It's the Golden Globes Winners Special...live from Hollywood! But with the current writers strike, I have no idea what this show will look like except for no red carpet, no stars, and no speeches. I skipped the "glib" Matt Lauer pre-awards show, because I'm watching gridiron action and highlights.

9:00: Uh-oh. This looks like it's only going to be announcements of the nominees and then the winners. Two messages at the bottom of the screen are perplexing. "Portions are pre-recorded" and "Rebroadcast of a live program". Hey, we are in the East, you idiots. I think that last message was for our Western friends. I recognize Spoon, Arcade Fire and Beck as some of the background music.

9:02: Christ. It's Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell behind a Golden Globes podium. This is gonna suck. They also have Shaun Robinson and an EW writer in a different area to give us some pre-award outlooks and post-award "assessments".

9:03: I guess they are gonna go right through the list of awards without much conversation. The first award is the Best Supporting Actress, which goes to Cate Blanchett for "I'm Not There", the Dylan movie. Unbelievably, Bush and O'Dell are gonna offer their opinions after the winner is revealed. WTF? Who cares. Just say "...and the winner is...". Oh, this is hopeless. Can't I go online and find out who won?

I continued to watch, and here some ads I noticed:

Good to see Sofia Vergara with some post-"Knights of Prosperity" work on the new Cadillac Escalade ad. I like the way she says, "Cupholders".

Bob Serpentini will do your taxes!

An odd, but funny Frisco Melt commercial from Steak N Shake.

Kid from "Weeds" is on a very special "Law and Order: SVU" this week.

"Hello Goodbuy" from Target. I think it's the same arrangement as always.

What the hell is COPD with Bronchitis? Sounds like a hip-hop duet.

Hey, the Cadillac CTS is Motor Trend Car of the Year. Who knew? Only saw that ad a 1,000 times today.

Tide Pure Essentials uses Baking Soda. And they also use "Linus and Lucy" from Charlie Brown as the music. Rats.

Gene Simmons proclaims, "I am the King of all women!".

Rare Earth's "Celebrate" is on an AT&T ad.

Beyonce still looks good.

Gee, that Applebee's Apple sounds suspiciously like Wanda Sykes. I can't wait for "Larry David. You a racist.". Seriously, why would they have Wanda do voiceovers for a while, then introduce something called the Applebee's Apple with her voice? Makes no sense.

Hey, "ER" is still on.

Meal of Links

Penn Jillette has started a venture called "Penn Says". He talks about a bunch of stuff, I guess, from time to time.

As I've said, a main argument against "Juno" is its soundtrack. And its dialogue and some other stances. I don't know, it made me laugh a lot. So there.

And you thought the Consumer Electronics Show only had 150-inch Plasma TVs. Williams-Sonoma announced the BeerTender will be available stateside come March 1.

Exercise Yard

It was a pretty good set of tackle football playoff games this weekend. Yesterday went to form as both Green Bay and New England looked really good in their wins. I thought those two teams would win. Green Bay made Seattle look pretty awful in the snow, after falling behind 14-0. You don't get many snow games at Lambeau, so that was fun to watch.

Jacksonville hung in there for a good portion of their game, but New England is so tough this year. I will say this, the drive that Jacksonville had to tie the game at 14, that was a man's drive. They just pounded the ball continually up the middle, and for a minute, I thought it might be the Browns defense out there in disguise. But Tom Brady was almost perfect and I'm really going out on a limb as I think they'll get to the Super Bowl.

Today's games show why you play the game. You had two coaches, Norv Turner at San Diego and Wade Phillips at Dallas, who could exorcise some demons with a win. I had no confidence in either the Giants or Chargers winning. I'm still puzzled at how Indianapolis did not win their game. Going in, who would have thought that it was gonna be a brutally physical game. Big-time hitting. I expected that in the second game, but not in the RCA Dome. Plus, the Bolts scored on a 56-yard screen pass. When was the last time you saw that? I'm not giving the Chargers much of a chance to go cross-country and have anything left for the Patriots.

The Dallas-New York game was pretty physical, as well. The G-Men did just enough to win, mainly playing superb defense and not turning the ball over. The turning point was right before the half after Dallas had a drive that lasted over 10 minutes to go ahead 14-7. The Giants got the ball with 48 seconds and drove for a tying TD. Stole that momentum pretty quick! In the second half, the Giants got that lone TD and hung on for the win. An outstanding effort by them. Wade Phillips still has that nagging record of having good regular seasons (this Dallas one his best), but still winless in the playoffs. They did not play well down the stretch, seemingly when Jessica Simpson arrived on the scene, but I thought they were a better team than to lose their first playoff game. Hard to figure the Giants can go on the road and win another playoff game, despite only one road loss win this year.

Next Sunday it is:

Bloody Marys to start my day.

San Diego at New England at 3:00.

New York at Green Bay at 6:30.

Visitor

None. It's a playoff football weekend.