Back from Washington, DC, arriving to a snowstorm-sized pile of links in my newsreader...

The World Series of Poker's main event is down to just 12 players

Just one pro remains, Mike "The Mouth" Matusow, in 8th place (profile of Matusow in the NYTimes). Phil Ivey, one of the last big names, finished in 20th place, while last year's champ, Greg Raymer, finished 25th. Kate Hudson's brother Oliver earned the dubious honor of being the first player to be knocked out of the tourney, and on his very first hand. He had a pair of 10's, raised pre-flop, and Sam Farha called. The flop came A-A-10, and both guys found all their money in the center of the table. Farha had A-10 and left Hudson almost famous, befitting Kate's brother.

Esquire Magazine's Sexiest Woman Alive will be revealed in the November issue, but the clues give it away: Jessica Biel

Matthew Barney and Björk collaborate on a film which debuts at a museum in Japan

From the article, a summary of the movie titled Drawing Restraint 9: "Björk and Barney arrive as guests on board the ship. During a storm, they marry each other in a mysterious ceremony, morph into whales and then swim off towards the Antarctic. In this dream-like story, nothing is really narrated." Yep, that sounds like a Barney/Björk movie. Björk also revealed that "she and Barney plan to sell their New York home and live on a houseboat." That also sounds like something they'd do.

UCLA grad student plays Russian roulette as performance art, terrifying his classmates

Huge hubbub ensues, including possible legal action and the retirement of two professors known for controversial performance art of their own, but in the end all returned to normal and the student received an A-minus for the course.

Simpsons-Family Guy feud

This is sure to end with Homer gunned down in front of Kwik-E-Mart by Stewie Griffin.

Mansquito! Attack of the Sabretooth! Dog Soldiers!

At the Tour de France, Bobby Julich is riding elliptically-shaped chainrings

These chainrings change the effective gear ratio as you pedal. In this case, Julich's O.Symetric Harmonic chainrings maximize the gear ratio when pedals are horizontal, when you can theoretically apply the most effective perpendicular force to the pedals. Then the gear ratio decreases for the bringing the pedal across the top and bottom of the pedal stroke. Shimano once made a similar pedal but abandoned it because it's so tricky to integrate with the front derailleur (the chain is moving up and down through the derailleur cage).