I watch Mad Men. So should you.

What I'm Listening To: Leave Them All Behind by Whitey

Sunday 10/26, a prophetic day: the season finale of Mad Men. You can look it up on Wikipedia if you're not familiar, but if you are, I'm sure you're still wiping your eyes and crossing your fingers that there's a season three.

Jim and I have been watching this show since its inception, and we basically would stop breathing while it's on because it's such a compelling show. The outfits, the hair, the cigarettes, oh, and did I mention the plot twists? It's just amazing.

And Sunday night was the final episode of the second season. Wow, what an ending. So many revelations, I thought they were re-writing the bible and adding a chaper..Revelations, Part II. It was almost too much to take, but in the end, we all knew what happened was meant to be.

For me, watching this show is like seeing inside a time capsule of the 1960s. But seeing the show's actors perform in other venues is like seeing your third-grade teacher at the grocery store. R-O-N-G. It's just so weird. I mean, Jon Hamm aka Don Draper was just on Saturday Night Live for cripes sake! Not that he was very funny. But it was so freaky seeing him NOT be Don Draper. Of course, the Saturday Night Live writers knew what they had to work with, so they didn't let him out of character...much...the entire show. But it was funny.

Speaking of characters, we don't really have a favorite character. I mean, they all have their own pros and cons. And I think we're supposed to be confused, to be ambivilent about who we want to root for and who we want to boo at. It's such a convoluted and complicated show -- I don't know.

But I'll admit, I'm kinda over the whole thing. The clothes are cool. Don is interesting. Joan has a nice, uh, hairstyle. But I'm getting to the end of my attention span with this one. It's like when you play house as a kid. The first time is super cool. But the next time you try to play, it just doesnt' feel the same. With the second season over, I kinda feel like they can't pull anything new out of the hat. Of course, I'm sure I'll be super surprised next year when Don like goes apeshit and shoots Pete in the face or something. But at this point, I'd kinda rather watch True Blood on Sunday nights and then go to bed. Is that bad? Oh well.

See you next season, I think.

Trick or Treat....or just shave already!

I hate fast food, but these are the cutest babies ever!! Happy Halloween!

What I'm Listening To: Last Chance on the Stairway by Duran Duran

Halloween is NOT one of my favorite holidays. I hate trying to find a costume. I mean, every Halloween in college my costume was a 50s circle skirt, saddle shoes, a cardigan and then I'd carry around a book of poetry. And people would always be like "Betty Crocker?" and I'm like, "No, Sylvia Plath." Yeah, dressing as a tortured 50's poet who committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven is kinda like Betty Crocker...I guess. Trust me, I never got lucky on Halloween.

And the whole thing with women dressing as slutty as possible because just this once, they can get away with looking like Paris Hilton's prostitute cousin because hey, it's Halloween! I mean, really. It's like, just pick a profession and add the prefix "Slutty" to it, and there you go, instant Halloween costume. Slutty Nun! Slutty Firefighter! Or how about Slutty Pick n' Save cashier? Or Slutty Cell Phone Salesperson? Or my favorite, Slutty Grandma! Oh wait, that's a cougar, not a Halloween costume. Never mind!

I am psyched about handing out candy on Sunday for trick-or-treating, though. That's definitely one of the perks of owning a home vs. a condo. It's sooper cute when the Halloween candy collection time starts. Little kids and their first Halloween costume. Moms pushing strollers with the kid toddling along side them. Kids walking up to your door still stuffing candy into their mouths. Our Nascar-crazy neighbors and their front lawn installation of inflatable (and incredibly tacky) Halloween decorations. Halloween in the suburbs is awesome! Too bad our candy is gonna be totally disgusting -- well, at least to me and Jim. Our overriding sweet tooth forces us to buy the nastiest candy available so we don't dig into the stash before Halloween hand-outs starts this Sunday. Bit-o-honeys, anyone? Sorry!

But you know what's the worst? These "kids" who aren't kids anymore -- those TEENAGERS who put together some stupid outfit like, uh, a Packers jersey and say they're Aaron Rodgers or carry a skateboard and say they're a skateboarder as their costume -- and then have the nerve to hold out their pillowcase at our door like they still deserve some candy. That is just R-O-N-G, wrong! Man, give it up. Halloween is for the under-12 set. Not for kids with facial hair. No kidding!!

So this year Jim and I are going to buy a couple travel-sized deodorants and maybe even a box of tampons, and hand them out to these brazen little freaks. I cannot WAIT! Jim wanted to hand out Schick razors for the kids with the 5 o'clock shadows, but I was afraid we'd get a call from the cops about handing out razors that weren't even buried in an apple first. Geez, you gotta do everything for these kids nowadays! :)

What age did you stop trick-or-treating? Let's hope it was before high school, people. Happy Halloween!

The infinite appeal of the unexpected

What I'm Listening To: On Board by Friendly Fires

Finally Netflix delivered our DVD of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Can I be really honest? It was disappointing. Maybe because Shia La Beouf is a terrible actor. That's probably some of it. But I'm thinking it was more because I'm not 12 years old anymore and don't fall for all that adventure chase scene crap -- no, it's not suspenseful anymore, not after you've seen more movies than Leonard Maltin. Uh, trust me on that one. You're talking to the girl who had to go see Less Than Zero in the theater with her MOM. So I think we can safely say I've seen it all.

Anyway, every time there was a chase scene, a cutesy-poo kiss, a weird a-ha moment, or some scenario where you weren't sure what was going to happen, I would pause the movie, turn to Jim and say, "Now, what if Indiana Jones was just like, 'Awww, I give up. Just shoot me already!' to that Russian agent that was constantly chasing him. Or, after the Russians are shooting at Indy -- I mean, there's like 20 of them and one of him, and they MISSED EVERY SHOT! -- and they actually HIT him and he dies and then Karen Allen had to carry the rest of the movie? This film is sooooo predictable."

Hollywood is so predictable. And we as viewers suck it up and never complain, because that's what we want. The expected ending. The lovers kiss. The good guys win. The bad guys die. The chase scene is thrilling.

I guess what I'm saying is, wouldn't it be kinda cool if the UNEXPECTED outcome happened in a movie? And I would LOVE to see some avant-garde director make a new kind of film, a movie where this unexpected-ness was the basis of the whole thing. For example, what if they played super boring trance music during the chase scene? Or if the lovers hate each other not just in the beginning, but throughout the movie, and they don't get together -- at all? Or if the random machine gun shooting actually hits the star? Or if the love scene has a super hardcore metalhead soundtrack? Or if every single thing you EXPECT about a certain interaction on screen has the exact opposite result?

Yes, if that flick was ever made, now that would be the coolest movie ever. A movie full of total mind-bending twists. A movie that ends with a decomissioned hero. A movie that ends with people sobbing because Batman's dead, Superman is really just like you and me, and the romantically-estranged-yet-destined-to-be-together couple both end up with STDs.

Not that I'm a pessimist or a total misanthropist, mind you. Because I like a happy ending the same as the next person. Seriously!! But I'm so bored with all these recycled formulaic Hollywood movie plots and stories. When are we going to see some director or writer push the envelope with all the tools at their disposal -- photography, plot and soundtrack -- and show us that we as their faithful audience deserve better? We don't have to cry on cue when they strike up the Bette Midler song at the hospital bedside! We don't have to hide our eyes when the scary villian starts threatening the hero, you know? Let's have a movie where we can't practically recite the dialogue before the actor even opens their mouth!

I dare a director to make such a movie, one that doesn't pander to the almighty dollar, but just to their sense of adventure and especially to their sense of the unknown. Anyone? Uh, Quentin, put your hand down. Sorry. :)

OMG this was my favorite song in high school!

What I'm Listening To: Repetition Kills You by the Black Ghosts

I love music. And what I love the most about making it to this decade is all the various wonderful and wacktackular ways you can get your music delivered to your eardrums. I mean, when I was a kid there was just vinyl. Very boring and limited. Then there were tapes, but you could only play them on some clunky stereoriffic machine that was anything but portable. (Remind me to tell you how I made my own version of the Walkman in the 4th grade...no kidding!) Then there were boom boxes. Then there was the crappy Walkman that played tapes, then the versions of the Walkman which played tapes and had auto-reverse, where it would flip the tape over for you AUTOMATICALLY, which was like, a godsend for a lazy teenager like me.

Then they came out with CD's! Whoohooo! And then portable CD players. Then you could rip and burn premade CD's, and also make mix CD's on your computer. At this point, I thought this was the culmination of the glory of music, portability and creativity. It couldn't get any better than this, I remember thinking to myself back around 2002. I mean, making mix tapes sucked (see my other blog entry) and CD mixes were awesome but limited to about 17 songs per CD if you were lucky. But, oh no. It got better with the magic of mp3's. And downloading music from the internet. And the internet in general. (Oh, and finding out someone else out in cyberspace also cried to that one super depressing song by Suzanne Vega -- aren't they all, though? Kidding! But that's another blog post, I promise!)

And then, tah dah! The musical powers that be continued their intrepid trek into the space where only true innovation treads -- streaming internet radio and satellite radio. Sites like Pandora. Last.fm. And last but not least, XM Radio.

Thank god for XM Radio. We have XM Radio in the car, and it is phenomenal. It's satellite radio and, they have these "genre" radio stations, and (yes, I'm finally getting to the point of this blog, you impatient ass!) I love the one called "Fred". It's Channel 44, in case you care. Every time we get in the car I turn Fred on. And basically every time it comes on, they are playing a song that I LOVED in high school or college. No kidding!! When I yelp for the 247 millionth time that I love this song or that song on Fred, Jim's always like, "You can't love every song. How can you love every song this station plays?" and I'm like "Uh, you try spending your high school weekends in your room with a tape player and the MSOE radio dj's as your only friends. Music was my BEST FRIEND, man!" Ha. Sniff.

Okay, so anyway, just wanted to let you know about Fred. They have played stuff like "Under the Milky Way" by The Church (uh, my first make out session soundtrack) or "Elephant Stone" by the Stone Roses (uh, remember Bailey's? A fun place? First time I went there, they were playing that song) or "Hey Ma and Pa" by Fishbone (uh, dated some guy because the only music we had in common was Fishbone, so that's all he'd play when we hung out) and a million other tunes that just make me all misty-eyed for my lonely high school days and then my fun college nights!

Do you listen to XM Radio? Which one of their genre radio stations bring it all back for you?

PS -- Check out LAST.FM, if you dare. :)

Book Review: Twilight, Part II

Uh, see what I mean? I'm not the only one fascinated... even the Fug Girls are onto Steffie!

Book Review: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Aren't vampires cute? Not this one!

What I'm Listening To: All Cried Out by Fink

Last night I finished reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. First off, the fact that the author spells her name StephEnie bugs me. Just wanted to get that out there. But that's not the only thing that bugs me about this book. Oh, don't worry, I'll tell you everything!

Jim and I were vacationing in Door County in August with my uncle and his family, and I saw that my teenage cousin was reading this book. As we all know, I am a devotee of all things teen-timer-y, from Gossip Girl to the Clique books. Anywhoo, I made a mental note to request this book from the library when we got back to civilization. I also looked it up on Amazon, and saw all the tweenie raves, so it was a total duh book choice for me.

So I FINALLY got the book about a week ago (after being on the library waiting list for like a month!), but it took me a couple days to get to it, because I was in the middle of another book. I didn't mind waiting -- reading two books at the same time gets too confusing -- and I was kinda putting off reading Twilight because I was afraid I would be disappointed by yet ANOTHER neo-gothic vampire tale. Just so you know, Jim and I are not vampire nutbags, but we don't mind a bloody neck or two. We're watching TrueBlood on HBO, and boy, we don't even pause that one for snarky comments, we like it so much!

I finally finished my other book, and started reading Twilight. What's kinda weird about this book is the fact that all the current tired cliches and props that are recycled in a lot of Meyer's contemporaries' teen novels -- ie, dropping high couture brands Prada, Coach and Juicy Couture every three paragraphs, referencing text messages as actual dialogue, or treating the computer as if it could actually be a secondary character -- are curiously absent here. It was refreshing, to say the least. I mean, once or twice Meyer made mention of what Bella and Edward were wearing, but the descriptions was so vague that the book could have been set in the 1950s from what she told us about their outfits. There were no pop culture references, no mobile phone discussions, and not even a paltry designer jean can be found in Forks, Washington. Is this chick Bella even for real? Or does Meyer strive to appeal to the timelessness of the vampire myth by completely stripping her story of cultural touchpoints?

Along with providing you with a bare-bones character, we are supposed to believe that Edward is in love with 17-year-old Bella, and that Bella is in love with 85-year-old-but-looks-17 Edward. Okay, people? Edward is a VAMPIRE. Bella is a HUMAN. Edward loves Bella like a lion loves a big fat gazelle. But the difference here is that Edward doesn't want to kill Bella because he wants to prove that he can CONTROL his "thirsting". What. Ever. Edward goes on and on about how much he loves Bella and how much he wants to protect and cherish her because, get this, she SMELLS GOOD. But really, it's like a carnivore who is trying to be a vegetarian. Sadness abounds. And Bella loves Edward because he's preternaturally beautiful. That, and he's super strong, super fast and, oh, didn't I mention? Super foxy! Whoopie!

After a while, I got so fed up with the melodramatic protestations of love and longing between these two saps that I wanted Edward to just kill the bitch and get it over with already!!! But I won't lie (to use an Anne phrase) I read that book in like a day. I couldn't stop turning the pages, even though I was appalled at the overdramatic language and the gothic subtext of love, loss, longing, and lack of cell phones. Oh, btw, Edward and Bella never get past first base. I'm not kidding. BORING. Not that I wanted to read about their passionate embrace anyway, mind you. That would be just creepy. But Meyer stays true to her rock-solid Mormon faith and the lovin' never goes below the neck. Get it, neck? Vampires? HAHA!

Bottom line, I thought this book was okay. So okay, in fact, that I requested the rest of the series from the library. Hey, at least I can read them for free. :) And Twilight the movie's coming out in November! Uh, totally Netflixing that one, 'kay?

Read any trashy vampire books lately?

Yeah, we had a dog. HAD being the operative word.

What I'm Listening To: Listen to the Beat by London Funk Allstars

I looooove dogs. We don't have kids -- not that I'm gonna go into that here -- and unfortunately, we also don't have a dog. But I always wanted a dog. I mean, when I was growing up we always had two cats. Oh, their names changed over the years -- Velvet, Cloudy, Lassie, Baby Kitty, Bob -- but we always had cats at our house, never a dog. So I've never had a dog, not ever! And we see so many adorable babies every day -- on the street with their jaunty tails, and cute little faces. Awwww. Super cute! I love dachshunds and shelties and pugs and cocker spaniels and pomeranians and shih tzus and...I could go on forever. I looove dogs.

One time we had a dog. No kidding! Here's how that went.

When we bought our house back in the summer of 2003, first on my list of things to do (uh, besides sage smudge the house for ghosts, duh! Because the place might have had a ghost or something. Remind me to tell you about my ghost issues later, 'kay?) was to convince Jim that we needed a dog. NEEDED a dog. So we had this "pros and cons of dog ownership" conversation like a hundred times on the bus on the way home. I was always watching the Humane Society website for cute dogs. We couldn't decide what to do. So finally, after getting fed up with not making a decision, we just went to the Wisconsin Humane Society and got ourselves a dog.

Baby was a 3-year-old mutt who had been picked up by the place as a stray. She was a smaller dog, and very cute. But I'll tell you one thing that isn't two things, we quickly realized that Baby couldn't give two shits about me and Jim. She was there for food, water, walks and taking a dump. Otherwise, she couldn't be bothered. She didn't want to play. She didn't want to be petted. She just wanted to give us dirty looks and lay there. Boring. At least she didn't bark...at all...which was a good thing.

But once we got her home I realized she had all these scars in her fur around her neck from fighting with other dogs. And every time we took her for a walk it was a real adventure. She HATED other dogs. I mean, lunging, growling, etc etc. It got to a point where we were afraid to walk her because she was so aggressive, something they neglected to inform us about at the humane society.

Jim and I were kinda getting sick of investing all this time and energy and money into a dog that basically hated us, hated other dogs, and hated life in general. I mean, what dog doesn't want to play with a ball? Baby didn't, that was for sure. What dog doesn't want to hang out and watch teev with their family? Baby was like, hell to the no on that one, kids. We bought her so many toys and treats she must have felt like she won the lottery, but nothing worked. Besides, Jim and I were out of the house at work from 6:30 AM to 5 PM every day. That must have been super boring. So I don't blame her for being pissed off and bored stiff -- she was pissing on the kitchen rug basically every day, anyway, to get back at us. (We kept her gated in the kitchen all day - bad idea. We should have just crated her like everyone told us to, but I felt that was totally inhumane. Later I found out that dogs actually like being crated. Who knew!)

The straw that broke the camel's back was Mother's Day, 2004. We were on a walk, and this guy was out washing his car. His dog was sitting his his front yard, and it was not on a leash. So his dog starts trotting over to Baby, and the guy's like "Oh, don't mind Rover. She's a really mellow dog!" and I'm like, "Uh, our dog's not!" and next thing you know Baby and Rover are having an all out dogfight. I was totally scared so I dropped Baby's leash and freaked out. The guy called Rover and broke up the fight, and yelled at me for dropping the leash. Good thing Rover was okay, but I wasn't.

I cried all the way home, and Jim and I agreed that that was the end of the line for us and Baby. We took her back to the humane society that afternoon, with all 549 of her toys and a 50 lbs bag of food. The humane society asked us why we were returning her, and I was like, "Uh, because she's a danger to other dogs and a lawsuit when she attacks a kid or something is not something we're really interested in right now, thanks though!"

As she was led away from us, Baby looked at us with this "and what were your names again?" face. She didn't care one way or the other that we just gave her back to the humane society. She was like, "Whatever, that's my doggie fate". So Jim and I are sobbing through this whole experience, and we both feel like utter failures in our canine venture. But you know what? I think Baby was better off. Maybe she found a nice family to play with her. Maybe she's hanging out right now with them at the park. Although, maybe they put her down because of her temperament, though I'm not sure if the humane society does that or not.

Either way, that was our dog experience. Thank god for the cyber dogs on Facebook. I mean, I think that's all the dog I can handle right now. Jim and I have decided that we will probably get another dog, but with a lot of conditions -- one of us has to either work from home or be retired so someone's with the dog all day, and the dog has to be a puppy. Oh, yeah. And the dog has to actually care about us, for real!

Do you have a dog? Good for you. :)