Aside from today's bacon news – and really, what could be more important to me – here's a tasty round up of the bizarre, funny and otherwise curious from this week. It's The Scanner: With subtle hints of boysenberry aftertaste.

For all the politicos out there This one's for all the serious political heads out there. I came across this more than a week ago – PolitickerME. The site – which is part of a group of political news networks sprung from the New York Observer – looks to offer the kind of politics and "inside baseball" type of news that diehard political people would be into.

On the subject of politics On the other coast, our sister paper has a story on the not-so-nice things people can say on the internets about political candidates. In this case, that includes a Facebook group against Hillary Clinton, whose members include a junior over at USM. Now here's my question – obviously everyone's entitled to their opinion, likes and dislikes, but why would you go on record as being part of a group that appears (on its face at least) to be openly misogynistic ?

For the betterment of man Who hasn't watched sci-fi or adventure flicks and thought, hell, yeah, I want a superpowered robotic exo-skeleton to wreak havoc. We've all seen them - usually not in the name of the greater good. Well, it's on its way.

But it's fun for the whole family! Earlier this week Greenpeace released its guide to green consumer electronics. One of the big losers? Your Nintendo Wii Apparently Nintendo doesn't want to talk about everything that's in that fun little dream machine. Sure it may be asbestos, tires and rabbit droppings...but it's fun! (Hat tip: Machinist)

I find your lack of coconut...disturbing. Any Food Network fiends out there? Any Star Wars fiends? Come together and rejoice – The crew from "Ace of Cakes" made Star Wars-themed cakes, including the Death Star! Search your feelings...you know it to be delicious. (Sorry, I could not help one more pun.)

Speaking of Star Wars This comes in from NXT reader and known Star Wars fan Rhodes. Behold, Darth Vader, why are you such a jerk?

Speaking of nerds As has been well documented, I am not big on the Harry Potter phenomenon. So someone will have to explain to me why a bunch of "Sma–hat Kids" from Vassar are trying to play real life Quidditch. And moreover, what is Quidditch? (Hat tip: G4)

Facebook on the defensive You may have heard recently about Facebook's Beacon ads program, which will post info about your purchases and buying habits on third party sites on their friends' news feeds. Well, MoveOn.org smells something fishy and possibly invasive.

I'll take airport delays, animal shelters and charity scams for the win! Tis the season for oh so predictable holiday stories...so why not have some fun with it? Someone has created a bingo game with all the predictable/retread news stories you see every holiday. A prize will be delivered to the first NXT winner to get a verifiable Bingo using local media. (Thanks to NXT reader AC)

The 12 Days of Gift Cards We all know the "12 Days of Christmas," or at least most of us know the first line involves Keith Partridge or something ... ANYWAY, the people over at PNC have worked their annual magic and have calculated that all the items in the 12 days will cost you almost $20,000. (Hat tip: Consumerist)

Don't give up on Vista You may or may not have seen the flash ads that got around the Internets last week feature Apple's "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" guys talking about the Windows Vista operating system. In talking about a buggy operating system, the ads themselves have been causing problems for people's computers. Ah irony.

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