Fox has renewed The Simpsons for two more historic and satiric seasons, bringing its overall total to a record-breaking 22. Sorry, Gunsmoke.

The network has requested 44 more episodes, bringing the four-fingered family’s total to a whopping 493. However, while the renewal means The Simpsons has topped Gunsmoke’s 20-year run as the longest-running prime-time entertainment series, Springfield’s finest have a way to go before besting the western’s episode count. Gunsmoke played for an astonishing 635 episodes.

To mark their longevity, Matt Groening & Co. last month launched “Best. 20 Years. Ever.,” a yearlong celebration leading up to Jan. 14, 2010, the two-decade anniversary of the ‘toon’s debut. Woo-hoo!

President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama presented the 26-time Grammy winner with the Library of Congress’ second-ever Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The award was established to recognize “lifetime achievement in promoting song as a vehicle of musical expression and cultural understanding.”

The R&B-star duo are spending one-on-one time at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Star Island mansion in Miami Beach. “It’s very private, you can’t see onto the property,” a source said of Combs’ nearly 13,000-square-foot beachfront home.

Earlier this week, sources said that the pair had been in touch, with Brown contacting Rihanna on her 21st birthday on February 20. A rep for the “Disturbia” singer denied that she had talked to him on the phone but… They apparently reconnected somehow.

“While Chris is reflective and saddened about what happened, he is really happy to be with the woman he loves,” a source told People, which first reported the apparent reconciliation.

This looks to be the pair’s first in-person reunion since Brown was arrested February 8 for allegedly assaulting Rihanna and leaving her with visible injuries. Except for flashes of them in transit (separately) from here to there, and some pics of Rihanna that just surfaced from her sojourn to Mexico last weekend, both have lain incredibly low since.

Brown, who was booked on Grammy night on suspicion of making criminal threats, is due to be arraigned in Los Angeles Superior Court on March 5 but, according to the L.A. District Attorney’s Office, that might not happen. “We don’t have the evidence yet. LAPD detectives are still investigating,” D.A. spokeswoman Jane Robison said Wednesday.

“The D.A. is being even more thorough than usual with this case. They don’t want to mess it up,” said a source close to the investigation. At this point, it’s unclear what Rihanna and Brown’s reported reunion could mean for the D.A.’s case.

“Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired,” Brown said in a statement released February 15. “I am seeking the counseling of my pastor, my mother and other loved ones and I am committed, with God’s help, to emerging a better person.”

The 85-year-old former Johnny Carson sidekick has been hospitalized for several weeks with pneumonia, as well as other unspecified ailments, rep Howard Bragman said.

Bragman declined to comment on reports that McMahon has also been diagnosed with bone cancer, but did say the TV icon’s condition is “serious” and his family is at his side. “We’re going to hope for the best right now,” he said, adding that eveyone is “very optimistic” and McMahon is “gathering his strength.”

McMahon has had his share of troubles in recent months, including bank debts, a home foreclosure, a process server-biting dog and a broken neck, which he blames for his financial woes.

Despite repeated denials that they were even engaged, Gisele Bündchen and her Super Bowl-winning beau, Tom Brady, have sealed the deal.

The pair swapped vows Thursday in a Catholic ceremony in Santa Monica, with Bündchen donning an ivory strapless gown with a trumpet skirt and long train by Dolce & Gabbana. The Italian design duo also outfitted the supermodel’s three beloved dogs in floral lace collars.

Brady’s 1-year-old son, John Edward Thomas Moynahan, his child from a previous relationship with Bridget Moynahan, was among those in attendance at the intimate ceremony. Curiously, Bridget Moynahan is a member of the parish where the wedding took place, St. Monica’s Catholic Church.

News of the wedding was first reported by Us Weekly. Bündchen’s last dodge of the whole “I do” question came just last month, when a Brazilian magazine asked her to confirm a report that Brady had popped the question in L.A.

“I wasn’t even there. How can that be true?” replied the 28-year-old model, who before her New England Patriot came along was prominently linked to Leonardo DiCaprio. The Boston Globe reported yesterday that Bündchen was spotted over the weekend with a gold ring on that finger while celebrating Carnival in her native Brazil.

If you are like most people, Google.com is your constant companion in the search for relevant information. Surprisingly, most people have never really taken the time to learn to use this powerful tool effectively. Implementing a few simple tricks can hone your searches, revealing the right information more quickly.

Going to the Second Page is Wasted Time.
A lot of people put one or two general words in the search box, then press return.
They are then presented with a long list of results, most of which do not match. This is a bad use of your time. The best Google searches do not require scanning page after page of results. You will find what you need faster if you get very specific in your search description, then scan the results to see if you were successful. If what you need is not on the first page, don’t go to the second page. Instead, narrow your parameters in the search box and do another query.

Use Quotes
Quotes are one of the most powerful tools in Google search. Google starts looking for web pages that contain all the words put in the search box. The terms can be in any order or at any place on the web page. For example, let’s say you were looking for the famous Churchill quote, “Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” Unfortunately, all you remember is the end, …loss of enthusiasm. If you put this term in the Google search box with no quotes around it, Google looks at all pages that have these three words. This search will yield articles about workplace feminism, a charm blog, and opposition during World War One. If you put “loss of enthusiasm” in quotes, Google looks for instances where those three words appear one after the other, in this precise order. Churchill’s quote jumps to the top of the list. Whenever you’re searching for a phrase that contains common words, using quotes can increase your chances of success.

Use the Minus Sign
If you want Google to skip over pages that contain specific words, put the minus sign in front of those words. For example, if you are searching for the hottest news on Britney Spears, an optimal search would look like this: “Britney Spears” -pickle -weapon-aboriginal. This would eliminate all pages that contain the word spears that discuss the latest trends in dill pickle recipes, medieval weaponry, and native Australian hunting techniques. Remember to avoid excluding common words when using the minus sign. For example, “-the” would exclude most of the web pages in the world.

Use the Plus Sign
Just as the minus sign eliminates words from a search, the plus sign accentuates words in the search, giving extra weight to pages that have this word. If you were looking for pictures of the planet Neptune, your search might look like this: Neptune planet +photo -god -roman -horse. This would weight the search towards astronomy sites with photos, and away from horse racing and Roman mythology.

Use Or
There are times you don’t want Google looking for all the terms in the search, but for any of the terms in the search. For example, let’s say you are looking for the latest information on crime in metro Boston. Naturally, you would include Boston in your search, but you would also want to include the names of the other neighboring communities. You might enter the search as: “Crime Statistics” Boston Brookline Somerville. But this would only find pages that contain the names of all three communities. By using the or command, your search would be more accurate because it would bring up pages that contain crime statistics on Somerville, where Boston and Brookline are not mentioned. So the more successful search would look like this: “Crime Statistics” Boston or Brookline or Somerville. This would bring up all pages that contain information on each of these individual communities.

Use the Tilden Sign
This is the little squiggly (~) character right beside the “1″ key. There are times when you are looking for something, but don’t know quite what to call it. Let’s say you’re looking for information on corruption in Congress. Where do you start? You don’t know whether to search Senate, House, Congress or committee. Putting the tilden in front of the word signifies that you’re looking for “words similar to this.” Google will include synonyms to those words, expanding your search.

These are just a few of the simple ways you can optimize your searches. That little Google search box has many more tricks in store for you. Next week, I’ll show you how to quickly get everything from weather, to sports scores, to stock quotes from that little magic box.