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...yeah, I'm ashamed of myself for that one too.

But as many of you are no doubt aware one of my generation's defining television melodramas is being resurrected tonight at 8 p.m.

That's right - Beverly Hills, 90210. Like a bizarre zombie stripper, its been resurrected to shake its old, dead ass for a sweaty fistful of dollars. On the CW.

What we remember:

The new look:

This is the show that gave us the outrageous teenage soap opera long before teachers were bedding students on Dawson's Creek, young girls were doing Maxim photo shoots on One Tree Hill or parents were doing coke on Gossip Girl.

It was a magical show full of characters who were unlike anyone we'd actually meet in high school, played by actors who were far too old to be there anyway. They faced problems that were ripped from the headlines and pumped full of steroids until they were almost completely unrecognizable as anything relevant to the lives of its young audience -- and oh, how we loved it.

As you quiver with anticipation or revulsion for the first episode of the re-make, I bring you links to tide you over:

USA Today has an interview with Shannon Doherty, the wide-eyed teen who moved to Beverly Hills 18 years ago, stole our hearts and eventually became such an awful shrew no one wanted to work with her. She's chilled out a bit since then, apparently. Better living through chemistry.

There's also a West Beverly High yearbook to get you up to speed on all the characters and actors. So that you don't actually have to watch the show or follow the story.

The New York Times has done a giant oral history (pun not mine but probably intended) of the original show. The lede suggests that some regard Brenda losing her virginity to Dylan as a defining moment of the 1990s. Which, sadly, I cannot refute.

And if you missed the original series or just barely remember it, you can catch up with streaming episodes online at CBS' site for the old show.

As I cannot think of even one television show that has ever been successfully revamped with a new cast under the same name, I'm predicting a crash and burn. Which would, no doubt, please all of us who watched the original to no end. Both because we are bitter and heartless and because we realize the culture has moved so far beyond being scandalized by "Are they gonna do it?! Is she pregnant?! Did he drink and drive?!?" that this iteration of the show will almost certainly seem like just another in a sea of teen exploitation dramas.

What do you guys think?

Cartoonist Scott McCloud, author of groundbreaking educational books like Understanding Comics and Making Comics, has put together a little comic explaining Google's new open-source web browser, Chrome.

And when I say "little" I mean 38 pages.

But it is actually fascinating and now I can't wait to start using it.

So, you know, its done its job.

Well, the first episode of the new 90210 is now television history -- and it's one for the books.

(First episode spoilers after the jump...)

Just a reminder -- The Big Lebowski is playing on the big screen tonight as part of the Mix-Tape Film Series.

Shows will be as 7: 30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. at the Carousel Luxury Cinemas, 1305 Battleground Avenue. Sadly, White Russians will be unavailable but I'm told there's going to be cheap beer and popcorn.

See you there, dude.

Update: The movie isn't on the marquee, there's no sign announcing it at the ticket counter, it's not up on the movie-times signs above the registers, it isn't mentioned on the theater's website and you can't buy tickets for it online -- but it is happening. I just got tickets for it at the box office, so it can be done.

Rage Against the Machine was forced to go a cappella in Minneapolis this week when the PA was killed at their concert opposite the Republican convention.

They took to the streets in performance and protest with, as Rolling Stone reports, guitarist Tom Morello "making the “bow-wow-wow-wakka-chikkas” with his mouth.

Then it apparently devolved into violence during which 102 people were arrested.

No joke here. Just ... you know ...Jesus.

As a fan of the first two Ghostbusters movies, I hope I'm not the only one hoping they're not going to make a third.

Let's remember Ray, Winston, Egon and Peter as they were.

And let's honor them by creating new properties that are as good or better instead of trying to wring the last bit of funny out of them.

For their 25th anniversary, they've re-issued the G.I. Joe guys of my childhood just as they were when I hung them with nooses made of yarn, buried them in tin Band-Aid boxes and sunk them in the bathtub, their ankles weighted with a stack of pennies.

They're like little plastic time machines.

This one, the Native American soldier "Spirit Iron-Knife" (swear to God), comes with an eagle. An effing eagle!

Here's a strange little story of old-school word of mouth and cross-media promotion working in concert with the Internet to the advantage of fans and artists, the way it should...

Have heard a few people express shock at this AP story about senior citizen and ex-pro wrestler Ric Flair being roughed up by his daughter's 22-year-old boyfriend.

But my thing is -- he may have been entertaining but did this guy ever really seem...tough?

Now this guy's daughter I'd avoid at all costs...

I have been waiting forever to play "Spore," the game just released by EA after years of anticipation from fans of "SimCity." It's a wonderful, quirky little game that lets you have god-like powers, taking your creation from one cell to space travel. I spent hours playing it when I first got it.

Then I went to the "Spore" forums to figure out how to do something in the game, and I realized that there are a lot of pissed off Spore fans out there. And I'm actually kind of irritated, myself.

Turns out that by downloading the game to your computer, you are installing a DRM to your computer that constantly runs, sucking up resources, that you can't get rid of without reformatting your computer (even if you uninstall the game). Also, you only get three installations of the game for life (maybe four if you beg and plead) -- essentially turning it into a rental, not a purchase.

On top of that, if more than one person wants to play "Spore," you need to buy another copy if you want separate accounts. One of the selling points of the game is the online interaction -- which you need an account to do. All of your creations in the game are tied to your account -- in the 10 or so hours I've spent on the game so far, I've created dozens of items and creatures. So if mom, dad, and the kids all like playing, their creations are going to quickly get disorganized and mixed up on the one account.

Supposedly all of this is to keep people from pirating the game and sharing software, but really, it's just punishing the honest people. The people who want to download it illegally will get it anyway -- I know of people who have already done so. If my husband wants to play the game, they expect us to pay another $50 for it. If Windows did this for Vista or Word, there would be riots. As it is, the fan base is already showing signs of revolt.

As for me, I have loved EA games for years, obsessively buying SimCity and Sims varations on release day. But things like this will make me rethink that in the future. There are plenty of other great games out there whose makers seem to care about their consumers.

Having had my pants taken out and my blood pressure continuously monitored since my last Fast Food Friday, I am once again going into the fray. Or at least back to Taco Bell.

After the Big Bell Box Meal I vowed to steer clear of the Bell for a while - but then they introduced this "Volcano Taco."

The commercial suggests that it is both irresistible and extremely unpleasant.

Sadly (and happily?), it was neither...

Gregory McDonald died.

I've only ever read his Fletch novels. But they - especially the first two - are some of the wittiest American detective fiction. I felt like the movies really didn't do them justice.

He was also a writer/editor at the Boston Globe for many years, which gave cynical reporter/accidental detective Fletch a great authenticity. You heard those conversations in newsrooms, you had those thoughts yourself while on a story.

Damn shame.

This weekend I saw the new Coen Brothers movie Burn After Reading -- the Coens' twisted version of a spy film.

The Coen brothers don't actually do spoofs - their films rarely directly reference or mock anything specific. But they do have a penchant for taking established film genres -- detective flicks, gangster pictures, caper movies, Capra-esque morality tales, romantic comedies -- and giving them their own bizarre twist.

In this sense, Burn After Reading is firmly in the tradition of The Big Lebowski (a bizarro Raymond Chandler-style detective movie) and Fargo (a murder mystery with the unlikeliest of heroes, villains and settings). Like those films Burn's plot is complicated, unlikely and whirls and circles itself like the hula-hoops in The Hudsucker Proxy. But it splits the difference between those films in terms of serious darkness.

What people will probably talk about most is Brad Pitt's performance as...well, a complete doofus. We've seen Pitt the romantic leading man, the dirtied-up terrifying villain (Kalifornia) and the spastic head case (12 Monkeys). But even in The Mexican I'm not sure we've ever seen him this broadly, proudly moronic.

But for my money some of the best scenes are the drier CIA-centric ones with John Malkovich as a disgraced, defeated analyst and JK Simmons (the dad in Juno, Garth Pancake from The Ladykillers) and David Rasche as his former bosses.

What did you guys think?

Converse has hired a motley crew of interesting artists to design versions of their Chuck Taylors for the Product Red line of clothes, shoes and accessories that raises money for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Companies from Gap to Apple to American Express have designed products for the campaign, but these shoes may be my favorite. They seem to run from $50.00 (not much more than you'd pay for an average pair of Chucks these days) to $90 (which, in my estimation, is way too much to pay for a pair of sneakers but not too much for art that's part of a charity project).

Here are some of the designs that caught my eye:

Chucks by Warwick Kay

Chucks by Camilla Engman

Chucks by Ana Ventura

Chucks by Grandpeople

See them all at Converse.com. Go to the "Product Red" section and see if there's anything you like. Ten percent of the proceeds go to The Global Fund.

Seeing Burn After Reading last weekend got me thinking of my favorite Coen Brothers movies -- and why I've inexplicably been inserting an "h" into their name without realizing it.

Apparently I wasn't alone (at least in contemplating my favorites).

This list attempts to rank brothers' movies in terms of sheer greatness -- which means, of course, there will be many many disagreements.

I've gotta agree with putting The Ladykillers at the bottom, at least...

UPDATE: Slate also has an interesting piece on the politics of The Big Lebowski, which is celebrating its tenth birthday this year.

For those of you who missed Tina Fey's terrific turn as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on SNL this weekend....

The show got SNL its highest season premiere ratings since 2001.

The writer's strike threw a monkey wrench in America's TV viewing this year, cutting the season short for a number of shows and leaving many plotlines dangling. For some shows, it feels like so long since there's been a new episode that it's hard to remember all those loose ends.

Luckily, a number of good TV shows are out on DVD this week, just before their second seasons premiere. Here are a few that are worth catching up on:

Pushing Daisies, Season 1

This weird little show about a pie-maker who can bring back the dead wth a touch of his finger (and re-dead them as long as he does it right away) is easily one of the most charming on network television. The production is positively Burton-esque and the script somehow splits the difference between J.K. Rowling and Wes Anderson (with Harry Potter audio-book narrator Jim Dale doing voice-overs for a little extra atmosphere). Bonus: the lovely Kristin Chenoweth as a waitress who pines for the piemaker and has a penchant for low-cut tops. Unfortunately, there were only nine episodes in the first season -- and we were left seriously hanging. But those nine episodes plus the extras on this DVD set make the package well worthwhile. Catch up before the new season debuts October 1.

Torchwood: The Complete Second Season

This Doctor Who spinoff really hit its stride in the second season. It's sort of an English X-Files meets NCIS -- a little darker and more consistent in tone than the show that spawned it, the second season saw some interesting crossover between the two shows at the same time that its own universe really took off. The revelations about (and fate-tempting adventures of) the immortal, bisexual Captain Jack Harkness are worth boning up on before the third season debuts next week in 2009.

Chuck: The Complete First Season

Take one average computer geek. Download a bunch of top-secret government knowledge into his head. Add a sexy spy girl and constant danger. Shake well and enjoy.

Criminal Minds: The Complete Third Season

When star Mandy Patinkin left this show about FBI profilers, some predicted it wasn't long for this world. But Joe Montegna stepped in for the third season and fans gave him a chance. Catch up on his entrance before the fourth season kicks off.

It's Web Junkie Wednesday, and as the new television season is about to begin, I thought we could talk TV online.

By now, you should know about Hulu - the game changing Web site that legally streams a number of old and new TV shows and movies for free, at your convenience, no downloads necessary.

But like YouTube before it, Hulu has pushed networks to start posting their shows on their own Web sites - in higher def, with minimal ads and streaming whenever you like.

This season there are a number of networks posting their shows' season premieres before they actually hit the TV. Among them:

Showtime is allowing viewers to see this season's first episodes of hit shows Dexter and Californication now well before their Sept. 28 premieres.

But if explicit shows about serial killers and drunk, masochistic writers aren't your bag, NBC may have what you want.

Right now you can see the premiere of the new Knight Rider revival and this season's first episode of Lipstick Jungle ahead of their Sept 24th premieres.

Next week the network will let you watch the season premieres of Life, Chuck and 30 Rock before they hit the airwaves as well.

Make that 52.

This site has created a unique, pro-Obama bumper sticker for all 50 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico.

Here's the North Carolina sticker:

Have you seen these new "I'm a PC" ads that Microsoft has out there as a counter-punch to the popular "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" Mac ads?

Yeah. Apparently, they were made on a Mac.

That's how I like my irony, baby -- nice and stinging.

This is the single best thing I've ever seen on an awards show. I adore Josh Groban for this!

(If this gets taken down, just search for Josh Groban Emmys on YouTube.)

If you didn't catch David Letterman's McCain rant last night, check it out here.

Dave and McCain are old friends -- the candidate announced his presidential run on Dave's show. But McCain apparently said he had to skip Dave's show to go to Washington, then sat down with Katie Couric. That and McCain's announcing he would "suspend" his campaign was too much for Dave.

A few musical questions this week:

- The AP reports that Bob Dylan's new bootleg series album, "Tell Tale Signs" will stream free on NPR's website for a week before its official release. Ain't Bobby so cool?

- Is there anything more anti-climatic than Clay Aiken coming out of the closet? Any fan who didn't realize he's gay either hasn't yet had the birds and bees talk or richly deserves to have her world shattered by this non-story.

- The Flaming Lips are finally releasing their weirdo outer-space/holiday movie Christmas on Mars. Follow the link for an exclusive trailer. It's getting a limited theatrical release -- closest theater to us is in Nashville -- and is coming to DVD Nov 11. How can you resist a film featuring modern psychedelic rock music in space AND Santa?