fun

Last week's winners:

3rd to erroneous_nick: "Steve was REALLY uncomfortable with some of the tasks his new guide-chimp was trained to do."
2nd to LC: "Michael didn't know what was more disconcerting. That a chimp was using a urinal or the fact that it was circumcised"
1st to Fred: "That's a little TOO Curious George, if you ask me!"

This week, a scene from the latest episode of Ugly Betty:

Yesterday while I was looking around the Web for links to add to this post, I noticed that Nickelodeon's Nick.com site had a scroll on it telling kids to go outside and play in honor of the Worldwide Day of Play. The network also went off the air for a few hours, replacing programming with a similar scroll. That's sound advice, of course, but I pretty much had the same reaction I did when TV Land did the same thing recently in honor of Family Day. Won't people just change the channel? I don't fault Nickelodeon for trying, but people are conditioned to automatically hit the clicker when something appears on screen they don't like, whether it's a show they hate, and annoying commercial, or words on the screen telling them to go outside.

Here's a bit o' fun for your Sunday. I don't know how long it's been around, but I recently found the Dead Celebrity Soulmate search on the Biography Web site. You select the qualities you want in a dead lover, and the program matches you with the perfect deceased mate. One of the women it matched me with was painter Frida Kahlo. Lord knows I'm a sucker for artistic chicks with a unibrow. If I were gay, it would have matched me up with Edgar Allan Poe or Vincent Van Gogh. Either way it looks like I have a thing for artistic types. Apparently this transcends my sexual preference. I hope we all learned something about me today. Anyway, try it out and let me know who the dead love of your life is in the comments. Just stay away from Frida, she's mine.

Related:
What celeb do you look like?

(NOTE: Sorry folks, the star system is down for the time being. I'll come back and assign stars once it's back and working.)

Last week's winners:

1 star to Sarcastro: "Uh, can we get a hit off of that?"
2 stars to corbett: "Listen, fellas, I need the bagged spinach NOW."
3 stars to Tucker: "Gentlemen, you'll need to come with me... There's just no place for men in this show anymore."

This week, a scene from the season premiere of Gilmore Girls:

Last week's winners:

1 star to Carl Winslow: "Let's just get this over with before someone takes a picture and comes up with an embarrassing caption."
2 stars to Bus: "You have nothing to worry about. See all the pictures of the animals on the wall? All successful rectal removals."
3 stars to Chris W: "Suddenly, T-Bag wished he had heeded the operator's warning to keep his arms and legs within the ride at all times. Worst Disney World trip ever."

This week, a scene from the season finale of Entourage:

As I said last week, I've picked six winners from the last contest for some cool prizes. And here they are:

Sixth prize -- emily.: "In order to keep the internet from being a tool of mass political revolution, the Pentagon has a full-time staff of forum trolls posting comments on key websites from several independently-operated bunkers throughout the U.S."
Fifth prize -- Allen: "With Hamlet completed, the writing staff revolted when they learned their next assignment was writing jokes for Regis Philbin and David Hasslehoff."
Fourth prize -- Chris W: "In this rare, behind the scenes picture, you can see the writing team hard at work on an episode of "According to Jim.""
Third prize -- Fred: "These PSP games suck! Next time, we rob Mark-Paul Gosselaar's hotel room."
Second prize -- Bus: "As a kid I always loved the Macy's store front windows, but they must be running out of ideas when this is their Easter display."
First prize -- Carl Winslow: "FOX executives demonstrate the new "CANCELTRON 4000" at the TCA Press Tour."

Congratulations all! I'll contact everyone individually for your addresses and prize choices. And since I was on vacation all week, I've got no new contest for you today. Until next week...

Last week's winners:

1 star to Fred: "Sir, step away from the jelly donut. I repeat, step away from the donut."
2 stars to Jamie: "That was one big ass mosquito!"
3 stars to Seth Brundle: "Mikey was overwhelmed by the media following his triumph at the 'Worlds Oldest Kindergarten Finger Painter' competition."

This week, a scene from the previous episode of The Closer:

Last week's winners:

1 star to Tammy: "And that, kids, is why I needed hip replacement surgery before I was 30."
2 stars to CygnusTM: "Where did you get the human weathervane?"
3 stars to Mike K: "Barney: I said 'Suit up!' not "Fruit up!'"

This week, what's with the pile  from the season finale of Lost?

Have you ever come across a show you used to watch as a kid and realized there was a lot of stuff that went over your head? I'm talking about those shows you enjoyed as a kid, but also enjoyed as an adult because they seemed to work on two different levels. Well, maybe it would help my explanation if I just dove right in and listed five shows I loved as a kid, and then rediscovered as an adult. If this triggers any memories, let it all out in the comments. Onward:

Batman: The old Adam West series was reran when I was younger, and I love it for its comic book / pop art aesthetic, kooky villains, and nutty fight scenes. What I didn't realize until I was older was how clever the show really was, and that it was actually very self-aware and downright hysterical at times. I don't know if I could imagine West playing a "serious" Batman, but I can't imagine anyone else in this role.

(S10E12) Being a heterosexual male with the ability to use my eyes, I can certainly understand the desire to kick back at the occasional strip club now and again, but I've never understood men who go to these places all the time. They're fun once in a while, but I would think frequenting them every day would cause the novelty to wear off pretty quickly. That doesn't seem to be the case for Mr. Strickland, who has spent every morning of his life kicking back at his favorite strip joint and enjoying the free buffet. In the beginning of last night's episode, after fuming over the lack of free food, he's banned from the strip club indefinitely.

The episode could have easily been turned into one about a dirty old man upset about not being able to ogle chicks before work every morning, but it was really more about Strickland's endless struggle to remain young and vibrant, at least in his own mind. He has no desire to be the real "boss" of Strickland Propane, he delegates that responsibility to Hank. What he does want is to be the crazy guy who swipes money from the cash register to use at the strip club each morning. Since he can't even do that anymore, he decides to make Strickland Propane more "fun," turning it into "Strickland Propanerie" and having his workers dress in Hawaiian shirts and bunny ears. Unfortunately, this means no work ever gets done and they end up having to work overtime. Hank eventually smooths things over with the owner of the strip club, and Mr. Strickland is allowed back, as long as both parties understand the other one isn't apologizing.