Dancing Through Monday

Kristen and I had a lot of routines while living together.  We would take turns making dinner.  We would take turns buying toilet paper.  We had baby pool Wednesday (which turned in to baby pool thursday) and we had certain shows that we would watch each night.  For someone who loves routine (such as myself) I loved this aspect of our relationship.

Sidenote: At a Halloween party this weekend, I was telling a story to some random about something funny Kristen did on our wedding night (peed in a stairwell.)  I realized halfway through the story that it sounded like by saying "our" wedding night I meant myself and Kristen, not Matt.  My next thought was, how many other people think that I drove to Iowa to legally be married to another woman?  Oh well. 

And yes, gay marriage is legal in Iowa.  Shocking, I know.  My relatives might be country in certain aspects of their lives, but apparently when it comes to equal rights for the gay community they are way ahead of the rest of the country (at least they were the last time that I checked.)

Long sidenote... anyway, one of the routines that we have continued now that we don't live together is watching Dancing with the Stars on Monday nights.  She comes over to our apartment on Mondays after work, we make or order dinner and then we watch the show.  It is a routine lover's dream.  We have a contest where we try to guess the scores before they're given (yeah, we're cool) and the winner of the night has a whole week to brag.  I realized last week that it's not the show that I love each week, it's knowing that unless something big comes up, we have at least one night a week where we hang out and catch up.

I've never been the biggest fan of the show but this season I have a reason to watch: Jennifer Grey.  That first week when she danced to "These Arms of Mine" and lost it during rehearsal, missing Patrick Swayze.... I was hooked.  I love her.  Even last week when she did not do good, I swore that if she got kicked off I would stop watching the show.  The people listened: Audrina went home (and her mom provided an amazing drunken rampage on TMZ about how much better she is than everyone else.)  So let's keep our fingers crossed that Bristol Palin goes back to being an abomination so that she will get kicked off and that Jennifer gets her groove back.

Finales, Part Deux

Please don't read if you haven't watched these yet, it will ruin them as my sister ruined GG for me by telling me that someone gets shot, I literally spent the last fifteen minutes going does Georgina shoot Dan for impregnating her?  Do Blair and Serena get shot in Paris?  Maybe Eric goes psycho and shoots Jenny (this is what I wished).  Also, I accidentally read about some of it on-line, but I guess thats what you get for waiting a week to watch the finale.

* Gossip Girl - not a huge fan.  Stupid Jenny and her nasty rat hair had to ruin it for everybody.  And when she sits there crying about how she is alone, no one loves her, etc. I just wanted Eric to go listen up crackhead, stop attempting to/sleeping with other people's boyfriends and maybe everybody won't hate you.  Maybe.  Also, GG writers can you please get Chuck and Blair back together?  They were so close, and I like them so much better when they're together.  I'm guessing that is why you made those mean foreign men shoot Chuck, so Blair will feel awful, will listen to what happened, and they will live happily ever after.  At least that is what happens in my GG. 

Kristen has been baffled/disgusted with my love for Chuck from the beginning, but for whatever reason I like the guy.  I can't even tell you why.  I think it might be the whole transformation from douche bag to stellar boyfriend.  Everyone loves a good transformation story.

* Grey's Anatomy - I don't even know where to begin to put into words what this episode was like to watch.  Unless you watched it, words can't do justice to the emotional rollercoaster that unfolded over two hours of pretty darn good television.  I had to spend a couple of days beforehand catching up on a couple of months worth of GA episodes because it had started to bore me a little and I had fallen behind.  God am I thankful I took that time.  I have several points to make about this episode, so here goes.

  

 1. Who's idea was it to put Mandy Moore in this episode?  Granted I am slightly biased.  Every since I wasted two hours of my life that I will never get back and am subsequently stupider for wasting my time watching A Walk to Remember I have not fondly thought of her.  Not to mention that she is a really, really, super bad actress.  She has some money right?  Use a little bit to pay for some acting classes, if not for yourself do it for all of us.

2. I was shocked by the magnitude of violence portayed in this episode.  Seems like a pretty stupid statement about a show centered around a gunman in a hospital, but I was definitely not expecting him to shoot Reed straight in the forehead.  Kristen and I both screamed out loud.  I was reading the writers' blog from GA (yes, I have no life) and the creator was saying that she wrote it to be so graphic and shocking (the execution of Reed) because she didn't want anyone to feel sorry for the shooter, didn't want to glamourize the senseless, awful violence he was about to unleash.  Job very well done ma'am.

3. I was surprised by the slow, painful process of the SWAT team clearing out the hospital.  The whole time we're watching it, Kristen and I are yelling why aren't they sending in like 200 swarming men and take that bastard down?  Well, according to the above mentioned blog, she brought in a SWAT guy to walk her through it and that is how they would actually do it.  I guess he would know better than me.

4. If Lexie chooses Alex I'm going to throw up a little out of anger/disgust.  He was saying Izzie's name on his death bed.  He doesn't want you.  Go back to Sloan (who aside from being way hotter is also actually turning into a really sweet guy.) 

5. I'm really upset about the actor they choose for Mr. Clarke (the shooter).  For anyone who watched/watches The West Wing on Bravo (like I do religiously every morning) you will recognize him as Ron, the head of the secret service.  I loved him.  He was strong, silent, and always there in a crisis.  I take my television very seriously and do not like when a good guy plays bad.

6. There were no cliffhangers.  I'm laughing as I'm writing this because like many other people, I scream at the television when something huge happens and you have to wait those awful four months to see what happens next.  I didn't realize how much I would miss it until its gone.  Remember the stellar finale with Denny and in the end Finn and Derek are both saying Meredith and you don't know who she goes with and its so intense...

*LOST - okay so this isn't so much about the LOST finale, mostly because I'm not watching it so I have no comment about what happens.  This is more in sadness that Gammy and I did not watch LOST fast enough to catch up to the finale.  She just finished season four and is starting season five so she is close.  I'm in the middle of season four.  It is so good!  I told Kristen the other day that as much as I'm loving it, I'm kind of glad we waited until the end of the show to start watching it.  Think about it, all of the suckers that watched it from the beginning would get to those stellar season finales and have to wait months to see what happens next.  We just pop in the next disc!  Genius I tell you.

Will someone please buy me these?

So Funny

I've never been a huge Seinfeld person.  I've watched it occasionally, usually find it funny on those occasions, but I'm definitely not obsessed with it.  I found this video on-line today and have watched enough episodes to understand what the clips were originally from.  Somebody had way too much time on their hands, but might be close to genius status.  By the end of this faux-trailer I actually wanted to see this movie.  It is too bad that George doesn't really exist...

My Three Favorite Moments From This Week's Parenthood

I just read that they have renewed Parenthood for another season, yay!!  In honor of that fact, here are my three favorite moments from this week's episode:

1. Watching Adam dance for Drew.  Everyone has felt that awkward moment where you realize that your family is ridiculously uncool.

2. Jabbar calling to say he wants to go home because he can't poop at his Aunt's house.  Sometimes you just want to poop in your own bathroom.

3. Sarah - "He's talking about flowers, right?"
    Amber - "No, I think he's talking about your vag."

I Finally Got Lost....

So apparently I'm about six years behind everyone else, but I have finally gotten into Lost.  I always thought it would be the kind of show I would like, but I missed the beginning of it and it seemed like the kind of show you must watch all of to truly understand it. 

About two months ago I found season one on Overstock for like twelve dollars.  I thought twelve dollars was a small price to pay to find out if this really was the show I thought it could be.  I waited with great anticipation until the day it finally arrived at my door, and then it sat on my counter for a month.  There was already so much to watch I barely had time to keep up with my regularly scheduled programming.

And then the Olympics rolled around and all of my regular shows were re-runs.  I like the Olympics as much as the next guy, but winter sports in general aren't necessarily my cup of tea.  So I chose to take advantage of the opportunity and start Lost. 

Honestly, I wasn't sure how much I dug it at first.  It was interesting but I think I had enormous expectations after everything that I had heard about it.  I also figured out that the beginning of any new show tends to be boring because it is all exposition, so it takes the first half of the first season of any show to get really, really good.  And Lost did not disappoint.

We're almost to the end of season one, and can't wait to get into season two.  There was the first major death and I totally didn't see it coming.  That is the other bonus of watching shows on dvd.  You don't have to wait until next week to see what happens, you just pop in the next disc.  I hope this show continues to entertain me this much....

The Buried Life

The Buried Life is a show on MTV.  Although I'm not really sure what the title means, its about a group of guys who after college decided they didn't want to just jump headfirst in the rat race.  They wanted their lives to mean more so they decided to do more. 

Somehow they ended up with this giant purple bus, not sure on the details of this show, traveling the country doing things on a list that they made up of everything they wanted to do before they die.  Some of them are very big things, including playing basketball with the president.  And while they're doing these things that they've always wanted to do, they do something for a stranger that the stranger has always wanted to do.

I always thought this concept sounded pretty cool.  I'd rather be riding around on a purple bus trying to figure out ways to do cool things than going to an office and sitting behind a computer all day too.  Although I thought the show sounded cool, I've never actually watched it.  MTV shows are hard to get into because they're on at weird times and they replay them 685 times apiece (I've counted).

Anyway, I'm coming to my point and I swear I have one, I watched this show for the first time this morning and was shocked by the episode that I saw.  Their "mission" on this particular day was to tell a joke on a late night talk show.  When they said it it almost sounded way too easy.  I thought for sure as soon as a producer heard about these guys and their mission they would immediately want them on the show.  Wrong.

They first started with Letterman.  They got to speak with a couple of producers, who the next day sent them an e-mail wishing them all the best but letting them know that they wouldn't be on Late Night.  So they drove all the way to California to try the others.  Kimmel kicked them out, as did Leno.  (At some point in there, one of them even got arrested.)  Finally, they tried several different ways to get ahold of Conan and he even eventually shot them down.  Even Coco!!

What kind of world are we living in when a few kids with a dream can't even make it on a late night talk show for thirty seconds to tell a joke?  I thought their fate was sealed, but they eventually accomplished their mission: on a spanish speaking talk show.  The guy who told the joke did it in spanish and it was still funny.  It involved a naked man and an elephant, a classic setup.

I'm sorry if I've ruined this particular episode's suspense for you, but from the lack of discussion with everyone I know I'm pretty sure not very many people watch this show including up until today me.  I think I'll start watching it from now on, at least when I can catch it (which shouldn't be too hard with 685 reruns floating around). 

I almost forgot, they helped a blind man ride a horse again which he hadn't done in 20 years since he lost his sight.  The guy cried when he got on the horse.  How can you not love that?