Best of the Week - 1/21/12

Quote of the Week: Live long and suck it Zachary Quinto. (Sheldon, The Big Bang Theory)

Song of the Week: Rock Lobster – The B52’s (Suburgatory)

Gratuitous Token Hot Chick Picture of the Week:



Scene of the Week:



Big News of the Week: The Republican Field Keeps Shrinking: The slow march to Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama (hopefully America Elect nominates someone worth voting for) picked up a little this week when the Republican candidates shrunk by two this week. First Jon Huntsman who seemed too smart for the Republican electorate dropped out. The other shoe dropped with Rick Perry who possibly withdrew for the second time. Perry was supposed to be the anti-Bush Texas governor but managed to perform worse at debates than W. But the big new of the week had to do with the high number of drop outs just short of tomorrow’s South Carolina primary, the spotlight was back on Newt Gingrich’s many marriages with wife number two claiming that Newt asked her if they could have an open marriage so he could hook up with eventual wife number three. On the bright side, this wife was not going through chemotherapy when he asked. So tomorrow we get to see if evangelicals would rather get behind a Mormon or a Christian who actually tried to get his wife to sign off on polygamy.

Free Download of the Week: Hurry Hurry - Jessie Baylin (Amazon MP3)

Deal of the Week: Over 1,000 Albums $5 Each: With over a 1000 album for sale for just $5 there are a lot of hidden gems, here are a couple from my list of The 100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s including Michele Branch, John Mayer, The Killers and Kanye West.



New Album Release of the Week: The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy - Nada Surf

New DVD Release of the Week: Kojak: The Complete Movie Collection

Video of the Week: House of Lies premiered to a resounding yawn a couple weeks ago and tomorrow’s episode should make any fan of Kristen Bell’s feet happy. Until then the two guys on the show not named Bell or Don Cheadle are starring in webisodes for the show entitled Friday’s at Gallweather, one of which even features Bell, with shoes on, in a cameo.



Next Week Pick of the Week: Chuck, Friday at 8:00 on NBC: An end of an era comes Friday when the hottest token hot chick ever in the history of television will presumably be donning her last skimpy outfit on the small screen. Sure the show itself has not been great since the second season and arguably has not even been good for the last couple seasons, but hopefully Chuck will go out on a high note, preferably by finally killing Morgan off, something they should have done a long, long time ago.

Around the Tubes - 1/20/12

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on America's Book of Secrets, Luck, The Lying Game, Predator Bowl, Smash, Eastbound and Down, America's Most Wanted, The Tonight Show, and Sony Xperia Play.

- New series alert! America’s Book of Secrets is premiering tomorrow at 10:00 on H2 (it is History’s second channel if you are wondering) which aims to uncover the controversial truths of the most confidential secrets in American history. Until the premiere, you can try their quiz below (or on their Facebook page) which can earn you prizes like an iPod or Beats by Dre headphones.

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- Or you can win $50K courtesy of Luck the new HBO. Starting over to Luck’s Facebook page starting Monday (you can always “Like” it now and presumably they will remind you) and just like the characters on the show, pick a couple horses by 1/28 at three.

- The latest episode of The Lying Game hits ABC Family Monday at 9:00 and here is a quick look of a photo from Black and White and Green All Over where it looks like Sutton and Ethan will be keeping up the public relationship that Emma ousted during her tenure in the Mercer family.



- For those already working on what to watch while avoiding the Super Bowl in two weeks, Nat Geo Wild just announced Predator Bowl featuring specials on some of the world’s deadliest predators starting at noon February 5 culminating with the premiere of Lion Battle Zone at 10:00.

- And who could forget with the incisive promotion over the past two month’s that Smash premieres the Monday after the Super Bowl on NBC. For those that are not already sick of the show thanks to all the promo, you can actually download the premiere episode on iTunes for the low, low price of free two weeks before you are stuck watching it with ads.

- Who better to warm you up in these winter months than Kenny Powers? Here is the latest poster promoting the 2/19 return of Eastbound and Down:



- America’s Most Wanted may have moved to Lifetime, but it is still leading to captures like this weekend where two men alleged to be involved in a DC shooting were captured thanks to the show. You can check out new episodes Fridays at 9:00.

- Just in time for the Florida primaries, Michele Obama will be appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno January 31.

- Kristen Schaal is still playing with her Sony Xperia Play and looks like she has not been doing much else since as she has been too busy playing Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 than keep up with hygiene.

Juggling Kristen – Xperia Play

I Want My Music Television - 1/19/12

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.

Tattoo - Van Halen



This may be one of the saddest comebacks in recent memory. The song is kind of lame and the music video even lamer (c’mon Van Halen, just because you made the exact same video twenty-eight years ago does not make it all right because you made this one in black and white). Maybe Michael Anthony should be happy he got booted out of the band for Eddie’s son so he did not have to taint his legacy.


Everybody Talks (Animated Version) - Neon Trees



I wonder if it says anything about me that when the Ouija Board started to spell H*E*L my first thought was the spirit was writing “Help”? But Neon Trees seems like one of those bands, had they came out a decade earlier would have been huge thanks to a McG assisted video.


Bruises – Band of Skulls



It is about time someone made an epic bowling video featuring suit wearing Luchadores. Thank you Band of Skulls.


In the End - Snow Patrol



Snow Patrol should be a little worried because they are maybe one or two more flops away from being a on a dancing show themselves.

It's a Shame He Wasn't a Wanted Felon so I Could Shoot Him He Resisted

Raylan Gibbons did not just return to our television screen yesterday for the new season of Justified, but he also saw his triumphant return to the bookshelves (or virtual bookstand as the brick and mortar versions are hard to find these days) in Raylan. For those unfamiliar, Justified is actually based on the Elmore Leonard short story Fire in the Hole where a cowboy hat wearing US Marshall is demoted back to his home country after a questionable shooting in Miami.

The characters may mostly be the same, Raylan does not play in the same timeline that Justified. Though the book does read as if the writers of the television series got a hold of an outline of the book and made it the basis of the second season, because both feature heavily a storyline about an evil coal company coming to town in the form of an attractive lady by the name of Carol (but with a different last name). But the surrogate Ma Bennett is now a guy by the name of Pervis Crowe but retains sons Coover and Dickie (and Dewey turns out to be his nephew).

And Elmore clearly was watching the television series because Loretta McCready makes a quick cameo as well as Wynonna who was just mentioned in the short story. And the Boyd and Ava relationship seems to be progressing much like it did in the early part of season two, but she only quickly shows up in one chapter and disappears. Missing in Raylan is Arlo who just gets a quick mention along with a little sister for Raylan who I do not remember ever getting mentioned on the show before (but for some reason whenever I was reading about Pervis I saw Arlo in my mind).

Naturally Raylan is tasked to hunt down some bad guys whenever he is not escorting Carol around. One case finds him hunting down some criminals who are taking kidneys out of people and then try to sell them back to the patient. More humorously is someone from Raylan’s past who devised a plan to get strippers to rob banks for him and stupidly makes a video tape for Raylan telling him he knows Raylan is coming for him and he will get Raylan first. Hopefully the Justified writing staff turn this plotline into an episode because I would love to see how the plot played out in living color.

With the themes similar, but outcomes different, it is a little hard for a Justified watcher to get into this book, but once you do, it is filled with everything you love about the series. And it may have been a while since he written about him but Elmore Leonard still has an amazing grasp on the character and Kentucky as a whole. The series inspired Leonard to start writing about Raylan Gibbons again and after reading Raylan, hopefully he has a couple more stories about the US Marshall in him.

Raylan gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

Lyrics Quiz: Best of 2002

Every January I like to look back ten years at my playlist of the best songs from that year and present them as a lyrics quiz. Now with Spotify, click to follow me, I am slowly added all my previous lists for everyone to listen and I recently added my Best of 2010 list to go along with my first (1996) and latest (2011). You may have to wait a little while until I upload my Best of 2002 list so until them you can try to guess the list by their lyrics below. As always leave your guesses, both artist and song title, in the comment section or e-mail me. If you are correct I will un-bold the lyric and give you credit. Please keep in mind the lyrics quiz is for entertainment purposes only so please only use your own meandering mind to guess them.

1. Red hair with a curl, mellow roll for the flavor and the eyes for peeping.
2. It’s just the thought of you in love with someone else. It breaks my heart to see you hanging from a shelf.
3. “Welcome to the real world,” she said to me condescendingly. Take a seat take your life, plot it out in black and white.
4. Tell me just what you want me to be. One kids and boom, you’re the only one for me.
5. It’s always times likes these when I think of you and I wonder if you ever think of me. ‘Cause everything is so wrong and I don’t belong living in your precious memory.
6. Honey now if I’m honest, I still don’t know what love is. Another mirage folds into the hazy time recalled. And now the floodgates cannot hold all my sorrow, all my rage.
7. Broken heart again, another lesson learned. Better know your friend or else you will get burned. Gotta count on me ‘cause I can guarantee that I’ll be fine.
8. Something about the way the hair falls in your face. I love the shape you take when crawling towards the pillow case.
9. Thinking of a master plan, you know, anything you need, baby ask your man. He was there from half a gram and now kilos and C-notes and high fusion brands.
10. Hey, don’t write yourself off yet. It’s only in your head where you feel left out or looked down on. Just do your best, do everything you can and don’t you worry what the bitter hearts are gonna say.
11. I always thought are love was so right, I guess I was wrong. Always thought you’d be by my side papa, and now you’re gone.
12. Left the house this morning. Bells were ringing filled the air. I was wearing the cross of my calling on wheels of fire I come rolling down here.
13. I will never bother you, I will never promise too. I will never follow you. I will never bother you.
14. I you want to, I can save you. I can take you away from here. So lonely inside. So busy out there.
15. Maybe she thinks I know something, maybe, maybe she thinks it’s fine. Maybe she knows something I don’t. I’m so, I’m so tired, I’m tired of trying.
16. He said, “Take my hand. Live while can. Don’t you see your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand?”
17. It hurts to want everything and nothing at the same time. I want what’s yours and I want what’s mine. I want you but I’m not giving in this time.
18. If you can hear a piano fall you can hear me coming down the hall. If I could just hear your pretty voice I don’t think I’d need to see at all.
19. Mama, love you but this trailer got to go. I cannot grow old in Salam’s Lot. So here I go, it my shot. Feet fail me not. Maybe this is the only opportunity I got.
20. Well I’ve been watching while you been coughing. I’ve been drinking life while you been nauseous. And so I drink to health while you kill yourself.
21. Doo what I please, gonna spread the disease because I wanna. Gonna call all the shots for the No’s and the Nots because I wanna.
22. I’d like to ask you from the start if you could pull me out the dark or if our love could fall apart like cookies crumble.
23. So many things I’m going through, so much that I wanna do. It starting to become so clear to me tomorrow ain’t really guaranteed.
24. you don't wanna wake up getting told that ya kids trapped at school. When the time’s right, I’mma put this nine right to the left side of ya head, push ya mind right.
25. When I saw the break of day, I wished that I could fly away. 'Stead of kneeling in the sand catching teardrops in my hand.