linkage for a blah tuesday

Go Heels!

A whole slew of links to kill some time:

In a business where women are pawned off like sex slaves, children are extorted and bled for their potential earnings and executives consider backstabbing part of the job description, it’s incredible how the music industry treats copyright infringement as reprehensible. Like in prison, how triple murderers are allowed to look down on child rapists. So when Coldplay barely says they didn’t copy anything for Viva La Vida, but instead claim the accuser’s version lacks originality, that just reeks of desperation. Judge for yourself, by listening to Coldplay’s Viva La Vida and then take a listen to Joe Satriani’s If I Could Fly. Seems like Coldplay is just trying to get out of ponying up some dough. Give it up and move on.

If your head is spinning by the astonishing number of remakes being brought to a theater near you, join the club. From the sounds of it, we haven’t heard the last of it either.

Tuesday TV nights are back to being pretty crowded — Reaper, Fringe, 90210, Rescue Me. And that’s just me, Mark Cronin help you if you actually watch Dancing with the Stars or Idol. I thought Fringe finally hit its stride when it went on hiatus, so I’m interested to see how these last six episodes play out. Plus, with the Idol lead-in, its ratings are probably going to go nuts. Now, I know it’s been a long time since we’ve seen Tommy Gavin and his bunch for more than three-minute snippets, but all you had to do was say two things to me — Michael J. Fox and Maura Tierney — and I was back in, no questions asked. It helps that it’s drawing raves in anything you read.

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the age where TV programming is an around-the-calendar job. You used to be able to take summer off. Those days are unequivocally long gone. There is new programming all 12 months a year.

Big DVD release schedule today. My non-Blu Ray queue would look like this: Doubt, Yes Man, Day the Earth Stood Stood Still, Bedtime Stories, Tale of Despereaux. But in real life, the only thing on my queue is Doubt, and it’s coming after I plow through Quantum of Solace this week. I don’t even think I’d watch the others when they came on Comedy Central, TNT or FX.

No idea whether this has anything to do with Lindsay Lohan’s latest movie even skipping the direct-to-DVD route and going direct-to-TV. But you have to wonder if someone was in her ear saying, “Lindsay, look here now. If you want your career back, you have to find a man. Not a girl, not a DJ, not a cow, not a cricket — A MAN!!!” Let’s hope that’s not how it went down.

What’s that you say? You’ve always wondered what Spike’s five favorite movies are? One of them is probably Rebel with a Cause, since he was, like, 10 when it came out. I’m pretty sure he was collecting AARP benefits when he was hooking up with 24-year-old Buffy.

PopRox is on Twitter. That’s all I’m saying.

ESPN’s move to a West Coast SportsCenter is 110 percent based on the channel being sick of hearing about it’s West Coast bias. It’s appeasement. It’s going to screw up basketball schedules and ensure that no baseball game west of Indiana can ever be broadcast on the network again. So if that’s what they were looking for, mission accomplished.

It’s pretty tough to argue with Tom Selleck as the best pop culture mustache of all-time. It should also be noted that Magnum PI is the easiest Halloween costume — mustache, Hawaiian shirt, mesh Tigers hat, and you’re in business.

I’m willing to give The Unusuals a watch, but geez Louise, can’t we get something other than a cop show on the air? If it has to be a cop show, can’t it be a one-armed detective? Or a robot, like Mac and Cheese? Just something different. I’ll also give Parks and Recreation a chance, but while we’re on the subject of non-original programming . . .