Gather round, friends, and say thanks.

It’s that time of year again! Yes, the second best holiday, THANKSGIVING!!!

Alright, that turkey looks a little wimpy. But you get the picture.

But, a shocking development! facetrace’s family has decided to CANCEL Thanksgiving this year and instead jet off to the sunny beachs of Kauai.

This is a fair trade-off. No complaints here.

But since I won’t be able to sit at the kids’ table, gorging myself on my aunt’s perfect pecan pie, I’ll need another platform to give my thanks.

So in no particular order, here are (pop-culture-related) reasons why I’m thankful this year…

Star Trek: The Musings

Traceface and I saw Star Trek, obvs. And it was as awesome as everyone says it is.  We don’t really feel the need to write a real review, since pretty much every blog on the internet has already done that. So instead we’ll offer random observations and quips that are totally meaningless!

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose

I am pleased as Texas Sweet Tea to announce that Friday Night Lights has been renewed for not one, but TWO more seasons! At 13 episodes each, they will air first on DirectTV, as they did with season 3, then again in weekly installments on NBC.

If you still haven’t taken my advice about this show, I urge you to give it a shot. It’s television at it’s finest, and possibly the most moving show currently on air. And, against all odds, it just keeps getting better and better.

More from EW’s Ausiello here

Well…

This happened:

And then this happened:

Nice.

This Actually Sounds Pretty Great

The NYTimes reveals today that Green Day’s album “American Idiot” is going to premiere as a musical in Berkeley, CA this September.

Who’s not a sucker for genius little kids?

That’s Entertainment

Two Worlds Collide

Charles Isherwood, the NYtimes secondmost theater critic has a cameo on Gossip Girl coming up. He wrote about it today. Talk about a collision of high and low culture.

Does this mean the girls at Constance are going to be performing/writing/directing some sort of theatrical masterpiece? We can only hope..

Read about it here

Let The Sun Shine In… HAIR Moves to Broadway

Tracy and I were lucky enough to see The Public’s production of HAIR at Shakespeare in the Park this past summer. HAIR is one of those unique pieces that reminds you that theater isn’t a spectator sport, and the audience is just as important to the success of the show as the actors. Seeing it outside in Central Park, where most of the show actually takes place, when you can look at the moon when the characters cry “Look at the moon! Look at the moon!”, well, it just doesn’t get much better than that.

But that didn’t stop them from trying.

A Man Such as You…

We love Neil Patrick Harris. So much so, we didn’t think it was possible to love him more. And then, Tracy found this:

I don’t think I need to comment on just how awesome this is. But do take a look at the seriously awkward reactions of Cobie Smulders and Josh Radnor. Why does Cobie make the “I’m holding a baby” arm gesture?

Update: Tracy believes that Cobie Smulders was attempting to portray Fantine, the character who has a baby. Which is actually worse, because she’s not actually in “Confrontation.” She’s dead by that point.

Update: Fantine actually dies right after this. GOOD JOB COBIE

I stole this from Jezebel

Original post here and the video is originally from the 92nd Street Y.

And if you scrolleddown in the comments, you would have found this gem from College Humor:

“Mad Libs Men”

It appeals to the 8 year-old in me, apparently, because I giggled through the entire thing.

Before the results start rolling in…(and after)

Quickly! Our hopes for Academy Award winners (not necessarily who we think will actually win…)

It’s an Oscar BONANZA

Ournamesrhyme is up way too early on a Saturday. What would make us do such a crazy thing, you ask? MOVIES, of course. 

Unfortunately, we’ve encountered a huge problem over the last 6 months: no time to see Oscar Movies. At all. None. Except Tracy saw Slumdog. But that doesn’t really count, cause everyone and their grandmom saw Slumdog (oh it’s so heartwarming and clever how they use that Millionaire show! Look at the sweet Indian people!). Anyhoo, today that will be remedied for us, and for you.

Why you should be watching Friday Night Lights

TV is always spotted with those elusive critically acclaimed but underwatched shows. Recently, we’ve had 30 Rock, Mad Men, True Blood, Dexter, the late Pushing Daises, Firefly, Wonderfalls… the list goes on and on… I’ve watched these shows and they’re great and it’s sad when they get canceled because no one watches, whereas One Tree Hill, The Bachelor, and a gazillion other CW and reality shows are going into their 5 or 6th seasons. And that’s fine. It’s the cycle of life, as far as our beloved moving picture box goes. Once in a while, though, one of these shows will come along that is so good, so different, that it’s almost perfect. Arrested Development is probably the most well known example of this from recent years. I would argue Freaks and Geeks is as well. Both cut far too short. Currently, however, we have at our remote holding fingertips one of these elusive “perfect” shows.