List Four: An Expert in Limited Television

I watch limited television because Boyfriend and I don't have cable. Long story short: we don't have cable. If you ask me, "Did you see [insert most any TV show here] last night?" my answer will most likely be "No, we don't have cable." You will ask, incredulously, "You don't have CABLE?!" to which I will respond, "Nope" and we will have the exact same conversation the next week because the thought of not having cable in 2011 is too wild for many people to accept and retain.

So while I don't see most shows and passionately miss the ability to watch Food Network and HGTV, I still do watch a bit of TV. I have a few shows that I will make time for and some that I will make sure I catch online because I don't have cable and thus, it's the only way I can see it. Of course, there are always bitches who don't upload episodes of all their shows and I've got to wait until they come on Netflix streaming (looking at you, TLC, because damn it, sometimes I just want to watch Buddy Valastro make some awesome cakes).

Of the few TV shows I do watch, these are my favorites and I highly recommend them. Each is a nugget of entertainment gold, though none of them are like each other.

My favorites:
1. Modern Family
I will schedule my Wednesdays around this. I MUST be home by 9:00 p.m. The writing is spectacular and the acting is flawless. It's so rare that you get such an incredible combination of genius writing and perfection in delivery.

"Come on Manny, I could have unbuttoned your shirt if I wanted to"
"Lily...isn't that going to be hard for her to say?"

2. Archer
Many people don't know about this show. It is hysterical. Brother and I watch it and have to rewind it because we were laughing too hard to hear the next joke, which all come at lightning speed. It's been known to trigger asthma attacks for me. If you're easily offended and/or can't appreciate the humor in a wildly inappropriate situation or line of dialogue, this isn't for you. It's also animated but for the love of God, don't let your children watch this.

"No, Cyril, when they're dead, they're just hookers!"
"I am commandeering this airboat!" (Go to 4:53)

3. Supernatural
Considering I wrote an entire geeked-out entry about loving this show, I think elaboration is unnecessary. Just know that I love it. Looove it.

What happens when one actor doesn't give the other one the signal that it's time to stop playing the drums and begin his lines.
"Pudding!"

4. Mr. Sunshine
It's not getting great reviews, but I find it hilarious. While Matthew Perry is billed as the star, his is not the best character. He's like Chandler with an edge, and while he's really quite funny, he pales in comparison to my two favorite characters: Crystal and Roman. I adore Roman, maybe an unhealthy amount. I want him to be my friend.

"Well I did spend a summer in Europe"
"Where's the Asian kid? I specifically requested an Asian kid"

5. 30 Rock
What is there to say about this show that hasn't been said in the plethora of awards given to the show itself, the writers, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, etc.? Even the theme song has won an Emmy.

"Why are you wearing a tux? It's after 6, what am I, a farmer?"

6. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Charlie Kelly is one of TV's best characters ever imagined. Brother, SIL, Boyfriend, and I may or may not have watched the Road Trip episode 3 times in a row. Also, Brother recently taught his two-year-old that the correct response to "What's the time?" is an emphatic "Diaper time!"

"Does your cat make TOO much noise?"
"I will eat your babies bitch!"

I've also fallen out of love with a major show: Glee. Sure, I still list it on my favorites, but I've been extremely disappointed in the second season and don't make it a priority. I really only see it when I need something to watch on Wednesdays at lunch. The first season was so fun, so edgy, so funNY but this second season appears to be the one where the creators realized their show as HUGE and they wanted to make it deeper. The show that once strove to make me laugh hysterically now wants nothing more than to make me cry. There also seems to be more singing than there once was. Or maybe the songs were just better in the first season.

I feel the need to add that the fact that this list does not end in a multiple of 5 is killing me. I just couldn't leave off one of those six shows and I didn't want to add others that I simply just like to bump it up to 10. But yeah, there's a little voice in the back of my head going, "it's not 'even'" (because "even" to me doesn't just mean the opposite of odd) and I'm, with much difficulty, ignoring her.

I Can't Spell Hanukkah Without Looking It Up First

I believe that it's perfectly okay to:

1. Not know how to spell Hanukkah without looking it up first.
2. Play the same song a 7 times in a row.
3. Think that eating the ice cream on the lid doesn't count towards total ice cream consumption.
4. Believe that there's a definite area between "awesome" and "awful" into which movies can fit. It's called "relatively entertaining."
5. Think that Terminator 3 falls into the above category.
6. Vehemently defend that a soft drink has 3 different and distinct flavors: can, plastic bottle and fountain.
7. Buy a bridal magazine in front of your guy after living together for over 6 years and dating for over half that time.
8. Think that people who tell you to follow your dreams are crap because you have bills to pay.
9. Make jokes at a funeral.
10. Not get out and look at the dead body on the side of the road.
11. Like only one Beatles song (Eleanor Rigby in case you're wondering).
12. Be 100% completely and totally obsessed with the Eagle Cam at Norfolk Botanical Gardens
13. Be utterly flabbergasted that some people don't chew with their mouths closed.
14. Get irritated that some people just don't know how to wash dishes and load a dishwasher (and know when to do which).
15. Think Brokeback Mountain stole Top Gun's thunder.

It's also perfectly acceptable to be offended when someone asks if you're pregnant, but not when someone wishes you a Happy Hanukkah because of your nose.

List Three: Things That Make Me Me

We all like to think that we fit in, but have a few things about ourselves that set us apart from others. I tried to think of a few and while I know that many people will have similar attributes, the collection of all of them in one person helps make me distinctly me.

1. I'm a girl who loves to watch and play football and basketball, but I also get super excited when I get to wear my gorgeous 4-inch purple peep-toe heels.

2. I don't like Hollywood or the hypocrisy of actors who make millions of dollars for a few months' work and think I should be giving away more of my money while they buy houses that could house entire villages of the poor countries they so want to help and I struggle to make rent, but I love the glamour of the Oscars.

3. I have an undergraduate degree, a graduate certificate and a master's degree and I feel like a failure every day when I come to work as an administrative assistant. I despise telling people what I do b/c it looks ridiculous. I took the admin job at a university so I could get a free master's degree and over a year since completing it, I'm doing the same job. I hate it when people ask me where I work and what I do.

4. When I'm at work sitting down all day, I really want to go work out. As soon as I'm off work, I have no desire to work out and I just want to go home and sit down all night.

5. I currently only own one pair of jeans. I had a second pair, but they got a hole in them and I don't wear holey jeans. I've never been a jeans hoarder and don't understand the need for multiple pairs so I usually have a dark pair and a light pair. I'll replace my light pair and be perfectly fine with my 2 pairs of jeans.

6. I'm anti-Apple. I have a Microsoft Zune instead of an iPod and I refuse to get an iPhone. I resent the anti-conformity angle they use while almost completely monopolizing the mp3 player and smartphone markets. What do the hipsters and artists and people who are sooooo different from everyone else use? Apple everything.

7. I'm totally in love with cats and don't really care for dogs. I know this makes me appear quite crazy and scares guys off but I don't care. Cats are cute and playful while also being independent beings who need very little. They can also love on you very gently and be very sweet. Dogs smell and jump and lick you and need so much maintenance. A dog loving on you always involves being head-butted and licked and it's quite unpleasant. And did I mention they smell? Before you jump on me that cats' litter boxes smell, let's review something. Cats themselves do not smell. If you clean their litter box as you're supposed to, that doesn't smell either. Dogs smell. Like the actual dog smells. Every house that owns a dog smells like dog.

8. I hate the band Nirvana. With a passion. I think they were an absolutely awful band and not because of Grohl or Novaselic. Kurt Cobain was atrocious. He could not sing, he had an elementary understanding of the guitar, he could NOT sing (I want to ensure that's emphasized), and his lyrics were anything but genius: they were the ramblings of a drug addict. He killed himself because he didn't want to be famous (and because he was a drug addict and didn't think straight) and I'm supposed to be sad about that? Cry me a river Kurt, you know how to not be famous? You don't be famous. See me? Right now? I'm being not famous. It's easy. If you didn't want to be famous anymore or sell out your music you know what you do? You stop selling your music. You stop giving interviews on MTV about not wanting to be famous, you stop making videos, you stop putting albums out, you stop touring, etc. I'm sure many non-conformists listen to your mass-produced messages on their iPods.

9. One of my favorite things in the world is to get up Sunday morning and make waffles while playing the local classic rock station. Double the pleasure if it's nice out and I can open the windows as well.

10. I want to go on a ship at night. Not a cruise ship, but a big ole fishing boat or something. I want to act like the sailor I feel like. A yacht with all of its lights turned off would suffice, but I really want to hear the creaking of a ship at sea at night.

11. I love ballet. I loved it when I danced it and I love to watch it. If I was rich and living in NYC, I'd have season tickets to the American Ballet Theater and I'd love every second of it.

12. I don't have a GPS and will probably never have a GPS. I do this thing before I go somewhere with which I'm not familiar called "looking up directions and looking at the map." I'm pretty good with directions and as I've seen my ability to retain phone numbers diminish with the use of cell phones, I refuse to have that happen with my sense of direction and ability to find places on my own.

13. I don't really understand what "Esquire" means. I know that it goes after the name of some attorneys, but I don't understand it. Are all attorneys "esquires?" Does "esquire" always mean attorneys, or can another profession use the term? Are esquires only men? Is it a certain class or type of attorney that can use "esquire?"

14. Many of the things I was obsessed with as a child are still obsessions now. Volcanoes, weather (hurricanes especially), ballet, and geology can still get me excited and giddy.

15. I cannot end lists on anything other than a multiple of 5. Lists HAVE to end with a 5 or 0. Have to.

30 Years of Habits

I just turned 30 a few days ago and while I don't feel that different, I have thought about a number of things. Ten years ago, I was in college and began a 365-day countdown to 21 on my AIM profile. At that time, I knew exactly who I was going to marry, in what my subject my degree would be, where I wanted to work afterward, when I was going to get married, etc. The only thing I didn't know, then, was who was going to take me out for my 21st birthday because I was the first of my friends to turn 21, save a good friend who did not yet drink at the time. Anyway, I just KNEW that by 30 I'd be old and married and a mother with a great job making a lot of money with my aerospace engineer husband.

Ten years is a large period of time, during which many many changes can take place.

I still work entry-level. I've dated the same guy for almost 9 years and there is no proposal on the horizon. I am childless, though I should also say that I am HAPPILY childless. When I reached about 23 or 25, I realized that I did not want children in my 20s. I think that was a wise decision, though I didn't really have a choice seeing as though I am still unmarried. I wanted to be married before 30 (but not much before), so that's goal number one unattained. I wanted to own my home before I was 30, so that's goal number two unattained. I EXPECTED to be working in my desired career field (much) before I was 30, so that's goal number three unattained. I planned on traveling to England and "accidentally" running into Prince William so that we could begin our fairy-tale romance, so there goes goal number four as well. Those unattained goals are really the only things I've felt down about since turning 30.

However, I've also thought about things I heard/said/did/experienced throughout my life onto which I still hold even though it's silly to do so. This part isn't deep. This is really thinking about those silly things that happened to you when you were a child that still influence your decision-making 25 years later. This is the fun part of turning 30. Thus I present to you...

Silly Childhood Crap That Continues to Influence Me Even Though I Know It's Silly Childhood Crap:

1. I'm quite reluctant to give you a bite of whatever I'm eating.
REASON: When I was about 5, I was about to enjoy a rare chocolate Little Debbie cake while sitting in my dad's lap. He asked for a bite and being the Daddy's Girl I am, I wholeheartedly offered him a bite even though I had not yet had one myself. He ate the whole thing, except that which my tiny girl hands were still gripping. I threw the last crescent at his chest and ran into my room where I cried on my bed. My mean Daddy had just eaten the ONE treat I was going to get that night and we NEVER had treats like Little Debbie cakes in the house! To this day he says that the only reason he did that was because he knew that we had more in the kitchen and that I was going to get BOTH cakes in the package instead of the one I was normally allowed to have. I still think he was doing it just to be mean, the drive behind the motivations of most boys.

2. I hate it if someone says my whole name--first, middle, last.
REASON: Kids are mean and want to upset you in any way possible. My 3 names flow together nicely and can get a nice rhythm. What that means is that it's easily chanted in a taunting manner. The kids at my babysitter's house did that...a lot. Such teasing usually came after my brother started it because he was a jerk. Still, I would cry and yell at them to stop, which just made them chant my name louder. Now, I like my name. I like my first name, I like my middle name, I like my last name, and I like how they flow together. All the kids were doing was saying my name. This simple act of saying my name, however, used to piss me off. So, to this day, I don't like hearing my name with any sort of rhythm.

3. I will usually side with the younger sibling.
REASON: I was the younger sibling. I hated my older brother because he could hit me, kick me, be mean to me, tease me, invite me to play before leaving me, restart the Nintendo when I was playing, invite me to play Super Mario Brothers then pause the game when I was jumping over something so that when he unpaused it I would fall to my death and lose a life that I was going to lose shortly anyway because I was a freaking 7-year-old girl playing as Luigi...and it would somehow be my fault and I was always asked, "Well what did you DO to make your brother hit you, kick you, be mean to you, tease you, etc.?" Thus, I tend to side with the younger sibling in most arguments.

4. I'm secretly terrified of escalators.
REASON: When I was young, my parents used to tell me that you could get really hurt by the escalator so I was always scared of getting on and off. Getting on to go down was especially terrifying b/c there's a chance you could go to step on and miss or the stair is going far faster than you really think and you could go flying forward and down the escalator to your certain death. Add this to the time my mom got on without waiting for me (I was probably 6 or 7) and rode it all the way down and I was just too scared to get on and I had visions of staying at the top of the escalator forever while my Mom didn't realize I wasn't there and went on without me just before a kidnapper came and got me and I would never see my family again. Luckily some nice lady held my hand and guided me down the escalator where my mother thankfully DID wait for me and I was not kidnapped. This could have been a really big deal.

5. I keep all of my credit receipts.
REASON: On an episode of ALF, the family got audited. It looked like quite the traumatic experience. I said that would never happen to me and if it did, I'd be prepared. So I had every credit/check receipt that I received from the age of 16 until about 27. Today, I'll get rid of them once a year--to make room for the next year's receipts. It's still quite hard b/c WHAT IF?! Forget that I claim nothing, have no dependents, etc.


There is no reason why any self-respecting 30 year old should still think these ways but I do.

The Funny List

Comedy is the subject about which I'm most passionate. Some people care about politics, some about the environment, some people care about education, and others about babies.

Me? I care about comedy. I care about stand-up comedy especially. It's exceedingly difficult to please me with stand-up. It has to be done correctly. It has to be sharp, smart, quick, and like the person is telling stories instead of jokes. I want to laugh about life. They have to be random and make me laugh because I can't see the punchline coming or I never would have thought of that comparison. If I can predict the joke, or if you yell at me and think the way to make me laugh is by screaming profanities, I won't laugh. If you can say the same profanities in funny witty stories that I can't predict, then you might make it on Em's Funny List someday. This is of course a goal to which all aspiring comedians should strive since I do have a knack for recognizing the goods. After all, I had my friends watching Jeff Dunham back in the late 80s/early 90s when MTV had its "Half-Hour Comedy Hour" and I thought his Jalepeno on a Stick was just too funny to adequately describe so I'd have them come to my house when it was on. Never heard of, or don't remember, MTV's Half-Hour Comedy Hour? I win.

The following are my favorite comedians, in ascending order:

10. Steve Byrne. I sure hope he'll be making a name for himself quite soon. Very funny Asian.

9. Steven Wright. Most people know him as "The Guy on the Couch" in Half-Baked. He's so much more than that. His stand-up was a little like Mitch Hedberg's in that it was very dry and deadpan and his one-liners were fantastic.

8. 90s Paula Poundstone. I loved her act. Many times she'd just come out and talk to the audience--completely improv. I can't tell you how intelligent that is to me. If you can go out on stage with no material and just have faith in your own quick wit then you know you've picked the correct path. I'd love to just hang out with her. I think she'd kill me with laughter.

7. Eddie Murphy. His "Eddie Murphy Raw" is still one of the funniest stand-up shows ever.

6. Ellen DeGeneres. One of her earliest routines included an airline focus. I still reference it. I love when someone recognizes the hilarity of life. I want to hang out with her too.

5. Bill Cosby. A true classic. He's gone kind of crazy and isn't as funny anymore (saw him in December 2008 and he kind of reminded me of your grandfather who's losing it and has become totally inappropriate but not in a funny way) but his early stuff is fabulous. I re-purchased "Bill Cosby: Himself" just a few years ago and laughed as hard as I did the first time. I want chocolate caaaaake!

4. Mitch Hedburg. If you see an escalator out of service and think to yourself "Escalators can never break down. They simply become stairs" then Mitch touched you too. "A friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana and I said "no." Then I thought I might want a regular banana later, so, yes."

3. Daniel Tosh. He's new, so for him to be so high on Em's Funny List is special. I love biting sarcasm and someone who's not afraid to be politically incorrect, but not offensive (unless you're sensitive and then you probably find him offensive, in which case you probably shouldn't be watching comedy). He makes you realize that it's impossible to be mad on a jet ski. He's totally right. If someone said I could have free tickets to any comedian's show, he'd be second on the list.

2. George Carlin. He's the Godfather of Comedy. In my opinion, funny didn't exist in its present form before George Carlin. His ability to make humor out of every day situations in which we all share was priceless. "Things We Share" is one of my favorites from him and I always think about it when I'm going up or down stairs and I think there's one more step. Or pick up a suitcase I think is full but it's really empty and for a split second I think I'm really strong. The only reason he's not second on my list of comedians I want to see in person is, you know, the dead thing.

1. Eddie Izzard. He's the funniest person on the planet. When you think of smart, witty comedy with randomness abounding, Eddie Izzard is the master. One of the greatest things about him is his spontaneity and improv. Each show is different because he doesn't write his stuff down. He knows about what he wants to talk but two shows on a given tour can be markedly different from one another. You know that guy on Family Guy who just gets sarcasm and finds stuff "funny because it's true!"? That's how I feel when I watch Eddie Izzard. His subjects are hilarious stories and historical analysis. I know that doesn't sound funny, but it is. I can honestly say that 48 hours will not pass that I don't speak an Izzard quote, make an Eddie reference, or think silently to myself, "Oooh. Stupid man." This man is a genius and a true comedic icon.

I'd also like to add an honorable mention for Dana Carvey. His 1995 HBO special, "Critic's Choice" is one of my favorites. He just didn't do stand-up long enough to make my list because this is for stand-up.

You'll notice that Chris Rock is not on this list. I recognize Rock's hilarity. When I read his quotations from his acts, I laugh hard. It's his delivery that turns me off and thus, I cannot include him on Em's Funny List since it's MY favorite comedians and not necessarily the all-encompassing Best of All Time (though really, it should be). He yells at me and I'm not a fan of that. It's a shame too because the man's material really is funny.