Ox Notes: April 9, 2007

Ian stays on his toes while preparing for a waltz. Suzie McNeil is finally finished with her first album. And there are vampires everywhere.

Dancing with the Stars News
Ian Ziering & Cheryl Burke have been writing celebrity blogs for TVGuide, and in Ian's latest post, he talks about the troubles he's had preparing for tonight's Waltz. If you're not interested in the technical stuff, just enjoy the post for all of the pop culture references Ian manages to include.

The possibility of a Cheryl Burke three-peat was the focus of a special segment by Kenny Mayne for ESPN on April 1. While I haven't been able to find video of it (if you've got the link, please send it to me here), Kenny did write a blog post about the process of filming the segment.

For everything you need to know about Cheryl, check out her official webpage: StrictlyCheryl.

Rockstar: INXS Update
Broken & Beautiful, the first album by Rockstar: INXS contestant Suzie McNeil, hits stores on Tuesday, April 10. Autographed copies of the album are available through Suzie's website, for those of us who still maintain that she was the best performer from either season of Rockstar.

Vampires on TV
HBO is following Lifetime's lead (that's a first) and filming it's own vampire series based on a book series. Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer have been cast as the leads in True Blood, based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.

Meanwhile, Lifetime is still working its way through the first season of Blood Ties, based on The Blood Books by Tanya Huff. For now, Lifetime is only airing the show on Sunday nights, repeating the same episode a couple of hours later. It's a show I might actually watch, if only they'd reair it on another night during the week. The episodes are available at iTunes, but I'd rather keep my two dollars.

With all of these vampire series written by female authors hitting the small screen, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series has to be next. On second thought, that show would have to be relegated to the Spice Network, so maybe not.