If you’re feeling a bit bored on this dreary Friday, here’s an amusing way to momentarily distract yourself: let Google guess your age and gender based on your previous searches. Apparently I’m guilty of searching like a dude, whatever that means, but it did manage to correctly guess my age range (25-34) and general interests (entertainment news, TV shows, visual art/design, and shopping). Kind of creepy.

But this isn’t all fun and guessing games. As Max Read at Gawker points out, the black magic at work here is directly related to the company’s “new thing where they ruthlessly violate your privacy,” aka its consolidation of 70 separate privacy policies into one giant policy that allows it to combine information gathered about you across various properties — and there’s no opting out! If you don’t like it, your only option is to close your account. It just got way creepier, right?

We might be going a little overboard with the pop culture fingernails over here, but last week’s collection of literary nail art hasn’t quite faded from our minds (or our cuticles). Did anyone successfully enchant their nails with Elvish script? Or fit tiny Hufflepuff crests on their pinkies? We’re still working on our Petit Prince manicures, but in the meantime, we decided to check out another source of nail-art inspiration — television. If you’ve ever wanted to deck your digits with Dexter, Donna Meagle, Doctor Who, or a handful of other TV characters that don’t fit that alliteration scheme, you’ve come to the right place! Enjoy a selection of 20 TV-inspired manicures after the jump, and hit the comments to let us know which one you’d like to handle your remote.

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Considering that NASA just released the highest resolution image of Earth that the world has ever seen, it’s kind of hard to imagine that once upon a time we had to rely on artists to show us what the planets might look like. While these early illustrations were based on astronomical observations, and in many cases, are surprisingly detailed given how crude the available technology, we think they function even better as works of art. Click through to check out a selection of recently-digitized drawings by 19th-century artist (and Harvard College Observatory employee) E.L. Trouvelot, and head over to LiveScience to view the full gallery.

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Today is the birthday of the venerable Lewis Carroll, creator of what is arguably the best-loved children’s tale of all time, Alice in Wonderland. He’s also the author of one of the trippiest, most psychedelic books of all time, which is, um, also Alice in Wonderland. To celebrate the occasion of his birth (he would be 180 years old today), we’ve collected the texts that we consider to be the trippiest books of all time, “trippy,” in this case, being defined as “resembling or inducing the hallucinatory effect produced by taking a psychedelic drug.” See, kids: why take drugs when you can just read these crazy books? They are much less likely to do you any permanent damage — though we can’t make any promises. Click through to read our list, and let us know if we’ve left off your favorite trippy tale in the comments!

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The opportunity to watch Nick Offerman — that is, Parks and Recreation’s Ron Swanson — get dressed up like Toby Keith and sing a vaguely jingoistic country song is just about all we could ask for on a Friday morning. So the fact that we get all that in a duet with Offerman’s funny (real-life and TV) wife, Megan Mullally, that also happens to be about paleontology, creationism, and dragons? Yeah, we’re pretty much in heaven. If you ever wanted to see Ron Swanson in a pale yellow, or hear Tammy II sing, “Darwin was a douche,” then consider your day made. Thanks, College Humor!

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Wilco’s new video for “Dawned on Me” combines some of the things dearest to our hearts: Jeff Tweedy and old black-and-white Popeye shorts. It’s a clip that’s both fun and visually interesting, not to mention the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon that’s appeared in the last 30-something years. But Wilco is far from the first band to hit upon the idea of including animation in their music videos. Cartoons in videos stretch back from the days of a-ha’s “Take On Me” through Björk and Radiohead. After the jump, check out ten of the best animated music videos we’ve ever seen — tell us about your personal favorites in the comments.

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The Walking Dead has never been what you might call lighthearted, but judging by the new trailer for its mid-season premiere, we’re in for one hell of a nihilist romp when the show returns February 12th. The clip opens with four gunshots and a violent car crash, and we see the body of a freshly shot zombie-Sophia being covered with a blanket. Now that the group’s one immediate source of hope — the idea that they might save the girl — is gone, all bets are off: Bloodthirsty zombies, random violence, and even perhaps the demise of Rick Grimes’ relentless optimism follow. Jeez. We keep threatening to stop watching The Walking Dead, but if it’s about to get darker than ever, we may not be able to quit.

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1. Apparently Amy Winehouse’s father was unhappy with Jean Paul Gaultier’s catwalk tribute to the late singer, which took place last night in Paris. “We’re proud of her influence on fashion but find black veils on models, smoking cigarettes with a barbershop quartet singing her music in bad taste,” he reportedly told The Sun. “It portrays a view of Amy when she was not at her best, and glamorizes some of the more upsetting times in her life. That’s upsetting for her family.” [via NME]

2. After meeting Radiohead at a music festival in Poland, minimalist composer Steve Reich is planning to premiere a new work at London’s Southbank Centre that is based on two of the band’s songs, “Everything In its Right Place” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.” Look for the piece to debut in March 2013. [via P4K]

3. Lana Del Rey has purchased the rights to the 2010 album that she recorded back when she was still Lizzie Grant, and she’s planning to re-release it this summer. [via Vulture]

4. A new $803 million complex designed by starchitect Renzo Piano that is supposedly “broadly reminiscent of the Acropolis” is set to go up on the site south of Athens that was home to the 2004 Olympics. The ambitious project will include a national library, opera house, and a 42-acre park. [via The Architect's Newspaper]

5. Live Earth founder Kevin Wall is helping to launch the inaugural Tadasana Festival, a new three-day yoga event that will take place in Santa Monica over Earth Day Weekend. Along with over 100 yoga classes and workshops, the festival will feature performances by world music artists like Karsh Kale, Hassan Hakmoun, Cheb i Sabbah, and Vishal Vaid. [via Billboard]

Bonus Buzz: NASA’s Incredible New High Resolution Photograph of Earth

Today at Flavorpill, we perused Pop Candy’s list of Joy Division/Unknown Pleasures-inspired stuff — especially timely due to that Mickey Mouse tee Disney made. We learned all about the C-word. We watched Vanilla Ice become an indie rock star. We held our breath watching people jump from Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands. We found these Persian stamps to be surreally beautiful. We raised a brow at Twitter’s censorship policy. We smiled at Community writer Megan Ganz’s meeting note doodles. We wanted to adopt a Dire wolf. We heard what advice Snoop Dogg gave Kris Humphries about Kim Kardashian. We were amused by Chris Pratt with a lightsaber. We admired the best of Paris Spring couture. And finally, we liked these hipster Disney princesses — even if we didn’t know that a few of them existed until today.

Designer Doğan Can Gündoğdu has created what feels like a dark, TV crime show-inspired homage (think CSI and other forensic-themed thrillers) in his opening title sequence for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming The Dark Knight Rises. The gritty trailer would make a great intro for the bat-hero should he make his way back to the small screen, but like io9, we could easily see this clip in the film thanks to it’s high production value and great design. Check out the impressive credits sequence past the break, and let us know if you think it’s Nolan-worthy.

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