Haven't heard of it? It's an experience delivered through a Website called chatroulette.com. Join in and you're spontaneously connected to random strangers somewhere in the world via your webcam. From French jugglers to deep-South garglers to morons asking users to lift up their shirts, you can never be sure who you'll meet next.

Foxnews.com reporter Joshua Rhett Miller put it this way: "One minute you're chatting with a mom of two from Montauk, N.Y.—and the next you're staring at a stark-naked man in Bangkok." A vimeo.com video-maker named Casey Neistat broke down his several hour Chatroulette experience to connections like this: 71% guys, 15% girls and 14% perverts.

One of the big attractions of the experience—though I personally can't see how one might find it appealing—is what Neistat calls "nexting." In essence it's when someone spots you on their monitor and instantly hits the "next" button to connect with someone else. Neistat reported that he was nexted by the first 19 out of 20 people he saw on Chatroulette—a hang-around rate of about 2.9 seconds each.

Think about it: 19 thumb-your-nose rejections in under a minute. And by Neistat's own statistical odds, at least one of them was probably naked. Man, this sounds like great fun doesn't it? In spite of that, though, CNN reported that about 35,000 people are connected to Chatroulette's homepage at any given moment.

The biggest crime, however, is that among all the thrill-seekers and deviants are a fair number of kids. To participate, you have to confirm that you're at least 16 years old, but bypassing those barriers would be a breeze for the average 10-year-old—who could probably reprogram my computer in less time than it's taking to write this blog.

"It's a predator's paradise," said psychiatrist and Fox News contributor, Dr. Keith Ablow. "This is one of the worst faces of the Internet that I've seen. … Parents should keep all children off the site because it's much too dangerous."

I'm no doctor, but that's one tidbit of advice I wouldn't "next" too quickly.

Why, you ask?

Well, I like records. They're interesting. And baseball has lots o' records.

So does TV. And one of the biggies, a record that's withstood everything television programmers could hurl at it for 27 years, fell on Sunday night.

According to preliminary ratings estimates by Nielsen, Super Bowl XLIV was the most watched television program ever in the United States. About 106.5 million folks tuned in to see the New Orleans Saints battle the Indianapolis Colts—about half a million more than watched the M*A*S*H finale in 1983 (105.97 million).

What should we make of such interest in a game between two teams that hardly hailed from major markets?

Some have speculated that the massive snowstorm on the East Coast may have contributed to the spike in viewership. But I think the numbers are interesting for a couple other, more significant reasons.

In a media world that is increasingly divided into a myriad of niche options for consumers, the Super Bowl seems to be the last man standing. It's a cultural event that transcends race and gender and socioeconomics and politics. It's something that just over a third of our nation watched. And we're still talking about the commercials, if not the game itself. In short, it's a unifying event that's taken on the feel of a national holiday—if not a national religious experience for more ardent fans.

But if the Super Bowl unifies, everything else under the television sun is fragmented—and fragmenting further given the profusion of cable TV offerings, on-demand capability and Internet options. And that makes it very unlikely we'll ever see a network television show serve as a the catalyst for a shared cultural experience like the M*A*S*H finale.

That fact is illustrated by how the nation's biggest sitcoms bowed out, ratings-wise, post M*A*S*H. In 1993, the Cheers finale drew 80.4 million viewers. Fast-forward five years to Seinfeld's final show (about nothing), and 76. 3 million fans tuned in. And Friends? The show's 2004 sign off netted 52.5 million viewers—less than half of M*A*S*H's record.

Now, fewer people watching popular sitcoms isn't anything to cry about. In fact, it might well be worth celebrating, given the content of current comedies such as Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother. But it does illustrate the fact that our cultural common ground when it comes to broadcast entertainment is a far cry from what it once was.

At least, with everything except the Super Bowl.

I write roughly 6 gazillion words a day, most of which are immediately cut (and sometimes burned) by my editor. Those which remain could still lay siege to a mid-sized fortress (if they somehow attained the muscular structure and will to do so), and yet one of my novel-length film reviews still doesn't earn anything near what Soulja Boy earns when he tweets one solitary character.

It's true. Soulja Boy, who once tried to rule the music world by tellin' everyone to listen to his Tell'em CD, earns $10,000 and up for promoting various products on Twitter. That's $10,000 per tweet, mind you, which means if Mr. Boy was feeling particularly verbose and used his entire 140-character allotment praising the virtues of, say, Snapple, he'd earn $71.43 per letter. (And in his world, spaces are letters, too.) At those rates, this blog post would already be worth, oh, $62,787.

And now it's worth $64,716.

If I was getting paid Soulja Boy rates, I'd be able to retire this afternoon.

He's not the only guy who receives beaucoup bucks. Dr. Drew Pinsky, the guy from VH1's Celebrity Rehab, gets $10,000 and up for his own promo tweets (which mainly trumpet the wonderfulness of Gogo's in-flight Wi-Fi service), and Samantha Ronson (who, oddly enough, has five times more Twitter followers than former girlfriend Lindsay Lohan), gets between $7K-$10K.

Here's what's really interesting: Of the folks making big bucks on Twitter, according to ABC, most of them are mainly famous for being famous. Two Kardashian sisters make $5,000-10,000 tweeting, as does their mother, Kris Jenner. Celebrities at large Audrina Patridge and Kendra Wilkinson tweet for cash, too. Even Fake Robert Pattinson—yes, that's FAKE Robert Pattinson, who became famous by impersonating a real celebrity on Twitter—makes as much as $5,000 per promotional tweet.

So as soon as I become the first Christian entertainment pundit to score an invite from Oprah and land on the cover of US Weekly, I'm going to apply for my very own Twitter account. Corporations interested in using the soon-to-be-famous me as a pitchman can begin sending their five-figure offers, starting now.

Oh, I just love Snapple, by the way.

But Avatar wasn’t the only show in town. In fact, three films—Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel—made more than $50 million and helped propel the box office to a record $278 million take. And if I was to guess, I’d imagine that a good many of you have seen at least one of these flicks.

The only one I can personally comment on is Sherlock Holmes, a PG-13 reworking of the classic literary detective. Forget the deerstalker hat, the demurely curved pipe and the ever-present magnifying glass. The 21st-century Holmes is still plenty smart, but he’s not just an investigator anymore: He’s an avenger, able to kick the stuffing out of nefarious henchmen as he searches for tell-tale balls of lint. And while he’s loitering in Victorian-era fight clubs, sharpening his hand-to-hand combat skills, his friend Dr. Watson is skulking around the wharf with a gun in his pocket and a blade in his cane.

Granted, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes mysteries had some action in them. I believe both Holmes and Watson packed heat a time or two. But there’s a difference between characters prudently preparing themselves for violent confrontation and positively hankering for it. In an effort to bring us a Holmes and Watson that felt fresh and unfamiliar, director Guy Ritchie has taken two unique literary characters and made them—well, utterly familiar, and fairly indistinguishable from today’s crop of fictional crime-busting heroes. I mean, the only thing separating Holmes from Batman is a cowl, a car and Gotham City.

And that’s what we need in movies today: More homogeny.

But hey, I’m a fan of the original books, so perhaps I’m a bit biased. What did you think? And squeak in on The Chipmunks if you want, too. The Squeakquel probably won’t be on my movie-watching radar for a bit … but should it be?

Today marks the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons. Whether you like the Fox show or hate it, you can’t deny that it’s infiltrated our culture. And thus, our language.

D'oh!

Maybe it’s because I’m the resident geek who’s collected dictionaries since she was 11 (actually, I think I’m just the only editor here who’s man enough to admit that) that I was asked to comment on The Simpsons lexicon.

Mmmmm ……. lexicon ……. wordy …

Anyway. In 2001, the highly revered 20-volume, roughly 3,000-pound Oxford English Dictionary added Homer’s customary interjection "d'oh" (also spelled "doh"). Were he real and coherent enough, Mr. Simpson should be impressed. And the Collins English Dictionary added Lisa’s "meh" in 2008. That’s M-E-H, meh—an expression of utter boredom or disinterest.

Other dictionaries have added fauxcabulary gone viral as well. How is it possible that this show has embiggened our vocabulary with such cromulent words that have actually been used in scientific journals?

This is only a TV show, right? I mean, everybody knows television doesn’t affect our attitudes or language. It’s just entertainment.

But if that’s the case, then why have so many people adopted Simpsons lingo without even knowing it? And to those who indiscriminately shriek "Woohoo!", yes, I’m pointing a finger at you (but only because I have four pointing back at myself).

So, do you use  this sort of fauxcabulary, whether it be from The Simpsons or from another show? If you do, is it from watching the show itself, or from just living in a society that has embraced it? And, again, like or hate The Simpsons, do you have any thoughts on why it’s popular enough to ensconce itself into a language that was cromulent enough without it?

The 15-year-old Canadian is an interesting success story. At the age of 12 he posted videos of himself singing on YouTube, mainly so he could share them with family and friends. But they became a viral phenomenon, and Usher signed him to a contract that has already paid huge dividends. Bieber recently released his first CD, My World, and while it contains a handful of fairly benign pop/R&B love songs, a tune called "First Dance" left me shaking my head in disbelief.

As the song opens, a boy daydreams about taking a special girl to the prom and asking for the first dance. OK so far. But a closer listen suggests that the slow dance he’s interested in involves more than just dancing. The chorus says, "Give the first dance to me/I promise I’ll be gentle/I know we gotta do it slowly … I’m gon’ cherish every moment ’cause it only happens once in a lifetime."

Hmmm.

I still might be tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt, except that, if we take the song at face value, what are we supposed to do with lines such as "Ain’t no chaperones/This could be the night of your dreams" and "No teachers around to see us dancing close/I’m telling you, our parents will never know."? Don’t Mom and Dad know you’re at the prom … and that proms involve dancing? If Bieber is only talking about what happens on the gym floor under the glitter ball, what’s he trying to hide from the girl’s parents?

It sounds to me like he’s asking for her virginity which, considering what prom night has become for many teens, would fit the profile.

What do you think? Am I overreacting, or is this another example of entertainment introducing kids to sexual themes that they’re not old enough to understand?

OK, that may sound confusing. But bear with me.

Anyway, it seems that actress Emma Thompson asked to have her name removed from that online petition full of Polanski supporters. Why, you ask? Well, a group of her fans voiced their dismay and asked her to just say "no." And she took their advice. Just as simple as that. In fact, Thompson said she was pressured to sign the petition in the first place because scores of her movie making pals "rang her up" with requests to join in.

Now the fact that Hollywood types give in to peer pressure isn’t really a big deal, I suppose. But we often talk about how we, as a culture, can be influenced by the entertainment we consume and the celebrities we watch. Isn’t it interesting to note that those same celebrities can be influenced, too? And in some cases, by little ol’ us?

This annual announcement used to be a bigger deal, before all of us started using the Internet and making up words all the time. Back in the day, getting into a dictionary was an obligatory rite of passage for any word worth its vowels. Nowadays, words often skitter right past Oxford (or Webster's or whatnot) on their way to legitimacy, and the dictionary is left playing catch-up.

In fact, lots of social networkers who delete folks from their Facebook or MySpace rosters all the time think Oxford missed the boat entirely: They defriend people: To unfriend them sounds sooooo Oct. 14th.

"Unfriend implies a complete lack—that you are absolutely not friends," 27-year-old Jillian Quint told ABC News. "Defriend implies that you were once friends."

Which makes me think that, in Jillian’s world, there’s probably room for both words: Lots of folks who have social networking sites have some "friends" they’ve never actually met, along with some folks they wish they never had.

For its part, dictionary publicist (who knew dictionaries needed publicists?) Lauren Appelwick tells us that "unfriend is far, far more popular," with the word’s popularity being determined by a complex and unreleased algorithm too complex for linguistic laymen to understand. Or perhaps they just did a Google search. In my own search, unfriend brought back about 11.6 million hits; defriend a mere 188,000.

The word trumped such other linguistic newcomers as hashtag (a # sign slapped on many Twitter posts), netbook (a mini notebook computer) and my personal favorite, intexticated (driving while texting). Which goes to show you how technology is changing every aspect of our lives—including the way we talk.

When you think about it, technology and language have quite a bit in common. Technology today, really, is all about communication, and the written language was at the bleeding edge of technology around 3,000 B.C. Both are pretty indispensable, and both (like truculent teens or overgrown vegetable gardens) can get unruly. You never know, exactly, where either will go in the future—other than somewhere completely unexpected.

I mean, who knows how we’ll be communicating in the future. What sorts of words will Oxford be honoring five years from now? Will we still be blogging and Facebooking and Tweeting in 2019? Will we be using language at all? Or will we just have mini Wi-Fi hot-spots embedded in our noggins, allowing us to regurgitate our thoughts directly into one another’s brains?

For my part, I hope we’ll never realize that last part. Language is a beautiful thing, and I’d hate to lose it. Plus, if we get to the point where we can  listen  to each other’s thoughts all the time, unfriending could be a really big headache.