Schlitz-grasping cargo short sporter Tucker Max has finally figured out why his movie, Penis in a Beer Cozy, was a financial failure.

The East Valley (AZ) Tribune won a Pulitzer last April. In December, it closes forever.

How the mighty tumble! Just yesterday, Hollywood trembled in awe before the Terminator series; creator of planet-devouring sequels and merchandising. Today, it goes on the auction block like the baggage at some grizzly slave auction.

Google takes it all back, baby. The company now acknowledges it was wrong to begrudge programmer Jon Skeet a Microsoft MVP Award, just because it came from The Enemy. He can accept the prize. But no whispering sweet nothings.

[Sienna Miller looks like an animal herself while walking the pooch in SoHo today wearing a very fuzzy jacket. Image via INF]

A tipster writes: "Where the big Cookie logo used to be (now scraped off) at the 8th floor elevator landing here at 4 Times Sq. is now just a post-it that says 'BRIDES'." Majestic close-up photo below!

It's time for another Gawker Book Club meeting: Ann Louise Bardach will be discussing her new book Without Fidel: A Death Foretold. Our topic today at 4pm: how Perez Hilton caused havoc in Miami by falsely reporting Fidel's death.

• Comcast is "close" to a deal to take control of NBC Universal. [NYT]
• Scripps Networks, which controls the Food Network and HGTV, is close to taking over the Travel Channel for the low, low price of $1 billion. [NYT]
• The critically-acclaimed cop drama Southland is coming back. Although NBC canceled the show, TNT now plans to air the remaining episodes. [LAT]
• It's been a rocky road for Jay Leno since moving to 10pm, which may explain why he says he'd go right back to his old time slot if NBC requested it. [B&C]
• Oprah has signed on to narrate a new Discovery Channel nature series. [NYT]
• Universal Music is bringing in a successor to CEO Doug Morris. [BW]
• The Jackson doc This Is It was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]
• Did you know that in the '80s, Sue Simmons used to knock back a couple of cocktails and hit the clubs before the 11pm newscast? How scandalous! [NYO]

The only race tomorrow that will have anything to do with national political trends is a tiny congressional district in upstate New York. But there are other races that everyone will talk about as if they mean something.

The Way We Live Now: Absolutely fabulous, thank you very much! When you said "we," you were referring to well-timed Ford investors and university presidents, correct? Oh, you mean everyone. They're all in the garbage business, one way or another.

This IBM was not only the first singing computer, it was also the inspiration for 2001's homicidal HAL 9000. Despite the explosion in networking and processing power in the decades since that film became a cultural touchstone, techno-dystopias seem to have only become tougher cultural sells. Familiarity has lulled humans into complacency. Plus, these little iPhones and BlackBerrys, they're just so cute.

We knew that Olivia Palermo, best known for her role as the Upper East Side Stereotype on MTV's The City, had given up Manhattan to move to Brooklyn, we never thought it would be for DUMBO. Ew.

Normally the city council of Sutton (UK) is very much of the "No Graffiti Here, Thank You," school of thought. But then a famous graffiti guy, Banksy, did a piece! So they voted to preserve it.

It's not a good sign for your experiment in reshaping the face of network programming when the experiment's centerpiece muses aloud that, yeah, maybe things were better the way they were before.

According to the executive outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas, just 62 percent of companies nationwide are planning a holiday party this year, down from 77 percent last year and 90 percent back in 2007. Before you turn too despondent, you may want to note that it's possible you are having a holiday party but you just don't know it's a holiday party because it's been renamed. "I've had some clients call them end-of-year appreciation or thank-you parties," says the catering director for a Midtown hotel. [Crain's]

In your malicious Monday media column: the Detroit newspaper situation grows more depressing, Mika Brzezinski is one honest lady, Denver Post sportswriters have no opinion on these "sports," and Howard Kurtz is still the King of Boring Conventional Wisdom.

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"James Gandolfini celebrated Halloween like any indifferent dad, ripping eyes into a cheap Homer Simpson mask and wearing it for about ten minutes." [Buzzfeed]

Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for, when a public event collides with the very personal world of Sterling Cooper. When the news of Kennedy's assassination breaks, everyone reacts differently, but in a way consistent with their character.

A couple of writers in the Washington Post Style section filed some heinous "charticle"-type story on deadline, which made their retirement-aged colleague so mad he had to punch one of them in the face, like POW!