Gossip

When "Hunger Games" premieres Monday, the Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live will be more than just a screaming mass of fans watching stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth enter the building. For just one night, the L.A. Live plaza will be a version of "The Hob. " Named for the fictional black market where Lawrence's character Katniss Everdeen sells the fruits of her hunting in her native District 12 (the Hunger Games-era Appalachia), the Hob will take over L.A. Live plaza as a sort of small village where fans can interact, to some degree, with their new favorite movie.

Warner Bros.' international television unit is teaming with two Chinese production companies to create a Chinese teen drama series inspired by "Gossip Girl," which airs in the United States on the CW Network. "Gossip Girl," about a group of wealthy back-stabbing Manhattanites, has been a cult hit for the cable channel for the last five years and launched the careers of actresses Blake Lively and Leighton Meester. Tentatively called "China Girl," the show will be in Mandarin and launch in November on satellite television, with "Gossip Girl" creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage consulting.

There's less office gossip being whispered around the water cooler at work - and what's being said is nicer too, according to a new report. The rumor mill is a mainstay at 63% of companies, according to a new survey from staffing service The Creative Group. Four years ago, 84% of firms said chit-chatting at the company was commonplace. Six out of ten times, the gossip is inoffensive and light-hearted, according to the report. And while 20% of the talk is negative, respondents said it wasn't meant to be hurtful.

We detailed the major tidbits from Steve Jobs' just-disclosed FBI files in an earlier post . But we've scoured the 191-page document for some minor Jobs trivia as well. Jobs' high school GPA: How about 2.65? Jobs wasn't much for school, choosing to go to Reed College in Oregon for a few semesters before he dropped out. Note to young people: Don't try this without adult supervision. Jobs also told agents he could think of nothing that could be used to blackmail him, was not a member of the Communist Party and did not belong to any organization that "espoused the overthrow of the government.

Anyone want to peek at Steve Jobs' FBI file? Yes, please! On Thursday the FBI released a 191-page file that the agency compiled on Jobs in 1991. It contains multiple confirmations of Jobs' dabblings in marijuana and LSD, as well as some notes on a bomb threat he received in 1985. But the juicy stuff is in pages and pages of notes of interviews the FBI conducted with Jobs' friends, ex-friends, neighbors, employees and colleagues, one of whom described the computer industry icon as "willing to twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals.

Here's your floy-joy Friday roundup of consumer news from around the Web: -- Is a merger in American Airlines' future? With the bankrupt carrier expected to cut as many as 13,000 jobs, some in the industry say the time may be ripe for a corporate marriage . US Airways, whose management has a history of making bids for larger airlines that are in bankruptcy, confirmed that it has hired investment advisors to weigh the opportunities presented by...

Higher Gossip John Updike Alfred A. Knopf: 502 pp., $40 Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts William H. Gass Alfred A. Knopf: 350 pp., $28.95 Partway through "Higher Gossip," the seventh and final collection of reviews and occasional pieces by the late John Updike, I began to understand the problem I've always had with the author's work. It's pleasant enough - congenial, intelligent, fluidly written - but only rarely is it great. As to why this is, "Higher Gossip" offers an unintended answer by revealing not so much the range of Updike's interests as the chatty conventionality of his ideas.

Stars bundled up. Studio execs forked over cash. Everyone got headaches from altitude (and hangovers). The Sundance Film Festival's opening weekend has come and gone again, leaving a trail of exhausted but excited independent filmmakers and happier, swag-laden celebs. Here's a guide to who partied where in Park City, Utah. Bing Bar: With deep leather couches and three floors of open bars, the Claimjumper Hotel was transformed by search engine Bing to house film junkets, cocktail parties and a performance series that included stand-up from Aziz Ansari and concerts from Cobra Starship, the Civil Wars and the biggest party draw — a 45-minute set from rapper Drake.

Gossiping is bad, right? Not so fast. Spreading information might have some positive effects, such as lowering stress -- if it's the right kind of gossip. A study published online recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that the way people gossiped in four experimental settings led to constructive outcomes. Researchers from UC Berkeley used the term "prosocial" gossip to describe people warning about deceitful behavior observed in others. It's different from the type of rumormongering we do when we talk about the bad behavior of celebrities, although let's not count that out as a good time.