The much anticipated movie ”The Twilight Saga: New Moon” hits theaters at midnight.

New Moon

The movie is based on the second book, New Moon, in the Twilight series about a teenage vampire romance by author Stephenie Meyer.  It opens in the United States and Canada on Friday, November 20, 2009, but fans have already been buying tickets in advance.  Online ticket sellers Fandango.com and MovieTickets.com reported this week that “New Moon” is their biggest advance ticket seller of all time.  (To buy advance tickets to “New Moon” and find show times near you, click here.)

The movie is expected to gross nearly $100 million from movie theater box offices when it debuts this weekend, and score one of the biggest openings ever for a non-summer film, according to Reuters.  The first film in the series, “Twilight,” which debuted one year ago, reportedly made $69.6 million in its first weekend at the box office.

The Hollywood premiere with the cast of “New Moon” was held on Monday at Mann’s Village Theater in Westwood, CA.  Some fans camped out several days ahead of time to get a close spot in hopes of meeting the cast at the premiere.

“New Moon” stars Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson, and Kristen Stewart.  It follows the romance between teenager Bella Swan (Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson), along with her friendship with werewolf Jacob Black (Lautner).  For more about the film, check out the official Web site.

Holiday shoppers can take advantage of early Black Friday deals at Walmart.

Walmart Black Friday Sales

The store is currently featuring 100 toys for under $10.  To see the list, click here. Walmart also announced that its online stores will offer many hot books for just $9 and free shipping.  Customers who purchase a BlackBerry will also receive a $100 gift card.  For more details on the current deals at Walmart, click here.

The official Walmart Black Friday ad has not yet been released.  The store has announced, though, that it will be open 24 hours on Black Friday.  For more about Walmart’s safety campaign for this year, click here.

Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally marks the beginning of Christmas shopping in the United States. Many retailers offer doorbuster sales as an incentive for shoppers.

Several Web sites are dedicated to Black Friday sales for stores such as Sears, Walmart, Toys ‘R’ Us, Target, Kmart, and more.  Here are a few to help shoppers get started:

• BlackFriday.fm 
• Black-Friday.net
• BFads.net
• BlackFriday.info
• BlackFriday.com
• BlackFriday.GottaDeal.com

 Know of some good Black Friday deals? Leave them in the comments below.

Former child star Jodie Sweetin, 27, was interviewed by Matt Lauer on ‘Today’ on NBC on Monday morning to talk about her past drug use and new memoir, unSweetined.

Jodie Sweetin Memoir

Sweetin, who played Stephanie Tanner on the 1980s/1990s sitcom “Full House,” said she tried hard to be the opposite of the “squeaky clean” image she played on TV.  She said she had her first alcoholic drink at age 14 at a wedding, and that was her turning point. 

The actress said she started using heavy drugs such as meth and cocaine when she was in her early 20s.  Meanwhile, she was married and continued acting.

 “I was leading two completely different lives,” said Sweetin.

When it was announced that Sweetin was in rehab for drug use, she said she reluctantly went on a recovery tour.  She said she gave speeches about her drug use to kids at universities, but was still using at the time.  Sweetin now says she wishes she could go back and change what she did.

Sweetin said she has been clean and sober for almost a year. She hopes her 18-month-old daughter, Zoie, doesn’t have to ever see her mother using drugs.

For more about Sweetin’s book, click here.

Herta Mueller won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature

Romanian born, Herta Mueller author is known for her books about life under the harsh regime of the dictator Ceausescu.

Mueller, born in 1953 in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf in Romania; she studied German and Romanian literature at university. Her first job after university was as a translator, but she lost the job because she refused to cooperate with the secret police.

In 1982, Mueller’s first book was a collection of short stories about Niederungen. The book was censored in Romania, but two years later it was smuggled out of the country and published in Germany.

In 1996, Mueller’s novel The Land of The Green Plums won the German Kleist and the Irish IMPAC award. The book is about a group of friends who became targets of the secret police.

Mueller has written 19 books in German, and some have been translated into English, French and Spanish.

Frozen by Larry Johnson

Workers at a cryonics facility mutilated the frozen head of Hall of Fame baseball player Ted Williams, according to Larry Johnson who wrote Frozen.  Larry Johnson is a former executive at Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona.  He describes in great detail how Williams’ frozen head was repeatedly abused.

Frozen is due out Tuesday, and alleges gruesome behavior at the facility, where bodies are kept suspended in liquid nitrogen in case future generations learn how to revive them.

According to Frozen, in July 2002, Ted Williams died at 83 and his head was severed and frozen, and then used for batting practice by a technician trying to dislodge it from a tuna fish can.

Johnson was the chief operating officer at Alcor before becoming a whistleblower in 2003. He wired himself for his last three months, and gathered records and photographs reproduced in the book.

The book also includes other incidents, including the dismemberment of live dogs that were injected with chemicals in experiments, and suspicious circumstances with other frozen at Alcor.

The name Sister Anastazja Pustelnik is quite a tongue twister but once you get a chance to taste some of the dishes prepared by Sister Anastazja Pustelnik you would forget about everything else. Sister Anastazja Pustelnik whips up a mean dish of pasta and other delicacies.

Actually Sister Anastazja Pustelnik’s skills set lie in easy to make and bake cake and pastries. This is not something Sister Anastazja Pustelnik had bargained for when she got into recipe book writing as a part time job to raise funds for her monastery. But not she seems to be reveling in it.

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The New York State Earth Science Regents exam was scheduled recently and many took this regents exam. Students had worked quite hard for this and many had spent hours pouring over the assignments and books. Now all their hard work and patience would come to fruition.

Were you one of the tough cookies to take this exam this NY State Earth Science Regents exam in June? How did you fair in this gruelling examination?

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While studying for taking this exam, its common to come across queries from users like – Has anyone taken the 2009 integrated algebra regents yet, if so what was on it?

My teacher didn’t really teach much me much of anything and I don’t have time to learn everything, so I was wondering if anyone could tell me what I am going to need to learn.

Items to Bring to the Exam:

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The Shaker Heights High School yearbook cover has create plenty of buzz online and has a lot of tongues wagging. And I bet even though publicly they are saying the high school student who designed the Yearbook Cover did a wrong thing, at the back of their minds they must be thinking, WOW!

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Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer Prize winning American author of the book Olive Kitteridge. Elizabeth won the much coveted award in 2009 and her fans are without any doubt ecstatic.

I am going to cover a brief history, wiki, resume, and bio information of Elizabeth Strout for those of you who just discovered this brilliantly talented writer.

Elizabeth was born in New Hampshire and she was raised in a handful of small towns and villages spread over New Hampshire and Maine. I bet that would come across sounding idyllic. Elizabeth completed her college from Bates College after which she spend a year or so in Oxford, England.

Hereafter she changed streams and moved into Law school and graduated with honors. Interestingly she recieved a Law degree from Syracuse as well as a Gerontology from the Syracuse school of Social Work.

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