Me, when I found out that Jon Stewart was leaving The Daily Show.

Things that happened when I worked 70 hours of overtime in less than two weeks in January.

Cold Popeye's chicken fingers dipped in cold Popeye's mashed potatoes was deemed a perfectly acceptable dinner. Twice.

I got dressed from the load of laundry in the dryer, like it was my bedroom bureau.

When my boss momentarily forgot about my crazy deadlines, and asked if I would be "going home to PA this weekend?," I snapped "No! I will be coming HERE this weekend! AND next weekend! AND the one after that!" Like a crazy person. 

Half a bag of chipnitzel cookies was deemed a perfectly acceptable dinner.

My hair... suffered.

I began to fondly recall that one Saturday morning when I got to sleep until 10 AM. Before going in to work for nine hours.

Barbecue potato chips and dip was deemed a perfectly acceptable dinner.

I forgot to look at the Oscar nominations until noon on the day they were announced, instead of bounding out of bed to check them.

I left my flat iron on while I went to work for 15 hours. Note: apartment did not catch fire.

I lost so very many Trivia Crack games by not playing them in time.

Half a bag of microwave popcorn and some cheese was deemed a perfectly acceptable dinner.

After working 12 hours on MLKJ Day, I muttered "This is not what they meant by 'a day of service!'"

The day I left work at 9 PM, I thought to myself "I can't believe I'm getting out of here so early!"

I once considered just staying at the office through the night, but I knew my co-worker would notice that my clothes had not changed. And sure enough, the next morning she checked my clothes.

I still managed to watch the six-hour Season 2 of The Fall, which, I guess goes to show that Netflix is like the house in Vegas: it always wins in the end.

My long national state nightmare is over.

Today I finally got my car, which I purchased in Pennsylvania, registered in Virginia.

It was a two-month saga that involved (and these are just the highlights):

1. Breaking down and crying on the phone with a PA DMV employee to the point where I frightened him,

2. Visiting the Virginia DMV six times and being given seven different instructions by eight separate employees (The seventh set of instructions were finally correct, and I can't even credit them to Virginia, since they came from the PA DMV guy that I frightened, and then I just ran them past the Virginia people and they were all, "Sounds good to us! I guess? We have no idea what we're doing!" or something like that.),

3. Being told by a Virginia DMV manager that I would have to return the car to PA and get my money back because I couldn't drive it in Virginia, and

4. Me going on a rant in Liz and Zack’s living room about how we need to abolish all state government. All of it!

Liz told me I was taking things too far, but I’m still not sure.

After all of that, the state of Virginia graciously allowed me to pay them an exorbitant amount in fees and sales tax. State sales tax.

Yeah.

The entire contents of Noah's Ark is coming for me in my sleep.

Meet the tiger that will haunt my dreams.

So, this weekend I saw Life of Pi. What I loved most is that, in one fell swoop, I completed eight Oscar categories. Eight! That brings my tally to 9 down, 15 to go. And if this week goes according to plan, I'll complete another seven categories.

What I did not love: most of the other stuff about this movie. Okay, here's the deal, it was beautifully shot, well-acted and directed, and visually stunning.

Okay, fine, this was very cool. I'll give you that.

Most people would really love this movie. But I am not most people. If you know me at all, you probably know how I feel about animals. I heartily dislike them. I don't wish them harm, but I also don't wish them anywhere in my vicinity. I'd rather spend a day at the dentist than a day at the zoo.

And this movie is ALL animals. The tiger (haaaate), the baboon, the zebra, the hyena, tons of hideous fish of every sort, whales, sharks, and dolphins, and let's not forget the meerkats. It was heinous. Everywhere you looked more and more animals were popping up, and popping out in my face since it was in 3-D (oh, how I hate 3-D). It was like watching a Hannibal Lecter movie. I was in a constant state of horror and disgust. If only Melis had been sitting next to me laughing at my terror, it would have been the full Silence of the Lambs experience.

Liz and Kris, you guys would probably love this. It was not for me. But hey, eight whole categories--that's not bad at all.

You know, you're going to have to eat some of that stuff.

In the checkout line at the Target (after being turned away from my movie theater viewing of The Walking Dead because all the seats filled up 40 minutes before showtime I mean come ON people!)

Checkout Guy: Did you ever eat anything made in an EZ Bake oven?

Me: When I was a kid.

CG: Well, if you eat some of this, let me know how it is.

Me: It’s cake cooked with an electric light bulb. How good could it be?

CG: Are you buying this for your daughter?

Me: My niece.

CG: You know, you’re going to have to eat some of that stuff.

Me: Yeah, I know.

Oh my dears. Is it really true? I can't believe it.

Fellow Downton lovers, mourn with me for a moment. Apparently season 3 will be the last for Maggie Smith. Our magnificent Dowager Countess will be hanging up her spurs. How could she do this to us?

According to the Daily Mail (You've got Paperback Writer in your head now, don't you?) a source says:

Maggie has asked Julian to write her character out. She is filming until August and then wants to leave, going out on a high. She thinks that three series is enough and she wants to get back to the stage and big screen.

Maggie, no! Don't leave us!

What is there to do but wait for season 3 (an infernally long wait) and then soak up every bit of dowager-countessness?



"What is a 'weekend'?"



The Tree of Boredom and Despair

Oscar readiness continues. I just put myself through watching The Tree of Life. I loathe Terence Malick’s work. He’s put me through a lot and now the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has allowed him to put me through even more.

This film is largely about a man’s reminiscences of his childhood and the different pulls his mother and father had on him. It could have been a compelling story, but instead of actually telling the story, Malick just shows us 2 hours and 20 minutes of disjointed scenes, each lasting a few seconds. I felt like I was watching somebody’s old family movies. Have you ever watched a stranger’s family movies for 2 hours and 20 minutes? No. Of course not. Because you’d have gotten up and left.

It was a classic Terence Malick film: visually stunning, but packed with heavy-handed symbolism (which I assume Malick thinks is deep), and also butt-numbingly dull. I constantly checked the timer on the DVD player, willing it to count down faster.

I like to call this movie “The Emperor’s New Clothes” as I think that story accurately describes the reason why The Tree of Life was nominated for Best Picture. Terence Malick has this aura of genius around him, presumably because he makes films sparingly and lives as privately as JD Salinger. I think people are afraid they’ll look silly if they say they think Malick is a hack, so instead they panic and nominate him for awards. 

For my part, the credits are rolling and I feel like I’ve just been released from being kidnapped.

Has this ever happened to you?

I have a cold and I have completely lost my sense of smell. I thought something had gone wrong with my Cinnamon Buns soap when I couldn't smell it, but then I held a jar of peanut butter in front of my face, took a big whiff, and... nothing. From peanut butter!

It's so strange not to be able to smell anything. I could have been sprayed by a skunk and I'd have no idea right now.

Seriously, Washington?

This is a map depicting which states fall dead last on various lists of bad behavior. In the grand scheme of things, I guess arson isn't so bad.


Oh, Washington state. I don't even know what to say.

Well, this is going terribly.

So I had all these plans to learn some German before leaving for Germany and Austria. I listened to some tapes in Italian before going to Italy and it really helped my comprehension while we were there, so I figured it would be the same with German. Oh, nein.

I thought I'd pick this up with no problem. I was imagining something like this:



But what really happened was closer to this:

Except that I have better hair than either of these people.

For one thing, lots of German words are very similar to their English counterparts (one is ein, weather is wetter, etc). Even more, German sentences are constructed just like English ones. Adjectives precede nouns, adverbs precede verbs, that sort of thing. But the differences, if not numerous, are emphatic.

For example, nouns can be not just masculine or feminine (as with Spanish and Italian) but also neutral, and each of these three requires a different modification to the adjective used to describe them. So if you want to say "beautiful weather" it's "schönes wetter" but if you want to say "beautiful evening" it's "schöner abend." The word for beautiful (schön) changes from schönes for a neutral noun to schöner for a masculine noun. I don't even know what it would be for a feminine noun. So you have to learn four times as many words for adjectives and in addition to that there's no indication of what gender any given word is. You just have to memorize them. Heilige kuh!

And all of this is nothing compared to my pronunciation problems. For some reason, if you slap down an Italian or Spanish word in front of me I have no problem pronouncing it correctly immediately. It's hardwired into my brain. But German? I cannot even tell you. Yes, "W" sounds like "V" and "D" at the end of the word sounds like "T"; that I've got. But I don't even know where they're getting the pronunciation for stuff like "schlechtes." There are extra letters thrown into that pronunciation just for fun, I swear it! And then there are words that are so intimidating in their very appearance, you can totally understand why this was the language of the Nazis. Verschiedenen, zuständigkeiten, geschwindigkeitsüberschreitung*... are you frickin' kidding me?

To mitigate this problem, I had planned to learn the German for "please excuse my horrendous pronunciation," but it's "bitte entschuldigen sie meine schrecklichen aussprache" and I'm pretty sure I can't pronounce that.

I am going to fail like the Atlantic Wall on D-Day. So at least I have that in common with the Germans.

*Despite appearances, I swear I did not just make that word up by randomly hitting a bunch of keys on my keyboard. That is an actual German word.

Blargh.

So, the Academy has gone ahead and officially announced that Eddie Murphy will be hosting the Oscars. This is so disappointing because I find him to be neither charming nor funny. And the worst part of all of this? For weeks they teased me with the possibility of Billy Crystal himself coming back to host. And now this? It's not to be borne.

I have to say, it was clever of Mr. Murphy to go for this year's hosting duties since a wet sock would look lively and amusing compared to the nearly-comatose James Franco, who is usually so charming and who I still insist was tranquilized for last year's awards. Perhaps it's best that I go in with low expectations in any case.

In related news, I just found a sliver of Swiss Roll coating under the keyboard at my desk. I cannot remember the last time I had a Swiss Roll at work.

Hola! Vamanos! Me estoy volviendo loco.

This really is an outrageous level of enthusiasm.

I'm currently watching episodes of Dora the Explorer in order to get ideas for a treasure hunt I'm creating for Julia's birthday party. Things I have gleaned thus far:

1. Dora really does scream every single word she says. If she were ever in serious danger, I doubt she could communicate her peril to anyone because her alarm would just sound like her regular voice.

2. Dora encourages her young viewers to become screamers themselves. They have to yell things like "Map!" and "Backpack!" at the screen constantly. Frankly, it's exhausting.

3. Swiper the fox is easily deterred from his kleptomanic ways. He simply stops when he is told to. Hardly a worthy opponent.

4. Three episodes in a row of this is my limit. It does not have the charm of Fraggle Rock.

Well, this is terrifying.

A recent tweet from Dave Ramsey:

If the US Gov was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, and are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget and debt, reduced to a level that we can understand.

I really do not want to witness the collapse of the world's economy. I hope it happens way after I die.

Oh, AMC. Wherefore?

Did you all watch The Killing? Way to take 13 episodes of carefully crafted mystery and character development and flush it all down a filthy toilet in the last five frustrating minutes.

I will not be back next season. I don’t care a fig who killed Rosie Larsen.

You don’t know how I suffer.

Short story: I have an earworm and it's driving me mad.

Medium-length story: This weekend I went with J to Harrisburg for our friend Melissa's birthday party. We listen to the 80s station on Sirius when we roadtrip, and this weekend there was a particularly awesome run of 1984 hits that was strangely punctuated by a hideous song from 1987. Breakout by Swing Out Sister. Wretched. If one song were going to infiltrate my brain, it couldn't be Footloose or When Doves Cry; it had to be that clunker.

I have tried everything. Listening to other songs, singing other things in my head, Liz's Billie Jean trick... nothing WORKS. I am suffering. It's not unlike the two weeks I spent in Mississippi with Murray Head's One Night In Bangkok torturing me. Swing Out Sister is vicious.

There are, like, two people who read this blog who will know that song, and to those people, I sincerely apologize for passing my earworm on to you. It is inexcusable, but I am in pain and I cannot be responsible for my actions.

This is how I feel.

The way you were was headache-inducing.

Yeah, I'm gonna need an Excedrin after this.

I just watched The Way We Were for the first time and, can anyone tell me, did you find this movie as insufferable as I did? I'm thinking specifically of the Katie character. She was shrill and immature and whiny and every wretched adjective. I have so much stress in my shoulders from hunching over in disgust. And I'm so disappointed because I thought I was going to be treated to a classic love story, which is just the thing for a cold, rainy evening. Oh, I was so played.

I want to know, was this film really the classic it's often hailed as? Because, if so, it's aged about as well as a beach party movie. Or was it really never that great to begin with? Is it one of those movies that's totally overrated but nobody wants to say it?

The famed (and lovely) song is the best thing about it, by far. It is much like Cats in this way. I was so happy when it ended half an hour earlier than my DVR told me it would. I kept checking the timer and I thought I would die. Blessed, blessed credits.

I cannot be the only one who noticed...

...that Christina Aguilera messed up the words to our national anthem.

Right?

I should have known then what was in store for this Super Bowl.

I mean, really.

In Newark, no one can hear you whine.

So, I'm currently slogging my way through The Sopranos. And yes, "slogging" is the appropriate verb here. I'm watching it because it's consistently on the critics' lists of groundbreaking, brilliant television. It is interesting, but I have one major problem: there's not one single character I can bear. Not one. In fact, I loathe them all. The ruthless main character, his harpy wife, his horrible children, his awful uncle with the Coke bottle glasses, his eeeeevil mother, and his army of goons--each one more murderous and psychotic than the last. I survey them much like the Bingley sisters looking upon the Meryton assembly (if the Bingley sister had been totally correct and not shrewish witches.)

Not helping matters is the nasal Jersey accent everyone is sporting. That's not cool. That's not enjoyable to ear.

And the problem is not just that they're awful people. Believe me, I know from liking awful people on TV. The list of horrendous characters I've liked would appall you. Shane Vendrell, Al Swearengen, I even like the entire cast of It's Always Sunny! Well, except for Dennis. Obviously.

And these people are not even Sicilian! They're from Campania. I know. That shouldn't make me look down on them, but it totally does.

I may have just talked myself out of watching this show.

Hateful, awful people, led by their king.

If today was a fish, I'd have thrown it back.

Horrible, awful day at work. And there's still three more hours!

Am trying to remember that I am a Christian and it is not Christ-like to say to a co-worker, "You are a miserable troll. Go back to your cave."

The only way this day can be rescued is if Jermichael Finley gets at least seven points against Chicago tonight. It would make Jonesy's day decidedly worse, but I have to think about myself right now.