Retrospective

This year I didn't do much of anything. Literally. But you know what I did do? Watch an assload of t.v. SO what better way to recap the year (actually mostly the fall) than as if I was a professional t.v. reviewer person.

Best new show
It was a tough call considering my love of 'Heroes' and it's ability to out comicbook even my comicbookiest of predictions but 30 Rock represents an achievement in American t.v. comedy which ought to be applauded.

30 rock takes all it's characters, and the actors who portray them and says "wow. we are pathetic and wierd and ugly and our lives are pretty stupid" and that is how they mine their hilarity.

This has been the perogative of my ever admired british sitcoms for years(so much so that shows like "extras" now are innovative for having basically nice, smart characters) but it never has seemed to stick in America. I think it's tended to have problems because the characters have been too annoying or the actors portraying them have no actually fit that role of schlub (think the amount of times Nikki Cox or Jenny McCarthy tried to play an ugly doofus).

anyway what is this, an essay? 30 rock is funny. I like it. the end

Worst New Show

The Nine. hands down.

Coming up with criteria for worst new show is hard usually but i think a little equation of the hype this show got from critics and networks and creators vs. how shitty it actually was makes it the leader of the pack.

It was supposed to be the new Lost and the only new serial drama worth watching with an amazing pilot that would leave you reeling.

So when I sat down and saw a show that was 1/4 semi-interesting hostage flashbacks and 3/4 people dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder drama I was agog with...whatthefuckkedness.

Not only do I not care about your post-traumatic stress and am frustrated by flashbacks and not telling the whole story, in Rescue Me there's already a show which seems to have written the book on good post-traumatic stress drama in a way that it needn't be brought up again.

maybe I was missing something but I think other reviewers maybe just smoke too much crack.

Winners: Comeback kids

Last season I lost all my guilty pleasures.

When Nip/Tuck started it was completely stupid yet, it was hilarious enough to fill my christmas breaks. Then when they awkwardly mishmashed various mythologies to try to make sense of the carver plot they revealed they had no idea what the fuck they were doing and completely lost me.

Likewise, The OC was such a ridiculous throwback to the Melrose Places and 90210s of our youth it was no surprise we quickly planned drinking nights around it. What was surprising was the fact that it went from haha bad to unwatchable bad in the 3rd season so much so I didn't even bother to catch up online until I knew a main character would die.

So then the surprise of the season was when not one, but both shows managed to comeback not just as guilty pleasures but arguably as good enough shows in their own right. Maybe I'm wearing the rose coloured glasses of a former lover but honestly, at least in the case of Nip/Tuck, the shows have gotten as good as, if not better than they ever were.

It's one thing to take a bad show and make it good but it's quite another to get an out of control shit train and put it back on the tracks of being enjoyable.

honorable mention: How I met your mother. see above but without it ever being good before.

The LosersSorry reality t.v.

Sorry Lost.

You are really eating it.

The only reality show I kept up with was Project Runway and I even got tired of that. They've decided to replace everything with really stupid gameshows so I think maybe unless we all move to europe we might be seeing the end of the easiest to miss and pick back up on genre of all time.

And Lost. I used to think I didn't know what you were. Then I realized you are The Prisoner. Not exactly but pretty close. Don't get me wrong I like The Prisoner...but in a "i'm hungover and it's on at 4am on PBS" kind of way not a "TV EVENT OF THE SEASON".

Things you can avoid to make me think you are less like The Prisoner:
- don't refer to people as numbers
- don't let them think they've escaped the islands only to make them realize they havent
- don't make Jack the real controller of the island
- no anti-escape orbs

"Wha' Happen?" A friend of mine, lets call him Mr.Lee, complains that Battlestar Galactica's main flaw is it's constant return to the status quo of "everyone on battlestar being chased by cylons" and I used to try to defend it saying it was more about the subtle psychological changes and so on and when I saw last season's premiere I was like "HA! this'll show him".

Eye gouges, babies, marriages and FAT APOLLO! stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

But then it all went back to normal again...except maybe an eye. The choice of making people ugly to try to show change and then completely abandoning the changes was 'meh' to say the least. But having them smoke pot and knowing Apollo binge eats when he's sad makes it worthwhile.

Also, Ugly Betty is an okay show. Sort of funny. kind of interesting plots. But most watched new show of the year? seriously? what the fuck?

That show everyone says is so good but you don't watch. But I have no life and watch it and tell you how it is

The Wire is sooooooooooooo good. The hype is real.

I realized after I watched the first episode and saw that it was the product of David "Homicide:life on the street" Simon and also realized it was basically like mashing all his previous shows into one that it would be mind-numbingly good.

I'm in the midst of the second season now and it's already a cop procedural, a prison show, a show about gangs, a show about political corruption, a show about international crime and about a million other things.

BUT the thing that makes it, as with the other Simon shows, is the characters. It takes these people 13 episodes to make one case because they are real people who are bored, horney, lazy, drunk, forgetful and any other number of real things.

If anything it's a show about being passionate and how that can take you far, fulfill you and also completely fuck you depending on which side of the system you are on and how you go about your business.

Anyway it's damn good and free for purchase or download at your convenience. Now you have to watch it so we can talk about it

Shows from the previous category I have yet to watch (to prove I have a life)
24
Brotherhood
The closer
Criminal Minds
Jericho
The Sheild
The Sopranos

Excited for in 2007?

Other than the resolutions to the great cliffhangers of Weeds and Rescue Me as well as the prospect of Hiro fighting a Dinosaur the return of two shows stand out.

The I.T. Crowd: This show was hilarious AND had a cliffhanger on a 6 episode comedy. It's mere days away from returning and only now do I realize how much i've missed it.

Entourage: I used to think the fact that every season of Entourage ended happily and with much fist pounding was a cop-out and proof that they could be trying harder but MAN when it ended all sad this summer it drove me nuts. I'm not comfortable with these characters not toasting and being happy and having supermodel orgies. Who knew? I look forward to the rest of the episodes leading up to the happy ending.

thats it. now i feel like i accomplished nothing.

mmmmm

3/3
The one familial thing i've never really gotten a handle on is cousins.

I think that's partially due to the lack of a universal consistency in cousinal relations. Some people I know are best friends with their cousins and others don't ever see or know them. How the hell am I supposed to know what to do with them based all your piss poor examples.

My mother's side only has cousins who are much older than me even if they are delightfully half hippy, half robot amongst themselves. When I've ever met them it's tended to be a sort of them babysitting me or them as another aunt/uncle-ish person who I need to know less about.

Now my father's side is where I run my happy family ship aground a bit more. They are mostly around my age and half of them even live in Edmonton or a reasonable distance away.

So now there are these boys and girls my age who are floated around on holiday occasions who I must interact with but there's less impetus to like/impress them than a grandmother and less need to love them than a sibling.

So then i'm left there with the youthful casts of Third Watch and Seventh Heaven (my personal situation, not a grand metaphor) trying to figure out what to say and how to present myself. I could see, in another time and place, being friends perhaps with a few of them...peripherally.

But our chatter is never friendly. It's random stories usually. Personal shtick sometimes. but it always ends the same way:

talking about experiences every human should have because it's all we can relate to.

eating. sexuality. job.

WOAH

please tell me the rest of you are confused and awkwarded out by cousins? Am I the only one. They fall clearly into the us vs. them non-nuclear level of family yet, they are our age and should we not embrace them as we'd embrace any other random youth?

oh well. i've got a 6th month period to mull on this

cam

2/3

My presents ranged from, an under other circumstances, ludicrously expensive Burberry umbrella to a copy of MAD magazine.

All strange. All suitable to a manchild.

More importantly my father seemed like he'd actually use the presents I got him, my brother seems to like Will Self and after one listen my mother is confident she can overlook the liberal use of the word 'fuckery' and love Amy Winehouse.

Out of family paraphrased quote of the day:

"Apparently if you are black and James Brown dies everyone has to call you up like you were related"

1/3 Christmasses DownPresents include :
- Wind up flashlight/radio
- Wool blanket
- Zip up training jacket
- Fifty dollars

Finally when I pop a cap in some triflin' mofucker's ass I can rest assured that if my escalade breaks down on the getaway I'll be fine until the towtruck arrives.

BITCH

How to survive at a party when you are the least hip person there
- Seek out a the most annoying people there and quickly form some sort of a team unit before they realize that you don't know anybody or are uncool. They will love the attention.

- Talk to people you went to highschool with. They'll at least stick around long enough to ensure that they are probably happier or more successful than you. Maybe they still like the same stuff they liked in highschool?

- Don't talk to the rappers. Even if they seem cool and down to earth and spin music you like. They have had dinner with Ghostface at P.F. Chang's whereas you have only seen Ice Cube once from across the street.

- Talk to your brother's ex girlfriends. You probably look and sound enough like him to keep their attention for at least a few minutes.

- Don't talk to your brother's current girlfriend or she might bring you up in a fight sometime and he doesn't need that right now.

- Now is not the time to dance.

- When you are force to stand and stare into space for hours at a time without someone to talk to for god's sake lean and put your hands in your pockets. You want to sit or stand straight with your arms folded but those are creepy.

- Text message or, barring that, pretend to text message. It makes you look popular and give's the non-smoking set something to do with their hands.

- Try to look aimless. People generally look like they want to go somewhere and do something and you must wipe this from your face or you'll scare people away. If you are a blank slate someone will think you are deep or something and probably talk to you.

- Get "I don't care anymore" drunk/high but not "I'm sad that I don't care anymore" drunk/high.

- Find your shoes early and place them strategically for easy exit.

I'm in town til the fourth

If you and your old man are around we should hang out

Cam

topics of conversation with my mother that are really about other things
How much she loves playing with the children her young co-workers have

The amount of obviously heterosexual sex my brother engages in

Filmmaking in Edmonton

Bald and balding men

The fiscal successes of my various classmates

The elderly being improperly cared for by their children

My friends marriages and whether or not I think it was a good time for them to be married

Cultural life and job opportunities in the various cities which are now home to girls i've dated

How cool she is with, and excited she is about, her gay co-workers

Hello Bonjour

Fuck I hate to travel.

Don't get me wrong I love to be in other places and I appreciate individual packets of pretzel and plastic cups of coke but the general milieu of travel is something I can barely handle.

I get nervous and pack too many things and then don't pack the most rudimentary things.

best stupid things ever packed : 3 formal suits for a 2 week visit

best thing forgotten: both my computer and cellphone charger (or this time every bathroom product possible)

I don't even know why I get nervous. Maybe because I alway think i'll miss a flight...maybe because I always have a feeling deep down in my gut i'll end up in a thai prison for drugs because my friends have pulled one over on me.

Also, perhaps my unassuming "totally fits in with the crowd" thing seems to make security uneasy. It's always about five minutes of explaining power adapters, chapsticks and much unbucklings and unlacings while being glowered at. In the end I'm always not a terrorist and always feel as though i've been very mildly raped. It's really enough to make you want to sneak contraband onto a plane.

But I suppose after that i'm quite good at planes. It's funny everyone seems most worried about the landings with the shaking and touching down but when I think I've never heard of a plane ploughing into the ground or an airport as it lands. It seems even bad landings are successful somehow.

Plus I always buy some regrettable magazine to look cool to whatever cheap thongtanlined co-ed is sitting to the left of the old lady sitting beside me.

It's 2006 why don't we have teleporters?

CAM

Just to clarify
In the last 24 hours:

- Wind threatened my safety

- Ian and I may have almost been murdered by a psychotic man who looked and sounded like Richard Branson over a parking spot (note: neither of us drive)

- After drinking for an hour and a half I spent the next 3 hours vomitting

- And apparently it snowed

Why was i so excited for exams to be done?

Amongst the garbled message lines and "Rajneet Advice" in my email inbox today I recieved a mess of nonsensical writing coupled with a link solicitation for perhaps the two best sounding pornography sites ever:

boys smoking . com

and, futhermore, boys pissing.com

Up until this point i've always felt it surely and moving about inside of me but now I'm certain:
I live the life of a porn star.

Twice as much on weekends

Vocabulary for the morning of Sunday, December 10th. 2006.

Hard Candied:
- to be seduced and undoubtedly entraped, physically assaulted and castrated by jailbait.
See: Redheads in moonboots on Broadway

"I am so fucking tired of...no super hot girls....who is....retard...."
- Warren on the state of fate and the world

"SHUT UP! I AM DONE WITH YOU.....suck my dick"
- warren vs. dog across the street

Of my many talents here's one lesser known:

hypnosis

...i think
Now I know what you're thinking:

Son of a magician. whatever.

But seriously. I taught myself hypnosis with the aid of a friend Josh Rose (now works at Zulu records interestingly).

And we did it twice at two parties in Grade 10. And it seemed to work....I dont know. People did things. Counting weird ummmm acting like a chicken. Hypnosis is boring really. Time consuming.

What always eats at me though was it seemed so damn easy. Takes about 3 minutes. And just about everyone we tried went under fine.

So either I'm really good at hypnosis or people planned an elaborate, confusing, unfunny practical joke which they have stuck to up until this point. They picked some people to fake it, faked being impressed with it and faked being manipulated mentally at a low level.

So elaborate for something so strange. Make me look like a cornfed rube because of hypnosis? There are easier ways to make me look like a rube.

Maybe I dont still try hypnosis because I'm still afraid it was an elaborate prank. Maybe I dont because I dont because I cannot figure out the amusement of it.

"woah that guy is acting like his feet are hot! hilarious!"

But still, I suggest everyone explore the dead end alleys and pointless malliability of the human mind...at least twice.

oh and plus I couldn't ever think of a good hypnotist name.

Real Blogging Returns Shortly...
real life banter:

a - I still like her though...

b- Really? I think about a day ago you suggested you'd like to light her on fire.

a- I'm not very sophisticated...emotionally.

cam

To Warren, Janine and anyone who's seen us cry laughing and not understood
This is what we are talking about

watch it, love it.

transcribed here

cam