State of the Union

I'm trying to be mad at Luke but I can't. I seem him as "typical" guy who is taking Lorelei for granted because he's more secure in the relationship than she is. He waited 8 years for her...it's likely not a big deal to him to wait a few months more.

But I feel badly for Lorelei because she's right; Luke's cutting her out. Let's hope she finds a way to figure all this out. And soon because I'm sorta tired of it already.

Lorelei did a great job with her family tonight though. Who'd'a thunk it'd be Lorelei who demanded that Friday night dinners take place, and Lorelei who demanded they not end this dinner until "all" the issues were ironed out? I laughed when it got to Lorelei yelling to Emily about not marrying Christopher. She really DID mean all the issues...

Meanwhile, I still hate Rory's bangs and that makes me like Rory less. I'll admit it. That and Logan. Why Logan? He didn't save her, his name did. And how is that impressive?

Good Enough, for You is, Good Enough, For me...

24 Recap: If you haven't watched it, don't read it!



So among the things I decided watching 24 tonight is that Lin (Sean Astin), Chloe and Edgar make up the New Goonies.

So much happened tonight I couldn't even begin to talk about it. I just don't know.

Walt has his own evil theme, like Darth Vader.

I about lost it when he up and admitted the whole shebang before Jack even had a chance to tell Novick.

Aaron the Secret Service man is perhaps the coolest guy on tv.

Who else thinks that the First Lady is, while completely correct about the events leading up to this hour, still actually slightly unstable and that Logan WILL PAY as will WALT. If she gets her hands on Walt, it'll be much much worse than what Jack threatened.

And I"m used to 24 violence but when Jack went after him...whoa. I held the blankie over my eyes, I did.

All in all this is the best season yet. It's moving along at its own pace that throws off even J and I who have gotten quite used to the pattern of storytelling in the past five years.

Note to Audrey: Dude, I don't call J and bug him with "the talk" during his workday and J works on tv ads, not saving lives.
Do you really think it's time to have "the talk" when Jack's about to tell the president who killed David Palmer?!??!

Why I love The Office

"I get 10 vacation days a year and I try to hold off on taking them for as long as possible, and this year I made it to the third week of January." Pam on "The Office."

Amen, Pam.
Amen.

If you've ever felt like that at work then give "The Office" a try sometime. Just remember it's not your standard joke punchline joke punchline laugh track sitcom. It's an actual sitcom - meaning the funny is derived from actual situations. But let's not debate the nature of the sitcom. If you decide to give the show a shot, remember that it's a mockumentary of an office and you and your coworkers are all represented.

GASP!

You mean Laguna's not real!??!?

Oh Kiefer

Will he stop at nothing?
In Japan he doesn't just do voiceovers...he appears in snack ads!

Dancing with the STAHS!

Ok kids what did we think of this week?

I agreed with the judges for once. I thought Drew nailed it and totally dug the thriller moves in the midst of the Paso Doble.
I'm happy that Tia and Lisa are doing well and Jerry is just plain cute.

And yes, it is time for Master P to go. I love how they are suddenly slanting his "storyline" and admitting that he won't train. At first I thought it unfair to be so harsh on him because he came into training a lot later than the rest of them. But he's not really improving any more and if he's honestly only put in 20 hours of training in the past month? It sucks cuz Ashly rocks.


Please stop voting for Master P. Leave Ashly some dignity and let her come back in another season with a much better partner for goodness sakes.

Next week on Gilmore...

Friday Night dinners are back!

24 Update...later

Yeah, I chose not to watch tonight. It's recorded for later viewing with the hubby who is still working (um, it's 11 p.m...you think he might be done soon?).
It's also recorded for larka (I'll ship it to you as soon as we are done with it...or do you want next week too?).
All this is terribly fascinating for those of you who watched it and have tons to say. Feel free to discuss in the comments! I'll stay away until I watch it this week.

Love Monkey

Just finished watching a recording of Love Monkey that's on CBS on Tuesday nights (past my pre-natal bedtime).

I liked it.

It's about Tom, who is an A/R rep at a giant record company. He's got the golden ear - he's signed 12 succesful acts in a row. He's on the verge of signing another one, a teenage boy named Wayne, when all hell breaks loose on his life. He says the wrong things at a staff meeting (about the passion of music being more important than the money) and gets fired. And then he loses his girlfriend. He wasn't into her anyway but she was beautiful and it meant he had a girlfriend.

Other things to note should you decide to catch it sometime: he's got a group of best friends. Jason Priestley is the stable married one, married to Tom's sister and expecting a baby. Then there's Larenz Tate who is the "man about town." The suave single bachelor. And then there's the jock prototype who is revealed to the audience as gay but no one else seems to know. His best friend is a girl and obviously there is chemistry and they are destined to be together. It is she who explains to Tom the Love Monkey concept of the title - if he keeps swinging from branch to branch trying to find the perfect branch, he's going to be one lonely monkey.

Tom ends up getting a new job at a smaller label by the end of the show. And there's this girl there that looks interesting to him too...

Overall a fun show to watch. I'll probably try and catch it again. I know my dad would love it but he's absorbed in Boston Legal at the time and likely won't give up Shatner for this. But I'd give it a shot again.

Imagine the Possibilities

As if I didn't love Macs enough, Kiefer is now doing their ads.

With that velvet voice, I'm bound to buy another, just for fun.

Malfeasance for Malfeasance's Sake

Tonight's episode of the Office finally addressed the ongoing tension of the Jim/Pam relationship. Of course the BBC version did this much sooner but it only lasted a total of 13 episodes as it was. NBC is taking it's time as it should.

As predicted, Michael couldn't keep Jim's secret about having a crush on the engaged Pam. So by the end of the show, no matter that Jim did damage control to try and convince everyone that he had the crush a long time ago, Pam knew that it was current. And she's not comfortable with it.

The storyline included Michael thinking he's Jim's BFF - and taking him to Hooters so that they could discuss how hot Pam is. Michael ended up ordering "chicken breast, minus the chicken."

Meanwhile, back at the Office, the temp said the exact thing that I've always felt when I've had temp (heck, even some of my permanent) jobs: I could clean out my desk in 5 seconds fast and no one would even miss me or notice I'd been here.

It was office cleanup day. I've been in charge of that one before too. The pain, the memories.

And Dwight was on the case of Oscar who called in "Sick" on a Friday and therefore was subjected to "surveillance."

Lay it on Me

Tell me about The Crumbs and Beauty and The Geek here.

Comments on Idol

I'm not an avid American Idol watcher...but I did watch the last few episodes the season that Kelly Clarkson won. And I do catch a few episodes each season. So I watch it I guess.

I'm jumping on my soapbox in defense of Kelly Clarkson right now, and saying if she doesn't want Potential Idols to use her songs, than I'm ok with it. I happen to agree with her that her songs have been better the more she's distanced herself as "The Idol." The songs they give the winners immediately following are very bland. She's been lucky in that the bland songs allowed her some popularity to get to the point where she found song writers more suited to her.

I know that she's now given in and this whole hub bub is likely just more attention grabbing from both sides...but it still sorta hit me that it was unfair to attack her when she's far from the only singer to say "No, that's ok. Don't use my songs..."

Food Network is mean to me

FINALLY! Rachael Ray on Iron Chef!

Ok, Food Network is actually nice to me by FINALLY doing this, and not pitting her against Bobby Flay, either, but rather Mario Battali so it should be fun.

But Food Network must know from their ratings drop that I no longer have cable!

MOMMY! TAPE IT FOR ME!


The other interesting matchup will be Giada v. Flay. Will the Iron Chef cameramen be taught to zoom in extra close to every thing she does!??!

Skating with Celebrities

Did anyone watch this? I thought it was fun. It was nice to be reminded of how hard skating is, actually. I mean, you watch the Olympics of any of the pros and it looks easy and you feel like a fool. But seeing Bruce Jenner wobbling around out there put things in perspective. I'm assuming Gillian Barberie has some sort of figure skating background in her life. She did way too well. It only begs the question: How Would Master P do?

Welcome to the SH...

Is there anything funnier than Zach realizing that he's a $5 carny whose best friend won't talk to him, who's lost Lane, and then thinks that Lane is dating her uncle?
I love that Mrs. Kim is growing up with her daughter a little and allowing her to grow a little. She's adjusting her idea of how to love her daughter and allowing some independence.

My heart broke for Lorelei when she discovered Anna and then when Luke postponed the wedding date. These crazy kids are made for each other and while I hope she relaxes and realizes it, I know it's not an easy thing for her to do. Of course, she hasn't been seeing Luke like the audience has, and seeing him go back and forth about telling her and whether to get involved or not.

I love that when Luke wakes up in the middle of the night, that his speech is as rapid as a Gilmore Girl.

Paris as tyrant is funny but I sense impending disaster there. She apparently needs to up her crafting and chill a bit.

Finally, the whole Logan thing was annoying because I just don't like him. I loved Lorelei's reaction to him ("What could a minute of my time possibly do for you?")but mostly loved that Rory was letting all the world have free and fancy coffee on Logan's bill.

CTU overrun by Hobbits

Things to note about 24 tonight that hopefully don't give away too much...

All who think that President Logan is just a big whiny brat, raise your hands!
Yeah, me too. I mean, the actor is doing a great job because the character is being made more complex but half the time I just want to put him in a corner and give him a timeout until he settles down and plays nice.

I love First Lady Logan. She's got Moxie.

As the title of the post suggests, there is now a Hobbit in the mix at CTU. As usual, you can't tell if he's good or bad.

Finally, after two nights in a row of two hours of 24, I'm not sure how to make it to next Monday without more.
And they were really fast hours, too.

Thursday night help to those of us with too much to watch...

Beauty and the Geek is being repeated on Wednesdays at 9.

This show is just f---ed up.

Ok, excuse the implied french in the above subject heading but, people, 24 is back. And Jack, he's no longer dead. But I guess we knew that had to happen in order to have another season. But others are. Dead that is. Man are they ever. I didn't think it possible, but they actually managed to kickoff the show with two of the better episodes I can remember. I'm talking Nina Kills Teri good. I'm talking Jack Kills Nina good. Yes, the first ten minutes are a shocker and half (to me, cuz I try and remain spoiler free for this particular show...others of you may have seen this coming but not I...). I felt the blood drain from my body at one point, only to have it happen again about 4 minutes later. I mean, that whole sense of peace you get from watching the last episode of the season last year? Yeah, it's gone almost immediately. I should have known it too good to be true.

I'm going to refrain from details because I know of at least one reader of mine who taped this show and likely hasn't watched it yet. But wow. It's a doozy.

Reflections that can be read without ruining the show for those who have it saved for later...

Kiefer's voice is still velvety and addictive.

Kiefer has finally learned from past seasons and decided to go with a super short hair style that will be easy to maintain all year. This is something Carlos Bernard (Tony) realized long ago.

That's about it for this posting. Go ahead and talk about it in the comments if you wish. And if you haven't seen the show and plan to watch it later, stay out of the comments!

Ok, catch me up

So kids there was a lot on the old tube tonight, too much for me to keep up with in fact. So here's your chance to watch tv for me.
Let me know what you thought of anything you watched tonight. I'm especially interested in Dancing with the Stars, The Crumbs and Beauty and the Geek 2 but I'm open to anything else. Like, what exactly is the big revelation for Neela and Gallant on ER?

For my part, I watched the Office. Tonight Michael burned his foot on a George Foreman grill but insisted on working anyway; on his way to get Michael (who couldn't drive after grilling his foot), Dwight crashed his car and had a concussion. The concussion meant he was acting "weird" which for Dwight meant he was super sweet and friendly. It was funny, but not one of my favorite episodes.

I also caught just bits and pieces of Dancing with the Stars...Jerry Rice was awesome. I was impressed with George Hamilton. I missed a lot of the rest. Other than the fact that the female wrestler has a body that's just too perfect, I didn't get the big deal with her "dance."

What'd you guys think? Should I have watched the Crumbs? Who's the Geekiest Geek? Keep me posted.

PBS time

I've been having trouble finding things to watch the past few nights and yet I've been super tired with the baby growing so I've been very reliant on the boob tube to watch some tv.
I stumbled on Frontline on PBS Monday night and got sucked into this three-part "movie." I didn't watch the whole thing but what I did see was fascinating in the way reality shows used to be.

You can watch it online if you have the capability, or wait and see if your PBS station is carrying it at a different time.
It's about two boys in Applachia and the struggles they face in trying to just grow up and get on with life. It has a very sweet romance between Cody and his now wife Jessica. And then the most frustrating and sad story of Chris, who seems to be doing the best with what life deals him...and that's not much at all.

Living in such an urban/surburban sprawl area as I do and always have, it's really hard to relate on the surface to what they go through. This movie really gave a perspective to lives I know in my heart exist but my head just can't wrap around it's so foreign to me.

Update on some rotting eggs

I'm not sure if I'm convinced that this is making lemonade out of those lemons, or just further proof of the crazy....

Her Eggs are Rotting

Perhaps I should feel more compassion for the oncologist sent home on the Bachelor: Paris Edition last night. But seriously, you can't go around telling people your eggs are rotting and make friends, let alone make it to the second date with a guy. She wonders why at 33 she's so alone and can't get a guy to take her out but if she seriously thinks that telling a guy you are entering your "reproductive phase" about 10 minutes after you've first met him...then you have some issues that need working through. And please do so BEFORE you bring a child into the world. But her wackiness didn't stop there. No, she went up to him and demanded to know why, after spending what was likely a total of 15 minutes maximum with her, he didn't want to go out with her. And during that 15 minutes, she let him know about the whole reproductive phase thing. She thought it was her boobs or her height and dude, seriously, calm thyself. He told her the truth and she went ballastic on him. The best part was the closing credits which showed her berating a poor production assistant who was holding his hands up saying "I DON'T KNOW HIM!" as she went on and on about how awful men are. Yeah, cuz you are giving woman such a powerful portrayal too.
Alas, this show is never as good as the first episode when all the psychos get so upset that the guy they just met but now love completely isn't so enamored of them. Dude doesn't even know their names for sure yet...but they saw white picket fences and mailing address labels with "Dr. and Mrs." all over them (or in the case of the oncologist, "Dr. and Dr.").
If I remember next week, I may watch it again.

Postponed Gilmore

Those of you who do not live in the Detroit area will be able to watch Gilmore Girls in its entirety this evening. Those of us who live in Piston land, however, have to wait till Saturday at 8 p.m. to see what those crazy kids have been up to since Thanksgiving. What's another week right? Chauncey's gotta play ball. No, I'm not bitter. Go Pistons and all. Just a little frustrated and eager to get into my Tuesday habits again...

In the meantime, I figure I'll save Burger King a few bucks and be the one to win their Trip to Detroit for the Superbowl contest. Instead of roundtrip airfare, they'd only have to provide me with ground transportation...for about a mile and half.

Programming Notes

Here are the shows I'm planning to take on over the next few weeks. Just thought you'd like to know ahead of time, in case you'd like to watch along, or study for any pop quizzes that may be coming your way.

Monday: Arrested Development, assuming it stays on through the last 4 episodes. I'm confused because the tv guides and local Fox channel do not list it as on tonight, but the main Fox web site is advertising it away...

Also on Monday: 24. Ka-chung. Ka-chung. Jack isn't dead, people, he's just got another identity. Just when he thought he was out, they pull him back in! Day five looks to be a doozy and starts out this SUNDAY with a two hour premiere followed by another two hours on MONDAY. Along the way there are sure to be many dismembered bodies. Rock on!

Tuesday: Gilmore's back tomorrow with new episodes after the longest string of re-runs ever. Will Luke finally tell Lorelei about his daughter? Of course not but we can hope that they act like grown ups can't we?

Also on Tuesday: Scrubs. It's definitely more "out there" than it used to be but still a wonderfully funny show that balances drama and comedy in a way no other sitcom does. Twice a night each Tuesday people. Catch up on your Braff.

Finally on Tuesday: I'm giving Love Monkey a shot. Because I miss Ed. And I like monkeys.

Wednesday. Nothing. I mean, possibly Skating with Celebrities but really? Nothing.

Thursday: I'm only demanding time for the Office. Last week was so funny (as usual) with the booze cruise that wouldn't end. Dudes, I've been taken on a booze cruise for work. This show is so realistic it's scary. I may also be watching Dancing with the Stars but we'll see. I'm intrigued by the Crumbs (I believe it's called) on ABC but again, we'll see.

Little Late: The Office on Thursday

So this is a bit late but I seemed to have been able to keep myself busy since The Office aired on it's first big move to Thursday night so I haven't had much time at the computer till now.

They finally came up with a trick to pull on Dwight that was better than what they used to do to Gareth on the British version.

Loading all of Dwight's office supplies into the kitchen's vending machine was my favorite thing ever. And then to have Dwight concede that he had to buy the items to get them back, only to find that his WALLET was also in the machine? Pure genius.

If I hadn't worked in so many screwy offices in my previous lives, this wouldn't be so funny to me I guess. But given the last three jobs I had (current one isn't so bad, or comparable), I get some sick and twisted pleasure out of such torture.

Gangsta Cha Cha

I watched a bit of Dancing with the Stars last night.
I was impressed with Drew Lachey and Lisa Rinna and think the female wrestler was good but understand she has dance training so that's not fair to me (and I don't mean "dance training" like Drew who was in 98 Degrees...I'm talking real ballet background).

I was unimpressed with Master P and a bit let down cuz he really didn't even look into it. He didn't look frustrated that he couldn't do it, just bored with the whole thing. And he has the best female partner. Ashley Rulez!
I mean, he said he was going to do a Gangsta Cha Cha and then basically stood around while she danced around him like crazy.

One I missed that I wished I saw: Jerry Rice. I heard he was good.

Aw, Dave...

I don't want to turn this blog into something political. But last night's Late Show with David Letterman had a fascinating piece of television on it. He interviewed Bill O'Reilly who sadly thought he was going to come on the show and yuk it up with a funny guy. But Letterman is more than comedy when he wants to be, and he didn't put up with all the spin (or "60% crap" as he called it) that O'Reilly dishes.

One Good Move has the clip, which I highly suggest.

From the start as Dave came back from commercial to be found stirring O'Reilly's as yet untouched mug of water with his pencil, you knew it would be an interesting and tense segment.

Braff Alert! Braff Alert!

Hey! Watch some Scrubs tonight! It's back and supposedly more absurd-er than ever-er.

BoohBah

In an effort to better acquaint ourselves with parenthood, J and I just ventured over to PBS for some daytime kiddie programming. You know, to see what other than Barney the kids are up to these days. We stumbled on Boohbah and are now frightened. I think that this kid will stay inside me a little longer. I can't unleash it into a world where it is supposed to be entertained by atoms of energy that spin around and make scary noises.