I continue to really enjoy young-adult fiction, so here are some recommendations for recent books if you also enjoy the genre. I've gotten a rave recommendation for Twilight, by one of the authors on that list, but I'm trying to restrain myself and wait for the book to come from the library. Hopefully I'll be at the top of the wait list soon.

The Amazing Race gets picked up for an 11th season

PhD Comics covers Lost

Someone has noticed that Harriet's last name from Studio 60 is Hayes, and there was an Ainsley Hayes on the West Wing. And seriously, if I could have Ainsley back on this show, that would be so awesome! Of course, she's too busy waiting for Horatio Caine to make overly dramatic statements over at CSI: Miami.

I watched the second episode of Studio 60 and I have to say that I found it to be more charming than the first one. But I'm still not sure why I'm supposed to like or even care about Amanda Peet. Her character is just so ... enh.

DeathWatch - Fall '06

Nyanko recently posted about this, but for people who might be wondering what the best new shows to watch this television season may be, this may be one way of figuring that out. Bravo's Brilliant But Cancelled contest involves placing bets on what you think the next show to be cancelled will be, and there's some thought that maybe even some television execs are involving themselves in this. The DeathWatch website gives a list of shows and odds on each show, providing a good idea of what shows people think have the best (and worst) chance of lasting.

For example, "Ugly Betty" and "Men in Trees" have the best odds, and are probably not long for their respective Fall schedules. On the other hand "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Heroes" are looking at ~200 to 1 odds for being the next to go.

This leads me to my next point. I recently checked out the "Studio 60" pilot episode, and it looks promising. However, Amanda Peet needs to stop with the smirking. Smarmy guys are bad enough, I'm not sure I can take smarmy guys and smarmy girls all together in the same show talking as fast as possible.

Toothpaste, hair gel, and shampoo may now go in your carry on! Yay!

Two Fox shows, Happy Hour and Justice, have already been put on hiatus. We may have winners for the first two shows to go.

Since the WB went under, their promo voiceover guy had to find another job, and apparently, it's as the voiceover for the new Jessica Simpson movie. He's got to pay the mortgage somehow... And seriously, if he could say things like "Tonight, on a fresh Charmed" and "mother and daughter fight and make up, tonight on Gilmore Girls!" or "her choice changed everything. Joey something something something Dawson Pacey blah blah", then he can certainly handle the drivel that anyone else hands him. Though, thinking about this, it would be pretty awesome to be the copywriter for WB show promos...

the sports guy + the wire

Bill Simmons (ESPN's The Sports Guy) gives a pretty lengthy spiel about his love for HBO's The Wire in a recent column, calling it things like "the most important television show of all-time."

The article starts off being a commentary on the mad-lib nature of modern sports movies, and the fact that people (like me) still find them appealing. I've commented on this before (though not in such eloquent fashion), and the corresponding fact that every new heart-tugging Disney sports movie can easily put out a trailer that makes me at least consider shelling out to see it in the theater.

The second part of the article is all about The Wire, and it ends with a decidedly un-Simmons-like ending.

A Q & A with the creator of the Wire.

Julia Stiles recounts a story of having to make a phone call to 50-Cent, which sounds pretty hilarious.

My exciting news is that I managed to win the first week of the fantasy tv league, mainly due to the tomcat's ineptitude and the fact that he didn't know we were starting so he had a totally crappy lineup. So yay for me! Sadly, my opponents in the coming weeks will not be as clueless so I might have to work to stay in the game.

Gecko, the tomcat and I watched Grey's Anatomy and my question is what the hell happened to Grey's Anatomy? I really liked the first season and most of last season, and I understand for things like the finale, the Super Bowl episode or the season opener, you have to be over the top, but seriously? Seriously. Last night's episode - not the Grey's Anatomy that I love. The whole subplot with Bailey talking to the guy through the door, where their emotional state is supposed to be parallel about wanting to save someone? Awkward. Bailey saying goodbye to Denney's body? Weird. The subplot about the chief and his wife? Random and wedged in. The show got great ratings, but it may quickly lose me if it doesn't cut down on the total crazy. Gecko will probably never watch with me because the show was bad enough that I turned to snarky mode and was laughing/hiding in pain during the supposedly sappy scenes. And my standards for sap-susceptibility is so low, that I'll be all sad for anything, so if you can make me not want to cry with you, there's a problem.

There are deleted scenes from the Office posted on NBC.com

A lot of times, the extras on DVDs aren't all that entertaining, but I have say that I loved valley girl version of this scene from House. It makes me giggle. I'm positive that I would not be able to memorize a whole bunch of lines and then valley girl-ize them without totally screwing it up.

See, I'm not crazy, Fametracker rips out all the subscription cards, cardboard ads, and perfume strips too. And they're funny, so since we so much alike, I'm funny too, right? Right?

I'm all set up with my digital cable now and I've been having a blast with it. I watched the first episode of the Wire through On Demand, and I have to say that the interface for OnDemand slow and rather annoying to use. I might watch a few more things through OnDemand, but I'd rather TiVo them and then watch via the TiVo since the fast forward/pause/rewind buttons are much better on TiVo. The Series3 is starting to seem a lot more appealing since I don't think I'd have much use for On Demand. I'm also getting the Amazing Race from the Game Show Network, and happily season 3 starts in two weeks. I'll finally get to watch it, even though I've had it on my computer for probably about two years. Sigh.

I personally think it's hilarious that there's NY Times profile of one of the producers of the Office that completely gives away the cliffhanger from last season. It's just funny when someone is completely oblivious to the implications of what they're writing; it's not like this is earth-shattering, but it would pretty weird to be reading along and suddenly found out the answer to a long-awaited season premiere.

Updated to fix a typo.

The digital cable box has arrived! Woo! I think I've managed to get the IR blasters set up correctly, and now I'm loading up the info. It's very exciting. The on-demand is also working, so I think tonight's fun will be watching the Wire! Yay! I'm so excited. The IR blaster is being a little weird so I think I might have to troubleshoot that a bit more, but so far, so good. We'll see if it actually records my shows tonight (fingers crossed).

And in other news, a few of us are doing a fantasy TV league (don't be hurt if we didn't invite you since the league is limited to 6 people, which was disappointing, and most of us haven't actually read all the rules yet so we're just flailing about so it didn't seem worth it to alienate all of our friends in one go). But we've created a monster in gecko since she actually is monitoring and managing her team. I still haven't figured out who exactly is in my league... But we'll let you know if it's actually fun, and if you should check it out! And since our readership is quite small, there's a decent chance that actually all the people who read this post are actually in the fantasy league... Heh.

Psych has been renewed.

Series3 is here

Tivo press release concerning the new HD Tivo Series3.

THX certified, dual HD tuners (ATSC or CableCARD), OLED front-panel display that can show you what it's recording, 32 hour HD/300 hour SD capacity. $799 price tag.

Somebody get one already and tell us how it is.

The fourth season of MI-5, the British spy drama, will be airing on A&E starting this Friday. It's an excellent show, so if you're looking for something interesting to watch, you should definitely check it out.

You can watch the pilot of Smith streaming from Google Video.

Ha, even Milo Ventimiglia wanted his Gilmore Girls character, Jess, to get killed.

Fantastic! The Wire has been renewed for a fifth and final season. Hmm, maybe I'll keep my digital cable long enough to see that. Of course, if the gap between seasons is a long time, I won't still be on the discounted get-'em-hooked rate from the cable company.

You can call Dwight's voicemail.

Facebook is going to be expanding to allow non-students to join

I decided that stalking my friends with HBO was going to be too complicated so after finding out that it would only be $20 more per month to get HBO, I'm upgrading our apartment to Digital Plus with ON DEMAND! (Surprise, gecko!) The possibility for tragedy is pretty much endless since it includes the Game Show Network (maybe I'll finally get around to watching seasons 3 and 4 of Amazing Race) and the Sundance Channel. We'll be getting twice as many channels. Friends, if I don't call you back, it's because I'm too busy cleaning down my TiVo. Sorry. The $20/month deal only lasts for a year, so I guess I'll get back to you then. Just kidding. I hope.

You can watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip online on AOL starting today.

An interview with the uptight doctor guy from Firefly (Seah Maher), and apparently, there's still an outside chance that there could be another Firefly movie... Or at least the option to create another one hasn't expired yet...

MGM is crazy. They simultaneously announced plans to do Legally Blonde 3 (without Reese, although based on LB2, I might have to pass on this), Into the Blue 2 (I blame the tomcat for making me watch this crap - Jessica Alba is annoying!) and (total yay!) The Cutting Edge 3. It's always funny when you greenlight a third movie, when most people haven't seen or even heard of the second one...

There's a reality show about how Chanel's couture line gets created. I wish I got the Sundance channel.

There's the possibility that Tobias Funke could appear on Scrubs, as Tobias Funke. That would be so awesome.

Brilliant But Cancelled will be hosting a TV show dead pool!

Happily, the TSA has updated their restrictions on what liquids can be carried on. Contact solution, and solid lipsticks and deoderants can be carried on. Woo! Reading this list is actually pretty entertaining.

In other news, I finally reached TiVo zero for the first time this summer, which makes me very happy. And since I finally got around to watching Project Runway (which I've been recording for probably the past seven months), I actually finally got somewhat hooked on it, so I'm watching pretty much the entire season now since Bravo is running a bunch of marathons. Hopefully I'll be done with the season three backlog by the time the new shows really start.

American Eagle is starting a new chain that will be aimed at the 25-40 year old market. So nicer than AE, but also pricier. It also looks like J.Crew is starting a twenty/thirtysomething brand as well... Is it bad that I'm pretty excited about this?

A positive review for the first Gilmore Girls episode sans the Sherman-Palladinos. Beware of spoilers.

Battlestar Galactica webisodes start today. I hope these will be better than the Office webisodes...

Sweet, you can see sneak peeks of some of the CBS shows, courtesy of TiVo. I'll definitely be watching Smith; I'll have to check some reviews to see if I'm interested in any of the others.

An endorsement for the Wire

The Sports Guy gives a rousing endorsement for the Wire. (number 17 on this list) No, seriously, it's good.

In other news, I finally found the new equivalent for the Blog This button in the Google toolbar - it's the Send to button, which allows you to send to Blogger. Took me quite a while to figure it out, there's no help documentation on it, and boy, was I angry.

And lastly, the tomcat has become a total Gilmore Girls junkie. I think he watched four episodes last night. Max just broke with Lorelei. Of course, I was sitting on the couch playing the DS Lite, while bawling because I'm the biggest sucker for Gilmore Girls... Sigh.

And I have friends who have HBO so I'm starting to test the waters to see if they will be my HBO hookup so I can watch the new season of the Wire which starts shortly! We'll see if I'm successful. I might end up breaking into their house in the middle of the night just to watch! That's how addicted I am to the Wire.

Le Job

There is going to be a Canadian version of the Office, which will of course be in French. Heh.