How I Met Your Mother 3.1 - "Wait For It..."

I'm never ashamed to admit that I love Mandy Moore, so hearing that she was going to guest star in one of my favorite current sitcoms, How I Met Your Mother, was fantastic news. A bit of a side note, but one day I was perusing the TV and ended up watching an Oxygen special on Miss Moore and it made me love her even, well, more. She's making smart decisions about how she's going about her life and I can admire that. Look at the other pop stars of her time and where they are. Mmhmm.

Anyways, the third season's premiere of HIMYM wasn't the best episode, but when it comes to this show, there never really is a dull moment. Like Heroes we have a character growing a beard, but Ted shortly shaves it off, as a metaphor for his "moving on" from Robyn. Barney was, like usual, hilarious, and when Ted meets Mandy in a bar, the drunker they get the better the jokes. Miss Moore played a tattooed bad girl (totally unbelievable, of course) but it was still charming as ever. Enrique Inglesias also guest starred, but he's not as cool.

Interesting to see where this season will go, now that we have a married couple, a broken up couple, and well...Barney. Below is the song off of Mandy's Wild Hope they played about 9 seconds of at the end of the episode. And check her out in one of the scenes, also below.

Mandy Moore - Nothing That You Are

Photo and video courtesy of CBS

Mandy gets indie

Okay, so before you smack me for being totally pop-culture obsessed, this does have some relevance to all you indie hipsters out there. Kinda. Okay, just a little. Deal.

I'm not afraid to admit I really like Mandy Moore.

Out of all those bubble gum pop princesses of yesteryear, Moore seemed to have the most promise. She wasn't getting dirrrty or knocked up, she chose clothes and some pretty quality films to keep her busy. And now?? She's getting indie.

MTV (shocker) reports that Mandy's next album, out in April 2007, will show her folk side, collaborating with producer John Alagia (Dave Matthews Band, Liz Phair) and working on some tunes with singer/songwriters like Rachael Yamagata, Chantal Kreviazuk, Lori McKenna, and indie pop-folk duo the Weepies. Tentatively titled Wild Hope, Mandy will write or co-write every song on the album.

And yes, fans will be hearing a different Mandy on Wild Hope — not the "Candy" Mandy they might have grown up with. She said that her love of folk did seep into some of the tracks, and she had to take the chance of it not connecting with her old fans.

"I love the music I love, and I wanted to make an organic, fresh, live-sounding pop record unlike what's out there now," she said, admitting that she no longer knows where she fits into today's musical landscape. But more than that, the album's also very personal, she said.

See. I told you she's cool.

Mandy Moore - I Wanna Be With You

Mandy Moore - Drop The Pilot

The Weepies - World Spins Madly On