From E! :

Carlton Cuse revealed: We aren't changing any of the format of the show. We are just adding the flash forwards as an element. They have made a radio call to a freighter, and there are people on that freighter, and it might be logical to imagine that that storyline will continue... The situation is going to be very intense this year. Charlie wrote on his hand not Penny's boat , and the message he wrote on his hand was very important. It was really funny because the clip at Comic-Con showed Mr. Friendly saying, 'by the time you see this, I'm gonna be dead, but I am telling you it's a shame because whoever is going to come after the Others is going to be a hell of a lot worse than we ever were.' Damon and I were listening to him and sort of nodding our head going, 'That's pretty prophetic.' With Jin and Sun there is a very dynamic situation at work. She's pregnant... the fate of her child, the fate of their marriage, all those questions Damon and I will get to and more this season. Walt will be back. You will see more of Jacob.

Ahh... Lost... how I love you so...

Spoilers:

The [Comic-Con Lost panel] starts off with a clip with Michael Emerson calling the Others a "Rebel Sect."

Also on the clip show "By the time you see this I will be dead," says M.C. Gainey. Voice-over: "The survival of the Island is now at stake." Carlton says Rachel probably won't be on the Island.

Damon and Carlton say don't get too attached to Richard Alpert, because Nestor Carbonell's on CBS' Cane. They announce here that Harold is returning as Michael Dawson, but they tell the questioner they're not talking about how or when he returns.

Carlton says flashbacks and flashforwards are both on the show going forward. "How far forward" and "with whom" are the Q's.

Damon nods furiously [when asked if Jack and Claire will find out they are related].

Damon volunteers this regarding Ben vs. Henry Gale: "They had words."

Carlton, regarding poor crazy Michael, "He took some extreme actions." Michael's story is about the power of the Island to be redemptive. And this won't be a quick pop by Redemption Island; Harold is a series regular. Michael returns early in the fourth season, or so says Damon.

Carlton: "It is our intention to get to Libby's story this year, and we think you will be happy when we finish that." Damon: "There are important things going on in [Danielle's] story, and they have to sync up." They'll do that syncing in this season or next.

Damon: The whole deal with the monster will be definitely answered. Carlton: The monster answer is "not going to be 10 seconds of blank tape."

The promised [Dharma Film] clip is one of the station orientation films, hosted by Marvin Candle under an alias. The footage begins with him getting his makeup done and smoothing down his Dharma labcoat. Bunnies! It's about bunnies! Bunny #15, to be specific. Marvin, who calls himself Dr. Edgar Halifax in this film, identifies it as station six, the Orchid. He says the viewer has probably realized by now that he or she is not working at a mere botanical research unit. He apologizes for making him or her lie to friends and family members about the nature of the work. He mentions something that sounds like "Kasimir effect" and mentions the "unique properties of the Island." Then there's one of Jacob's subliminal messages. It may have been some variation on "as Jacob loves you." Then there's a bunny riot. One of the station's alarms blares, Dr. Halifax/Marvin panics. There's an intercut clip of someone riding a bicycle. The clip is inserted upside-down, and the rider appears to be in the village green of Otherville...And then, amid the chaos (perhaps this is the Incident?), the filmstrip slides off the reel.

Sad Yet Disturbingly Intriguing

Britney Spears' self-arranged photo shoot and tell-all interview with OK! magazine could potentially "kill" her career. According to gossip website TMZ.com, sources claim the singer's behavior during the interview and photo session was "nothing less than a meltdown". During the shoot, the 25-year-old mother-of-two was said to be "completely out of it", and the resulting pictures are "so bad" that publishing them could "kill her career".

The magazine hired two of the best hair and make-up artists in Los Angeles to make Britney look her best, but she refused to let them style her, instead opting for two friends she brought with her to fashion her.

Britney personally called Sara Ivens, the editor-in-chief of the US edition of OK!, last week and said she wanted to do an exclusive interview discussing her divorce from Kevin Federline, her breakdown and her problems with her mother Lynne.

OK! Editor-in-Chief Sarah Ivens said, "OK! Magazine spent a heartbreaking day with Britney Spears and witnessed first-hand an emotional cry for help that will leave you shocked and sad. This week, on newsstands Friday, the truth will be told."

--I need me a copy of that mag!

Disaster In The Making

From Socialite's Life:

Now this is one big, hot mess waiting to happen. And I'd be lying if I didn't say that part of me is so disturbed by the idea of this that I'm secretly dying to watch it. There's a new reality dating series set to hit the U.S. and in the spirit of "Joe Millionaire," the premise is to lead the contestants to believe something very different about the object of their collective affection and then hit them with the truth at the end of the show. Only this time, instead of finding out that Joe isn't rich, it's more along the lines of, "By the way, I have a penis." Originally a UK series, the show was titled, "There's Something about Miriam," and contestants competed in the hopes of dating Miriam, a Mexican 21-year-old model, only to find out in the final episode that Miriam is, in fact, a man. Yikes. Lawyers, on your mark, get set...GO! I have a feeling this is just going to end up a violent, hate-crime filled suing fest with at least one slow-car police chase.

Rick & Steve

This show on Logo is pretty funny. It's about Rick & Steve, who are the happiest gay couple ever. Their friends aren't quite as happy, such as the lesbian couple that goes to Home Depot and fixes things all the time. They are funny because everytime they're driving, they have a pseudo-Melissa Ethridge song playing on the radio called, "I'm a Lesbian." If you've ever been to West Hollywood, you know the "Roses" lady. She is a tiny little Mexican woman who sells roses and advertises her product by calling out, with an incredible rolling rrrrrrr, "rrrrrrrroses???" Anyways, she makes cameo appearances in Rick & Steve, and I think that's great. So this show gets two thumbs up and has been added to TiVo Season Pass.

Advertising

It's a dog eat dog world.

Last week, my client informed us (through Ad Week, not a phone call or meeting) that they were thinking of firing our agency. The technical way to say this is, "We're putting the account into review." So if I haven't been stressed out enough, now I have to spend several months trying to keep this piece of business.

Who cares.

SNL

Maya Rudolph may leave SNL. That would leave, like, two funny people.

Mad Men

This is a new show premiering at 10 on AMC tonight. I work in the ad industry, so I will be sure to watch this.

"It doesn’t take long to get seduced by “Mad Men.”

The arty opening credit sequence sets the mood as cast names whiz by almost too fast to see. A velvet-voiced crooner in the background eases us into a different world--New York in 1960 at the birth of modern advertising.

The camera lingers on leather banquettes and men in sharp suits with short-cropped haircuts. It turns to the bar where an ad man sits drinking, so natty, so hip, so Madison Avenue and so not anywhere else.

It’s a perfect visual memory of an era long gone and much missed.

Then the man, noticing his waiter is smoking Old Gold, calls him over. He's an ad guy. He wants to know why Old Gold, not Lucky Strike. But before the waiter, who is black, can answer, his supervisor appears.

Is there a problem? he asks the advertising man. He tells him the waiter has a bad habit of getting chatty with customers. He apologizes for any affront.

Just like that, the romance is punctured. We’re reminded, in one swift moment, that the very real memory of that time isn’t real at all but as much a construct as the ad campaign the man at the bar is working on.

“Mad Men,” which premieres tonight at 10 on AMC, is good at that. It nails the era's sense of postwar, nuclear-family, can-do optimism, all the while undermining it.

Creator Matthew Weiner, a “Sopranos” veteran, has studied the master -- that would be David Chase -- well.

In “Sopranos,” Chase brilliantly contrasted the ordinariness of Italian family life against the brutality of criminal life.

In “Men,” Weiner flawlessly creates a world that invokes fondest memories of an era, then tests those memories, peeling them back to reveal ugly truths beneath, the ingrained racism, anti-Semitism and sexism that permeated all levels of society during those years."

Inconceiveable!!!!

Hey all you Buttercup fans.... The Princess Bride is 20 years old! I can't believe it!!!
click here and check out the "then and now" of all the major players from the movie.

.....my name is Inigo Montoya.... prepare to die.......

Office Update

NBC announced Monday that the Office's season premiere will be Thursday, Sept. 27 and be an hour long. Actually, the first four episodes will be an hour long. Can't wait!

Game On

On again, off again Van Halen tour is now sounding back on! Billboard is reporting a fall area tour is in the works.

I for one am keeping my fingers crossed. Again.

Makes You Think

By Keith Olbermann

July 4, 2007 | Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on what is, in everything but name, George Bush's pardon of Scooter Libby.

"I didn't vote for him," an American once said, "But he's my president, and I hope he does a good job." That -- on this eve of the Fourth of July -- is the essence of this democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The man who said those 17 words -- improbably enough -- was the actor John Wayne. And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them when he learned of the hair's-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon, in 1960.

"I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job." The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier. But there is something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne's voice: The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgment that we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our commander in chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of one political party and often the scourge of all others.

We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president's partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead the world, but merely that we may function.

But just as essential to the 17 words of John Wayne is an implicit trust, a sacred trust: that the president for whom so many did not vote can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire republic.

Our generation's willingness to state "We didn't vote for him, but he's our president, and we hope he does a good job" was tested in the crucible of history, and earlier than most.

And in circumstances more tragic and threatening. And we did that with which history tasked us. We enveloped our president in 2001. And those who did not believe he should have been elected -- indeed those who did not believe he had been elected -- willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of nonpartisanship. And George W. Bush took our assent, and reconfigured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.

Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers. Did so even before the appeals process was complete. Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice. Did so despite what James Madison -- at the Constitutional Convention -- said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes "advised by" that president. Did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder: To what degree was Mr. Libby told, "Break the law however you wish -- the president will keep you out of prison"?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation's citizens, the ones who did not cast votes for you.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the president of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the president of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party.

And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander in chief who puts party over nation. This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics. The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of "a permanent Republican majority," as if such a thing -- or a permanent Democratic majority -- is not antithetical to that upon which rests our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.

Yet our democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government. But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain into a massive oil spill.

The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment.

The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.

The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws.

The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.

And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor, when just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge, when just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice, this president decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war. I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient. I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors. I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent. I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought. I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents. I accuse you of handing part of this republic over to a vice president who is without conscience and letting him run roughshod over it. And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that vice president, carte blanche to Mr. Libby to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to grand juries and special counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously. "Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and, ultimately, the American people."

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people. It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party's headquarters, and the labyrinthine effort to cover up that break-in and the related crimes. And in one night, Nixon transformed it. Watergate -- instantaneously -- became a simpler issue: a president overruling the inexorable march of the law, insisting -- in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood -- that he was the law.

Not the Constitution. Not the Congress. Not the courts. Just him. Just, Mr. Bush, as you did, yesterday.

The twists and turns of Plamegate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the "referee" of prosecutor Fitzgerald's analogy, these are complex and often painful to follow and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen. But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush, and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal, the average citizen understands that, Sir. It's the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the prearranged lottery all rolled into one, and it stinks. And they know it.

Nixon's mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency. And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment. It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of nonpartisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to "base," but to country, echoes loudly into history.

Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign. Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one of you chose the route no longer matters. Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant. But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics is the only fact that remains relevant.

It is nearly July Fourth, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a king who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them -- or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them -- we would force our independence and regain our sacred freedoms.

We of this time -- and our leaders in Congress, of both parties -- must now live up to those standards which echo through our history. Pressure, negotiate, impeach: get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our democracy, away from its helm.

And for you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task. You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed. Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed on August 9th, 1974.

Resign.

And give us someone -- anyone -- about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, "I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

Lucha Vavoooooom!

If you ever get a chance to go to Lucha Vavoooom, take it. It is like WWE on acid. Strippers, Mexican masked wrestling, dirty sanchez-es, lots and lots of alcohol. I was in the third row and saw plenty of ass (mostly male), a little cock (mostly female?), and almost got run over by midgets that were thrown in the audience. GO!

The Decemberists and Andrew Bird and Band of Horses!

At the Hollywood Bowl tomorrow, and I just got my tickets! Woo!

So....

Without sounding like a Debbie Downer, I just went 16 days straight at work. It was like that documentary from the 80s about the Olympics called "16 Days of Glory." Except it wasn't the Olympics. And it wasn't Glorious.

My job is exciting - who can complain about working for an advertising agency with a videogaming client? - but man, I'm beat. It's been hard to publish any posts.

I am trying to start a band. I found a chick that plays drums and I think that would be cool. Anyone in LA want to join?

Zap A Dog

Remember when you were a kid and your dad had that crazy gizmo that electrocuted your hot dogs instead of cooking them the normal way?

I was one of those unfortunate children whose father bought one of those crazy gizmo's and was forced to consume the most heinous hot dogs ever known to mankind. After electocuting them, they would have these black burnt ends that tasted disgusting. Somehow I still managed to find the whole thing fascinating. Oh, and the part of about the nasty smell. That would be correct.

For those wishing to experience that childhood memory, I bring you the following link Evil Mad Scientist

Fast & Cheap

Trouble getting onto the AllOfMP3 website? Try this instead.

If you were already a member of AllOfMP3, just type in your username and password onto their new site and PRESTO! let the downloading begin!

Blows My Mind

Bush is beyond belief, folks. He just commuted the jail sentence for Scooter Libby. Wow. I'm speechless. Thankfully, these folks aren't:

Harry Reid:
"The President's decision to commute Mr. Libby's sentence is disgraceful. Libby's conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq War. Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone. Judge Walton correctly determined that Libby deserved to be imprisoned for lying about a matter of national security. The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own Vice President's Chief of Staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law."

Pelosi:
"The President’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people. The President said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the President shows his word is not to be believed. He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his Administration accountable."

Amb. Joe Wilson (whose wife is the outed CIA agent):
"From my viewpoint, the president has stepped in to short circuit the rule of law and the system of justice in our country. In so doing, he has acknowledged Mr. Libby's guilt for, among other things, obstruction of justice, which by definition is covering up for somebody in a crime. By commuting his sentence, he has brought himself and his office into reasonable suspicion of participation in an obstruction of justice. The commutation of (Libby's) sentence in and of itself is participation in obstruction of justice."

John Edwards:
"Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today. President Bush has just sent exactly the wrong signal to the country and the world. In George Bush's America, it is apparently okay to misuse intelligence for political gain, mislead prosecutors and lie to the FBI. George Bush and his cronies think they are above the law and the rest of us live with the consequences. The cause of equal justice in America took a serious blow today."

Obama:
"This decision to commute the sentence of a man who compromised our national security cements the legacy of an Administration characterized by a politics of cynicism and division, one that has consistently placed itself and its ideology above the law. This is exactly the kind of politics we must change so we can begin restoring the American people’s faith in a government that puts the country’s progress ahead of the bitter partisanship of recent years."

Hillary:
"Today's decision is yet another example that this Administration simply considers itself above the law. This case arose from the Administration's politicization of national security intelligence and its efforts to punish those who spoke out against its policies. Four years into the Iraq war, Americans are still living with the consequences of this White House's efforts to quell dissent. This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice."