Steve Holt!

Arrested Development's third season started last night, and all is right in the world. In one episode, the writers snickered at "cabin episodes", pedophiles, PPD killer moms, creepy statues, Nevada, and Scientology.

The episode also featured a cameo by Jim Cramer, screaming host of Mad Money. I've seen the program, and, yes, he walks around a set screaming about the stock market and pushing buttons that produce noises.

Mild discomfort and the end of "live" sitcoms

When Phil Rosenthal, executive producer of Everybody Loves Raymond, joked while accepting the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series that the end of his show meant the end of the sitcom, laughter, and smiling, the Emmy producers cut to an uncomfortable Eric McCormack, star of NBC's spiraling Will & Grace.

Is the Will & Grace strategy to lock up the Guest Actor and Guest Actress Comedy Emmys? Is that all NBC can hope for? They'd better hope My Name is Earl finds an audience.

Can the 2006 Emmys be this easily telegraphed?

As many early reports say that series debuting this season largely won't stand out, my guesses for the 2006 Emmys are as follows:

• As Everybody Loves Raymond won't be able to collect any more "swan song" or "body of work" Emmys next year, Arrested Development and Desperate Housewives will be collecting most of the Emmys in the Comedy category. Housewives being listed as a comedy is somewhat suspect, but I really just don't get what makes that show so special.
• The West Wing probably won't see many Drama Emmys until after its last season, so don't expect many next year. Even the voters realize that show fell in quality after the first four seasons.
• Drama Emmys will be a toss-up as there are many good dramas this season. Comedy? Not so many.
• Battlestar Galactica should find its way into a few categories, which would be a large accomplishment for a genre series. If it wins anything beyond technical achievements, which the series is careful not to highlight, we can all point and laugh at Paramount's bloated, rotting genre empire.
• The bulk of the Variety Emmys will still fall in The Daily Show's lap. Chalk it up to compatible politics. I wish I could remember to watch more of that show. Perhaps I should just TiVo the damn thing and shut up.

Apple's advertiser must employ tiny hand models

I've seen the iPod nano in person, and it's... well... as impossibly small as Apple claims. I realize they have a scale comparison on their site, but in person, it's a reassurance that Moore's law is still moving at ludicrous speed.

Chicago says "hello" to autumn.

After a few uncharacteristically hot and humid days not seen since my wedding, autumn has teased the Chicagoland area. The air is a little cooler, a little crisper, and a little cleaner. The first leaves are starting to fall, although recent rain played a part in this.

On schedule, my sinuses decided to go haywire. The annual sinus infection will pass in another few days, then I'll be left with all the residual phlegm. Such is a small price to pay for autumn in Chicago.

Apple continues its streak of making sexy things.

I realize this is old news, but the iPod nano is a very sexy beast. The shuffle is cute and neat, but I can get freaky with the nano.

Color commentary

Far be it from me to judge the intelligence or sensibilities of television sports announcers, but I couldn't help but wonder what prompted Brent Musburger and his talking head cohort, speaking about Texas Longhorn quarterback Vince Young during tonight's Texas-Ohio State game, to offer that Young reminds them of a young Randall Cunningham or Michael Vick.

Is this is the new political corectness -- the same bizarre white elephant social edict that drives local news stations in diverse markets to attach a reporter of a given ethnicity to a story concerning the same ethnicity without the hint of irony that the reporter has trained himself or herself to be as non-ethnic as possible on camera?

wa wa-aaaaaaaar

I don't know about you, but all this refugee talk about New Orleans has kept the U2 classic "The Refugee" in my head for the last two weeks. Oddly enough, it contains the lyric, "She has a pretty face / But at the wrong time and the wrong place."

Steve Ballmer has anger management issues.

(I just love those plain The Superficial headlines.)

Steve Ballmer doesn't appreciate historical irony. Throwing chairs and cursing isn't going to make the future go away. Microsoft can't compete with Apple or Google in the consumer arena aside from partnering with Dell and HP to offer lower prices than Apple. Microsoft has become the fat, dumb, stupid monolith IBM was in the early 1980s -- beholden to the enterprise market and too slow to capture the imagination and mindshare of consumers.

Steve, dump all the R&D money in Xbox while you can, leaving just a little to keep Office and Exchange somewhat current.

Takin' it to the streets

My wife and I went to the movie theater for the third time in two years to see The 40-Year-Old Virgin. We both liked it for the acting and for its frankness. Almost ruining it for me was the fact that each of Andy's SmartTech colleagues is on the verge of some kind of collapse. And the ending... well, the ending makes sense if you look at the big picture. (And Catherine Keener needs to eat something. All the talk about her deviating from the "average romantic comedy actress" must have been directed at her miminal makeup and her character's surprisingly robust backstory.)

Making this moviegoing experience less than comfortable was a group of four boys all aged under 15 brought by their mothers or older relatives just before the movie started. The boys weren't doing anything, but we felt embarrassed for them. This film is raunchy from the first scene -- it's not for the faint of heart. There are also a few depictions of recreational drug use. Two older ladies in front of us left when the subject of masturbation was finally confronted. How they were able to hang on that long is beyond me.

The coffin housing Alias is already lowered two feet.

Apparently, Michael Vartan, also known as Michael Vaughn who is called "Vaughn" by characters closest to him, has filmed his last episode of Alias a few weeks ago. This means the only reason my wife watches the show has left. I warned her about the two other shark-jumping signs -- Cousin Oliver and Written-In Pregnancy -- but I'm sure she'll bail after Vaughn departs, which is all well and good because the TiVo might appreciate the extra forty minutes alone.

Anyhoo, some angry fans are not taking Vaughn's Vartan's departure very well.

A small bit of cheery, sick sarcasm seeps in...

All I have left to post on the matter of New Orleans is that I'm willing to bet that Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer have holed up themselves in a hotel room somewhere in Southern California with a couple of studio script hacks watching every minute of news coverage.

Link du jour

You've probably seen this by now, but here it is. While I hate throwing around the label of "bias," I also acknowledge bias still exists.

Should we save New Orleans?

Eric Zorn weighs in on the resurrection of New Orleans. Earlier, Jeff Harrell offered his opinion. It's amazing when two bloggers on different ends of the political spectrum agree on something as "big" as this issue. Of course, I agree with both. The only thing worth saving for the sake of fiscal sanity is the actual Port of New Orleans and possibly some of the refineries in the area. Start drafting plans for Orleans III or relocation programs.

The images that really strike me almost dumb are those of the mobs and looters. The Third World is the rule rather than the exception, and the line between civilization and chaos is a very thin one. It's unsettling to think that any large urban area is a natural disaster away from large-scale disorder. History makes this point again and again, but to see a city fall apart in real time is unique.