Friday, March 9, 2007

What I'm Doing when I'm Supposed to be Studying Math

I admit it: I’m a pop-culture whore. In the past five days, I have sampled no less than three pieces of visual entertainment that have delighted and entertained me. One was excellent, one was very good, and one was, while totally enjoyable, utterly crap. Allow me to elaborate:

The Twinkie: Tasty going down, but I’d prefer if no one else saw me consuming it, because it can’t be good for me.
The Twinkie of the week for me, indeed, probably my biggest Twinkie, is American Idol. Particularly now that I have Tifaux and can zap past the parts I don’t care about or the performers that I don’t like. (Bye Antonella!) But let’s face it: pretty much anyone with a modicum of singing ability fantasizes about this show. Of course, my self-esteem is low enough that I wouldn’t even expect to make it to Hollywood. My goal is simply to be able to hug Simon, because I adore him. Still, every week I watch it and as the women are singing, if I know the song and think I could sing it better, or at least as well, you can bet the next morning I’m singing it as I’m fixing breakfast. I can’t help it. If there were an Idol 12-step program I might consider it.

By far and away the best moment this week in Idol was Simon’s reaction to the delightful Melinda Doolittle. She tore the hell out of her song, and when it came to Simon to speak, he was grinning in the most delightful fashion and said, “You’re a little tiger! I thought we had a pussycat!” It was so warm and endearing, and Melinda was so obviously delighted by it I just wanted to kiss him. Speaking of kissing…

The Coldstone Creamery: Delicious, and readily accessible!
I LOVE House. Hugh Laurie is so delightfully cranky and funny, he warms my very toes. (If you haven’t seen Sense and Sensibility, rent it this weekend. It’s great, but he’s worth the price of admission.) The show can be a bit up and down with me from time to time, but I love the entire cast. However, this week was just great. House is playing the piano! With Dave Matthews! Who is actually a good actor in this! Seriously, Dave Matthews was charming and not at all overdone as the savant. And Red Foreman was his dad! IMDb informs me his name is really Kurtwood Smith, but come on, it’s Red Foreman. He was wonderful as well. Chase’s moment with House was a delight, Cuddy and her “Call the Make-a-Wish Foundation” line was hilarious and best of all, the House and Cameron smooch was HOT. And trust me, I’m not a giant fan of that connection, but I watched that scene no less than four times before coming to work yesterday. The kiss itself was great, but then when House figured out that Cameron was trying something, and his eyebrow arched straight off his head? Poetry. One of the best episodes I’ve seen yet.

The Caramel Pecan Turtle Cheesecake: There are no words for how wonderful this is.
The non-date I went on this week was to see Pan’s Labyrinth. I was warned that it was extremely depressing, but I didn’t actually find that to be the case, because I was looking at it through the lens of “fairy tale”. Should someone stumble across this and not have seen it, I don’t want to give much away, but the movie is absolutely great. The cinematography is stunning, the whole artistry of the movie is just gorgeous. The story is simple, but lovely, and well-acted all around. I was a little nervous about seeing a subtitled movie in theaters for the first time, but it was a non-issue. Everything about the movie was terrific, highly recommend.

And there you have it! My week in pop-culture snacks!

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