Dinner party? Drinking with some work buddies? Meeting your girlfriend’s parents for the first time? Just relax—we’ll give you something to talk about. 

They say: 
Why did Rick Perry continue his campaign?

You say: 
It’s all about the Benjamins.

Perry’s advisors think Rick Santorum’s status as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney might not last and see South Carolina as a state in which their guy can will play well.  Plus, Perry, has millions left in his war chest, more than Santorum, who is just now beginning to rake in funding. 

Reuters quoted a senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s campaign as saying “When you’re the governor of Texas, you’re never broke,” an assessment that Perry’s own spokeman Ray Sullivan said was “not a bad analysis.”

It’s still an uphill battle though. Last night Public Policy Polling, which is currently finishing a new survey of South Carolina voters, tweeted: “Perry polling around 5% in South Carolina…hard to understand why he’s continuing on. Paul a nonfactor there as well.”

They say:
I don’t know what I’m going to do this weekend without a Cowboys game to watch. 

You say:
Forget America’s team: we’ve still got Texas’s team. 

With former Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips as their defensive coordinator (and despite a season full of injuries that has left them led by third-string quarterback T.J. Yates), the Houston Texans will play—and host—their first-ever NFL playoff game on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Rubbing it in with a little Cowboys trolling, Chris Baldwin of CultureMap Houston foresees a Texans victory, meaning that “the Texans should have at least as many playoff wins over the last 15 years as America’s Team does. That would be one.”

They say:
Did you hear that Kelly Clarkson’s support of Ron Paul for president goosed her record sales?

You say:
It’s not true.

According to Keith Caulfield of Billboard, “little evidence exists to support the theory that Clarkson’s praise for Paul helped her sales. In fact, her album sales actually dropped when compared with the previous week.”

Caulfield noted that in the week that ended on Sunday, January 1, Clarkson’s album Stronger sold 25,000 copies, down from 41,000 in the week before Christmas. It’s just that because record sales were down for everyone that week, the record still rose from #39 to #17 on the Billboard albums chart.

Clarkson’s digital sales did shoot way up, but that, Caulfield argued, probably had more to do with being featured heavily on iTunes (with a discounted album price of $7.99) than Clarkson’s love of the gold standard. 

They say:
I don’t want you putting me in a retirement home down in the Valley. 

You say:
But the Texas Gulf Coast is a happening retirement spot!

According to the Associated Press, Texans and non-Texans alike have begun flocking to Rockport and other towns instead of Florida—partly for economic reasons (our cost-of-living is cheaper), and partly because, well, we’re just nicer than those folks in Florida.

“Here, we’re called Winter Texans. In Florida, we’re snowbirds,” 73 year-old Iowa native Jan Evenson said.

“Years ago, the city would shut down during the winter,” said Gary Mysorski, the director of parks and recreation for Port Aransas. Now he’s running activities year-round.