Watching the British Television Advertising Awards, it's easy to get lost in the foreignness of the whole thing--accents, unfamiliar logos, actors who, for all you know, might be famous in their part of the world. But then along comes an international brand like Pepsi and you find yourself asking, "Why do we get smiling celebs holding cola, while the Brits get a studiously choreographed kung fu scene where the opponents are literally hauled around like human puppets? Huh?" I can't say for certain that British advertisers are more clever or innovative because I don't know what America's top ad agencies have to offer (I refuse to watch the Super Bowl). But the BTAA has some pretty high standards; that super rad Pepsi commercial didn't even medal!More >>

Email from Gingerjake's Ian Severson: "Jordis [alternate site here] is no longer in the Liar's Club. She hasn't been for a few months to the best of my knowledge... Additionally, and I was not aware of this until a day ago, The Liar's Club has changed their name to 'The Payback' and Jordis is most definitely not a member of that band. The Payback features the drummer, guitar and bass players of The Fighting Tongs with ex 2Ton Crutch vocalist and ex Gingerjake guitarist, Kris Weiser. In addition, the show is not two shows like you have it, early all ages followed by a 21+ show. [The post below has since been corrected.] THE SHOW IS ONE SHOW, DOORS @ 5PM. Admission is $8 for anyone under 21 and $20 (which includes 2 top shelf drink tickets of your choice, a $14 value) for 21+. The show will be over by 10pm so people can still carry out their other plans for the evening." Culture to Go regrets the errors, and a corrected version of the post appears below. Fans will note, however, that as of 10:54 a.m. Tuesday, none of this news has appeared on the Liars Club Myspace page, which posts Jordis news as recently as November 25. What's the story, guys?

In the opening dance of Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater's Chair, Sandbag, Rose: Fairy Tales of Love and War, Pimsler and Suzanne Costello invite you into their Red Eye Theater living room--literally to sit on the stage with them--and draw you into the core of their hectic married lives. Well, not entirely their lives, as "His/Her" was sort of constructed by New York choreographer David Gordon, who, as he puts it in a program note, "suggested, and cajoled, and vetoed, and...argued for the choreographic usefulness of uneasy investigation." Mixing dialogue and moves from ballet, yoga, and mimetic- and modern-dance vocabularies, they negotiate, nitpick, send up, put down. Lines like "May, the month of May, the last month of school, the month your son was born" roll off of their tongues in barbed cadences, with an occasional, equivocal sign of affection. It's a portrait of a working marriage in real time with two people multitasking like mad while thoroughly distracted. And you can't take your eyes off of them because they transpose the mundane to the mesmerizing. --Linda Shapiro

Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater
December 2-4
Red Eye Theater
15 W 14th St, Mpls.;
612.870.0309

What video games are folks looking for on this Black Friday? According to the Yahoo! Buzz Index, the Legend of Dragoon may festoon the needly nether-regions of many of America's Christmas trees. Here are the top ten video game searches...

1.  Legend of Dragoon
2.  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
3.  Metal Gear
4.  Dead Or Alive 4
5.  Dragon Ball Z Gt
6.  Doa Kasumi
7.  Sims Online
8.  Halo 3
9.  Perfect Dark
10. Gangsters: Organized Crime
11. Battlefield 2
12. Metal Gear Solid 4
13. Jewel Quest
14. Nba 2k6
15. Burnout

Rumor has it City Pages's cover-scientist PZ Myers will be attending tonight's Drinking Liberally, a weekly communing of progressives for purposes of lively discussion and consuming mass quantities of beer and frito pie. Reliable sources also claim Rex Sorgatz of MN Speak will make an appearance as well. Festivities run from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. tonight at the 331 Club in northeast Minneapolis, with Accident Clearinghouse scheduled to perform at 8:30.

This post was revised on November 29 (see above); the following represents the corrected version: Some news about Jordis (alternate site here), the Rock Star INXS breakout from St. Paul: She has a new blog (here's her old one), and she has left Liars Club (formerly Fighting Tongs), who have changed their name to the Payback, and play a show on New Year's Eve in Minneapolis. (Catch up on the entire Jordis saga via MNSpeak.) The breakup news arrives via a correction from Gingerjake's Ian Severson to this post, which previously (and erroneously) reported that Jordis would be performing with Liars Club on New Year's Eve. She will not. Instead, she's pursuing a solo career, with a Sony debut due in early 2006. (Jordis doesn't post many details about performing on November 20 at the opening celebration for the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky, but turns up in photos with Bill Clinton, Jim Carrey, and Ali himself.) As for New Year's, it's only one show, not two, as previously published, in the Quest Ascot Room, with Gingerjake (more here), Crashing By Design, and the Lid: Doors at 5:00 p.m., and it's over before 10:00 p.m., so you can still make that New Year's Party. $8 under 21; $20 for 21+, which includes "2 top-shelf drink tickets at $14 value." Call 612.338.3383 for advance tickets or keep checking www.thequestclub.com (currently down).

Sam, the milky-eyed, snaggle-toothed Chinese crested hairless that gained internet fame after winning the ugliest animal contest at the 2003 Sonoma-Marin Fair in California, has gone to ugly dog heaven. Sam died last Friday, just shy of his 15th birthday. He was put to sleep after his owner, Susie Lockheed, was informed that his unconfirmed-ugly heart was failing. Lockheed took Sam in as a rescue six years ago, and her then-boyfriend was so repulsed by the animal that he broke up with Lockheed. Sam helped steer a new beau into Lockheed's life via a photo of him and his master on an internet dating site. Read more about Sam's illustrious life here.

One week from tonight, Oak Street Cinema kicks it old-school with Arcade Night, offering joystick jocks the chance to play vintage games on the silver screen. But before you go fantasizing about dazzling the public with your Pac-Man proficiency, you should know the score. See, the game "ends" at level 256 when a line appears down the middle of the screen, preventing the player from continuing. That's what happened six years ago when famed gamer and Rickey's Hot Sauce President Billy Mitchell finished the first-ever "perfect" game, collecting every dot, ghost, and piece of fruit without dying. But Mitchell's high score of 3,333,360 withers next to the 6,131,940 allegedly scored by 8-year-old Jeffrey R. Yee in 1982. Whether it's a matter of honor or simple jealousy over the letter of congratulations Yee received from President Reagan, Mitchell is now offering $100,000 of hot sauce money to anyone who can get past the infamous split screen in the presence of a rep from Twin Galaxies, the official video game record keepers. In contrast, vintage arcade champion Donald Hayes set a new Frogger record in March with 589,350 points. He received $250.

It's been almost 100 years since Bertrand Russell said, "It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly." So how is it that "Black Friday" became a national holiday? The way it's reported by some shopping-fixated media, it's as legit a feast as Boxing Day or All Souls' Day. Thank God for Reverend Billy, and his Stop Shopping movement, who we turn to in great faith as we go forth into gimme season.

NBC Universal will celebrate the new year by cancelling an entire network-- Trio, one of the few channels that evoke the more enjoyable days of early cable programming, will be unplugged at the end of 2005. The next day, however, it will come back to life as an internet-only offering. Unlike CBS and NBC, which actually think people will spend money to watch their crap on-line, Trio appears to be ad-supported. (The upcoming web-only Warner Brothers channel, which will start showing dozens of old series for free, will have commercials that can't be skipped.) No word on which of Trio's programs will be carried over to the new net-channel, but let's hope they find a way to keep running Johnny Staccato with John Cassavetes on their series "Brilliant But Cancelled."