Unless you're one of the seven people in this country currently employed full-time and therefore far away from a television set, you've probably been lounging around your apartment during the day, desultory and shiftless. Busying about in your housecoat with curlers in your hair, day-drinking lukewarm zinfandel, smoking clove cigarettes, and peripherally watching your stories, you've got the makings of a 21st century Edie Beale. You may even take a little time out to periodically prod the cat with a yard stick to get her to stop mewling. That is until yesterday. Yesterday presented a glimpse of Franco on General Hospital. That's when you busted out the catnip. So you could have a 60-minute slice of you-and-James Franco special alone time. Perhaps you even opted to heckle your TV when the camera panned away to the blonde. After a bombastic debut, the actor's reasoning for coming onto the soap suddenly seems unimportant. His arc on the soap means that you can stop feeling bad about being a shut-in and can stop seeking out more enriching pursuits. Sometimes, it's enriching enough to simply support the arts. Franco's first few moments on GH after the break.

Check out this flight simulation of US Airways Flight 1549, the plane that landed safely in New York's Hudson River by by super-cool-under-pressure Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. The audio is from the actual flight and subsequent crash landing into the Hudson, and the whole thing feels very realistic with the alternating audio from Sully and the air traffic controllers. It's OK to enjoy it! No one got hurt too bad!

Oh, look! Another flailing pop queen in distress. They're all the rage aren't they? What with their Brazilian boy-toying and their creative multitasking. Get too close and they may burn you with their fiery vitriol! Stay far away and they get needy. Yes these flailing pop queens are a fickle breed. But they, too have feelings. Like Janet Jackson, for instance -- who, between staring down some harsh truths about her late great brother and forthcoming obligations at some asinine awards ceremony, is having the worst week ever.

This had to have been the best week, like, ever for the hordes of Robert Pattinson fans out there. His New Moon media blitz is climaxing with the movie's release at midnight tonight, and Pattinson is just everywhere. The Internet should rename itself the Robertpattinsonet. Only blind people and luddites haven't seen him nervously run his fingers through that perfect hair like only he can. So how is Pattinson -- who is famously allergic to his own fame -- coping with all the, um, fame? We've scrutinized, analyzed, judged, and fawned over three of Pattinson's recent talk show appearances -- The Late Show with David Letterman, The Today Show, and Live with Regis and Kelly -- to see how the actor handles himself on camera when he's not working off a mediocre script.

Here's the great thing about Vampire Weekend's new video for "Cousins," a track off of their forthcoming album, Contra: it makes the song better. The fact that bands are even making music videos -- and good ones, as opposed to this bullshit -- makes me happy. It's a dying art (no thanks to MTV of all people, who gave it to us in the first place). So any effort put forth on this front, I can appreciate. But I'm still a little saddened by it. That doesn't mean it's not good! I've heard the album, I've got my reasons. Lemme explain. Contra spoilers, after the jump.

Cellphones can put screenwriters in a bind when it comes to horror and suspense. No sooner does Jason Voorhees dismember one measly kid than fourteen others have simultaneously called the cops and Twittered about their still-in-progress near-death experience. Since no one thus armed is ever truly alone, helpless, and at the mercy of whatever terrible thing lives in the woods, writers have to fake it. The kids have just gone “too deep” into the forest. There’s a storm. Their phones have been variously mislaid, submerged, smashed. The same bits (or is “excuses” more apt?) have been so overworked that they feel de rigeur in certain kinds of genre filmmaking. Rich Juzwiak over at VH-1 is hip to this. He’s made an hilarious, exhaustive, and what I can’t help but think was a fairly labor-intensive clip reel of such moments. After the jump.

For the last few years Katherine Heigl has been the TV star you go to if you’re looking for someone to say some wackadoo shit on the record: The first respectable movie she every appeared in? It was sexist. The TV show that got her the movie in the first place? Really badly written. That Emmy she won? Don’t you dare give her another one. That day she had to work? Way too long. But, in her defense, here’s one thing Heigl’s never done: tell a rape joke on national television. But that's exactly what Modern Family's Sofia Vergara did yesterday on The View. Move over Heigl, there’s a new loose-lipped loony in town, and she likes to say insane, self-defeating things even more than you do.

Eh, it's unlikely, but the songbird has become otherwise adept at putting up walls and keeping prying eyes from getting too close. Ideally, she'd know better than to stir up a tempest outside of a nightclub. Still, this crack in her steely foundation becomes makes us wonder what sort of fire-and-brimstone brand of madness could be swirling beneath that head of perfectly coiffed hair. Recently, perhaps after her Nokia-sponsored live gig in London, Rihanna threw a tantrum when her driver was minutes late in picking her up. Some reports indicate that she was slinging thunderbolts with no mercy, threatening to get bouncers and valets at the club fired. Others say they saw her head do a complete 360 on her neck á la The Exorcist. Some, still scarred from that night, may even say that in her eyes, they could see the smug countenance of Madonna, grinning away. The truth, while peppered with colorful quips by Rihanna, is decidedly duller.

This should serve as fair warning so next year when people are going on about, "How'd this shrill cockatoo land a record deal?" they can at least recall the moment when hip-hop king Jay-Z agreed to assist her in her bid to break America. Which is a past-time for many British pop artists. Perhaps Cheryl Cole, one-fifth of Britain's biggest girlband Girls Aloud, is more suited for American conquest as a solo performer than with the band which made her a tabloid fixture overseas. To her credit, Cole's already courted goodwill within the hip-hop scene, lending her tinny vocals to a will.i.am single -- who also executive produced her debut record. And unlike much of her band's material, Cole's solo work decidedly leans more towards a generic urban pop vibe. Which, given the success of acts like the Pussycat Dolls, shouldn't be a terribly tough sell for Jay-Z to make to the American public.

Once upon a time, well just months ago really, a small show premiered on Fox called Glee and it was just so darn promising. Fast forward about seven episodes and the once-promising musical dramedy has crumbled into a soppy morality play punctuated by embarrassing musical breaks (that you can fast forward through if you're the type who watches it online). Thankfully, there's Jane Lynch, who has been on every single television show, from Party of Five to Weeds, since time immemorial. Jane Lynch, who's really the only reason why any of us continue watching Glee. She's the only one on Glee who has yet to break into song, but as demonstrated on last night's chat with Conan O'Brien (and here, too!), she'd handle that with aplomb.