Every day bring another promise of an announcement of the resolution of Conan O’Brien’s departure from The Tonight Show, and as the day closes, it doesn’t happen.  Wednesday was no exception to this rule.

The good news is that The Hollywood Reporter is stating that it really is down to just the severance pay for his staff that is the hold up, and that is expected to be resolved by some time on Thursday.

In other news, the rumors that the Fox network is ready to talk to Mr. O’Brien about giving him a brand new show in the fall have picked up steam as his ratings have surged this week on The Tonight Show.  While some of the viewing is out of curiosity, some of it also you can tell the host is reveling in his status of “dead man walking.”  His comedy has been laser sharp, quick witted, beautifully delivered and devastatingly cutting.  NBC executives have to be dying to get this man off the air.

So, if Fox does come calling, my gut tells me it is going to be this Conan O’Brien they are looking for, not the one we’ve had for the last seven months.  This version of Conan has huge potential if he can keep it up.

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

In this episode, Steven and I discuss that we are made of money.  Well, that seems to be the attitude of companies everywhere as they try to set up subscription service after subscription service to nickel and dime us all to death.  Somehow old media is getting the business on the Internet all wrong, and are floundering around for a solution which in the mean time is annoying your average user. (links by Steven)

Bankruptcy by a thousand subscriptions – The Inquisitr
How To: Save Up To $600 a Month on Cable and Mobile Costs – SiliconAngle
What Ever Happened To TV Guide? – TechnoBuffalo

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

While we all wait for the final news on what is happening to Conan O’Brien, one thing is certain in that NBC will have a programming void where The Jay Leno Show was. It turns out this is good news for some NBC series.

Variety is reporting that NBC has placed orders for additional episodes of some series to fill the 10:00 pm EST void that the network will soon be dealing with.  Trauma, Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU will each be getting two more episodes each, which in the case of Trauma is major news since it was in danger of cancellation.

On the comedy side, Community will get three additional episodes while Parks & Rec has picked up two more.  30 Rock and The Office already had ordered for more than the traditional 22 episodes that make up a season.

Of course the question now is if anyone will even bother tuning into the episodes on a network that is securely in fourth place?

Sarah L. Tolzien, a former English teacher and cross country coach at Rich South High School in Richton Park, IL, has been sued over the affair she had with a then 16-year-old student.

This is a new twist to the teacher student sex scandals.  Last March I brought you the story of Sarah L. Tolzien who had been accused of having sex twice in Nov. 2008 while she was an English teach and cross country coach.  The accusation was that she had twice given a member of the boy’s cross country team a ride home and reportedly had sex with him.  At the time Ms. Tolzien was 24-years-old, and the student was 16.  In Dec. 2008 Ms. Tolzien resigned from the school district after being put on administrative leave.

The Chicago Sun-Times is now reporting that on Tuesday the boy filed suit as “John Doe” in the Cook County Circuit, seeking at least $50,000 from the Rich Township High School District 227 and former teacher Ms. Tolzien.  The damages are being sought for “intentional infliction of severe emotional distress.”

Neither Ms. Tolzien or the school district have chosen to comment on the lawsuit.

This is the first I have ever heard of such an occurrence in one of these cases, but if he’s successful, I highly doubt it will be the last time.

UPDATE 05/01/10: Sarah L. Tolzien Sentenced

Another day where we were supposed to get a resolution to the NBC vs. Conan O’Brien fight has come and gone with no word.

The big rumor floating around is that the last sticking point is over how much of a severance package is paid to the staff that followed Conan from New York City to Los Anageles.  Sources have told TMZ that Conan is trying to take care of his staff, while NBC execs say he is posturing to make himself look good.

No matter what the real story is (I tend to discredit the “posturing” comment), Mr. O’Brien has dropped hint after hint that this Friday will be his last show.  There is no word yet on what he will go off and do, but considering he is rumored to be getting $34.5 million, does he really need to do much of anything?

So, here we are entering into another day of a possible resolution.  Hopefully it will actually come out today, but we shall see.

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

In this episode, Steven and I discuss our favorite subject … TWITTER!

- For some weird reason, Loren Feldman (@1938media) has declared open Twitter war on Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer).  I’m not Scoble’s biggest fan, but yikes!

- I go off on a rant about how 3.5% per month growth rate is still impressive by any measure.

- Bill Gates (@billgates) is now on Twitter … even money says all he discusses will be charity work.

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

Get ready for Fox to screw up yet another British show … and since it is also sci-fi, they have the potential of doubly screwing it up.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox has bought the rights to the Doctor Who spin-off series, Torchwood.  For those unfamiliar with the series, it follows a group of humans who handle alien incursions on Earth: sometimes they just need to help the aliens, sometimes they have to fight them, it varies from week to week.

Created by Russell Davies, the man responsible for the most recent Doctor Who reboot, the series has now been optioned by the Fox network in conjunction with BBC Worldwide.  Mr. Davies has been tapped to write the script for the pilot episode, and producers Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter who worked on the British version are also set to be involved.  The most intriguing piece of the puzzle is the possibility that John Barrowman, who plays team leader Capt. Jack Harkness, could possibly be involved also.

While there are a lot of promising aspects to this announcement … it’s Fox.  Fox has a track record of messing up British imports (where’s that Absolutely Fabulous remake they were so happy about?), but they have an even longer track record of messing up sci-fi shows.  Firefly?  Dollhouse? The list is nearly endless.  If this show comes together, they’ll stick it in the Friday night wasteland and we’ll get a couple of episodes before they give it the kiss off like they always seem to do.

How about you just air the British episodes and leave it alone?  I know, such a radical concept on my part!

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

In this episode, Steven and I discuss how a joke on Twitter can get you arrested as a terrorist, and this leads us the worrying growth of police powers and how we are heading to a police state that (so far) lacks jackbooted stormtroopers.

Finally, we discuss the power of social media, and Twitter specifically, and how it may have lead to the record breaking donations we see going to the Haiti relief effort. (links by Steven)

Facebooks Privacy Changes Help To Criminalize Us All – Paul O’Flaherty
Chicago Transit Authority urges commuters to report photographers – Carlos Miller

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

Every time it looks like the whole Conan O’Brien war with NBC is about to come to an end, something new drags it out even longer.

On very early Saturday, I reported that it looked like Mr. O’Brien and NBC were within reach of a settlement, and that it might even be reported that day, but here we are two days later and still nothing.  Well, it appears it may be the fault of the Masturbating Bear.

Yes … you read that right.

It seems that NBC has the intellectual property rights to all the characters created by Conan O’Brien and his writers while working at the network.  This means that Mr. O’Brien may not be allowed to take characters such as the Masturbating Bear, Pimpbot 5000 and more with him.  The only character that may not belong to NBC, and probably the most important, is Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.  He was brought on to the show, and is therefore not part of the deal.

The rumor now is that NBC may be trading Conan all of the characters for his silence in regards to attacking the network after he leaves.  However, considering Mr. O’Brien addressed this rumor in Monday night’s opening monologue of The Tonight Show by singing a song about NBC executives being morons, it seems safe to say that this rumor is not true.

The Hollywood Reporter has now said that we should learn the final settlement on Tuesday, but considering the tone of Mr. O’Brien’s jokes on Monday night, there is no longer any doubt that he is leaving the show, it is only a matter of how much he will be paid.

All that is left at this point is to learn where the comedian will end up next.

The Golden Globe winners for 2010 have been announce.

The Golden Globes is one of the few awards that acknowledges excellence in both television and film, and tends to be more relaxed than the Academy Awards. However, even if the relaxed attitude, the awards are considered a precursor to some of the things we will see from the Oscars.

Here is the full list, in the order they were presented.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
MO’NIQUE PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
TONI COLLETTE UNITED STATES OF TARA

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
JOHN LITHGOW DEXTER

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
UP

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
MICHAEL C. HALL DEXTER

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
JULIANNA MARGULIES THE GOOD WIFE

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE
“THE WEARY KIND (THEME FROM CRAZY HEART)” — CRAZY HEART
Music & Lyrics by: Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE
MICHAEL GIACCHINO UP

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
GREY GARDENS (HBO)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
MERYL STREEP JULIE & JULIA

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
KEVIN BACON TAKING CHANCE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
DREW BARRYMORE GREY GARDENS

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
JASON REITMAN, UP IN THE AIR

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
ALEC BALDWIN 30 ROCK

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
THE WHITE RIBBON (GERMANY)

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
MAD MEN (AMC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
CHLOË SEVIGNY BIG LOVE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
CHRISTOPH WALTZ INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

CECIL B. DEMILLE AWARD
Martin Scorsese

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
JAMES CAMERON AVATAR

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
GLEE (FOX)

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
THE HANGOVER

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
SANDRA BULLOCK THE BLIND SIDE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. SHERLOCK HOLMES

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
JEFF BRIDGES CRAZY HEART

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
AVATAR

You can still see the full list of Golden Globe Nominations 2010 if you are interested to see who lost.

An even 51 posts this week.

FunJug.com

• Greenport Peter Pan Fiasco
• Kid Slaps A Man For Dating His Mom & Eating His Doritos!

Photo.BLORGE.com

• Eye-Fi introduces new “Endless Memory” mode to its memory cards
• BenQ announces 12 megapixel W1220

RememberingChristmas.com

• Preparing For Christmas All Year Long With Your Christmas Closet

SeanPAune.com

• Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen Review
• NBC Officially Cancels Leno At 10PM
• Spider-Man 4 Canceled; Franchise Reboot Planned
• Marvel And Jack Kirby’s Family Go To War
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: Please Microsoft save us from a Facebook-Google world
• Buffy Season 8: Willow One-Shot
• Conan O’Brien Refusing To Delay The Tonight Show
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: Get a grip Google smack talk isn’t about China’s censorship
• Peter Sarsgaard Cast As Hector Hammond In Green Lantern
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: Facebook & McAfee up in a tree K.I.S.S.I.N.G.
• Pat Robertson Haiti Comments
• Rumor: Jay Leno Restored As Tonight Show Host
• Scattercast Episode 78: True Story
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: Louis goes for a boinking network, Leo shows hip hop love
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: Social Media is all about a shift in power
• NBC And Conan O’Brien Within Reach Of Settlement

StarterTech.com

• Netflix Sees 20 More Years Of Physical DVDs
• Google Learns Difficult Lessons Of Retails Sales With Nexus One
• Continental Testing Free E-Mail On Its Planes
• Google Docs Adds File Storage
• I’m With COCO Image Taking Over Facebook
• Never Trust A Text Message About Your Bank Account
• AT&T And Verizon Lowering Unlimited Calling Rates

Tech.BLORGE.com

• Palm CEO claims to have never used an iPhone
• T-Mobile admits to Nexus One 3G problems
• France Télécom confirms Apple Tablet only to have PR division backtrack
• Canceling your Nexus One contract could cost you $550
• Google Docs adding file storage
• Netflix officially coming to the Nintendo Wii
• Modern Warfare 2 surpasses $1 billion in sales
• Analyst claims iPhone with improved camera may be out by June
• Blippy credit card tracking service opens to the public
• Gawker outwits Apple and gets them to confirm the Apple Tablet
• Yahoo continues to lose share of search engine market
• McDonalds begins offering free Wi-Fi at most locations

TechnoBuffalo.com

• Why Did 802.11n Wi-Fi Take So Long To Ratify?
• What Happened To Wireless USB?
• Does THX Certification Matter?
• Looking Back At The First Android Announcement
• Will Cell Phone Projectors Be Standard In The Future?
• Are You Ready For 3D Eye Strain?
• When Will We Finally Have a Standardized Memory Format?
• Blippy Has To Be One Of The Worst Ideas Ever In Social Media
• What Ever Happened To TV Guide?
• New Google Docs Features That You Should Try

Windows.BLORGE.com

• Top 40 best free Windows 7 utilities

It looks like the NBC war with Conan O’Brien war is coming to close with a compromise.

Under the original terms of the agreement, Mr. O’Brien should have received $60 million in penalties for losing The Tonight Show, but due to a failure to have a clause in there for a guarantee of the time slot, both parties had each other over a barrel.  NBC wants Conan out so it can restore Jay Leno to The Tonight Show; Conan wants out, but with the ability to work else where without NBC executing its “no compete” clause which would have kept him off TV for the next three and a half years.

According to Nikki Finke, NBC and O’Brien’s team negotiated all day Friday, and should finalize a deal on Saturday.  The current version calls for O’Brien to receive the following:

• Between $25 – $40 million settlement
• They will not execute the no compete clause
• NBC will help the staff that moved from the New York show to the LA show
• Conan’s last show would be Jan. 22nd
• Jay would return to The Tonight Show on March 1st

None of this is official yet, but it is sure looking like it.  The deal is expected to be announced some time on Saturday, with the hopes of NBC being that this will finally end the bad PR the network has been receiving over this.

… seriously, they think this?

What I hate to inform NBC is that if Jan. 22nd really is Conan’s last episode, he will control the media for this week.  He will then control it the following week as he makes talk show visits and everyone speculates over what he will do for work next.

Then, when Jay takes the show back over, Conan’s name will be all over the press again as people put Jay’s return to the show into context of the events that led to this.

NBC has no one but themselves to blame in all of this, and they just need to get used to that idea real quick.  This is not going away any time soon no matter how much them may wish it would.  And some of us won’t ever forget it … believe me.