It will always have a place in the steam pipe trunk distribution venue of my heart

The show airs its last new episode Sunday night. And when I say the show, I of course mean the one show that I never miss, ever. That I plan weekend activities around. Last Sunday night some friends wanted to meet for karaoke at around 8. I left my apartment to meet up with them at 8:59. (And am I glad I did? Well, last week's episode, Institutional Memory, was the best episode of the season.)

But anyway. Once the show's gone, they'll still being running it endlessly on Bravo, I'm sure, and I'm also sure I'll be buying every DVD. But this will be the last time that I'll sit in front of my television and watch a fresh, new story about these characters whom I've come to love unfold before me.

So I gotta find something to fill the void. I think it'll take more than one show, honestly. I think there are three shows that I'll need. The first, the most obvious, is the new Sorkin show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The second is Battlestar Galactica. The third: The Office.

No matter what, this show shaped my politics, influenced my wit, and most importantly, informs my writing. Not that way. And I'll cherish the DVDs and try my best to write my own stories that might bring the same laughter, poignancy and introspection that this show has brought to me.

Revisionist Pickles

There is a billboard on my way into work. It's near the intersection of Hollywood and Highland, facing toward Franklin, and it's of the new Texas Jalepeno Whopper from Burger King. Don't even get me started on the bizarre decision to market "Texas" to Los Angeles. My point is that every morning I stare at that 3-story burger, and you know what bugs?

The pickles are drawn in.

They clearly went into photoshop and digitally added pickles. I'm guessing that this is because the jalepenos figure prominently into the overall arrangement of the burger and they felt that non-Texans couldn't figure out that that those were the peppers and not just pale pickle slices and would, I guess, get real confused and refuse to buy the burger? I don't know. What I do know is that it looks like someone grabbed a kelly green sharpie and doctored the burger art right before they went to print.

Is there some sort of life lesson in that? Don't try to rewrite history to please what would look right because then you're forgetting that people can spot half-assed Sharpie cover-up when they see it? That sounds good.

Because will you really be able to think of anything else?

So, in honor of today's opening weekend, we have the slogans that I've decided to have printed on placards that I will then hold up while I stand in front of a theater showing that particular film.

• He bought a sonogram machine.
• "You don't know the history of psychiatry, OK?"
• Vitamins and exercise.
• He's changed her name to Kate.
• Was your baby born a week before your film hit theaters?
• I think he was serious about eating the placenta.
• "You're glib."
• "I'm 'intense'."

Let me know if you think of any. I'll just be rotating these throughout the weekend.

ETA: Hang on, Billy Crudup is in this?! The hell?! Why didn't anyone tell me Billy Crudup was in this? ... Yeah, I'm still not going.

"I ha woot canow"

You'd get that post title if you've watched... actually, you know what, you probably know what show I'm going to say there, so I'll just move on.

I woke up this morning in a world of pain. I have a tooth that's been hurting off and on, and yesterday it hurt and I thought I should make an appointment. But I have some fairly deep-seeded anxiety issues about the dentist that I won't bore you with here. Needless to say, my threshold of pain was going to have to supercede my level of anxiety and this morning at around 5 am, pain won out.

So I went to my very nice dentist, whom I've been avoiding like the bird flu, and he was like "Thanks for putting this off, genius, we're going to have to go right in." So, prescription ibuprofen is my friend, and my sister is pissed at me for being at work right now and not at home in bed, but the upside to an emergency root canal? I get to say this: "A secwet pwan to figh infwation?!!"