HE'S A MAN, EATEN (OR JUST LOOKS THAT WAY): Back when I was working in Seattle, my 70-year-old office manager had a beehive hairdo tinted to a deep fluorescent yellow, Fuller-brush applications of blue eye shadow, and a knee-length purple leather coat. Gloria was the inspiration for my realization that if you're not careful, your fashion sense might silently fossilize. This explains why we accept our grandparents' matching track suits, our neighbors' guy-ponytails and goatees (or, if you live on the other coast, brush cuts and goatees), and Paulie Walnuts's wispy pompadour. They reached a point where they were comfortable with the contemporaneity of their appearance -- for some, the apex of their hipness -- and they locked it in. I live in fear that my own personal style ossified in 1995, leaving me unable to register the pitying glances of the more stylishly current and currently stylish.

Although I am aware of this phenomenon, it was still a shock to see Darryl Hall's cameo on this week's Conchords, with his trademark nimbus of early-'80s moussed mullet casting a shadow over really tired eyes. I believe that I actually yelped at the shock of it.

THERE ARE WORSE THINGS KATHLEEN MARSHALL COULD HAVE DONE: According to the NYT's Ben Brantley, this latest edition of Grease may not be the one that we want: "[I]f you last until intermission, you sit through more than an hour of a musical set in a high school that feels like a musical put on by a high school — and I don’t mean a high school of performing arts.... [T]here’s the numbing sense of performers of undeveloped talent conscientiously doing what they have been told to do and failing to claim their parts as their own."

Says Newsday of stars Laura Osnes and Max Crumm, "She sings with the sweet pop-lite voice cultivated by Disney heroines and can touch her nose with her leg while wearing Spandex. He can dance and has the haplessly endearing quality of an adolescent beagle. To be heard, however, his singing requires increasingly aggressive help from the sound technicians." The Hollywood Reporter complains, "this is a 'Grease' that only will be appreciated by young TV viewers who don't know any better," and all you need to know about Clive Barnes' NY Post review is that it's titled "Grease Frightening." The AP is more kind.

Haka of the All Blacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

UNLESS YOU'D RATHER HEAR BURGESS MEREDITH SAY "WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?" ONE MORE YEAR: Leaving concerns about cultural misappropriation to one side, just how awesome would it be if all Philadelphia Eagles games were preceded by Brian Dawkins leading the team (or just the defense) in a Haka like the ones the New Zealand All Blacks do?

(At least one Texas high school football team, the heavily Tongan squad at Euless Trinity, has adopted the practice.)

THIS TIME, THEY GO TO KRYSTAL: Between The Namesake, his new recurring gig on House, and his job as a visiting professor at Penn, Kal Penn is trying to be serious, but I'm sure many here will be thrilled to see that not only is he back for Harold and Kumar 2, but so is someone who's still looking for a lapdance, at least if the trailer is to be believed.

NOT FEATURING JAY-Z: What happens when you take a #1 dance hit, slow it down by about half, make it acoustic, and give it to a former teen queen who's trying to reinvent herself as a serious artist? Well, you get the (surprisingly good) cover of "Umbrella" by Mandy Moore.

SEPARATION ANXIETY: Superbad is a worthy successor to the last-day-of-school movie genre, a lewd, raucous, warm and not even subtly homoerotic Bildungsroman that gave me a big pile of out-loud laughs last night. It is limited by the fact that it is very much a boy's movie -- by them and about them, with their female counterparts as mysterious to us as they are to Seth, Evan and McLovin. But given that, it's still honestly warm and sweet in ways that such films often aren't, and if you're a fan of erection jokes and seeing Jonah Hill fall down, you'll get more than your money's worth.

On a personal note, I might have been a lot cooler growing up had there been movie stars back then who looked like Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen. Just saying, is all.

MISTAKES, I'VE MADE A FEW: Is there some reason, any reason at all, that I am suppose to think that it's great that Elizabeth Patterson will now spend the rest of her life with Anthony? He's a spinless bitch who felt the right time to confess his needy love was a few hours after she was nearly raped. She's a tease who felt it appropriate to dump a long-term boyfriend after he'd obtained a transfer so he could be with her. I've read every single solitary panel of FBOFW, and I've come to regard every single character in the Lynn Johnston foobiverse with complete contempt.

ETA: Okay, now here's Monday's strip. Liz is talking as if they aren't now engaged. Yesterday was a proposal, right?