TV kisses just ain't what they used to be

I remember, years ago, when I tuned in to the final episode of Dawson's Creek, season 1. I didn't actually watch the show (my manic dedication to the kids of Capeside came later, when I TAPED - NOT TiVoed - all of the rerun episodes on TBS), but I knew something big was going to happen. That was the day Joey and Dawson were going to kiss.

It was truly worth watching. Granted I have always been sympathetic to the girl "friend" getting what she deserves (in this case it's apparently a silent Scientology birth, but I am getting ahead of myself), working her way up the romance ladder (in this case the ladder is both literal and figurative), and getting to mack on that hot (er, I mean... actually I still don't know why James Van Der Beek was desirable) guy of her dreams. I was Joey except I never got any, which is why I don't like her. That and she is the worst singer ever (refer to the episode where she sings "On my own" or the later episodes where she is unfortunately in Chad Michael Murray's band).

Back to my original point, however, despite my natural tendency to be happy for Joey, I have to believe that it wasn't just my previously-kissless empathy which made the final moments of Dawson's so great. Rather, it was the art of the delayed gratification. Like I said. I didn't even watch Dawson's then, but I had seen enough episodes and I was in touch with enough popular culture to know that this was BIG. And then there's the moment itself... All the awkward glances, stammers, hesitations, leading up to one helluva season finale silhouetted against the window shade of the Leary home.

There have been countless tales of unrequited and unrealized love on TV, but whether its my age and its accompanying cynicism or just plain bad programming, I have to say that the latest batch of moments-you-wait-whole-seasons-for has been less than moving. Case in point: The West Wing, a show I used to be dedicated to but in pre-TiVo and computer TV-tuner days I cast aside in favor of the obviously lower quality Jack & Jill (see WB network, circa 1998). Again, I watched it enough in the early seasons, on syndication and, recently, on DVD to know that Josh and Donna were going to get it on. Someday. And while watching the winter Olympics (the only TV I've watched live in a year and a half), I caught a preview for the concluding episodes of the show. Politics and election outcomes be damned - I promptly set my TiVo so I could catch the longest-delayed liplock in my memory. SEVEN seasons, may I remind you? I even called my roommate, another oft-fan of TWW, so that she would be sure not to miss a moment of what would surely be an earth-shattering release of sexual tension. At last.

Imagine my disappointment when I finally had a few solitary moments to catch the episode. First of all, my aforementioned roommate had already watched the first 3 minutes, which I thought was odd. Then, as I rewound to the beginning, I caught a glimpse of what I thought was the hoped-for kiss. Damn, I thought, maybe it was in a previous episode that I didn't catch on TiVo and that was in the "previous on West Wing" scenes.

Of course, it wasn't. Instead, the stupid kiss that I had waited YEARS for turned out to be one 10 second scene with no resolution whatsoever, and without even a whole lot of making out. Followed by an episode focusing on some freaking nuclear disaster and the absolutely absurd idea that a Republican from California would win his own state and a Democrat from Texas would win his, while meanwhile there is a pending nuclear conflict between Russia and China in Kazakhstan (Yakshemash! In US of A, democracy is very different from Kazakhstan. In America, woman can vote, but horse - cannot!).

I admit that I like the political mumbo jumbo and the attempted analogy to our current times (the phrase "exit strategy" was uttered several times), but I don't like the fact that they crammed the best part into the first 4 minutes and didn't even go anywhere with it. And the following episode Donna wasn't even in it. Excuse me, when did this become ok?

I have decided my biggest pet peeve is when the climactic kiss happens accidentally - like when someone says "I love you" without intending for it to be the L word (cf: Chandler and Monica, turkey, Friends) and then everyone on the show freaks out. Or when people kiss because (insert whiny voice here) they are so happy that the flailing Democratic party ticket gains five whole points in California which is as we all know dominated by the noble Republicans that they just get carried away and kiss in their excitement and then follow that awkward peck with 4 or so more of the same intensity - approximately zero. And then the nerve of the director to just cut the scene with that door fading - the least he could have done is go to commercial so I could imagine some hot and heavy action before the rest of the campaign management people burst through the door to interrupt everything. To top it off, Josh didn't even get to snag her key from the table before the nosy campaign management people burst MY bubble. Ugh I am so frustrated with modern television.

Perhaps, I think, I am barking up the wrong tree. The West Wing has always been above petty things and I cannot expect them to fulfill my Dawson's jones. Surely I can find the kind of screen-shattering sexual tension climax I'm looking for on a half-trashy doctor show - surely my Grey's Anatomy won't let me down.

Wrong again of course, because while I clearly do not believe that George and Meredith to be together (although I would prefer that to George and that mannish Kelly Osbourne type), the episode from approximately a month ago where Meredith shamefully abused George's love/infatuation for her was just as anticlimactic as West Wing if not more so. I don't believe that characters on TV should make dumb mistakes and try to sleep with their noble, dorky roommates even if it is more realistic. I do not watch drama TV shows for reality! Thank you! In my ideal TV world, Meredith and George would have shared awkward, curious glances for at least 15 episodes before any bedroom activity and when it happened it would be hot first, awkward later (refer to Dawson's, season 6, episode 1). None of this business of George following her around like a sick puppy for two years and Meredith being playful and ignorant of his undying love for her, followed by one whimpering sex scene which ends up with one in the arms of Kelly Osbourne and the other going for dog walks in the park with the old sexy sleazebag. (Where is the rivalry between the sexy sleazebag and the sick puppy? Where are my Pacey and Dawson? Actually I am glad Dawson is far gone cause he drove me crazy!)

I used to complain when TV shows just flip-flopped back and forth - when they put two people in a relationship and then realized that television is really boring when you watch people be nice to each other all the time (refer to Felicity, any episode where she and Ben get along), so they broke them up and threw in more drama but, because they knew all the viewers wanted was for the two to finally get together, they ended up giving them more make-out time. I admit that this used to bother me, and I also admit that it's probably less realistic and more frustrating than dragging out 7 years of political drama before giving an assistant a shot at her boss. And I also admit that George and Meredith getting it on for real is about comparable in likelihood to Brian Krakow and Angela hooking up in the nonexistent fourth season of My So-called Life. So what is it that bothers me here?

I think the answer goes along with why I can't like modern romantic comedies - and I've tried (I have paid real money in the theater for such winners as Raising Helen, The Wedding Date and Wimbledon, not to mention The Cinderella Story). I think the problem is that I actually have grown out of them. I can't stomach all the canned dialogue and carefully constructed meaningful glances. Have they gotten worse? Or have I just gotten wiser?

My discomfort with the anticlimaxes in GA and TWW is probably a result of me trying to maintain my Joey-Dawson view of the world and failing (because it doesn't exist, nor should it) - a deepseated, a pathological dislike for plotlines that feature borderline realistic twists instead of overidealistic (Leary-esque, even) fairy tale endings. I was milkfed on fairy tales and in later life and shorter attention spans I moved onto teen dramas, romantic comedies and climactic kisses on a 27 inch screen. I was born to be dissatisfied with any storyline which could remotely exist in the world of possibility.

But there has to be hope for me. I mean, despite the terribly lame romantic scenes in The West Wing I still found myself trapped in the intricacies of the political wheelings and dealings. And Grey's Anatomy, despite the terribly embarrassing (and therefore disturbingly realistic) denouement of George and Meredith's sexual escapade, has recently worked its way to being one of my favorite shows on TV. Surely I can reconcile my grown-uppedness with my taste in television and come to terms with the lack of Joey-Dawson climactic moments. Surely I can put aside childish things and like television for its realistic (ish) resolutions and the characters for their realistic (ish) challenges.

After all, we know Joey did not end up with Dawson in the end. She ended up at the age of 24 cozying up with the scruffy, struggling Pacey in a fancy-schmancy Manhattan apartment with the kind of candles lit which cost $40 apiece from Pottery Barn. Joey eschewed the fairy tale and grew the fuck up, right? (Right.)

Well, if Joey Potter could do it, so can I. (Except for that whole silent birth thing.)

Overheard at the office...

"Did you watch that show Deal or No Deal last night?"
"No, why, was it good?"
"Yeah, man, this person got like 300,000!"
"What are they making a deal WITH?"
"Cash, man!"

Proof that tv networks can make hits out of anything.

Apprentice Rule #1

This is actually from last week but I'm going to be watching this week's show late, so bear with me.

Rule #1: Reasons
Confession: I have a Donald Trump doll. He says 19 different things. Sadly his hand and shoe fell off so he looks sort of forlorn, and his hair is far too solid compared to the real thing. However, I often find myself quoting the doll's phrases while watching The Apprentice, because the Trump is a remarkably consistent guy. You can trust that certain things will push his buttons - this is why people who are basically safe in the boardroom who start talking and jabbering pointlessly tend to get fired - Trump has respect for people who know when to keep their mouth shut. Thanks to his consistency, you can use his "rules" at the beginning to predict the reasons for the win or lose and possibly for the firing choice. This is somewhat obvious and it's why some people actually take those rules and the rest of the business-savviness from the show seriously. I on the other hand, really only care what the Donald is going to do this time and why. He's much more intriguing of a character than all the actual contestants on the show. Although his rules are pretty well spelled out (white titles on black backgrounds and then a gratuitous shot of Trump doing business his way), it's still a guessing game because you have to figure out how the rules are going to apply that week. It usually falls positively (one team followed his rule) or negatively (one team didn't follow it) or sometimes a little bit of both. This past week it was a positive one. When skeet shooting (and come on, who thought this was a good idea) failed, Angela and Team Synergy came through with the golf cart races. Therefore they won. The other team was just a disaster all along and I'm not sure if a Plan B would have helped them.

Ah well. Rehashing last week's episode in my head is getting me all sad that I can't watch tonight's. Moving to Mondays was not cool for me (even though my Thursday night Tivo is totally booked), since I have to wait the whole freaking week to get to see the episode. I hope Yahoo! news doesn't screw it up for me as usual.

a.k.a. "Baron"

The Donald and his Melania gave birth to a son this morning at 5am named Barron William Trump. The first name has got to be a pun. We shall adopt him as official Stanford mascot, Robber Baron. Also, I'm taking bets now - who thinks Barron will one day fill in for George/Carolyn/Bill/Ivanka as a judge on The Apprentice?

Even if The Apprentice doesn't last until he also has graduated from Wharton (which, btdubs, he will), I hope he guest stars. I would love to see a 5-year-old Trump clone advise firing on the basis that someone "didn't step up to the plate."

People article on the mini-mogul.

TV is awesome

Go watch Black.White.

It's fascinating.

UPDATE on the Next Food Network Star

So I admit I started watching this a bit late so my judgment may be skewed, but I have to say I see no formula at all. They dragged Morimoto out last minute to watch people's knife skills, and they didn't show all the contestants' performance on all of the tasks. There's no way for me to judge any of them since I can't compare them directly, and there doesn't seem to be a cohesive point to the episode. I feel like they should structure it so they have different challenges each week a la Project Runway or, I don't know, any self-respecting reality show. This is more disorganized than The Apprentice Martha Stewart.

Other notes - since when do chefs call chef's jackets "whites" - we are not surgeons here. Also, this Reggie character reminds me of American Idol's Bobby... he clearly won't last long.

AND to top it off, who doesn't eliminate someone on a reality TV show? I have no further comment.

The Next EVOO?

I was considering watching The Next Food Network Star (which starts today at 9pm), but now I'll definitely be checking in. Turns out a Stanford grad is one of the contestants. The Stanford Daily posted an article this week about Jess Dang, class of 2004 and youngest contestant on The Next Food Network Star. Although in her audition tape (which can be watched at the show's video gallery) she says that she got her start watching her mom cook when she was a kid, the Daily tells the story of how Stanford experiences (namely living in Kairo co-op her senior year) influenced her passion for cooking. Go Card, and all that...

What's funny about the audition video is that although her nervousness shines through (she reminds me of me giving a speech I haven't prepared well - lots of hand motions), she still has the "quirky" way of presenting her information and tasting her food (lots of "Mmmm" sounds) that all the Food Network chefs. And by quirky I mean annoying. Maybe some people are born to be Rachael Ray clones.

For more info, check out the show's homepage and Jess' blog.

Ameridan Idol Idolization

What a waste of airtime.

Sadly, I have actually spent time watching Kimberly Caldwell and that other chick make lame comments/predictions on the TV guide channel. Sometimes there is nothing else on, so while I watch the TV guide channel scroll, I also end up watching "Reality Chat" for like 20 minutes.

Why I Respect Ryan Seacrest

So I admit that Ryan Seacrest has no soul, is sort of annoying, probably sleeps with everything he meets (I have this theory that he has sex with each and every American Idol contestant in the top 24), often wears really bad overly trendy t-shirts, and gets caught in disgusting displays of slobbery. However, this article proves what I've always known... Ryan Seacrest is willing to go to any lengths to get people to know his name, not to mention to get some nice cash. He sold his soul for a reason. He knows that being the annoying, ubiquitous host of everything pays off, in fame and fortune if not dignity. It's like one day, he decided "Everyone in America will know the name Ryan Seacrest" and he did it. He now has an Aston Martin and is probably one of the most recognized men in show biz. What dedication to his craft!

Although to be honest the fact that Ryan Seacrest has a star on the walk of fame... It just shows how you don't have to be a real person to succeed in Hollywood. Being a famous enough fake one will do.

My So-Called BATG2

Apologies for the late post on last week's Beauty and the Geek finale. Amazingly I actually watched it on time, but then I quit my job on Friday so I was sort of off-duty for the rest of the weekend and didn't get to post about it.

As usual, BATG2 proves the awesomeness of reality television. Any show where someone can say that getting in a hottub "was like a social baptism" and have it be a heartwarming moment of triump over inner devils - now that's a good show. The level of seriousness with which the contestants approached the final challenge was truly impressive. Everyone actually bought into the whole "life-changing" theme the show was going after this season - they actually wanted to change and learn from one another. Like what is that.

Anyway, there were a few good moments. Fittingly since he is the heir to last season's Richard, most of the best one-liners came from uber-geek Josh. To be fair, Josh is waaaayyyy less annoying than Richard and had real awkwardness rather than trumped-up Woody Allen-style bravado. Josh deserved to win this show and that's the only thing that makes me resigned to Cher's triumph.

The best part about Josh, however, is not his earnest attempt to become socially normal, but rather his totally random moments of real-person-ness. Unlike, say, Tyson, who was cute with the Rubik's cubes but otherwise forgettable, Josh is feisty! Two episodes ago the producers had to censor him when he said "motherfucker," and this episode he censored himself but really didn't need to bother since we already knew he was a pottymouth. While making sushi, a frustrating art indeed, he busted out with "Ugh, effing avocado. Stay in there, you bastard!"

I love me a man who curses at inanimate objects. It really brought me closer to Josh and I could forgive him for being on a team with Cher. The other fantastic moment of course was when he was asked the question in the elimination room: "What's the one thing that only you and your partner know?" He came right out and said it: "The size of Wes' penis."

WHAT?! First of all I must be old since I didn't really realize they could say penis during primetime TV. However, what is truly awesome about this is that it means that Cher and Josh were just chatting about SEX. This from the guy who slept in the closet instead of in the same room as a hot girl. Seriously it's not like Cher can be asking him for advice, right? And I can't imagine him settling in for a gossip sesh. How does one come across these things in conversation if you are an awkward museum critic and a close-mouthed SMU premed? I ask you this. When a beauty and a geek can sit around and talk about boning, that's when Ashton Kutcher has really come up with something genius. The look on Mike's (I know from reading blogs that this is the name of the host, but otherwise I would totally forget that he existed) face when he had to read off the correct answer was priceless. He looked like Jerry Seinfeld trying to act.

Besides the penis comment (and the later one about Cher wanting bigger boobs - she probably is envious of Sarah like everyone else in the house), the finale was relatively uneventful. The "big twist" at the end turned out to be a Newlyweds-style elimination, which was approximately EXACLTLY THE SAME as last season except they asked the same question of both partners instead of a bunch of different questions. As usual, the whole "How well do you know your partner?" gimmick failed miserably. The problem is that when "knowing someone well" is defined as "knowing what they would answer to hypothetical questions," everyone is going to bomb. Remember those "surveys" that you used to get sent when you were about 13, and you were supposed to fill out your name, favorite color, Coke/Pepsi preference, and so on? (I do. I once consolidated all the questions from all the surveys I'd gotten and made an uber-survey which I think 1 of my friends filled out besides me.) That's the Beauty and the Geek concept of understanding someone else. About the same time I was filling out internet surveys I remember reading a Seventeen magazine type article (which I think now was a Jane magazine article since it's too bitter for teeny-boppers) which said that the time you know a relationship is truly floundering is when you find yourself asking hypothetical, desert-island questions. That's BATG2 in a nutshell. I'd love to see some kind of psychological thing where the contestants have to describe themselves and their partners and see if their partners can match all their descriptions, etc. That would be a little more interesting and then Joe could get all his "innocent" crap out of his system. Oh yes and Cher could call herself "vivacious" since apparently she thinks that's the first word that Josh-the-geek thought when he saw her. (In all honesty, the first word was probably "bikini" or "boobs" or "weird tan.")

In the end it was a good episode even though it was anti-climactic because Cher and Josh were bound to win. Joe was way too cocky about being the preferred one to win (he actually compared it to the battle between good and evil, way to go Dubya) and overintellectualized things a bit. (Seriously like Brittany was going to say she wanted to be less/more innocent? What did Joe even mean by that comment?) There were some classic reality TV show cliches in the bunch while we were at it. Cher copped out and said, "In the beginning I was scared to invest myself in the process of change," which means "I only cared about the money until I realized people wanted to get rid of me because of it." But she was only succumbing to the BATG2 rule that all this posturing had to mean something about character and humanity and blah blah blah. That's why they played that hackneyed James Blunt song in the closing montage - because we're all beautiful, right? Even the geeks?

I leave you with the closing monologue of the famous "Zit" episode of My so-called Life:
"Sometimes it seems like we're all living in, like, some kind of prison. And the crime is how much we hate ourselves. It's good to get really dressed up, once in a while. And admit the truth. That when you look closely, people are so strange and so complicated that they're actually... beautiful. Possibly even me."

Come to think of it, Josh does remind me a little bit of Brian Krakow...

Kirsten can suck it

Perez Hilton ignores the real celebrity

Apprentice: Mid-Life Crisis versus Corporate Scandal

For this week's Apprentice, I half-tried to do one of those live-blogging things that real bloggers do. Half-tried meaning I took minimal notes on stuff I thought was funny, while watching it on TiVo a day late. I have no real overarching point this time around, just a few observations.

First of all, "the Russian" as he is called (a.k.a. Lenny which is a name only ever heard on the Simpsons and in Of Mice and Men) is truly awesome. He's like a New Jersey/mafia type version of Borat of Ali G fame. In early previews for this season, he even claimed that he would "crrush" his opponents. Last night his accent was in full force when he claimed that the task was "more simple than the whole earf." Aside from his entertainment value, he's actually been a good candidate so far, in tasks and in the boardroom. Unfortunately because of his foreignness he's being sidelined already. Even Trump calls him "the Russian" instead of by his real name (although he also called Pepi "Pepe" but then again so did everyone else including Ivanka and who really cares anyway). The previews for this week advertised "Two teams... two problems" but it was really only one time with lots of problems and another team with no problems whatsoever. I hope Lenny lasts. At least for now.

Obvious point: Brent is the new Markus. He babbles constantly and lives in a dream world. I know the only reason he's still around is because it makes for good television and I don't really mind that. Sometimes I prefer to see smartish, normalish people get fired instead of the real screwups because it makes me feel safer - the complete idiots will get fired in the end no matter what (it's like Jim on the Martha Stewart Apprentice), and at least in the meantime you get your satisfaction from Trump firing someone who deserves to be fired. Although, his firing two people at once all the time now sort of takes the guessing game out of the firing. It used to be that he had to make a decision between, say, 4 bad candidates and there were a lot of nuances involved in the firing choice. Now, it seems like he's getting to the point more. At least he did this week - Stacy was a complete idiot for targeting Brent. It made her look like a whiny little girl, and Trump called her on it right away. Meanwhile, Pepi could have argued well enough in the boardroom to save himself, but he let himself get walked all over and wasted his time arguing about Brent. He was a sure goner. I love Donald Trump sometimes. And Ivanka did a great job as well. She's very articulate. I wonder if she and Carolyn hang out.

So far I think Season 5 is going very well... The only downside is, of course, that the prizes are really bad now (reaching Martha Stewart Apprentice levels). At least a third of the prizes in each season involve working with a nonprofit for the day. Sure, I realize that giving back to the community is a good thing and all, but this is Trump we're talking about. The show should pay homage to success and excess, and have more prizes like they used to - free pearls and floating in null gravity and driving race cars.

In fact, the only good part about the prize this week was imagining an entire Apprentice show full of candidates who were once on top of their field and then for one reason or another ended up collecting unemployment. You could have one team of people who had sort of self-destructed (felt like they lost purpose in their I-banking job, finally told their wife they were gay and uprooted their life as a result, had a midlife crisis and lost all their money in a bad investment a la Pacey Witter in Season 6 of Dawson's Creek) and another team of people who had been fired, whose start-ups had gone under, whose company had been caught in an Enron-style scandal, and so on. I am envisioning something like the "Book Smarts" versus "Street Smarts" season. Ooh, I can just picture it. The drama!!!

When Beautys and Geeks collide... on the internet.

The March 2006 issue of Vanity Fair magazine (that's the one with naked girls on the cover for those of you keeping track) featured an article on MySpace in which the site's creator, Tom Anderson, referred to the website as "the reality TV of the Internet."

I could talk more about how fascinating MySpace and its fellow networking sites are, but I'll save that for another time. What's more fascinating for me at the moment is what happens not when the Internet starts to imitate reality TV, but rather what happens when reality TV and the Internet collide. That's what happened for me with this season of Ashton Kutcher's greatest masterpiece (except for the Punk'd episode where they took away all of Justin Timberlake's belongings, that was amazing) - Beauty and the Geek.

I love reality TV, mainly because I can speculate on what is real and what is produced/edited/scripted etc (that's why I love Laguna Beach and eagerly await its sequel, The Hills - wtf!). My obsession has become slightly creepy since my discovery that I can find 80% of reality TV stars' blogs/profiles/etc on the Internet. After the first episode of BATG2, the boyfriend and I went on thefacebook.com. Using the handy lists of the beauties and geeks' alma maters on the WB show website, we managed to track down quite a few Beautys and Geeks and friend all of them.

Geeks:
Brandon (very Blah. Eliminated early.)
Joe (Pervy)
Tyson (the Rubik's cube kid. Eager to learn, endearing, but not the best television.)
Chris (scapegoat of the show until he was voted off and Cher replaced him in that role. Hilarious but no one respects sarcasm on reality TV shows.)
Wes (The hot one, post-makeover. I didn't discover his profile until much later, mostly because he wasn't interesting enough for me to notice until he became Cher's boytoy.)

Beauties:
Tristin (sadly voted off early on because she was, after the first episode, paired with scapegoat Chris. Definitely one of the smartest Beauties of the bunch.)
Brittany (See #4 below for my opinion on the Brit.)
Thais (the other half of Ty and Thai. Pretty, pretty smart, mostly unremarkable. Has 5849054830 pictures of herself in draping jersey clothing all over her facebook and Myspace profiles.)
Cher (see #3 below for my opinion on the Bitch.)

From facebook profiles, to Myspace profiles, to blogs and xangas and Chris's T-shirt company online. I love the Internet. In this case, it led to several interesting and mildly stalkerish observations which I detail below:

1- Quite a few Geeks started a blog just because they wanted to get online traffic from the show. This is proof that they are actually huge nerds because they read some article about how blogging is the next big thing (or the last big thing, or the next ubiquitous thing) and decided that the best way to improve their stock socially was to put themselves out on the Internet.
2- On a related note, every single cast member I could track down listed "Beauty on the Geek" as one of their favorite TV shows, presumably to maximize publicity within their own school/group of friends.
3- I hate Cher. Absolutely cannot stand her - if she wins Thursday I'm getting very, very drunk. This anger originated on the TV show but was fortified by seeing her album on Facebook of her visit to "Hot-lanta" to visit "geek" boyfriend Wes. Who, rumors claim, was not a geek at all but a guy approached by the producers to do the show and told to "geek it up." The pics of his friends on Cher's photos wearing tons of popped-collar polos sort of backs that theory up. Anyway, Cher's captions feature such gagworthy facebook-PDA statements such as "Yum," "My boyfriend is too cute!" and "With my honey!" This makes her annoying. When you add that to her overcompetitiveness in the early episodes (combined with sulkiness when Wes got defeated in the elimination room), she becomes my UNfavorite for the win.
4- The fact that I want Cher to lose is pretty impressive given that Brittany, ditz extraordinare from UIllinois at Chicago, did not even friend me back on facebook. Tired of fans? Perhaps. Then why did she friend back my boyfriend but also reject my roommate - and me, a second time? Another cardinal sin in my book... friending guys and not girls. Always suspicious. However, Brittany's hardworking go-to attitude (the Trump would be proud) won me over in spite of her facebook snub. She's just so earnestly trying to learn! Aw, ditzes can be so cute!
5- Joe, slightly pervy guy from Northwestern & UChicago, holds weekly viewing parties in the Chicago area. By boss is from that area and she said one of the bars he had it at used to be like a hardcore underground hiphop club. Only Joe. One week Joe did not have a party and I suspected at first that it was because he was going to get eliminated, but that proved wrong since he's now in the top two pairs. Despite falling apart under pressure and believing in himself a little too much for a geek, he has managed to last... but I think in the end he's just not as deserving of the win as Josh is, which will be the only consolation if (let's face it, when) Cher wins.
6- Not surprisingly, Ankur does not have a facebook. He would definitely think it was too plebeian.

What I love about all of this internet stalking is the new light it's shed on all of the characters (!?!! that was instinct) and their real relationships. Many of them are still spending time together outside of the show (Karl, Danielle, Brittany and Joe all live in the Chicago area). That adds credibility to the heartwarming "Beauties and Geeks meet in the middle" angle that the show has been going for - either that or none of them were very different to begin with and all the drama was produced. However I think the blogs prove otherwise.

Another amusing thing to look at is how seriously the cast members do and do not take the show. That varies, naturally, from person to person. For example, Cher, who comes off as the uber-bitch on TV, is "married" to Tyson on the facebook, which I think shows a lighthearted "We're both Asian" bond which belies her competitive attitiude. Chris, on the other hand, clearly takes the show seriously because his blog details every episode and explains all of his complex feelings and what was and was not edited. I for one appreciate the Regent Scholar's intellectual take on it all because 1) it gives me more to read while I'm bored at work and 2) he takes it even more seriously than I do. All of the people have friend details like "Thais and Cher lived in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills!!!!" I can't decide if this is glorification of LA from people who for the most part are from the East or Midwest, or just the personality of the kind of person who tries out for reality TV shows. It's one or the other.

I think I've exhausted my energy for reality tv obsession for the evening. I'll leave it to you now. Consider it homework.

Beauty and the Geek 2 homepage on the WB.com
Chris's Blog
Chris's T-Shirt Website (someone got Domain-name happy)
Karl's Blog (Karl, btdubs, is the Napoleon Dynamite lookalike)
Karl's MySpace
Cher's Xanga
Tyson's Xanga
Tyson's website (with all his contact information! What kind of CalTech student would do that!?)
(On an unrelated note, why is it that the Asian members of the cast have Xangas and the white guys have blogs on blogspot? Just an observation.)
Josh's friend's blog (dedicated to the show for the moment, but after the show ends "to all things geeky and and how the world looks from a geek's perspective.") For proof that they are "associates" visit this page.

Kill me now

Tonight on American Idol, Melissa did one of the things I truly hate... In the "Getting to know the candidates" video clip before she sang, she claimed that "People think I'm such a girly girl but really I'm like that girl who always loved fast cars" (aka had sex in back seats). She continued "I was always that girl who had the fast, stick shift car" (*ahem*). Oh, what a popularity ploy. I never called her as the girly girl at all, but apparently the way to win your way into America's hearts is to be the epitome of the girl next door and that means having a secret tomboy interior. And making slightly suggestive comments which indicate your easiness.

Despite all that I still like Melissa. She could rock the 80s pop so hardcore (although is it too Simon of me to suggest that maybe any good karaoke singer could do that?). I want to hear her sing Total Eclipse of the Heart like Carrie Underwood did last year. Also, she would never make a song called "Jesus Take the Wheel."

'Nuff said.

Reading Assignment #2

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the reading of the evening, but at least the part about Jon Stewart is spot on:

PopMatters Feature on the Oscars

Oscars

Just briefly:

Did you realize Felicity Huffman was married to William H. Macy? It makes me respect her so much more.

Go Jen Lindley! (Also go Audrey, as apparently the two bad girls of Dawson's Creek are still best-enough buds for the lamer of the two to get invited to the Oscars.) Michelle Williams looked amazing even though the ruffles were a tad too big. At least they weren't as big as Charlize Theron's ugly bow. How did Charlize become a legit actress anyway? She was in Sweet November.

I didn't see Crash, but I guess I have to now. Related, I'm sure he was good and all, but I feel like the Oscars dodged a bullet when Matt Dillon didn't win the Best Supporting Actor award. That's like giving Titanic the Best Pictu... Oh. Right. (On a serious note, I love Titanic. It's so fabulously bad. Watch it in a dark room while drinking cheap booze.)

The Oscars pre-shows were so bad. The best part about the pre-show was when Roger Ebert did a big no-no and introduced his question to the producer of Good Night and Good Luck with "Now, you're one of the producers of Crash."

Whoopsies!!! He covered it up with "This isn't my day job" which would have been a clever way for him to get past the whole awkward moment except for one problem - it IS his day job, because he reviews MOVIES and should know who the PRODUCERS of said movies are. The wife of the Good Night and Good Luck producer looked pissed except it might have been because she knew her husband's movie didn't have a shot in hell of winning. The best part was that when Ebert was on The Daily Show like two days before, he was all confident about how he was "behind the scenes" in the "press room" and I believe he also made fun of Jon about how he the latter was going to screw up. Again, as Hugh Grant says in the classic Notting Hill, Whoopsy-daisy!

Speaking of Jon, I thought he did quite a nice job although I only watched the opening monologue (short and sweet), the first 20 minutes and the last hour. I love Jon Stewart though so I really am quite biased. But seriously, he took his sardonic political self up there and did passably. And he did a fair imitation of the interpretive dance from the "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" performance. Fine by me.

This will be my last comment, but I think it's merited. I just love George Clooney. When he was Dr. Ross, I thought he was boring and overrated. He was kind of ballsy without being able to back it up. But the REAL George is ballsy and articulate and funny, and seems to care very little about his clothes while still looking great. Is he single? Who is going to tie him down?! I would say where is the Angelina to his Brad, except that I kind of want George to stay feral. We need some classic single mens in Hollywood.