Because it’s Friday afternoon and I’m delirious, I really wanted to title this post “We finally nailed the perp who ate all that bamboo!” but Michelle reminded me that that was stupid, so I ended up deciding not to post it on the blog. OH WAIT I JUST DID OMG!!!! 2 LATE!!!!!

Some more pics of panda jail to start your weekend off the right way (the PANDA way):

Summit Entertainment is reporting that the “Twilight” sequel opened on Thursday night to an unprecedented $26.3 million during its midnight screenings across the country. The film unspooled on 3,514 screens, playing at 12:01 a.m. for die-hard fans — many of whom arrived at the theaters dressed as their favorite characters…

In case you need further proof that “Twilight” is the new “Potter,” look no further than the recent news that “New Moon” set the record for most presold tickets before opening day, or that the movie’s soundtrack charted at #1. Or that a one-day re-release of “Twilight” grossed $1.3 million on 2,057 screens on Thursday.

We all knew this “Twilights” trend was here to stay, but crushing Harry Potter’s record only months later by a full $6 million?

Needless to say, Robert Pattinson is ecstatic:

(By the way, I gave up feeling the need to explain “Yes, I know these are not real people…” when talking about this show like three seasons ago, in case anyone was wondering. Though I don’t imagine you, as a reader of this site, were wondering that.)

Unfortunately, Oscar keeps his mouth shut, because of The Office’s stupid good, believable writing and because that’s exactly what Oscar would do in that particular situation. LAAAAAMEEEE!!! Why couldn’t the show writing just get sh*ttier for one moment so Oscar could tear the CEO a new one and have him respond “No one has EVER talked to me like that! Clean out your desk young man…because you’re our new CFO!!!” Oscar: “Huhhhh???” Michael: “Three ARRIBAS for Oscar! Celebration in the limo!” Shareholders: “ARRIBA OSCAR!!!”

Ah well. So, Dunder-Mifflin is screwed, currently collapsing under the double-strain of the economic collapse and the shrinking need for paper merchants in general, and the executives have absolutely zero plan other than to unknowingly display Michael to the shareholders as a vague hard-times hero, and describing other nice-sounding initiatives to placate a rowdy crowd of investors. They fail miserably.

The funniest part of the episode comes when Michael — in a rare moment of non-awkwardness in front of a crowd — seizes the mic and wins over the shareholders with a series of outrageous off-the-cuff promises, including the 45-day, 45-point plan (”One point per day!”) that doesn’t exist in any way:

Ultimately, the execs aren’t impressed with “the twirl,” then Oscar chokes, and Michael and his Scranton accomplices are run out of the building, escaping back to the limo with one final bottle of liquor because they’re the “only ones who have anything to celebrate.” Last season’s Michael Scott Paper Company episodes were probably the most engaging episodes plot-wise in the show’s history, but this season appears to really be heading for something huge, with the possible entire dynamic of the show and everything about Dunder-Mifflin being threatened.

Will the producers allow for a dramatic change in the show, like Dunder-Mifflin going under or massive layoffs (bad news for Jim & pregnant Pam), or will the dilemma resolve itself nicely before the season’s end? I’d love to see the former, but I’m assuming the latter.

Meanwhile in the side-plot, Jim’s crash-course on boss politics continued during a conflict with an exceptionally A-holey Ryan, who attempted to inspire the rest of the office to apathy by telling them that Jim wasn’t actually a real boss. A laughing Stanley, a drunk Phyllis, and a meekly supportive Pam later, Jim ultimately solves the Ryan issue by relocating him to a storeroom “office,” and Jim shows some rare, sadistic satisfaction when Ryan pleads for mercy and Jim shuts the door on him. This is essentially Jim’s first boss action that doesn’t result in the officemates rioting or laughing at him, so maybe he’s finally turned a corner.

And one final detail, because it didn’t fit with the other plot points — Andy Bernard once rallied 500 high school students to protest standardized testing by skipping the SATs, then chickened out and took them anyway. How lachrymose, indeed.

Episode thoughts? Favorite parts? Favorite quotes? Predictions for the grim Dunder-Mifflin year to come? Leave ‘em all in the comments.

After lamenting the politics that led to his Dracula Musical getting snubbed by Once at the Oscars last year, Segel then performs a song giving out his phone number to college girls in case they want to have sex with him for his celebrity. Aka, the song that every musician sings, just more obviously:

(via /Film)

Who wouldn’t want to watch that?? Good CLOVER, Hank, try not to REDFACE!!!

Apologies for the poorly lit photo, but I could only swallow my dignity long enough to take three phone pictures of the Hank subway ad in front of a bunch of strangers. Guess I’ll have to wait another year for my photography Pulitzer — enjoy it, lady taking picture of exploded school in Afghanistan, or whoever.

Also, you can hate on that one guy all you want to, but what can you possibly say to someone who looks like Rambo pretty much with his shirt off? Check and mate:

Don’t you see what this means?? THE SEASON PREMIERES ON GROUNDHOG DAY! The day that inspired a movie about the same thing happening over and over again, to kick off the final season of a show that’s been one huge time cycle of its own! This seals the deal — the series is ending with the Oceanic plane crash. It couldn’t be any clearer.

Oh you’d LOVE us to believe it’s just some random day the network randomly gave you, Lindelof, or should I say LIE-ndelhof, is what I’d call you if you denied that — but WE KNOW THE TRUTH. Everything on Lost is happening over again!!!! Bring back Charlie, bring back Eko, bring back Brian Doyle Murray as the mayor of Punxsatawney, cause we figured out your little PREMIERE DATE CLUE. You gotta wake up PRETTY EARLY in the DAMN MORNING to fool this guy (before 10 am).

Or…maybe the show will involve an actual groundhog:

Or maybe the show just picked a day. I can’t tell anything anymore, the show’s been off for so frickin’ long, I’m suffering from withdrawal. Heroin withdrawal. Unrelated to Lost. But not helping.

It even eats Reese’s Pieces – adorable!

Boy Finds Own Real-Life E.T.

Here were my Power Rankings during the second week of this Top Chef season:

1) Kevin

2) Michael V.

3) Jen

4) Bryan V.

5) Eli

Yyyyyyep…If you need me, I’ll be leaning back in my chair the rest of the day simultaneously dusting off my hands and cracking my knuckles. Let’s just say I frickin’ EARN those Tasti D-Lite coupons that VH1 pays me in lieu of a salary.

My thoughts on last night’s Chefpisode:

– The Quickfire: Cook a thing inside a thing inside a thing, in honor of Vegas’ legal prostitution.

– “Welcome back” says Padma to Jen after tasting her weird seafood Russian nesting doll. Nice to see Jen back on the wagon (the cooking one) after a couple super-shaky weeks; her chances to win are probably shot, but she’ll at least go out on a high note. Unless she gets nervous next week and slips on a banana peel and flings a pot of soup up in the air and it lands on the Queen of England’s head and she’s like “Well I never!” Otherwise she’s fine.

– I get the impression some PA at Bravo was told to go through Michael’s 500 minutes of testimonial footage and pull out two lines that almost came close to being sliiiiiightly inflammatory towards Kevin. He doesn’t appear to dislike Kevin, but Bravo’s grasping reaaally hard to portray him as the Stefan “talented but too arrogant” villain who’s gonna lose the Final, when in reality he is a robot. Not sure how many more times we have to go over this fact.

– Kevin spent the entire episode being super-defensive about his simple style of cooking, even declaring that his decision to keep things really simple was, in itself, a very ballsy move. Kevin — don’t get intimidated by Michael’s two pseudo-insults about your simplicity. He’s just saying the words that the microchip the Bravo producers installed into his robo-brain forces him to say to create conflict down the home stretch. Your cooking is fine.

…Or WAS IT fine? Elimination Challenge and Final Four after the jump:

– Whew! Bravo left in the Whole Foods shopping montage this week after cutting it a week ago. It’s always so exciting to see the chefs ask for ingredients and then pay for them. I mostly watch tv in general for the exchange of goods and services.

– The Elimination Challenge: Take this thing that the best chefs in the word take 9 months to prepare for and do it in a few hours. No Vegas themes, no “make something sparkly you saw at a casino,” no “you’re cooking for the military so tell us why this challenge is extra special to you,” it was just, “here’s a really really frickin’ hard challenge that won’t let you hide, Mother[BLEEP]ers.” (There’ve been so many bleeps this season, it’s only a matter of time before Padma actually just swears at them in the Challenge descriptions.)

– It was clear from Eli’s “The bees are on the what now?” reaction that he was gone from the moment the Challenge was described.

– Jen shrewdly used her extra 30 minutes from the Quickfire to actually stop and talk to Tom! She didn’t run by him nine times saying “Busy busy busy busy!!!!” and singing “Gettin’ Jiggy With It” replacing the word “Jiggy” with “Busy.”

– Kevin overcame not one but TWO classic Top Chef mega-traps to win the Elimination Challenge:

1) “I don’t know how to do this technique at all, but golly, I’m gonna try it!”

2) “I know they want us to do this for the challenge, but I’m not going to!”

Amazing that he not only didn’t get eliminated after those moves, he won frickin’ $30,000 and a shot to represent the U.S. in a prestigious international cooking competition that I’m too lazy to look up how to spell.

– I have no basis for this analysis, but I got the impression that Kevin won the money and thanked Padma really excitedly, then a Bravo producer was like “Cut! Kevin, you have to mention the M Resort when you thank the judges,” and Kevin agreed, then when they re-shot it Kevin exaggeratedly went “I love the M Resort!!! It’s my favorite!” and Tom noticeably cracked up in the background. Screw it, I’m just gonna declare that that’s definitely what happened.

– Eli was clearly overmatched, especially in this fivesome, but he’s still frickin’ 25, he’ll land on his feet. His tears were a little unexpected though– who does he think he is, Kevin after winning?

Next week on Top Chef: “Look what you’re playing for…” CUT TO: A train. The chefs compete to see which one wins a train. Or are they cooking food for the train? It’s got to be one or the other. Special guest: This fella.

And remember: What happens in Napa Valley…… never mind. I can’t believe they made it the whole season without saying it.

Episode thoughts? Favorite / least favorite parts? Finale predictions? Leave ‘em all in the comments.

It’s gonna take a few movies before I see Robbie Patz (my nickname for him that I use to save time) in a trailer without expecting to see CGI’d werewolves jumping out to confront him, so I’ll just pretend that Chris Cooper is a werewolf. Which he was in American Beauty, actually — most people didn’t pick up on that. Watch the deleted scenes.