anderson cooper = boozy mcboozerson?

cnn anchor anderson cooper seemed just a little tipsy to me tonight, getting all boyishly excited like he does about things like hurricanes, haitian disasters and, ohh... primary results. but no, i thought. i've never seen this behavior before. coop would never be tipsy on air.

or would he...?

wtmi

if anything could make vincent kartheiser less attractive, it's this.

hello [insert your town here]!

look, i'm not stupid. i knew this kind of stuff happened. really. in fact, i've written a jingle or two (and even sold a couple.) so. i know.

but still. listening to this old wisn "hello milwaukee" tv spot just made me kinda warm and cozy and even a little sad.



until i saw this:



and this:



and... please. this one?



pittsburgh. disco.



and what is this?



ohhh... sneaky.



and even canada.

staying idle on idol

readers aren't happy with my basically ignoring american idol this season.

maria:

What has happened to your Idol posts? It has been almost a month and we are in fear that something bad has happened to you. Every morning after idol I come into work and we pull up tuesdaysblog to see what you have to say. The girls at the dental office have taken a fondness to your writings. Please bring Idol back!!

laurin:

Please tell me FF Idol returns this week?

mike:

WTF Tuesdaysblog? Where is Fast-forward Idol? You're not suggesting we have to endure actually watching the show, are you? I much prefer just reading what you have to say about it the next day.

why no ff-idol on tuesdaysblog? lack of time, perhaps. lack of interest, maybe. this is not to say it won't return at some point...

as good today as it's always been

roger ebert calls this new television ad for the uk's hovis bread "simply a great two-minute film, even if it is a commercial."

it's roger ebert day

first, read this:

Roger Ebert can’t remember the last thing he ate. He can't remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn't happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory — it wasn't as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz's ear. The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren't they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word.

then, follow this. finally, watch this:

"tonight," just say le-no

so sorry to have missed this:

After seeing [Jay Leno] last night with his tired jokes, embarrassing attempts at appearing edgy and hip—the awful sex jokes, the uncharacteristic and clumsy political-insult humor—and that odd passiveness as a breathtakingly obnoxious Jamie Foxx commandeered his show, I’m ready to join the Leno-disdaining mob.

tonight, instead of watching "the tonight show," i'll be reading conan o'brien's twitter feed. funnier, much less cloying, and no jamie foxx (always a good thing.)

making the men mad

and probably some women, too. on the cover of the most recent new york magazine ...one of the best things about mad men:

it's a dog's life show

olympics schmolympics: live coverage of the 134th annual westminster dog show begins tonight at 8 pm eastern on usa & cnbc.

last year's best in show, stump, takes a breather.

in case you were wondering

this is the gayest blog you know. proof:

fast-forward idol: holly ellenwood

did you notice i skipped last week completely? ya. me neither.

"performing on the most high-profile stage in the world," peecrust says. really? really? what about this one? or this one? or even this one? dipstick. ellen degeneres (ed) shows up dressed like...me.

allison has to perform first because any minute now her grandmother is gonna forget who she is. "great natural talent," says randy (as opposed to unnatural talent.) skiiboski is back, and ed sums it up: "sexy and scary, it's a fine line." ski gets axed, but needs to hear again that he really wasn't good.

f-fwd.

andrew. dude sings paula abdul's "straight up" unplugged and it's good. not-so-newbie: "that was genius." well. on the not-so scale, yah. my country girl vanessa is nervous. woah, way too nervous. why is she singing this song? horrible. poor kid didn't make it. and i just said "poor kid didn't make it." i liked that little hick.

the big italian goombah gets, what...whacked. janell wheeler, however, has a sexy rasp that gets her through. then... lots of crash and burn. rocker mom gets through and says this is gonna change her whole family's life. until she goes home tomorrow.

f-fwd.

day two. simon says, don't forget the words. beatboxer jay stone gets dissed! lilly scott is duffy-light and i'm kinda tired of these kinds of singers. not-so says she did her own thing, but she actually did duffy's thing. and madeleine peyroux's thing.

big mike's wife's water broke. he's gonna sing enya's "orinoco flow " in her honor.

down syndrome girl is coming up.

f-fwd.

cancer survivor justin and shaggy-hair-tim are up. both, i think, are stinky. but i can also tell how nervous they are, and it makes me nervous just watching, and i know that in a million, gazillion years i would never not be too nervous to do what they're doing. so. props to 'em. still, they both blew. shaggy moves on.

of course we need to be reminded about maddy curtis' down syndrome brothers. maddy picks a terrible song, and i find myself wishing i didn't know about her brothers.

shirtless guy is coming up. will he be shirtless again? one can only hope. wait. why isn't he playing this bluesy song sans shirt? think how much more entertaining...

ohhh... maddy heads home. pecs mcgee goes on.

f-fwd.

didi. singing "terrified," written by not-so. brave. it looks painful, at times, but they like it. not sure i do. crystal bowersox (love that name) plays guitar and sings "natural woman" and rocks. she needs some crest ultimate white strips, but she rocks. and hey, she just got a new tattoo.

both didi and bowersox go on.

tomorrow: swing choir dancing!

i want my, i want my...my what?

mtv is no longer, well, mtv. the network has (finally) dropped "music television" from it's logo.

For the first time in the network's 29-year history, MTV has decided to give the channel's iconic logo a face-lift.

"The people who watch it today, they don't refer to MTV as music television. They don't have the same emotional connection that, say, the people who are writing about [the logo change] do," MTV's head of marketing Tina Exarhos said.

so, what does the M stand for then?

28 minutes on 54th & broadway

how do you get oprah, jay, and dave into the same room for half an hour or so without anyone noticing?

The spot was shot last Tuesday afternoon, under the strictest of secrecy which involved both Mr. Leno and Ms. Winfrey flying in surreptitiously to New York, and arriving incognito at the theater, while Mr. Letterman was in the midst of taping his show for that night. It also involved Jay wearing a disguise: hooded sweatshirt, glasses and faux mustache. If you happened to be on Broadway between 53rd and 54th street last Tuesday about 4:15, you might have seen a man fitting that description slip into the theater by a small entrance under the marquee.

snl: what you missed

the only really funny thing on saturday night live last night. and i do mean really funny. almost worth slogging through the rest of the show.

what is this guy thinking?

colbert grills ford.

do you want to knowles a secret?

would it be wrong for me to have a little crush on beyonce?

even a blind squirrel...

the daily news' errol lewis suggests those who covered the original james o'keefe story might now take a look back at their stories with some regret:

The gullible reporters and TV producers who breathlessly parroted O'Keefe's wild, demonstrably false claims in the matter of ACORN should review their coverage in light of the recent arrest, and finally ask questions that should have been posed last year.

Hardly anybody has reported that O'Keefe's attack on ACORN turned out to be legal gossamer. Despite the lurid video and hysterical charges of ACORN lawbreaking, there were no arrests or indictments, no evidence that any of the nitwits featured on the videos ever completed or filed illegal paperwork.

The only illegal behavior, in fact, may have been O'Keefe's violation of anti-wiretapping laws.

Only a few news outlets have noted that O'Keefe did not wear the outlandish pimp outfit into every ACORN office; in some cases, he spliced footage of himself into the finished product to make it look that way. And of course, neither O'Keefe nor his boss, conservative media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com, has ever released the full, unedited videos.

don't follow me, i'm lost too

the new york times has assembled a handy timeline of some of the major events in "lost" – just in time for the final season's premier on february 2nd.

"the best color man in college basketball"

clark kellogg and verne lundquist had a little company in the broadcast booth at today's duke-georgetown game.

Mr. Obama even handled some color commentary himself on a replay: "This was a terrific spin move and he didn't get any help coming back."

"That's well done," said Kellogg. "You can handle this job if you need to. Obviously, you've got one that's requiring a lot of your time and attention."

"After retirement, I'm coming after your job, partner," Mr. Obama said. "Just to let you know. You either have three more years, or seven, I'm not sure which, but you need to plan accordingly, since I'm going to do some play-by-play."

Mr. Obama was also treated to a replay of himself on the court. Let's go to the videotape: "That's heartbreak right there, oh," he sighed.

Verne Lundquist asked if the president, a left-hander, had any problems going to his right.

"I went to the Republican House Caucus just yesterday to prove that I can go to my right once in a while," he said, "but there is no doubt that I've got a stronger left hand."

let's go to the videotape:

some people never learn

'cause, you know, this idea worked out so well last time...