ALL STAR WEEKEND, baby. OFFICE is hilarious and MORE

Oh man, thank god it's Friday, and hel-lo three day weekend. This has been a roller coaster of a week, as it was my first as a GE-staffed employee of NBC, meaning lots of paperwork, phone calls, and stressing about making sure that everything was good to go, because hey, I gots to get paid. But at the same time, I have definitely been a little more involved in the goings-on of my department so its been exciting. Seemingly every week there are more and more changes here in our NBCU corporate structure, which is, for me, exciting - because ultimately our small but growing department is going to be more and more in the spotlight. So yeah, between all this work stuff, doctor's appointments, etc, it's been a long week.

But hey, it's ALL-STAR WEEKEND, baby. I'm pumped. Watched the NBA on TNT last night and the excitement is contagious. Bring on Barkley vs. Bavetta. Bring on the dunk contest. Bring on the main event - LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, Arenas, Wade, T-Mac, Nash, Nowitzki, etc. Maybe I'll even get a chance to shoot some hoops this weekend, see if I still ahve any of the ol' IBA prowess, if you weeeeeel.

"Cuz I've wined and dined with kings and queens, slept in alleys, eaten' pork n' beans."

Okay, no pork, but the sentiment still applies ...

- So, let me just say, last night's OFFICE was spectacular. Maybe one of my top 5 all-time episodes. Between Michael Scott's hilariously awkward stint as a guest speaker at Ryan's business school, and the bat invading the office, I was laughing nonstop from start to finish. Appropriately enough with Joss Whedon directing, we had a joke where Jim tries to convince Dwight he has been bitten by the bat and is slowly turning into a vampire -- how to put this -- this entire gag was HILARIOUS. I haven't laughed this hard in a long while. That one scene between Dwight and an overeager Creed was one of the funniest things ever. Man, just awesome. This episode is why I love the Office. So many quotable lines. "All the memories ... I would have had ...", and even a nice jolt of real character stuff with Pam's art show to boot. This was a superlative ep, and most importantly, funny as all hell.

My Grade: A

- I thought MY NAME IS EARL had a particularly funny episode as well, even if it had a bit of a filler feel to it, with a barrage of tossed-away misdeeds that Earl had to committed patched together into something of a montage episode. But man, it was pretty funny. Beau Bridges as Earl's father was classic. "No fat chicks. Just kidding, I love fat chicks." Good stuff.

My Grade: A -

- Didn't catch 30 Rock yet, nor did I see The OC or Smallville. Should be able to catch up this weekend.

MOVIE STUFF:

- Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight? Not bad, not bad at all. Eckhart has shown that he can be two-faced in movies like Thank You For Smoking, he has the right look. I ownder if he can really be, well, dark enough, but I have confidence in Nolan's casting abilities. I was hoping for Guy Pierce or Liv Schrieber (Pierce especially would have had the perfect look and voice), but this could be pretty sweet as well. Now - Maggie Gyllenhaal is another great actor who you probably can't go wrong with. My problem is not with her but WHY the fairly lame character of Rachel Dawes is even being brought back in the first place. Batman does NOT need a love interest. If he does get some bat-action, it should be messed-up, weird, indicative of the fact that Batman doesn't have normal relationships - ie trysting with the likes of Catwoman or Talia Al Ghul. BUT, and this is a huge BUT, Maggie G would be PERFECT for a character who I'd love to see realized on the big screen ... HARLEY QUINN. If this is somehow a smokescreen way of casting her as Dr. Harleen Quinzell ala Liam Neeson as "Henri Ducard", then I'd be really excited, as would fanboys the world over. Because really, who wants to see Rachel Dawes in this movie? Not I. Not. I.

- Wow, Ghostrider is getting really, really bad reviews. No big surprise there, I guess, though I kept hoping this movie would turn out to be cool, campy fun that evoked the badass 70's-era imagery of the source material. Maybe it is okay afterall, who knows. But if it really IS that bad, and Mark Steven Johnson is to blame, then I have to be worried about him handling Preacher, one of the greatest works of graphic fiction of all time. Oy.

OTHER STUFF:

- Ugh, how lame are Tim Hardaway's recent bigoted, homophobic comments? I hate that he's apparently such a jackass, because up until this week I would have counted Hardaway as one of my all-time favorite players. I used to be a HUGE fan, and loved the way one third of RUN TMC would look to drive the ball, only to stop on a dime and put in the money three-point pull up. Back in the day, playing EA Sports' Bulls vs. Blazers on SNES, Hardaway had the best move in the game in his UTEP 2-STEP special. Plus he was a great trash-talker, always funny and charismatic. And now, apparently, he's an idiot. Good to know your childhood heroes are actually backwards-ass bigots.

FINALLY:

As I mentioned, its All-Star Weekend. I'm pumped, I'm ready to go. Let's get it on.