"DEREK." "PRESTON." I wish that every good television show had a writers' blog as enlightening as Grey's Anatomy's. Check out Shonda's post on last night's explosive GA.

On the whole, a magnificent conclusion to the Super Bowl extravaganza. There were only two moments I didn't like. The first was when Meredith imagined McDreamy. Just a leetle cheesy. And the second was when Yang chose that particular moment to spill the beans to McDreamy. I mean, seriously.

But don't get me wrong: while I don't want Very Special GA Episodes every sweeps period, this one was exceptionally well done. Discuss away.

WE'RE GONNA TURN IT ON, WE'RE GONNA BRING YOU THE POWER: My Best of the Electric Company DVDs arrived over the weekend. Once you get past the clothes and the hair and the unexpected boppiness of Morgan Freeman, the whole thing is pretty impressive. For those of you who by dint of parenthood are familiar with Professor Quigley and the Leap Frog videos, the Electric Company is definitely their direct predecessor. Oh, and the theme song is fantastic, especially the version from the first couple years of the show. (Even without the HEY YOU GUYS, which for reasons still unclear isn't part of most of the episodes I skimmed through.)

I remember the Electric Company as having been my favorite of the PBS trifecta (Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers being the other two, for those with 70s amnesia). That being said, I was surprised at how few sketches I specifically remembered. In many cases I could remember the concept (for example, the two silhouetted profiles saying things like "C" "UP" "CUP!" "C" "UT" "CUT!"), or had a general memory of the character without any recollection of an actual sketch (for Letterman, I remember the whole introductory sequence without being able to come up with any plot details).

One other interesting tidbit: the Electric Company's head writer was Tom Whedon, father of Joss.

MORE TRUTH PER SQUARE INCH THAN WE'VE HAD IN TWELVE YEARS: That's how James Lipton tagged Dave Chappelle's appearance tonight on Inside the Actor's Studio. If you missed it, and have been wondering after Dave since he split the set of Chappelle's Show a year ago, set your Tivos for the repeat on March 6. I was very happy to see the man, to hear his very real reservations about fame and the mechanisms by which it is generated and exploited, and to have some thin (oblique, suggested, half-hinted) insight into the issues that led him to take his leave. Also, it was funny funny funny.

OLYMPIC ROUNDUP: Just a few random Olympic thoughts, approximately 48 hours into the Games.

1. I have to confess that I miss the Soviet Gulag style of Olympic athletes, as I have during every Olympics since the USSR ceased to exist. There just isn't the same patriotic oomph as there used to be, cheering for the sunshiney torchbearers of freedom, peace, and light to knock off the Iron Curtain athletes who'd been locked away in training facilities since they'd been identified while still in diapers as potential medalists for the Motherland. And while I know that I can toss the Chinese into this category, the petite Chinese athletes just don't pack the same Central Casting punch as, say, East German swimmers.
2. What I love about the Olympics, especially the winter flavor: announcers who do a great job of educating the uneducated as to the nuance of each sport just through their commentary on each competitor. Examples from the first hour of tonight's coverage would include half-pipe snowboarding and K-95 ski jumping.
3. What I hate about the Olympics: announcers who assume that each spectator is an expert in the nuances of the sport. Example: the coverage of the pairs short program last night, in which the new scoring system was "explained" in a manner that left me pretty much as clueless as I'd been before they explained it. Also, shouldn't we all get a quickie reminder of the differences between the salchow, toe loop, axel, and flip during the first figure skating event of an Olympics so that it's not just "hey, that guy spun around a bunch of times in the air and landed cleanly, and somehow that's more impressive than that other guy's spinning around a bunch of times in the air and landing cleanly"?
4. Okay, so Michelle Kwan withdrew. Big deal. She didn't qualify in the first place, and the one thing I do understand about the new scoring system is that it was likely to hurt her anyway. Plow a runway and get that Hughes girl onto an airplane, pronto.
5. TiVo is already enhancing my Olympic experience immeasurably. I got to watch three hours of coverage this afternoon in approximately 20 minutes and so was all caught up on what happened without having to skip my appointment for a facial. Good stuff. And I didn't have to watch the men's 5000m speed skating races in real time last night. Thank God.

I NEED A SNOW DAY (HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!) Much of the readership of this blog -- and, indeed, most of its authors -- will be parked at home today as a blizzard blankets the East Coast.

This thread is open for all related topics -- how's the weather where you are? what will you be doing all day? any favorite snow songs? Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.

THE MUSEUM OF LOST SOUNDS: Great concept from Inquirer columnist Tom Ferrick: let's catalog the sounds which no longer exist in our culture:

The cracking open of aluminum ice trays. The click an eight-track tape made when it "turned over." The music made by coin returns on pay telephones. The claps and flaps made by a record changer. A needle scratching across the surface of an LP. The sound an AM radio made when you dialed between stations.

A few years ago, my youngest discovered an old portable typewriter we had tucked away, hauled it out, and began to play with it.

He was amazed at the symphony of sounds it produced: the clack of the keys, the ping of the bell, the springy slide of the carriage return, the clip-clip of the paper feed. . .

How about the sounds of an old-fashioned cash register? And I have a feeling you've got more.

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG AND MING NA: So Michelle Kwan has pulled out of the Games due to injury, opening up the slot for Emily Hughes, but first Ms. Hughes is going to have to find a way to get from NYC to Torino amid a major winter storm in the northeast United States (and practice in the meantime). Co-starring Breckin Meyer as the gutsy pilot/love interest willing to risk everything to fly her to Gold, and Amanda Bynes as The Evil Russian Skater.