Busy day ahead!  Let's get to it!

• The 12/12/12 Sandy benefit show at Madison Square Garden in New York last night was a hit, especially the impressive performance from the Rolling Stones.  The "New Nirvana" wasn't exactly that--Sir Paul McCartney did indeed play with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear, but they played an original tune called "Cut Me Some Slack," not any of the original Nirvana material.  Still, good tune.
   
• Trent Reznor will team with Beats By Dre to launch a new streaming music service called "Daisy" next year, which will supposedly be better than Spotify or Pandora at suggesting music to the listener based on their preferences.  Reznor describes it as, "like having your own guy when you go to the record store, who knows what you like but can also point you down some paths you wouldn't have necessarily encountered."
   
• Rumor has it that Nicola Peltz and Brenton Thwaites have joined the cast of Transformers 4.  Though producer and director Michael Bay has yet to confirm, nor has Paramount, it's suggested that Peltz would play a high school student and the daughter of Mark Wahlberg's character, while Thwaites would play her boyfriend.  Transformers 4 will be out June 27th, 2014, and keep your fingers crossed that there might actually be some, you know, TRANSFORMERS in it.
   
• Columbia Pictures has finally begun work on a sequel to the 2010 action flick Salt, starring Angelina Jolie.  A new screenwriter has been brought in to touch up the original draft of the proposed sequel, which is said to be a pet project of Jolie's.
   
• A new Infinity Challenge for Halo 4 kicks off Monday, tracking both the War Games and Spartan Ops leaderboards.  The contest ends January 10th, and players will have a chance to win both a V8 2013 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor and an appearance in a future game in the franchise.  Neat!
   
• Get the tissues ready:  Mass Effect 3 designer Joe Hendriks says the next DLC for the game will bring "all hands on deck," as all of the game's writers are coming together to craft a story that will reprortedly be "a tear-jerker."
   

Toys for Tots kicks off later today, and then it's on to Finally Friday!  Until then...ROCK!
--HH

(News credit to 411mania.com)