Courtesy of Warner Bros; Typeracer.com

Spend a few minutes on typeracer.com and you enter a world where tiny race cars are powered by typing as fast as you can, a utopian paradise with no global dependence on fossil fuels. You don't need gas; all you need are ten fingers and a cool head to beat your opponents in this race. Each driver transcribes passages from popular songs, movies, and books, and whoever types the fastest wins. Our office has been TypeRacing all day, everyone shouting out words per minute like high scores, calling each other suckas for any score less than 90. And just as Speed Racer is unbeatable on his chosen field of play — the neon-riddled raceways of Cosmopolis — so is there TypeRacing's user "PotBoiler," whose superhuman WPM score of 219 seems untouchable.

All great sports reflect shared cultural experiences; they mirror some common facet of real-life human existence. Boxing is fighting. Football is warfare. Wrestling is sex. The auto racing of Speed Racer bears no resemblance to any driving you've done in your everyday life; it's more like some nightmarish game of pinball in which you're the ball. But wasting every day of your life at a computer keyboard? That's TypeRacing. —Nick Confalone

TypeRacer [Official site]

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Specifically, the "Slang Dictionary" that sits in the middle of the film's press packet, a rich target of mockery that offers straight-faced definitions of such arcane terms as "blunt," "peace out," and "breasteses" ("Noun. Plural form of breast").

Photo: Getty Images

We don't bestow that title lightly. But the summary on Apple.com somehow makes room to note (between sporadically describing Jack and Jill's Love Story–knockoff plot) that Parise always makes sure that her films are "life-affirming, multi-dimensional and cognizant of the world's follies," and that her lead couple (played by Freddie Prinze Jr. and Taryn Manning) "believe in Fair Trade" and "are animal advocates."

Courtesy of ThinkGeek

Battlestar Galactica Propaganda Posters [ThinkGeek]

Photo: Jed Egan

Like us, you've probably wondered what it would be like to have Lindsay Lohan resting on your shoulder or Senator Larry Craig nestled against a bicep. Well, we're making those dreams a reality with these Celebrity Mug Shot Tattoos, the easiest way to temporarily get close to your favorite perp (without risking a messy restraining order) . . . . So just add water and you'll be able to put Paris Hilton's face where we all know it belongs.

Our intrepid colleagues tried out the tattoos, but no one at the office wanted Sen. Larry Craig. So merry Christmas, Dad! —Aileen Gallagher

A screen capture from the Gotham Times.Courtesy of Warner Brothers

Today marked the official online release of the trailer for The Dark Knight, replacing shaky cell-phone camera footage with glorious high definition. As happy as we are that the Batcycle is making its triumphant return, there's something more going on here. Browsing to the root of the site hosting the trailer reveals a classified ad from the Gotham Times, defaced by someone with a taste for bad puns.

In the upper-right-hand corner is the address for the Gotham Times' Website, which leads straight down the Alternate-Reality Game rabbit hole. Painstakingly detailed articles about characters who won't be in the movie? Check. Links to a Joker-defaced version of the same paper? Check. Phone numbers, Web forms, e-mail addresses, and other points of entry into the Warner Bros. Marketing Universe? Check, check, and check. Don't get us wrong; we liked the A.I. game more than the movie. But does Warner Bros. really think anyone who isn't already drooling over the trailer will be enticed to theaters by an eight-month exercise in apophenia? —Matthew Dessem

Photo:

We don't usually bother talking about posters here on Vulture, because there's usually hardly anything to talk about: Either posters feature a bunch of floating heads, or they feature some gag involving enormous testicles. But Awards Daily has the two new one-sheets for The Savages, Tamara Jenkins's awards hopeful starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney, and they're both quite striking — especially this one, designed by comics artist Chris Ware, author of the Acme Novelty Library.

The commenters at Awards Daily all seem to think that a comics-style poster somehow trivializes the movie, with one even going so far as to claim that Laura Linney's awards chances are dead for this year as a result of this image. We disagree. It's an inventive poster that should get more attention for the film, and Ware's style by now is such a useful shorthand for Quality among the art-house audience this movie surely is directed toward that it can only help. In fact, between this poster and David Edelstein's don't-quote-me rave on his blog, we're officially kind of interested in The Savages, which is more than we can say about any of the other tiny depressing awards-bait dramas out this fall.

The Savages, One-Sheet x 2 [Awards Daily]
Related: Odds and Bodkins [The Projectionist]

Photo: Robert Knight / Retna

When we heard that Led Zeppelin has finally licensed their songs as ringtones, it marked the end of a long period of darkness. Long have we trolled the back alleys of rock looking for the right tone. And though Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" was satisfying, it lacked a certain amount of — how can we put this politely? We can't — balls. Now that Zep has finally uncorked the lid on its digital stinginess, we're coming in from the cold.

Choosing the right Zep tone, though, posed a serious challenge. Clearly we would not choose The Song That Really Should Not Be Named; far too many dudes will be buying a stairway to heaven anytime someone calls. Nor could our choice be as obvious as "Kashmir" or "Immigrant Song." Not that having "Immigrant Song" as a ringtone wouldn't be the greatest thing ever, since clearly it would be, but maybe we don't want the hammer of the gods driving our ships to new lands as frequently as all that.

Photo: Courtesy of Boing Boing

This morning, Spider-Man lectured teenagers from the seventies on the dangers of premarital sex. Now, 83-year-old high-school student Archie Andrews is rapping to the kids about music piracy. In the September edition of the comic, the Archies sell digital copies of their songs on the Internet, "which doesn't translate to much profit once the 3 purchased files are shared over and over again!" Stay tuned for the October issue, in which Jughead sends YouTube a takedown notice!

Archie Becomes Tool for the RIAA [BoingBoing]
Archie #577 Plot Summary [ComicVine]
Earlier: Spider-Man: Your Source for Straight Talk About Unwanted Pregnancy