Last week's Chuck

Still chugging along with the TV... I did watch this week's Chuck, but haven't had a chance for thoughts yet, so we're still on last week.

I loved that Chuck's mission instructions self-destructed, but I loved even more that Chuck's reaction was all, "That actually self-destructed. Just like in the movies."

Am I the only one who found Casey's "I made my bunk, now I have to lie in it" extra funny because of Jayne? I gotta say, Casey tormenting Jeffster in the Buy More is comedy gold. Also - "It was a thoughtful felony." lol

Ah, the Subway product placement is out in full force, lol. Usually that kind of thing is really jarring for me, because it's never integrated well, but for some reason, it works on Chuck. Or maybe I'm just more tolerant because Subway is saving the show.

I was a little bit relieved to see Chuck and Sarah actually making some progress in talking about how they feel. Not, as I've said before, because I'm necessarily rooting for the ship, but at some point the dancing around gets to be a bit much and I just want them to get to the point already. I do feel a little bit annoyed at Sarah, that all this time she's kept Chuck at a distance because their respective roles meant they couldn't be together - but when he does what he has to do, becomes a real spy in order to be with her, she decides she doesn't like that Chuck. I said before that I liked the genuine conflict there, with them both changing so much that they'd passed each other, with Chuck getting more spylike and Sarah getting softer, but it does make it seem like Sarah wants to have her cake and eat it, too.

I'm also curious to see how things play out with Chuck not actually passing his test on his own. Casey's not always going to be around to kill people for him. One of the cool things about the extra episode order on this season is that things feel like they're really heating up to a big finale (which will be two weeks from now)... but then we still get six more episodes!

This was the first episode I really noticed Zachary Levi's stunt double. I don't know if it's because Levi's really good at doing the stunts (in one of the interviews at the end of S2, Schwartz and Fedak said they were thrilled at how good he turned out to be once they really let him do stuff), so the double doesn't get used much or what, but it was kind of distracting.

More on health care

Here's an interesting piece on how the health care reform bill is actually conservative policy, and how the Republicans benefit from refusing to admit that. Also, I kind of want to give a "hell yeah!" to this op-ed on extremism in the Republican Party.

Several weeks of Community

Let us commence with recording the workout I've given my On Demand lately. Community is easily my favorite new show of the year. I don't really have deep thoughts, just lots of awesome quotes:

Jeff to Annie: "I can't say no to those big doe eyes. It's like strangling a mermaid with a bike chain." Annie manipulating Jeff is my OTP.

Troy and Abed in the vending machine! "I think I hit G-13..."

Troy: "Oh my god, Pierce is going to be the only person ever to drown in a parking lot... twice." The entire sailboat-in-the-parking-lot thing was hilarious. Captain Shirley! Hee!

Pottery Teacher to Jeff: "Congratulations, you failed a class so easy that people passing in the hallway get contact credit."

Abed on Annie and Shirley teaming up: "That's a buddy cop movie I would watch." ME TOO, ABED. ME TOO. And Annie would so be the badass. Check out the way she slammed Jeff's head on the table and she loves him.

Troy to Britta: "You're more of a fun vampire, because you don't suck blood. You just suck."

Annie and the pepper spray OMG. "This is self-inflicted friendly fire, okay?" And Abed doing the black police chief, lol.

Troy and Abed in the Morrrrning!

TV Stuffs

I've been catching up on all the TV I missed while I was on vacation, so expect some reaction posts a bit later. For now, I bring you a David Boreanaz interview (Bones returns this week after a looong hiatus - but with the NBC comedies being so AWESOME on Thursday night, I haven't missed it at all).

Also, it really, really, for serious is the end of 24. Except for the movie, of course.

Two very different recommendations

First, Maureen Dowd on health care = required reading.

Second, I've been pretending I'm still on vacation, and wanted to eat something that reminded me of places more tropical, so I cracked open the Key West Bahama Village Jerk Sauce that I bought and marinated some chicken. (I also had a Malibu and Coke. I'm thisclose to breaking out the blender and making pina coladas.)

It only rained one morning, on our last day in Key West, so we occupied ourselves by going to a shop called Peppers of Key West, where you could sample lots of their products. Between my parents and me, we managed to come home with the jerk sauce, Key Lime Mustard Sauce, Raspberry Wasabi Mustard, and this Key Lime powder stuff that you mix with cream cheese to make a dip. I swear to God, it's like key lime pie on a bagel. Soooo good. I also liked the Pineapple Coconut Mango Tequila Sauce and I think one of the chutneys, but we tried to restrain ourselves.

Definitely check out their website, but be warned - a lot of this stuff is crazy hot! After we'd gone through about a dozen samples, the lady asked us if we'd like to try some of their hotter sauces. My mother said, mouth burning, "You mean... this wasn't the hot stuff?"

Health Care Reform

You may have noticed that something kind of big happened over the weekend. I'd not been paying close attention, since I was on vacation last week, but I hear through the rumor mill that Congress voted on some controversial bill or something. :)

Be informed - how health care reform will affect you. Also, this is an interesting piece on partisanship.

I'm baaaack!

Actually, I was back at work yesterday, but as is often the way in these tales, work was crazy busy, trying to make up all the things I missed last week. (Thanks, Congress, for passing health care reform while I was away. That didn't crazy things up AT ALL.)

Anyway, in one of the many gift shops we went in this week, my mom found a book titled, "Quit Your Job and Move to Key West." That's pretty much how I feel right now.

Vacation was AWESOME. I am so unbelievably freckled, it almost looks tan. (Seriously, WTF, parents? I am 3/4 Italian and I still ended up with the Irish freckle gene.) We had great weather, only one rainy morning, even if it was unusually chilly for this time of year and we couldn't really go in the water. I will probably be posting lots and lots about it once my mother sends me the vacation pictures, which are all on her camera.

Also - and I say this with no hyperbole - best birthday EVER. I think we should do this every year. :) (It's kind of surprising, actually, considering that this confluence of my birthday, St. Patrick's Day, and Spring Break happens every year, that I've never done a trip this time of year.)

Spring Break!!

Woo woo, vacation! I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Key West, and will be on vacation all week. See you when I get back. :)

The end of 24

Sounds like this really will be the final season of 24. I can't really say I'm disappointed. The show definitely bounced back after the dismal sixth season, but nothing in 7 or what I've seen of 8 has captured my attention the way the earlier seasons did. We've gotten to the point where everything's recycled, and I'm only tuning in to see how Jack's gonna be awesome this week. (Although, I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the junior terrorist who got himself blown up this week. It's a fairly predictable plot, but the acting was well done.)

But seriously. Any show that makes me dislike Katee Sackhoff is Doing It Wrong. I'm almost appallingly fascinated at how they've managed to take someone who played one of the most kick-ass female characters on modern television, and given her one of the most unempowering plot lines I've ever seen.

I bet the movie'll be cool, though.

So that's the sound of liberty...

EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!! Best Chuck EVER!

I love Awesome freaking out about Chuck's secret life (but I will be really, really sad if he and Ellie do go off to Africa). And the Buy More rebellion! With the FLAG OMG. Casey and Jeff! And Morgan! We've waited three years for Morgan to find out, and that was the perfect, perfect reaction. And the look on his face when he and Chuck came out of Castle? Priceless. "You flashed on Duck Hunt." Hee!

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better - JEFFSTER.

VICTORYYYYYYYYYY!

TV talk

With the Olympics being on, and all my shows being either preempted or in reruns, there hasn't been much to talk about. But this week, shows are back!

OMG how much did I love this week's Chuck?? SO hilarious with Chuck being undercover, just cool enough to fool the bad guys (and how ridiculous were they, lol), but still lapsing into talking about cupcakes and sterile torture instruments. I have to say, I am really loving the new, more confident Chuck this season. I think they've got a great balance between making him kick-ass enough that I totally have a TV crush on Zachary Levi, but still maintaining that goofiness and occasional ineptitude that makes him Chuck.

After the whole crazy shipper thing that resulted from the last episode, I did get a chuckle out of the meta exchange about "will they/won't they" couples, but I imagine the crazy haters were probably not pleased by the outcome of this episode. Hannah's gone, but Sarah/Shaw took a giant leap forward, meaning that it's still an obstacle to Chuck/Sarah. To be honest, I would've preferred the opposite (lose the Sarah/Shaw stuff but keep Hannah around), which is surprising, because I thought I would hate Kristin Kreuk a lot more. Or at all.

I also watched the premiere of Parenthood last night. It's been on my radar because I absolutely love Lauren Graham and Peter Krause, and I wasn't disappointed by them. Lauren Graham's character kind of reminds me of Lorelai, if Rory had been a huge troublemaker instead of the perfect daughter, lol. Overall, though, the show reminds me more of Brothers & Sisters, but with more likable actors. (To be fair, I like both Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths a lot more after having watched B&S than I did before.) I had a lot of trouble keeping track of all the characters, since I didn't recognize many of the actors, and I'm still not sure how everyone's related. But the dialogue was fast-paced and snappy, and I do have a weakness for big zany family dramas (it's the only child thing, I think), so I'll keep watching.

I used my crock pot!

This weekend, we had the inaugural outing of my brand new crock pot, and I was only slightly paranoid about leaving the house with food cooking. :)

I love clementines. Last week, I did one of those things where I bought a whole crate of them at the store, and when I got home, I looked at them and thought, "What was I thinking?" Because as much as I love them, I don't think I can eat five pounds of clementines before they go bad. So I started looking for some recipes involving clementines so I could use up some of them, and I found this slow cooker recipe for Sweet and Sour Clementine Pork Chops (third one down). It came out reasonably well, although I was expecting it to taste like Chinese sweet and sour pork and it was totally not that.

As a side dish, I made Gingered Sugar Snaps, since I thought the ginger would go well with the Asian pork chops. I didn't actually have snap peas, though, so I used snow peas. Still worked out pretty well. I'm also still using the ginger paste I bought the day of the snow storm instead of fresh ginger, and it's quite a time saver.