Things have been hard for Michael Gross (aka Steven Keaton) since the salad days of Family Ties. According to his IMDB page, he hasn't been hurting for work, but nothing he's done, with the possible exception of a turn as a bad guy in a 2000 episode of Law & Order has been all that high-profile. Yes, Law & Order is high-profile, you guys! Shut up.

Finally, some stuntcasting news that doesn't make me want to stab things. After that whole Katie Holmes thing and Regis on How I Met Your Mother and anyone who's ever been in a tabloid on Ugly Betty, my rage problems were getting the best of me. Anyway, rage subsiding! Sigourney Weaver will guest on Eli Stone next season, playing Eli's psychologist, a character who, you know, kinda has her work cut out for her. Eli Stone isn't really my thing, but I love me some Sigourney Weaver, and anyone who was in Alias (Victor Garbor) or Hackers (Johnny Lee Miller) has my vote for life (yes, that includes Angelina. Yes, I still love her despite all the husband-stealing and hypocrisy and whatnot. No, my enthusiasm for Angelina does not mean I'm automatically going to try to hook up with your husband, so stop making that panicked face for crying out loud, god!), so maybe I will give the show a second chance when these episodes air. See what casting legitimate actors who can show up and play a character and actually do something useful does, Hollywood? It's effective! Now get Naomi Campbell and Nicole Richie off my TV!

I've never been one to sit and watch sports all weekend, but despite my busy schedule, I crammed in as much viewing as humanly possible. Is it wrong during a birthday party to want to sneak off inside and catch some rowing? I now kind of get those people who stare at their blackberries when their teams are playing. I've become that girl. And it isn't even like I just wanted to watch the Phelps stuff (which I did a lot of, so much that it merited its own post), or the gymnastics... I found myself unable to have an adult conversation when I saw scull rowing on television. Who will win? Who are these people? Matters not to me. I watched the freakin' women's marathon... and that is long. It is truly a sickness and I'm seriously thankful that this only happens every few years, because I can barely keep up, and soon my friends and family are going catch on to the fact that I always sit facing a television.

Unless you were living under a rock this weekend, I'm sure you saw or heard that Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympic Champion of all time. NBC's already hawking products with his new title. Its almost as tempting as a late-night infomercial to order one, and I can't even figure out if it is going to be a video or book. Though I'm thinking that whatever it is it will be in DVD format. No one likes to read, right? So in honor of Phelps's eight gold medals in one Olympics, I decided he's worthy of his very own post instead of being lumped in with the rest of the weekend's adventures. Aside from the nail-biting races, here's what I thought was cool:

I read the news that Food Network is developing a competitive eating reality show and immediately my brain invented a brand new word to process it: "Ewsome." The fact is that I have very mixed feelings about the world of competitive eating, and the prospect of having that world documented and glamorized on TV makes me slightly uneasy.

There's a moment in almost every show that makes you yell at your TV set, either in a good way or a bad way. These "Hell Yeah" and "WTF" worthy reactions are what makes sitting down in front of the boob tube all worthwhile. So now its your time to vote for the plots or dialogue that left your jaw hanging on the floor. Go here to pick your favorites, or check after the jump for a list of this week's nominees.

I just made an astounding discovery you guys! And by discovery I mean my friend hipped me to a clip of a pilot from a never-picked-up show from 1999. Tomato, tomahto. The show in question is called Heat Vision and Jack and it was created by Ben Stiller back when he was funny. Zach informed me that the show is actually something of a cult phenomenon, and though it never enjoyed formal DVD release, the resourceful among us can find bootleg copies of it at the finest comic book stores.

The show reminds me a little of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (if you haven't watched that, please don't talk to me until you do) except instead of British people and ghosts and a haunted hospital, we have Jack Black as a former astronaut whose brain expanded to three times its normal size when he got too close to the sun on a mission, Jack's talking motorcycle Heat Vision (voiced by Owen Wilson) who inexplicably used to be his unemployed roommate, and Ron Silver, who plays himself and also NASA's bad guy hired gun. How Fox didn't pick up this gem back in the day is one of the enduring mysteries of television, but I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that it showed potential for being good. Take a look at this incredible episode featuring a not-yet-frightening-looking Christine Taylor as the foxy sheriff and Victor Schiavelli (R.I.P.) as the line-cook-turned-alien Paragon. Friggin' awesome.

I don't know how I missed this, but apparently Bob Saget has a new CW series set to premiere this fall! Why am I excited?! I honestly don't know, but I am for some reason. Yes, I know, I should be ashamed, and believe me I am, but I can't help it! I'm a sucker for Saget! Oh god, this post has taken a wrong turn. Let's get back on track. The show is called Surviving Suburbia, and also stars the fabulous Cynthia Stevenson (the bitchy mom in Dead Like Me, and the gloriously bitchy homo-hatin' yuppie and wife of The Gutte in Home for the Holidays -- love her!), as a married couple trying to, umm, survive suburbia. So, as Wayne Campbell would say, it's not just a clever name.

The fine folks at D-Listed notified me that one of today's "birthday sluts" is none other than Top Chef honcho Tom "Easy On the Thighs" Colicchio! I know he's been busy shooting a brand spanking new season of TC in Brooklyn, so I sure hope he's taking the day off to celebrate with a healthy serving of hen of the woods mushrooms and some friggin' Wagyu carpaccio or some junk. As for me, I will be commemorating this day by visting my local 'WichCraft (see what they did there?) and enjoying a Tom-approved sando with even more gusto than usual. For those of you who aren't fortunate to have the aforementioned mini-chain in your immediate vicinity, you can instead take a gander at this clip of Tom talking about how cooking involves all five of your senses (get your mind out of the gutter, me!).

The big deal from last night is that Nastia (pronounced Nah-stee-ah, not Nasty-ah, like I first thought. Stupid name.) Liukin won the women's gymnastics all around gold medal. Apparently she's only the third American woman to do this... blah... blah... blah. I'm happy for her (how could I not like someone who was in Stick It?). I actually think she's a pretty great gymnast and her balance beam performance during the team competition really wowed me. But I feel bad for Shawn Johnson. Not because she got the silver medal. But just because they did this whole segment on her earlier in the evening where it was about how she copes with the hype and the product-placements and the adoration of her hometown (if you go to the museum in Des Moines you can see all sorts of Shawn memorabilia. And the local fair even made a statue of her out of butter. Golden butter, I bet.) She seemed pretty down to earth about it all, but the pressure must be enormous when like everything you see about the team USA gymnastics is about her and how she'll do. So she came in second. Not such a bad thing at all. Second in the world is damned good. But now she's going to have to answer a billion interviewers who want to know if she cracked under the pressure, if she hates Nastia, if she considers herself a failure. However, she got a shout out from Mary Lou Retton from the stands after she nailed her floor routine, so that's something to be excited about.