• ABC to give Cupid another shot; Rob Thomas to resurrect Jeremy Piven series — I loved this show.

• Kevin Dillon counts on 301; Entourage actor set for sword spoof — genius casting

• Suicide missions: Fortune goes inside the CAA Death Star

• Topshop signs a New York lease — It’s coming! It’s coming!

• How did Serbia become a tennis powerhouse? — With the retirement of Kim Clijsters, Ana Ivanovic is now my favorite female tennis player. Novak Djokovic is on my top 5 list for the men’s side.

• Childhood fantasies: Man builds secret apartment at the mall, gets away with it for four years — This guy lived my dream. I will be watching his movies in depth when I have more time.

• Just give us the damn map — I dream of a better subway system.

• The dissenter — NYTimes Sunday Magazine profile of John Paul Stevens. “Judicial liberalism, in other words, has largely become a conservative project: an effort to preserve the legal status quo in the face of efforts by a younger generation of conservatives to uproot the precedents of the past 40 years.”

• 30 Rock lives, and Tina Fey laughs

• Todd Oldham’s new assignment: Old Navy — godspeed

• As the fall season arrives, TV screens get more cluttered

• After cleaning House

• Autumn events in LA

The US fall season really kicks into gear this week. Some of the more interesting shows aren’t returning until 2008, but here’s what I’ll be watching in the meantime:

Monday

• How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8:00pm) — I do not miss an episode of Jason Segel.

• Aliens in America (CW, 8:30pm) — The pilot I saw was sweet and funny, and that was before Scott Patterson joined the cast.

• Heroes (NBC, 9:00pm) — OMG I want to like this show but instead I actually hate its guts.  Maybe Kristen Bell and David Anders will make it better.

• Weeds (Showtime, 10:00pm) — already in progress.

• Californication (Showtime, 10:30pm) — le ditto.

Tuesday

• Reaper (CW, 9:00pm) — The pilot was great, but I’m a little concerned about the show having enough there there. Replacing Nikki Reed with Missy Peregrym is a good step.

Wednesday

• Pushing Daisies (ABC, 8:00pm) — I actually really disliked the pilot for this show. It was too fucking saccharine and had absolutely no bite. But, I did like Bryan Fuller’s other shows, so I’m hopeful that this will get some edge. It may be the first show canceled by my TiVo, however.

• America’s Next Top Model (CW, 8:00pm) — I never miss Miss Tyra.

• Private Practice (ABC, 9:00pm) — And this could be the second one for which I drop my season pass. I really like Tim Daly and Chris Lowell (Piz!).

• Bionic Woman (NBC, 9:00pm) — Katee Sackhoff and Michelle Ryan are bionic, and Katee’s evil!, and then they fight each other! In the rain! On a roof! I love this show already.

• Gossip Girl (CW, 9:00pm) — Team Serena! Blake Lively is wicked.

Thursday

• Smallville (CW, 8:00pm) — I hate this show, but I love comic books. Green Arrow is going to be back for part of the season (Justin Hartley is also on the CW’s midseason sitcom Eight Days a Week, which is fantastic, fyi). More importantly, Laura Vandervoort is joining up as Kara Zor-El, a.k.a. Supergirl. At my house, we have must see TV in the form of Instant Star, a Canadian teen show on The N, on which Vandervoort plays dumbfuck Sadie. I’m not going to let Vandervoort besmirch Kara behind my back, so therefore, I have to watch Smallville. And now you know.

• 30 Rock (NBC, 8:30pm) — Sorry, that’s the Emmy-award winning Best Comedy, 30 Rock.

• Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 9:00pm) — While the show obviously had a bit of a downturn last season, I’m reasonably confident it’ll get its stuff back together for season 4.

• The Office (NBC, 9:00pm) — I’m very curious to see how the office dynamics change due to Ryan’s new position.

Friday

• Friday Night Lights (NBC, 9:00pm) — I didn’t watch this show until the summer, at which point I blazed through it. So good. It’s not too late, either. We have the DVDs ready to lend out.

Saturday is not for television.

Sunday

• Life Is Wild (CW, 8:00pm) — Leah Pipes is a strong protagonist in the pilot — whiny enough to be believable, but very capable of growth. Stephanie Niznik from Everwood replaced the original mom, and she’s always great. Atandwa Kani has the loveliest accent. Mostly, I just like the animals.

• Brothers & Sisters (ABC, 10:00pm) — I got hooked on this one last year during the game night episode.

• The legacy of Hollywood’s favorite sci-fi writer — Philip K. Dick’s kids have their own production company nowadays to handle movie versions of their dad’s writing.

• Cookie nirvana — These vegan cookies apparently taste just like Samoas. I’m all about it.

• The three year itch — “While divorce rates here [here = UK] are the lowest they have been since 1984, figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the crunch time for both married and cohabiting couples going their separate ways is now most likely to be after three or four years.” I love a study.

• My so-called gossipy life — The privileged children of New York discuss Gossip Girl.

• The ultimate guide to locally made LA chocolate — My friend Cybele wrote this guide for Gridskipper.

On Friday night, I met up with friends at The 3rd Stop after work. They had a large selection of beers on tap, but I dig my local brews, so I stuck with a Craftsman. I had the Biere de Blanco this time. The food options were not Bronwen-friendly, but more on that later. The people I was with enjoyed their meals, which were pretty standard pub fare options.

Saturday morning, I was moving pretty early. We headed out to Flore Vegan in Silverlake for breakfast. I had blueberry pancakes with tempeh bacon. Lemonade was not available at 10am, because the restaurant had run out of lemons. (Okay? Maybe take lemonade off the blackboard then?) The pancakes were fine, but the tempeh bacon was actually quite awful. It was cold and just plain didn’t hold together. I’m really not a fan of breakfast food, but my boyfriend is, so I wanted to give Flore a shot. Lunch was being served simultaneously, and some of the wraps and sandwiches coming out of the kitchen looked fantastic. Next time, I’ll lunch while he breaks.

I recently started eating exclusively vegan foods. I am increasingly intolerant of lactose in my old age. I have traditionally enjoyed a cast-iron stomach; it used to take a hell of a lot to upset my digestion, but this is simply no longer the case. Additionally, I hate eggs, and I don’t like most forms of meat. I find fish, seafood, and cow (at times) tasty, but that’s about it. More recently, meat started giving me similar problems to the dairy. Meat doesn’t really make me feel that much better than dairy does lately. I did a tiny little experiment of cutting out dairy during a 5-day work week, and, dude, it felt fantastic. So, I went more whole hog, very suddenly. It’s really not difficult. I’m cooking, and it turns out I’m pretty good at it. I feel so much better throughout my day, and the health effects that I was hoping to see have already started rather dramatically.

Anyway. I watched some men’s semifinal action. Went to see 3:10 to Yuma. I enjoyed it. The ending was a little sweet, but hey. I tend to forget Russell Crowe exists, but he’s crazy good, right? Despite his talent, Ben Foster nearly stole the movie as far as I was concerned.

We met up with my friend for dinner at Pure Luck after the movie. Pure Luck exists in this very interesting block of Heliotrope where the hardcore cyclists of Los Angeles congregate. Pure Luck serves vegan food & local beer on tap. It may be my favorite restaurant of all time. I split the spring rolls and then had an avocado tostada, washed down with a Craftsman Heavenly Hefe. So good. Afterwards, we walked right across Heliotrope to Scoops, where I had a dish of black sesame & ginger. Scoops serves multiple vegan flavors every day alongside the crazy inventive dairy flavors.

Sunday, I slept! I watched the women’s final, followed by the men’s final. I caught up on comic books. I was treated to dinner at Real Food Daily, which was a very nice treat indeed. We split a hummus plate for an appetizer, and then I ate a good 3/4ths of the supreme burrito. I had some organic pilsner to drink, and I totally forget what it was, but it was tasty enough. I’d try something harder next time. We split a piece of peach/apple pie for dessert. holler.

After dinner, we headed out to the Hollywood Bowl to see Underworld. I was vaguely familiar with Underworld, but I’d never gone out of my way to listen to them. Me and dance music aren’t exactly tight. But they gave a nice performance, and I had a swanky nice seat that I did not pay for, so all was well. I was out past bedtime on a school night though, so I’m a little sleepyheaded today.

• Northern Overexposure — Tim Hortons is making inroads stateside. I really enjoyed their doughnuts during my trips to Canada.

• Still Married, With Children — I love format sales. I have 5 episodes of Poland’s version of The Odd Couple sitting on my desk.

• Hillary’s Prayer: Hillary Clinton’s Religion and Politics — I’m officially skeeved over here.