Why God, WHY?!?!

I am such a pop culture nerd. I think that growing up in the vortex that is my home town, I used television, movies, and music to escape. In elementary school, hearing other kids say that they didn't have cable seemed like a sadistic form of child abuse to me. Even now as a fairly well educated adult, I spend a lot of my time looking through celebrity gossip sites, watching E! News (to my credit though, I do watch and read a lot of "real" news too), and reading an unhealthy number of fashion and entertainment magazines. If I were able to retain the stuff that I'm supposed to be learning in class like I'm able to retain useless pop culture facts, I'm convinced I'd be graduating first in my class. But I digress...

This week was like a pop culture perfect storm for me. I hope the whole "bad things always come in threes" is true, because the last thing I need to find out, in addition to everything else, is something along the horrifying lines of, "Ryan Reynolds gains 100 lbs., loses his hotness!"

1) Conan gets screwed.

Conan O'Brien has always been my favorite late night talk show host. He's weird, he's awkward, and best of all, he's a redhead, just like me. I was so excited when they announced that Leno was FINALLY stepping down and Conan would be taking over the Tonight Show. Honestly, who really thinks Leno is funny? I knew NBC was shooting themselves in the foot when they devoted the 10 pm time slot to Leno, but they in turned screwed over Conan because all of the big names were still being syphoned off to Leno and Conan got the leftovers. No wonder the ratings dropped! And who gets punished? Not Leno, who should have just gone off quietly and enjoyed his fleet of old cars, but Conan! It looks like Leno is getting his old time slot back, but only for a 30 minute show...how is that any better?! Conan would be relegated to 12:05 a.m., if he even chooses to stay with NBC! If Conan leaves, I'll be watching my NBC shows on Hulu from now on (Community, The Office, 30 Rock).

2) LOST vs. President Obama

President Obama apparently only has two choices when it comes to what day to hold the State of the Union address on: one that conflicts with the season premiere of the show that won't die, American Idol, or one that conflicts with the season premiere of the LAST SEASON of the greatest show in the world (in my humble opinion), LOST. Apparently, the thought of angering Simon Cowell was enough to scare them into bumping LOST another week. Luckily, I just read that the Press Secretary has said that they wouldn't be preempting LOST, so I can only assume that Ari Emanuel (the agent who represents LOST (and the man who Ari Gold from Entourage is based on)) told his brother, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, that they should bump Idol instead.

3) Pete Carroll: Peace out, bitches!

Pete Carroll's first year at USC was also my first year as a Trojan. He's responsible for lifting the team out of relative obscurity to national champions and seven consecutive PAC-10 championships. Now flash forward to this season, a bad one by all accounts, and he's ready to jump ship for the Seattle Seahawks. I get it, the NCAA investigation of the whole Reggie Bush shadiness is pretty much coming to a close and it's not looking good and now Joe McKnight, amid more shadiness, suddenly decides to forgo his senior year for the draft. A coaching job with a pro team and a nice salary raise doesn't sound so crazy. I DON'T CARE. If he abandons the team that put him where he is today because of one bad season and his own shitty decisions...well, I wish him as much luck as he had the last time he attempted to coach in the pros.

Here's hoping that I don't wake up tomorrow morning and find out that Ryan Reynolds now looks like this: