This just in: Outback pulled an Applebee’s (and a Chili’s and an Olive Garden) by serving a four-year-old and two teenagers alcoholic beverages. Your move, Friday’s.



Meanwhile, Walmart is feeling the holiday cheer—or maybe it’s anticipating a Tiny Tim Christmas—by announcing plans to bring back its layaway program, which the retailer scrapped back in 2006.

Speaking of revenue, despite a continually poor economy and high unemployment levels, the summer box office set a new record this year, reporting a take of $4.4 billion.

Another big number: 260 million. That’s how many watts of electricity Google’s global data centers continue to use—enough to power some 200,000 homes. Here’s its defense.

Why stop now? According to The Holmes Report’s 2011 global ranking of PR firms, Edelman moved up the list to No. 1, from No. 3 last year. It also improved its fee incomes 20 percent to about $531.5 million. Weber Shandwick was No. 2 on this year’s list ($525 million), while Fleishman-Hillard ($505 million) took the No. 3 spot. (via PRNewser)

Keeping those BIG numbers rolling in, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has announced the social network now has 100 million worldwide active users monthly.

Costolo also promised big advertising growth with plans that will expand its ad model to allow brands and clients to reach a much broader audience. According to Adweek, Costolo said that “the service has so many people (100 million active users) and so many tweets that it can show ‘a super-small volume of tweets to an active user’ and still create “monumental” ad inventory.’”

And I don’t know how much you’d spend on football tickets, but ESPN just reached a deal with the NFL to broadcast 17 regular season games for $1.9 billion a year. Sure, they also get rights to the Pro Bowl, NFL draft, 3-D distribution and Spanish language and international broadcasts, along more than 500 hours of NFL-branded studio programing, but come on.

It’s a shame I won’t be able to watch any of those games, as my (in)DirecTV has been out for the last two weeks. But I can’t hold that against Deion. These spots are good. The guac, on the other hand, has a lot more in common with my current cable service.



Have a good weekend, everyone. Watch plenty of TV for me. I’ll have to visit Hulu—or cry in front of my flat screen. Probably the latter.

Maybe I’ll just go have a drink at Outback. Hope I’m young enough.

(Image via)