The New York City Health Department recently inspected 30 Rock's Starbucks and discovered it to be teeming with "live mice." Consequently, the Starbucks serving the stars of NBC received a 'C.' Which other Manhattan Starbucks stores are among the impressively filthy elite?

After discovering that the Fear Factor episode in which they chugged mugs of donkey semen and urine had been canceled, twins Brynne and Claire Odioso called into Tampa radio's Cowhead Show to describe their harrowing ordeal. Shortly thereafter, Brynne told me by phone today, NBC-Universal told her to STFU.

An NBC News crew is currently occupying Gawker's Soho offices for a segment, set to air eventually on Rock Center and Today, about our owner Nick Denton and his grand project. Every time I see a network news crew descend on a scene to do its business—and the unfailingly pleasant and polite group currently with us is by no means alone in this—I am struck by what the collossal waste of money network news is.

Desperate for a hit, NBC is doing everything it can to make people watch Smash, their making-of-a-Broadway-musical drama. They're hyping it to The Voice levels of annoyance, they're putting it on the Monday after the Super Bowl, and they're making it available for free on iTunes right now! So, I watched the show. Just like a Broadway hoofer, it's brilliant...and a bit of a mess.

NBC's anchordude Brian Williams and blog villain Nick Denton are pals. They have mutual acquaintances, both love technology, pretty things, and email with each other like a couple of gossiping secretaries. Therefore, when Brian Williams offers critiques about Gawker's content, we are obligated to listen. See below.

Tonight NBC premiered a new sitcom, Are You There, Chelsea wherein Laura Prepon (of That 70's Show) plays Chelsea Handler and Chelsea Handler plays her own older sister. The show is based on one of Handler's memoirs, Are You There Vodka, It's Me Chelsea and even though NBC decided to strike the vodka mention in the title, they left in plenty of alcohol-related sentiment. While it is certainly not as gratuitously offensive and terrible as Work It, it has about the same number of jokes. Here is the show boiled down to its essence.

Today on Franzia Presents Today, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb were talking about what life was like before Hoda met her boyfriend Jay and Kathie Lee referred to the time as "Before Jay. BJ." I'm blushing for you, Hoda.

Exciting news for fans of the country's premiere cat-juggling competition, America's Got Talent. The Piers Morgan-shaped hole in the NBC reality show's judging roster has been filled with none other than self-proclaimed King of All Satellite Radio, Howard Stern. The deal was announced on Stern's Sirius radio show this morning, with Stern literally signing the contract on the air that would pay him an undisclosed amount (the rumor is $15 million), in addition to moving the show from L.A. to New York.

Yeah, last night was the TV debut of Chelsea Clinton, NBC's newest """""journalist.""""" All you non-famous kids out there who saddled yourselves with a lifetime of debt in order to pay for journalism school, who are now either unemployed or underemployed or stuck at some boring dead end niche publication wondering how your journalism dream turned out so differently than you imagined: maybe Chelsea Clinton will put you in one of her charity news segments on teevee one day. That would be a dream come true for you.

Ryan Seacrest's steady march towards intergalactic domination proceeds with news that the Kardashian-wrangling multi-zillionaire is being courted to replace Matt Lauer on the Today show. Another great move from NBC!

NBC suits have restricted The Roots drummer Questlove's freedom to pick songs for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon after he selected "Lyin' Ass Bitch" to introduce Michele Bachmann. He must now "clear every song with three different NBC execs."

Chelsea Clinton gave what appears to be her first-ever interview to the New York Times. And we were surprised to learn that the 31-year-old has a "chief of staff." She's not the only one. Ultra-Rich People Trend Alert!

Poor Brian Williams. His valiant attempts at delivering a report about American Airlines' bankruptcy filing on NBC Nightly News were stymied by a fire alarm that would. Not. End.

NBC, the shadow puppet and pantomime show discount emporium, needed a way to make some money since only seven Community fans now watch the network. What did they do? They went and sold their fake paper company, Dunder Miflin, to Staples. This sounds like a plot from The Office.

Just how obsessively geeky is NBC's recently shelved sitcom, Community? So much so that they have been sneakily incorporating the name "Beetlejuice" into the script, once per season, for three seasons. And you know what happens when you say "Beetlejuice" three times, don't you? Believe it.

In your finally Friday media column: Newsweek sucks, Chelsea Clinton's NBC infiltration works, a bodybuilder becomes a magazine editor, drone journalism arrives, and your angry layoff rant of the day.

Because the entertainment industry is completely out of new ideas, here are the two newest old things that they're trying to make popular again: Woody Woodpecker and The Munsters. Get ready to fall into the nostalgia trap.

NBC, the abandoned shopping mall of a television network, announced its mid-season schedule today, and while a bunch of shows got moved around, it seems like fan favorite Community got moved right off the schedule.

It's the end of a minor era, as Larry King-supplanting CNN garden gnome and noted liar Piers Morgan has announced that he will be stepping down from his America's Got Talent-hosting duties, effective immediately.

In your maudlin Tuesday media column: Jimmy Kimmel gets an important job, the St. Petersburg Times is no more, a cartoonist canned for plagiarism, Rock Center debuts, and a journalist has a heart attack.