The Really: The big Oprah/KFC free grilled chicken promotion (which would allow people to print up to 4 dinner coupons) was launched on a wing and a prayer?

Gawker is reporting a day of “chicken riots”, mis-communications and general Depression era unhappiness in many places when people tried to use their KFC/Oprah chicken dinner coupons. We downloaded one just to see how long it would take and it wasn’t that bad (it installed a coupon downloader which did take some time) and you can’t print to .pdf which is our way of doing EVERYTHING.

A Gawker commenter naugahydeinplainsight had a good analysis of the loco pollo promotion:

“Sounds like they tried to wing it, but couldn’t keep demand cooped up, hen or now. So rather than KFC getting a leg up on its grilled chicken product, people are flipping it the bird. “
In other words, somebody plucked up.

The Really: A well-known website is saying that a picture of Travolta kissing the “Jett Travolta nanny” implies a homosexual relationship between the two.

So is the pic above proof that Kirk Douglas and John have been having an affair? Since dinosaurs roamed? The LA Times wants to know.

Mark Ebner has been following the CoS angle to this story through his Hollywood Interrupted site.

Sidebar: Kirk once played the rogue reporter in Billy Wilder’s Ace In The Hole about a newspaperman who prolongs the rescue of a trapped mine worker to increase the circulation for the rescue story. Any similarity to the Blogosphere and MSM is purely intentional.

The Really: Books and Publishing blogger finds the proper use of the internet in the final days online with Gawker.

Sheila McClear who has written for the New York Observer and other fine publications is an editor at the Gawker Media site (one of the most visited blogs on the internet). The powers that be there have decided no one wants to read about books and publishing (her beat) especially now that publishers are gagging on themselves.

Maybe the economic downturn will create a new model for publishers, these lumbering dinosaurs have been hit by the asteroid of falling bookstore sales, after the current depression is over (during the Great Depression the program of returnable books was born) or maybe it will become clear that like movies, there are really very few books of real lasting merit and a little down-sizing is in order.

Anyway Sheila got fired and the commentors on the site are doing what they can to increase her pageviews (she gets paid by the pageview against a draw.) But this morning Sheila (a serious writer of considerable talent) pulled out the internet big gun: CHEESECAKE!

Because unltimately what the internet really is, is videos of cats doing funny things and porn.

Sheila, look forward to reading you elsewhere.