Everything is Unfinished

I can’t believe I forgot to WARN everyone about the Worst Show On Television. It looked horrible to me anyway, but I watched one episode to see just how bad it is. I was not disappointed. So learn from my mistake and stay far, far away from The War At Home with Michael Rappaport. First off, there’s a laugh track, which is one of the most despicable, lazy things about any TV show. Secondly, Michael Rappaport is NOT FUNNY. He has no timing, and he can’t act either. Third…you know, I could go on and on, but I’m not going to. Just avoid the show at all costs.

Another show that I was hoping to like that I didn’t was mentioned by Eric in the comments of the last post, How I Met Your Mother. We had heard good things about it, but it was pretty mediocre. Too bad, because it involves Alyson Hannigan, Eric from Undeclared, and Doogie Howser who was AWESOME in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Unfortunately, the lead actor was bland and it had that cursed laugh track.

I knew this was going to happen. We’d get Tivo and my TV watching habits would become unwieldy. And they have. But surprisingly, one show is being intentionally left out of my mix - Desperate Housewives. I didn’t watch the show last year, because I’d never remember to tape it while I was watching something else. I think it was on at the same time Arrested Development was. Anyway, I knew it was one of those shows that you couldn’t just pick up in the middle, so I put the first season of DVDs in my Netflix queue so I could catch up before I started the new season. Well, for the first time ever, Netflix failed me: all of their copies were out. In a fit of questionable judgement, I rented the first disc from Blockbuster on Friday. The first thing that ticked me off about even going in that store was that the rental was only for one night. If it was a movie, I could see how you’d only need it till midnight the next day, but this was 4 hour-long episodes! I gritted my teeth, rummaged through my wallet for my rental card (which was the second thing to tick me off. I’m so spoiled.), and paid for the disc. Over the next few nights - yes, I intentionally kept it longer than the overnight rental I’d paid for - I watched all four episodes. And I realized that I have no interest in the show. The characters are all very one-dimensional and the only one I empathised with at all was Lynette, the mother of 4 boys under age 6, and that was only because I can easily see myself in that situation before too long. So I happily crossed that show off my To Do list, leaving more time to watch such new gems as Kitchen Confidential, Everybody Hates Chris, and (surprisingly) My Name Is Earl. I’m sure at least one of them will be cancelled before Christmas.

I’m still catching up on old shows, too. For some reason, Alias season 4 doesn’t come out on DVD until a month AFTER the new season starts, so I’ll have to build up some episodes on the old Tivo and hopefully Netflix will come through for me this time. I’m also in the middle of Buffy season 1, thanks to Eric. We were having some problems getting the discs to play on our Xbox, but now I’m watching them on my computer while I organize the basement. I can see the bits of FutureJoss peeking through, but so far it’s definitely not as good as Firefly. And I really don’t care much for Sarah Michelle Gellar, but I said that about Jennifer Garner too before I got into Alias, so I’m going to keep watching. The concept is good and I know that it gets better in future seasons.

In non-TV news, I was actually listening to the radio this morning on my way into work, and heard that there’s a band playing tonight called The Kessel Run. Heh, nerds.

I’m being forced to organize myself. This Saturday, I’m participating in a scrapbooking garage sale. Actually, I’m in charge of the whole event, and this will be the 4th one I’ve done. As I’ve gone through and organized my scrapping stuff, I’ve been throwing the garage sale items in a box. I was freaking out the other day because the sale kinda snuck up on me and I didn’t have anything priced or organized yet, so last night I dragged the box upstairs and went through it all. It took all of half an hour to get through everything. That’s it! And I stand to make some decent money too, so I’m glad I got off my lazy butt and did it. I mean, I have to be at the sale anyway, I might as well be making money while I’m there, right?

I also have a bunch of boxes of crap for a regular garage sale too, and we both need to go through our clothes and weed stuff out. Again, nothing is sorted or priced, but I’m hoping it will go quickly again. I’m supposed to take it all up to my parents’ house in a few weeks to have a joint sale with my mom. All I care is that none of it comes back with me - there’s a Goodwill drop box close by, and anything left is going there. I’m all for making a buck, but I don’t want this junk around my house anymore! That is a really good side effect to watching all those home improvement shows: I have the desire to have an uncluttered house.

Apparently, celebrities have this cool perk on their cell phone plans that’s like 3-way calling, but SO much better! Check it out!

Even after the stupid and disappointing loss to Texas on Saturday, I still hate Michigan more…

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A recent graduate of Ohio State moved to Dearborn, Michigan after accepting a great job. After becoming a citizen of Michigan she felt almost as if she betrayed her Ohioan background and ancestry. She had an apartment with a Michigan address and she winced whenever she looked at her Michigan driver’s license. When she registered her vehicle she had an idea. When her personalized license plate arrived for her car she beamed while she affixed them to her car. She was so proud she sent an instant message to her father right away. He was a proud Ohio State alumnus as well.

She typed, “Daddy I get my new personalized plates for my car today. They are University of Michigan plates!”

“WHAT?” he replied, “You have to be joking”

“Nope, I’m totally serious. Let me send you the image.”

Her father couldn’t stop laughing after he viewed the picture of her car.

Go buy the new Death Cab for Cutie album, Plans, now. And if you don’t have Transatlanticism yet, buy that too. Love love love them both!

Last week at work was a killer, so I’m WAY behind in blogs - reading other people’s and updating my own. Fortunately the long weekend gave me some time to relax and yesterday I caught up on some stuff here at the office. Now today the bosses are gone so no one’s here to give me any extra work, so I’m taking this time to catch up on important internet-related things.

Being the wife of a crazy football fan, I pick up on a lot of football-related stuff. One of the things I notice a lot is that football players have weird names. Or, they have somewhat normal names that are spelled weird. Lawyer Milloy? Lauvale Sapp? Shaud Williams? Olindo Mare? Tebucky Jones? Laveranues Coles? Kenyatta Wright? Aubrayo Franklin? I have to wonder how people come up with names like this. Do they just throw Scrabble tiles down and go with whatever they can pronounce?

Even better than the football names are the mismatched baseball names. You’ve got people like Juan Pierre, Ivan Rodriguez and Vladimir Guererro. Those names just don’t seem to go together in my brain. But I suppose before too much longer all the cultures of the world will be mixed together anyway and it won’t matter.