BIG
SHOT BIRTHDAYS _ Conductor-composer John Williams (scores for Jaws,
Star Wars, Jurassic Park) is 81; Nick Nolte (The Prince of Tides) is 72;
Actor-guitarist Creed Bratton (The Office, The Grass Roots) is 70; Vince Neil
(Motley Crue) is 52; Seth Green (Austin Powers, Family Guy) is 39

YEAR
OF THE SNAKE _ Sunday begins a new Chinese New Year, the Year of the
Snake. Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese
holidays. In China, it is also known as the 'Spring Festival'.

WEEKEND
TV WATCHING _ Sunday is The Grammy Awards.

NEWS
ATTACK _ A German scientist says that an evil dark patch shows up on
the brain scans of criminals. [And the people who design parking
garages.] +

HOW
THE NFL COULD HAVE AVOIDED A SUPER BOWL BLACKOUT _ The guy in charge of
keeping Amazon's data centers up and running says that the NFL could have
avoided its blackout black eye for the price of about two-and-a-half Super Bowl
ads. The NFL could have bought a couple of bus-sized diesel generators, and
hooked them up to an industrial-strength uninterruptible power supply system and
then simply switched over to backup power when a breaker switched off power from
one of the Superdome's two main power feeds Sunday night. +

WACKY-BUT-TRUE:
BOY BORN IN MANILA-BOUND FLIGHT _ A flight bound bound for Manila made
an emergency landing in India Thursday after a passenger gave birth to a boy
while in the air. The plane, which took off from Dubai in the United Arab
Emirates, made the unscheduled stop while the 30-year-old passenger gave
birth. +

FARMVILLE
TV SHOW _ An animated show based on the addictive Zynga social media
game FarmVille is in the works. No other details are available.

NEW
IN THEATERS THIS WEEKEND _ Identity Thief (R); Side Effects (R) and Top
Gun IMAX 3D (PG)

Have a great weekend!

John Elliott