THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

FRIDAY TIME-WASTER: 238 Miles follows the journey of o­ne man listening to o­ne song -- ABBA's "Dancing Queen" -- all the way from Chicago to Iowa City. In Quicktime.

FRIDAY TIME-WASTER II: It's a non-English site, but you will intuitively understand how to play the game from experience.

WILCO'S JEFF TWEEDY and Stanford Law Professor-cyberguru Larry Lessig will discuss "Who Owns Culture?" The duo will "explore the artistic, commercial and legal issues that surround the Internet-enabled freeing of culture" April 7th at the New York Public Library. Sounds very Royal Tenenbaums, doesn't it?

WEEZER shot their forthcoming video for "Beverly Hills" at the Playboy Mansion. The band's web site claims that "[t]he idea of juxtaposing real Weezer fans with such an unlikely fantasy environment came from "Beverly Hills" basically being about the sense of alienation that many people get when they don't feel like they belong." Hanging out with Playmates had nothing to do with it.

EX-PISTOL GLEN MATLOCK does not want his kids exposed to profanities o­n television.

CATS AND DOGS can now get prescription eyewear.

MOVEON is profiled in a Rolling Stone article titled "The o­nline Insurgency." "Insurgents" is not really the label I would want stuck to me at this moment in history, but maybe the MoveOn folk will see it differently.

NANOTECH: The Center for Responsible Technology argues that nanobots are not needed for manufacturing, but continued misunderstanding may hinder research into highly beneficial technologies and discussion of the real dangers. Meanwhile, scientists have attached nanoparticles to DNA and then cut these "DNA wires" into pieces, offering the promise of creating low-cost, self-assembling devices for future computers.

GEENA DAVIS FOR PRESIDENT: On television, maybe. Better looking than Martin Sheen, definitely.

THE HEIMLICH MANEUVER turns into a drug bust.

THE BEST PART OF BREAKING UP is when you're publicizing it. Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen? Done. Katie Holmes and Chris Klein? Done. J-Lo? Not done attacking Ben Affleck.

EDUCATION BLOGGING: The fourth Carnival of Education is o­nline.

SYRIA UNDER PRESSURE to leave Lebanon from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Russia.

BUILD YOUR OWN STALKER'S SHRINE with a little help from the Google Image Montage Maker!

AS BASEBALL AND BASKETBALL OVERLAP right now, The New York Times looks at the influence of "Moneyball" o­n the NBA.

CULT OF THE iPod: accessTunes is shareware that allows people to make their iTunes library accessible over the web. Seems like a security hole to me! Drexel University will hand out free iPod Photo players to between 30 and 50 students entering its School of Education this September. Perhaps they can dress their devices to look like Chewbacca. Finally, fishbowl LA speculates that God probably has an iPod.

THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION AND BLOGS may collide in the near future. I think this story is a little overblown, though it's an example of the danger posed when the government gets to define who the "media" is for an exemption from the regulation of political speech.

DEMOCRATIC DIAGNOSIS: Matt Yglesias, blogging at The American Prospect argues that Bush's weaknesses in polls should cause Democrats to take a look in the mirror.

KUDOS TO WARNER BROS. from Slate over the excellent job the studio is doing in restoring and remastering their classics for DVD.

PORTIA de ROSSI, whose very mention drives traffic to our site, is interviewed by PAPER magazine: "I was an alt-rock kid. My roots are in the Pixies, PJ Harvey, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth. The o­nly time I've been starstruck is when I met Kim Gordon last year. I could barely speak. She was kind of a hero to me growing up -- a talented, ballsy chick."

JOHNNY DEPP: Golden Fiddle has figured out the quirky actor's Oscars garb. PLUS: GF is also offering a download of John Logan's "New Used Car and a Plate of Bar-B-Que," which is charming, for those of you who haven't heard it.

LINDSAY LOHAN lashes out at her creepy dad in a forthcoming interview with W magazine. But she doesn't rule out doing a reality show with him.

CNN: Its ratings are tanking.

JACKO JUSTICE: It was o­nly a matter of time before we heard allegations of monkey business with Bubbles the Chimp.

BLOCKING JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS: It's a hot-button issue, so I'll limit my comments to a piece of practical advice for the Democrats. If you want to preserve the filibuster for President Bush's judicial nominees, do not make Sen. Robert Byrd your point man. People are bound to point out that Byrd set the Senate record for filibuster, speaking for 14 straight hours against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That's not a good ad for filibusters. Plus, he's already attracted the criticism of the Anti-Defamation League by comparing the Republicans to Nazis o­n this issue, resulting in o­ne of those too-typical political non-apologies. There are other Democratic Senators who could better work this issue than Byrd; indeed, there are over 40 of them.

BONO'S FUNERAL: "I would like lots of weeping and wailing," he says. I know people like that. I'm not real big o­n it, but have been known to agree to do it.

LOU BARLOW is interviewed by Gothamist. My favorite question might be the last o­ne:
"And finally...If Josh Schwartz, creator of the OC, asked you to perform o­n his tv show (as Modest Mouse, the Killers and the Walkmen recently have) would you?
i would do nearly anything for money at this point..we didn't have health insurance. i have no shame."

LUNA CORRECTION: The band did not play its last show in Chicago, o­nly its its last show in Chicago. It turns out that a group blog, Luna's Last Waltz, covererd their last show, o­n Feb. 28th in NYC. Plenty of photos and memories there.

RINGTONES: Sasha Frere-Jones looks into the multi-billion dollar business and what it tells us about songs.

SOMETIMES, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE "O:" Slate reviews the ad for Overstock.com as an excuse to find out more about model Sabine Ehrenfeld.

PORN STAR RON JEREMY will address the prestigious Oxford Union debating society. "Ron is the biggest and apparently the best in the business, so I'm sure he'll have some fascinating stories to tell," said Oxford Union librarian Vladimir Bermant.

THE EAR WAX VACUUM: Jeff Jarvis traces it back to Japan.

LEGAL MUSIC DOWNLOADS: A price increase in the works? Coolfer says, "Nah."

CLOAKING DEVICES are on the drawing board at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania. Apparently, it's more Star Trek than Harry Potter.

THE PUTIN YOUTH: Seems like bad news in Russia.

LARRY SUMMERS UPDATE: This piece at Blogcritics is a joke... at least I hope so.

CULT OF THE iPod: Here's someone using an iPod to help cure their insomnia.

GWYNETH PALTROW is denying rumors that her marriage to Coldplay's Chris Martin is in trouble.

HACK YOUR CREDIT CARD with Stripe Snoop!

NANOTECH NEWS: The UK government has responded to o­ne major report into nanotechnologies by... ordering another review. Scroll to the bottom of the story for a look at the real world uses of nanotech (remember o­ne of Jon Pratt's areas of expertise is thin film coatings).

BRAD BIRD dishes about The Incredibles DVD coming out o­n March 15th, as well as chances for a sequel.

LORD OF THE RINGS Director Peter Jackson is suing New Line for an accounting of profits. When you go to file such a suit, do you regret naming your company Wingnut Films?

RICHARD LAWRENCE COHEN exposes his secret vice of reading conservative blogs.

DAN RATHER will not respond to the criticisms of Mike wallace and Walter Cronkite in his broadcast signoff. Plus, two of the CBS Newspeople asked to resign after the 60 Minutes Wednesday Bush memo scandal have finally resigned.

POST-OSCARS PARTIES: The Vanity Fair post-Oscar party at Mortons featured Ron Howard and George Lucas offered consoling words to Martin Scorsese, who lost out o­n Best Director to Clint Eastwood. For his part, Clint was going to Dani Janssen's Century City apartment to eat fresh-baked "monkey bread" with Jack Nicholson.

PEZ REJECTS DEAD RAPPER DISPENSERS: Who'da thunkit?

VICE PAYS: the underground skateboard culture mag has become a 40 million dollar empire.

STUDENT BLOGGERS are being encouraged by colleges for marketing purposes.