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We're well aware that "spoilers" for virtually every award handed out during tonight's Emmys telecast are readily available on these internets, but we've avoided ruining what we're sure will be a evening of amazing surprises by checking news sites or watching the east coast feed. Join us, if you will, in submitting to the Fox network's tape-delay illusion that we're experiencing Emmy magic as it happens.

Here we go! As always, new entries will appear at the top, so refresh constantly for updates:

11:09: Well, at least we get to leave on a Sopranos win for Best Drama. We probably would have had to disembowel ourselves with a rusty pasta fork had Grey's or Boston Legal pulled yet another upset.

We apologize for anything we typed after about 9:28 pm. That's when the double-vision started to kick in, and the realization the show wasn't going to get any better really hit us. See you tomorrow, when we'll all relive this fresh hell together!

11:02: On the other hand, they might have gotten something right in handing an Emmy to 30 Rock. Tina Fey gave a cute enough speech, but we were hoping Tracy Morgan might have gotten a chance to shout incomprehensibly into the mic and then strip off his shirt, threatening to impregnate every lady in the audience. Maybe next year.

10:56: We're not sure, but did James Spader just beat James Gandolfini? Did that really just happen? To his credit, in his one reaction shot, Gandolfini shows no signs of wanting to strangle Spader. We're in shock. What's next, an announcement that Two and a Half Men has been moved into the drama category, where it's won over The Sopranos?

10:53: America Ferrera wins as lead actress in a comedy for Ugly Betty; if you blinked you may have missed it, but behind loser Mary Louise Parker, Weeds co-star Elizabeth Perkins gives adorable America a death-stare that could kill a basket of puppies.

10:43: Dear TV Academy: Would it have fucking killed you to give Edie Falco the Emmy this year? Has anyone told you they're not making any new Sopranos episodes, so you can't say, "Eh, we'll get her next time" anymore? Haven't we had enough of Sally Field and her cute speeches?

Also, why did you just cut to that sparkly globe hanging from the ceiling again? Did it have something to do with Fields' saying "goddamn"?

10:39: Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart decided to award absentee winner Ricky Gervais' Lead Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy to "our friend Steve Carrell," a runner-up in the category. Dancing, jubilation, and fist-pumping ensue. It only took 2:41, but this Emmys telecast has finally made us laugh. Perhaps we're not dead inside after all!

10:37: Says Stephen Colbert in response to Jon Stewart's proposal for the cessation of wasteful awards shows, "If entertainers stop publicly congratulating each other, then the earth wins."

10:28: Following some undeniable rap-off chemistry, a Rainn Wilson/Kanye West buddy flick is put into development by New Line.

10:23: Does Wayne Brady have to choke a host-bitch dressed as Henry VIII who won't get the fuck off his stage when it's his time to lead a comedy bit with Rainn Wilson and Kanye West?

10:18: Here's a handy guide for deciphering The Office's Greg Daniels' "The Little Red Hen" acceptance speech.

10:12: Elaine Stritch has just tucked this show away in her purse like a plate of uneaten wedding reception hors' dourves and stolen off into the night.

10:08: Brad Garrett offers two minutes on 'Til Death' co-star Joely Fisher's jaw-droppingly displayed rack, cleavage so spectacular that a reaction shot to Charlie Sheen shows interest even though Fisher's not wearing a cheerleader costume.

10:02: Seacrest attempts to open a two-set of Tony "Paulie Walnuts" Serico and an enormous, red-faced man with a mild neg about Sirico's alleged shanking of seat-fillers, but is quickly shut down. Disgraced, Seacrest disappears into the audience, feeling more AFC than PUA.


9:55: Seacrest is secure enough in his oft-debated heterosexuality to joke that Danny Pino, star of a show we've already forgotten—is Without A Cold Case a show?—looks "arresting and also quite hot." He does not, however, try to guess the designer of Pino's shoes, as much as he might like to.

9:49: For reasons we won't pretend to understand, recent Oscar winner Helen Mirren actually showed up to collect some second-tier awards hardware. (She's just classy that way, we suppose.) And yes: She's looking just as doable as ever, even when slumming with the TV folks.

9:43: Ladies and gentlemen, the cast of the Sopranos! All of them! Even Bogdanovich! Just standing on stage! Aren't they supposed to hold back this moment for when they win Best Drama? Or is this the producers' way of telling us that this is Grey's Anatomy's year? Oh, please, baby Jesus, let this not be Grey's Anatomy's year.

9:37: TV superproducer Dick Wolf takes a moment during his acceptance speech for "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" Best Made for TV Movie award to thank his very pregnant wife for not going into labor, slyly letting us know that his boys are still swimmin'.

9:35: Right about now we really need to spend a moment with a monkey nuzzling a pigeon.

9:28: Dick Askin.

9:25: Jon Stewart, never afraid to speak truth to power, comes out firmly against the utterly ill-advised theater-in-the-round set-up, telling the audience members who've had a view of nothing but well-dressed asses that they'll get to see some faces next year. Somewhere, the production designer finally realizes that he forgot to include the rotating stage element in his blueprints, a tragic oversight that will haunt him the rest of his days.

9:22: It has occurred to us that these might be the most boring Emmys of all time. We need to drink more if we're going to make it another 90 minutes. So much more.

9:14: ...and the second Sopranos win goes to David Chase for writing "Made in America," perhaps the most-debated hour of television of all time. (We think Tony lived! There, we said it.) Mercifully, the puckish Emmys producing team doesn't cut to black in the middle of this speech, as they already burned that gag in the Family Guy's opening musical number. But we were a little disappointed that they didn't swell some "Don't Stop Believin'" when Chase started to go long.

9:11: The first Sopranos win of the evening goes to Alan Taylor, for Directing in a Drama Series. The shutout is over.

9:08: And the Emmy For Possible Senior-Moment-Fueled Acceptance Speech Rambling goes to...Robert Duvall, for his second Broken Trail award of the evening.

9:03: The giants of Roots are assembled onstage for a tribute, but LeVar Burton towers above them all.

Other Roots players of note not in attendance due to previous personal commitments: OJ Simspon.

8:57: The Emmys haz a blogspotter! And he's looking at naked Vanessa Hudgens pics! LOLCrest!

8:55: Alec Baldwin has killed a cater waiter and stolen his uniform, probably because the impudent server mistakenly thought he could get away with a "rude, thoughtless little pig" joke after they shared a couple of backstage cocktails.

8:50: Seacrest talking about the "Green Emmys" (apparently, forgoing a real host has significantly reduced the event's carbon footprint) + introduction of musical pairing of Tony Bennett and Chistina Aguilera = first bathroom break of the evening.

8:43: Redemption for Katherine Heigl's mom: she apparently had faith that Conan O'Brien's writing team would come away with the Emmy. This makes her lack of support for her talented daughter all the more upsetting.

Honorable mention to the staff of Bill Maher's show for executing the first "homosexual encounters in an airport men's room" gag of the evening. There will be more, we're sure of it.

8:39: Hei-jel victorious! She's already forgotten about the mangling of her name, but not about the fact that her mother is an unsupportive bitch who thought she'd never be a winner. Put away the wire hangers, mom, your little girl's made TV history.

OK, The Sopranos nominees are 0-for-3. This is a travesty. Not that we wanted Aida Turturro to win, but still. How long must we wait for The Greatest Show in the History of a Debased Medium to get some respect.

8:33: A clearly dehydrated Ellen DeGeneres babbles incoherently about not knowing what she's on stage to introduce. She produces two handguns, fires some shots into the rafters, then collapses in a heap. A pair of ushers hurries to the round stage to drag her away by her ankles, hoping the spectacle hasn't ruined the montage of late night TV clips DeGeneres was supposed to sell. They fail; we can hardly recall a single spotlighted Leno monologue joke, so concerned are we about the comedian's shocking meltdown.

8:24: How much does a girl's universally beloved knocking-up comedy have to gross for an announcer to pronounce her name correctly? But TR Knight enforcer Katherine Heigl isn't going to let this crime stand—she calls out the Hi-jel error in front of millions of TV viewers, probably resulting in the immediate delivery of an apologetic fruit basket from Fox.

8:23: Jaime Pressly wins! Taking a modesty cue from Piven, she lavishes praise on My Name is Earl creator Greg Garcia, recognizing that it's his writing that's keeping her from a return to the Poison Ivy franchise of erotic thrillers. Again, we're touched. Who thought the Emmys could make us feel so much, so early?

Fuck, we're drunk, aren't we? Way too soon for that.

8:21: A Paula Abdul sighting! We knew she wouldn't be far away. Seacrest mangles the "Paula Abdul is on drugs" joke by intimating that Abdul enjoyed the Weeds wrap party a little too much, when everyone knows he should've gone with something related to the abuse of prescription painkillers. Rookie mistake.

8:15: Our dreams of a Sopranos sweep are already dead, as Lost's Terry O'Quinn upsets Michael Imperioli. Says one Defamer HQ viewer of O'Quinn's wife: "Wow, she is buxom." Indeed, she is, as confirmed by our TiVo's pause function—buxom enough to make us momentarily forget about Imperioli's utter jobbing by the Academy.

8:12: Piven wins! Will he go humble, or will he go Ari? He goes humble, recognizing that there are actual writers who supply him with florid descriptions of how he will punitively sodomize his Gaysian assistant. Overall, we're quite moved by Piven's strategic modesty.


8:07: So Seacrest hands off the comedy duties to Ray Romano...and about thirty seconds into the routine, the sound drops out and the camera suddenly cuts away to a shot of a chandelier before resuming in the middle of his next joke, with no explanation or even sign that anything odd just happened. Did he say something off-color three hours ago and Fox is censoring it on the West Coast?

8:04: Ryan Seacrest breaks the tension: At least he knows that he couldn't have been anyone's first (through tenth) choice as host, so he quickly retreats into the kind of material with which he's most comfortable: identifying ladies' footwear. He knows Eva is wearing Louboutin (sp?)! And he's not, as rumored, going to sing! Maybe we're all going to get through this ordeal alive after all.

7:55: Oops! We're a little early. We'd hoped to entirely avoid the red carpet coverage (really, even we're not sick enough to watch that), but now we've seen three people we don't recognize recap what TV superstars such as Eva Longoria, Lisa Edelstein, and The Hot Assistant Chick From 30 Rock are wearing. This has already not started well.