*I kinda missed the boat on this last week, but that is the beauty of having a time frame that ends in "-ish"…the freedom to extend my week. So, James Franco is joining the cast of General Hospital and explaining it by claiming it as "performance art." No James, no it is not. It's a soap opera, the same category of show my grandmother used to tape on VHS five days a week so she didn't miss Rick Springfield and his evil twin with amnesia who probably had a serial killer for a wife. James has got to lay off the reefer.

*Did you hear Bristol Palin's BabyDaddy (yes, that hunk of a man to the right) has agreed to pose for Playgirl? I, for one, had no idea Playgirl was still around but this might be subscription time for yours truly. Because there is nothing sexier than a teenager with no real ambition who impregnated a cheerleader … wait, I think we had that guy in my high school, I could probably get him to show me his "private areas" for way less than the $19.95 a month the website membership is gonna cost me.

*If there is anything I have learned from television this week (besides the obvious life lessons that one gathers from Project Runway, One Tree Hill and The Office) it's that B-list semilebrities love pistachios way more than I do. And the National Pistachio Council (I have no idea if that's a real thing) must have gotten a huge stimulus package to pay for all these big name endorsers.

After the jump, a Girls Next Door recap, exploding implants, Death Cab meets Twilight and more…

This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.