Sometimes a giant pit-bred hybrid of human and Orc works up an appetite trying to find the halflings for Saruman, so here's Lurtz the Uruk-hai making a casual grocery run. Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!

Portland, Ore. police responded to a 911 call at around 7 a.m. Tuesday morning from a woman who believed her car was under attack by a pirate. But instead of a routine pirate attack—oh, Portland—they discovered an armored man who claimed he was a High Elf.

A recent Slate blog post contains the following correction:

Next stop, Mordor. Kindly remember to take all your precious possessions with you when exiting the train.

Movie studios are growing ever more brash about squeezing as many films as possible out of every book, as director Peter Jackson confirmed Monday that the upcoming cinematic adaptation of The Hobbit will be split into three films.

After seven years of rights disputes and one false start, here it finally is — the first teaser for Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It's the first part of Jackson's two-part retelling of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, set to debut a full year from now. And good god, it's fucking The Lord of the Rings again. The score, the Shire, the Ians (Holm and McKellen), the font, the Dwarf makeup, the Gollum, the Precious — they're all back. If you wanted to return to Middle Earth exactly as Jackson had left it in 2003, then you're in for a treat. But movies don't tend to age as well as books do — particularly effects-driven ones — and this one looks and feels dated by about a decade. I'll stick to HBO's Game of Thrones, thanks. (Still an immeasurable improvement over The Lovely Bones, however!)

Here's the thing about dying in lava, which everyone seems to fuck up: You do not sink into like you're in a swimming pool (looking at you, Gollum from Lord of the Rings). You do not instantly melt into goo on contact (Volcano subway guy). Density and viscosity doesn't work that way. Just let Wired explain to you the right way to die in lava.

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain took to the Senate floor to blast the Tea Party for resisting John Boehner's plan to solve the debt ceiling crisis, at one point referring to its members as "Hobbits" from The Lord of the Rings. The Tea Party then shot back at McCain, comparing him to the fantasy novel's villain, Sauron. Stephen Colbert took the opportunity on tonight's Report to extend the unlikely metaphor to the rest of Washington. Video of the segment is above.

Sean Bean, the actor who plays Ned Stark on Game of Thrones and played Boromir in Lord of the Rings was stabbed in a bar fight Sunday evening. But instead of going to the hospital, he walked back inside and ordered another drink. Badass!

Want to relive the Peter Jackson's classic Lord of the Rings movies but don't have the nine hours to spare to watch them all? Check out this chart by University of Florida student JT Fridsma that plots the story of the trilogy both geographically and on a time line.

YouTube user Fagottron has made some incredible songs by cutting together sounds from a movie, and he's done it again with this Lord of the Rings remix. So listen, and break it down like the dirty little orc that you are.

Watch as Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, and the rest of the Lord of the Rings crew race through Middle Earth, Benny Hill style.

This man gets really meta on a late-night fast food run as he creates a fascinating impersonation of not one, but three characters that are in no way related to one another. Very creepy.

While watching the Lord of the Rings movies—or reading the books, I suppose—did you ever wonder if the ring was really only able to be destroyed in the fiery pits of Mordor? This alternate ending answers the question.

Here's a trailer for the new HBO spectacular Game of Thrones, a relatively magicless fantasy series based on the popular novels by George R.R. Martin. It concerns a world where seasons last for decades, and everyone's upset.

The Lord of the Rings is one of the most beloved trilogies in cinema, but there were a few scenes that were ripe for parody. Here, members of the Fellowship express their happiness at Frodo's recovery through some awkward grunting.

Before anti-masturbation advocate Christine O'Donnell won a Republican Senate primary, she was a Catholic Columnist! And in one 2003 essay, "The Women of Middle Earth," she analyzed the sexy sexy ladies in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. What's her take?

[Elvish maid Lady Peaches of Geldof, daughter of Sir Bob Geldof and the thing known as Gollum, shows off her new nose ring on the streets of Los Angeles. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

Matthew Broderick is coming to television. Orlando Bloom will play a creepy doctor. Anti-gay activist Anita Bryant might get a biopic. Sony Layoffs are here, though not queer. The Trade Roundup: Come, let us round this up.

Enjoy: a disturbing drawing of New York Times campus-conservative Ross Douthat, as Frodo Baggins.