Matt Selman

AZTEC THEATRE

Famous comedy duo “Eric & Tim” appeared in the sure-to-be-classic “Marge Becomes A Food Blogger” episode of The Simpsons last night and sang a rap song about being a foodie, which you can watch below courtesy of YouTube user “MelZtube80.”

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WRITER WATCH

mike reissClassic Simpsons writer Mike Reiss usurped current Simpsons writer Matt Selman’s Xanga page to spin a sordid tale of lies, deceit, greed, and avarice. In the cutthroat world of children’s literature, celebrities have all the advantage, while run-of-the mill schlubs like Emmy Award-winning comedy writer Mike Reiss are forced to eat bowls of tough breaks for brunch. It seems a certain “Steve Martin,” famous person and noted bluegrass musician, penned a little book titled Late for School (adapted from the song by the same name), which as M. Reiss points out, is uncannily similar to Reiss’s 2003 book, also titled Late for School:

Both tell the story of a boy facing adventure on a mad dash for school. Both are written in verse. Both have the boy jumping over a pool (it rhymes with school). The biggest difference is that my book’s final twist has the boy arriving at school right on time, and then – spoiler alert! – realizing it’s Sunday. In Steve Martin’s book, it’s Saturday.

Well, well, well. Looks like these celebrity punks who’ve been taking picture book jobs away from real Americans are finally going to get their comeuppance. Reiss is holding all the cards here. Undoubtedly, he’ll slap Martin with a lawsuit so fast his head will explode. This will be the literary theft case of the decade. This will be —

I’m not saying Steve ripped off my book, or even knew it existed. Steve Martin is a brilliant comedian, playwright and novelist. I’m thrilled that we had the exact same idea. And that I had it seven years earlier.

I… b-but…. whaaa?…. *sputters incoherently* [Techland]

ROCK BOTTOM

In an episode aired in early 2003, Homer’s e-mail address is revealed to be Chunkylover53@aol.com. E-mails sent to that address would receive a response from “Homer,” which was actually written by writer Matt Selman (see some of the responses here). That account has remained largely dormant until recently, when it resurfaced on AIM to spread malware to those who had added “Homer” to their buddy list:

Since then, the screen name has been inactive, until a few days ago when Chunkylover53’s “Away” message appeared, prompting people to click on a link and run an executable in order to see “a *new* Internet-only exclusive Simpson’s episode.”

Of course, the file doesn’t show a Simpsons video. It infects the machine with a Trojan that throws up error messages, crashes the computer when attempting to open Windows Explorer and drops other nasty files onto the machine, making it part of what is believed to be a Turkish botnet, according to FaceTime, which secures IM, collaboration and Web apps for corporations.

The real question: why are Matt Selman and his Simpsons co-workers spreading viruses to their fans??? Developing… [CNET]