My college roommate Allison introduced me to the concept of No Shame during our senior year. Living in our sorority house surrounded by a dozen girls who were each in various stages of denial about their alcoholism, there was very little that Allison and I found true shame in. Had to leave your medieval lit class to throw up because you drank too much the night before? No shame. Allowed a boy whose name you didn't know to see your underwear? No shame. Took your beer into the shower so you could pregame while gettin prettied up? Ain't no shame in that, Allison would tell us. She was wise beyond her years. Even though we are separated by hundreds of miles and the mason-dixon line, I try to keep Allison's Ain't No Shame spirit alive in everything I do. And that's why I have no problem telling you that I watch TBS's original series My Boys, and I love it.

One of my more obnoxious philosophies in life is to automatically hate anything that is being directly marketed at me. This, for example, is why I don't shop at Urban Outfitters. And it's also why I should despise a show about a sassy 20something who's a sports writer on a show "About how women think… when they think like a guy." At any given moment, 20% of my brain power is devoted to basic human functions (walking without falling, not insulting strangers on the street for their "fashion" taste), 30% is devoted to counting down to when MTV premieres the new season of The Hills, and Jack Bauer's return, 10% is thinking about what I'm going to eat next, and 40% is consumed with thoughts of David Wright. My Boys was made for me, which means the chances of my hating it were significantly higher than the chances of my hating, say, New Yankee Workshop, the carpentry show that my boyfriend watches with a passion generally reserved for college basketball. A plucky sportswriter on the Chicago Cubs beat using sports metaphors for her dating life and interacting platonically with a group of similarly-minded dudes? Recipe for disaster, right? WRONG!

It's enormously clever, both in the writing and scene editing– as PJ (that's the chick– they even gave her a boys' name, how adorable and unexpected!) is breaking up with her boyfriend, they give you cutaways to her guy friends playing an epic game of Rock Em Sock Em Robots in their favorite bar. And while they fall into the Grey's Anatomy trap of having cheesy voiceovers bookend each episode, they're always sports analogies and are in no way worse than Carrie Bradshaw swooning "I couldn't help but wonder… what if our past is like an ANCHOR… holding us down?"

Final thought: Think Scrubs for baseball fans. Well played, TBS. Well played.

Post-Christmas bargain hunting!

If you're like me, the anticipation of post-Christmas sales has left you vacant-eyed, with a little bit of drool in the corner of your mouth.  Here's a place for you to get your start: All seasons of 24 are on sale for $20 a pop at Best Buy.

Go! 

Seasonal affective disorder, ho!!!

• The G4 network is going to have an Arrested Development marathon on Jesus' birthday. 
• This is likely the only time I'll ever get excited about girl-on-girl action.  TV Guide interviews The Office's Jenna Fisher and 30 Rock's Tina Fey at the SAME TIME. 
• Good job, Dex.  The season finale of Dexter fetched record numbers for Showtime. Also, E! spoke to the guy who played Rudy and he provides some interesting insight.
• Liberal yahoo/love of my life Janeane Garofalo is going to star in a dramatic pilot for CBS about public defenders.  They've also ordered pilots about an exorcists and swingers.  I'm serious.
• Not even the hotness of Taye Diggs could save Daybreak from cancellation.  Oh, and ABC yanked that William Shatner game show too. 
• After Elton brings you the big gay year in TV that was 2006.  Oh, and you can now get Logo on your cell phone.  Now, endless reruns of Tales of the City aren't limited to your TV. 

So, yeah. How’s it going?

Good, good.

Me? Not much, you know. Steady as she goes. Did you hear we got fifth place in the Weblog awards? You did get my e-mail, right?

Oh. Sorry for bringing it up again. But thanks for voting.

Yeah, there hasn’t been much on TV lately. Reruns, you know. Even Top Chef was a rerun last night!

But everything’s coming back in January. In the meantime, though, you can watch stuff on YouTube if you get bored. I just found out that you can watch Kathy Griffin’s old comedy special, Hot Cup of Talk over there.

Yeah, it’s her. She just has a completely different face.

Please, just stop it.  Stop being horrible. 

Morbidly obese in t-minus 10… 9… 8…

• If you are still mourning the loss of alleged television program 3 Lbs., you can watch some unaired episodes on the Internet.  Just click here.
• The unbelievably likable and adorable Yul Kwon won Survivor on Sunday night, making him the series' first Asian victor.  Just so you know how it all turned out, what with the race twist this season, the first people out where the whites (they stuck around for a while, but then dropped like flies — four in a row) and the final four was made up of a Latino guy, a black woman, an Asian man and an Asian woman.
• TV guide presents the best and worst of TV in 2006. 
• British gay fave Footballers Wives is coming to America.  It's an outlandish soap about… footballers wives.  It's being developed by Superman Returns director Bryan Singer.
• Spicy Italian meatball and E! correspondent Giuliana DePandi is engaged to Bill Rancic, who won The Apprentice way back when.   
• Fergie, the Duchess of York not the urinating pop star, and Nsync's Joey Fatone are signed up for the next Dancing with the Stars.  Ummm… get excited? 

I had no idea.  But then again, my lesbian gaydar isn't as finely tuned.

Did you know that Sarah Paulson, the Golden Globe nominee who plays Harriette on Studio 60, is gay?  True story.  A real-life, soy-eating lesbian.  Her girlfriend is Cherry Jones, a well-regarded stage actress who you probably won't remember from her roles in Oceans 12, The Village and Signs.

I'm surprised that this information has taken so long to get around — I guess that's what happens when you've been out for a while and you're not a mega-star. 

I guess this just serves to make her on-screen romance with Matthew Perry even less believable.  Although I blame the writers for that.

Personally, I'm ready to pack it in for the holidays. All I want to do is post some videos while eating cookies, preferably wearing sweatpants and sipping on some hot-chocolate-and-rum. 

Fortunately the Mythbusters do not share my laziness. They made an elaborate holiday-themed Rube Goldberg machine.

I'm so attached to the Mythbusters. Every time Jamie snaps at Adam I cringe, or when Grant displays his enormous nerditude I'm ashamed/proud, just as if they were my real family. (Just kidding, family! Love ya! See ya soon!) 

This reminds me of a very cool Rube Goldberg machine.

But I'm supposed be thinking about the holidays, not about cars. Linus?

The fact that you can buy Charlie Brown pathetic trees at Urban Outfitters does not take away from the sweetness of that video. That's impressive. 

It also reminds of me of this, which is slightly less sweet, but much more hilarious — and applicable to everyday life.

That's all I've got. Don't forget to watch this again. It only gets funnier. And if you're still struggling to find the perfect gift, just remember step one: Cut a hole in the box. 

I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone who voted for TiFaux for the Weblog awards.  We faced insurmountable odds and even though we were unable to, um, surmount them, we went down swinging.  Which is just the way TiFaux would go down if we were all bareknuckle boxers.

So, I'd like to extend a hug and an affectionate pat on the ass to everyone who took the time to vote.  I'd also like to offer an unexpected European double cheek kiss to everyone who voted every day.  An uncomfortably lingering hug with full hip contact to everyone who voted from more than one computer.  An intimate slow dance to Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" to everyone who linked to us or told their friends to vote.

Fifth place isn't so bad, especially when you're still kind of flabbergasted to be nominated in the first place. 

Merry Christmas, everybody!

(Not Suitable For Work, unless you work someplace really, really cool)

The facial hair really sells it.