Squee! It’s Glee!

The one where my head turns into a TV set – the old, console kind.

Have you seen that commercial for Bing, the new search engine? It’s the one where everyone is spouting out all this useless information that has nothing to do with anything, except someone asked them a question and they’re all Search Overload! Search Overload! Part of me thinks that commercial is funny, but the other parts of me want to rip my TV out of the wall when it comes on.

My brain feels kind of like that right now – kind of like Overloaded! Please press f6 to reboot and start over! – but I think it has less to do with the amount of Internet searching I do and more to do with the fact that I have been MIA for the last 5 days because SOMEONE GAVE ME THE FLU. I’m looking at you, BB.

Well, it might not be the flu flu. I mean, it technically could be the flu if you consider the chills and aching and head congestion and coughing and misery and insomnia and WILL SOMEONE PLEASE HAND ME A GUN ALREADY? But I haven’t had a fever (someone told me this was the good news) and I don’t so much think I’m going to die today as much as I thought I would on Saturday, so probably I’m in the clear.

But that’s not really my point. My point is: I have watched so much television in the last 5 days that I am pretty for sure that if you asked me a random reality TV question, I would not only ace it, I would also be able to give you background research and statistics and maybe some genealogy (re: the Kardashians, the Lamases – wait, how do you pluralize “Lamas” when it’s a last name attached to people who should not reproduce?). I can tell you about ALL the balloon boy interviews, the number of houses HGTV helped sell in the last month, how many people are left in the running for the next Iron Chef and that Shakira wore the same outfit to SNL that she had on for last week’s Dancing with the Stars performance. I can tell you that Dexter’s hair is longer this season than last. I can tell you that on October 28th “The Proposal” will be available OnDemand, and also that Nightline is rerunning its story about evangelist Benny Hinn again tonight.

My brain is tired.

I think normal sick people probably sleep, or read books or newspapers or something, but not me. No sir. I have had at least one cat attached to my thighs at all times, and my right hand has the remote. Left hand free for phone, Kleenex, juice, whatever. Right hand on the remote at all times. I woke up yesterday morning and the damn thing was still in my hand, right where I left it the night before. I think I need some help.

So, for those of you who called to make sure that I was alive – not because you were necessarily concerned that I might be dying of swine flu, but because I haven’t posted in days – settle down. It’s taken me 5 days to move myself to the computer and I can’t make any promises until my head has finished exploding from all the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader high kicks.

Spoiler Alert!

My Top 10 TV predictions for this year, or this fall, or however long it is before my favorite new shows get canceled:

1. The two Harlem Globetrotters will come in second to the gay brothers on The Amazing Race. Cute Blond Athletic Cali-Couple will fight for first, but the Globetrotters have longer legs and the gay bros will pull out the win. They’re pretty, they get along well, and they know when to flirt (at least, tonight they do.)

2. Mr. Schue’s wife will steal Quinn’s baby on Glee and pass it off as her own, until it grows up to be an asshole like the mohawk football dude. Also, the black girl and the kid with the wheelchair will make sweet music and beautiful babies together.

3. Cougar Town’s Cousin Courtney (Have I ever told that story? If not, I need to get on that.) will hook up with the judgy neighbor across the street, but not before her son gets a cougar of his own, which will leads to lots of hilarity and physical comedy for which Cousin Courtney is so famous. And by the way, I’m not sure how I feel about her name on the show (Jules). She is MONICA. ABC needs to recognize.

4. On Modern Family, Julie Bowen will slowly drive herself insane with trying to keep her promiscuous 15 year-old from hooking up with the broody senior, which will lead to lots of drinking. I predict glassfuls of Crystal Light lemonade spiked with gin. Also, that Colombian chick will get naked. At her son’s soccer game.

5. Meredith and Derek (Grey’s Anatomy) will get married for real, after they discover the need to file jointly to avoid high taxes in the State of Washington. Yang will choke Army dude in his sleep, Izzie’s cancer will mysteriously disappear and Little Grey will get knocked up by McSteamy. Or maybe Callie will get knocked up by Arizona. I can’t decide. Stranger things have happened.

6. Tom DeLay will make it ALL THE WAY on Dancing with the Stars, besting Kelly Osbourne, who will – six episodes in – lose her shit and require an ambulance ride.

7. Rachel Zoe dies. For real. She chokes on – are you ready? – BUH-nanas. (I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been waiting to use that for, like, months. Months where I totally died every time Rachel died. And then, when she lived after the stomach bug, I died all over again.)

8. Mad Men’s Don Draper cracks a smile and tells his children he loves them. Rachel Zoe dies again.

9. The Real Housewives of New Jersey come back, but all those babies that were born conveniently after they stopped taping are now magically – just like the soaps! – teenagers in the new season. Leads to lots of hilarity and comparisons to Victoria Gotti’s kids. Oh wait, does she still have kids? Or have they . . . “disappeared?” Either way, one of the Housewives moves into a bigger house because a) Danielle won’t stop stalking her, and b) her house was gross after she hosted a benefit and the public came over.

10. Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison and John C. McGinley come together for a Scrubs reunion and it’s so good that ABC decides to bring it back as a mid-season replacement for Desperate Housewives.

Hey. A girl can dream.

Best Dressed, Emmy 2009

We interrupt our regularly schedule Monday Lists to bring you glamour du jour.

Okay, so everyone already loves “Mad Men,” no need to gush and goo over how good that show is. However, it’s a rare moment when we see January Jones (Betty Draper) in some seriously-2009 clothes, particularly this Versace gown with its cutout bodice. Soft hair, smoky eyes, some tasteful diamonds and this, my friends, is how you dress up for a party. (Please try to ignore the wedgie-picker in the background, bless her heart.)

January Jones in Versace, 2009 Emmys (via The Examiner)

She loves to lie

When my husband was a kid, he and his sister fought like siblings do. To really know my husband is to understand his formerly-evil streak. Some call it mischievous, some call it “just being a boy,” but I call it using his powers for evil instead of good. For instance, he once ruined his mother’s bridge club party by going around, bridge player to bridge player, and whispering every four-letter word he could think of in his mother’s friends’ ears. They thought it was hilarious, and in typical five year-old boy fashion, he decided that he could top that in so very many ways. (Did I tell you about the time he was kicked out of preschool and his mother took him to a child psychologist because she JUST COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE?)

Anyway, his career as a trouble-maker went on for years and during one such trouble-making instance, his sister tattled on him to his mother. And when confronted, he looked at his mother, looked back at his sister and said, “Nuh-uh. Look at her. She loves to lie.”

This is a favorite story to tell in his family because it kind of encapsulates Brian at that age, but it’s also funny now because Brian is the type of person who drives 33 mph in a 35. He’s the kind of person you wouldn’t DREAM of telling about how last week you found a lottery ticket and claimed the winnings as yours. Or about the time you called in sick to work when really you just wanted to watch a “Project Runway” marathon. He can’t stand to break the rules.

So imagine then how interesting it’s been in our house this week. Me, the middle of the road sometimes-conservative but more than a little liberal gal who skipped the presidential address because I wanted to watch Melanie Oudin advance at the U.S. Open (it didn’t happen; she lost to Wozniacki). Brian, the always-conservative Rush Limbaugh-listener who gets upset at the mention of poor, underinsured, hungry students of mine but who can’t bring himself to vote for a Democrat. He listened to Obama’s speech out of one ear, but was mostly focused on his statistics homework.

Both of us missed Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” cry the first time around. We caught it the next day though, on Good Morning America, and it sparked a healthy debate: Was Joe Wilson out of line? Should he have stood up for his party on such a public platform or should he have respected his Commander in Chief (and all of Congress) and held his tongue? I know where I stand, but Brian wasn’t so sure.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t really have an outburst like that on live television in the gallery like that,” he said. “But I mean, really, this whole healthcare debacle is just a trainwreck. Joe Wilson’s right.”

I didn’t respond to him, mainly because I absolutely can’t bear to talk politics with his bull-headedness. He stubbornly refuses to listen (most of the time) and believes what he reads in the Wall Street Journal, what he hears on Fox News or what the butcher at the Piggly Wiggly says.

But I’ve been thinking ever since: What if we, like Joe Wilson, called people out every time we thought we smelled a lie? Do politicians love to lie, as Brian claimed his sister did? Sure they do, unless you believe everything they say. Do we, everyday folks, love to lie? Sure we do. Think about everything you said yesterday and how many little white lies you snuck into your conversations.

I’ll go ahead and admit mine right now: I can’t think of the last time I told the whole truth and nothing but the truth all day long. No, sorry, I can’t walk with you after work because I have to get home and cook supper, knowing full well it’s take-out night. Or I totally loved that precious invitation you made for your party! when actually I think that your four year-old could’ve done a much better job. In my case, Sorry I had to sneak out of the meeting early, but I had way too much coffee this morning, when actually I just can’t bear to be confined for another second.

What does that say about us? Are we a country full of liars, cheats and thieves, or are we just humans trying to make it through another day? I don’t know exactly, but yes, this DVD I’m about to burn was downloaded completely legally and through the proper channels, and no, I don’t plan to show it to large groups of people.

Yet.