From The Hollywood Reporter:

HBO did some serious holiday shopping the past two days.

On Thursday, the pay cable network picked up to series two comedies: “How to Make It in America,” toplined by Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk, and the Jason Schwartzman starrer “Bored to Death.”

They follow the Wednesday series order for another male-centered comedy, “Hung,” starring Thomas Jane.

Both “How to Make It” and “Bored” are said to have received eight-episode orders.

The Jonathan Ames-penned “Bored” centers on Jonathan (Schwartzman), a struggling thirtysomething Brooklyn writer with a drinking problem who, after a painful breakup with his girlfriend, decides to emulate his heroes from the novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. He takes out an ad pretending to be a private detective and starts taking cases — solving some and making others worse.

Ames, a novelist who landed his first TV series with “Bored,” called the genre of the show “noirotic — a mix of noir and neuroses.”

He exec produced the pilot, directed by Alan Taylor and co-starring Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis, along with Sarah Condon, Dave Becky, Stephanie Davis and Troy Miller.

From Ticket News:

Movies are filled with extras, but Universal Pictures in association with the Improv Comedy Club is looking for real fans of Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Adam Sandler and Aziz Ansari, as well as Patton Oswalt and other surprise special guests, for the filming of writer-director Judd Apatow’s forthcoming motion picture “Funny People,” which will be released on July 31, 2009.

The shooting will be at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, CA, on January 13. Tickets for “A Night of Funny People” are $20 and go on sale on December 19. Audience members have to be over the age of 18.

The film stars Sandler, Rogen, Hill, Ansari, Jason Schwartzman, RZA, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, and Aubrey Plaza. The evening will be hosted by Apatow, and the performers will perform live in character.

Apatow’s film credits include: “The Cable Guy,” producer; “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” producer; “Kicking & Screaming,” executive producer; “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” director, writer and producer; “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” producer; “Knocked Up,” director, writer and producer; “Superbad,” producer; “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” writer and producer; “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” producer; and “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” co-writer.

“A Night of Funny People” will benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and 826LA, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages six to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

From a Coconut Records MySpace Bulletin:

AmieStreet is offering a one-week pre-order of Davy for just $5. And you’ll get the record a week before it comes out. If you pre-order now the record is just $5 and you can download 1/13/09.
http://www.amiestreet.com/music/coconut-records/davy

Coconut Records released their new song Microphone today. It’s off the forthcoming album, Davy, set for release in January. You can stream the song on the band’s MySpace. Or even better, download the song for FREE here where $1 will be donated to the Mr Holland’s Opus Foundation per download.

While I know that Jason hasn’t been in the band for quite some time, I still feel as though I should post this here. This was posted on Phantom Planet’s official site today:

This could be the most difficult piece of news we have ever had to post. Sadly, Phantom Planet will be playing our last show, December 12, at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the same venue that we played our very first live all ages gig, back in 1994. We have had an amazing time playing together for 15 years, but we have officially decided to go on hiatus, and will not be playing any more live shows or making any new records, indefinitely. There is so much more to write, but at this time, we just want to say thank you, to everyone, for their support, friendship, inspiration, attendance, and love.

-alex, darren, jeff and sam.

Jason attended the opening of Ten Over Six on Thursday night. I have added a few images from that to the gallery and have also finally added screencaps from Spun.