anterias

New Blog!

2010-09-11T12:13:00.002-04:00

In case you haven't noticed, I don't post here anymore....But I do have a new, delightfully witty blog, Lifetime Movie Reviews, at http://MotherMayISleepWithLifetime.Blogspot.com. Even if you never watch Lifetime, check it out and tell me what you think!

TV as Background Music

2009-07-31T17:12:00.003-04:00

I've always defended my parents' decision to let me watch a shitload of television as a child, with the reasoning that they also made sure to involve me in lots of other activities, including getting me outside and to the library. And I became an editor, so you can't really say it decreased the amount I read or decreased my cognitive ability.

However, one thing I have noticed as someone who routinely did her homework while watching the telly is that I often leave the TV on for background noise. I'll turn it on when I get home and leave it on until I go to bed (go ahead, be horrified). Unless it's a particularly good episode of Intervention, however, I'm probably not paying too close attention.

I've noticed that some shows make better background shows than others--Law & Order and the Golden Girls, with their familiar lilt, make it easy to only half pay attention. Yappy shows like Family Guy will just be distracting. When I've had easy freelance work to do (and back when I was doing homework), I liked to watch a favorite movie, so I could relieve myself from the tediousness of the work by keeping myself entertained at the same time.

Luckily for me, my college roommate was also someone who grew up watching tons of TV, and so is my boyfriend. We're happy to turn on the tube, then talk all night. It's ok, we're not really paying attention to it.

Heroes: Hopefully if we forget the past we aren't doomed to repeat it

2008-09-30T10:49:00.002-04:00

I sat down to watch Heroes last night with my boyfriend, who hadn't seen the show since the second season. "Don't worry," I said, "nothing much happened last season." I then sat in vain trying to come up with a single thing he needed to know to understand the current season. "A bunch of people died...." I said. But then when I started listing off Nicki's husband, the painter guy, etc., he pointed out that all those people died in the last episode of the first season.

Finally I hit upon something. During a commercial break when it seemed Noah was in jeopardy, we had the following conversation.
Him: Eh, I don't care about him anyway.
Me: No, he's good now. He did all this stuff last season...uh, to take care of Claire and stuff.
Him: Oh, so he's paid his dues and we're supposed to care about him now?
Me: Mm-hmm.
Him: OK.

Yep, I guess that pretty much sums it up. Unless I want to get into the twins, and Claire's boyfriend (what happened to him again?), and Peter losing his memory, and Hiro in the ancient past, and Ned Rierson, and a whole lotta other plot points that apparently don't matter anymore.

Advice to Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears: You're never too young for Bloomingdale's

2008-09-06T00:41:00.002-04:00

Perhaps this is the reason for the demise of America's teenagers--no, not abstitence-only education--they don't have Mrs. Garrett to show them the way.

The Best Episodes of the Shield

2008-08-29T20:32:00.003-04:00

Anyone who's read much of this blog won't be surprised to hear that I'm practically hyperventilating over the season premiere of the final season of The Shield on Tuesday. In celebration of the best show ever made, here are my 5 favorite Shield moments.

Warning: for anyone who hasn't seen all six seasons, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!, as they say.

5. “On the Jones” (season 6)
One of the interesting things about The Shield being on FX—away from major sponsors trying to reach millions of people—is that it moves organically: it doesn’t try to cram into one huge “special television event” what should really take a few episodes to tell. After season 5’s finale in which Shane kills Lem, last season’s premiere finally closed the chapter on the chilling Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh (played by Forest Whitaker, who in between seasons won an Oscar). After Kavanaugh has what can only be described as a Macky-induced meltdown, Vic visits him in prison and tells him, “You’re stepping onto a whole new playing field; hope you know the rules.” Vic no longer has his posse (except for Ronnie), but once again he’s come out on top.

4. “Back in the Hole” (season 4)

There are so many good episodes from season 4 (“Tar Baby,” featuring Dutch singing “Hungry Like a Wolf” comes to mind), but this one, which takes place mostly at the Barn, is my favorite. The strike team does something unusual and tells (their version of) the truth about Shane’s involvement with Antwon. The scenes with Glenn Close grilling Anthony Andersen (now on Law & Order!) show how a well-done TV show can actually be better than a film. Meanwhile, Vic tells the team to go find out what really happened to the dead little girl—“and make sure you get some collateral this time.” Unfortunately, that collateral comes in the form of a bag of heroin…that makes its way straight into the hands of IAD. And in Aceveda we have one character on the show who decides he’d like to stop the downward spiral, as he “breaks up” with the prostitute he’s been having a destructive relationship with. The only bad thing about this episode is Vic’s unfortunate choice of t-shirt for most of the ep, a plain blue blob that Michael Chiklis says on the DVD’s commentary “makes me look like a blueberry.

3. “Scar Tissue” (season 2)
Now here’s Mackey in a hot t-shirt—a tight, bright green hold-over from the previous ep with “Shamrocks” written on it (and the episode ends with him getting some much-needed lovin’). But that’s not the only reason it makes my list. After Claudette makes her first chink in Vic’s armor (talking to his ex-wife),Vic prepares to pay the consequences for…well…one of his crimes: burning Armadillo’s face on the electric burner of his stove—a scene seared (sorry, I couldn’t resist) into the memory of every Sheild fan. Of course, he’s only because he feels he owes it to the newly disfigured Ronnie, and before he can confess, Lem and Shane cop a deal with a former inmate with a grudge. Best scene: Danny confesses to what was then the only other female officer that she almost kissed Dutch after solving an assault-with-bug-spray case. As they’re talking, Armadillo gets stabbed to death in the cage, which ends up being a defining moment in Danny’s career.

2. “Slipknot” (season 3)
The first episode Michael Chiklis directed is one of confessions: Acaveda finally confesses to his wife that he was sexually assaulted (her chilling reply: “how could you let this happen?”), Cassidy confesses that she’s the one who keyed her mom’s new boyfriend’s car, and Mara confesses to Shane that she stole the $7,000 from the money train stash. Though much of season 3 set up the relationship between Shane and Mara, this scene is the turning point: when Shane realizes that his actions are now going to have consequences for someone other than him. (We won’t get to see the destructive whirlpool these two wallow in again until season 6, when Mara yells at a beaten, sobbing Shane, “You want to shoot me? You want to shoot yourself? Do it.”) The end of the episode shows one of the best quintessential Strike Team moments: the boys taking back the streets, which somehow involves busting into a house and flipping over the dining room table.

1. “Circles” (season 1)
And TV show that begins with a riot and actually gets more exciting is one you know is good. There are plenty of characteristically awesome Shield moments in the episode—Vic busting through a fence in pursuit of a suspect, Shane telling Vic he’ll kill Gilroy for him—but the one that gets me is when Vic calls home and finds out Gilroy is there. More than ever before in the amazing first season, the viewer can kind of see how Vic backs himself into a corner and makes decisions he thinks he needs to make for the greater good. While he allows Acaveda to take credit for bringing Gilroy in, he has what is perhaps one of his first tear-his-heart-out moments. His reaction to his family leaving him is simultaneously hard to watch and impossible to turn away from.

p.s., if this still isn't enough Shield for you, check out hulu's Shield page, which has all sorts of interesting interviews with the cast.

From the archives

2008-08-28T18:01:00.004-04:00

While I'm waiting for my cousin to get here, I thought I'd finally get around to scanning a couple of things I found at my parent's house last year. Both are from my third grade file....(click to englare)

If you're wondering, "neon" is still my favorite color, and jogging suits are still my favorite thing to wear. Also, I believe "Dady Davedo" is "Danny DeVito," star of such 80s classics as Throw Momma from the Train and Twins.

This one is one of the "Week in Review" essays we had to write each week. Apparently, just as now, sometimes a TV show was one of the most exciting things to happen to me all week. And to my teacher.

RIP Tree

2008-07-12T20:49:00.005-04:00

They finally chopped the old dear down

Grey's Anatomy Sexcapades: A helpful chart

2008-04-23T23:07:00.007-04:00

(Click to enlarge)

In honor of tomorrow night's return of Grey's Anatomy, I've updated my helpful spreadsheet of the intricate social network of Seattle Grace. Print it out and reference during the show, or give to friends who've just started watching. It's color-coded for your convenience!

I hadn't updated it in six months, so I had a lot of Alex's squares to fill in--he's now head-to-head (pun intended) with George in the interhospital bangs race. I had to introduce a new color (orange) in an attempt to define Derek and Meredith's ridiculous relationship (which everyone is so sick of that the creator of the show has promised to get them together for good). But most surprisingly to me, the only red ("in a relationship") square on the current chart is Dr. Bailey and Mr. Bailey's, in which I was forced to note "in trouble." This, of course, means there are dozens of possible couplings. Here are my predictions:

The sure things
1. Hahn and Sloane
2. Derek and Kissyface (afterwards, he will reunite with Meredith, of course)
3. George and Lexie

My dream hookups
1. Karev and Izzie (um, again)
2. Derek and Addison (afterwards, he will reunite with Meredith, of course)
3. Cristina and anyone—when is that girl gonna get laid already?

My nightmare hookups
1. The Chief and Bailey
2. George and Bailey
3. Callie and Bailey (actually, I would love that one, but if people start crossing the fence it's really going to screw with my spreadsheet)

Best TV pilot ever

2008-04-17T23:08:00.003-04:00

Owen Wilson as a talking motorcycle
Jack Black as his rider/a former astronaut
Ron Silver in his best role since Rhoda

How had I never heard of Heat Vision and Jack?

Friday Night Lights (the kids call it FNL)

2008-04-09T22:04:00.003-04:00

Well, I just finished watching season one of Friday Night Lights on hulu. It's joined the ranks of Six Feet Under, Lost, Heroes, and The Shield as TV shows I've binged on. And yep, I guess it's the latest show I'll try to get you to watch. After watching 20-odd episodes in 3 days, here were some of my thoughts:

1. Kyle Chandler is fucking hot! I imdb'ed him and it turns out he's the dude from Early Edition—remember that show? where the guy gets a newspaper from the future every day? I didn't remember seeing anyone this hot on the ads for that show, so I checked out the archival footage. Sure enough: not hot (it's the 90's leather jacket!), BUT I did discover that it also starred Fisher Stevens! (??!). So I'm hoping maybe, after Fisher's successful turn on Lost, he can go guest star on Friday Night Lights? But I digress.

2. It's a constant shock to me how little nudity there is on this show! How is it possible we haven't seen Riggins' ass yet?! I didn't realize NBC was so prude...but maybe they're trying to make it a "family" show? In any event, I'm mad I don't get to see the Coach follow through on this bedroom eyes.

3. Hulu needs to get some more corporate sponsorships. At the beginning of each episode, I would cross my fingers and say, "Please not Chili's!" Their 15-second spots invited the viewer to "Pepper in some WOW!" with their "big-mouth bites." In the 30-second spots, a bunch of 20-somethings are in a car trying to decide what to do. Then one of the girls (who were thin as a rail and twice as attractive as their male counterparts) gets the AWESOME idea to go to CHILI's to get their "Smokehouse Bacon Burger," (follow that link, you won't regret it) whose tagline is literally "the thickest strips of bacon you've ever seen." Ironically, the company that has the best ads is Cisco (and one of them even features the executive phone!)

4. Have I mentioned how sexy Kyle Chandler is? I've never found football remotely interesting until now. Suddenly I find it kind of hot.

5. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first TV show to ever portray a wheelchair-bound person in such a major role. I have no idea what I would think if I was in a wheelchair, but the writers seem to do a good job with it. As soon as I thought, "wouldn't Mexico be less handicap accessible?" Jason can't get over a curb. I should also mention that Scott Porter, who plays him, is excellent, as are all the other no-name teenage actors on the show.

6. ...the actresses, on the other hand, I can't decide if I like or not. (And could Layla look any less like her parents?) I also don't get why there are no awkward, unattractive, or really smart women on the show.

7. Tim Riggins = white trash Baby Dayliner

8. Every time someone refers to linebacker "Smash," I think of LT Smash from the Simpsons: "That's right, Leuitenant LT Smash."

This is for all you Doogie lovers out there

2008-04-05T17:53:00.004-04:00

Like many of you, I am a long-time NPH fan. (That's Neil Patrick Harris, for all of you not in the know.) Granted, I haven't seen anything he did between Starship Troopers (a movie that I have seen half-a-dozen times, thanks to some inexplicable obsession the boys in my high school had with it) and Harold and Kumar. Here's a little gallery of NPH-related video clips I thought you all might enjoy.

When I saw Harold and Kumar, I had taped it off tbs. They had overdubbed this scene--where we learn that the Doogie line always works on strippers--to the point of non-comprehension. Luckily youtube had it in its entirety.

Want to see NPH and Jason Segel sing a duet from Les Miserables? I thought so. Here is the best moment ever to air on the talk show of the lady who played Karen on Will & Grace.

Speaking of my new favorite show How I Met Your Mother, this behind-the-scenes clip of NPH talking about the "Beyonce pose" that he strikes after getting out of the shower is priceless.

Unfortunately, Hulu doesn't have "Summer of '91" (aka the ep where Doogie loses his virginity to Wanda), but it does have the prom episode:

Neil Patrick Harris: Is there anything he can't do?

We also have crappier chairs

2008-04-01T20:50:00.004-04:00

my new phone

the fancy phones, but the ones in my office have a lovely photo taken from a parking lot.

I think it's entirely appropriate that my last post about work (a year and a half ago) was about my phone, because today we got new phones in the office. We were warned, however, that they weren't "going live" until May, and until then, we could only receive calls on our old phone. Unless someone called from one of the new phones. Such was the joke all day when someone would call. "You're supposed to call me on the new phone!!" "Ooops, sorry."[click] This was especially fun because our new phones come with a kajillion different ringing options ("ring tones" as the kids call them). Everything from "saxophone 1" to "chirp 2" to "CTU-24," which sounds exactly like the phones...well, in CTU on 24.

It wasn't long until we bottom-dwellers began to notice that our bosses had different phones than us. Equipped with a touch-screen with a gorgeous photo of one of our retail stores on it, these symbols of our corporate caste system seem to have no different features than our own phones. Though the Cisco website does note that while our phones are considerd "entry-level," (it actually says that) the fancy phones, ""provide a high degree of flexibility for exciting new productivity applications." Oooo.

Honestly, I'm not sure I want one of the Executive phones, even though (according to the internet) theirs cost $600 and mine only cost $200. Even my lowly one, with all its special features, makes me feel old. "I don't need all this technology!" I grumble, as my LCD-screen informs me that I have a voicemail and an mp3 of the message appears in my email inbox. I don't even know how it did that. And it opens in iTunes, where I keep old David Bowie songs and my entire Radiohead collection.

But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try to figure out how to get a picture of my ass on every phone in an office with a door.

The most ridiculous ads I've seen on facebook

2008-03-30T01:31:00.000-04:00

Look kids, it's like a quiz, where you pay us for something that you can get for free! Isn't that "whack"?

Here's an ad that appeals to us Bachelor lovers. The only thing thing that could have made this ad better is if they put "woo" in quotations marks, rather than capitalizing it.

Come on, a kit? All you need is a $3 pair of nylons—anyone who subscribed to my high school e-newsletter knows that. But the ad gets points for its picture, which is just on the verve of graphic.

TV shows in my hulu queue

2008-03-23T22:17:00.005-04:00

hulu is a pretty freaking awesome new website where you can watch Fox and NBC shows for free. It's definitely worth checking out, because they have the entire series of Arrested Development...and Hey Paula! I was excited to find Dragnet, the TV show I listed on a "favorites fill-in" in 3rd grade. I watched a lot of Nick at Nite back then.

For a retro TV addict like me, the real thrill is being able to see TV shows I've heard about (not on the streets or anything...I edited a couple of TV encyclopedias) and never seen. Here are some of my choices:

McHale's Navy: I'm disappointed they don't have the episode starring Guiseppe McHale, McHale's identical cousin. But one where the sailors adopt an orphan girl can't be that bad.

Simon & Simon: I think this show is about a 1970s Shane Vendrel, his gay buddy, and their dog Hooch.

Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot: Entertainment Weekly described it as "crazy, dubbed '60s Japanese sci-fi starring a winsome kid and his giant robot."

St. Elsewhere: I just want to see Howie Mandel with a fro

Hart to Hart: Even though it isn't backed up by a single viewer star-rating, I decided to go with the episode "Murder in Paradise," because of the first five words of the description: "At a Hawaiian croquet tournament...."

p.s. you can also watch shitloads of Movies on hulu. They have The Jerk, but no Space Camp.

Words I wish I knew how to spell

2008-03-19T22:16:00.004-04:00

Since I'm an editor, you may be under the mistaken impression that I'm a good speller. But historically, I'd whip through diagramming sentences on a sheet of notebook paper, but put me in front of that week's 2-page spread in the spelling workbook and I'd suddenly become completely uninterested. So I'm still a bad speller. But since I'm an editor,
a) all of my superiors not only have pristine spelling, my boss sometimes uses words I have to look up in the dictionary; and
b) if I ever misspell anything at any time, some one inevitably says, "you're an editor, you should be able to spell!" I always get picked for the spelling questions on Cranium. A bad spellers worst nightmare.

To that end, I have striven to become a better speller. Afterall, by my estimation, I type more than 12,000 words a day (2.5 hours a day typing at 82 words per minute). But there are some words I can never seem to get straight:

necessary - is it two Cs, one S; or one C, two eses? I can never remember
traveling - I'm sorry, but the rules of spelling dictate that a short vowel (the "e") should have a double-consonant after it if adding -ing. The British do it correctly...so why only one L? This baffles me.
occasionally - the only way I could get myself to remember that there were two Cs is to start to pronounce it in my head wrong: OCK-casionally. But since I type it more than I say it, I always want to say it wrong now.
Michael - the "a-e-l" just seems so unnatural. Every time I type it I have to say in my head "m-i-c-h-A-E-L!" I have to say it with an exclamation point, too (therefore, it always makes me happy to write it).
their - my fingers somehow started spelling their as "thier" all the time. I have to retype it the correct every time. But I've typed it wrong so many times, I'm never 100% sure how to write it when I'm writing longhand now.
Renaissance - ugh. there is no hope for me and this word
absorption - I actually totally know how to spell this word, but I always have to pause when writing it. I find the changing of the "b" in absorb into a "p" absorption to be awesome, and how often do you get to write "absorption"? When you do, take a moment to appreciate it.

How I Met Your Mother: The Latest Show I Will Try to Get You to Watch

2008-03-19T00:38:00.003-04:00

Each of you, if you have souls, are secretly waiting for that ONE SHOW to come back from the writer's strike--whether it's The Office, or Ugly Betty, or [SHUDDER] even Boston Legal. My secret show was How I Met Your Mother, which returned yesterday in a brilliantly timed St. Paddy's day episode.

I know you're all secretly relieved we get a little more new TV before summer, and those of us who invest in DVRs have not been getting our money's worth. So to pay back in karma this proverbial groundhog running back into its hole, I command that you all watch a yet another well-written, critically acclaimed, awesomely acted show that no one watches: How I Met Your Mother.

I know you all don't want to watch it, because it's a sitcom, and the sitcom was proclaimed dead around the time that According to Jim and The King of Queens became popular. But it wasn't dead--remember overlooked Arrested Development? And remember how you regret not watching that show when it was on? Well, now is your chance to make up for that. If, anything, it's got:
* Free episodes online.
* adorable Jason Segel (recently hired to write the next Muppets movie)
* Alyson Hannigan (aka Willow).
* Bob Saget in the Daniel Stern narration role.
* Neil Patrick Harris on The Price Is Right (pre–Drew Carey)
* Neil Patrick Harris playing Patrick Swayze's role in the "c'mere, loverboy" scene of Dirty Dancing.
*Neil Patrick Harris' abs. No, seriously

In fact, the only caveat I have about HIMYM is its laugh track. Though I hardly notice it anymore, it adds a campy quality that the show doesn't need. Though it does harken back to Seinfeld, which had a laugh track and was the only other show with such great New York specific lines as Barney's already infamous area code break down:

She might dress like she's 718, act like she's 212, but trust me, she's 516. Oh, and her husband, letting her out alone on St. Paddy's Day? If that dude's not 973 I'm 347.

But whatever, I'm done spending my free time trying to convince a small, imaginary audience to watch a show for the sake of the art of television. If you don't believe me, at least watch it next week: It's Brtiney's primetime debut.

Lost: Get better copyeditors

2008-03-14T00:09:00.005-04:00

Even in this, the most awesomely awesome of all Lost seasons, you know the Jin/Sun episode is gonna suck. Sure, Sun was part of the Oceanic Six, but what did we get to see of Jin? Some throw-away story? We wasted that time on Jin's dumb story when we could be figuring out what the eff is going on with Michael.

But if that wasn't bad enough, the punctuation in the subtitles of the Korean they were speaking the whole episode was all wrong. We're talking double hyphens instead of em dashes, missing commas, even misplaced periods! For those of us intimately familiar with correct punctuation, this is not only distracting, but disheartening. Are we the only ones who care about proper punctuation?

But hey—maybe it's hard to find good copyeditors in Hawaii. If that's the case, you just let me know, Lost producers, and I'd be happy to move there in a minute.

GOD DAMN IT!!!!

2008-03-05T22:00:00.004-05:00

There's no denying that one of the juiciest benefits of cable is Project Runway, and with the strike going on, it's amazing that I've been able to NOT watch the addictive show, especially with as many times as Bravo reruns it. I HAVE been DVRing them, and after my friends and I watched the first 7 eps in a row we vowed to save the next seven.

I have somehow managed to avoid watching any episodes of Project Runway and have avoided all airings of it, as well as blog posts, RSS feeds, office gossip, and ads about it. I have no idea what "the twist" was, and I didn't know who the finalists were. Until just now, when I was innocently watching a Lifetime movie waiting for Law & Order to come on so I could get my Jeremy Sisto fix. The clock tolled 10, and my DVR, forced to choose between the 2 shows that I had set to record, chose not L&O but Project Runway!! And there were the fat guy and the bald guy.

Fucked by our own technology again.

the play-offs

2008-03-04T20:59:00.001-05:00

From the NY Times

Winner of the Writer's Strike: Jimmy Kimmel?

2008-02-26T23:44:00.006-05:00

Jimmy Kimmel, previously found to be mildly irritating by myself and everyone I know, made a music video so fucking hilarious that the one person at the NY Times who's in charge of keeping his finger on the Inter of the Web sat up and took notice.

It features pretty much the only thing that could top oft-genius girlfriend Sarah Silverman's video "I'm Fucking Matt Damon"—Brad Pitt as a FedEx guy. Not to mention a bevy of other celebs that would cause my father to demand, "is that what's-his-name? from that movie? with the guy?"

In case you've been living under layers of Bea Arthur's shedding skin (or your overlords block video, like mine) and haven't seen the "viral videos" (as the myspacers are calling them), don't read the Times' awful descriptions of them. Just watch 'em:

(jimmy and sarah actually have great chemistry, I think, almost making up for him hosting "the man show")

("every once in a while hollywood rallies itself for a worthy cause," kimmel told the Times.)

The interesting thing isn't so much that this is Ben's best performance since Bounce, but the blatant use of "fucking," even though it's bleeped out. (Or as the Times puts it, "One vulgar word describing the coital relations between, on the one bed, Ms. Silverman and Mr. Damon, and on the other, Mr. Kimmel and Mr. Affleck, was repeatedly bleeped out for the broadcast of each video.") After the videos got more than three million hits combined on youtube, abc.com put Kimmel's (still censored) on their homepage, which loads the video immediately when you hit the site.

Did Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman produce something so funny that they proved that the power of the internet can topple networks' concern over the wrath of right-wingers? Well, not so fast: When the Times questioned ABC about it, they cited NBC.com's UNcensored "Dick in a Box" precedent. And though very careful about their family-friendly image, parent company Disney has long stood up to right-wingers on issues like gay rights.

Of course, maybe the real issue is, why do we censor shows at all? With the V-chip, there's no reason parents can't block shows with profanity (and I bet those cable boxes they're going to force everyone to get will have V-chips). Then, of course, Jimmy would have to cancel one of his best bits: "Unneccesary Censorship."

(RIP Mister Rogers)

Sometimes...

2008-02-10T03:00:00.000-05:00

you find yourself thinking something, and it suddenly makes you rethink your whole lifestyle. That just happened to me. I'd just finished watching the Chappelle's Show/Shield/Soul Train Saturday-night line-up on the CW11, when a blue screen came on and a deep voice said, "The following is a paid advertisement from the Time Life company." I picked up the remote to change the channel, then thought:

Oh wait, I bet this is one of those ads for old music. These are actually pretty good.

So now I'm watching Ashford & Simpson host a retrospective of soul hits of the 80s. And Ashford (or is it Simpson?) has just instructed me to hold on to my dancing shoes, because we've just begun. There are 168 R&B jams in this deluxe box set, and it's not sold in stores, so I guess we have a lot to cover.

Law & Order: a haiku in five parts

2008-02-08T00:04:00.000-05:00

part i: marathon
i got up at two
you don't care i have no bra
you'll always be on

part ii: jesse and jeremy
oh Green and Lupo,
You're the hottest partners yet.
See ya in my dreams!

part iii: time running out
It's 6:55.
He's gonna be off the hook:
No indictment yet

part iv: svu
we just gotta call:
molestor wielding dildo:
guest star: guy from Lost

part v: ...and the rest
Sir Jerry Orbach,
Vinnie d and Mr Big
brunette, blonde, red-head

Strike management

2008-01-21T20:04:00.000-05:00

Apropos to the conversation I got into in the ladies room today, one way to survive the WGA strike is to watch America's Next Top Model, which is how MTV is surviving the strike. If you get it during an especially good "cycle," you can see things like future winner Nicole (who doesn't know what Bollywood is) say, ""Are you serious? You know that's whack." to Jayla, who has confessed to cameras: "I am extremely confused by this competition." Not to mention the Bre vs. Kim the Lesbian showdown involving some Red Bull, a granola bar, and who's still in the running to becoming America's Next Top Model.

I'm just hoping they replay season 1, which was so innocent that when two Christians refused to pose without their clothes on, one was eliminated because Jay Manuel, then not "Creative Director" but lowly make-up boy, confessed to Tyra that Robin had jiggled her naked boobs at him. Priceless.

And I'm gonna get my abs in shape

2008-01-20T01:49:00.001-05:00

I went to see I am Legend tonight, and came to the realization about one of the archetypes of disaster films. You know the characters who are always the first to give up? In PG movies, the other characters rally them until they realize their potential. In PG-13 movies, they attempt suicide. In R rated movies, they're the ones that jump into the East River to escape the monster.

If I were faced with the end of the world as we knew it, that'd totally be me.

First off, I'm a total pessimist. I'm sorry, but if a giant spaceship/alien/virus is coming towards me, I'm not really having a "I'm gonna live to fall in love another day" attitude. And two, I don't really have a lot to give society. I couldn't come up with a cure, or fly a shooting spaceship. I'd pretty much be done with life as soon as the coffee ran out.

But I think there might be one plot twist that would keep me from being the wife in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The concept is: the only way the United States can beat the aliens/terrorists/virus is by giving a twenty-something idiot savant directions on how to work their vessel. In order for the awkward hipster--who only responds to witty prose that connects with his generation--to understand the dry, scientific directions of the military manual, someone has to edit it.

I'll get from Brooklyn to DC by stealing a horse from the Kensington Stables and riding her over the Verrazano Bridge.

I've been wiping my ass with puppies.

2008-01-09T22:50:00.000-05:00

More specifically, jungle puppies.

It all started the other day at my local market. I was out of toilet paper, and they were out of Charmin Basic, my preferred brand not only because it's the perfect thickness (not too rough, but not so soft I feel like I should be upholstering my freegan chair with it), but because it doesn't hide behind words like "original" or "super" or "nacho cheesier." It's just "basic," and that's OK.

But I digress. One Stop Market was out of Charmin Basic, so I picked up some Cottonelle. But this wasn't simply Cottonelle, it was Cottonelle for kids, which, if I am reading the graphic on the package correctly, supposedly shows kids how much toilet paper to use by putting a picture every 4 squares.

"This is hilarious!" I thought, and what normally happens after that I utter that phrase once again happened, as I smacked down money for something that was decidedly less funny once I got home and remembered that no one ever comes over.

What gets me about the Cottonelle for kids, besides the uncomfortable feeling of shoving a dog into my yammy, is that the puppy is pictured in two poses. One, with his tongue out next to a parrot, and the other, in a canoe with a monkey. No, seriously, in a canoe with a monkey:

As someone who works in a creative field for a big corporation, I am really trying to picture the meeting that occurred before these illustrations were commissioned. There must have been a lot of excitement about this thrilling new product, the downer of the group must have mentioned that they could only spend the money to have two different illustrations done, everyone immediately thought puppies should be involved...and then here is where I am drawing a blank. Jungle puppies? Jungle puppies in canoes steered by monkeys? Sgt. Joe Friday used to come after the type of people who would think up such things.

In the meantime, I have almost four whole rolls--"double rolls" even--to get through. Someone drink some prune juice and come over!

I've done it again

2007-12-29T20:02:00.000-05:00

THANK YOU

Thank you for your interest in being a contestant on Wheel of Fortune.

We may not be able to contact everyone. Wheel of Fortune and its Producers reserve the right to determine, in their sole discretion, which registrants to contact in the general geographic area where the Wheelmobile is scheduled to appear. Wheel of Fortune is not responsible for incorrect or incomplete transcription of the registration information (regardless of cause).

ER and me: back together?

2007-12-28T20:20:00.000-05:00

Like most of you, I plan on getting through the strike by watching tv shows on DVD and holding onto the last remaining episodes of the Simpsons (there's six of them left, including one where Ralph Wiggum becomes president!). But something occurred to me last night. I am awfully susceptible to getting hooked on new shows, and with very little to watch I might just get hooked on all sorts of stuff I never knew I needed to see before.

Worst still, I may even get hooked on shows I used to watch until I eventually built up enough antibodies to turn them off. Like ER. Like most people, I haven't watched this show since dreamboat George Clooney left. OK, OK, if I'm being honest, I held on all the way through Goose's brain tumor and long enough to know who Abby is.

But then I never looked back, except for the season 13 ep when Abby's baby was born in a storyline copied almost directly from the season 3 ep when Benton's baby was born. Even though it's even more melodramatic than Grey's Anatomy, and the lighting is still straight out of St. Elsewhere, not only do they have Stanley Tucci, they also have John Stamos. And he is still as dreamy as he was in Jesse and the Rippers:

I may be in trouble.

Hollywood: Alcoholic Homeless People Aren't Funny Anymore

2007-12-09T21:48:00.000-05:00

Like most of you, I was gathered around my christmas tree + tv (they're so delightfully close to each other!) tonight watching AMC's airing of "Santa Claus: The Movie," that 1985 gem starring Dudley Moore as Patch, the elf gone bad.

During a scene where Patch disappears with a sprinkling of magic dust and the drunken hobo next to him is the only one who sees, I realized something: movies don't have rummy bums as foils anymore!

A staple since the times of Charlie Chaplin, the lovable, confused homeless alcoholic arguably hit his stride as a archetype in the 1980s, where he appeared as the only witness to unbelievable events in Back to the Futures I and II, Big Business, and the aforementioned SC:TM. In addition, lovable bums (the very same ones!) appeared in Coming to America and Trading Places.

But at some point, for some reason Hollywood decided that alcoholic homeless people are NOT delightful, if not utterly undependable, bearded dudes who drink out of brown paper bags on city benches, shrugging their shoulders at the results of our foibles. Freaking liberals...because of them we'll never get to see Owen Wilson as a lovable wino who lives by a trash can.

for s.b.

2007-11-26T21:43:00.000-05:00

Hello, friends, fans, and people who google "cock bulge," "splash mountain boobs," and "Mary Steenburgen nude"! I'm back after a deboucherous, dignity-defying, delicious weekend.

After a trip to the graveyard (left) and to Arby's, we settled in peter's bed with turkey sandwiches, several cokes, and lots of beer to watch 6 episodes of The Shield from the season 1 set I bought just so I could loan it to people. Damn, have I mentioned how good The Shield is? You can't blame me for trying to get you to watch it, because right now we live in a society dominated by pop culture slang terms like vajayjay. When the New York Times writes a piece on vajayjays, it's time to take action.

If more people watched The Shield, the word for vagina in our lexicon would instead be "yammy," which is so much easier to say while raising an eyebrow. Sure, it's in the urban dictionary, but not enough people know about this and the many other dirty lines on The Shield that the FX Network lets slip through. According to the commentary on the infamous "ass fulla cum and back fulla shiv" episode, most of them are penned by Kurt Sutter, shown here as Margos Dezerian, shooting an associate. Would you rather be saying a word that guy popularized, or one that Oprah has told America is "paining" her? (Let me let you think about that one for a minute.) Sure, some people have caught on--Michael Chiklis reports still getting "sweet butter!" yelled at him on the sidewalk (I would link to the video on youtube, but fox pulled it down)--but it is now time for you to take the mantle and go buy the Shield DVDs (not that the writers will get any money for that). If you start watching now, you'll be able to catch up in time for the final season.

What else are you going to do with your TV?

Sorry

2007-11-10T16:46:00.000-05:00

sometimes you just get sick of yourself, and your blog. If it makes you feel better, pretend like I'm on strike.

An Important Notice to DVR Users

2007-10-21T17:09:00.000-04:00

For those of you who only watch shows you've pre-recorded, don't forget that you may be missing some great commercials. Like this one I caught while watching Benji the Hunted on WLNY55/10:

It's so bad I think it belong in the annals of some of my favorite bad commercials of all time, including the Boch auto commercial in Boston that featured Ernie Boch Jr. before he was cool yelling "woah, you two! stop making love!", and Chicago's Eagleman auto insurance from when I was a kid

Grey's Anatomy, I can't but love your hospital drama

2007-10-20T15:42:00.000-04:00

This season, I told myself I was over Grey's Anatomy. I mean, the show is ridiculous. Meredith keeps sabotaging her relationship with the hottest brain surgeon in the world because she's damaged or whatever, George got married to someone he didn't even like that much just so the writers could have some interhospital drama, and Burke left Christina at the altar for the ol' "I love you more than you love me" reason employed in season one of ER when Dr. "Tag" Tagilieri left Carol Hathaway at the altar, paving the way for George Clooney to sweep in.

Which reminds me, I stuck around ER for seasons after it was good--I had to watch Dr. Greene hook up with the horrible British lady before he died full of regrets, for Abby to hook up with Carter like we knew she wanted to and then to have it go badly for pretty much no reason other than Noah Wyle wanted to get his ass off the show, and for Dr. Pratt to come be the new Dr. Benton.

That's why, after getting totally swept up in Grey's again (every time Patrick Dempsey turns on those bedroom eyes I just can't help myself), I have decided that Grey's Anatomy and ER should just combine into the same show. Let Luka be the Chief, have Jon Stamos play Sloan, and let Linda Cardellini inject a bit of Lindsay Weir's angst into Meredith Gray.

But until all my pop culture dreams come true, please enjoy this updated Gray's Anatomy: Who's Slept with Whom spreadsheet, color-coded for your convenience. (Click to enlarge)

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jon Hamm

2007-10-19T23:47:00.000-04:00

Don Draper, will you narrate my slide show ad pitch?

The Tube is gone!

2007-10-04T20:11:00.000-04:00

The only music network worth watching, The Tube, has been been pulled from the air. For those of you who never watched the channel, you really missed out, and for those of you who were fans, I don't have to tell you how much this sucks.

According to Wikipedia, they had to shut down because they were broke. I guess I could have figured this, since they had so few ads, and they were all for weird things like the Air Hog blimp. Also according to Wikipedia, the last video they played was "Woke Up This Morning," aka The Sopranos theme song. It stopped abruptly at 12:01 and the screen went blank.

We'll miss you, Tube. Flipping through the channels will never be the same.

2007-10-03T23:18:00.000-04:00

I know I've been neglecting you, internets, but unfortunately I just can't see to come up with anything coherent to say about anything lately. So how about some incoherent ramblings? Here are the things that have been on my mind that would make fairly decent blog posts if I had the inspiration to really write about them. Feel free to choose your favorite and write your own blog post about it.

1. I would totally watch Brothers & Sisters if Greg Berlanti would cast Gregory Smith as Emily VanCamp's bf that Sally Field's family doesn't approve of.

2. No one probably has any idea who anyone other than Sally Field was that I just mentioned. It was a little show called Everwood, people, and it was like Brothers & Sisters except it KNEW it was cheesy, and instead of Sally Field's hysterics we got Treat Williams' raised voice and measured apology/feelings explanation.

3. Maybe it's just because I spent a lot of time with him when I was going through puberty and he was a smoldering pediatrician, but I always kind of felt like George Clooney was mine. Until he forsook me for a cocktail waitress/scorpion eater/motorcycle accident victim. On the bright side, George never stays with one woman for too long, and look at her last boyfriend/Fear Factor partner! Maybe there is hope for me yet.

4. I think Dirty Sexy Money is my favorite new show. Unless you count Tina Fey's American Express commercial.

5. I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. Behold my provisions for the weekend (other than a nice bottle of vicodin):

6. I want Wes Anderson's brother to come decorate my apartment. Owen can come help (it will give him something purposeful to do), and afterwards I'll make us all some pizza rolls and peanut butter/banana milk shakes.

7. I think what is wrong with our culture today can pretty much be boiled down to the fact that smug, egotistical John Edwards still continues to get TV deals, while gentle, Mr. Belvedere lookalike James Van Praagh gets his show canceled and has to watch Jennifer Love Hewitt reenact his life. If I was dead, I would so never communicate with a guy who whitens his teeth so he can flirt with my bereft sister or whatever.

8. Does everything google touches turn to gold? This new site from blogger is absolutely mesmerizing, and one of the best encapsulations of humankind I've ever seen: it's a slideshow of recently uploaded photos to blogspot blogs. Just try not to get drawn in....

9. I'll try to write some posts this weekend while I'm drooling all over myself and am too disfigured to leave the house. Thanks for sticking with me, people

All I want for Christmas is a rainbow guitar strap

2007-09-15T00:32:00.000-04:00

Don't thank me, thank The Tube.

Pop Culture Dreams

2007-09-12T00:04:00.000-04:00

As a frequent dreamer and consumer of pop culture, I often have pop culture–related dreams. Which of these should I be the most worried about? (These are all real by the way, written down in my various dream journals in the past year.)

1. I'm in the back seat of a car with some people, on our way to a pool. Through a conversation we're having, I come to realize that the edition of Gone with the Wind that I have was not the original one. In both of our versions Rhett and Scarlett went to see a movie together, but in my version, the movie they go see is Star Wars, and there's a lot of talk about Star Wars. But in the real version, they went to see a different movie, and the version I have was a special promotional version that was put out when Star Wars came out. Suddenly it all seems so obvious--of course, Star Wars wasn't even out during the Civil War! and I say, "look, the only picture in mine is of a space ship from Star Wars!" I am devastated not only because I had been duped, but because the version of the book I have was my mother's, and its inscribed to her from her mother. And no one knew all along that it was the wrong version.

2. I'm in the final fashion show for America's Next Top Model and the challenge is that I'm supposed to walk down the runway looking mad.

3. At I'm work, which has relocated to two doors down from my apartment building. Howard K. Stern calls me from Anna Nicole's wake, or maybe it was Danilynn's birthday, I don't know. I'm pretty psyched about this because he wants to do a book, like an autobiography or something, with us, and I think it's going to make a ton of money. The next thing I know, he's in my cubicle, shaking the back of my chair, and he talks me into getting up and waltzing with him in space between our cubicles.

4. I'm making out with Vic Mackey.

5. Steve Martin is being honored at an awards show that I am in charge of. I see him on some steps and I think, "Is that Steve Martin? He looks like shit!" He's wearing a tux, but he's all unshaven and he just got out of rehab. Then he comes up to me and grumbles about how he maybe he shouldn't have come, and people aren't going to like him, etc. I grab the fleshy part of his face just above his chin and give him a kiss on the opposite cheek. We exchange meaningful looks.

6. My mom stabs Alan Arkin in the back of the neck.

I would watch the Emmys

2007-09-08T19:03:00.001-04:00

if these were the nominees.

Dear Jack Nicholson, I'm totally putting you on my myspace page

2007-09-05T23:37:00.000-04:00

1. Clear your calendar for the next 20 minutes
2. Read this 1984 Rolling Stone interview with Jack Nicholson
3. Just try to tell me it's not one of the most fascinating pop culture interviews you've ever read

Here are some quotes to whet your appetite (hint: read them in your head in Jack's voice):

On BFF Warren Beatty:
I certainly know that he loves Diane Keaton. Maybe I shouldn't say that, because he doesn't want to have his personal life discussed, but in this case—[laughs]—fuck him.

On women:
I prefer the company of women, and I have deep respect for them. I'm buzzed by the female mystique. I always tell young men there are three rules: They hate us, we hate them; they're stronger, they're smarter; and, most important, they don't play fair.

On The Postman Always Rings Twice:
See, Americans don't like sexual movies, they like sexy movies.

On aging:
I don't want to be a man who, just past a certain point of physicality, believes it when young women who aren't say they actually prefer you this way....It's a goofy, clownish part; I don't mind acting it, but I don't want to be it.

Five Reasons to Watch Saving Grace

2007-09-03T22:36:00.000-04:00

Though the best new show on cable may be Mad Men, the most watched is Saving Grace, a Highway to Heaven update starring the commanding Holly Hunter. I chalk this up to everyone who's read The Left Behind series, but of course, that lead-in from Kyra Sedwick's The Closer, of whose audience SG retains 91 percent, doesn't hurt.

The show is rough around the edges—critics bemoan the angel-saving-the-wicked-woman premise, and I wish they'd give up on the tidy, police procedural plotlines and just let the actors act already—but it stands up, and hasn't become tired like the "get to the point already" Damages on FX.

Just in time for you to catch the last two episodes of the season before Heroes starts up on Mondays, here's five reasons to watch:

1. Holly Hunter
I know I don't need to convince you that Holly Hunter is a good actress. In the show, Hunter's nuanced acting makes her a joy to watch in any scene, even those suffering from often-cheesy dialogue (much of it penned by The Closer's Nancy Miller). And I don't think I could ever get sick of watching her drink, smoke, and fuck (all of which she does a lot of). Bonus points for scenes of her and a hot cowboy cop galloping on horses.

2. Oklahoma
I bet that it's actually filmed in LA, but the show takes place in Oklahoma (which is this state by Texas). The characters are always climbing trees and hanging out in barns and hick bars. And as we are continually reminded, Grace's sister died in the Oklahoma City bombing. Watching a series that takes place in a red state is kind of interesting, and there are some very pretty landscape shots.

3. Laura San Giacomo is more Kit than Maya
Laura San Giacomo, who plays a forensics expert and has all of the "CSI" lines, is so likable you'll forget having to watch her as annoying Maya Gallow, lecturing David Spade on Just Shoot Me, and remember her as Julia Robert's lovable BHF (best hooker friend) in Pretty Woman.

4. Earl the Angel Isn't the Only One in Heaven
Like all Shield fans (yes, I'm bringing up The Shield again), I've felt that the world hasn't been quite right ever since Lem fell victim to the ol' grenade-dropped-in-the-backseat. But here, we get to see Lem in his perfect afterlife. Instead of getting left by Vic to babysit three Salvadoran drug runners (and subsequently having to fight them all off), Lem—oops, I mean Ham—is left by Grace to sit in a one of those wooden porch chairs outside of her grandfather's trailer, gazing at the sun (Lem almost gets shot in the head with a rifle; Ham, pooped on by a bird). Adding to the Oz-esque atmosphere of Lem's redemption-filled afterlife are his old nemeses in new roles: the woman who turned him in to IAD as a helpless rape victim, the IAD guy she talked to as Kit's husband. Pretty soon Forrest Whitaker is going to show up as his uncle or something.

5. Grace is an atheist
I think the whole angel thing would do me in, but the show's saving grace (ha! get it?) is that Grace herself is an atheist. Unfortunately I don't think the show can go on for many more seasons before she converts, but as long as she keeps up her bad behavior, I may just be hooked.

Hackneyed Expressions

2007-08-31T01:40:00.000-04:00

The Harbrace Handbook of English (1941) says

Nearly all trite expressions were once striking and effecive. From overuse they have lost their vigor. They no longer stimulate the reader; often they annoy him.

Here are some of the "hackneyed expresssions" they list:

a bolt from the blue / a long-felt want / bathed in tears
brawny arms / briny deep / brown as a berry
cheered to the echo / course of true love / Dame Fortune / deadly earnest
downy couch / eyes like stars
filthy lucre / flower of the Old South / goodly number
Grim Reaper / justice to the occasion
mad as a wet hen / method in his madness
partake of refreshments
poor but honest / riot of color / strong, silent man / sumptuous repast
sun-kissed meadows / table groaned
take my word for it / to the bitter end / toothsome viands / wrought havoc
wry countenance

Tyra here I come

2007-08-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

I recently read that there will be no "plus-sized" models on ANTM this season, so I figured I'd apply. My friend Peter came over and we snapped these shots that are sure to get me on. Some of you may think the unconventional litterbox locale is a little disgusting, but is it more disgusting than pretending to be a victim of domestic violence?

So edgy.

Question

2007-08-22T00:18:00.001-04:00

Do you think that the astronauts on the International Space Station, as part of their mission, are charged with keeping the human race alive if everyone on Earth (or Earth itself) is obliterated somehow?

If yes, do you think they discuss it ever? Who would you choose to procreate with first if you Commander Peggy Whitson? (pictured, with rest of space station crew)

Is anyone else...

2007-08-14T20:46:00.000-04:00

...as confused and disturbed as I am by the fact that Steve Carell looks sorta hot in this movie poster? Is it the pancakes, or just lots of airbrushing?

The courtship of Ronnie and Paula

2007-08-10T18:42:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, you all rolled your eyes because I was posting about The Shield again. Well, when you finally get your asses around to watching The Shield, I hope you plan on coming back to these posts, when you'll actually see them for the witty masterpieces they are.

In any case, last time I was saying how I did some googling (it's a hobby) and found out that David Rees Snell, the hottie who plays underappreciated Ronnie on the show, is married to Melanie Myers, who plays underappreciated Paula on the show.

As I continued to fill practically every free hour watching season 4 of the show, I got to thinking about how The Shield should give poor Ronnie and Paula their own romantic storyline. Three episodes later, in the last scene of the season finale, I got my wish. Herewith, the courtship of Ronnie and Paula:

1) As we close in on the scene, for once Ronnie is in the foreground and Vic is in the background. Although he's in shadow, we can clearly see he's gettin' Paula wasted.

2) Uh oh, now she's laughing and pointing at you! You are so in, buddy; you are so in.

3) Now Ronnie gets his sexiness on as he leans against a pool cue.

4) Just as Ronnie's thinking about making his move, he's cast back into the blurry space behind Vic.

We may never find out what happened.

NY storm aftermath: pics from my camera phone

2007-08-08T13:01:00.000-04:00

This morning while I slept there was a horrible storm in New York. Rumor has it that a "mini tornado" passed through my part of Brooklyn.

This is my street. I saw later (but was unable to capture on phone), a tree that had fallen over and blocked a seldom-used side street. Another tree had fallen on top of a parked car (sucks for that person!!).

Here was a tree that had been completely uprooted, taking part of the sidewalk with it:

Since the subways were mostly shut down, I took the bus in. I nodded off in the financial district, since we were stuck in traffic, unmoving for about a half an hour. When I woke up this was what was out my window:

It took me 3 hours to get to work.

David Rees Snell: I think I love you

2007-08-05T22:45:00.000-04:00

While staring into the surf during my recent vacation, I finally made a life decision: I decided I was ready to start watching The Shield again. I'd taken a little break, because it was beginning to consume me, but I've decided I'm ready to dedicate all my spare time to the travails of the Farmington PD again. If you find all of these posts about The Shield boring, then go watch the show and come back. Seriously. Do I have to buy season 1 for every one of you and sit you down in front of it?

If you're still here, I'm sorry to disappoint all of you who found this page by googling "Michael Chiklis bulge," but this post, for once, isn't about Michael Chiklis. It's about David Rees Snell, who plays Detective Ronnie Gardocki on the show. That's him, kinda blurry in the background in the photo, and that's how he is in most episodes.

Even though he only gets about 6 lines per episode (every episode), I love him. And I know I can't convey that as well as this person did on youtube, where you can find a 4-minute montage of all of Ronnie's best moments set to a dance remix of "Hungry Eyes." But I will try:

I might like him so much because he's got a good sense of humor, or because he looks great in a sweatshirt. But it's probably because he has one of the best beards in the business (we won't mention the 'stache he had in season 1), and I'm not the only one who things so because it's the most commented-on topic of conversation on the discussion board of his imdb page.

David plays back-up man Ronnie, who is the only guy who has managed to deal with the disparate personalities of everyone on the Strike Team. Yet he's mysterious. How did he learn so much about computers and safe cracking? Why is he so good with dogs? Who is this horrible woman he's dating that made him shave the beard? As the members of the Strike Team drop like flies, we see more and more of Ronnie, but just enough to whet our appetites.

I feel kind of bad for David. He gets to be just behind the action all the time, and he joked in a DVD commentary one time about how they were always having him go "around back" when they bust through a house and never show him. But his imdb page also says he's married to the most under-shown female regular on the show: Melanie Myers, who plays Paula the patrol woman, the occasional female confidante to Danny (like when she needs to talk about women stuff like almost kissing Dutch). No one on the internet seems to know when they got married, but I like to think that they spent their free time on the set getting to know each other, and ultimately making out in the "cage" after hours, and then falling in love.

I'm so desperate to see more David Rees Snell that I'm rather angry that the Hallmark Channel Original Movie "Desolation Canyon" isn't available on Netflix. Not only is David in it, but so is Kenny Johnson, who played poor Curtis "Lemonhead" Lemansky on The Shield. (Rounding out the cast is Stacey Keach and Patrick Duffy.) I have no doubt this critically lambasted Wild West adventure would keep me very entertained, as the only reason why I watch that new Holly Hunter program is to see Kenny have TV sex with her.

Anyway, I have to go back to watching The Shield now, so please enjoy this little Ronnie moment, and tell me he's not the cutest:

Or check out this short film, which is pretty dumb but stars DRS when he was a 20-something sideburned cutie without a middle name.

For Big Lebowski fans

2007-07-28T15:13:00.000-04:00

Via popwatch.com, Here's an essay Jeff Bridges wrote for the foreword to a new book on the Big Lebowski: Zen and the Art of Dudliness. If you're a fan of this movie reading this essay will make you like it even more.

Afternoon Movie Review: What Matters Most

2007-07-28T15:00:00.000-04:00

I was really disappointed to flip to the Lifetime network today only to find I had missed all but 4 minutes of "Alone with a Stranger," described by my on-screen channel guide as: Willaim. R. Moses, Barbara Niven (2000) A woman holds identical twins at gunpoint while trying to determine which is her husband and which, his murderous brother. Myst./Susp. [TV-14) D, V [CC]. I turned it on just as the woman had to decide which identical twin not to shoot. The scruffy one ultimately saved himself by saying, 'It's like Lindsey said, 'It's broken, Mommy.'"

Maybe it was the disappointment of missing this gem, or perhaps there is some truth at the only intelligent thing National Enquirer EIC David Perel told me, "Lifetime is like crack for women," but I was soon sucked into the next feature: "What Matters Most."

This movie stars My Two Dads' Chad Lowe as a high school basketball player who gets a girl from the wrong side of the tracks pregnant. But they really love each other! You can tell because Chad's character, Lucas, plays the guitar for the girl. She says:"Lucas, you wrote that? It is sooo beautiful." And he replies: "My daddy don't think so."

To be exact, his daddy said (and I quote): "If you think I'm gonna let you go off to college to play the gee-tar like some homo hippie fag, you gotta 'nother thing coming. You're gonna have my grandchillin' and marry some girl, you hear me?"

After the Dad beats Lucas several times and Lucas and his girl have a Zack-and-Kelly's-prom moment and do some bubble-blowing, the young lady (who also happens to be a genius who works at a diner), confesses her news and Lucas proposes.

OK, so at this point I'm about to change the channel, but then Lifetime took ahold of me as~Shock!~in an Everwoodesque plot twist, Lucas gets hurt at a BB-ball game and goes into a coma.

When he awakes, he is unchanged except he walks with a crutch and talks like he has a giant jawbreaker in his mouth. Oh, and he has a baby his father is refusing to admit is his. The movie takes several completely weird and therefore unexpected turns as Lucas tries to kill himself, yells "don't loooook at meeee!" a few times (ok, that was expected), tells his parents he's going to marry the girl they want him to (I guess parents in the South are real keen on their kids getting married at 18), then there's a little switcheroo at the altar and the baby mama marries him instead. You see, it was all a ploy to get around the father's psychotic classism.

At the end of the movie, the Dad that had been beating his son for trying to call the mother of his child and so forth has the baby on his lap and is cooing, "Who's the greatest Grandpa?" And we all learn that it's OK if you brutally beat your child, as long as you allow your wife to drag you away from the wedding procession your crippled son just sprung on you.

Crack, indeed.

I'm sorry, but I still love Tom Cruise

2007-07-20T22:28:00.000-04:00

Say what you will about Tom Cruise: that he's a crazy freak, that he never deserved Nicole Kidman, that he champions the strangest religion in America (and that's including the polygamists), that he and Katie Holmes have some kind of arrangement that has nothing to do with falling in love, that "Cruise" was kind of a strange last name to pick for himself, that Suri might be an alien...And you'd be right. But there's still something about him that's strangely compelling. You want to watch him on TV appearances, because he's totally fake but he's playing "Charming Movie Star" better than he ever has.

At this point maybe I should confess that in high school, I had a bit of a thing for Tom. I was on a quest to watch every Tom Cruise movie possible, and am slightly embarrassed to admit that there are fewer Tom Cruise movies I HAVEN'T seen than ones I have. My friends and I rewound and watched the "volleyball scene" from Top Gun over and over, and sneaked into Jerry Maguire by buying tickets for a movie that wasn't rated R (I'm sorry to say it was one of the most rebellious acts of my high school years). My obsession hit its peak when I went through all four years' worth of back issues of Entertainment Weekly I had stashed in my closet and cut out every single picture of Tom and made them into a giant collage, which I hung on my bedroom wall over my bed.

But before you write me off entirely, keep in mind that there are a lot of good Tom Cruise movies, and don't tell me that when you're flipping through the channels and see A Few Good Men, The Color of Money, Mission Impossible, or Interview with a Vamprie you don't stop to watch them. In fact, I bet you'd even watch Cocktail or Losin' It. Tom Cruise brought us the Pervvy Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia; he's still what a lot of people think of when they think of amputee veterans; and he gave us all of the idea to use an autistic person to count cards in Vegas.

But Tom's real contribution to the landscape of American cinema is that he is the embodiment--if the not the very creator--of an American ideal we may not realize we have: being cocky is acceptable, even likable, as long as you are a handsome guy with heart. Whether it's a cocky fighter pilot, a cocky lawyer going up against Jack Nicholson, or a cocky, scrappy Irishman trying to fight his way into a enough cash to make it Out West, we find ourselves rooting for him over and over again. Cocky teenager who turns his parents' home into a whorehouse when they're on vacation? Awesome! Cocky sports agent who wins the heart of a single mom? I know I should be cringing but I'm tearing up instead. Cocky Upper East Side doctor who gets caught in a web of sexual desire? You know you want to stick around to see that orgy scene.

Maybe where Tom went wrong in his real life is trying too hard NOT to be cocky. Because it's the attempted earnestness that turns everyone off. If instead of jumping up and down on Oprah's couch proclaiming "I love her!" he simply said, "Katie Holmes is a hottie, my religion may be weird but so is Christianity, I'm an Oscar winner, and p.s., I'm rich, bitches, so shut the hell up," THEN flashed that movie star grin, we'd fall for him the same way Charlie does in Top Gun.

But even if that doesn't happen, I'm still with ya, Tom. If things don't work out with Katie you just give me a call and I'd be happy to live in your mansion and have your babies. Just as long as Nicole doesn't mind.

You had me at "part-time dad juggling his wild L.A. lifestyle"

2007-07-18T13:30:00.000-04:00

I just read the description for the new David Duchovney show:

Bachelor Hank Moody's (David Duchovny) got it made: he's a sexy best-selling author who's irresistible to the ladies. But as a part-time dad juggling his wild L.A. lifestyle with grown-up responsibilities, this say-anything writer's at a loss for words. This smart Showtime comedy also stars Natascha McElhone (as Hank's ex-girlfriend), Madeleine Martin (as Becca, his 13-year-old daughter), Madeline Zima and Evan Handler.

Am I just a sucker for good ad copy? Or is it that the name of the show, Californication, reminds me of how tight David Duchovny's pants were in the 1993 film Kalifornia (um, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, of course)? Because I really want to see this show, and since it's going to be on after Weeds, it almost makes me want to pay the outrageous sum to get Showtime.

I do have some questions, though:
1) How much do you wanna bet that Evan Handler (who you may know as Charlotte's bald husband from Sex in the City) plays his "wild" best friend?
2) How much you wanna bet that his interpretation of this role comes nowhere close to Johnny V's brillance in "Scott Baio is 45 and Single"? (to be fair, Johnny V is not acting. You can't make that kind of assholery up).
3) Do you think Showtime tapped DD to do this show because they loved working with him such much on The Red Shoe Diaries?
4) Will Minnie Driver be making a guest appearance? Her and DD had so much chemistry in that monkey heart movie.
5) If I subscribe to Showtime, will it just be a slippery slope, whereupon I will soon find myself with HBO, Encore, and a DVR?

In case you're really bored....

2007-07-11T23:33:00.000-04:00

I've added some of my favorite videos from youtube at the bottom of this page. It's like having me in your living room, flipping through the channels, except you won't have anyone mooching off your drugs and booze. Enjoy!

Better than Esteban

2007-07-10T02:32:00.000-04:00

My favorite alien expert, veep, and developer of homegrown kitchen hints, Bruce Lubin, presented on HSN tonight.

Running commentary via text message between my friend and me:

are you watching? where the hell is bruce lubin.

Ooh thanks for reminding. Finding it now.

This is painful. I don't think blubin's been on yet

Totally painful.

I would never buy an air purifier from that lady, she just declared kool & tG never cooler

Who is this wingnut?

not bruce lubin that's for sure

[Bruce appears and we watch for his 10 minutes, mesmerized by his performance.]

Was he holding his blackberry?

He was. He is on the dvr for my housewarming party.

HA! SWEET!
3500 sold! Should I stick around for the purse party?

No! Run away!

-----
Buy Bruce's book of amazing tips he and his loving wife have been developing for years here.

Movies My Mother and I Both Rated Five Stars on Netflix

2007-07-01T02:49:00.000-04:00

Billy Elliot
Body Heat
Casablanca
Chinatown
ET: Theatrical Rerelease Version
Back to the Futures I and II
Clue
The English Patient
First Knight
Waiting for Guffman
Citizen Kane
Arrested Development (seasons 1–3)
Far from Heaven
Being John Malkovich
Beetlejuice
David Bowie: The Best of Bowie

Movie We Both Rated 4 Stars
Willow

Does anyone else have iPhone fever?

2007-06-30T01:04:00.000-04:00

More importantly, does anyone else think David Pogue is adorable in this iPhone video?

The Bulge that Started It All

2007-06-25T22:36:00.000-04:00

This is what happened:
Awhile back I posted about a British documentarian that looked like Mo Rocca.
Then I wrote about the episode of The Shield where Shane goes undercover as a cock fighter.
Then I added a link to a TMZ photo gallery of celebrity bulges.

And then, someone googled "mo rocca cock bulge" and my page came up. It was my best google hit ever.

So I wrote about it, and ever since then, Anterias has turned up as gay men and straight women google the bulges of their favorite actors. I've gotten Kevin Costner cock bulge, and, much to my delight, Michael Chiklis cock bulge no less than 4 times (though it may be the same person googling it over and over).

I wish I had a photo of either of these bulges, which, truth be told, are probably worth seeing if you're bored and horny and hanging out on the internet. But according to the Celebrity Nudity Database, which, I'm not even joking here, I discovered while doing legitimate research for my job one day, you'd have to go rent No Way Out and be fast with the pause button to Kevin's man parts pressing against his pants. And Michael Chiklis isn't even listed!

What I DO have is the kitty strangling scene from The Shield. And who doesn't want to see that?

Afternoon Movie Review: Project X

2007-06-12T00:55:00.000-04:00

Project X is not only one of the best movies ever made, but may be THE best movie to stumble upon on a weekend afternoon when paging through your Optimum Online Channel Guide (or what-have-you). For the uninitiated, Project X is a 1987 film starring Matthew Broderick fresh of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Helen Hunt fresh off of Girls Just Want to Have Fun (If they ever get together for lunch with SJP, can some pap PLEASE photograph it? I want to hang it on my wall). Not only does it star these fine actors, it as stars the greatest monkey cast ever assembled.

I have many favorite parts of this movie, which centers around monkeys in an Air Force experiment who are being taught to fly airplanes by a cigarette-smoking Broderick, but the part that really means a lot to me personally is when MB throws his bomber jacket over a barbed wire fence to make it more safe for the monkeys, who are escaping the compound, to jump over. It was this very scene that gave me the confidence to drunkenly throw a jean jacket and a sweater over the coils of barbed wire on top of the fence behind my apartment when I was breaking in at 3 in the morning last fall.

Because this was filmed in the days before you could just CGI a smile onto a monkey, all of the delicate emotions of the chimps had to be achieved with brilliant camerawork (i.e., the slow zoom-in) and a little “African-themed” music in the background (by none other than Oscar-winning composer James Horner). The movie has at least 10 monkeys in it, and they all have separate personalities, like the monkey who blows raspberries and the monkey who makes monkey faces.

It’s worth it to try to catch this movie from the beginning, in which you will be treated not only to some of its most heart-warming moments like Helen Hunt teaching Virgil the Monkey sign language, but also to a bit part by 24’s Jean Smart. When she has to break the news to Helen that the monkey she’s been dressing in polo shirts for the past 3 years (condensed into 15 min in the movie) has to be given away, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tear up a little bit.

And when those monkeys fly away in the plane at the end, I challenge you not to do the same.

P.S. I would like to thank the Fox Movie Channel for not only airing this movie without commercial interruption, but airing it unedited. It had been years since I’d heard the controversial line that brings Jimmy and Teri together: “Your ass is nailed to the wall!”

There's nothing I can say about Paris going to jail...

2007-06-04T17:39:00.001-04:00

because Richard Simmons has said it all for me.

Dear Anonymous Williamsburg Hipster,

2007-05-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

Against my better judgment I visited your neighborhood this weekend. As my friend and I left the newest cool bar there, my friend asked you where the best place to get a car was in the area.
"Where are you going?" you asked quizzically.
"Kensington," I said.
"Kensington?" you asked, as if I had just named a town on Long Island. "Where is that?"
"On the south side of The Park," I replied haughtily.
"McCarren Park?" You asked.

This video is for you: Stimulatin' Kensington. Get your ass off the L and G trains.

Which one of these men will play Howard K. Stern in the TV movie?

2007-05-23T00:21:00.000-04:00

If you can't decide, you're in luck: they're all Chris Devlin, who will be portraying Howard K. in The Anna Nicole Story. He did tell TMZ that he imagines Howard's time with Anna was like "being in a hot tub full of whip cream -- on the Titianic." (Is that spelling mistake on purpose? Titty-anic?" Wow.)

Why Michael Chiklis is hot.

2007-05-22T23:57:00.002-04:00

Just banish all memories of The Commish and watch this scene from The Shield where Vic gets it on with a Domestic Violence–Shelter Runner (what was her name again?).

I try to oblige

2007-05-20T19:42:00.000-04:00

Since someone recently found my blog by typing "mo rocca cock bulge" into google, I thought I would try to give the reader(s) what she (they) want. This is the best I could find. It's kind of hard to tell, because he's wearing white pants, but I think if you hold your face close enough to the screen you can see it. Enjoy!

"arrrgg! I'mmm gotta get'cha! ahhh ha ha!"

2007-05-20T19:16:00.000-04:00

Since all of you seemed to love that post about Brooklyn in the summer, I thought you'd like to know that I can hear outside my window, some dad chasing his little girl around much to her delight. She's shrieking and laughing, and he is making noises like a pirate.

WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WATCH "SWEET HOME ALABAMA"

2007-05-19T18:37:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,

Perhaps you've seen the advertisements on the Lifetime network for 3 nights of the movie Sweet Home Alabama. "Reese Witherspoon is marrying McDreamy!" it proclaims. This sounds promising. Could be good, you think. That Patrick Dempsey is awful handsome, and Reese is so cute.

That's what I thought, and I watched this movie in its entirety, waiting and waiting for even one scene I could enjoy. But it's bad. It's so bad I rated it only one star ("I Hated It") on netflix, a rating shared only with What Women Want, Batman & Robin, Rocky V, Coyote Ugly, American Pie 2, and Little Man (another movie I was forced to watch on the bus to Boston). Patrick Dempsey doesn't even get the girl at the end. And Reese as at her most annoying. The only good reason to watch this movie is if you've seen that Johnny Cash movie, so you can marvel at what a better actress Reese is now than when she first started out. Because she (and Dempsey, for that matter) are both horrible is this boring, unheartfelt film filled with every stereotype in the book.

I know it's raining out, but stay away from Lifetime people, for your own good.

2007-05-15T12:35:00.000-04:00

My childhood cat died today, age 15. One of those rare animals you love more than most people.

Like a ditzy, low self-esteem Rhoda

2007-05-05T17:01:00.000-04:00

I don't really know what to say about the huge disappointment that was Thursday night's Grey's Anatomy/Addison spinoff. And it's gotten bad reviews everywhere (the NY Times has a particularly apt one that blames Ally McBeal). But why is everyone so disappointed? What did we expect out of a network TV spinoff? I guess what upsets me is that Addison Shepherd (oh, sorry, Montgomery) was a truly likable character: she had brains and balls and wasn't afraid to go after what she wanted, even though crappy things have happened to her. I thought a spin-off with her as the main character could be the beginning of a one-hour drama that didn't show women as zany and sex-crazed. I thought it was cool she was going to have a baby on her own. Then she got into the elevator and it starting talking to her...and it wasn't Lorenzo Music. Sigh. When is Rhoda coming to DVD?

Grey's Antomy: Addy does Alex

2007-05-01T23:24:00.000-04:00

Well, just in time for the big two-parter Addison spin-off episode, here is the handy Grey's Anatomy: Who's Done Whom spreadsheet. (and I think I finally figured out the technical glitches, so it should be nice and big—try clicking on it). Though I love Addison, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to commit to her new spin-off, even though Taye Diggs is in it, and I feel sorry for him since Daybreak and Kevin Hill bombed (actually, he kind of deserved the Kevin Hill thing, I mean, he was starring opposite a former ANTM. But I digress). But if they make it good enough, I just might have to stick around to watch Addison get her groove back.

That's right, folks, I made the pun. I promise not to do it again.

My Newest Addiction: The Shield

2007-04-29T22:54:00.000-04:00

Well, The Shield is on again, and when The Shield is on, I am watching The Shield. This is the second time I've seen this part of this episode. I watched the entire episode last Tuesday, but they replay it over and over again, and I keep finding myself watching it. I can't turn away until after the part at the end where Vic turns into a little rhino. For those of you who have never seen Michael Chiklis as Vic Mackey, he's a pudgy, wild-eyed, crude asshole who also happens to be the fucking hottest thing alive. Michael Chiklis is also the only actor on TV to have the balls to end a scene with drool running down his face.

It would be bad enough that I'll watch the same episode of The Shield over and over.
But I also watch the censored-for-latenight network reruns on channel 11 at 1am every Saturday night (currently in season 3). This Saturday-night episode repeats the next Sunday, so if I miss it I'll catch it then, or sometimes, if it was particularly good, I'll watch it again.

To supplement my Shield addiction during the Wednesday–Friday period, I've recently started getting Season 1 of The Shield from Netflix. For the past week or so, I've been able to watch The Shield pretty much every night.

Incidentally, why aren't YOU watching The Shield? Too busy with American Idol or House or some shit? Not that I'm saying you should be as dedicated to Vic's unique brand of renegade justice as I am. In fact, the only other person I know who is as dedicated to The Shield as I am insists I'm making a mistake. He believes The Shield is a good enough TV show to take the effort to experience in the order in which it was meant to be experienced.

I can see what's he's saying, but there's something about experiencing it all at once—from the death of Terry; to Lem; to Shane's cock, Frank, when he went undercover at the Cockfight.

Afternoon Movie Review: First Knight

2007-04-28T15:17:00.000-04:00

I'm sure you've all seen at least a small bit of First Knight at one time or another. It's that movie where Sean Connery plays King Arthur and Richard Gere is Lancelot? It also falls into the category of the perfect Afternoon Movie, one that I would never rent or buy but when it's on The Superstation on a Saturday afternoon I will sit and watch it from beginning to end.

Of course, what I'm doing throughout most of the movie (besides fucking around on myspace and eating lunch) is wishing that I had Richard Gere and Sean Connery fighting over my love. If two guys ever loved me at the same time, they'd probably be more like the guy whose red stapler keeps getting stolen in Office Space and Horned-Rimmed Glasses on Heroes. And I don't think either of those guys would be positioning forest leaves in a pattern so that the rain will drip from one to the next and then into my mouth, or proclaiming "Camelot is yours!" Sigh.

Now I'm not saying I don't totally secretly adore this movie, but unfortunately it really hasn't stood the test of time, thanks to American's favorite racist's elaborately staged war scenes in Braveheart, the Patriot, and Lord of the Rings (he directed that, right?). The ones in this movie look so unimpressive you're just like, yeah, whatever, the American Gigolo just jumped off his horse and now he's shoving a sword into someone, blah blah blah. Also, enough with the elongated facial close-ups, Director Jerry Zucker. I mean, I know your last movie before First Knight was Ghost, but c'mon, Goldfinger was a good movie because Connery was running around shooting people, not because we kept looking as his hurt look every time Pussy Galore made a cutting remark.

But seriously, this is one of those movies that's perfect for killing time...the type of movie they should show on the bus to Boston (NOT City Slickers 2: The Search for the Golden Curls, which I was forced to watch last time. Peter Pan Buslines, WTF?!). If you've never seen it, sit down with a bag of Doritos and a desire to put off your weekend chores and enjoy.

It's about time...

2007-04-28T01:32:00.000-04:00

...I updated my links, which you can find on the right side of this page. Like reading this blog? Perhaps you'd like to visit my links.

Of special note are two newly added ones, Mike's Bloggity Blog Blob and Common Errors in English. I have no idea who Mike is, other than through the close personal relationship we share from reading each other's blogs and commenting on them, but he's rather delightful and I think he loves TV as much as I do. Common Errors in English is not some clever blog title, it's actually a listing of common errors in English. If you would like to have sexual relations with me, write as many of these down on index cards and then take them and me to a bar. Quiz me on these common errors in English and pretend to be impressed with my vast knowledge. I'll be all, "Oh, I have to know this stuff for work..." but actually I will be getting high on how smart I think I am. Buy me three martinis, then pounce. Just FYI.

I also urge you to visit Mit Ach und Krach, listed under "What Makes Me Happy" over there, which contains some wonderful artwork by a dear friend of mine. If said dear friend was a gay man living in New Hampshire, her blog would look exactly like The Slam Pig. And if you're feeling angsty about work, you must visit the Meatgrinder Memos ASAP.

Top off your freetime with a visit to the Johnny Five Scrapbook, then zone out in front of Infinite Hasselhoff for a while. Then, of course, come back to anterias to obsessively check if I've posted again.

Summer in Brooklyn

2007-04-22T21:24:00.000-04:00

This weekend has the been the first nice one in NYC since that weird 70-degree Saturday in January. I know most people probably think summertime is the worst time to be in the city—so few out-of-doors spaces to enjoy the birds and the stars, and only a select few friends with barbeques to mooch off of.

But summertime is what I love most about Brooklyn, when everyone opens up their windows (except for the old people in my building who actually had on their ACs today), cranks up their stereos, and gets ready to start interacting with each other again. It doesn't matter if your neighbor is into smooth jazz, because you can just crank up the Bowie. And there is something fantastic about sitting in my apartment, hearing "you give me fever...when you touch me...fever all through the night" wafting over the barbed wire that surrounds my "back yard" (actually the gravel-covered roof of my building's parking garage, but I drag a lawn chair out the window and it's all mine).

Not only that, you begin to smell burgers, and curry, and smells so good you can't even imagine what they are—you only wish you knew who was producing them so you could be invited for dinner. Sounds of kids shrieking and power tools humming line the neighborhoods. I can hear the church bells clanging each hour more clearly, and the local mosque broadcasting its five daily prayers—an eerie, yet calming sound that always seems to become one with the wind.

So even though we can't go swimming in the lake and sit around bonfires in the summer, every April we come out of our small apartments and have our summers with strangers, whether they are the ones we see laughing through their open windows or the ones whose deck parties we hear over the noise of police sirens and the Mr. Softee song.

Happy Summer, New York, it's gonna be a good one.

Rules for the Paparazzi

2007-04-21T22:00:00.000-04:00

1) Stake out home of celebrity
2) Snap of a shot of him in jogging shorts or a swimsuit
3) Examine photo for bulge
4) Sell to TMZ.com
5) Make up a clever caption and post

Grey's Anatomy: Who's Done Whom Update

2007-04-18T21:28:00.000-04:00

In honor of tomorrow's new episode of Grey's Anatomy (recaps don't count!), here's an update to my handy Who's Slept with Whom spreadsheet.

What have we learned since last time? Though unassuming, George is clearly a slut. And maybe Cristina and Burke just might make it, because they are bringing in people from the past to up Cristina's booty count.

Also, some corrections from last time. One, Alex and Izzie did do it...he couldn't get it up when they were dating but I had forgotten that the bomb scare had totally turned him on. I had also forgotten about his banging of the terminally ill patient in the bar bathroom. But I promise not to forget about Alex's sexual activities anymore. Gee, I just can't wait for him to make sweet, sensitive love to the pregnant amnesiac with full-body bruising.

A Must-Watch

2007-04-08T17:44:00.000-04:00

I recently stumbled upon the best documentary I've seen in a long time. From BBC2, it's about the Westboro Baptist Church, you know, the "God Hates Fags" people who have been protesting at soldiers' funerals. In it, Louis Theroux, who got his start in TV journalism on Michael Moore's TV Nation, goes and lives with the Phelps (the family who composes 90% of the church) for three weeks. There's lots of the bizarre in here——from "Gramps," the pastor, yelling "YER GONNA EAT YER BABIES!" during a sermon to the family picketing a hardware store that sells Swedish vacuums because the Swedish government had recently arrested a pastor who spoke out against homosexuality—and Theroux is the perfect reporter. Maybe it's because he looks like a slightly hotter version of Mo Rocca, is polite in that way only Brits can be, or because he adopts an air of sincere concern and bafflement throughout, but you can see that the family (the teenaged girls, especially) seem to really take a shine to him, even as they happily tell him he's going to burn in hell.

The best thing about this documentary, though, is that it goes beyond the "look what freaks these people are" angle to really examine cultures of hatred and how they can be passed down to children. When you watch the 7-year-old trying to explain what the "Fag Troops" sign his 6-year-old sister is holding means, or the girls say they don't have any friends or boyfriends and never will, it's easy to see them as victims of some kind of Philip Zimbardo–esque experiment on human cruelty. They believe because they've been conditioned to believe, and when Theroux tries to challenge their beliefs he's met with nothing but nonsensical argument. After finishing these videos (it's broken into a series of 7 on youtube), I just felt pity for these people, which released me from the hatred I've felt for them since the first time I saw the words "God Hates Fags" in the 90s. And that, I think, is the ultimate revenge.

The Most Hated Family in America (youtube)
An interview with my new crush, Louis Theroux (who, incidentally, is the cousin of sexy actor Justin Theroux, from Mulholland Drive and Six Feet Under)

Jeff: I think I love you

2007-04-07T18:03:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about Jeff VanVonderen lately. You may recognize him from A&E's popular reality show INTERVENTION, where you can watch real live people doing crack and chugging beer on their way to work. At some point during each episode, a professional interventionist comes in and instructs the family on how to properly confront their loved one about his or her addiction. FYI to my loved ones, if I ever become addicted to something, I want Jeff! Don't be getting Candy what's-her-face or that self-serving Dr. Tara. Jeff will sit up with you all night talking about how I've wrecked your life and what you're gonna do about it, then sit me down and sternly make me watch my mother cry until I agree to go to a some kind of drying out center in Alabama.

It doesn't even bother me that Jeff's a big Christian, because he's done a lot of work about abuses of power in the church. I know because I watched a 10-minute video lecture he did on the subject (thanks google video!), back when his hair was bushy and brown and he had a beard. The one thing that does bother me about Jeff is that I don't think he's probably a very good lover. He's too results-orientated, and he doesn't seem particularly in touch with his own body. Anyhoo, none of that matters when you're dying for your next fix and you're sitting on a couch surrounded by your extended family and a mass of video cameras in a non-smoking hotel room and Jeff VanVonderen has just shaken your hand. Because at this point, the most you can hope for is some painfully sober halfway house sex.

If you're a good American, you will know all the words to this song

2007-04-07T15:27:00.000-04:00

Lloyd Dobbler

2007-04-06T00:22:00.000-04:00

I know you like 'em young

Blow-by-Blow of The Bachelor premiere - because you know you want it.

2007-04-02T23:09:00.000-04:00

9:58 – I just switched over from 24, which topped a dreadfully boring first half with an awesome Bauer Power half-Hour. The show started 15 minutes early, but I’ve missed nothing. The ladies are meeting the Bachelor one by one. I’m sure each one has tried her hardest to say something to make him remember her, but already all these Product Managers, Customer Service Representatives, Teachers, and Texans look exactly the same.

10:01 – Ah damn. The first impression rose is still sitting on the golden patter! I’m sure we’ll know when he meets the special lady because the music will change. This guy is way hotter than last year’s bachelor. And he just said his brother got married at the Art Institute of Chicago, so clearly he’s loaded.

10:07 – ew, this one gave him a fortune from a fortune cookie to try to make herself stick out. He’s just gonna pick the HOTTEST ones this round, dummy!

10:08 – Stephanie from South Carolina, who has the globeyist breasts and the most perfectly flowing hair just got the rose. But surprise! She’s an “organ donor coordinator,” whatever the hell that means. I think it means she checked a box on the back of her driver’s license.

10:09 – This woman just asked where his uniform is. He laughed at her, because he’s never seen two seconds of combat.

10:19 – “We’re gonna have a lot of fun,” says Andy. And what he means is, “Let’s get wwaaaasted.”

10:20 – Andy reveals he used to teach Sunday school. barf.

10:21 – Amanda from Texas plays the “I feel bad for you for the decision you have to make!” card, then throws in that she traveled outside the U.S. so he thinks she’s worldly.

10:22 – Linda’s gonna get cut, even though she’s a lawyer. No, it’s not because she just COMPLETELY misused the word ironic. It’s because she’s the oldest, and she has bug eyes.

10:23 – Holy crap. Fortune cookie woman is NOT serenading Andy with the Star-Spangled Banner.

10:24 – Holy FUCKING crap. Andy just wiped a tear. He WIPED A TEAR, people. He loves his war-mongering country so much!

10:30 – Danielle L., who has the longest VCL (Visible Cleavage Line), makes an awkward segue to announce that her college bf died. Andy fakes pity. Not that I've seen every season, but I think he has the fakest facial expressions of any bachelor thus far. And can you blame him? He has to make small talk with 25 of the most attention-seeking women in America.

10:31 – Lindsay becomes the first to start trash-talking another contestant. Way to be classy, Lindsay, way to be classy.

10:33 – Blakeney (Blakeney? Are they kidding? She must have made that up), with crossed eyes, announces that Andy is cute as a button and falls on her ass. Lindsay laughes, tries to start sumpthin’

10:35 – Andy completely misuses the word ironic. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUCEMENT: “Ironic” does not mean strange, weird, coincidental, or interesting. I thought everybody knew this already.

10:36 – When THE BACHELOR continues, Andy “will face the hardest decision of his life.” Um, if the hardest decision of his life is which of 25 girls he’s going to only give one hour of fame, the dude’s doing ok. I use the commercial break to do some internet research. On Andy’s official myspace page you can see a horrible slideshow that commingles photos of him putting band aids on children in Laos with stock photos of large insects and troubled natives. Hey, don’t poke that kid in the eye!

10:40 – It’s Andy’s birthday! And some girls are making cake! And they used tequila rather than eggs!

10:41 – Linda and Andy do push-ups together. Ironically.

10:42 – Stephanie just did the worm, then some backflips. Clearly she deserved that rose. Oh wait, different Stephanie.

10:49 – The rose ceremony. “Ladies, you’re beautiful, accomplished…blah blah blah.” I hope he chooses Lindsay, because she’s psycho, and Blakeney, because she can’t hold her liquor and her fake name is sure to exposed.

10:50 – Lindsay is sooo pissed he’s chosen 4 girls and not her yet

10:51 – Confession: I’ve been blogging about this all episode, and I only recognize one of the girls who’s been chosen so far.

10:52 – Bug Eyes looks worried. Lindsay’s still totally pissed. That’s the way to get him to pick you, honey.

10:53 – Tina, the Star-Spangled Banner chick, gets chosen. One woman tries hard not to roll her eyes.

10:54 – And the other Stephanie gets the final rose. Lindsay storms off while the other girls try not to cry. They all succeed, except for Lindsay, who also has the mouth of a trucker. “I don’t give a [bleep] and I want to [bleep] go home! He’s short and his teeth look fake!” [tear wipe, tear wipe] ouch.

10:55 – The end-of-first-episode champagne toast.

Well people, let me know if you would like more recaps of the Bachelor. And if you don’t, I will probably provide you with them anyway. It’s gonna be a good season. I can tell from the “Coming up on the Bachelor” montage at the end of the episode, which is set to the tune of “Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong”—hot cars, Andy takes his shirt off, making out, more crying, a waterfall, a visit by the paramedics, and more commercials for the U.S. military than you can imagine.

I'm such a sucker

2007-04-02T14:06:00.000-04:00

I'd like to tell you that after viewing another disappointing episode of 24 tonight, I will turn the tv off, and read a good book, empty the litter box, write a letter, or um...do some scrapbooking. Or even watch a quality program on my new cable or watch some of my favorite kiefer montages on youtube. But sadly, what I will really do is watch the season premiere of The Bachelor, because I can't get enough of desperate, unintelligent women with fake boobs and too much make-up vie for the attention of a boring, yet superficially "perfect" man. Dude, one of them makes him a cake out of TEQUILA tonight. I might have to live blog the entire experience.

Afternoon Movie Review: The Bodyguard

2007-03-31T17:09:00.000-04:00

There are some movies you don't rent, you don't buy, you don't even think, "gee, I'd like to see that." But then they come on TV on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and you sit in your sweatpants a d watch them in their entirety. You know the ones I'm talking about: Ghost, Three Men and a Baby, Happy Gilmore. Kevin Costner stars in a lot of these movies, like Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and the subject of today's Afternoon Movie Review: The Bodyguard.

The Bodyguard follows a perfect Afternoon Movie plotline. Man meets woman and they don't like each other; Woman realizes man secretly has a hard-on for her; Woman unsheaves man's sword (in this case, the silk-cutting samurai kind); Man decides their night of passion can never happen again and woman gets pissed; Man decides he's leaving but gets drawn back because of a sense of duty; Man saves woman; woman stops plane and runs out and kisses him; brief "5 years later" scene; the credits roll in about 3.5 seconds so the network can cram more ads in.

Kevin Costner is perfect in this role. He's the unassuming guy who you tell yourself you don't think is hot but really you're totally willing to sit around to wait for him to get laid. And there's no denying this is Whitney Houston's best role ever. The movie even has the "creepy, almost albino-looking" character, and the hardened-man-is-actually-quite-good-with-kids theme. The only thing that could have made this movie better was a little more making out (only three scenes in the entire 2 hours), a tad more hand-to-hand combat (who doesn't want to see Kevvy punching someone out in the name of love?), and a scene where someone gets drunk and confesses something.

The best part about The Bodyguard was that it kept me from vacuuming. Now that it is over I will start the productive part of my day, sucking up cat hair and thinking about becoming famous so I can hire a sturdy man with a gun to protect me.

Ah, the PO

2007-03-25T21:44:00.000-04:00

Here's a post on gothamist of a guy freaking out at my local post office. I went there once and never returned. Now you can see why. I think this clip really embodies the spirit of NYC. At first everyone is kind of freaked out, and then they start laughing.

I'm Back and More Interesting than Ever

2007-03-24T17:28:00.000-04:00

It finally happened. I bought a computer. And subsequently purchased the internet and cable, and now I never have to leave my home.
The great thing about a new mac is that it comes with a camera. There are a lot of things you can do with the camera, like have a video conference or take pictures of your boobs and put them online. I, however, have just taken a million pictures of myself...in front of the computer.
Now that I've enabled myself, expect a lot more posting, a mini-revamp of the site, and of course, more photos of yours truly

Johnny Five needs your help

2007-03-05T14:36:00.000-05:00

Where have I been, you ask? I've been wasting all my freetime at mancrush.com, the site whose goal is to rate every man in history (fictional and not) based on how much hetero men are infatuated with them. For some reason watching Indiana Jones, Han Solo, and Harrison Ford battle it out (Harrison is way behind, probably because of Calista Flockhart) has totally captivated me. The best part is that you can nominate your own guys, and my guy needs your help.

That's right, Johnny Five is currently number 794 in the polls, under Dick Clark, Rush Limbaugh, and Moe the Bartender from the Simpsons. I urge all 3 of you who read this blog to go vote for him! If that bandana doesn't turn you on, what does, people?

On Anna Nicole

2007-02-09T12:14:00.000-05:00

When the news of Anna Nicole’s unfortunate demise hit the bandwidths yesterday, it was a reminder to me of one of the greatest things the internet has done: keep those of us locked in an office all day in the loop (the other thing that reminds me of this is that people who work in ari-conditioned offices are way more likely to know what the high temperature for the day is supposed to be).
The first thing that happened was that my cubicle-neighbor overheard people in the cubicles on the other side of her talking about it. She told me, and while I tried to access the CBS News link on gawker, I got an email from another coworker saying Anna Nicole had died. I forwarded that to a third coworker, who emailed back saying, “I know! I just heard!” I was on my way to a meeting, and shortly after showing up someone walked into the office we were in and said, “Did you hear about Anna Nicole dying?” Which prompted a long discussion. Then the office-dweller and I got on speakerphone with a designer, who, halfway into the conversation said, “hold on, Anna Nicole Smith just died!” After that someone else came into the office to tell us the news, and when I got back to my desk I had another email about it.
So why all the fuss? Sure, it’s sad, but what is it about the giggly, trashy, beautiful, fake-boobed, rich celebrity that makes her death more noteworthy to my office than any news event of recent memory?
I couldn’t figure it out until I called a friend this morning and she said, “I just found out Anna Nicole Smith died, and I’m kind of bummed.” (She works at a recording studio, where I guess people don’t sit in front of the internet and gossip all day.) I told her about the commotion at my office and asked her what she thought, and she hit the nail right on the head.
People (Americans especially) loved Anna Nicole because she triumphed over adversity. Sure she married a rich, old man just for his money, but when her stepson tried to take that money away, what did she do? She didn’t just go back to her trailer and slip into obscurity until appearing in an episode of COPS. She got even bigger boobs and took them all the way to the Supreme Fucking Court. She got a reality show before every star had one, and she never once apologized for being inappropriate, having a shitload of cash, or making out with Margaret Cho. And when she got pregnant, who didn’t secretly love the fact that she went and told whoever would be the best baby daddy that it was his kid? And who, if they had the means, wouldn’t want to just run off and stay in the Bahamas when this tactic got challenged? And after the tragic death of your son, who wouldn’t want to go have a non-legally binding commitment ceremony with a man who clearly worships you?
What my friend said was, “People wanted to see Anna Nicole triumph again.” Why? Because whether we like it or not, just like Marilyn Monroe (whom she was famous for parodying), Anna Nicole was a true American icon. And I like to think that she knew it.

Pizzarolling

2007-02-06T13:27:00.000-05:00

It's probably because I'm craving childhood, but what I wouldn't give for the sound of cheesy goodness escaping the confines of its crusty shell and sizzling on the baking sheet below it. As a child, I wasn't aloud to stick my hands in the oven (a good rule, I think), so I would monitor the pizza rolls carefully, then yell "Mom!!!! They're oozing, they're oozing!!" and she would come into the kitchen and take them out for me. Mom was always good like that—she'd come wipe my butt when I called, too.
So until I find some pizza rolls (and I'm not talking about those newfangled "chicken enchilada" kinds), I'll just have to make due with the most comprehensive pizza roll review I've ever seen (I can only imagine what part two is going to be like!)

I couldn't make this up if I tried

2007-01-31T12:12:00.000-05:00

Well, January comes to a close as the month I've done the most google searches yet (since I signed up for personalized searches in October). According to Google, I do the most searching on Tuesday from 3:00–4:00. And here's the best (and most embarassing) part—here are my most queried items of all time on google:

1. iraq study group
2. [my name]
3. reflexology
4. [my name in quotation marks]
5. treat williams
6. sophie calle
7. short circuit 2
8. pumpkin carving
9. judge alex
10. flatiron lounge drink menu

I Read TV Guide So You Don't Have To

2007-01-22T16:23:00.000-05:00

In this week's issue, some quotes from Laura Innes (a.k.a. Kerry Weaver) for you old-school ER fans:

"Weaver must be so good in bed! Her girlfriends are so hot. I definitely raised the bar in the lipstick-lesbian category."

Question: Aren't you sorry you never got to kiss George Clooney or Goran Visnjic?
"How do you know I didn't?"

Oh Kerry, I don't know what has been happening on ER since I stopped watching it 5 years ago, but I'll never forget how you ran off Dr. Ross, double-crossed Dr. Green, and had your frist lesbo kiss with the new hot Other from Lost.

Grey's Anatomy: Who's Slept with Whom?

2007-01-22T12:41:00.002-05:00

On Thursday's Grey's Anatomy, after giving each other "the look" for several episodes, Addison and Alex finally snogged. While this is awesome for obvious reasons, I'm starting to get worried about the writers having enough characters to intermix in the coming seasons. I began to worry, so to help myself visualize what we're working with here, I did the same thing I do at the office: I made a spreadsheet.

What I gleaned from it is the following:
1. Meredith is the sluttiest if you count out-of-hospital screws, but George is the sluttiest if you count interhospital bangs only (isn't that shocking?).
2. Izzie really can't catch a break, having only kissed people on the show (unless I'm wrong and she actually did sleep with Alex...as I remember it they never actually sealed the deal)
3. It's only a matter of time before Dr. Hahn boffs someone, even if she does seem frigid
4. Cristina and Burke are gonna break up, or they're going to start swinging.

I hope you find this spreadsheet as helpful as I did. You may also want to pass it along to friends who are new to the show, who can use it as a handy reference sheet. I'll update and repost it as necessary. (click on the image above for a closer look)

Click here for an updated spreadsheet!

a totally depressing post for your Monday

2007-01-15T17:37:00.000-05:00

I'm sure I'm not the only one kind of skeeved by the whole Shawn Hornbeck kidnapping story. Not so much the kidnapping, as the fact that he didn't escape sooner. As everyone ponders how it was possible that he was posting stuff on the internet and not running home to his family, can I remind you about I Know My Name Is Stevie?? And for those of you who are not aware of this Lifetime movie (also known by the lamer title "I Know My First Name Is Steven"), let me enlighten you:

I Know My Name is Stevie was one of those movies I saw as a kid that I really shouldn't have been watching (I must have been like 11 years old. I have no idea what my parents were doing that day), and, like The Big One, a TV movie about the supposedly inevitable LA earthquake, it left such an impression that I still bring it up as much as possible today, hoping someone else has seen this landmark piece of cinema and can remember the image of little Stevie with his arms crossed over his thin frame, covering his nipples with his hands. If you can't get a mental picture of this, perhaps I should tell you that Stevie was played by the same kid who played the Nintendo genius in The Wizard.

The film, made in 1989, is based on the life of Steven Stayner, a boy who was kidnapped in California and held captive for 8 years, where he was subjected to all sorts of horrible sex acts. When his "father" finally abducted another boy [just like in the Shawn Hornbeck case], Stevie had finally had enough and up and went to the police.

The movie version of the tale, which is 3 hours long, doesn't stop there. It continues, showing how once Stevie (who now insists on being called Steven) is reunited with his family, he doesn't really like them very much, resists their rules and Christian values, and knocks up his girlfriend and goes and lives in a tralier. It's really quite sad, and as I sat in my living room watching all 3 hours of the story (plus a good hour of commercials for tampons and cleaning products) I could kind of see why Steve put up with his captive father. Sure, being invited into bed with "Dad" and Dad's cackling girlfriend seems awfully weird, but when you're 10 how are you supposed to know any better? Especially when "Dad" just told you that your parents don't even care that you're gone.

Sadly, the real Steven Stayner had an even more depresssing life than the Lifetime movie let on (unsurprisingly, as Lifetime movies always seem to end on an upbeat note)--his brother became a murderer and Steve died in a motorcycle crash before he could see any royalties from the film. I just hope Shawn has better luck.

24: The first four hours

2007-01-12T14:14:00.000-05:00

So as if I have to tell you, this weekend is the "heart-pounding" 2-day premeire of 24, which, now that Lost sucks so bad, is my rasion d'etre. As I soak in the ticking clock and get more and more agitated that Jack Bauer is still into Audrey (unluckily for us her new show got cancelled), here are ten things I hope to see:
1. Jack yelling "drop the gun" at someone
2. A scene in which Jack, with no lack of metaphor, shears off his shaggy mane
3. An explanation of why Chole dyed her hair—and don't tell me it's to look hot for her ex-husband
4. Bill Buchannon in his undershirt
5. Jack shooting up some H, just for old times' sake
6. Kim Bauer to be fat, with a bunch of kids that are annoying the shit out of her
7. Tony Almeida to come back as a ghost that haunts the CTU iterrogation rooms
8. Guest star: Josh Holloway, as a sexy bad guy
9. Jack on an LA bus that can't go below 55 miles per hour or it blows up (it would take him about 20 minutes to remedy that situation)
10. The ticking clock to run at the bottom of the screen during commericials, so we can just how long those truck ads really are

NY Times quote of the day

2007-01-10T14:50:00.000-05:00

“Everyone knows that New York has the biggest muffins, but no one knows why.”
—Tom Miner, leading food researcher

damn straight.

Restaurant Review: Arby's

2007-01-09T20:00:00.000-05:00

Note: this review is being written as I eat the food! My mouse is getting all greasy.

I was paging through the Voice the other day when I saw one of those fake-out ads, you know, where they try to make you think it's editorial content but really it's an ad? It was along the lines of "Restaurants You Must Visit While in Town!" or something, and the first one I saw was ARBY'S. At first I was all, "nice try, Arby's," but then I was like, "Wait a minute! ARBY'Sis in Manhattan now?!" And sure enough, the copy said something along the lines of:

Enjoy the Midwest's most famous roast beef sandwich, now in the heart of Manhattan!

And I was like, "oh my god! I'm from the Midwest!" (where some of the Arby's signs actually still look like the one in this picture*). When I was a child I used to have Arby's for dinner about once a week. (It was the second-closest fastfood joint. McDonald's was first, but we had our standards.) So I had to go. Of course, back then it was the good ol' chicken breast fillet with nothing on it but bun. Now I go for the famous roast beef, and curly fries, because I like to claim that Arby's invented the curly fry, which may or may not be true.

Though I've been living in New York for more than three years now, this was actually the first time I'd ever been in Manhattan Mall, and I approached the food court with excitement. I wasn't the only one excited about my dinnertime race up to the Arby's counter, either. Because no one was even near the Arby's counter, the two employees stood side-by-side behind the counter, looking forlornly (I like to think) at the lines from Wok & Roll and Charley's Steakery, which were overflowing with diners who were broke and/or didn't care about their nutrional needs. As I strode confidently toward them, the second employee raced back behind the burger-shelf divider, and quickly dispensed my regular roast beef value meal, which, from the taste of it, had been sitting out all afternoon.

The fries, however, are the original. Mmm...tastes like home.

*Note the sizzler

Another link to keep you busy for hours

2007-01-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

This website full of found items is great, this one is one of our favorites ("our" meaning me and my cubicle-mates, of course...what other "us" would I be talking about?)

Just Teach Me What to Do and What Not to Do (Found Magazine)

At least I don't have the image of Geena Davis in a bra in my head.

2006-12-15T15:55:00.000-05:00

I know that I'm not the only person who gets random songs stuck in her head, but am I the only one who gets really, really stupid random songs in her head? And I'm not talking, like, "Careless Whisper" by George Michael or "(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight" by Cutting Crew. I'm talking like "The Dipsey Doodle Dragon" from my first grade musical and the currently selection running a loop in my brain--that ridiculous song that some bitch makes up in the movie A League of Their Own. You know:

We are the members of
The All-American League
We Come from cities...near and far
We've got Can-adians (woo!), Irish ones and Swedes
We're all for one!
We're one for all!
We're all American!

And yes, I just wrote that down from memory. I can do the second verse, too:

Here we stand, our heads so proudly high
Our motto: do or die
We're not the kind to use or need an alibi

"to use or need an alibi?" what kind of lyric is that? Yet somehow, it's stuck in my head, which I guess is representative of that movie in general. You never want to watch it. You certainly don't own it on DVD. But when it's on the CW Sunday afternoon movie and you're still in your PJs, you will totally sit there and watch the entire fucking thing.

Mouse art

2006-12-12T16:49:00.000-05:00

This will keep anyone occupied for hours.

Better than an apple

2006-12-08T15:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday one of my students brought me an index card she had found in a used book that she purchased. In very thin writing it said:

I love you

I care about you

I hear what you're saying

I can't take it anymore

Site traffic, here we come!

2006-12-07T17:54:00.000-05:00

I’ve noticed that visits to my extremely distinguished and deservedly famous site have dropped off lately. Is it because I never post? Because people finally realized what a hack I am? Because my best friend changed her homepage? No, it’s because I used to get 6 or 7 hits a day from people doing a google image search on Alex Trebek and coming up with this post. On the search, this photo of Alex would show up and the line “Alex Trebek and Pat Sajack making out.” And even though I spelled Sajack wrong, 6 or 7 people a day would hope that they’d see what google image had promised them. Unfortunately, that post was so long ago that I’m no longer getting the gameshow-loving pervs, so I’ve decided to post some more images and headlines in hopes that I get some weridos to my site.

Ted Danson doing nude yoga

2006-12-07T17:50:00.000-05:00

Everyone's been making such a fuss about Danny DeVito's drunken confession on the View about banging Rhea Pearlman in the Lincoln bedroom. But am I the only one who, for some reason, finds Ted Danson and Mary Steenbergen grosser? I think it's because I see her kind of like an aunt, ever since she played Doc Brown's awkward love interest in BttFPIII.

HSN phenom Esteban fighting Zorro

2006-12-07T17:41:00.000-05:00

In this scenario, I like to envision a duel where Zorro stabs Esteban, but then they have a strum-off, and Esteban is victorious even though he's bleeding from a chest wound.

Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak making out...again!

2006-12-07T17:40:00.000-05:00