Grr, Change

Note: This post is not about political "change" (which is apparently the word of the month), because I'll be damned if I'm going to spend one additional second on anything remotely related to politics ever again. People always ask why I remain completely neutral in all political discussions, and refuse to tell anyone where I stand. Really, you can't think of any reason why I wouldn't want to get involved in non-stop rabid propaganda no matter which side you align with?

Not that not declaring a side helps much - basically you then just have both sides assuming you agree with them (because, how could you not? I mean, obviously my side is the right one, anyone on the other side is crazy and I wouldn't associate with crazy) so you get all their diatribes as their very own stump speech. So you just adopt a neutral facial expression, and nod your head occasionally, all the while trying to say the alphabet backwards in your head.

Seriously, I pretty much hate everyone right now.

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But this entry is not about that kind of change, dammit!

In general I hate change. Mixing up your routine makes things complicated, prone to additional errors, and increases the likelihood that you're going to have to end up talking to someone you hate (probably about politics, too). And the worst time for change is always Fall.

Every Fall they rearrange the syndicated TV shows, just as I've finally gotten down a schedule that I like to watch in the background when I get home from work (Until this month: King of the Hill, followed by The Simpsons, followed by How It Works. A perfect afternoon roll call. Now that's shot to hell, as the only thing left in that lineup is The Simpsons and it's at a different time. Grr.). HATE

Every Fall they change the traffic light patterns in central Dallas, I assume to factor in something to do with the school zones. All I know is that my route to and from work becomes 10 minutes longer each time the leaves change, because 5 of the 7 lights that I go through tend to hit red during a normal commute (as opposed to 2 at max during the summer) and the left turn only arrows at the intersection by my office disappear and you have to just shoot for your openings in traffic and pray for intersection mercy. HATE

And this really doesn't apply to anyone else, but Fall is also when mortgage lenders push out their upgrades to their user interfaces and underwriting engines. Which invariably ends up in heartbreak and longer turn times. Why they need to keep expanding the functionality of systems when the number of files available is plummeting to a record low is beyond the scope of my understanding. DOUBLE HATE

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But at this exact second, the change that's annoying me the most? iGoogle.

Which is the most unfair kind of change imaginable - a significant alteration to something that is totally free. So it's not like I can complain, it's a complimentary service. It's tacky to criticize the hand that is feeding you (for free).

Anyways, I'm going to whine for a minute, but that doesn't mean that I'm not really, really, incredibly appreciative of Google for providing the single best internet tool I have ever had in my entire life (A close second being the awesome address bar in the new Firefox. Those two items are pretty much all I need to get my internet enjoyment to maximum capacity.). I have saved so much time and effort using the iGoogle homepage that I roughly attribute at least 50% of my increased productivity at work to it.

But the latest redesign. Jesus.

A left hand tab menu? Seriously? Google is pretty much the smartest company on the internet, yet they don't understand the importance of horizontal viewing space? This isn't so much of a problem on my 24" wide screen monitor at home (which, by the by, still completes me), where I have landscape view width to spare. But at the office, on my 15" CRT, in order to fit that extra couple of inches for those tabs, I lose all readability for the third column of widgets. The only option I have is to switch to double columns, which means scrolling for additional info. But I won't even do that, because it saves the settings globally, and having only two columns at home is like spitting in the face of God and/or Mr. Widescreen Monitor.

Plus, the expanded functionality of the widgets from the tab bar is terrible. The only one that works well is the Google Reader, but since I don't use the additional functionality, it's a wash. Whereas the Gmail tab is actively horrible. Clicking an email brings it up in the widget now, but you can't click on embedded hyperlinks, and can't respond with attachments. Same limitations for composing a new email, or looking at your inbox. The only way to get anything done is to click over to Gmail. So really at this point, the only point to the widget is to see the last 5 emails you've received. Which is nice, but it used to be so much more functional.

And what's the deal with the multiple pages on the bookmarks widget all of a sudden? I mean, maybe it's naive to assume that everyone uses bookmarks the same way as me, but they're generally used for my daily sites that don't have RSS feeds, or that have interactive content that I'll need to access at various points during the day, usually in rapid succession. So it makes zero sense to have to waste additional time clicking over to the page of links I'm looking for, every time you backtrack to the homepage. It's not like they're unmanageable as is; there's maybe 20 of them. Suddenly we're horribly concerned about vertical screen space now? Grr.

It's like that my.yahoo debacle all over again, except this time there's still so much I still love about it that I can't ever imagine leaving. I forgive new flaws when you've got that much functionality left. (Whereas Yahoo pretty much lost me forever with their overdesigning, when you actively have to click three links to actually access the content you see on the screen. Damn, I still wonder to this day how they managed to screw that up so bad.)

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Whew, okay, venting over. I feel much better.

(I'm still pretty bitter about all the politics stuff, though.)

Fall Back into Television (Week 5)

Another weird week for television watching. Missed Thursday due to a concert commitment (which I'm totally planning to actually write about for once) and didn't catch up at all, so this week should be nice and short.

• How I Met Your Mother - So apparently I'm just about as dense as a brick, because I did not see that ending coming, despite the fact that it was telegraphed about as obviously as you can get without flashing a big sign that said FORESHADOWING every time Sarah Chalke was onscreen. And I will miss her, even though I thought her whole character was a bit shoehorned into the show. She really does have some great comedic timing, and she melded well with the cast. Sad, but necessary for the plot.
  
  It was a great episode to boot: tons of continuity (zitchdog!), a return to natural characterizations, and Robin's completely awesome speech. I'm totally back in sync with this show. Oh, and super major props for not trying to wedge another storyline for Marshall and Lily just because they're there. I think they are actually starting to gather that the best plot heavy episodes are the ones where we focus on just one thing, rather than the traditional multi-arcs for everyone. We saw it two years ago with Something Borrowed/Something Blue, and saw how it didn't work last year with Miracles. Let's hope they keep this going.
  
  
• Chuck - And yeah, I think I'm done. It's a good show, but it's just not for me. I appreciate it while it's going on, and I chuckle and think that Zachary Levi has actually become Seth 2.0 in my mind (the exact ratio of nerd/hot that I like, only his show hasn't yet collapsed in on itself and his personality like The OC eventually did). But I'm just not that into it. And since I have to tape Heroes for Frank while it's on the air, I have to actively seek it out on the Internet later, which is something I'm very reluctant to do for some reason.
  
  Still, it was pretty sweet to see Nicole Ritchie getting beat the hell up.
  
  
• South Park - I don't know, I sort of really enjoyed that. I mean, it wasn't terribly hilarious, but I love me some Cloverfield (and by extension, some Cloverfield-parody). And even though I don't know what that deal was with the pan-flute bands, "Tapas and Moodscapes" is just about the best title for a CD ever invented. I'm cautiously optimistic after a really rough start to the season.
  
  
• 30 Rock - Sweet damn, how I've missed this show. Some of it was a little tone deaf (Jenna's Japanese commercial and Will Arnette's homo-bit primarily) but man, there were some great moments. I love Tracey's little commentaries on his own dialogue ("Yes, I am provocative!") whenever he's doing something in public. It reminded me of that bit from Season One, where he ended a supposedly witty conversation with a loud "Haha! Banter!" Which is something I've longed to do ever since.
  
  And the soap opera bit was perfect ("Ever since that incident with the weather machine.") even up to the aborted kiss. God, Alec Baldwin really is awesome at this part. I'm not sure if I'm entirely up for this adoption/baby line, after the mess that was Baby Momma, but I'm willing to give it a go.
  
  Oh, and I didn't even mention my favorite throwaway moment:
  Liz: Kenneth, do you know what imperative means?
  Kenneth: Oooh, ooh, tell me!
  [Liz badger face]
  
  (Note: Since someone asked - No I'm not from the future, NBC has the episode online a week early. And there was no way I was waiting until the airdate to watch it. Self control is not one of my strong suits)
  
  
• The Amazing Race - And now we finally remember why the artificial bunching is so important - that was about the least intense episode ever filmed, because the last team was so very behind from the last leg, they couldn't even pretend to build suspense on who was going home. Although team Gross Frat Guys gave them the material to try anyways. Seriously, this is a crazy-weak field of competitors: Those blondes from last week that ambled through something like 4 weeks of the show without getting eliminated, Aja and Ty's inability to navigate anywhere, the Frat Guys inability to build or operate anything.
  
  Even the strong teams seem to have something that slows them down: Team Siblings stopping a prearranged truck driver to ask for directions, Team Divorcees deciding to play hoops before getting a clue. But this just gives me more and more hope that my Team Teenwolf is going to have the chops to make it to the end. Even the editing seems to support a final three of Divorcees / Siblings / Teenwolf. But that Terence/Sarah combo is resilient, and the older couple are really strong. I like that there is some parity there, but seriously people, let's pick it up.
  
  Oh, and way to finally use my most desired travel destination in the entire world: Cambodia and Angkor Wat. Man, if I ever get to travel anywhere, it's so going to be there.
  
  
• Things I Missed: Most egregiously - The Office and Ugly Betty, which I usually immediately catch up on, but I haven't been in an Office mood even once this whole week. Survivor (but I heard it was crap anyways), and It's Always Sunny, which I think means I'm officially a full month behind.
  
  
• Things That I've Given Up On: Pushing Daisies (I love this show when I watch it, but for some reason I can't be bothered), Dirty Sexy Money (ditto, plus I've heard Samarie Armstrong is gone, and she was totally my primary reason for watching), and Fringe (let's just accept it and move on, I can't keep making excuses).

So much for this week being short. To save space, 30 Rock wins every single award this week: Best Episode, Best Line (Devon(about running the company GE): "It's just G now, I sold the E to Samsung. They're SameSung now."), Best Moment (a toss up between the soap opera bit and the Will/Jack face off about enemies almost kissing), Most Disappointing (the lack of good Jenna and no Toofer), and Most Anticipated. No, seriously, I have a problem with how much I love this show.

Fall Back into Television (Week 4)

Big time television update: Due to strange things like moving offices and the complete collapse of the economic market in the United States and abroad, I somehow procured a sweet new (slightly used) TV to put in my bedroom, for next to no cash. There's no real reason for doing this, except that it lets me be even more of a time wasting lump than usual, by combining both my television watching and my Internet browsing into some kind of unholy vortex of slacking from which there is no escape.

The only problem with this setup is that I'm way too cheap to spring for another cable box in my bedroom, which means that if I want to change the channel in my bedroom, I have to physically walk into the living room. So in a weird way, I actually get more exercise this way than before.

Anyways, when we last left TV, I had just about given up hope for mankind when the best episode of the entire week was from a show that I have written about in the past as "actively unfunny; it's like the writers truly hate the people who are supposedly watching."

Did this week restore my faith in televised-humanity? Let's find out.

• The Big Bang Theory - Thank God, at least that part of my universe is righted - this one was not good at all. Still, I have a sort of affection for this show. It's got a certain charm, and even when they're off, there are some good laughs to be had. Maybe I've just lost my ability to hate the mediocre. I dunno.
  
  
• How I Met Your Mother - And let's have another round of God thanking, because we've finally found an episode this season that I really, really enjoyed. Insular flashback episodes are always great, and even if this one was a little overly self-referential it was still really funny. Intervention for holding interventions, Barney's magic, fake Cockney accent for Lily - I'm totally on board. And how awesome is that preview for this week? Some manner of girl fight at a wedding? I know I promised to stop hyping this show, but sweet damn, let's bring it on!
  
  
• Chuck - Bryce! I love Bryce. Mostly because in my mind I think that Bryce also secretly loves Chuck, in a really inappropriate way. It's like an alternate fan-fiction world played out onscreen, if your mind works like mine (be glad that it doesn't). But overall: yawn. Took me three different sit-downs in front of Hulu to get through the whole thing, because I kept finding more interesting things to do.
  
  
• Gossip Girl - Again, I only caught about 5 minutes of this show while flipping over to Monday Night Football, but the part I saw had a cute guy tied to a bell(?) wearing nothing but boxers. Seriously, if this show actually is a gay porn, someone needs to tell me.
  
  
• Project Runway - Well that was just about the most predictable and boring finale possible. So little drama that they seriously spent 5 minutes on a dog taking a poop in the workroom. That said, I felt pretty confident after looking at the lines before the show that it was going to go Leanne, Korto, Kenley in that order, but they did manage to inject a touch of drama during the judging, going out of their way to praise Kenley like they did.
  
  Still, I can't complain about this season too much, even if it was kinda boring, since two of my three favorites from the beginning were the final two. Here's hoping they get everything sorted so that we can get to the next season. I don't care if it's Bravo or Lifetime, I just want the chance say "Where the hell is my chiffon?" as angrily as possible and not have the reference wasted.
  
  
• Ugly Betty - What did I just say not 2 episodes ago? Give the people what they want - Amanda and Mark! Not an hour long return of Gio and the amazingly boring tiny French child subplot. I was pretty much completely over this entire episode the second it began. But I did like the chase scene, Judith Light tearing things up, and Hilda being crazy awesome with the acting, while resolving a terrible storyline perfectly.
  
  
• Survivor - So apparently I don't care about what happens this season at all, in regards to teams and strategies. Instead, I just follow the saga of Gay Charlie and Marcus. I swear I thought I was hallucinating, but didn't Marcus playfully bite Charlie on the shoulder during that reward challenge? If Marcus is just playing him for an alliance, my wrath will be swift and terrible.
  
  But anyways - so Fang is just about as dumb as a bag of rocks, aren't they? Don't just talk about things, you actually have to do them for it to matter. You know she has the idol, she knows that you know, you know that she knows you know (*whew*). Get on the ball people.
  
  
• The Office - That was about as off an episode as The Office can get, but it was still pretty funny. The problem seemed to be that everything was too over-the-top. The cold open was manic, Dwight's subplot was overdone, as was Jan's awkwardness. Even the ending voicemails were just too twee for my tastes. Too on-the-nose that even though they're not in sync, they totally are. Blerg. The good parts though: Jan's singing Son of a Preacher Man for 20 minutes. Holly (just in general). Angela dressing the baby up as a salad.
  
  Frankly, I almost don't want to see how they're going to resolve the Holly character at this point, considering the limited time Amy Ryan has on the show. I'm anticipating pain. So much pain. Do you remember how Amy Adams ended her run on the show? I'm wincing right now, just thinking about it.
  
  
• The Amazing Race - Wow, I'm not sure I've ever seen an episode that was so delineated into teams of good and bad racers. Top five were great, despite #4 & #5 detour switching (No! BAD!), whereas the bottom three were seemingly completely inept - either at the travelling part (Pinks and Aja and Ty) or the challenges (Team Gross Frat Guys). Still super rooting for team Mom/Crazy Haired Son, and starting to come around on the Sarah/Terence combo, assuming he turns down his awfulness by about 400%. Seriously, she's kind of awesome, despite his tool-like nature ("You're bad at ripping things"? I will poke you in the eye, sir).
  
  
• Things I Missed - Was there a new Fringe this week? Because I didn't watch it if there was one. Also, no Pushing Daisies or Dirty Sexy Money, because I just can't be bothered, no Simpsons because it was on against Amazing Race, and no It's Always Sunny because I forgot this week and am somehow three episodes behind now. Man, I'm just falling down on keeping up with things. Especially since I have no excuse now, what with the TV in the bedroom and all.
  

Recap

Best Episode of the Week:
How I Met Your Mother - Intervention

Best Line of the Week:
Project Runway - "100,000 dollars. Drinks are on this brother." (Whatever. I love Leanne.)

Best Moment of the Week:
Amazing Race - The whole Maori warriors Roadblock. (Nose touching is just too cute.)
Runner Up:
Survivor - No seriously, he bit his shoulder. (I'm reading way too much into this.)

Most Disappointing:
Ugly Betty and the continuing reset of last season.

Most Anticipated:
How I Met Your Mother - Wedding time!

Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords

So everyone knows I'm really into the future, right?

Sci-fi junkie, both in books and movies. Computer nerd like whoa; nothing gets me hotter than a really good bout of programming.

I'm even known to regularly spout "Where are all the flying cars? This is supposed to be the future, I was promised flying cars!"

So ever since the first time I laid eyes on a Roomba, I've coveted them like nothing else. Even when I heard they were super lame, and you'd be better off hiring a toddler to sweep your floors for better results, I still wanted one like a 12 year old girl wants a pony. Just the idea of a robot vacuum under my command got my mind racing at the potential possibilities. In my brain it's like Rosie from the Jetsons, but without any of that smart-mouth backtalk.

Alas, I was wicked poor at the time, and have been pretty much forever since. And I never really had enough floor to warrant a dedicated living vacuuming machine, since I could easily clean my whole place in approximately 10 minutes once every month. Not even my lust for the future could rationalize the purchase.

And so my dream of robot ownership languished.

Then, two fortuitous things happened right at the same time: They introduced the 530+ series of Roombas, and I got my new apartment. This new series continued on the functionality improvements of the last few years (edge cleaning brushes, proximity sensors, smarter algorithms, etc.), but most importantly they added a lighthouse/beacon feature, which allows these new awesome robots to do multiple rooms at once, and then return back to their homes, like the android-future my mind had always promised.

And the new apartment was huge, better than 400 more square feet of space, all of it done in fake hardwood floors. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep non-carpeted floors clean? Well if you're as lazy as I am, it's basically impossible. Once a week exhaustive sweeping isn't enough. You need something like 3 sweepings every 10 days, and you have to move furniture, otherwise the dust bunnies gather in dark places and plan their revenge on the living world.

Thus, I have been biding my time, waiting for the Roomba price to drop into the realm of my rationalization. It took nearly a full year, but finally it happened this month, and I'm the proud owner of the cutest little cleaning machine this side of the Mississippi river.

I call him Bad Robot.

Mostly because I'm constantly shouting "No! Bad Robot!"

See, the thing I was most worried about when I got him was that he would gain sentience in the middle of night and try to murder me and take over the apartment as his own, tired of his position of servitude.

This proved to be even more ludicrous than it sounds, because goddamn, Bad Robot is as dumb as a post.

Things I Have Yelled at Bad Robot For (Just This Week)
- Trying to climb into the fireplace and getting stuck on the marble (3 times)
- Getting an empty Pixi Stick lodged in its brushes (4 times)
- Trying to eat the drapes in the living room (2 times)
- Running into the entertainment center so hard that he knocked down the Playstation controller
- Trying to eat said Playstation controller's cord immediate afterwards
- Getting stuck under the table, despite there only being two chairs around it
- Attempting to gain access to my bedroom by repeatedly ramming into the door, because it wasn't fully latched
- Pushing the mat at the front door all the way into the back hallway
- Refusing to clean near the kitchen because the kitchen doors jut out approximately 2 inches from the wall
- Missing his docking station by 1 inch,
- Then getting confused and pushing the docking station around until it faced the wall,
- Then getting really mad because he can tell there's a docking station nearby but can't access it,
- And in response starting to ram himself repeatedly into the coffee table.

Seriously, he's not smart.

But the thing is because he's not, our place is constantly in a state of previously unknown clean. Because as long as you keep half an eye on him, he will indeed vacuum up everything, and keeps the place dirt and dust bunny free. And since you have to pick up any cords, or big things on he ground that he might run into so that he can actually function at his job, we're running at something like 90% clean house at all times.

It's nuts.

I'm so happy, I could burst.

Now if only they would get around to making those flying cars I was promised, I could finally be happy with my place in future.

Fall Back into Television (Week 3)

Wherein I did nothing but watch TV all week long (since I was so tired from moving my office) so I have so many opinions!

• How I Met Your Mother - I don't know. The show still doesn't have it's groove back, but it was pretty funny. I really enjoyed Marshall in Costco, and just about lost it when he was wearing the dog shirt when they got back. But Barney was tiresome, and I'm about 10 minutes from completely over this Ted/Stella storyline. What's way more troubling though, comes next...
  
  
• The Big Bang Theory - So I watched this shit show before HIMYM came on, and God help me, it was hilarious. Like, I laughed really inappropriately loudly at least twice. It was like the reincarnation of The Class. I felt dirty. But seriously, if I was to honestly pick the best show of the week (like I'm about to in a few minutes) I have to give serious consideration to this one. I feel like the world has gone mad.
  
  
• Chuck - And now I remember why I dropped this show in the first place - it's so utterly unrealistic that I can't even enjoy the inherent camp. Every week there some new bad guy, who is theoretically the most bad ass bad ass to ever bad ass, only they are easily thwarted by Chuck's wily nerd charms. Dude, the actual character of Julie Cooper from The OC could have taken out these fools, and in this case the actress was supposedly playing an international assassin. I know not to expect any sort of realism, but some sort of grounding in the physical world would be nice.
  
  
• Fringe - Completely enjoyable at the time, but if you asked me what happened this week, it's even odds that I couldn't remember a single plot point. That's a bad sign. Particularly since it's the only thing I watch on Tuesdays, which means I could just drop it and have a whole night free to myself. That's ultra tempting.
  
  
• Project Runway - What did I say last week?! Complete bullshit, that Jerell could get voted off at the last second like that. That said, I have reviewed all their individual lines, and I agree with the top three choices. But seriously, I hated Korto's bridesmaid dress. If we were going from that individual challenge, for me she should have been gone. I really wonder how the ending will go, though - based on those lines, all three have a real shot at winning (although I still think Leanne has the edge). Oh, and how cute was the 3 seconds of Leanne's boyfriend? It was like they were the same person. Also, I now totally want to be like Jerell and refer to my boyfriend as my "love interest." It's so evocative, and not as queer sounding as "partner." Okay, maybe it's more queer-sounding. I don't care.
  
  
• The Office - I swear, this show will be the death of me. Even with no Pam and super limited Ryan, I was still blown away. I love Amy Ryan with an unbearable passion. God I wish she could stay forever. And Jim's annoying little brother routine with Dwight hasn't been as artfully captured as this since Conflict Resolution. Pure awesome.
  
  
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - I think I'm off a week on this show, since I catch it on Hulu, rather than when it airs. So this week is about both the billboard and Mac sleeping with the Waitress. The billboard was funny, if a little flat. Frank's billboard tryouts were the funniest parts by far, but I just couldn't get into the Charlie/Dee line. Mac and the Waitress, however, was pure gold. Somehow, the weirder Charlie is, the more I like him. And that ending was perfect - reveal, reveal, closure, then supposedly-homo-Mac in a crumpled heap in the street coverd in popping fireworks. That's what I like to see.
  
  
• The Amazing Race - God, I've missed this show. Even though it was hard to stretch out the tension at the end (you knew there was a time penalty going into the ending and the geeks who were getting penalized were second to last) it was still totally enjoyable all the way through. Scary bikes, inter-team drama (with one of my favored teams being the dramatizers), and fake Mexican wrestling. You can't beat this show. My favorite two teams: Mother/Son combo. who looked super impressive busting through that Roadblock, and Brother/Sister combo, who seem to be good natured fools (with terrible names). I'm really looking forward to next week.
  
  
• Things I Missed: Everything Thursday, as I was at the office moving until after 9:00. No Ugly Betty or Survivor (but I caught The Office on Hulu). No Pushing Daisies or Dirty Sexy Money on Wednesday since Frank watched America's Next Top Model instead of PD, and I watched South Park instead of DSM. The less said about that South Park, the better, though. Man that was horrible.

Recap

Best Episode of the Week:
*SIGH*
The Big Bang Theory - The Barbarian Sublimation

Best Line of the Week:
The Office - "Story's kinda bland. It's about this guy named Dumbledore Calrissian who needs to return the ring back to Mordor."
Close, Close, Oh-So-Close Runner Up:
The Office - "It's a trick question. The bread is poisoned. Also, it's not your real family. You've been cuckolded by a stronger, smarter male."

Best Moment of the Week:
The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon on the ease of picking up a guy (with demonstration)
Runners Up:
The Office - Jim's Entire Battlestar Galactica Goading
Amazing Race - The Extended Wrestling Roadblock

Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Unexpected Laughs:
Let's just give this category wholesale to Big Bang Theory for actually making me laugh at all.

Most Disappointing:
South Park - Jesus that was horrible.

Most Anticipated:
I'm on an Amazing Race kick right now, so probably that. Although the preview for The Office with the watermelon looks really enticing, too...

But come on, it's no contest: Project Runway Season Finale. Bryant Park! "Wave Architecture" versus "Alice in Wonderland Covered in Rope" versus "African Inspired Beading!" I cannot wait.

Pathological Fears, a Revisitation

I've pretty extensively covered my list of irrational fears over the years, as it's something that I think about a lot. But after an experience a few weeks back, and my re-watching the movie Signs over the weekend, I've been once again put on notice by my brain that I even though I'm scared of a ton of things, those things continue to evolve constantly.

Most noticeably on the list of things that don't scare me anymore: I no longer have to keep my bed up against the corner of a room while I sleep (so as to have no way for anything to sneak up on me in the middle of the night). This one has been a gradual thing and is due to the layout of my bedroom requiring my bed to be offset from walls on all sides. In conjunction with this, I no longer get paranoid jags in which I think something/someone might be hiding under my bed. Which means that now I can get up to get a glass of water in the middle of the night without the fear that I'm about to get dragged down below. I like to think of these two abated fears as signs that I'm growing up.

Also, you can throw in the fact that I've gotten past the problem of not sleeping with my bedroom door open. Apparently the fear was that if someone broke into the house, they would have unfettered access to me (whereas a closed door is apparently akin to a brick wall. I don't know, don't blame me, these are irrational fears.) So, yeah, definitely growing up.

But not completely, as some things have remained constant on the irrational fears list:

Still can't sleep with the closet door open. This one is especially difficult because the shifting foundation of my building has caused the frame around my closet to cant by about 5 degrees, making closing the door physically impossible. So now I have to settle for wedging the door as close to closed as possible. Those last two inches of openness still make me nervous.

Also, I'm still afraid of clowns, but I continue to assert that this one doesn't belong on the irrational fears list. It's totally rational. Goddamn clowns.

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Anyways, the whole point of this diatribe is that I've got two brand new fears that are way more prominent nowadays. See, I bought a new shower curtain a couple of weeks back. One of those fancy cloth numbers that goes on the outside of the plastic one, to give the illusion that you're a classy person. It's white and has stitched palm trees all over it, and it's pretty swank. It's also terribly heavy, which means that I have to keep it closed pretty much at all times, since my shower rod is notoriously wobbly and uneven weights on it cause it to come crashing down really unexpectedly.

As I learned at 3 AM on Tuesday last week, when I was startled awake by a crash so loud that I immediately assumed that the condo had finally been pushed to its limit and was collapsing all around me, House of Usher style. It was also in that brain-fogged moment that I realized I have no training in how to respond in cases of earthquake/house collapses. Mostly I just screamed like a girl and rolled off the bed like a ninja, only to get my legged wrapped up in the duvet and flopped to the ground face first.

So anyways, heavy shower curtain means I keep it closed at all times now. And now I am constantly -- constantly -- convinced that someone is hiding behind the curtain. Too many horror movies combined with New Fear #2 (below) and the time that I was 11 and my cousin hid in the shower to scare me while I was brushing my teeth have trained me to be so paranoid that I can barely function in my bathroom until I have spent a couple of hair-raising moments darting over to the shower and peeking around it to verify that I am indeed alone so I can wash my hands free of fear.

New Fear #2 is way more insidious and way more crazy too: I constantly imagine that I'm being stalked. This one has been hanging around a lot, but is more prominent after the Signs watching. See, a few weeks back, I was cleaning up the kitchen super late (like around 11:00pm) and needed to take out the trash, for fear that the Black Plague that I just scrubbed away would take on sentience in the trash bag and kill me in my sleep. So I wandered down to the dumpster on the far side of the complex.

(To understand the next part, you have to have some idea of the layout of the complex. This particular side doesn't border on the street, instead we're up against a mini-forest; it's the treeline to the little creek that runs out from the park to the north. So the layout goes Street-> Buildings -> Dumpster -> Lawn -> Trees.)

I toss the trash into the dumpster and turn to head back to my building. Midway through the turn, I swear I see someone across the lawn standing along the treeline, staring at me. More precisely, it's a white guy in a really dark suit. He's standing in the shadows of the trees, and it's just for a second as I'm turning, but I can still make out enough to tell he looks bald and is most definitely looking in my direction. I freak the hell out (as one does) and start heading back to my apartment double-time. Only when I turn back after a couple of seconds, there's no one standing there. More importantly, the lightpost on the lawn is brightly illuminating the place where I supposedly saw this person - there's no way that it would have been dark enough to hide someone in the shadows.

I chalk it up to a completely overactive imagination (which I've got in spades - ask me about my law library sub-basement stories sometime), and head home, only mildly still freaking out.

Now, ever since then, I'm constantly expecting this guy to pop up somewhere. Whenever I go outside at night, I'm looking everywhere, all the time, alert like a cougar. I've seen nothing since then, but it doesn't mean I'm not going crazy.

-------------

So yeah, I'm crazy like whoa. It's not unexpected, but still, it's a little sad.

Fall Back into Television (Week 2)

Probably the least television-y week we'll see for a while, since Thursday was decimated by debates, and I missed Sunday due to movie night.

• How I Met Your Mother: Possbily the most underwhelming episode since that 4 episode run midway through last season where it seemed like the wheels were falling off the show (before everything picked up for an awesome second half of the season). The whole thing was off-kilter, mostly because it was trying for the old HIMYM rythm of flashbacks -> reveal -> actual final reveal, but the story wasn't strong enough to carry it through. Not terrible, but it makes me look like a fool when I hype the show to make sure people watch and then they're all "Really? That's it?" Note to self: Stop hyping things.
  
  Also, I want to start a fund devoted to kidnapping Jason Segal and taking him to a barber. That hair is a crime against humanity.
  
  
• Fringe: Aaand the week I finally give up on this show is the week it gets picked up for a full season. Fine, I'm back in, since I know it's not going away mid-season like every other sci-fi-ish show on Fox in the last 5 years. But seriously, that main girl bugs me for some reason. Pacey really is good, though. I'm glad he has work.
  
  
• Project Runway: Holy crap, y'all. That was the most intense and horrifying thing I've seen on reality TV in ages. Like, I have to think back to the last episode of Big Brother that I ever watched (3 years ago) in order to come up with a more painful episode of something on TV. That said, it's weird that the result of that Big Brother episode was my vow that I would never watch another episode again (which I have kept easily), but I'm just more engrossed in PR than ever before.
  
  Seriously though, every single person involved acted repulsively. Kenley is obviously abrasive, rude, condescending, and completely unable to take even the lightest constructive criticism without going off the edge. Leanne's method of passive aggressively escalating things is ultra annoying to me because it's my most hated kind of argument. Man up and deal with it, girl. And then Jerrell and Korto's little joy-of-tulle-denial routine was classless, with Jerrell's speech on the runway just about sending me over. Then Korto finished the job and sent me straight into the rage place, acting like she wasn't calling Kenley out just because she didn't say her name. When you pointedly praise the other two people left in the competition for their wonderfulness as human beings, the implied silent insult is louder than Leanne (for once) directly saying that she didn't like Kenley's designs. Bringing it up again during the deliberation is just gross and tacky. I would have been perfectly fine throwing them all out and starting fresh next season. But we move on.
  
  Oh, also, it's complete bull that Jerrell has to compete for a spot at fashion week. Way to make the last regular episode mean absolutely nothing. It's sort of like in Season 3, except at least then you knew all 4 were going to get to show. This time Jerrell could be out at the last second, despite his 3 for 4 record of wins to end the season. All this is slightly mollified by the fact that they all actually got to show at fashion week (so did Joe and Suede, for that matter) since they needed decoys to keep the suspense, but it still annoys me to no end. It smacks of keeping drama for the sake of drama, since Kenley has been absolute bottom two for 4 of the last 5 (!!) challenges, and could have easily been out for 3 of them. Ugh.
  
  Okay, that was way longer than I intended. Deep breath and we move on.
  
  
• Pushing Daisies: AH BEES! Okay, that bit of the plot (okay, all the plot) was unnecessary in so many ways, but the show is still great. I don't have a lot to say about it, though. Shocking, I'm sure.
  
  (Total Aside: Every single time someone on TV says "bees" nowadays, I immediately flash to that conversation in Arrested Development ("Beads."/ "Bees!?"/"Beads!"/"Beads!?"/"GOB's not on board.") and giggle to myself for about 5 minutes. So you can imagine how this episode was for me.)
  
  
• Ugly Betty: Yeah, I'm definitely digging this season. Even if the Devil Wears Prada could file a lawsuit over the similarities (and okay, the homage to the homage is noted in the episode title, so fine), it was pretty hilarious throughout. Although I wish they would have done more with Betty's dream sequence as mini-Wili. But there was plenty of Mark and Amanda, an awesome smackdown during a party, and a real-life soap opera ending, complete with falling down stairs. Let's keep this going, shall we?
  
  
• Survivor: Boring, but I'm glad things are getting defined. Still with every passing year, I'm less inclined to watch these early episodes, as the alliances keep shifting more and more wildly each new season. Plus. all the contestants just blur together until the real personalities finally start coming out. Too many reality people these days.
  
  
• Things I missed: Simpsons, Amazing Race (AGAIN), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Dirty Sexy Money (saw the first 15 minutes, which I enjoyed, but then got a phone call that took precedence over rich people behaving badly. For shame.)

Recap

Best Episode of the Week:
Ugly Betty - Til We Have Prada

Best Line of the Week:
Ugly Betty - "Look at me when I'm talking to you! Don't look at me!"

Best Moment of the Week:
Uhh, none? Okay, if I have to pick:
Pushing Daisies - Any time Lee Pace looked cute and awkward at the same time (read: any time he was on screen.)

Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Unexpected Laughs:
Gossip Girl - The 5 minutes of the show that I stopped to watch in passing, because I was wondering why The CW was showing the intro to an awkward gay porn movie. Oh no wait, it's just Gossip Girl! (Now I kinda want to watch it this week.)

Most Disgusting Moment of the Week:
(Tie) How I Met Your Mother - Marshall's hamburger eating slow-mo
(Tie) How I Met Your Mother - Marshall's hair

Most Anticipated:
Home visits on Project Runway! I love this part!