• Did Jared “Subway Sandwich” Fogel die? Regardless, someone made a nice rememberance site
• RIP: Real World mentor dies
• HBO is working on a Wire complete series box set
• What we’re watching: ABC’s Wipeout scores summer’s highest debut
• 24 will only be 22 episodes next year
• Tricia Helfer joins the cast of Inseparable
• Jason Bateman now saying that an Arrested Development movie isn’t set in stone
• They’re making an Addams Family musical!
• Because I love you: Here’s an enormous Eddie Murphy head on the interstate
• Tony Soprano’s wardrobe sells for $187,750
• This day in lists: Five of television’s funniest coming-out scenes

It’s been a week or two since we had our crazy week of three separate giveaways. There were a lot of entries, but now we finally have some winners.

They are:

• The winner of the My Boys t-shirt and season one of The Bill Engvall Show is Sara from New York
• The winners of the Home Grown DVD (Comedy Central’s compilation of stoner-oriented comedy) are Lee from Texas and Kam from Wisconsin.
• The winners of Jackie Warner’s Work Out DVD are Jacob from Virginia and Tressa from Washington, D.C. Jacob, by the way, is also known as the Food Network Addict in blogging circles.

So, yeah. Remember to watch all these shows and buy the DVDs. I always like to please our lovely PR reps. If you promise to watch one episode of The Bill Engvall Show (Thursdays at nine on TBS), I’ll give you a handmade coupon for a free back rub.

I can’t really say that I’m very accomplished. This grows more and more clear as I near 30 and find myself dreading my college’s alumni magazine (where they show the various weddings, higher education degrees and career accomplishments made by my peers). It’s not that I don’t want my friends to be successful, I just don’t want them to be more successful, more quickly than me.

But whatever, man. I’ve got a blog that’s read by… well, more people than can fit in a phone booth. I can pretend that I wield media influence. After all, this isn’t a Livejournal or a Blogspot– this is a dot com. We’ve got our own URL, suckers.

Anyways, I want to make my mark on society by creating a phrase that can be incorporated into the pop culture lexicon. This is something I can put in my obituary. So, this entry is the beginning of a series (I’ve just decided that — like now) where I throw out terms I made up and see if people unexpectedly start using them.

My first one is thus…

Elevator baby (noun, adjective) - a catch-all term for a time-worn plot device that has been repeated time and time again.

Sitcoms have used the device of having hapless men deliver babies in elevators for years. It’s been on Doogie Howser, M.D., Saved by the Bell — heck — even that God-awful Private Practice (although they’re doctors — they should know how to do this). I want the term “elevator baby” to refer to an uninspired, phoned-in plotline.

Often these elevator baby devices involve confined spaces (being caught in a storage facility/walk-in freezer), but the term can apply to anything. The replacement of a dead hamster to fool a child, etc.

Here it is in a sentence:

It was a generally strong season, but a few episodes suffered from elevator baby plotlines.

Another:

Two and a Half Men is the worst. Every episode seems to be an elevator baby.

So, there you have it. This is the key to my fame.

Have you ever heard of a band called Cloud Cult?

Their schtick (not to reduce them to just being a band with a gimmick — but they do have a schtick) is that they have a painter create a work of visual art while they do their concerts. The band’s sound is urgent rock and roll augmented by a small string section — so it’s very conducive for painters to get “in the zone.”

So they recently showed up on Carson Daly’s show to perform. You can see the clip below.

If you liked the music and, more importantly, the painting you can buy it on eBay. As of this writing it’s only about $335 — which is a lot for bloggers, but not for people who buy original artwork.

Via Brooklyn Vegan.

PS — I give Carson Daly a hard time, which he probably doesn’t deserve. Seems like a nice enough guy — he dated the lovely Jennifer Love Hewitt after all. However, it is very easy and his show has some inexcusably bad comedy.

• Finally! A graph showing MTVs music video to random crap ratios over the years
• Arrested Development movie could be coming next year
• Is there such a thing as too much Steve Carell?
• HBO will rerun all of George Carlin’s specials
• Spoiler photos from the set of Heroes
• Time ain’t liking EW’s top shows of the past quarter century list
• Mary-Kate Olsen is joining the cast of Samantha Who?
• Showtime is picking up George Clooney’s Fall of Bob
• RIP: Moonlight is officially dead
• Because I hate you: High fuel prices put brakes on indie rock tours
• This day in lists: 7 tragic SNL deaths
• I don’t understand: Chick from Reno 911 talks to Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku
  

I remember hearing about the Battlestar Galactica cast doing a Letterman top ten list, but I never actually sought it out.  Well, just because I care enough to give you something you don’t want three months late, here it is.

For what it’s worth, it’s mildly amusing to watch:

• Tricia Helfer politely fake-laugh through the entire set
• The guy who plays Baltar try to sell a really lame number 7
• Jamie Bamber accidentally lapse into his adorable English accent.

Among the shows I feel like I could watch (if only the network it aired on — FX — was in any part of my consciousness) is Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days.

Spurlock is the guy who nearly killed himself by eating McDonald’s every day in “Super Size Me” and is known for both his gregarious personality and unfortunate choices in facial hair. He’s pretty charming, though, and the concept behind 30 Days is pretty cool.

Essentially, it’s a classy version of Wife Swap — without the wives. A person who is very ingrained in one lifestyle experiences 30 Days living in a completely foreign and challenging environment. So far this season, participants have included a former football player who must spend a month in a wheelchair, a hunter who has to work for PETA and Spurlock himself who goes to work in a coal mine.

The episode that airs tonight is intriguing to me for the obvious gay angle. A homophobe goes to live with a pair of gay dads.

To give you an idea of what it’ll turn out like, here’s a quote from one of the dads taken from an Advocate article:

I think Kati was truly hurt when I told her I couldn’t be her friend. But she told us she was going back to California to work against gay marriage. Ultimately, it’s not a “live and let live” or “agree to disagree” situation. We’re not passing judgment on how she lives her life, but her views and actions threaten the existence our family. Michigan just had a marriage amendment updated by the courts that eradicated domestic-partner health care benefits for state employees. Now Tom’s not covered by my health insurance.

The episode airs on FX at ten p.m.

• At least 50% of TLC’s programming is now about people with too many kids
• Ultimate Sopranos DVD to include everything and a chicken wing for $399
• The fake rich people everyone hates from The Real Housewives NYC will be back for season 2
• VH1 brings us I Love the Millenium
• Blake Lewis got canned by his label
• What we aren’t watching: Daytime Emmy Awards lost 3 million viewers from last year
• Heather Mills may bring her crazy ass to Celebrity Apprentice
• RIP: A tribute to George Carlin
• MTV Video Music Awards move to LA this year
• This is what happens when you mash together Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model, and The Apprentice together:
  
• This day in lists: The 20 hottest possible threesomes in TV history

Top Chef ended just a couple weeks ago and it still seems like forever. A woman won, which we were all happy to see, but sadly our two favorite lesbians (of the three) bit the dust a bit early in the competition.

Well, Zoi was probably a bit swamped by the competition — Jen could have stayed around a little while.

Here’s a Hulu Web exclusive about the couple, looking back at all the lesbionic drama.