We are huge fans of NOVA here at my house. We love Science and no one does it like them. To me, it’s the best use of television, and it’s such a great tool to get my kids excited about learning.

And no one gets too much more excited about learning than David Pogue, host of NOVA’s upcoming mini series, Hunting the Elements, which will air in April 2012.

Hunting the Elements follows Pogue as he learns about elements, those chemical building blocks of our world, like carbon or oxygen. Many of us learned about the Periodic Table of the Elements in Chemistry class, of course, but this series will teach you things you never knew before about them.

I got a chance to meet David Pogue and I interviewed him about his involvement with Hunting the Elements at the PBS Press Tour.

He calls me an Old’n.

I guess he heard some character on a cartoon referring to a young whipper-snapper as a young’n and he extrapolated to come up with a word for me and people of my ilk.

It’s not that I resent it per se, it’s more that I felt instantly he had it all wrong; I’m not OLD. Right?

Well, wrong. I am old. Compared to an 8-year-old, certainly. And I am coming to terms with that as I hover on the verge of turning 50 this year.

Seems like a pretty major milestone. Gotta be the halfway point of my life, at least, I would think. So it does give me pause – gulp – to think about claiming it. Although, of course, it does beat the alternative.

The point is that since I don’t feel old I didn’t want to be labeled as old, with all the implications the word holds for imminent nursing home residency, bed pans and death. And then came Tony Bennett.

I was invited to hear Tony Bennett sing last night as part of the PBS Press Tour of the Television Critics Association (TCA) annual Winter event in Pasadena, and he was on fire.

The man is 85 years old – Eighty-Five! And he was phenomenal!

I have not been a life-long fan of his; I never really got into the whole Ocean’s 11/Rat Pack kind of thing until George Clooney remade the movie, and I really had not paid much attention to the man until he did a Duet with Lady Gaga, whom he by the way said was his favorite partner for his new PBS Great Performances series called Tony Bennett: Duets II.

But I have become a newly-minted fan of Tony Bennett, not only because he likes to sing with Lady Gaga, or can belt out a great tune by himself, or works with his son as his manager, but because it turns out he is Really Old and that hasn’t stopped him from being a phenomenal – and working – performer.

Betty White, who is now 90 years old, is also still working her tail off in movies and TV, and has become a hipster sensation in spite of any amount of Old’n qualities she possesses. She’s at the NBC TCA Press Tour today, killing the critics with her charm and wit, and that’s no easy feat, given how disgruntled that bunch can be, so my admiration for her has grown again. I will probably skip her new show, Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, a “Punk’d for Seniors”, but I wish her the best nonetheless.

I have had a soft spot in my heart for her ever since the Mary Tyler Moore show and since my best friend from College, who grew up in Brentwood, showed me the little local newsletter his Mother had sent him, which sported a photo of their neighbor Betty White proclaiming “It’s Just Lovely in Brentwood.”

That’s LA for you, by the way. If you’re lucky, your neighbor will be a celebrity who thinks your neighborhood is “just lovely”, and then she’ll live to be 90 years old and will still have a job.

Or that will be you. Either way.

And either way, since I’ve just learned how old and still successful Tony Bennett and Betty White are, it means I am in great company when my son calls me an Old’n.

Tony Bennett: Duets II premieres January 27th on PBS. Betty’s White’s Off Their Rockers Special Preview January 16th on NBC.

{Photo credit, Tony Bennett: Rahoul Ghose/PBS. Photo Credit, Betty White: Matthias Clamer/NBC.}

I recently saw the film and loved it, and I got an interview with Connie Marks, the film’s Director. Marks was inspired to make the film when she learned of Kevin Clash’s life story: how he began making puppets when he was 8 years old, how he dreamed of working with Jim Henson and the Muppet Studio, and how he made his dream come true.

Kevin Clash has been driven by his passion for puppeteering for so much of his life, it’s truly astounding how he has kept it up and still loves it. You see the joy in him when he puts his hand into a piece of fabric and out comes Elmo. It’s magic.

Plus he turns out to have been a really helpful subject for a documentary, since there is footage of him as a kid from an old TV show called the Big Blue Marble, and all the behind-the-scenes footage from the Jim Henson days.

He was also blessed with an amazing set of parents – smart, loving, funny – and stylish -who give great interviews about what Kevin was like growing up.

It’s inspiring as a mom to see a man whose Mother and Father supported him when the rest of society thought it was a little odd, to say the least, that a boy wanted to play with and make puppets instead of be outdoors or playing with friends. I want to be that kind of mom to my kids – letting them know they can be who they want to be and that I will love and support them throughout.

I spent several years of my life watching Elmo 5 days a week as my kids & I watched Sesame Street in the mornings. It was our routine and we knew it was the last part of the show whenever the music started for Elmo’s World. I know some people may not have loved Elmo, but my sense is they are in the minority of the world. Elmo is pretty popular.

When PBS invited me to the Television Critics Association Press Tour in August, my family and I got to meet Kevin and have our photo taken with him – and Elmo, too.

I highly recommend seeing this delightful film!

I was one of several Mom Bloggers recently invited by the producers of this documentary to view the program and sit down with the director Rachel Dretzin and correspondent Douglas Rushkoff. Over lunch we discussed what they had found while making the film and what our experiences were as moms with reasonably active digital lives.

Certainly security and privacy were concerns that came up in the show, especially for parents worried about how to navigate the internet with and for their kids. And while I personally have the occasional fears about terrible things that can happen to my children, I think they can just as easily happen in real life as online, so I don’t demonize the internet as much as some do.

The film also shows the power of the internet and wired culture to transform — everything from education to imagination to warfare. You already know I’m hooked: I blog, I text, I email, I tweet, I FB, I Whrrl. I am a plugged-in mom. I’ll probably be doing all of those things while I’m watching the show tomorrow night.

The show’s website is also loaded up with a workshop for parents and educators — videos and thought-provoking questions. It’s an amazing resource and I highly recommend checking it out.

Frontline: Digital Nation, February 2nd on PBS. Check local listings. (In LA, KCET will broadcast it beginning at 9pm.)