The Internet is about 55% composed of people talking about what was on TV last night. That’s fun! But you can’t read everything, and that’s a whole lot of Internet. Besides, there’s no point in reading things about TV shows written by people who are less smart than you. You would like them to bring something to the conversation you are already having! Truth be told, the age of excellent TV recapping may be drawing to a close. When “Lost” shuttered, leaving EW’s Doc Jensen with little purpose in life, so too did TV recapping enter a bit of a funk. But still, there is real talent out there! For seven of the most popular shows on TV, here are the best recappers that you can even be proud to read.

Read the rest here.

(Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor, in this case Intel: My Life Scoop; advertisers do not produce the content.)

Qaddafi seized control of Libya when he was 27! When I was 27, all I was seizing control of was myself.Thu Feb 24 15:46:19 via web

Tim Long
mrtimlong

Sometimes I unfollow him because he’s Canadian. But then I remember that he was a factchecker at Spy (a factchecker at Spy!) and has written some very good episodes of “The Simpsons.” Also he hates Jay Leno, so.

Currently on inflight entertainment: Leno doing headlines. No one watching except a baby, who screams with a pain he has no words for.Fri Feb 18 21:17:15 via web

Tim Long
mrtimlong

(Previously)

Here’s a list of 10 things turning 20 and 10 things turning 40 this year. As there is no designation for things turning 30 this year, here’s 10 of ’em: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sonic Youth, Stripes, “Super Freak,” The Road Warrior, Metallica, Polyester, “Tempted,” A Light in the Attic and “The Smurfs” cartoon. You will feel young or old accordingly.

by Awl Sponsors

Enter Your Plan to Win $100K to Finally Do What You Love

Got a big plan but just can’t seem to find the time and resources to actually do something about it? We’re here to help.

1) Tell us your life’s ambition and your big plan to put it into action, in 400 characters or less. You’ve got until 3/15/11 to enter.

2) Get all your friends and relatives and friends of relatives to vote for your plan.

3) Get enough votes and we might just give you $100K to chase your dream.

Watch this video and all will be made clear.

by Eric Spiegelman

Al Jazeera is putting every American news channel to shame with its amazing coverage of the revolutions across the Middle East. But most cable systems in this country won’t carry it! If you live in Toledo, Ohio, or Burlington, Vermont, or Washington D.C., you might have it. The rest of us are out of luck.

Unless, of course, you own a Roku or Google TV. These are two of the several new set-top boxes that deliver programming to your television set via the Internet. Others include Apple TV and Boxee, and even Playstations and XBoxes can do this now. All of these allow you to watch Netflix streaming and Amazon video-on-demand. But only Roku and Google TV allow you to watch Al Jazeera.

Let’s start with Roku, which this website evangelized earlier this week.

Step 1: Buy a Roku box. You want either the $80 or $100 one.

Step 2: Install your Roku. It’s pretty easy. Admire the tiny, minimalist remote control. You will lose this remote more often than any other remote you’ve ever lost.

Step 3: Once your Roku is up and running, you’ll see a Channel Store button on the home page. Go there and seek out the Newscaster channel. Click to install it on your home screen. I bet you can figure out which button on the remote takes you back to the home screen! That’s called “intuitive design.”

Step 4: Fire up the Newscaster channel and select Al Jazeera.

Voila! Al Jazeera, asking the questions that surely must plague CNN.

The picture quality is kind of crappy. Heavily compressed, with a lot of those little pixelated boxes we’ve come to associate with low-resolution YouTube videos. One moment it’s sharp and then it’s not. Newscaster isn’t the best, but it’s okay.

If you have a Google TV, however, you can watch Al Jazeera stream in beautiful 720p HD. But getting the station to play on that device is a slightly different process.

Step 1: Buy a Google TV box. This is actually the most difficult step, since it costs $300. Ouch.

Step 2: Install your Google TV. It’s pretty easy. Calm your anxieties about the giant and unwieldy remote control that looks like a keyboard. So many buttons! And that thing in the corner — it’s a trackpad. You don’t want that, but you’ll need it.

Step 3: Once Google TV is up and running, hit the button that looks like a magnifying glass. A search box will open, superimposed on top of whatever regular old cable channel is playing.

Step 4: Type “al jazeera live stream” into the search box, then click on “Search the web” with your little remote control trackpad. So innovative, that trackpad. And tiny. Too tiny. Innovative mixed with a dash of annoying.

You could also select the livestation.com link, but that site charges for the HD stream, and the Al Jazeera website provides it for free.

Step 5: Google search results! You know how to use those. Click the link for the Al Jazeera live stream website. I probably don’t have to tell you that. But this is a television set! It’s like learning to Internet all over again. Now you know how grandma felt with that WebTV box you bought her for Christmas in 1996.

You also could have just entered the URL in that search box earlier and gone right to the website, like in the old days before there were search engines. But we are not savages.

Navigate the screen with the trackpad, click play on the embedded video player, and then click the fullscreen button. Voila! Al Jazeera in crystal clear HD, right there on your television.

A couple questions, I’m sure.

Couldn’t this be made easier? Probably! Al Jazeera actually has a website that’s optimized for Google TV, one you can operate with the arrow keys on your remote, instead of the trackpad, but for whatever reason this optimized website doesn’t include the live stream of the channel.

What happens if you want to change the channel and watch normal TV? Go ahead. You can bookmark the Al Jazeera page on the Google TV home screen and just select that later. But you’ll have to go through the whole rigamarole of clicking play and then fullscreen when you want to watch again.

Couldn’t you just hook your laptop up to the television set with a cord? Yes, but that’s ghetto.

So there you have it. This is what the beta version of the future of television looks like. And an example of how people can get to something they want to watch regardless of whether their cable provider allows them to see it.

Eric Spiegelman is a proprietor of Old Jews Telling Jokes.

Drinking bitter-tasting things will make you mean, says Science, especially if you are conservative (and thus mean to start with).

Last month, while I was making a friend a mixtape of my favorite 50 rap songs, I knew that I was bound to want to kick myself after sending it to him (and, foolhardily, publishing the list here) because I was surely forgetting something. I was proven right later that very week, when I saw that Awl contributor Willy Staley (who had censured me for including so few Californian rap songs on my list) had made his own list, “The 50 Greatest Bay Area Rap Songs,” for Complex.com. Sure enough, right there at no. 1, deservedly, was “I Got 5 On It,” by the Oakland duo Luniz — a tremendously great song, one I definitely would have on my list, but one that had totally slipped my mind. Now, as if to rub salt on my neurotic, self-inflicted wound, Complex offers another great Bay Area rap slide show: “Rap Atlas: Oakland.” It’s a much fun — full of music and information, and very easily to get lost in for an hour of your day. Best (or worst) of all, it’s the first in a series. So I’m sure I’ll be reminded of lots of other songs I’ll rue leaving off my stupid list.

“He took 11 bullets and lost a leg in Iraq, defending the right of silver-spoon scum at Columbia University to heckle and laugh in his face. Former Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Maschek was treated shamefully by a mob of soft-palmed slime as he appeared last week at a town-hall meeting, urging the return of ROTC to campus. This is conduct unbecoming human beings.”

I think the contestant should choose bachelor no. 1. Because he likes good food and he’s obviously not hung up on societally prescribed gender roles.

I have been telling you this all along: exercise is no good for you.

In a new sliding scale of everyday risks that prove the ‘final straw’ in bringing on a heart attack, spending time in traffic — as a driver, cyclist or commuter — tops the list because of factors including stress and exposure to pollution. But of these, cyclists are in greatest danger because they are more heavily exposed to pollution and are subjecting themselves to another major heart attack trigger, exercise.

See, not only will bicycling turn you into a narcissistic prick teeming with self-righteousness and an inability to shut up about how much you’re helping the environment, but it will also kill you. Although I guess that is the kind of self-selecting behavior I am in favor of.