The Evolution Of The Human Blog

I guess. Lol, that sounds quite epic. If you've been a good little follower of my pseudoexpertise, you will notice that my posts have been getting longer and using bigger words. Hooray for me. Stimulate your little brains before the Hulu people come and eat it. They came to my door the other day, but they went away because I was reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It's a really good book, you've probably seen the movie, this is equally recommended. After reading its sharp observation of a mental health system in disrepair, it makes it very easy to picture Ken Kesey as the Furthur-driving hippie Merry Prankster he was. Hmph.

#1 Best Show On Broadcast Television Right Now- Pushing Daisies

Probably, you didn't expect this at #1. But it is. Smartly described as a "forensic fairy tale" by its maker, Brian Fuller. That's a perfect label for this whimsical masterpiece, which combines the best aspects of CSI (the mystery), Wonderfalls (the whimsicality), and... uniqueness, without maintaining the bad elements of them, like CSI's taking itself too seriously and adding needless gore, and uniqueness's sometimes unintentional idiocracy, and Wonderfall's... well, there was nothing wrong with Wonderfalls. Just as there is nothing wrong with Pushing Daisies.

But all good things come to a violent end prematurely, and moreso with TV. ABC axed their perfect show because Nielsen's outdated rating system didn't favour it, and its buildup was messed with by the writers' strike. Bullcrap. This is the best show on TV since Seinfeld. The reason I can still say it's current is because there are still 3 episodes left, jammed between ratings seasons at terrible timeslots. (starting Saturday, 30 May! Hooray in a way, but also not hooray because after this all I'll have left is the collector's box set that I'll buy the day it comes out.) We're not sure yet, but it will either be replaced by a puke-inducing primetime soap opera à la Grey's Anatomy, or two puke-inducing comedies à la 2½ Men or How I Met Your Mother. Gross! This is such a good show, it will be a shame to find out what they put in its timeslot. They have Rescued Scrubs there now, which is nowhere near the originality of how it used to be because of ABC's famed stinginess and terribleness. (Is that a word?) But it won't last long. Probably half the fans think it's cancelled forever because it left NBC, and 8.00/20.00 Wednesday is a death slot.

But anyway. Pushing Daisies is a comedy-drama-romance-mystery-fantasy-other things-hybrid about Ned (Lee Pace), a skilled piemaker who has the ability to make dead things come alive by touching them. But this amazing (or terrible?) ability comes with caveats: the things he makes alive must die again within a minute, which he can do by touching them, otherwise something of equal cosmic significance (in humans' case, other people) will die in their place. (This is why he makes such good pies-- he can revive dead fruit to perfect ripeness; the fruit is replaced by flowers, cosmically.) Sounds serious, but really, it's a fun show. He finds this out when he is 12ish and his mother has a stroke and dies on the floor, and he revives her, and as a consequence, the girl next door (Anna Friel, character name Charlotte "Chuck," who he has a crush on)'s father drops dead spontaneously. But his mother dies again when they kiss goodnight. He also revives his dog. 20ish years later, his dog is still alive, and he finds out that the girl next door has been killed on a cruise ship. So he revives her, and they fall in love again, and the funeral director dies. The caveat interferes; they can never touch again. So, they both work at their restaurant, ThePie Hole, along with Olive (Kristin Chenoweth), who is chatty, happy, and hopelessly in love with Ned. Together with private investigator Emerson Cod (brilliantly played by Chi McBride), they solve mysteries on the side by reviving the victims and asking them who killed them, and splitting the reward money. Also featured are Chuck's introverted, polar-opposite, personality-disordered aunts Vivian (Ellen Greene, who plays a brilliantly innocent part, like an older version of her part in Little Shop of Horrors) and Lily (Swoosie Kurtz), who think that she is still dead. They receive mail-order pies from the Pie Hole, where Chuck bakes in antidepressants for them, as they have depression but don't take their pills. This season, we found out that Lily was actually Chuck's mother, and Vivian doesn't know this. Also, the perfectly dry narrator Jim Dale adds something to the show.

In a quip, watch it. Before it's gone forever.

UPDATE: (17 June 2009) At time of now, when you are currently reading this im jetzt, it is gone forever unless you catch reruns or the DVD release.

Depression sets in... an overall look at shallowness

I was browsing people in locations near me.  See, because you know, I'm in high school and many bloggers are high schoolers.  So I came across this class project for English 9 in one teacher's class and I know several of the kids on there.  And it made me want to kill myself.  In fact, one of them was a close friend's ex-boyfriend who broke up with her and is currently crawling back.  Also a pastor's kid.  Whaddayaknow?

And I was reading their reviews and it was terrible.  The fact that they have to be forced to read and spoon-fed it through the computer to get them to read one book is pathetic.  The teacher (who I had once and is good) 's review was great, and of a not-so-great book, but the funny part was it directly assaulted the shallowness with which he probably new they were going to approach it with, and in their comments, some of them didn't bat an eye to drop it from high up into the wading pool.

One person, who I know kind of well, said: "If explaining internal struggles is the sacriest [sic] thing about this book, then I would not read it."

Another, who I'm not sure if I know because of the generic first name, said: "This book does sound interesting because there are zombies, but the popularity issue is the only thing bad about this book."

The synopsis of the opposite pole was:  "Well, zombies, like, no, but, like, you know, did someone say popularity?  Popularity?  I {(have attained Godlike status in my own skewedly naïve teenage female mind in this respect)/(want this so badly that I carry a copy of Twilight around even after I finish my monthly pilgrimage through its 500 sacred pages)}!

The review basically said it was social commentary about teen shallowness, in fact it almost made me want to read the book, which is quite outside my regular genre...  Here's a quote from the review:

"Applying the zombie theme to a high school setting reveals some interesting things about teenagers. Are kids raised on MTV, the Internet, and video games like a bunch of zombies? Don’t they all act, talk, and dress the same way? Are they just brain-dead slaves of popular culture? Doesn’t the media just brainwash kids by telling them what’s cool and how to act?  And what about issues of popularity and fitting in?"

The author of the book even stopped by on comments and said thanks for the intelligent review.

"Social commentary?", I can picture one of them saying.  "Whooooa, like, what's that?  OMG I got a new text!" Or maybe "Is that like saying something about your society? WICKED, mannnn!  I have some of that!  Legalize it!" Perhaps "Sounds cool and everything.  Does Twilight have any social commentary?" 

Which brings me to my next point of exasperation.  Their actual reviews were puke-inducing.  So liberal with 9/10's.  Have they no standards to measure it to?  "Oooooh, it was SOOOOO good, you know, it was all about popularity and hot boys and cutting yourself in the bathroom during study hall, and, you know, things us sheeple teen girls love to read about, and this author is so cool, cuz like, you know, they know what we want to read, can you imagine?! Totally!  But, you know, it was full of plot holes and there was a part about internal fears or society or God and man or, you know, something beyond my intellectual capacity.  So, yeah, had to skip a few pages so I could save my precious mind for texting and not have to worry about important questions and stuff.  That's for, like, grown-ups, you know?  I'm here to shop and party and get pregnant because I think he's the one and oh he's so perfect and watch I'm like Bella in Twilight.  Ooooooh Robert Pattinson!!!!! OMG!!!!! HEART STOPPED!!!!!! OMGOMGOMGOMG!"

The guy version of it was also stereotypical, but their book was almost invariably about war or sports.

Or some pseudo-serious analysis on some bullshit (pardon my French... I'd been avoiding that but it was inevitable) Halo dime novel about exquisite images or something.  Halo.  Really?

I have officially lost all faith in humanity.

Never mind.  That's not the first time I've said that.  It always finds its way back somehow, only to be crushed by something like this.  

Bravo to the teacher for trying to get kids to read, but most of them are insalvageable.  Sorry.

...

After thinking about that, it is probably the most cynical thing I have ever said.  It's not as bad as I make it.  I just don't believe the shallowness of a significant number of those around me.  Granted, there were a couple intelligent reviews with a smaller amount of grammar mistakes and no TTYL-ese.  Incidentally, one of those was by my friend's ex.  Whaddayaknow?

I'm not going to put the link here.  That would be rude.  If you really want to find it, with all the quotes and hints I've dropped, it shouldn't be hard to find it on Google.  If you know me and therefore some of the people I'm talking about you can just email me.  But still.

I bet you can't guess what's next

Try me.  Guess what I think is the #1 show on broadcast television right now.  Try.

I don't know what comes next.  Actually, I do.  Continuing with the unintentional late-70s motif this blog has been stirring, I'm going to do a countdown of the best 5 movies of 1978.  I'm also still trying to get some of my friends with similar tastes who won't write dumb things to co-author this blog.

#2 Best Shows on Broadcast Television Right Now- 30 Rock

America's NBC's 2nd entry on this list... I'm confused as to why NBC has the lowest ratings.  They have two excellent shows (Office, 30 Rock), several good shows (SNL, Earl, Heroes, Medium, ER (not anymore), Chuck) and two unproven, improving, but promising new ones (Parks and Recreation, Southland).  Only the Thursday ones make my weekly viewing list (not much does, I don't watch much TV but I sample the new shows and stuff), as opposed to the utter bullcrap of such ratings-grabbers as 2½ Men and The Big Bang Theory.  But away from the the-masses-are-stupid spiel, and onto the matter at hand.

30 Rock is one of the few shows left on TV that is intelligent, funny, creative, unique, and genuinely fun to watch, basically all the qualities you look for in a friend on the first day at a new school.  (A little cliché, I didn't try too hard.  I love typing é.  I don't know why.  É é é é twahahahaha.  I could type whatever I want here, I just type things that people might be interested in reading because I feel like it.)  In fact, TV never really was the forefront of intelligent humour.  But this show is literally a masterpiece.  All five main actors are great, and perfectly casted.  The scripts are the work of people who could be writing [good] movies and books.  Tina Fey is a comic genius.  This is a perfect part for Alec Baldwin.  This is a perfect part for Tracy Morgan.  This is a perfect part for newer faces Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer.  Well, Krakowski isn't completely new; she was in Ally McBeal and apparently played Cousin Vicky in Vacation and appeared in some Flintstones movie and Fatal Attraction.  Again, re-near distraction!

30 Rock is about Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), the head writer and director of a late-night comedy variety sketch show (I wonder where she got that idea...) and the colourful cast of characters around her, in 30 Rockerfeller Plaza, including fickle attention-seeking starlet Jenna Moroney (Krakowski), troubled Tracy (basically himself) whose unpredictability is one of the funnier aspects of the show, callous corporate bigwig Jack Donaghy (Baldwin), and naïve Southern NBC Page Kenneth (McBrayer).  Also included are childish Frank (Judah Friedlander), Liz's absentminded and laid-back assistant Cerie (Katrina Bowden), proud African-American intellectual-type Toofer (Keith Powell), Tracy's entourage Grizz and Dot-Com (Grizz Chapman, Kevin Brown), immature semi-star Josh Girard (Lonny Ross), and Jack's creepily devoted assistant Johnathan (Maulik Pancholy).  Can you say character-based?  You just have to watch it.

Interesting video I found...

This is a CNN news video about the new practice of official government spying on suspected terrorists' houses.  I think it might be crossing the line, but you decide.  Feel free to leave any comments... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxnWl63Avo4

#3 Best Shows On Broadcast Television Now- The Office (US)

The British version was an absolute masterpiece. While notas good, the American version has a distinct, hilarious, yet unique look at everyday mundanities. The British version is no longer with us, being prematurely cut, but its illegitimate American son is. The talented Steve Carell plays his most memorable role here, barring any future efforts, as socially inept dumbass Michael Scott, who is somehow marginally likable and effective. He is unquestionably the star, followed in importance by Pam Beesly, Dwight Schrute, and Jim Halpert. Jim is the wry everyman, and Pam is a less wry everywoman (never seen that word before but whatever. Affirmative action). They are the obvious love interests. Rainn Wilson's Dwight is the eccentric Pennsylvania Dutch paper salesman who moonlights as a beet farmer with his odd cousin. They interact perfectly with Michael and each other. The casting really couldn't be better. I suspect all of them will go on to better things after the Office is closed for business (hopefully much better than Wilson's sickeningly terrible The Drummer or whatever it was called. Carell's performances in Anchorman andDan in Real Life were also pretty good, but this is what he will be remembered for.). Other characters include gay Mexican Oscar Núñez, cat-loving conservative Christian semi-whore Angela, fat-dumb-and-happy Kevin (the accountants), old soul who is actually Michael's age Phyllis, begrudging drone Stanley, chatty teen-stuck-in-adult-body Kelly, ex-Grass Roots guitarist and old pothead Creed Bratton (actually him!), alcoholic single mom Meredith, obsessive-compulsive passive-agressive Jan (with a fittingly hyphenated surname), dorky anger-management case Andy Bernard, drab HR rep Toby, and many many more. This is probably the best or second-best sitcom left on TV. Thankfully, the other one is right after it...

NOTE: I was stupid and forgot his hilarious role in Little Miss Sunshine, the best comedy of the last 10 years besides Juno, and probably Fargo if you want to cound that as a comedy. But was that the last 10 years? Ahhhh, let's not worry about it.

Mein Erste Blogeintrag (auf Deutsch)

Ich lerne Deutsch... könnt ihr mich verstehen?  Meine Blogeinträge sind nicht schätzbar.  So gern ich auch möchte, ich blogge nicht oft.  Ich blogge gern, aber habe ich keine Zeit.  Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch.  Vergeb mir bitte, ob meine zweisprachige Texte sind schwer ablesbar; ich lerne noch.  Kommentiert sind shätzte. Meine Muttersprache ist Englisch (offensichtlich), und ich bin aus Amerika.  Ich lerne Sprachen gern.