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?

Totes awk, y’all.  But satisfying nonetheless.

This is part two, where the meat of the interview begins.  Here’s part three.

John’s taking the day off news because went to the inauguration yesterday and is all ‘hoped out.’

But it’s not like there’s really any news worth reporting aside from the fact that we Barack Obama is now our president. I’ll leave it to Jon Stewart to give you all the commentary you need.

YOU GUYS, THIS IS AWESOME.

Barack Obama is going to be on The Daily Show tomorrow.

And my roommate points out that tomorrow is also when Friday Night Lights airs, so within two and a half hours we get Coach, Tim Riggins, Barack Obama, and Jon Stewart.

All I’m saying is I’m going to need a cigarette.

ETA: Barack will be appearing via satellite. Which makes sense, because New York is the farthest thing from a swing state (a monkey bars state?), but I’m a little disappointed. I guess I’ll have to drown my sorrows in Matt Saracen’s sad, adorable eyes.

I’ve noticed some things this week while watching TV. Not anything that’s worthy of its own post, but perhaps all laid out together they will amount to something. There’s a funny video at the end!

• Why does Pushing Daisies keep putting Chuck in those hideous high-waisted pants? She belongs in adorable full-skirted dresses with matching scarves. No to high-waisted pants! No!
• John Corzine on the Daily Show? More like John BORE-zine. (Genius.)
• Why is House so upset about Cuddy’s adopting? Is he jealous? Lonely? Does he wish he could’ve made her pregnant himself?
• Everyone’s been saying this, but How I Met Your Mother could really slow things down a bit. I feel like Ted got engaged yesterday, and now everything’s status quo. At least Barney is taking his redemption at a reasonable pace (one step forward, two steps back).
• Has anyone besides me and Kyle been watching Gavin and Stacey on BBC America? It is delightful. Sometimes, either due to accent or UK-ishness, I don’t understand what’s going on, but that’s part of the fun. However, none of the characters seem to think ahead about anything. If you get married and move, you will not be able to live in your old house and keep your old crap, too. Stacey’s the worst at this. But whatever. It’s the Nessa and Pam and Bryn show as far as I’m concerned. Also: Move out of your parents’ house, you crazy kids.
• My love affair with Life on Mars may have ended yesterday, after only three episodes. Pull it together, Life on Mars! I liked it with the good music and the crazy clothes and the anachronisms. I don’t like the speechiness.
• At least if you’re dating Michael Scott you’ll totally know if/when he’s lying to you, and he’ll be extremely up front about his intentions/expectations. I suppose that’s a benefit to having no filter.
• Don’t read the next sentence if you don’t want to see one joke from next week’s 30 Rock. My personal favorite, mostly thanks to Alec Baldwin’s amazing delivery: “I worked the day shift at the graveyard and the graveyard shift at the Day’s Inn.”
• Still love: Greek. On the fence: Dirty Sexy Money. Probably dropping: Heroes.
• And here’s your video, via Videogum:

I have to admit, I made this post an “I’m Sick of Your Shit” primarily for the shock value. I love Jon Stewart endlessly, of course, but I have a bone to pick with The Daily Show and why not resurrect the series?

It’s a weird, unpleasant feeling — I must say — having to raise a beef with one of our favorites. But no show is perfect and even the teacher’s pet has to get a B+ every once in a while to keep him on his toes.

Here’s what has been on my mind for a while now…

I don’t watch The Daily Show consistently, but I watch it enough to notice that they have a certain kind of gag I find cheap and not constructive. Often when they are discussing media coverage, they’ll do segments where the splice together lots of anchors and reporters asking the same question in different ways. For instance, on a big primary night recently they had a montage of network anchors describing the colors they used on the different maps. There’s a shot of Wolf Blitzer calling a certain color code “cranberry” and then Chris Matthews calling something “umber.” Etc., etc., etc.

That’s a silly example, but they often tackle more substantive issues and you’re supposed to make inferences based on the clip compilations. Because everyone is asking whether Barack Obama’s speech on race did the job, then there must be something wrong with that.

What gets me about this phenomenon is this: it’s an easy trick that can fill up a good twenty to thirty seconds and you don’t have to write an actual joke. I’m not trying to say the media should be let off easy (far from it) or that the 24 hour news networks aren’t ridiculous much of the time (they are), but often these clip compilations don’t have a real point. Just because a lot of people are asking the same question and it seems silly in the reel, doesn’t mean it’s not valid. I feel like when you’re in the game of political satire, when you make fun of something there should be a lesson to glean from it.

Not that everything comes back to Project Runway (well, it kind of does in my world, but whatever), but they do the same thing on the Project Runway reunion shows. They often to montages of all the times a certain event happened on the past season — like Ricky crying, Christian saying “fierce,” Tim Gunn saying “make it work.”

When you take them all at once, it’s funny to see. But it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

Did you know Tim Gunn was on The Daily Show the other day?

Go ahead and watch it, why don’t you?

Looks like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are coming back. But, well, it’ll be just them and a camera.

According to TV Guide, the boys will be start making new episodes on Jan. 7 without writers. The two released a statement saying the following: “We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence — but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.”

I can’t imagine what these shows are going to be like. Well, actually, yes I can. I’m guessing interviews that are twice as long. I’m guessing Jon sitting there making reference to how awkward the situation is. I’m guessing Jon reading the paper at his desk, trying to come up with off-the-cuff remarks and then looking embarrassed.

I don’t know — I’m sure they’ll find a way to make it work.

I miss The Daily Show. We all do.

One day, the strike will be over and there will be new episodes. We will lie in the sun and laugh and frolic.

But for now, winter is here. To help you with the lack of Daily Show in our lives, I’ll be posting some classic clips until this thing is resolved. They’re obviously dated, but two-week-old clips are pretty much just as good as four-year-old ones. And not that I want to force even more reruns on you, but hopefully these will be some cheerful reminders of how wonderful Jon and company are.

For instance, this is a Samantha Bee segment on undecided voters in the 2004 election that I thought was hysterical the moment I saw it. Obviously out of date — still hilarious.

And that thing is Brian Williams on SNL.

Remember when Tina left the show and Brian Williams showed up at the Weekend Update desk, not believing that he didn’t get the gig? Remember when Brian Williams was a giant talking head in Jon’s studio? This is going to be great. And not affected by the strike, .