Winter Freakin' Wonderland ... and TV Stuff

Sure, yesterday we were near 70 degrees and look at tonight! I didn't bring either my hat or gloves because they weren't calling for snow. Above is the Plainfield Train Station and below is a nearby street. As I type this, we now have about an inch on the ground.


Since both Survivor and Amazing Race have wrapped up, I want to thank both ORKMommy and RBennie for running the pools in the comments area. You both added a fun dimension to the seasons here and it's very appreciated!

Tonight is a fairly quiet TV night for me. Leverage (good show) is on TNT at 10 PM ET/PT. However, it's one of the ones I've already seen in the press kit screeners. I might check out Momma's Boys, a new reality show on NBC at 10 PM ET/PT. It has the mothers of men living with romance contestants for said men. It sounds like fuel for brouhahas for me! The Biggest Loser has its finale tonight, but I've never watched it. At 9 PM ET/PT, there's a new Mentalist on. I might try to fit in my two recorded Bonnie Hunt Shows and David Letterman from last night as I went to bed early and recorded it.

Gack. Even on a quiet TV night, too much TV, too little time! What will you be watching?

Tonight's musical non sequitur:
Jackie is just speeding away
Thought she was James Dean for a day
Then I guess she had to crash
Valium would have helped that dash
She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side
-- 'Walk On the Wild Side" by Lou Reed

Survivor Gabon Bob Gets His Check and Stuff

Bob Crowley, the big winner of last night's Survivor finale, appeared on The Early Show this morning and picked up his check. Aw, he's such a nice guy!


Watch CBS Videos Online

In other news, my Survivor finale review is up over on TV Squad. And, over on CliqueClack TV, my latest Reality Clack column is up and running. Late tonight, my review of tonight's The Big Bang Theory will go up there.

Today's musical non sequitur:
Say what do you think of gentlemen wearing mink?
Gentle and soft
But who'd just as soon off you
For looking the wrong way as not
Jojo, Jojo
-- "Jojo" by Boz Scaggs

Survivor Gabon Finale Post

This is it! It's the big three-hour finale and reunion show! Zoetawny has made us a new season finale graphic to lend to the party atmosphere. Alas, football has delayed the show here, but I will update this post with the major updates. My full review will be up on TV Squad later tonight or early tomorrow morning. Please join in down in the comments area -- that's where the real party is!

I'm expecting the show to start about 8:30 ET here. Sigh.

And ... it's ON! 8:30 PM ET start time here in the NYC area.

BOB WINS IMMUNITY AGAIN!

Kenny was blindsided. What comes around goes around, eh? Bye-bye Kenny.

Memory walk time. Corinne likes not being nice and Randy found out he can make friends.

Yikes ... Susie won the final immunity challenge. There goes my night!

It's a tie between Bob and Matty being voted out, onto a firemaking challenge. Bob has been practicing.

Bob wins the tiebreaker! Matty is out of it and the final three are Bob, Sugar, and Susie.

BOB WINS SURVIVOR GABON! Sugar got no votes, Bob 4, Susie 3.

BOB also won the 100 grand from the viewers. Sugar was #2, Matty #3.

Off Topic Kale and Roofus, On Topic TV Doings

Here's an update on the local ornamental kale. As you see, its edges are turning white. As the winter progresses, it will all turn an off-white and look a lot more like a cabbage sitting in the snow.


Yesterday was Saturday and, almost as if on schedule, I had a date with Roofus the Cat as I headed into work. You can click on any of these images to get a larger picture. Here he is at about halfway zoom on my camera from the station platform. My full zoom ones from yesterday turned out too fuzzy. He's grooming away.


This is what the scene looks like totally unzoomed. Ignore the icky green "Yellow" cabs! The building on the right is the condemned one. Its entire roof and back wall are caving in. The two in the center have businesses on the first floors, apartments on the upper floors. Right now, I think only one apartment facing the street has anyone living in it. Very transient area and many of the immigrants who take those places go away for the winter due to lack of work. The Chotola apartment building tends to get a bit more stable tenants and is usually fully occupied.


This is where I first spotted Roofus the Cat from the street level yesterday. Can you see him?

Onto television doings!
Tonight is the big three-hour Survivor finale and reunion show! Can you believe it's gone by this fast? At 8 PM ET, I'll open up a post in which I'll give the big updates East Coast time and the comments will be your Survivor finale party place! Graphic arteest Zoetawny has made us all a new finale graphic and everyone is invited. Bring your own bottle and snacks, please!

In yesterday's mail I received a cool screener of TCM's (Turner Classic Movies) The Age of Believing: The Disney Live-Action Classics. I haven't watched it yet and the show itself is on tonight at 7 PM ET/PT on TCM. It's interviews with folks like Kurt Russell, Dick Van Dyke, Dean Jones, Tim Conway, Michelle Lee ... and many more. It delves into the move to live-action from strictly animated Disney films. Unfortunately it's 90 minutes, so it would buck up against the first half-hour of Survivor tonight. But it is being re-aired next Sunday at 11:45 PM if you wish to watch or record it. Angela Lansbury is the narrator. This one is dear to my heart as the Disney movies, both live-action and animated, played such a role in my younger days. I figured, due to the ages of many of the readers here, you might feel the same.

Actually, TCM has a great movie roster for today, too (all times ET/PT):
Noon: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1970) - Kurt Russell, Cesar Romero
1:45 PM: The Strongest Man in the World (1975) - Kurt Russell, Cesar Romero, Phil Silvers, Dick Van Patten
3:30 PM: The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) - Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk
5:15 PM: Son of Flubber (1963) - Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk, Ed Wynn
7:00 PM: The Age of Believing: The Disney Live-Action Classics
8:30 PM: The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) - Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Bill Bixby, Susan Clark
10:15 PM: The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) - Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Tim Matheson, Kenneth Mars, Jack Elam

I know I'll be watching The Absent-Minded Professor -- I haven't seen that one since I was a child!

Today's musical non sequitur:
Caviar and cigarettes
Well-versed in etiquette
Extraordinarily nice
She's a Killer ... Queen
-- "Killer Queen" by Queen

Just Some TV Stuff ... and Stuff

I haven't seen Roofus the Cat since Saturday but the weather has been icky. He's probably under a roof, not atop one. But I went to GoogleEarth and pulled up this satellite image of the area (obviously not really current as we have no leaves these days). You can click on it to make it larger.

The yellow dot is where I stand at the Plainfield Train Station taking Roofus photos. The red dot is the "Chotola" apartment building where he rests on the bay roof between the front fire escapes. The purple dot is the ex-Budget Car Rental where the elderly man feeds all the feral cats. The big aqua arrow means it's two more blocks that-a-way to my apartment building.

My latest Survivor review is up on TV Squad. And, over on CliqueClack TV I have my latest "TV Shows Off the Beaten Path" column posted. This one is about the show Cold Case. Bob Sassone over at TVS has spilled the beans about the next location for Survivor -- Brazil. Actually, Jeff Probst spilled the beans to Ryan Seacrest and Bob must have been eavesdropping.

Reality News Online has an interview with ousted Survivor castaway Crystal posted. Gee, she did so poorly on the physical challenges because she "threw her physicality out the window." Um, yeah. That's what she said --

Crystal: That just went out the window after I had a chance to run up the first hill. It’s hot as hell, I’m hungry. It just snowballed downhill. I think I had one good challenge, when I pulled Paloma off the pole.

RNO: But why did you go downhill?

Crystal: The challenges are not devised for everyday things that people do. They were hard as hell. For a person who’s been in tip-top shape, those challenges were hard. So I threw my physicality out the window and [decided to] play a social game.

Whatever. I'm just glad she's gone. And she is NOT in "tip-top shape."

RNO: What do you think of the reason behind you being voted off?

Crystal: I thought of the fact that I was social threat out there. I think folks didn’t want to go to the finals with me because I would have won. I think I had a great relationship with many of the castaways out there. To some extent, we had some sort of connection with every single one of the castaways. I would have won.

Delusional, I say!

So ... any C.S.I. fans out there? What did you think of the introduction of the Lawrence Fishburne character (to replace William Petersen) last night? I like Fishburne, so I think it might add a new dimension to the show.

Today's musical non sequitur:
Uno, dos, one, two, tres, quatro
Matty told Hatty about a thing she saw.
Had two big horns and a wooly jaw.
Wooly bully, wooly bully.
-- "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs