oh, fer f**k's sake...

NBC has already cancelled quarterlife. after one episode...making ABC seem positively generous by comparison. bastards!

meet claire...

the most exquisite contestant on ANTM since my beloved yoanna.

here we go again...

i love marshall herskovitz and ed zwick. these two men are responsible for some of my all-time favourite television programs -- thirtysomething, my so-called life (brilliant brilliant brilliant!), Relativity and Once and Again (heartbreakingly good!) -- and are, therefore, also responsible for a great deal of TV-induced heartache for me. why? because they kept producing wonderful shows only to have ABC (the network with whom they were allied) repeatedly CANCEL THEM long before their time. with the exception of cultural phenomenon thirtysomething, all of those listed series were axed waaaay too soon...MSCL and Relativity barely lasted a season each.

perhaps you remember my little rant about this very subject almost a year ago, written in reaction to the alphabet net’s latest good-TV casualty. at the time, i wrote about how i couldn’t understand why ABC kept kicking the bedford falls team (and those of their ilk) to the curb, and i really couldn’t understand why herskovitz and zwick kept going back for more. it was like watching an abusive relationship...only with better writing.

imagine my cauldron of mixed emotions when word spread that the duo were creating another another series. “OMG! AMAZING! (pause) oh no,” i thought. “it’s going to be this wicked show, and i’m going to totally fall in love with it, and then ABC is going to yank it off the air just like they always do! bastards! (sob)”

well, guess what? this time, herskovitz and zwick’s newest baby will debut on NBC. (actually, it already debuted online last fall, but its *television* debut is tonight at 10pm on the peacock network.) now, NBC hasn’t exactly wowed me with its commitment to quality TV – much to my deep and profound chagrin, they were the ones who killed American Dreams, the best new drama in years – so it’s with some degree of cautious optimism that i await tonight’s premiere of quarterlife. it's an hourlong dramedy about a twentysomething blogger and her five twentysomething friends.

experience tells me it’s going to rock. everything H&Z churn out rocks, and i’m beyond excited to see their latest. but i swear to the ghost of rayanne graff that NBC had better get behind this series in a big way. if they can air crap like Bionic Woman or fifteen incarnations of Law & Order, they can spend a few bucks making sure that viewers tune in. that’s all it’ll take...because once they do, they’ll stay.

or, at least, i hope they do.

[edited to add: OMG! herskovitz and zwick WERE rejected by ABC again! seems they originally pitched the show to ABC, who said no! see? see?! ABC is mean.]

faceblock

you learn something new every day...

today's lesson: facebook has a limit to how many things you can do in a day. or maybe an hour. i’m not sure. and, given the recent spate of googling i completed, neither is anyone else.

to backtrack...

i thought i would be really clever and “host” an oscar-viewing party on facebook tonight. i have many very smart and witty friends, but we’re spread out across north america and getting together in a room is kinda tough. but, through facebook, we could (i thought) watch together. we could all be in our pyjamas, and eat whatever we wanted, and sprawl out on our sofas, and no one would have to drive home at the end of the night. instead, we could all just shut down our computers and head to bed. it seemed like an ideal plan!

so, i created a facebook event, sent out invitations and had 12 people say they’d swing by to chat. and, sure enough, shortly after the pre-show began, people did show up! we chatted, we dissected, we mocked, we marvelled...posting messages on the event’s “wall” (for the uninitiated, the “wall” is essentially a bulletin board) and chatting back and forth.

and then, just after 10:15pm, i tried to post a pithy reply and a red warning message (?!) popped on my screen. facebook’s automated tally system was sending me a warning that i was “approaching” my “limit” for wall posts, and that i would be blocked if i didn’t “slow down.” (the warning looked exactly like the one pictured above, which i found via the always-helpful google images, only it warned of wall postings not groups.)

WHAAAAAAT????

nowhere on facebook’s site does it say anything about any kind of limit on wall posts. i searched. i checked the help section. nuthin’. i started to panic. what was the limit number? and how many more posts could i post before i reached it? and when they say “blocked”...what does that mean? blocked for an hour? a day? forever????

a friend of mine googled and discovered that, apparently, facebook can cut you off whenever it wants, for whatever reason it chooses, and sometimes without warning.

i immediately posted one more message alerting my party “guests” that i could no longer post, and then i logged off and fled. very sadly, the spirited discussion stopped on the wall, and all the guests left. what started out so wonderfully as a result of technology was ultimately shut down for the same reason. i realize it's a safety measure to prevent spammers from wreaking havoc on the site, but this was my event...and i was posting on my own wall, not messaging dozens and dozens of people.

after logging off, i did some googling of my own and discovered that a whole slew of people have had their accounts disabled or deleted entirely – without explanation or apology – by the powers-that-be at facebook. some were able to have their accounts re-activated after pleading via email; others were not so fortunate. some were notified that they'd exceeded the allowable limit for emailing, others had maxed out their wall-posting privileges, and a few were cut off because they'd added too many friends. (on a social networking website. whaaaa...?)

regardless of the ironic absurdity of the situation, i’m not taking any chances. i’m not even attempting to post any messages for a while, and i’ve been forced to stare blankly at the remnants of an oscar party that ended around 10:25pm tonight. alas.

anyhoo, HUUUUUUUGE thanks to those clever, clever folks who turned out! you made watching the show a blast and i appreciate your wit. :-)

the oscars

my homemade, stove-top spicy popcorn. delicious!
it will be enjoyed, along with the oscar cake, cheesies and other crap
tomorrow night.

thoughts or predictions? post 'em if you got 'em...

this is why i always go...

tonight was another Live at the Rehearsal Hall taping. this time, very last-minute and with a very small audience (i'd guess maybe 75 people?), it was k.d. lang.

the show was, in a word, amazing.

flawless.

jaw-droppingly good.

i've never seen her perform live in concert before, but i knew she'd be great. i just didn't know she'd be that great. by far the most beautiful LATRH taping yet.

and i had goosebumps all over my body for every single note of the song performed above -- her version of Hallelujah. literally. goosebumps.

mis-manners

the other day, moob and i were chatting about manners. etiquette. being polite. or, more specifically, folks ignoring those things. it happens often, in all kinds of situations, and we started to wonder if maybe people with good manners were somehow going extinct. do people just not do that anymore?

i’m not talking about good table manners, though those also seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur based on behaviour i’ve observed at restaurants, but common courtesies. holding the door open for the person behind you. giving up your seat on the subway to a senior. saying “please” or “thank you.” seemingly ordinary stuff that, you’d think, would be second nature. but it’s not.

so, tonight, some questions and, i hope, discussion fodder. please chime in with your two cents, and answer as honestly as you can. (ahem, this includes all you lurkers. not commenting is rude, you know. ;-))

* do you consider yourself someone with good manners? if so, where do you think that came from? (i.e., is it how you were raised? something you adopted as an adult?)

* do you send “thank you” notes for gifts? why or why not?

* have you ever let someone in line in front of you while shopping? as in, “you know what? you only have two items and i have ten, you can go first...”?

* do you RSVP to all your event invitations? (i.e., even if you’re not attending, you let your host know you won’t be there)

* what’s your stance on host/hostess gifts?

* do you say “thank you” when you’re paid a compliment?

* do you say “please” when you make a request?

* how long does it take you to return a phone message? an email? and are there conditions that affect the turnaround time?

* how do you feel about using your cell phone at inappropriate times or in inappropriate locations? (i.e., while sitting at dinner with friends, while in the washroom, etc.)

* do you think common courtesy is becoming harder and harder to find out in the world? if so, why? if not, why not?

and

* have you ever witnessed a heinous display of bad manners? if so, spill!

feel free to answer some or all of the above. please and thank you. :-)

hold the mayo...no, seriously, please hold it...

i am a picky eater.

this is not new information to anyone who knows me. there are all sorts of idiosyncracies that go along with me when i’m eating, especially when i'm eating out. among them: if i’m having meat (which is a rare occurance), i like it really, really well-done...as in, briquette-like. i don’t like ice in my drinks. i can’t do cole slaw, or pickles, or potato salad. at all. i’m finicky about condiments, preferring to add my own if i’m, say, having ketchup on something. and i do not want mayo anywhere near anything i’m about to eat.

which brings me to yesterday’s adventure in dining.

my mom, young beatrix and i decided to spend the day out shopping, and young beatrix was desperate to visit this quaint little family-run restaurant north of the city because they apparently make the World’s Best Butter Tarts. so, we added it to the itinerary and arrived there just before noon.

it was a really home-y place; a little hole-in-the-wall with mismatched plates and cutlery, decor that resembled a family rec room in the mid-1980s and plenty of friendly staff. the place was almost completely full when we walked in, so we figured that was a good sign. and right by the entrance stood a couple of large cooler/display cases showcasing all manner of tarts, brownies and assorted desserts. excellent!

we were seated and perused the (admittedly basic) lunch menu. mom decided to have the shepherd’s pie, young beatrix was going for the beef and barley soup with a butter tart on the side, and i opted for a BLT.

now, whenever i order any kind of sandwich at a restaurant, the first thing i ask about is mayo. lord, people LOVE their mayonnaise on sandwiches, but not me. i don’t want to see it, i don’t want to hear about it and holy hell i do NOT want to taste it. most restaurants *will* put it on their fare unless the patron (i.e., me) requests otherwise. and, on more than one occasion, even asking them to please skip the mayo doesn’t work and my sandwich (or burger or whatever) arrives with white goop lining the filling.

so, our amiable, 50something waitress – whom i wanted to call marge, because she looked like a marge – took our orders. when she got to me, the FIRST thing she asked was “do you want mayo on that?” i was delighted that she’d broached the subject and said, “no! thanks for asking! no mayo, please. just dry bread, thanks.” she wrote “no mayo” on the order slip (i saw) and off she went.

we waited a good 15-20 minutes for our meals. a different waitress brought us our food and placed each plate down. trixie’s soup looked hearty and good, mom’s shepherd’s pie had come in its own single-serve dish straight from the oven and was steeeeeeeeeeaming hot, and my BLT – on homemade bread – looked delicious.

until i saw it.

right there.

on all four pieces of bread.

MAYONNAISE.

dripping onto the bacon, the lettuce and the tomato.

*sigh*

i called the (second) waitress back over and, because i hate sending food back, said in as nice and friendly way possible, “i’m sorry, but i asked for no mayo and this has mayo on the whole sandwich.” then i lifted a piece of the bread to show her the offending eggy slop. she apologized profusely, took the sandwich away and said that she’d bring me another, but that it would take a few minutes. “no worries,” i said...but i saw the two women sitting at a nearby table give me the stink eye for daring to reject my BLT. whatever, ladies, i hate mayo.

so i sat while young beatrix and mom ate. both said their food was quite good. i continued to wait for mine. about five minutes later, the first waitress returned with my second sandwich. she put it down, apologized again and explained that she’d written, very clearly, “no mayo” on the order. “it’s okay, don’t worry about it!” i said. she left and i prepared to finally eat my lunch.

thing is, experience has taught me that in situations like this, some restaurants don’t really make you a new sandwich...they just salvage whatever they can from the first one and hope you don’t notice. so now i check to see what, if anything, has remained.

and, sure enough, they’d given me new bread, but just dumped the previous sandwich's ingredients – STILL COVERED IN MAYO – back into the second sandwich.

please, someone, tell me...HOW IS THIS BETTER???? okay, now the bread doesn’t have mayonnaise, but the bacon still does. and so does the tomato. AND the lettuce.

i sighed. mom offered me the rest of her shepherd’s pie. trixie offered me part of her butter tart. i called the first waitress back over and explained, this time in a slightly disappointed tone, that the kitchen had just slid the ingredients and their residual mayonnaise onto fresh slices of bread. then, again, i lifted the bread to show her the white clumps inside my BLT.

“i’m gonna kill them,” she said of the kitchen staff. “they’re not supposed to do that.”

no kidding.

by that point, trix and mom had finished their meals and i’d about had it with the idea of a BLT. i’d lost my appetite by then, and was skeptical about my future prospects, so when the waitress asked if i wanted them to try again, i just said, “no thanks.” she wondered if i wanted something else at that point. “no thanks.”

so, my “lunch” consisted of a coke and two crackers. oh, and the butter tarts? trixie liked them, mom said they were meh...and i tried a blueberry-crumble variety, which was AWFUL.

[as an aside, you will note that even in the stock photo of a BLT i have included with this post, there's mayonnaise on it!]

<<-- insert clever song title referencing "love" here -->>

this is a macro-tastic photo of a tulip, taken by lou.
i love it because it looks like a golden heart being ensnared by alien tentacles.

say, did you hear that it’s valentine’s day on thursday?

of course you did, because the reminders are EVERYWHERE.

but i’d like a different kind of reminder, please.

as someone who will be alone this february 14th, i’m looking for some heartwarming, romantic anecdotes, events and tales of love from other people to warm my spirit and the spirits of those who pop by the blog between now and valentine’s day. stories that reaffirm the idea of love, or demonstrate its resilience/beauty/power/humour/whatever.

so, got any? some talking points to get the ideas flowing...

what’s the most romantic thing someone’s ever done for you? or said to you?

the most romantic thing you’ve done for someone else?

the moment you knew your spouse or partner was The One?

what’s your favourite love song?

how about your favourite romantic movie?

is there a particularly romantic story among your family members (e.g., how your grandparents met, your dad's first date with your mom) or friends that always makes you smile?

gimme something. anything. and thank you in advance. while you write, i’ll be over here on the couch, eating a marshmallow heart and waiting...

“guilty!...of being a pleasure!”

last night, i went to a screening of Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, the new comedy starring martin lawrence as a hot-shot talk-show host visiting his rural relatives. now, martin lawrence movies are not high-brow by any stretch of the imagination. in fact, they’re often decidedly low-brow. but i have a confession to make: i like them.

go ahead, take your best shot. i know it’s nothing of which to be proud. i know that. and i’m not proud. but i used to love his self-titled sitcom, and there’s just something about his manic behaviour that i find incredibly funny. i’m sorry.

my friend dan, of ericanddan, coined the phrase in my post title in one of his weekly video recaps for TWOP in reference to guilty pleasures in the context of TV shows (his example: Boston Legal). we all have them, and not just on television. shows or movies or music or performers or whatever we’re embarrassed to admit we watch. embarrassed to admit we enjoy.

my biggest one is martin lawrence movies. loving the spice girls is second. and i’m starting to wonder if a growing fascination with A&E’s Parking Wars might qualify as a third.

but i know i’m not the only one.

what are your guilty pleasures? c’mon, ‘fess up...we're all friends here...

mix tape EP: side one (c. 1990)

lisa stansfield: this is the right time

the cranberries: when you're gone
(yes, this was released in the mid-1990s, i know. but i like it. so there.)

the sundays: here's where the story ends

oh, and hey guess what?!

mercury is once again in retrograde, so if things suddenly go screwy between now and feb. 19th, you know why. RIGHT, LOU? ;-)

let’s talk about hot women on TV!

okay, calm down. not really. well, sort of. let’s talk about TV and what i’m watching and what you’re watching, and if the shows happen to star beautiful women, so be it.

admittedly, my TV-watching habits have changed quite a bit over the past year. used to be, when i was working at TVG full-time and even in the years afterward, i had a solid primetime viewing sked every night of the week. nowadays (and even before the writers’ strike), i’m lucky if i can find an hour of must-see TV per day. there are precious few series i’m following in any kind of regular manner, and so many others that have fallen by the wayside (i’m looking at you Boston Legal). i still have a general idea of what’s going on with different shows, their casts and storylines, but i’m not invested in very many at all.

as mentioned last week, i’m delighted that LOST is back. oh how i love that show. (and not just because it co-stars evangeline lilly...though, that’s definitely a point in the win column for the castaways and for me.) here’s a series that mindf**ks its viewers week in and week out, throwing out more questions than it gives answers, and winding itself into such a convoluted pretzel that it’s making Twin Peaks look vanilla. perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but anyone who watches LOST will agree: it’s never boring. there are only seven more episodes before it disappears into the ether for an indeterminate period of time, so i’m savoring it while it lasts...even though anytime anyone mentions jacob, or we catch a glimpse of jacob, or the camera zips around the exterior of jacob’s cabin, every hair on my body stands on end. every single time. ::: shiver :::


speaking of hair-raising TV, i made the mistake of watching a few episodes of Paranormal State during a sunday-afternoon marathon on A&E and scared the crap out of myself so badly that i couldn't sleep that night. never again.



i was really looking forward to The Sarah Connor Chronicles, mainly because i have been championing lena headey’s talents for more than a decade and now here she’d finally be, in all her splendor, for a full hour on network television every single week. finally, someone was giving her her own high-profile series, and i wasn’t sure who’d be happier about that, her or me...but i’m starting to think the answer is probably her, because – try as i might to love the show – i’m bored. i don't care what happens and, beyond the minor thrill (dwindling each week) of seeing her beat some tough dude (usually cybernetic) senseless, i’m barely watching. tonight i tuned in and had it on the background while i checked email, did the dishes and essentially did everything but actually watch the show. sad. lena kicks ass, but...i’m finding TSCC meh.





which is the perfect segue to The L Word, a show that veers back and forth between meh and great and awful from minute to minute instead of from episode to episode. i realize there aren’t many people reading this blog who actually watch L, and that's too bad because when the show gets it right, it rocks. in fact, i’m so eager to see the next week’s episode (canada gets them two weeks post-U.S.) that i’ve started watching it on YouTube. it’s a shame the series has such uneven quality, both in terms of its actors and its writing/directing, because crappy talent like cybill shepherd and mia kirshner are ruining it for real finds like rose rollins and leisha hailey (pictured).


and, really, in terms of TV dramas, those three are pretty much it for me these days. i watched the first episode of Eli Stone last week and quite liked it, so that may be added to the roster. i’m addicted to Project Runway, because i madly ♥ tim gunn and the designers are usually wickedly brilliant (plus, you know, heidi klum is very cute), and i usually end my day with The Jimmy Kimmel Show because i find him endlessly entertaining. oh, and the 10th cycle of America's Next Top Model starts in two weeks, so i'm contractually obliged to watch that when it airs (though i almost bailed during cycle 9).

but otherwise, the TV landscape has become kind of arid where my tastes are concerned. and i’m not that optimistic about what’s coming.

so, what are you watching? or not watching, as the case may be? what are your top five must-see shows in a given week? and are there any that you’ve dropped out of sheer boredom?

more importantly, are there any that i’m not watching but should be? (for the folks who’ll inevitably tell me to try Friday Night Lights: been there, done that, couldn’t get into it. sorry.)

go!

an update on monsiuer

just a quick note to let you know that kyle is back home after his surgery and, knock on wood!, appears to be recovering quite well. the vet had to "go in and clean out" two toes, which makes us think they were infected (my parents will get the full report next week when fattie goes for his follow-up), and he wound up having to stay overnight at the clinic so they could monitor him post-op.

but, only three days after surgery and with his left paw shorn and stitched up tight, he's not fussing with it anymore, and even putting it down gingerly. this is a big improvement over last week at this time!

so, paws crossed that he's finally, FINALLY done with surgeries.