Photo: Courtesy of asciimation.co.nz

Bender Is Alive!: That awesome dude in New Zealand who was building a life-size Bender robot has finally succeeded — and is brewing beer inside Bender's chassis. We've wasted our lives. [Asciimation]

Pointless Awards Show Canceled: The People's Choice Awards have been canceled because of the writers' strike, according to Vulture buddy Nikki Finke. Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Will Smith, and Rascal Flatts all quietly rejoice. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

An Insider's Guide to Pixar's Inside Jokes: Jim Hill offers a comprehensive — and we mean comprehensive — guide to every inside joke in every Pixar movie ever. Did you know that the little doll that Boo shows Sully in that heartbreaking scene at the end of Monsters, Inc. is Jessie the Cowgirl from Toy Story 2? Neither did we! [Jim Hill Media]

Agents Stuck on Facebook: Choice quote from the Observer's hilarious bit about a shut-down Hollywood getting addicted to Facebook, from agent Amy Retzinger at Gersh: "“I said to her, ‘Hey, have you looked at the material I sent you yet,’ and she’s like, ‘No but I’ve been playing a lot of Scrabulous!’" [NYO]

L.A.Times Says Studios Are Bush League: In a weird, weird think piece, the L.A. Times draws parallels between striking writers and liberal antiwar types, and between the studios and the Bush administration. In this paradigm, the Directors Guild is the citizenry of Europe, and the stagehands are … um … Noam Chomsky maybe? [LAT]