insomnia haiku

Why did I never realize that "library" rhymes with "disco"?

Catching up on old episodes of Community (thereby clearing out my DVR for Thanksgiving, in the process making some not-so-tough choices -- buh-bye, FlashForward, I've officially given up on you), which has been a pleasant way of passing a couple hours while waiting for my backache to go away.

Community was a show I was really excited for at the start of the season, but it's been Modern Family that's had true staying power for me. THAT show, I love. This one, I find amusing when I get around to watching it, but I don't feel any particular compulsion to watch it every week. I don't know why.

That said, I just caught this bit after the end credits of one episode, and it's pretty darn funny. Again, I don't know why. (OK, I do know why. Because deadpan rapping in rudimentary Spanish = comedy.)

Full of Glee

Things have been kind of hairy at work, but every once in a while you get to do something fun.

Today, I got to interview the kids from Glee -- a show that I love. They were adorable. The geek kids, whom I interviewed in one group, are obviously friends and have a great time together; the "popular" kids, whom I interviewed in a second group, were a little more polished and seasoned, but my favorite moment was before the cameras rolled when the guys were burping and Cory (who plays Finn) looked straight at me and said, "Long night. Loooong night." A-HA. Well, I guess they aren't actually teenagers.

And I almost got the geek kids to do the "Single Ladies" dance, once they found out that Beyonce had done that very dance in this very studio -- but alas, no one had the song ready to play. Stupid, stupid! Fire someone! A crew member started playing it on his iPhone, and they were practically ready to bust a move when they heard it, but then they realized it was only someone's phone, and ... no dice. Oh well.

Hardest part for me was keeping silent in between questions, since I wasn't on camera and I'll be edited out of the video -- and anything I said during the answers would come off as this weird disembodied voice out of nowhere. It's just not natural for me not to talk back. Instead, I was reduced to making faces at them and nodding vigorously, or mouthing words at them. So strange. Is this what they teach you at journalism school?

Oh. And I have the biggest crush on the guy who plays Puck. He is even hotter in person, if you can believe that. He doesn't have a mohawk anymore -- he's got sort of a buzz cut-shaved head thing going on -- and man, I couldn't even look at him. I wonder if they teach you about THAT in journalism school.

Will post the video when it's done next week. In the meantime, in honor of the day ... "Single Ladies."

Killing two birds (podcasts and vacation pics) with one post

Finally uploaded my pictures from vacation, and this time I decided to use Picasa instead of Flickr, mostly because Flickr was taking too long. I haven't decided which I like better yet, though one advantage Flickr has is that it's able to recognize what kind of camera I have, whereas Picasa cannot.

Anyway, they are here as well as below (though go to the link itself if you want to see the pictures all nice and big and purty, and with captions).

And here's this week's Film Fixation podcast, which was a lot of fun, since we had our very first guest -- all the way from MSN Movies in Cal-i-for-ni-yay! He was cool. I dig this episode (we talk about Where the Wild Things Are, of course, plus the new Coen brothers movie A Serious Man, and the amount of weight that Gerard Butler seems to have gained -- or is it all in his face?).

Oh but wait, THERE'S MORE! We started a new TV podcast last week, called Drama Queens (original title: TV Snobs), in which my friend Kelly and I talk about all the shows we love, like Mad Men and Top Chef and How I Met Your Mother. This week, we also engage in Trashy TV Corner, because God help me, I am still watching The Hills. Check it out here. With these two plus guesting on another one, I taped three podcasts this week. That shit is exhausting, yo.

I think that's enough self-promotion for one day. And now I'm off to scrutinize the ESPN Game Tracker and see how Cal's doing against UCLA. Either that, or laundry.

You can't go home to Melrose again

I made it through about ten minutes of the new Melrose Place before I changed the channel to tennis instead. Yowza, talk about your bad acting. Was the original this bad, and we were just younger and dumber, and now blessed with selective memory? I watched the original Melrose Place faithfully for many many seasons -- we had viewing parties, with dessert -- and granted, it was cheesy, but what made the show so fun to watch was that wonderfully soapy, over-the-top drama. Maybe I simply don't know the new characters yet (not that I ever will, since I won't be watching), but they just seem so ... vanilla.

I can't imagine the new Melrose will give us anything as spectacular as Kimberly RIPPING OFF HER WIG -- still, in my mind, the most shocking moment on television ever (second place going, perhaps, to when Stephen slapped Irene on The Real World: Seattle). My blood pressure just went up as I watched this. I can still remember the screams.

Happy things

1. I love the show So You Think You Can Dance. I know how this sounds, and I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. Wrong! Not to sound like a reality-show dope here, but it is soooo much better than American Idol. And here's why:

- On American Idol, you can be a sucky singer and still make it relatively far, because ... I don't know, people are stupid and they vote based on personality. But on SYTYCD, contestants have to learn two -- sometimes even three or four -- intensely choreographed routines every week. And I'm sorry, but if you're a terrible dancer, you're not making it anywhere on this show.

- The dancers are paired off (and then, in the later rounds, split up and re-paired), which makes things awfully interesting. Hip-hoppers have to pair with contemporary dancers, ballroom dancers with ballet dancers. Sometimes it's a great combination. Some times, it really really isn't.

- The judges are smarter -- they are all choreographers and former dancers -- who critique using actual technical terms like "rond de jambe." Can you even imagine Paula Abdul ever saying the word "melisma"? She probably thinks it's a skin cancer. And for much of the first part of the season it is they, not the fans, who decide who stays and who goes.

- The host, Cat Deeley, is adorable and game for anything and clearly thinks of the contestants as her babies, and she isn't a smarmy smirking bastard who spends all his time making desperately defensive gay jokes.

- This show is the only reference point I have for music the kids listen to these days. Seriously, I am so out of it, every once in a while I'll hear a song in a store or something and go, where have I heard that before? Oh right, on So You Think You Can Dance.

- They dance hip-hop and bolero and swing and even Bollywood and ... oh, don't take my word for it.

Katee and Joshua - Bollywood ("Dhoom Taana")


Chelsie and Mark - Hip-Hop ("Bleeding Love")

Katee and Joshua - Hip-Hop ("No Air")

2. I finally watched the premiere of Glee last weekend and now I'm pissed I have to wait until the fall to keep watching it. Damn you, Fox! What the hell is the point of that? Stupid tease of a network.

3. I can't think of a third thing. Maybe you can come up with one for me. In the meantime, I worked insanely hard on our list of Top 40 Movie Soundtracks, and while I'm not 100% happy with it because our picks skew so modern and we didn't include scores or musicals (which I argued for, since I'm the only person at work who likes musicals -- though this means I get to come up with our movie musicals countdown myself, so start lobbying me now!), and we also didn't include Swingers, which I kept trying to put on there at the 11th and then the 11-1/2th hour ... but the format, which I came up with, turned out nice I think, so check it out if you have a second. And then tell me why we're idiots for not having included ___.

My freshman college English professor would be concerned about this post's lack of a thesis statement.

Hello insomnia, my old nemesis. I'm not sure whether I can't sleep because it's the end of a long weekend, or because I'm stressed about the week to come (Oscar nominations are Thursday), or because I'm being interviewed on the radio tomorrow morning -- twice -- as an expert on "Lost," which is not only laughable but is also making me really nervous.

I've done some radio before, but the unpredictability always puts me on edge. I mean, this shit is live, and on a topic like "Lost"? They'll actually expect me to know what I'm talking about. My tendencies to freeze, blank out and babble will not serve me well here. "And so that guy ... uh, what's his name again? The guy with stubble? Played by the guy who was Charlie on 'Party of Five'? Oh right, Jack!" Over the weekend I watched the season premiere (press membership has its privileges), and now on top of my general stage-fright nervousness, I'm worried that I'll mix up the plotlines and accidentally give something away. "And then it turns out Libby's not dead, she's Claire with plastic surgery! And Hurley's the father of Claire's baby! And Jack's father IS the smoke monster ... and the polar bear!" (Calm down, none of that actually happens. As far as you know.)

Anyway, in regard to my recent blogging negligence, I've tried, I really have, to come up with something that might be suitable to post, but all I've got is a head full of randomness (that sounds like a good album name, doesn't it? please don't steal it). So maybe if I empty it all right now, my head will clear itself for something good and worthwhile. Or not.

- It's 2 a.m. right now, so yay, Happy Inauguration Day! Oh, I probably shouldn't have led with that. Now everything else is going to seem stupid and petty by comparison. Ah well. Let's call that my tribute to George Bush.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 1: That poor navy guy, messing up not once but twice during the national anthem in front of, oh, only a couple million people. He did mess up, right? First he missed the first two lines, and at the end he started singing "brave" a beat too early. I can't even make fun of this guy because I'm afraid he's about to kill himself or something. Um, moving on.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 2: It amuses me that the person whose appearance on stage got me most excited was Jon Bon Jovi. My inner aging fangirl involuntarily went, "Squeee!" I told this to a friend of mine this weekend and he told me he hated Bon Jovi. Needle scratching across the record: Whaaaaa? I don't believe, in the history of my being alive, that I have ever met someone who hated Bon Jovi. Oh wait, shoot, I have. I dated a British guy once who, when we were in a bar listening to the sound system play "Slippery When Wet," said he "didn't get" the Bon Jovie appeal, and then when I tried to open his ears to the sounds of awesomeness emanating from the speakers, he waxed rhapsodic on his love of Siouxsie and the Banshees instead. I broke up with him a week later. No offense to Siouxsie.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 3: Also cracking me up was the sight of the little girl, dead asleep, directly behind Obama. I think it was during the Garth Brooks part of the concert. (And dude, what made him so special that he got to sing three songs?) If you knew her parents, wouldn't you call them and say, hey, you might want to wake little Mary up because she's proving more fascinating to the viewing audience than the president-elect himself? On the other hand, they were probably told to turn their cell phones off. So throw something at them, for gosh's sake. Do your patriotic duty!

- Timewaster: White Whine - A New White Person Complaint Daily. I find this so much more satisfying than Stuff White People Like, for some reason. Who the hell knows who's posting this stuff, what color they are, or if the quotes are even real? It's just funny, is all. Cycle back through the older pages for gems like "Ugh, why do people even bother complimenting me on my car if they’re going to mispronounce Audi?" or "Can’t they just make ski boots that are easier to walk in?"

- Timewaster - If you, like me, were always slightly irritated by Garfield and his "hilarious" antics, feeling that they obscured the personality of the comic strip's true star -- Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle -- then this is your lucky day. On Garfield Minus Garfield, there is no cat. Hurrah! But it isn't such a happy day after all, because without Garfield, Jon is just ... sad. Wow, lonely and sad. Check out Jan. 8 and 9 in particular. I may have to rethink this whole "Garfield was useless" theory after all.

- "24" - New addition to the 24 Drinking Game: Drink every time Agent Renee Walker says, "I've got to make this right." Another drink if anyone says, "The agency/government's been compromised." Also, I've noticed that Walker's boss, Agent Moss, is saying "dammit" a whole heck of a lot. Did he and Jack make some kind of deal?

- And now, if your day has not already been eaten up by first-day-back swampage and the inauguration and watercooler talk about "Gossip Girl," I present to you the timewaster that will blow. Your. Mind. Courtesy of my friend Tom, here is the greatest music video of all time. Enjoy.

On this blog I'm the captain, so climb aboard

OK, this is kind of weird. Today on the subway, Styx's "Come Sail Away" started playing on my iPod, which made me think, as it always does, of that scene at the homecoming dance in "Freaks and Geeks" when Sam dances with Cindy and Lindsey dances with the mentally disabled kid. (I can't remember his name. Does that make me disabled-ist?) It's a terrific scene, and it always makes me feel good, which is a nice thing when you're navigating through the New York City subway system.

So I was sort of randomly going to post the video, and I looked it up about an hour ago and found it, but decided not to post it because I figured no one would even understand it except for "Freaks and Geeks" fans, and there's only like two others of you out there. But just now, as I was doing some work (yes it's Friday night and I'm sitting on my couch doing work; you don't have to say it, I'll make the "L" with  my fingers myself), the song came on again. While I still had the video open. Now, is that a sign, or what?

So here's the scene, from the pilot of one of my favorite shows of all time. Enjoy.

These days, I find SportsCenter commercials more entertaining than SportsCenter itself

For some reason I spent part of my morning looking up old SportsCenter commercials on YouTube. Well, actually, at first I was looking up the largely unaired "Manny Being Manny" commercial someone told me about last night. Pretty funny.

Anyway, these ended up being two of my favorites -- and I don't even know who Gheorghe Muresan is! (OK, I do now: He played for the Nets, is the tallest man ever to play in the NBA, and was the giant in My Giant. And he sure can dance. Badly.)

Jorge Posada and David Ortiz, "Betrayal"

Gheorghe Muresan Dancing

Olympics Opening Ceremony: My Awards

I was going to post this over the weekend, but my camera ran out of batteries while I was attempting to take pictures of my TV screen. Oh well, better late than never, right? Just like the French individual medley relay team! Ba-da-BOOM!

Best Display of Why Communism Is Awesome: 2,008 Synchronized Drummers
Drumming with glow sticks, no less. I don't know, though, those two people at the bottom of the screen here don't seem to have their heads tilted at quite the right angle. Especially that one guy who looks like he's having some kind of seizure. Rebelliousness, or the ecstasy of complete submission to a totalitarian regime? You make the call.

Biggest OMG Moment: Little Men in Boxes
How did they know when to do what? How did they even breathe? We spent the whole time going, "Are there people in there? No, of course there can't be people in there. Wha ... holy ..." (Note: I hope it wasn't really all men. If so, minus one point for sexism.)

Worst Uniforms (Female): Hungary
I don't even know where to begin here. Mutant Dalmations? Violent nosebleeds? Nursing school slasher film? (For the record, those are red flowers.) Can you imagine the looks on the faces of the athletes when they opened the boxes? "Oh! It's ... umm ... Oh wow, there's hats!"

Worst Uniforms (Male): Russia
Yes, that's paisley. I think. Oh, it's so nice to be able to make fun of the Eastern Bloc's fashion sense again -- it's just like old times. Also, what's with all the old guys? They can't all be athletes, right? If so, maybe there's hope for me yet.


Delegation Most Resembling a Bunch of Tourists: British Virgin Islands
Maybe they got invited at the last minute and had to run into the airport gift shop.

Hottest Flagbearer: Mark Forster, Great Britain
Hi, cute British guy! I would be looking out for him at the Olympic pool if I weren't so distracted by shirtless Michael Phelps.

Most Disappointing Uniforms: The U.S.
Really, Ralph Lauren? That's the best you could come up with -- a blue blazer and white pants? 1982 called, and it wants its prep-school/yacht-club uniform back. And yes, that joke is old, safe and unoriginal ... JUST LIKE THE UNIFORMS. And don't think you saved it with the beret thing. Now they just look like prep school students who have plans to go yachting AND golfing. (I dare say Kobe sort of pulled it off, though.)

Ultimate Endurance Award: Li Ning
... for his amazing torch run around the stadium, on wires. I was about to say that this didn't necessarily beat the archer who shot the flame into the cauldron at Barcelona, but I just read on Wikipedia that the arrow never actually made it into the cauldron, making it only a "symbolic" lighting. And that's kind of a gyp. So congratulations, Li Ning! You also win the award for Coolest Torch-Lighting Ever. Do you think that upon seeing that, a bunch of people on the London planning committee went "oh, shit" and ran back to the office?

On surviving my first Comic-Con: (no) food, furries, and fun

I got back from Comic-Con a week ago, and I meant to post at least once while I was there, but I was pretty insanely busy. (If you don't believe I was actually doing work, check out the stuff I wrote up for AOL TV and Moviefone. Also a few boring blog posts.) And it's taken me a week to detox, for real.

The most striking aspect of Comic-Con isn't the suffocating mass of humanity you'll encounter there, or the costumes, or even the big stars and and exclusive scoop. It's the realization that Comic-Con is, more than anything else, a safe haven for geeks. I don't mean that as an insult. I just mean that over and over again you spot these people who, in high school, are surely being shunned or laughed at or beaten up; and at Comic-Con they're free to be themselves, and to know that everyone there accepts them for that -- whether they're dressed as Stormtroopers or just reveling in all the glorious geekdom that is Comic-Con.

So, too, is Comic-Con a place for fans, plain and simple. You won't find celebrities ducking and running here, or looking down on the little people. It's the one place I've seen where producers, stars, and directors seem delighted to have fans, and are unabashed in showing their gratitude in return. Even when they're being interrogated by a guy in a Batman outfit.

But enough about those other geeks. Here's what made me geek out at Comic-Con:

Hugh Jackman. It was the end of the Fox panel, and the moderator came on and said they had a "special surprise ... all the way from Australia ... Hugh Jackman!" Wow. Sometimes you think you aren't capable of being bowled over anymore, but then Hugh freakin' Jackman comes onstage and you're like a teenager who just got a wink from the star quarterback. He was so charming ("I owe everything to you guys"), so charismatic, that my long-ago, forgotten crush on the man came back in full force. I don't even care if he's gay. This guy's a star.

He was there to show fresh-from-editing footage of Wolverine, and it looked really good. I didn't even remember that Liev Schreiber is in the movie, but he plays Sabretooth, Wolverine's archrival. The best part by far? Two quick glimpses of Taylor Kitsch, aka Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights, who plays Gambit. Eeeeee! And hey, I wasn't even the only one squealing.

Twilight. And speaking of squealing ... I have to admit that prior to Comic-Con, I had vaguely heard of this movie Twilight, but I had no idea what it was about. To my credit, none of my colleagues did, either. And then the Twilight panel started, and the hall packed with 6,500 people -- 99% of whom seemed to be teenage girls -- started screaming at decibels that could shatter glass, if not my startled eardrums. And they didn't stop screaming. Ever. I've been to plenty of concerts in my day, but I do not exaggerate when I say I've never experienced anything like this. "It's like being at a Beatles concert," I wrote in my notes. Then I deleted "Beatles" and wrote "Jonas Brothers."

OK, so now I know that Twilight is based on a series of young adult novels about a teenage girl and the vampire boy who loves her. The girl is played by Kristen Stewart, perhaps best known as Jodie Foster's daughter in Panic Room; her vampire boyfriend is played by Robert Pattinson. "Oh my god, he's so beautiful, it's ridiculous," the girls behind me gasped; meanwhile, my friend Alexis and I were frantically trying to look up who the heck he was. Turns out he played Cedric in the Harry Potter movies. He looked slightly embarrassed to be the subject of so much adoration, getting questions like "What it's like to be so HOT?"; enjoy it now, I thought, because a few years from now when you're in rehab, you're going to look back on this as the best time in your life.

Heroes. This was the one that brought out the geeky fan in me. The line for the Heroes panel was literally a mile long -- and when I say literally, I mean an actual mile. The end of the line was way out in Seaport Village, where they dock boats. Seeing as how I hadn't camped out overnight like everybody else, I despaired of actually getting in; but fortunately I did, and the reward made the wait worthwhile. Not only did they bring out the entire cast -- who seemed psyched to be there basking in the fan-love, with Greg Grunberg and Adrian Pasdar even taking pictures of the crowd -- but then they unloaded one of the best surprises of the convention: the entire season premiere of Heroes. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but it was pretty great. And Maya's barely in it! Whoo!

Furries. I'd been there about a day when my friend Jason texted me asking, "Seen any furries yet?" I texted back: "Is THAT what they are?" From then on, whenever I saw anyone in an animal costume, I couldn't help but think, "Oh my god, do they have sex like that??"

24. Yes, last season of 24 sucked, but Tony's back this season, and Carlos Bernard was at the panel, and I flove him. (I sense an mortifying theme to this post.) Kiefer Sutherland also looked terrific; I dare say that jail has agreed with him. The best part of the panel was when someone asked Kiefer, "I notice that you say 'dammit' a lot. Is that scripted, or improvised? And the second part of my question is, would you say 'Dammit, Cameron' to me?"

Kiefer said, "Let me address the second part of your question first." Then he carefully moved the microphone aside, leaned forward, and went, "DAMMIT CAMERON!" The room erupted. Even better, after he'd finished answering the first part of the question ("You can't swear on network TV ... and I needed some kind of expletive to express true frustration, whether that was not being able to control my 16-year-old daughter, or a nuclear bomb was going to go off"), the fan said thank you and started to walk off, and then Kiefer went, "DAMMIT CAMERON, DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME!"

Food. It makes no sense. You're going to cram over 100,000 people into a convention center, trap them there (because if you leave, you'll never get into some of these panels), and feed them nothing but pretzels, hot dogs and pizza? After two days, I would've killed for a nice sandwich. There's a prime money-making opportunity in Comic-Con concessions, folks. You can thank me later.

Lost. This panel was just the producers, and of course they didn't really reveal much of anything about next season -- they just finished the last one, after all -- but it was a pretty fun panel. They gave away prizes to everyone who asked a question, and they made sure that each prize was appropriate to the question. One fan who asked "How old is Richard Alpert, and how many toes does he have?" got a (pre-printed!) t-shirt that said, "I asked a Richard Alpert question and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." Also, they said Jin will be back this season, so, yay; though it sounds like he is in fact dead, so, boo.

Watchmen. I was lucky enough to make it into this panel, which was one of the most popular of the convention, given the reverence with which fans regard the graphic novel. I've read the novel now, and the footage shown -- an extended, R-rated version of the trailer -- seemed faithful to the artwork, at least; and the cast seemed respectful of the original novel. That said, the director's Zack Snyder, and I didn't love 300, which was really kind of a stupid movie, so I'm not confident yet that Snyder can take on a complex work like this and make it into something more than a gorefest.

Really I just wanted to post this picture of someone dressed as Rorschach (a character from the novel) asking the panel a question. So meta! Also this one guy dressed as Batman asked a question, and the whole cast got a kick out of it. "Thank you, Batman," Billy Crudup would say. "So here's the thing, Batman ..."

Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Kevin's Smith's new movie, starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as best friends who decide to go into the amateur porn business. Hilarious panel. They showed a clip from the movie featuring Justin Long and Brandon Routh, and again I won't give too much away except to say that this clip contained the most quoted line of Comic-Con (by us, anyway), via the title of a porn film that Justin Long stars in: "Shut Your Mouth or I'm Going to Fuck It."

And that's it, more or less. Except that I accidentally ran into Seth Green (seriously, he comes up to my shoulder), and saw Michael C. Hall in the lobby of the Hard Rock (he looked sort of waxy and made up), and interviewed the guys from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (SO funny, I've got to watch the show now) and then got all fangirly because they recognized me later when they were heading into the EW party and I was failing to get in ("Hey, you changed clothes!" Glenn said), and saw Joshua Jackson at a different party (PACEY!), and spied Masi Oka in the lobby of my hotel, and spent one night until 3am partying with the publicists from ... well, what happens at Comic-Con, stays at Comic-Con, right?