Friday Wrap-Up

Just a few items to start us off this Friday morning...

It was an honor for me just to be nominated by me
In a stunning act of humility and class, The Park Bench has nominated itself for The Best Blog of All Time award at the Blogger's Choice Award. I encourage you to vote early, vote often and try to get every dead Chicagoan you know to vote, too. With any luck, it'll be Shakespeare in Love versus Saving Private Ryan all over again.

FOX television, you make me sad.
Why, Fox, why? First you kill Tony Almeda off 24 and now you're going to deprive me of Drive? What do you people have against Nathan Fillion? Is it because he looks so much better in your pants? Is it because he's Canadian? The only consolation is that now you can take your Fillion action figure (you know, the one you carved by hand) and act out the rest of the episodes, thanks to producer Tim Minear posting scripts on his website.

You just can't spell Ikea
If you've ever been sitting on your couch and thought to yourself, "Now would be an ideal time to spell 'quotidian' and get a triple word score," help has arrived. This company is offering Scrabble tile pillows. They are awesome and look like this:


Mr. Ed's Bloody Rampage
According to Yahoo news, witnesses say they heard a cry of "Wiiilllburrr" before turning to find Mr. Ed wielding a bloody hoof and standing proud over the lifeless body of this portly German man. He then stole the guy's wallet and bought himself a bag of Nutter Butters. Okay, not really. Some drunk guy just left his horse in an ATM lobby while he slept one off. But wouldn't it have been better the other way?


A couple of late additions...
* Honorary Park Bench Chairnerd Tina Fey blogged last night on NBC after the season finale of 30 Rock, which was wonderful as usual. Read what she has to say about lobster and Dr. Spaceman here.

*Park Bench reader Brodie has a funny list of Country Music Songs for Nerds over at his site, capnwacky.com. My personal favorite is The Wreck of the Commodore 64. Gordon Lightfoot is kicking himself for not thinking of that first....

Cap'n Tightpants goes vroom

Dear gods of network television, please put Nathan Fillion on my TV screen every week forever and ever and ever, especially if it’s in something as good as Fox’s Drive, which debuted in a two-hour long hail of nerd bliss last night. Produced by Ben Queen and dork god Tim Minear, whose past credits include X-Files, Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Wonderfalls, this show’s pedigree promised good things and so far it's exceeded expectations with its frenetic energy and humor.

Part Cannonball Run (sadly sans Menudo soundtrack), part It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and part Lost, the show follows a group of people on a cross-country road race in search of a $32 million payoff. Some of the competitors have been coerced into competition, like Fillion’s Tully who is searching for his kidnapped wife (played by Angel’s Amy Acker) and mother Wendy whose newborn son apparently is being held hostage. Others, like a father and daughter team and an Iraq War veteran and his wife, seem to be racing just for the cash…and, of course, valuable life lessons. The cast is almost uniformly appealing, especially Fillion who is years overdue for superstardom. His pants, however, should be tighter. I’m just sayin’. Melanie Lynskey, who plays mom Wendy, is also terrific, despite freaking me out by looking way too much like Marisa Tomei.

The show’s only flaw rests in its attempts to be a bit too Lost-y for its own good. The premise is goofy enough without trying to make things too convoluted, making me wish for more racing and less plot. Then again, I am kind of a simpleton. For right now, though, I’m totally onboard for Drive. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out episode three tonight on Fox, starting at 8 EST.