1. It's boring. It's not like 24, or one of those shows were shit actually happens. Dude gets drunk on martinis at lunch. Dude gets undercut by younger dude. Chick gets pregnant and maybe goes crazy. Dude smokes. Dude gets drunk. Dude cheats on wife. It's like the 37 hour-long version of Revolutionary Road without Michael Shannon going all batshit in it. The era Mad Men was set in was boooorrrrring. They didn't have the internet or really good drugs, or people to write like 12 year-olds on the internet on really good drugs for you to read. Also, only boring people get bored, and these people are bored all the fucking time.

2. Everyone's talking about it. No, really: everyone. The show has reached absolute fever pitch, and you want to be able to enjoy it in a bubble, without other people giving you perspective, telling you what to think, what they think, and why certain things about the show are a certain way. Like anything else, buzz should exist in moderation. Fever pitch is a bad thing, folks. Look what happened to The Sopranos! Which Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner was a veteran of.

3. Elizabeth Moss is a dealbreaker for you. Some people absolutely love the actress who plays Peggy! And some people completely despise her, because they argue that she was better when playing the president's daughter on the West Wing. Personally, I like her, but I'm still not watching the show.

4. You're taking a political stand against______. You gotta be subtle about this one, but you can work it. Just be very undercut-y and passive-aggressive (much like the show's characters!). For example: you think the show, while trying to contextualize (drinking/smoking/infidelity/lying/passive-aggressiveness) sometimes fails, and people can get the wrong idea (because, really though, you know there're assholes out there glorifying Don Draper without actually getting the fact that he's an awful person). You're just, you know, not about that. Also, Page Six ran an item today about Jon Hamm - supposedly a diva on set these days - trying to get his girlfriend a gig on the show. You won't stand for nepotism!

5. You don't have cable. Because you're trying to be fiscally conservative in the face of a recession! You are engaged in things like social activities, exercise, reading a book, watching a movie in a movie theater, seeing theater, or doing something that otherwise transcends the "second baseline of culture" (or something) that is longform dramatic television! Or, well, you're broke. Which is true. That works.

According to TMZ, Piven's sushi excuse (which we suppose should warn us off spicy tuna forever but only makes us hungrier every time we type it) was only the latest malady Piven claimed to have in order to get out of performing David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow on Broadway. And who leaked this information to the gossip website? Oh, only one of the show's producers, all of whom clearly hate him now.

Before Jeremy Piven ditched his Broadway show due to sushi-related mercury poisoning, producers say the actor was worried he was suffering from mononucleosis — the dreaded kissing disease.

The show's producer tells TMZ Piven had complained of illnesses from the beginning of the show's run in October. First, says the producer, Piven reported "low-level mono." After that, Piven told producers he was worried he might have Epstein-Barr virus. The final diagnosis, as his doctor stated publicly, was mercury poisoning from a two-a-day raw fish habit.

TMZ also spoke to Piven's barbell-loving MD, Dr. Carlton Coker, who confirmed the Epstein-Barr diagnosis. Sadly, blood tests ruled out also-ran viruses like "cow pox," "fainting disease," "the vapors," and a mysterious debilitation that can only be cured by a controversial dose of Hollywood clubbing.

• Piven Went Mono Before Going to Mercury [TMZ]

Entertainment Tonight is first with a press release from Piven's doctor, Dr. Carlton Colker, that plays like near-parody (yet isn't ridden with the telltale typos that plagued the Blind NBC Spoofer). First, Coker says how disappointed Piven is that Hollywood has not rallied around him during this "health crisis," and then there's this:

"Jeremy has been an avid sushi eater for many years, regularly eating sushi twice in one day. He has also taken certain Chinese herbs, and that, in combination with the frequent sushi consumption, could have led to these elevated mercury levels," Colker explains. He goes on to inform ET that a test revealed that Jeremy had the highest level of mercury that he has ever seen, which amounts to six times a healthy amount of mercury, in his system.

A Hollywood Elsewhere commenter mentioned that Colker is the "same ASSHOLE who I worked with on a reality television show a few years ago. He was an insufferable, egomaniacal douche bag and one of the worst people I ever had to deal with in the six years that I worked in the entertainment industry. Go do some more roids, Colker, you imbecile." This prompted us to do more digging, where we learned that Colker is not just a Fox News-vetted doctor, but a professional bodybuilder who "competed in power lifting in Israel"! Surely, this is the man we would trust when he says, "Take five Chinese herbs and five hundred unagi rolls and call in sick in the morning." [ET]

What made the actor shout "I FUCKING LIVE ON PORN!" and "Aw, the battery's dead...so is my fucking cock" while copulating in a depressing Valley one-bedroom? The answer, it may not surprise you to hear, was that he was totally high and turned on by the taboo of the camera. Still, Farrell claims that he has learned one valuable lesson: it's fine to make a sex tape, just don't leave it behind when you straggle out to the Albertson's on Ventura at 5am for a Hot Pocket and some lube.

• Colin Farrell On Rehab: I Was Dying [HuffPo]

"The thing about the press and why they need to leave me the [bleep] alone for a little bit is because I don't want that distraction from my work," she told the mag. "

"I want to get a nomination. I want to win an Oscar. I want to be known for more than, like, going out. For being 'the party girl.' I hate that. I bust my [bleep] when I'm filming, and when I gave time off, yeah, I like to go out and dance.

As her searching and fearless moral inventory recently revealed, Lohan determined to her satisfaction that she doesn't have a substance abuse problem, she has something far more destructive to her career: a media-covering-her-nonstop-partying problem. And with no proven outpatient recovery program to cure her of being utterly fascinating to the tabloids, her Oscar dreams may continue to remain elusive, no matter how hard she busts her [bleep] on the days she remembers to show up to the set.

• Paparazzi preventing Lohan's Oscar dreams? [MSNBC]
• Previously: Lindsay Lohan's Searching And Fearless Moral Inventory Reveals She's Probably Not An Addict, So Time To Hit The Clubs! [Defamer]