Now I kind of want a flaming piano...

This is either really awesome, really insane, or both. I can't decide.

I think my favorite part is OMG he did that IN THE HOUSE.

Oh, and I will be going to New York this weekend with Christi, so I will probably have gushy things to say about musicals when I get back. :)

Mad Men and a fun link

Mad Men is not a show I typically think of as funny. I mean, it has its moments (many involving Roger Sterling), but lawnmower antics aside, most of the humor is pretty dry. Not really laugh-out-loud funny, you know?

But sometimes it just hits it dead-on.

OH DEAR GOD Pete Campbell is going to be a father.

"What the world needs is another Campbell." Ken, honey, I ROFL'd. Literally. I didn't think that actually happened in real life. I thought it was just a funny internet expression.

Also making me LOL - Don pretending there's a fire to get off the phone with Lee Garner, Jr. and Peggy peering over the divider to see into Don's office.

Speaking of which, holy shit, Allison! Don so had that coming, but I was extra amused because I just watched the Six Feet Under episode where Claire's school counselor encourages her to throw stuff to release tension and she trashes his office. :) And again, I LOL'd at the replacement Joan found - an old lady that Don won't try to sleep with (...oh, God, I hope not. There's not enough "Oh, Don" in the world for THAT).

On a more serious note, I like how they are doing things with Pete and Peggy's relationship, but it's all very subtle. I've never had any desire to see them together (plus I love Trudy too much), but I enjoy the little ways in which they relate to each other.

Also, If Historical Events Had Facebook Statuses. HILARIOUS.

Movies

I've started watching Dexter so expect reaction posts forthcoming, but for now, I'll mention a couple movies I watched last week - The Hurt Locker, which is about as amazing as everyone said it was, and Carolina, which pleasantly surprised me. I was expecting a typical romantic comedy - it stars Julia Stiles and involves her best friend who secretly pines for her while she's oblivious - but it turned out that the relationship drama was rather perfunctory, and what sucked me in was the family drama (yes, I am predictable). Julia's the oldest of three sisters who were raised by their wacky grandmother (Shirley MacLaine), and is a bastion of normalcy in her eccentric family. It's really sweet. I love families!

Also, this is random but Cleolinda blew my mind a little bit, so I want her to blow yours, too. As it happens, I parted my hair on the other side the other day, just to see if there was a difference. No one else noticed, but I found it rather annoying to have to keep forcing my hair to go against its natural instincts. Oh, well.

Stuff...

I will spare you my f-bomb and capslock laden rant about last week's Bones and just advise you that you won't be hearing more from me about that bullshit show.

I still haven't caught up on Fringe or FlashForward since they've been back. I am more likely to watch Fringe, but neither one seems to have been missed. I'm also at least 3 hours behind on 24. I'll be happy when this semester is over.

And in funnier things, this.

Idiotic intersections

Given the utterly incomprehensible street planning in the DC metro area, I feel like I need to keep a list for posterity of the bizarre intersections I come across in my daily life. Let's start with the ones in my neighborhood:

S. Glebe Rd. and W. Glebe Rd. - This one rivals Megan's N St. and N St. (which I haven't found yet, but I'm looking). Whose brilliant idea was it to have intersecting streets with the SAME NAME?

Shirlington Rd. and Four Mile Run Dr./Shirlington Rd. - See above. Of course, this one's only half crazy, because Shirlington Rd. only runs in THREE directions out of this intersection, and the other direction is a completely different street.

25th St. and 28th St. - Okay, maybe it's just me, but I thought it was logical when numbering the streets to PUT THEM IN ORDER. Apparently not, as we have 28th St. running completely perpendicular to all the other numbers. This is also the same 28th St. that loops around to intersect with Army Navy Drive in between 23rd and 25th Sts. Yeah...

And don't call me Shirley

Holy cow, this lady is deep-fried crazy!

Shh!

I did not watch the HIMYM finale OR the 24 finale last night, so nobody say anything. I'll probably get to 'em tonight.

In the meantime, looking for ways to save money in this tough economy? Don't do this. My favorite quote from the article:

And while there is no national database that tracks do-it-yourself home injuries in recessions, experts say that there does seem to be an increase in the kind of accidents and mishaps that come with spending more time at home, based mostly on anecdotal evidence.

Finally!

Usually, if I'm not posting for a while, it's because I'm busy, and then there's this whole catching-up process where I try to cover everything that I missed over the X number of weeks I wasn't able to check my regular blogs.

Lately, it's been the opposite. Plenty of time to read, nothing to talk about. Most shows are winding down (WTF was up with the Bones finale?), and so the only big news is in what's getting renewed. If you've been following along with the cheat sheet I linked to a while back, you should be up-to-date, but in case you're not, here's the deal.

First and foremost, CHUCK IS BACK! Albeit with a reduced budget, but that seems to be par for the course in TV this year. Also an emerging pattern is that low-rated shows seem to have a better chance at renewal this year, since I guess the networks would rather spend their money on low-performing shows they already have than risk spending it on new shows that might do even worse. That's apparently what saved Dollhouse (along with, again, the slashed budget thing), which I'm kinda "meh" about. I was ready to call it quits, but I hung on till the magical episode 6, and... yeah, it's better now than it was at the beginning, but I found the finale somewhat disappointing, and wouldn't really have minded if that was the last we saw of it. I feel like this time Joss' grand statement is kind of getting in the way of the storytelling. (Also, I no longer trust him farther than I can throw him, after how he ruined the Buffy season 8 comics.)

Also, this article is mostly for Kelly, but honestly, it pisses me off that my diploma is in Latin. I find it ridiculous that we need to make up Latin words like "Franklinus et Marshallanium" (I have no idea if that's right but it's close enough) just to make ourselves sound smarter. It's bullshit. That's not the name of the college I went to, and I don't want it on my degree.

Damn

I got all excited for a minute, because I thought it was Wednesday, and so I was going to title my post "happy hump day!" And then I realized it's only Tuesday. That's depressing.

Moving on. Funny NY Times article about Texas being crazy. Not so funny article about waterboarding. Apparently, CIA interrogators used waterboarding 266 times on two terrorists. Now, let's think here. If you've waterboarded somebody a hundred times, and they still haven't talked, what do you think the chances are that they're gonna talk after the 101st time? (Also, let us note that it never takes Jack Bauer more than 10 minutes and a good pen-stabbing to break a suspect.)

In other news, Neil Patrick Harris caught on fire. No, really.

Puzzle time!

For anyone looking for a good way to waste time, I give you the Joss Whedon crossword puzzle. You have to print it out to do it, but hey, if you're bored enough...

Cooking with Laura

So, last night, Kelly wanted chocolate cake. Being of the instant gratification generation, she opted to use this recipe for a 5 minute cake you bake in the microwave (which is apparently very popular with the stoner crowd). After getting decent results, she convinced me to try it.

Now, as many people can attest, my cooking skills leave something to be desired (although I think the number of things I've set on fire is greatly exaggerated). But this is cake you make in a coffee mug in the microwave - how hard could it be?

Let's backtrack a bit. Kelly, who had apparently googled something to the effect of “baking for impatient people,” selected this recipe on the basis of reviews such as these:

• “my friends and i are stoned eating the cakes now. they are awesome. and if we can make them anyone can. you have made munchie time easier thank you”
• “your are the jesus of 13 year olds who are to lazy to make a cake"

I, of course, encouraged Kelly to “make the stoner cake!” Since Kelly does everything I tell her to (except kiss cute boys), she did. The results:

Kelly: Um, it looks AWESOME. And it pretty much tastes awesome.
Laura: Now I want to make it.
Kelly: Doooooo iiiiiiiiit!
Laura: It only takes 5 minutes... ok, let's go to the kitchen!

Sold. Except… I don’t have any cocoa, so, on the advice of one of the commenters, I decide to substitute hot chocolate mix and use less sugar. One minute later:

Laura: Shoot! I forgot to put in less sugar. Should I dump and start over?
Kelly: Yeah...
Laura: You know, Betty Crocker actually makes this stuff already mixed.

So, we get past the dry ingredients without further mishap. Now, we are at the egg stage, and man, they were not kidding about the pasty part. Then, I add the milk and stir some more.

Laura: Er, now I've made chocolate milk with a soggy lump in the middle.
Kelly: Keep stirring!
Laura: This is taking longer than 5 minutes.

I add the rest of the ingredients, and then, as is traditional, lick the fork I’d been using to stir.

Laura: Ugh! I hope it tastes better baked than the batter just did.

Microwaving time! They also weren’t kidding when they said it would puff up above the rim of the mug.

Laura: OMG. It's like the Leaning Tower of Chocolate Cake.

Final result? Eh, not that great. Kind of bland – I think I needed to use more hot chocolate mix (or actual cocoa, like the recipe called for) and probably leave out the vanilla. But I did not explode anything, so perhaps we will try again.

Happy chocolate bunny day

Hope everyone had a good Easter. Mine was remarkably uneventful, despite the history-making dinner hosted by my cousin and her boyfriend, which included all of his family, all of our family, two dogs, two cats, and a baby. The best part was when Aunt Judy showed up with the convent's dog, Sister Penny, and Mike's dog, Robo got verrrrry interested. We're all, "Robo, she's a nun! She's never seen a male dog before!"

Anyway, fun stuff for today: working around the HIMYM baby bumps, and the Modesto Bee talks about their hometown boy, James Marsters ("That kid is gonna get his @*# kicked.").

Also, if you haven't heard about Amazonfail yet, you're not paying attention. There are plenty of theories, including the hacker theory and the incompetence theory, but the one I'm not buying is the Amazon hates gays theory - even if they didn't have a reputation for being liberal, they're not going to do something this blatant when it hurts their bottom line.

Plus, once I ordered something from Amazon and it took them three tries to find my house. I'm voting for incompetence.

Kids are so cute

So, Inauguration coverage is on pretty much every channel, and every news outlet has a live feed on their website, so I don't feel compelled to bombard you with stuff. But check this out - children give their advice to incoming President Obama. I love the kid who's all "I heard about Area 51." Conspiracy theorist in the making, my friends.

Also, this dude takes a shot at rewriting "We Didn't Start the Fire" for the 21st century. I think I had to do that in my high school history class.

Awesome

Weather cat.

News from across the pond

Yay! Gavin and Stacey is getting a third season!

Also, there is apparently a Hallelujah war going on in the UK. Personally, I think Jeff Buckley's version is the best.

Nice weather

It's been snowing all day today, which is really bizarre, because just yesterday it was 60 degrees in DC. And I have to go to the store to get food-type ingredients to make a dish for our office holiday party on Thursday. I'm falling so behind on the Christmas thing. I've gotten some cards out, but the rest will probably be mailed in January. I'm about half done my Christmas shopping (thank goodness for the internet), but nothing's wrapped and I don't have any ideas for the half I haven't bought yet. Oh, and I was going to make cookies at some point. That's probably not going to happen.

I do think my interview went well. At least I didn't say anything egregiously stupid, so there's that. I'm not getting excited or anything, because my mother is all, "It's really unlikely that you'll get the first job you apply for." (I'm like, "But... I've never not gotten anything I applied for." Except that Specter internship, which still kind of annoys me. Bipartisanship, my ass.) ...Where was I? Right. Not getting my hopes up. If I get it, yay. If not, that's okay, too. Might even be for the best, since they want the person to start January 5th, which would mean total upheaval of my life at the busiest time of the year, with probably about a week to quit my job (so much for two weeks notice), pack everything I own, find an apartment (while still paying two months of rent on my old apartment, since my lease isn't up until February) and move. Whee!

Anyway, let's move on to political news. I've been trying really, really hard not to laugh at the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at Bush, but I can't help it. It's a little bit funny. The Secret Service response time, on the other hand? No laughing matter.

Obama has announced his pick for Secretary of Education. He should be receiving my resume shortly.

Caroline Kennedy says she wants the Senate seat that everyone else is already willing to give her.

And finally, cars that run on coffee?

Time out

I have a headache today, a situation which is not helped at all by the fact that I'm staring at mind-numbing spreadsheets all day. So, taking a break to bring you the news of the day.

First up, David Tennant is leaving Doctor Who. Ordinarily, I'd get all worked up about a major actor leaving a show I like, but it's Doctor Who, and changing up the Doctor every few seasons is kind of what they do (Tennant was the 10th, following Christopher Eccleston, who also played the invisible dude on Heroes). I'm curious who they'll choose for the next one, but as I have very limited knowledge of British actors, I'm not putting out any suggestions.

Lauren Graham (formerly of Gilmore Girls) is going to Broadway to star in Guys and Dolls opposite Oliver Platt. That... seems like odd casting to me. (Also, I can't help thinking about [title of show] and their whole thing about TV actors in musicals.)

There's an interview with Taylor Kitsch (Riggins!!!), and a lot of it is about sports (not surprisingly) but be wary if you don't want to know what's going on on FNL.

I also found this write-up on Dirty Sexy Money, which has reeled me back in after I was somewhat noncommittal at the beginning of the season whether I wanted to stick with it or not. I still miss the stoner space camp Jeremy (he's not nearly as fun when he's trying to woo Nick's wife), and Karen constantly grates on my nerves, but Brian is still super awesome and Brian Jr. is impossibly adorable. Plus, you can never have too much Peter Krause and Donald Sutherland (well, come on, Kiefer must get it from somewhere!).

And finally, for your daily dose of randomness: speeding muppets.

Afternoon update

A couple articles I found that couldn't wait to be posted - first, how to fix Heroes, because lord knows, it needs it. And second, it's Smurfday!

Boom

I have a lot of news emails to go through, and several days worth of blog-surfing to do, and about 45 minutes until I go home. But I've had a headache for days now, and I just don't feel like doing it, so instead, I bring you this daily dose of randomness:

There's a big underground science experiment (which sounds an awful lot like the Superconducting Super Collider, known to me only thanks to Sam Seaborn and The West Wing), and there's a very small chance (scientific term: "baloney") that it could suck the Earth into a black hole. So what do concerned citizens do? They sue. I love people.

Random randomness

Just a brief update to let you know that France has banned TV for children under 3, NY Magazine poo-poos the VM movie idea, Yahoo News shows itself to be woefully outdated (Bones filmed in London in June), and the truth behind the Spaghetti Cat comes out.