OMG, I am watching an episode of The French Chef, where Julia is telling us how to throw a wine tasting party, and it's the greatest thing ever.

Speaking of FG I find it an odd omission that not one "best of the decade" roundup has honored Adult Swim. It was admittedly stronger at the beginning, but it is a unique and influential cultural thing that started a week before 9/11.

Jessica Simpson: "Is this chicken what I have or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it says chicken."

Ah, good times....

The Dumbest Quotes Of The 2000s

Oof. Sorry for the kid meltdowns, msbelle and Kat. My kids have been blessedly tantrum free. For now. I probably just jinxed myself.

Hec, I use that all the phrase all the time! Only it's "I want you to listen to me." Sometimes I use the whinybutt though.

Oy. I joined the board of a family support charity organization and things are sort of going pear shaped on us. United Way is threatening to pull our funding and one of our directors is trying to commit career suicide by email.

Free TV In Trouble

NEW YORK — For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer.

The business model is unraveling at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and the local stations that carry the networks' programming. Cable TV and the Web have fractured the audience for free TV and siphoned its ad dollars. The recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to accelerate their push for new revenue to pay for programming.

That will play out in living rooms across the country. The changes could mean higher cable or satellite TV bills, as the networks and local stations squeeze more fees from pay-TV providers such as Comcast and DirecTV for the right to show broadcast TV channels in their lineups. The networks might even ditch free broadcast signals in the next few years. Instead, they could operate as cable channels – a move that could spell the end of free TV as Americans have known it since the 1940s.

"Good programing is expensive," Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns Fox, told a shareholder meeting this fall. "It can no longer be supported solely by advertising revenues."

Fox is pursuing its strategy in public, warning that its broadcasts – including college football bowl games – could go dark Friday for subscribers of Time Warner Cable, unless the pay-TV operator gives Fox higher fees.

Of course, maybe that's why Fox is saying TV "can no longer be supported solely by advertising revenues" - they're just trying to get more money from Cable companies.

"Good programing is expensive," Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns Fox, told a shareholder meeting this fall.

How the fuck would he know good programming?

I'm sorry to hear that so many of you had such a rotten morning.

My kids are still in pjs. I'm a bit jealous. The big challenge of the day has been keeping the kids occupied enough that DH and I can clean up the house a bit before we head up to HMB for New Years (because yes we are crazy enough to travel this week to visit the family who came down south to visit us last week). We spent the late morning silk screening tee-shirts. It was fun, and surprisingly easy to clean up! Totally recommending it for kid crafts.

What is this "free TV?" I live in a town of 110,000 and can't get TV over the air by any means. I pay $25 a month for a dish tv package I don't especially want because that allows me to pay $5 a month for the "free" channels.

So, couldn't we just say, FU to the networks then and go to a system like BBC's?

Okay, b.org is currently one of the only sites on the internet that's loading for me.

t clings