The much-hyped John Carter didn't exactly live up to box office expectations, earning only $9.8 million on Friday. Although it stands to take in a more respectable $27 million through the weekend, that's still chump change compared to the $250 million the studio threw down to make it.

Have you heard about Fifty Shades of Grey? It's the hot new thing on the literary scene. The New York Times reports that bookstores cannot keep up with demands for the smash hit novel, which was published by an independent press in Australia. Perhaps that's why Fifty Shades of Grey is number one on the e-book fiction bestsellers list, and number three on Amazon.com's bestseller list. The people have spoken, and they demand more porn.

Canadian skicross racer Nick Zoricic died today after crashing at a World Cup event in Switzerland. Zoricic, who was 29, suffered "severe neurotrama" and was unresponsive at the scene. The International Ski Federation released a statement in response.

The pilot of Awake, which premiered last Thursday on NBC, was an incredibly well-executed hour of television. The show is about a cop, Michael Britten, who lives in two realities that have diverged from a car accident that killed either his wife or his son. It had one of the strongest pilots in recent memory: the writing was crisp, the acting was great and the direction, which included a nice change in the color palette between realities, was fantastic.

In response to more cries of liberal double standards, Keith Olbermann is suspending his "Worst Persons in the World" segment. It's all over remarks the Current TV host made three years ago about conservative commentators Michelle Malkin and S.E. Cupp. (If you guessed he called either of them a "slut," you'd be wrong.)

Bill Maher ended tonight's episode of Real Time with a speech inspired by Rick Santorum's recent comments about the ills of college, and therefore knowledge. As with most things Santorum, and Maher for that matter, it cycles back to religion.

Tonight's season finale of Portlandia was a rather different beast than previous episodes: instead of a series of sketches with one recurring story, "Brunch Village" was one story that brought a few characters together. While it wasn't as strong as some previous episodes, the journey that Peter took from indecisive wimp to conquering hero was well rendered, with the added layer of him claiming a decisive victory over indecision. Plus, lampooning brunch is right in the show's wheelhouse.

Graham Rayman at the Village Voice brings us more on officer Adrian Schoolcraft, the modern day Serpico who was sent to a psych ward for reporting on corruption in the NYPD. While working out of the 81st precinct in Brooklyn, Schoolcraft became aware of a pattern of crime victims getting caught up in bureaucratic hurdles that seemed to have purposely been set up to make it hard to report serious crimes. Schoolcraft reported a number of these incidents to investigators. That's where things take a turn for the insane:

Alan L. O'Neil might have gotten away with it, if it weren't for Facebook's meddling algorithms. O'Neil, a corrections officer, had the perfect plan. Why bother divorcing your first wife if you can just change your name and marry a new one?

Former New York Times Co. Chief Executive Janet Robinson received a total payout of nearly $24 million after she left the newspaper publisher at the end of last year, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.

Robert Young, 43, and Mark Rubinson, 25, got a little too carried away with their reverence for phenomenal 80's move Weekend At Bernie's. Both men were sentenced to probation after admitting to driving around Denver with the corpse as well as using the corpse's debit card for stripper funds.

A young boy named Flint really, really enjoyed a visit to his school by a local weatherman and has seen fit to promise Weatherman Ramon that if things turn out the way he expects them to, he will be taken care of. The letter reads:

I don't know much about Greta Van Susteren. Out of all the mouth-breathing pundits on television news channels, my sanity only allows for me to watch a few and she's never really made the cut. I don't know what her beliefs are. I don't much care. She could personally go to northern Uganda or the Democratic Republic of Congo right now and kill Joseph Kony with her bare hands, and I still wouldn't care. Why? Because it appears as if her banal ranting has led to a canceled Louis C.K. performance at the Radio & Television Congressional Correspondents dinner .

Mail call! This week our inboxes listened to your questions, acknowledged your Biblical references, and was surprised by your (boundless) racism. Here is this week's hate mail roundup.

Oof, what a clunker this one promises to be. Here's the trailer for Oliver Parker's A Walk to Remember Here on Earth Now Is Good, the sopping wet saga about a 17-year-old girl living with chronic leukemia, desperately trying to "do everything as fast as [she] can" before the end.

Today is the national launch of Taco Bell's newest bit of God-defying food sodomy, the "Doritos Locos Taco." The inside is your standard Taco Bell Taco; the outside, a hard taco-shaped Dorito. I had some today — to assist Gizmodo's Sam Biddle for his review — and now I'm going to give you the lowdown.

Some here at Gawker argue that Canadian Power Puff Girl Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Call Me Maybe' is the new perfect pop song. While I have listened to that song twelve times in a row today, I have to disagree: 'Bad Boy,' by K-pop boy group Big Bang, is even more perfect. It's so perfect it transcends language.

Here's a photo of last night's northern lights display — made especially beautiful by the huge solar flare that hit last night — taken by Jónína Óskarsdóttir. Daaaaaaaaamn. Right? Click to enlarge. Really. [Spaceweather.com]

Fey fashion designer Alexander Wang has been smacked with a $50 million lawsuit brought against him by about 30 garment manufacturers. The suit alleges that the company has been running a down-and-dirty sweatshop, rife with unsafe conditions and overworked employees, at 386 Broadway in New York's Chinatown—right around the corner from Gawker headquarters. So earlier this afternoon, I walked over with intern Maeve Keirans to check it out. And we didn't see much. Of anything.

Have you always dreamed of writing one of those "Lives" essays that appear on the back page of the New York Times Magazine? Yes? Jesus. Our readers used to be cool. Anyhow. The point is, the magazine's 1,384,674 editors are now sharing tips about how to write an essay that doesn't make them want to roll their M.F.A. diploma into a big old cocaine-and-rat-poison blunt, due to despair. The perfect "Lives" essay is now within your grasp!