 2 on November 16, 2012; also coming from the studio will be Pirates of the Caribbean 4, the Muppet movie Jason Segel was scripting, the round-the-world Cars 2 (6-24-2011) and, this June 18, Toy Story 3.

IT'S A PRIVILEGE TO PEE: Apparently, New Jersey is looking at closing its last two remaining free rest stop restrooms. Let's let Officer Lockstock and Little Sally explain.

I KNOW LEA MICHELE. LEA MICHELE IS A FRIEND OF MINE. YOU'RE NO LEA MICHELE. Marilu Henner and David Hasselhoff lead a "glee club" of familiar faces from TV in a little Journey. (And seriously, you're going to waste Fred Willard on that?) (HT: Maret.)

THE "AWARDS WHICH HAVE NEVER BEEN GRANTED TO THE SOURCE" AWARDS: The 2010 National Magazine Award winners have been announced, including Glamour winning the American Society of Magazine first-ever general award for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence, New York Magazine again cleaning up with four awards (including its definitive guides to Neapolitan pizza and the circumcision debate, to give some idea of the magazine's breadth), and Atul Gawande deservedly winning for that New Yorker article last summer on that town in Texas with the messed-up health care costs which everyone -- everyone -- seemed to have read.

Frustratingly, the ASME website neither links to the winners nor explains why the other finalists were nominated.

MY BULLSHIT DETECTOR IS ON HIGH ALERT: If it were indeed true that Comedy Central's bleeping of last night's South Park episode included Kyle's final speech about intimidation and fear and all the references to Muhammad and that it wasn't all some big meta-joke on Trey Parker and Matt Stone's part, then why haven't they released the full script of the episode publicly? Why would that even make sense from Comedy Central's perspective? That said, at some point on Thursday they did take down from their website the Super Best Friends clips depicting Muhammad (which I almost posted this morning), so who knows?

Longtime fans of this site know what pleased me about that episode, of course.