Cat Bus Express

New Professor Layton game

2009-06-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

I am getting quite excited about the upcoming Professor Layton game which is slated to be released in late August! This is going to be a tragic time suck. Must get more sleep now in preparation.

Yay, Better Off Ted

2009-06-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

New episodes of Better Off Ted will air starting June 23rd! I'm very excited we won't to wait until mid-season to see more episodes! This is one of maybe three shows that Totoro watches so you know it must be good!

Candy!

2009-05-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

Mandy Moore has a new album out! And Entertainment Weekly's blogger kind of likes it. I might have to check it out. 70s inspired folk pop is right in my wheelhouse.

Pushing Daisies

2009-04-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

The remaining episodes of Pushing Daisies will be aired starting May 30th. I have missed that show.

DWTS dishonesty?

2009-03-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

The Woz claims that the "bottom 2" from last night's show didn't really represent the bottom two vote getters and that his continued presence on the show was already assured. Interesting. Although I'm curious how he knows/thinks he has such a large voter base. Is it all Valleywag/Gizmodo fans?

DWTS injuries

2009-03-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

People are already dropping like flies on Dancing with the Stars. Jewel and Nancy O'Dell have dropped out of the competition with two fractured tibias and a torn meniscus, respectively. Maybe that set is cursed.

Red Bull B-Boy Competition

2009-03-04T07:26:00.000-08:00

I missed this quick mention of the Red Bull B-Boy Challenge airing on MTV last weekend, but it's airing again tonight on MTV2, so I'm going to check it out. I recently watched Planet B-Boy, and it was awesome so I'm looking forward to this.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

2009-02-26T18:03:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what to do here - this movie stars my personal silly girl Kryptonite (Jennifer Garner), but she's with skeezy dude, Matthew McConaughey. Should I see it or not? The trailer has actual moments of kind of cuteness and some moments of tragedy. The ghosts in the movie seem pretty unfortunate. I'll have to wait for the trailer to decide whether I'm just going to cast doubts and common sense aside and just see this.

P.S. Isla Fisher was so cute in Definitely Maybe that she might become another star who I'll see in anything.

Rachel Bilson and Hayden Christensen Are Engaged

2009-02-18T21:15:00.000-08:00

Summer is engaged!

Jabbawockeez

2009-02-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

The Jabbawockeez are in a new Gatorade commercial. I guess they are doing okay for themselves post-ABDC.

TAR

2009-02-13T11:44:00.000-08:00

The Amazing Race is back on Sunday with a new score (oh no! I like the old music!), less scenes in the airport, and the route will be documented via Google Maps.

DWTS Cast

2009-02-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

cc2 mentioned that I had missed a key announcement in the DWTS link earlier this week - Chelsie Hightower from SYTYCD will be one of the pros on DWTS. They certainly are stacking the cast with cute young things. Lil' Kim will be with Derek Hough. Yikes. And Mark Ballas will be with Shawn Johnson.

Hulu

2009-02-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Awesome, Hulu uses newspaper ads to get viewers, giving them a large percentage of viewers over the age of 55.

Dancing With the Stars casting

2009-02-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Julianne Hough will be dancing with her boyfriend, country singer Chuck Wicks in the next season of Dancing with the Stars. Julianne had previously said she would not be returning to DWTS, but I guess the producers figured out how to get her back... Dance with your boyfriend! I guess there won't be rumors of showmance! I wonder who gynmast Shawn Johnson will be paired with; she and Derek Hough would be pretty adorable.

17 Again

2009-02-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

Zac Efron and Matthew Perry are in a movie that looks like a retread of Big - Matthew Perry is 37 (really?) and his life is falling apart and then he magically gets turned into 17 year old Zac Efron. The trailer actually looks marginally entertaining. Marginally.

More Leverage

2009-02-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

Via popcandy, 'Leverage has been renewed for a second season. I know totoro has been watching this show as well. My interest has varied on this show, but I'm still watching so far.

ABC gives green light to 'Let It Go'

2009-02-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

ABC greenlit Lauren Graham's new pilot, but the plot - about a self-help guru who doesn't follow her own advice, sounds a lot like Heather Graham's failed show, Emily's Reasons Why Not, which bit the dust after only one or two airings.

Netflix + HBO

2009-02-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

It looks like Netflix might be investigating streaming HBO Shows for $10. I don't think I'd be interested in this until there's a can't-miss show airing, but I'd be more inclined if it's easy to subscribe/unsubscribe and if I don't have to deal with Comcast in order to add/remove the service. I can't remember if Comcast also charges a fee to change your service, but the fact that I think they might is a deterrent to adding HBO... My dream of getting rid of cable is that much closer!

Taylor Swift concert tour

2009-02-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

Taylor Swift's new concert tour "will feature graphics, sets and other visual elements—including an illuminated fairy tale-like castle—designed by the singer herself". But will it have a unicorn? If so, I'm there!

BHB

2009-02-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

Dancing with the Stars dancers Mark Ballas and Derek Hough will release their band's first album on March 10, just in time to promote it on the new season of DWTS. I guess I'll have to check it out on iTunes and see if it's worth buying.

TAR teams

2009-01-26T11:16:00.000-08:00

The teams have been announced for the new season of the Amazing Race which starts in mid-February. You can see pictures at the CBS website, which tends to give a better perspective of who the strong teams might be. I'm getting excited for the new season!

30 Rock

2009-01-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

30 Rock has already gotten picked up for next year! Yay! I'm excited that at least one of my favorite shows will survive to next year, since Pushing Daisies clearly didn't make it. BTW, I'm in denial about PD's cancellation so don't talk to me about it. Oh, and the Office got picked up too, but that's not much of a surprise.

The Proposal

2009-01-10T21:09:00.000-08:00

I think I might have finally lost it, but I found the trailer for The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds to be very likable and entertaining. I mean, it makes me want to go to the theater to see it. Egads!

The Penguins of Madagascar

2009-01-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

The commando penguins of the movie Madagascar are getting their own cartoon series on Nickelodeon. That sounds pretty awesome.

Fables

2008-12-08T13:47:00.000-08:00

I'm intrigued by this comic series, “Fables”, which is going to become a series on ABC. The series is about fairy tale characters living in NYC. Fun!

Less Knight

2008-12-03T14:40:00.000-08:00

The tomcat will be sad to hear that the Knight Rider episode order just got cut down to 17 episodes. No, that's not a good sign.

Leverage

2008-12-03T14:38:00.000-08:00

Here's a review of a the new show Leverage which sounds like it might be kind of a fun crime-based procedural (with the twist of doing the crime, as opposed to solving the crime) and it stars Gina Bellman (Jane from Coupling!).

'Caprica,'

2008-12-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

And Caprica, the Battlestar prequel, is getting picked up for a series!

The Amazing Race news

2008-12-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, Dallas and Starr from the Amazing Race have been dating for about six months. And Dallas got screwed by the Amazing Race production team. He lost the Amazing Purse (TM from TWOP) because the production staff unbuckled it when they switched the battery on his microphone pack. And there's a lot more detail in the linked interview about what happened when he lost the purse and afterwards.

Dear Tracy Jordan

2008-12-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

Pop Candy had a link to an series of NBC videos called Dear Tracy Jordan. I haven't watched since I can't really watch videos at my office, but I'm excited about the concept. Is he better than Strongbad?

Romantic Comedy Trailer Round-Up

2008-12-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

I suppose it's time for my annual post so I thought I'd try something slightly different. Since our reader(s) seem to have an affection for romantic comedies, I'm going to run through a list of trailers for upcoming rom-coms and do a brief description and some thoughts on each.

This list is not comprehensive and I am focusing on mainstream Hollywood movies that have some star power behind them and seem more or less like they just follow the expected storyline.

The Ugly Truth
New Katherine Heigl romantic comedy, co-starring Gerard Butler, the "tonight we dine in Hell" guy from 300. She plays a socially awkward television producer, he plays someone who seems like he's supposed to be a more attractive television version of Howard Stern. This has the vague feel of an old school Cary Grant style comedy to me, where they start off hating each other but will probably eventually fall in love. I haven't seen Butler in anything other than 300 but it seems like he can pull off the chauvinistic suave guy pretty well. Could be amusing if they do it right.
New In Town
Renee Zellweger plays the high-powered California executive who heads to small town Minnesota to do some re-org at her company's plant. Classic fish-out-of-water setup, a rugged-looking Harry Connick Jr. is the local love-interest. Meh.
He's Just Not That Into You

Bride Wars
Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway play best friends who get engaged to some people I don't recognize at the same time. They share the same dream wedding vision and everything is going according to plan until they discover that only one person can have the venue they both desire, and that's when they become best enemies. I'm not really sure who thought this was a good idea, it doesn't look funny, romantic, and it actually seems kind of sexist, hmm...
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Isla Fisher plays a crazy shopaholic who runs out of money and has to find... a job? I don't really get it. Isla is pretty cute but this trailer really doesn't do it for me, it looks like they are going for an Uptown Girls kind of thing with a spoiled rich girl who has to learn how to be a better person (by finding a job) but with a Sex and the City spin to it. More meh.

Shaun The Sheep - new season

2008-11-30T14:30:00.000-08:00

Shaun The Sheep will be getting a new season of 40 more mini-episodes. Hopefully the Disney channel will pick it up again! And I hope the Timmy the Lamb series starts soon too!

TiVo Economics

2008-11-26T10:48:00.000-08:00

Here's an awesome economic valuation of TiVo. How much is your time worth? What is the value of not throttling someone you like who has terrible channel surfing habits and loves to watch horrendous stand up on Comedy Central?

Julianne and DWTS

2008-11-19T16:23:00.000-08:00

Julianne Hough won't be on the spring season of DWTS (sad!) since she's focusing on her music and she might not even be in the fall season next year...

'Cupid' trailer

2008-11-19T12:28:00.000-08:00

ABC is remaking Cupid and there's a trailer for it now. The original had Jeremy Piven and many TV critics are huge fans of the show, which died a fast and ignoble death. The new version has Sarah Paulson, who has been on a series of short-lived shows but who I usually like (although I thought she was annoying on Studio 60, but that was probably just the writing...).

dance show

2008-11-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

Michael Flatley is getting his own competitive dance reality show. However, it will feature ethnic/cultural dancing.

More 'Privileged'

2008-11-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

Privileged gets the order for five more episodes and will be getting encore showings right after Gossip Girl, which will hopefully translate in getting more people hooked on this show. The tomcat and totoro both watch this show, so it must be awesome. It's definitely a Gilmore Girls replacement show!

DVR stats

2008-11-06T18:03:00.000-08:00

I think this will be the end of my blogging burst, but here is a new study published about DVR habits. Of course, sci-fi and action were more likely to have above average DVR playback. There's some additional interesting analysis of the results in the linked blog post, but I feel bad copying it into here so click through to check it out.

Fox's midseason schedule

2008-11-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

Here's the new schedule for Fox at midseason although it really does seem like Fox announces five different versions of its schedule so this is probably nothing like what will actually air. The key changes:
1) Dollhouse is moving to Friday, which is not really good news since that's a traditional show elephant graveyard. This post on the Joss Whedon blog (via the blog that was the first link on this page) also does not bode well for how much Fox really likes the show.
2) House moves to Mondays
3) Bones moves to Thursdays

The rest of the changes I don't really care about...

Yogurt Pepsi

2008-11-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

I love yogurt flavored things - yogurt gelato is one of my favorites. So is it bad that I'm totally intrigued by the launch of Yogurt Pepsi in Japan? Unfortunately, since liquids can't go on planes anymore, it will be hard to ask someone to bring one back for me, if I can find someone taking a trip over there...

Also, strawberry-chocolate Cheetos? Crazy.

'Battlestar,' auction

2008-11-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

Buy your own bit of Battlestar at this auction of props

Disney merchandise

2008-11-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

Disney is building out their merchandising to the high end, including "partnerships with designers like Paul Smith, Vivienne Tam and Dolce & Gabbana."

The Wire gets jazzy

2008-11-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

Lance Reddick (Cedric Daniels from the Wire, and more recently from Lost) has a jazz album. Who knew?

SYTYCD + ABDC

2008-11-05T15:36:00.000-08:00

Hok and Dominic from SYTYCD have a dance crew that auditioned for MTV's America's Best Dance Crew. A collision of worlds! Although I wasn't that impressed with their dance crew performed at the SYTYCD finale during the summer.

Center Stage 2

2008-11-05T11:42:00.000-08:00

I forgot to track the premiere date for this, but apparently, the Center Stage sequel is now airing on Oxygen and this blog posted a review. I'll have to figure out if I even get that channel. It sounds like it is both better and worse - a few great dance numbers and a few lame dance numbers, and as to be expected, poor acting.

Dollhouse trailer

2008-11-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

via tvtattle, here's a trailer for Joss Whedon's new show, Dollhouse. It looks pretty good so far! And the link here has a hilarious (to me) picture of Eliza Dushku, Joss Whedon and Helo in a weird, cuddly picture that looks like a satire of most promotional shots for TV shows.

TARracers.com

2008-11-02T23:51:00.000-08:00

TARracers.com is a site where you can find out what many of the Amazing Race alumni are up to. Unsurprisingly, many are doing entertainment/TV stuff.

Bride Wars

2008-10-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

Bride Wars has Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson and two weddings in the plot which means it should be right in my wheelhouse, but the trailer looks unfortunate. I guess it's just categorized as a comedy, not a romantic comedy. Sad. Where are the cute boys and the crappy love montage? That's all I want in a movie!

Netflix and TiVo to Partner on Movies - NYTimes.com

2008-10-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

Netflix will allow its movies to stream to TiVos. As the tomcat says, "It's an awesome smoothie with an extra shot of awesome." Two of my favorite technologies getting together! Now if Pushing Daisies and Privileged get picked up, things will be perfect in my media watching world!

Britney

2008-10-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

Britney relaunched her official site with a lot of new content - videos, photos, blog posts and yes, her very own Twitter feed.

Julianne Hough Blog

2008-10-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

Julianne is blogging about DWTS and shilling for her album. It's fun to see a bit more behind the scenes stuff about DWTS...

NBC Pages

2008-10-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

A short article about the NBC Page program, for fans of Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock.

Britney Spears documentary

2008-10-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

Britney Spears will have a 90 minute documentary on MTV airing two days before her new album drops. Will this be more Crossroads or more Chaotic?

DWTS

2008-10-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to see that Lance Bass actually got to contribute to the list of potential songs to dance to on DWTS. I always thought it was the professional who picked the list, but it makes sense that the celebrity partner gets to have some input. Although it makes me really question some of the previous songs, since there have been some terrifying songs and it's hard to believe that people would say "hey, volunteer me to dance with that song!"

'Privileged' gains

2008-10-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

I was excited to see that Privileged is improving in the ratings since I really enjoy it and don't want to see it cancelled. Usually shows only decline from their premiere, but maybe CW shows defy generalizations... Speculation is that Lauren Conrad's guest appearance and an encore presentation of the show in the Gossip Girl slot may have bumped up the ratings. This article indicated that things were not looking good for Privileged, as of last week.

Remote Free TV works

2008-10-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

Fox launched Remote Free TV with Fringe, with the concept that shorter commercial breaks mean people are more likely to watch the ads. They'll be doing this initiative with Fringe and Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku's new show Dollhouse. And apparently the results are in, that people really do watch more of the ads when the breaks are shorter. Of course, it doesn't actually make more people watch the show, since people are drawn to the content, not the overall "less commercials, more content" concept. But cool nonetheless.

'Project Runway' schedule

2008-10-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

Via tvtattle, if the Project Runway lawsuit between the production company and NBC is not resolved really quickly, they might miss the schedule to be ready for February's fashion week, and we'll have to wait until next summer for the next season.

Privileged

2008-10-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

My latest favorite show is actually Privileged - I try to watch it on the night of, and the main character reminds me of Lorelei from Gilmore Girls, with lots of funny self-conscious banter. And the best part is the cutesy squee romance - the options are the hot, wealthy next door neighbor, the childhood best friend and for now, the high school principal (although I assume he won't be around that long)...

And I just found out that the childhood best friend is played by Michael Cassidy, who was Zach on the OC (the guy Summer dated after Seth who was a Seth-clone). Awesome!

And the best part was that I made the tomcat watch the pilot with me, and he has ended up getting totally addicted to it. So you should watch it too!

DTWS update

2008-10-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

Misty May-Treanor got injured while dancing during rehearsals for DWTS so she's out of the competition. That's scary, since it could really mess with her volleyball career. And Brooke Burke also drops the nugget that apparently Derek Hough and Shannon Elizabeth are living together...

Starz+ Netflix

2008-10-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

Starz channel movies will now be streamed through Netflix. More reasons to want my Roku back! Although I am definitely buried under all the fall TV. But the tomcat might actually give the Roku back, but only because the service will soon be available on the XBox. Selfish!

Tivo for your PC

2008-09-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

Tivo is partnered with some other company to provide DVR capabilities on a PC. It even comes with a remote.

NBC Uni granted 'Runway' injunction

2008-09-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

NBC Universal has been granted an injuction against Project Runway going to Lifetime. Lifetime had announced that the next season of Project Runway would air in the fall, but then pushed it back to early 2009. I wonder if they did that because they were worried they would lose the legal challenge. Should be interesting to watch this play out between the Weinstein brothers, and NBC.

Lil Wayne's sports blog

2008-09-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing Lil Wayne stuff on the radio like every 5 minutes for the last several months so I was amused to find out that he's starting a blog for ESPN The Magazine. Apparently all he does is watch sports ("I don't watch nothing but sports—no movies, no news, no television shows").

In this first post, he talks a lot about football, as you might expect, and apparently his fantasy football league is small enough that he was able to just drop "Ben Rothlisberger" [sic] and still pick up Kurt Warner. I wonder who else is in that league. T-Pain? T.I.? Chris Brown?

More stuff to watch at Netflix

2008-09-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

Netflix will stream curent episodes of CSI and other select CBS and Disney shows. Looks like I'll have even more to watch on the Roku when the tomcat eventually gives it back. And it looks like the networks are doing a shotgun approach to see where people like to view shows - Amazon UnBox, Roku, Netflix, Hulu, etc. I was excited that I could download the season premiere of Chuck via Unbox, so hopefully I'll have time to watch that this week.

Refurb-vo

2008-09-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

My refurbished TiVo showed up last night (I came home from work a bit early to intercept the UPS guy), and now it's all set up! I had to buy a cable splitter and scrounge some extra coax cable from under my bed, but I'm up and running. I now have a total of four DVR-able tuners in my house. Thank goodness since otherwise I might have missed a show!

And amazingly, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders reality show got renewed for a third season! I'm totally watching, again!

MAGHOUND

2008-09-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

MAGHOUND, the magazine Netflix, has launched in beta and has a pretty broad selection of magazines. I'll have the browse and see if I'm interested. I wonder if they'll put InStyle Weddings in there. I need to do some cost calculations to see if doing this would be cheaper than buying the rather expensive Martha Stewart Weddings subscription and some of the magazines on the newsstand...

Braid

2008-09-17T09:09:00.000-07:00

Totoro recommended the XBox game Braid, which I think he has been evangelizing the way that I evangelize Arrested Development and the Wire. He recommended it after the tomcat and I played through Portal in one long, and somewhat motion-sickness filled evening (I hate the way the tomcat drives the camera in the game). He also mentioned that since it was a 2D game, I would not be likely to get as motion sick from watching. Tomcat and I started playing over the weekend and he's not allowed to play when I'm not around. We had a lot of fun, although we appear to be a bit stuck on one of the levels... Anyway, kottke.org posted a link to Soulja Boy reviewing Braid.

New Britney Album

2008-09-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

The new Britney album, Circus, will drop on December 2 and the first single will come out on Sept 22nd. Woo!

DVR trends

2008-09-12T12:23:00.000-07:00

This report on DVR trends claims that most DVR usage is by power users (30% of the users account for 71% of the usage) and that most DVR users only watch one-third of their content in a time shifted manner. This leads to the conclusion that DVR usage does not erode television viewing as much as has been portrayed by TV networks, and ignores the fact that DVRs may contribute to higher rates of television watching.

A new Jessica Alba movie

2008-09-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

I'm honestly baffled by how Jessica Alba picks her movies, but her next movie is about a woman who is very into numbers and math, and becomes a second grade teacher. This sounds like it will likely be truly horrendous, but one of the writers wrote The Wedding Planner, so there is some hope... I'm not expecting Jessica to be believable in this role, but there's a bit of hope for this one.

Pushing Daisies

2008-09-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

Via tvtattle.com, here's an interview with the creator of Pushing Daisies and he says that Kristen Chenowith will get more musical numbers this year. Yay!

30 Rock + GG

2008-09-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

Gossip Girl's Serena and Blair might guest star on 30 Rock. It's a collision of two fabulous worlds!

Britney at the VMAs

2008-09-03T15:39:00.000-07:00

Britney will be at the VMAs, but she won't be performing. No one is sure what she'll be doing, but I might be tempted to check it out...

Dr. Horrible Soundtrack

2008-09-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

As of yesterday, you can buy the Dr. Horrible soundtrack on iTunes...

NBC sneaks some season premieres on Hulu

2008-09-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

You'll be able to watch Chuck and 30 Rock on Hulu a week before their TV premiere date. Life, Lipstick Jungle and Knight Rider will also get the same treatment.

90210

2008-09-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

The NY Times has posted an article with lots of excerpts of interviews from the 90210 cast. I've got a season pass already set for 90210, although I'm not sure how long it will last.

I watched the season premiere of Gossip Girl and enjoyed it, but wasn't totally blown away. But over the weekend, I achieved TiVo zero, in preparation for the fall season so I'm all ready for it. And I finally got around to calling TiVo to get my Tivo fixed/replaced, so I just send to send it back so I can get my replacement box. Woo! And lastly, I was on a mad TV watching binge and finished watching all the old episodes of Bones so that I can watch the season premiere this week! I think I'm all TV-d out. Sigh...

'Center Stage' sequel

2008-08-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, there is going to be a Center Stage sequel! Sadly, the only two repeat cast members are Peter Gallagher and (woo!) Ethan Stiefel/Cooper Nielson, the awesome ballet dancer.

Pie!

2008-08-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

Pop Candy gave a link to a news item about the Pushing Daisies publicity tour where they are going around to various cities giving away free pie, as well as Pushing Daisies magnets, pie servers and spatulas! That sounds totally awesome!

90210 ice cream truck

2008-08-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

Tee hee - the CW is promoting the premiere of 90210 by having ice cream trucks drive around cities, playing the 90210 theme song. Awesome! I'd come running if I heard that song. Also, there is a contest to make a cover of the 90210 theme song! If you win, your song could get featured during an episode.

Bones

2008-08-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

One of the few shows that Totoro watches is Bones, and I'm not even sure if he actually watched the whole season this year, but he recommended it to me. I thought about it and started watching some of the reruns, and enjoyed it a bit but was having some issues with getting some of the early seasons. He then got friend eg to give me the DVDs so I really had no excuses. I've been watching during my commute, which has been really nice and is a good way to avoid very awkward conversations with weird people on public transportation... I'm totally hooked now, and am a third of the way through season 2. Not sure if I'll catch up in time to be ready for the season 4 premiere next week, but I do have the three days weekend to work on that!

‘Amazing Race’ Season 13 teams

2008-08-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

An LA Times writer got to interview the TAR teams before they left on the Race and tried to give some opinions about who would do well in the race.

Dancing with the Stars Cast

2008-08-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

Here is the new cast for Dancing with the Stars. Some of the interesting couples: Lance Bass with Lacey Schwimmer (from So You Think You Can Dance), Kim Kardashian with Mark Ballas (erg), beach volleyballer Misty May-Treanor with Maksim, Julianne Hough with some 18 year old actor, and Brooke Burke with Derek Hough (doesn't she seem like a clone of Shannon Elizabeth). (Also, does this mean that if they keep up with this line of casting that Tara Reid will be on DWTS? That could be spectacularly tragi-comic, though I'm sure she has been on their wish list of cast members for forever).

Also, Mark Ballas' dad will be one of the professional dancers, so that should amp up some of the inter-dancer rivalries.

Studio Ghibli's newest anime

2008-08-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

Totoro should be excited about the latest Studio Ghibli movie which is premiering soon. It's about a fish-human hybrid girl who has a romance with a human boy who lives by the ocean. Should be cute!

Amazing Race 13 cast

2008-08-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

The Amazing Race 13 cast is revealed. The full cast list is at CBS.com. I hadn't realized that TAR was on the schedule for this fall, but I'm really excited now that I know it's starting so soon! One of the teams is a woman who was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and her brother, and the woman was on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders reality show. It's a collision of worlds!

Robin McKinley novel

2008-08-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

Ooh, Robin McKinley has a new book coming out next month called Chalice! I'm pretty excited about this!

Bring it On!

2008-08-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

There is going to be a cheerleading competition Wii game, and the game creators got the services of some guy who was also a consultant on Bring It On. Woo.

New fall TV shows

2008-08-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Is it fall already? TV Guide has posted their guide to all the new fall TV shows. It didn't really seem like there were going to be that many new shows this year, but there are quite a few on that list. I'm going to have to print out the TV grid and figure out what shows I'll record and whether I have too many shows to record.

I'm debating whether to repo the tomcat's other Tivo so that my household can go back to being a 3 Tivo tuner household since 2 tuners is clearly not enough...

Maid in Manhattan for TV

2008-08-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

A TV version of Maid in Manhattan is being developed for ABC and will at least get a pilot made. I don't love this movie, but it's pretty fun to watch for a bit if I catch it on TV on a quiet weekend day. But it sounds like it's more of a workplace show, as opposed to a romantic comedy show...

Wallace & Gromit on Hulu

2008-08-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

A number of Wallace and Gromit shorts are up at Hulu! I hope they get Shaun the Sheep eventually...

True Blood

2008-08-11T16:08:00.000-07:00

The early reviews of True Blood, the HBO vampire series are looking pretty good, although this trailer doesn't really make much sense to me. I might have to check out the books that the series is based on...

Trivial Pursuit game show

2008-08-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

I think the tomcat and his friend the LCD will love this new Trivial Pursuit game show that will be airing this fall, starting on Sept 22nd.

The proposal on HIMYM

2008-08-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

The wedding proposal by the extras in the 2007 season finale of How I Met Your Mother was a real proposal, and the couple just got married.

Shannon Elizabeth + Derek Hough

2008-08-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize thatShannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough were officially a couple. The signs were clearly there,but I hadn't seen any news bits about it, but apparently it's true.

Twilight Bytes: Inspired by own name, town offers 'Twilight'-themed dishes | PopWatch Blog | EW.com

2008-08-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

Twilight mania hits the real Washington state town where the book/movie is supposed to take place and the locals are taking advantage of the boom in tween tourism by adding dishes to the restaurant menu that are named after or inspired by the book characters. You can get the Bella Burger, Bellasagna, Ed's Bread (garlic bread), and the Twilight Special Subway Sandwich.

True Blood

2008-08-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'm intrigued by Alan Ball's new show for HBO, True Blood, which is about a small town Louisiana waitress who falls in with a bunch of vampires. It reminds me of Robin McKinley's book Sunshine, which I really enjoyed, and this seems to be a much more popular genre of story than I previously realized. I guess vampires are kind of having a bit of a pop culture resurgence, with Moonlight and this show, and the movie/book Twilight.

This TV show looks kind of fun and soapy, so hopefully it will turn out well!

Ne-Yo + Big Red

2008-08-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

Ne-Yo has covered the Big Red gum jingle. It's hilarious.

Top Gear news

2008-07-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

Adam Carolla talked about filming the Top Gear pilot last week. Apparently, there are reviews of the taping all over the internet. So we might know sooner rather than later whether the show will be fun. Corolla said

that finding a star to cram into the "reasonably priced car" took a mighty effort on behalf of both the show's producers and Carolla himself. They came close to settling for Howie Mandel and/or ex-Spice Girl Mel B., but somehow landed the legendary David Hasselhoff at the last moment. Alec Baldwin, a personal friend of Carolla's, was at least approached and Cameron Diaz's name floated about.

Harry Potter 6 trailer

2008-07-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's the new Harry Potter teaser. This has been making the rounds since it was released earlier today but I think the most interesting thing is the vastly different style that this trailer has taken on compared to teasers for previous Harry Potter movies. If it didn't take so much effort I would try to look up teasers for the previous movies and embed them here to make it easy to compare but as far as I remember most of them took the format of some voiceovers followed by many snapshots of various scenes from the movie.

This teaser for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince instead is essentially one extended scene and is really quite dark. I'm not sure that this is a children's movie any more. I mean, maybe in the same way that Labyrinth was a children's movie, and that thing scared the crap out of me when I was little.

Chuck Season 2 infoz (possible spoilers)

2008-07-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

The video above is about a 6.5 minute preview of Chuck's second season that was screened at the San Diego Comic-con. It's a cam, so the quality of both the video and the audio are pretty poor and you can hear people cheering in the background, but you do get a few good glimpses of things that might happen in the next season.

Some non-spoiler highlights:

Agent Sarah and... Nicole Richie? Fighting. In the shower.
Tony Hale of Arrested Development (Buster) playing a role at the Buy More
Michael Clarke Duncan playing a thug
Melinda Clarke of The O.C. (Julie Cooper) playing the type of character you'd expect her to play
Jordana Brewster finding Chuck hiding under a table (I think she plays the girl that he never quite got over... but I could be wrong)
John Larroquette playing some kind of spy boss/mentor
Hilariousness involving Captain Awesome
Sarah working at a frozen yogurt place

Some more details from Watch with Kristin are available. Chuck was one of the few shows that I actually watched last season so I am pretty excited about it starting up again in the Fall. It's not a great show exactly, but it's fun to watch and a few of the characters (mostly Adam Baldwin and Captain Awesome) really make the show worth it.

Rachael Leigh Cook in Psych

2008-07-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

There's no confirmation on IMDB about this yet, but our favorite girl who is All That seems to have shown up in the latest episode of Psych. The episode focuses around Shawn and Gus at their high school reunion and Rachael appears to play Shawn's old high school crush. I've embedded a brief clip from the beginning of the episode which is available in its entirety from Hulu.

I have fond memories of She's All That from the pinnacle of the teenybopper era but it is sad to see that Rachael has gone from low budget teen movie lead to starring in a TV pilot that was never picked up to guest starring on a USA show. She's still pretty cute though, so I guess there is that.