• $41 million for the 3D “Alice” on Friday alone source

• 3+ people killed in a bombing in Najaf on the eve of the elections
• 54+ people – including 37 Iranians – injured in the attack source

• We’re convinced that 13-year-old girls are slowly taking over Twitter, based on this chart. Chile was the most popular of the week (though WhatTheTrend would disagree), but Justin Bieber and “Jonas” (which we used to cover both the Jonas Brothers and Joe Jonas’ solo career) were right behind. Twitter should consider expanding trending topics, because they’re slowly becoming less useful.

• Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers. Imagine running a restaurant where 40% of the people who came and ate didn’t pay. In a way, that’s what ad blocking is doing to us.
• ArsTechnica writer Ken Fisher • About an experiment that his site tried with ad-blocking that appears to have backfired to some degree. Fisher says that while some people white-listed the site, many more complained about it. Apparently, most of their readers are heavy tech users, the very type of people who will turn off ads despite the fact that they pay for the content people read. It’s all the more stark considering it’s something most non-technology companies can’t stop thinking about. source

• We aren’t experts of Oscar music outside of the rock era, but we have a few ideas as to what makes a good movie song – surprise, heft, and beauty. Unfortunately, most of those songs didn’t get nominated until the ’90s, which means that we’re in a golden era for Oscar-nominated music. Many of the best Oscar songs don’t win, but it’s an honor just to be nominated, really. Here are five we recommend:

• 1. Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles career has been a mixed bag, but at least two absolutely killer tunes came out of it – “Band on the Run” and “Live and Let Die ,” a 1973 nominee which nailed the Bondness of Bond but didn’t lose the Wingness of Wings. The kitchen-sink feel of the song actually suits it pretty well.
• 2. Bruce Springsteen did a pretty great job of washing away the cheesiness of the awful synth-heavy pop tunes (and showtunes) that got nominated for Oscars in the 80s, winning for “Streets of Philadelphia,” a song with genuine weight and grit that opened the door for creatively-risky songs. Seriously, the Academy has never nominated a punk song, ever. If Bruce didn’t win in 1993, Three 6 Mafia wouldn’t have won in 2005. You can quote us on that.
• 3. “That Thing You Do,” as written by Adam Schlesinger, who later became famous with Fountains of Wayne, may have been the Academy’s biggest lark in 1996. Without the song (which was, and still is, an amazing pop gem), the movie would’ve completely sucked. For that reason alone, it’s understandable but a shame it lost – it literally was the best part of a decent movie, the rare song that holds up on its own but makes its source material that much better.
• 4. Elliott Smith’s “Miss Misery” was a mixed blessing for the indie-rock icon, as it offered him tremendous success due to the “Good Will Hunting” tune’s nomination in 1997 (which he used to full advantage on “XO” and “Figure 8“), but ultimately put him in a position where drugs were in a prominent place in his life. At the time, though, it was a truly daring choice for the Academy, one that hasn’t been reflected since.
• 5. As a story angle, The Swell Season’s “Falling Slowly” had a little of everything – real-life romance, song-making-the-movie strength, and ceremony drama, when Markéta Irglová, one half of the “Once” duo (The other half being The Frames‘ Glen Hansard), was famously snubbed out of her 2007 acceptance speech, only to be allowed back on-stage to give one. That’s something that NEVER happens.

Other nominees: “Theme From Shaft” by Isaac Hayes, “The Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the Frog (seriously), “Against All Odds (Take a Look At Me Now)” by Phil Collins, “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin, “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid” (also seriously)

• This YouTube clip includes two things: One, a 30-second commercial for Priceline done in Seth MacFarlane’s patented animation style, and two, a not-funny one-minute clip that was seemingly rejected from a episode of one of MacFarlane’s three TV shows. If it couldn’t make it into three different TV shows, you know it sucks. This one, however, is a bit better. source

• Someone is already trying to make a dating site. But they made a mistake haha. They asked me to make it for them. So I’m like delaying it so it won’t be ready until after the facebook thing comes out.
• Mark Zuckerberg (as reported by The Business Insider) • Regarding an awkward situation he found himself in in late 2003 and early 2004, where he was asked to work on a site that competed with the basic idea of Facebook. Evidence obtained by The Business Insider suggests that Zuckerberg essentially stalled so that he would be able to launch Facebook first – which wasn’t so heavy on the dating element as HarvardConnection.com, the other site. Other fun allegations made by the site: Zuckerberg reportedly hacked into e-mail accounts of Harvard Crimson reporters and deactivated accounts on competing site ConnectU. source

• $370,000 the amount RNC consultant Rob Bickhart has been paid since June – “more than the president,” as one critic of Bickhart’s notes
• “fear” what the RNC got from Bickhart, who made a much-ridiculed fundraising slideshow which oddly compares Harry Reid to Scooby-Doo source

• dumb Guy decides it’s a great idea to rob a bank on a Friday morning, and gets all of his pieces together.
• dumber Guy doesn’t realize the bank is a drive-thru-only bank, with plenty of customers waiting in line. source