Better Off Ted. It’s a show that’s on television — although you wouldn’t really know it by reading this blog.

It’s actually a reasonable good comedy, which is nice to come across.  And you know how picky we are about our comedies on this site. It’s no 30 Rock — you can easily miss a few episodes and not be bothered to track it down on Hulu — but it’s always a pleasant watch. Sort of like a smarter, dryer, and less likable cousin of Samantha Who?

Better Off Ted also features Portia de Rossi playing her trademark lovable villainess as well as titular hottie Jay Harrington, who really knows how to wear a suit.

But more to the point — Better Off Ted’s season finale has been bumped by an address by President Obama. As a result, the smart alecs over there have created this clip.

I’m now in charge of a miniature schnauzer and I have to give it orders in Japanese. For reals.

• The Battlestar Galactica complete series DVD set comes out July 28.  Take a look at the art to the right.
• New show: ?
• A chat with the guy from Moonlight — who still isn’t over the cancellation.
• A catastrophic season finale has been teased for Grey’s Anatomy.
• Not to worry: the swine flu has not, I repeat, NOT affected The Real World: Cancun.
• TV Guide has a fake Ausiello column with Desparate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy.
• Ohio Stat University concludes that conservative Colbert viewers tend to not get the satire.
• Ladies love .
• Fiftysomethings now excited about Thirtysomething coming to DVD.
• Generally, I’m against children singing. But there’s something inspiring about this.

Below, find a ridiculous and sweet clip I came across for The Red House — a North Carolina furniture store that provides quality furniture for both black people and white people.

The clip is clearly too outlandish to be for real. And it is.  The two minds behind it are named Rhett and Link — who created a series of outlandish local commercials.  But the stiff, frightened-looking cast are what sells the whole production.

Enjoy.

And if you’re still curious, here’s a .

So I’ve been thinking about starting to watch Rescue Me. I know they just started a new season, but I’m thinking about Netflixing it from the beginning. I have reasons.

1. Firemen. Firemen are excellent. I especially like when the ones at the Houston and 6th Ave. station come to the grocery store in their big ladder truck. Of course, I have enjoyed shows about people I don’t really like before, like convicts and spoiled rich children. But I much prefer shows about groups of people I like, such as hot football players and hot pediatricians.

2. I like Denis Leary a lot. He’s one of those older, kind of assholish guys who really do it for me (also: Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher). He’s also buddies with Jon Stewart from way back, which means he has to be at least moderately good people.

3. Michael J. Fox is on it this season! That would totally not apply to the previous four, but anything Michael J. Fox does is pretty awesome.

4. The ads for season 5 are awesome, with the firefighters being like 200 feet tall and marching around New York looking world-weary. I find these advertisements as appealing as they can be without making me watch the show (I have too much stuff at 10 on Tuesdays; seriously, it’s a problem).

Clearly, I don’t have enough stuff to do and have really been getting enough sleep lately, so I should pick up a new show to become obsessed with. Thoughts?

Here’s some news.  Because you’ve been good.

• Lauren is out on The Hills — will Kristin Whatserface replace her?
• The Heroes and Chuck finales both underperformed. Better hope those Subway sandwiches really added up.
• Also, the Chuck finale served as both a .
• The Real New Jersey housewives are — for a change.
• ABC .
• Clips .
• And here’s an aged clip of Susan Boyle singing 15 years ago.

This week on Gossip Girl, Blair went to the general vicinity of my apartment. She was terrified at the idea of learning to ride the subway. Fuck you, Blair. Rufus still thinks it’s a good idea to sell the gallery (and therefore NOT HAVE A JOB) in order to pay for his kids’ education. Jenny is styling her hair with a weed whacker. Serena is ignoring the fact that she’s a booty call for 47-year-old Gabriel-from-North-Carolina (where did that come from?) and, OMG, Georgina Sparks is back and she loves her some Jesus and is super boring.

Is Leighton up the stick? What other explanation can there be for this monstrosity?

Look, I’m not even going to address this bullshit “long-distance relationship” Blair and Nate think they’re going to have when he’s at Columbia and she’s at NYU. Instead, have I ever mentioned that Ugly Betty is stalking me? Yeah, I haven’t been watching it either. But the building they use as the exterior for Meade Publications, if they’re still calling it that, is the Woolworth Building near City Hall, which is where one of the publishers I work for when I’m getting paid real money (not blogger money; Dan pays me in catty comments about people we went to college with) is located. Twice now I’ve been there returning manuscripts and the show has been filming outside.

And Tuesday they’re filming on Fifth Avenue, on my route to work. So, yeah. America Ferrara knows how much I loved her in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and now she is stalking me.

Wait, Gossip Girl is still going on? I’m so distracted by shows about people who work for a living rather than this insipid, repetitive garbage. At least Ugly Betty is candy-colored insipid, repetitive garbage. Right, Blair thinks Gabriel (“the North Caroliar,” which I will have to try to remember for next basketball season) is cheating on Serena with Poppy, which he is even though Serena just said they were dating without strings or commitment or promise rings or whatever the fuck the kids are doing these days. Although since Gabriel is like seventy, . (Enjoy having that in your heads all day, y’all. Little gift from me to you. Look for Chuck Bass’s granddad about 1:50 into it.)

In one of the most competitive TiFaux giveaways ever, we have a winner.  Congratulations to Louisa, who may or may not enjoy gazing upon Jonathan Rhys Meyer’s bony visage.

There were a lot of comments among the entries regarding my controversial stance on the attractiveness of Mr. Meyers. Generally, I’m not afraid to come out swinging on the real issues that affect Americans, like whether or not JRM is creepy-hot or just creepy-creepy.  However, I didn’t realize I’d be opening such a Pandora’s box.

I think he’s hotter than normal in the above picture, but I’ll leave it up to you.  Here’s an absolutely scientific poll…

Ever worried that you just might wake up and find yourself in a country where everyone is polite and there’s universal health care?

Me too.  Spooky.

The Canadian government, though, has announced that they are grandfathering citizenship to legions of foreigners. Last month, a law restored Canadian nationality to people forced to renounce it when they became citizens of another country. The law also extends to their children.

As such, the government has been running this cute “Waking Up Canadian” ad. Take a look.

By now, pretty much all of the networks have debuted their big midseason shows. We’ve all had the chance to weigh in and judge. So, how’d everybody do?

So-so. I went to the Mother of All TV Review Aggregators (Metacritic.com) and looked at the scores for the recent premieres. Most things scored in the C- and D-range, with a couple of big failures thrown in for good measure.

After the jump, I list the shows in order from best-reviewed to worst, find a good quote from a reviewer to gave the show the same rating as its average, and (of course) weigh in about whether or not I think the aggregated score is fair.