Too bad, so sad.

Forgive, forgive. We've spent the morning trying to secure Sufjan Stevens tickets, port forward our Airport so we don't get kicked out of OiNK and stay away from the Peanut M&Ms.

We've failed at all three.

Anyway, we will say this.

1.) We had no idea Maggie from Ricky Gervais's show Extras was on Ugly Betty. We loves Maggie.

2.) The gay cousin on said show may be the reason we watch it for another two weeks.

Enjoy your day. We may post. We may not. We've been feeling very may/may-not lately, if you haven't noticed. We blame Lisa Whelchel. For everything. And we double blame her for not being able to get us Sufjan tix. We figured serving one crazy Christian would get us in with another. Apparently not.

God damn it.

¡Bettymania!

We will be watching Ugly Betty this evening, though, after seeing previews for it, we're a little dismayed at the fact that it looks more Desperate Housewives than Freaks and Geeks. Of course, how could we have expected a hit Colombian show not to be sanitized by Disney? (How COULD we?) So, to get a flavor of what you won't quite be seeing tonight, here's the Web site for the original series, Yo soy Betty La Fea. Go ahead and try to tell us you don't want to see a show about this...



Just try. And then tune in tonight for a show about Vanessa Williams.

Hat fear.

Ho hum.

Speaking of which, we're glad to see Juliette Lewis is keeping busy.



With crafts, we mean. Not singing. Never singing.

Your video clip of the day.

Poor US.

In other world-is-about-to-end news, American Idol loser Jon Peter Lewis is actually releasing a record and someone actually wrote an article about Jon Peter Lewis releasing a record.

And, Dunkelman actually showed up to an American Idol event and someone actually photographed Dunkelman showing up to an American Idol event.

By any means necessuri.

Apparently Katie Holmes can levitate.

We get it. You're gay.

Wanna take a guess at who's wearing this shirt?



No, really. You want to? Are you sure?

Ho-K, but don't say we didn't try to rhetorically stop you.

Wednesday night, explained.

So, let's talk about tonight, shall we?

If you want to be like us, here's the schedule:

8 p.m.: America's Next Top Model
Tonight's episode features one of the bestest segments of the entire season: the makeovers. Get ready for glamor, extensions and cryyyyyyyyying! The CW's Web site has posted a sneak peek of tonight's episode, which is nice and all, but it's nothing compared to our blogfriend Rich's compilation of the best Tyra moments from last week's episode. (Rich is the reason why we don't even attempt TV show recaps. Please visit his site, Fourfour, if you haven't already to see why.)



9 p.m.: Lost
No, it's not a new one. But it is a recap episode. Meaning, you get to watch in one hour all the final two minuteses of every single previous Lost episode. You know, the only two minutes that matter. This should be especially exciting to those of you who've never seen an episode. Unfortunately, we have to assume that Michael will be included in the recap. (Couldn't NBC have produced some Webisodes on which we see Michael and Walt's boat sink followed by Michael quickly drowning and Walt being rescued by a unicorn porpoise who brings him to his thoroughly less annoying mother?)

Oh, and we don't have any best-of-Tyra video for this one. You'll have to do with Lost marriage spoilers.



10 p.m.: Project Runway
Yes, it is a new one. And we find out who the top three finalists are. Finalistly. Our initial prediction was Michael, Uli and Laura. But we're going to confidently say now that Michael, Laura and Jeffrey will be our three finalists. We say Laura and Jeffrey because in this week's New York Magazine, Laura accuses Jeffrey of outsourcing his collection and Tim Gunn admits that when he visited Jeffrey three weeks prior to Fashion Week, his collection was far from complete. We wouldn't have complainer or complainee if either had been eliminated. Michael impressed the judges enough that they'll pass him through.

Oh, if we only knew as much as we do about Project Runway about anything actually important to society.



Ah, well. That's our plan. And if you want to be just like us, you'll include Andre champagne and some peach or mango juice to create a perfectly delicious What Happened to Andre.

Cheers!

At the sound of the bell, put your pencils down.

Q: What is Saved by the Smell?

1.) Tiffani Amber-Thiessen's new perfume

2.) Lark Voorhies's tentatively titled autobiography

3.) A sex tape in which Dustin Diamond engages in a three-way with two women

4.) Mark-Paul Gosselaar's prize-winning Bichon Frise

Click here for the answer and here for Lark Voorhies's Wikipedia page (just because we like saying "Lark Voorhies.").

Down the Hatcher.

Upon seeing this photo, we joyfully exclaimed, "It wasn't a dream at all!"



(Unfortunately, upon reading the accompanying article, we weeped.)

Psychic Friends Network: a friendly tribute.

Back in the early '90s there ran a series of infomercials to top all other infomercials—those of the Psychic Friends Network. The Psychic Friends Network was an organization run by one bleached-blonde Linda Georgian, and she co-hosted infomercials which demonstrated how stars of General Hospital, and you, could call in to get your very own psychic reading for only $3.99 a minute. Linda co-hosted the infomercials with none other than Dionne Warwick whose plastic surgery rivaled that of only one other person: Linda Georgian.



Over the course of several years we got about seven or eight different infomercials (nothing was truly as exciting as turning on the TV at 3 a.m. to hear Dionne rasping to a new celebrity endorser while Linda and her ever-shrinking nose looked on in admiration) selling us psychics, celebs and happiness. Until the organization filed for Chapter 11 in 1998. But let's not focus on that! The Psychic Friends Network infomercials marked a pinnacle in the golden era of infomercials, and we'd like to pay tribute to the it and them today by posting some of their magical infomercials!



Unfortunately, because we didn't consult our psychic friend before writing this post, we didn't know that 0 videos of said infomercials exists on YouTube. You'll have to make due with this link, home to various photos of Dionne Warwick and Linda Georgian hugging people on one of the infomercials.



We did manage to locate one relevant clip on the YouTube. It's of a 1993 episode of Geraldo, on which the titular host interviews Dionne and Linda. Linda gives us some juicy psychic celebrity dirt, including that JFK, Jr. and Daryl Hannah will be married and live happily ever after.



Finally, and perhaps best of all, is Linda Georgian's Web site. Here you can find out how you, too, can get a psychic reading from Linda. Linda posts her home address so you can send her checks or money orders for your reading and then kill her when your reading isn't anything like what really happens in your life. You can also find out about all the celebrities Miss Georgian has done readings for, including the ever-popular Liza Minell. And, finally, what would a psychic-to-the-stars's Web site be without photos of said psychic with her glamorous clientele?





No one's a bigger fan of Ed O'Neil and Linda Evens's work than us! And no one's a bigger winner than you today with our friendly tribute to the Psychic Friends Network! But you knew that already, didn't you?

The church of the poisoned mind.

We snuck up a Coffee Talk Companion yesterday. Click here to read it!

Or don't, and prevent your day from being completely ruined.

Trip, stumble and fall.

Have a stupendous weekend, folks. We'll be gone Monday, so look for us back here Tuesday when we'll probably be scrambling to decode Lisa Whelchel's latest giant combination of letters.

In the words of Tyra voicemail, Holla!

How it was meant to be.

A friend of a friend has declared today Natalie Merchant day, and, because of our great affinity for 10,000 Maniacs-era Natalie, we're all too happy to go along with it. To honor September 22, or, Natalie Merchant Day, here's the story of how Natalie Merchant met REM's Michael Stipe, according to each of them. Pay special attention to the part where Michael makes Natalie hold a paper bag for him for 45 minutes.

(Please be warned that clicking the link above will either fill you with an almost unbearable sense of nostalgia or an almost unbearable sense of wanting to laugh hysterically. For us it's the former, and we're not ashamed to say so, so suck it.)

Your BONUS video clip of the day.

Sorry, but 1.) nothing of non-interest seems to be happening in the world right now (or, more correctly, we're non-interested in finding such items), 2.) our good friend Rob Thurman sent us this clip, and when Rob Thurman talks, we listen, and 3.) IT'S KAREN BLACK. SINGING "BANG, BANG." WITH L7.

Come on.

Your video clip of the day.

Boobra Streisand.

Click here to go where only Ryan O'Neal, Tom Smothers, Warren Beatty, Jon Voight, Pierre Trudeau, Jon Peters, Don Johnson, Steve McQueen, Andre Agassi, Peter Jennings, Elliot Gould, James Brolin and Bill Clinton have gone.

Diamond in the roughhouse.

Here's something completely alarming. Lou Diamond Phillips pushes and drags his wife across their house, and the most recent photo the AP can come up with is this one from 1996???



Enter: Us.

Here's a more recent one, AP...



You're welcome.

The theme of the post is Top Model!

OK. Maybe we were just in the mood, or maybe it was Project Runway withdrawal, or maybe, just, maybe, it was as good as it seemed, but the return of America's Next Top Model was an unqualified success.



How do we love thee? Let us count the ways:

1.) "The theme of the house is Tyra!"

2.) Troublemaker Monique stealing another girl's bed by pouring water on it and then telling her she peed on it.

3.) Tyra's 93-minute kind-of-French diva "acting" introduction to the first official photo shoot. We kept looking away from the TV in horror and discomfort and then looking back to see if it was over. But. It. Was. Not. Ever. Over. Yet.

3a.) The cape.

4.) A much-earlier-than-anticipated...ASWIRL!

5.) "You want neck? I give you neck."

6.) The garter.

7.) Mr. J.'s ever worrisome hair. We think it may soon crumble. Fingers crossed.

8.) The collective of four designers whose name we thankfully can't remember (Eden Ave? Crap Ave?). Those were actors, right? We mean the clothes.

9.) The expert use of "Iraq," "plane crash" and "cancer" to secure a place in the final 13. To the booted girls who didn't employ one of these: we're on Cycle 7 here. Mere crying won't cut it now.

9a.) Where was our Katrina survivor? Girls, girls, girls, "Katrina survivor" is still very much in play! "9/11 survivor" is not. A good Superdome story and you would have been in, Evita. (And we would have gotten to write "Evita" for at least 0 more week.)

10.) Grand prize? The cover of Seventeen magazine!

Seventeen!

Hold on.

Seventeen!

Honestly, we sat next to a girl in 12th-grade retard math who was on the cover of Seventeen. Not in it. On the cover.

Damn you, Gilles Bensimon!!!



OK, we could go on forever here, but we'll stop at 10 just so you don't actually kill yourself.

However, there is one more thing...

Most of all, we've never had better names than in this unicycle of Top Model. So, in honor of Eugena, Melrose, Anchal, CariDee, Jaeda and the similar others who didn't make it to the final 13, here's the NB's formula for figuring out your Top Model name:

The first three letters of your favorite female TV character's first name + one syllable of solfege (i.e. do, re, mi, etc.) + the last three letters of your favorite flower

Allow us to demonstrate:

Our favorite TV female TV character's first name = Maude

One syllable of solfege = Sol

Our favorite flower = Tulip

So...

Maude + Sol + Tulip =

Mausollip

Beautiful! Figure out yours, too! (And, remember, if you don't like it, you can always change that second part. Or you can choose a different character. Or flower. It's all totally arbitrary!)

Gong.

We don't know what our favorite quote is from this story regarding a drunk migrant worker biting a panda at a zoo...

A.) “I bit the fellow in the back...its skin was quite thick."

B.) “They seemed to get along well with people.”

C.) “No one ever said they would bite people. I just wanted to touch it. I was so dizzy from the beer. I don’t remember much.”

We do know that if this had happened in America, it would have occurred in Florida.

Um.

Um.

Model TV.

In news (we'd say "TV news," but is there really any other kind?)...

Rachael Ray's talk show was somehow watched, ostensibly by humans.



Joey Lawrence has apparently found room between tours of The King & I to cut a rug (yes, we realize this is old news, but we can't pass up a Rodgers and Hammerstein joke).



Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip lost millions of viewers in its second half, probably because people got tired of listening and thinking. (Those viewers promptly tuned into Rachael Ray's Snacks on $4 a day in Daytona Beach.)



Unicycle 39 of America's Next Top Model begins tonight, and we are truly excited. We are also a little concerned at how excited we get for a show that consistently produces nothing "top" or "model." However, it's totes exciting that there are twins on the show. And that our DVR gets to have its inaugural CW experience.



Oh, and, of course, here's what we'll be doing for the rest of the day. Obviously.

Your video clip of the day.

We'll drink to that (and not ever really take a drink)!

Has wings, doesn't fly.

Here's the third worst idea ever, after Lucky Louie and invading Iraq.

Apres Lance, le deluge.

Clay Aiken comes out to People by answering the "On whether he's gay" question in the "On the future" column. That might be enough to fool your Claymates, Clay. But not us. Ho no. Not us.

Home stupid home.

Once again, we must honor Florida when Florida begs to be honored.

Jüst asken.

Here's something to entertain you if you've already watched the video of the talking dogs and cats too many times (which, we feel, is still not enough): it's the Swiss, Swedish, Danish or Dutch quiz (via Ursi's blog), and it's a Danish meatball of a cheese Swedish, if you know what we mean!

Gøød lück!

This wasn't supposed to happen.

A bit of exciting news for those of you who will be in Reykjavik on Friday, November 17: the Sugarcubes will be reuniting for one concert to benefit Smekkleysa SM, "who will continue to work on a non-profit basis for the future betterment of Icelandic music and artists." And if you hadn't planned to be in Iceland on that date but are desperate to hear a grown man scream "I really don't like lobster!" over Bjork singing about a chastity belt, tickets are $530 from JFK.

Your video clip of the day.

Wow. Yesterday's Coffee Talk Companion really took the wind out of us. Meaning, yeah, we're kind of not feeling it right now. Meaning, enjoy this video until we are...

God is in the details.

We just posted a new Coffee Talk Companion over at the Blair Necessities. Click here to read it.

Or don't, and save that alcohol for a dinner party.

Our dinner with Andre.

Have a good weekend, you. We're going to make some What Happened to Andres? tonight and just, you know, chills. What's a What Happened to Andre? Why, it's our companion drink to the Project Rumway. You just fill your champagne flute with three parts Andre and one part whatever the fuck else you have the in the fridge. Delicious! Oh, one hint—when purchasing the Andre, don't ask if they have any chilled. Unless you want 13 people, including eight who don't speak English, to laugh in your face.

Cheers!

Your video clip of the day.

On Nina Blackwood.

This was going to be a one-post day because, honestly, we really wanted you to take time to discover and explore the members of the Beautiful Room. However, someone on Datalounge started a thread on current Sirius radio DJ and original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, and, as we grew up watching Nina Blackwood on MTV back when MTV used to play videos (that joke NEVER gets old), we thought we'd pass along some of our favorite tidbits from the thread and from Nina's official site.

First of all, here's Nina Blackwood as you may remember her if you were born before 1980, which we don't assume many people who accidentally read this site were...



...and here's Nina recently...



YOWZA!

We then explored her Web page (briefly, obvs) and came across these wonderful morsels...

Trained as a professional harpist, she had made her living playing in restaurants, and clubs, combining her classical training with rock'n'roll, playing songs like George Harrisons's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and modeling.

...and...

A star acting student at the famous Strasberg Institute, Nina Blackwood appeared in the theatrical "Vice Squad," which remains a cult thriller to this day.

...and...

Nina's TV infomercials for 70s and 80s music collections have gone platinum...

Aw. We had no idea Nina was so talen...wait—can infomercials go platinum?

No, they can't.

And, finally, we clicked on this link because we wanted to order this Cassette to play in our car & take the tour...



...but the link just took us to a search engine which asked us to type in our zip code to find the nearest Nina Blackwood affiliate, and when we did, our computer slapped us across the face and jumped out the window. We're writing this on an abacus. It's very hard.

In the eye of the beholder.

Our good friend Ian wrote a piece on Dallas's the Beautiful Room for this month's Details magazine (the one with Ashton Kutchers on the cover). If you don't know what the Beautiful Room is, let us explain very simply...

The Beautiful Room is a club in Dallas that's open to members only. To become a member, you have to be invited by another member. After you apply, you have to be approved unanimously by a panel of Beautiful people. The Beautiful Room's Web site puts it as such:

It is an exclusive community where membership is by invitation only. The Beautiful Room is discreet. Most people will not know about The Beautiful Room unless they should know about it.

Apparently, though the club is called the Beautiful Room, its emphasis is on social networking rather than beauty. However, Ian was kind enough to forward us this MySpace page belonging to Summer, a member of the Beautiful Room. The page is full of photos, photos whose emphasis is on beauty. Except not. Well, you decide...











Perching spread-eagle on a leather chair is our new most favorite pose ever, by the way.

Oh, and let us just say that Ian's article was hardly complimentary. Apparently, literacy is not a pre-requisite for joining the Beautifiul Room...





If you want more of this glory, and you know you do, visit some of Summer's 73 MySpace friends. We suggest this one, which might honestly be the best MySpace profile we've ever seen. We especially enjoy the combination of photos like this one...



...with "By My Side" from Godspell.

All in all, we have one word for this:

BEAUTIFUL!

Chaka! in retrospect.

Well, that's it for our latest NB Book Club. It's safe to come back now. Hi.

You know, today's adventure really helped us work out something we've always wondered: Is it better to read a book by Danielle Steel or, say, Chaka Khan than not to read anything at all? And we can finally say, with authority, the answer is yes. For if we had not delved into the world of Chaka! today, we'd never have figured out that from now on, every Chanukah we will be preparing, with love and care, Chakalatkes.

See you tomorrow. If any of y'all are going to see the Hidden Cameras tonight in NYC, say hey. We'll be the short one bitching at the tall asshole who pushed his way in front of us. G'night!