Learning How to Play It Cool...

Twentieth Century Fox has optioned rights to "How to Talk to Girls," a newly published advice guide written by Alec Greven, a 9-year-old expert on the subject.

The first of a four-book series, "How to Talk to Girls" was published Nov. 25 by HarperCollins, the publishing house that is a sister company to Fox. The film deal encompasses all four volumes.

The studio hasn't set a writer yet or assigned a producer, but 20th production co-president Alex Young sparked to the story of Greven, who was 8 when he began writing the book as an assignment for his third-grade class, to help classmates break the ice with members of the opposite sex. The result was a pamphlet that sold at his school's book fair for $3.

HarperCollins is selling the first of the four editions for $9.99.

The advice seems simple enough to follow: Greven's tips range from the facts of life ("Sometimes, you get a girl to like you, then she ditches you. Life is hard, move on!"), to getting a girl's attention ("Show off a skill, like playing soccer or anything else that you are good at.") to talking to girls ("You also have to be aware that girls win most of the arguments.") to dealing with crushes ("It can be very hard to get a girl to like you. Sometimes it takes years! Whatever happens, just don't act desperate.").

Fox bought the book preemptively, before Greven began logging airtime on TV shows including "The Today Show" and "Ellen."

The Gotham Group brokered the deal and I for one am excited as shit to see what this looks like on screen / learn an enormous amount about the opposite sex from someone under the age of 10.

The Tittie Pipe

When talking about "Fringe" you should always say it with an elongated "iiiiiiii" like how they announce the "seeeeeecrets" sketch on Conan. It adds to the atmosphere. And atmosphere is really what the show has going for it. The storylines are all quasi-interesting. Frankly, a lot of the science-powers are familiar to anyone who watches Heroes (or in tonight's episode, The Green Mile) but how it plays out is always kind of cool and how far that atmosphere spreads is one of the great strengths of the show.

Last night a young guy - fake Tom Green - has the power (unbeknownst to him mind you) to fuck up any electrical device around him when he gets upset. Sadly, this means he kills the young woman of his affection when the elevator they are both in plummets 32 stories straight into the ground. Oh, and also his mom, whose pacemaker he short circuits. So it's not a good day for this fella. How do you find him? Well luckily it turns out that it wasn't Walter's fault that this kid is all amped up. There is some other guy who is doing experiments on unknowing people and giving them this power (an interesting parallel though, as Peter pointed out last week, Walter is as much a cause of these problems as he is the solution). Walter, using pigeon technology (finally!!) deduces the Freak Of The Week's (FOTW's) magnetic output from the walkman he was using and then shocks the pigeons into oblivion with the same frequency so they will all migrate towards the guy (thereby allowing the FBI to find him). Good idea? Great idea!! As for what becomes of the pidgeons when they have to fly south and instead keep flying towards Harvard University Hospital... We'll leave that to the scholars to discuss.

The episode, though not amazing, makes a sensible move to finding the balance between a serial show (the pattern is a consistent) and a weekly procedural show (Freak Of The Week). Note, for example that just as FOTW gets on the elevator The Hairless Man - noted two weeks ago as a harbinger of an addition to the pattern - steps off the elevator. Also, in our preview of next weeks episode, we see that a girl, similarly amped up (but this time radioactive) stumbles in to a deli and boils everyone's brains. Awesome. But also awesome? The deli is the same deli The Hairless Man sat in with his roast beef sandwich in Episode 3. What does it all mean? Maybe it was just cheaper to use the same background twice... I don't know. But what it suggests to me is that the show - now picked up for a full season and with strong ratings - is relaxing a bit and injecting some much needed mythology to the weekly emergencies of the Homeland Securities Fringe Division.

The Tittie Pipe

If you can find me a better show on TV than House, I will kiss you socks. Last nights episode brought four - count them! four! - good story-lines together in a way that hasn't happened yet this season. To start, House's dad dies. And you know House, the loveable, kind hearted sap that he is, obviously breaks down weeping. Or not... Rather he refuses to attend the funeral and is generally bitter about the idea of providing a eulogy. Intro storyline #2. Cuddy drugs him under the guise of a SARS vaccine and when he awakes, Wilson has kidnapped him and is driving him to the funeral. Roadtrip!!!! Back at the hospital, storyline #3, the Case Of The Week (COTW) is a young Asian girl with multiple addictions whose liver is shutting down and who keeps vomiting blood (a hugely popular symptom over the last season, am I wrong?). And who will save this poor girl now that House has been taken away? Welcome to storyline #4, in which the old team, without House, performs a differential only to find the new team has solved the problem in the same amount of time! Do I smell some inter-hospital competitions happening? Probably not... But it would be awesome.

The episode is really about parents. About how much they fuck you up; In the Asian girls case, both physically and emotionally and in House's case... well, the same. But it's also about assigning blame. We find out Taub has confessed his past infidelities to his wife, that Kumar (does he have another name?) blames adoption for spoiling the COTW and that ultimately, assigning that blame will get you nowhere. Whose fault was it that he cheated? It doesn't matter. Whose fault is it that the COTW is all addicted-up? Well, it turns out it IS her parents fault because they tried to kill her by inserting pins into her brain... So maybe in that case you CAN assign blame. But for the rest of the episode, it's about trying to discover why things happen and ultimately acknowledging that it doesn't matter. The past may be prologue, but the main chapters make the book.

Also - it turns out that Wilson and House met at a medical convention where House bailed Wilson out of jail. Man, do you ever have to love those guys.