TVSquad

It's often ignored in medical literature, but there are thousands of people who are unable to get high. These poor souls must live their day to day lives completely sober, and only a few who are able to get their hands on an herb known as "marijuana" can live the life they deserve: reading way too much into Mary Poppins and thinking a Twinkie dipped in ranch dressing is the best snack ever.

But I kid the pot heads. More seriously, medical marijuana has had its supporters and detractors for many years, and a new feature-length doc from Showtime called In Pot We Trust will explore the issue by focusing on chronically ill patients who use the drug and obtain it through legal channels.

Matthew Modine will be joining the cast of the Showtime series Weeds when the program returns for its third season on August 13 (the second season ended last October). Modine will appear in ten episodes of the fifteen-episode season as Sullivan Groff, a land developer for a Christian mega-church.

I've been a fan of Modine since Full Metal Jacket, so it'll be nice to see him as a regular on Weeds. He's appeared on television before, most recently in The Bedford Diaries and in roles on The West Wing and Law & Order: SVU.

Zooey Deschanel and Carrie Fisher will also make cameo appearances in the third season.

1. Where were you born?
San Diego. This is funny already!

2. How many siblings do you have?
One! Ha, ha, ha.

3. What did you study in college?
I bailed after 2 and a half years of "community" college. (Not so funny anymore.)

4. Do you have any pets?
None that I know about.

5. Do you have any nicknames?
No. And I read that last question wrong. I thought it said "Do you have any kids?"

6. What is your favorite restaurant?
House of Nan King in San Francisco.

7. What is your favorite TV show?
Heroes. Wait, 30 Rock. I mean, The Office. No, Friday Night Lights. Weeds! I'll go with Weeds.

8. Who is your favorite band/musician?
I like Top 40 bullshit. Honestly.

9. If you could live anyplace in the world where would it be?
I'm very fond of Australia. (Australia, on the other hand, has no feelings about me.)

10. Who do you think should be the next President of the USA?
That clean guy.

(S02E11) I wasn't that thrilled with this episode. I can't seem to put my finger on it as to why I didn't find it so funny. The concept was a good one with Cops filming in Camden County, but it just seemed so over-the-top. I mean, how many crimes did Earl, Randy, Joy, Darnell, and the rest of the gang commit in a single episode?

You smell that? It's called creativity.

In an effort to drum up even more "buzz" for the second season of Weeds (it premieres this Monday night), Showtime placed an ad in the August 24 issue of Rolling Stone. What a great idea. Advertisements! This ad was special though. Similar to the hundreds of fragrance ads offering whiffs of Paris Hilton's latest vomit inducing stench, the Weeds ad had a scent strip of it's own.

Guess what it smelled like?

I suppose all we have to do now is wait for the news to report on the idiot teenager who got a hold of four or five of the ads, rolled them up into a big fattie, and got sick from inhaling all the ink fumes. Oh and if you want to see what the ad looks like, I placed it after the jump. Just don't bother scratching your computer screen. I tried already.

Some activities aren't hindered too much by a little pot smoking, such as performing dental surgery or piloting commercial aircraft. Trying to act on a popular sitcom when you're stoned, however? Well, that's just plain dangerous. Barry Williams, in his autobiography I Was a Teenage Greg, recalls a scene he did for the Brady Bunch during which he was extremely high. It's subtle, and if I didn't actually know he was high I don't know if I would have noticed anything that odd about his performance, but Destiny-land has some excerpts from Williams' book where he writes about making up dialogue, doing some of his own improvisations, and developing some kind of Zen connection with his bicycle. He does seem a little out of it, and watch how he trips over his bike pump as he walks over to the car. The video is after the jump:

[via Boing Boing]

(S01E10) Well, kids, this is the finally episode of Strangers with Candy, season one. I hope everyone enjoyed this little trip down memory lane and that you found these reviews to be equal parts informative and arousing. This episode brings everything full circle and Jerri ends up back in prison again by the end, though she informs us she'll be out in time to start school once the summer is over.

At the beginning of the episode, Jerri is elated to learn she's getting a D in history, which means she'll actually be able to pass and move on to her sophomore year. Unfortunately, she befriends a stoner who gets Jerri hooked on pot and she begins to neglect her homework. She also makes a bong out of clay in art class, which Jelineck correctly points out is missing a carb hole. Jelineck tries to persuade his students not to smoke marijuana, telling them he once tried it but that "the only thing it fixed was my life."

There seems to be differing opinions as to its origin, but the number 420 has been synonymous with marijuana culture for some time. It's a seemingly innocuous phrase that lets stoners speak freely of their exploits while around grown ups and other authority figures, like, oh, let's say Bob Barker. The Consumerist found a clip on YouTube (watch it after the jump) in which a young man on The Price is Right can't help but bid $420 on everything. Okay, that's mildly amusing, but someone should tell the kid that his "joke" pretty much guaranteed he wouldn't win, or at least would narrow his chances considerably. It would be like going on Wheel of Fortune and only allowing yourself to use the first ten letters of the alphabet. Also, kids should know that a marijuana reference is a gateway reference, and eventually you may end up referencing heroin on Jeopardy. Also, did Bob get the reference, or was he just playing dumb? I can't decide. He's old, but he seems hip. Anyway, check it out:

(S02E16) This season's first so-so episode of The Office started with a great premise when half a joint is found in the company parking lot, and the volunteer Lackawanna County Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Schrute conducts his full (and borderline psychotic) investigation as to who is the drug fiend.

Michael tries to diffuse the situation because he admits that, at an Alicia Keys concert over the weekend, he was handed the joint by a girl with a lip ring. Obviously, he's got a lot to lose if he fails the impending urine test, so he is doing his best to calm Dwight down while espousing the evils of drug use to the rest of the staff.

A subplot that seemed rather childish and didn't seem to go anywhere was Pam and Jim's game of Jinx whereby they said the same thing at the same time, which somehow Pam wins and forces Jim not to speak for the rest of the day until he can buy her a soda (I still don't get it.) However, there were some moments that they looked into each other's eyes without speaking, and you would think their flirtation would come to some sort of climax before the end of the season/Pam's wedding.

While I certainly have no moral issues with pot use, I've never understood why a person would wear a shirt with a huge pot leaf on it. I mean, I love blueberry waffles but I'm not going to wear a shirt with a picture of blueberry waffles on it, even though it would obviously be the coolest shirt ever. Of course, if you're trying to promote a TV show called Weeds you'll probably have a few pot leaves on your garments. Just don't tell the French.

While in Cannes, Lionsgate, which produces the Showtime series, had their booth visited by French officials, who confiscated boxes of shirts and caps with pot leaves on them, claiming they encourage drug use. The producers were asked to provide a script, an episode of the show, and a letter saying the garments do not promote drug use.

A judge in New York decided that charges against Desperate Housewives actor Cody Kasch (he plays gun and hockey stick-wielding teen Zach) will be dropped if he stays out of trouble until June of 2006. Kasch was arrested in May for smoking pot in public.

So does this mean that he won't fight the charges? If I remember correctly his publicist or manager said the next day that he wasn't smoking pot, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, rounded up with other people arrested at the scene. Is Kasch happy that this is the way it's going to end, or does he think people will think he did do something and is getting off? Did he make a deal not to fight the charges? Any lawyers out there?