LaughAtlantis

I know I am going to regret posting this, but...

Jen, my oldest and dearest friend, told me that TV Guide had a list of the top 50 TV theme songs ever. I don't have time to figure out my top 50, but I have a list of my top ten... or so I think. I have a feeling that this will change by the end of the day today and I will wind up changing it umpteen times, but heres' my rough draft.

Thanks for the idea, Jen - and I apologize for posting pretty much the exact same thing I e-mailed to you.

This list is highly, highly subjective. I will likely edit this entry more times than all my other entries combined, as I am destined to think of something absolutely perfect that I really would've liked to have on the list about five minutes after I have rebuilt the site. But here goes...

10. The Courtship of Eddie's Father
9. The Monkees
8. Family Ties
7. Taxi
6. Laverne & Shirley
5. Diff'rent Strokes
4. The Jeffersons
3. Welcome Back, Kotter
2. 21 Jump Street
1. WKRP in Cincinnati

Honorable mentions to M*A*S*H (which only got kept off the list because it's from the musical, so I somehow feel it doesn't count), Golden Girls, Cheers (which over the years has just left a bad taste in my mouth, don't know why), Drew Carey (for the multitude of songs they've used), Bosom Buddies (which I actually had on the original list I sent to Jen, but somehow having Billy Joel do your theme song is sort of like sending in a ringer), Greatest American Hero (pretty much the same deal), The Animaniacs, Happy Days, Growing Pains, and (pretend you do not see the next word on this page) Blossom.

Whaddaya think?

For the past several weeks my boyfriend and I have been watching the first season of 24 - ROd has it on DVD. I think I might have watched one episode of it when it was originally on, but it just seemed like too much of a commitment to sign on for 24 episodes of television that you really had to watch every single week in order to follow. So I skipped it... and now I am finding out what I missed out on. This show is riveting. I guess the coolest thing about is the fact that because of the nature of the show and the storyline, they can just kill off pretty much anyone at any time. Oh sure, you know that Keifer isn't going to day - after all, then who would save the day? - but anyone else is up for grabs. And there are seemingly endless plot twists and sidelines and crazed insanity. Remember LA Law? Remember the shock of that lawyer falling down the elevator shaft? You have the potential for shocks like that in every episode of 24, and it's the coolest thing.

Right now, we are at 7:00 at night and apparently this episode has a cameo by Lou Diamond Phillips. It's like a flashback to Young Guns. What the hell happened to the 80s Brat Pack? Is it sorta bizarre that they're all on TV now? Charlie Sheen's got Spin City (wait, is that show still on? whatever...), Anthony Michael Hall has Dead Zone, Rob Lowe has West Wing (and hell, Christian Slater's on there now), Jami Gertz was on Ally Mcbeal - as was Robert Downey, Jr between prison stints, Judd Nelson had Suddenly Susan (okay, so that's probably not much to write home about, but you get my point). So to round it out, I think Ally Sheedy and Molly Ringwald should get a show together, where they play lesbian life partners with five kids and a cat. Andrew McCarthy and Emilio Estevez can be their gay friends who helped father the brood, and Jon Cryer can be the wacky neighbor.

Yeah, I'd watch that.

I used to have a bit of a... um... problem with computer games. The real problem came in when The Sims stretched into a cornucopia of different computer obsessions - Civilization II, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Sim City, Caesar III, Zoo Tycoon, Majesty... the list goes on -but the cornerpiece of it all was The SIms. Then The Sims started getting expansion packs like Livin' Large and Hot Date, and I started spending more and more time in front of my computer. I named my Sims after people I knew and then realized I was spending more time with my Sim friends than my real friends. (In my defense, by and large those friends lived an hour away, so my contact with them was limited to once a week whereas my Sim involvement could happen on a nightly basis.) But it was out of hand.

So I stopped. I had my friend Terry take Sims off my computer entirely. I uninstalled things left and right. And I didn't play for a while. Then once I moved to Boston I reinstalled a few things. Cultures and Age of Empires consumed my days and nights. And again, I realized that I had a life and I stopped - just occasionally going back and reinstalling Caesar III.

Well, now there's The Sims Online - which seems like an okay game. It allows you to play Sims while chatting with people, which is nice. And there're all sorts of ways to make money - also nice. But I sorta feel like there's something lacking in the game. Half the fun of The Sims was being able to control whole families and neighborhoods of people, each of which had their individual goals and whatnot - and with the online version, you can only have three Sims. And they can't live in the same city. You're forced to rely on other people to be online at the same time you are in order to keep your friendship quotas up. That sorta sucks. Because if you lose friends, you lose the ability to have certain types of interactions. And once you get 10 total skill points, the points start wasting away - so you have to pick one trait to have and really work at it constantly. And if you work at it by yourself, it's slow going, because it's only by group studying that you can actually build skills at full speed. So I don't know how long I'm going to keep up with it, but we'll see.

The thing is, though, that by playing Sims Online, I've gotten back into the original Sims. And they've come out with a new expansion set recently that allows for more neighborhoods and five new career paths. Can you say yay? ANd even MORE exciting is the fact that the people who made Age of Empires have now come out with Age of Mythology, in which you don't just play a world leader, you play a GOD. That sounds like pretty much the coolest thing ever. You can be Zeus and throw thunderbolts at your enemies. You can have giant cyclops people as an army unit. YAY YAY YAY!!

So yeah, I'm a big geek. So sue me.

I am just having way too much fun on the yesand board playing Celebrity.

Several years back, I went on a road trip to Maine with friends. On the way there, we played Celebrity constantly, in a slightly different format. One person says an actor, the next person says a movie that actor was in, the next says another actor who was in that movie, the next says a different movie that actor was in, etc., etc., etc. We had such a good time playing that we somehow managed, in a trip from Boston traveling directly up the highway to Bangor, to wind up three hours out of the way in New Hampshire.

It's a fun game.

Went to go see Gangs of New York last night. It is quite possibly the most violent movie I've ever seen - not for the squeamish - but it also boasts some phenomenal acting.

I've been looking forward to this movie for what seems like forever. It was supposed to come out nearly two years ago, and it just got delayed and postponed and delayed some more. I'll be honest, I've never actually seen another Martin Scorsese film (yes, I know, you can take me out and flog me later) but the buzz about this has been good from the very beginning. But after two years of waiting, I was beginning to take the delays as a personal affront. I'm funny like that.

Anyway, Leonardo is passable in the film - he broods a lot, and he's good at that. I didn't expect to be impressed with Cameron Diaz, and I wasn't blown away by her performance, but I found her believable - though I couldn't help thinking that if Uma Thurman hadn't gotten pregnant right around the time they were casting this movie, the role might have been a lot juicier. Brendan Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Henry Thomas, and John C. Reilly all put in understated yet layered and interesting performances.

But the tour de force in this movie is clearly Daniel Day-Lewis. The man is just a phenomenal actor. In most other actors' hands, the character of Bill the Butcher would have turned easily into a caricature - aided by the costuming and hair choices that, while suitable to the day, make him appear a bit ridiculous today. Looking at a still picture of Daniel Day-Lewis in stovepipe hat, plaid pants, and curled handlebar moustache, you would think the character was comedic. But this guy is evil. He's racist and prejudiced and oh yeah, a killer. He rules his corner of New York with an iron fist. He's freakin' scary.

I read an article a while back that talked about the way that Lewis immerses himself in his roles. For Last of the Mohicans, he went out into the woods for several months to learn how to live off the land, killing his own meat. For My Left Foot, he stayed wheelchair-bound on and off set for weeks. For the two months before filming The Crucible, he built by hand the house in which his character lived. This man takes method acting to its utmost extreme - so how is he supposed to get into character for a role like Bill the Butcher? Apparently he apprenticed with a butcher to learn carving skills and with some circus performers to learn how to throw knives. And for the rage, he reportedly listened to a lot of rap music.

His performance is astounding. I am compelled to go out and rent the rest of his movies, immediately. Go see this movie. I don't want to write a whole lot about it, because I don't want to include any sort of spoilers, but seriously - just go see it!

Went to go see Confessions of a Dangerous Mind last night... I have no idea how I felt about the movie. Seriously. It was just sorta bizarre - with moments of odd and bewildering. I don't know if Chuck Barris is insane, an asshole, or just really creative. - and I'm not sure I want to know.

One thing that I can conclusively state, however, is that Sam Rockwell has a nice butt. You get to see a lot of it in this movie, from pretty much the very first shot of the film.

However, if you want to see the man act, I suggest you rent The Green Mile. Good movie with solid acting all around, particularly by Rockwell and Doug Hutchison. Oh, yeah, and I suppose Tom Hanks was good too. And I guess Michael Clarke Duncan didn't get an Oscar nomination for being crappy... so yeah, great ensemble, great movie.

As for Confessions, however... well, Drew Barrymore was interesting, George Clooney was mysterious. Julia Roberts was weird, and Sam Rockwell was... well, he was scantily clad.

Rod and I went to go see About Schmidt last night. It was an odd little film.

I can totally see why Jack Nicholson won the Golden Globe for his performance. His character is so not Nicholson... I don't know how to describe it any better than that. There's none of the puffed-up Nicholson pride, no self-satisfied smile, no over-the-top slick oiliness. With that in mind, it's a really inspired performance - because you don't get what you expect to get out of Jack Nicholson - that being, Jack Nicholson.

The thing is, though, it's not a great movie. When he was making his speech having just been given the Best Actor in a Drama award at the Golden Globes, Nicholson said, "I don't know whether to be ashamed or happy, because I thought we made a comedy." If he really thought that, he was wrong. It's not a comedy - it's not really a drama either, but rather a sometimes wry, sometimes bitter look at a man's adjustment to retirement. For me, it seemed like the story was only compelling at all because it was well acted - I was enjoying watching Jack Nicholson act, but I didn't much care for the story itself. I didn't feel emotionally connected to the material in any meaningful way. In some ways, it reminded me of The Royal Tenenbaums - but Schmidt didn't have the biting edge or the visual humor which that had. Over all, I was a bit disappointed.

I will say, however, that Kathy Bates deserves some major props for her role. It's certainly not the most challenging role she's ever played, not the meatiest of scripts and not the deepest of characters. But you have to respect a woman who, at age 54, is willing to do complete nudity because it fits the role, no matter what her shape or size is. Go Kathy.

So, night before last was the Oscars, and so (since I'm on the letter M in my AlphaBytes blogs) I'm gonna talk about 'em. Actually, more about past Oscars than this year's, but never mind that...

I've written previously about how much I enjoyed Gangs of New York. I thought Daniel Day-Lewis was phenomenal and that the movie made for riveting viewing.

That being said, I'm psyched that Adrien Brody won Best Lead Actor. I was pretty enthused about all the big acting awards, but in this case, more than most. All the other nominees in the category had won Oscars previously (more than one in the case of two of them) and I like to see an underdog win. So, while I haven't seen The Pianist, and while I loved Daniel Day-Lewis, somewhere in my heart of hearts I was pulling for Adrien Brody. I really loved him in The Thin Red Line, if that counts for anything at all.

(That was my civil review of this year. Now I start to rant...)

Rod and I went to see the movie Phone Booth on Friday.

I cannot recommend it.

Here's the deal. The premise of the movie is that Colin Farrell goes into a phone booth to call a girl who is not his wife. Kiefer Sutherland calls the phone in the booth, Colin picks up, and Kiefer forces him to stay on the phone. He does this by threatening to kill him if he hangs up. And of course, other people (namely a bunch of hookers and their john) want to use the phone, thus making for both tension and hilarity all in one.

Now, does this make any sense at all? No. I mean, if you're so lonely that you feel you have to call people on the phone randomly to try to make a friend, then maybe you shouldn't threaten to kill them. But of course, Kiefer isn't trying to make a friend, he's trying to make a point. It's an odd point, but whatever.

See, apparently Kiefer's been following Colin around and has decided he's a bad man. Colin isn't having an affair, but he'd probably like to, and he has an inflated sense of self-importance. In the world according to Kiefer, that means Colin must die. Or, at the very least, confess his sins to an entire street full of New Yorkers, including a bunch of cops and his wife and several news teams.

This movie is ASTOUNDINGLY preachy. Just obscenely so. It implies that you should be completely honest with everyone you know - which, let's face it, is just unwise. It means that you wind up being mean. "Yes, honey, that dress makes you look fat." Or STUPID. "Yes, I know you're my boss, but you're inept and I don't understand why I don't have your job." I'm not saying you should be lying to people, but really, there are just some things that are better left unsaid. At one point in the movie, Kiefer talks about having offed a couple of other guys, one of whom was a pedophile, the other was an embezzler (I think). I don't know, but I think those are not quite comparable to a guy who is thinking about sleeping with a girl, but who clearly already feels guilty about feeling that way.

And what the hell? Are there any phone booths anywhere anymore?? Oddly enough, another one turned up on last week's episode of 24 - perhaps a subtle pleas from producer Kiefer Sutherland for folks to go see his movie? I don't know, but trust me - you'll be happier sitting at home watching 24 than paying $10 to have Kiefer tell you to be good.

You better watch out, you better not lie, you better not covet, I'm telling you why, Kiefer S. will shoot you down.

There have been accolades all around for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and I wanted to present a dissenting opinion. I wasn't bowled over by it, and the further I get from it, the less thrilled I am.

I discovered a new author this month, and that always makes me happy.

Actually, Jodi Picoult isn't a new author at all; she's written ten novels, but she's new to me. I was wandering through Barnes & Noble a month or two ago and the title "The Pact" caught my eye. I pulled it off the shelf, flipped to the back cover, read the description, and was psyched to take it home and start reading it. Then I looked at the cover and saw that it had a circle on it proclaiming "Soon to be a Lifetime Movie."

That was almost enough to put me off it.

Lifetime for Women is not my favorite television viewing - given a chance, in fact, it's not my viewing at all. But what the hell, the back of the book sounded promising, so I bought it anyway.

Loved it. Absolutely loved it. Long story short, I've since read two other books by Picoult and bought another, and I'm thoroughly enjoying her material and her writing style. And that means I will no doubt be tearing through the rest of her stuff in short order.

And it all just goes to show you that you can't judge a book by its cover just because somebody at the Lifetime Channel screwed up and finally bought something decent to make a movie out of. That said, the movie'll probably suck.

I was on a message board recently where we were all talking about books we were reading. Someone posted that they were envious of the fact that I have so much time to read. I hadn't really thought about that before, but once it was pointed out to me, I realized that for some time now, I've been reading a new book every other day. Upon further examination, it seems completely sensible - I take a bus and a train in the morning and again in the afternoon, plus I read at lunch, plus there is often some downtime between getting off the train in the evening and getting on the bus. So I have at least an hour and usually more like 90 minutes each day to read. And lately, I have been reading a lot of light fluffy fun books, which makes for even quicker reading.

I started to do a book queue like the one Rod has on his site, but it seemed like a lot of work to keep up with if I'm reading four books a week. Then again, maybe that'll make me pay more attention to the blog, who knows.

Obviously, this habit ain't cheap. So I'm doing bookcrossing and book relays - both of which mean that I can pass along books and get books passed on to me. It's great! Also, I have been buying book lots on eBay, which let me get loads o'books for cheap prices, and then trade the ones I might get doubles of! Again, super!!

So, if you have any books you want to recommend - or lend - lemme know. I've got oodles of reading time.

I've been reading a lot of books recently that have been a mixed batch, and I found myself contemplating books from the past that I have enjoyed... which of course comes to books that have bugged the living shit out of me.

What I find infuriating is books that seem to follow by one rule, then break it apparently for the sake of breaking it, just to return to it later. (That makes no sense, but bear with me.) In his book 'Hannibal,' Thomas Harris has a section containing pages and pages of dialogue - as if he were writing a movie script. Then suddenly, it seemed like he realized that he was supposed to be writing a book and so he would then provide ten pages of detail on the elegance of Tuscany, the succulence of Etruscan grapes, the blah blah blah beauty. Then another ten pages of dialogue, then fifteen of dense prose regarding the relationships of characters that, realistically, most people who are reading 'Hannibal' already understand. I mean really, it's the third book in the series, and the second one spawned the only horror movie in history that gleaned Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Picture Oscars Awards. Even if people haven't read the first two books, there's like a 99% chance they've seen the movie. They don't need fifteen pages on the history of Clarice and Hannibal, because nobody gives a shit. Mind you, I haven't read this book since the month after it came out, but I remember it sucking. Big time. Sad, because 'Silence of the Lambs' was fecking brilliant.

The reason I started thinking about bad books was the new Stephen King book, 'Cell.' Phenomenal premise. Bad book. In essence, the first 150 pages were a lot like 'The Stand' but with a cell-phone-induced zombie fever instead of a government-created supervirus. But where 'The Stand' had great characters and a wonderful cross-country journey that martialed forces of good and evil and ultimately led to a standoff that turned the whole world on its head, 'Cell' had milquetoast characters and a journey from Massachusetts to Maine. There was good and evil and seeing each other through dreams and some shades reminiscent of 'Firestarter' and 'Salem's Lot' and even 'Tommyknockers' - which, I might add, is not a good book to refer back to, as it sucked. Ultimately, the solution to the battle of good versus evil came directly from the plot of the South Park episode 'Die Hippie Die.' Apparently you turn off the radio and the zombie powers sort of vanish. And the somewhat immune zombies and the normals went off to live their separate happy ever after existences. Blech. How dull is that?

I used to like Stephen King so much. His writing style is still great but I just think he's run out of stories.

Somebody find me a good book. I've read too many crappy ones or just so-so eh ones of late.

I decided to just accept the fact that everything I was reading was awful, and I purposefully chose to read some crappy books over the last few weeks. They weren't bad, mind you; they were just complete fluff to take my mind off the dreck. It worked, I think. For a while, I think I am only going to read stuff that people have recommended to me. Then I will know whether THEIR taste is good.

My husband often buys TV shows on DVD. For drama, I can see where that makes sense. You want to be able to see the story arc from one show to the next. After all, you don't want to catch just some random repeat of Lost on television, not knowing where you are in the adventures of life on the island. And if you catch a repeat of X-Files that's beyond season two, you're pretty much screwed.

But Rod has every episode of Friends on DVD. I don't get that. With comedies, it's pretty easy to just tune into any given repeat and say, "Oh. Rachel and Ross are dating," or "Oh. Cousin Oliver is already living with the family," thus making it pretty easy to tell where you are relative to the whole damn series. You can watch them individually without a care in the world as to what comes up in the next episode or the one before. And the likelihood that you are going to suddenly wake up in the middle of the night saying, "Ooh! I want to see the episode where Mr. Furley becomes the new landlord!" seems slim.

I don't know. For me, it just seems easiest to tell your TiVo to record some random stuff and hope that a repeat of Night Court or Suddenly Susan will pop up at some point. I'm certainly not going to spend good money on those.

All that said, I own Taxi, Freaks and Geeks, 21 Jump Street, That 70s Show, Homicide, and several seasons of both Angel and Buffy all on DVD. Do as I say! Not as I do!

Well,this is post number four. I really want some breakfast and I think that walking around the house might inspire me for post number 5. In the meantime, let me update you on my last several posts.

1.) I am still blaming TC & Jenney for being behind. Bastards.

2,) Superballs are apparently made of synthetic rubber polymer polybutadiene vulcanized with sulfur. This is a substance that is used not only in the making of Superballs, but also in the illegal baseball practice of corking bats.

3.) Suddenly Susan is not out on DVD. My heart weeps.

4.) Night Court, however, IS out on DVD. I am now having flashbacks to the judge's love of Mel Torme and Brent Spiner's recurring character of the redneck family father with his oodles of children. Not that I'm buying the darn series - I'm just giving it a big thumbs-up on the TiVo and hoping it shows up as a suggestion sometime.

5.) If I ever feel the need to watch Mork & Mindy, ALF, Green Acres, or Welcome Back, Kotter, I can do it on DVD. Um... yippee?

So, this whole Blogathon experience, for me, is about about both a personal challenge and an opportunity to raise some money for a really good cause: buying books for children.Thus, I think it's only right to give you a look into what have been some seminal books for me. So over the next three posts I will give you the top five books I've read this year (and why), top five of my childhood (and why), and top ten of my life (and - you guessed it - why). That should take me through to 2:00 and give me the chance to go take a shower too.

Rod informed me that book lists are no fun without reasons. I hate it when he's right. Thus, here's why I loved these books when I was a kid....

5.) Bread and Jam for Frances (series) - Lillian and Russell Hoban... This is an illustrated series for kids perhaps 4-6 or thereabouts. Frances was a little badger who would only eat one thing: bread and jam. (In the course of the series, I seem to remember she also got a baby sister, had a birthday, found a best friend, and occasionally went to bed without fear of evil monsters in the form of a pile of laundry.) Frances was headstrong and forthright and had a wonderful imagination and strong opinions. And I can still remember my mom reading me the Frances books, making the stubborn Frances voice. It's memories like THAT which have inspired me to do the blogathon for this charity.

4.) From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E.Frankweiler - EL Konigsburg... A brother and sister run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I loved the pictures of them washing their socks in the fountain and digging pennies out of the wishing well there in order to buy lunches. And I loved that that their running away led them to a mystery that they could solve, and was not just an escape from thir parents.

3.) The All-of-a-Kind Family (series) - Sydney Taylor... This was a five-book series about a family of young Jewish girls in New York during the first world war. Simply put, I loved every character in those books. The dad was big and gruff and patient, the mother was warm and inviting, and each of the girls - Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte, Gert (and finally, little brother Charlie) had distinct and wonderful personalities. These books took me to another time, taught me a lot, and touched me deeply.

2.) The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin... I loved loved loved this book. It was a mystery of sorts for early teenagers. A bunch of families were brought together to live in this new apartment complex, then brought to the reading of a will for a man that most of them had little to no connection to. They were all paired off in a special game that was meant to reveal the murderer of the dead man, Mr. Westing. The reader got to see all the clues, got to see how everyone interpreted them, and got to try to fugre out the mystery for themselves. I remember reading it back to back when I first took it out of the library - once just to read it, then again to see whow all the cluesfit in, now that I knew who the murderer was.

And last but not least, Danny, The Champion of the World... in the next entry!

A lot of people cite 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' as one of their favorite books from childhood. While I agree that it's a fabulous book, I prefer one of Roald Dahl's far lesser-known books. 'Danny, the Champion of the World' tells the story of a little boy who lives with his father at the edge of a woods where rich people go to shoot pheasants. The owner of the land is threatening both Danny and his father and something must be done to deal with him. Ultimately Danny and his dad come up with a brilliant plan to basically steal all the birds from the woods on the night before the bad guy is having a big hunting event, so that he will be humiliated. The plan is incredibly creative and convoluted and just plain wonderful.

Personally, I hate the Quentin Blake illustrations that accompany most Roald Dahl books published today. That is especially true of 'Danny.' There is magic in the original pictures - of little Danny behind the wheel of an Aston Martin late at night, of his father in poacher's clothes on the edge of the woods, of a woman running down the street with her baby perched atop a baby carriage filled with pheasants that are just waking up from a groggy drugged sleep... I have gone out and bought copies of those original books off eBay and half.com to give to friends, just because I think that the book is not the same without them. If you have a chance, go out and get this book. It's wonderful. Just... magical.

Okay, here are quick encapsulations of the great qualities in this year's books...

5.) Burning the Map - Laura Caldwell - This is chick lit with characters that are not just out to find a guy or go shoe shopping; this is chick lit where the characters are still trying to define themselves. The main character here is sensitive and real. Good stuff.

4.) The Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreelund... This is historical fiction along the lines of Tracy Chevalier's books - taking inspiration from a work of art and building a story about it. This book fictionalizes the provenance of a Vermeer painting, with a short piece about everyone that the painting touches along its journey from conception to current day.

3.) To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie WIllis... I am not much of a sci fi fan anymore - I used to love it but it's not my thing anymore - but this was a wonderful book, combining sci-fi and historical fiction in a time-travelling tale where the people from the future are comicly struggling to stay in character and in proper time while at the same time trying to make sure that they don't change history enough to negate their present. Very fun.

2.) The Day I Turned Uncool - Dan Zevin... The subtitle of this book is 'Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-up,' which is quite telling. It's non-fiction about getting older - that is, graduating from your mid-twenties into your mid-thirties. At my age (33) this was an ideal read.
It's an extremely funny (yet frightfully true) book.

1.) Marley & Me - John Grogan.. I started this book one morning on the bus and had to keep covering my mouth, I was giggling so loudly. I finished it on the train home at night, and I was hunched in the corner, trying to make sure nobody saw me crying. This is a book for anyone who loves dogs, has a dog, has ever met a dog, whatever. It's a wonderful book.

And now I think I am caught up, time-wise, and thus I can go take a shower! See you in a half hour!

Now that the guys have left, I get to do something that I couldn't do while they were here - something ... fun.

Get your mind out of the gutter!

While they're out, I can listen to iTunes and belt out songs. Loudly.

Now, I'm a pretty good singer. Not great by any means, but quite solid. I've been in shows where I have gotten up on a stage and sung - and I've been paid to do so at times. I even got to sing (a duet with my lovely friend TC) over the credits of a short film (produced by my lovely friend Ilene).

But let's face it. There are certain songs that I want to sing, but I frankly don't want people to hear me doing it. There are certain guilty pleasure songs that I don't want people to even know that I know all the lyrics to. Hall and Oates. Kenny Rogers. REO Speedwagon. Random maudlin songs from the 50s and early 60s. All the big numbers from the Sister Act movies.

I am currently kicking ass singing the Howard Jones classic. "No One Is to Blame." I'm doing it justice quite nicely.

Just... don't tell anyone.

It's 3 in the morning and I am being to seriously lose steam. But just now iTunes brought up 'My Sharona.' You can't listen to that song without moving around a bit - it's the law. And now I am slightly inspired.

When I graduated from my improv training at Boston's Improv Asylum, we had a grad show (as does everyoutgoing class, obviously.) Our grad show was meant to be about one-third sketch, one-third short form games, and one-third long form improv. The sketches went off beautifully; the short form stuff was pretty good, and then we got to the long form. In this case we were getting one input. We had our weakest player ask for the title of any eighties song. People shouted out some great suggestions that we be able to have a lot of fun with - Tainted Love, Freeze Frame, Livin' on a Prayer, Hungry Like the Wolf - I think those were all among the ones tossed out. Cool stuff, ripe with possibilities. But what doe he pick? My Freakin' Sharona. Not particularly inspiring as far as an item to build fifteen minutes of scenes about. And you know what? It's from 1979. Not even an 80s song!

Schmuck.

how to get to Sesame Street?

I can. It's via children.

Sesame Street is one of the staple shows out there that have around forever, so it seems, and will last long beyond any single cast member or charcter. Everything that happens on Sesame Street has a lesson attached, but it's not an so obvious a lesson as to hit a kid over the head with it. It has all the elements that appeal to a little kid - cartoons and puppets and songs, grumpy people and funny people and confused people. It teaches math and spelling without kids even realizing that they are learning things that will help them way down the line.

Jim Henson, the creator of the Sesame Street Muppets, was a genius with puppetry. The Muppets are certainly not life-like, but they have a humanity to them that is amazing. That was further expanded in The Muppet Show and, explored on a large scale with detail in the movies Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. I was a huge fan of both of those movies and can tell you plot points and probably tell you which of the Sesame Street puppeteers played which of the movie characters. And it all started from the Muppets on Sesame Street.

This post is dedicated to Jenney. I'm sorry it's not more exuberant or funny or whatever. It is, after all, 4 in the morning.

Oh! I should add this, just to add a bit of a link with my charity. I had a book when I was very young entitled "The Monster At the End of This Book," in which Grover tried desperately on each page to stop you from reaching the end - building a wall on the page, or chaining the book shut. Of course, you just kept turning the pages watching Grover panic until you got to the end, where Grover turns out to be the monster. It was very clever and cute - and one of my absolute favorites. It made me giggle to see Grover's antics. I understand that they remade this several years to add Elmo to the mix. I hope it's still as much fun.

I was in the process of entering a post when this song came up in iTunes and it was so appropriate, I just had to share. Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty."

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don't know about anyone but me
If it takes all night, that'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave

That actually rejuvenated me quite a bit!