The mythical Google Phone is "no longer a myth, it's very real," says TechCrunch, in case you're keeping score. The supposedly Google-branded, Google-designed device could render days-old relics like the Droid phone instantly ancient. Of course, in this case very real means doesn't exactly exist yet, and this picture we have here is fantasy art on the level of H.R. Giger. Why would Google "infuriate its partners" who make phones that use Google's Android software , by competing against them?, asks Daring Fireball. "Maybe it thinks companies making Android phones so far are doing a crappy job," suggests Business Insider. Uh, maybe it won't compete because technically it won't be a phone, Crunch argues back: it could be a data-only VoIP thing, so you wouldn't have to sign up for phone service. You'd sign up for data service, and merely use it like a phone. "It's unclear how supportive the carriers would be of a data-only Google Phone considering it directly affects their primary business," notes Android Central. Unclear, indeed. Gizmodo said it best: "Right now, we don't know much of anything." (But we know we love you, Google Phone, and that may be all we need to know.)

But there's more in life than just imaginary handheld devices and OLED displays. Sarah Palin, for example. Her new book Going Rogue is very real. Beyond that, maybe not so much. Fox News aired video of "huge crowds" at Palin book rallies that was old footage, where people were holding McCain/Palin signs, reports ThinkProgress. McCain aide Nicolle Wallace says the book contains a fictional passage about the disastrous Katie Couric interview, according to TV Newser. Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish says "there are so many fabrications and delusions in the book, mixed in with facts, that just making sense of it--and comparing it with objective reality as we know it, and the subjective reality she has previously provided--is a bewildering task." But hey--The Live Feed says Palin got Oprah's biggest audience in two years. Meanwhile Newsweek may not be prepping an all-digital edition for the imaginary Kindle Killer, but it does have on its paper cover a leggy photo of Palin that was originally used in Runner's World. Palin has criticized it on her Facebook page, as NewsBusters' reported. ("The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now," she wrote.)

Palin at least is accustomed to having her material repurposed--remember William Shatner's dramatic reading of her tweets? Well, no idea stays original for long these days. Now Chris Walken's dramatic reading of a Lady Gaga song is getting links everywhere. Video of that performance is here at Vulture. Warming Glow presents a mashup video combining the Gaga original, Walken's goof, and a South Park take on the same concept. As our friend David once said: "Is this real life?"

Fake crowds? Illegally re-used magazine pictures? Imaginary phones and fantasy display tablets? Thank goodness Santa Claus is coming. And thank goodness for illicitly obtained print material that helps us understand the world better. Yes, we're talking about the leaked Walmart Black Friday holiday shopping circular that CrunchGear proudly displays. Wait, this just in: Walmart intentionally leaked and "approved the release of its entire clutch of Black Friday secrets ahead of its own Nov. 23 release date," reports the new economy blog. Ah, sob. Does that make this free advertising? Maybe next Walmart will hire Christopher Walken to read its ad and have it go viral.

Phew. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Blogs.com! We'll be out next week celebrating--Best in Blogs will resume in December.

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Speakeasy

In the meantime, while you wait for midnight (do you have your tickets yet?) you can watch this gigantic collection of Twilight spoofs at Underwire, or read about how the special effects required to make Edward's skin sparkle in the sunlight at The Geek Files. Or maybe you could just start lining up in front of the theater now...

Today kicks off Sarah Palin's media week--her book, Going Rogue, will be officially released tomorrow, but publicity efforts began today (oh, who are we kidding, there's been publicity about this book for quite awhile) with Palin's appearance on Oprah. The Oprah blog lists a few highlights from the show, including Palin's response to whether she is considering a 2012 presidential campaign: "I don't know what I'm doing in 2012...It's not on my radar screen. In 2012, Trigg heads to kindergarten and I'm focused on that." She also told Oprah that she didn't care that she endorsed Obama: "No offense, Oprah, but ... it didn't really register. It wasn't the center of my universe" (via Silicon Alley Insider).

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post has obtained internal campaign e-mails, to and from Palin, "that directly contradict or cast serious doubt on several of Palin's assertions" in her book. "Reflecting on it all, the campaign aide who provided the emails said the following of the book: 'There are elements of truth underlying a narrative that is completely false,'" reports HuffPo. McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt told Politics Daily that the book is "total fiction," and an aide said McCain is "'surprised and a bit disappointed' by the book."

Obviously, the book's publicity campaign goes on. "Starting tomorrow, she will be appearing on 'Good Morning America,' 'World News,' and 'Nightline,' as an interview with Barbara Walters is aired, first in pieces, and finally in full on '20/20' on Friday," Chapter & Verse reports. "Also tomorrow, Palin launches her book tour by bus (a large bus, emblazoned with images of her face), accompanied by members of her family."

Though Thanksgiving is over a week away, Black Friday deals have started leaking onto the Internet already and many stores are also discounting items early. The Consumer Reports Money blog rounds up efforts of various retailers and has a good list of sites to check for deals: "Black Friday Ads, The Black Friday, TGI Black Friday, Black Friday Info, Deal News, Deal Taker, and Black Friday FM." Black Friday Ads highlights a $9.99 Blu-Ray DVD sale at Amazon and has the leaked Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us Black Friday ads, as well as a complete list of advertisement scans (though they caution that some ads may be fake). Engadget rounds up some of the "less monotonous-looking bargains," writing, "it looks like Kmart's going to have a 42-inch Panasonic 720p Plasma HDTV for $550 and a 10.1 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot W180 for $99. While you're there, don't forget to pick up a Jaclyn Smith cashmere sweater set for $30, too!" TGI Black Friday has a list of deals that are available online now.

The dealnews Black Friday site offers a Black Friday iPhone app, and the site also has a Black Friday Strategy Guide, including tips like this: “On Thankgiving Day, retailers like Walmart and Best Buy are expected to advertise additional Black Friday deals that weren't in their circulars. These ‘secret’ deals will only be found online (e.g., at BestBuy.com), so the trick is to uncover them on the Web on Thursday so you'll know about them when you get to the store on Friday.” PC World lists 10 fascinating facts about Black Friday, including a Mac-buying tip: “Apple typically doesn't duke it out with the Windows PC boys in the bargain basement. But that doesn't mean that Mac fans won't find deals. Best Buy will give a $150 gift card to shoppers who buy a $1000 MacBook (13.3-inch display).   MacMall and other retailers have Apple deals too.” And Switched lists 10 Black Friday deals to watch for—“ Blu-ray is shaping up to be the biggest door buster of this year's Black Friday. De Grandpre expects at least one retailer will offer a Blu-ray player for just $49.”

Will you hit the mall on Black Friday? What are you hoping to buy? And have you heard rumors of any great deals? Let us know in the comments.

What was your #1 movie of the decade? Let us know in the comments.

Nice holiday gift: Google is offering free WiFi in select U.S. airports starting today and available through January 15, 2010 (via DailyTech). Sounds like just the thing when your flight is delayed by three hours. Google's also doing good: "Once you log in to one of the Wi-Fi networks, you'll have the option to donate to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Additionally, Google will match the donations made across all the networks up to $250,000," Mashable explains. "Finally, the airport network that generates the highest amount per passenger by January 1, 2010 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local nonprofit of their choice." The catch, says CrunchGear, is that once you log in you'll get a prompt to set Google as your default search engine and try Chrome, but that "sounds less annoying that current airport Wi-Fi that generally has a gigantic banner somewhere on the screen reminding you that you're in a wonderful airport waiting to board an H1N1-infested plane."

It's not just Google--Marketing Pilgrim writes about other companies sponsoring free WiFi this holiday season. Yahoo! is covering Times Square for a year, for instance. And Microsoft is running a campaign that gives consumers WiFi access in exchange for performing one search on Bing (via PaidContent). GigaOM has found the only possible downside: "One can imagine it's going to get a lot harder to find an empty power outlet this season."

CNN's David Fitzpatrick was in Berlin the night the wall fell and recalls on Anderson Cooper 360, "East Berliners streamed through the dark streets, many of them holding lighted candles. As far as I could see, there were candles in the distance. And they sang. Sang loudly as I recall. They were singing, many of them, the anthem of the American civil rights struggle of the 1960s--'We Shall Overcome.' Picture it in your mind. Candles. Huge crowds coursing through the streets. And an American song on their lips. It was as moving a moment as I had experienced covering the disasters and wars of the world."

Last night Mad Men finished up its third season, and it was "an extremely well-choreographed, wacky 1960s sitcom about starting an ad agency," says Watching TV, "with scenes of slamming-door farce set in the hotel room where the firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is taking shape." Monkey See says the episode was "just masterfully laid out, with the sad parts not destroying the happy parts and the happy parts not doing much to change the sad parts. Both of these things are really happening: Don is entering a possibly exciting new chapter at work, but he's lost his family." "Last night's season finale was one of the best hours--well, 50 minutes, it was a short episode--of television I've ever seen," writes Answer Girl. The Zeidgeist lists the episode's best quotes. And TV Squad looks forward to the season to come: "Whether it's 1964 when Matt Weiner picks up the story, or beyond, Don Draper will be someone else and somewhere else. Betty and Ossining will be in the rear-view mirror. Over the end credits, the singer sang, 'The future is much better than the past.' We shall see."

Christmas is over six weeks away, you say? Nevertheless, you can get in the holiday spirit early with Disney's 3D remake of A Christmas Carol, which comes out today. Critics have been total Scrooges about the film so far, notes Cartoon Brew, who watched just a couple minutes of footage but says it was "sufficiently inept enough to prevent me from wanting to see any more. What did it for me is the scene at about 1:15 in which a ghost floats rapidly towards Scrooge and knocks him backwards. Scrooge then does a backroll and pops up off the floor in a way that is so comically devoid of the laws of physics and inappropriate to the physical movement of a realistic human that all dramatic impact is instantly drained from the scene." But Movie Mom is blown away by the special effects: "It was not just that the Victorian setting was so meticulously created, though I plan to go back just to revel in the details. It was that I had never before seen a camera move so fluidly through so [many] different vantage points in the midst of a convincingly immersive 3D experience."

Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke reported yesterday that Oprah is giving up her CBS daytime show and taking it to OWN, her Oprah Winfrey Network. "Leaving the extraordinary visibility she enjoyed through syndication for a nosebleed cable channel is a huge gamble for Oprah as a TV brand," Finke writes. "There's the possibility that OWN could distribute her new talk show for syndication. But I hear no one is talking about that now." "Adversely affected would be CBS, obviously," says NY Mag's Vulture, "but also the ABC stations that air Oprah, plus all of the other things on which she exerts an influence (so long, publishing industry!)." AdAge's MediaWorks reports that OWN's "launch date has also been a moving target--initially set for fourth-quarter 2009, then pushed back until summer 2010. Now reports are putting that date closer to early 2011 to accommodate a possible acquisition of 'The Oprah Winfrey Show.'" "This could be the end of an era (or lead to a true explosion in cable," remarks I'm Not Obsessed. "If it's true."