This blog will not be heading down the path of giving a damn about celebrities, but until 24 actually starts, I guess this will pass for news. Deciding that they were all full up on actors who will always be associated with a long running treacly sitcom that passed for edgy within its target age group, the producers of 24 turned down Jennifer Anniston for a roll in the upcoming season saying that she was "too recognizable."

Jakob Nielsen vehemently disagreed with this decision, saying that his research indicated that Anniston would make the show 33% more usable for non-expert viewers. Further, Nielsen added, Jack Bauer should be joined by the entire cast of Friends so that the viewer can experience a familiar setting and not have to learn new names and dilemmas.

Jakob Neilsen Nails Movie UI

The usual stupid movie UI clichés from a UI design slant... They left out...

When trying to perform facial recognition on ultra-secret government agents for, say, getting through a checkpoint, the system is happy to load and display thousands of headshots of these elite, undercover operatives while finding the match.

Link

One month away from the season premier of 24, here are the latest updates . . .

• Ricky Schroder's character will be the new field agent in charge at CTU. My sources say that he will enter conference rooms on a small train.


• Characters from past seasons will return. Milo (sure, you remember Milo . . . season 1? I think he distrusted Jamie from the start) is confirmed and fat Dave Attell will return as Chloe's ex-husband. No word yet on the cougar from season 2.


• Key characters will die. Assuming that Bill Buchanan is not a mole, the word here is that he's one of them.


• Jack Bauer's father will make an appearance.

Also, if you haven't already seen it, there's a prequel to season 6 floating around in the tubes of the interweb-a-spheres.

To follow up on our earlier report on Ricky Schroder being cast as a CTU agent on 24 . . .

As astonishing as it may seem, no one from the cast, crew, or writers of 24 has contacted us yet to deny that this is the actual footage of the last minutes of the season 6 finale of 24 with Ricky Schroder. Note: the clock will likely be edited in during post-production.

Vote for Jack Bauer

I hope that's not the new fight choreographer.

From the I Kid You Not category, Ricky Schroder will star as a CTU agent in season 6 of 24. My guess is that Kirk Cameron was busy with another Left Behind sequel.

In all fairness, my regular television watching habits ended about a decade ago, so it's quite possible Ricky Schroder made a name for himself as the new Clint Eastwood without me knowing it. But in my mind, he'll always be Ricky Stratton who sticks up for the nerdy kid who it turns out is a really good tap dancer. I mean, when this guy takes a bullet (and, before the season is out, he is definitely going to take a bullet), I can only imagine that there will be lots of crying. We can only hope that his father's secretary will be on the scene to show him how bleeding profusely is just part of growing up.

Are you having withdrawal symptoms from still having to wait another month for the season six premiere of 24? Do you feel like yelling at random strangers that you're running out of time? Perhaps you should check out Wiki 24 over at Wikia. While you're there, you can check out the different aliases Jack has used, find out the frequency that you can plug into your cell phone to set off a detonator, and the name of Jack Bauer's sister-in-law.

And when you're done with that, check out the Prison Break Wiki.