judisunshine

Sticker? I Hardly Knew ‘Er!

Posted on January 11, 2012 by judisunshine

When I was quitting smoking, I gave myself a sticker on my Hello, Kitty calendar every day. Bear with me. Well actually no, that pretty much sets the tone for the remainder. But it was very nice positive reinforcement. I have loved stickers with a deep passion since I was six, and it’s never gone away. Back when I had some semblance of a career and disposable income(!), I discovered eBay and spent like half my paychecks buying nostalgic items from my childhood. Stickers were heavily featured.

So what a wonderful thing, to have an excuse to buy stickers! They have never escaped my longing gaze when I see them in the store. But buying them as positive reinforcement feels slightly less preposterous. Which is ironic* because of what I’m about to tell you.

It all began in an unlikely manner. You see, I had ordered a Goldilocks costume, one of those costumes that I used to make fun of and now wear, but seriously, this was just the cutest dress. And plus, an excuse to carry around some teddy bears! (I know.)

So since I had lost weight after wearing my last costume of this nature, surely it would stand to reason that if I got the very same size costume, it would fit, maybe even be a little loose?

NOPE! It was a different kind of material, and just was not flattering whatsoever, which is weird because those costumes make everyone look better than they really do. But not this one, not this time, not on me! It was atrocious. And just like that, all the climbing up the treadmill, and eating stupid healthy grains, and dancing to Rob Zombie, and putting lemon in my freaking water – none of it mattered at all! For I was hideous!

Thus went my proceeding pity party. But then I was sticker shopping and I like to stick with themes when at all possible, unless there are puffy Care Bear stickers and then all bets are off. So I grabbed some Peanuts Halloween stickers. At this point, I’d begun giving myself stickers if I worked out, but when I opened up the Peanuts stickers, little did I know that my entire life was about to change 😮

You see, these were not just any Peanuts Halloween stickers. These came with a background scene. Dynamite! It was a fold-out card that had a dark cemetery, and then there were all the usual suspects dressed up in costumes, and a bunch of bat Woodstocks!

I realized that I had a month until Halloween, and though I was not crazy about the costume on me, it technically fit, so I had nowhere to go but up. Or down, as the case may be. Is that ironic? Either way. If I gave myself a sticker for every day that I exercised, Snoopy and the gang could be having a festive Halloween time! I mean, what was I going to do, not let them have a good time? Both my OCD and psychotic anthropomorphization work in my favor sometimes.

With resolve in my heart to not mail the costume back to Amazon (procrastination also good here), I set out instead on helping the Peanuts gang socialize, and not letting Charlie Brown feel so alone.

Before you knew it, judgment day had arrived. For now I was to try on the costume once more, but this time every single last Peanut was partying, and every last Woodstock was flying through the purple night sky. It helped give me confidence, because if nothing else, I had a scene before me that was not there a month ago, and that was a lot of exercising.

The costume? Not my best, but definitely an improvement from a month ago. And that was good enough for me. Rather than focus on flaws, I noted my progress and strength, and thought if I could do that in a month, what could I do in a year!

So I kept it going. In November, I bought leaves, and in December, the usual Christmas fare – plus penguins! Penguins make everything better. Why do I need so many, you may ask? And I will tell you! Because I’ve gone sticker CRAZY!!! I now have a system, one of the many things in life that exemplify my ability to commit and work at something, when it comes to the important stuff. I have the Hello Kitty stickers of exercise, shiny rainbow stickers of vegan eating, owls of wisdom for no cigarettes (still stickers, not real owls, though that would be awesome). And of course, the now-traditional season-themed stickers that I give myself according to the length of the workout.

For awhile, I gave myself stickers for daily reading, to encourage better habits. That didn’t stick, literally or figuratively!, and yet I finally finished my book AND read almost all of Alicia Silverstone’s book (SHAWN YOU ARE NEXT). Is that ironic?

Another way the sticker system uses my neuroses for good, is in that now if I don’t have stickers, it makes me sad, not only because it means I wasn’t treating myself well that day, but also on an aesthetic level. Who could want a blank calendar of unhealthiness, when you can have this!

The thing is, the sticker system is silly, obviously, but it really works for me. More than anything, it’s taking time out of my day to be acknowledge that I’ve been good to myself. And when I see the above staring back at me, even on my darkest of days, it’s hard to not laugh, and also feel a little proud.

Stay tuned for Part Two: Jean Jackets and Overalls!

* Irony disclaimer: Christian Lander is right. I do make jokes about not knowing if they I’m using the word “irony” correctly. I thought it meant the Alanis ironic, but Lord do we now know that’s not correct, but the song still RULES, and then I thought I had it figured out, but no. I still am always wrong. But sometimes it just feels like the right word, and I want to use it. Plus, I was an English major, so one of these days I really should figure it out.

Posted in Apartments & Other Domiciles, Body Image, Books, Celebrities, Childhood, Food, Miscellaneous, Superheroes/Villains, Supernatural :o, Women | Tagged calendars, Care Bears, exercise, Goldilocks, Halloween, Hello Kitty, Peanuts, positive reinforcement, stickers, weight loss | 2 Comments

Glug, Glug, Gag!

Posted on December 30, 2011 by judisunshine

So I’ve been feeling extremely off, and I don’t know if it’s the weather, the stress of moving AGAIN, or what. So I decided to hit the health food store. While in GNC, I thought of getting some detox tea, or anything saying “detox.” Since I’m quitting smoking soon. And because I’m sure I need some detoxification. But all of that stuff was like, 10 thousand dollars, and I only had 22.

I resigned myself to being riddled with toxins until I could acquire more money. But then at the register, they had a mini-green-stuff packet. And apparently, that is all very important stuff to consume when you quit smoking. So I picked up a packet with fear and trepidation. Even the cashier was like, “That stuff tastes pretty terrible. The berry flavor is better, but we don’t carry them individually.”

I’m not gonna lie. I am terrified to drink this stuff. My dad drinks it every morning, and basically it looks like the results of that “Creepshow” meteor, in a glass. Horrible. But potentially helpful. And I am the MASTER of drinking gross things. Here’s a highlight reel!

Pickle juice
I didn’t really mind the pickle juice all that much. One of my old Boulder Creek managers, Dave, was fascinated by my willingness to drink random things when dared and/or offered rewards. And we had run out of pickles, so decided to divvy up the remaining juice. Some were braver than others. I was the only one who wasn’t completely grossed out by it, though I will admit that its warmth and neon-urine appearance was a tad unsettling.

Drawn butter
This was a for-profit dare drink. Aforementioned manager Dave got the bright idea to see if I’d drink this cup of drawn butter that was just sitting out for hours. And sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but it’s not real butter. It’s just oil. That was separating, both color- and texture-wise, in a very dramatic way. I told Dave I’d do it for a no-back-of-the-house card, which gets you out of sidework. And I hate sidework. But he was way too excited for me to do this, so I negotiated a first-cut card too. And then I drank the fat, totally making Ross Gellar my bitch. And yeah, it was really pretty gross. Drinking oil = weirder than it sounds.

Cayenne pepper juice of some nature
Maxi from Red Lobster alerted me to this magical juice that I really need to find again. It is just something else, like I can’t even explain how seemingly innocuous it appears. Maybe Dr. Pepper, with a kick. In actuality, it tastes like if you mixed Robitussin, horseradish, and the hottest hot sauce there is. Amazing. Tastes terrible, but in an invigorating way. And the most fun thing about it is getting unsuspecting people to try it. Totally worth the meanness to see their horrified reactions.

Aloe vera gel
I thought I was supposed to get the juice. But all I saw was the gel. “How different could it be?” I wondered. Let’s just say that when you mix something with orange juice, stir it rapidly with a fork, and still find yourself drinking gelatinous chunks? Well, you can better understand my Winter of ’96. Because that jug cost like 30 dollars and I figured if Steve could do it, so could I. Later on I found out indeed, I was supposed to get the juice. He was amazed that I drank so much of the gel, and frankly, so was I. And still remain.

A bottle of barbecue sauce
We’d all gone to lunch — Dan, Bonnie, Shannon, and me. First we got food from ShopRite, then brought it to the park. Dan had gotten chicken nuggets and bought a bottle of barbecue sauce for them, of which he consumed the tiniest bit. After lunch, he jokingly offered Bonnie 20 dollars to drink the bottle. Bonnie was not interested, but I was! And just to get him to follow through, I offered to do it in three minutes or less. So I chugged that stuff, man. The taste wasn’t bad, but it was really pretty thick. And kind of spicy. My body went from hot to cold and so on and so forth and basically I felt like Angel in “The Dark Age” when they send Giles’s EZ-Bake Demon into Angel to battle it out. But I got the 20 dollars!

TRIUMPH!

Breast milk
Other drink challenges took longer, hurt my stomach more, and were just all around grosser. But the breast milk may have been my least favorite of all. Why did I drink breast milk, you may ask? Well…because it was there! Not in *that* way. My friend was defrosting some, and my girlfriends and I decided, what a wonderful and funny way to bond! So we all poured a shot, promising that any time one of us had a kid, we’d all send up a toast and drink the milk. The initial taste, not bad, the “cantaloupe juice” comparison from (once again!) “Friends” is pretty apt, though I don’t know if I’d so much say “juice” as “thin film of slime.” It just kind of stuck around, the aftertaste, the after feel. Though I will keep my word and cheers it up if Shannon, Ruth or I ever become With Child.

I’ll let you know how the “Creepshow” stuff compares! I have a feeling it may win. *Shudder.*

BREAKING NEWS! Three and a half years later, I finally drank the green drink! And you know what? It’s not half bad! I even kind of like it!

©April 18, 2008

Posted in Food, Friends, Lists, Restaurants, Work | Tagged Boulder Creek, breast milk, bright idea, dares, detox tea, drinking, fear and trepidation, green stuff, gross things, health food store, pickle juice | 1 Comment

30 Days of Non-Humbug: A Quest To Grow My Heart Three Sizes

Posted on November 29, 2011 by judisunshine

Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville – did not. The Grinch hated Christmas – the whole Christmas season. Now, please don’t ask why; no one quite knows the reason.

~ How the Grinch Stole Christmas

For as long as I can remember, this time of year has filled me with ambivalence at best and terrible despair/ennui at worst. I could get into a whole navel-gazing exploration of why, and when, and various other investigative Ws.

But I’ll keep it short and sweet. Basically, I would like to at least try to get into the spirit of the holidays this year, and even though it might feel forced, my happiest memories of Christmases in recent years have usually come from going through the motions.

So this year, my motion, now that I’ve finally figured out how to add photos to specific albums, is to do one of those 30-day picture challenges. From now through December 25th, I will pick one thing each day, in no particular order, that makes Christmas still feel like the most wonderful time of the year, when I let it. Feel free to join in if you’d like 🙂

DAY ONE: THE FIRST CHRISTMAS SONG OF THE SEASON

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This year (2011), I managed to avoid Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, and since I’m working neither retail nor restaurant, I kind of forgot about Christmas music for a minute there. Yesterday morning (I’m a day behind on this (already!)) was the Monday after Thanksgiving, and it had been a tough weekend. I was feeling all sorts of cynical and bitter about life in general, mostly because I was sad about feeling so dead inside when it came to Christmas. So I was wandering through Safeway in search of coffee, and a song started up: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” the Amy Grant version.

My knee-jerk reaction to Christmas music was less of a jerk, more of an instinctive flinch, and I couldn’t help but listen to the song. All at once, it filled me with feelings that defy logic and transcend time. As Amy Grant’s familiar and comforting (to me) voice filled the air in the supermarket, it wasn’t 2011. I wasn’t jaded and cynical and Godless. It was just…Christmas. And it struck me that if that feeling could still be triggered, maybe all hope for the season was not lost. “That glorious song of old,” still was.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized | Tagged Amy Grant, bah humbug, Christmas, grinch, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear | Leave a comment

In Defence of Spidey

Posted on November 21, 2011 by judisunshine

Click here for part one!

One day at Boulder Creek, I was the only girl working a lunch shift. The guys were all engaged in this animated argument that was traveling throughout the restaurant. They’d fight, take care of their tables, then go fight some more. I had no idea what all the ruckus was about until the group made its way into the kitchen during some down time. I was then accosted.

“Judi! Who would you date: Superman, Batman, or The Flash?” I was asked. Without hesitation, I responded: “If I had to choose out of them, Batman.”

Wesley began cheering, as that is the superhero he adores.

“But I’d take Spider-Man over Batman in a heartbeat,” I continued.

Oh, the uproar! All the guys stopped battling each other and ganged up on me! How could I pick Spider-Man! What kind of woman was I!

This, as I have come to understand, is not an atypical reaction. Awhile back, I read a blog about superheroes, and in the comments, I once again went to bat for Spidey. The overriding reaction was that it was nice in theory, but in real life, women will always choose the Superman or the Batman.

DISCLAIMER: I AM ONLY SPEAKING FOR MYSELF, AND IN NO WAY PRESUMING TO SPEAK FOR ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE.

Let’s discuss this. First of all, Superman. No. I grew up with Superman more than any other superhero. I read Superman, Superboy, saw all the movies. It was the ’80s! Evidence would lead to my loving Superman. But really, Superman’s someone I’d just be friends with. He’s a little too serious for me. It’s why I’d never choose Dawson over Pacey, or Nick over Daniel Desario, or Marissa over Summer. Funny is key. Navel gazing and angst is lovely, but not without the funny. Superman could take me out for a romantic dinner and look nice in a suit, but…yawn. Not to mention that personally, I always found Clark Kent a thousand times hotter than Superman. If there were no Superman, only Clark, then maybe things would be different.

Batman? In one of my comments I said something along the lines of, “Batman can kiss my ass.” That didn’t go over too well. And you know, upon reflection, perhaps I was a bit harsh, something I shall explore further in Part 3! But like, I don’t mean to disrespect Batman as a superhero so much as I feel like I did in the late ’90s when everyone assured me that yes, I would have sex with Dave Matthews and I was like, no, I would not. I feel like, He gets enough women! He doesn’t need me! Batman’s a player (I don’t know enough about Dave Matthews to know this, and enough about him anyway (FOR NOW).) And the one thing I’ve taken to my thirties, the invaluable lesson I’ve learned is, player, please. At some point, you’ve got to learn that, or you become part of the problem. Reinforcing the idea that women want assholes. And you know, assholes are one thing. You can be a good guy and be an asshole in your own unique way. I’m talking about the selfish assholes. I’m saying “assholes” way too much. Sorry. What I mean is that, I don’t think Batman knows how to treat a woman right. He could make me laugh, but I think if I were to take up with Batman, I’d be back to a lot of Saturday nights alone in my apartment watching “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” Fine when it’s by choice. Not so much when you’re worrying that your boyfriend is off somewhere sexing up some ladies in slinky cocktail dresses.

To be fair, Bruce Wayne is very smart, and that goes a long way with me. But not if the guy doesn’t have that innate compassion. I’d never really feel like Batman would care if like, my cat was sick. You know? And if all you can see when you look at a guy is Sprinkles, you end up having sex with him while engaged to Andy. Lose-lose.

Now. I almost had a change of heart recently, tempted to put a different superhero as my number one. You see, I went to see “Iron Man.” And I was not really familiar with Iron Man. But he’s COOL. Tony Stark was a total player, but even I can’t deny his charm. It’s the smart, funny thing.

Anyway, so I’d never sleep with Tony Stark, but I’d totally enjoy hanging out with him. However, once Tony Stark becomes Iron Man, he really changes. All of a sudden, he starts caring about things, and people, and himself. He questions everything he’s been, the emptiness under the shiny facade. Smoke and mirrors. What did he really have to show for his life? Tony Stark watched his friend die, and it was sad, but his friend died peacefully, going to join his loved ones. And you see Tony Stark thinking, “I have no one waiting for me on either side.” But then of course he tries to make good, and continues to be Iron Man and be awesome, and he is always surrounded by metal. Costume- AND music-wise! Fabulous.

Plus, Stark at long last realizes that he’s been living with Gwyneth Paltrow, and she loves him, AND can rock a backless dress! Win-win-win. Well, if you like Gwyneth Paltrow, which I do. I always have, and we’ve weathered tougher times than this. Also, she’s awesome because she shoots him down for the time being, and someone really was due to rebuff Stark.

But Spider-Man — he’s Spider-Man. He’s Peter Parker! A complete and utter geek who loves his aunt and uncle more than anything except maybe the girl next door. Mary Jane. Mary Jane’s cute and all, but Peter just gets her in a way that no one else does. She could get lots of guys — but Peter cares about her. Peter is smart, funny, kind, and most importantly, loyal. He may waver in his actions; he’s not perfect. But he loves with 100% of his heart.

Iron Man? He sure does like Pepper, but he doesn’t really see her. He doesn’t recognize that he has his own redheaded girl next door. But what really puts Spider-Man ahead of Iron Man for me is this: Tony Stark didn’t realize that he needed to try to be a good guy until he kind of had to. How old was he, and still living a completely self-centered existence? Too old. There reaches a point where you become too old to be that self-centered, that self-indulgent, without its really saying something about you as a person. It’s good that Tony Stark cleaned up his act and is doing good things and being awesome as Iron Man, but I couldn’t be with him romantically. I’d always be worried that his change, though drastic, was too external, that it wouldn’t really stick. Some women, like June Carter and Jenna Fischer, can totally deal with that sort of thing. Me, not so much. Iron Man’s hot. He’s an awesome superhero. He’s incredibly smart and has a wonderfully dry sense of humor. But I don’t think I could ever fully trust him.

Peter Parker, I would trust. Because he has an innate conscience. An innate ability to love and be loved. A capacity to care about a girl beyond fuck first, get to know her later. If she’s lucky. Peter Parker’s old-school. He cares about people besides himself. When he messes up, he’s disappointed in himself. And he’ll risk his own life without hesitation to protect the people he loves. But because he’s a good man, he’ll also risk his life to protect the people he doesn’t love, because it’s his duty.

Spider-Man wins my vote for which superhero would win my heart. For all of the reasons I mentioned, but if I could only pick one reason, it would be this: all the superheroes are great superheroes in their own ways. But in my opinion, Peter Parker is the one who cares less about being a superhero, and more about being a hero. IMHO.

~ STAY TUNED FOR PART 3! YET ANOTHER SEQUEL ONLY TANGENTIALLY RELATED TO THE…PREQUEL? PRECEDING SEQUEL? I DON’T KNOW.

ANYWAY. PART 3 SHALL BE: I, LIKE BUFFY, NEED A LITTLE MONSTER IN MY MAN: WHY VILLAINS AND HEROES OF QUESTIONABLE MORALS ARE MY FAVE!

AND PERHAPS IF I USE ENOUGH CAPS I WILL REMEMBER TO WRITE THE SEQUEL BEFORE 2019! ~

~ July 6, 2008

Posted in Celebrities, Childhood, Driving & Other Transportation, Friends, Miscellaneous, Movies, Music, Romance, Superheroes/Villains, Supernatural :o, TV, Women | Tagged Batman, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Comics, Dawson's Creek, Imaginary Boyfriends, Iron Man, Love, Mary Jane, nice guys finish last, Peter Parker, relationships, Spider-Man, Superheroes, Superman, The Flash, Tony Stark | 5 Comments

Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night 19: Drive-Thru

Posted on October 27, 2011 by judisunshine

“Horror gets Super Sized when Horny The Clown, the demonic mascot of ‘Hella-Burger,’ starts slashing Orange County teenagers with his meat cleaver from Hell.”

How could such a description leave any doubt in my mind that “Drive-Thru” was my Cheesy Movie destiny? Malin Ackerman in a romantic comedy about a dog, that’s how, but all good things come to those who wait and for now we have none other than Leighton Meester.

Where do I begin. For starters, she is very lovely don’t get me wrong, but she confuses me visually and on a visceral level that brings me back to the mid-’90s when Julia Salinger got every actress mugging and talking super affected and throughout the years, it’s morphed into the latest thing with young actresses, which is the refusal to move one’s mouth, a la Hayden Panettiere.

Somehow, Leighton Meester manages to embody all of that and it makes “Drive-Thru” feel like two different movies, one being a fairly scary/cheesy horror movie with a pretty awesome villain, and the other being a Lifetime movie made by the CW. It’s quite a ride.

Anyway, “Drive-Thru” starts out with two teen couples in a car smoking weed and listening to rap, and a girl is giving one of the guys a blow job, so obviously she’s going to die soon. They pull up to Hella-Burger, a clown-themed burger joint with Horny the Clown as the mascot, and the voice on the speaker which is shaped like a clown calls them wiggers and insults their girlfriends. One guy who has corn rows has a gun. He’s got his pride, for what reason I don’t know but he’s got it, and goes into the kitchen which is dark. Get used to this. The budget went entirely to the Horny scenes and Leighton Meester’s lip gloss, not so much for extras or electricity.

Corn Rows calls for “clown boy” and walks around with his gun tilted to the side. He goes into a walk-in and gets scared by a rat on the floor. “I’ll never eat this shit again,” he says, which is FORESHADOWING because he gets attacked by Horny now.

The other guy walks around now, wearing a sideways cap and holding his sideways gun and his shirt says “ILLEST.” He finds dead Corn Rows face-down in the hot grease, and pulls him out and Corn Rows’s face comes off, and it’s really disgusting. But no time for grossed outedness because it is TIME TO DIE. Horny goes, “Do you want fries with that?”

Credits.

The other movie with Leighton Meester. She’s singing in an all-girl band which has a really elaborate setup at a party where there are like, three people. One couple is making out in a hot tub, so that is a portent of doom, and over on the bandstand the drummer is freaking out on the drums, and I really want her to calm down, no one plays the drums the way she is playing the drums.

This song is REALLY ANNOYING and won’t end.

But finally it does, and no one claps, which is one of my pet peeves that I think is totally rude. If I’m out with you, and there is live music (including karaoke) and you don’t clap or otherwise acknowledge the performance when it is done, I will like you less.

Except that Leighton Meester says “Thank you Cleveland!” so frankly she deserves to be shunned for that alone. Then she has a creepy conversation with her creepy boyfriend, saying she’ll be 18 soon and can have sex then and he asks her if she’s seen her ass, I guess indicating that this waiting (among other things) is really hard, but still that is really strange phrasing IMHO.

Then Leighton shakes up a can of soda and sprays it on the people in the hot tub because she is A Rebel and doesn’t like those people. She tells them to leave so she can smoke a joint in her room with her friends. Fair enough. They start playing with a Ouija board.

Do you ever have those dreams where you are in a play and you don’t know any of your lines, so you just kind of try to make it up as you go? That is how this scene felt to me. It seemed ad-libbed and I feel like Marisa Cooper could fiddle with a Ouija board more convincingly than this group of kids, and that is saying a LOT because Marisa Cooper can’t even hold a cup of lemonade convincingly. Somehow, this is worse. Leighton tries to communicate with the board, but nothing happens. So a curly-haired dude goes off for a “sure thing” booty call. Then Leighton and her boyfriend who was on “Heroes” talk about how he is going to New York and Leighton whines about being rich.

THEN! The Ouija board starts moving and spells out “N1KLPL8,” which matches a license plate on Leighton’s wall.

Switch to the girls from before asleep in the car. And it’s like, are they really that boring that they can’t hold down a conversation for ten minutes, or maybe they only use their mouths for blow jobs, but anyway they are sleeping, then wake up and their boyfriends are dead in the backseat. They scream and get killed. Oh and to add to the confusing class warfare subtext that actually has potential but goes nowhere, one of the girls before getting murdered says her dad is rich and can give Horny whatever he wants.

Requisite cop subplot where they are a wacky and misfitted pair, in this case, one hefty, old-school, simple cop and a lady cop who I think is supposed to be exotic and no-nonsense. They’re at the crime scene with the car and the dead teens and find out that “Highway to Hell” was playing when found. You’d think that would be a clue, or the beginning of a theme, but no, that plot point gets swiftly dropped because it is imperative that we get to…

…Leighton Meester’s backyard where her dad (or step dad? I don’t remember.) is cooking hamburgers and Jan Levinson(-Gould) is Leighton’s mom. Leighton says she doesn’t want a burger because she doesn’t “eat flesh” and calls baby boomers sellouts, which is kind of true. But overall Leighton Meester’s character reminds me of what a primetime network would think was an example of an Edgy Teen, and it’s pretty awkward. They’re watching the news, because what better accompaniment to a fun barbecue, and the reporter is named Anita Hill (…) and it’s the crime scene from the other movie. Leighton sees the license plate on the car, which matches her Ouija board message and the license plate on her wall, the latter of which makes no sense to me.

High school. Leighton’s camera is missing. She’s talking to her boyfriend and he creepily asks to tape her ass because she’s turning 18 soon. I don’t know. And she is supposed to be a virgin, like, I’m so sure. I was an older virgin, but I had reasons. She doesn’t seem to have any reason other than he’s already turned 18 and it would be illegal, but she already smokes pot and drinks and has that Hot-Topic quasi-anarchy thing going on, so like…whatever. I get that it’s tradition to need “pure” blood in teenage horror lore, but I am not buying this virgin thing one bit.

Anyway. Leighton picks up a magic eight-ball and it’s Horny sending her messages (obvi) and she asks why he’s doing this and he writes back, “A broken heart.” Barf.

The drummer from before is on the phone with Leighton. Drummer has a new heart tattoo because she is Edgy as well, and nothing says edgy like a small heart tattoo that Rachel Green got 15 years ago. Leighton Meester then has the unmitigated gall to ask, “Is it fly?” and it is at this point that I realize she is totally biting off Cher Horowitz’s mannerisms. But NO TIME to worry about this, as Horny has come for Drummer!

If it isn’t Our Fan from “That Thing You Do!” He is a janitor with messed-up teeth and acts creepy with Leighton in the school computer lab which is of course completely dark. But he is not creepy, because you don’t have to be rich and clean to be a good person, the movie reminds us, as Our Fan gives Leighton her camera that he found.

New scene. Leighton in a darkroom. Although in this movie that is a relative term. This darkroom has a red light to distinguish it from the others, and Leighton is hanging up pictures of her band.

But what is this! Pictures of the dead people, that’s what! And OMG a picture of Leighton herself!

HORNY THE CLOWN IS IN THE BUILDING! As the two movies come together and he grabs her but she kicks him in the balls and gets away. To be fair, this is a pretty scary scene due to the music playing and Horny’s being genuinely menacing.

Leighton runs through the (dark) hallway and into the gym. In another actually very scary scene, Drummer is tied to a chair with her head in a microwave, which you see…get microwaved and it’s really scary and really gross.

Leighton screams and tries to get out, but she is locked in the school! The clown comes over the speakers and she says she is calling the cops (lol) and he says she’s his girl now, and he is horny!

Our Fan, hung to death in the bathroom!

Leighton screaming, then running into a cop!

Random TV ad for Hella-Burger, with two girls in bikini tops kissing!

Wait, what?

Now Leighton is at the jail. You know that scene that is in horror/Lifetime movies at the station with a frustrated woman whom no one will believe, and why won’t they listen, and yada yada yada? Well that scene takes place now. The cops tell her that kids’ toys do not equal evidence. So Leighton storms out and does that WB/CW-required thing where girls keep their hands under their sleeves and stick their arms straight out to indicate how exasperated yet adorable they are.

Then we are given an absolutely riveting scene of Leighton pose-sleeping in a chaise lounge, and the guitarist from her band and the curly-haired guy wake her up. Then they all “act.” Curly delivers one of the best lines of dialogue that I’ve ever heard:

“What I want to know is, what has this got to do with Horny the Clown? I grew up with that lovable son of a bitch. It’s like finding out Captain Kangaroo’s got pieces of Mr. Green Jeans in his freezer.”

Oh I forgot to mention the recurring “gag” about how the guy cop is named Crockers, but everyone calls him Crackers and it exasperates him.

Yeah.

So anyway, Crackers and Exotic Sidekick have a meeting with the owner of Hella-Burger. They find out that the Original Horny was the owner’s son and is is dead now.

Another excellent scene, this time of Leighton Meester putting on her makeup. Her boyfriend sneaks up behind her and scares her, which he seems to really enjoy doing. They have a conversation about Leighton studying backmasking. In the meantime, she has an Avril Lavigne poster. Now I actually like Avril, but that poster really answers any lingering questions I had regarding this character overall. She and her boyfriend make out, and she invites him to do her, and they play a whispery ballad on a record. Leighton is in her bra when Jan Levinson(-Gould) knocks on the door, but Leighton shoos her away and she and Boyfriend have sex. While — for realz — “I ❤ Bush” turns up on Leighton’s Etch-a-Sketch.

Cut to the next scene. Boyfriend and Leighton are helping out with the school haunted house and they have a verbal sparring with the blonde and her dude from the hot tub, and the blonde is wearing a tiny t-shirt that says “I ❤ Bush.” 😮 They are rich and bitchy, and then have sex in the haunted house.

The lights go out. Thump. Sex Dude is now Headless Dude and there is blood everywhere, as well as strobe lights. Horny kills the blonde. And somehow, Leighton’s boyfriend got tied up and put behind a wall. That might have been an interesting scene, but then we wouldn’t have gotten to see Leighton’s eyeliner technique, so I guess sometimes sacrifice is necessary.

And just when you’re worried things are about to get interesting, all fears are alleviated by the cut to Leighton taking a break from the hard work of the fair to not eat Horny burgers with Jan Levinson(-Gould) and her dad, whose entire character can be summed up thusly: “enjoys hamburgers.” They run into Jan Levinson(-Gould)’s old friend, and there is something going on that is supposed to be mysterious but is mainly confusing.

Leighton, dressed as Elvira by the way, and Guitarist, dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein, go off to look for Boyfriend in the haunted house, where they find a car full of blood. Horny comes over the speaker and threatens them a bit. Boyfriend is in shock and taken to the hospital. Leighton “tries to go with him” only not really.

Then there is a hilarious scene of Leighton finding the “I ❤ Bush” on her Etch-a-Sketch while in her underwear.

Hospital. Leighton stops channeling Alicia Silverstone and starts channeling Eliza Dushku and acts sassy. She then fights with Jan Levinson(-Gould) in the hospital, and this is giving me flashbacks to freshman acting class, because Leighton is SCREAMING every line.

Jan Levinson(-Gould), the dad, and Cops. Jan Levinson(-Gould)’s old friend knew the victims…or something…I really don’t appreciate this third ball to juggle at this point in the game. (That’s what she said.) The parents are trying to tell the cops that it’s connected to Hella-Burger, and Exotic Sidekick awesomely goes, all deep, “Why would someone dressed as Horny the Clown want to hurt your children?”

Cut to Boyfriend in the hospital. He puts some white powder on his burger, and Crackers eats it and falls asleep.

Leighton pose-lies down. The phone rings. To indicate a call from Jan Levinson(-Gould), a picture of her comes up, and instead of Leighton phone’s saying “Mom,” it says “Bitch.” Have I mentioned how very likable and sympathetic a character Leighton is?

In keeping with the toy theme, there is a haunted vending machine. A Horny head in one of those plastic bubble things pops out, along with a note: “See you at 4:20.” In my notes, this series of events is bracketed with: “WHERE IS EVERYBODY, ALWAYS!” Because, seriously. It’s like a post-apocalyptic film, when it comes to relation between the expanse of space and the number of people.

Leighton gets in her car and doesn’t check her backseat. Girl has ZERO street smarts. So Boyfriend, who is in her backseat (heh), scares her yet again. Turns out Jan Levinson(-Gould)’s ex-boyfriend’s son is the head of the 4:20 Boyz (you got that?) and we cut to said 4:20 Boyz, which is really two guys and a girl, smoking up then going to play in the Hella-Burger ball pit/playground area. The girl goes to place a “We read that The Pot gives people munches!” order and apparently the guy taking the order is the “Supersize Me” guy, which is awesome. He tries to kick the guys out of the playground, but they call out “Suey” and throw balls at him. Supersize Me Guy tells the girl to control her friends. She says “Whatever. Where’s your shitter?” while the blonde dude pisses on a clown face. ‘Cause you know how weed’s always making people all belligerent.

Then! Horny rises from out of the ball pit and throws an axe through the blonde. Horny quotes “The Shining” and kills the other guy. The girl finds them and screams.

Once again, the action transitions to Lifetime, as Jan Levinson(-Gould) watches the news, then fights with Leighton who is late and Jan goes, “We were worried!” And Leighton shows a picture of Jan Levinson(-Gould) with Mr. 420 and Jan gets that look of resignation that means a far-away-stare story is coming.

And sure enough. Apparently, Jan was friends with Mr. 420 and the parents of the other murdered teens back in the day. We see a flashback where Teen Jan Levinson(-Gould) steps out of a MAJORLY hotboxed van. WTF. The smoke just keeps swirling and swirling. Basically, it’s like Michael Scott wrote the stuff about weed. Maybe Jan got him the job!

Anyway, Jan Levinson(-Gould) and her friends tormented Original Horny back in the day. And OH was obsessed with Teen Jan Levinson(-Gould). And then, Jan says in real time, he died in a fire. Jan Levinson(-Gould) and her friends killed him. Dum dum dummmmm….

Back to flashback! It is the night of Original Horny’s 18th birthday, and no one has come to his party. His candles are lit, and Original Horny is sitting alone. Jan Levinson(-Gould) is at the door, so he goes to it. Mr. 420 and the others scare Original Horny and knock him out. The candles set the place on fire. Jan cries in real time.

How does Leighton respond to this? Why, by being a bitch, of course! She says that Horny isn’t bothering Mr. 420 or Jan Levinson(-Gould), it is Leighton! Leighton who is suffering! Because it is her 18th birthday now and Horny is coming for her!

Leighton and her idiot friends show up at Mr. Hella-Burger, Original Horny’s dad’s house. Leighton is packing heat. They all split up of course, because that always works out well in horror movies.

Cop station. Exotic Sidekick is actually posing, like she is doing that camera stance where you put one leg slightly in front and bend at the hip. But she’s not taking a picture, she is supposed to be moving like a human person.

Mr. Hella-Burger is watching TV and communicating with Original Horny. Erm. Well, let’s just move on. Leighton and Boyfriend sneak into the house and go in Original Horny’s room. A toy makes a noise — it is a Horny doll. Leighton pulls a string from his back. “Have a nice day. Happy birthday (Leighton)!” The lights, which were shockingly on, I guess the only time these people turn the lights on is when they’re breaking into houses, but they go out anyway, and the only light remaining are these round windows filled with green light that feel like a submarine and I have no idea what that is all about.

Curly has camouflaged his face and is in the garage. He YELLS to Guitarist; these nimrods are really bad at this breaking and entering thing, and then Curly opens a freezer and finds body parts! It is the 420 girl, who did not escape after all. She’s about to get some company, because Horny cuts Curly in half, and his body remains standing. When he goes to walk, he falls apart, and it is really NASTY yet kind of awesome, which is added to by Horny’s saying, “You’ve got a lot of guts, kid.”

The cops show up.

Leighton and Boyfriend walk down a hallway for approximately 10 hours.

Horny attacks Boyfriend! Boyfriend rips off Horny’s face! “You eyeballing me, boy?” Horny asks him and Boyfriend’s eyes fill with blood and Horny throws him out the window.

Crackers finds the freezer with 420 girl and presumably Curly.

Now we find Leighton tied to a chair in Hella-Burger, mouth taped (yay!) and there is a cake with lit candles in front of her.

Exotic Sidekick finds Mr. Hella-Burger, thinking he is the murderer because she doesn’t believe the murderer is a dead boy in a clown costume. Mr. Hella tells her that Horny’s going to kill him. He is under arrest.

In a legitimately fucked up scene, the dead teens are seated around the table with Leighton. It’s a birthday party. One or two even have hats on. Leighton is horrified. Horny untapes her mouth and she screams. He douses her with gasoline and she screams. He takes a candle from the cake. Leighton is doomed!

NOT SO FAST because Jan Levinson(-Gould) has come to save the day! She shoots the door down and says this is between her and Horny! They fight.

I forgot to mention before that Leighton often has a flask, lest we forget that she is Not Impressed By Authority, and so she takes a swig and after Horny knocks out Jan Levinson(-Gould) and comes at Leighton with the candle again, she spits on the flame and it goes back at him and he catches on fire. Leighton runs to Jan and then they just kind of stand there and watch him.

And then.

THEN.

Leighton goes, “Fast food kills, fucker.”

Cops. Exotic Sidekick finds Horny’s mask/face. All bodies accounted for but Horny’s. Exotic Sidekick tells Leighton that Boyfriend is alive, but he is in critical condition and may not live through the night. And she says, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” And Jan Levinson(-Gould) says, “I’m just glad this is all over.”

OR IS IT? For what do we have here, but Boyfriend lying in the hospital bed. He opens his eyes.

Leighton shows up in his room, and Boyfriend is gone!

Leighton and Jan Levinson(-Gould) go to the window and stare out of it. Leighton says, “It’s not over.” Then we pan to the ground and see Boyfriend’s clothes.

Crackers is in the Hella-Burger drive-thru and he is talking about how Exotic Sidekick is a bitch, but he’d do her and then BAM! There is a NEW AND IMPROVED HORNY on Crackers’s car! He smashes through the windshield and it is

~ THE END ~

Posted in Celebrities, Food, Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night, Movies, Restaurants, Supernatural :o, Women | Tagged Drive-Thru, horror movies, Jan Levinson(-Gould), Leighton Meester, scary clowns | 5 Comments

Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night 6: Killer Klowns From Outer Space

Posted on October 24, 2011 by judisunshine

“Killer Klowns From Outer Space” is one of the greatest movies ever made. Obviously.

It starts out with Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” buying some “Beer,” labeled thusly. Ralphie has also been by the Seavers’ garage sale, and is wearing Carol’s glasses. Later, Ralphie will grow up to become Christopher Titus, but for now, he is dead inside a cotton candy cocoon. As well as one random blonde chick, beginning the steady ’80s-aughts transition from “useless curvy blonde who shows her boobs, then dies” to “useless skinny blonde who doesn’t show her boobs, then dies.”

Now we are at makeout point, which is of course awesome, especially since you’d think some of these people could afford other places to neck, seeing as they are all 37 and above.

Then we see an ice-cream truck, and I am really beginning to sense some kind of otherworldly connection between my blog and ice-cream trucks. And this truck is scary! Because it has a clown on top of it. These two doofuses run the ice-cream truck, and harass the people at makeout point, and you’d think these “kids” would be grateful for ice cream, since no one is hooking up anyway. One chick is drinking champagne for some reason, like this guy who looks exactly like he was born to play “All American Jock with a sense of humor” back in the ’80s is plying this chick with (flat) champagne, and it’s like, dude. WTF. And these actors aren’t so much with the “acting” as the “YELLING.” Who goes to makeout point to drink flat champagne and yell? These two.

But, oh how romantic! Now they have not only champagne, but a huge asteroid shooting through the sky, and champagne chick, whose name is Debbie (natch), thinks it’s romantic. She wants to go track it down, and there is a lot of “banter” that we as the audience must endure.

Unfortunately, Debbie and All American Jock are believe it or not making a stupid mistake by chasing the “shooting star” as Debbie calls it, which makes sense on a literal level since the sun is a star. But now the farmer’s dog Pooh Bear is missing! The farmer is upset until he realizes he will meet Pooh Bear in cotton candy heaven soon, as a klown comes out and electrifies the farmer with a non-terrestrial from “The Abyss.”

Here we have the lackadaisical PSA subplot of the late ’80s when this male couple gets arrested for drinking wine in public and Sergeant Mooney berates them and makes them go to jail for drinking wine unlike Ralphie who was drinking beer before, because beer is manly, generic brand and Carol Seaver glasses notwithstanding. So Mooney tries to rough up the gay couple, until we learn that homophobia is bad…or drinking is bad…frankly, I’m not sure. Good Cop Dave intervenes, and saves the day though.

Ah, Dave. Get used to him, because he is around (SPOILER ALERT!) for the whole movie. His hair is very, very fluffy and very, very blonde, and he is very, very serious and noble.

Over on the other side of town, Debbie and AAJ arrive at their “shooting star,” and despite the fact that there is now a humongous circus tent there, they don’t let that get in the way of their bland yelling. And to their credit as a couple, they each take turns being a huge idiot, Debbie for chasing the “shooting star,” AAJ for bouncing off the walls like Spinner that time he gave his Ritalin to Jimmy. Bouncing all around, getting Debbie and her hair to relent and enter the circus. Once they get inside the tent, the dialogue is impressive, not to mention the delivery:

AAJ: THIS IS NO FUNHOUSE!

Debbie: NO CIRCUS, EITHER.

Unfortunately, they do not go, “This is Ellllllll-lay!”

Then things get crazy. Debbie and AAJ run in and out of elevators, chased by klowns. They find a room full of cotton candy cocoons, and find that one of the cocoons holds a dead guy! But Debbie and AAJ get away, because they are the lead actors. And turns out that Debbie knows Dave the cop.

Outside the circus tent, the klowns are wreaking havoc. Throwing puppet shows, both regular- and hand-, then killing the audience. Going into drugstores, and zapping girls in gray sweatshirts rather than buying original Peanut Butter Twix® while they still can.

Then there is this one klown that’s so cute!

He shows up to a biker bar and they all make fun of him, until he decapitates the lead bully! And between this and “Walk Hard,” I’ve seen a lot of headless bodies collapse to the ground this weekend.

Then because it is the ’80s, we get a car-over-cliff scene and a shower scene, starring Debbie. And whereas if this were 1985 or earlier, there would 100% be requisite nudity right now, you wonder, because it looks like Debbie is unfortunately stuck with us for the duration. And you can’t have both – bare boobs AND escape from the monsters. So what shall it be???

Also, there is popcorn all over her floor. OMINOUS popcorn.

You know where else there is ominous popcorn? In a dumpster out back behind the Big Top Burger. So this employee in an AMAZING uniform investigates, only instead of lifting the lid and peering in, or getting a flashlight to peer in, he LEANS over, further…further…until there we go! He’s pulled in and eaten.

Oh, have I mentioned that Dave is Debbie’s ex-boyfriend? Which, you would think as a policeman, Dave would know about statutory laws. But now he is making passive-aggressive, woe-is-me comments about Debbie choosing laughs from AAJ over stability from Dave (because he is 40), and here is my problem with that: If he is self aware enough to realize that Debbie goes for laughs, couldn’t he try to be funny? And here is my other problem: AAJ IS NOT FUNNY, and I blame him and people like him for all the guys in the ’90s thinking all they needed to do to be funny was to loudly quote Adam Sandler and/or Austin Powers.

I’m just going to leave Mooney’s “Smoke a cigar, get sprayed in the face” allegorical scene alone. Bottom line is, he throws a klown in a cell with people, but the klown kills him, reverse-Wicked-Witch-of-the-East style. The klown’s cellmates cheer. Little do they know that THEY’RE NEXT 😮

Dirty Dave arrives back at the jail to find that the klown did after all, make a dummy out of Mooney, as the klown is acting as Mooney’s ventriloquist, with his hand in the back of Mooney’s corpse. Ewwww. BUT! On the “plus” side, Dirty Dave discovers the secret to killing the klowns: Shoot them in the nose! Just like at a fair! Fun!

Oh, so yeah, Debbie is safe, because she went to extremes, and did the opposite of nudity: cable-knit sweater, jeans, tee, boots, necklaces, large earrings, and a ponytail holder in her hair.

But then! The ominous popcorn hatches into evil klown spider things! And they scare Debbie and she gets even louder than usual!

Oh excuse me, Debbie is not wearing boots, she’s wearing leg warmers even though it is 1987.

So the klowns don’t kill Debbie because she is not only a lead character but also very stylin’, so they reward her by putting her in a balloon that is like one of those toy balloons you used to punch. What happened to those toys? I seriously want one. They were awesome!!! Suffice it to say, I’m kind of jealous of Debbie as she flies down the road in a balloon.

The klowns have a parade and kill Samantha Micelli’s boyfriend after Scott Grimes.

Oh yeah, the Ice Cream Doofuses are lurking around all the while, acting dumb and not really adding much to the movie. But if it weren’t for the ICDs, we may have had to live forever without one of the best scenes I’ve ever witnessed, in the form of a voiceover from the truck as Dirty Dave and ICDs join forces to fight the klowns. The following transpires:

– IF YOU WERE A CLOWN, WHERE WOULD YOU HIDE?

– THE AMUSEMENT PARK!

– GREAT!

– ALL RIGHT!!!!!

Now we get a klown kar joke, as the amusement park security guard gets KILLED BY PIES, and the kute klown puts a cherry on top of the melted man sundae.

Then we get some “booby trap” entendre, and of course one of the ICDs just has to press a red button, because it is the ’80s, and pressing mysterious buttons is par for the course, and the ICDs fall in a ball pit, where we get “Gremlins 2” foreshadowing as one klown grows boobs right in front of us, and an ICD goes, “Are you Debbie’s roommates,” and I do not have enough time to explain that one.

I will discuss how krazy straws suck now no pun intended, another time. But this one klown has an AWESOME krazy straw, and uses it to suck blood from the cotton candy victims!

Meanwhile, Dirty Dave and AAJ are looking for Debbie, and AAJ just starts SCREAMING right in the klowns’ lair. They find Debbie and shoot her down from her kokoon trap, then they all run away from the klowns who overheard AAJ’s perma-meltdown.

From here on in, until further notice, assume that Debbie does absolutely nothing but bounce and yell uselessly.

“ANOTHER DOOR! ANOTHER DOOR!” AAJ (speaking of useless) keeps yelling, as the klowns chase them until they escape! Because of course the klowns run out of ammo.

The kute klown, yay! But can I just say, he and the other klowns have individually each killed many people, but together, can’t seem to catch Debbie, Dirty Dave, or AAJ! Awesome.

Speaking of awesome, the ICDs are back in their ice-cream truck with klown lipstick all over their faces, and they pretend to be a klown god or something (’cause, the ice cream truck), and for some reason, the klowns listen. But before anything else can happen, a BIG klown comes down like a Sonic the Hedgehog end-of-the-level villain!

The ICDs are still being tools, and though Dirty Dave tries to save their sorry asses, they get all, “We can’t leave! (The ice-cream truck is) rented!” And Sonic Klown smashes the little clown on the truck, and throws the truck, and because it is the ’80s, the truck explodes. Luckily, Dirty Dave saves the day with his carnival knowledge, and Sonic Klown goes down, which defeats the entire Klown Tent, the whole thing spins away into the air, looking like a….big top. Until it explodes into fireworks! Signifying the independence of humanity from the Klowns.

Dirty Dave shows up for no discernible reason in the klown kar, which did not become a firework! And lo and behold, the ICDs survived the explosion by hiding in the freezer of the ice-cream truck, and the ICDs are sucking proverbial pink popsicles! All’s well that ends well, though personally I preferred the klowns to any of these tools.

“Killer Klowns from Outer Space” ends with foreshadowing to Season Four “Friends,” as now, Dirty Dave, AAJ, and Debbie are all a couple. They hold each other, and AAJ does not mind at all that Dirty Dave will not stop touching Debbie. They sway, and we finally have peace.

Until! Debbie shouts, “Do you think it’s over?” And AAJ, useless as ever, goes, “Yeah, sure!”

But then! They all get pies in their faces! And I wonder why they don’t melt into sundaes like the security guard. But no time to wonder too much, because it is the ’80s, so: FREEZE FRAME!

~ THE END ~

Posted in Celebrities, Childhood, Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night, Movies, Supernatural :o | Tagged cotton candy, Debbie, Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, ominous popcorn | 10 Comments

Top 7 Current Shows I’m Watching PLUS One More…

Posted on October 22, 2011 by judisunshine

So I think I’m watching more current television than I ever have in my existence, i.e., where every show is my choice to watch and no one’s going to make me watch it but me. And shockingly, many of the shows are new. So I decided to list in order from last to first, my takes on the shows that are compelling me to bust out the Hulu. Absent from this list are:

– Shows I watched with gleeful addiction when they ran during the summer (e.g., “Degrassi” and “Hell’s Kitchen”)

– Shows that I still would watch, but haven’t gone out of my way to watch on the computer (e.g., “30 Rock,” “Modern Family,” and especially “Raising Hope”)

– Shows that I should be watching, but have not caught up on (e.g., “Weeds,” and to a more upsetting-to-my-brothers extent, “Dexter.”)

– Shows that I sent away in a fit of effigy, but would maybe give another chance to if I liked an ep or two (e.g., “Glee” and “Community” (streets ahead!))

– Shows that are burning out my DVD player, but are no longer in production (e.g., “Party Down” and “The New Adventures of Old Christine.”)

Onward!

8/7. Tie: 2 Broke Girls and New Girl

Not in a very long time have two shows filled me with ambivalence so early into a series. Both star gorgeous yet interesting looking actresses with fabulous hair, one of whom even has big boobs, which almost is never allowed on mainstream television. Both shows made me lol and even tear up at their first couple of eps. Both shows have a really enjoyable secondary character or two. But both shows make me cringe a bit too often, and not in the “Freaks and Geeks” glorious awkwardness sort of way. “2 Broke Girls” relies too heavily on weird racial stereotypes, which I think is maybe the point; they are shooting for irreverent but it’s just landing on “Um, really?”

And “New Girl…” SIGH. I am not a Zooey Deschanel hater. I am a Zooey Deschanel adorer. But omg it’s like, CALM THE FUCK DOWN, ZOOEY, WE GET IT, YOU’RE “ADORKABLE.”

First of all, that expression needs to be shot. Second of all, seriously, girl needs to rein it in a bit. Right now, she’s just coming across as a way less charming, way more annoying, non-mentally handicapped version of Charlize Theron’s character on “Arrested Development.” I feel like in the pilot, she struck a good balance – still “big” enough for a sitcom, but human and endearing, if you again, don’t already hate Zooey. The second ep, a little more annoying, but made up for it with a very sweet last scene. Third ep is the one everyone is saying was the best yet, but she just made me want to pop her in the (albeit beautiful porcelain) jaw.

Not sure which show’s going to get knocked off my queue first. “2 Broke Girls” for all its faults has some really nice chemistry between its two leads, and Beth Behrs/Caroline is surprisingly likable to me. Also, I support any show that mocks annoying restaurant customers (snap scene in the pilot is great). “New Girl” has a very good supporting cast (Deputy Leo in the house! The Damon Wayans, Jr. loss is not the show’s fault), and is promising the imminent arrival of My Girlfriend Lizzy Caplan. Really, I want to like both shows, so while they are last on the list, I’m not giving up on either of them just yet.

6. Pan Am

Pretty sure this would be much higher on the list, but it was the last one I got around to watching, and I’ve still only seen the pilot. It was very good, and of course has my Soul Sister Christina Ricci, but I wasn’t super in love with the rest of the cast, though everyone did a good job. I think I’m just not as bowled over by Kelli Garner as some seem to be, despite her apparent inclusion in “Buffy’s” “The Body.” I’ll keep watching though, and expect to like her and the show at large, more and more with time.

5. Survivor

Sad that one of my favorite and life-altering shows is only fifth on the list out of eight? Yes. Impressive in its own right that it’s still on the list after 11 years? Also yes, IMO. Truth is, whether this show is long in the tooth or not is of little importance to me. I could watch the show itself for 30 more years, and never get sick of it. My biggest problem with “Survivor” is the same as it’s always been – often bad casting and over interference by the producers. Fans seem to hate the Redemption Island twist, and vocalized this last season. I actually didn’t vocalize this because a) I don’t mind them trying something new, and b) Boston Rob was back, and I am a fan.

But two seasons in a row “Survivor,” really? I’m as guilty/proud as anyone to be a part of the “Survivors as Celebrities” fan club, but bringing back old Survivors yet again just feels masturbatory at this point, and while interesting to watch, and nothing against the returning players, it is no longer the game I fell in love with. Perhaps that will give the show another decade in a Madonna-reinvents-herself kind of way. I’ll keep watching as long as the show’s on, but for now give me the “Like a Virgin” record and “Survivor: Palau” DVD set, as far as these things go. New season’s piled three eps in on the DVR, and aside from the fact that I’m stoked to watch it with my brother Eric again, I don’t really care all that much that I’ve missed a few weeks. This, IMO, should not be. However, here it is — still a great show. Still Number Five. Hope one season soon it will be back at/towards number one, as I believe it deserves to be.

4. Up All Night

Another not-perfect show, but it’s by far my favorite sitcom of the new season. I agree with all the critics and viewers who say that this show needs to figure out a more cohesive tone, but I absolutely LOVE Christina Applegate, and am ecstatic that she’s gotten another good role. She and Will Arnett are perfect together, and I may be in the minority, but I prefer him toned down and vaguely confused to cocky and bastardly. Maya Rudolph’s character is part of the problem with the aforementioned tone, but she is great in her role. Even Nick Cannon is randomly there being tongue in cheek about himself, and is enjoyable.

My favorite thing about this show though, well besides Christina Applegate, who I’ve always thought is one of the most talented comediennes of my generation, is that the show seems to be addressing something that I just haven’t personally seen done quite like this before. People who hold onto their (by pop culture standards, for lack of a better term) youth and “coolness” really up to the point where you kind of can’t anymore, especially if you’re in a committed, long-term relationship. The baby arrival was just kind of the final nail in the coffin. Of course they are still cool, and youthful, and hot, but the show does a very interesting job of their coming to terms with no longer, fittingly enough, quite being Nielsen’s target demographic. It’s pulled off much better than I can explain it, and Christina Applegate (did I mention I love her?) seems to be having a fun time sinking her teeth into the role, even dressing up in full Kelly Bundy regalia for a flashback.

3. Grey’s Anatomy

Speaking of long in the tooth, that is a phrase that’s been applied for awhile to this show. And I get why. I think it was around the third or fourth season that I stopped watching, and it wasn’t until I caught the S6 shooting eps On Demand that I started again, but once I did, I fell back in love with a vengeance. There isn’t much new to say about the show that I haven’t said already. I love the cast, both old and new, and pretty much without fail, this show gives me a welcome catharsis of tears every single week.

My only complaint right now would be that there seems to be a meta backlash at my beloved Lexie/Chyler Leigh. Apparently a lot of the fans find her deeply annoying and this season, she’s been way marginalized, and even in the last two eps has been overtly told to Go Away by other cast members, even sent out of state in the ep before last. While I love her, I can appreciate that Shonda Rhimes seems to be listening to the viewers, something she’s failed to do in the past, to a major degree. So I’m sad that Lexie seems to be taking the hit that Izzie didn’t, but still glad to see a return of focus to the original remaining three interns, Meredith, Cristina, and Alex. Especially Alex, as IMO Justin Chambers has done some of the most underrated work on television over the series’ run. Additionally, the characters of Avery and April seem to be getting fleshed out more, which rocks.

Plus, Kevin McKidd. Now sporting a shirt and tie! He’s just an amazing actor, one of the best additions to the cast ever, and works so well with the incredible Sandra Oh.

I may have left this show once before, but never again; I’m in this one ‘til the code turns blue and we get the sad words, “Time of death” and “We did everything we could.”

2. Revenge

The only reason I even heard about this show was that I once again have a desk job, so have reacquainted my OCD with Television Without Pity’s photo gallery lists. In this instance, it was a “What to watch/DVR/skip during the new fall season.” They raved about the “Revenge” pilot, and while I’ve never been an Emily VanCamp fan, the idea of a show based on “The Count of Monte Cristo,” in the form of revenge against snobby Hamptonites, intrigued me. I figured, why not check out this quiet little show on Hulu?

I got around to watching it sometime after the aforementioned sitcoms, and sometime before “Pan Am.” I was instantly hooked, and from that moment on, it became my television crack cocaine. I’d say just “crack,” ‘cause, addicting, but it’s a show about fancy people, so, cocaine.

I am not even sure how to put into words, why this show, despite arriving at a Clay Aiken-close number two, grabbed me so tightly, and has kept me in its grip for five episodes, and leaves me wanting more to an exponential degree every week. But for me anyway, it’s become the breath of fresh air that comes along only once in a blue moon. Really, I can’t think of a show before or after “Buffy” that’s had a similar effect on me. Where it’s still a new sensation, but when I remember that there is a new episode of “Revenge” to watch, I feel strangefully peaceful and thrilled, all at once.

“Revenge” also has a remarkable cast. As I mentioned earlier, I was never a fan of Emily VanCamp. Granted, “Everwood” always felt too morose even for me, and “Brothers and Sisters” had taken an awkward turn by the time Miss Emily arrived, so it’s probably not her fault at all. And either way, I am now enamored by her. She’s like, almost not even human, in the way she manipulates her face and body in a combination magical (AHHHH!!!)/robotic way. Enough so that she can go almost effortlessly toe to toe with…

…Madeleine Stowe (that rhymes!), who has never been more glorious. Never. And I’ve seen both “Last of the Mohicans,” and that one movie with Ray Liotta, so I know. She’s aged just enough to lend credibility to Queen Victoria, and dare I say it, puts any and every other Lady Macbeth to shame. At very least gives them a run for their money. She. Is. Perfection. What she brings to the table gives the underrated (by me) VanCamp a whole lot to work with, and the results are magnificent.

And there are so, so many more great actors, but this is long enough, I think. My favorite besides the ladies mentioned is Gabriel Mann, playing Nolan in a way that gets me to consider him for my short list of Men I Might Be Okay With Playing The Joker If Nolan (!) Allowed. The name of the list is longer than the list itself, but this guy is great, and the way that his character has unfolded thus far gives me faith not only in the actor, but the writers.

There are so many more I could and would mention, because there’s not a single one on the show that I don’t think is doing a fantastic job. IMHO? Come along for the “Revenge” ride, because it’s going to keep getting even awesomer.

(PS How did I not notice that it is RILEY in the trailer as her dad?!?!?! I knew the actor was replaced, but omg.) Also? Now that I’ve seen several eps, I think this little girl could totally become the next Dakota Fanning. She’s a great little actress.

Stay Tuned for Number One!

Posted in Celebrities, Childhood, Friends, Going Out, Lists, Miscellaneous, Romance, School, TV, Women | Tagged 2 Broke Girls, Christina Applegate, Christina Ricci, Chyler Leigh, Ellen Pompeo, Emily VanCamp, Gabriel Mann, Grey's Anatomy, Jusin Chambers, Kevin McKidd, Madeleine Stowe, New Girl, Pan Am, Revenge, Sandra Oh, Survivor, TV, Up All Night | 4 Comments

This House…Is Clean?

Posted on October 19, 2011 by judisunshine

(And so the hauntings conclude (FOR NOW), not with a bang, but a whimper (TM my boy T.S.).

So when I was living in my second Merrick apartment (the one before the current Levittown one), I remember trying to download “Like Humans Do” by David Byrne, ’cause I think they played it on “LOST,” and I was neither having sex nor doing drugs, so obvi I was deep in the throes of Mix CD Obsessiveness.

However, my iPod would not accept the song, and my iTunes would not play it. But there it was, in my computer.

Fast forward to November 2006. My computer had broken, completely and utterly, wiped out like Tara’s brain in S5 “Buffy,” and my friend Brian was kind enough to give me his old one (thanks Brian!!!). So clearly, I didn’t have my old files on this computer.

Or did I?

I didn’t actually CHECK to see if “Like Humans Do” was on Brian’s old/my new computer. I mean, why would I? It’s not his type of music. Plus, it didn’t make me all reflective and inspired like Rilo Kiley, nor was it obnoxious enough to warrant blasting in my apartment like my tried and true “Appetite for Destruction,” or Eric’s Children of Bodom songs on his page, or Marc’s insurmountable Standalone Player (RIP, also WTF! No offense to your Slick River song, which is of course awesome). And more to the point, since I’d completed the chronological “LOST” (O?)CD back in ’05, I really hadn’t given “Like Humans Do” a second thought.

On top of THAT, the new hard drive (? I think? Something bad happened.) crashed, and I lost everything. Bad, because…well, that’s bad, but good, because my friend was able to basically build me a new computer thanks to his *connections* and technical savvy! Which also meant that the kibosh was finally put on my mysterious Bloodhound virus that acted as its own kind of haunting.

But I lost everything. Imagine my SURPRISE then, when just now, I’m fiddling around with my Windows Media Player. It seemed lonely, and now I realize that it was trying to tell me something.

I go to the drop-down list just out of curiosity to see if maybe I got some free music, since I don’t know how to use iTunes without erasing my iPod and really it’s a wonder that I don’t fall down or burn myself even more often than I normally do, ’cause functioning in life is like a broken second language to me.

But so guess what was there! ONE SINGULAR sensation TRACK! “Like Humans Do” by David Byrne.

!!!!!!!

Which means that this apartment is particularly hardcore. As you all know, I’ve been haunted before. But never twice in the same apartment, unless you count the omnipresence of Jolene the Ubiquitous Ladybug of Oneonta, though that wasn’t really haunt-y so much as cute relief from the horror of life at the time.

I think maybe what’s going on is that this apartment doesn’t want to let me go. As further proof, I was totally going to take a shower like two hours ago, but kept procrastinating and am now writing a blog. But I have to get going! Wednesday is moving day! Good grief!

But WHY does the apartment not want to let me go? Because awwww, I anthropomorphize enough without thinking that my pretty purple walls will be sad when I leave.

Or perhaps, what’s going on is a mystery that I was meant to solve! I mean, this IS the apartment where I watched almost three seasons of “Veronica Mars.” Maybe the apartment had high hopes for my sleuth skills, and though I let it down by having “Gilmore Girls” on a permanent loop, not to mention that day I just watched monkey movies for hours (WEED IS DANGEROUS TO SOCIETY), it realizes that this is its last hope to get my attention.

But what is the mystery! Is it like that book I loved when I was younger, I can’t remember the name and Google and I aren’t friends anymore, so I don’t know the exact title, but it was about a girl named Darcy who solved a murder mystery because the people who were murdered acted it out in her dollhouse?

So the bottom line is, that I don’t even know how I’m going to manage to pack and move all my stuff by next week, and now on top of it, I might have to solve a murder. And I don’t even have a dollhouse! (Sadly.)

Wish me luck.

Posted in Apartments & Other Domiciles, Miscellaneous, Movies, Music, Supernatural :o, TV | Tagged anthropomorphize, Appetite for Destruction, Bloodhound virus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Calvin and Hobbes, Children of Bodom, David Byrne, Gilmore Girls, Haunting, iPod, iTunes, Like Humans Do, LOST, Merrick, mix CD, monkey movies, Rilo Kiley, T. S. Eliot, Tara Maclay, Veronica Mars, Windows Media Player | 1 Comment

Tweety Two And Tweety Three Want Seconds

Posted on October 18, 2011 by judisunshine

You son of a bitch. You moved the cemetery but you left the bodies, didn’t ya?

You son of a bitch. You left the bodies and you only moved the headstones.

You only moved the headstones.

Lies! Lies!

~ The Awesome Craig T. Nelson

So remember how I told you my apartments tend to be haunted? Well, my latest one is no exception.

The ghosts lay low for quite a while, actually. I’ve been in my current apartment for 11 months now, going for a new record if I hit thirteen months! It figures that I, the person who freaks out when my seat is stolen at the dinner table because I have *territory issues,* would for one reason or another never hold an apartment for longer than a year.

But now I wonder if it’s been the ghosts all this time! Like, they maybe get bored staying in the same place for too long. Witness:

– Evil spirits kicking me out of my Plainview apartment. Okay, that was actually just the Plainview residents, because Plainview is NOT COOL. But they set a tone, you know? They were the gateway to the ghosts, maybe.

– Evil spirits convincing me to leave Merrick Apartment Number One, my best-ever apartment, overall. Okay, that was actually my ex, convincing me that we should move to Oneonta. But damned if I couldn’t have used some friendly ghosts to shake me about and say “NO.”

– Timmy, the dead boy from Oneonta.

– The Fish Bandit Ghost Gang from Merrick Apartment Number Two.

Now I am in Levittown. And I was totally prepared for The Levittown Experience, because it’s a lot like how Plainview would be if it lost the attitude and got a Tweety bird tattoo, I mean, my very first night here there was, no joke, a Biker Block Party. It may very well have been the loudest night of my life, between all the VROOM VROOM, and the fireworks, and the screaming.

And that is awesome to me, because ear plugs exist, and I’ll take the wanna-be Howard Beachness of Levittown any day over the awkward despair of Plainview. So things are fine, and recently enhanced by the fact that my new neighbors downstairs have a girl pit bull (pit cow?), a teeny-tiny yippy dog, and three baby boys.

Hilarious and fun to me, but maybe not so much for Chip and Doc, understandably, who have bonded together to form a grudging alliance since the arrival of the dogs. They’ve been looking a little frantic and worried lately, and I just attributed it to them having to get used to the new neighbors, both Man and Beast.

Even the other night I believed that, when they started flipping out, like having hardcore spaz attacks and tearing to and fro, frantic and seemingly afraid. Now as we all know, that’s how they roll, but this was different. Unsettling. And they weren’t running away from each other; they were running together.

But I was reminded that the cats can smell and sense things, like the dogs downstairs, even when we can’t. So I let myself believe that, even in the following days when Chip started sitting atop my computer with his eyes turning yellow and his pupils narrowing into slits, and I tried to joke around with him about it, but he and Doc have gotten increasingly “I am the gatekeeper, are you the keymaster?” about life, so that was worrisome.

I knew that the haunting was for real though the other night. I’m sitting at my computer, and in the little hall area next to me, I hear something being pushed off of my decoratey stand. Not something falling, something being pushed. Then it clattered to the ground, or well, whatever something does on a rug, when it would normally clatter.

It was the plaque my mom gave me for my thirtieth birthday that symbolized the fact that I may have been aging and alone in a basement apartment, but if all else failed, my mom and I could become one of those mother/daughter duos who go out to eat together and terrorize waiters across Long Island by creating their own menus.

So wait, what? Oh yes, so my mother gave me a plaque letting me know that she loved me even if no one else did, and it’s one of my favorite things, so it’s one of the items I’ve mustered up the enthusiasm to find a place for.

But now it had fallen over, and I stood, preparing to scold Chip, and I wasn’t picking on him, but if Doc had knocked it over, she would have fled in terror. She’s afraid of her own power and all, ’cause of society.

But Chip likes to stay put like an evil possum, all, “Bitch, whatcha gonna do!” So I knew it was him.

But Chip was nowhere to be seen.

And neither was Doc.

!!!

I wandered around my place, thinking maybe one of them had in fact vanished from the scene of the crime somehow, but no. They were both sleeping.

So that is that. My new(ish) place is haunted, ’cause that plaque was pushed, no joke. Which is fine, I guess. Being haunted is kind of interesting. Plus, it’s kind of cool that the latest ghosts most assuredly came from the animal corpses that had to be removed from the pool in the backyard. You don’t want to mess with a squirrel, that’s for sure. I had no knowledge of the drownings, and the company I run had nothing to do with it, so it should be okay. However, if I see Lara Flynn Boyle lurking around, I’m totally out, because you can haunt me, but there must be a certain level of sustained quality to it, is all I’m asking.

Posted in Apartments & Other Domiciles, Cats, Supernatural :o | Tagged biker block party, cats, Chip and Doc, Craig T. Nelson, Doctor von Rockenstein, fish bandits, ghosts, Haunting, I am the gatekeeper are you the keymaster, Levittown, Merrick, mother/daughter, Oneonta, plaques, Poltergeist, screaming, territory issues, You only moved the headstones | 6 Comments

And Vampire Makes Five

Posted on October 16, 2011 by judisunshine

Okay seriously, I would really like to know why half the apartments I’ve lived in have been haunted?

First in Oneonta, my apartment was haunted by a boy. The first night I spent there with The Ex, we noticed: a wistful calendar in the kitchen that was made by a child, left inexplicably on March 2002 (it was August 2003 at this point); and creepy pictures hanging around this empty bedroom. The room had no closet, and it locked from the outside. This was all very unsettling, and we made nervous jokes about our apartment being haunted by the spirit of a dead boy, whom we decided to name “Timmy.”

We continued with the gallows humor, because what else is one to do when one keeps finding evidence of no former life in the apartment except for unhappy child memorabilia? Things got creepier when we discovered a watergun on top of the refrigerator. But the real capper came the next morning. We’d gone to sleep in a completely empty room, besides the “artwork” on the walls. However. HOWEVER. When we woke up, there on the floor at eye level, was a single black crayon. No joke, it was NOT there the night before, it was just not. Never before had a crayon appeared so ominous.

In the end, Timmy did not bother us, although who knows if he was possibly responsible for the nonworking refrigerator and oven, or for the flood, or for the fact that our garbage was not picked up for two whole months? Wait, that was probably not so much Timmy as the “landlord.”

So anyway, once I left Oneonta, I thought my days of haunted apartments were over. Until Monday night. First, my cats have been doing that uber-creepy thing, where they just stare at seemingly nothing, and it’s really really unsettling, because like, WHAT are you looking at, cats? They will both stare in the exact same spot, looking completely bugged out. Never a good sign.

THEN…my fish went missing. Sunday night, I cooked up some tilapia, but due to my sudden lack of appetite lately — good because I lost seven pounds, bad because I have circles under my eyes darker than Timmy’s crayon — I couldn’t finish it. So I put it in a bowl in my refrigerator.

Monday night I decided that perhaps coffee was not quite *enough* as far as calories for the day go, and decided to reheat the leftover fish. I opened my refrigerator. Everything else was just as I’d left it. I have a cross between crazy old lady frig, due to the dry cat food and medicine from my cold 2 months ago that I never bothered finishing, and bachelor frig, as the rest of the space is taken up by beer and condiments. So that was all still there, but the fish was gone.

No. No? What? As anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of chilling with me at a bar, or work, or life in general can tell you, I have this tendency to lose everything I own at various points of the day and night. And I’m not the world’s most fastidiously organized person, so when I can’t find something, I just assume that I need to check again. My mother always tells me, “You look like a man,” and since I’m pretty sure I don’t have a single feature that’s even remotely masculine, she can only be referring to the fact that I tend to “look” for things by opening a cabinet, deciding that no, there’s no string beans, and carrying on with my day.

So I just assumed that was it, and I reopened my refrigerator, prepared to look like a woman.

Still no fish.

WTF!

Then I wandered around my apartment, thinking that a) I am a scatterbrain, and was probably just pulling a Mrs. Schaefer and had accidentally put the fish in like, my dresser, b) maybe the lack of food for three days was making me hallucinate, or c) I’d in fact, already eaten the fish but didn’t remember.

Nothing.

Thinking that maybe I just needed sleep and possibly something to eat, I had a piece of bread and went to bed before the “Gaslight” experience was complete. As I slept, my subconscious overcompensated for the lack of fish by having me dream about huge humpback whales all night. Whales scare me. I think if I don’t die in a plane crash, I’m going to get killed by a whale. And yes, I know that whales are not fish, but it’s close enough.

The next day, I looked around for the fish. Still nothing. And despite the fact that my bedroom looks like I’m preparing for a massive rummage sale, the place is clean and Lysol wiped and smelling grand, so there is only one explanation left. My ex-boyfriend became a vampire and snuck into my apartment and soon I will find the fish in an envelope. Bad, because now I have to buy new tilapia. Good, because next he will draw a portrait of me while I sleep, and I can’t WAIT to see what kind of friend requests that attracts after I put it on Myspace!

Posted in Apartments & Other Domiciles, Cats, Miscellaneous, Supernatural :o | Tagged Buffy, fish, ghosts, haunted, Timmy, whales | 3 Comments

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