At the 2007 Emmys: Part 1

Friday, Sept. 14, 8:21 am/ET As you may have surmised by Ben Katner's byline on Friday's Today's News blog, I am en route to the Emmys in the Los Angeles of the California. Seat 23F, two nice nonsmelly ladies sitting next to me, waiting for the plane to pull away from the gate. Window seat. No dents in the wing - always a good sign in my book. The flight attendant is giving that spiel about, "If you are not headed to Los Angeles...," where I always expect (but never get) some poor sap rising and exclaiming, "Holy crap! Wait!" Ausiello is also in the air, but on a different plane. Flew out of LaGuardia (versus Newark), Mr. City Mouse did. Hey, fewer people climbing over me to get his autograph, right? If you haven't checked it out yet, you should really swing by TVGuide.com's Emmy Watch site. A lot of hard work by a lot of fantastic people went into it. Right now, you can check out (the original Matt) Matt Roush's predictions as well as see who the TVGuide.com readers think will win, and find a Q&A with TV Guide Network red-carpet hosts Lisa Rinna and Joey Fatone. We also have some great photos from last year, and some Emmy-themed video clips. Come Sunday evening, we will "flip the switch" and shift the Emmy Watch into "live" mode. Brand-new red-carpet pics will get posted, video of Ausiello with the stars will go up, and a pair of minute-by-minute blogs will be available for your reading and replying pleasure. Nina Hämmerling Smith and Ben Katner will blog about the preshow and Emmycast, respectively, while I will have my own running commentary/reporting going on live backstage with the winners. And then, for me and Oz, it's off to Hollywood's trendy Les Deux for TV Guide's after-party, featuring John Legend (Amy Winehouse had to bail 'cause of the whole rehab thing) and Band from TV (populated by Hugh Laurie, Greg Grunberg, James Denton and maybe a surprise guest or two). OK, stewardess Mindy is scowling at my Blackberry as the engines fire up outside. Time to crack open my Dean Koontz and/or cue up the DVD player (I've brought along Death Proof, Pan's Labyrinth, the first four new eps of Dexter, the Housewives premiere and some new Sarah Silverman Show episodes). More here later, as Emmy weekend rocks on.