This Week's Top 50: Whither Canadian TV Guide?

Poker continues to dominate as #1 on this week's top 50 while
Halloween has usurped MySpace for the #2 position. Disney remains in
the top 10 as people make that last minute rush to the store for their
Jack Sparrow Halloween costumes.

Britney Spears holds steady at #23. Last week, there was some
confusion in the media as to whether Britney's new baby is named
Sutton Pierce or Jayden James. Jayden-or-Sutton was born on September
12 in Los Angeles. Pictures of the baby have not been released, but
despite the aforementioned name confusion, most people seem fairly
confident that the child exists, as opposed to Suri Cruise who still
seems like a fictional character regardless of any Vanity Fair spread.

Although Britney has been often mocked for toting a bag of Cheetos
around LA as if it were a Prada bag, she impressively lost most of her
baby weight in only a month. Us Weekly reported that Britney lost 26
pounds and is down to a size eight. Eat your heart out, Timberlake.

Britney's beloved, Kevin Federline's album, "Playing with Fire," is
due on October 31 (yes, its scary, we know). The album has not even
been released yet, and Federline is already cancelling appearances. He
dropped a House of Blues show in Cleveland without an explanation; the
House of Blues is offering full refunds on tickets. (People paid to
see K-Fed? Did they lose a bet or something?) Although he has
cancelled this appearance, K-Fed has been promoting his album
relentlessly this fall with appearances of varying degrees of
mediocrity on the "Teen Choice Awards," "CSI," and the WWE. Federline
recently told People Magazine, "If you want to hate me, cool, hate me.
You know why? Because all it's going to do is help me." More ominous
words were never spoken.

Re-entries include Anna Kournikova, Heather Mills, and TV Guide or as
we called it in my family, the Bible. I remember running to the
mailbox every Wednesday and poring over the latest issue, highlighting
the shows I planned to watch. (I had an exciting childhood.) In late
November, TV Guide will become a web-only publication in Canada. The
move away from paper magazines seems inevitable as so many people find
television listings off of the Internet and on digital cable these
days. The mag has been making some news in the States for filing a
patent infringement lawsuit against Digeo Inc.'s Moxi interactive
program guide, but there don't seem to be plans to abandon the print
version. This is a huge relief as I had enough anxiety when they
changed from their small, thick version to the more typical magazine
look. Never leave me, TV Guide.