Skaters to the Left

A Guide to Ice-skating at Rockefeller Center

The temperature has finally dipped to acceptable ice-skating levels (anything above 45 just feels wrong), Christmas music is blasting from at least one shop on each block, and that giant-ass tree at 30 Rock has finally been lit. Being filled with the holiday spirit, you naturally want to shell out a hojillion dollars to skate at Rockefeller Center's rink. Before you do, here's a guide to the types of people you will encounter on the ice:

1. The Asshole Figure Skater
Why this guy chooses this particular rink and not, say, anywhere else in the known universe is a mystery. He usually has his iPod on and either works on his tricks in the center of the rink or skates backwards around confused families and generally causes mayhem, because God forbid he interrupt his very serious training because some little nipper has faceplanted in front of him.

Annoyance Factor: 6

2. The SuperCouple
Despite the fact that skating while holding hands doesn't actually provide any stability, these people will never uncouple, even when his partner accidentally pulls him down with her and creates a giant clusterfuck. They'll pick themselves up and continue inching around the rink like the saddest game of Red Rover ever played, and then stop to make out for a few minutes. Yes, do please rub it in, guys.

Annoyance Factor: 4

3. The Littlest BAMF
In theory, you should hate this child. He zips around in his tiny hockey skates without a care in the world, throwing caution to the wind: backwards, forwards, sudden stops; the whole shebang. But you can't hate him, because he is a total badass. Even when he wipes out, he immediately hops back up and continues zipping around, not unlike an electron. Plus, he's usually wearing some sort of adorable hat and mittens.

Annoyance Factor: 0

4. The High School Kids From Arkansas
You'll know them by their letterman jackets and school hoodies. They've either never been skating or they've been skating their entire lives. The latter do everything in their power to coax the former off the handrail so they can laugh at the former's spectacular pratfalls. At any rate, they're usually more interested in stopping to take a frillion pictures than making their way around the rink. Each one has her own persnickity camera that takes five minutes to explain, and each one wants multiple group shots. Be prepared to spend at least fifteen minutes of your life helping these people collect memories if you fall victim to their Picture Ponzi Scheme.

Annoyance factor: 7

5. The Worst. Parents. Ever.
It must be tough to learn your child has no athletic gifts whatsoever. Being extraordinary clumsy myself (on land), I can sympathize. However, you might want to re-think the whole "skating" thing when you see your poor kid can't move a foot without taking a nasty spill. All this does is create a clusterfuck even greater than the SuperCouple's, because now you have both parents (usually just as inept as their progeny), the kid, the kid's siblings, and the Ice Lifeguards all creating a potentially epic pileup every two feet. Furthermore: For the love of God, teach your kids to ball their fists when they fall. Nothing dampens the holiday spirit like an eight-year-old's severed fingers.

Annoyance Factor: 8


There are other types I've missed, I'm sure, but this should serve as a good starting knowledge base.

On #tebowtears

Obviously, I was displeased with the result of this Saturday's SEC Championship Game. Florida losses always hit me like a suckerpunch, but this one was exceptionally brutal, and I truly hate Alabama with a fiery burning passion. Plus, they made Tim Tebow cry:



I hate a lot of things with a fiery burning passion. But what I don't do is: a) wish physical harm upon members of the other team or b) celebrate their tragedy. During the NU-Iowa game, when it looked like the Iowa QB's ankle had gotten snapped in half, I did not cheer, because I am not an asshole.

So when I looked at my Facebook Live Feed and saw the disturbing number of statuses that read, "HA TEBOW'S CRYING. MY LIFE IS COMPLETE. SUCK IT," and "I won't be satisfied with the outcome of the SEC championship game unless someone breaks all of Tim Tebow's limbs," I was filled with rage. Then I saw that, no shit, #tebowtears was the fourth-most-popular trending topic on Twitter, and I began actively seeking a way to smack the shit out of people via the internet.

Say what you will about the Gators, or their fans, or their coach. But one thing no one can deny is that Tim Tebow is one of the greatest college football players of all time (one of; not the greatest). You also cannot deny that he is an incredibly nice, stand-up guy. Yes, he's a bit of a "Jesus freak," but, unlike so many other players (including his own dumbass fucking teammate, Carlos Dunlap), he has never done anything detrimental to his team. He loves the game of football more than anything in the world (aside from Jesus). He's been a leader in the truest sense of the word.

And to have God knows how many people celebrating his failure and wishing him harm? That is one of the most repugnant things I've seen in a while.

Would you people rather he be an asshole? A thug with a bigass arrest record? A guy who takes illegal gifts (yes, I'm talking about Ohio State's Troy Smith)? Why is it that his excellence and general wholesomeness is viewed as such a negative thing?

Everyone loves some schadenfreude now and then, but there's a fine line between "schadenfreude" and "being an irredeemable prick." Apparently no one I know has any idea this line exists, which is rather disturbing.

So go ahead and celebrate. Make your horrible trending topics. Because the next time you fall and break your leg or get laid off, Tim Tebow is going to laugh and call you a bitch for crying.

New Moon by the Numbers

I did not attend the midnight showing of The Twilight Saga: New Moon by choice. I went to support my bestie's burgeoning addiction. And to be amazed at the ridiculous crowd, of course.

As we've all figured out by now, Twilight midnight fans are not Harry Potter midnight fans. The latter are characterized by costumes (I may or may not have brought a wand to Half-Blood Prince), geekery, and an overall aura of joy. The former are rabid, shrieking banshees that tend to fall into the 11-17 and 34-49 age ranges.

(Yes, banshees can get rabies. Because I say so.)

It was actually quite fun to chuckle with Braids. The crowd (minus us, obviously) cheered for approximately 30 seconds when:

The screen started playing that AMC First Look thing.

The previews started.

The Summit logo appeared.

A moon appeared.

And when the title slowly appeared over said moon? They just completely lost their shit. This was not just applause, as you would hear at an HP screening. This was Beatles-level mania. As Braids pointed out: "What, were they surprised? 'Oh damn, you guys, I thought this was going to be 2012, what a crazy random happenstance!'"

And now, a few numbers I kept track of during the actual movie:

Number of times everyone screamed when Lautner appeared shirtless: FOUR. Okay, dude is ripped and totally hot (and also...17; I feel like a goddamn perv, since he's only a year older than my little brother), but after his torso appears once, do we really need to greet subsequent reappearances with a shriek-fest? We do? Fine.

Number of times I had to stifle a guffaw at an inappropriate moment: Six, I believe. Maybe it's because I never saw the first installment of The Sparkling in the theater, but I find the sparkle effect (which has its own theme music) to be just balls-out hilarious. I just cannot take any on-screen action seriously when it's happening. Of course, there wasn't really a whole lot of action (figuratively, in terms of plot), but still.

Number of people I saw asleep in the theater: One. Some woman sitting on the other side of Braids. See above re: general lack of plot which could lead to narcolepsy-inducing boredom, but I still find it faintly absurd that this woman went through all the trouble of going to see a rabid-fan-filled midnight screening and didn't think to drink some coffee beforehand.

Number of times Braids and I said "O I c wut u did thar": Two. Once at the Meadow of Death and...I can't remember the other one.

Number of times I "awwww"d at Billy Burke's sweet and funny Charlie Swan: Four. Charlie is now my favorite. Billy Burke, please do more things that I'll see.

Number of "AAAAH WHAT NOOOOO" screams at movie's end: Too many to count. Braids and I, on the other hand, laughed and high-fived, because how awesome was that?

Amount of money this motherfucker will make this weekend: I don't even want to know.

On Wet Paint

First off, let me just say that I love Sesame Street. I think it is the greatest educational program on television, and I hope it never goes off the air. My earliest memory comes from an earthquake when I was three years old; the clearest part of that memory is the Sesame Street t-shirt I was wearing at the time.

However.

There was one clip that never failed to terrify me as a child. It was a music video called "Wet Paint."



My terror whenever this segment appeared onscreen supplied my parents (and, later on, my siblings) with endless amusement. "It's just paint, Munchkin!" my father would say while I burrowed my head in his shoulder and cried.

I was too young to articulate exactly what it was about this that freaked me out so very badly. And one would think that, now that I've reached the ripe old age of 22, I would no longer be able to describe those feelings, since there's no way it could freak me out now.

But it does.

You guys, it freaks me out so bad.

I saw the clip on Hulu as I was enjoying a trip down memory lane (a.k.a. the Sesame Street Hulu page) and laughed. "Oh man, this used to give me nightmares." I clicked on it, eager to prove to myself just how much I've grown up.

My flesh immediately began crawling.

So now, I will attempt to make you all see why, exactly, this gives me the creepy-crawlies. (Side note: Remember Creepy Crawlers? I always wanted that set.)

First, the beat and melody to this song are bone-chilling. One of the beat-makers sounds like someone stepping into quicksand, and we all know what happens to people who step into quicksand. The melody does not indicate the happy fun times painting that the lyrics seem to want to indicate.

Furthermore, the lyrics do not actually indicate happy fun times with paint. There's lots of throwing imagery ("you slosh it all around," "slather it and slop it") and unpleasant words like "gushy," "smelly," "slippy," "sloppy," and "gloppy," which I associate with that horrible fudge monster in Candyland (a game I never liked, incidentally). And I also have to be careful not to drop it on the cold, cold ground? Like the ground that my corpse will soon be in?

But worst of all is the actual imagery. The way the paint plops down the wall in the background, like multi-hued blood; the way the video's title creepily drips down the screen. The be-galosh'd-legs (that look as though they are not attached to any sort of body) slipping around on a ton of paint on the cold, cold ground. And all throughout, occasional sprays and splotches cover the camera lens, blotting out the singers, culminating in an absolutely horrifying orgy of paint that completely covers the lens.

Go ahead and laugh, if you like. But now I know that some fears never die...Including that of wet paint.

On Public Lewdness

This is the face of a grotesque, fucked-up waste of matter.

I was never the biggest fan of New York City. I live here because this is, presumably, where my dream job is/was, and I am tired of moving every six months, so I'm just going to stay put for a while.

Well, maybe not for much longer. I put up with a lot of crap, living in this city. The horrendous smell in the summer, the outrageous price of...everything, the annoying sports fans. But I feel I have to draw the line at sex crimes.

At about 2:15 this afternoon, I hopped on the N train at 59th and Lex to get back home to Astoria. Good ol', safe ol', Astoria. I noticed a creepy Asian dude with a robot in his backpack (...yeah) leering at me from the seat across, but, since that happens pretty regularly, I merely feigned sleep/a deep interest in finding just the right song on my iPod. (Side note: Why are there so many leering creepers in this city? And when I say this happens regularly, I don't mean to imply I'm so attractive I invite that kind of behavior; it happens all the time to all sorts women.)

Once we reappeared above ground on the Queens side of things, I happened to glance up. And got a glimpse of a pretty gross-looking penis. And this motherfucker had the most grotesque shit-eating grin on his face, as though he'd just performed some stunning feat of physical acumen.

Oh my god, no way. This is not actually happening.

Since moving only tends to incite further action on the offender's part, I plunked my head right back into the sand. There were two other people in the car. This is the worst that could happen. Just in case, though, I snapped a picture on my phone under the guise of texting, in case he got away before I could inform the cops.

And then I noticed some movement in my peripheral vision.

No. He is not jacking off. No. This is not actually happening.

It was at this point that I went into some sort of fugue state. My brain was screaming at me to move while simultaneously denying that anything was happening. My body froze.

Just before reaching the last stop, this loathsome waste of matter finally reached his zenith, and aimed right at me.

As soon as the train stopped and the doors opened, I ran to the cop I had glimpsed on the platform and told him, breathless, what had just happened. I pointed the repugnoid out, told the officer that he'd find proof in the first car ("TWO INCHES FROM WHERE I WAS SITTING!"), and offered to stick around to see justice done. Said cop waved me off after I ascertained the creeper's identity. And what did he have to say for himself, this abomination?

"I didn't touch her! I didn't touch her!"

Because that makes it okay, and not a health hazard at all. Of course.

Still unable to believe that this actually happened, I took myself around the corner for a horribly overpriced but much-needed coffee. And, staring out the window at the masses huddled under their umbrellas, I saw...

Him. Walking around as though nothing had happened.

Now, I know things like this happen. People whip out their junk on the train. But...At 2 in the afternoon? On a weekday? And to have actually completed the masturbatory act? That's got to be worth an arrest.

So, thanks, NYPD and Creepy Leering Asian, for making me feel horrifically unsafe and unclean. I'm going to go take a bleach shower now.

Tweet tweet

Well, I joined the ranks of Twitter.

Yeah, yeah. I still don't think my life is interesting enough to warrant it, but...Oh well.

On Normalcy

Image ripped from Wikipedia

There are approximately nine definitions of the word "normal." This rather large number of differing definitions stems from more than just variance from individual to individual; context is key.

In Mathematics:
Being at right angles, as a line; perpendicular.

But in Psychology:
a. Approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment.
b. Free from any mental disorder; sane.

(Funny how being different is normal in math, but abnormal in psych.)

I am not normal.

I lie somewhere along the bipolar spectrum. ("Where?" is not a question for which I really have an answer.) I've been this way most of my life; it was a relief to finally have a name--however vague--for what's always gone on in my head.

And after seeing (half) the cast of Next to Normal perform at the Tonys (YouTube clip below), I decided that I definitely needed to see this show. Maybe it would teach me a valuable lesson in finding my way to--well, not complete normalcy, but something close enough.

That didn't quite happen.

The show--about a manic depressive mom and the havoc she wreaks on her stalwart husband and angsty daughter--is magnificent. The cast is unparalleled. The music soars and roars and tugs at the heartstrings more than anything I've heard since The Last Five Years. But it terrified me. That is my future. Mental instability. Psychosis. Laying waste to the lives of everyone I love. Ruining a man whose sole purpose in life is to lift me up.

Of course, this is not something that is guaranteed to happen. (I'm not even sure men like Dan and Henry exist in real life, and you can't ruin an imaginary person's life, so I should be good on that front.) But even the possibility is enough to make you quarantine yourself.

Regardless of how much the show wrecked me, though, it occurred to me that this should be required viewing for anyone who knows a fellow bipolar bear. My hope is that Next to Normal will do for mentall illness (a term I really dislike, incidentally; beyond the stigma that surrounds it, it makes it sound like the flu or something) what RENT did for AIDS. While it's ostensibly about Diana's struggle with mental illness, the real protagonist of the piece is Dan, the long-suffering husband (played to perfection by J. Robert Spencer). It would be easy to write the character off as a codependent martyr (he can't bear to face the world without her; he needs to save her), but there's an earnestness, a sweetness, in him that is impossible to resist. His are the songs that rip your heart straight out of your chest, because you see he's dedicated every fiber of his being to saving his wife. And why? Because forever is forever, for Dan. Because for him, love is stronger than darkness and death.

Like I said before, I don't even know if that sort of dedication exists in the real world. I certainly haven't seen anything like it. And it's hard to imagine anyone who, after seeing the show, would be okay with becoming a Dan. But that's exactly what some of us need, and what many never find.

And for those wondering about those manic/mixed episodes, the descriptions of the sensations are spot on: When a world that once had color fades to white and grey and black/ When tomorrow terrifies you, but you'll die if you look back.

The sensation that you're screaming, but you never make a sound/...Like a refugee, a fugitive, forever on the run. If it gets me it will kill me/ But I don't know what I've done.



This is what it's like for people like me. Every day. But I guess Dr. Madden (played by the super hot and amazing Louis Hobson) is right: "The one thing that's sure is that there is no cure, but that doesn't mean we don't fight."

Ten Ways to Get Rid of Your Vanessa Effing Abrams

Everyone encounters at least one Vanessa Fucking Abrams in her life. These are awful, annoying people who are enthralled by their own hipster-ish lifestyle, act as though anyone who chooses a different lifestyle is crazy/stupid, fuck up the lives of most of the people around them, and manage to offend you merely by existing.

So, I've decided to make your life easier by giving you ten ways to solve the VFA problem*:

1. Shove her into the path of an oncoming F train. ("When you're a Humphrey, you're always on the F train.")

2. Asphyxiation via her own stupid American Apparel "hooded scarf".

3. Get the Chuck Bass in your life to seduce her and give her an especially virulent (and fatal) form of syphilis.

4. Pull a Kevin Spacey in Se7en and chain her to a table while force-feeding her Annie's organic frozen turkey dinners until her stomach explodes.

5. Horrific "accident" involving the espresso machine at the coffee bar she (of course) works at.

6. Run her Vespa down on the Manhattan Bridge.

7. Forced marathon viewings of The City. Inevitably, she will claw her eyes out from boredom.

8. Call up the Blair Waldorf in your life and sit back and watch the carnage, pineapple mojito in hand.

9. Lure her to an impromptu "Save this building!" protest that takes place in a building about to be demolished.

10. Arrange for her to meet Michael Moore, then tip him over so that he crushes her.

Boom. You are welcome.

*These are not things you should actually do to anyone in real life. I am not advocating murder, because, as previously mentioned, I am not a serial killer.

On Beastiality

(How's that for an SEO title?)

Beauty and the Beast came out when I was about four years old. I don't remember seeing the movie for the first time, but my parents tell me I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I do remember begging my parents--in that entitled, naggy way four-year-olds have--to buy in on VHS. (Side note: Remember VHS? Good times. Then again, you can't have commentary or extras on VHS, so really, I'm glad we've moved on to DVDs.) Though I didn't watch the tape to the point of destruction, it's fair to say my mom (and dad) soon came to hate "Be Our Guest," and looked forward to the start of the school year. They did, however, indulge me and buy me a really awesome Belle costume for Halloween. I looked pretty adorable:



My attraction to Beauty stemmed primarily from my love for its heroine--a love that only grew as my childhood years passed. Belle wasn't like previous Disney princesses. She loved her kooky inventor father and, most of all, books.

(Also, I totally loved the Beast. To the point where I preferred him in his Beast-ly form and lovingly treasured the plastic model of him I got at Pizza Hut. Even at that early age, I was weird. Though I think it was mostly that I didn't like Human Beast's long hair. And his fur looked soft.)

But here we have a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Did I become a bibliophile because my natural inclination toward reading was reinforced by a positive role model, or did I just pick her to model my life after?

If the latter is the case, I'd like to take this opportunity to give the entire Disney operation the finger, because I've suffered quite a bit of disillusionment and heartbreak because of them and, more specifically, this movie. Don't get me wrong: It is my second-favorite 2-D movie (Lion King represent). Hell, it got nominated for Best Picture that year. But Belle's ostracization from her peers was romantic, even a little glamorous. She didn't seem to suffer all that much from being smarter than most of the people in her town. Yeah, some old hens sang about how odd she was, but she seemed to get along pretty well in life. And--spoiler alert!--she's rewarded with an awesome life in a huge castle with a dream library and a pretty cool (if a little hirsute) dude for a husband.

Granted, this sort of thing happens in every other Disney "princess" movie. With Beauty and the Beast, though, it feels like more of a betrayal, because I'm Just Like Her. So, if we follow Five-Year-Old-Girl Logic, all those things she gets should also be mine, right?

But in the real world, the Beast is never a Prince in disguise; he's only a Beast, and no amount of wishing or loving will change that. Castles are pretty expensive, not to mention damp and drafty even in the summer. And if you read Lord of the Rings every year and love Battlestar Galactica and read books about superstring theory, people will only ever see you as a Nerd.

On the Emmy Noms

THEY'RE HERE! THEY'RE HERE! Oh boy oh boy ohboyohboy!

Oh. Boy.

Look, I'm not one of those people who constantly rails against the mob nature of our society. I do think it's silly that some of the real quality shows on TV go largely unwatched, but I have a basic sense of how the world works, and that's fine.

But the Academy has seriously lost its brain. Again. SOME MORE. These people are supposed to love TV just as much as I do...Or at least know as much about it, if not more. And they go and nominate Tony Shaloub again for Best Actor in a Comedy?! Guys. You made the right call kicking The Piv the fuck out of the nominations--and I'm grateful for that because, seriously?--but there are so many others out there that are deserving. Shit, I would rather see Josh Radnor in there, and he's not even the best part of How I Met Your Mother.

(It is nice to see HIMYM get some love, though. Best Comedy! NPH as Best Supporting in a Comedy! I like to attribute this love to the fact that I started watching the show a month ago. Also, Dr. Horrible is nominated for an Emmy. Awesome.)

Funny that Kiefer gets a nod only for 24: Redemption, but I would have been more than happy to see him out of Best Lead in a drama if that meant EDWARD JAMES OLMOS would make it in. But no. ZERO Battlestar Galactica love, which is absolutely unacceptable at this point in time. Not to shit all over Simon Baker, because he is hotter than a young sun, but...Over Olmos? Really, voters? Same with Mary McDonnell. This was perhaps the best season yet for her character, and...nothing.

Continuing with the appalling Drama nonsense...No Connie Britton or Kyle Chandler? Get rid of Mariska Hargitay (sorry, Mariska; nothing personal, I assure you) to make room for Britton, and Simon Baker or Hugh Laurie for Chandler. THE HAIR DESERVES ITS DUE. (Laurie is amazing, don't get me wrong, but we get it, already.) And to leave the show out as well? Take Dexter out; the third season still didn't live up to the greatness of the first, and Friday Night Lights had a fantastic season. Furthermore, get House the fuck out of there and put BSG in.

The writing and guest-acting noms are a little screwy as well. Four episodes of Mad Men seems like a little overkill, no? And three of the guest comedy noms are for 30 Rock.

...


Guys, is 30 Rock the Will & Grace of the Emmys, now? Oh, God. RUN, TINA. RUUUUUUUUUUN!

Welcome to Geektown

Joss Whedon, Ron Moore, Seth Green...Be still, my nerdy heart.

The Good, The Bad, and The Interesting

So, after immersing myself in a world of hilarity and pathos, I decided my next adventure in the land of "TV Shows I Should Have Started Watching A Long Time Ago" would be...Heroes.



No, I didn't suddenly take leave of my senses. I had heard all the reasons to not watch. I mean, I was working at EW when the story ran that explained everything that was wrong with the show. And everyone I talked to said, "Nonono, that way lies badness. There is no happy ending there." But, being one of those people who has to figure these things out for herself, I decided to take the plunge anyway and catch it on Netflix's instant whatever. Also, I would be lying if I said half my reason for watching the show wasn't just to see Zachary Quinto in action. (What? He was really great in Star Trek, okay? It's not just because he's incredibly attractive.) I did promise myself I'd stop after the first season.

(For those who care, my promises apparently mean nothing, as I promptly rushed through the rest of the series as fast as the episodes could load. Definitely a mistake.)

After I got over my initial, brutal disappointment that Quinto wasn't in the first seven effing episodes of the first season, I immediately knew why I hadn't started watching the show before: It was absurdly addictive. And it somehow didn't feel like a complete retread of X-Men. I'm not altogether sure how the showrunners accomplished that, but, y'know, props. Anyone who can get me to zip through an entire season in a 36-hour period deserves that much, at least.

I did have a few problems with the first season (and many, many more with the subsequent ones), but they mostly followed from the show simply having too many storylines going; and worse, the characters in those storylines were boring, and had really poorly defined powers. (Seriously, can anyone tell me what the fuck Niki's power was, other than...being a multiple personality? Super strength with that one personality? Whaaaaat. Ever. Also, Greg Grunberg, I love you, but you need to smack some bitches over there for making you really irrelevant most of the time. Get Jaybrams to write you into another pilot or something.)

On the whole, though, I was enthralled for all 23 episodes. While some of the credit goes to the pretty riveting Bennett family saga and my inexplicable love for first-season Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar, you are also delightful to look at), I have to lay the rest at the feet of my new favorite TV serial killer: Sylar. (Sorry, Dex.)

Sylar is literally the only reason I'll continue watching this shell of a good show next season. Well, the hope of Sylar. God knows what the fuck is going on, with that third season finale. Again, I love Adrian Pasdar, but not at the expense of Quinto.

The funny thing is that Sylar shouldn't be an interesting character at this point -- but he is. He's had several chances at redemption and fucked all of them up -- purposefully, for the most part. He's pretty much just pure evil, and pure evil gets old rather quickly. But the way Quinto plays it is just... delicious. The spark in those alternately soulful/less eyes when he's stalking his prey is magnetic; I could watch him glare at people all day. (Seriously. I thought David Boreanaz had the Evil Glare down as Angelus, but Quinto just brings it to a whole 'nother level. Maybe it's the amazing eyebrows?) And you can still see the tiny part of him that made that noose after his first kill, and how deep he buries it. You can see the part of that spark that's built on ambition and the need to be special.

Clearly, I'm not a serial killer. I don't really have that capacity in me. But on a fundamental level, I understand Sylar because I've felt that way every day of my life. I know I'm not alone, too; everyone wants to be special. But people like the fictional Gabriel Gray and I, we have this crushing need to be superlative. Not just special: the special-est. His struggle to balance that hunger with the reality that there comes a point when you really just can't be any better...That's one of the oldest human struggles. Remember Cain and Abel? Abel didn't die because of some serpent's curse. He died because God named him superior to his brother. That ate Cain up inside--how could God want fruit and vegetables instead of fresh lamb?--until finally a lightbulb went off over his head and fratricide was born.

It could also be that seeing Sylar get the shit kicked out of him is always good for a laugh. Seriously. It's somehow very cathartic and funny whenever someone stabs him in the face, because he screams in an immensely satisfying way and then glares and starts with the bloodletting. (Incidentally, I love that Sylar wears Converse a lot of the time. Like, he may be a serial killer, but damnit if he doesn't love his Chucks. Is he secretly a hipster? I know he was supposed to have grown up in Queens, but maybe his murderous rampages come from having spent too much time in Williamsburg? He did kill that guy in the Ramones shirt...)

So! In conclusion! Fixing Heroes is pretty easy: Less characters and repetition, more Quinto and Sylar. Boom. You are welcome.

How I Met Battlestar Galactica

There's no denying the fact that the last...six months or so of my life have been somewhat less than awesome. In fact, the I've spent vast majority of that time either in a state of complete mania and panic or catatonia. I always knew adult life posed its own unique challenges, but this has all seemed a bit excessive. I fucking get it, Universe.

So, with the collapse of my entire life plan (boyfriend, career, housing, financial whatever), and without any sort of employment in which to immerse myself, I naturally returned to my first, best method of coping: TV.

I love Friday Night Lights more than most people, and it really is very relatable, but for some reason it was more of a Band-Aid than actual healing tissue. (I'm talking about biological tissue here, not Kleenex.) Apparently my worldview was so thrown off-kilter I needed two radically different four-season-long shows to get it back on track. It took Battlestar Galactica to put my problems into context, but it was How I Met Your Mother that taught me how to solve them.

I started out with my beloved Battlestar Galactica. [SPOILER ALERT for the next paragraph, if you haven't watched the show all the way through.] The concept of having your home eradicated, your species' entire future in doubt, spoke to my melodramatic streak, and I adopted that feeling. I wallowed in it. And the episode after they discover "Earth" is nothing more than an irradiated cinder, that their reason for living was all just a lie (4x11, "Sometimes a Great Notion")...Well, a character's death was never more poignant for me than when Anastasia Dualla--a character I didn't even like, mind you--pulled out her gun after one last happy moment and put a bullet in her brain. She worked until they wouldn't let her; she loved until her heart gave out. She fought until she couldn't. And that was the feeling I was struggling with: Once your life is blown all to hell, and everything you've ever believed has been proven a lie, how do you go on? How do you find another reason? Are there any other reasons?

Again, I wallowed in these questions for a while. It was only natural. (Gossip Girl's funeral episode also contributed to this period of deconstruction. What happens when you're measured and found wanting, but you never get another chance to be measured? What happens when you're just not enough?)

I didn't intend to leave my existential crisis anytime soon, but thankfully the TV gods intervened and sent me the first three seasons of How I Met Your Mother on DVD. (Well, they sent my roommate the first three seasons. It amounts to the same thing.)

Of course, I blew through those three seasons (and SurftheChannel'd the fourth) in no time and loved every hilarious, sweet, realistic second. Granted, these characters are a good six to ten years older than me, but they're wrestling with the exact same issues as I am.

Logically, I knew the odds of staying together with the first person you ever dated, or keeping the first job you ever have, are astronomically small, but for some reason I always had this horrific sense of shame that accompanied thoughts of that not happening. HIMYM finally got it through my thick head that it is okay for you to be unlucky on the first try. That it does happen with some (Lily and Marshall), but that even those who seem really well-suited for each other don't make it (Ted and Robin). Oh, and [SPOILER ALERT if you haven't gotten through season three] that sometimes what you really wanted was in front of you all along (Barney and Robin, which, by the way, I am such a fucking fangirl 'shipper for them it is ridiculous: "But with you, the trouble doesn't seem so...troubling." God bless you, NPH).

The fourth season continued drilling those ideas into my head, but one of my favorite moments in the entire show came in the finale:

Ted: This is a disaster. How am I going to come back from this?
Lily: Okay, I'm just going to ask this. Do you really want to come back from this?
Ted: What's that supposed to mean?
Lily: Architecture is killing you, Ted. And it's killing us to watch it killing you. You're like that goat with the washcloth. You want it so bad, and every time the world tries to take it away from you, you keep grabbing it. But, you know what? It's just a washcloth. Why do you even want it?
Ted: Because I have to be an architect! That's the plan.
Lily: Screw the plan! [...] Look, you can't design your life like a building. It doesn't work that way; you just have to live it and it'll design itself.
Ted: So I should just do nothing?
Lily: No. Listen to what the world is telling you to do...And take the leap.

What my leap is remains to be seen, but at least I'm not holding on to that washcloth anymore.

The Bro Code

Just hop on over here and take a listen to the as-narrated-by-NPH-as-Barney-Stinson Bro Code.

Also, I should never listen to commentary tracks on TV shows, because they just make me unfathomably jealous of everyone who works on them. I want to hang out with them.

...I guess maybe it's not too late to get into showbiz? I'm still only 21, after all.

Neil Patrick Harris Is the Greatest

Having finally gotten around to watching How I Met Your Mother and concluding that it is, in fact, legen-

(wait for it; and I hope you're not lactose-intolerant, because the second half of that word is...)

-DAIRY, I naturally fell totally in love with Neil Patrick Harris. Granted, I was already sort of in love after the wonderfulness of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and his SNL episode, but he's so fantastic as Barney Stinson that I'm able to forget my current heartache (long story). In less capable hands (both in terms of writing and acting), Barney would be just another cad. But his evolution this last season into the conflicted, adorable--though still masculine--man has been completely natural and believable. So, you know...Kudos.

And now, after YouTube-ing his magnificent Tony closing number, I came. Across. This:



This must be integrated into the show. Maybe we can have an episode where they all want to go see a show on Broadway, but they each want to see a different one and somehow Marshall and Barney find common ground in their Les Mis love. Look, I don't care how it happens, it just needs to. So, uh, CALL ME, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. I'll help you out.

Supervenous Without Pity

I found Television Without Pity via some old site called Bored.com. I was 15 years old and just beginning to start my journey to Obsessive TV Watcher Land, so you can imagine my utter delight in finding people like me. TWoP taught me snark and told me it was okay to love something as "trivial" as TV.

(Now, of course, I'm confident enough to make the argument that TV is not trivial. While there's been a pretty steep decline in quality--or maybe just a steep increase in shitty shows--I maintain that TV is a pretty important part of our culture, and those that dismiss it need to understand that this is just the medium in which we get our epics these days. Well, when it's done right.)

During my years as a pretty frequent poster on the TWoP boards, I learned the ins and outs of the TV business. It's how I can now talk about the differences between Jeff Zucker and Les Moonves and not sound like a total rube.

The recaps themselves were fantastic. The writers and editors--Sars, Wing Chun, and Couch Baron especially--distilled my favorite shows into reasonably-sized summaries with just the right balance of detail and commentary. This commentary was pretty freakin' funny (see: Uncle Arvin's Office Of Over-the-Top Technical Treatises, etc.), and actually contributed somewhat to whatever "voice" I currently have, if I actually have one. I dunno. Anyway.

Understandably, the creators realized what an awesome thing they had, and when Bravo came along and offered to buy it, they accepted.

Thus began the not-really-all-that-slow and steady fall of an empire.

Previously, each show had its own little woodcut-like graphic related to the show's premise (but not actually a direct representation). Buffy's was a garlic bulb. You know, stuff like that. But then those went away and were replaced by actual pictures of the show. And then my favorite recappers started leaving after their shows ended...or even before that happened; they were replaced by people who (forgive me, current recappers) just aren't that funny or deft at the art of recapping. The creators left.

Then, the number of shows recapped exploded...because they started recapping sitcoms. The old TWoP didn't recap sitcoms because: a) They're already pretty short, and b) Why would you try to make jokes about something that's actually funny? Proving that theory correct, their comedy recaps are indeed irrelevant.

After that came Movies Without Pity, and video blogs, and news items and slideshows that have turned what was once a safe haven for intelligent people who just wanted some snarky recaps into a smorgasbord of crap that lacks the charm and wit of the original TWoP.

So thank you, Bravo, for killing one of my favorite things in the world. Well done.

Dear MotherZucker...

Dear MotherZucker,

We are recent college grads, but we could run your network better than Silverman. Why, you ask? Well, first, we are 22 years old and, therefore, have that whole "binge drinking" thing out of our systems. (Or we save it for appropriate times, like one odd Saturday night a month.) We also have never been big fans of white tigers outside of the zoo. (Or even in the zoo.) We may not have any real scheduling experience, but hey, neither did this douche when you hired him.

But why should you hire us? Because NBC can't really (really, really) get any worse, so why not put it in the hands of two post-grad TV junkies? We anxiously await your call, Jeffy.

Hugs and puppies,
O and Brady

P.S. "SyFy"? Seriously? Way to make your network sound like VD.

There Are No Words

SILVERMAAAAAAAAAAN!



(That voice has got to be rough on Silvertooth's ears.)

Oh, and there's even more:



God, I love that man. And by "love" I mean "am disturbingly fascinated by."

Flora and Fauna, Part II

In second grade, and every year after in February, my class would go to Blue Spring, a refuge for wintering manatees. (Incidentally, don't believe the park brochure when it says "warm" waters. As a former swimmer, I know 72 degrees is actually pretty fucking cold for swimming.) Manatees are not very exciting creatures. They're adorable in their own way, but they're not splashy like whales or clever showoffs like dolphins. They just sit and vegetate, and every once in a while a boat will run over them.

Don't get me wrong--I keenly felt the pain of "Scarback" and "Halftail" and all the other poor maimed animals and wished violence upon the boat owners who didn't heed the Save the Manatee speed limits. But there is a reason the manatee is also called the sea cow.

I didn't generally have to go on a field trip to see some new, exotic Floridian creature. Our old house, situated by a "charming" little "lake" (Lake Rogers, an overambitious retention pond), had a large backyard that was not in any way speaking a yard. Sure, there were some patches of grass here and there, but most of the area was covered with large oak trees (live oaks, specifically; festooned with pounds and pounds of Spanish Moss), various shrubs that defy identification, and the ubiquitous Saw Palmetto. The palmettos were the main source of my and my siblings' various abrasions during early childhood. The neighbor kids and I would get it into our heads to use them as fans or swords, and we never remembered until our hands were being ripped open by the fronds' spines that this was a terrible idea.

Before my parents enclosed our back porch, all sorts of interesting critters would walk up to the our sliding glass door. Yes, we had a large squirrel nest in one of the oaks, and the little rodents would frequently wander around the concrete porch floor. But quite possibly the coolest animal event occurred when an armadillo calmly walked up to my mother as she was sweeping. My toddler brother and I pressed our little noses to the glass and giggled with delight as my mother gave a startled "Dios mio!" and, after words failed to shoo Army (as we came to call him), began buffeting him with her broom. Army promptly rolled himself into a ball, and so he and my mother invented the sport of Dillo Ball. Unfortunately, that was the only game of Dillo Ball ever played, and my mother won in what ended up being more of a rout than a game.

From that point on, I made it a point to bring scraps of food out with me every time I went out back to search for Army's jungle home. We only saw him a few times after then, and we only discovered his lair after my father decided to "do something" about the jungle. (Army lived under the bent trunk of one of those saw-toothed plants of Satan.)

The impetus for this bushwhacking came from the events of a particularly muggy Sunday afternoon. (All afternoons in Florida are muggy, but this was an extreme level of humidity.) My parents, wanting to live vicariously through their children, had provided us with not only a swingset (complete with two swings and a pair of rings, as well as a platform whose only apparent purpose was to provide something off which to jump), but also a truly cool clubhouse.

The wooden clubhouse was raised some six feet or so off the ground and came with a ladder, yellow slide, fireman's pole, and one of those cruel knotted ropes kids always have to climb in the gym class of popular films. (I never had to climb a knotted rope in P.E., nor do I know of anyone who had to do so.) Oh, and it had a tricolored plastic sheet roof: blue, red, and yellow. Since ours was the first family on the street to have both a swingset and a clubhouse, we naturally had a lot of visitors in the form of neighborhood urchins. Most of them didn't take the trouble to ring the doorbell and ask if I could come out to play; they just waltzed into our backyard and clambered all over everything while I ran onto the porch and glared. My mother thought she could keep this "riffraff" out by planting some large shrubs around our borders, but when that didn't stop them, she forced my father to put up an intimidating fence.

This particular afternoon saw me pushing my three-year-old brother in the special baby swing. After growing bored with that particular activity, I took him out and set him on the ground, instructing him to watch as I performed an elegant leap off the platform. Of course, as soon as I had climbed up to the platform, a large group of black hornets swarmed out from under me. Speaking as someone who is terrified of being stung by a bee, wasp, or hornet despite never having been stung by one, I am not ashamed to admit I frantically executed my leap and ran into the house as fast as my little legs could carry me, probably emitting little embarrassing shrieks along the way. My assumption that Daniel would follow me was incorrect, and by the time I looked out from the sliding glass door the bugs had done their work.

He somehow managed to escape multiple stings, but when my mother saw his right eye swelling shut, she feared for the worst. After ascertaining that the same luck that saved him from the wrath of the swarm had also saved his eye (he'd only been stung on the eyelid), she rounded on my father and insisted he start child-proofing the backyard.

Even after my father and I cleared out most of the alien flora (read: any plant my mother didn't want to survive)--a task that took at least two years--we would get strange visitors. One rainy afternoon saw what we later discovered was a Red-tailed Hawk perching on our swing set. Having only seen vultures and buzzards feeding on roadkill, with maybe the occasional cardinal thrown in, I was agog at this magnificent raptor's presence. She sat there calmly despite the drizzle until, just as I was starting to get bored, she dove toward the ground, picked something up in her talons, and regained her perch. I gasped as I saw what was writhing desperately in her right foot: a Black Racer.

As previously mentioned, the Black Racer isn't venomous. Chasing one into the bushes therefore provides an adrenaline rush without the actual fear of death. And here was one of them unwillingly taking part in a retelling of the story of the Mexican coat of arms, as the hawk proceeded to messily devour the snake. But while I felt sorry for Mr. Snake, I was also giddy with delight at having seen Nature In Action. Consequently, when friends came over, I regaled them with the story and proudly showed them the blood on the swingset.

On Flora and Fauna

As previously mentioned, I grew up in Florida. While I do not consider myself a Floridian, and I have a passionate hatred for all things Florida (excepting only Gator football), I've recently been forced to conclude that it wasn't really that bad a place to grow up.

Sure, there's the lack of snow. And the heat is absolutely unbearable most of the time. And it's boring. But little kids seldom raise a stink over the fact that there aren't any good bars around; and even if there were, you'd have to drive to them, which would mean you couldn't get nearly as drunk as you'd like.

But where else can you find a building shaped like giant gator sitting on the side of the road in a town called (shit you not) Christmas? No, seriously. This actually exists.



Field trips in elementary school were therefore incredibly entertaining. We went to the aforementioned Jungle Adventures in first grade. The memories of that trip, actually, come mostly from visiting Fort Christmas, some old outpost erected around the time the US decided to try to make something out of this godforsaken swamp. While at first my classmates and I were chagrined to see that the fort had none of the features a decent fort should have (slides, hidden passageways, maybe a ball pit or a rickety wooden bridge), we were soon distracted by the candy in the gift shop. When my mother picked me up that afternoon, she immediately relieved me of my bounty: an eight-inch phallus of solid sugar. Of course, at that point in time, I just thought it looked like a unicorn horn.

We did see some gators on that trip; in fact, somewhere in a junk heap in my parents' closet I'm sure there's photographic evidence. It was actually the proudest moment of my young life: None of the other children would go near the baby gators we were supposed to be looking at, but when a scraggly "guide" asked me if I wanted to hold one, I voiced my affirmative with no hesitation. After plopping one into my outstretched hands (jaws rubber-banded shut, since apparently even their tiny teeth hurt when they're crushing a six-year-old's finger), I grinned and he snapped a photo. The little gator then peed on my forearm, which, if you know kids at all, only cemented my status as The Awesomest Kid Alive.

That same year, I kept my Awesomest Kid Alive title by bringing in a snake's head to Show and Tell. This was no ordinary snake head, obviously. While there are a plethora of snakes in Florida, most are harmless. My friend Eli and I would chase after Black Racers with reckless abandon. The Coral Snake, on the other hand, caused quite a stir when he appeared in our neighborhood.

There had been a few sightings before that hot February day, and all the parents and pet owners were on high alert. We kids were taught the old "Red to yellow/ Kill a fellow/ Red to black/ Venom lack" trick of distinguishing the venomous Coral from the benign King. My mother had taken it upon herself to plant some flower or another in the front yard, part of her lifelong quest to tame the Floridian spirit of "ugly." (And yet we still had St. Augustine "grass"...) The aforementioned Eli and I were catching frogs and giggling as they peed on us in fright, after which time we would dangle them by the leg for a few seconds and lob them back into the grass. (Children are cruel. And weird.)

The snake came slithering out of a nearby palmetto cluster, and after ascertaining it would, indeed, kill a fellow, I ran to my mother and told her the exciting news. I expected her to turn tail and run to my father, who would then take care of the situation with his usual aplomb, but instead she grabbed the large shovel lying in the driveway and followed my directions. Then she calmly raised the shovel over her head and, much like a medieval headsman, brought it down with a dull thunk.

"MAMI! YOU CHOPPED ITS HEAD OFF!"

My father, hearing the commotion, came outside, saw the body still wriggling, and picked it up and tossed it back into the brush. "Why don't we put the head in this little jar, eh, Munchkin? You can take it to Show and Tell." After making the usual noises associated with excitement, I watched as he carefully filled a small, clear jar with rubbing alcohol and, with even more care, picked the snake's head up (thumb and forefinger just behind the corners of its mouth) and plopped it in.

I proudly recounted the story to my classmates at school the next day, perhaps embellishing a bit and saying it was "thisclose to biting me," then taught them that useful little rhyme.