Apparently, December 8th is the annual cannibal polar bear photo day. I am not suggesting that you click through, because these pictures will make you sad.

Thursday, December 8

At Pittsburgh -14 Cleveland
Is Colt McCoy the
Quarterback of the Future?
Then Browns’ Future Sucks. PICK: BROWNS

Sunday, December 11

At Baltimore -16.5 Indianapolis
Baltimore only
shows up against the good teams.
This could be closer. PICK: COLTS

At Cincinnati -3 Houston
Bengals must win
and the Texans are starting
a third string QB. PICK: BENGALS

At Green Bay -11 Oakland
Everyone will play
the Packers tough from now on.
Pack will stay perfect. PICK: RAIDERS

At NY Jets -10 Kansas City
The Chiefs could play
major spoilers this weekend.
But they suck so bad. PICK: JETS

At Detroit -8 Minnesota
Lions’ death spiral
will include a loss to the
purple grim reapers. PICK: VIKINGS

New Orleans -2.5 At Tennessee
Titans’ Chris Johnson
has singlehandedly cost
me my fantasy league. PICK: SAINTS

At Miami -3 Philadelphia
The Dream Team turned out
to be all wet and not in
a fun kind of way. PICK: DOLPHINS

New England -8 At Washington
Two Redskins got
suspended for drug abuse.
Season up in smoke. PICK: PATRIOTS

Atlanta -2.5 At Carolina
The Falcons could be
so much better, but they are
like a moldy peach. PICK: PANTHERS

At Jacksonville PK At Tampa Bay
It’s West versus East!
The Battle for Florida!
Tens of fans are psyched! PICK: Jaguars

San Francisco -4 At Arizona
The only Cardinal
anyone cares about is
J. Albert Pujols. PICK: 49ers

At Denver -3.5 Chicago
Chicago has no
Quarterback or running back.
Tebow will run wild. PICK: BRONCOS

At San Diego -7 Buffalo
The Gaslight District
of San Diego is kind of
like New Orleans Light. PICK: BILLS

At Dallas -3.5 NY Giants
The Giants almost
beat the Packers but almost
only counts in other things PICK: GIANTS

Monday, December 12

At Seattle -5.5 St. Louis
Move this game out of
Seattle and move it straight
to Football Hades. PICK: SEAHAWKS

Last week’s Haiku Picks went 7–9. Season to date is 88–103–6.

Jim Behrle tweets at @behrle for your possible amusement.

Exciting news about Anomalocaris! Turns out that everyone’s favorite super-predator from the Paleozoic era’s Cambrian period had incredibly powerful underwater vision. Fossils recently discovered off of South Australia’s Kangaroo Island prove that the beloved, though highly controversial three-foot-long shrimp-like creature had huge, inch-long eyes growing out of stalks on either side of its crazy, fearsome, shrimp-like head.

As Discovery’s Jennifer Viegas reports,

“The fossils represent compound eyes. These are the multi-faceted kind seen in arthropods, such as flies, crabs and kin. They are perhaps the largest of their kind to have ever existed, with each eye over 1 inch in length and containing over 16,000 lenses.”

I was going to end this post by noting that 16,000 lenses is likely to be even more than you’d find in Elton John’s sunglasses wardrobe. But after seeing the television ad released yesterday by the Rick Perry campaign, I will instead say how badly I wished that the Anomalocaris still existed today so that it could use its circular mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth to eat Rick Perry’s head.

We tend to be dismissive about certain “studies” in these parts, particularly when they are sponsored by industries which tend to benefit from their findings. But our cynicism should not be read as a blanket castigation of all research. Some studies are indeed valid and remarkably worthy of note, particularly ones which show that “online advertisements are as just as effective as TV commercials and much more likely to encourage a purchase than print ads.” In fact, I can think of few scientifically-proven discoveries with which I agree than “online advertisements are as just as effective as TV commercials and much more likely to encourage a purchase than print ads.” Anyway, now you know. Online advertisements: just as effective as TV commercials and much more likely to encourage a purchase than print ads. Related: Awl publisher John Shankman can be reached right here.

The Couple Who Marcel The Shell’s Together

by Joe Berkowitz

Life can get pretty boring sometimes. There’s simply no avoiding it. The best any of us can hope for is to find an ally in the battle against boredom and stick to him or her like glue. Lots of couples do silly things to amuse and distract each other, though rarely do such inside jokes end up actually amusing anyone else. But over the past year, Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp have watched as their little pastime project blossomed into a bona fide phenomenon.

If you haven’t heard of “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” by now, it’s not for lack of opportunity. The short, charming character the couple created together has traveled far and wide since debuting online last August, screening at film festivals around the world and racking up over 14 million YouTube hits. Now, with the November release of a Marcel the Shell picture book, a video sequel and an upcoming TV series, the co-habitating couple have turned their microscopic sea fossil into a larger-than-life enterprise.

It all started inside their Brooklyn apartment late last summer. Slate, a comedian, actress, and former cast member on “Saturday Night Live” (here she is in “Pageant Talk”) had taken to doing the frail, nasally voice that would eventually belong to Marcel while lounging on the couch. Fleischer-Camp, a filmmaker, responded gamely, slipping into the mode of interviewer, while Jenny answered his questions in character. “It’s exactly the same thing as when you and your best friend do weird voices together,” Slate said. “It’s kind of just something that you do for fun, mostly in private.”

It might have remained just something fun to do in private, had they not previously promised friends that Dean would create a video for a comedy show in Greenpoint. They decided to put something together built around an interview with the budding character. It was then only a matter of deciding which inanimate object would best embody the little guy’s essence.

“Shells are the jewels of the sea,” Slate says. “I say it as a joke, but I really do mean it. Dean was very sweet to make Marcel’s body out of a shell. To me, it’s a symbol of the most natural beauty, and a very intriguing and unique beauty as well.” Marcel is a vaguely croissant-shaped anthropomorphic shell with a single green-framed googly eye on the right side. While the voice is pure Jenny Slate — untreated and unenhanced — Marcel has a digitally supplied mouth that appears when he speaks. He also wears tiny pink shoes — it’s almost alarmingly adorable.

The video opens with Dean’s disembodied voice asking Marcel questions from off-camera, prompting answers that reflect an attitude of childlike playfulness, alongside a keen acceptance of one’s physical boundaries. The upbeat exoskeleton exudes naked joy when describing the diminutive building blocks of his miniature galaxy. “Guess what I use as a helmet?” Marcel asks. The answer is a lentil.

Fleisher-Camp and Slate conceived, produced and then screened Marcel in front of an audience, all in a span roughly five days. Based on a strong reaction from the crowd attending SuperShow at Coco66, the couple decided to put the video online. Gabe Delahaye, a friend and fellow comedian, soon embedded it on Videogum, prompting overwhelmingly delighted responses across the board. Marcel’s ascent was underway.

“It was strange and very beautiful to see so many personal, positive reactions happening together,” Slate says of the short’s swift, ecstatic reception. It was at about 30,000 views on Youtube when she and Fleischer-Camp realized their labor of love had exceeded their modest expectations, establishing a strong connection with viewers on a large level. Marcel had only been out for about a month when the pair began meeting with a slew of publishers. A two-book deal with Penguin Young Readers Group imprint Razorbill soon followed, perhaps inevitably.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On: Things About Me came out at the beginning of November. Although its authors had already worked together on videos, this first book was a bigger production than anything they’d ever undertaken before. “The process of designing the book and doing the art and layout was much more slow and quiet,” says Dean, who devised the look of the oil paintings himself. Jenny continued channeling the spirit of the character of Marcel during the collaboration. “The writing of the book is similar to the interview sessions we do,” she says. “It’s very fun and very open.”

In the book, the familiar apartment setting is immediately rendered exotic through the eyes of its tiny tour guide, who dispenses tall tales about his surroundings and offers an occasional aphorism. The everyday objects Marcel interacts with — a colander, a high-heeled shos — :are composed of soft-focus still-life oil paintings that make him seem like less of an object in contrast. Thus far the reception has been positive, and it seems possible that Marcel may one day become a classic children’s book character.

The second book will not be released until fall of 2012, and details about the TV show are being kept secret for now. However, the long-awaited second Marcel video appeared online unannounced November 15th. Predictably, word of mouth spread much faster than it had the previous year, and “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Two” attracted millions of viewers almost instantaneously.

Before debuting this follow-up online, though, Jenny and Dean brought it along with them on their book tour. “We wanted to play the second video at the live events before we put it online,” Slate says, “as a thank you to the people who came out and supported us.” The limited live screenings of the new piece also gave the filmmaking duo rare observational access to people actually reacting to it, which helped them tighten up the editing. The live crowdsourcing opportunity even led them to change the ending before sharing it with a mass audience online.

Additionally, the exclusive video and overall intimacy of these book events helped seal a bond between the creators and their core audience — a group that now ranges from children and college students to marketing managers and grandparents. At a recent event at the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn, when Jenny read the entire book in Marcel’s otherworldly voice, the crowd hung on every word, laughed frequently, then waited in a long, orderly line for the chance to get their copies signed. These fans seemed eager to connect with her and Dean in a way that nearly mirrored the connection the two have with each other — a rapport that made the whole Marcel sensation possible in the first place.

Although the two declined to go into detail about some of their future projects, they did mention one upcoming event: “We are very proud to be marrying each other next September 15.”

Joe Berkowitz is a writer living in Brooklyn, if you can even believe that. He also has a tumblr.

I am going to have to reread Jenny Turner’s “As Many Pairs of Shoes as She Likes” at least seven more times before I can even engage with it simply on the level of comprehension, but even the first pass has left me exhausted. Every paragraph explodes with an almost impossible number of issues with which to contend. Perhaps (and probably so) you are brighter than I can get the whole thing in one go, but if not you’ll want to get started now, right here.

Don’t Say That, Say This!

Coming across a guide of “18 Common Phrases to Avoid In Conversation,” I was struck by the rightness of the article’s aim: Some things should indeed never be said. But the alternate conversational choices offered by the magazine seemed a bit passive aggressive to me — for example, “Is everything OK?” as a substitute for “You look tired.” Naturally, I felt it was my duty to come up with some satisfactory alternatives.

Don’t say: “I could never wear that.”
Why: It can be misunderstood as a criticism. (“I could never wear that because it’s so ugly.”)
Instead: Suppose you meet up with a girlfriend at a party and her outfit is just a tad more revealing than what you might choose for yourself. You could say, “Hey, let’s play a game where we point out every single person in the room who looks like a common streetwalker.” When you’ve gone through everyone, shrug and say, “Well, that’s almost everyone!” Let her struggle for as long as she’s willing to find anyone else present who might vaguely resemble a common streetwalker until it is very clear that absolutely no one does. With zero impoliteness on your end, she will be forced to either identify you as the person in question (as if) or to point a (long overdue and deserving) finger at herself.

However, if you want to say “I could never wear that” because the “outfit” in question would make you look like a giant lesbian, and the person you’re talking to does not mind looking like a giant lesbian, either because she is one or she just doesn’t mind, you can just bite your lip and say, kind of offhand, “Hey, what did you think about that documentary about the women who actually wore bras under their giant plaid shirts? Wasn’t that really good? Didn’t you think those women were really brave?

Don’t say: “You look tired.”
Why: It implies she doesn’t look good.
Instead: Say, “Gee, you look like you were getting ass-reamed all night by a family of giant squid.” She is more likely to be flattered that you might regard her as a person every single squid in an entire family could agree on finding sexually attractive than to think she looks like a person who needs some sleep, a shower or, in lieu of these, some Touche Éclat. You know, from Yves St. Laurent, with the neato little push dispenser, which, after, getting banged by sea animals all night, or whatever, miraculously makes you look ready to go again. (Touche Éclat, $40.)

Don’t say: “Are you pregnant?”
Why: You ask, she’s not, and you feel totally embarrassed for essentially pointing out that she’s overweight.
Instead say: “Have you ever thought about what really happens after a man’s erect penis or a dripping turkey baster propels a roiling load of jizz into a woman’s vagina and her cervix laps it up like a Bernese Mountain Dog?” And if she pats her belly and says with smug self-regard, “No, because I don’t have to,” then you know she’s pregnant. And if she doesn’t say that, well, she’s just some fat lady who thinks you’re an asshole — and she can just get in line.

Don’t say: “Do you plan on breast-feeding?”
Why: The issue can be controversial, and she may not want to discuss her decision publicly.
Instead say: Don’t say anything. Simply have handy in your purse a folder full of very graphic photos of children suffering from painful ear infections, allergies, strep and e coli infections, diabetes, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, childhood cancers, meningitis, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), Crohn’s Disease, ulcerative colitis, insulin dependent diabetes and any other disease listed on the La Leche website as being the almost sure fate for children of parents who dare to feed their children formula instead of breast milk. Trip and spill contents of purse in such a way that photos array themselves in front of the woman in question; when she exclaims, “Oh my God, these photos are horrible! What are they of?” simply say, “Why, I don’t know, I was merely carrying some photos for a friend of mine who is extremely active in La Leche League, an advocacy group that educates the public about the health benefits of breast feeding. These must be photos of the sorts of diseases children can get when, as helpless infants, they are not provided with the special nutrients and antibodies that are present in human breast milk.” But there’s no need to go any further than that. Remember, people must be empowered to make their own decisions, in private.

Don’t say: “You look good for your age.”
Why: Anything with a caveat like this is rude. It’s saying, “You look great — compared with other old people. It’s amazing you have all your own teeth.”
Instead say: Actually, go ahead and say “you look good for your age.” Especially say it if you are considerably younger than the person in question. If you’re pretty, well, even better. Make a goddamn habit out of it, because once a person — for simplicity’s sake, let’s say a woman person — has reached a certain age — let’s say 42 — just about the most pleasurable part of her life comes from witnessing the flighty disregard women less advanced in age have for their own mortality. Sure, it’s sad to get old, but what’s not sad is how funny it is that women ten years younger do not yet understand that their own cherubic little faces and taut bodies will also undergo a process that will take them to leather, then ash, and then dust. What’s also not sad it how if they do have some fuzzy sense that this fate awaits, they will be very shocked when it happens in what feels like the amount of time it should take to purchase a bottle of water, a Luna Bar and a copy of In Style at Hudson News before flying to Turks and Caicos with their fiancé, who they don’t yet know wishes they were a tranny. Saying “you look good for your age” to a woman who is fully aware that what she looks like is merely some increasingly meaningless increment of No Longer Young might seem like cruelty. But anyone who knows how much she is going to enjoy reporting the incident to her hag friends and cackling over the clueless little tramp who said it can see it for the act of generosity it is.

Don’t say: “This might sound stupid, but…”
Why: Never undermine your ideas by prefacing your remarks with wishy-washy language.
Instead: Say, “This would sound stupid if everything else everyone said before wasn’t way stupider.” See how much more confidence is packed into that statement?

Sarah Miller is the author of Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn and The Other Girl, which are for teens but adults can read on the beach. She lives in Nevada City, CA.

Illustration by lineartestpilot, via Shutterstock.

“Men are baffled by washing machines while women can’t get their heads around iPhones, research has suggested.”

Watching the new video from the wonderfully-named techno-dancehall duo Major Lazer is a little like watching the gang from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” practice for a talent show they’re putting on at the bar, or rehearse a fake wrestling routine to raise money for the troops in Iraq. Which makes sense, because producer Diplo, one half of Major Lazer, is from Philadelphia.

by Awl Sponsors

Slim, stylish, and smart, the up-and-coming Intel Ultrabook is in a category all by itself.

Consciously constructed with an energy-efficient 2nd generation Intel Core processor, this über-responsive device bonds with the user, conforming to the need for speedy start-ups and shut-downs (think of it as the Memory Foam of the computer world). The lightweight construction helps too: a thickness of less than an inch means you can grab and go in a flash.

Aptly named for being “ultra” in every way, other outstanding features of the Ultrabook include built-in visuals that are richer than ever, intelligent multitasking, and the high performance levels and enhanced capabilities to deliver accordingly. And all for a sharper, more stunning look and feel overall, from the inside out.

PC Mag recently reviewed the coming of the Ultrabook, touting attributes like low-voltage processors, carving out a “low thermal envelope” designed to prevent overheating and maximize battery life (some systems delivering a 9–5 work day’s worth of usage). Certain models are even equipped with a breathable keyboard and strategically-placed vents, and most will be security-enabled, so you can enjoy speedy browsing and maneuvering without compromising safety.

Any gadget guy or gal will surely have the sleek and savvy Ultrabook on their wish list this holiday season, which is exactly when the devices will hit the market.

Get the scoop on Ultrabooks now.

This is a sponsored post written by Intel.