One Late Comment On "Lost"
Evangline Lilly's character looked absolutely gorgeous in the black dress Desmond gave her to wear to the concert in the sideways world. Amazing. She is a lovely woman but that outfit was just perfection for her. Congratulations to the production designers.

Done
Congratulations to "The Simpsons" on tonight's episode. The eco bullcrap was as deep as the ocean and twice a smelly. The series has finally and irrevocably jumped the shark with the final irony being that the episode featured sharks. Good bye. Go to hell.

TV Show Of The Year
Glee. Hands down. Or rather: jazz hands up.
It's fresh, there are evil characters, there are characters to root for and some performances that deserve more Emmys than are handed out. I'm looking at you Jane Lynch, and you Kristin Chenoweth, and really, the entire cast of "high school" students who rock the musical numbers week after week.
Honestly. Top marks and great praise to the creators of a show that's proving itself to be fresh and consistently interesting.

Absolutely Gorgeous
And Mythbuster Kari Byron is pretty cute too. I'd say from the looks of things, there's a little rugrat Mythbuster somewhere in the SoCal area. Pugs of War applauds the reproductive activities of any Mythbuster. Congratulations Kari!
The pic is totally stolen from The Firearm Blog. Click that link and scroll down for context.

More New TV Watching
I liked the new Fox show "Glee" from it's early premiere and tonight they brought in the incredibly talented singer and comic actress, and now Emmy winner, Christin Chenoweth. I didn't much care for her before she appeared in "Pushing Daisies" (loved! that show) but she's become a power on the tube. Home run hitter. Da bomb. It would be a very good idea if they kept her around for a few episodes.
Her character might wear thin but I could watch and listen to her belt out some absolute show-stoppers. And "Glee" has put together some serious production numbers. More Christin please.
Hmm. Looks like a single episode guest shot. Too bad.

Oh Bother!
First, I owe my co-blogger a note of contrition as the Geelong Cats took the Grand Final from St. Kilda and blew right through Collingwood to get there. (mumble, mumble, you sunuva, mumble)
Secondly, I caught a little of the new season on TV last night which led me to think about Julianna Margulies who is starring in a show called "The Good Wife." (capsule review: Elliot Spitzer, phone home) I am nonplussed. Everything about her should be right in my personal hotness assessment: exotic eyes, raven tresses and yet she just makes me shudder. There's something predatory and vulpine about her that turns me away. It may be from my first exposure to her as the PITA nurse on "ER." So even with the great Chris Noth starring, I'm not going to watch that one.
Don't even ask about "NCIS: Los Angeles." Alphabet police set up shop in SoCal. Actually, I may have to do a deconstruction of that one, with a gratuitous reference to the lab geek chick on the original since the Enigmatic Misanthrope has the steamin' undies for her.

A Little Mashup Fun
Jandrew Edits is a page of brief and very funny mashups of Star Trek: The Next Generation clips. I'll find one featuring the dashing and cue-ball'd Patrick Stewart for our blog friend Gradual Dazzle. It made me laugh. One minute and five seconds of Picardy goodness.

Anyone Do Craigslist?
I have an idea for distributed small monetary gains, relying on disaggregation and putting only a few dollars in any one persons pocket. But it has the benefit of using "government largess" at a time government should be spanked hard for offering this in the first place.
No doubt you are aware that the broadcast television world is changing from analog to digital broadcasting in February. And that the febrile gummint is doing out $40 "coupons" to households to acquire digital converter boxes. I have my coupon (which I'll probably use at Circuit City out of pity - heh, Circuit Pity) so I can't participate in this setup. Those people who run all of their TVs off cable or satellite can, though.
Even if you don't need a coupon, order one (I'm pretty sure the limitation is "one per household"). Then, when you find someone who runs more than one TV from a broadcast signal, sell your coupon to him or her for $20. You're $20 ahead, the person needing more than one converter has saved $20 and this rotten government welfare program will cost astronomically more than projected. The long-term benefit of this is that when jackass Congresscritters propose legislation like this in the future, there will be a concrete example to point to for a demonstration of how wrong the program will turn out to be.
I'm not saying it will stop a program but an instructive example is always good to have.
And why Craigslist? I figure it's a perfect forum for connecting buyers & sellers of the coupons. Short of having flea markets for them all over the country.

Troubling
In my channel surfing last night I watched a portion of a re-run of CBS's "Criminal Minds," at least in part because the episode was old enough to feature Mandy Patinkin. I find his work consistently interesting from Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride" to the lead reaper on "Dead Like Me." So, despite the re-run tag on the episode, I watched some of it. When the episode ended I was struck with a major whiskey tango foxtrot moment.
The story of the show was a sexual predator on a college campus who turned out to be a kampus kop. A murder copycat to his modus operandi got him out from under the charges after he was caught (I may have missed something in that - channel surfing after all). It turns out that the copycat was a sad Goth chickie whose desire was for the killer to kill her since she couldn't bring herself to do the deed. Which is all fine in fiction and the world of the teleplay. So what goes hugely wrong? As the show is reaching its climax, the FBI types are watching the sad Goth chickie and the bad guy on security cam and from a distant, hidden eyeball-vantage point. She admits to killing "for him" but the bad guy won't kill Gothie baby (he knows he's on camera). So she knifes him in the gut. At which point the FBI eyeballers start running toward her. She then finds the nerve to stick the knife in her own gut (as the FBI stands there, pointing guns [?] and telling her to "drop the knife"). Finally, maybe 30 or 45 seconds after the kampus kop gets the shiv, only after Gothie stabs herself, the FBI types watching on the security cam shout "Call an ambulance!"
OK, maybe we don't like the bad guy but doesn't someone call an ambulance the moment the knife goes in his gut? I'm sorry but that's just stupid scriptwriting.

Yay!
An episode of Foyle's War on the Howard University distant-seeing station tonight. Hmm. I didn't know the series had its own website until I searched just now. Aint the global inter tubes grand? Tonight's episode (cue dramatic music): War of Nerves! (Actually, it has been shown before but it's one I missed so it's "new to me.")
Though I may sneak peeks at UNC impending crushitation of U Va.
UPDATE: 45 seconds to go and UNC up by a mere two points. Not exactly crushitation. But it does raise the question of what's wrong with UNC. They are not playing like a top 10 team lately. Of course Tyler "Psycho T" Hansbrough getting fouled every time down court and not having it called (and one eGREGious flop by the U. Va. center) doesn't help.
So there: a one point win. Yow, a single point win over the league's bottom team. Carolina has much to worry about.

Wherein I Watch Television I Normally Don't
I had the misfortune to watch about ten minutes of the ABC home-makeover-cum-queen-for-a -day show that's broadcast on Sunday night. What a wretched excrescence on the face of humanity. First the faux concern for the wounded people who seek the prize of a quickly (and we hope not shoddily) constructed home. Hollywood is never more false than when people whose reason for being is screen time pretend to care for those among us who have suffered tragedy. Awful, awful people.
And then the "design" of rooms. I don't recall seeing any more narcissistic exercise on television since watching Bob Villa on "This Old House."
Horrible, awful people. The only reason I can fathom for this show to stay on the air is that people who have suffered the slings and arrows are getting new homes. And that I don't disparage.

Working The TV
Since NBC is seeing fit to resurrect the Bionic Woman (not the original Bionic Woman - she's sleeping on Sleep Number beds now and still lookin' fine ... is it the bionics?), maybe the Food Channel or the folks who do Iron Chef could gin up a show about a woman whose vegetarian diet gives her super powers. The Macrobiotic Woman. We have the technology!

Ads, Television And Changes In Perception
I recently saw an ad for a Colgate toothpaste that emphasizes its cleaning properties. I won't do any linkage because that smacks of blogwhoredom and it's not the point of the post anyway. What is the point is the celebrity Colgate picked for the ads: Brooke Shields. I have never been a fan. I know guys who have been gaga over the pretty baby since she was professional jail bait. Maybe that aspect of her life is what put me so far off her. But she has aged beautifully. I'd say she's more beautiful now that she's ever been. And even that's not the point.
The gist of my nub (that does not sound right! -Ed.) is that I totally bought into the product with her endorsement. She came across as sincere and utterly believable. I'm going to try the toothpaste because of the ad. Now that's effective. And from now on I'll go through life not with a necessarily positive attitude toward Ms. Shields but I will no longer be negative about her again.

Sometimes I Watch Ads
It's not necessarily a good thing. However, ever now and then, every now and then.... Have you seen the ad for a critter control company which builds actors into walls so that the "house" can talk to the owner about termites chewing on their downunders? I believe I've seen a couple of different iterations but what's showing currently is a woman whose closet door does the talking. Maybe it's the overlay of white slats that sets them off but the actress who plays the wall (or door) has the most incredible big blue eyes. Wow. Of course this may be contact lenses but still, wow.

Yeesh!
Kelloggs has a new product - Special K Cereal with Chocloatey Pieces. First, it must be noted that the word used is "chocolatey." Nice. That means it is not necessarily chocolate. Just of a chocolate nature. Inclined toward chocolate on the great chain of being. That's a pretty common evasion in products. Like "Froot Loops" don't have to have any fruit in them because they're called "Froot" loops. If they were called "Fruit Loops," there would have to be fruit.
But that's not actually the genesis of this post. I saw the television ad for the new Kelloggs cereal. The idea of the ad is that all these chocolate candies start moving into the cereal box. But they make one huge mistake. The first chockies they have getting animated are a couple of pieces left on a pillow as if in a nice hotel. The problem is that when the roaming chocolates shed their wrappers and start moving over the pillows, they could not look more like cockroaches. Ick. I like chocolate but I'll not be trying the roach cereal.

Shark Jumping
It's a strange thing to see a television franchise jump the shark on more than one of its shows in the space of a few months. But damned if the CSI people haven't managed it. Exhibit 1: using Cletus Federline as the "guest star" on an episode of the original "who dies in Vegas, gets investigated in Vegas" show. Now the New York show uses the painfully annoying Nelly Furtado as a "guest star." You're not only not like a bird, your not like an actress either. Hmm. One tard per show. At least that works out.
I've enjoyed the CSI shows but I think they've plucked my last nerve. G'bye. Well, except for Emily Procter on CSI: My how yummy. I don't think I can bust that habit yet.