Monthly Sidebar Update

Well, I managed one "weekly" Sidebar Update in August, and one in September. Now it's mid-October. I'm not very good at updating this site anymore, am I?

I'm still feeling under the weather, but I'm on the mend. I just felt like I needed to do something on the ol' blog here. I'd like to get into the TV season, finish reviewing all the new shows. I'd like to talk about how much I've been loving the new seasons of Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Veronica Mars, The Office, House, and How I Met Your Mother, among others. I'd like to go into detail about how far I've turned around on Studio 60, to the point where I think I actually hate it now. So smug, so condescending, so self-important, so preachy, so humorless... I can't remember ever going from such a positive opinion of a show to such a negative one so quickly.

But all that's for a later time. For now, the Sidebar.

The Object of My Affection is Heather Graham, who frankly is not a very good actress. In fact, she's pretty awful. But hot DAMN is she good lookin'. Although I did find, while searching for a decent, non-nude photo of her on Google Images: that's a surprisingly difficult commodity to locate. In an alarming number of photos, she appears disturbingly bug-eyed or buck-toothed. Not attractive. And yet, I still went with her for the OoMA, because that is one darn cute picture. Wow, this is not a flattering commentary on her at all. Just watch, this will be the one time a celebrity Googles herself and finds this blog. Gee whiz, now she'll never date me.

Reading: Janet Evanovich, Ten Big Ones. Oh, the hell with you. I'm sick. It's like comfort food.

Watching: Justice League, season 2 DVD set. This is where they figured out what didn't work in the early episodes, and everything came together perfectly. Much darker, smarter, more exciting and more complex. A great season of a great cartoon.

Listening: Michael Franti and Spearhead, Yell Fire! This, like the above, was a gift from my good buddy Lew. I'm still learning to like this album. There are a few tracks that have really grabbed me -- especially the title track, the righteously moving "Yell Fire!" -- but the album starts sounding repetitive after a while. It's kind of a reggae/hip-hop fusion, and I guess I can only take that in small doses.

Hating: Stupid Dodgers! Got swept by the Mets in the first round of the playoffs. They haven't been to the World Series now since 1988 -- which was an incredible Series, with one of the most thrilling, iconic baseball moments of all time, the near-hobbled Kirk Gibson's game-winning home run in Game 1. Picturing that gimpy son-of-a-gun's fist-pumping glee as he rounded the bases still gives me goose bumps. But that was two decades ago. Sure, sure, there are plenty of baseball fans reading this whose teams haven't gone all the way for even longer -- maybe never during your lifetime. But these are the Dodgers. They went to the World Series twice in the '80s, three times in the '70s, three times in the '60s, five times in the '50s... this is a franchise with a long tradition of playing for the championship. They are expected to play in the World Series multiple times per decade, much like the Yankees. This 18-years-and-counting drought is an embarrassment. Sheer agony. Stupid Dodgers!!

Lyric of the Week: Da Vinci's Notebook, "Heather Graham." I actually came up with this lyric before deciding to also choose Heather Graham as Object of My Affection. This is a hilarious song (as are most of those by Da Vinci's Notebook), all about the wonders of Ms. Graham, and the singer's stalker-ish fantasies of her. How can you not love a song that includes the line, "I have made it my sworn duty/To sing the praises of her booty"?

And that's it. Hopefully I'll have something else to post before too awful long, but don't bet on it.