My cousin Sharyn let me know about this cool free Coldplay album available. It’s a live album called LeftRightLeftRightLeft.

VAL is planning a torturous summer for you. Here’s your chance to be a part of it.

Get the application for Solitary 4.0 at RealityWanted.com.

There’s also casting tips there from Solitary casting directors and tips from one of last season’s contestants (#4 – the ultimate fan).

Don’t take too much time thinking about this – the application needs to be in by June 24th with filming for a lucky few taking place in late July!

I was also hoping to find some info for this on the official Fox Reality Channel website. But so far – nothing. I guess this is how they’re going to go about finding contestants this year. And it seems all the other website mentions for this casting call all lead back to the same place.

So good luck! I know I won’t be any competition for you as I already used some of my vacation time for the year, which means no chance at Solitary for me this time. I just couldn’t wait for something that I wasn’t even sure would be happening.

If you make it on though, let me know how it goes!

It’s good news and even more good news for both shows.

For Pushing Daisies, the final three episodes of season 2 (and the series) will air Saturday nights at 10pm starting tomorrow night on ABC. Then the season 2 DVD with the final thirteen episodes will come out July 21st.

For Mr. Belvedere, it’s even better news. The seasons 1 & 2 DVD set was a success! So Shout Factory will be releasing the 22 episodes from season 3 on September 8th. Thanks tvshowsondvd.com for the info!

Now if only The Charmings could be released on DVD, everything in the world would be perfect. But that might be asking too much.

I know you remember the brilliant 90’s group Aqua and their big hit Barbie Girl.

Well, they’re back! And with the ultimate retro song. It’s called Back To The 80’s and the lyrics are awesome with references to Bananarama, Michael Jackson, shoulder pads, Mr. T, Miami Vice, Cherry Coke, and more.

The song was first played on Danish radio a few days ago. When it will make it to the US is a good question, but I’ll be watching for it.

This unfortunately doesn’t mean an all new Aqua album is on the way. Instead, it’ll be featured on Aqua’s upcoming Greatest Hits collection.

I know what you’re thinking – what other hits did Aqua have? In the US, they only had one other minor hit with Lollipop (Candyman). But around the world, they had a bunch, Around The World actually being the title of one of my favorites.

And I loved Cartoon Heroes, especially the video with the aliens and the otherworldly giant eyeball with five tentacles! I can’t wait to see what they’ll do for the Back To The 80’s video.

There are certain movies that seem to get funnier or more meaningful the more times I see them. I liked Office Space the first time I saw it, but I didn’t love it. Now it’s one of my favorite movies of all time.

It’s extremely quotable, (“yeah, I’m going to have to have you come in on Saturday...”) funny in a broad sense, but also reflective of how many of us feel each day, working in an artificially-lit environment, doing menial tasks that don’t affect the greater good, and wondering why corporate America makes the decisions it does.

One scene in particular sticks with me. Ron Livingston’s character, Peter Gibbons, has left Initech to work on a construction crew, which ironically is cleaning up the debris from Initech, recently burned to the ground. Peter says “this isn’t so bad, makin’ bucks, gettin’ exercise, workin’ outside.”

Amen!

I joke with my wife about someday selling the house and moving to Florida, where I will run a hot dog stand on the beach; no “overhead” except sunshine, everyone would know me, “the hot dog guy,” and at the end of the day I pack up my cart and go home. If I don’t feel like working that day, I don’t. What a great life!

Last week the office building had a barbecue outside. It was a beautiful spring day, and it just so happened I had a band coming through to do a little performance. I asked them if they minded playing outside, where there was a good sized crowd, and they agreed. Check out their performance here.

Something about that day clicked: people mingling outside, having lunch, listening to music. It’s what we’ve done for centuries! As cavemen we sat around a fire, eating together, sharing stories and songs of the hunt. We were meant to be outside, working with our hands, not in a cubicle staring at a computer screen all day, hermetically sealed from Nature.

It’s springtime in Western New York. Let’s make time to go to the beach, take a hike, work in the yard, and get back to what makes us human.

And no, Lumbergh, I won’t be coming in on Saturday.

–Brian

He may not know how to sing (and I’m pretty sure he didn’t in the 80’s either), but he sure is entertaining.

It’s Mr. T singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” at Wrigley Field on Memorial Day!

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will play the final concerts at GIANTS STADIUM in East Rutherford, NJ. The dates will be September 30th, October 1st and 2nd just before the old stadium will be demolished, replaced by the new Meadowlands Stadium.

MAN’S RULES

You may have heard us talking on air about MAN’S RULES, a collection of rules designed to make men and women better understand each other. Some of my favorites:

-Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials

-If you ask a question that you don’t want to hear the answer to, expect an answer that you don’t want to hear

- If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

See the hilarious list here.

And please pass it on to your friends so all men can be better understood!

So I have to tell you, I was in a mood today at work. You probably couldn’t tell when I was on-air, but I was Grumpy (yes, with a capital G). But a song I heard on the way home managed to put me back in a good mood – the miracle of music.

It was our computers at work that put me in a bad mood. Everything’s on computer. I had to delete Star 102.5’s Friday stuff and re-import it because of some adjustments we made late in the day. After deleting it, I couldn’t get the day to go back in. And our engineers were all out of the building working on some other important issues (really – I’m not being facetious, because we have awesome engineers).

So I had to put Friday back in the computer manually. The full 24 hours. Every jingle, sweeper (the things between the songs), legal ID, news / traffic / weather beds, and other stuff. It took forever. And that was in addition to all the other stuff I was already backed up on. Great.

So that ticked me off. Now I’m wandering down the hall and I see Shy Guy Shawn with a plate of meatballs and he tells me there’s some leftover food from an event in the kitchen. That’s always exciting. And I love meatballs, so I head to the kitchen to get some. I carefully put them on the plate and somehow managed to get sauce on my shirt – a cool new shirt I was wearing for the first time. So now I’m in an even worse mood.

Two things changed that bad mood. First, the person who won the Coasters Ice Cream gift certificate was so cool and fun on-air. That always makes the day better when someone’s excited about winning something. Plus, just doing that Retro Show is always fun each night.

And then I heard an incredible song on my way home (something I had bought the night before on iTunes but hadn’t listened to completely then). It’s called Crazy Loop (Mm-Ma-Ma) by Crazy Loop. What an awesome song! Just listening to it full blast on the way home instantly dissolved my bad mood. It’s so cool how a great song can do that.

I gotta warn you, the video is kind of strange (and a little suggestive at times). But the song is great! And Crazy Loop also has another song I found called Johanna that I love (the lyrics on that one are strange, but after seeing the video they make more sense).

Crazy Loop is Dan Balan who previously was in a group called O-Zone. They had a big hit a few years ago called Dragostea Din Tei (aka The Numa Numa Song). It was a huge viral video and a catchy song that you couldn’t get out of your head.

Both Crazy Loop songs are about a year or so old, but the one song was recently released in the US. I can’t wait until a full CD comes out. Check it out. It’s a new favorite of mine, especially since it decimated my bad mood.

There are times in every Dad’s life, when we’re picking socks out of the kitty litter, or wiping orange juice off the ceiling, or scraping melted crayon off the inside of a dryer, that we question why we became parents. We say things like “THIS is why we can’t have anything NICE!”

And then, there are times when we find notes like this in our briefcase:

My daughter always makes sure to put pigtails on the smiling girls in her pictures. I love you too, Darcy.

–Brian

It’s kind of like Survivor for TV shows this week. Were you favorites renewed or cancelled for the 2009 – 2010 season?

The Futon Critic website has the best graph listing every show on the major network and their fate.

Some of the biggest surprises for next season…

• Without A Trace on CBS was cancelled. It ran seven seasons and I’m really surprised it’s not going more. I didn’t think it was doing that bad.

• My Name Is Earl on NBC was cancelled. I’m one of the few people who’s never seen the show, but that seemed like one that would keep lingering on.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on FOX was cancelled. A lot of people online are very unhappy about this.
• Worst Week on CBS was cancelled. I thought it was just on a temporary break. I loved this show and the promos for it kept saying it was the #1 new comedy of the year. Guess that wasn’t enough to save it.
• Deal Or No Deal and Howie Do It on NBC were both cancelled. Apparently, NBC has grown tired of Howie.
• Samantha Who? on ABC was cancelled. Actually, this wasn’t a big surprise. But I’m sad to see it go.

Enough with the bad news. Here’s some of the surprise renewals…

• Better Off Ted on ABC was renewed. I am stunned. Shows this clever (not to mention shows I like) usually don’t have this happen to them. Especially shows that freeze one of their major characters (that first episode was a riot).

• Heroes on NBC was renewed. After this past season’s ratings, I was sure it was toast.
• Ugly Betty on ABC was renewed. There were some reports on its possible cancellation about two months ago when the show was pulled from the schedule for a few weeks. And now it’s renewed. Lucky producers.
• ‘Til Death on FOX was renewed. Seriously, is there anyone that actually watches this show? It keeps getting pulled from the schedule because of low ratings and then keeps getting renewed. All I have to say on this is blech.
• Chuck on NBC was renewed. This was one of those on-the-bubble shows (it was last season too), but it managed to get saved again. Unlike ‘Til Death, this one deserved to be saved.
• Scrubs on ABC was renewed. But there’s a catch – Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke will only be in six episodes each next season.
• Parks & Recreation on NBC was renewed. It’s good, but I didn’t think it would ever last.

That’s just a brief highlight of some of the stuff for next season. See the complete graph for all of the major networks and all of their shows at The Futon Critic.

Today is a very important day in the history of this planet. Today is the day that Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus was released on DVD!

Deborah Gibson (yes, the same person who sang Only In My Dreams and Electric Youth) stars in this epic battle between a mega shark and a giant octopus.

I don’t think there’s anything else that can be said about this. See the movie trailer here.

I started off my trip on Thursday. I wanted to give myself a full day to get down to Hershey and just relax before three full days of amusement parks.

On the way down, I visited the Indian Echo Caverns. It’s a cool place about five minutes from Hersheypark. The cavern tour lasted about an hour. It’s a typical cavern and the tour was fun.

I also stopped at the Quiksilver store in the Arundel Mills Mall in Maryland. Shopping for clothes is definitely the most boring thing to do ever. But I’m obsessed with Quiksilver stuff, so going an extra 90 minutes out of my way to go there wasn’t a problem for me.

Then Friday and Saturday, it was all about Hersheypark! I haven’t been to this park in about ten years, so there was a lot of new stuff for me to see. It’s another perfect family park – I was really surprised at how many rides they now have.

My favorite was definitely Lightning Racer, two wooden coasters intermeshed with each other. And the park actually lets them race too! The Thunder side usually wins, but Lightning (my favorite of the two) finally came in first a few times on Saturday.

There’s also two other great wooden coasters there – Wildcat and Comet. I’ll never forget the Friday night rides on Comet as we were able to hear Bruce Springsteen playing in the nearby arena. We kept listening carefully to which song Bruce was playing hoping it wasn’t his last one as we all wanted to escape the parking lot before the sold out concert crowd did. When we heard Born To Run and then Thunder Run shortly after, I thought for sure we weren’t going to make it. But luckily, he kept going. They closed the coaster at 11pm (and yeah, I had to stay right until the end) – Bruce ended about 5 minutes later. As I left the parking lot, I heard him playing Bobby Jean – close call as that was the last song!

There’s a lot more than just wooden coasters at Hershey. Some of the other rides…