Sir Elton John was thrilled to get a call Monday from Russian president and Photoshop pioneer Vladimir Putin, after John had criticized Russia’s abysmal record on LGBT rights. Their chat went well, Sir Elton reported on Instagram, and a face-to-face meeting was in the offing. If that sounds suspiciously unlike the unyielding, stone-faced Vladimir Putin with whom we all coexist in precarious detante, that’s because it wasn’t.

A Kennesaw State University student posted a video Thursday of an attempt to meet with his academic advisor about his major and graduation requirements. He never got the meeting, because the school’s director of advising called security on him for “harassing” her by “sitting here until someone is available.”

Did you knock over Hillary Clinton's dad's tombstone, you Scranton shit?

"Idiots." "Jerks." "Shitholes." These are just some of the names you might be called if you get between a child and his goddamn Sunday funnies, as one unfortunate editor in Indiana did this week.

Kevin Spacey is currently starring as legendary attorney Clarence Darrow at London's Old Vic Theatre, and, although he's played the role at that same theatre before (in Inherit the Wind), his performance in Clarence Darrow is especially challenging because he's doing it in the round. The last thing he needs is some asshole's ringtone messing it up for him.

Instagram's #TransformationTuesday is a hashtag where people share their before-and-after gym progress photos or post baby pictures alongside present-day selfies. And now it's also apparently a hashtag for breaking up in public.

Rep. Jackie Speier has announced that she's going to introduce a bill criminalizing "revenge porn" into the House of Representatives next month. If and when she does, it will be the first effort to enact a federal law against revenge porn, or as others put it, "non-consensual pornography."

Well, that escalated quickly. The "First Kiss" video has gone from work of art to viral advertising to subject of a handjob parody video in the space of a day.

The nonprofit advocacy group Public Citizen has volunteered to represent Jen and John Palmer—the coupled fined $3500 for posting a negative review online—in a case against KlearGear.com. Their lawyer, Scott Michelman, has written a letter demanding the company "fix the situation" by Dec. 16 or face a lawsuit.

Like many consumers who have had a bad experience, Jen Palmer wrote a review online in 2008 after the Christmas presents her husband ordered from Kleargear.com never arrived. Years later, thanks to her online review, the couple is facing a damaged credit score and a $3,500 fine.

The internet is coming to the defense of longtime Wegmans grocery store employee Chris Tuttle after he was berated by a customer for being "too slow" to check her out on Saturday. Tuttle, diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, has worked at the store for over seven years and while being a cashier isn't his primary job, his manager will sometimes ask him to cover a register if the store is busy.

New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner struggled to address a reporter from the United Kingdom’s ITV network during a campaign event on Thursday. Har har har har har. The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple annotated a transcript of the exchange:

Life as a newspaper journalist is a crushing series of indignities ending only with your final layoff from the last print newsroom within a hundred miles of your (foreclosed) condo. For California's Pulitzer-winning daily the Press-Enterprise, today's comically tragic news is that the paper's headquarters is being sold off for $30 million, with the remaining employees destined to be shuffled over to some leased office space in Riverside.

On this, the final day of 2012, allow us to draw your attention to what is—if memory serves—the most obnoxious letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review of the entire year, conveniently published in yesterday's edition.

"When you become famous, you've got like a year or two where you act like a real asshole," Bill Murray told Tom Shales and James Miller when they interviewed him for Live from New York, their oral history of Saturday Night Live. "You can't help yourself. It happens to everybody. You've got like two years to pull it together — or it's permanent." He was talking, of course, about Chevy Chase, his opponent in a famous backstage fistfight. The two are friendly now, and it seems as though Murray wanted to imply that Chase had "pulled himself together" following his sudden rise to fame.

Science finally caught up to last week's episode of 30 Rock on Monday, when a biologist from Emory University announced the results of research which discredit the theory that humanity is nasty (and naughty) by nature.

Pompous thesaurus reader Keith Olbermann is currently embroiled in his latest feud with his latest employer, along with the mandatory feud with the reporters who report on Keith's feuds. Has Keith always been such a touchy, obsessive psycho? Perhaps an ex-employee could shed some light.

What the ongoing debate about bullying has been missing, really, is the voice of Less Than Zero author Bret Easton Ellis. He's reticent to share his opinions publicly, and hates being written about—but the issue cries out for a man of compassion, a man of care, a man of thoughtfulness and grace. A man like Ellis.

First Lady Michelle Obama was a NASCAR Grand Marshal at today's Ford 400 (so was her sidekick, Second Lady Jill Biden), so she naturally received a warm welcome from patriotic NASCAR fans. Kidding! She got booed.

It sure is a good day to hate Hollywood schlockmeister, Olivia Munn banger, Oscar ruiner, and receding afro-with-legs Brett Ratner. Apparently this weekend at a Q&A following his new cinematic turd Tower Heist, he dropped the f-bomb. No, not "fuck." "Fag."