Above: "The Blob" shows off its comedic chops.

Rob Zombie is going to remake 1958 horror non-classic "The Blob," reports Variety. But hardcore fans should know that Zombie is no "Blob" purist:

"'My intention is not to have a big red blobby thing -- that's the first thing I want to change,' Zombie said. 'That gigantic Jello-looking thing might have been scary to audiences in the 1950s, but people would laugh now.'"

Hey, that's hurtful! A "big red blobby thing" was good enough for the perfectly decent 1988 remake of "The Blob," starring Mr. Johnny Drama, wasn't it? Discount the horror potential of Jello at your peril, Mr. Zombie.

As we see in the clip above, Fry has unfrozen Pauly Shore and released him back into the wild. And what does Shore plan to do with his newfound freedom? He'll star in "Adopted," a reality show about the process of adopting an African child. Wouldn't it be terribly fascinating if "Adoption" showed Shore trading in his questionable comedy for the role of being a champion for adoption? People seem pretty comfortable with the current advocates of international adoption (like usual suspects Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt), but with "Adoption," will that club have to admit "The Weasel"?

"Goodbye, cruel world. Goodbye, cruel lamp. Goodbye, cruel velvet drapes, lined with what would appear to be some sort of cruel muslin, and the cute little pom-pom curtain pull cords -- cruel though they may be..."

Don't do it, Professor Farnsworth! Haven't you heard? All the original "Futurama" voices are now onboard for the show's return -- even high-profile holdout Billy West! Best of all, the whole dispute won't affect the show's schedule. New episodes are still slated to hit Comedy Central mid-2010.

"Futurama" fans (this commentator included) were outraged earlier this month when the news hit that the show's imminent return as a weekly TV series (as opposed to the four made-for-TV movies that have rolled out over the past several months) might feature a new cast of voice actors. And last week, when Comic-Con convened a "Futurama" panel at which none of the series stars appeared, the outlook for the show's reboot wasn't any clearer. Variety quotes series creator Matt Groening on the subject of the contract standoff between cast and studio: "We love our Futurama actors....And we hope that Fox and the actors can come to an agreement as soon as possible."

We all hope the same thing. But we also fear the idea of an open audition for would-be Benders, akin to the one for which the original Bender prepares in the clip above.

Comedy Central and 20th Century Fox Television have reached a deal to bring back "Futurama" with 26 new episodes, starting in mid-2010. Variety is reporting that voice actors Billy West (the voice of Fry), Katey Sagal (Leela), and John DiMaggio (Bender) have all signed on to return as well. 20th Century Fox is still holding the rights to shop the new shows to a broadcast network, with Fox being the likely target -- though that would require breaking Seth MacFarlane's stranglehold on the network's Sunday night "Animation Domination" bloc, and thus be a feat akin to curing cancer.

The reason for the show's return? Like "Family Guy," credit the show's strong fan support (and huge DVD sales, natch). Say Fox honchos Dana Walden and Gary Newman, "'Futurama' was another series that fans simply demanded we bring back, and we couldn't have been happier when [co-creators] Matt [Groening] and David [X. Cohen] agreed that there were many more stories yet to tell." Rejoice, nerds! Let's celebrate by watching Fry and Bender search for an apartment, above.

Poet, recording artist, memiorist, and photographer Leonard Nimoy is in "Star Trek," opening today. By most accounts it's a triumphant return to the role he never quite escaped. It's also the begining of what we hope is a bit of a Leonard Nimoy Resurgence.

This Tuesday, Nimoy will play pivotal-but-as-yet-unseen Massive Dynamic founder William Bell in the "Fringe" season finale. Nimoy is expected to return next season for a few episodes as well.

Since J.J. Abrams is responsible for both of these opportunities, would it be presumptious to ask him to get behind an "In Search Of..." remake?

After the jump, the trailer for 1978's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," which contains what is perhaps Nimoy's finest non-Vulcan role:

My esteemed colleague Robb was telling us earlier about the tent cities that have sprung up around the country during the current economic downturn (*cough* Depression *cough*), but the word "tent" doesn't have to conjure up such negative connotations. Tents can be fun! In the future, we may mistake them for vitamins, as in the clip above!

And right now...well, as usual, the future is now. Today, Gizmodo had a post about a jacket that is also a backpack AND a tent. So it's very convenient for when you find yourself needing to bed down in a public park for a little while and...whoops. I accidentally just bummed us all out again.

For the price of one thin dollar, you can put the perfect girlfriend in your pocket: some intrepid, slightly sexist developer has created the Perfect Girl app for the iPhone. It may seem like a great idea to turn your phone into a device that just feeds you every subservient platitude you'd ever like a living woman to say -- like "I bought you a new speed boat" or "Here, you can have my food" -- but as the clip above reminds us, there actually is a downside to the electronic lady friend.

Not really. Jeff Bercovici of Portfolio.com (which, last we checked, was not doing so hot as a media property its own self) has come up with a model that could straddle the models of free online content vs. paid: make newspaper sites function more like videogames.

I'm not entirely sure I'm interested in clicking around nytimes.com looking for little red hearts like in "The Legend Of Zelda" (although that was a pretty rad game), but in general I agree with the thesis expounded in the clip above: life should be more like videogames.

So Editta Sherman lives in an 800 square foot apartment for which she pays $530 a month. My place is smaller than that, and while I would never be so gauche as to announce what I pay for my mortgage (never mind my monthly maintenance), I will confess that the total is greater than $530 a month. Yes, of course, it would be lovely for Sherman to live out the rest of her life in the apartment where she's spent her last fifty years or whatever, but the state is going to relocate her to a comparable (or better!) space in the neighborhood and pay the difference in her rent for the rest of her life! And although the article doesn't mention covering moving expenses, I'm sure the state also doesn't expect her to pack up her own stuff and huck it up three flights of stairs, either.

This woman is a tenant. Paying rent to a landlord entitles you to certain rights, but squatting in your space until you die is not among them. This article's author, Jessica Pressler, explains that the Carnegie foundation allowed Sherman to live comfortably as a member of the creative class -- a privilege few have enjoyed since the days of royal patronage. But choosing to live on what is essentially someone else's indulgence for -- seriously -- pennies a day means you make some tradeoffs, and one of them is that when that indulgence runs out, you are forced to make another arrangement. Pressler seems to be a Sherman fan: maybe she and Sherman could find a two-bedroom and try to make it as roomies? The rental market in New York is supposed to be a lot more friendly in 2009 than in the year 3000, above.