Your Conflicting Reactions Quizo Update

I am torn about how to process what took place in yesterday's playoff games. On the one hand, the Cowboys lost, which is always good. On the other hand, the Giants won, which is never good. As an Eagles fan it is difficult to weight these two outcomes successfully.

However, on the plus side, the New York Football Giants' win yesterday means that the NFC Championship will feature the Giants and the Packers at the once-again frozen tundra of Lambeau Field - seriously, how awesome was that on Saturday - and if both Eli Manning (who people are now pretending is actually good) and Brett Favre (who people are now pretending is not older than Yoda) both stay true to form the conference championship should feature, by my calculations, approximately 317 interceptions. That's sure to be entertaining. And the Patriots are playing, I dunno, somebody. Who gives a fuck. I can't even be bothered to watch them anymore.

Speaking of entertaining, did anyone catch the new Terminator show last night? I had heard good things about it for some time and after viewing it was pleasantly surprised that once you get past the fact that aside from a great twist towards the end very little actually HAPPENED for that first hour (boy meets girl, girl turns out to be killer robot from the future, girl robot from the future hits man robot from the future with truck multiple times) it was damnably well done. It's certainly better than Terminator 3, which it essentially replaces, and it would get a pass from me on that alone.

JLK

Your Suit Up Quizo Update

Late last week I was having a conversation with someone whose taste I vaguely respect, and she started talking about the show "How I Met Your Mother" and how it was OH MY GOD FINALLY coming back with new episodes this week and it's about damn time and hey, what did I think of it?

"I dunno," I said. "That's on Monday nights, and it came on after I started doing Quizo, so I've never seen it." (Obviously.) "And besides, isn't that a... [shudder] sitcom?"

I received quite the nasty look at this.

"You have to watch this show," she says. "It's hilarious. It's GENIUS."

I am dubious to say the least.

Then she says, "How I Met Your Mother is the new Coupling," and I say, "hold the fucking phone, now, let's not say things we can't take back."

The original BBC Coupling (not the bastardized, horrifying American version) is a personal favorite of mine, and is one of the best-written television shows in, like, ever. Calling a show with Doogie Howser MD - I know that much about it - the successor to that is high praise indeed, and not something to be said lightly.

"Come on," she says. "I just know you can do some kind of thing where you use your phone to control your computer and download it."

"No," I say. "I can't exactly do THAT." This is actually a lie. I can totally do that. I'm just not going to pay through the nose for data charges over my phone to download a show I've never seen before. That's only for emergencies like when I'm out on a Saturday night and I forgot to tell my computer to download Match of the Day.

When I got home, though, I told my computer (with, you know, my fingers) to download the first season. By the time I woke up yesterday morning I had finished getting it and watched the first episode.

Now let me tell you two important things I learned yesterday.

1) How I Met Your Mother is, in fact, a very funny and quite awesome show and is, I daresay, a worthy successor to Coupling in both quality and spirit.

2) With appropriate breaks for eating (two meals, I slept until about 12:30 yesterday), showers (3), and catching an inning or two of the Phillies (I think I throw harder than Jamie Moyer), it takes about nine and a half hours to watch an entire season of a sitcom.

In my defense, it was raining for at least a couple minutes at some point yesterday.

So the second anniversary of Quizo is coming up, and there's some consternation as to how we should go about this. My original plan was to have a big thing in the restaurant, but then I found out that the golf outing stuff actually spills into the restaurant, which means we're pretty much pigeonholed into the Rigger Bar. This is not a terrible option, though I don't love it. Now if we really wanted the restaurant or the Main Bar we would have to wait until the week after next, which is NOT the actual anniversary, which makes every OCD bone in my body (that is to say all of them) quiver in fear and loathing.

Being the kind and generous person I am, though - stop snickering! - I'm going to throw it open to you folks. Do you prefer the rigger bar next Monday - in what will essentially be a semi-private Quizo - or do we wait a week and have a fully-public event in the main bar?

Choose, but choose wisely. For as the true Anniversary Quizo will give you life - and, along with drink specials, a VERY outstanding something extra - the false Anniversary Quizo will take it from you...

JLK

Your Back To Earth Quizo Update

It's a good-news-bad-news kind of day.

The good news is that my back doesn't hurt anymore and hasn't for a couple days. The bad news is that this means I don't really have an excuse to consume dangerous quantities of painkillers any more and thus have to live on this lousy planet with everyone else. I couldn't even pull a Brett Favre and get hooked on them and claim that's why I throw so many interceptions. I do kinda miss the purple clouds, though.

The good news is that Chelsea won the Carling Cup yesterday, defeating Arsenal 2-1 and winning us our first silverware of the season. The bad news is that Chelsea and England captain John Terry got kicked in the face and was knocked out for a little while, but he seems to be okay.

The good news is that the Oscars were last night and Martin Scorcese finally came up big. The bad news is that I was supposed to go to an Oscar party down the shore last night and the FUCKING SNOW prevented me from doing so.

Remember that bit a couple weeks ago, from that one psychotic e-mail that went out because Dr. Chill complained that I hate everything, where I talk about how wonderful snow is? Yeah, that was a lie. I hate it. I HATE IT. I hate it more than anything. MORE THAN ANYTHING, do you hear me? It drives me insane. Then last night I'm trying to get ready for this thing - which was black tie, further pissing me off, because goddamn I look good in formal wear, as those of us who were here on Barrymore night are aware - trying to divine from the weather forecasts whether it's safe to drive to Somers Point. Or, more accurately, whether it's safe to drive BACK from Somers Point at 1AM.

All the websites and TV stations were being relatively noncommittal and I was about to take the plunge when the thing on weather.com changed from "light snow, with a possibility of sleet and a secondary possibility of some icing" to "DON'T DRIVE TONIGHT IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE ZOMG WEATHER DEEEEAAAAAAAAATH!!!!!!shift1"

So much for that idea.

Did anyone catch that one commercial during the show last night, where Diane Sawyer is doing an interview with Bob Woodruff? He's that reporter who got bombed in Iraq and needed massive brain surgery and whatnot. I certainly have nothing against him, but during the commercial they quote this one bit where Sawyer asks him incredulously - Diane Sawyer, curse her black soul, is always incredulous about something - says "so you have no fear of death anymore?"

At this point I said out loud to the TV, "you know what, if I took a fucking RPG to the dome and lived to tell about it I probably wouldn't be scared of a whole hell of a lot anymore either. I'd be like, skydiving? You got it. What? No. Parachutes are for pansies."

Then I peeked outside and saw that the entire world had been encased in snow and ice and STILL wished I'd gone to the Oscar party. Goddamn snow.

The good news, though, is that my recent back injury, while comparatively healed, gives me total immunity from shoveling, since that's how I did myself last time. The bad news...

Well, I guess there isn't any bad news on that one.

JLK

Your "Jack's Back" Quizo Update

As you may or may not know, but probably SHOULD know, 24 is now finally back on. I watched the premiere last night with my father who had never seen it before, possibly because he has spent the last six years living in a cave, on Mars, with his fingers in his ears.

It was slightly strange explaining things that, to me, were painfully obvious, like "Jack is going to kill those guys," or "of course Jack is right about who the real bad guy is," or "yes, Jack is definitely going to kill that guy as well," or "Jack can park in front of fire hydrants because human laws mean nothing to Jack Bauer," or "see those guys there, yeah, Jack's going to kill all of them."

Note that the fire hydrant thing was something I ACTUALLY SAID last night when my father pointed out that Jack and Dr. Bashir had parked in front of one. Suicide bombers across the country, the Eel trampling the constitution, WAYNE PALMER THE FREAKING PRESIDENT (WTF?!) and my dad's like, "they parked in front of a fire hydrant."

Then at the end of the show this little tidbit took place.

Me: That was pretty sedate as 24 cliffhangers go.

Dad: What usually happens?

Me: I dunno.. Jack kills somebody, a nuclear bomb goes off, somebody tries to kill Jack, China detonates nerve gas in a mall, Jack cuts a guy's head off, you know, stuff like that. Not "DRIVE, DAMN YOU!"

Dad: Well, this is by far the most violent thing I've ever seen on television.

Dad: [pause]

Dad: What time is it on tomorrow night?

So, of all the possible things that could happen this weekend - and a number of quite ridiculous things did - I have managed to hook my father on 24.

Jack Bauer, FTW.

Uh, in case you hadn't noticed, the only thing I talked about in this entire e-mail was 24. So, yeah. There you have it.

JLK

Your "In Search Of..." Quizo Update

Earlier tonight I had to go to the hated WaWa for provisions, and I was sitting on my bed looking around for my jeans. For some reason, while searching the mass of clothes lying around here I thought to myself:

"Why do they call them jeans? Like, plural? I mean, it's only one thing, one article of clothing. If I cut my jeans in half and throw away one leg will I have a jean? And pants, too, what's up with that? Why do we pluralize the names of these things. Socks, two of those. Shoes, two of those. Jeans and pants are only one thing. This whole nomenclature thing for clothes you wear on your legs is totally wrong."

This literally went on for almost five minutes, me debating with myself why jeans are called jeans before I remembered that my article of leg-based clothing made of denim was, in fact, in the dryer. This didn't help, of course, since I then had to seek out my car keys, which are normally attached to a belt loop on my article of leg-based clothing made of denim.

That does not exactly roll off the tongue, now that I think about it.

Moving on...

In the past I have not been a huge TV watcher - since, until about a month ago just about everything on TV was pretty much crap - but recently I've gotten into the habit after a long day of doing whatever it is I do (admittedly, not a whole lot) of unwinding with a decent television show. Then again, even with the recent TV renaissance much of this past week proved frustrating.

First I tried to find some solace with Heroes, a show I feel I'm SUPPOSED to be watching because I'm, you know, who I am, but I couldn't even finish the second episode after the dialogue started causing sharp stabbing pains in my forebrain. I went looking for House, only to find it off the air until after the baseball playoffs (which, lacking the Phillies, are meaningless, even with a win by the second-oldest pitcher in playoff history). Lost served no purpose other than to anger me with the persistent, numbing stupidity of JJ Abrams (Lost: When Good Writers and Stupid Writers Collide!), and then Grey's Anatomy angered me with out-of-the-blue stupidity of a disturbing majority of the cast (c.f. George, Christina, Addison, Weber) and the fact that Meredith is apparently back to being a cheap whore (because THAT'S interesting).

But then on Friday Battlestar Galatica came on, and everything was ooooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Super-swell. Dreamy, even. End of search for satisfying television. Galactica is back, and all is right with the world.

(I imagine there's a joke I could make here about TV shows and "In Search Of..." but that's so obvious and not-obtuse I won't even bother.)

Now if I could just find where I put my lighter I'd be REALLY set.

JLK