All righty. I just finished watching the American Idol Top 24 selection show, and I have SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT SOME THINGS.

1. I was so glad they moved the final panel with the judges to the stage. Because remember how everybody used to have to travel upstairs via a very cramped elevator? That made me nervous.

(Other things that make me nervous: phone calls with someone whose TV is playing very loudly in the background, the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving, people who won’t quit talking during a movie and the mere thought of not being on time. Clearly I’m COMPLETELY NORMAL.)

2. Loved the long tunic with the ruffled sleeves that Kara was wearing during the final panel. Sassy.

3. So far this season has been WAY better than last season. There seem to be a lot more musicians, and I love that. Because I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I very much enjoy a singer/songwriter who can simultaneously sing and just bang it out on the acoustic guitar/piano/harpsicord/whathaveyou.

4. Also so far: no Paula-stalgia from me. She was always very encouraging to the kids, but it seems like the guest judges and Ellen have filled that void pretty nicely (with the exception of Avril Lavigne, who seemed to favor a slight scowl). It’s been nice not to listen to Paula and Simon bicker. That part of the show was never enjoyable to me.

5. I like so many of the contestants this year – Mike Lynche, Lilly Scott, Andrew Garcia, Crystal Bowersox, etc. But if I were to take a stab at who will be the fan favorite for 2010? Here’s my winner (I have no idea what that website of the bottom of the video is, so surf to that corner of the web at your own risk):

Sing it, Casey James.

Of course, you should probably take my prediction with a grain of salt seeing as how last year I’d never even noticed Kris Allen before the Top 24. So I obviously have deep wells of untapped giftedness in the field of talent scouting.

Who do y’all like so far?

Even though I still haven’t watched last week’s episode of “The Office,” I’m going to do a MAJOR step-out and watch this week’s. It remains to be seen if the earth will continue to spin on its axis. ONLY TIME WILL TELL.

1. “Hello, Vancouver. This is Michael Scott calling from the United States of America.”

2. “I’m not seeing anything under ‘confirmation.'” Could it be under ‘affirmation’? Because you have THOUSANDS of those.”

3. “I’m treating you the same as a man, for whom I would also not stand. Unless it was the president. Or Judge Judy.”

4. “I don’t know how things work in Florida – which, from your descriptions, sounds like a colorful, lawless swamp – but here it takes two men to do one job.”

5. “Well, Jim, where I’m from there are two types of people: those who ain’t, and those who are knee-high on a grasshopper. Which type ain’t you ain’t? Y’all come back now.”

6. “Just choosin’ seats. Not gettin’ married. Chop-chop, little onion.”

7. “What are you reading?” // “The Atlantic.” // “Oh, that is my favorite ocean.”

8. “You can take the ‘man’ out of ‘salesman,’ but you can’t take the ‘sales’ out of ‘salesman.'”

9. “I wish I had a brain.”

10. “Why don’t you let me handle the Tolkien references? Okay, dumb jock?”

11. “It’s no wonder that Andy gave Kelly such a romantic card. I can’t compete with her. That girl can sing and dance and gets all her clothes at the mall.”

12. “Is it the dogs?” // “Michael. It’s Phyllis.”

13. “I didn’t see you. And you were there all along.”

14. “Yours in professionalism, Nard Dog.”

15. “MICHAEL!”

I thought tonight’s episode was just as cute as it could be. Even with the whole Sabre plotline, it felt a little bit like old times.

And Jim’s back at the sales desk. All’s right with the world.

Listen.

I know I stopped writing recaps of “The Bachelor,” but I need to say something, and I’ll say it quickly, and then we’ll all brush our hair and put on some fresh lip gloss and move on.

Tenley’s dance = great wellsprings of joy

Now granted, it was a little bit of an uncomfortable joy there at the beginning, but it was joy nonetheless. Plus, I don’t know about y’all, but when David and I were dating, I often relied on choreography and interpretive dance to express my deepest feelings.

Oh, I kid.

And also: if doing ballet as an adult will give me calves like Tenley’s, then mama here needs to run by the store and pick up a fresh pair of pink slippers this afternoon.

There. That was enough.

I feel better now.

It’s been so long since the last episode of “The Office” that I can barely remember who’s who. A boss named Michael Something-or-Other? A cute couple named Tim and Jan? A banjo-playing a cappella singer named Randy?

I have no idea.

I don’t even remember what the last episode was about, honestly, so I’m just gonna pick up with this one like it’s a brand new day and roll with it.

I can hardly wait to see Reed!

1) “Michael is Dunder-Mifflin’s highest ranking employee. So that’s where we are.”

2) “For the record? Not on board with fake Stanley. But I get it.”

3) “I wear many hats. The one I’m wearing currently is that of gracious host.”

4) “SAVE BANDIT!” (one of my all-time favorite moments, by the way)

5) “That’s what she said.”

6) “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. I don’t want to lie. And I DON’T want to tell the truth.”

7) “HR Puffnstuff”

8) “Jim has got it bad for Pam.” // “Which one is Pam?”

9) “Computron experiencing emotion.”

10) “Sittin’ in my office with a plate of grilled bacon!”

So apparently tonight was some sort of clips show. I was not expecting to only see six whole minutes of new material, so color me disappointed.

My verdict? Old stuff: funny. New stuff: not-so-funny. Except for that rap at the end. Because that part made me laugh.

What did y’all think?

For almost three years Melanie has been telling me that I need to watch “Friday Night Lights,” but I have resisted because I typically do not enjoy an hour-long drama. I mean, do you know how much I can get done in an hour?

I can get TWO episodes of “House Hunters” done in an hour. That’s how much I can do.

Anyway, the other afternoon Mel and I were on the phone, and she was telling me how she’d watched a few old episodes of “FNL” the night before, and she said, “Listen. I need to talk to you about something. It just makes me SAD that you won’t watch. YOU ARE MISSING OUT. I’ve watched every show you have ever recommended to me, and I just think you need to make time to watch this ONE show I have recommended to you.”

“WELL.” I replied. “It looks like somebody has decided to THROW DOWN THE TV GAUNTLET.”

“YOU NEED TO WATCH.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll watch an episode this afternoon.”

“YOU’VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS.”

And that is why Saturday, January 9, in the Year of Our Lord 2010, will be remembered forever – at least by me – as the day Big Mama called me out on my TV procrastination. She held me accountable. She spoke a hard word into my TV-watching habits. And oh, it did not return void.

Because late Saturday afternoon – true to my word, though lo, IT TOOK ME TWO AND A HALF YEARS – I watched the first episode of season one of “Friday Night Lights.” And then I watched episode two. Then three. Then four five six. And then I went to bed and dreamed that I lived in Dillon, Texas and was a close personal friend of Tami and Eric Taylor.

So of course now I’m totally hooked on the show and made it through episode nine last night and am dying to watch more tonight because the Panthers are driving hard towards a state championship, but, well, first I have to soar to staggering new reality television heights on the wings of love with Jake Pavelka as my pilot.

I mean, just because I have a new-show crush on “Friday Night Lights” does not mean I can abandon my long-standing TV commitments. OH NO IT DOES NOT.

And because I know y’all are wondering (and I know you’re wondering because I have the emails in my inbox to prove it), Melanie is still working on getting her blog up and running again. It’s her story to tell – and oh, will it ever be hilarious when she tells it – so just suffice it to say that the technical side of server switching has been a smidge challenging. Character-building, if you will.

By the way, have I ever told y’all that I like to save the emails from my webhost because they make me laugh? Please don’t misunderstand: I ADORE my webhost people, and they have been so, so kind to me, but every once in awhile they’ll email an update about a server that’s crashed or something like that, and the only words I understand in the email are the prepositions and OCCASIONALLY the adjectives. But most of the nouns and the verbs? No idea.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorites. You might want to pour yourself a fresh beverage of your choosing before you enjoy this little treasure.

The exploit is completely valid and usable on the latest versions of openssh for centos / rhel. Initially there was some speculation on my part that it was solely available for older versions (4.3 without the backported patches, for example) but that’s since been confirmed falsed — this is an exploit for the latest and most recent versions of openssh and is 100% confirmed functional.

Here’s what really tickles me about that email: somebody sent it to me BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT I’D UNDERSTAND IT. And considering that our sweet friend Melanie is having to listen to / decipher / process that sort of language as she navigates her way through the server switch, it might not be a bad idea for us to activate some sort of prayer chain.

In all seriousness, she’s hoping to have everything resolved really soon, and quite naturally she misses you terribly.

GO PANTHERS!