Count this as your odd rumor of the day: Brown Sista is reporting that ABC has picked up Football Wives for the 2008-2009 season. Now, as a fan of the original flavor Footballers' Wive$ who was happy to hear that the American version was getting some good buzz, I'd love this news to be true ... but Brown Sista doesn't offer a source for the news and I haven't been able to find anyone corroborating the news.

While the rumored news is surprising, it's not entirely implausible. After all, the cast's commitments to the show was extended last June. The cast of Football Wives have been accepting other jobs -- for example, James Van Der Beek will be appearing on Ugly Betty, Lucy Lawless will be returning to Battlestar Galactica and Eddie Cibrian has appearances on Dirty, Sexy Money and Samantha Who? lined up -- but those commitments could be easily over by next season.

It sounds unlikely but more surprising things have happened. We'll keep an eye on this one. After all, a series that has promotional images like the one above is worth keeping on the radar.

• Neil Patrick Harris lookin' tough. (Or, at least, as tough as anyone can be expected to look in a Sesame Street muscle shirt.) And David Burtka from On the Lot looks cute as ever!
• Neil Patrick Harris (as Barney on How I Met Your Mother) looking not-so-tough when guest star Mandy Moore refers to his "enormous vagina" when she appears in the season premiere as a tattooed rocker-chick.
• Televisionista's sad, sad eulogy for the late Football Wives pilot, including some great Eddie Cibrian pics. *sniffle*

• Let's see if I can get this right: there's apparently some kind of online community set within a superhero video game called City of Heroes, and a group of gay players known as the Wig Heroes recently staged a sort of Virtual Wigstock within the game, and not even invading aliens could derail the parade of celebrity impersonators, which included "The Lady Bunny, Lady Miss Kier, Patsy and Edina, Cher, Britney, Janet, Ru Paul, Christina, Madonna, the girls from 9 to 5 (Dolly, Lilly and Jane), Rihanna, Pink, Daft Punk and of course the Spice Girls."
• The New York Post asks, "Are You a Gay Senator?" Um, not with those recycled stereotypes we ain't. Showtunes? Really? How very first-season Will & Grace.
• A new clip of Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in gay director Todd Haynes' increasingly fascinating upcoming film, I'm Not There.

It's been well established that gay men love Xena, but now we know: Xena loves you back.

At Saturday night's Human Rights Campaign awards gala in San Francisco, I told Lucy Lawless she had a lot of fans on her our website, and her face lit up. "Really? That's wonderful," she said. "I’m always counting on the women, but I love beautiful men. I love doing things with beautiful men, so I say bring it on. And bring your friends."

Lucy swept into the media reception before the dinner wearing a low-cut black evening gown, changed into a shiny catsuit, and then appeared on stage in a sparkling golden gown that would have been perfect on Rita Hayworth in Gilda. She posed for photos with keynote speaker Elizabeth Edwards, HRC Equality Award recipient George Takei, and HRC president Joe Solmonese, before providing a little self-described "comic relief" and serving as the world's most glamorous auctioneer at the fundraising event.

On stage, she cajoled one bidder into forking over $5000 for a luxury cruise ("His name is Brian, he's with AT&T, he's single, and he's at table 6") and even offered to sit on laps to get the bidding up before the final gavel dropped on a five-figure gourmet catered dinner for 14.

Here's some hopeful news for a promising TV pilot. You may remember we were disappointed that Football Wives (directed by out filmmaker Bryan Singer and written by Marco Penette), the Americanization of the campy and subversive British soap Footballers' Wive$, didn't make it to ABC's schedule. Presumably, that meant we wouldn't see this pilot become a series, but that might not be the case.

The studio behind the show, has extended the cast's contracts, meaning that they're asking the actors involved to stay available in case they're needed for a Football Wives series. While ABC is reported as still being interested in the series, NBC and Fox have also shown interest.

As a fan of the original-flavor Wive$ I've been hoping this one would make it to screen. As you might know, the American version has Lucy Lawless as Tanya and Ving Rhames as the team manager with whom Tanya has frequent conflicts. Lucy Lawless vs Ving Rhames? You know that part has got to be good. The American adaption also stars Eddie Cibrian as Jason ... and if Football Wives is anything like Footballers' Wive$, that means plenty of shower scenes for the hunky Cibrian.

Now, after the networks announce their fall schedules, the rumor mill is always abuzz over a few unpicked pilots that could still make it to series. That rarely pans out, but there's a little more reason to have hope in this case since there's some action to go with the talk.

Meanwhile, I happened to catch a bit of Extra yesterday afternoon as the fluff-magazine started discussing one series I'm anticipating, the Greg Berlanti-produced Dirty, Sexy Money with one of its stars, Billy Baldwin. Baldwin teased his character's transgender storyline: "Let me put it this way, the question that will arise is whether my storyline is pre-operative or post ... and I'll leave it at that."

As you might recall, from our look at this year's TV pilots, one of Money's storylines involves a senator in a relationship with a transgender individual. Since it got a front-and-center mention in promotion for the series, I hope that signals that this story won't rest in the background.

The role of Baldwin's secret lover, Carmelita, was played in the pilot by none other than legendary NYC performer Candis Cayne (if you haven't seen Candis run out the front door and into 8th Avenue traffic in the middle of a number -- while still performing -- you don't know what you're missing). No official confirmation that Candis will be in the series proper, but I've heard some unconfirmed rumors that the talented beauty will appear in several episodes.