The Ghost Of 90's Past

Me: Hey, it's me. I can't sleep and I wanted to–

Her: Hey! Is everything okay?

Me: ...How did you pick up while I was leaving a voicemail?

Her: It wasn't voicemail, it was an answering machine.

Me: lol I'm sorry, I seem to have called the 90's by mistake.

Her: LOL. Shut it, okay. Did you like not want me to pick up?

Me: Of course I did. Especially since I found out this phone is like my own personal DeLoreon.

Her: lol You sir are rude

Me: Tell me spirit, are the 90's as great as when I left them?

Her: Yeah. I particularly enjoy the scrawny Mexican lads with bad haircuts who look like one-fifth of Menudo.

Me: Menudo was Puerto Rican! How dre you!!

Her: LOL. Sooooo not attracted to you right now.

Me: lol It's understandable.

Et Tu Weezay?

Oh, that Agent W. She never fails to make me laugh. A few days ago we got to talking about a former 90's teen idol who has started a cult and the latest photo of him that shows a parrot randomly sitting on his shoulder. It was then that we decided we needed to make t-shirts that included a random parrot. And well...you know how I like to rewrite the lyrics to songs...

W: [It screams rebel because] it's a parrot we don't have to answer for. Why? CUZ IT'S OUR PREROGATIVE!
Me: Everybody's talkin' all about my parrot, why don't they just let me liiiiiive. Don't treat me so coldly, hatin' on my poultry. That's my prerogativeeeeee
W: LOL Hence why I love you
Me: lol It wasn't easy. Not much rhymes with poultry

Then last night, I shared this with her, just before we had a longer than it shoulda been conversation about the awesomeness of Ramen Noodles and how she can't make them correctly:

Me: LOL. I just read a post on FB that says, "I'm a lady in the street but a freak at the buffet"
W: That was hilarious, that sounds like me

This morning our convo started out simple enough...

Me: You know that ALS water thing that's going around the interwebs? We have this client who flirts with me whenever we work together and yesterday she's all, "So are you going to pour water over yourself until your shirt sticks to your body like glue? For charity, of course"
Me: I said maybe me doing that with 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' playing and several male strippers surrounding me might be more up her alley and she got all embarrassed.
Me: I don't think she meant to objectify me out loud lol
W: LOL
Me: I'm tempted to do that video now and make it extra cray cray just for kicks
W: I'd put rubber sharks in the water
Me: Classy
W: Too classy for you?
Me: I've seen "Sharknado" multiple times. Everything is too classy for me lol
W: lol got me there 
Me: COME ON COME ON!! FEEL IT FEEL IT!! Then put her name scrolling across the bottom with, "hey girl...can you feel my vibration"
W: LOL
Me: lol She'd probably die of embarrassment
W: The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. I think the world needs this video.

But it all took a nasty turn when we started talking about my sister's upcoming wedding (more on that as the week goes on). And well...things got heated, to say the least...

Me: Dude, my sister is getting hitched this weekend
W: I'm sorry, what?
Me: Hitched means married. Keep up, Weezy
W: You know what I meant, you bastard!
Me: lol it's true, this bastard did know what you meant
Me: I'm offended all these fuckers in my generation are giving into the man and getting married
W: lol offended
Me: Lol well I am. Like wtf gave y'all permission to do this ish. ESP the siblings. Bc now I'll be the only spinster and I'm sure I'll hear about it
W: *points and laughs*
W: You're officially the cat lady
Me: lol Fuck you, noodle ruiner!!
W: LOL
Me: lol I flipped your sassy ass off with both hands all Homer Simpson style as I said that too
W: We all have our faults. Mine is that I can't cook. Yours is that no one wants to marry you cuz you's a lady in the streets and a freak in the boofay.
Me: LMAO. I hate you
Me: Using my own damn phrases against me. Et tu Weezay?
W: *bows* a-thank you
Me: For the record, people wanna marry this cat lady. I'm is turning THEM down mmmmmkay
W: Riiiight
W: People wanna see you with your clothing stuck to your body like glue.

Well, when she's right, she's right.

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Awhile back I finally decided to upgrade from my old-ish flip phone and leap into the smartphone era. And it's a good thing I did because just about everyone I knew who didn't have a smartphone also decided to upgrade within the following six months (including my mom. Yes, I got a smartphone just six months before my mother.). I went with the iPhone because it was cheap and because it had decent recommendations from friends. My contract is up early next month and I have been counting the days until I can get a new phone. I have enjoyed my time with iPhone but have been unimpressed with certain aspects of it. Mine is a 4, so it's one of the older models but the phone itself was brand new when I got it. And yet I've had issues with it that you would expect from a used one. Around Christmas of last year, it started having issues with wifi. Instead of connecting to wifi whenever I was around a signal, it would switch over to data without reason, and usually when I was doing something like watching a video or listening to music. I ended up turning off data altogether when I was home and having to turn it back on whenever I leave the house, which is annoying. It's also had a media playback issue where it just flat out refuses to play anything until I restart it. That happened a few months ago just as I was about to head out and run errands. I turned it off (which I'd also had to do the day before) and then when I went to turn it back on, nothing happened. The Apple logo came on the screen but that was it. Panicking, I hit the on, off and reset buttons multiple times but it still wouldn't work. I called the carrier to see what my options were since my upgrade date was three months away and I needed a phone a lot sooner than that. They said I could get my upgrade date moved up to that day but only if I got the phone from them at its current sale price, which was $150. I wasn't crazy about that (I've never paid more than $100 for a phone), but headed out to the store to check out phones when, miraculously, mine started up again and seemed fine. I later found out the battery indicator isn't quite accurate anymore but it's only off by a couple of percentage points. As if iPhone and I needed anymore excitement, I accidentally knocked it into a dog's water dish like a week after I thought it was dead. It was only wet for a few seconds and only on one side but after drying it off, I noticed I couldn't get any sound from it, via speakers or headphones. I Googled what to do and resigned myself to having to get a new one after all when, again, it somehow seemed to come back to life and begin working normally. I'm glad it survived the incident but it also made me realize I should probably get something more durable.
I've been toying with the idea of going Droid for months now, but only after some recent research have I pretty much decided to make the switch. I was going to go Galaxy 4 but the newest Galaxy has come down in price and after I trade my phone in, it'll be even cheaper. I loathe the look of the iPhone's operating system so even though the 5 is likely to go on sale around the time of my upgrade (when Apple is expected to announce the 6), I don't have any interest in going that route. It's the lowest rated version of the iPhone anyway and everyone I know who has one hates it. The Galaxy offers a lot more options for customization and even allows you to view two apps at once in some instances. I'm not crazy about the size or how thin it is but I suppose I'll get used to that. And I do find that I have trouble texting on the smaller iPhone screen. Then, of course, there's the final thing that makes you want to get the latest phone - when your mom's phone loads faster than yours and she says to you, she say, "4G, son. FOUR. G.". Yep. That'll do it. Hurry up already September...

Give Me Marriage Or Give Me Death!

Friend: What you up to on Day 7 of Bronchi-palooza?
Me: I'm watching a show on ID called "Elder Skelter". It's about old people who commit murder. This chick got involved with a dude at her retirement community and then suspected he was cheating. So she shot him.
Friend: lol That sounds like something you'd do. Get to about 75 or 80 relatively unscathed. Then cross the wrong elderly chick and get blown away.
Me: LOL. Yeah...this show is like looking into my future.
Friend: Nah, I don't think you'll be single at 75.
Me: You so nice.
Friend: You'll either be dead or married.
Me: ...I'm not sure which of those I'm rooting for, honestly.
Friend: LOL. Wow.

Never Had A Friend Like Me

Like many others, I was extremely shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Robin Williams. Even hours after the news broke, it still doesn't seem real. There are certain deaths that hit people especially hard and this is one of them. A reason for that is because his career and many acting and voice roles spanned decades and across generations. I remember being briefly taken in by "Mork and Mindy" and watching it after school in my younger years. I remember my uncle taking us to see "Mrs. Doubtfire" in the theater. I remember taking my own nieces and nephews to see "Happy Feet". And Miss N's favorite movie is "Aladdin", her favorite character being Genie. My mom has always spoken of having seen him on one of his stand up tours way back when and how he was one of the most gifted comedians she had ever seen, how he switched from one character to another with such ease and nailed them all. But that's the blessing and the curse, I suppose. You can spend your days playing every role under the sun but at the end of it all, you're left with just being yourself. And not everyone, particularly the most gifted, can find a way to be comfortable with being themselves. Robin Williams battled demons and addition for most of his life, yet seemed as if he would be one of the success stories. I don't think any of us believed we'd ever have to read the kind of headline about him that we did today. And it is very upsetting when someone with so much to live for can't see the light  at the end of the tunnel and come out of their depression. If nothing else, I hope his death serves as another reminder of just what a real, and deadly, disease depression really is. When you are deep enough into it, you find yourself considering doing things you never thought you'd do, and they don't sound as outlandish as they do to everyone else who is not battling such demons. If you're lucky, you find a way to not paint yourself into a corner or do something you cannot take back. But not everyone gets that kind of luck when they need it. Suicide is a permanent solution to what is almost always a temporary problem. We all feel unloved, unhappy, alone and as if there is no way out sometimes. But most of us know that things get better eventually and we press on. I only wish he'd been able to see what he meant to others, what he contributed to the world and that he had so much more to give. And I wish all of that had been enough for him. R.I.P. Genie.

You Rocked My World, You Know You Did

MC and I have moved past the stage where we both hate each other's guts and are bitter about things that happened between us in the past and have since moved on to being responsible co-parents. Actually, I would even venture to say we've become pretty great friends, which I don't think we've ever been before. We jumped right into dating way back when, then when it ended we were awkward acquaintances and then eventually we were parents of the same kid, but never really friends. But now we're good friends and we talk about stuff other than just Miss N, which has been kinda awesome.
Back when MC and I dated, her friends weren't totally on board solely because of the age difference. They thought I was great and treated her better than most of the other dudes she went out with (and her ex-husband), but didn't see longterm potential because of our ages. When we did break-up, she proceeded to date a handful of assholes and it got so bad that a few of her friends called me to inquire as to whether or not there was annnnny chance we'd reunite. I wasn't totally surprised that she was hanging around with bad dudes since that was what she was usually drawn to, and at the time my savior complex was alive and kicking so we tried again a handful of times. But our problems were many, chief among them being that she was in love with me and I wasn't in love with her and that we just weren't really meant to be lovers. That's why she held so much hostility towards me for so long, but fortunately that's gone now. It's funny how life works out. I always had a feeling she and I would be in each other's lives in some way, and then comes Miss N, whom we both adore. Disagreements and past ish aside, I couldn't have ended up with a better co-parenting partner.
MC and I have long had an agreement that if either of us begins getting seriously involved with someone who we want to meet Miss N, the other parent has to meet them first and sort of give the all-clear. We've also agreed that we're not going to bring everyone we date around just for the fun of it, only potential life-long partners will get to meet her. A few weeks ago, MC informed me that she's kind of been seeing a dude for about a month and she's falling pretty hard for him. I assumed she wanted him to meet Miss N but she was surprisingly responsible about the whole thing and said that even though she adores him, she's not ready for that yet. She asked me to dinner with them so I could give my opinion and, if he was a jackass, she could cut and run. Quite honestly, and given her track record, I expected him to be a jackass but was just waiting to see what kind; the kind I could live with my kid being around or not. Last night we all had dinner and oh dear god it went well. Like, "Miss N and I are getting a new daddy!" kinda well. This guy is awesome. He's from Italy, looks like a damn model and is intelligent. He loves kids, he's a fan of the arts and dare I say his eyes are quite dreamy (I don't even care if that makes me sound gay, ya'll). By the end of the night I was ready to chuck all of this 'looking for love' business and just move in with them so he could raise me and Miss N yo. It's early days for them yet but I do hope it works out. It'd be nice if we both ended up with people that the other one liked so the drama is cut down to a minimum.

The Whole Universe Was In A Hot Dense State...Now Give Me My Money

As a film nerd, I tend to go on TV and movie benders. I'll watch, or re-watch, an entire series of a TV show or series of films all within the span of a month or a weekend. Last year, I took on the ambitious task of watching all 15 seasons of "ER" and prior to that, I renewed my obsession with "Lost". The last month and a half has been all about "Friends". As I've stated before, that show is my barometer for all other sitcoms (well, that and "Roseanne"). Those two are the class of the category, which probably explains why I don't watch many current sitcoms. They don't measure up and most have stupid humor and not witty, smart humor. In fact, I think I only watch one current sitcom and that would be "The Big Bang Theory". I was an early adopter of the show, and the first few seasons were great. But we're approaching season 8 now and it doesn't have the same...something that it used to. There's the occasional laugh your ass off episode, but those have become the exception instead of the rule. I think a part of this is the decision to keep Leonard and Penny as a thing, which was always unbelievable in the first place. There are only so many plots and jokes to be made about a wicked smart dude dating a dumb blonde and we've worn them all out in the last eight years. Now, they're engaged and I shudder to think about all the marriage plots that loom over the next three seasons (it's been renewed through 2017) about a pairing that's pretty unbelievable in the first place. Personally, I watch the show for everybody except Leonard and Penny as their plots are usually the more humorous ones. The L&P relationship is meant to be the Ross and Rachel of the show, but even that coupling took some seasons off and the "will they or won't they" wasn't a part of nearly every single episode. They were also a much more believable couple because Ross wasn't super socially awkward and Rachel wasn't some bimbo, they both dated other people and had other options throughout the series. With BBT, you get the feeling they decided to marry off L&P purely because neither could do any better; she couldn't land anyone who was halfway intelligent and he couldn't land anyone halfway attractive.
All of this came to mind when I heard the the lead actors on BBT are demanding raises before filming begins on season 8. Technically, they've staged a walk out as filming was to begin this week and is now on hold indefinitely. This puts CBS in a pickle because the show is supposed to kick off their season with an hour-long episode, as well as anchor their Thursday night lineup once football is over. These decisions were made with the belief that getting deals done wouldn't be an issue. But it's an issue. Typically, I would side with the actors in a debate of this sort, I was willing to rob a bank and throw $1 million of stolen money at the "Friends" cast to make sure it stayed on the air. However, this particular coo comes off as nothing more than pure greed for the actors who play Leonard and Penny. Yes, they were two of the three who were pitched as main characters when the show began but they've become more background characters in the last couple of seasons. I like Johnny Galecki, but let's face it, anyone could take over his role or Penny's role and play it just as well. Neither are worth the $1 million price they're demanding for their services. Sheldon, on the other hand, would be worth every penny of that price tag. He's earned it with his Emmy wins and his consistent performance in the role. The other two haven't won anything for their roles, nor has the show won a "Best Comedy" trophy of any kind (though it should have in the first few seasons). It's the highest-rated show on TV but that still doesn't justify all three of them making $27 million a season. Of course, I'm sure CBS didn't foresee Jim Parsons becoming the breakout star of the show, they likely hinged their hopes on the one who plays Penny since she was the most recognizable face when it began. But eight seasons later, one has proven themselves to be a gifted, award-winning actor while the other has basically been cast in the same role her entire career. Sheldon has grown as a character, while still hanging onto the quirks that existed within him when we all first met. Leonard and Penny have not really developed at all as characters, and are stuck in the same relationship loop that they began in. I do agree that they should all get raises since it is CBS' biggest show at the moment, but I'd say a bump up to $500,000 an episode would be more appropriate (they currently make $325,000).
I've seen a lot of articles comparing this to when the "Friends" cast negotiated together and ultimately got $1 million per episode from 2002 until the series ended in 2004. The majority of responses about whether BBT cast is worth as much have been, "Sheldon is, but not the rest" so we know who a lot of people tune in to watch. In some ways, it's unfair to compare the two shows since "Friends" was a cultural phenomenon and a true ensemble cast and the BBT is neither of those things. It is comprised of A players, B players and C players and, unlike "Friends", scenes that combine the talents of the entire cast are few and far between. Also, by the time the "Friends" cast got $1 million per episode, most were recognizable from more than just the show; Jennifer Aniston was married to Brad Pitt, Courtney Cox had done the "Scream" movies, Lisa Kudrow had done "Romy & Michele", and Matthew Perry had a few meh movies. I doubt anyone who doesn't watch BBT could pick any of the actors out of a lineup, aside from maybe Mayim Bialik, Parsons and possibly Galecki. But two of those three are more closely associated with their previous shows, "Blossom" and "Roseanne". Nobody on the BBT brings major name recognition, or has the potential to bring in new fans via side projects. If they're comparing themselves to the last major comedy cast that all locked down major paydays, they don't exactly come out on top of that debate. I don't doubt they will likely get the $1 million, a request made all the more ridiculous by the fact that they already get a chunk of syndication profits. The longer they hold out, the more it forces CBS' hand to give in to the demand. But it is amazing what some people think their worth is. It's not enough to have a job you love, people you (presumably) enjoy working with and a steady paycheck, something that not every actor will have a chance to get. You have to bite the hand that feeds you so you can get even more out of that paycheck every month.

Go, Go, Go, We're All Gonna Die In A Sharknado!

Picture this: A made-up-to-look-like-a-hooker Tara Reid hanging out the side of an airplane that is still in-flight. Flying sharks are circling all around her as she hangs onto the plane with one hand and shoots at a shark with the other. Now, you just saw another passenger get sucked out of the plane the minute the door blew open. But not Tara Reid. Oh no. Somehow she continues to hang onto that plane with just a single hand, and her makeup and hair are flawless throughout the ordeal. Suddenly, a shark leaps up and bites off her hand, along with the gun, and she turns back into the airplane and lets out the most unconvincing scream you've ever heard as her bloody stump waves around towards the camera. And It. Is. Hilarious. It is the opening scene of "Sharknado 2: The Second One".
I didn't watch the first "Sharknado" movie when it premiered, I didn't even know about it actually. But this sort of fare is right up G's alley and he convinced all of us to sit down and watch it and I became a believer. What was great about the first one is that you can almost hear the writers say, "Fuck science. Fuck plausibility. We're gonna combine marine life with a natural disaster. No, we're gonna combine sharks with a tornado! And then we're gonna whip those motherfuckers around like rag dolls and have 'em kill people and shit.". And lucky for those writers, there is a network that specialized in implausible movies that combine species or species with natural disasters - Syfy. The first movie set Twitter on fire with its ridiculousness and was probably the only reason a sequel was made. But, in true movie fashion, the sequel did not outdo the original.
Brian Williams probably put it best when he said "Sharknado 2" was not necessarily a star-filled movie, but a "people-filled" affair. Within in the first half hour, we see the frontman of Sugar Ray (whom Twitter seems to think is actually named Sugar Ray), Ian Ziering, of 90210 fame (and the first movie), Reid, Vivica A. Fox (looking rough, sadly), and Pepa of Salt 'n Pepa. The first face you see on screen is Kelly Osbourne, so you know from the gate what kinda movie it's gonna be. Biz Markie appears in the finale inexplicably playing a guy named Vinny, for god's sake (failing to work "baby you got what I need" into that scene was a missed opportunity). S2 is cheesy, it is campy and it's ridiculous. It's the kinda thing you loathe yourself for even being interested in, and wouldn't tell anybody you liked if there weren't 4 million other people on the planet watching the exact same movie and feeling the exact same way. Where the first movie was unintentionally terrible and awesome, the second one seemed to buckle under the pressure of its anticipation. There were way too many people in it and it tried too hard to be awesomely bad. There were a few good moments and, like a car crash, you still just couldn't look away. But overall, I prefer the first movie. There was a sort of innocence about those first sharks that got whipped up into a tornado in Malibu. But you better believe i will be ass in seat should a third Sharknado movie be made. And when the first two repeat on Syfy this weekend. #NoShame