I promise copying and pasting will not replace my usual brand of mediocrity

Huh. Robert Downey Jr. is going to play Iron Man. No, not that one. This one. I'm completely over superhero movies but this casting tells me A) they probably won't shy away from the alcoholsim angle and B) there may be some company crossover potential:

The police, who had been prepared to go in with a SWAT team, chose a more relaxed approach. "We decided to just do a 'knock and talk,' " says Anderson, who had learned from the hotel's security director that Downey spent the day in his room with a female companion, who has not been identified, but who, according to police, left behind a Wonder Woman costume.

Elsewhere, from this past Sunday's Washington Post, comedian Jonathan Carlos says that being Stephen Colbert's Black Friend doesn't come w/ many perks:

How did I get to be Colbert's on-air compadre of color? Simple. One day a friend of mine who happened to be a producer for the show called and asked me to come and have my picture taken with Colbert. He explained that it was for a segment they'd be airing that night in which I would play Colbert's black friend. With zero prospects and a gnawing fear that they'd find a replacement, I streaked over to the studios on New York City's West Side, where I was quickly introduced to the man himself, Stephen Colbert. We took the picture and my producer friend showed me out. The joke has since become a running gag. I had hoped to parlay it into a job; instead I got a lot of MySpace "friends." These experiences didn't leave me feeling good, but they did make me think more about being black. Better late than never, I guess.

That's unfortunate, although not quite as painful-sounding as watching Stephen suck up to Henry Kissinger a couple weeks ago, but I wouldn't be too quick to slag off MySpace friend status. I'm hoping that when Gilbert Arenas approves my friend request I'll get invited to his next Diddy-hosted B-day bash in DC, a terrifying/fascinating account of which was recently posted over at the amazing Wizznutzz.

Speaking of terrifying (but not fascinating), I hope you're ready for Bush's big Iraq strategy announcement this Wednesday. He thought it over really, really hard in Crawford over the holidays, and I'm sure he's been mostly consulting the same neo-cons who've been so on the money about everything that's happened so far, so things should start turning right around any day now. Hell, Iraqis already have reason to be cheerful, as they won't have to worry about controling their oil fields for the next 30 years! The build-up to this announcement (which will apparently be a troop increase) in the media reminds me of the hoopla surrounding the mysterious "It" a few years back. Remember? There were stories and rumours circulating about a mysterious invention referred to as "It" which would likely change all of our lives once "It" was revealed. A few months later, there was a 60 Minutes segment in which "It" was unveiled and "It" turned out to be the fucking Segway scooter, which to this point has been chiefly notable in my mind as a badge of assholism and as the main mode of transportation of GOB on Arrested Development. I'm betting the best thing we'll soon be able to say about Bush's new Iraq plan is that it'll be "sub-Segway," a very lowly ranking indeed.