It seems like ESPN has been around forever, doesn't it? Can you even remember a time when there hasn't been an ESPN to turn to for a score or breaking news or updates? I can't. But along with the news ESPN provides, the ESPN brand has expanded to include a bunch of networks, a magazine, restaurants and lots of tchotchkes. But let's just look at the TV shows, shall we? One note: SportsCenter is not included because it's more of a daily news show as opposed to the programs that are more talk and game-oriented. Here's the top ten ESPN created shows, from the worst to the first.
10. Sports Nation
This is a relatively new daily show on ESPN with radio talker Colin Cowherd and Michelle Beadle co-hosting. It's supposedly an interactive program with surveys that include the fans, but all the bells and whistles can't change the fact that Cowherd is an obnoxious know-it-all that dominates the conversation – when they have one. It's new and shiny, but it's a mess.
Rules are meant to be broken... especially for these ten television characters. For them, the rest of the world has one standard to live by and they have another. It makes them interesting and fun to watch... you just wouldn't necessarily want to be the person having to deal with them because they could drive you to distraction. Here's my ten pack of characters who live in a world of their own, according to no rules except their own. From the not-too-bad to the really bad.
10. Patrick Jane, The Mentalist
You would think that as a consultant to the CBI -- California Bureau of Investigation -- Patrick Jane would be compelled to uphold the rules and regulations of the department. However, Jane is a free spirit when it comes to office protocol. He does his own thing. For instance, bugging the office of a CBI higher-up is definitely not kosher. Jane doesn't care; he did it anyway and will probably get away with it.
Let's face it, the Top Ten list on The Late Show with David Letterman can be hit or miss some nights (and just miss other nights). But they can still make lists where every entry is pretty damn funny. That happened last night, as Letterman presented the "Top Ten Signs Your Toddler Watches Too Much Television." Hey, it's TV-related so it's a perfect list for us.
[Watch episodes and clips of The Late Show and other shows at SlashControl.]
David Letterman's confession last Thursday was the last we've heard from him on the subject (Friday's show is taped earlier in the week - he returns tonight). The columnists and pundits and fans have had their say, though. Some people defend him, some dislike him, and some aren't fazed by it at all.
But beyond the "creepy" factor of it (that's Dave's own word), what about the moral and/or legal side of it? Should Letterman be fired? Reprimanded? Will he be sued? Should people stop watching him? Should advertisers leave his show? Should one of the women come out and do a "Ten Things About Dating David Letterman" list?
A U.S. tracking group, the Global Language Monitor, has compiled their sixth annual list of Top 10 Telewords (that is, the words or phrases that were the most influential on television). Topping the list off was "ObamaVision". Despite Obama's recent appearance on the show, I don't think David Letterman's writing staff had anything to do with this one.
The next three words were "Financial Meltdown", "Michael Jackson" and "Susan Boyle". I wonder if that means that the three words are interrelated. Could Susan Boyle have been responsible for MJ's death and the Financial Meltdown? Um ... probably not. Okay, let's move on.
If you tuned in last night -- and before the overnight ratings are even announced, I'm thinking that a lot of you did (taping Lost, like I did) -- you know now that we are down to the American Idol Top 10. These are the ten who will be touring the country doing American Idol concerts later this year and one of these contestants will be the next big AI winner. The next Kelly or Carrie or Clay (oh, wait, he didn't win).
So, who has the best chance and what does he or she have to do to get to the winner's circle? I've a prescription for each one of them -- free, unsolicited advice based on how the judges' view them and, more importantly, how the American public might be rating them.
What is cool? Can you define that thing, that quality that makes certain characters seem like they're more with it than everyone around them? Maybe cool is a state of being, not a thing you can pick up by wearing Armani or drinking Grey Goose or driving a BMW.
As I was looking around the current crop of television shows, I found ten characters who seem to capture the essence of cool -- whether they know it or not. After the jump, we count them down.
Now I know that none of our readers would do anything like this, but apparently there are people out there who just love to download and watch television via BitTorrent. In fact, 50% of BitTorrent activity is apparently the downloading of television shows, with literally millions of downloads for each episode of those top shows. The folks over at TorrentFreak compiled a list of the Top 10 BitTorrented television shows for the week of May 25 - June 1.
I'm not surprised at all to see shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Lost and Battlestar Galactica among the top of these rankings. Just think of the kind of audience these types of shows are likely to draw. It's unfortunate that this list couldn't have been compiled a few weeks ago when most of the broadcast networks were still streaming new episodes. So You Think You Can Dance ranked pretty well, but I wonder if American Idol would have been tops here as well. Further into the list were some even more interesting choices.
Well, CBS hasn't posted the clip, but at least one YouTube user has posted Homer Simpson's recent appearance on Late Show with David Letterman. You can watch the clip below.
In the segment, Homer reads his top ten reasons why he should be president. It's pretty funny, though I think it might have worked better if the segment was just Homer rather than skipping back and forth between Homer and Letterman. I think it kind of threw the pacing off a bit. Also, is it just me or did Letterman not seem especially enthused about the whole thing? The combination of "just okay" jokes and Letterman phoning it in kind of brought the whole thing down if you ask me, which you didn't.
Now I know why I stopped writing for our defunct sister blog, AdJab: I just didn't have the capacity to come up with pages like this one, from AdFreak. On this page, Tim Nudd comes up with his top ten ads that contain people dressed as food.
Thaat's right, kids. Someone took the time to a) think of coming up with a list of ads dressed as food, and b) take the time to find videos of the ads on YouTube (and in one, case, iFilm). Anyway, the usual suspects are on the list: the Whopper and Whopper Jr., Snapple Fruit, and that gross-looking Domino's Fudgem. My favorite two videos, though, are the two-minute long music video with the venerable Fruit of the Loom guys (it looks no different than a Coldplay video), and the cutsey "Hot Dog meets Pepsi" ad from a few years back. I like that one because the girl in the hot dog suit is pretty damned adorable. Those videos are after the jump.
If you've got eight spare minutes and don't mind seeing cartoon nudity and hearing animated flatulence at work, then take a look at this video: someone has compiled what he or she thinks is FamilyGuy's ten funniest moments and clipped them together. It's kind of odd how some of the selections are maybe 15 seconds long, while others -- especially a clip featuring Quagmire -- seem to go on forever. But I think that's the nature of Family Guy: just when you think a gag should end, Seth MacFarlane purposely extends it to the point where it becomes funny again.
Anyway, I don't agree with all of this person's choices, but it's not a bad way to spend eight minutes. The video is after the jump.
Remember the days when people used to talk about David Letterman's Top Ten List? You'd be at work or school the next day, and someone would inevitably bring up one of the better lines from the previous night's Top Ten, or talk about the whole list if they did a weird one. Nowadays, of course, no one talks about the Top Ten anymore; heck, it's so old hat that even Letterman doesn't care about it anymore, often delivering it in a perfunctory "I'm just giving the audience what they want" manner.
But the Top Ten from last night was one of the rare instances where the writers really did a great job, coming up with a funny, edgy list. The topic? "Chapter Titles in Jim McGreevey's Book." The book in question is The Confession, where the former New Jersey governor writes about how he kept his homosexuality secret until a scandal forced him to come out of the closet. They invited McGreevey to come on to read it, but for some reason he didn't bother. Looking at the list, I can see why he might have had a problem. So they had staff writer Gerard Mulligan read it. The list is after the jump, directly from the Late Show's website:
It seems like ESPN has been around forever, doesn't it? Can you even remember a time when there hasn't been an ESPN to turn to for a score or breaking news or updates? I can't. But along with the news ESPN provides, the ESPN brand has expanded to include a bunch of networks, a magazine, restaurants and lots of tchotchkes. But let's just look at the TV shows, shall we? One note: SportsCenter is not included because it's more of a daily news show as opposed to the programs that are more talk and game-oriented. Here's the top ten ESPN created shows, from the worst to the first. 
David Letterman's confession
A U.S. tracking group, the Global Language Monitor, has 
What is cool? Can you define that thing, that quality that makes certain characters seem like they're more with it than everyone around them? Maybe cool is a state of being, not a thing you can pick up by wearing Armani or drinking Grey Goose or driving a BMW.
Now I know that none of our readers would do anything like this, but apparently there are people out there who just love to download and watch television via BitTorrent. In fact, 50% of BitTorrent activity is apparently the downloading of television shows, with literally millions of downloads for each episode of those top shows. The folks over at TorrentFreak compiled a list of the 
Well, CBS hasn't posted the clip, but at least one YouTube user has posted Homer Simpson's recent appearance on Late Show with David Letterman. You can watch the clip below.
Now I know why I stopped writing for our defunct sister blog, AdJab: I just didn't have the capacity to come up with pages like 
If you've got eight spare minutes and don't mind seeing cartoon nudity and hearing animated flatulence at work, then take a look at this video: someone has compiled what he or she thinks is 
Remember the days when people used to talk about David Letterman's Top Ten List? You'd be at work or school the next day, and someone would inevitably bring up one of the better lines from the previous night's Top Ten, or talk about the whole list if they did a weird one. Nowadays, of course, no one talks about the Top Ten anymore; heck, it's so old hat that even Letterman doesn't care about it anymore, often delivering it in a perfunctory "I'm just giving the audience what they want" manner.
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