THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17

SATURNALIAIn the religion of ancient Rome, this was a festival in honor of Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture. It was a day of unrestrained celebration, even for slaves. It is often said to have been the prototype, or origin, of the Christian Christmas celebrations.

1903-The Wright Brothers made their first sustained flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It lasted 12 seconds and reached a height of 12 feet

1933-In the first National Football League (NFL) championship playoff, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants 23-21 to become the NFL champions of 1933.

1969-The U.S. Air Force closed its Project Blue Book by concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.

CHALKBOARD
Tiger/Elin, Person of the Year, NFL, New Movies, Intriguing Person

BIRTHDAYS

Actor-singer Nat Wolff (The Naked Brothers Band) is 15. Actress Milla Jovovich (A Perfect Getaway, The Fourth Kind, Resident Evil, Chaplin, Dazed and Confused, The Fifth Element) is 34. Actress Sarah Paulson (Cupid, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Spirit) is 35. Actor Giovanni Ribisi (the upcoming Avatar, Public Enemies, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Saving Private Ryan, ColdMountain, Friends) is 35. Actor Sean Patrick Thomas (The District, Save the Last Dance, Barbershop) is 39. Director-producer Peter Farrelly (There’s Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber, Shallow Hal, Fever Pitch, The Heartbreak Kid) is 53. Actor Bill Pullman (Spaceballs, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Casper, BrokedownPalace, The Grudge) is 56. Actor Barry Livingston (My Three Sons) is 56. Actor-comedian Eugene Levy (American Pie, Splash, A Mighty Wind, Best in Show, For Your Consideration) is 63. Actor Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Lackawanna Blues, Oz, Miss Congeniality) is 64. Actor Bernard Hill (Valkyrie, Wimbledon, The Lord of the Rings: The TwoTowers) is 65. Singer-actor Tommy Steele (Light Up the Sky!, The Happiest Millionaire) is 73. Actor George Lindsey (The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry R.F.D.) is 74.

TV TONIGHT

ABC has "Flash Forward" CBS starts an all-new night with "Survivor: Samoa." NBC has "The Office," and "30 Rock." An all-new "Bones" is on Fox."Old School" is on TBS.

UPCOMING MOVIES

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18TH

AVATAR (sci-fi) Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi. A wheelchair-bound Marine mind-melds with a body on a far-off planet, with Earth's energy supply hanging in the balance. Directed by James Cameron.

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? (romantic comedy) Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Elisabeth Moss, Mary Steenburgen, Sam Elliott. A Manhattan couple moves to the country after witnessing a murder.

WILDE & WEIRD

Police in Poland found a burglary suspect hiding in a fridge. The 48-year-old robber had broken into an office building and fled before police arrived. But cops received a tip that he was laying low at his mistress' apartment. They searched the apartment and found no trace of him. Then, just as they were about to leave they heard someone sneeze from inside the fridge. When they opened the door they found a squashed and shivering Jerzy Jancewicz. Apparently, he'd been in there so long that he'd caught a cold.

A man in Washington witnessed a break-in at a nearby vacant home Sunday night. The man grabbed his hunting bow and chased the fleeing suspect for more than three blocks. When the intruder refused to stop, the man launched his arrow and shot the guy in the butt. Later, the injured 32-year-old suspect sought treatment at St. John Medical Center for an arrow wound to the left butt cheek.. Doctors removed the arrow tip and the man was listed in satisfactory condition

THE DAILY NUMNUT

Ali Abdullah and Muqtar Nuren took drivers tests for license candidates in England for a fee. They did this for 35 people over two years before they were finally caught when it was obvious to an agent that they didn't look at all like the ID cards they were using. If that weren't ingenious enough, they were also lousy drivers and rarely passed the tests, meaning they rarely got paid.

An 18-year-old New Zealander who flashed her breasts at passing motorists barely escaped serious injury when a distracted driver hit her with his car. Cherelle Dudfield was urged to show off her breasts as a drunken dare by her friends. "I stood on the center line, flashed a couple of cars, got back in and they told me to do it again, so I did," explained Cherelle. "And then I saw a car coming towards me, on the middle of the center lane driving up towards me, so I decided to run. And then I got hit."

TOP FIVE
Reindeer games Rudolph wasn't allowed to play

5) Scare the Holy Crap Out of the Airline Pilot

4) Hide the Venison Sausage

3) Elf Hockey

2) Prancing with the Stars

1) Sniff the Tail on the Donkey

CLASSIC STUFF

What is the "greatest, gayest" album ever made? Out magazine says it's David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars."

Scott Weiland says the eagerly awaited new StoneTemple Pilots album is almost complete. He tells Spinner.com, "There will probably be 11 songs on the record and we have nine completed already.

Green Day will be getting their own version of Rock Band.

After a couple months of rumors, Metallica have confirmed that they'll play some shows with Megadeth, featuring their former guitarist Dave Mustaine, for the first time ever next summer.

WILDE HAPPENINGS

Roy Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney and a powerful force in the Disney Corporation, has died at age 79.

Time magazine selected Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke [pr: ber-NANK-ee] as its Person of the Year yesterday.

The NY Post reports that Tiger Woods' marriage is over. Wife Elin is reportedly shopping for a divorce attorney and has already moved out.

The A.P. voted Tiger Woods Athlete of the Decade, saying it wasn't based on the last month but on 10 years of performance. According to the AP-"Tiger has been keeping his performance at a high level for years...and is golf is pretty good too..

Radar Online claims that Tiger Woods offered to buy a house for a porn star girlfriend who starred in the film, "Shorty Iz (bleepin') Yo Mama 2." You'd think a man of Tiger's wealth and stature could date the star of the original "Shorty Iz (bleepin') Yo Mama."

A 49-year-old multiple divorcee has come forward to claim she was Tiger Woods' lover and taught him everything he needed to know about pleasing a woman. Well, aside from the part about not cheating on her with 15 other women.

According to the Census Bureau, white Americans will no longer be the majority in the United States by 2050. Wow...Glenn Beck will have to learn spanish.

People magazine has named Taylor Swift 2009's Most Intriguing Person. Others making the Intriguing list include: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Mo'Nique, Barack and Michelle Obama, Sandra Bullock and Neil Patrick Harris.

Computer technicians in Washington say they have found 22 million missing e-mails from President George W. Bush’s administration. You can tell the e-mails are from the Bush administration because they're written in crayon and they all begin, "Dear Santa."

The White House announced that the Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to a prison in Illinois. It’ll be the first time someone has gone from Cuba to Illinois who didn’t pitch for the Cubs.

A Nevada brothel wants to hire its first male prostitute within the next month. The challenge is finding a man who will accept money for that kind of work.

A measure to legalize marijuana in California could appear on the state's November 2010 ballot. It's probably not gonna get enough votes because supporters will most likely oversleep and forget where their polling place is.