They're decent rowers, but their best event is the bicycle built for two

In late 2003, twin Harvard rowers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (played by Armie Hammer in The Social Network) hired Mark Zuckerberg to create HarvardConnection, which was basically envisioned as a dating site for Harvard students.  Zuckerberg did some work for them, then basically blew them off to start TheFacebook in early 2004, and the rest is history.  Despite the fact that the idea of Facebook wasn’t any different than Friendster or Myspace and succeeded mainly because the design just worked better, and that Facebook was different than the Winklevoss Twins’ original idea for Harvard Connection, the Winklevoss Twins sued Zuckerberg. In 2008, they received a settlement that included $20 million in cash (hopefully in a briefcase handcuffed to someone’s wrist) and partial ownership of Facebook, now worth $140 million.  Because $160 million for doing essentially nothing wasn’t enough, they appealed the settlement, claiming they’d been misled about the value of the company, and that the settlement was worth less than they had agreed to.  Yesterday, a judge threw out their appeal, telling them to take their ill-begotten money and go row a boat.

The twins had alleged they were misled about Facebook’s value when they agreed to settle their lawsuit that claimed Zuckerberg stole their idea to launch Facebook.
“At some point, litigation must come to an end,” federal appeals court chief justice Alex Kozinksi wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel “That point has now been reached.”
The twins alleged they were misled into believing the company was worth $35.90 a share because of an investment by Microsoft Corp. But they argued that the company later valued the company at $8.88 for tax purposes. The twins argue they would have demanded more stock in the company based on the lower valuation.
Kozinski said the twins were “sophisticated parties” when they agreed to the settlement during a mediation meeting.
“They brought half-a-dozen lawyers to the mediation,” Kozinksi wrote.
Facebook said Monday it was pleased by the ruling. Lawyers for the Winklevoss twins said they are reviewing the decision and have not decided on their next step. The twins could ask the Supreme Court to consider the case. [Yahoo]

Shouldn’t they also have to pay back the money for wasting everyone’s time?  If just having an idea without putting in the effort to actually execute it was worth money, every stoner I know would be a billionaire.  I hate these guys, and it’s not just because they went to Harvard, have a false sense of entitlement, row crew, wear those ugly Oakley glasses, are named “Winklevoss”, have stupid hair and vulgar nipples, and… sorry, I’m blind with rage, I forgot where I was going with this.  Is it just me, or do all crew rowers remind you of a Three Stooges bit without the sense of irony?  Jesus these guys are white. If they had played “Whitey” in a blacksploitation movie people would’ve called it over the top.

Before The Social Network came out, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had vowed never to see it, dismissing it as a work of fiction and even going so far as to remove The West Wing from his favorite TV shows after he heard it was Social Net screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s show.  But contrary to the movie, he’s not actually a super villain who lives in the penthouse of a clock tower with a hairless cat, he’s just a 20-something dude.  And what 20-something dude could resist seeing it if David Fincher made a movie out of his life?  Zuckerberg recently admitted to USWeekly that he’d taken his employees to a screening party, where they drank apple martinis like Justin Timberlake did in the movie.

Zuckerberg was asked about the difference between the movie and what he experienced while creating Facebook. “Where do you want to start?” he asked. Every shirt and fleece worn by the actor (Jesse Eisenberg) who played him was one he had actually worn, Zuckerberg said. The movie got a lot of stuff wrong and random details right, he said.
Reviewing the film thematically, Zuckerberg said it featured a girl who was not part of his real life. In the movie she dumped him, which, he joked, happened to him often. “They framed it as if I wanted to get girls or into some social institution,” Zuckerberg said. “I’ve been dating the same girl since before Facebook.” He concluded that the filmmakers “can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.” [Yahoo]

I respect that Sorkin was able to write an entertaining movie about these dorks, but the fact that he still seems to think he was blowing the lid off a ring of woman-hating megalomaniacs makes him sound like a class-A Hollywood fart huffer.  Professor Appletini here is supposed to be a misogynist?  If I was Mark Zuckerberg, I’d be telling people “People can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like being KNEE-DEEP IN BUSTY TEENS!”  Then I’d flick my tongue at the interviewer like Gene Simmons and ride off on a high-speed cigarette boat, doing that “suck it” thing in between hip thrusts.  But fast cars and fast sluts are kind of my thing.

It's only fair to illustrate an Aaron Sorkin movie with a mouth that never stops moving

Despite being well-reviewed by almost everyone but Armond White, The Social Network has taken its share of criticism, usually for being sexist.  When it comes to criticism, there are generally two approaches — you can either accept it for what it is and attempt to explain yourself, or you can just do like M. Night Shyamalan and claim the 95% of people who thought your movie sucked just don’t get your “European sensibility.”  Social Network writer Aaron Sorkin recently responded to criticism in the comments section of a small blog, and to his credit, he seems to have take the non-Shyammy approach.

Believe me, I get it. It’s not hard to understand how bright women could be appalled by what they saw in the movie but you have to understand that that was the very specific world I was writing about. Women are both prizes an equal [sic - "prizes and equals", I think]. Mark’s blogging that we hear in voiceover as he drinks, hacks, creates Facemash and dreams of the kind of party he’s sure he’s missing, came directly from Mark’s blog. With the exception of doing some cuts and tightening (and I can promise you that nothing that I cut would have changed your perception of the people or the trajectory of the story by even an inch) I used Mark’s blog verbatim. Mark said, “Erica Albright’s a bitch” (Erica isn’t her real name–I changed three names in the movie when there was no need to embarrass anyone further), “Do you think that’s because all B.U. girls are bitches?” Facebook was born during a night of incredible misogyny. The idea of comparing women to farm animals, and then to each other, based on their looks and then publicly ranking them. It was a revenge stunt, aimed first at the woman who’d most recently broke his heart (who should get some kind of medal for not breaking his head) and then at the entire female population of Harvard.

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David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network has been garnering “Likes” from critics (see what I did there?  Do you see?) all over the country in advance of this weekend’s release, despite being called a “character assassination” of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and looking a tad, shall we say, over dramatized (“MARK!”).  In response, the always-great Landline TV‘s reimagines The Social Network (as The REAL Social Network) showing us what a movie about Facebook’s founding would’ve looked like if it had been written by Mark Zuckerberg.

The true story of Mark Zuckerberg: You don’t make millions of friends… without creating Facebook all by yourself.

Well done.  Although if I had made it, I would’ve included a scene where a super hot chick tells Zuckerberg, “Oh Mark, nothing turns me on like a white man with curly gay clown hair.  Let’s make love like crazed weasels on the deck of your hover-yacht!”   I mean seriously, Social Network: you really had to make the curly-haired guy a duplicitous sociopath?  As if we didn’t hate ourselves enough already?  Screw you, man.

Looking for answers? YEEE HAAAW!  Well you’ve come to the wrong place, pardner!  Didn’t you see the question mark in the headline?  That means we don’t know, and even with our non-existent internet ethics we felt bad pretendin’.  But that don’t mean we can’t still have fun speculatin’!  Yeeee haw, now who wants to get shot in the dark?  (*fires pistols in air*)

The Social Network has famously been called a “character assassination” of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who dismissed the film as a fiction he had no interest in seeing.  He also removed Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing from his list of favorite shows on Facebook after he heard Sorkin had written The Social Network, so despite his official detached stance, there were clearly some hurt feelings.  Which is why it’s surprising that according to a few Twitterers, Zuckerberg was spotted at a screening of The Social Network last night in Seattle.  A guy wearing a suit jacket and blue shirt who looked like Zuckerberg was spotted, anyway.  One of the spotters was DVDTalk/Boxoffice.com‘s Tyler Foster, who tells me:

Walked out & my friend said “That’s Mark Zuckerberg” and a guy who looked just like him was taking a photo w/some girl.  Can’t say I spoke to him, but…it looked like Mark Zuckerberg. It would help if someone could place him in Seattle, at least.

Yes, yes it would.  The only thing I found about him being in Seattle is from 2007.  Haha, good story, Vince.  And so, I leave you with the words of Mitch Hedberg, “I got to smoke fake pot with Peter Frampton.  That’s a cool story. It’s as cool as smoking real pot with a guy who looks like Peter Frampton… I’ve done that way more.”

WAG THE DOG-ISH UPDATE: After I posted this, Tyler wrote: “Publicist called. Said studio contacted her and was vehement Zuckerberg would never wear a suit. Both she and I hypothesized that if that were true, it’d make the perfect disguise. She said they didn’t have an answer.”