Late night TV is looking really good this week, with at least one good guest per show per night (with the exception of the deplorable "Last Call With Carson Daly"). Was anyone at the Pacific Design Center in Hollywood last night? There was supposed to be the debut of a new TV series called "Scarlet" but in reality, according to the Wall Street Journal, the whole thing was a ruse to launch a new series......

If you saw my SNL post yesterday, you know I'm all high on live TV (always have been), and lookie, lo-and-behold, we're going to start getting live ads on TV: the Hollywood Reporter says that Jimmy Kimmel (featured below tonight) will start running at least one live ad per episode starting in May. Garmin ran a live ad on Leno a year ago and the "effectiveness and awareness" levels exceeded standard (dead?) ads enough for......

We have a bit of TV on tonight but it's not much unless you like cooking, which I do. I'm waiting for Thursday and the return of some programming to NBC. 7:00pm Major Dundee TCM - (1965) A classic with Charlton Heston in a memorial marathon of his films today/tonight on TCM. 8:00pm Nova:Cracking the Maya Code PBS/KCET - Goddammit, I feel like this is an excuse for yet another National Treasure sequel. 9:00pm Dancing......

Did anyone watch "Top Gear" last night on BBCA? They had a fantastic contest of who could cross London the fastest: a bicycle, a several hundred horsepower boat, public transportation, or a Mercedes SUV. The bike won! Followed closely by the boat and then public transportation with the SUV dead last by more than a quarter hour after public transport. Since LA doesn't have many viable waterways it looks like it's time to sideline cars......

Be careful who you root for. L.A. County Federation of Labor's leader Maria Elena Durazo is taking some heat for her recent endorsement of Barack Obama, and her subsequent decision to take a leave from her post to work on his campaign. Speaking of labor...today was the launch of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, a coalition of local businesses hoping to emulate--and perhaps defend against--the organizational power of unions. The group "so far......

It all started with Anthony Bourdain's Mexican border episode of his show No Reservations. At one point he picks up a riding crop in a leather shop. He slaps it confidently against the palm of his hand, and says, "Yeah, this is coming home with me." I've always been attracted to his superior punk New York attitude. But the "whack" of that riding crop took it somewhere new. I confessed to my boyfriend, "I'm sorry......

People with too much time on their hands: Amy Ephron and other striking writers have whipped up a food blog. Our current food blog obsession: Luxeat, a Parisian model who eats at the finest restaurants in France and takes luscious pictures. Of the food. Over at the LA Times, food editor Leslie Brenner is really sticking it to the new Michelin Guide. Among her criticisms? "The book that purports to be the bible of......

In TV land, Tom Colicchio of Top Chef plays a kinda sorta pompous judge on the popular Bravo show. In real life, he's chef-owner of NYC's Craft (other restaurants include the Gramercy Tavern, Craft, Craftbar, and 'wichcraft in New York, Craftsteak at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and NYC). Gordon Ramsay plays another sorta pompous chef on FOX's Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. In real life, his latest restaurant venture is Gordon Ramsay......

I had been looking forward to settling in on my comfy couch in some comfy only-wear-around-the-house clothes with some snack foods and my television-watching co-conspirator to watch the season finale of Fox's Hell's Kitchen for a couple of weeks now. I say "couple" of weeks because those programming devils split the finale into two parts and unecessarily stretched the drama over two of my Monday nights for an hour apiece. But instead of seeing......

8:00pm So You Think You Can Dance FOX - Two dancers get the boot 9:00pm Fat March ABC - The fat marchers have made it all the way from southeast Massachusetts to Connecticut. The men face a strength challenge. but wait! there's more! 9:00pm Hell's Kitchen FOX - Finalist hell! The final challenge!!! The winner becomes the new head chef at one of Gordon Ramsay's Las Vegas restaurants! 10:00pm Weeds SHOWTIME - Season premiere!......

Since you know LAist is crazy about bacon, how about this burger made of ground bacon? [Serious Eats] In the meat-eating corner: Ted Nugent! In the meat-free corner: Paul McCartney! Read what Nugent really thinks about the folks in the music biz he knows who have been "Fired for eating meat by an animal-rights maniac, hard-core vegan bass player." [Waco Tribune-Hearld] David Haskell of Bin 8945: Chowhounds can be so tasteless, bloggers mean business......

With last night's (much anticipated) premiere of the third season of Top Chef on Bravo, there now exists a triptych of "reality" television programs each devoted to making one lucky chef a star (and the other contestants infamous). Over on the Food Network we've got The Next Food Network Star, which blends cooking and "star" quality, and on Fox we're two episodes into the blazing fires of the third season of Hell's Kitchen. And......

A Word or 100+: Ooops, I missed the Tonys, malhereusement. If there's a pick tonight, other than arena football, then it's the US version of Creature Comforts on CBS at 8:00 p.m. (from the creator of Wallace and Gromit). I love the UK version but my kids have a hard time with the various British accents and some of the various topics - I know it's a lot to ask for but I'm hoping......

For the past several days the Food Network's ubiquitous kitchen pixie, Rachael Ray, has been invading book and cook shops in California on a signing tour for her cookbook 365: No Repeats. Tomorrow night marks her last stop in the greater Los Angeles area, with a 7-8 PM slot at Pasadena's Sur La Table. We happened to stroll by there over the weekend and noticed that their sidewalk sandwich board urged those interested to......

Speaking of local TV, there's a lot of locally based television going on right now. The N -- Nickelodeon's brainy older sister -- just greenlit "South of Nowhere", a high school drama about a family who moves from Ohio to Los Angeles and finds itself in the middle of a fast-paced, metropolitan environment and a overcrowded "anything goes" L.A. public school. Considering how forward thinking and 'real' their current youth hit series, Degrassi: The......