I like to think I have a high tolerance for the macabre.

I’ve always liked scary movies (in fact, a mutual love of horror films prolonged one of my doomed relationships for a good two or three weeks). I’m usually designated as the person who watches gruesome scenes to let the others know when they can open their eyes. I was known to watch those surgery shows that they aired in the late nineties where they’d just film the sucking-out of polyps.

That said, I really think that this new guerrilla marketing campaign for Dexter is a bit much. I present my case…

Exhibit A

Questionable taste in the celluloid is one matter. Traumatizing the unwitting citizens of Portugal with violent stabbings?  Maybe not.

Exhibit B

This is just disgusting.

I’m not necessarily grossed out by the idea of blood seeping through the plumbing — that old hat for haunted houses. I just think that the concept of blood and urine intermingling is pretty sick.

Coincidentally, I was actually just thinking the other day about how brilliant last season’s poster was. Way to make me feel weird about it, Showtime.

However, the new season does start Sept. 28 — which is much sooner than I was expecting.

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.

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.

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.

How’s it going?

Monday morning, eh? It’s rough. I know, I should’ve just gone to bed earlier too.

Well, if you’re checking this Monday morning, you’re probably hoping you can get a little mental escape for a bit. Actually, if you’re checking it at all you probably are avoiding doing something.

As such, here’s a kind of funny sketch called “The Underminer.” It’s from The YouTube. According to the creator, Michael Albo, it is based on “someone you let into your life a long time ago who knows everything about you and knows how to dismantle your psychology—but it’s too late to split off from him or her.”

Here’s another one about babies and Whole Foods.

It may be the Summer hiatus, but Buzz still has a few questions for Grey’s Anatomy. (BuzzSugar)

If you know the significance of the ‘bench dance’, understand the genius of Mia Michaels, and secretly want to be on the Hot Tamale Train then you should check out GMMR & Ducky’s So You Think You Can Dance podcast. (Give Me My Remote)

Marcia found herself thoroughly underwhelmed by The Middleman. (Pop Vultures)

On the set of Burn Notice, Rae discovers that Jeffrey Donovan’s just as cool as his alter-ego Michael Westen. (RTVW)

Low production value, cheesy stories and 30 points for yet another “sassy” female lead, but The Middleman is actually entertaining. (Scooter McGavin’s 9th Green)

Vance video recaps The Tony Awards since apparently, no one watched it on TV. By the way, go see In The Heights, Passing Strange and Xanadu (for real!)! All fantastic! Take a look at the clips for proof! (Tapeworthy)

Dan didn’t see the mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica coming — that’s for dang sure. This week, he mulled the twist ending as well as the concept of merging our world with Battlestar’s. (TiFaux)

Jennifer thinks the Oscars and Emmys should take a cue from the TV Land Awards. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter, Nellie Oleson from Little House on the Prairie, and Doc from The Love Boat dressed in their trademark costumes flying through the air, or the paparazzi catching a panty-free crotch shot of Mama from Mama’s Family. Add in the cast of The Office, Wilhelmina Slater, Justin Timberlake and a Lionel Richie concert, and the TV Land Awards were just about perfect. (Tube Talk)

This week, the TV Addict posted his theory on the highly anticipated spin-off of THE OFFICE and visited the set of BURN NOTICE (the TV Addict)

Raoul talked to loudmouth Jen from Hell’s Kitchen. (TV Filter)

Desperate times call for desperate television choices. As such, here’s a preview for Shear Genius — Project Runway for hairstylists. It debuts June 25.

It should be noted that, in all likelihood, this will be entirely watchable. The question is — do we really want to make this kind of investment?

Maggie noted (way back when) how these fifth generation Project Runway clones are like the clones in the Michael Keaton farce Multiplicity. By the fifth time he copies himself, the clones are functionally useless and stupid — wearing pots on their heads and such.

However, sometimes I wonder if there were other variations of Runway that failed before that show debuted. Now, in the event of Runway’s success, those failed shows are being trotted out even though they never quite worked. It’s like that fourth Alien sequel — the one with Winona Ryder as the spunky pixie robot — where Sigourney Weaver finds all of the failed clones of Ripley before the one that actually worked. They were all mutated and preserved in brine — some of them were just clumps of teeth and hair.

Shear Genius is probably somewhere between a clump of teeth and hair and Sloth from The Goonies. If you follow my drift.