• Some more blog magic today in Kevin’s 3rd edition of his weekly crusade vs. the evil temptation of junk food. His Optifast diet continues to go quite well, and he’s sticking to it, though frustration set in this week after some unexpected results. Here’s a clip:

Read the entire saga, including today’s insightful entry, at MySpace or Silent Bob Speaks!

• Clip god Will comes through again with an almost-complete, commercial-free capture of Jeff Anderson’s stint on Sirius’s Playboy Radio on Monday morning. Due to an encoding issue, the first 45 minutes are sadly misisng, however, the remaining 2 hours is all here, in 2 flavors of MP3 (grab what suits your bandwidth):

• Congrats to Jason Lee on his nomination for a Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Award this year, in the category of “Favorite Television Actor”. The rundown of his competition:

We sure think he’s got a good shot. This one of those shows where winners are normally pre-notified of the outcome, so if you see Lee in attendance for the program airing Saturday March 31st. Starting March 11th KIDS, and kids only, can cast their votes at http://www.nick.com.

• And an interesting aside to end the day, cult icon Bruce Campbell has an entry in his IMDB bio stating “Has expressed an interest in working with Kevin Smith.” The comment was traced back to a Creature Corner article where he dropped Kevin’s name. We’re not sure if there’s more to it than that, but still, it’d be kinda neat to see Campbell’s face in Kevin’s first foray into the horror genre this year, wouldn’t it? Kevin, Bruce, are you listening? See ya next time…

• Over the weekend, news broke (via Kevin) that a new frontier was about to be tackled on the Internet — Podcasting! Kevin and Scott have created their very first podcast series, titled “SModcast”, which will run EXCLUSIVELY over at the Quick Stop Entertainment website. Smith and Mosier have taken their trademark witty banter and chemisty to this new audio-only feature, which takes an ongoing conversation between the two and gives you, the listener, a chance to be a virtual fly on the wall. Here’s Kevin with his official announcement:

Judging by this first installment, it seems that Kevin and Scott might cover any variety of topics each episode. This isn’t by any means a View Askew news podcast, though we wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin or Scott occasionally do make use of this program to announce new projects, discuss ideas, and the like. Sex and marriage is a big topic this time around. This is more just the guys being themselves, covering things that interest them (and hopefully you as well). They do it quite well and make it a fascinating stream-of-consciousness listen. Kevin’s recent radio experience has served him well, for sure. He promises the cast will happen once a week (we’re hoping it sticks with Mondays) and is not a longer session cut into smaller pieces to stretch airtime. So, things should be very timely to current events, when needed.

The podcast has fantastic production values, of course, with the duo well-mic’ed up and clear, along with some nice sound beds and other production touches (when discussing an Asia song early in the ‘cast, for example, the song lightly plays in the background). As usual, no topic is too sacred, and this stuff is totally uncensored, so listen with care. You only need a computer capable of playing MP3s to listen to a podcast, though using a portable MP3 player such as an iPod allows you to automatically receive new shows and take them on the road with you.

SModcast is a welcome addition to the View Askew family, and we’re looking forward to the next one already. May it continue on for a very long time! Folks are discussing the show at The Board, and you can of course leave comments on the first show via either of Kevin’s blogs.

• Every once in a while some of the absolute COOLEST pieces of swag come out at the Stash, and this is one of those days — You just must own this super-cool Leonardo Reapers hockey jersey, now available at our online store as well as in person at Stash East and Stash West. This jersey is a TOTAL BARGAIN at just $50 and just oozes cool. Great colors, that awesome logo, and just subtle enough that only those View Askew fans out there that catch you looking cool wearing this will know the origin. And of course, that wonderful 37 on the back. Buy this now, and fast, we’re betting these suckers sell out:

We love this thing!!!

• We love it when Kevin hits the board for an out and out Q&A session — Folks ask great questions (usually) and Kevin surprises us with answers, often dropping news and info that we didn’t expect. Read on for summarized details of some of the best stuff, including the tentative film schedule for 2007:

You can check out the entire thread, which includes every Q&A, starting HERE.

• An astute scooper over at The Board was scouring popular video service YouTube and overturned something we’ve never had available online before — The program “The Test” from the FX channel, which we reported on way back in August 2001. This was part of a 90 minute takeover of the FX channel, where Kevin, Jay and Jen (along with Mark Hamill) were on to promote “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”:

YouTube’s been taking network stuff like this off the site without warning recently (hence the demise of our News Askew YouTube channel), so watch it while ya can! Kevin had a few things to say about the clippage as well. Enjoy!

• It appears that the UK edition of Clerks II, on region 2 DVD, will include a special black slipcover when purchased at HMV stores. You can see a shot of this art at their site.

• A very small reference found in a book of crosswords — Check out #24 across in this scan.
• One blogger thinks Kevin would be the perfect person to turn Harlan Ellison’s comic “Spider Kiss” into a feature film. Rumored to be loosely based on the career of Jerry Lee Lewis, Spider’s Kiss is rich in detail as it follows the fictional rise and fall of teenage heartthrob and musician Stag Preston. Check out his blog HERE.

• Here’s a fun one to end the day, from the UK as well – Our scooper spotted this blast from the past in Oxford Circus underground station (part of the famous “tube”). They’ve taken away loads of old advertising posters, leaving even older ones underneath. Check out what was revealed! See ya next time…

• Some WAY COOL news for those of you that subscribe to Sirius satellite radio — The great Jeff Anderson will be guest co-hosting Sirius Radio’s Playboy Radio Morning Show this coming Monday, February 5th. The show is called “Kevin & Cort” and airs on Sirius Channel 198. Airtime is 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET and is replayed immediately afterwards. Jeff will be co-hosting all morning, and tells us that he’d love to hear from some fans (yes, that’s YOU!) that might like to call in and chat. Be sure you let him know what a fantastic job he did in Clerks II! We’ll be listening, and hope to have some audio from the show for you next week as well. If you don’t have a Sirius radio, you can even sign up for a free 3-day pass to listen online. Don’t miss the show, this Monday morning!

• Via the Myspace and Boring-Ass Life blogs, Kevin hooks us up with a bonus entry this week, listing not only his top 10 films of the year 2006, but also including a rather comprehensive list of ALL the flicks that came out last year, then a subset of the ones he saw (just to be fair to the stuff he missed, something you don’t see the critics do, then again, they’re supposed to see EVERYTHING). You can of course read the posts in full at either of the above locations, though here’s just the list of the 10 itself. For Kevin’s commentary and rationale for each, hit the blogs!

The blog posts include photos and of course those comprehensive lists, so do pay them a visit as well!

Having not seen nearly as many flicks as Kev did last year, gotta send agreements on The Departed, Children of Men, United 93, and The Prestige, which hits DVD soon and has some great twists and turns. Personally, this webmaster thought Borat fell a bit flat after a while, and did much better in 10 minute dose on the original Ali G show. Little Miss Sunshine was good, but would I watch it again anytime soon? Not so sure. Given Kevin’s recommendation, many of the other flicks on the that will be ones that I’ll seek out soon, definitely Perfume and Half Nelson. It seems lately that the disappointments stick out more than the hits…Superman Returns was a huge let-down, for example. The Descent was a great surprise, though, and one of the scariest horror flicks in a LONG time. You never know what the year will bring. With blockbusters like Spidey 3 and Die Hard hitting this summer, along with the new comedy from those Shaun of the Dead guys, “Hot Fuzz”, and some indie surprises as well (Horror flick “The Signal” has been getting GREAT buzz from Sundance, can’t wait to check that one out). The great thing about being a film fan is the variety we have to choose from, and the love you can have for all different genres.

• Here’s a super-weird one for you folks today. A scooper’s sister discovered a weird but funny little tidbits in a Japanese Manga comic. In Volume 4 of “Bring It On!” by Baek HyeKyung, one of the characters goes on a date (and eventually marries!) a “famous hollywood director” named “Silent Bob”. The resemblance seems to be mostly in name only, though you can see for yourself by clicking the photos above for a better look. Our scooper has also kindly added the images to his Flickr page as another option. Weeeeeird.