The Internet is a vast and scary place, but so full of potential. But tapping into that potential can be daunting. If only there was some sort of handy guide for the Internet's use!

Fortunately Gabe and Max are here, with "Gabe and Max's How To Get The Dreamlife of Your Dreams Using the Internet." Watch this video, and then fax these gentlemen your email address. Soon, you will have the answers to the secrets you need.

Britney Spears has gotta be like catnip to vlogger Chris Crocker. But face it, Crocker himself has achieved internet fame via a mystifying, train wreck sort of appeal. Is he real? Is he a performance artist? Is he Project Runway's Austin Scarlett after a two-month bender on a sanity-destabilizing cocktail of crystal meth, Maybelline Great Lash, and Coco Puffs?

Well, whatever else he is, he's Britney Spears' new knight in shining armor. In this video, a weeping Crocker rants, raves, and screams as he pleads with us all to leave Brit-Brit in peace. She lost her aunt! She went through a divorce! She had two babies! Oh, the HUMANITY!

Now, whether Britney wants a hysterical sexually ambiguous internet phenom as her champion is a matter for her and her legal team to decide. (Going by an earlier display of support, my advice would be, "Run, Britney, run!") And one really does have to wonder why such a giant fan of Britney's would do this to her song.

But the question remains -- is Chris Crocker for real? I gotta tell ya, I just don't know. His videos range from the out there to the simply insipid. If he's the real deal, he is terrifyingly strange and stupid. If he's an insidious satiric mastermind, well, a lot of his material needs work. Tell you what: I will leave you with one final video, The Secret, and let you decide for yourself. 'Cause damn. That shit ain't right.

This brief clip, supposedly filmed in Haiti last week, features a couple of UFOs swooping overhead and joining several lights hovering in the distant sky. It's caused quite a sensation, too. Many people think it's real. Many people think it's fake. Many people have watched it many, many times.

The most popular theory is that the UFOs are part of a UVC -- Unidentified Viral Campaign. Halo 3 gets the most votes, with J.J. Abram's mystery-shrouded project Cloverfield a close second.

Here's what I have to say to the believers (other than "pfft," "bah humbug," and "aw, honey"): Those spaceships appear to be constructed out of old garage floodlights and off-season Christmas decorations from Big Lots -- not your most atmospheric-travel-friendly materials. Plus, honestly, any alien whose grand plan is to travel a bajillion light years just to buzz Haiti and go home isn't really keeping me up at night.

'Course, if the aliens do invade and make us all their slaves, they'll have the last laugh. But sadly, having been reduced to a pool of mushy goo for my insubordination, I won't be around to hear it.

Nan Talese, editor/publisher of James Frey's famously not-entirely-truthful memoir A Million Little Pieces, has apparently been hopping mad at Oprah for a while now. And at this weekend's Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference, she let 'er rip.

Talese had already said in an earlier discussion that she didn't regret publishing the memoir, and that it was Oprah who should be doing the apologizing. But later that evening, keynote speaker Joyce Carol Oates took a subtle swipe at Oprah's qualifications to judge what constitutes "truth" in literature. This prompted an Oprah fan in the audience to launch into a tirade attacking Frey. And that's when Talese took the podium.

From Talese's account of how the famous Frey-roasting Oprah epsiode unfolded, it's clear they were set up and ambushed in a fashion better suited to Jerry Springer than the Queen of all Media. Still, the accusation that Oprah is just a self-serving businesswoman who never cared about the controversy until her fans did is not exactly a scathing indictment. I mean, who did Talese think Oprah was before -- Mother Teresa?

And here's a truth-in-art question: Why is it artistically acceptable for Frey to manipulate the truth for his creation, but a "lie" for Oprah do the same for hers?