The Never Ending Story

Can there be anything worse than working on Saturday?

You work all week long in a never-ending job... in a dead end job with no relief in sight. You struggle and strain against calling in sick every day. You battle the urge to drag a co-worker out into the parking lot to pummel him with your bare hands. You fight the desire to tell the CEO why the company's in the shitter.

You do all that with the goal of making it to the weekend where you can rest in peace.

And then? "Yeaaaaaah, we're gonna need you to come in on Saturday."

Well, fuck that. Fuck that noise in a big, big way, my friends.

Payback's a bitch... so my payback will be getting paid time and a half to write in my blog. How do you like dem apples, bitches?

And yes, Mr. Anonymous, I have worked in fast food. I worked one, long, agonizing summer at Pizza Hut with all of my friends. And just a hint as someone who worked at Pizza Hut, avoid the breadstick sauce.

So, The Office was absolutely brilliant again this week. "But it's Country Crock" should go down in history with "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" and "Luke, I am your father." How can anyone expect me to care about My Name Is Earl when you've got Jim spraying Michael and Dwight in the face with a spray bottle of water? HOW?! Classic stuff.

To be honest, I don't even watch Earl anymore. If NBC wants me to watch Earl, they should pick up Arrested Development and truly make Must See TV again with a AD/Scrubs/Office/Earl block. Then I'm glued to the TV... and likely pissing myself from laughing so hard. Earl seemed okay the first few times I watched it but I quickly lost interest. It just wasn't as fun as The Office, AD, Scrubs, Curb... you know, the usual suspects.

Didn't watch Smackdown yet... but marveled at the guy at work who just got cable wanting to discuss the Boogeyman eating Jillian's mole as the highlight of the show. I heard Orton and Benoit tore the house down so I'm looking forward to seeing that. Haven't watched last week's TNA yet either to see how that was but another friend said, "The WWE should fire all of their cruiserweights and hire the X Division guys." Which, of course, is a total bullshit statement. I doubt there's anything Chris Sabin can do that Paul London, Jamie Noble, Brian Kendrick can't do better. They just can't get to do what they can do on TV. If there's anyone in desperate need of a TLC or Money In The Bank match to get themselves over, it's London.

Ugh. Ok. I guess I need to do a _little_ bit of work. So, I shall. Peace.

Song I'm Listening To Currently: "Gigolos Get Lonely Too" by The Time
Book I'm Reading Currently: "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini
Movie I Last Saw: The Chronicles of Narnia

Beat Me With Your Jesus Stick

Fuck yeah. TV is back, baby.

Before I get to Lost, let me talk about two absolutely fantastic pieces of television from the past week or so.

First, there's The Office. Now... I didn't really care for this show the first couple of times I saw it. I don't know why... just kinda fell flat. But with the second season, they've really hit their stride creatively. It's been absolutely brilliant this season and last week's "Booze Cruise" was one of the funniest things I've seen on TV all year. I don't want to spoil it for anyone... but if you haven't been watching The Office, you should be making an appointment to see it every week on Thursday night. Don't let it go the same path as Arrested Development did and that Scrubs is likely heading down.

Second... my god... my god... The Shield returned this week with a vengeance. I really dug last season with Glenn Close as the captain. And believe me when I tell you that before the season started, you couldn't have convinced me that I would have. But now she's gone... and Forrest Whitaker steps in as the evil Internal Affairs officer looking to bring down Vic and the Strike Team. He was absolutely perfect in that role... creepy... manipulative... just gave off an "ick" feel. I have a feeling this is going to be one hell of a season and if it's the last one for The Shield as rumored, it's gonna go out with a bang [perhaps literally.]

Now... finally... the main attraction... Lost!

I've decided that you can pretty much draw a line right down the middle of Lost's audience. You've got one side that truly loves everything about the show. They love the characters... they debate and discuss everything that happens. These are the people that gasped when Mr. Eko's brother took a bullet for him last night. They care about what happens to these people and want to know more about them.

Then you've got the people who are as deep as a damn thimble. They got hooked on Lost because of the "mysteries" and will never be satisfied from now on with anything that happens unless you're told every secret of the show in sixty minutes. These are the people who couldn't care less about the backstories and actually see them as taking away from the show. You know these people. They tell you things like, "The ratings are down from last season! It's jumped the shark!" yet still tune in every week so they can tell you how much they disliked it.

In case you haven't guessed, I fall into the former category and absolutely rage at the people in the latter. This is a character show, people. While there's some fascinating mysteries and secrets yet to be uncovered, when it all breaks down, it's about these people stuck on an island and their twisted lives that led them to this point.

You find out that Mr. Eko is a former Nigerian criminal cold blooded killer who coerced his Catholic priest of a brother into letting him use a papal airplane to smuggle heroin out of the country only to have said brother sacrifice his own life to save his wicked sibling... and you complain "That's the monster? Black smoke?"

ARRRRRGH! If I was Simon Phoenix, you'd be hearing a "MURDER DEATH KILL" all over San Angeles right about now [bonus points if you get that reference.]

Lost is quite frankly one of the best shows on television... and arguably the best period. If you're not watching it, you're missing out on television history in the making.

Maybe in a future post, I'll give you my top ten TV shows in the moment.

And speaking of TV, be sure to check out the season premiere of 24 this weekend. Good christ, is that a fantastic show. I'm stoked because this'll be the first season of 24 that I can watch as it happens. All the others I've had to catch on DVD. Love it. Absolutely love it.

Until next time... keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars [even more bonus points if you get that one]

Song I'm Listening To Currently: "Wonderboy" by Tenacious D
Book I'm Reading Currently: "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini
Movie I Last Saw: The Chronicles of Narnia

Feels Just Like A Piledriver

Ever since I started telling people that I was doing a blog, everyone wanted to know when I would be covering wrestling on it.

In fact, one person even speculated that 95% of my posts will cover either the Lakers, Dodgers, Star Wars, and/or wrestling. [Bite me, Buse]

So far, I've avoided all of those topics!

But no more. I figure we should at least address wrestling once a week and what better day to do it than Tuesday.

So, who watched Raw last night?

I'm sorry. Truly sorry.

Each and every week after Raw or Smackdown go off the air, you can be guaranteed to go onto any number of internet wrestling message boards where you will find dozens of people up in arms over some harmless [usually] thing. Decrying how Vince McMahon is the Devil and Triple H is his Chief Of Staff. And of course, you must have the mantra... I'm done with the WWE!

Every week I see it and kinda chuckle. How could something done in as bizarre a world as pro wrestling actually offend you to that extent? I mean... really... are you that offended by HHH pretending to have sex with a corpse? Sure it's lame but seriously... offended?

Last night pushed me closer to the edge of "What the hell am I watching?" than ever before. I've sat through Mae Young giving birth to a hand... Mark Henry getting lovin' from a tranny... Vince McMahon pulling things from "JR's" ass...

But never have I felt quite so disturbed by last night's "skit." I'm not really sure why either. It was in poor taste... it showed poor judgment, sure. But is it really any more worse than the usual things we've seen in the past decade or so?

I think part of it stems from the fact that watching wrestling has always been kinda a throwback to my youth. Days into this year, I realize that I've now been watching pro wrestling for twenty years. Twenty years of headlocks, of piledrivers, of plastic bags tied around the throat, of barbed wire, of international objects, of dastardly heel turns... and yes, of Mae Young's hand.

Remember when wrestling had a kinda... innocent... feel to it? Before the Attitude days... before ECW...

I always remember two moments of WWF Television early in my viewing days that really hooked me. I may have seen other moments first... but the one that really sticks in my head as the absolute first was seeing Big John Studd and King Kong Bundy level Andre The Giant and cut his hair. I was shocked. Stunned. Outraged. How dare they take down the fan friendly giant? How dare they humiliate him like that?

And all they did was cut his hair. No one stole Andre's wife and gangbanged her in the middle of the ring. How things change in twenty years.

My other early WWF memory?

WWF Televison... some Saturday morning... "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff gets assaulted by the same evil duo of Bundy and Studd. But this time? They messed with the wrong guy. Orndorff had backup... big time backup. He made a call to the Hulkster and even though Hulk couldn't talk to him at the moment, we all knew he'd be there for him when it mattered. The match was set for the next Saturday.

All week I waited... I planned to be glued to my couch to see it go down. But then as I woke up on Saturday, the bomb was dropped.

"We're going shopping."

Oh, my... if I'd known expletives back then, they would have been flying. But I didn't and no amount of pleading would allow me to stay home to watch it. Off to the store we went.

But wait... there's a window of opportunity. The store we were going to, FedCo, had a television section. One step in the door of the store sent me sprinting to the television aisle, flipping an unused set on to WWF Superstars...

...just in time to see Mr. Wonderful, that son of a bitch, bury the knife in the World Champion's back. Hogan wasn't there for Orndorff when he called... and Paul made him pay for it.

Simple. Memorable. And no one had to do a run-in when Orndorff bent Hogan's wife over the bed.

It's all different now. And I hate to be one of those people who says "Remember when..." but I gotsta be one of those people.

I miss those days. I miss the wrestling I grew up watching.

Give me Sting... give me Barry Windham... give me Ricky Steamboat... give me the Midnight Express... give me Randy Savage... give me Jake Roberts... give me Eddie Gilbert... give me the Freebirds... give me the Von Erichs... give me Curt Hennig... give me Bret Hart...

Damn, I feel old.

UPDATE: That damn segment was the highest rated of the night and did a pretty big number. What the fuck do I know?

Song I'm Listening To Currently: "New Slang" by The Shins
Book I'm Reading Currently: "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini
Movie I Last Saw: The Chronicles of Narnia

Earmuffs!

So, my last posting seemed to generate a bit of controversy. A lot of controversy in fact. There's been some crazy rumors going around ever since I put it up so let me address those now.

No, Vince Vaughn and I will not be starring in the sequel to Brokeback Mountain.

Seriously, people. Should I really have to deny this to the world? Who amongst you really thought I was looking to have hairy man ass love with Mr. Aniston? WHO?!

While battling the raging fires of that rumor this weekend, I never found the time to do another post on here. I did have some great stuff to talk about too.

Here's a good one from Friday at work that I found incredibly funny but no one else seemed to.

So... I work at this place that's supposed to be such a great innovator of technology, right? We're supposed to the on the cutting edge of the field when it comes to incorporating new technology into our products. "We use the same technology that NASA does!"

On this day, I define irony as this technological giant having their shipping department crippled for an entire day... by a rat chewing through the computer cables leading out to the department.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

The "industry leader" brought to a halt by a rat.

Gotta love it.

Song I'm Listening To Currently: "Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy
Book I'm Reading Currently: "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini
Movie I Last Saw: The Chronicles of Narnia