This is the only way to start your Thursday.

Have the Rex Ryan pep talks on Hard Knocks fired up the Politico folks? Playbook put on its big boy pants and spent the weekend jacking people up. On Sunday Playbook ran an advertisement (with no sponsor attribution to parent company Albritton) to pop Comcast and NBC: ** ADVERTISEMENT: A …

By the time we post this, he’ll have 10,000 more followers.  [175,000] His first tweet: @ConanOBrien: Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me. Brilliant.

Note: When interviewing an Olympic athlete that just won a gold medal, it helps if you know his name, the country he’s from and why he won the medal.  If you don’t know his shoe size, that’s fine.  We’re just looking for the basics… Dutch speedskater Sven Kramer won a …

This is a problem. NBC Cafeteria Celebrates Black History Month With Fried Chicken Special Here’s the picture. We have no further comment.

If you’re having a hard time understanding what’s going on at NBC regarding the late-night wars, the Chinese are here to help.  [Ad Age]

Admission of the Day: We would buy this single.  Brilliant.

Conan O’Brien wins.  NBC loses, again: People of Earth: ——– In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid …

Members from the cast of MTV’s Jersey Shore participated in Jay Leno’s "Jaywalking" trivia last night, and while "The Situation" and Pauly did fairly well (with the help of the host), our favorite cast member, and self-proclaimed inventor of the poof, Snooki, made us worry about the education system in …

Words that work:  Twitter, funny, commentary, appropriate … Mindy Finn: Frank Luntz on the Today show talking about "What parents really need to know?" He’s not a parent! Jon Gosselin was booked.

AP: NBC broadcaster John Madden retires [turkey leg] We’ll see you around Madden. Thanks for the laughs — and for ruining Shaun Alexander’s career (and our fantasy football season) by putting him on the front of your game.

A press release issued by House Republican Leader John Boehner regarding Rahm Emanuel ends up in a Saturday Night Live Skit. It is F*&%$%!&*G awesome. SNL: A Message from The White House Chief of Staff Designate h/t AMC

but David Gregory? Craigslist: NBC–David – 35 (NW DC) Interested in what type shoes David Gregory wears to work? his shoe size?

Leibovich: Washington After a Fall These were the kind of days when Washington lives up to the cliché that it is really a small town — in the same way that Wall Street, Broadway and Hollywood are small towns, too, incubating outsize egos and ambitions, but also different.

It’s perhaps the strangest phenomenon in the history of NBC News, but we too are addicted. Chuck Todd mania has clearly swept the nation and we’ve found yet another website dedicated to all things Chuck Todd. [Viva Chuck Todd] This well constructed and colorful site has Chuck Todd drinking games, …