The Sling Blog

Brian Buterbaugh says he came to New York to be famous, but the thought it would be as a rock star. Fame is a funny thing. At least 15 minutes of it finally found him when he stopped looking for it, he says. Well, he kind of did look for it when he applied to be on "Shear Genius," but whatever. His moment arrived in a form he did not expect, and he made the most of it. In fact, many people would argue he shouldn't have gone home last night, but this is a TV show and Brig brings the crazy, so she stays! But now that Brian's done, he's not holding back and playing Mr. Nice Guy like he did on the show. That means he has plenty to say about the haters, judge Jonathan Antin, Brig being a genius, and Edie Sedgwick (LOOK IT UP!). He pulls no punches after the jump.

Last night, ABC aired "Our Thanks" (above), which is definitely the "Scrubs" Season 9 finale -- and probably the finale for the series, full stop. Is it time for the show to graciously exit the stage? Or was that time actually a few years ago? Our thoughts are after the jump.

Today, as you probably know, is Sports Christmas, also known as the first day of the first round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Tournament. If you don't understand why today is Sports Christmas, I invite you to participate in an exercise: Take a walk around your office and count how many of your co-workers have blank spreadsheets open and headphones on. Or are shamelessly streaming the tournament from NCAA.com. Or are smiling and giggling to themselves with their brackets on their desks. Award each example of one of these cases a point. If, after returning to your desk, you have less than five points, congratulations! You work at the IRS. Or NPR.

But seriously, today is basically a national holiday, and it should be respected as such. Take our own Commander-in-Chief, whose bracket is above. As you can see, he doesn't like Purdue in the first round, but he's big on Cornell (Go Red). Talk about an out-of-touch elitist. He also likes Duke to go deep into the tournament, which MSNBC believes is out of loyalty to his right-hand man, former Duke player Reggie Love. That, friends, is the bracket equivalent of pork-barrel politics. But enough snark: In the spirit of Sports Christmas, this is a time for peace and love. Enjoy the games, everybody.

If you haven't heard about 2010 being The Year of Betty White, it's time to reevaluate your life, and in particular, your tendency to avoid news, and the world, and information in general. Because White (seen above) has been EVERYWHERE lately, from her cameo in "The Proposal," to her SAG Awards Acceptance Speech, to her "SNL" -hosting by popular demand, and now, her starring role on the new TV Land series, "Hot in Cleveland." Movieline.com has a clip of the show, which also stars Jane Leeves (Daphne on "Frasier"), Wendie Malick (Nina on "Just Shoot Me"; Judith on "Dream On") and Valerie Bertinelli ("Valerie Bertinelli" in "The Episode of 'Oprah' in which Mackenzie Phillips revealed her incestuous relationship with her late father and was then treated to a surprise walk-on visit from her old "One Day at a Time" co-star, Valerie). Enjoy White's formula in action: occasional rude language punctuated by irresistible adorableness. And congrats to her for landing a role on one of the last remaining sitcoms on TV; it's par for the course in what's already a year paved with gorgeous victories.

While Gawker declared the beginning of the end of the "blogger-author" model in the light of HarperStudio--a Harper Collins imprint with lots of bloggers on its roster--losing its founding publisher, Ree Drummond, founder of the blog, thepioneerwoman.com, just sold the rights to her site to Columbia Pictures. Drummond, who's also the author of a cookbook and an upcoming memoir, has used her blog to document her move to an Oklahoma cattle ranch, her marriage to a cowboy, and her love affair with her basset hound, Charlie. Reese Withersoon (above), whose first name is very similar to Drummond's, will star in the film Columbia is developing that sounds very similar to "Sweet Home Alabama," leaving only the important concern made by AwardsDaily.com columnist Sasha Stone: "Seems like a good fit, one supposes, although Ree is famously a redhead.  Will they dress up Ree —- se to look like Ree?" If so, I hope Witherspoon finds an appropriate wig! Dying her pretty blonde hair might damage it, and I'm sick of being the only one besides Stone who worries about this stuff, frankly.

If you celebrated St. Patrick's Day properly yesterday, you're still feeling it today -- and last night's special St. Patrick's Day song, performed last night by Jimmy Fallon (above), may be just the thing to keep you from hitting the hair of the dog. The rest of last night's late-night highlights are after the jump.

Earlier this week, I posed the apparently rhetorical question of whether Twitter is done being a punchline -- and I say "apparently rhetorical" because David Letterman has basically spent this week mocking the service on "The Late Show." He's done some tweeting on the show's official Twitter feed, @Late_Show, but one suspects that he is doing it under protest. Above, in a special preview for tonight's new episode, Letterman discusses the question of interacting with one's followers with guest Mindy Kaling (a.k.a. @mindykaling), an actress, writer, and now director on NBC's "The Office." But there's so much more! See all the week's Twitter mockery after the jump -- and remember, it's only Wednesday!

Can someone please explain to me what's going on in the NBC News department? First, "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams (hilariously) showed up on "30 Rock," taunting the entire CNBC newsroom by spiking a football and yelling "'Nightly' rules!" Yesterday, "Today" co-anchor Meredith Vieira told her story about being an executive producer for Hoda and Kathie Lee's fourth hour of "Today," which quickly denigrated into a glorified sorority drunkfest. And, finally, this morning, her cohort Matt Lauer took the whole gang to Medieval Times. Somewhere, my 8-year-old self is soooo jealous.

I mean, on one hand, I get it; these guys want to show their lighter sides on the air. "Today" is a morning show, after all, and compared to the Hoda and Kathie Lee portion of the program, the trip by Lauer et al to Medieval Times looks like a scholarly critique of "The Canterbury Tales." On the other hand, what the heck is going on!? Someone should probably check the brownies in the NBC News commissary...if you know what I mean. Just to be sure.

I am not proud of the fact that, as a 31-year-old adult woman, I know who Justin Bieber is. Though, to my credit, I didn't until recently, when the unmissable Youtube sensation known as "3-Year Old Crying Over Justin Bieber" came to my attention. Soon after that, Jimmy Kimmel introduced the adorable 3-year-old star of that video to the object of her nap-deprived affection, and then, all of a sudden a Tumblr blog popped up called "Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber," and before I knew it, the kid wasn't just a Twitter trending topic -- he was a celebrity I was aware of. But how did that happen? I mean, I know how I became aware of him; I just explained it to you. But how did Justin Bieber ever become famous enough for that toddler to cry over him in the first place? Just when did the universe become The Bieberverse?

In this clip from "CBS News," The Bieb himself explains to Katie Couric just how he made his ascent to fame. It turns out that he got his start on the same place I found out about him: on Youtube. Bieber uploaded some mpegs (that's webspeak for videos, LOL) onto the site, of himself singing songs, and those brought the attention of a Maury Povich producer, who approached the young man in an appropriate way. Bieber's mom, a person with sound judgement, turned "Maury" down, but her son's videos kept garnering more and more buzz until a manager named "Scooter" convinced both Justin and Mamma Bieber to sign with him, and the next thing they knew, he was flying to Atlanta, where Scooter was from, I think? And Usher wanted to sign a deal with Justin after he "was rolling up at the same time" at a record studio or something?

It's hard to understand what this 15-year-old kid is trying to say in this clip, I'll be honest with you. He's trying to sound all "Hotlanta" but he's really "Cold-nadian" (awesome diss). Anyway, if you do get a sense of just how he set the world on fire, please do let me know, because I'd like to have it in a file marked "reference." In the meantime, I'll be spending every remaining second of my waking life finding a more appropriate beau for that precious treasure of a girl who stooped to shedding a tear over Bieber. In my opinion, she can do MUCH better.

The character carousel continues on "Lost," with this week's episode focusing on Sawyer, who has been absent from the storyline since scrambling into the oceanfront cave with Other Locke four weeks ago. Presumably, Sawyer has been lying low in the jungle, waiting for guidance; why he wasn't part of the Temple siege, and where he was when all that violence was going down, are both unclear. But while Sawyer is on Team Other Locke (for the moment), he hasn't been bewitched/brainwashed/possessed like Claire and Sayid have. It's a little surprising to see Kate still in the fold with Other Locke: She witnessed his deadly warpath at the Temple and hasn't been actively indoctrinated to the dark side. Seems she's sticking around for Claire, even if her commitment and understanding of the situation are clumsily muted. In an ever-emerging "Survivor"-like structure, we're getting a whole lot of bouncing between the sides, an approach that worked out well last week with Ben Linus. This week...not as much. The full recap is after the jump.