August 10, 2006

Bradley is a Unique Sunflower

Whatever you might think about Bradley, who was aufed from Project Runway last night, you can't deny that his on-camera interviews were filled with some of the funniest, Jack Handey-esque, non-sequitur bon mots (unlike the nasty, catty sarcastic quips of people like Keith Michael or Jeffrey Sebelia). And in his exit interview, our man from outer space doesn't fail to disappoint.

Exhibit One:

Where do I find my design inspiration? In music. In music, in silence, in ... not strawberries. * * * * * For me, like inspiration comes through different means but like sometimes I can get into this like, you know if you sit down and really ... it’s like falling in love almost, like this giddiness comes out like ... yeah it’s like falling in love. You know when you’re in love like everything’s gorgeous, everything’s beautiful, like you can see your beloved and like you know it’s like singing. And I can reach into that sometimes, like everything’s ... you know it’s ... there’s nothing you can’t like ... well yeah, it’s just being inspired, period, like. Completely. And in that place I guess, or that state you can find inspiration and variety in everything. Except maybe a McDonald’s trash bag.

Exhibit Two

Yeah, don’t you think like the loser should actually go into a tank and they like shoot the thing and it like dumps you into the water and then they like pull you out. Actually they throw your garment on top of you, you know while you’re in the tank, throw it in the water, and then you know throw some like pink powder in there, you know. Don’t you think ... that’s something, something I think they should do maybe. More humiliation.

He'll definitely be missed in the remaining episodes.

Posted by timothompson at 03:37 PM

April 18, 2006

Dwight Schrute Bobblehead Now Available

Beth wrote to inform me that the Dwight bobblehead is now available from the NBC Universal store! Using DUNDER10 at checkout will give you a 10% discount. Woo!

Posted by timothompson at 06:24 PM

April 11, 2006

The More You Know...

Some would say television is rotting our brain cavities. Some might be right. Some often pontificate to the malleable who believe everything they read. Who are these some? That is not for me to say. However, I am here to tell you that there are valuable nuggets to be absorbed through gazing at the hypnotic screen. Even through that most denigrated of genres—reality television.

Let's take last night's second Apprentice episode, where the reward for the winning team was a trip to Washington, DC, to spend time with congressman Charles Schumer. Schumer told the Apprentice wannabes that he believes in the Monday morning gut check as the litmus test he applies to choosing a vocation. On Monday mornings, do you feel an excitement in your gut to be starting your week or do you feel an apprehension or sick feeling (I'm paraphrasing)? If you're not feeling an excitement, you probably should be doing something else.

The second morsel gleaned from my catatonic hours in front of my TiVo last night came when I was watching the Surreal Life contestants appear on a segment of Action News. CC DeVille was so nervous to be sportscasting that he pondered the possibility of having a drink (he's an alcoholic). After he passed the test with flying colors, DeVille said to fellow Surreal Lifer Tawny Kitaen: "We're really going to grow doing this. This is really going to make us grow as people because we're being thrown into shit that we wouldn't do—that I'd be scared to do. And you face the fear—you go through it."

Within these two shared reality television experiences lie two essential truths of life. We receive messages like these at random times, when we least expect it, and they can come through any medium, from a television show to a person that you might meet in your daily wanderings. You can either absorb the lessons or ignore them, but they are there. End of sermon.

Posted by timothompson at 11:14 AM

March 29, 2006

TV Blogging (the "new" Cat Blogging)

• Witness "The Office" actors in hot golf action. More here. (oh, and Kate had sex with a Chimp.)
• Is it bad that I'm considering going to this?

Posted by timothompson at 06:37 PM

February 10, 2006

Dwight Schrute Bobblehead

They better be selling the Dwight Schrute Bobblehead from last night's "The Office" (these people agree). That is all.

Postscript: As an adjunct to my post about there being no Hooters in Scranton, I have now discovered there are no Chili's in Scranton either. What kind of Godforsaken place is that? If there weren't an Applebee's, I don't know how anyone could live there.

Update: A petition drive has been initiated.

Update: The company that created the Dwight bobblehead [via].

Posted by timothompson at 10:47 AM

January 21, 2006

Things I've Learned About The Office While Searching the Web Hungover in My Pajamas

1. They're all on MySpace (probably old news to many): Dwight Schrute, Pam (Jenna Fischer), B.J. Novak (Ryan the Temp), Angela, Kevin, Toby, Meredith [via]
2. Rainn Wilson (who plays Dwight) writes the SchruteSpace blog.
3. Jenna Fischer has a "blog" on TV Guide's site.
4. B.J. Novak also writes for the show and wrote the "blog" on TV Guide before Pam took it over.
5. I learned lots of good tidbits from Novak's blog, including that the guy who started the Saab Bumper Katrina Fund blog that raised about $30,000 was Michael Schur, another writer for The Office.
6. Chili's was happy to allow The Office producers to use its name and build a replica of its restaurant for the Dundee's episode until they found out a woman would be puking in the episode [via].
7. Novak upped his geek cred when he felt guilty about knowing that his "blog" wasn't a real blog ("I'll reintroduce this then. This is a weekly article about what it's like to work at The Office. I can't tell if people have been bothered by this — after all, there's not a space for comments, since it's not a real blog — but I've been self-conscious about it.").
8. In the same "blog," (see above) he tells that a lot of the actors are also writers ("One unique thing about our show is that we have a lot of writer-actors, including me, Paul Lieberstein (Toby) and Mindy Kaling (Kelly). And a lot of our main cast members are writers in "real life," including Steve, who cowrote his movie, The 40 Year Old Virgin; and John, who just adapted a novel. Jenna [Fischer, Pam] and Rainn are both married to successful writers. Rainn also writes poetry, but I read it and it sucked.").
9. Paul Feig of Freaks and Geeks directed the Halloween episode.
10. John Krasinski (Jim) is writing the screenplay for a David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men."
11. There are no Hooters Restaurants in Scranton, Pa.

Posted by timothompson at 02:51 PM

August 03, 2005

"Situation: Comedy" Blog

Writer Mark Treitel of the Bravo reality show "Situation: Comedy" has a Typepad site.

Posted by timothompson at 04:09 PM

May 06, 2005

Who Doesn't Like a Good Looking Hunkus?

Woman on Dr. 90210: “The most common of anal bleachers are girls, all people really, who notice that the area around their anal area, and at first, they go "Mine's not dark. What are you talking about? But 10 to 1, they go home and bend over in the mirror and look. What's the big deal? If it makes you feel good and it's harmless to your body, do it, try it.How much better can you get than a nice, clean looking hunkus?”

Posted by timothompson at 03:05 PM

April 30, 2005

Gulager!

(Photo redacted due to me being sick of looking at it.)

Goldenfiddle interviews Project Greenlight contest winner/director John Gulager.

Posted by timothompson at 05:21 PM

April 07, 2005

Casting Begins For New Project Runway

"Project Runway" will be trowling the nation for new fashion design hopefuls [via]. Can they come up with something as "captivating" as the John Galliano creation above?

Posted by timothompson at 12:50 PM

March 13, 2005

Tana the MILF

Tana on the Apprentice: “I was going to be playing the hip card on air. I tell you one thing, a I am a MILF in Iowa. That is ‘a mother I would love to fool around with.’”

Posted by timothompson at 06:03 PM

February 25, 2005

“Project Runway” Winner Jay McCarroll Takes It To Donny Deutsch

After being given some unsolicited business advice on “The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch,” “Project Runway” winner Jay McCarroll shot back with some barbs of his own [via]:

DEUTSCH: So, I mean, do you demur a point that Cameron Diaz could literally walk out and put a toilet paper holder on her head...

Mr. McCARROLL: No, come on.

DEUTSCH: ...and that would become fa...

Mr. McCARROLL: I don't...

DEUTSCH: I disagree with you.

Mr. McCARROLL: (Sighs) Well, I don't know, really. And do I really care? I don't know.

DEUTSCH: Do you?

Mr. McCARROLL: Toilet paper holder on her head?

DEUTSCH: You know what I'm talking about, the things where they--those little knit things that hold the toilet paper?

Mr. McCARROLL: Like a tea coz--like this?

DEUTSCH: Yes.

Mr. McCARROLL: Are you mocking me, Donny Deutsch?

DEUTSCH: No, no, no.

Mr. McCARROLL: Jeez!

DEUTSCH: We never mock the guests.

Mr. McCARROLL: Why do you keep plugging at me?

DEUTSCH: We never...

Mr. McCARROLL: Let's talk about you.

DEUTSCH: What would you like to talk about? Ask me.

Mr. McCARROLL: Who picked out what you're wearing today?

DEUTSCH: I...

Mr. McCARROLL: Did you blindly go into your closet...

DEUTSCH: Oh, come on.

Mr. McCARROLL: ...pick out the stupidest thing to wear?

DEUTSCH: Actually, I dis--first of all, you know what? Carson Kressley was on here and he endorsed what I wear. I actually think I'm a very good dresser.

Mr. McCARROLL: Our buddy Carson Kressley.

DEUTSCH: What is wrong with the way I'm dressed? This is very simple, and I think it's hard to argue with any of it.

Mr. McCARROLL: Oh, it's good for--see, I don't get into that. I mean...

DEUTSCH: OK.

Mr. McCARROLL: ...people--I don't know if I'll ever be one of those people who--like a Carson Kressley who can pick clothes out and be like, `Oh, here's your new image,' because I'm all for people being who they are.

DEUTSCH: OK.

Mr. McCARROLL: And that's why I'm different from you.

Posted by timothompson at 02:30 PM

February 22, 2005

That “Project Runway” Song

Here's another reality song post. You know how at the end of “Project Runway, after the contestant is “auht,” they walk to the backroom and cry and hug their winning castmates? And you hear that song with the haunting guitar chords starts playing? Well, it turns out you can download the song, titled “Breath On Me,” by Harold Barefoot Sanders III (Oi vey! What a name!) from the show's site [via].

Posted by timothompson at 03:08 PM

February 21, 2005

Danny from Apprentice Posting Music and Commentary

Kooky but lovable Danny K from the Apprentice 3 has been posting MP3 recaps on the latest episodes. [via]

Posted by timothompson at 11:33 PM

February 11, 2005

Project Runway at Fashion Week

Like many others, I've been peeping Bravo's hit reality series “Project Runway.” While looking at the Final Four's recent Fashion Week collections, I noticed that my favorite designer on the show, Jay McCarroll, outfitted his runway models in color-coordinated headphones [via]. Go Jay! And as opposed to headline grabber Austin Scarlett's designs (which Jay has frequently criticized as being “costumey”), Jay's self-dubbed “techno-bohemian” designs can actually be worn out in public. In his introductory comments at Fashion Week, Scarlett explained he was going for a Revolutionary War look (introducing it as being about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”). But can you imagine anyone rocking the long-OOP hat and Edwardian puffy shirt anywhere but at a masquerade ball, Halloween Party or Prince concert? Scarlett may find that his true calling is doing costume designs for movies. The final 2-hour episode, covering Fashion Week, will appear on the February 23rd. More photos from “Project Runway's” Fashion Week here.

Posted by timothompson at 01:43 PM

January 14, 2005

Recommended: A Touch of Greatness

If you get a chance, I recommend watching or recording “A Touch of Greatness” on PBS (TiVo link), a documentary about an New York elementary school teacher named Albert Cullum. Cullum rejected the standard sit-down and read education that still takes place today in favor of an active "play" approach to learning and encouraged his students to act in Shakespeare plays. It's exhilarating and inspiring to watch archival footage of some of his students acting and dancing more skillfully than in shows that we watch on television.

Posted by timothompson at 03:21 PM