Fun with Lists!
I love lists. The end of the year is usually my favorite time ever just because of all the lists flying at you every day. 10 Best albums of 2010. 10 People to Unfollow on Twitter. National Geographic’s Weird Animal List. (Poor little Yoda bat.)
Love me, you must
And I like making lists even better than I like reading them. Which is why I’m bummed that I missed out on making an awesome end-of-the-year list. So I thought I’d make up for it by hitching myself to a new trend wagon: beginning of the year lists.
And this is what I’ve come up with: Lessons I Learned from Watching Like 10 Hours of TV on New Year’s Day. (The Laziest of Lists for the Laziest of Days.)Okay, here we go:
Lesson 1: Canada is awesome.
Canada does a lot of things better than us. It has lower crime rates. It has cleaner cities. It produced Ryan Reynolds. But the one thing I have always prized most from Canada is its teen drama series. Degrassi in particular. That shit is real, yo. Has any American teen drama ever dared to amputate the left nut of one of its co-stars? No. No, I don’t think so. Plus, no matter how big this “Drake” character gets, to me he will always be…
Jimmy!!!
P.S., Drake, I’ve seen the credits. I know your real name is Aubrey Graham. That’s pretty gangsta.
Lesson 2: Bitches be crazy?
We all know that Bridalplasty is horrible. Just a truly terrifying portrayal of women who seek to cut up their faces in order to look perfect for just one day. Or to get on TV, whatevs. But my boyfriend loves watching this show because he is convinced that it is subversive. That the producers know exactly what they’re trying to say by showcasing these horrible substitutes for human beings who connive and strive and work their way through ludicrous acts in order to ‘win’ the prize of mutilation.
At first, I didn’t agree with him. But then I watched an episode all of the way through, and couldn’t help but be reminded of Drop Dead Gorgeous, you know, the black comedy where women are killing each other to become beauty queens? But it’s actually hilarious?
- “With one week to go before the pageant, I was finishing my outfit, rehearsing my talent, brushing up on current events, and running 18 miles a day on about 400 calories. I was ready.”
Well, maybe Bridalplasty is something like that. Maybe. Or maybe bitches really must be crazy.
Lesson 3: Age ain’t nothing but a number, am I right, Detective Stabler?
My enjoyment of watching Law & Order SVU marathons increases proportionately with every month that I age. The same thing is true of eating fiber bars and not knowing how teenagers these days got to be so disrespectful.
Anyway, someone should make a graph or something.
Happy New Year! And happy TV watching, too!
A Lip-Dub of the Highest Order
Not only is this by far my favorite Styx song, but this video was shot in my third-favorite Michigan city. Coincidence?!? Probably.
Still, watch. Very, very awesome.
Price: Free for you and me.
Even Geeks Like it Classy Sometimes
Let’s be honest: If I’m out and about and I have my choice of any number of refreshing beverages, I’ll pretty much always go with a cold beer. But every once in awhile it’s nice to try something new. And if that something new falls into the price category of COMPLETELY FREE, then, by all means, I’m game.
When my sister was in town recently and said she wanted to go to a wine tasting, my first reaction was to stare at her blankly. “….you want to go to San Francisco?? That’s like seven hours away.” But it turns out the moron of the story was me. There are actually a few wine companies and even whole vineyards right here in Los Angeles, and many of them offer tastings for free.
Warning: Side effects of wine may cause you to feel arty all of a sudden and take unnecessarily staged photographs of inanimate objects.
Yes, free. Turns out, there’s more than one way to score free booze in this town, and this is the way that doesn’t involve putting on heels and having to listen to some dude talk about the enhancements he made to his sick ride for 45 minutes before he’ll spring for an $8 rum and coke.
Ditch all that hard work and instead head to San Antonio Winery, located downtown on Lamar Street. The winery offers weekly tastings between noon and 2 p.m. You can choose from three pre-selected complementary samples or pay just $10 to sample a series of four artisan wines.
That’s a pretty cheap way to get a nice buzz on. It’s like a whole new world.
Price: Free, man. Free.
I’m Pretty Sure PETA Would Approve…
All the Cool Kids Call it Pop
"A Taste Worth Standing in Line For"
Sometimes, you just gotta get out of the city. Even if only to go to right next door to Pasadena. That’s where I stumbled into Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop - a little shop lined wall to wall with pops from around the country. Including this oddly Soviet-inspired brand and…wait for it…FAYGO!
Obviously, I thought my night was pretty much made.
And then…
I found…
this poster…
Imagine me in poster-form
And my night was made even more than it had previously been made, which was quite a lot of made for one evening, and tuckered me right out.
So then I went home.
Price: $3 or so for a pop, $13.75 for the tin poster, which I bought, most obviously.
The Sidewalk is Being All Abstract, Poetic Today
This may look like the cover of a high school literary arts magazine, but it’s actually a piece of cement situated on the corner outside my apartment.
What do I mean?!?
So, is this phrase:
a) a little-known term used by cement layers to indicate an area of the street that is ‘LITerally SOULvent’ (assuming that the cement layers use the British spelling of the word solvent…and assuming that solvent is something that a piece of cement can be, which I really hope is not the case), or
b) a piece of fancy street art left unattended next to a fire hydrant and the old Chinese guy who sits on his front porch calling out incomprehensible things as I pass by, or
c) a sign from above (or below?) telling me that my soul should be lit, or my fire should have a soul, or that today’s literature is lacking a fundamental element of soulfulness and humanity in a world that places its greatest amount of artistic value in the ironic, or
d) a typo
The world will never know.
Price: my confusion, 15 minutes of my life writing this post that I’ll never get back, 10 seconds of yours reading it that you will also never get back (sucka!)
Genre TV Writers: They Like Tacos! And Battlestar Galactica!
Reason #476 to love living in Los Angeles: Getting to go to dirt-cheap events like the Focus on Writing for Genre Television Panel held at Meltdown Comics this past Friday night.
And when I say dirt-cheap, I mean dirt-cheap – the cost of admission was just $5, and it earned you not only a chance to listen to top science fiction television writers talk about their work for two hours, but also all the free beer you could drink, which, in my case, equaled about three Miller High Lifes before the event closed.
Here’s the rundown of television writers I got to listen to while sucking down my sweet, sweet Miller Highs:
Javier Grillo-Marxauch (Lost, Middlemen, Medium)
Ashley Miller (Fringe, Thor, X-Men: First Class)
Benjamin Rabb and Deric Hughes (Warehouse 13)
Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Laura Valdiva (Outerspace Astronauts, MadTV)*
*I thought it was cool that there would be two sci-fi ladies on the panel, but it turned out Ashley was (and presumably, still is) a dude. So Laura Valdiva had to represent all us XXers in the room, and represent she did.
Panelists being panel-y. From left: Hosts Tim Powers and Sax Carr, Ashley Miller, Javier Grillo-Marxauch, Laura Valdiva
I’d like to post all the awesome conversations that were held at the panel, which touched on the importance of humor in genre television, inspirations in the industry, the challenge/blessing of writing for certain actors, the challenge/blessing of being a woman in the writers’ room, the awesomeness of Battlestar Galactica, etc., but that would take forever. And, quite frankly, I have a hard time believing most of my readers (i.e. my mom) have even gotten this far. So, here’s some quick, quote-y highlights:
“If you’re a writer, you’re a writer. You write.” – Josh Friedman
“I thought, you can get paid for making shit up all day? I want to do this.” – Deric Hughes on why he became a TV writer.
“Sometimes you have to write a character off a show because the actor is rat-fuck insane.” – Javier Grillo-Marxauch on sudden character deaths.
“We considered killing almost every person on that show.” – Josh Friedman, referring to The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
“If I have to apologize to someone for working in genre, then fuck them, I don’t want to know them.” – Ashley Miller, discussing whether or not writing genre and sci-fi in general is still something you still have to be ashamed of.
And, as a follow-up, “It’s a TV-specific problem. No one’s gonna ask Chris Nolan whether he’s writing genre.” – Josh Friedman. Word.
Also, FOOD TRUCK!
Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth
Price: A cool $5
Over Some Dude’s Dead Body
In theory, watching a movie screening at a cemetery may sound like a creepy way to spend a Saturday night. But after taking part in a showing of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery this weekend, I can assure you that it’s actually way less creepy in practice, and a lot more fun. Especially if you bring wine.
The Cinespia Cemetery Screenings are in their tenth season of showing movies in an open-air field that sits behind a collection of half-century-old tombstones along Sunset Blvd. This last Saturday was my first trip to the cemetery (who could pass up seeing Willy Wonka on the big screen?), and here were some of the more notable moments of the night….
First off, this guy:
Here for the party
The screenings fill up fast, so you have to show up at 5:30 p.m. to line up outside the gates, which open at 7:00. The line’s not as bad as it sounds, though – everyone in the crowd sits down and starts the picnic early, cracking open the wine, beer and assorted cheeses (so much classier than Doritos, which were my first choice…) And then this guy comes along to…warm up the crowd? I don’t really know what his purpose was, aside from slightly resembling Gene Wilder and wearing a purple velvet coat. But I appreciated him.
And then, the drinking picnickers make their way through the tombstone area…
If we were characters in a zombie movie, this would be our first mistake...
And finally, the show!
If by this point in time you’re not drunk from drinking wine for 2 ½ hours (and congrats, Mr. Responsible), you can sit back and enjoy the finer cinematic points of the movie. Or, if you’re like me and stopped counting your wine refills after glass #3, this is the point in time when you yell/slur out lines you remember and try not to think about how much more pedophile-y Willy Wonka is now than he seemed when you were 8.
Hi there, Charlie.
Price: $10 for admission, plus a bottle of wine or three. Also important: NO TALL CHAIRS ALLOWED!
A Pretty Okay Way to Kill an Afternoon
There are lots of things I could be doing on this glorious Tuesday afternoon. Planting trees. Visiting the elderly. Picking up the carcass of the spider I knocked off my bedroom wall this morning in a spasm of panic and then quickly covered up with a paper towel before running away…
Lots of stuff.
But instead, given that it’s a kajillion degrees outside and I can’t be bothered to move from the 5-foot radius in front of my window fan, I will watch a free web series while sucking on ice cubes.
I share this here because I highly recommend the series, We Need Girlfriends (thanks, Josh!) The series follows three college graduates as they wander around Astoria, New York looking for girlfriends. It’s funnier than I just made it sound. This is why I don’t work in marketing. But check it out. It’s free, and it doesn’t involve any effort beyond clicking on the video below. YOU’RE WELCOME.
Price: FREE, plus, um, the monthly price of Internet services, I guess.
Celebrate National Lazy Day! Or Don’t!
August 10th is a very special day. It is the one day each year when people can get away with wearing Velcro shoes, skipping showers and leaving email inboxes unchecked. Why? Because it’s National Lazy Day! (according to this official-looking, obviously well-researched website…)
So maybe Lazy Day isn’t actually a technical holiday recognized in the calendars. In my book, it’s still better than Valentine’s Day and Arbor Day and Labor Day combined…actually, for semantic purposes alone, Lazy Day is waaay better than Labor Day….
So here’s a list of fun (but not too fun) activities (or non-activities) you can take part in to celebrate this momentous (but not too momentous) day:
1.) Lose the Pants
Because, really, who wants to wear pants in August anyway?
2.) Stay out of the Kitchen
Turning on stoves, plugging in George Foremans and setting microwave timers are all verboten on Lazy Day. And you can forget about trying to undertake any cooking that involves using cutting boards, pots, pans or more than one utensil to create. In fact, just keep it simple and order in some Thai food. Preferably through an online order form. No one wants to get finger-arthritis through too much phone dialing…
3) Stop and Smell the Roses
Actually, I’m already rethinking step #3…it might involve going outside, which involves putting on shoes…ugh, too much effort already. Better to stay put and smell the couch cushions instead. Mmmmm….fabric-y.
4) Shred Your To-Do List
In absence of shredder, feed to-do list to house cat, who you are obviously too lazy to feed today.
5) Stop Making Blog Lists
Done and done.
I was gonna write a really killer paragraph to end this blog post, but I figured, when being lazy in Rome…eh, you know the rest.
Price: One day’s worth of working, plus or minus a Thai delivery or two.
