John Hodgeman Wins Over Correspondents' Crowd: The White House Correspondents' Association Dinner may suffer from an annual inability to not offend some party with its divisive M.C.s, but that doesn't seem to be the case at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner. Host John Hodgeman—of Apple commercial and Daily Show fame—won over the audience at Friday's event by skirting an actual roast and opting to label Barack Obama the country's first geek president. Obama seemed to please the crowd with his own speech, and come Monday morning, nobody was licking wounded egos on cable news. [Wired]
Fests Like Sundance Still Boosting the Economy: Festival-town locals might bemoan the congestion and hullabaloo associated with their annual events, but they sure do benefit from them. Despite an 11 percent drop in attendance this year, a study by a group at the University of Utah calculated that the Sundance Film Festival brought in $92.1 million to the state this year. The numbers broke down to $34,579,698 on accommodations, $14,976,306 on food, $4,693,682 on transportation, and $4,015,870 on "discretionary items"—which we'll assume includes booze. [NYT]
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