1. If you’ve ever been curious about who would win in a potato sack race between Michelle Obama and Jimmy Fallon — well, now you know. The hilarious bit was part of the First Lady’s effort to promote her Let’s Move campaign.

2. Nicki Minaj will be performing her new song “Roman Holiday” at the Grammys this Sunday night before officially releasing her latest Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded single, “Starships,” the following morning on Ryan Seacrest‘s radio show. [via MTV News]

3. Hot on the heels of the Redbox/Verizon deal, Amazon has announced its own plans to partner with Viacom to bring TV shows from all of its networks to the Prime streaming service. [via Slashfilm]

4. Tina Fey is in talks to help filmmaker Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Real Steel) bring an adaptation of the popular children’s series Fancy Nancy to the big screen. While it’s not exactly the followup to Mean Girls that we were hoping for, this is excellent news for little girls everywhere. [via EW]

5. An “ambitious plan” by the design firm OLIN will transform the plaza in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art into “a more efficient, pleasing and environmentally friendly space, with new fountains, tree-shaded allées, seating areas, museum-run kiosks and softer, energy-efficient nighttime lighting.” [via NYT]

Bonus Buzz: Gun-Slingin’ Kristen Wiig Appears On ‘Portlandia’

1. The New Yorker’s Ben Greenman has come up with a list of a day’s worth of facts to get you through Wikipedia’s 24-hour blackout. [via McSweeney's]

2. In a move that rivals that woman who was upset that Drive wasn’t enough like a Fast and the Furious movie, some cinemagoers in the UK are demanding their money back because they didn’t realize that The Artist was a silent film. [via Telegraph]

3. The producers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are now suing the show’s former director, Julie Taymor, claiming that she developed “a dark, disjointed, and hallucinogenic musical involving suicide, sex, and death,” and refused to make the necessary changes when there were problems. [via BBC]

4. Pusha-T, Jay Electronica, and Frank Ocean are among the G.O.O.D. Music artists who are set to appear on Kanye West’s forthcoming compilation album, which is set for release this spring. [via NME]

5. LL Cool J is hosting this year’s Grammys which air February 12th on CBS at 8 pm. Didn’t realize that this particular awards show even had one? The last time it did was back in 2005, when Queen Latifah was at the helm. [via Vulture]

Bonus Buzz: The Internet’s Blackout Pages And SOPA Protests

1. In an obvious ploy to upstage Alec Baldwin’s news that he’s leaving 30 Rock next year, Tina Fey announced that she is pregnant with her second child while taping an episode of Oprah yesterday: “Who will be my daughter’s family when my husband and I are dead from stress-induced cankers? She must have a sibling.” In all seriousness, perhaps this means that those rumors about the show ending are true. [via Vulture]

2. J. J. Abrams is teaming up with Alive in Necropolis author Doug Dorst to write a novel for Little, Brown, but because this is an Abrams project, there are no details about the top secret plot as of yet. Look for a fall 2012 release on the Mulholland Books imprint. [via NYT]

3. The Grammys is getting a major (and much needed!) makeover: “Men and women will compete head-to-head, some of the more exotic awards like best Native American album and best spoken-word children’s record have been eliminated, and the number of categories has been reduced by more than 30 in the biggest overhaul in the 53-year history of the Grammys.” [via AP]

4. Stone Roses singer Ian Brown and guitarist John Squire reportedly “buried the hatchet” at bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield’s mother’s funeral and will reunite the band later this year as long as they can get drummer Alan “Reni” Wren on board. [via NME]

5. Javier Bardem is close to signing a deal to play Roland Deschain (“the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers”) in Ron Howard’s epic, multi-film adaptation of Stephen King’s seven-novel series, The Dark Tower. [via Deadline]

Bonus link: How Does the Mona Lisa Look Without Mona Lisa?

Our roundup called the Grammys “the nerdy older sister of awards shows,” and this year impressed yet again with a strong showing of irrelevance and poorly performed, manic mashup choices. We were given “Speechless” with “Your Song,” Beyonce honoring Alanis Morrissette, Jamie Foxx and opera, and other baffling choices that make you feel like the Grammy organizers have been listening to too much Girl Talk.

Unfortunately, not every hit song from 2009 earned airtime (can you imagine the hammered brothers in Kings of Leon motoring through “Use Somebody” with AC/DC?). Instead, we go to mashup artist DJ Earworm, who has created the United State of Pop 2009 by combining the top 25 songs on the Billboard chart from last year. We’ve mourned the irrelevance of the Billboard chart in the past, so the fact these songs earned a combined 25 Grammy nominations is a sobering thought.  We’ve included this year’s mashup along with the United State of Pop 2008 and 2007 after the jump. Try and count how many songs you remember or wish you could forget.

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When it comes to award show season, we make sure that our schedules are free for every other Sunday in January and February. We sit through the mega-awkward Ryan Seacrest red carpet interviews; ignore the shamefully bad writing and biggest snubs — mostly because we think even good performances are art and we like seeing them recognized on a big stage. And the hyperventilating blondes in pretty dresses and Tina Fey’s pre-prepared speeches make them worth sitting through.

But then the Grammys happen, and the irritating parts become too hard to ignore: the snubs, the predictability, the Starbucks-playlist taste that surrounds the whole thing.

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