Wednesday/Thursday the 4th/5th

• Man vs. Food. Detroit Rock City. I would not have liked either hot dog place. Raw onions? Blech.
  


• RW/RR Challenge. Remember when I used to like Jonny Bananas? Yeah, I can't explain that, either. Moron. And at times Kellyanne SEEMS like she could be likable, but she thought Veronica was... cool? NO. Plus she dates... Wes. Weird.
  


• Survivor. Lil' Russell was more irritating than ever - taking credit for things that really don't have anything to do with him - like photosynthesis - but I do think it made sense for him to just play the immunity idol and be out with it. Unlike Erik - hahahahahaha! Oh, Erik. Pretty - but pretty dumb. As soon as Russell played his idol and stated his reason why, I think he should've been RIGHT behind him. Having both immunity idols played WOULD have been a kick-ass Survivor moment.
  


• The Office. I'm bored. And she hit him open palm? Lame.
  


• Project Runway. Also boring. And predictable outcome. At least Gordana and Christopher went out on very nice pieces.
  
• 30 Rock. NOT boring. STILL funny. YAY!

Saturday the 31st

Coffee Walk:

• A whole slew of Story of the Day podcasts. I especially enjoyed the piece on Kobe Bryant's former personal trainer, who is now a gym teacher at a charter school in New York. Where he works with the "legitimately immature". Oh, and all the teachers get paid $120K a year. Note to the world at large: I would gladly go back for $100K. Bargain, huh?

Daytime:

• Man vs. Food. I did not need one more reason to love Adam Richman, but he gave me one. He wore a "Carcetti for Mayor" shirt to his first stop in Baltimore.

Wednesday the 21st

Commuting:

• A Story of the Day about Jewish delis - I totally want to try rolled beef, and agree that anyone requesting pastrami on white should be ignored.
• Planet Money - healthcare for hedgehogs. Hedgehogs do sound awful cute, but I doubt I would spend thousands to keep one around.
• World Cafe, and All Songs Considered with a new track from Vampire Weekend! Woo-hoo!
• Half of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me
• Somewhere in one of these I heard a piece on Ben's Chili Bowl and the half-smoke in D.C., but I can't recall where. This was an odd coincidence because...

Evening:

• Man vs. Food, Adam goes to D.C. and his first stop? Ben's Chili Bowl! Now I must go. His next stop featured some woman named Big Momma who is now my favoritest cook Adam has met. She was funny, and natural, and looovvveedd her food.
• SYTYCD - this was a rather irritating selection show, and dragging all of the contestants to a new location (Hollywood) just to dump half of them right away seemed cruel. I am exciteed about Ellenore, though! And Victor! And Legacy! And the krumper! And tapping!
• RW/RR Challenge I only wish Tonya had hit Veronica harder. That girl is awful.

Weekend 16-18th

• RW/RR Challenge. Ugh, I wanted Suzy to go home. I think I find her particularly vile because she was so cute on her season of Road Rules in Australia, and now she's a self-satisfied patronizing sanctimonious little creep.


• Fringe. A whole bunch of these from the new season are languishing in the DVR. I still think the show is entertaining, but it isn't a "popcorn" show where I enjoy watching one episode right after the other.


• 30 Rock. I loved Tracy Morgan's man-on-the-street moment.


• The Office. Still not enjoying this season much.


• The Big Bang Theory. I haven't watched this show often, but Kaela told me it's worth watching for Sheldon alone. And he is pretty awesome. I may have to start watching, and can just fast-forward through all the other geeks.


• Man vs. Food Who knew Boise was a home for such ridiculously large quantities of food? It seemed crazy that the first stop offered DOUBLE one-pound patties with multiple cheese slices, and people seem to order it as just a regular meal and not a competitive eating challenge. One could easily feed a family of 4. A FAT family of 4.
  
• The Soup One of my sources of "news". I loved Greg Kinnear on this show, grew to enjoy John Henson, loved Aisha Tyler, and it took me a while but I now love Joel McHale, too. But they could have cut that Miley Cyrus rap waaayyy shorter. Knowing it existed was awful enough, actually viewing it was unnecessary. Actually, all the clips seem to be running way too long today. But I am very glad they mocked the brainiacs on TAR who couldn't recognize Jackie O.
  
• The Simpsons - a whole mess of saved episodes, from the early days (Lisa enters Little Miss Springfield) to the latest Sideshow Bob foiled murder attempt to The Debarted where Bart's group is infiltrated by a spy.
  
• TAR - I'm surprised that Boston couple went out as gracefully as they did, but it was nice to see them both accept blame for the bad leg and to end with reasonable cheer. BTW, I would NOT have gone for that snowman in s snowmound challenge. That had loser written all over it.
  
• It's Always Sunny - "The Waitress Gets Married" and "Intervention! Intervention!"
  
• Mad Men. I'm enjoying reading the critical analysis of this how on Slate and - believe it or not - the Project Rungay website.

Saturday the 10th

Morning Commute:

• Read the Spellman book. Polished it off at a coffee shop after work this afternoon. It was a satisfying read. Characters were true to form, and it was nice to see Isabel's developing self-awareness. I remain interested and excited about more in the series.

Afternoon:

• Thought I might actually watch a football game, and Stanford was already getting beat up by Oregon State. Yikes. Switched to...
  
• Fringe. It's time to polish off the last DVD of Season 1.
  
• Man vs. Food. Mmm... corn dogs... NOW I have a reason to go to Springfield, Illinois.

Evening:

• REALLY finished off Fringe. It was good, and the season wrapped up nicely without closing the mystery down entirely.
  
• Somehow I got sucked into watching an episode of Made on MTV, where they taught 3 random suburbanites to dance and put them in a hip hop contest. One of the judges was Twitch, so I stuck around, because TWITCH! He was very enthusiastic and supportive. You go, Twitch. I'm always thrilled to see dancers getting work after SYTYCD.
  
• Community. Terrific credits. Heehee - nice Seacrest dig. I love pop culture tie-ins.
  
• Glee. I am starting to love it. Sue Sylvester was in fine form, and it had TWO musical numbers - yay!
  
• SNL, and my finger is on the fast-forward button. Drew Barrymore usually proves to be an entertaining host so she got the show a 1-week reprieve (and Regina Spektor! I absoLUTEly love her), but after tonight - it's off the DVR record list.

Monday the 5th

Commuting:

• Polished off Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and then watched the "Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody's Ass" episode of It's Always Sunny on my iPod.

Nighttime viewing:

• Watched the baseball park episode of Man vs. Food. Adam Richman is totally one of my TV boyfriends - I love his good-natured enthusiasm and appreciation for the ridiculous. The concept of the shore is, of course, appalling - food challenges no one should attempt - and yet it is done with such unabashed glee.
  
• HIMYM, something about Robin school. Total meh-pisode. Keeping the Robin/Barney relationship as a focus is dangerous, shark-jumping territory.
  
• Trauma. Episode 1 - First thought, is that first guy is a "That Guy". Turns out to be Herc from Friday Night Lights. (Thanks, IMDB!) And so far... not looking like this is gonna stay in the DVR recording list. Watching car accidents occur in places where you drive is creepy. Also, the set-ups and the characters just seem so artificial. I think the idea of first response medical teams is dramatic enough without starting the characters off with a flashback to give them a "Troubled Past!" and "Complicated Relationships!" or characters with nicknames who holler catchphrases. Fast-forwarding to see where they filmed... and... HEY! It's Buddy from Friday Night Lights! I love when that happens, when you see multiple actors from one show on another. Anyway... fast forward... and... we're done. That was dumb.
  
• Starting on episode 2... and... realize I do not care at all. I don't need to watch this to see where they film because I live here, and can also just GO OUTSIDE to see San Francisco. But I do find it funny that people are just walking by in the location shots and ignoring the paramedics. I kinda think that's more likely to happen with film crews than with actual paramedics. City dwellers are jaded, but still full of schadenfreude.

Nightstand:

• Might push through to finish off Alive in Necropolis tonight.