Ramblings

I think that it's pretty telling that what pushed me over the edge into actually crying instead of just thinking about it tonight was not the intensely stressful housing situation that took two and a half hours to resolve, but rather watching two of my friends' boyfriends bring them food to help them through the intensely stressful housing situation.

I'd really like to be loved. Is that so much to ask?

edited due to overly confessional nature

My Fabulous Television Fantasy (or My Plan for Helping Heather Locklear Forget Her Divorce)

In contemplating my current and past favorites of television, I have come to the conclusion that what TV today really needs is to be old-school Spelling-ized. No more of this soft 7th Heaven business. The glory of the old days can be restored to the television community. I have two plans for how this could work:

1) Melrose Place reunion on Desperate Housewives: Admittedly, the more feasible of the two. Just imagine it. They wouldn't all have to play prominent roles, but ABC could promote the heck out of it as a sweeps event, and everyone would win. ABC/Disney already have their hooks into a fair number of the classic cast members - Marcia Cross and Doug Savant already on DH, Courtney Thorne-Smith on According to Jim, Rob Estes on The Evidence, Daphne Zuniga and Grant Show on Beautiful People. They've also had Laura Leighton, Lisa Rinna, and Josie Bisset on different shows over the past year. That's an impressive base. They'd just need to manuver Jack Wagner away from CBS, and, really, what are Heather Locklear, Andrew Shue, and Thomas Calabro doing now anyway? I haven't seen them around recently, except for the occasional divorce update for Heather. The show would positively drip with Spelling-style fabulosity.

2) Dynasty reunion/update: I love Dynasty to a sheerly absurd degree, and I was born well after the show had even started. I think I was in utero during the Moldavian massacre. It's amazingly eighties and 100 different kinds of fabulous. A little while back, maybe a few months ago, I was reading Soap Opera Digest and came across a "Where Are They Now?" article talking to Gordon Thompson, a.k.a. the deliciously evil Adam Carrington, who still looks pretty damn good and said that he was open to more work. This got the cogs turning in my head. The ages of the various children born over the course of Dynasty (Danny, Little Blake, Krystina, etc.) would place them now at late-teens/early-to-mid twenties, as young people who had grown up surrounded by family opulence and dysfunction. What I picture is Blake kicking it, and the rest of the family tussling over his inheiritance, bringing in characters young and old and generally upping the fabulosity quotient of television in general. My life would be greatly improved by more manipulation, lying and general trashiness embodied by characters like Fallon and Sammy Jo. Again, work for some great actors whose heyday is generally viewed as past.

I'm just saying, Aaron. I'd gladly trade 10 years of fluff for one of the truly fabulous past.

P.S. Somewhat on-topic: How unbelievably creepy is Shawn Pyfrom on DH? It was totally surreal to watch the SAG Awards where he accepted the Best TV Ensemble award all "Wow, look at all the actors..." and balance that in my mind with the utterly disturbing sociopathic behavior of Andrew Van De Kamp. Crazy.

Pondering

After hours of YouTube searching for such childhood favorites as Freakazoid, I recalled the sweet, sweet days of watching Pinky and the Brain in my youth (as in, between 5 and 10 years ago.) One of my favorite lines of the show was when the Brain would always ask: "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" Here are a myriad of Pinky's replies, admittedly taken from IMDb:

Pinky: I think so Brain, but if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?

Pinky: I think so Brain... but do I really need 2 tongues?

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but then it'd be Snow White and the Seven Samurai...

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but how are we going to make pencils that taste like bacon? Or maybe we should make bacon that tastes like pencils. Narf.

Pinky: I think so Brain, but burlap chafes me so.

Pinky: I think so, but where will we find an open tattoo parlor at this time of night?

Pinky: I think so Brain, but Zero Mostel times anything will still give you Zero Mostel.

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but how will we get the Spice Girls into the paella?

Pinky: I think so Brain, but... Kevin Costner with an English accent? I dunno.

Pinky: Well, I think so Brain, but balancing a family, and a career? Ooh, it's all too much for me.

Pinky: Well, I think so Brain, but isn't Regis Philbin already married?

Pinky: Well, I think so Brain, but if we didn't have ears, we'd look like weasels.

Pinky: I think so Brain, but pants with horizontal stripes make me look chubby.

Pinky: I think so Brain, but why would anyone want a depressed tongue?

Pinky: Um... I think so, Brain, but what if the chicken won't wear the nylons?

Pinky: I think so Brain, but if Jimmy cracked corn, and no one cares, why does he keep doing it?

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but we're already naked.

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but if we get "Sam spayed," we'll never have any puppies.

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but me and Pippi Longstocking... I mean, what would the children look like?

Pinky: Uh... yeah, Brain, but where will we get rubber pants our size?

Pinky: Well, I think so, Brain, but I can't memorize a whole opera in Yiddish.

Pinky: I think so Brain, but the Rockettes, it's mostly girls, isn't it?

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but how will we get a pair of Abe Vigoda's pants?

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but can the Gummi Worms really live in peace with the Marshmallow Chicks?

Pinky: Wuh, I think so, Brain, but wouldn't anything lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but if the plural of mouse is mice, wouldn't the plural of spouse be spice?

Pinky: Yes Brain, but if our knees bent the other way, how would we ride a bicycle?

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but what kind of rides would they have at Fabioland?

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but isn't a cucumber that small usually called a gherkin?

The Brain: Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Woof, oh, I'd have to say the odds of that are terribly slim, Brain.
The Brain: True.
Pinky: I mean, really, when have I ever been pondering what you've been pondering?
The Brain: To my knowledge, never.
Pinky: Exactly. So, what are the chances that this time, I'm pondering what you're pondering?
The Brain: Next to nil.
Pinky: Well, that's exactly what I'm thinking, too.
The Brain: Therefore, you ARE pondering what I'm pondering.
Pinky: Poit, I guess I am.

Prompt Updating: Clearly Not My Strong Suit

Yeah, so not so much with the frequent updates. Whatever, my one-reader constituency doesn't mind, do you? I'll tell you this: There's nothing wrong with you. Or there's something wrong with everyone. Don't let it get you down.

My Fabulous Moviefest 2006

Over the next month or so, I have plans to exponentially increase the fabulosity of my movie collection. How, you ask?
31 Days of Oscar on Turner Classic Movies. A whole month of Academy Award-nominated or winning movies uncut and commercial-free.
I swear I'm not working for Turner, I just find this to be the most exciting thing that's happened to me in quite some time.
Right up until March 3rd, I have a tight, complex taping plan, making attempts to group by theme and run time so as to not waste tape.
Some of the themes include:

• Movies pertinent to my area of academic interest: Cabin in the Sky and both versions of Imitation of Life. Representations of African-American characters in popular culture are entirely fascinating to me in looking at where they fit in the time that they were made and what the audience is supposed to take away from them.
• Musicals: My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls and Bye Bye Birdie. Some people disparage musicals, but I love them and their sense of altered reality. I watched Bye Bye Birdie at the first sleepover that I went to, and cannot stop loving it despite the high cheese quotient. Among other things, the movie somewhat alters the story of the stage show for some completely absurd Cold War-era smack-talking of the Russians. It also has one of my new favorite pieces of movie dialogue, when before "Hymn for a Sunday Evening," Paul Lynde says "Ed Sullivan? He's my favorite human!" My sister and I watched this over the summer and could not get over how unbelievably hyperbolic and strange that statement is, and started applying it to random celebrities as we saw them on television. My favorite human, for instance, is Fat Joe.
• Sixties and Later Pop-Culturally Important Films: Kramer vs. Kramer, American Graffiti, The Last Picture Show, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita. It sounds pretentious to me when I say this, but I consider myself to be a scholar of popular culture, particularly that of the late 20th century. It makes me feel like I'm using my mind if I consider this to be even a little academic.
• Mid-Seventies Romance Classics with Hot Leading Men: The Way We Were, Love Story. The title of this category is pretty self-explanatory. Robert Redford was way hot in the seventies (Ryan O'Neal somewhat less so,) and frankly, it makes me a little sad that he's so old now.
• Movies that I've Already Seen and Enjoyed: The Big Chill, Sense and Sensibility. Both viewed over the past year, both loved. I can't figure out why, but I discovered over the past year that I love Kevin Kline's work, thus The Big Chill. In regards to Sense and Sensibility, besides being awesome because of Emma Thompson's ab-fab script and such, it's one of those rad British movies with loads of good actors that just don't seem to happen as much in the U.S. Also, another great film from Ang Lee.
• Early Classics: Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, On the Waterfront, To Kill a Mockingbird, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Blackboard Jungle. The kind of old Black & Whites that one would expect on TCM, and carry that "Really? You haven't seen (movie title)?" implication within their old, classic standing.

I was nearly beside myself when the first Early Classics tape was completed this morning: Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard and On the Waterfront.

Even with the soul-consuming depression that usually surrounds Valentine's Day, I think it's going to be a great month.

Back by Popular Demand

A new post requested by the reading audience, and thus a new post shall there be. Nothing really to report as of now. This weekend I've been working on one of my New Year's Resolutions, which is to work on making myself happy, rather than ceding control over my emotions to other people. It will take time, but I'm already feeling good about progress towards really enjoying "Me-Time." Which is a good thing. Sometimes it's good to just hang by oneself, watching figure skating and eating leftover pizza. (More fun and less sad than that sounded, I promise.)

A work in progress, I suppose. Back to the Resolution.

Discord on St. Charles Place

Later this week, my suitemate is going home and her Monopoly board is going with her. Monopoly - classic American board game beloved by young and old alike? Hardly. Monopoly is tearing us apart, and it must go. The last game disintegrated into a late-night fight to the death, with one player bankrupting all the others while we clung desperately to wakefulness. The second-to-last time that I played with my sister, I cleaned her out and she started to cry. The truth is that Monopoly is an evil, manipulative case against pure capitalism, bringing out the worst in people while they try to take their friends' money. We came to the conclusion that the absence of Monopoly is crucial to the survival of our friendship. Maybe Trivial Pursuit won't be so rough.

Snow Gremlins are Stealing My Stuff

I love snow. It's gorgeous when it falls, last night I could see it drifting down in the light of the streetlight outside my window. Snow is so pretty, on the rooftops and the grassy areas and windowsills, etc. However, I have come to the conclusion that with the snow has come snow gremlins. The kind that steal. I've mislocated small things over the past day or so - hair scrunchie, headbands, cuticle scissors. Rather than blame my own disintegrating mental capabilities, I blame the real bandits: Snow Gremlins. Look out. They'll get you.

The beginning...

Well, an introduction of sorts, I suppose. I'm a nineteen year-old college student on the East Coast. I'm full of thoughts a lot of the time, and don't really feel that I have a proper outlet in that I don't really like handwriting in journals. So a blog it is. Hopefully this won't end up just being complaining about my life, but I can't make any guarantees. So, enjoy, friends, acquaintances and strangers.

It's an interesting concept, just sending one's thoughts out into the void.