Kat with a K

Morning Coffee (1/19/11)

Welcome to Wednesday. My throat hurts and I have discovered that I'm out of Cream of Wheat. This is clearly a tragedy.

Let's start with a few items of actual big news before going to our usual frivolity: The FCC has approved the NBC/Comcast deal, with a bunch of conditions that sound more or less reasonable to me, but I'll be the first to admit that I haven't been following this as closely as I should have been.

Susan Bysiewicz is running for Senate in Connecticut. Meanwhile, Lieberman will announce today whether he's running again, but it sounds like he's probably not.

Add to the retirement list: Kent Conrad.

R. Sargent Shriver has died.

Would you like some rage with your coffee this morning? Here you go: The Daily Mail has published some nut (who has a book to sell) saying depression is fake and people should get a grip. And Buzz Bissinger, who brought us Friday Night Lights, has decided that violence is the only fun part of football after all and so we should stop worrying about safety. (On the other hand, please, please read this piece in Slate about different kinds of concussions and brain damage among kids playing football.) More about this later, I think, because I started writing about all the things wrong with the Bissinger piece and realized it should be its own post.

Blind item! (Ooh, fancy.) Which Good Guys actor/actress is headed to Colombia to join the Burn Notice prequel?

The news that there's going to be a new "official" Sherlock Holmes book would usually not particularly excite me. But. It's being written by Anthony Horowitz, creator of Foyle's War. I'm in.

I shall join the host of people improbably defending a Bush and say that Matt Yglesias is complete right here. And re: his last paragraph, actually, one of my great-grandmothers was an Italian Argentine.

Do pianos need more keys? I'm unconvinced.

That other leaked version of Jennifer Lopez's new single was not the finished one. Here's the real thing. It's, you know, fine, but not really interesting or exciting in any way.

The Baby-sitters Club: Where Are They Now? Heee.

Tracking the mood of a nation via tweets

Boston Fans Not as Good at Being Losers Anymore. SO. TRUE.

Sundance starts tomorrow. Here are some previews from HitFix and the Daily Beast.

Hilarious headline of the day: Robert Pattinson Says 'Breaking Dawn' Sex Scene Was 'Like Doing Twister'

The publishers of O are asking journalists not to confirm or deny whether they wrote it. But Dave Weigel says it's bad and gives us the ending.