TiVo Economics

If you love your TiVo like I do, but want the cold hard facts to prove why, let this smart guy explain it for you.

"Average hourly earnings are around $18, suggesting that TiVo saves time that could otherwise have been sold for around $108 per week. We should also add in the benefit of higher quality television — around $11 per week — and subtract the cost of the annoying service charge, which is around $3 per week, yielding net benefits of $116 per week, or $6,000 per year. The net present value of this flow is around $120,000 per person, or perhaps around a quarter of a million dollars per household. Wow."

No Deal or No Deal

This hurts.

Every Simpsons Couch Gag Ever

They could make an entire episode out of this: every couch gag from every episode of The Simpsons, compiled into one super-fast montage. If you're a super-nerd, you can also watch the 20 minute regular-speed version here.

Some of my faves from the regular speed one: stomping the FOX logo at 3:07, not even making it inside at 5:12, the amazing Rocky & Bullwinkle parody at 6:30, meeting the original badly drawn Simpsons at 7:26, a Peanuts homage at 8:46, guest appearance by Fry from Futurama at 8:48, the behind-the-scenes animation at 9:45, Matt Groening making cameos at 7:34 and 9:49, the Batpoles at 10:56 followed by hilarious Japanese superheroes, the mega-universal zoom at 11:27, claymation Gumby at 13:31, attack of the couches sequence at 13:52, the TiVo one at 13:46, a real live family at 15:26, the evolution of Homer at 16:52, built out of Lego at 18:09, Magritte at 19:05, and the best one to finish with at 12:29.

Human Tetris Returns...To TV!

Everybody's favourite large-pieces-of-foam-rushing-at-people-who-have-to-contort-their-bodies-to-fit-in-the-pre-designed-holes game show, Hole in the Wall, is coming to American television thanks to that upstanding network, Fox.

The article compares the re-playability factor to Deal or No Deal, but what Hole in the Wall has going for it is that it is fun to both play and watch. Also, as far as we know now, no Howie Mandel.

Strike Gold

Now that the writers' strike is over, the biggest question is obviously if Lost will film more episodes, which it seems they might! TV Guide has a continually updated list of when all your favourite shows will return.

Lost: That Loving Feeling

Tonight, there's a "special enhanced episode" of the big season finale of Lost from last year, which sound like a Pop-up Video type of thing. Then tomorrow it's the recap episode followed by the "most anticipated premiere of the season", which is not that hard when you're up against shows like The Moment of Truth.

If you haven't watched any of Lost yet, I strongly recommend you leave your cave and go back and watch all the DVDs, but otherwise ABC has an amazing recap that's everything you need to know in 8 minutes and 15 seconds.

Lastly, get your predictions in with The Bureau of Communication's Official-Looking (But Totally Unofficial) Lost Prediction Form.

10 Days Till Lost

Only 10 days till Lost starts up again, so it's a perfect time to renew your prescription of Losticil.

Hugo Hurley for Hardee's

So is this a flashback or a flashforward?

Do The Urkel Dance

No explanation needed, although I'm curious about what became of the spiking-the-punch-and-getting-back-at-Urkel subplot.

Kid Nation

CBS announced their new schedule and they've got this new crazy-sounding show called Kid Nation. Listen to this:

CBS has announced that Kid Nation, a new Lord of the Flies-like reality series in which 40 children will have 40 days to establish a fully-functioning community in an uninhabited ghost town, will be part of the network's Fall 2007 primetime schedule and air Wednesdays at 8PM

I, for one, look forward to watching them learn to cook and pass laws on bedtimes, and one can only hope that it ends up more like the forgotten nineties favourite Camp Nowhere and less like Lord of the Flies.

Conan Does Frisco

The whole time I was watching this I was hoping that Conan would visit my most favourite San Francisco landmark, and he did not disappoint.

Dwight Squared

Spoiler Alert! I hate to ruin upcoming episodes of the Office for anyone, so don't watch this if you enjoy your episodes in all their half-hour glory, but this is hilarious. Come back next week to watch it and reminisce!

Jim & Pam

A very tastefully done half-promo, half-sappy music montage of Jim & Pam from The Office which makes me even more excited for Thursday's new episode, and just a little bit teary.