Yesterday, an article in USA Today talked about what appears to be a new TV trend: the portrayal of sensitive male buddies who talk about their hopes and fears and (gasp) their feelings. Riffing off a silly New York Times article from 2005 about "man dates," USAT talks to relationship experts and psychologists about why these new "couples" exist.

In the process, they examine pairs like William Shatner and James Spader from Boston Legal, Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford from Studio 60, Julian McMahon and Dylan Walsh from Nip/Tuck, among others. They even include Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and his search for a male friend on The Office in this article as evidence of this "trend."

There are two little flaws with this article, though, which I'll mention after the jump.

Jenna Fischer, who plays Pam on The Office, recently had an article published in Esquire magazine listing "10 Things You Don't Know About Women". The cast and crew of The Office decided to get together and have a reading of it... and it's on YouTube. The guy who shot and edited it did so on his telephone and he's calling it a phone-isode.

Video is embedded after the jump (WARNING: Profanity!):

If you just can't wait until tonight's season premiere of The Office, Slate has a little something to whet your appetite: clips from The Office. Well, more specifically, they have clips from Le Bureau and Stromberg, the French and German versions, respectively, of the original British classic.

The article, written by Liesl Schillinger, examines the reasons why the remakes -- including the American version -- were done, paralleling how each fictitional office is portrayed with how each country views their respective 9-to-5 grinds. For instance, the "Tim and Dawn" equivalent in Germany are even better looking than the American "Jim and Pam," and are already fooling around under the desk. And, the British and French Offices emphasize that life isn't all about work, while the American version reflect our nation's desire to revolve our lives around the workplace, even if we don't actually do much productive work. Not a bad read for a lazy Thursday afternoon at work.

Interesting article in today's New York Times about the genesis of the "Lazy Sunday" film that took the SNL audience and the Internet by storm. The article, written by Dave Itzkoff, focuses mainly on Andy Samberg and the two other members of the comedy group The Lonely Island, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. All three got hired by Lorne Michaels on the strength of short Web films that were similar to "Lazy Sunday", which led to work on Comedy Central and MTV as well as the SNL gig.

Then, the article goes into the process of how the movie was written, shot, and put together, all in the Tuesday thru Saturday timeframe the rest of the staff gets to create their "magic." The funniest detail? The rap was recorded on a laptop that Taccone bought on Craigslist.