The real Charlie Sheen joined Twitter on March 1. Prior to that, an imposter or “squatter,” as Twitter refers to those tweeting under a false name, had secured the handle @charliesheen. The faux Sheen was quickly removed and the former “Two and a Half Men” star slipped into the handle with a “verified” blue check on his account. He now has more than two million followers.

Twitter has 175 million users and counting and only select, mostly high-profile people are granted “verified” status. How are verified users vetted? Twitter refused to explain the process, saying via e-mail, “we continue to very selectively verify accounts most at risk for impersonation on a one-off and highly irregular basis.”

But what does that actually mean?

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Or so it would appear from this week’s stories on the arrival in Tokyo of a vending machine that sells gold. Despite all the hoopla here, Japan wasn’t the first place to set up gold vending machines. The first such machines were sighted in Germany in June 2009, and installed in Abu Dhabi a year later. Even the slow-going U.S. beat Japan’s innovators by a month.

The gold machine is the latest to be added to the country’s long roster of strange vending machines. It might even be seen as a rather tame addition, compared to the humming gizmos lined with makeup, underwear and even pornography in this vending machine paradise.

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Irving Azoff, Live Nation Entertainment’s colorful executive chairman, has long been known in the music industry for his short fuse. Now thanks to Twitter, anyone who feels like it can get a taste of Azoff’s legendary temper.

In less than 24 hours, during which he’s posted just eight tweets (and changed his profile picture twice), @irvingazoff has already gotten involved in a series of surreal microblog brawls: with celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Billboard business columnist Glenn Peoples (”u r a jerk,” Azoff tweeted) and rival concert promoter Randy Phillips, whom Azoff implied was a habitual liar.

Azoff apparently signed up for a Twitter account earlier this summer, but until Tuesday night, he had barely used it. Then, out of the blue, he let loose a tweet that set the music world—industry and fans alike—ablaze: “so if you want ticket prices to go down stop stealing music.”

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After leaving MySpace last April, DeWolfe has resurfaced as the CEO of MindJolt Inc., a San Francisco-based company that he acquired several months ago with the backing of Austin Ventures for an undisclosed sum. MindJolt helps small game makers – such as one- or two-person programming shops – with tools to promote themselves to consumers on social networking sites.

That leaves the game makers more time to focus on the creative challenges of making games, while MindJolt operates key features like the “leaderboards” that allow players to show off high game scores and the virtual currency system used by players to buy in-game items like fancy uniforms and powerful weapons.

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Conjuring up references to 1970s cult classics like “Shaft,” Just-a-Band’s latest video, “Ha-He,” introduces the fictional Makmende sporting shades, chains, an Afro pick and what appears to be polyester. Directed by Jim Chuchu and Mbithi Masya, the clip is a tribute to “ass-kicking” of days past–even the name “Makmende” is a throwback to a word used in mid-1990s Nairobi to connote a know-it-all or local hero (and bully.)

The video–with “Big-G,” “Godfrey and the Laydayz,” “Black Sahara” and others backing up Makmende–has drawn more than 24,300 hits in the week since its release and the success doesn’t end there. Kenyan bloggers and Tweeters have seized on the video and launched a campaign for the man they’re calling Kenya’s very own Chuck Norris–complete with one liners about Makmende’s superhero skills and prowess. Makmende on Facebook has already collected 19,200 fans–with more joining by the minute.

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That strong-selling tradition continued with the “New Super Mario Bros. Wii,” which was released on Nov. 15. The game sold nearly 1.4 million copies in the U.S. in its first two weeks, making it the No. 2 best-selling title for the month of November, according to market research firm NPD Group, which released the data on Thursday.

In an interview, Bill Trinen, a senior manager of product marketing at Nintendo of America, spoke to The Wall Street Journal about the latest game.

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Inspired by the avant-garde Dogme 95 movement in cinema, Conte says he started recording songs on video about two years ago as a quick way to create music that felt “organic and raw,” he says. He made up the word “videosong” and attached some rules to it: No lip-synching for instruments or voice, and no hidden sounds–what you see is what you hear.

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On Nov. 19, Microsoft Game Studios is starting a new season of the multiplayer game show “1 vs. 100,” after a highly-popular demo version earlier this summer. The game is based on the popular show of the same name that started in the Netherlands and has since aired in more than two dozen countries. In the game and on the show, a randomly selected contestant must defeat “the Mob” of 100 other players to collect a cash prize.

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The artist, who calls his revved-up rockabilly sound “psychobilly,” earlier this year cooked up a scheme to put almost his entire catalog up on Amazon.com, for free. “I’m losing a little bit of money in the short run,” Mr. Nixon says. But “in the long run, there is going to be much bigger Mojo awareness.” He and his online distributor, The Orchard, hope the move will lead to bigger sales and other opportunities, such as licensing more of his songs to Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

Mr. Nixon, who was hoping to get just 10,000 or so downloads out of the scheme, says he is very happy with the outcome so far.

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But while games use metal songs in their trailers, during play the soundtrack usually transitions into orchestral music. “Brutal Legend” on the other hand, a game for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 that’s being released tomorrow by Electronic Arts (ERTS), is all metal, all the time.

The game’s creators, Double Fine Productions, have assembled what may be the most extensive metal soundtrack anywhere–108 songs by 75 different bands covering a range of sub-genres.

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They got their answer Thursday, when Random House announced “now that all of our security and logistical issues surrounding the e-book of ‘The Lost Symbol’ have been resolved, the e-book will be released simultaneously with the hardcover on Sept. 15.” Random House’s Doubleday imprint is printing 5 million hardcover copies for the U.S.

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Cheers to the paper for allowing itself to be savaged by “Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones. I particularly enjoyed watching Executive Editor Bill Keller gamely explaining the news business while managing to get a dig into Google (GOOG), The Huffington Post and Drudge Report.

Crave more? Here’s an interview The Wall Street Journal’s new “Speakeasy” blog conducted with Jason Jones about the bit. Excerpt:

How’s the mood at the Times these days?

Edgy? No. It was really quite lovely. Let me tell you this, movies have severely misled me on what newspaper rooms should look like. There was no paper stacked six feet high on people’ desks. No one’s yelling stop the presses.

What are people up to over there?

I think people are using the Internet to look for new jobs. There are lots of great Web sites out there: Monster.com; Craigslist is great.