DirecTV has finally come to the on-demand table but is it too late? Supposedly it's at least as bad as the Dish Network's offering - very limited functionality, automatically sending content to a set top box with limited storage and potential delays in viewing. Friday 8:00pm The Return of Jezebel James FOX - Series Premiere. Parker Posey in a sitcom? WTF? Fox is really planning for success with this one by putting it on a......

I dunno what's up but the 10:00pm and late night slots seem to have a lot going on. Lewis Black has a new show with a new format on Comedy Central tonight and he's on Letterman as well, kudos to Lewis! 8:00pm Big Brother: 'Til Death Do You Part CBS - For you Tony. Guess what? A guest is sent home. 10:00pm South Park COMEDYCENTRAL - Season Premiere. 10:00pm Head Case STARZ - Season Finale.......

Sherman Oaks and South LA made national news yesterday when a Los Angeles native, now based in Oregon, became the latest decried author who penned a fraudulent memoir. Yes, Margaret Seltzer grew up in the Valley, no Margaret B. Jones (her non de plume) did not gangbang in South Central as her book said. Today, the fallout came in the form of experts giving quotes to the media about this reoccurring theme. What first comes......

(l-r) Caroline Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey, Maria Shriver, Maria Elena Durazo, Michelle Obama "If Barack Obama was a state," California's First Lady said, "he'd be California." The ecstatic crowd at the 3/4-full Pauley Pavilion punctuated each of Maria Shriver's follow-up descriptors with a resounding "YEAH!" "Diverse, open, smart, independent, bucks tradition. Innovative. Inspirational. Dreamer. Leader." Michelle Obama's lengthy introduction for Maria Shriver had everyone looking around. The crowd erupted when Shriver appeared (see the video......

LAist News Editor Andy Sternberg is inside the Barack Obama rally which is scheduled to kick off at 1:30 this afternoon at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus. The event will feature Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Caroline Kennedy, but will be missing Mister Obama himself. In warming up the crowd, California Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero has declared to the gathered supporters: "YOU are the real Giants and Patriots of America today!" (Get......

"LA Colors" by Adamina via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr . Good news [for democracy] Voter registration for Tuesday's election is about 700,000 higher than during the last California presidential primary four years ago. Bad news [for politicos] Some county elections officials project that roughly 20 percent of the ballots might not be tallied until Wednesday or later. Good news [for Obama] The Ill Sen. received the nod of approval from the largest......

Untitled by discarted via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr To update our avalanche story from yesterday, 3 have now been confirmed dead after the snowy storm struck near the town of Wrightwood in the San Gabriel Mountains. One missing person was located Saturday, after apparently walking out of the snow encrusted mountain. Another missing person was located Friday, but died on Saturday morning. Remember when Fred Thompson was running for president and NBC......

Los Touristas de Whittier, Winners of the Stay Puft League's Season Finals I’ve always been a worker-outer. But lately, as I’ve spent more and more time on the cardio machines at 24 Hour Fitness, I can’t shake feeling that I’m just a hamster on a wheel in a vicious human experiment. To combat my paranoia and possibly find a mentally healthier hobby, I’ve decided to scope out what else L.A. has to offer in......

OK so now Oprah wants her own network and she's going to get it. Remember that she is one of the four founders of the Oxygen Network, you know, that paragon of programming that now includes: The Bad Girls Club, Snapped, and the Oxygen Original movie Husband for Hire. Now she's distancing herself from that loathsome swamp of bad TV because of her new altruistic endeavor, the modestly named OWN (The Oprah Winfrey Network) which......

Joel McHale hosts The Soup, a celebration of the most embarrassing moments in pop culture every Friday night on E! From Tila Tequila to Yo Gabba Gabba you can count on The Soup to gather all the "best of" moments into one big pot of funny. LAist headed to the E! studios for a backstage tour, taping of the show, and one on one with the man who is not afraid to say Oprah's Va-Jay-Jay......

This weekend marks the height of the "celebrity" dog-and-pony shows for the Democrats: Hillary Clinton brought daughter Chelsea (we wondered where she was) and her momma Dorothy Rodham on the campaign trail in Iowa. And Barack Obama brought out the big gun -- Oprah Winfrey -- to Iowa and South Carolina. But Republicans have friends in Hollywood, too. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, also has his own celebrity endorsement: Chuck Norris. Yup. Walker......

Franklin Ave: photos of striking writers from Lost, Family Guy, Chuck and other shows LA Observed: Daily News gives cartoonist a blog FishbowlLA: Luke Ford is being asked to delete a blog post because it ranks high on Google. Why isn't Google being bothered? TMZ: Of the things the lawyers of Shaq's ex-wife wants the former Laker great to produce are "all reports, cancelled checks, or any other evidence of payments related to expenses......

Last minute plans? Try some culture via ExperienceLA's calendar. Or try our picks for tonight: Canon at Union Station, Pee Wee's Big Adventure at Angel City Drive-In, or Tonight in Rock. Toady, Oprah Winfrey held a swanky fundraiser for Barack Obama south of Santa Barbara expecting to raise $3-million. Hot chick boards Southwest plane, finds her seat, gets kicked off for being too sexy. The LA Triathlon is tomorrow morning. Find out if you'll......

8:00pm Going Back to New Orleans UPN/KCOP - Music icon Deacon John Moore documents the unique culture of the Big Easy. 9:00pm Against the Tide: The Battle for New Orleans CNBC - The business side of the New Orleans recovery effort. 10:00pm Still Waiting: Life After Katrina PBS/KOCE An African American/Creole family returns to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, hoping to hold on to their bayou culture. 10:00pm DIY to the Rescue: Katrina Rebuild......

It is a shame Oprah does not upload video clips to YouTube, especially important and touching ones dear to us here in Los Angeles. Such is the amazing rerun segment from last Wednesday (originally aired in April) where she brought together two men who met in an alley on an almost fateful night in WeHo: Twenty years ago, Matthew was a young teenage runaway - he now currently works as a manager at the......

- FBI Top 10 Most Wanted caught in Canada. The former Long Beach gun club president accused of child molestation - AP - 150 people in the North Hollywood Washington Mutual were evacuated by firefighters because of fumes. 11 taken to the hospital - Daily News - NBC is spinning off "Heroes" after just one season - AP - Maypole erected in front of Brentwood girls school - LAT - Researchers discover that the......

A Word Or 46: The Oscars blew its big TV wad all over the place so let's get on with our lives. The Daily Show and Colbert Report are back from hiatus -- did they think they were doing the Oscars again? What's their excuse? Lots of new TV tonight. Tonight - Monday - February 26th, 2007 Lakers @ Jazz (KCAL, 6:00 p.m.) Bobcats @ Clippers (PRIME, 7:30 p.m.) How I Met Your Mother/The......

- Oprah turns her back on abused kids, allows Bill O'Reilly to do his schtick - CityRag - if NBC really thinks that their only choices to replace Conan are Jimmy Fallon or Carson Daly, then they deserve the mocking they will certainly receive - B&C - Kimmie says the website that bears her name is a fake, and that she hearts Howard K. because Howard K. hearted Anna and Daniel. And Kimmie says......

A Word Or approx. 60: Goodbye O.C., a shame that the show is better now than it has been for the last couple seasons. Hey, who is the amazing Thai girl that was in Lost last night? Lots of new shows tonight, am going to have to order that second Tivo. Tonight - Thursday - February 22nd, 2007 Ben Hur (TCM, 5:00 p.m.) Saddle up for the long haul with this epic classic, cast......

Oprah's favorite weight loss doctors, Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz, would be proud of Los Angeles this weekend. In their most recent book, You: On A Diet, they say you should walk thirty minutes every day no matter what. "No excuses. It doesn't matter if you do this in one whole block or broken up into as many as three shorter sessions." Inspired by Franklin Ave's Wilshire Walk, Will Campbell from Metroblogging Los Angeles......

While we often find the Oprah's Book Club phenomenon to be akin to the American Idol business model in that it bumps book sales to unimaginable heights just at her mere choosing (that kind of power is a little creepy, no?), we were pleased to learn that this time around, Oprah has chosen an author unquestionably deserving. In what seems to be a pointed attempt to banish all memory of the Frey affair, Oprah has......

Just a few days left for making those New Years resolutions, and of course number one on my list is predictably to get healthy. Each year I try some new fangled diet I either read about in a magazine or watched someone talk about on Oprah, and '07 aint going to be any different people. This year I'm going to try to go the holistic, all natural approach. I’ve always considered myself a “clean......

The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. I woke up at midnight to find her bed empty. I climbed to the roof and easily spotted her blond hair like a white flame in the light......

Now that Katie Holmes has probably reached a higher Operating Thetan level, she's probably free and clear to marry Tom Cruise. Now LAist learns that the not-publicity-shy couple has set the date: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes will marry in Italy on Nov. 18, Cruise's representative, Arnold Robinson, confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday. We are a little surpised that Suri's parents aren't opting for a little more subdued affair: like a pay-per-view......

- George Bush cuts n' runs from "Stay The Course" - The Australian - Tan Nguyen stays the course in his controversial race for Congress - NBC4 - Warner Bros. cut n run from their plan to provide limbs to Africans - Defamer - Get an 80 hour Tivo with 1 year of service for just $125 - zatznotfunny - Set your Tivo to record Madonna on Oprah this Wednesday - People - Bush......

Look what the fucking cat dragged in. All five commissioners of the FCC will be at USC today and El Segundo High tonight (addresses and times after the jump) discussing media ownership. But LAist believes there's some unfinished business that the public needs to press these speech nannies on. A little more than two years ago Howard Stern, who at the time was the #1 morning radio personality here in LA was fined by......

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbq's and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder? Phillyist is concerned that the war on Trans fats could affect it's beloved cheese steak sandwiches, something for which we should all be concerned.......

NPR broadcast a story the other day about the new great white hope of the GOP: black evangelicals. It seems that many of the reverent and religious in the African-American community are paying attention to the morals and family values stressed by conservatives. Can you guess which issue (that dare not speak its name) is top on their list? Some black affinity for the GOP is understandable. Law and order would do wonders for......

Paramount Pictures announced this week that they are ending their 14-year relationship with Tom Cruise and his Cruise/Wagner production company. The relationship between Cruise's production company and Paramount disintegrated into name-calling after Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount parent company Viacom Inc., said Cruise's recent behavior, such as jumping on Oprah Winfrey's couch and pushing his Scientology agenda, was "creative suicide." Redstone said such displays cost his studio up to $150 million in lost ticket......

Female teachers who have had sex with their students, Oprah - 3pm (ABC) Channel 4 News Special - LAUSD: Battle for Control - 5pm (NBC) Dodgers @ San Diego Padres - 7pm (KCAL) Weeds "Cooking With Jesus" 7pm (Showtime) Gene Simmons Family Jewels "Food or Sex" - 7pm (A&E) "This is Paris" - the making of Paris Hilton's record - 10pm (VH-1) Prison Break, Season Premiere - 8pm (FOX) When the Levees Broke, parts......