This Week in Boob Tubery 11/16

With the writer's strike lingering indefinitely, This Week in Boob Tubery may be forced to take a temporary hiatus. I'm definitely not going to start watching reality shows. I guess I could chronicle my Guitar Hero games.

Heroes- Liars. You did not answer ALL my questions. In fact you pretty much filled in the blanks in the least inventive way possible. Good job. So Peter blew up and then was immediately fine and saved Nathan, then went to rehab for like 4 months. Thrilling. Why go through all of the trouble to bring DL back to life only to have a greasy pimp kill him off unceremoniously within 20 minutes. As for Nikki/Jeana (Apparently), I'm totally over that story. And I couldn't care any less about the wonder twins of doom. Showing their back story added almost nothing. I am interested to see what Adam's master plan is. He'd better have one! P.S. Sylar should be DEAD. But since he's not, he's definitely going to kill Alejandro.

Chuck- Hey, they finally starting doing something with this show. This week was what a bad episode of Chuck should be. They did several key things this week. 1. introduced the love triangle. Sure it's cliched, but hey, it works. 2. They took it over the top. Up until now the show has taken itself way too seriously. Finally, they crossed the line into ridiculousness. It's exactly what the show needs. I can only hope they keep it up. And 3. They got rid of the "I'm an asshole for no particular reason" Asian guy. Good job, Chuck. No don't go back to sucking next week.

Pushing Daisies- The over-narrated flashbacks are starting to wear thin for me, but overall there is always enough kitschy humor and murder mystery to keep me interested. The guy from The Soup plays a dog breeder with 4 wives who gets poisoned and also accidental stabs himself as he is dying. Of course, all of the wives are suspects and the 4 main character have to go under cover to question them. The biggest laugh for me was when Emerson was tied up and had a chew toy ball gag that made a hilarious squeak sound.

30 Rock- Despite it's unoriginal terrorist plot, plot, 30 Rock was full of it's normal laughs. This was Jack-heavy episode and focused on his relationship with a democratic congresswoman played by Edie Falco. I think they could ride that story out for a little while. I'm really liking how they are writing Tracy these days. He's not all superstar idiot.

The Office- Not a very good episode. It's back to being in and about real office-type things, but it just took itself too seriously. I was nice to see Michael's devotion to the company over his devotion to Jan. The ping pong story was a little under cooked. I really like the "Hiya Buddy" hot dog note in the beginning. Of course, there were laughs throughout. But it's not impressing me.

Global Housewarming

I threw my first real party ever this weekend. It was a modest-sized gathering to celebrate the fact that my roommate and I just moved into a new apartment. I made the mistake of calling it a housewarming party. Apparently, that's code for "hey everyone, bring us gifts." And that's embarrassing because I wasn't expecting anything. Although, when you consider some of the gifts we got, it's really more embarrassing for our friends than for us. A couple of co-workers got a Really Big Coupon Book. Hey, everyone likes a BOGO, but really? That's, you spent money on that? The best by far was the Party Ice Luge! Yes, it's just as exciting as it sounds. Basically, it's a rectangular piece of plastic with 2 groves in it. You fill with water and freeze it to make an amazing ice slide to pour your drinks down. It's like taking your taste buds on an amazing luge run!

Despite being pelted with gifts, the party was a really fun time. We had tons of delicious snacks and simulated rock star action with Guitar Hero III. By the end of the night we even broke out the Karaoke Revolution game. When you're singing "Hungry Like the Wolf" at 2 a.m., you know it's a good party.

Also, my friends are weird and they left Chris a message written in shampoo in his bathtub. All in all, it was a total success.

Tic Tac Girl

I think I'm in love with the girl from the Tic Tac commercial. You know the one. She's bouncing Tic Tacs off of her cubicle wall into her mouth. She has all the qualities I'm looking for: She's cute, athletic (that looks like more of a sport than NASCAR), has a steady professional job (though, who knows how long she'll keep it if she keeps up those antics!), has a wonderfully michevous smile (you heard me) and, most importantly, she always has minty fresh breath.

Tic Tac girl, I can only assume you read my blog. Will you marry me?

They Might Be AWESOME

I saw They Might Be Giants in concert last night at The Variety Playhouse. And it was the best show I've ever been to. As John Flansburgh put it in a funny anecdote, "our shit is golden." After the first song, they declared that it was the best show they'd ever played. And after the second, they decided that there was no way they could suck enough to make this not the best show ever. Then they announced that they'd be playing at about 60% for the rest of the night.

They played about half of their new album, including Mesopotamians, I'm Impressed, Climbing the Walls and Shadow Government. The only song I thought was missing was The Cap'm. But they played tons of classics as well. Istanbul is a given, plus they pulled out Doctor Worm (with confetti cannons), Meet James Ensor, Cyclops Rock, I Palindrome I and an extended version of Particle Man.

The songs were great, but the stage antics really made the show what it was. They put up a slide projector and showed an image of a telephone in a graveyard, then took Calls from the dead.

Needless to day, this was my first They Might Be Giants concert and it exceeded all expectations.

Go Team Venture!

The best part about working for Cartoon Network is that everyone dresses up in great costumes every Halloween. Well, maybe it's not the BEST part, but it's pretty good. We had some gems this year.

I was Dr. "Rusty" Venture from the Venture Bros. This is me with my faithful bodyguard, Brock.


My boss Chrissie and another writer Alan dressed up as Sonny and Yancy, characters from the show Out of Jimmy's Head. It's a terrible show, but their costumes were quite good.





There were a few characters from the new show Chowder. Not to mention that we got cool hats!!! And even a very convincing Dora the Explorer.


That's Truffles and Shnitzel from Chowder. These costumes were HOMEMADE! Crazy, huh?

This Week in Boob Tubery 11/2

With the writer's strike looming, who knows how long it'll be before all quality TV is replaced with the horrible goblins of reality TV. Let's enjoy while we can.

Best of the Week:
CHOWDER- Technically it hasn't aired yet, but it's still the your best bet tonight. It's a new original Cartoon Network series about a young chef-in-training. Watch it at 7:30 tonight on Cartoon Network. Try some. You'll like it.


Heroes- Almost everything interesting about last week's episode was negated by the go-nowhere stories of Hiro and Peter. Claire and Flyboy played a gross prank on the classically bitchy head cheerleader so she could make the squad. I like that they are planting the seeds that she can get what she wants by being bad. Evil Claire anyone? Mr. Bennet was up to his usual badassery this week as he interrogated a Russian member of the company to find the whereabouts of the paintings.

Chuck- Let's see, the exact same thing happens in every episode. Chuck sacrifices something in his personal life to accommodate something in his spy life and Sarah helps him cover for it with his friends and family. Then there's a heartwarming "someday you'll grow up" speech from big sis. The End. I've pretty much written this off. The writer's for this show can go ahead and strike.

Pushing Daisies- I still find it charming, though without Chi McBride's character there wouldn't be nearly as many laughs. I thought they had a lot of fun with the Halloween theme and it was a good chance to develop the characters. I hope this show does get too formulaic.

30 Rock- Not on this week due to an extra-large portion of Earl. NOT a sufficient replacement.

The Office- "The eyes are the groin of the head." Yeah, I lost it when I heard that one. You'll probably be seeing that on away messages and profiles across the internet. It was a very funny episode and I think a strong case for why they should keep them to a half hour. The idea of trying to prank the other branch was ridiculous, but not too far out there. The extreme awkwardness between Karen and Jim made it all worthwhile.