Idolator

On the assumption that President-elect Obama is indeed interested enough in these issues — and with Detroit and Wall Street cratering, that's a Hulk-sized leap — an editorialist at Kombo has appealed for aggressive, White House-led regulation of the games industry once the new administration takes over.

Ahhh. Mid-American Conference football. You were born a fan, it's just that nobody told you until tonight. The undefeated Ball State Cardinals flutter into Mount Pleasant to tangle with some fired up Chips. Winner probably wins the MAC West Division, a fact which you already knew. Also something you knew: if you build it, they will jump.

In a week where it seems the global financial crisis is inescapable, America decides that a buck is a nice price to spend on music, and the Top 40 of Billboard's Hot 100 sees a wave of new best-selling singles—including two in the Top 10 and a massive leap by a new No. 1 smash.

With that 79-place jump (which, ahem…I called last week), T.I. accomplishes two major chart feats. New No. 1 “Live Your Life” featuring Rihanna sets the record for the biggest leap to the top in history—which would be unremarkable, given the frequency with which this record has been broken recently, if not for the fact that T.I. is beating himself, having reset the mark just six weeks ago.

More impressively, by ousting his own “Whatever You Like,” T.I. joins a very elite club: acts that succeeded themselves at No. 1. During the Hot 100’s entire 50-year history, there have only been eight, and if you ignore featuring-artist credits, the number is six.

Besides these chart feats, T.I.’s hit also sets a record for the biggest debut sales week for a digital single. But we might want to get used to that happening. Already, iTunes is reporting a wave of new best-sellers as the music industry’s last blockbuster holiday hits full swing.

Tyler Perry's crisp white tuxedo was a bold choice of attire at the opening of his new studio Saturday night, when the mogul was dodging the worst of his fired former writers' union-busting accusations reported here last week. The WGA came through with its picket line on behalf of Kellie Griffin, Christopher Moore, Teri Brown-Jackson, and Lamont Ferrell — the House Of Payne Four whom Perry allegedly let go for their attempts to unionize the show's writing staff. One reported list of attendees had Will Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Sidney Poitier and several illustrious others crossing the picket line Saturday night, while the WGA sent word late Saturday that a second protest was planned for another, smaller event at Perry's Atlanta mansion on Sunday morning. So what does it all mean besides Oprah scabbing her way to free drinks and having a drunken Madea-Off with Poitier and Ruby Dee?

In a sleepy week for Billboard's Hot 100, Atlanta rap king T.I. maintains his grip on the No. 1 spot, his fifth nonconsecutive week there, with “Whatever You Like.”

The “jump ball” I expected to break within the Top Three turned out to be a dead ball, as the three hits hold their positions. T.I. actually outsold both Pink and Kanye West at buck-a-song retailers, blunting those two challengers’ previous digital-sales advantages and padding his already huge lead at radio. West, in particular, will probably muddle along for a while now, as his sales two weeks later have fallen off, and his airplay is emerging, steadily but slowly.

Besides, T.I. appears be settling into a long run atop the chart, and within a week or two it might be with a different song. His newest hit, previewed three weeks ago with Rihanna at the MTV Video Music Awards, leads a parade of fall contenders that will likely explode on next week’s chart. So in effect, this week feels like the calm before the pre-holiday storm.

Today's stunning news that controversial attorney and anti-gaming zealot Jack Thompson will be disbarred for life from practicing law by the Supreme Court of Florida seems to have done little to faze the attorney himself.

You got your SingStar 90s, your SingStar Summer Party, and now SingStar Country is coming to the Playstation 2. Now about that SingStar Gregorian Chant...

Atlanta hip-hop king T.I. vaults 70 places into the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 this week with "Whatever You Like," a sing-songy, smudgy Xerox of his classic 2006 hit "What You Know."

With this move, Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. scores his first No. 1 as a lead artist (he was credited two years ago on Justin Timberlake's chart-topper "My Love") and sets a new Hot 100 record for biggest leap to the top spot. T.I. takes the record away from Maroon 5, who set it just 16 months ago when "Makes Me Wonder" leapt from No. 64 to No. 1 in a single bound. They, in turn, had stolen the record from Kelly Clarkson, whose only No. 1 hit, "A Moment Like This," held the record for about four years, after she leapt from No. 52 to the top in 2002.

Before Clarkson, this record was held for 28 years, by the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" (No. 26-No. 1 in 1964). The fact that a record held for three decades has been broken thrice in the last six years says less about these songs' popularity and more about the quirks of the modern charts and the sometimes dysfunctional relationship between sales and airplay.

And it means T.I. shouldn't gloat for too long—this record's likely to be broken again.

During the two weeks I was vacationing, Billboard reported changes atop all three of its flagship charts—including the blessed end of Katy Perry's No. 1 reign on the Hot 100, which was displaced by a Rihanna song I like a lot. Even more amazingly, a song that may be the most left-field hit of the decade—"Paper Planes" by M.I.A.—soared into the Top Five.

Now that I'm back, the M.I.A. song is down a bit, and the biggest news on the charts is the post-American Idol debut by tween-and-grandma fave David Archuleta.

It's a cruel business, this chart-column writing.

Nonetheless, the good news, for those of us who rooted against the stage-managed moppet during Idol's last season, is that Archie's losing out on the Hot 100's top slot—by a whisker—to Rihanna. Meanwhile, there's change on top of two other charts, including the deadly static Modern Rock list. Let's catch up, shall we?

Though dating Kelly Kapoor could drive any man to self-medicate, never did we think that Darryl from The Office had quite as extensive a stash as his portrayer, Craig Robinson, has been revealed to possess. According to TMZ, Robinson was busted late last month for driving under the influence, and what officers found led them to charge him with two felonies:

Conventional wisdom has it that males on the Internet gravitate toward pictures of pretty women like hungry honeybees to a sugary tulip, and click, click, click. It's why Tila Tequila has 3,345,634 MySpace friends and Tania Derveaux has 108,907 YouTube subscribers. It's why, on social news site Digg, so many spammers pretend to be attractive women — to attract votes for their stories from Digg users incapable of holding onto their mouse finger when faced with a picture of a pretty woman. But does this method work? We decided to find out.