SHOULDN'T ONE OF THE GREAT BOOKS TEACH THIS? From The University of Chicago events calendar:

Flirting for Nerds
When: Thursday, February 11, 2010 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Where: Reynolds Club, McCormick Tribune Lounge, 5706 South University, Chicago, IL
Description: Having trouble shaking your nerdy image and attracting the apple of your eye? Well, push those glasses up on your nose, take a puff off your inhaler and learn to flirt like a pro. Instructor Rebecca Steinmetz will teach you fun, noncheesy ways to break the ice and brush up on fundamentals such as reading body language.

Not to be overly harsh on my graduate school alma mater, but when that same educator was invited to give a presentation at Northwestern this fall, her topics deemed appropriate for Evanston included "a frank and informative discussion of women’s sexuality ... anything and everything a guy would need to know to make his girl happy. In 'Men Below the Belt', she explained how to please a man in the area between his hips and knees. Steinmetz provided helpful hints on how to improve the region’s smell and taste (what you eat, drink or smoke is key) and gave step-by-step instructions on how to put on a condom with no hands."

Down in Hyde Park, however, it's more like that Marty McFly line after his Van Halen-esque guitar solo at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance -- I guess you guys aren't ready for that.

THE MANATEES ARE WORKING OVERTIME WITH THE IDEA BALLS: In today's "bizarre thing I discovered because of Twitter Trending Topics," I give you Selleck Waterfall Sandwich.

AMERICA'S GREAT DEBATES:Better (or at least more legendarily bad) subtitle for an unnecessary and awful part ii--"Electric Boogaloo" or "The Squeakquel?"

ETA: I misspelled "Squeakquel" originally. I am uncertain whether to be proud or ashamed of this fact.

ELTON + GAGA = ? As this table-setter from the Times explains (and we've long believed), the actual awards given out at the Grammys are meaningless; what makes it worth watching are the live performances and spectacle, and hopefully most of these clips we compiled last year are still online for your amusement. Currently scheduled to perform, in whatever random permutations, are the following artists, per the press release:

Jamie Foxx and T-Pain with Slash and Doug E. Fresh; Drake, Eminem, and Lil Wayne with Travis Barker; a special tribute to guitar virtuoso Les Paul featuring Jeff Beck and Imelda May; the cast of "American Idiot" appearing with Green Day; Roberta Flack; Elton John; Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland; Beyoncé; the Black Eyed Peas; Bon Jovi; the Dave Matthews Band; Green Day; Lady Antebellum; Lady Gaga; Maxwell; Pink; Taylor Swift; the Zac Brown Band; Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson, Carrie Underwood, and Usher in a special 3-D GRAMMY tribute to Michael Jackson; and Mary J. Blige and Andrea Bocelli in a special fund-raising segment for Haitian relief.

We Covered It Live last year, and we'll try again on Sunday. Please join us; snark abhors a vacuum.

THAT'S ADVERTAINMENT: Look, we've made more than enough fun of NBC over the past few weeks, but I want to note something that they're doing that's smart and workable, and that's some of the semi-integrated ads they've been running in recent weeks--I've only noticed them on Chuck, where there's been a serialized set of Honda ads chronicling Ellie, Awesome, and Morgan's journey to Vancouver for the Olympics, and on Community, which has Ken Jeong and Jim Rash shilling for TurboTax. The ads are smartly written enough that, even though I timeshift, I won't start fastforwarding till they're over, and that's credit. Not sure if it makes me more likely to buy a Honda or use TurboTax (I'm not likely to be buying a car in the immediate future, and I already use TurboTax), but it's at least a step in the right direction for advertisers.

MAYBE THEY'LL ADD A FIFTH JUDGE TO FILL THE TIME: In a totally expected move guaranteed to make us more thankful for the existence of TiVo, Idol's competition rounds will be two hours long at least through the Final 8.

Has anything happened yet during the auditions of positive merit? Any real "yes, this is The Next American Idol" vibes?

STUPEFY! As a service to our readers, we occasionally retweet your more salient updates during the day. This one, at least, from @AmyWatts, who credits @JosephFinn for the find:

Am I the last one to find out that Neville Longbottom got really, really hot: http://bit.ly/b9RZEU

The other great Twitter find of the day: the Nooooooooooooooo! button.