cupcakes at home

Williams Sonoma is stocking a cupcake mix (from the LA based cupcake chain Sprinkles). That sounds yummy!

Nielsen ratings + DVRs

The Nielsen ratings finally have numbers that take into account people who watch later with DVRs. It's interesting to see what shows seem to have a lot of DVR viewers.

Dancing With The Stars

So, American Idol did the From Justin to Kelly movie a while back, and while I never saw it, a movie I'd definitely go see is one with a bunch of the professional dancers from Dancing with the Stars. I think Apolo Anton Ohno's partner, Julianne Hough seems like a dead ringer for Kate Hudson (less so in the picture on her bio page) and could probably do an equally good job of acting, so I'd vote for having her in the DWTS movie. However, I shouldn't really slam American Idol since I've recently heard a couple of songs from past Americal Idol people which I've liked, so I think I'm going to buy them...

Studio 60

NBC is actually going to broadcast the remaining Studio 60 episodes starting on May 24th. I hadn't gotten around to killing the season pass, and unfortunately, even though the show hasn't been very good, I don't think I can stop myself from watching the rest of the episodes to see if it eventually hit a good groove. I think I just really like Sarah Paulson too - I have watched a bunch of crappy vehicles with her (Leap of Faith, anyone?), and I truly cannot justify watching those unless I have an excuse like inexplicably liking one of the actors...

No more drive

Aaaaand that was fast... Fox Cancels Drive. At what point can we start calling Nathan Fillion a show-killer? I like him, but I'm not sure I gravitate toward him as a leading man. But he was on Firefly, and was getting a bigger part on Miss Match before it got cancelled, and now this? Seems like he's well on his way to show killer status.

Traveler

There were some good early reviews of the ABC midseason show Traveler and it's hitting the schedule earlier than expected, on May 10th. The show is about two guys who get framed for a crime; it sounds like a fun summer show...

TV schedules for 2007-2008

The 2007 Network Upfront Presentations are scheduled for May 14-17, which is just around the corner. I'm pretty excited to see how things will shake out, but it might be fairly sad if some good shows get cancelled. Although I have to say that there are shows that I used to be attached to, but won't be that sad if they get cancelled (Veronica Mars). Rumors have been posted that make things look pretty bleak for Veronica Mars and Studio 60. I'm cautiously optimistic about Friday Night Lights, and it sounds, sadly, like Gilmore Girls will probably get an abbreviated season (maybe 16 or 18 episodes) for next year. However, I've seen posts that said that the latest GG episode might have been the best of this season, which really isn't saying much, but at least it indicates some improvement. I keep hoping I'll cut down on my TV watching and maybe some key cancellations will facilitate that.

60 Things Worth Shortening Your Life For

Barry Sonnenfeld documents 60 things that are worthy of shortening your life. I'm assuming this is in my most recent Esquire issue, but I haven't read it yet. I don't care much about the scary dangerous things, but the list of food stuffs is pretty intriguing...

CBS WATCH!

I was browsing the newstand a couple days ago and came across the brand spanking newCBS WATCH! magazine, which is apparently a new magazine designed to sell the stars on on the CBS shows while publicizing their shows. The feature article is all about JLH (aka Jennifer Love Hewitt or the Ghost Whisperer). I was tempted to buy it since it's only $1.99, but it looked so lame, it didn't even seem worth the money. In contrast, I was totally willing to spend $5 on the InStyle Home magazine, and in the past I totally bought some other TV related magazine (but that wasn't limited to just one procedural heavy network), even when it was also total crap but at least prettier when I picked it up and flipped through it. Anyway, it's entertaining to look at the website see the content they are squeezing out of their stars (Eric Close on vacation, Navi Rawat talks about Miami, Danny Pino gives back to the community). I wonder if they have to have equal coverage for all their shows...

wedding gowns

Disney launches their wedding gown line.

Top Sports Movies

ROTTEN TOMATOES covers the top rated Sports Movies; this one is for totoro because he seems be a total sucker for sports movies. The link is from the ESPN Sports guy.

Concierge reality show

Is it bad that I'm excited about a Bravo reality show about luxury concierges? Bravo's reality shows haven't been doing as well lately, but I'm totally intrigued by this concept. Although this will probably mean that I'll have to write concierge off my list of second careers, since I hate people. :P

Office + Wikipedia

Office dorks bring down Wikipedia - this is totally awesome that too many people tried to make edits after the Office shout-out. Or this is a totally hilarious commentary on Wikipedia as well...

Bert's Blanket

One of my favorite old Sesame Street clips was a song about Bert's Blanket, and it's nice that it's at least partially captured here, but it's like a hilarious black market DVD you can buy in Asia where the video is actually some guy who recorded the movie on a camcorder. I mean seriously, Bert's blanket deserves at least a tripod! Maybe they are going for a cinema verite look...

A second season of Friday Night Lights

Looks like things are looking at least decent for a second season pickup for Friday Night Lights. Hopefully, this will give me more time to convert all of you! Watch out for me!

Peeps and more

I have a couple of fun links from the USA Today (gah, I know!) Pop Candy blog which is actually quite fun. First up, Peeps dioramas created for a Washington Post contest. Peeps are hilarious and it's funny to see the elaborate setups people made. Maybe I should have a party with a contest for Peeps dioramas; that might be fun. My housemates and I were talking about how it would be fun to have an Easter egg party, and I personally thought it would be fun to have all the alcohol hidden in Easter eggs, so if you want to drink, you have to find your alcohol first! So watch out if you ever get an Easter party invite from me!

MTV is also airing the old seasons of Undressed, which is only notable because it has lots of people before they were stars (Chad Michael Murray, Adam Brody, Autumn Reeser), and because the tomcat was totally addicted to watching this show because while he is not the LCD, he's pretty darn close.

Friday Night Lights again

A list of the great things about Friday Night Lights, coupled with a plea to save the show... Obviously I've gotten totally on the bandwagon. I only need to watch 1.5 more episodes and I'll have caught up on the season. The show definitely makes me sniffly so it's probably a good thing that the tomcat has not been around to see me bawling. But really, it's a great show - sports, life in America, one adorably awkward high school boy (Matt Saracen, my new favorite character on TV, though I wouldn't say it's a crush since ew, too young!), humor and schmoopy bits. So watch!

Andy Barker, PI

Uh oh, the last two episodes of Andy Barker, PI are going to be burned off on a Saturday night. This obviously does not bode well for the show, and its chances for getting a second season. Looks like Andy Richter may be a show killer; I really liked Andy Richter Controls the Universe, but his last two shows, Quintuplets and Andy Barker PI, have been less appealing to me. However, all three series have had very short runs, which always makes the tomcat very sad.

In other news, the nickname Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) appears to have stuck to the tomcat's friend who is in fact an LCD. So thanks to totoro, who I totally stole the nickname from. But seriously, this is the guy who has the Notebook and Brown Bunny out at the same time from Netflix...

The Wire

Television Without Pity is doing recaps of the Wire. It looks like they might be doing all the old episodes (as opposed to just a one off episode), but I'm not sure. I'm excited to read future recaps to see the perspectives, but I have to say that the first episode was more verbatim description than I'd like, but the recapper is just starting to watch the show so it takes a while to get into the show and be able to offer insights. So, I'll definitely be reading these!

Friday Night Lights

As the tomcat found out last weekend, I've become totally obsessed with catching up on all the Friday Night Lights episodes that have been piling up on my Tivo, but I hadn't gotten around to watching. But suffice to say, that I have now gotten hooked on the show. Bravo was playing mini-marathons of FNL every Saturday, but inexplicably (to me, at least), they were replaying about five of the recent episodes over and over again. So when I finally got around to watching the 20+ episodes on my Tivo, it turned out there were a bunch of the same episodes, meaning that I could quickly clear down the Tivo, after figuring out the duplicates. Anyway, I highly recommend the show - and I think you all should watch! I'm going to spend part of my weekend catching up on the last unseen episodes online - and I brought home a super long ethernet cord so I'm not on a four foot leash, since my computer is in a death spiral and refuses to stay logged on the home wireless network for more than five minutes... That would be a bad online viewing experience... In other news, I'm finally starting to think about getting a computer of my own. However, I've also been car shopping for the past three years, so this might not mean much...

MI 5

The fifth season of MI-5 will air on BBC America. So, I really like this show - it's a gripping espionage thriller (can you having a boring espionage story?), but A&E obviously didn't want to keep airing the episodes from season 4 (they aired all the episodes on a Saturday night at the last minute), so I'm happy it has gotten picked up in the US. However, I don't get BBCA, so I guess I'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD...

Drive

Here's an early review for Drive, the Fox show about some crazy illegal road race. The tomcat is super excited about this one, because it involves cars, and racing, or something. I don't think I'm going to watch it unless it gets great reviews, although it's produced by Tim Minear, who was part of the Joss Whedon posse, so that at least makes it intriguing to me. But I was just too scarred by the time that the tomcat took me to see Driven, the Sylvester Stallone race car movie movie which was completely terrible and which I still give the tomcat a bad time about.

Sequel to When the Levees Broke

Spike Lee is thinking about doing a sequel to When the Levees Broke, a documentary about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. This was an incredible series, and the tomcat and I really enjoyed it. It was interesting, funny and completely depressing. So if you want to see a lot of different perspectives on the situation in New Orleans and the aftermath, you should check it out.

30 Rock renewed

30 Rock got picked up for next season! Yay! I've just started watching, but now I know I can look forward to a complete season! I have to say I love Tracy Jordan's totally insane character.

jellyfish magazine

My coworker introduced me to this online magazine, which is like a scary interactive People magazine, which is still somehow compelling. I'm totally sad that I think I might read this every week. And why does Victoria Beckham have a MySpace page? These are the things that keep me up at night. And that I really want to know about so I can drop them in casual cocktail party conversation... I am the life of the party.

Mmm, breakfast

After seeing the Jimmy Dean Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick talked up on the Daily Show and having our own transcendental food on a stick experience at the Minnesota State Fair (to see examples...), the tomcat and I had to try this. We finally found it after months of searching, and had an apartment breakfast event! It was actually pretty good and I was intrigued by the chocolate chip and blueberry pancake options, although it was slightly sad that those are separate varieties, rather than the fabulous combo of both blueberries and chocolate chips, which is my personal favorite pancake flavor (although banana and blueberry has been making a run for status as my favorite recently). However, if they had that, I might be worried that my Tivo has spyware or that Jimmy Dean researchers were listening in on my conversations. Although, seriously, how can you go wrong with both chocolate and blueberries?

Bachelor recaps

The Sports Gal is off to a feisty start on her Bachelor recaps. Exciting! I'm very excited to have her writing on a semi-regular basis again. I think I'm actually somewhat disturbingly similar to her in a number of ways; I'm not sure if all women feel that way (which might explain her appeal), or whether I am in fact seemingly similar in a way that is not like all other women. The tomcat might have to weigh in on that.

Black Donnellys is pulled

NBC's Black Donnellys has been pulled from the schedule, but I'm not sure if that has any impact on whether Studio 60 might move slightly away from the death watch. I just gave the tomcat Sports Night so he can watch an actual decent Aaron Sorkin show; we'll see if he revises his opinions about Studio 60 or at least downgrades his current high opinion that show after some Sports Night love. In other news, the Wedding Bells has also been taken off the schedule, so I guess I can remove that season pass and delete the cached episodes.

After taking my friend ml's advice, I'm watching Friday Night Lights and enjoying it - I finally got through the episodes I taped back in December... I'm watching it a bit out of order, but I'm too lazy to watch the episodes in order online...

Chuck Klosterman covers the Final Four

Chuck Klosterman is writing a blog from the Final Four, and it's pretty entertaining. My favorite part has been his recap from the open practices. He comments on the cheerleaders and the pep bands, and the Gator nation. I watched the games on Saturday, but was disappointed, particularly by the UCLA game, since UCLA got whupped on. Sigh. Gecko, the roommate, speculates that totoro's posts drive more traffic to the blog because he actually has commentary, so for the next week or two, I'll try to give you my utterly unique perspective on the world. One can only hope this will not devolve into me telling you exactly how I am feeling, exactly what I am eating, and exactly what I'm listening to at the very moment that I am writing.

Also, I watched Stick It and was hoping to link to Y's post if he actually watched it, but apparently his blog doesn't really allow you to search it, that I could find, and google was also unhelpful. The tomcat's friend who is the lowest common denominator for movies (meaning pretty much no standards) vouched for the movie, and I found it entertaining, but don't know that I'd recommend it or tell you that you must watch it. However, I did force my roommates to watch... I didn't realize the movie was going to have a feel good moral about asserting yourself, controlling your destiny and not being too judgemental. Personally, I would have just been happy with seeing the main character win the gold medal instead... Which would defeat the message that they were giving, but really, why am I watching a sports oriented movie if not to see them win? Seriously. Coming up soon on my queue - a girls volleyball movie which I now realize stars Laila Ali, currently on Dancing with the Stars.