I hardly ever get to see foreign TV commercials, so that's one of the good things about the web. This one is a Microsoft ad from Germany. There seems to be some question as to whether or not it's real or fake, but I'm strongly leaning towards fake.

[via Adfreak]

Capitalizing on the way his character was whacked on The Sopranos, actor Joe Gannascoli recently launched his own line of pool sticks. Gannascoli played Vito Spatafore, who was on the show since 2000 but really got noticed earlier this year when he became known as "gay Vito". He was killed by Phil Leotardo and two thugs, who duct taped his mouth shut and beat him to death with pool sticks. They apparently sodomized him with those pool sticks too, indicating Vito's death was at least partially a hate crime.

Gannascoli's line of pool sticks are being made by Rockwell Billiards in Southern Oregon. They're called "A Cue to Die For: The Badda-Breaker." Gannascoli jokingly told the New York Daily News that he wanted to call them "The Brown-Tip Special." Ewwwww.

(S01E03) Writers are the most shameless, self-centered bastards in the world. We lie, we seduce, we'll steal your soul. Anything to look good on the page. -Sam Landry

I thought I had read every story from Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and I might have, but nothing about "Umney's Last Case" was familiar when I read it just recently. Nevertheless, it's not a bad story, and it's also very "meta" as the college kids like to say.

In the story, as in the TV adaptation, we begin in the 1930s where a grizzled private eye named Clyde Umney is leading a storybook life that he'll soon learn is more "storybook" than he realizes. He wields snappy dialogue with the precision of a trapeze artist, and always knows just what to say to get what he wants, at one point managing to turn two women to jelly in his office one after the other.

Do not adjust your web browser. You are now entering the Retro Squad, where we are reviewing past episodes of your favorite shows, in order, every week.

(S06E01) The year was 1994. I was starting my senior year of high school and The Simpsons was starting its sixth season with an episode about Homer giving in to the demands of his children and buying a pool for his family. Everyone enjoys the new pool, but Bart tries to show off for his friends and ends up falling from the treehouse and breaking his leg. As he becomes more and more reclusive (and increasingly insane) he convinces himself that Flanders has murdered his wife and recruits Lisa to sneak into Flanders' house and find evidence. Of course, the whole idea is an homage to Rear Window, which becomes obvious when Bart peers into the apartment of a Stewart lookalike who exclaims some sinister kid is spying on him.

Brooke Burns is fortunate. Very fortunate. And she knows it. The former Baywatch star broke her neck when she dove into a pool last month, knocking her head on a surfboard. If it hadn't been for a friend, she probably would have died. Her friend was a paramedic firefighter, who, Brooke says, "wrapped a wet towel around my neck and basically immobilized me and floated me in the pool until paramedics came." Burns spoke to Access Hollywood last night about the accident. She revealed that she broke her neck "from chin to chest" when she dove into that pool. She also said that the accident has brought her closer to her ex-husband, Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck), who has been at her side since she arrived at the hospital on November 10th. Brooke is on the mend and will continue with her plans to co-star in the WB series Pepper Dennis with Rebecca Romijn, starting in January. In the meantime, she's stylin' in her personalized neck brace.

If anyone reading this has $7,000 lying around and wants to do something nice for me, they can buy me this totally boss "hippie" pool table. The table is just one of the creations of John Conod, and it will be showcased on Monday's episode of Monster House on the Discovery Channel. The table has beaded pockets and is made with tie-dyed felt. Not sure if it comes with a place to hide your stash or not, though.