Chuck vs the Predator

Oh my goodness! Chuck has been getting so good lately, and really this whole season has been pretty amazing. I love how Chuck is being seen as a grown-up, as opposed to a screw-up who creates more problems than he solves. On the one hand, I’m sad that Chuck is being forced into these situations that are causing him to harden and turn into the spy he never wanted to be. On the other hand, I recognize that he is a smart, capable person who is given way too little credit and is definitely equal to the tasks before him.

I’m so so so excited to see the rest of this season, and hope that Tricia Helfer’s stint on Chuck will be less useless than her appearances in the first 8 episodes of Burn Notice’s second season (haven’t finished it yet, maybe there’s a reason for her to exist).

I appreciate that the General didn’t lie to Chuck; she absolutely does not want him to stop being the Intersect, and actually wants to pull him further into the spy lifestyle. I think that Sarah’s confusion over her duty to her mission and her feelings for Chuck was well-played, and that the story wouldn’t have been very believable if she’d taken a firm stand either way. And Casey totally came through. I knew that he was more of a softie than he admitted (the man keeps a photo of Reagan [which the General promptly mocked], for cripes sakes), but I’m glad that when he had the opportunity to expose the depths of Sarah and Chuck’s feelings for one another, he basically played dumb.

As always, Adam Baldwin totally rocked my world, although I must say that Zachary Levi has grown on me quite a lot in the last little bit of time. I guess I’m still fundamentally the same 16 year old who swooned over David Boreanaz’s Angel, because damn it all if this new, tortured Chuck isn’t the hottest freaking thing ever.

Happy Monday!

One of the pictures that I took when Satanski and I went to the American Museum of Natural History has been added to the New York Schmap Guide. How exciting!

I Love You, Man

Remember those beer commercials? Yeah, neither do I. But I did got see the Paul Rudd and Jason Segal movie this weekend, and definitely enjoyed it. My love for these actors is only slightly more fervent than my desire not to witness anything really embarrassing ever, but that edge was all it took to make me want to see this movie. I’m not sorry that I went; when I wasn’t covering my eyes with my scarf so that yet another deeply shameful moment went unseen by me, I was laughing pretty damn hard. I really will watch Paul Rudd in anything (this is true: I watched all of I Could Never Be Your Woman a few weeks ago).

As is my habit, here is an excerpt from a review that kind of matched up with my experience in watching this film.

Is the premise of “I Love You, Man” thinner than the paper Maxim is printed on? No doubt. (It’s never clear why, if Peter is close enough to his brother to ask him to set him up on a series of “man dates,” he can’t just ask his brother to be his best man.) Does the movie feature a by-now yawn-inducing quota of jokes involving masturbation, projectile vomiting and flatulence? Positutely. Does Paul Rudd make the whole thing worth it? Totes magotes. — Ann Hornady, Washington Post

I would like to pretend that I don’t understand why a movie like this placed a distant second to that thing that Nicolas Cage crapped all over the box office this weekend, but I do: people are morons. Speaking of Nicolas Cage, I will now share with you the best thing that you have ever seen. Behold:

Things I didn’t need a psychic to figure out

I’m not surprised that Nicolas Cage’s new movie, Knowing, scored a fresh rating of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. No, I’m shocked that such a high percentage of people were able to come out of that movie believing that it wasn’t a waste of effort, money, and minutes of their lives. No Nicolas Cage movie in years has been worth watching (yes, this includes the first National Treasure), and this seems like more of the same hokey crap. Usually I go see a movie and then post a pertinent snippet of a review, but this time I’m going to skip the trip to the theater and go straight to the bashing.

Enjoy.

As Knowing gets increasingly preposterous, and Cage’s stony deadpan acting seems even sillier in context, a kind of slack-jawed joy may overtake you. How on earth did this movie get made? How did anyone involved think they had a story worth telling? And, as always, what is Nicolas Cage thinking? — Leanne Cari, Cinema Blend

Isn’t it ironic

This article from The Onion is so full of win, not in the least because the sentiments its characters espouse are true to the Catholic Church, even if the events depicted are fabricated.

Conflicted

I read this article about military wives supplementing their families’ incomes by becoming surrogate mothers. At first read I thought, “What a beautiful thing to do for somebody else.” The main person chronicled in this article, Angel Howard, is a 32-year-old mother of 6 whose husband is in Iraq. When her husband was home, she was able to take part-time jobs, but now that he’s back in Iraq, she’s at home full time. That means that she needs to stretch $56,000 to cover all of her family’s needs. To put it another way, this family of eight have less to live on than I bring in by myself.

After two failures, Howard was able to conceive, and is currently carrying twins for Esteban and Jean-Michel (okay, how cute are those names? I bet they’re adorable together), a gay French couple. The part that I feel conflicted about is that Angel is using her military health insurance to pay for the pregnancy, even though the insurer states that pregnant surrogates should cover their own costs. Angel is going to get about $25,000 from the couple for carrying the babies to term, plus a bonus for not needing the prospective parents to pay for her healthcare during the pregnancy.

What about the thousands or millions of uninsured pregnant American women who are not able to get reliable, necessary healthcare for themselves and their unborn children? For whom there will not be further financial benefit at the end of their pregnancies? While the best solution is a fairer system all around, I am bothered by what seems to me to be an abuse of the current military healthcare system.

Also, and this is something else entirely, I’ve wondered what happens when people allow newspapers, tv shows, blogs, and magazines to profile them admitting to behaviors that could have detrimental effects on their lives. What if Ms. Howard’s insurer insists that she reimburse them for the costs of her current pregnancy, or refuse to cover any subsequent pregnancies? I mean, seriously people. Isn’t shutting your mouth and supporting your family worth more than giving the Army the finger in print?

Please stop laughing

Sadly enough, this article is real, and not something thought up by the good folks over at The Onion. That’s right, folks: more Liberty University/evolution class silliness, this time brought to you by the Washington Post. Because it wasn’t embarrassing enough when the local Lynchburg paper was doing the reporting. Professor DeWitt, from the earlier article, takes his Advanced Creation Studies class to the Smithsonian, and complains how only one side is presented. Please explain to me how advanced any theory can be that essentially boils down to “A wizard did it.” If I went to Liberty, though, I would definitely take that series of classes. Sounds like an easy A for sure, as long as the words creator, infinite wisdowm, and divine plan figure prominently in all responses to essay questions. The Washington Post article’s subtitle makes me so sad: Creationist Students Take Field Trip to Hotbed of Evolution: The Smithsonian. When your real life would make a suitably humorous Onion headline, it might be time to reevaluate the road that led you to that point.

Read all instructions before writing anything

Did you ever take that test in school, where the teacher told you to read every instruction before writing anything? My eighth grade social studies teacher gave that one to us, and I was reading the whole thing and getting nervous, because while I was fretting about coming back to the seemingly-difficult math question at the top, I noticed that people in the class were already writing. And then, when I got to the end of the 20 questions, I read: “Write only your name at the top of the paper. Do not answer any other question.” I felt much better, and was silently laughing all all the yahoos who’d started to answer the hard questions above without ever reading that they need only write their name to complete the test.

Well, today I’m that yahoo. I received an email from a coworker. I usually ignore everything that she sends me, because they’re usually about jobs, and I already have one (I get creeped out by somebody I work with constantly trying to push me to get another job, although she seems to think I’m really smart and swears that she just thinks I could do better), but this one I actually read. It was about the Corporate Fellowship at Wake Forest U’s Babcock School, in which minority students can receive an MBA free (plus expenses are paid). It sounded good, so I read the brochure attached in the email, thought it still seemed pretty sweet, and then started my application.

I rounded up my GRE scores (kept in the same box as a bunch of casserole recipes and a Great Adventure ticket good for the entire 2007 season), spent most of today sprucing up my resume, and then prepared to write the essays required. I didn’t get to them yet, but went back to the Babcock School web site to get inspiration. I decided to read more about the Fellowship, and that’s when I read that it is open only to those who have graduated from college within the last 12 months. I finished undergrad in 2003, and finished my master’s in 2006, so I definitely don’t qualify in that respect.

I emailed one of the program directors to see if the lack of applicants would allow them to overlook my extreme oldness, and consider my application anyway, since I meet every other qualification. I am still waiting to hear back from her, but I’m not hopeful. If I’d only thought to read that page before I started my application, I never would have gone further, and wouldn’t have cared. Well, at least my resume looks pretty great now.

Two peas in a peacock-shaped pod

This is not the first time that I mentioned Chuck and Life in the same post. On the surface, though, Chuck Bartowski and Charlie Crews couldn’t be more different. Chuck is a 20-something wasting his life at a Geek Squad/Best Buy clone (I can’t believe that BB didn’t think of the name Nerd Herd first) and providing the US government with information that has been encoded into his brain. Charlie is a Los Angeles Police Department detective who was imprisoned for 12 years after being unjustly convicted of the murder of a friend, a fellow police officer, and that man’s wife and son. So how are these two men similar?

• They’re both on NBC, and the future of both shows are unclear. Chuck probably is in a less precarious position, but could still conceivably be ended after this season.
• They’re both named Charles. The fact that they both go by comparatively juvenile nicknames is not an accident.
• Both men had their lives derailed by false accusations; Chuck was kicked out of Stanford for cheating and Charlie spent a long long time in prison.
• They’re (mostly) kept in check by women who are better at focusing on the big picture and playing straightmen (as it were) the the guys’ sometimes excessively youthful behavior.
• Their lives are being manipulated by governmental forces that they don’t understand and can’t really control.
• They’re both in love with women who, for whatever reason, they cannot be with. Chuck’s in love with Sarah, his FBI handler, and Charlie is in love with his ex-wife, who divorced him while he was in prison. Awkward.
• They both accidentally shot people in the leg this year. Chuck shot the guy who made the Intersect that’s in his head (…maybe), and Charlie shot his dad. Well, the dad did refuse to identify himself when Charlie called out in the dark. Bygones?
• They both keep awesomely detailed charts of the players in their particular dramas. Chuck keeps his on the back of his Tron poster (loved that detail), and Charlie has a “secret” room in his house where he keeps his. That room has been broken into so many times at this point that I wish Charlie would use the walls to keep his grocery list or something.

Of course, the two men aren’t twins or anything. Charlie has a distant father and a dead mother, whereas Chuck as a sweet, well-meaning, but ultimately clueless older sister who loves him. Charlie’s friends all turned their backs on him when he was convicted of murder, while Chuck’s friends all stuck by him after his expulsion. Charlie’s stint as a guest of the state netted him millions of dollars, while Chuck is super poor and still lives with his sister and her awesome fiance. Chuck is a total baby about pain and Charlie got shot a while back. Charlie can hardly figure out how to use his cell phone, and Chuck is pretty much a tech genius. Lastly, the music on Life is out of this world good, and Chuck’s scoring is okay, but nowhere near as brilliant.

The other thing that these two shows have in common is how much I love them. These are the only two shows that I came into the season liking that I actually like better now. I really hope that both of them are renewed for season three, because I feel like they’re really starting to hit their strides.

I’m bummed that I won’t see Chuck again for two more weeks, but the previews look really exciting and I cannot wait!

And now for something completely different

I got an email today asking me what it was like to be a librarian. I like talking about my job, so that was no bother. Earlier today, though, I got another email about a possible opportunity in an entire different field from librarianship. It was one that I had briefly considered and then stopped thinking about entirely a while back, so this email was welcome and piqued my interest. I’m pursing that possibility, and I’ll see where this all leads.