Happy New Year!

Here are a few highlights of 2010...

A creative mix of all the movies this past year.



The Top 25 Billboard hits of the year mashed into one fun song.



The celebrities who have passed...



I'll be hanging out with my friend Chris visiting from Los Angeles tonight, but I'm definitely taping Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper as they count down the New Year.



I hope you all have a safe and very Happy New Year!

Winter Wonderland

I drove up to Asheville, NC last week to spend Christmas with my friends Cindy, Gaby, my Godson, Wiley, as well as a few of my other ex-LA friends, Sally May (Gaby's Mom who moved to Asheville a few months ago), Maggie (who moved to Tennessee last year) and her two kids, Molly and Sean, who were visiting from LA, and Greg (a Tennessee native).



We all used to spend every Christmas together back in Los Angeles and were talking about how none of us would have imagined that, over the past four years, each of us would end up living on the East Coast and how nice it was for us all to be together again for Christmas.



And, as if that wasn't enough, we all woke up on Christmas morning to seven inches of fluffy white snow.

It was amazing....and so beautiful.



It was like the entire city had been flocked overnight.









It really made Christmas that much more magical. Being surrounded by great friends, tasty food, a thick blanket of snow, and a child who was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus and Rudolph really created a weekend that none of us will ever forget.









































Later that night, the snow and random street lighting really created an eerie "The Shining" mood, which was also visually enjoyable.







We all had an amazing time and couldn't have asked for a better setting to ramp up the Ho Ho in our holidays.

Stress relief

X-Men's James Marsden will be guest-starring on Modern Family next week as Cam and Mitchell's new neighbor, Barry. As you can imagine, they are very welcoming when they discover him taking an unexpected dip in their hot tub...



The giggle is hilarious.

Who knew they lived in a duplex all these years? I thought that was their house...

Watch Dog

This 8-month old German Shepard decided to poke his head through a small hole in a concrete wall and then couldn't get it out.

Animal services were able to eventually remove his furry mug safely.

Of course, it wasn't attached to his body any longer....so they mounted it on the wall at the public library for all the kids to pet.

Kidding.

Numbnuts

Although many men are dealing with this uncomfortable phenomenon today during the frigid blizzard up North, Hugh Jackman has managed to experience it while playing Cricket in sunny Australia...



I hope he had a cup on Down Under.

Happy Ho Ho, everyone!

You can't handle the tweet!

I want to be on jury duty with Steve Martin...









Of course, if Steve had used Liz Lemon's fool-proof plan to avoid ever having to go to jury duty...he would have been tweeting from home.

If only they had

Only in Norway could a TV show, Glyne Tider, manage to gather such an eclectic group of B-D-list "celebrities" to "sing" (and I use that term very loosely) the Beatles classic Let It Be.

Where else will you find Roger Moore, Tonya Harding, Jason Alexander, Ricki Lake, Huey Lewis, Dolph Lundgren, Corbin Bernsen, Glenn Close, Judd Nelson, Alfonso Ribeiero, George Wendt, AND Steve Guttenberg (and that's only in the first minute or two...it gets worse) coming together to sing on a virtual beach? There have to be over 100 celebrities in this thing...how did we not hear of this before?

Enjoy.



I think George Takei sums it up best...

Turn around, bright eyes

I stayed up to watch the eclipse last night.

Of course, I didn't get to see that view.

It was a crystal clear night here in Atlanta right up until it started...then the clouds rolled in. So the next couple hours or so consisted of me and one of my neighbors standing out in the parking lot at various intervals waiting for random slivers of open sky to catch a very brief glimpse of it...finally just giving up and going to bed around 3 am.

For those of you who missed it, here is a cool video that someone put together with a lovely ethereal soundtrack.


Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Next time, I'll go to bed early and just wait for the whole experience to show up on the Internets.

via: Towleroad

Family Valued

Modern Family is one of my favorite TV shows and has just been featured on three different holiday-themed covers of TV Guide as one of the best shows in 2010.







If you haven't watched it before, you really should.

It's a hoot AND a hollar!

Also, Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale are featured on the cover of Sport Illustrated Magazine for their movie The Fighter.



A bit of sporty spice for the holidays.

The Tree of Life

When I watch the trailer for this movie...

Tears just flow steadily from my eyes.



The visuals...the music...the words...

If the movie is even half as affecting as this trailer, they are going to have to carry my emotionally-ravaged body out of the theater.

Seriously.

A King's Farewell

Larry King airs his last regular Larry King Live episode tonight after 25 years on the show...

After 25 years, Larry King's record-breaking run as CNN's prime-time, talk-show host ends Thursday night with a grand finale staffers are calling "Larrypalooza."

Led by friend and protégé Ryan Seacrest, a star-studded collection of guests will pay tribute. King will say his goodbyes. And then the set, with its horseshoe-shaped desk and familiar backdrop of multicolored dots, will fade to black.

"It's sad," King said, "but there's a time to go. You know when it's time."

I'm planning to record it tonight, even through Ryan Seacrest is hosting the finale tribute before he takes over Larry's show next year. Honestly, must Ryan host everything these days? I'm sure Mario Lopez was available.



I have watched Larry interview a variety of people over the years, but mostly just tuned in when he had Kathy Griffin on because she was always about five steps ahead of him during any interview and he just sat there like a deer caught in headlights.

I doubt we'll see Kathy making any appearances on Ryan's version of the show. They don't quite get along as well as she and Larry do.

Of course, of all the times he appeared live over the years, this is still my favorite moment ever.



Now that's an up-doo!

Man loses it

Very unsettling news...

On Tuesday, 56-year-old Clay Duke engaged in a bizarre standoff with a school board, killing himself after a security guard wounded him. His motives are still unclear, but his Facebook profile indicates that he never expected to survive.

No one else was injured during the episode, much of which was captured on video, but Duke (who spent five years in prison on harassment charges in the early 2000s) fired his gun at members of the Panama City, Fla. school board, luckily missing each time. He accused the board of firing his wife, but refused to say who she was, or why she was fired. "We really don't know what he was talking about," Superintendent Bill Husfelt told the AP. "I don't think he knew what he was talking about."

Although we know that the world is filled with unstable people during these challenging times, it's still shocking to hear stories like this happening more and more frequently these days.

In other non-so-shocking news...Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johannson have split.

A few months after what marked their second year of marriage, Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds have decided to go their separate ways.

After that many years together, you can't say they didn't try.

Baby Love

My friend Maggie posted this video on her blog and I just had to share it here too.

This adorable kid really enjoys Betty White.



"She's beau-TI-ful."

*Verklempt*

Hammertime

The new trailer for the upcoming Thor movie has just been released.



Although I don't know much about this particular comic, it doesn't look half bad.



That hammer would have come in quite handy when I used to be stuck in traffic in LA.

Here comes the judge

If I was the creator of this...



I'd be having my lawyer contact DreamWorks about their upcoming movie Real Steel.



It sure looks like a lot of rock'em sock'em robot action to me.