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!

Thursday the 29th

Commute:

• Culturetopia podcast - featured part of a really moving and serious interview with Tracy Morgan. I downloaded the entire show to listen to later. He doesn't strike me as a "sad clown", but he certainly has channeled a great deal of pain into his work.

Nighttime Viewing:

• Survivor. Ugh. Getting bored.


• The Office. "I'm not usually the butt of the joke. I'm usually the face of it." I loved this episode. From the opening to the ending, this struck me as the show at its finest. The characters are still ridiculous, but they're genuine. Michael tries too hard, takes everything to personally, tries to hard to get over it, and comes out OK in the end. Pam finds Andy ridiculous, but still cares enough to put in a good word for him with Erin. Plus an opening montage with Darrell pointing out just how insane the environment is.
  
• Project Runway. Winning look? UGH! Are there NO BRAS on the Macy's accessory wall?!? I didn't like Althea's winning look the first time, and didn't find this companion piece any more flattering or interesting. And Logan's aufing? Overdue. In his own words, his designs are not for 90% of the population. That... is not really a good thing, dude. I understand that 90% might not wear your looks, but more than 10% should want to see them.
  
• Models of the Runway. This was almost interesting for about 5 minutes. Model controversy! Boob tape! But then it just got all dull and blew like it normally does.
  
• The League. I don't actually know anyone into Fantasy Football (or at least no one who tells me they are), but guy obsessions are very amusing when you don't actually live with them.

Thursday the 22nd

Nighttime:

• Glee. Man, I kinda want a grape slushee. I also can't wait to one day buy someone a kitten, let them fall in love with that kitten, then one day years later sneak into their house at night and punch them in the head.



• Survivor. This does look like a particularly physically miserable season. I actually can't remember anything looking this bad since season 2 in Australia, when Tina went into the raging river to save the rice. But two episodes in a row of nothing really happening? You're boring me, show.


• The Office. Pam freaking in the parking lot was too ridiculous, but the freak out in the conference room was pretty good. But my favorite moment was a quick shot of Creed tearing up when he heard the aria. Sometimes those notes just hit ya, y'know?
  
• Project Runway. Carol Hannah's dress was too Uli for me, and while Irina is bitchy she did put a luxe look together. I would not have had an issue with any of the boys going home. Christopher's southwestern look was just pathetic. It looked like an old McCall sewing pattern.

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.

Friday the 9th

Morning Commute:

• Read Revenge of the Spellmans.

At work:

• Claire reminded me this week's Office episode was the wedding, which had completely slipped my mind. She mentioned they spoofed the Forever wedding march from YouTube, which I had never heard of. So we watched it. It was very cute - but we both agreed if we were the bride we would have choreographed the hell out of our entrance.

Late Night After Work:

• So I watched The Office when I finally got home. Worst. Episode. Ever. I'm not sure if I find it the worst because of the lackluster content, or because of the missed opportunities. This one just felt like it was trying too hard, and one of the things I hate most in comedy is forced hilarity. I did not like the gross-out humor (what's with the new "show, don't tell" approach to vomit?), the lack of knowledge demonstrated by the secondary characters (Pam's best friend didn't know about Dwight?), or the reliance on ridiculous stereotypes (Grandma will be shocked the couple lived together and will disapprove of the match, Pam's Dad is dating someone really young). I did think the "mental pictures" were adorable, and the filming of Pam and Jim's actual wedding was quite sweet, but the way they arrived there just felt contrived. Pam is upset because her veil was supposed to be in her control? I get the concept, but the dialogue was weird. Which also brings me to the missed opportunity - wouldn't it have been great to hear how Pam feels about Jim for once? Wouldn't that have been a great thing to save for the special episode? Instead, we get the whole gang from the workplace dancing down the aisle with only a few actual friends or relatives of the couple.
  
• Then I plowed through The Soup, Models of the Runway, and RW/RR Aftershow. Who would've thought Johnny Bananas would be one of the few to offer insight into what it really feels like to be a participant in such a ridiculous environment? I feel bad for Ev for taking the whole thing too seriously, but do think it made sense that she decided she was not going to let people who had no respect for her feelings use her muscle to help them win.

Sunday the 4th

Morning Run:

• Yeah, that's right. I went for a run. So Amazon has MP3 daily deals, and I've picked up some interesting stuff there. Recently, I downloaded Enjoy Every Sandwich: The Songs of Warren Zevon. My current favorite tracks are "Ain't That Pretty at All" by Pixies and "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" by Jackson Browne & Bonnie Raitt.

Laundry viewing:

• The Soup. They made Wendy Williams up, right? That can't be real.

Mid-morning commute:

• Read Revenge of the Spellmans.

Evening commute:

• Polished off 3 Story of the Day podcasts - 2 on healthcare (enough with the healthcare!) and one on a children's orchestral program from Venezuela. Then most of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, which had a timely and unwelcome series of anecdotes for the "Bluff the Listener" segment - ridiculous legal stories. The true one was about a brief being tossed out for poor stapling, and the listener got it right because she used to be a paralegal. Yup. I got that one right, too.

Nighttime viewing:

• FINALLY sat down for SYTYCD, and that New Orleans Bounce audition was fantastic. It got me to wondering, what's my favorite audition ever? And one still stands out. Phillip Chbeeb, Season 3 (his first attempt). Now he did not turn out to be one of the best contestants - but what he did was so unusual and yet lyrical that I have never forgotten the feeling I had watching it. An edge of my seat, joyous amazement that made me want to scream "Did you SEE that?!"
  
• SNL. Checking IMDB now to remind me what Ryan Reynolds has been in bc I'm confusing him with... oh. He WAS Van Wilder. Which I didn't even see. He's like Dane Cook without the constant shouting, or Ryan Gosling without the indie cred. Anyway, intro over and I haven't laughed yet. 2 minutes into the Family Feud parody aaaannndddd... I am done. I am deleting this from my scheduled recordings. We are on a break, SNL.
  
• TAR (That's The Amazing Race, to you non-TWOP readers (and that of course is Television Without Pity). I'm not gonna lie - it makes me very, very happy that the loud-mouthed attorney is such a dumbass when it comes to figuring out the Race.
  
• The Office, finishing up "The Promotion". And this one has inspired me to coin a term - it was a meh-pisode.
  
• Mad Men. The Pete & Trudy moments were very well done - they captured that awful wordless exchange, where you go from feeling so optimistically close to someone to realizing things have gone very, very wrong.

D(VR)leted:

• Dollhouse. I just don't care. I had high hopes, because Joss Whedon's Firefly was fantastic, and I like Eliza Dushku - but the overacting in this show is horrendous. I will stare at Google images of Tahmoh Penikett (hhhaaawwwwtttt) rather than sit through this festival of meh.

Insomnia viewing:

• HIMYM, "Little Minnesota". Kaela had told me this is her favorite episode and it took me until the 2nd repeat to catch it. And it was pretty good, but I think my favorite is when Robin sits in as Barney's bro.
  
• It's Always Sunny, "The Nightman Cometh". He's a master of karate, and friendship - for everyone!

Friday the 2nd

Morning Commute:

• Planet Money, another healthcare report I forgot as I was listening to it. Story of the Day was about the swine flu epidemic hitting Austin, Texas. The reporter interviewed his teenage daughter, who said she was afraid it would be a really scary thing but basically she just felt stuffy and tired for 6 days. Now I want swine flu. It would be a chance to clean out the DVR.

Night Out:

• Live! Saw "Rumbache" at Cigar Bar, and danced with random folk. Plug: my friend Alan's band "Manicato" plays there sometimes. I imagine it's tight quarters for a band with a horn section, but fun!

Late Night:

• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, something about the gang and the recession. The Dave & Buster's tie-in was a weird cross-promotion, but still hilarious.
  
• The Office - only made it through the intro and was too tired to concentrate anymore. Too tired to concentrate on The Office. Yikes.