THE MOTHERF*****R WITH THE TONY: Tony Award nominations are out, and a few surprises and notes:

• Despite a fair number of eligible big stars (Robin Williams, Ben Stiller, Jim Belushi, James Earl Jones, Chris Rock) the only "name" in leading actor in a play is Al Pacino, who's got a tough fight with Joe Mantello for the win.
• A surprising amount of love for two long-closed shows--The Scottsboro Boys and Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown--with Scottsboro beating out Priscilla and People in The Picture for the fourth Best Musical slot and both of them getting Original Score nods.
  
• Several highly acclaimed productions failing to score nods--no love for any actors in the much acclaimed War Horse (though many tech nods and a special Tony for the puppets), no nod for Daniel Radcliffe in How To Succeed, and only one acting nods for the three main leads in Priscilla.
• No shock that Book of Mormon leads all comers (Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Director, Best Choreographer, Best Lead Actor (x2), Best Featured Actor, Best Featured Actress, and tech nods pretty much everywhere. Its only real competition? The glitzy Sister Act, which may get votes from folks who found Mormon too edgy, but it sure looks like Parker and Stone are going ET, with a plausible shot at picking up a G for the cast album next year.
  

OUR TRENTONIAN JUSTICE: Six springs ago we discussed our favorite irregular adjectival and demonymic forms for place names  -- Oxonian, Monégasque, Mancunian and the like. Today, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia waded into the fray, insisting that the name for someone from the Equality State is "Wyoman" as part of his dissenting opinion in a water rights matter:

The dictionary-approved term is “Wyomingite,” which is also the name of a type of lava, see Webster’s New International Dictionary 2961 (2d ed. 1957). I believe the people of Wyoming deserve better.

The Google count is decidedly against Justice Scalia, and wonder what's next: wading into the Arkansan/Arkansawyer dispute?  Connecticutian/Connecticotian/Nutmegger?

HERE WE ARE NOW, ENTERTAIN US: I was out with friends on Friday night and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came on at the bar, prompting a discussion of how it still sounds fresh and modern despite being recorded 20 years ago. That fact makes the utterly unnecessary Miley Cyrus cover of the song perhaps even more disturbing.

JUSTICE FOR THE UNDEAD: Chuck Wendig of The Escapist fully and definitively explains what's wrong with every zombie video game you've ever played.

(Hint: It's not the nihilistic fascination with necrotic apocalypse, the seeming conviction that one or more of humanity's flaws or excesses will lead inevitably to our extinction, or the aggressive re-imagination of our friends and neighbors as moaning soulless cannibals.)

DING, DONG: Y'all understand at this point the subjects for which this blog is not the place, and yet I couldn't quite imagine just returning to our normal routine today without some acknowledgment of last night's news.

So here's a question: what have been the most satisfying villain deaths for you in pop culture history? Is it Molly Weasley's not my daughter, you bitch! killing of Bellatrix Lestrange?  The melting Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark?  Hans Gruber's gravitational demise? One of the falling Disney deaths?

SHAKE THE GNOME, NOT YOUR BODY:  Well, that was a bit confusing of an hour of Racing tonight -- a seemingly fatal mistake in Detour options (or execution), a seemingly fatal swiping of someone else's gnome bottom (you'll see it and understand), and a seemingly fatally inadequate penalty for a rather egregious violation of race rules.  And yet ... well, I'll have to go below the fold to spoil the drama of speedy chocolate painting. (Thanks, Captain Obvious.)

CHEESE, SQUASH, DUCK!  Every single secret ingredient reveal in two minutes from Iron Chef America's Chairman Not-Kaga.

added: Via Joseph J. Finn, Chairman Kaga -- 150 reveals in alphabetical order.  BONITO!