Finally, an update on Guerin Austin

One of the things I used to post about on my old blog was the career of Guerin Austin, a former Miss Nebraska USA who I stumbled across when the Miss USA candidates posed for a picture with Tommy Lasorda during a visit to Dodger Stadium back in 2004. What struck me about the young lady wasn’t just her looks (although she is a beauty), but there was something about how she carried herself that showed these eyes that there was more to this young woman than good looks. I had blogged about Guerin shortly after the Miss USA 2004 competition (she didn’t win, in fact I think she got robbed) and I ended up hearing from Guerin’s mom. From time to time I’d hear from Guerin’s mom about something new she was doing and I’d gladly pass it along to my readers. The last thing I had heard was that she was hosting one of those weekend real estate shows in Denver, CO, but that was a while back and I had been thinking just over the weekend that I needed to try and find out what Ms. Austin was up to.

Picture courtesy the Washington Nationals' website

Fast forward to this morning, when I found a letter from her mom in my email. I’m not sure if she’s still doing the show in Denver, but she is one of the three finalists for the co-hosting slot for the Washington Nationals (National League East) baseball team. (The Nats are winless so far this young season but hopefully they will get a win either in this weekend’s series in Atlanta or in their home opening series against against the Phillies next week.)

If you’re a fan of Guerin’s you will want to vote for her in the Nat’s online poll. If you’re not a fan of hers please vote for her anyway. In return for voting in the poll you will get a discount code good for half off selected seats for one of three opening week games. The winner will be announced on 17 April when she will co-host the broadcast of the game against the Florida Marlins.

While I haven’t met Guerin personally I have found out enough about this young woman to know that she’s destined for great things. Let’s help her get this new television gig so you can look back in a few years and say, “I helped her get the Nats gig, you know.”

Big thanks to Guerin’s mom for passing along this bit of great news.

Enjoy an undead marathon for President’s Day

I was going through the tv listings this morning, mostly looking for something decent to put on while I took care of some things online, and I found that the SciFi channel was running a marathon of the old Showtime series Dead Like Me today. Beginning with the pilot at 8 am (EST) they’re running most of the first season episodes until 7 this evening. (Showtime has season 1 available On Demand, and season 2 will be shown again on the net this summer.)

I love me some Dead Like Me, but I was curious what the occasion was until I hit IMDb. It turns out that tomorrow finds the release of Dead Like Me: Life After Death, a motion picture sequel. If you go to the Amazon page I just liked to you will find a nice little advert about the new flick. I’m not sure if the new flick may be a precursor to anything, but I’m looking forward to seeing it and we just added it to our Blockbuster queue.

Speaking of Amazon, if you’re thinking that this show would make a perfect addition to your DVD collection, they have the entire series (both seasons) in a nice little box set. I think I’ll have to add that to my wish list, unless Peng already has. If he does I’ll just borrow his.

Au revouir, Majel

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, has passed away from lukemia.

Millions know her as Number One and Nurse Chapel of the original Star Trek, Lwaxana Troi of TNG, and the voice of the Enterprise computer through almost every version of Trek that came down the pike. But she also had other roles on Leave It To Beaver, Bonanza and The Lucy Show, among many other productions.

Our hearts and thoughts go out to her family and friends. Thanks to KaiRo on Planet Mozilla for making Peng and I aware of the bad news.

I guess you can’t keep a good Frog down

Just under two years ago the upstart WB television network shut down after being on the air around 11 years. Led by non other than singing amphibian Michigan J. Frog, the network brought us such hits as The Wayans Bros., 7th Heaven, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it’s spinoff Angel, Firefly, Charmed, The Gilmore Girls, Smallville and The O.C. But low ratings doomed the WB and on 17 September the WB shut down in favor of The CW network, a blend of the WB and UPN networks.

Since the WB went off the air it’s parent corporation, Time Warner has had problems making a profit in our lean economic times and someone was smart enough to realize that there are fans that still want to see the old WB shows. The Warner Bros. Television Group still owned the rights to enough of their old shows that they have resurrected the old WB website into a new entertainment site featuring both their old shows and some new ones created specifically for the new website.

I have to say that it was nice to be able to turn on my computer this morning and watch one of my all-time favorite television episodes, “The Train Job” from Firefly. (I have to admit Peng got me stuck on the episode, especially with that classic entrance of the Serenity.) As time rolls on I’ll be at the site fairly often, enjoying more of my favorite shows online. I haven’t seen Michigan J. Frog on the site yet, but for many of us his spirit will still live on as long as The WB is around, even if it’s just online now.

Catch up with old friends on The WB.

Peng’s links for Friday, 13 June

• Casper Clemens Mireau: my package of the day: mpd – the Music Player Daemon. After checking this out I’m loving mpd so much that I’m not even firing up Amarok or Exaile most of the time when I want to play some tunes. I usually just fire up the Relaxx player in my web browser and start rocking out. Although I’m going to have to check out Sonata because I’m hearing it’s pretty good as well.
• Wine HQ News: Wine 1.0 Status. The (hopefully) final release candidate for Wine 1.0 is due out today, and we could see Wine 1.0 finally being released within a week.
• Deb Richardson: Field Guide to Firefox 3. Deb wrote a great guide to all of the new features in Firefox 3, as well as links to articles showing how to get the most out of each feature.
• Desktop Linux.com: Linux jukebox app achieves first stable release. Banshee 1.0 is here! Although after playing with test releases over the last few weeks I prefer either Amarok or Exaile. Or now MPD.
• Jono Bacon: Ubuntu Developer Channel: Packaging 101 Video. If you’ve been wanting to learn how to package things for Ubuntu there’s now a two-part video showing you how to make a package.
• Alex Polvi: State of the Add-ons Report: June 12. With Firefox 3 coming out Tuesday add-on devs are busy getting their themes and extensions updated for it. Are your Must Have Add-ons working in Firefox 3?
• SciFi Wire: Jericho Fans Buy TV Ads. CBS has canceled the show twice, but the fans still refuse to give up on it. You can check out the ad they’re running at SaveJerichoAgain.com.

That’s a lid. Have a fun weekend, y’all. And remember, even you need to schedule a little downtime every now and then. If you don’t your body will. Itherwise you definitely won’t have a happee.

Peng’s links for Friday, 30 May

• Jorge Castro/Planet Ubuntu: (Also) In defense of Firefox. Mozilla’s history of supporting Linux hasn’t been all that great, especially in Firefox 2, but Jorge says that they’re doing much better in Firefox 3. (If only Jorge would use the proper shorthand for Firefox. It’s Fx, not FF. Or am I simply picking at a nit?)
• CNET Worker’s Edge: Firefox add-on shows all the files downloaded by the current page. Dennis O’Reilly writes about a tool that is unfortunately helpful in this age of malware being buried in so many unsuspecting places. The View Dependencies extension for Firefox shows the source for all the content on a given page.
• Robert Accettura/Planet Mozilla: Rebreaking The Web. Web Standards was supposed to put an end to the hodgepodge of features added by different web browsers, and the proposed HTML 5 standard is trying to bring the standards up to modern times, especially since the HTML 4 standard came out late in the last century. But some browsers are once again trying introducing their favored goodies, completely bypassing the standards working groups. Meh. I thought for sure we were past this kind of crap.
• Tom Dryer: PCMan Lightweight Alternative File Manager. Some people hate Nautilus, the fiole manager program in GNOME, and some people wish there were simply something more lightweight to do the job. Tom tells us about PCManFM, a file manager that works not only in GNOME but also in KDE. And it has a feature that Nautilus is getting soon: Tabbed browsing, a la Firefox. I’ve checked it out a little, and it’s pretty nice for being a quick little bugger.
• Sci Fi Wire: SCI FI Premiere Dates Unveiled. Have you been chomping at the bit for new episodes of Stargate Atlantis and Eureka? We now know when our favorite SciFI Channel original shows will return for the new summer season.

Adorable Feline Pic of the Day

Today’s pic is a no-brainer. As soon as I saw it I knew it would get posted today.

I also found another sister site to the Cheezburger site where most of my adorable kitty pics come from. The FailBlog is filled with pictures that fail for one reason or another. Many of them are funny (in kind of a sick way), and some of them make you want to say “oh no you didn’t!” Go on. You know you want to see them. :p

It’s Friday! Saturday’s just a day away! Have an awesome weekend.

Russel T. Davies is leaving the Doctor

I just saw a story on SciFi Wire that took me by surprise. Russel T. Davies is leaving the BBC hit Dorctor Who (the current season is available in the US on the SciFi Channel). But the person taking his place? I love his work.

Where’s all the fun?

Peng just called me and let me know about the post he just wrote, and after looking at the recent posts I decided it was the weekend, and dammit we need some fun around here. And I’m not talking about a little Bunday action, or even a little birthday fun, either. I’m talking about some serious fun with two of our favorite television celebs, Jamie and Adam.

The strike is over!

various media outlets are reporting that the members of teh Writer’s Guild of America have voted to end their strike against the producer’s guild (actually the major studios) that has shut down nearly all production in Los Angeles.

The story’s still developing, but I wanted to pass along the good news.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get some of our favorite shows back on the air in the next couple months.

For more infocheck Writers vote to end 3-month strike that crippled Hollywood from the Los Angeles Times and Hollywood writers vote to lift 14-week strike from Reuters, as well as any updated stories links from those articles.

It’s ironic that just as the news was breaking one of our favorite shows is finally back on the air after making us wait too damn long to get back on teh air.

Nuts, you say?

Last year CBS had an amazing show called Jericho, but when it didn’t appear on the fall 2007 schedule the fans took a line from the show’s season finale and inundated the network with over 20 pounds of nuts, showing The Powers That Be at the network that no matter what the numbers (ratings) said, the show had fans who were not happy with the cancellation.

The network announced that they would bring the show back as a mid-season replacement for seven episodes, and the wait is almost over. Jericho comes back with first run episodes tonight at 10 PM (Eastern Time).