Things and things - 3rd week of April 2011 edition

Things I'm excited about this week:

• Amazon announced that they're changing/updating the Kindle formatting to allow users to download e-books from public libraries. HALELUJAH!!!!!!!!
• Gossip Girl returned this week and made me realize how much I missed it.

• I haven't talked about the new season of America's Best Dance Crew yet, but so far season 6 is shaping up nicely. I'm already totally in the bag for the Footworkingz crew, and who the hell could guess that D-Trix (aka Dominic Sandoval from Season 3/7 of So You Think You Can Dance) would make such a great judge. He gives constructive and intelligent feedback, can really come from a different place than Lil' Mama and JC because he was an ABDC contestant and winner as part of the Season 3 champs Quest Crew, and seems genuinely excited to be there (ahem Omarion) and not at all condescending (Omarion). And D-Trix so far isn't nearly as spazzy and annoying as he can be when he's hammed it up on SYTYCD in the past. If I can't have my Shane Sparks back, I'll settle for Dom. Other improvements this season have been that so far there's been NO Layla Kayleigh. I never understood her role or the need for another semi-host on this show. This sixth season is the "season of the superstar" or some nonsense, and will focus each week on a different artist's music (instead of also including dance styles like in previous seasons?). For the first 2 episodes the artists themselves introduced the song packages and while they were both kind of wacky (seriously, are Lil' Wayne and Ke$ha on drugs ALL the time?), having the musicians there via videotape made a lot more sense than Layla Kayleigh and her annoying British accent.

• Justified kind of ROCKED MY WORLD this week. My boyfriend Timothy Olyphant was superb as usual as Deputy Raylan Givens, but this week also featured the underappreciated Deputy Tim as a major part of the A plot. After the attempt on Raylan and Winona's lives, Chief Mullen assigns Tim to be Raylan's bodyguard. Of course with halirious results. On any other show, Jacob Pitts would be a star; he infuses Tim with such a laconic, wry dependability. But thems the breaks I guess. When you have the hotness of Olyphant to compete with, you can't help but fade to the background. Last night's ep was totally torn from the pages of my fantasy slash fanfic. See also: Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder. Hubba hubba...

Things that intrigued me this week (for good or bad):

• James Frey is going back on Oprah?! I was one of the few folks out there that were always in Frey's corner when it came to the debacle over the validity of his memoir A Million Little Pieces and the subsequent dressing down and humiliation that he was subjected to by Oprah back in 2006 (geez, was that really 5 years ago?!). Winfrey's patronizing, holier-than-thou attitude and anger towards Frey was the beginning of my now strong hatred of Oprah. Even after hearing that she later apologized to Frey, I couldn't forgive her for being such a pretentious ass to him. Here's hoping that this final appearance for him on her show will be enlightening and triumphant for Frey. He kind of deserves it. He's had a shitty couple of years.

• The horrifying news on April 20th of the deaths of journalists Tim Hetherington (pictured above) and Chris Hondros and this article on NPR.org have been on my mind. If you haven't seen the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo, that Hetherington co-directed with Sebastian Junger please rent it or stream it today.

Things that made me want to punch something/one:

This kid -

Seriously. Stop singing country songs. Stop being the smarmiest smarm that ever smarmed; you're only 17 for crissakes! Stop holding the microphone like a flute with both hands. JUST STOP everything. And America, stop fawking voting for this douchebag.

This huge asshole -

I do not f*cking understand what is wrong with so many damn people in this country. Why on Earth would you ever listen to anything this fawkwad would have to say about running the United States of America? WTF?! He is so ridiculous and enraging. One can only hope that everything indeed plays out as many pundits are predicting, that this whole Trump 2012 campaign nonsense will blow over soon. When even Karl fawking Rove lambasts you, you have to know something's wrong.