1. The nominees for The 15th Annual Webby Awards were announced this morning, and the list includes Justin Bieber, Angry Birds, Groupon, the Old Spice Guy, Arcade Fire, The Bed Intruder Song, SoundCloud, and Flipboard .

2. “I’m around great women, starting with my mom. Women keep men cool. The hotter the chick the cooler the guy … that sounds like a really bad rap line!” – Jay-Z talks about his new lifestyle website and explains how he became the coolest man on Earth to Gwyneth Paltrow in GOOP

3. With ticket sales estimated to top $700 million, U2’s 360 Degrees tour has surpassed The Rolling Stones’s Bigger Bang tour as the highest grossing tour of all time. Says their manager: “That dollar figure for the gross looks enormous! Of course I can’t tell you what the net is, but I can tell you that the band spend enormous sums on production for their audience.” Point taken, but how much could a giant claw (or three) cost? [via Vulture]

4. Look at a photo of a decidedly pregnant Tina Fey that was snapped while she was leaving The Late Show With David Letterman last night.

5. Ikea’s first US-based factory in Danville, Virginia, has become “a target of racial discrimination complaints, a heated union-organizing battle, and turnover from disgruntled employees.” Of note: workers at similar factories in Sweden make a minimum wage of about $19 an hour and five weeks of paid vacation. That’s compared to $8 an hour in Danville and 12 vacation days — eight of them on dates determined by the company. [via LAT]

Bonus link: It’s free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s!

Today at Flavorpill, we laughed out loud over the nutritional info for The Big Lebowski. We couldn’t believe the news that Jonathan Groff (aka Jesse St. James) will be returning to Glee later this season. We were surprised by how complicated a Bloody Mary is when broken down into its component flavors and ingredients. We looked at the first photograph ever taken of Mars from orbit. We wondered what the wardrobe person was thinking when he or she came up with the latest Wonder Woman getup — it looks like Adrianne Palicki is wearing bedazzled pajama jeans. We were mildly grossed out by the things that these celebrities craved while pregnant — including dirt. We learned how underwater sculptures can actually help corals and other marine creatures thrive. And finally, we heard an interesting rumor that Gwyneth Paltrow could be getting her own food magazine. Would you read it?

1. Some good news to help get you through this icy morning: Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow which means we should have an early spring. And the same goes for the poor man’s version of Phil, Staten Island Chuck.

2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in talks to join the cast of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, but with more obvious choices like the Joker and the Riddler supposedly thrown out, no one is quite sure which villain he’ll play. [via Deadline]

3. Gwyneth Paltrow and Cee Lo Green are planning to do a duet at the Grammy Awards on February 13th, and while we’re not certain of the song yet, we do know that there will be some Muppets involved. [via People]

4. Ringo Starr wants to trademark his name for future use in “computer game software” and “games via the Internet and wireless devices.” We’re curious: what do you imagine a Ringo-themed iPhone app would do exactly? [via Billboard]

5. “Anderson [Cooper] said he was punched 10 times in the head as pro-Mubarak mob surrounded him and his crew trying to cover demonstration” – Steve Brusk, a CNN Political Coverage Manager, just tweeted this disturbing bit of news from the Egyptian protests

Bonus link: How a Statistician Beat Scratch Lottery Tickets

1. Salma Hayek is teaming with ABC to develop an eight-hour miniseries adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which already inspired an incredibly successful Broadway musical. Any casting suggestions? [via TVLine]

2. Last night Julian Casablancas inexplicably tweeted fake cover art for The Strokes’ upcoming album, which is due out in March. At least we think it’s fake… [via Vulture]

3. Baz Luhrmann is thinking about shooting his upcoming film adaptation of The Great Gatsby in 3D, which leads us to believe it’s going to be more of an Australia for the director than a Moulin Rouge. [via Forbes]

4. Ryan Murphy has confirmed that Gwyneth Paltrow will reprise her role as Holly Holliday for two episodes of Glee in the spring; the plotline will involve her subbing for the sex ed teacher and (briefly?) dating Mr. Schuester. [via EW]

5. A Weekly World News story claiming that Facebook is shutting down on March 15th — because “managing the site has become too stressful” for Mark Zuckerberg — sent the Internet into a tailspin. Obviously it’s about as true their latest Bat Boy sighting. [via Gawker]

Bonus link: First Peek At 2011 No Pants Subway Ride

Today at Flavorpill, we listened to M.I.A.’s new WikiLeaks-inspired” mixtape. We wondered if we’re smarter than this 2-year-old. We discovered that some people think that Pixar’s Cars is a ripoff of Doc Hollywood. We realized how much zombies and supermodels have in common. We fell a little harder in like with Gwyneth Paltrow. We found out about the odd practice of using orphaned kids as “practice babies” once upon a time. We were blown away by this one-minute claymation recap of Machete. We met the woman who really wrote Snooki’s novel. We were impressed by artist Yin Xiuzhen’s cities made out of clothing. And finally, we remembered why we used to be obsessed with James Van Der Beek — his ability to emote.

1. The Flaming Lips are set to start recording new material later this month, and according to Wayne Coyne, they plan to release a new song every month this year. [via NME]

2. John Goodman is joining Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks in the cast of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel. [via THR]

3. “We’re sort of emailing each other, we don’t know where that’s gonna go. But I am such a big fan of Cee Lo, he is so gorgeous and talented and amazing.” – Gwyneth Paltrow says that she might be performing her cover of “Fuck You” with Cee Lo on Saturday Night Live this weekend — even though the musical guest is The Black Keys. Update: Gwyneth Paltrow will host SNL January 15 with musical guest Cee Lo, which makes a lot more sense.

4. Jason Schwartzman and his wife, fashion designer Brady Cunningham, are the proud parents of a baby girl: Marlowe Rivers Schwartzman. [via People]

5. The lead producer of Fela! is in discussions with producers in Lagos, Nigeria (home of the title character, Fela Anikulapo Kuti), to take the Broadway musical there in the late winter or early spring. The show closed in New York on Sunday after more than 14 months of performances. [via ArtsBeat]

Bonus link: Andrea Zuckerman is turning 50!

1. Thanks to state and federal officials, there’s a new safety plan in effect on the set of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark that sounds an awful lot like common sense: “… one offstage crew member will attach the harness and related cables, wires or tethers to the actors, and a second stagehand will verify that the attachments are made. That second stagehand will then verbally notify a stage manager that they are safely connected. The actor will also verify that the attachment is made. Previously, there was no second stagehand to verify or communicate with the stage manager, and the actor was not required to check his harness.” [via NYT]

2. Late-night comedy scandal: Did Conan O’Brien swipe Jimmy Kimmel’s parody of Sarah Palin shooting and killing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Both shows aired very similar looking mashups two weeks apart. [via THR]

3. In her first network TV interview since Heath Ledger’s January 2008 death, Michelle Williams talked to Nightline about her grieving process. “It was a year of very magical thinking, and … in some ways I’m sad to be moving further and further away from it.” [via Radar Online]

4. Their plans are better than ours are: Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin, Jay-Z, and Beyoncé will all be in Las Vegas for New Year’s Eve at the “record-breaking” $25 million party thrown at the new Cosmopolitan Hotel. [via Jezebel]

5. Watch Ed Helms and John C. Reilly in the newly-dropped trailer for Cedar Rapids, a comedy which Vulture very aptly describes as “The Hangover, with nerds, in Iowa.”

Bonus link: BuzzFeed’s Top 50 Most Viral Posts of 2010

Today at Flavorpill, we were incredibly sad to hear that Captain Beefheart has died at the age of 69. We found out that Jim Carrey will host the first Saturday Night Live of 2011. We came across the year’s most baffling top albums infographic. We discovered that watching Fox News actually makes you dumber. We concurred with Garfield’s non-take on Lasagnagate. We read a sentence from Gwyneth Paltrow’s forthcoming cookbook. We were depressed by the practicality in these kids’ letters to Santa. We saw what happens when Christmas decorations go too far. We loved this slideshow of photos of a pre-Dude Jeff Bridges. We crushed even harder on Kathleen Hanna after we heard her tell the story behind “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” And finally, we wished that we lived in London, where Elisabeth Moss and Keira Knightley are starring in a West End revival of The Children’s Hour.

1. Facebook can hunt down your face in any photo now, and the company says that you should consider it a privacy enhancement as getting tagged will alert you to “a photo of you on the Internet that you didn’t know about… you can remove the tag, or you… can write the person and say, ‘I’m not that psyched about this photo.’” [via Gawker]

2. In case you have any doubts about whether or not their relationship is real, Jake Gyllenhaal gave Taylor Swift a really expensive guitar for her 21st birthday. The Fender Gretsch that he surprised her with is signed on the pickguard by country music icon Chet Atkins. [via The Sun]

3. “I’ve been at home for almost three days now. My family and friends who brought me home are taking great care of me. I also have a private nurse who visits on a daily basis. I’m hoping to be strong enough to go out and see the upcoming Sam Cooke play at the Music Hall in downtown Detroit before January 2, as well as a performance of Dreamgirls at the FOX before it closes.” – Aretha Franklin is back at home after surgery

4. The tracks in the running for a Best Original Song award nomination at the 2011 Oscars have been announced, including two tracks from Gwyneth Paltrow and three from Burlesque. But is there any chance that Randy Newman won’t win for “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3? [via Digital Spy]

5. Oprah Winfrey’s latest book club selection — A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens — which have been issued by Penguin in a single paperback volume for $20, are selling a lot slower than was expected. Some people think it’s because an e-version of both books is available for free download. [via USA Today]

Bonus link: See Jane Austen’s Google Doodle in Honor of Her 235th Birthday

Anyone who watched last night’s episode of Glee was thrown a real public image curve ball. As Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times sums it up best, “To watch Gwyneth Paltrow on Glee Tuesday was like being transported back to the late 1990s, when she could do no wrong and to see her on a screen was a guarantee of a compelling performance (and maybe the possibility of seeing her decapitated head in a box).” In fact, we left the episode feeling so conflicted that we decided it was time to make a list to try and sort things out. Add your own reasons for loving or hating Gwyneth in the comments.

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