Dave on Demand: It’s all in the eye of the beholder

If you can't stop the world, can you at least slow it down? Because lately it's wobbling way out of orbit.

This week, Gwyneth Paltrow was anointed "The World's Most Beautiful Woman" by the ultimate arbiter of pulchritude, People magazine.

What am I missing here? Not just beautiful, the most beautiful. In the world. I haven't been this shocked since Leonard Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Paltrow's appearance might best be described as "fairly pleasant." And that's generous. She looks just like her mother, TV actress and Philadelphia native Blythe Danner. Just with pricier exfoliant.

When I first saw the People cover, I assumed it was yet another promotional tie-in to the movie Iron Man 3.

We seem to have entered an era when you can make the most absurd assertions about celebrities and no one blinks.

Did you see Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World?

When you think of luminaries who have the greatest international impact at this moment in time, zeitgeist-shapers like Christina Aguilera no doubt spring to mind. XTina's last Top Ten song was five years ago. She's not even a judge on The Voice anymore.

Time's list also includes both Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. They don't rank remotely that high in my little corner of the world, and about all I do is watch TV. How much time, do you think, the people of Paraguay spend thinking about the Jimmys?

Of course, no roster of the World's Most Influential People would be complete without Lena Dunham, the 26-year-old creator and star of HBO's anguished plea for help, Girls.

Not only that, Time has elevated her to "Icon" status. (Clearly not in the dictionary meaning: "an object of uncritical devotion.")

So now I'm wondering: is Dunham in Iron Man 3, too?

Return of the nerds. It's been a nostalgic week. Faces from the '80s keep showing up on the TV screen.

There's a new Clorox commercial featuring Curtis Armstrong, who was Agnes DiPesto's socially impaired boyfriend on Moonlighting. This was back in the days before Bruce Willis had a movie career.

Armstrong is perhaps best known as Booger from the classic Revenge of the Nerds films.

And who should turn up this week on Mad Men as a swinging, wife-swapping soap opera writer but Ted McGinley. Are you getting flashbacks to Happy Days and The Love Boat?

File this under "small world," but Armstrong and McGinley costarred in three of the four Revenge of the Nerds outings. I guess you could say that together, they killed the '80s.

Little chapel on the prairie. You say you want more nostalgia? You got it.

Timothy Busfield and Melissa Gilbert were wed this week. I'm just going to assume that Busfield doesn't watch Dancing with the Stars.

Gilbert is the eternal TV princess from Little House on the Prairie. Busfield played J.T. on Trapper John M.D. and Main Line adman Elliot on thirtysomething.

I almost hesitate to add that Busfield was also in the first two Revenge of the Nerds films. As a character named Poindexter, no less.

You realize what this means, don't you? This column just made it immeasurably easier to play Five Degrees of Robert Carradine. You're welcome.