URL shortening services have been around for a number of years. Their original purpose was to prevent cumbersome URLs from getting fragmented by broken email clients that felt the need to wrap everything to an 80 column screen. But it's 2009 now, and this problem no longer exists. Instead it's been replaced by the SMS-oriented 140 character constraints of sites like Twitter. (Let's leave aside the fact that any phone that can run a web browser and thus follow links can also run a proper client, and doesn't have to hew to the SMS character limit ...

Vampires don't really live forever—it just feels like they do. Lately, you can't turn on the TV, go to a bookstore, see a movie, or go to a high school without being besieged by vampires and their enchanted human enablers.

On March 25, Variety's Michael Schneider reported that Ian Somerhalder, who played the overly-tweased stipple-bearded Boone on Lost, had been tapped to co-star in an ABC pilot called The Vampire Diaries. According to Variety, the...