It is, it really is! Also today: Matt Damon makes more plans to head behind the camera, a recent literary hit goes to TV, and something about Dallas.

It's late August, and there is nothing on TV except for Big Brother and crappy reruns. What the hell are you supposed to watch before the new TV season starts in September? We're here with some suggestions for DVD/iTunes/Netflix marathons that will have you glued to your couch.

All the nerds are in one place this week at SXSW, but, let's face it, we all have a little bit of nerd in us. These days geekdom is large and diverse enough for everyone. Where do you fit in?

Yesterday was the official beginning of midseason TV! Starting with Gossip Girl. Now all your other favorite shows are coming back, plus some new ones. Let's a take a look.

· Shia LaBeouf will star in an adaptation of John Grisham's The Associate, which is about a Yale Law School undergrad who takes a job at a shady law firm, gets in over his head, then ends up getting chased down a long stretch of abandoned highway by a single car for some reason. We understand they are writing his mangled pinkie nail into the plot, the result of a gavel mishap in moot court. [Variety]
· Courtney B. Vance and Jack Davenport will star in Flash Forward, the ABC pilot in which the world blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and slowly learns it slept with the cankled girl from accounts receivable in the parking garage after the Christmas party. [THR]
· What if you threw a big, sweeping, historical epic and not even the people it's about bothered to show up? We hate to say this, but we're beginning to think Baz Lurhmann should have added Australian pop classics and made it a musical. The whole thing is based on that Men at Work song, anyway. ("I met a strange lady, she made me nervous / She took me in and gave me breakfast" etc...) [Variety]

What's a struggling network to do when faced with last-place ratings, corporate inertia and a few dozen mouldering costumes from a hit going off the air? If you're NBC Universal, you invite the world to a yard sale, as it's planning to do Jan. 16 in order to cash in on the final season of Battlestar Galactica. The geek gold rush is on, and its nervous hosts in Pasadena are stocking up on canned goods and bottled water as we speak.NBCU has been plotting a Battlestar prop auction since the summer, trickling out such must-sorta-haves as Cylon War-era flight suits and War Room chalkboards on a Web site ranking right below asthma inhalers among fanboy essentials. The network has hosted such events before, previously cashing in at last year's Heroes/Office/30 Rock sale. But the international interest in Battlestar sparked a recent run on hotel rooms in and around the Pasadena Convention Center, we hear, with the artifacts' online clearing house now offering a handy guide to making the most of that slavering southern pilgrimage. Which, in the end, is fine with us; anything that helps pay off NBC's Olympics debt and keeps us in Jeff Zucker profiles is a true public service in the long run.

Free to Good Home: IMDb yesterday uncorked about 6,000 movie and TV titles available for free viewing via Hulu, including recent episodes of The Office, 24 and Battlestar Galactica; site officials also noted that new episodes of some series — 30 Rock among them — will be available in advance of their airdates this fall. Not so with the site's full-length features, however, which, beyond classics like The Night of the Hunter and Some Like it Hot, include Dude, Where's My Car?, Liar Liar and The Scorpion King, finally testing the critical consensus that their makers can't give these films away. We shall see! [IMDb via NYT]

Former Gawker editor and lucky bastard Choire Sicha got to interview Battlestar Galactica's Pretty Asian Cyclon Grace Park for today's LA Times. Lucky bastard. He opens up with a question about a certain leggy Maxim photo spread.

Yay! Even after the Sci-Fi Channel's space sock-hop Battlestar Galactica finishes its final season next year, there will still be more BSG for all-in movie form! Former Gawker Choire Sicha is reporting for the LA Times that the first of as many as three Battlestar made-for-TV movies has just gotten the go ahead. And he got it right from Pretty Asian Cyclon herself, Grace Park: "'I just heard about the first Battlestar movie being greenlit,' said Park [...] A TV movie, but still! But this-it's like, yeah, it's over but we're ready to move on but nobody's manager or agent has been called. It's supposed to start in August.'" And what can she tell us about the end of the series?

And I thought I was joking about Robot Steve Jobs — Google is already developing the Cylon army that eventually attempts to destroy humanity. Can you suggest a better headline? Do so in the comments. The best one will become the new headline. Yesterday's winner: "Yeah? Is this Yahoo HQ? I heard you are running low on people." by G2GdoB2B. (Photo by Marcin Wichary)

So last night was the mid-season finale of the Sci-Fi Channel's space Bar Mitzvah Battlestar Galactica. Yep, no more episodes til January, so I paid special close attention. Actually, no, of course I didn't. I didn't even know it was the mid-season finale until I read it in the news this morning! So this week's roundup is just as whiskey-warbled as ever. This time I know there are spoilers, so keep out if you care about that. If not, jump!

Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sachoff "Blonde Tomboy Space Girl" and Tricia Helfer "Bleachy Cyclon" kick ass in real life too! "One in 10 motorcyclists is a woman, but that statistic is rarely reflected on screens big or small. If an actress does 'ride,' it tends to be only for the camera and it's usually rigged, as it was for Renée Zellweger in 'Leatherheads,' whose Indian was operated by remote. Enter Tricia Helfer and Katee Sackhoff — stars of SciFi Channel's 'Battlestar Galactica.' Helfer, who plays the part of sexy cylon [sic] Number Six, and Sackhoff, a.k.a. combat pilot Starbuck, are both avid motorcyclists who will be taking their off-screen passion to guest roles on other TV shows when Season 4 of the space-age series ends."

Hey so last night was that big important episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's space cotillion Battlestar Galactica. Are you just dying to find out what happened? So am I!

Yay! Battlestar Galactica's Pretty Asian Cyclon (AKA Grace Park) has provided us with a wonderful shiny cheesecake photo shoot! How lovely! But where the hell is Blonde Tomboy Space Girl's layout?! Huh?? More and more photos after the jump.

They're selling life-sized repilca Cyclons just like the ones in Battlestar Galactica! "You can get one from either the dopey original series or the cool new one. These Cylons [sic] are seven feet tall, weight 300 pounds, have little LED lighting effects in their visors - and sell for a cool $7,900. (That's, like, $8,000 minus the $100 Hopeless-Nerd Rebate.)" Um, anyone got $7,900 handy? Pay you back, I promise! [InsideSoCal]

What happened last night on the Sci-Fi Channel's sweaty, greasy, sinewy space ballet that is Battlestar Galactica? As I snoozed in air-conditioned bliss, my liver was good enough to jot down some notes. As usual: Spoilers? Could be!

In an article giving advice to casting directors on under-used actresses they should hire, FilmExperience praises the awesome magical sexy power of Battlestar Galactica's Blonde Tomboy Space Girl. "Katee Sackhoff is a terrific actress. I won't lie and claim that she's undervalued on her breakout show (Battlestar Galactica)... they've leaned on her heavily and she's crafted an indomitable fan-favorite character who has evolved considerably from her first bold sketches four years back."

What happened this week on The Sci-Fi Channel's space disco Battlestar Galactica? I dunno. I was blotto and thinking about Smurfs. But I took notes, as always. There was more shooting than usual, which is always nice. After the jump, spoilers! Maybe!

How are things this week for the humans and robots of the Sci-Fi Channel's Battlestar Galactica? Bad! Me, and my liver, humbly submit this report on last night's space rodeo.