Holy shit!

Arlen Specter switched parties!!

This is Awesome

Remember yesterday I told you about the Subway Save Chuck campaign? Well, here's a hilarious video of Zachary Levi leading hundreds of fans to Subway at a convention yesterday. Then he got behind the counter and helped make the sandwiches. Aww.

As for the finale itself, I am preparing to burn my living room. How about you? We should be hearing about renewal next week... In the meantime, interview with Chris Fedak about the finale and the possible season 3 (well, okay, he mostly dodges those questions).

Also regarding last night's TV, it seems Kiefer had to pull out a little Jack Bauer in order to get to work with Jon Voight: "If you don't let me work with him, I'll kill you."

I declare today Chuck Day

Don't forget to go to Subway today to support the campaign to save Chuck. Also, an interview with Captain Awesome and a letter to NBC on why they should renew the show.

Damn

I got all excited for a minute, because I thought it was Wednesday, and so I was going to title my post "happy hump day!" And then I realized it's only Tuesday. That's depressing.

Moving on. Funny NY Times article about Texas being crazy. Not so funny article about waterboarding. Apparently, CIA interrogators used waterboarding 266 times on two terrorists. Now, let's think here. If you've waterboarded somebody a hundred times, and they still haven't talked, what do you think the chances are that they're gonna talk after the 101st time? (Also, let us note that it never takes Jack Bauer more than 10 minutes and a good pen-stabbing to break a suspect.)

In other news, Neil Patrick Harris caught on fire. No, really.

Puzzle time!

For anyone looking for a good way to waste time, I give you the Joss Whedon crossword puzzle. You have to print it out to do it, but hey, if you're bored enough...

Kitty Christmas

Chelsea had been lurking around the refrigerator a lot today, so I broke down and got out the flashlight to see what she'd lost under there this time. Imagine my surprise when I found a WHOLE STASH of kitty toys under the fridge. Like, more toys than I knew she had. Granted, I'd noticed that they were disappearing pretty quickly, and I was finding a lot less in the sofa cushions than would account for all of them, but still. Kind of a shocking sight.

So, I got out a clothes hanger and got down on my belly and fished out as much junk as I could. Final tally: 23 fuzzy balls, 13 mice, 4 bottle caps, 1 plastic ball, a twistie tie, and a Klondike bar wrapper. And that's not even counting the stuff I couldn't reach.

After sorting through and tossing out the ones that were too grody for Chelsea to be sticking in her mouth (and yes, we are talking about an animal who licks her own ass), we now have cat toys scattered all over my living room floor. It looks like a pet store exploded.

In other news: Baby! Squee!

Cooking with Laura

So, last night, Kelly wanted chocolate cake. Being of the instant gratification generation, she opted to use this recipe for a 5 minute cake you bake in the microwave (which is apparently very popular with the stoner crowd). After getting decent results, she convinced me to try it.

Now, as many people can attest, my cooking skills leave something to be desired (although I think the number of things I've set on fire is greatly exaggerated). But this is cake you make in a coffee mug in the microwave - how hard could it be?

Let's backtrack a bit. Kelly, who had apparently googled something to the effect of “baking for impatient people,” selected this recipe on the basis of reviews such as these:

• “my friends and i are stoned eating the cakes now. they are awesome. and if we can make them anyone can. you have made munchie time easier thank you”
• “your are the jesus of 13 year olds who are to lazy to make a cake"

I, of course, encouraged Kelly to “make the stoner cake!” Since Kelly does everything I tell her to (except kiss cute boys), she did. The results:

Kelly: Um, it looks AWESOME. And it pretty much tastes awesome.
Laura: Now I want to make it.
Kelly: Doooooo iiiiiiiiit!
Laura: It only takes 5 minutes... ok, let's go to the kitchen!

Sold. Except… I don’t have any cocoa, so, on the advice of one of the commenters, I decide to substitute hot chocolate mix and use less sugar. One minute later:

Laura: Shoot! I forgot to put in less sugar. Should I dump and start over?
Kelly: Yeah...
Laura: You know, Betty Crocker actually makes this stuff already mixed.

So, we get past the dry ingredients without further mishap. Now, we are at the egg stage, and man, they were not kidding about the pasty part. Then, I add the milk and stir some more.

Laura: Er, now I've made chocolate milk with a soggy lump in the middle.
Kelly: Keep stirring!
Laura: This is taking longer than 5 minutes.

I add the rest of the ingredients, and then, as is traditional, lick the fork I’d been using to stir.

Laura: Ugh! I hope it tastes better baked than the batter just did.

Microwaving time! They also weren’t kidding when they said it would puff up above the rim of the mug.

Laura: OMG. It's like the Leaning Tower of Chocolate Cake.

Final result? Eh, not that great. Kind of bland – I think I needed to use more hot chocolate mix (or actual cocoa, like the recipe called for) and probably leave out the vanilla. But I did not explode anything, so perhaps we will try again.

Sometimes the internet is stupid

So, a few thoughts on the Susan Boyle phenomenon. I... kind of don't understand why this is such a big deal. Yes, she's talented and has a great voice, but no more so than some of the kids in my high school drama club. Some people just have an incredible natural talent with no training - those people aren't exactly a dime a dozen, but neither are they so rare that one should cause an international internet sensation.

And you know what? Plenty of those talented people don't get to be famous. I've been to enough local theater to know that a good majority of talented singers end up never leaving their hometown, despite having Broadway-caliber voices. So the fact that there's someone as talented as Susan Boyle living in a backwater in Scotland isn't all that surprising, either.

So what makes this lady so remarkable? The fact that she's old and frumpy? If that's the case, then we're all just as bad as the judges and the skeptical audience on the show. Because every time someone says, "Ooh, watch this. It's so incredible," what they mean is, "Can you believe someone that ugly has such a good voice?" Yeah, news flash, it's not just pretty people that are talented.

I like charts

Here is a handy-dandy chart that will tell you which of your favorite shows is in danger of cancellation, and which stand a chance of being saved. In case you intend to start a campaign to mail random objects tangentially related to the show to the networks as a symbol of your devotion to said show.

Also, who wants to go to DragonCon? On the guest list: Julie Benz, Charisma Carpenter, Aaron Douglas, James Marsters, Edward James Olmos, and Kate Vernon. Come on, people!

Check back later for a very special post, in which I discuss the cooking experiment Kelly and I conducted last night.

Ouchie

I hate my dentist. All I wanted was one teeth cleaning, and it's spiraled into 5 appointments! First, they wouldn't clean my teeth until I came in for a consultation, so there's two appointments right there. Then, I had cavities, which necessitated two more appointments, since apparently, they can't do fillings on both sides of my mouth on the same day. Whatever. So I went for the first filling appointment on Tuesday, and for the past two days, the filling has been cutting the inside of my mouth with its sharp edge. Which means I am going back AGAIN today to have it fixed. Plus, I've still got my second filling appointment a month from now. *is bitter*

Anyway, Joss apparently can't make up his mind on Dollhouse - first, he said a second season pick-up was unlikely, then changed his mind and said he was optimistic at the Paley Festival's Dollhouse event.

Also, spoilers on who's gonna survive this season of 24, since they're coming back for season 8. (It's Ask Ausiello, which means there's spoilers for just about every show on TV, so be careful.)

More links

Coverage of the Dr. Horrible panel at the Paley Festival (wow, that got like NO coverage this year... last year, I remember linking to about 12 different TV show panels), and Kristen Bell (who just earned her own tag on my blog) starring in another wedding movie.

New season, new city

24 is moving again - this time to NYC. I guess that kinda puts a damper on the speculation that next season would be the first to continue from where the previous season left off (i.e. the next day).

Happy chocolate bunny day

Hope everyone had a good Easter. Mine was remarkably uneventful, despite the history-making dinner hosted by my cousin and her boyfriend, which included all of his family, all of our family, two dogs, two cats, and a baby. The best part was when Aunt Judy showed up with the convent's dog, Sister Penny, and Mike's dog, Robo got verrrrry interested. We're all, "Robo, she's a nun! She's never seen a male dog before!"

Anyway, fun stuff for today: working around the HIMYM baby bumps, and the Modesto Bee talks about their hometown boy, James Marsters ("That kid is gonna get his @*# kicked.").

Also, if you haven't heard about Amazonfail yet, you're not paying attention. There are plenty of theories, including the hacker theory and the incompetence theory, but the one I'm not buying is the Amazon hates gays theory - even if they didn't have a reputation for being liberal, they're not going to do something this blatant when it hurts their bottom line.

Plus, once I ordered something from Amazon and it took them three tries to find my house. I'm voting for incompetence.

Slow holiday Friday

It is DEAD today. No one is working in my office... or in any other office, judging by the utter lack of phone calls I've gotten today. Which leaves me plenty of time to search the internet and find fun things for you.

I haven't been terribly interested in Dragonball: Evolution, despite James Marsters being in it, so I've been avoiding linking to the eleventy billion interviews that have been released in conjunction with the movie's promotion. However, I will link to this one, because it's geeky and cute (I am now imagining his son going "Fat Piccolo! Fat Piccolo!"), it covers just about all his recent projects, and he talks about Andy Hallett. If you're really interested, I can find plenty more...

The Dollhouse season finale fiasco seems to have been straightened out. But yeah, you're probably gonna have to get the DVD if you want to watch the mystical 13th/14th episode.

Aaron Sorkin may be coming back to TV, with another show-within-a-show idea.

And apparently having babies is the cool new thing, because now Sarah Michelle Gellar is pregnant.

Linky stuff

This is so unfair: Kal Penn gets a job at the White House, and I can't? WTF?

Interview with Rashida Jones about Parks & Recreation.

This is kind of weird - CBS made a Barney/Robin video called BRo Love. It kind of looks like a fan video you'd see posted on youtube, not something produced by the network, but I guess HIMYM has always been a little unusual.

Speaking of youtube, I am dead from cuteness: James Marsters playing guitar with his son. Also, check out their other videos - they made an "epic film." :)

So, that happened...

I don't know if any of you guys watch The Bachelor; I know I don't. Which is why I completely failed to recognize that one of the guys in my meeting this morning was, you know, one of them. A Bachelor.

I have no idea why he was there (he kind of just popped in and then left early), but after he left the room, one of the other guys in the meeting goes, "You know he was on The Bachelor?" And alllll the women did a double-take, lol.

It was definitely one of the most interesting meetings I've been to. It was a pitch from this company that produces all-natural foods with abnormal amounts of nutritional content (like cookies made out of beans that still taste like cookies), and they brought samples and did demonstrations and stuff. So, free food AND a Bachelor.

Friday!!

I'm getting into this habit of falling asleep when I get home from work, taking a 3 hour nap, and then not being able to sleep at night. Not good. Need weekend.

If you haven't seen it yet, here's the Bones April Fool's Day prank.

And this one is for Megan: No Doubt will be on the Today show May 1st. (The link also includes the whole summer schedule.)

Can you tell my boss is on vacation?

I'm back to posting every day again, lol.

Anyway, interview with FNL's executive producer about the DirecTV deal and what the next two seasons have in store. Warning: If you're like me, and have been saving yourself for the NBC broadcast episodes, this article spoils episodes that haven't aired yet.

LOLs from The Onion: Obama depressed after BSG finale.

An interview with Tamara Taylor about Bones. Important note: Fox will be doubling up episodes (due to all the Obama pre-empting), and will be airing new eps on Wednesdays AND Thursdays for a couple weeks.

Politico thinks that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is really similar to West Wing character Josh Lyman. Well... duh. Josh was based on Emanuel when he worked in the Clinton administration. Any excuse for more Bradley Whitford, though.

Rude people

So, Andrew and I went to Palumbo's for lunch. Megan and Kelly might remember going there - it's a small place, only a few tables, and it's pretty crowded at lunchtime. So we get there, and there's no tables open, but there appears to be one party that is close to finishing - a snotty-looking teenage girl and a man who I hope was her father and not her boyfriend.

Andrew and I order, and then lurk near the front counter waiting for them to finish. Dad is actually done his pizza, empty plate, and Snotty's got about two mozzarella sticks left, so we figure it'll be a few minutes and they're out of there. Well, our pizza is ready, and they're still sitting there. Snotty is eating her mozzarella sticks as slow as humanly possible, with frequent breaks to stare aimlessly into space. They are completely silent, btw - no talking, just staring. So we stand awkwardly, pizza in one hand, soda in the other, waiting for them to finish. Snotty looks at us occasionally, clearly sees that we are waiting, and proceeds to sit there, staring, NOT EATING. She wipes her hands on four different napkins.

Now our french fries are ready, but of course, we can't pick them up, because our hands are already full. So we stare at Dad and Snotty, hoping we can will them to move with the power of the evil eye. Snotty proceeds to get out her phone and start texting, while Dad stares at her in silence. Snotty then muses about whether there's a bathroom, and then continues to SIT THERE, instead of getting up and going to the bathroom. Andrew offers me a dollar if I will go over and ask them if we can have their table. But then, Dad looks over and says to us, "Oh, are you waiting for a table?" and proceeds to clear his trash away. Snotty continues to SIT THERE. Dad walks outside, Snotty CONTINUES TO SIT.

In the meantime, another table opens up, so we take that one, as Snotty is still sitting and still staring. We put our pizza down, and I go up to the counter to pick up the fries, giving Snotty the evil eye as I walk past. She continues to sit. Eventually, once we no longer need her table, she gets up and leaves. I swear to God, she was doing it on purpose. Andrew thinks perhaps I wronged her in a past life. I think she just needs a slap in the face.