I UPLOADED THIS ICON A FEW WEEKS AGO THINKING SOME DAY IT WOULD COME IN HANDY AS THE PERFECT ILLUSTRATION FOR A POST.

AND THEN MY TV AIRED AN AD IN WHICH BJ NOVAK SAID "I'M FROM MASSACHUSETTS. YOU'RE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. WE SHOULD, YOU KNOW, GET TOGETHER."

ADS FOR LOCAL SYNDICATION ARE THE BEST THING EVER TO HAPPEN TO ANYONE.

[Edit, 9AM: I don't know about you guys, but I think my new habit of falling asleep at nine and then waking up in the middle of the night, watching TV, and posting incoherent ramblings is working out awesomely.]

OFFICIAL VERDICT ON THE 10 THINGS REMAKE:

C AVERAGE, with the comments "will definitely keep watching" and "utmost confidence in chances of improving." ALSO I SMILED A LOT.

( haha like anyone cares about spoilers )

I've always liked Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, but yesterday I realized I can't remember a single episode other than the ones I watched this week. As a result, I'm not sure if Nickelodeon is selecting only the reruns on its "NED/MOZE 4EVER" playlist, or if EVERY episode is required to contain a) a delightful A-plot, b) a standard crappy Nickelodeon B-plot, c) some survival guide fourth-wall-breaking, and d) a scene in which either Ned or Moze is confronted by ROMANTIC FEELINGS FOR THEIR BEST FRIEND and/or struggles with those feelings and/or tries to contain those feelings and/or tries to confess those feelings.

Also they get to kiss a surprising number of times (in v. Bones-like situations - LOOK, THEY HAD TO PRETEND THEY WERE DATING SO NED'S STALKER WOULD BACK OFF, OKAY? And Moze just needed to get Ned to play Spin the Bottle so she could figure out why she doesn't feel anything when she kisses her boyfriend, and also, in the episode I am watching, they're on a double date and she just showed up in the same outfit as Ned's date and I am pretty sure I can see where it is going [ETA THAT IS EXACTLY WHERE IT WENT, AND IT WAS AWESOME]), although I suppose it is only surprising if you are used to the Disney Rule: ONLY IN THE MOVIE, and if you were a movie first, ONLY IN THE SEQUEL.

[Other things that could never have happened if this show had been on Disney: Ned spends an entire episode struggling with Itchy Junk. I...am not kidding. Well, they don't call it junk, it's a family show.]

RUN, DO NOT WALK: EVERWOOD SEASON ONE IS THIRTEEN DOLLARS ON AMAZON.

This is 23 episodes of an hourlong show that we are talking about, here: THIS IS A FUCKING DEAL. If you would like to feel a lot of feelings, cry a whole lot, and fall in love with an adorable doofus named Harold Brighton Abbot, THEN THIS IS THE EXPERIENCE YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.

"What do you do for a living?"
"I go to school."
"Me too. I'm in third grade."
"Miss Violet? I had her. Twice. I got left back."
"I don't think I can handle one time. She's boring. But we did get to paint state flags."
"Oh yeah. I did that. Twice."

AND THIS, THIS, THIS, IT'S NOT AN EVERWOOD POST WITHOUT THIS:

"True! You do make a great sandwich. But it's more than that. You are truly beautiful. You know what I think about when I'm kissing you? I think about your skin. I think about your eyelashes and how long they are when they're like, touching my face. I think about the dimples you get when you're laughing. I think about how cool it is that I might be the only person out there who knows how hot your body is. And I bet you, at three in the morning...I bet you look amazing."

WORDS! meme. torigates gave me:

1. BOOONEZ

Think about this: A year ago, I had only ever seen two episodes of Bones, and I thought one of them sucked. And yet by the power of its sheer awesomeness, Bones has taken over my brain, filled me with joy on a near-constant basis, and successfully completed what should have been an impossible task: Getting me over The Office. I don't think this makes any sense, but I've never seen another show that was this good at being itself. Bones does not have off episodes. Bones does not make me question it. Bones just makes me happy, week in and week out, and even during the summer hiatus when out of nowhere I think about Hodgins sneaking Booth out of the hospital in his toy car), and all it asks in return is that I love it and trust it to do the right thing in the end. AND I DO, OBVIOUSLY.

2. picspams of shame

THESE THINGS, YOU GUYS. They are constantly hindered by my computer's neverending need to be a massive douchebag that goes out of its way to suck at audio playback. Okay, so Center Stage and She's the Man are still coming, but after that I think I will pursue the "movies you have probably never seen and definitely don't care about" route, because breaking news: Nickelodeon's ripoff of High School Musical is actually really good.

3. Everwood

ONCE THERE WAS A LITTLE TOWN IN COLORADO CALLED EVERWOOD, AND IT WAS FILLED WITH WONDERFUL PEOPLE WHO HAD WONDERFUL FAMILIES. The thing that I find really remarkable about Everwood is that I remember it as being perfect. You know how a lot of shows have a flawless first season and then fall apart after that, because the first season was the original vision and everything after it was...not forced, necessarily, but expansions on the original concept just for the sake of expansions? If I didn't know better, I would swear that from the moment it popped into his head, Greg Berlanti intended for Everwood to span those 89 episodes. I was pissed when it got cancelled, because it was such a bullshit decision, but there's no way I can think about that finale and wish even for a second that things had gone differently. [This is way more emotional than informational, BUT GUESS WHAT, THAT IS WHAT EVENTUAL PICSPAMS ARE FOR.]

4. Jonas

THIS IS ONLY TANGENTIALLY RELATED TO JONASES: LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW MY IPOD FROZE DURING BEFORE THE STORM LIKE SEVEN HOURS AGO. I have been rearranging the furniture in my room [it is kickass, you guys, though I am only now realizing that my back is to the door when I'm at my desk, which...I am easily surprised] and devised the A+ decluttering strategy of taking everything out of the room and only allowing useful stuff back in. I am moving in January and even though my parents have no intention of turning my room into a gym and moving all my stuff out to the garage where it will eventually be destroyed by water damage when my father uses the boxes to shield his car from a flood, I still think it's best if I don't permanently use the house as a storage place for every photocopy I ever received in a high school history class. ANYWAY, like all decluttering strategies, it is completely dependent on my not losing momentum and leaving it 75% undone and all over the place, AND THIS ENTIRE OPERATION HAS BEEN JEOPARDIZED because Nick Jonas and Miley Cyrus made a song that managed to fill my iPod, AN INANIMATE OBJECT, with so much emotion that it has been paralyzed and useless for hours, and how am I supposed to clean without music? I tried watching TV, but that just meant Bones, and it was Aliens in a Spaceship, and then I was the one that was paralyzed by emotion, soooooo yeah.

On a cleaning note: HEY, oxymoronassoc: REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER WHEN WE WENT TO DIDDY RIESE AFTER TWILIGHT? I FOUND A COOKIE AND A HALF THAT I AM PRETTY SURE DATES BACK TO THAT. [Whatever, everyone, it was in an airtight container, the only gross thing about it was that I briefly contemplated opening it up to see if they were still good. ...They're probably still good, you guys. For those who have never had Diddy Riese: They are so good to start out with that even though these cookies are probably obscenely stale, they would taste better than anything I could find in all of New England. Don't look at me like that, I'm not going to eat them.]

5. HIMYM

Haha, remember when I had a HIMYM website that I actually updated? God, I cannot believe I am relaunching that in ten days. THERE IS A LOT TO BE DONE, LET ME TELL YOU. I'm pretty excited though, I've missed it. ANYWAY, given how insane I can get about the site, you would think that I am also really intensely invested in HIMYM, but I'm kind of not. Don't get me wrong, I love it (it currently resides at #4 on my list of all-time favorite shows, and #2 on my list of right-now favorite shows), but it's this laid-back kind of thing where it doesn't eat my brain. I LIKE OUR SYSTEM: It's like that friend that you hardly ever talk to but whenever you hang out it's awesome, and the chances of burning myself out on it are pretty much slim to none. With that said: Spending every night at McLaren's is pretty much all I want out of life.

I'm watching a History Channel special on the scandalous lives of the founding fathers. THEY WERE ALL MEMBERS OF THE MASONS AND HAD A LOT OF ORGIES AND SMOKED THE REEFER, YOU GUYS. Also: A "figure from another realm" told them to sign the Declaration of Independence. My favorite part so far was "...they had a secret meeting to plan a party...A BOSTON TEA PARTY." How does the History Channel even look at itself in the mirror anymore? WAS IT A COINCIDENCE THAT THEY DELAYED THE SIGNING OF THE CONSTITUTION UNTIL VENUS WAS IN AN ASTROLOGICALLY FAVORABLE POSITION?

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July! [I like this holiday name because there is no need to add "or, if you're not American, Saturday" to it.] I babysat my nephew and then drunkenly debated the safety of the Autobahn and Jason Segel's career with my brother.

THIS JUST IN: THREE DOLLAR DVDS AT WALMART. I picked up The Last Kiss, There Will Be Blood, Footloose, Shrek, Coach Carter, Match Point, and Flags of Our Fathers. Also, I bought it the day it came out so this was not relevant to me, but you should all know that JUST LIKE HEAVEN IS THREE DOLLARS: GO BUY IT. NOW.

[Things that suck: I actually work at a really nice Walmart - more in line with your mental image of a Target - but am understandably unwilling to go there on my off time. SO, when things like THREE DOLLAR DVDS are happening, I have to go to The Other Walmart, which is technically closer to my house but in Rhode Island and also exactly like every horrible mental image you have of Walmarts. IT'S SO UNFORTUNATE, but favorable to running into coworkers, you know?]

Here are some things that Tivo has recently surprise recorded for me:

-WISHBONE.

-BONES RERUNS ON TNT, PRETTY MUCH EVERY DAY.

-The first two episodes of The X-Files. It is entirely possible that I will never watch these, but dear Tivo: I appreciate your fine work.

-A lot of Deadliest Catch for some reason. It's not happening, Tivo.

-Better Off Ted, which...I wasn't crazy about it during the regular season, and if the timing had been different, I probably wouldn't have watched past the pilot. Good, not great. But this past episode, about the biocomputer? A++, I hope they're actually finding their stride and it's not just a fluke.

-WE INTERRUPT THIS POST TO BRING YOU SOME BREAKING TIVO NEWS: DURING THE FIVE HOUR NAP I JUST TOOK, TIVO TOOK THE INITIATIVE AND RECORDED THE ONE EPISODE OF BONES I HAVE NEVER SEEEEEEEEEEEEN. I GET NEW BONES! I GET NEW BONES! I GET NEW BONES! SUCK ON THAT, EVERYONE!

-Anyway, I love Andrea Anders, but am concerned as to what the bizarre season structure means for my chances of seeing her and Ted hook up anytime soon. [Wikipedia says there are four more episodes left in the first season: I AM HOPEFUL. JULY 28 = MAYBE?]

-You may need to sit down, because this is awesome. Seriously, seriously awesome: THE PENULTIMATE EPISODE OF NED'S DECLASSIFIED SCHOOL SURVIVAL GUIDE, IN WHICH NED AND MOZE REALIZE THEY LIKE EACH OTHER AND SHE TELLS HER BRAZILIAN BOYFRIEND TO EFF OFF SO THEY CAN BE TOGETHER. It turns out that this episode is the ultimate cockblock because JUST as they are about to not make out [I know Nickelodeon gets away with more than Disney does, but hey guess what, I SAW WHAT HAPPENED WHEN ZOEY AND CHASE GOT TOGETHER ON ZOEY 101: ULTRA BULLSHIT], some girl shows up and ruin everything, and Wikipedia says Ned and Moze don't get together until the final episode, which is an hourlong and between that and the fact that Nick is currently airing reruns out of sequence, I may never see it. [EDIT: TIVO SAYS IT IS AIRING ON SUNDAY; HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS.]

[Dear Nickelodeon: I know you don't think there is a market for season DVDs of every show you have ever aired. I AM YOUR MARKET. I am overly fond of buying DVDs and have a compulsive need to back up my extended childhood, but am at a point where I already own almost everything I want. YOU COULD CHANGE THAT, NICKELODEON. TOGETHER, WE CAN GIVE YOU ALL MY MONEY.]

[Dear Disney: This goes double for Kim Possible and Even Stevens.]

[Back to Nickelodeon: Quadruple for As Told By Ginger.]

And if anyone, anyone tried to spoil me for Bones, I would take them out. I would make them suffer so much that they'd wish they were never born. And if they ran, I would hunt them down.

-Gracie Hart, Miss Congeniality

Internet, I know we are all enjoying Canada Day/Kevin Got Engaged Day/Today is Wednesday, but I have some pretty serious shit to talk about: Apparently there are Bones spoilers.

Let me be clear: I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING. Bones is the linchpin of my fall schedule, it is to me in 2009 what S3 of The Office was to me in 2006. You will not ruin it for me, you will not sully my viewing experience in any way. I previously made my thoughts on spoilers clear here, but I am on 100% lockdown for Bones, so it is actually even more severe than that post.

Old rule of thumb: If you aren't sure if it's a spoiler, then it is.

New rule of thumb: Even if you don't think it's a spoiler, IT IS, IT IS, IT IS.

Cut everything even remotely spoilery, cut your reactions to spoilers, watch your tags, watch your subject line, watch your "current mood," watch your icon. [NOTE: I realize that 99.999999999% of Bones icons are of Brennan and Booth giving each other bedroom eyes: If you are ever faced with this problem, please choose the icon with the least prominent bedroom eyes.]

Once the season premiere has aired, I can ease up a little bit [EMPHASIS ON "LITTLE"], but until then? I don't even want to know what episodes are CALLED, I don't want to know who's guest-starring, I don't want to hear ANYTHING.

If this is too much for you, if it's your heart's desire to post tiny spoilers outside of cuts for the next three months (your heart is an asshole) without having to worry that I will stand outside your house every Friday for a year, using a megaphone to describe how every new release movie ends, then there is a simple fix: Don't respond to the poll below, and I will see you in September when I start reading your entries again.

Poll #1423972 SPOIL ME FOR BONES AND WE ARE DONE PROFESSIONALLY
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

ZERO TOLERANCE YOU GUYS: THIS MEANS TWITTER AND TUMBLR TOO

FONT SIZE = EIGHT

EMOTION SIZE = A MILLION

I AM SO HAPPY IN THIS MOMENTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

( DISNEY-TYPE STUFF )

Poll #1423065
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Ten Things I Hate About Making ABC Family Shows Out Of Awesome Movies premieres a week from tomorrow - are you giving it a chance?

PS:

DEAR INTERNET

I DID NOT WATCH THE PRINCESS PROTECTION PROGRAM

I WAS TOO BUSY AT THE BOSTON STOP OF SOMETHING I LIKE TO CALL THE "THESE TEENAGERS ARE DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY AND GRATEFUL AND ADORABLE BECAUSE ALL OF THEIR DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE" TOUR. [I THINK THEY'VE BEEN CALLING IT "DEMI LOVATO FEATURING DAVID ARCHULETA" FOR SHORT THOUGH.]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I am in the mood to do Picspams of Shame #5 sometime this week, but I can't decide which movie to go with. HERE ARE YOUR CHOICES:

Poll #1418984
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

WHICH ONE?

And your write-in suggestion for #6?

Dear Internet:

I'm really, really sorry. I held out for as long as I possibly could, and when I realized what was happening to me, I fought the change tooth and nail. Then, when that failed, I did my best to hide it from you, and while I am sure many of you saw this coming, I am also sure that just as many of you are appalled.

I can't keep hiding, though - the impossibly beautiful poetry of John Mayer has made me see the light:

Irony free: "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus is my jam right now. (There should never be guilt in pleasure.)8:02 PM Jun 19th from TwitterBerry

Why hide from the things that make us happy - especially here, of all places?

So here goes, Internet:

I caught Jonas. I caught Jonas bad.

I maintain that the universe conspired against me to create this situation - can I be held responsible for the fact that everyone was like "hey, let's stop writing awesome Office and HIMYM fic and write awesome crazed Jonas/Band of Brothers RPF instead," or for the fact that Miley Cyrus is absolutely incorrigible when it comes to keeping her personal life and feelings for Nick Jonas off Twitter, or for the fact that while I was marathonning S2 of Entourage tonight, my TiVo was conspiring against me by recording NOT ONLY the music video for Paranoid [giving me my first-ever "I'd hit that" feelings about jailbait Jonas], BUT ALSO the SNL rerun of the Alec Baldwin/Jonas Brothers episode? Can I be held responsible for the fact that even though the only part of that SNL that I watched was Weekend Update, WU was immediately followed by a commercial for some kind of blood sugar monitor in which Nick Jonas stares at the camera and talks about his diabetes and his mind and his heart and feeling like he's on a rollercoaster? I AM NOT MADE OF STONE, OKAY? WHEN THE UNIVERSE CONSPIRES AGAINST YOU, EVERYONE GIVES IN EVENTUALLY.

WARREN G HARDING WAS A NEGRO!

TUMBLR!
TRUE STORY: The thing that ultimately persuaded me to create one was the thought of that gif.

IN REAL LIFE NEWS, my manager, Ashley, came up to me today and said "I'll be here on Friday, and after that, I'll be out of the store until..." and then someone interrupted her, but I figured she was just telling me she'd be out next week, because they are ALWAYS sending her to other places and lately it is not uncommon for me to have fifteen minutes of interaction with her over the course of an entire week. EXCEPT THEN SHE FINISHED THE SENTENCE, and it doesn't end with "a week from Monday," it ends with "NOVEMBER." They're sending her to a nearby store to help handle the remodel, and even though I am kind of bummed because true story: she is awesome and super helpful, I look forward to being virtually unsupervised for the next five months.

OKAY SO HERE IS THE THING: I don't get Tumblr. [Am I not supposed to use a capital T? Is tumblr how the kids are writing it?] I got a Twitter because it seemed to me that it filled a gap left by LJ: Before, I had to save up all of my inane thoughts that were too minor to justify a post, hopefully not forget them, and then post them as a list or poll when I had accumulated eight or so - but with Twitter, I can just be like HEY INTERNET, I PLAN TO SET ALL OF MY PHONE'S ALERT NOISES TO MARIO SOUND EFFECTS and be done with it. So if it's too small for LJ, it goes on Twitter, and if it's too big for Twitter, it goes on LJ - that's how I work. If my pants will stay up on their own, I let them be, if they won't, I wear a belt - HOW IS TUMBLR NOT JUST A DECORATIVE BELT? What would prompt you to put something on Tumblr over LJ or Twitter? If someone can persuade me that they serve a purpose, I WILL TOTALLY GET ONE I PROMISE.

Poll #1416790 really idgi
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

PLEASE EXPLAIN, ELABORATE IN COMMENTS IF NECESSARY

Also what's your name over there?

HOLY CRAP, YOU GUYS.

Okay, so I had heard about Google Wave briefly, but was kind of puzzled by it - kind of how I don't get the point of Tumblr.

ANYWAY, then I watched the demo video, AND I TOTALLY GET IT NOW, and also will be dying a little bit each day until the wide release.



Yes, that IS eighty minutes long, and yes, I DID watch it all. Except my reaction wasn't TL;DR so much as, well:


THIS, EVERY FIVE MINUTES OR SO.

In a nutshell: Google Wave is like if LJ communities, Gmail, group chats, and Wikipedia all had a baby, and that baby was born with a) all of their best qualities, b) a Firefoxesque ability to add extensions, c) fluency in and the ability to translate between forty languages, and d) a Twitter account (and, once the Internet gets to making extensions, probably Facebook, Tumblr, LJ, Google Reader, and every other site you've ever had an account at).

Those of you not willing to devote eighty minutes to the video can see some highlights here, although it looks like that post left out the super-awesome part where they played chess and collaborative/competitive games of Sudoku within waves.

[ALSO, YES: WAVE IS A FIREFLY REFERENCE, BECAUSE WHY REVOLUTIONIZE MY LIFE IF YOU AREN'T GOING TO MAKE THE NAME AWESOME?]

And this is why it's a horrible idea to use software that auto-assigns photos to blog posts, a worse idea to let the software do its thing without any kind of final check, and an even more colossally awful idea not to monitor comments in case major corrections are needed:



From BuddyTV, where the photo's been up for at least twelve hours. [Johnny Palermo did not appear in the series. Or the movie.]