And yet, there's a dozen more links I want to talk about

So here’s the difficult with only having two afternoons a week to blog: During my mornings, evenings and even occasionally at work, I stumble across a bevy of stuff I find interesting. The majority of that, you all would find terribly dull, or nerdy, or too specialized in an area only I would consider caring about. Thankfully, I also come across a variety of links that I think everyone would enjoy. I’ll do this over the course of a couple days, right clicking into “Open in new tab” until one Mozilla window doesn’t know what to do with itself. Sometimes I forget why exactly I found the page interesting in the first place, but more often than not, I accidentally restart my computer or the browser crashes and my precious links are lost into a deep, unfathomable History folder I dare not try to enter.

I’m going to attempt to be more careful with such items, but I make no promises.

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50,000! Unroll the banner!!: The various counters going on this site aren’t really reflective of the total number of hits its received. The SiteMeter only goes back about a year, and is used more for the “How many views per day?” type of thing, while I believe the counter at the bottom has been ticking since Thanksgiving 2003, or just a few months over three years ago. As crazy as it is to imagine, this site’s been clicked upon more than 50,000 times over that period, and I thank you all for reading.

Turf War: Like the rest of you, I had little or no interest in the Sunday morning network political show ratings war – I was actually unaware such a thing existed – until settling into my position at Meet The Press. Well, in a search to find some more DC blogs to follow besides Wonkette – not that you need anything else, mind you – I stumbled across this little diddy:

NBC is psyched about the performance of 'Meet the Press' this past Sunday.

"Meet the Press with Tim Russert" was the dominant Sunday morning public affairs program on January 21, 2007, topping the competition by wide margins in all categories, growing more than any other Sunday show program compared to last year, and posting its best key demographic adults 25-54 rating in nearly three years.

Total viewers:

1. Meet the Press: 4.591 million total viewers
2. Face the Nation: 3.004 million
3. This Week: 2.879 million
4. Fox News Sunday: 1.549 million.

NBC writes that "this represents the NBC program's best total viewer delivery since February 12, 2006 and its best advantage over second place CBS since November 5, 2006."

But what about here in DC? Recall that ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopolous" moved from 9am to 10am this past Sunday here in D.C.

1. Meet the Press: 124,000 viewers
2. Face the Nation: 77,000
3. Fox News Sunday: 75,000
4. This Week: 30,000

Like in the Pittsburgh area and out at South Bend, Meet the Press airs at 10:30 in DC. It’s recorded and goes live to some areas of the country at 9:00, so This Week’s move put it in direct competition with my new television posse in the District. Let me taste your tears, George Stephanopoulos. Tastes like….last place.

Your MTV Reality Show Update:

The Duel: What a disappointing ending to what was a really entertaining, albeit cheap in the way Beth and CT were eliminated, season. Was the soccer thing for a head start really necessary? Why not just add an extra puzzle? Not even superior editing could make the finish look exciting, and is it just me, or do the end-of-season montages for Real World, Road Rules and Challenges always make me feel a little misty, or at the very least, inspired to annoy a lot of people by getting drunk and screaming at them, then coming together as friends at the end?

Maui Fever: As the guy who enjoyed Super Sweet Sixteen and Laguna Beach until the mind-numbing stupidity and excess broke his will, I don’t think I’m going to be able to stand Fever at all. However, there’s the one guy who busts out terminology like “Richter” in reference to partying and said “We’ll be sitting here when we’re 40…if we’re smart!” when talking to a buddy in a bar. At least the girls on Laguna were hot, but so far Fever makes me wonder who was in charge of casting. Liz Gately would die before letting some of those people on her show.

The Hills: Need to work my way into the new season, although I’m sure it won’t disappoint as long as Natasha’s still around for the theme song and Heidi is dropping wisdom. Two episodes have passed, but thanks to MTV.com, I’ll catch up this weekend if there’s no mini-marathon on.

Real World: Last week’s episode – where Stephen and Alex brought girls home, Tyrie stood around laughing and the girls descended farther into the deep, dark chasm of craziness – was one of my favorites, and I’d never seen the males and females on a show so far divided. There was always one heterosexual girl or guy who would hang out with the other sex, either because their own gender couldn’t stand them or they were trying to get on someone, but Denver was reaching a ridiculous divide.

Thankfully, Brooke and Stephen wussed out of the camping/training trip last night, leaving a full-out bonding experience for Colie, Jenn, Tyrie and Alex. If you spent five days in the mountains after Brooke had pretty much announced to the world “I am insane! Fit me for a straight jacket now!”, wouldn’t you enjoy each other a lot more than the quitters down at the house?

(Although they suspect Davis bailed because he didn’t want to stay in the wilderness, the evidence of A) He threw up, B) Looked positively pissed at Stephen and Brooke when they bragged about getting out of it on the way back and C) Curled up in his bed while the other two drank in the hot tub leads me to believe he might actually be sick. Is Real World on their way to two quality seasons in a row? Wooooah, Nelly.)

Dance Party USA!: Our favorite little show that could - and actually did - was last spring's The Loop on FOX. Despite only being a half dozen episodes on and existing in rather anonymity to the television world - the reason Alan Sepinwall is highly regarded here is because he has an eye for talent - it was magically renewed for a second season, but was rumored to be overhauled, which will probably ruin the show. Thankfully, the original episodes are being released on DVD.

Get Ready For Some Madness: Just a random, old link, but people who say college hoops hurt businesses are just big fat liars.

It's probably a sign you have a problem when your All-Star game is on a Wednesday night. On Versus: There are some foolish people in my life who defend hockey, generally when they attack my love of the NBA. I just don't like it when I point out literally everything gets better ratings than hockey, despite the obvious shortcomings of the NBA on the national level in comparison to football, baseball and college hoops. Well, for anyone reading who still thinks the NHL matters, just a reminder that hockey sucks.

(But since I'm fair and balanced here, two-parter on the NBA's ratings slip here and here.)

"A long time ago...": I'm about to write a strongly worded letter to my network for screwing up Veronica Mars. I believe it's one of two shows to have its ratings go up since last season, yet the Powers At Be in my offices at The CW Network are replacing it for eight weeks for a show about the Pussycat Dolls. On top of that, I've spent part of today catching up on some missed television shows on various network sites - a genius move, in my opinion - and the stupid CW website won't stream Tuesday night's Veronica to me. I went to watch the Wizards get totally immolated by the Suns (more on this over the weekend) thinking I'd be able to cozy up to my computer today and watch the newest Vern.

CW Network, just a warning, but I'm about to drop the hammer. Keep this crap up and I'll start laying people off, or at the very least, take my initials - the very best two letter combination in the alphabet - away.

Also, if all of the Entertainment Weekly coverage and the Entourage episode where they screen Queens Boulevard didn't make me want to head out to Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival badly enough, putting up photos of Kristen Bell being adorable certainly is just piling on.