selkie

I'm having to watch that commercial with the mute button hit because the signer seems to be the same off-key woman from the Prius for Everyone ads last year. He's actually been flipping homes in South Florida between tours for quite a number of years before the tv show came along. Not like he's got Davie Bowie money or anything, but he's comfortably well off.

The saga of Rio's drug lab, which lost accreditation earlier in the year after a slew of problems including a number of false=positive tests: http://swimswam.com/rio-without-anti-doping-lab-working-open-new-lab-2016-olympic-games/

As someone who grew up in a time and place when any group of girls was at least 20% Jennifers and Jasons ran about 15%, I kind of like it when character names get repeated on a show like they get repeated in real life.

A large percentage of their student body probably went to Cabot Cove High School or Sunnydale HS where that kind of death rate is kind of normal.

Warner Brothers has become about the tenth different company to option Dragonriders of Pern and they sound like they're serious about finally bringing the series to film. Lessa is pretty on trend as a strong female protagonist in a non-modern world setting after all (though Pern was never quite distopian). So if you've got the rights to everything Pern, might be profitable to spin off the Menolly/Harper Hall part of the series to television where it really does seem to scale nicely for a smaller screen.

"Bad Timing" would have so broken The Twitter if it had been available.

Same thing going back to Baylon 5, where you had to know what usenet was to be a part of rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 in order to get the proto-social media feel when JMS was posting there talking about the struggles of keeping his show on the air with his vision somewhat intact.

Gotta say I got a bit misty-eyed when Peraud was bawling his eyes out with his team at the end. He's 37, and at that age, you aren't going to get that many more chances at a podium finish at a Grand Tour, and he knows it. Nice to see him able to take advantage of the opportunity he's had this July.

Pyeongchang committee audited http://espn.go.com/olympics/story/_/id/11246162/pyeongchang-2018-olympics-committee-faced-audit here's hoping that South Korea is just being rather cautious and that they pull it together right quick.

Yeah, and while you never can say someone is clean with 100% confidence, I think he probably is and that this is just a year when everything fell into place for him- in addition to Froome and Contador, Quintana needed a break after the Giro, Wiggins got left off Sky for 'team chemistry' which looks like a horrible mistake in retrospect, Cadel Evans left off BMC for the same reason, and Valverde has been consistent over the years but never quite good enough to be there. So Nibbles caught a year when he was just about the only serious contender left and is taking full advantage of it, which is probably a good thing because the next generation is looking very strong- so many guys high in the GC or in other jersey contention like Sagan and Majka are still eligible to win the white. The changing of the guard is probably going to hit hard in the next year or two.

I'm of the age that Rene Auberjonois is Clayton from Benson no matter where else he shows up, and he shows up in a lot of places.

Same here. For a rider like Bauer, those kinds of chances will always be few and far between and he knew it.

For anime, it's more steampunk fantasy than scifi, but I really liked Fullmetal Alchemist. It starts out with two young brothers trying to fix a huge mistake they made, and then spins outward to a far larger story of action, politics, ethics, and magical alchemy, all the while the brothers remaining the heart of the story. If you can find it, I also really enjoyed 'Read or Die', which is the story of three sisters who have the ability to magically manipulate paper and who become the bodyguards for a famous Japanese author.

JK Simmons as Vern Schillinger in Oz- a character that was pure evil, and even when he plays a good guy (and he does often) I'm still remembering him burning a swastika into Beecher's ass.

Vegas made me think of Vega$, and how Robert Ulrich had like a total of two shows that made it to a second season- that one and Spenser for Hire. IMO, far more of a showkilling record than McGinley.

Speaking of Marshall on USoT, Pivot is going to start airing season 2 of 'Please Like Me' in August. Some critics wanted to call it an Australian version of Girls, but to me it seemed a bit more like Marshall redone as a 19 year old Australian guy named Josh.

24 is a great show for HITG spotting since they seem to have cast just about everyone except J.K. Simmons and Clancy Brown at one point or another. Let's see: Xander Berkley, Kim Raver, Eric Balfour, Peter MacNichol, William Devane, Michelle Forbes, Zeljko Ivanek, Powers Boothe, Sprague Grayden, Alberta Watson, Colm Feore, Shohreh Aghdashloo (Hey! It's the only Persian actress in Hollywood getting regular work!), Daniel Dae Kim, Richard Burgi, Peter Weller, Regina King, Cameron Bancroft, Paul McCrane, Reed Diamond, Gina Torres, Alexander Siddig, Kurtwood Smith, Misha Collins, Geraint Wynn Davies, Andrea Thompson, Peter Wingifeld, Kai Penn, Kevin Dillon, Michael Shanks, Kevin Alejandro......

I get the impression that HBO was pretty happy with it, and I remember some discussion of plans for a few subsequent movies if they could get Jill Scott and Anika Noni Rose's schedules to align. But it was a co-production with a UK network, and ratings were apparently not great over there.

Also from SNL- Mike Myers as Dieter from Sprockets- "Touch my monkey" and "Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!"

It's not a perfect correlation, but you can roughly say that if a show is going to live, whatever character Eric Balfour is playing must die. Died- 24 Buffy Six Feet Under Lived- Arresting Behavior (5 episodes) Veritas: The Quest (??) (13 episodes) Hawaii (less than a season) Sex, Love, And Secrets (4 episodes aired) Conviction (13 episodes)

Not a huge surprise. That rumor has been out there for years; it's just taken a long time for Thorpe to get over his own denial, and speculation is that it was a contributing factor to why he was in inpatient rehab for depression and drug & alcohol problems earlier this year. Summary here for those who can't get the Australian broadcast: http://www.swimvortex.com/the-bigger-issues-on-ian-thorpe-health-happiness-depression-loneliness-more/ Hope he can go forward and find peace in his life.

Too many people were pushing too early in the slop in order to have better position going into the cobbles. Seems like the leading teams should have controlled the pace a little better ,even if it meant letting more of the breakaway than Bloom have their day. Reports are that Chris Froome has broken bones in both hands, but can keep fitness by riding on the trainer and is now hoping to make it to the Vuelta. Which Sky had apparently promised to Bradley Wiggins after leaving the 2012 Tour winner off the France squad this year in the name of 'team chemistry' and is now regretting because Richie Porte is more of a top 20 GC guy than one who will make the podium. Who said pro wrestling gets all the good story lines.

The bit we actually use in conversation from South Park is the underpants gnomes scene where they're going back and forth about phase 1: underpants; phase 3:profits, and there is no phase 2. A good one from Buffy when I'm feeling fried: Fire Bad. Tree pretty.

"If you're going to cry, cut and cry" from an early season of Project Runway about not letting your emotions keep you from the goal.

On the bright side, nice to see Jensie in the polka dots one last time in his career. His blog on Bicycling,com: http://blogs.bicycling.com/blogs/hardlyserious/a-heck-of-a-start