• I'm beating TucsonVelo.com's Mike McKisson right now.

There are plenty of word/spelling games to pick from on the iPhone, Words With Friends likely the most popular, but for some reason, the novelty of online Scrabble (and Scrabbleish) games wore off on me awhile ago, mostly because I feel like I never ended up playing all that many competitive games. Either I was wiping the floor with one half of the people I played or getting annihilated by the other 50% (cheaters, the whole lot of them).

For some reason, Letterpress, a newish app from one of the creators of Twitter, seems to be a little more enjoyable than its innumerable competitors. The design is super clean, every game is generally competitive, and it's fun to play in quick bursts of available time. Like nearly every other iPhone game I've downloaded in the past, I'll likely get distracted and forget I ever started playing Letterpress, but for now, I've enjoyed it enough to cough up the 99 cent full version, something I rarely do.

If you'd enjoy the opportunity to tell your friends that you beat the future editor of the Tucson Weekly in a semi-obscure iPhone game, feel free: my nickname on there is dangibson520.

This week, Cynthia and Eric discuss Avengers #1 by Jonathan Hickman & Jerome Opeña!

Bonus: If you're watching this on 12/5, swing on down to Heroes and Villains between 3pm-7pm and get a FREE sketch from a rad local artist with every purchase of Avengers #1!

Ross Demma 3pm-5pm
James Babcock 3pm-5pm
Ryan Huna Smith 5pm-7pm
Hannah Nance Partlow 5pm-7pm
Eric Schock 5pm-7pm

Also Cynthia Gerriets will be here in costume as Scarlet Witch for the duration!

I guess that's pretty cool, too.

Here's the Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/events/456450641067165/

Heroes And Villains' Twitter: www.Twitter.com/hnvComics

And their tumblr: www.heroesandvillainstucson.tumblr.com

Yes, every website in the known universe is going to post this rendition of "All I Want for Christmas Is You," by Mariah Carey, the Roots, and Jimmy Fallon (who manages to be heavy-handed with the drum, somehow). However, it is awesome, there are cute kids involved, and this is one of the few truly classic Christmas songs written in the last three decades. So, yeah, we'll just go ahead and post it too.

When the Tucson Unified School District governing board meets on Thursday, Dec. 20 to make a final vote on school closures and consolidations, board member Michael Hicks said he plans to vote no on all school closures.

At a meeting last night at Brichta Elementary, Hicks was asked to address the school closure issue and the fact that the board recently approved 14 schools to consider for closure. There will be public hearings on Dec. 8 and 10, with the final vote Dec. 20.

"The district should have dealt with this years ago," Hicks said. "I'll accept part of the blame."

During the past two special meetings last month in which the board determined schools based on staff recommendations and the development of what the district calls the "school master plan," Hicks and other board members have barely spoken out against the district administration.

But last night, to a group of almost 100 parents in the school's cafeteria, Hicks said TUSD Superintendent John Pedicone works for the board, not the other way around. He also added that he does not agree with the criteria used by the administration in determining closures. Hicks described it as "politics."

"I don't believe the criteria was good and sound. At times its seemed like they picked a school out of their back pocket," he said.

As an example, Hicks mentioned Santa Rita High School, which was brought before the board at the final special meeting, but not chosen for closure. Hicks said it was completely unexpected. But so is the selection of schools that are highly performing.

When asked if he's looked over the district's latest budget and has identified cuts that could help the district save $17 million, he said he wasn't a money person, but was turning to people to help him better understand those figures. Despite that, he'd rather look at the budget and other ways to save money or create revenue rather than close schools.

Hicks said TUSD should look at the development of more district-run charter schools, adding two more kids per classroom throughout the district and changing the school year to year-long.

The purpose of the meeting was to gather Brichta parents and organize for the upcoming public hearings. Brichta parent Stephanie Hamilton said parents have gotten together to form BCAN—Brichta Community Action Network to develop alternatives for the district. They also started a petition and a letter-writing campaign to the board.

Hamilton said most parents want to keep neighborhood schools open, and the general feeling is that the school closures came out of nowhere.

Hamilton proposed other ways TUSD could bring in additional cash—the sale of Maxwell Middle School's 18 acres zoned residential, or a TUSD-owned parcel by Ironwood Hills that could bring in additional revenue. She also thinks the Brichta parents need to remind the board that their school's utility bill is one of the lowest out of all TUSD schools.

"We need to work together to give the district other alternatives," she said.

Hicks later reminded parents that any revenue brought in from the sale of property goes back to facilities and not the management and operation side of the budget—where the deficit exists.

See the list of schools being considered for closure after the jump.

The man in red, Santa Claus, is back in town again on December 8. This time he will be having breakfast at Lowes Ventana Canyon (7000 N Resort Drive). From 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., Santa will be hosting a pancake breakfast, running activities and holding storytime for kids and kids-at-heart alike. Reservations are required, so call 299-2020.

The greatest trick Panetta-Burns ever pulled was convincing the world their debt plan didn't exist.
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) December 4, 2012

Public Policy Polling has moved from polling about campaigns to polling about how many people believe in crazy and non-existent stuff.

PPP's Tom Jensen dishes some highlights from the survey with a dash of data-backed snark:

PPP's first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard...and also declining in numbers.

49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.

In fiscal-cliff news, the polling firm looked in on the public's attitudes about the Simpson-Bowles plan—and then compared it to an entirely fictional plan to see how many people would pretend to be informed about that:

As much of an obsession as Bowles/Simpson can be for the DC pundit class, most Americans don't have an opinion about it. 23% support it, 16% oppose it, and 60% say they don't have a take one way or the other.

The 39% of Americans with an opinion about Bowles/Simpson is only slightly higher than the 25% with one about Panetta/Burns, a mythical Clinton Chief of Staff/former western Republican Senator combo we conceived of to test how many people would say they had an opinion even about something that doesn't exist.

Bowles/Simpson does have bipartisan support from the small swath of Americans with an opinion about it. Republicans support it 26/18, Democrats favor it 21/14, and independents are for it by a 24/18 margin. Panetta/Burns doesn't fare as well with 8% support and 17% opposition.

The Panetta-Burns plan has taken off on Twitter:

“#PanettaBurns borrows for 20 years at negative real rates, then buries the money for people to dig up,” Matt O’Brien, the Washington D.C.-based economics editor for The Atlantic magazine, wrote in a message, suggesting minutes later “#PanettaBurns invests in a new helicopter fleet to drop money from.”

Josh Barro, a columnist for Bloomberg View, tweeted a few seconds later that “#PanettaBurns balances the budget by taxing Canada.”

Ezra Klein, a Washington Post policy blogger who would be amiss left out of any conversation on deficit reduction, would chime in a few seconds after that, noting “#PanettaBurns increases spending to 33% of GDP in order to purchase every American a unicorn.”

(Well, we can assume Mega Bloks were ignored in the study, solely because they're just a less interesting alternative to Legos. Sorry, Mega Bloks.)

According to tech site BoingBoing, the folks over at British radio show "More or Less" wrangled a scientist from Open University—which is actually a thing, despite the fact that the name sounds like they have lower enrollment standards than ASU—to calculate how tall one could build a tower composed of 2x2 Lego bricks.

To find this out, they used a hydraulic testing machine to see how much force a Lego brick could stand before breaking, applying more than 4,000 Newtons of force before the brick collapsed. From there, they calculated how much weight a single brick could hold before being overtaken by stress, then figured out how many bricks could stack atop one another using that result.

And from what they found, apparently one could stack 2x2 Lego bricks 'til they reached 2.17 miles into the sky—or as Open University's Ian Johnston put it, "if the Greek gods wanted to build a new temple on Mount Olympus, and Mount Olympus wasn't available, they could just - but no more - do it with Lego bricks. As long as they don't jump up and down too much."

As if the gods would be concerned with such decorum. Silly Brit.

I was worried a bit by the economic and political ramifications of the whole "fiscal cliff" thing, but now that I know that the Justice League of MSNBC Hosts are on the case, I suddenly feel a sense of peace washing over me. Thank goodness for largely useless partisan media!

Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, the boxing-related theatre event of the season is coming to Centennial Hall for its Arizona premiere—which is cool, but probably not as cool as the Daily Star made it in its separate story to announce that we're getting it before Phoenix—and tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the Centennial Hall Box Office.

Ticket prices will range from $29 to $69, with VIP packages going for $179 apiece. If that sounds like a bit of a stretch to you, keep in mind that they'll include premium seating and, more importantly, a meet and greet(!) with Mike Tyson, where he'll presumably take a picture with you and maybe answer a question or two about how he would have prepared Lennox Lewis's children for consumption.

Tickets for "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth" will be available at the Centennial Hall Box Office, 1020 E. University Blvd; online at uapresents.org; or by phone at 621-3341.

• Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
• Note: These puppies may not be representative of your cuddling options.

College can be a stressful time, especially when you have no sense of what a completely depressing hassle the post-academic working world happens to be, so the Humane Society of Southern Arizona and Alpha Kappa Psi have teamed up to provide a bit of relief to the grind of finals or endless parties or whatever it is that college students actually do these days.

Wednesday, December 5 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m, if you're passing by Old Main, cough up five bucks and you'll get yourself a cup of coffee and some snuggle time with a dog. Once there was a guy who brought his dog to the Tucson Weekly offices (long story), and while we do have coffee here, there was no cuddle time offered, so this is an opportunity you should really try to appreciate.