I See Monsters

Well I Heard There Was a Secret Chord

I gave up American Idol for good this year, and boy was that a load off my back. I am 57% happier for making that decision. Truly. Since I gave it up I've been happy to slag the show, because truly it is mostly vapid and horrible. But...but...BUT. I can't be too angry at a show that causes Jeff Buckley's gorgeous version of "Hallelujah" to be the #1 download on iTunes. I just can't be mad at that.

So, young people, download Jeff Buckley! I don't even care that an evil corporate empire that sucks the brains out of half of America for 5 months each year is the cause.

Kill Me Now

I've started my second recapping gig over at It Happened Last Night. I will be covering the illustrious Wednesday elimination episode of Big Brother: 'Til Death Do You Part. It's already horrendously addicting.

Here's a belated link to my first column (posted Wednesday night):

Secrets revealed on 'Big Brother': 'Til Death Do You Part

I do not know how I am going to work that ungainly title into my headline each week. Please click, read, comment, and revel in wonderment at the comments that have already been left. They're...interesting, to say the least.

Come on Get Down with the Sickness

I have that mutant flu virus of death that is currently kicking the ass of 50% of America. Normally I would wax poetic about how awful I feel, but chances are everyone reading this godforsaken entry already has it and knows just how unbelievably terrible it is. In case you're one of the lucky few to escape this madness, just know that this is some serious 28 Days shit. I would not be surprised if I woke up tomorrow and had the taste for blood and brains and could move really fast and had the all-consuming desire to bleed into your orifices. (Hey, at least if I'm going to be a zombie I'm not one of those old-school, slow, STUPID zombies who are always mumbling about brains. I am such a bright-sider.)

However, I was not such a bright-sider this morning when I was sitting on the floor of my shower willing myself the strength to stand up. Seriously, I was so wiped from my cleansing ritual I had to sit on my bed for 15 minutes and watch The O.C. while I regained my strength. It's a tough life. (Another brightside moment, though? Half-assedly blow drying my hair out of exhaustion made for some superior tresses today, at least in the front. The back looks like something Amy Winehouse would reject as too ratty, but the part framing my face is stylin'.) (Un-brightsiding: the cold sore on my lip is not so stylin'. Ew.)

Anyway, since all I could do for three days was sleep and then not be able to sleep because I was too busy moaning about how uncomfortable I was, I inevitably watched a lot of TV. And now I have something to say about it, as I am wont to do:

• I deleted my Nip/Tuck season pass. I just don't care anymore. Freedom, hooray! But I will miss Bradley Cooper. And Kimber.
• I watched like 14 episodes of The O.C. I had saved up on my Tivo. Dear Sweet Baby Jesus, I love season one of that show. The season finale when Ryan leaves and Seth sails away and they play "Hallelujah"? Gives me crying fits like nothing else. Guys, it is really hard to cry like a loon when you have a wicked cough. It comes out as some sort of cry/cough/gag/dry heave. Not. Pretty.
• Still on The O.C. tip, the second time around I am enjoying Ryan FAR more than Seth. Seth is a self-involved, selfish little jerk most of the time. How did I not notice this before? I think the spell of The Brody finally wore off. Perhaps it's just because I love it when Ryan smiles and he doesn't do it very often. It's like a special treasure.
• I'm still fever-ish. Please ignore me.
• I can't wait until season four when we get funny Ryan.
• God, am I still talking about The O.C.? Shut up, sicky.
• On last night's The Wire I BAWLED at Randy's appearance. The system sure did chew him up and spit him out, huh? I loved Randy the most. I am sad.
• If you haven't seen The Wire, please rent it from the beginning and watch. If you're a patient viewer, it's the most rewarding show in the history of television. Trust. It's amazing.
• I like Lipstick Jungle. So sue me. Those women are far more likable than the Cashmere Mafia set, and the young hot piece that Kim Raver is sexin' is freaking fantastic looking. He's like a nouveau Ben Covington. Hot, hot, hot.
• I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in the midst of my highest fever state. I liked it, I think. It was really hard to follow (because of the fever, I hope). All I know is that a dog ate a finger and Shannyn Sossamon was the daughter who wasn't the daughter who wore pink wigs and Val Kilmer played a ruthless gay private detective and was pretty funny. Also, there was a weird scene with a spider and a bra but I might have hallucinated that part. Oh, and Corbin Bersen was in it maybe? I definitely think I hallucinated that part. Right? I mean, Corbin Bernsen.
• Yesterday when I finally felt human enough to get out of bed (but not better, oh no, god forbid I actually kick this thing) I went to my internet and saw this:

(Full story at Give Me My Remote. This was just for the pretty picture.)

And, well, when I get to have Pacey 1) potentially on my TV screen every week in a lead role; 2) in a $10 million pilot co-written by J.J. Abrams and two awesome writers from Alias, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and directed by Alex Graves of Journeyman; and 3) in a pilot that is being described as X-Files-ish? Well, fuck me three ways from Sunday. Being sick doesn't matter when life is this good.

Television Rules the Nation

After Tiff so awesomely told me she wanted to take me behind the middle school and get me pregnant today, I was totally flattered and honored.  Her blog is one of my go-to places, so to hear that sentiment reciprocated was exciting.  Then, I started to get nervous.  What if people clicked on the link and thought I was boring?  I needed some new, original, brilliant, thought provoking material, and quick.

Yeah.  That didn't work out so well.  Instead I bring you a meme, fully copied from someone else I admire, Rae over at the awesome Ramblings of a TV Whore.  This is a fantastic meme for TV lovers like me, so at least if it isn't original it is somewhat interesting, I suppose.

Back in the Day: 5 TV Shows You Loved As A Kid

Punky Brewster:

Oh my goodness, I wanted her ridiculous clothes so bad.

The Smurfs:

Okay, so that clip isn't technically The Smurfs.  But it is way cooler.

Silver Spoons:



I had a gigantic crush on Ricky Schroeder.

Growing Pains:

I had a gigantic, mondo, HUGE crush on Kirk Cameron.

You Can't Do That On Television:

I don't know.

Who Would You Do?: 5 TV Characters You Would…Well, It’s Self-Explanatory

Pacey Witter

Dean Winchester

Fox Mulder

Ben Covington

Logan Echolls

 

Wow: 5 TV Moments You Still Remember (And Probably Won’t Forget)

• In Veronica Mars' season one episode "M.A.D.," when Veronica finds Tad taped to the flagpole and he tells her Logan was the one who had GHB at the party where she was drugged and raped.  I think I almost threw up, seriously, because at that point I was in love with Logan Echolls and sure they were going to ruin that love by having him be the one that raped her or murdered Lilly.  Or both.
• In that 80's miniseries V, when the aliens rip off their skin and reveal they are actually lizards underneath the human-like skin.  It's a faint memory, but it's there and it's never going away.  *shudder*
• Dawson's Creek's season three episode "A Cinderella Story," when Pacey pulls the car over to the side of the road, starts arguing with Joey and then plants one on her.  Swoon.
• Alias' season two finale "The Telling," when Vaughn tells Sydney she's been gone for two years.  I screamed really, really, really loud.
• The sequence in The Office UK's Christmas special when Tim gives Dawn the paint set and the "Never Give Up" note, and she comes back to the party and kisses him in front of everyone.  Amazing.  I tear up every time.

“Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs”: 5 TV Theme Songs You Know (and Love) By Heart

• Golden Girls
• The Addams Family
• The Brady Bunch
• Cheers
• Felicity - Seasons 3&4

Eh: 5 Shows You Just Can’t Get Into

• The Sopranos (And I've seen every episode!  I just didn't like it that much.)
• Rome
• My Name is Earl
• Torchwood
• Extras

The Starting Line-Up: 5 Channels You Go To First When You Sit Down to Watch TV

• Food Network
• A&E/MSNBC "true crime" shows (like The First 48 or Lockdown)
• Lifetime
• HGTV
• TLC

(Note: Because I watch everything on Tivo, I only ever flip channels to waste time.  The above channels are my favorite surfing spots.)

This Is An Environment of Welcoming, and You Should Just Get the Hell Out Of Here: 5 TV Characters You Could Do Without

• Dawson on Dawson's Creek
• Vanessa on Gossip Girl
• Mouth on One Tree Hill
• Christopher on Gilmore Girls
• Lana on Smallville

That’s What She Said: 5 Quotes That Still Resonate

• "I remember everything." (Pacey Witter, Dawson's Creek)
• "You wanna know how I lost my virginity? So do I." (Veronica Mars voiceover, Veronica Mars)
• "I'm in love with you." (Jim Halpert, The Office)
• "Mom?" (Sydney Bristow, Alias)
• "I hate you both!  Never talk to me again!" (Brenda Walsh, Beverly Hills, 90210)

Gimme More: 5 Shows You Can Never Get Enough Of

• Veronica Mars
• Supernatural
• Dawson's Creek
• The X-Files
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Now it’s your turn.

Drifting Along with the Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Last night I was going through my Tivo's To Do list, and BOY was that depressing.  If I wasn't taping reruns of One Tree Hill and The O.C. on SoapNet every day, the only thing on my queue for the next two weeks would be a few episodes of The Girls Next Door, an episode of Austin City Limits and two specials about The Wire on HBO.

Writers, AMTMP, please work this out.  My poor Tivo would be so appreciative.  He gets lonely when forced to be kept company by only Chad Michael Murray and his awful, awful hair.

More More More

More One Tree Hill clips!  More One Tree Hill clips!

This show has gone insane.  Why?  It's been four years since high school graduation.  These kids have, realistically, just graduated from college and they are already:

• Brooke: A fashion maven.  Clothes Over Bros has taken over the world!  Daphne Zuniga is somehow involved!  Fake boyfriend shenanigans abound!  Argh.
• Lucas: A writer with his very own editor.  Listen, I love most of the crazy developments on this show but having to listen to Lucas drone on about his "deep" writing might be the thing that puts me off it for good.  Blergh.
• Peyton: Working at a record label as the "assistant to the assistant."  This is the most realistic one, but the show is acting like she should be more than that.  She's 21 freaking years old.  Assistant to the assistant at a record label sounds really freaking good to me.  Peyton is obviously too good for that, though, since she's all about the music, man.  Shut up, Peyton.

Despite all my complaints I sort of can't wait.  January can't come soon enough!

Don't You Leave Us in the Dark

I know I shamelessly pimp South Dakota Dark here all of the time, but this time I am not pimping myself so I feel better about being such a pimpage slut.  Todd, the extremely intelligent and insightful man behind the curtain over there, is currently doing a massive project detailing his top 100 television shows of all time.  It's impressive, comprehensive, thought-provoking and fun, and anyone who loves TV should check it out.

Here's a link to the top 100 posts so far:
South Dakota Dark's Top 100 shows of all time

Honestly, I'm just amazed he has seen so much TV.  He's sort of my TV hero.

Can I Have Everyone's Attention Please

Hoo boy, do I have a treat for you guys!  Well, it's actually sort of a treat and a trick all at once.  It's the tricky parts that make it treaty, though.  Does that make any sense?  Doubtful.  But I digress.

What I'm trying to say is, clips from the new season of One Tree Hill are making their way online and goodness me are they hilarious, in that way things are funny when you are bleeding from a severe head wound and are about to pass out.  I am here to share one of these clips for you, because I am a giver and everyone deserves to see something so patently ridiculous for themselves.

Backstory: Last season on One Tree Hill we left the gang right after their high school graduation.  In order to skip the disaster of transitioning a teen drama from high school to college, the show decided to simply skip college altogether and join up with our characters four years in the future.  Seeing that two of the main characters were already married and had a baby, and all other parental figures in Tree Hill were basically nonexistent, in theory this jump shouldn't be that big of a deal. 

Check out this scene between married couple Haley and Nathan:

Some thoughts:

• Check out the haircut on Nathan.  HOLY JESUS.  Literally.  What is going on there?  He obviously must be truly troubled, with hair that terrible.  His hair shows his pain! 
• Haley, however, has a very cute haircut, perhaps to balance the atrocity that is her husband's coif.
• Bethany Joy Galeotti continues to be the best thing about the show. 
• "I used to be something.  I USED TO BE NATHAN SCOTT!"  Um, isn't he still Nathan Scott?  Did he get a new identity?  Are they on the run from Johnny Law?  Now that's a story I could get behind!
• Where is my melodramatic emo rock soundtrack?

January can't come soon enough!  I can't wait to see what's in store for Brooke, Peyton and Lucas.  Not so much Mouth.  Why is he still on the show again?

You Can Look at the Menu, But You Just Can't Eat

Anyone who knows me knows I am sort of a sweets fiend.  Cookies, cakes, candy bars, pies, tarts, cobblers, cheesecakes...I love them all.  I try to be good and resist, but it just doesn't feel like a real meal to me unless I eat something sweet for dessert.  Even a mint or gum will do in a pinch, but nothing beats the satisfaction of a sweet baked good to cleanse the palate after a savory meal. 

I'm sure this comes from the family I was raised in.  My mother makes super-delicious desserts, and plenty of them.  In my house the words "what's for dinner?" were never uttered.  It was always, always "what's for dessert?" because it was essential to know what was for dessert in order to plan how much of our dinner we would eat.  You see, we needed to save room for the goodies that were to come at the end of the meal! 

[Sidebar: I brought my college boyfriend home for a weekend with the family.  Knowing he wasn't a huge fan of dessert (which should have been the first sign we weren't going to work out) I warned him that we would have dessert at every meal, even breakfast, but he didn't have to eat it just to be nice.  He sort of laughed at my notion that we ate dessert at every meal until, the next morning at breakfast, my mom pulled out the homemade cinnamon rolls after we were done eating our main meal.  I warned him...]

I seem to have inherited this love of baking from my mother, and there is nothing that makes me smile or calms me down as much as baking something.  It also makes me completely neurotic at times when things don't go perfectly, but you take the good with the bad I suppose.  I don't have a lot of people to share my baked goods with, so I don't bake as often as I would like and sometimes it just KILLS me not to make something when I see a delicious dessert on the Food network or on a blog.  Normally that subsides, but lately I've been assaulted by visions of dessert from other, less germane sources: TV shows and movies.

These sweet assaults are coming from three distinct places:

1. This weekend LL Cool A and I went to see the fabulous Lars and the Real Girl.  (I mean FABULOUS.)  It takes place in a nondescript Midwestern setting that feels a lot like Minnesota or Wisconsin and all of the little details of living in a town like that were perfectly realized, right down to the strawberry Jello salad someone brought to a potluck.  As soon as I saw that Jello salad I immediately craved it and the memories of all of the Jello salads I've eaten over the years came rushing back to me.  I don't even like Jello that much!  Probably because it's not a dessert.  Jello is a side dish, don't let anyone tell you differently -- anyone who eats Jello for dessert is missing out on actual dessert.  Still, Jello is sweet and man do I want some crappy Jello salad.
2. I rented the also fabulous Waitress from Netflix and man, does that movie make you want to bake a pie.  It is a cornucopia of awesome pies.  Enough pies to fulfill even the most ardent pie fetishist.  Pie porn, if you will.  I really, really want "Earl Murders Me Because I'm Having An Affair Pie."  (Smashed blackberries and raspberries in a chocolate crust, and I am drooling just thinking about it.)  The best part of Waitress is not the pies, however, but the awesome cover of Howard Jones's "No One is to Blame" that plays over a key scene.
3. Pushing Daisies.   It's like an hour of pie love, direct in your living room each week.   The restaurant is shaped like a pie, for heaven's sake.  Cup pies with honey baked in the crust?  Apple pie with cheese baked into the crust?  Yes, please.

I suppose the way to get this sweet assault out of my system is to start doing some baking again.  Don't be surprised if I show up on your doorstep with a variety of goodies, ring the bell, drop the treats and run like hell so I don't have to hear all of you L.A. skinnies saying "I don't know, I really shouldn't keep them at my house!"  It's the holidays!  You're supposed to gain 10 pounds.

Right?

Follow the Lights That Line the Streets Connecting Telephones

I just saw the new Ryan Adams video for "Follow the Lights."  It's some sort of soundtrack-type video featuring footage from October Road.  Is that show getting a soundtrack?  Because it is probably one of the worst shows on television, and I normally adore shows like that, so if I don't like it you know that shit is bad.  I can't imagine it has enough fans for a soundtrack.

Anywho.  I watched it with the sound off because I am at work and I already know the song anyway, but as far as I can tell the storyline is that Ryan and October Road star Bryan Greenberg (yum) are in love.  And they are using this song to tell their current, female lovers the bad news.  Just look at how Bryan is giving Ryan the hairy eyeball of love!  They are meant for each other.

That last shot of Ryan giving/getting the rose is cheesetastic.  As is the rest of the video, and the fact that Ryan has anything to do with this ridiculous show.  What's up, Ry?