I Cannot Remember

I had two fairly extended conversations with people tonight whose names I could not remember. One of these people I not only had no idea what her name was, but I had no real recollection that we had reached the point in our relationship where I should be expected to remember her name. I had though we were still in that "oh, hi, uh... I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name - oh, Jessica, that's right, I remember now, thank you" stage, which is a stage I usually remain in until the point when I'm called upon to give the best man toast, like I did for that guy that I grew up with. But in this case, I was sure we were still firmly in the "acquaintance" stage, but instead our conversation was littered with "ever since I've known you, you've had so much car trouble," and "I haven't talked to you since that 'People's Court' video." I was panicked that I would be required at some point to come up with some relevant details about her life, or how I knew her, or reference her name. It's a terrible feeling; this deep dread sitting in my stomach, leaving me constantly terrified throughout the conversation.

But then it got even worse. On my way out the door, I ran into someone I swear I have never seen in my entire life. I had no idea who this guy was. And he gave me a hug. I couldn't even bring up something general to try to get closer to where I knew this guy from - y'know, "so, were you at church this Sunday?" I didn't even have "gee, I haven't seen you since we went out together in that group that one time a while back." I had no frame of reference, nothing. It was so bad I actually thought maybe I was being pranked in some way, and the guy was about to say "I'm just kidding, Joe put me up to it, I've never seen you in my life! You shoulda seen your face! Priceless!" I made about as fast a retreat as I've ever made to my car, terrified that he might say something like "hey, I've still got those DVDs I borrowed, swing by the house and pick 'em up on your way home," and I would have to break down and admit, weeping, I had no idea who he was.

In a perfect world, my life would be more like The Devil Wears Prada, where two assistants would follow me constantly, available to whisper the names of each acquaintance to me as I came across them. Naturally, my wardrobe would be substantially improved. And ideally, those assistants would still be Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt.

Manny Being Manny

Manny Rodriguez just appeared on Leno and actually said the phrase "Yeah, maybe I shouldn't've done that, but that's just Manny being Manny." That's right, not only does Manny know and use that phrase himself, but he uses it in such a way to remove himself even further from from referring to himself in the first person. Manny just referred to himself in the 3rd person referring to himself in the 3rd person. He referred to himself in the 6th person. I just, in that moment, achieved nirvana.

The best part was that he also congratulated himself for it, turning around and giving a very surprised Steve Carrell a fist bump. He was about ten seconds away from creating a complicated home run congratulation handshake with Leno. I can't believe we ever thought about trading this guy for A-Rod.

Note: Later that evening, Ortiz appeared on Conan and did create a complicated home run congratulation handshake with Conan. It was an adaptation of the little bow that he and Dice-K do together in the dugout, and my perfect world just got better. How great is it that our World Champion Red Sox get to be this team?

Party of Five: Season Two

More because I am an obsessive viewer of our narrative television culture than anything else, I Netflixed the first disc or two of "Party of Five," Season One, a few months back. I enjoyed it, sure, but I felt that it was still too new and uncertain for me to keep following along too closely. I decided I'd skip ahead and take out the first couple discs of the Season Two, instead, because that's when Jennifer Love Hewitt showed up for her star-making performance, and also because I had a vague sort of hope that everyone might stop pouting in the meantime.

A couple weeks ago the first of those discs arrived in the mail. I took it out and put it next to my DVD player for "when I had time." Naturally, it sat on my TV for a couple weeks, before finally I simply ran out of all other options and I put it in.

I'm now a couple episodes in, and I figured it was time - and I know you agree - for a couple random observations:

A Couple Random Observations about Party Of Five, Season Two (so far):

1. It's just a glaring plot hole - how are we to believe that Scott Wolf does not notice the desperate affection of Jennifer Love Hewitt? It's Jennifer Love Hewitt. He continues to chase girls that could generously be said to resemble a poor man's Molly Ringwald, and continues to be surprised whenever Hewitt appears at his side saying things like "are you taking anyone to the bonfire?" and "where've you been? I called your house three times last night." It's like watching a romantic comedy starring the guy from Memento.

2. The pout-o-meter is still firmly in the red. My favorite is still Scott Wolf's-pining-for-dead-
girlfriend story, which the writers ditch for the first 90% of every episode so he can be charming and flirt with the mediocre girl-of-the-week, then bring back right at the end so the show can end on a downer. Way to show off why the critics gave you that Best Drama Emmy, guys.

3. It's fun to watch Matthew Fox's career backwards. All that vein-popping intensity of "we need to band together to survive!" we see every week on "Lost?" Oh, it's all here, except he's yelling at his little sisters about detentions and breaking curfew. He's about 3 notches too heavy on "Lost" and about 47 notches to heavy here. Great fun.

4. Scott Wolf's Hair, Season One - The "Fluffy Ryan O'Neil"
Appropriateness To The Era: 8
Attractiveness: 2
Comedic Value: 6
Scott Wolf's Hair, Season Two - The "Ex-Military Man"
Appropriateness To The Era: 7
Attractiveness: 5
Comedic Value: 2

5. Matthew Fox's Hair, Season One - The "Eddie Vedder with Conditioner"
Appropriateness to the Era: 9
Attractiveness: 7
Comedic Value: 5
Matthew Fox's Hair, Season Two - The "90's Mullet"
Appropriateness to the Era: 0
Attractiveness: 0
Comedic Value: 10

I'll update you as more observations surface.

I keep meaning to do a "What To Watch This TV Season" post sometime, remind me to do so if you see me. Or, subscribe to TV Guide, which would probably be more helpful.

The Best Page In The Universe

I'm linking to The Best Page In The Universe, an always enjoyable read from the always enjoyably offensive Maddox, who is the sort of vindictive weblord who posts the hate mail he receives - with the user's e-mail - in order to sic his millions of readers on them. It's rare you see people who send hate mail beg for mercy 20 minutes later, but on his site it seems to happen with some regularity. He's usually too uninformed on all of his bombastic movie pans for me to really recommend those sections, but he's more fun on things like "9 Things I learned about the world from anonymous stock photo models," and his now-famous critique of blogs.

It's pretty lowbrow, so it's not for everyone, but I like people who consistently pull no punches, no matter how dumb their own opinions are.