They recently had a panel discussion at USC with the creative writers or The Office. I was hoping a LITO reader would go, but I haven’t heard from anyone yet. Luckily, the community at LiveJournal went and they found out some interesting things.

-We finally get a chance to meet Dwight’s cousin and see his beet farm!
-Jim, Michael and Dwight go to a paper convention. (I guess this means that Jim will be returning to Scranton)
-They will be shooting in location for season 3 and it will most likely be at a St. Patty’s Day parade.
-We’ll get a chance to see more of Vance of Vance Refrigeration + we’ll meet Leo and Gino, two VF employees.
-Kent Zbornak said that as of right now there are no plans for cast members from the original series to appear in the US version.
-BJ said that even though the show was in ‘real time’ there were no immediate plans to have the characters see the documentary. They ideally would not want that to happen until the last season because it would be a little too out of this world.

Do any of those excite you?

And, as if that doesn’t get us excited enough, here is another great movie from our own Becky. It’s a serious teaser for Season 3.

This weekend, I was reading the local Las Vegas paper. One of our writers, Norm, reports on all the celebrity gossip that happens in Las Vegas. (I’m always surprised at how much info he is able to find out from his “spies”.)

Anyway, he was talking about the launching of PamelaPoker.com. It’s a deal joint venture with Pamela Anderson and Doyle Brunson, the famour power player.

When I read the name ” Pam Anderson”, I instinctively said, “Pam. Pam, Pam.” like Michael does when he introduces Pam in the very first episode. (That has always stuck in my head for some reason.)

Well, to make a long story end a little quicker, I wondered what Pam’s new last name would be if she married Roy. I looked up Roy’s name on the NBC site, and wouldn’t you know it. “Roy Anderson”

That’s right. It will/should be “Pam Anderson”, Dunder Mifflin receptionist. Maybe Pam’s stint on the poker show and her bare photo were hints for her future name.

Just Kidding. We love Pam Beesley

On the official NBC website, they are currently asking for Office fans to vote for their favorite episode. They have all of the episodes listed, a chance to watch some highlights, and a field to mark you vote. The nice twist is that whatever one wins will be aired on NBC in a few weeks. (August 17th)

You can vote for your episode here. The link will open in a new window so you can come back here, tell us which episode you voted for and why.

I haven’t voted yet. It’s a real hard decision for me because I quote some episodes more, but some episodes have single scenes that are my favorite. As soon as I vote, I’ll leave a comment. Be sure to do the same.

Here are a few tidbits I’ve been collecting from folks in the last few days.

• TVGuide.com has an interesting interview with Creed. He talks about how perfectly he fits the burnt out grouchy role. You can read it here.

  (I just wrote this, but Alan sent in this awesome picture of Creed in his band. he wrote, ” It’s pretty funny that he was in a popular band way back in the 60’s. I know he left the band about halfway through their popularity, but I’m pretty sure I found a picture of him. Creed mentioned hearing his own song, “Let’s Live For Today” on the radio. This cover has that name written on it. I’m guessing that’s Creed on the lower right. He doesn’t look like he fits in. I guess he never did. )


• It looks like there will be three new additions to the Office.

  “”The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” correspondent Ed Helms and “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” alum Charles “Chip” Esten have joined NBC’s “The Office” as recurring roles. Additionally, former “Boston Public” co-star Rashida Jones has landed a potential recurring role on the quirky comedy from Reveille and NBC Universal TV Studio. Helms and Jones will play employees at the Scranton, Pa., regional office of the Dunder Mifflin paper supply company where the series is set. Esten will play Josh Porter, the regional manager at another branch of Dunder Mifflin. Esten originated the character in a guest appearance in the “Valentine’s Day” episode this past season.” (source)

  And maybe Carrol Burnett in a guest spot? She asked for it here. It looks like we’ll be adding more to our character profiles soon.

• Rain was recently in Wired and now he has an interview in Maxim. With those two magazines, do you think he’s trying to focus on men from 18 to 30?

Thanks to everyone for the tips.

After a couple comments on yesterday’s webisode post, and then seeing a real episode last night on TV, I realized how much I miss the real Office episodes and how I’m ready to have them back again.

So, since we haven’t had a haiku contest (and I’ve had 5 emails in the last two weeks asking for another one), I thought this would be a great topic.

Write about how you miss the Office episodes, how the webisodes aren’t cutting it (no offense to the writers and actors), how it’s been since they stopped airing, what you think about reruns, whatever you want.

(For the new folks, a Haiku is a “Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons.” So basically, you have to have three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables and they don’t have to rhyme. Of course, instead of nature or season, we are going to write about how we miss The Office and how we’re ready for it to come back.)

Let the poetic mourning begin.

NBC has posted the newest webisode. (This one is #4 if you’re counting.) This time they interview Stanley and he’s quite funny.

My laugh out loud moment was Kevin looking into the camera serious and taunting, “The joke’s on you, Angela.”

The webisode is here…and it seems to work just fine this time.

(On a side note, that FedEx commercial that plays before the webisode is great. “Jerome, I need you to continue talking a big game and then doing nothing.” “Let’s do it.”)

LITO reader Mark was reading thru a recent issue of Wired Magazine and saw a little sidebar article about Dwight. It was titled “Suck Up To Your Boss.” Mark was kind enough to scan it and up it to his blog. (I reposted it below because I wasn’t able to link directly to the post about it.)

They interviewed Rainn as Rainn and not Dwight, but this reminds me of something I’ve thought for a while. It’s real hard to get the character of Dwight to come across right on paper. As I read thru what is supposed to be Dwight’s Blog on NBC, I just don’t think it’s quite as funny as the real Dwight character. But, maybe that’s just me.

Well here’s a fun little way to customize your Mac and show your love for The Office.

A good friend of mine named Alan (the same one that spotted the Office cast in Arrested Development) took the time to make some really great icons of The Office characters. He recently sent me a disk image full of them. He uses these as the icons of different Office episodes on his Mac.

I thought that it would be a fun idea to use these Office icons as the icons of Microsoft Office. It’s an easy change to make.

1) You’ll want to download the icons here. It will be full of nice icons.

2) Once you have the disk image mounted, you can select whichever icon you want to use. Once selected, choose “Edit -> Copy” in Finder.

3) Decide which application icon you’d like to change. Highlight that application in Finder and press “Command - i” to get more info.

4) In the “Info” window, you’ll see the icon in the top left hand corner. Click on that icon so it is highlighted in blue. Once highlighted, select “Edit -> Paste”.

And there you have it. Here is a picture of the gang in my dock.

In my dock I opted to go with Dwight as Micrsoft Excel, due to his exacting personality. Powerpoint has become Michael, the ever trying showman. Word has become Jim, a platform for creativity. And Entourage is Pam, the one that keeps everything organized. ( I don’t have Messenger on my Mac, otherwise that would have been Ryan the temp since he’s Michael’s errand boy.)

Do you think I got these right? Who would you have as what? (The disk image has more than just these five people.)

PS, if you want to use these icons on a folder, that is an easy thing to do as well. Use the freeware called FinderIconCM and it’s simple. Here is a picture of the folder that holds my Office episodes.

A while back, I mentioned that LITO reader Clint was putting together an Office drinking game and he wanted your help. Well, with that help, he has created the Offical Office Drinking Game. I will include the game below.

As I said before, I’m not a drinker. But, I will be interested to see how each of the new episodes score. As the new season starts up, we’ll have Clint write in after each episode to let us know what the total count was for that show. Also, if any of you go back and watch some old episodes, put the episode total in this comment section of this post. That’d be interesting to know.

And now, tha official game rules:

Alright!! We have a final list. I decided to give the thread a few weeks to marinate and it looks like all the comments that were gonna come in have come in. Everyone’s feedback was awesome, but there was just too many to use them all. I did make adjustments to some that I did choose from LITO readers but nothing was drastically altered. I decided 20 rules was a good round number. You know, not too many to remember and not too little to NOT have fun. So without further ado. (In my best enthusiastic Michael Scott voice) “Leave all your preconceived notions of drinking games at the door; I Clint Haller present to you The OFFICIAL “The Office on NBC” DRINKING GAME:
_______________________________________________
THE OFFICE on NBC Drinking Game (OFFICIAL RULES)

Created by Clint Haller (cptsolo@hotmail.com), John Corliss, Brenden Conway, and the readers of the Life In the Office website

ONE drink for the theme song (just because it rocks!)
ONE drink if a Dundie is mentioned or seen (including title sequence)
ONE drink if someone says “question” before asking a question
ONE drink every time Pam says “Dunder Mifflin this is Pam”
ONE drink for every time Jim gives the camera that look he has.
ONE drink if the Homer Simpson doll is in frame
ONE drink every time downsizing is mentioned.
ONE drink everytime Dwight makes a Lord of the Rings reference.
ONE drink when Michael makes a joke or a play on words with an employees’ name
ONE drink anytime Dwight’s bobbleheads are in a shot, TWO drinks if it is THE Dwight Bobblehead
TWO drinks for Meredith’s alcohol traits (and you gotta ‘cheers’ to her as well)
TWO drinks for “Bob Vance from Vance Refrigeration.”
TWO drinks for “that’s what she said”, no matter who says it
TWO drinks when the office is referred to as “The Orifice”
TWO drinks if Michael makes an INACCURATE reference
THREE drinks if Michael makes an ACCURATE reference
THREE drinks for a Saturday Night Live reference (there’s lots of them.Former cast members included and Conan[he was a writer])
THREE drinks for a Todd Packer appearance__TWO for a phone call___ONE for a mention (he’s SNL too, so an appearance is FOUR drinks total!)
THREE drinks whenever Dwight mentions beets or his beet farm
FOUR drinks when we see Michael & Jan kissing (we have three total incl.flashback,but more may come)

A few days ago, I mentioned that Jenna would pose for Jane Magazine. She would also donate a dress to the Clothes Off Your Back Foundation so they could auction it and donate the money to charity.

The Clothes Off Your Back Foundation got a hold of me last night to let me know that the auction has begun. Jenna has donated the dress that she wore to the NBC 2006 Winter TCA party. The bidding is already up to $400 and the money will “benefit the Children’s Defense Fund, Cure Autism Now and emergency relief efforts in Darfur.”

I don’t think I’ll bid because I can’t squeeze into a size 2…and I’m a boy. But, you can bid on the dress here