Come on, WB.

While being unemployed certainly sucks quite a bit, it does come with one small perk: After compulsively refreshing Mediabistro's job listings page every five minutes for five or six hours, you can take a break and do whatever you want. For me, this break usually involves me watching an episode of some TV show or other. Lately, I've been in a "Season Four of ER" mood, which, thanks to the periodic weeding of EW's TV on DVD collection, I have all to myself. But sometimes, you need a little Veronica Mars to help yourself remember that you can indeed be a badass if you want to. (Also, watching too much ER makes me want to go to med school, which would probably be a bad call on my part. Though it would make my mom very happy.)

Obviously, you can watch anything you want via STC's links, but sometimes those links take way too long to load, or are really finicky, or they're dead. So when The WB (and all its great teen-y shows) was resurrected a while ago via TheWB.com, I was ecstatic. VMars! Everwood! My life was now complete!

Except the site is terrible. It's gone through a few makeovers since the launch, but the design was never the problem. The problem is that none of the damn videos will play properly. Which...sort of defeats the purpose of the site. I'm perfectly willing to watch eps with ads in them, but I do want the eps to actually load. Of course, the ads all load and play flawlessly. Convenient.

It seems to me that it would be easier for these shows' studios to just put their episodes up on Hulu. I don't know the financial intricacies involved in cutting a deal with the Hulu people, but it has to be worth it. Anything has to be better than losing potential viewers because your site doesn't work.

Therefore, TheWB.com, I implore you: Just put your shit on Hulu. It'll make life better for everyone. I promise.

Weird Craigslist Post of the Day

I just...WHAT?!

The picture is what really sells it, I think.

Jack Bauer Is a Farmer

No, seriously.

While perusing Variety (shut up), I noticed a quirky little story about a couple studios fighting over a Dutch show that may or may not be too similar to a German show. The Dutch one is Bauer, ledig, sucht (Farmer, Single, Looking), while the German one is Bauer sucht Frau (The Farmer Wants a Wife).

I don't really care about that potential copyright infringement or whatever. What was really cool to me--a language nerd--is that I had no idea "Bauer" meant "farmer."

Obviously, my mind immediately went to a wonderful place wherein the next (and last) season of 24 finds our intrepid hero, Jack Bauer, forced once again into hiding--this time, on a farm. The first half of the day promises to be full of action (and shirtlessness!), with wheat to be harvested, cows to be milked, and fields--both literal and figurative--to plow (oh yes, I went there)*, despite the threat of a cattle raid. Of course, Jack Bauer will fuck up those raiders single-handedly, armed only with a pitchfork.

Hear that, producers? Yeah. You're welcome.

Twilight and Summit: Officially Ridiculous

The Hollywood Reporter is, er, reporting that Summit might actually already have a director for the Eclipse movie. To which I say: Seriously?

Look, I liked Twilight well enough. As the wonderful Cleolinda Jones says, it's like a Twinkie(c). It's not good for you, but sometimes you just want something gross and sugary. Or like when I have a craving for Papa John's and some Corona instead of Giordano's or something. (Side note: God, I miss Giordano's.)

But the movie was just awful. I know, I know, it made a truckload of money and they've greenlighted like sixteen sequels, blah blah vampirecakes. The problem is that the subsequent books are terrible. And not in an acceptable "Oh man, this is awful but I can't put it down" kind of way. In a "Holy God, why are these people still alive/undead? I must smash my face into my desk" way.

It seems like Summit is nervous about keeping the Twimomentum going; otherwise, why all this speculation this early in the game? IMDb says they haven't even finished filming on New Moon yet.

Also, this is just going to encourage EW to put the same stupid photo on yet another cover. Because God forbid they not put something Twilight-related on the cover. I don't necessarily blame them, because that shit sells like hotcakes on the newsstands, but they're alienating most of their subscription base. This isn't the Catch-22 it looks like.

Look for a possible new segment, "If we ran the world..." sometime soon. Maybe.

You've Got Facebook

So, Nielsen and THR say social networking is pwning e-mail. To which I say: Duh.

That horrible "Business Exchange" travesty aside, this is actually a good thing. I've never understood why online advertising hasn't been nearly as successful as print advertising was in its heyday (this is a good study about that), and I think that's one of the reasons why most magazines still have horrible sites. (Look, God knows I love EW, and PopWatch is a great blog, but I still hate the way the homepage looks. And, full disclosure, I used to work there and write for PopWatch.)

I still mostly try to keep work and Facebook separate (though everyone at EW was so chill, I broke that rule for them), but the fact is, it's the best way to casually keep in contact with people. The beauty of the internet (yeah, I refuse to capitalize it) is its innately casual nature. Plus, you get the benefit of other people seeing you interacting. It's like, after years of making fun of computer nerds for sitting inside and not having friends, everyone decided to go about being as public with their affection as possible. Since, ultimately, we're a deeply voyeuristic society, it all turns into this ridiculous (but sometimes entertaining) circle-jerk of internet activity. Now you know why I don't Twitter.

This is why I firmly believe what my favorite TWoP recapper Jacob says about it: "The internet actually is just a very large bathroom wall, and anybody who cares about this shit or goes after their employees based on it has bigger problems than their basic inability to understand how the world works." Amen, sir. (For ruminations on why people treat the internet like a bathroom wall in the first place, please see John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.)

Maybe that's why advertisers still aren't sold on the online thing? Too many fuckwads? But you'd think those fuckwads would buy more stuff. Hmmm...

On Not Being a Dickwad

The first R-rated movie I saw on my own (once I finally reached that magic age of 17) was Closer. I'd just finished one of my first shifts at the movie theater, and I was super excited to take advantage of the "all the free movies you want" perk. So I settle back, prepared to partake in some delicious Clive Owen-Jude Law-ness, and I see them.

They're sitting in the very back of the theater, this young couple. And with them is...a stroller. With a small child in it.

This child then proceeded to cry at the most inopportune times (read: almost the entire movie). I couldn't fathom why this couple had brought its spawn to a 10:40 p.m. showing of a ridiculously explicit movie

Fast forward four and a half years or so. I'm seeing Coraline in 3-D with a friend. Due to some pretty ridiculous complications (like the Jonas Brothers...it's a long story), we end up going to the AMC in Times Square (Times! Square! Augh!) for an 11:10 p.m. showing. Now, I know Coraline is PG, but there is some scary shit in that movie. Not that I ever plan on having spawn of my own, but I wouldn't take a kid under 9 to the theater to see it, much less at an 11 p.m. showing on a Sunday. But of course, that's what we found. Dozens of families with their squalling four-year-olds attempting to drown out whatever disturbing noise was coming from the screen. As soon as we had reached the street, my friend and I each yelled about the horrific parenting we'd just witnessed.

And then there was Watchmen. A family (an entire goddamn family, mind you) not only subjected their five-year-old boy to that movie, but also brought an infant.

This so far past the line of "inappropriate," we can't even see it. There are so many things wrong with this situation that I need to outline them.

A) Your poor son is going to have nightmares for weeks about this. Seeing people's arms chopped off? Dogs with their heads split open? A five-minute-long softcore sex scene?

B) Your infant's screaming fucked up the movie for everyone else in the audience, you insensitive clods. It is neither my fault, nor anyone else's, that you either decided to breed or forgot to use a condom, so do not inflict your troubles upon me. You want kids? Accept the fact that for a while, you'll barely be able to leave the house.

C) You spent an extra how much for a seat for that kid? If you can afford to do that, hire some tween in need of some cash to watch them for a few hours.

In conclusion: It is not that difficult to avoid being a completely horrible parent. This is common sense. Do not bring your small children to incredibly graphic movies really late at night. And, movie theaters? Stop letting this happen.

I watched the Watchmen...

...And I liked it.

Of course, in this situation, it would have been very hard for me to not like it. My friend Joe had been trying to get me to read Watchmen practically since I met him, so once I saw the second theatrical trailer, I figured I'd give it a try.

It took me a bit longer than usual to get through the book--it's not very long, but the density and complexity of the story's structure takes a while to adjust to. Upon finishing it, I believe my thoughts were "Jesus Christ, how much bleaker can you get?" and also, "I'm going to need to re-read this at least three more times." (As a side note, I also had Rorshach's narrative voice in my head, which, since I'm not a psychotic misogynistic masked vigilante, was unpleasant.)

So, after seeing that trailer, reading the novel, then watching a bunch of footage, I was pretty freakin' excited. Not even the lukewarm (or negative) reviews could dampen my spirits. And you know what?

It was exactly what I wanted. Granted, the ending lacked the utter, blood-drenched terror I was hoping for, and Malin Akerman was awful but whatever. The attention to detail was spectacular, Jackie Earle Haley rocked the shit out of Rorshach, and I think I might pitch an amusement park based around the ride, "Dr. Manhattan's Blue Dong of Doom."(Would that not be an awesome ride?)