I'M NEVER WATCHING TELEVISION AGAIN

NBC announced earlier this week that Scrubs will no longer be a part of their Tuesday lineup. In fact, it's not a part of their lineup at all. Officially the show is on "hiatus," but we all know what that means.

This happens to me every goddamn time. Whenever I find a show that I love, something gets in the way of me watching it. Sifl and Olly was cancelled. That 70s Show and Titus were moved to Tuesday nights, which I'd undoubtedly be spending behind the counter at the video store, and Fox was the one channel that we couldn't get. John Wells' West Wing began airing only months after I got into the show. And now Scrubs is gone...supposedly.

The only shows that I've gotten to see more than a season or two (actually air on television for the first time) are Dawson's Creek and NYPD Blue. And one of those kinda sucked for the five years that I watched it.

Thus, I have decided that I'm not going to find new shows to watch anymore. What's the point? It's no use. I'm only setting myself up to get disappointed.

If you can't tell, I'm feeling a little like Siggy Marvin today.

And about the whole Scrubs cancellation thing, Zach Braff is yet to mention it on his blog. I figured he would have by now, and in all likelihood he's just been busy, but in my mind I picture him curled up in a corner, disheveled and unshaven, shaking in a catatonic trance.

I don't know why. I guess I want him to be insecure or something.

Sometimes it's fun to try and demystify your heroes.


A LONG TIME AGO, IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...DIALOGUE SUCKED

***VERY MINOR SPOILER WARNINGS AHEAD***

So I went to the midnight showing of Star Wars the other night. Since I was going to the local theatre, I didn't figure the crowd would be all that crazy. Lee's Summit schools are still in session, and the theater's never really all that crowded anyway. In short, I didn't think it would be that much of a hassel.

Needless to say, I slightly underestimated how many people would be there.

If you picture the Lee's Summit theater, which at most only three of you can do, the line started in front, went around the side, looped around back, and almost turned a third corner. It was one of the craziest, most surreal scenes I've ever seen. There were people there in full costumes with their faces painted. Girls had their hair up in little buns, and a few of the guys were wielding lightsabers and having impromptu battles between good and evil.

Nobody won because it's hard to run someone through with plastic.

At any rate, the line moved forward, we went into the theater, and watched the movie. Now, I wasn't expecting much, but I have to say it was pretty amazing. I think it's on par with the original Star Wars (Episode Four). Despite the fact that the dialogue was terrible and the special effects were way overused, the movie far surpassed my expectations.

But I found myself asking...how could I make this better.

Now, the special effects, I'd just say take it down a notch. I don't know that much about the technical side of films, so I'm gonna stay away from this one, but it seems to me that special effects should be there to enhance the movie, not to overtake it.

Dialogue, on the other hand, I'd like to think a know a little something about. There were two scenes in the movie that had so much potential, but the dialogue just fell flat. The first of these scenes is when Padme tells Anakin that she's pregnant. In the movie, the dialogue goes a little something like this.

PADME (with no real buildup whatsoever): I'm pregnant.

ANAKIN: Wow. (pause). Wow, that's amazing.

PADME: I know. We can't tell anybody. We could get into trouble.


Kinda bland and shitty isn't it? Here's what I would have done.

PADME: Hey, I've got a question for you.

ANAKIN: What's that?

PADME: What could be the worst possible thing that could happen to us?

ANAKIN: I could turn evil and start killing everybody.

PADME: Okay, what's the second worst?

ANAKIN: I'd have to go with you being knocked up. Why do you ask?

PADME: Because the second worst thing just happened.

ANAKIN: Oh my god. Are you sure?

PADME: Of course I'm sure.

ANAKIN: Well, is it mine?

PADME: Do you really want to ask that question?

ANAKIN: I suppose not. This is amazing.

PADME: Yeah.


And then it would go on from there.

The second scene that needed some dialogue work was when Obi Wan stands over a fallen Anakin at the end of the movie. As Anakin lays on the ground, bloodied and burning, Obi Wan says something along the lines of:

OBIWAN: You were the chosen one! You were supposed to bring balance to the force. Not join the Sith!

ANAKIN: I hate you. I hope you die. I hate you.


Personally, I would have liked to see Obi Wan do a bit more trash talking...something along the lines of:

OBIWAN: You were the chosen one. Now look at you. You've got no legs and your face is burning off. Looks like you joined the wrong team, bitch.

ANAKIN: Fuck you.

OBIWAN: You think Padme's gonna fuck a guy with no legs? Hell no. She's damn fine. You're gonna have to kiss her ass goodbye. Oh, and by the way...I think that kid might be mine.

ANAKIN: I hate you!


So yeah, that's a little extreme, and maybe I shouldn't be allowed to write dialogue. But then again, neither should George Lucas.

EVEN THE MONA LISA'S FALLING APART

My dad called me on Friday afternoon, while I was still in Columbia, to tell me that there was a minor tragedy at home. He said that the toilet in the upstairs hallway bathroom had overflowed, and there was some water damage. Notice how I stressed the word "some."

So I come home late Friday afternoon, and it looks like a bomb has hit my house. All of the carpet has been ripped off upstairs. My bedroom is literally in shambles. All of the stuff that was in my closet is lying around my room in piles. The recliner and loveseat are missing from the livingroom downstairs, which also has no carpet whatsoever. The drywall in the kitchen is exposed, and if you go downstairs (either to the livingroom or the garage), you can look up and actually see the pipes because the ceiling is gone.

Now the story, as it has been explained to me, goes something like this: My sister came home from school two Fridays ago and used the bathroom. Perfectly natural thing to do. She then decided to take a nap, as she often does. She woke up a couple hours later and walked out into the hallway to find a river of water flowing out of the bathroom. Being the little doll that she is, and not knowing how to turn the toilet off, she got into the hallway closet, took out a towel, and tried to soak all of the water up.

If any of you have met my sister you can imagine what this would look like. And while it is both sad and adorable, I assure you it did absolutely nothing to stop the flowing water.

So it was at about this time that my mother came home to find four inches of standing water in the bathroom, and a river flowing down through the ceiling and into the family room. She turned the water off, called my dad, and then for the next eight days there was somewhere around twenty fans and dehymidifiers in my home in an attempt to dry everything off.

And no, I'm not going to take the time to look up how to spell dehymidifier. This spelling is just gonna have to do.

Anyway, as I said, this happened two weeks ago, and my parents didn't want to tell me about it because they didn't want me to worry. Now, I'm a guy who likes to worry. I usually feel as though I'm wasting my time if I'm not worrying about something. But this isn't the kind of thing I would have worried over. First of all, it's too real to worry about. If I'm gonna worry about something, it's gotta be something that's totally off the wall. Why worry about my house flooding when I could worry about how I'm going to sleep with Anna before she and Adam get married, and then try and figure out the best way to break the news to Adam.

By the way, I'm leaning towards spelling it out for him in a round of hangman.

Secondly, I'm not going to worry about the flood, when I can't see what the flood has done. That's just the kind of thing that you have to see for yourself before you realize how bad it really is. Maybe my dad did the o-so-fatherly thing and sugarcoated it for me when I was on the phone with him. Or maybe I just imagined that there wasn't much damage because I didn't want there to be much damage. Whatever the reason, I didn't think the house was going to look like this.

It occurred to me, however, that apart from being a pretty terrible thing, it's also kinda symbolic. Here I am, a year away from graduating, a year away from going off and living on my own, and the house that I grew up in is in ruins. I don't know why but it just seems fitting. In some ways I don't feel at home here anymore. I mean, I haven't for about the last year or so. Everytime I come home, something has just seemed a bit off. But now, I really don't feel at home here.

And as I sit here thinking about it, I'm reminded of what Zach Braff said on the subject. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you're just gonna have to figure it out for yourself.


YOU CERTAINLY CARJACKED A REALLY NICE CAR

I'm sure most of you know by now, but I got a new car. And I must say it is pretty damn sweet. That's not to say that I didn't like my old car. I love my old car, probably a bit too much considering how shoddy and rundown it is. But this new car, oh God. I'd describe it for you, but I don't want to be that guy. Plus, I don't know shit about cars, so I'd just be telling you what color it is and all that stuff, and then I'd just sound like a girl.

Suffice it say, the new car is vastly superior to the old car. I will not, however, be taking it to California with me. It has been decided that I will take the family sedan. The reasons are three fold. One, new car is new, family sedan is old, which one would you want to put six thousand miles on? Two, much less chance of theft when driving family car. Three, when family flys out in July, would be nice to have something that they all fit into.

And yes, I realize that I gave those three reasons in a rather childish, broken english fashion, and again...I just don't care.

Long story short, I'll spend two weeks with the new car and then say goodbye to it for ten weeks. Oh well, I suppose things could be worse. I could still be driving the old car.


COUPLE BASEBALL CARDS...A SACK OF MARBLES...PETEY

As I was reassembling my room earlier today, I came across some of my old baseball cards. That's right, I collected baseball cards in my younger days. I don't know why. I was never really that in to baseball. I didn't know most of the players and I couldn't name off a single stat, but something about the baseball cards themselves struck a chord in me.

At any rate, I was looking back through my collection today, and I found that I have an entire set of Topps 1993 cards. I was wondering if anyone, say my roommate, could tell me if there were any good players whose rookie year was 93. I would have sent you an email about it, but I was already here, and I didn't want to put forth the extra effort of going to webmail and...you know...

which brings me into-


THE LAZY DAYS OF SUMMER

I start my internship two weeks from tomorrow. At that time I will work nine hours a day, five days a week, for ten weeks. I've decided that up until that time, I'm going to put forth as little effort as possible while still maintaining my status as a living, breathing (not solely through the mouth), human being.

What I'm trying to say here is I hope nobody asks me to do anything, because it's not going to get done. What little work I happen to do will be half-assed. Take this blog entry for example. Did I look up how to spell anything? No, and I probably should of cause I couldn't spell my way out of a cardboard box.

I don't even know what that metaphor means.

So follow in my footsteps. Whenever you think "wow, I've been sitting in this same spot for four hours now. I should probably get up and do something."

Fight that temptation. Fight it with everything you have. Sit down. Do nothing. What's the worst thing that can happen?

I know you're gonna have that urge to do something. Even I get it every once and a while, but you gotta fight it off. That's the thing about being lazy...sometimes it takes a lot of work.