Weekend Warriors, Unite!

Nope, I don't know these people. Thanks, Internet.

Despite my best efforts to get (real) exercise in during the week, I have become a weekend warrior.*

*[In my defense, I do try to do one of the 10 Minute Solution exercise segments (available streaming on Netflix) every day before work. Of course, my intention was to eventually progress to getting up earlier until I was doing two 10-minute segments, and then three, and then maybe I'd even be able to get a good dose of Jillian Michaels in before work... But none of that actually happened. Although I still tell myself that it might. Someday.]

On Saturday mornings, I meet with a personal trainer (I got an excellent deal on a Groupon-like site that has since gone out of business, since in the real world I would never be able to afford it). On Saturday afternoons, I play flag football. On Sundays, I was doing a vinyasa yoga class at a fitness center that’s a half-hour walk one way (uphill there, downhill back — I pretend it’s active recovery). Now I’ve signed up for kickball on Sunday afternoons, so now I’m doing a Budokon class on Sunday mornings instead of yoga at the same place.

I did my first ever Budokon class last weekend. I had never heard of Budokon before someone recommended this class to me. She described it as “a mix of yoga and martial arts.” I had no idea what to expect from that description. (Kick, punch, kick, chaturanga dandasana?)

It was amazing. Walking home afterwards was a challenge — you know you’re in bad shape when little old ladies with walking aids are passing you — but the class itself was fantastic. I had been missing my kickboxing class from law school, and I loved my yoga class, so this was perfect. The only sad part is that unlike my yoga class, where they suggest modifications of poses depending on your ability/energy level, there were no modifications. Go big or go home.

I went big.

And then I immediately went to my local sporting goods store and bought a foam roller. Let me tell you, there’s a lot of crap out there that doesn’t live up to the hype, but this isn’t one of them. I bought a blue Thera-Roll and went straight home to try it, expecting to find it useless and return it.

Not even. This sucker is amazing. It feels like a massage, releasing the muscle tissue, but also a little bit like a workout (in a good way), because you need to be able to support the rest of your body weight while you’re working the targeted muscle. So you feel strong, but also relaxed.

And I was actually able to move this morning. Need I say more?

Getting a Life (Or, Why I Haven’t Blogged in So Long)

Well, I certainly got hit by the failure bus, didn’t I?

But I’m here now, and that’s all that matters, right? Right?

So let me tell you about what’s been going on with me. My New Year’s resolution to blog every week got off to a bad start when I got the flu/pneumonia/bronchitis immediately following making of said resolution. But I did get better — just in time to fly off to an intensive training for work. After that, I was working every weekend for a month.

And THEN I discovered Meetup.com. Whoever came up with this is a genius — what better way to meet new people, especially when your coworkers lock themselves in their offices (making conversation difficult) and you don’t know that many people outside of work because you just moved to a new city? So of course, I immediately joined way more groups than I actually had time for. My favorites are a writers’ group (I’m trying to make myself make time for my fiction writing) and flag football, although I also have high hopes for my chick lit reading group (luckily, we’re reading a book by Jennifer Crusie next, so I’m intimately familiar with it already, no pun intended (…or was it?)). (Oh, and before I forget, Weight Watchers crashed and burned. It turns out I don’t like not eating when I’m hungry.)

I have also — deep breath — started dating. I hadn’t really dated before now, as I was too busy running around accomplishing things. But about a month ago, I took the plunge and joined some online dating sites. A few things to note:

1. It is amazing for your ego. No sooner had I joined than I began receiving messages from guys.
2. However, many of them were creepy.
3. All of these creepy messages were through the free online dating site that I joined, indicating that there is something to be said for the sites that you have to pay for. Namely, that it appears to be an excellent screening mechanism.
4. Getting along well with someone through messaging does not necessarily mean that you will get along well in person.
5. If you tend to be cranky after a long day at work, that is probably not the best time to schedule a date.
6. Figuring out how to break up someone that you’re only kind of dating is really, really hard. I prefer to do it by e-mail so that I can think about what I’m going to say and don’t have to deal with the in-person aftereffects. Relatedly, if there is a non-awkward way to break up with someone in person, please, for the love of whatever deity you worship, let me know. (I was on the receiving end of a fade-out, but I wasn’t that attached to the guy, so I don’t yet know the optimal way to break up with someone from the breakee’s perspective.)
7. That said, I have found that honesty works pretty well. There’s differing views on this, but I’m against the fade-out if you’re met in person and the other person has expressed interest in seeing you again. It doesn’t have to be complicated or drawn-out. Just say you had a good time, he seems nice, but you weren’t really feeling a connection. The end. (Well, personalize it a bit, but you get the gist.) Of course, I say all of this casually now, but several of my friends can attest that I was frantically e-mailing them about what to say the first time I had to do it. But never mind.
8. Speed-dating is exhausting to the average person. But if you’re endured hundreds of law firm callbacks (= five or six back-to-back 20-minute interviews), it’s a piece of cake. First of all, you have endurance. Second, the pressure is nothing to compared to trying to get a job in this economy — you need a job; you don’t need a boyfriend. Third, unlike job interviews, it’s acceptable for you to have alcohol. See what I mean?

All right, even this puny effort at blogging has sapped what little strength I had after meeting with a personal trainer (I love getting deals through Groupon and co., but is it worth it if it ends up killing me?) and flag football practice, so off I go.

(Ooh, just got a new message from someone on Match!!!)

Weight Watching (It’s Like Whale Watching, But Different)

Food -- like it or loathe it, you can't live without it.

About two weeks ago, against my better judgment, I joined Weight Watchers. What was I thinking?? (Also, what was I thinking when I said I’d aim to write a post every week??)

For most of my life, I have been staunchly anti-dieting, for two main reasons: 1) you often lose a lot of weight initially, but then gain it all back, and 2) I really, really dislike not eating when I’m hungry. Also, I have reservations about the long-term health effects of some of these diets — because it’s not like drinking highly processed milkshake-like beverages for two out of three meals every day could possibly be bad for your health. (Yeah, you know who you are…)

But my parents are both WW members, and they’ve been super-successful. My mom has become a believer. And believe me when I say that is not too strong a word. I have to keep reminding her that I’ve joined, so she can stop trying to convert me.

Honestly, I have no freakin’ clue how they do it. For those of you unfamiliar with the program (and hopefully that’s most of you), all foods are broken down into points. You are given a daily allotment of points based on your weight and your goal, along with an ‘extra’ weekly allotment of 49 points and any points you earn through exercising. My parents stick to their daily allotment without dipping into their weekly points or their activity points. Whereas it’s only Monday and I’ve already blown through my daily points plus 16 weekly points. (Which, for those of you doing the arithmetic, means that I will be SOL by the end of the week. Just in time for Christmas.)

Now, in the interest of fairness, I should add that all fruits and most vegetables are 0 points. The problem is that there is a very short list of vegetables that I like, and if you just eat fruit… Well, let’s just say it gets messy, and leave it at that.

So why did I join in the first place? As I’ve mentioned previously, I just started my first real-life job about two months ago. And by ‘real-life job’, I mean desk job. And by ‘law school’, I mean desk job with obscenely long hours.

In short, I was gaining a pound every week. Which was sad but doable in the beginning, but quickly became alarming as the trend showed no signs of ceasing to be a trend. And this was with me diligently getting up early or staying up late almost every day to exercise. Granted, usually only for ten minutes, but still. It was a very tough ten minutes.

And studies have shown that getting a good night’s sleep can be just as important as exercising. No, really.

(Gahh!!! Pandora needs to stop playing ads about cheesecake!! NOT HELPING.)

Anyway, the biggest challenge for me — which is not saying much, because the whole thing is like the gastronomic equivalent of facing Heartbreak Hill every freakin’ day — is breakfast. I love my carbs with a burning passion. But even downsizing the amount of cereal still had me eating more than halfway through my daily points before 8 am. So I’ve been experimenting. Here’s what I have learned:

1. I do not like eggs enough to eat them every day.
2. Plain oatmeal is better when made with milk than water, but still leaves something to be desired.
3. That something is not jam.
4. Or cinnamon. Even if you use a lot.
5. A single piece of fruit is not sufficient for breakfast. (Okay, I’m fibbing — I knew that one before.)
6. Yogurt is good, but leaves me at a loss as to what to eat for my elevensies. (If someone with mild lactose intolerance eats too much yogurt in too short a space of time, the end result is much the same as from eating too much fruit. Sorry to overshare, but if it helps, just think how I felt when I found out the hard way. Or… maybe don’t.)

Okay, happy thoughts. Um… Christmas soon! Chanukah sooner! I have no idea when Kwanzaa is! (Ah, I just Googled it — it is celebrated every year from December 26 to January 1.) Anyway, happy celebrating, whatever you’re celebrating. And good luck to ye intrepid travelers.

Be merry, be safe, and eat a lot for me.

I’m a Big Kid Now

Update: Goodness, I can’t believe I completely forgot Lesson #6 (or rather, new Lesson #5)! Well, it’s there now…

 

Oh dear, I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve posted. Well, actually, it’s very easy to believe — I traveled halfway across the world, I came back, then moved to DC, started a new job, and have basically just been trying to cope with my first ‘big girl’ job that often entails working 80 hours a week and not knowing when you’re going to be working late until you think you’re home free and are about to leave when someone comes into your office to explain otherwise. And when you haven’t worked 80 hours in a given week, you then start panicking that you’re not working enough and spend most of your free time debating whether or not to pick up another assignment.

But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the trials and tribulations of my first big girl apartment, and the lessons that I have learned the hard way. So without further ado…

Lesson #1: Never been the first person to live in a new/renovated apartment. It sounds great in theory — everything shiny and new, completely unspoiled. But there are two problems with this thinking. First, if anything gets broken/ruined/stained/utterly destroyed, it will be much harder to convince the building manager that it wasn’t you. Second, you will be the one who has the joy of discovering everything that’s wrong with the apartment.

My washer broke. (I thought my dryer had broken as well, but it turns out it is a bizarrely-designed machine that is supposed to leave your clothes damp. Kind of defeats the purpose of calling it a DRY-er, but never mind.) My refrigerator stopped working — after I had bought groceries for the rest of eternity. My blinds broke. And don’t even get me started on trying to get Internet service. Four times the guy had to come out, for what was supposed to be a simple matter of plugging in a wireless router and registering my devices and whatnot. Do you know how long it took until I had Internet for an entire day? A very long time. A very, very long time.

Lesson #2: Granite is not all it’s cracked up to be. Apparently granite is the big thing for kitchen countertops right now. Let me tell you: it’s crap. At least the light-colored granite, which stains like…something that stains really easily. What was wrong with whatever we used to use for kitchen counters? My blood pressure shoots through the roof whenever any liquid not water comes into contact with the granite. (Don’t even get me started on my affinity for red wine. Granite is the psychotic ex-boyfriend to my committed relationship with the cabernet/merlot blend of my dreams.)

Lesson #3: Do not vacuum your bathroom. Sure, maybe this seems like common sense, but my vacuum has both floor and carpet functions, so I thought, Why not? Tile can’t be any harder for the vacuum to handle than hardwood floors.

And in my defense, the vacuum didn’t seem to have any trouble with the tile.

The problem was the toilet paper.

Let me tell you, my vacuum cleaner is fast. Lightning fast. Much faster than my reflexes. Especially when it comes to gobbling up half a roll of toilet paper while I stare dumbfounded. This despite the fact that I had thought to myself prior to taking up this endeavor, “Gee whiz, I should be careful of the toilet paper.” So perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the lesson is to make sure you remove the toilet paper from the bathroom before vacuuming. And maybe the tissues too, just to be on the safe side. And the towels. And maybe the shower curtain. More trouble than it’s worth? Surely not.

Lesson #4: Beware the dangers of buying a Tempurpedic mattress (a.k.a., Salespeople will say anything to get you to buy something really expensive, even if it entails flat-out lying).

At the apartment I was subletting one summer, the woman I was subletting from had a Tempurpedic mattress. I thought it was amazing, so when it came time for me to buy my own mattress, I wanted a Tempurpedic, even though they are obscenely expensive. But I had read online that there was an overheating problem. See, the memory foam is so good at molding to your body that it actually creates more heat because there is not as much airflow as there would be otherwise. And I can get overheated walking for five minutes at a semi-rapid pace on a cool autumn day, so this was a real concern for me. I didn’t remember having any trouble with it during my sublet, but this was during the summer in San Francisco, and “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Not really, obviously — I grew up in Boston. But still, it was quite cold during my time there, so it was not necessarily an accurate representation of what it would be like during the rest of the year.

So when we went to the furniture store, I asked the saleswoman about this. She said that it would not be a problem as long as I bought their super-expensive mattress pad instead of a regular one. Being the gullible person I am (I still don’t see where the word “gullible” is written on the ceiling…), I accepted this at face value and bought all the expensive add-ons she could throw at me. Imagine my surprise when I woke up around 3 am in a sweat. Every night. For two weeks. With the air conditioning on at full blast.

Why not just return it, you ask? Because I couldn’t. Knowing that I was moving to DC, I had spent spring break furniture shopping. Which meant all my furniture had been sitting in my parents’ living/dining room for way longer than the return period.

If you call Tempurpedic customer service, they tell you to remove the mattress cover. Not the mattress pad, mind — the mattress had come with its own cover. So I removed that. Didn’t help. I tried turning down the temperature, but that just ended up in me being too cold to fall asleep. Last weekend, I went out and bought a regular cotton mattress pad because they are supposed to promote airflow. Since the effectiveness is directly proportional to the thickness, I bought the next thickest one Bed Bath and Beyond had (the thickest one being $120).

Result? I have now downgraded from sweltering to merely uncomfortable. Better than nothing, but it makes me sad because the semi-solution only semi-works by defeating the purpose of the memory foam in the first place. The mattress pad is so thick that the memory foam doesn’t really have anything to do. So what did I spend that absurd amount of money for? Beats me…

Lesson #5: Make sure your apartment complex has some way of dealing with perishable items that are delivered for you while you’re out (aside from, of course, leaving them out to spoil).

A few weeks ago, my parents sent me an Edible Arrangement as congratulations for passing the bar (oh hey, guess what — I passed the bar!). I was out for my semi-annual Costco run on a Saturday afternoon, which meant: a) I was not in my apartment, and b) I would not be back for quite some time. The lady at the front desk called me to say that a delivery guy was there for me with a fruit basket. I explained to her that I was not home. She said, ‘Well, we can’t store it at the front desk…’

So leaving it outside my door is the better solution?

I got home as quickly as I could (which is not that quickly in DC weekend traffic) and stuffed it into my fridge, but I remain perturbed. I cannot possibly be the first person who was not home when something perishable was delivered for them. And as the other lady at the front desk pointed out, the people who work the day shift at the front desk don’t even have anywhere cold to put their lunches. This is absurd. I know we have spare fridges (cf. Lesson #1), so it cannot be that difficult to put one in the room behind the front desk. I mean, it’s difficult insofar as moving a refrigerator is difficult — as the dent in my wall attests — but not logistically difficult. You know what I mean…

Lesson #6: Do not buy anything from Sears.com. Seriously, don’t ever do it.

Out of the goodness of my heart (as well as the guilt on my conscience for making an obscene amount of money without actually knowing what I’m doing half the time), I adopted an Angel through the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program. My Angel is a plus-sized girl (for boys, it’s ‘hefty’ — no, seriously), and Sears was the only place that had clothes in her size, so I ordered everything through there.

First, after I had ordered everything, they informed me that they had canceled one of the items in my order. No explanation. I called, and a customer service rep said it was out of stock. Why couldn’t they have mentioned that before I tried ordering it? I called again the next day to explain the situation and order something to replace it, and the rep this time said, “It’s not out of stock…” She placed another order for me, and sure enough, it showed up later that week. WTF?

I had also ordered a remote control car, per my Angel’s request. I had been very obsessive about choosing the right one (what, me obsessive, no…), so I was not a happy camper when I opened the box and discovered it was the wrong color. I called, and this rep told me that this frequently happens, but it’s the manufacturer’s fault, so there was no guarantee that I would get the right thing if I tried to exchange it.

Because that was not enough, the shoes arrived in a size below what I had ordered. When I called yet again, the customer service person tried to tell me that the shoes had come in the right size. Why would I be calling if they had been the right size??? (And no, I did not order the wrong size — I checked three times to make sure I wasn’t crazy.)

On top of that, they wouldn’t even pay for the shipping back and forth upfront. Instead, I had to pay for it, and then they would issue me a credit. Insult to injury, my friends.

Moral of the story? If there’s any justice in this world, Sears will be out of business before I lose my wits and sue them for negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Whew, okay, deep breath. In, out. In, out.

Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t blogged for ages. I’m sure you’ve been eagerly anticipating the next installment and are bitterly disappointed that it has taken so long. But my pre-New Year’s resolution is to start blogging again at least once a week, so here’s to hoping…

Bar None

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve survived the hellish experience known as the California bar exam.

I am now sitting in the airport in San Francisco, waiting to go back to Boston. I am attempting to type this on the Google Chrome machine that I checked out. Virgin America is doing a new promotional thing at a select number of airports where you can check out a brand spanking new Chrome laptop for free, with free wifi (you have to pay for it if you use your own laptop), and you return it when you get to your destination.

I guess it’s to make up for the fact that their flights seem to be failing to run on time these days. My flight to San Francisco — you know, the one where I was freaking out because I was about to take the bar exam and desperately needed to get to CA before it actually started — was FIVE HOURS LATE. The cockpit speaker wasn’t working, and apparently that’s on the FAA’s list of “stuff you absolutely cannot fly without”, and Virgin’s only spare aircraft was in San Francisco.

I take issue with this for a number of reasons. First, during the excruciatingly long delay, I had the opportunity to learn that the FAA has a bunch of lists. One list, as noted above, is the “you absolutely cannot fly without this” list. Another is the “you need to get this fixed really, really soon, but I guess one more flight without this is okay.” Why, oh, why is the freaking SPEAKER system on the forbidden list?? I understand the engine needing to work,  I understand the de-icer needing to work, and the lights on the wings, and the wheels, and all that stuff. But the speakers?

Issue #2: Virgin’s only spare aircraft was in San Francisco. Seriously? Like it’s completely unforeseeable that you might need one on the East Coast too?

But anyway. I did in fact get to San Francisco/Oakland before the bar exam, so that’s fine. Moving right along.

Before I embark on my long narrative journey about the bar exam, a quick review of the Chromebook:

The touchpad sucks. Apparently everyone knows this. Whilst checking a Chromebook out at SFO, I happened to mention to the guy at the counter that I had had a lot of trouble with the touchpad on the way to SF from Boston. He nodded sagely. “Between you and me, the touchpad is definitely not the strongest feature. Whenever engineers check these out, they’re always like, ‘What the hell is this?’”

What the hell, indeed. Because, of course, a touchpad is not at all important on a laptop. (Yeah, I just tried to highlight a sentence to delete it — fail.) Oh, Google. I expected so much more from you.

Holy moly, I just looked at my blog and realized I haven’t posted since April. Let me tell you, some stuff has happened since then. I graduated from law school, for starters. Thank God. I also bought a boatload of furniture for my new apartment that I don’t actually have yet.

Really? you say incredulously. You think buying furniture is the same level of newsworthiness as graduating from Harvard Law School?

When you’ve gone to about ten furniture stores in the span of two days, some of them more than once, to buy an entire apartment’s worth of furniture, yes, I do. But my furniture is pretty awesome, so it was worth it. My bed is huge. It’s only queen-sized (‘only’ being relative, obviously), but the headboard is gigantic — the word ‘looming’ comes to mind — so it makes the whole thing look colossal. And I sprang for a Tempur-Pedic mattress, so I’m super-excited. And it took ages, but I finally found the perfect coffee table. It’s oval, with two levels, and it’s on wheels, so I can move it out of the way when I’m doing yoga and Jillian-ing and whatnot. (For those of scratching your head, ‘Jillian-ing’ means attempting to do one of the excruciating Jillian Michaels home exercise videos.)

Oh my goodness, there’s a guy on the plane reading the new George R. R. Martin book, A Dance with Dragons. You know, the one I’ve been waiting over three years for. I meant to get it on my Kindle after I finished the bar exam, but believe me, I had no desire to read anything after the bar exam.

Okay, bar exam, right.

Let us begin at the beginning. My bar review course started in May, right before Commencement. Like most of BarBri’s course locations, we were stuck watching the lectures on DVD. Lectures were Monday through Friday, 9:30 am to 1:30 pm with two 10-minute breaks. On top of that, they expected you to do 4-5 hours of work outside of class per day, and 8-10 hours on weekends.

Yes, you learn very quickly that it’s impossible to do everything BarBri expects you to do. But everyone has a different opinion about the stuff you don’t have to bother doing. For me, it was watching the explanatory videos (as a ‘visual person,’ I found the written explanations much more helpful) and doing all the essays (although I would definitely recommend doing the ones BarBri gives you feedback on). On the other hand, I know a lot of people found it more helpful to do an essay every day than go over the subject outlines over and over, which is basically what I did.

But no matter what, for those of you taking the bar exam, I promise you this: you will very quickly figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. How do I know this? Because you will be confronted with BarBri’s insane schedule, and as the unmarked checkboxes start to add up, you will figure it out out of sheer necessity. I will also tell you that I did NOT spend 4-5 hours a day after lecture doing work, primarily because I was braindead after four straight hours of lecture.

Of course, you may not want to follow my example if it turns out that I failed.

I’m sure I’ll be screaming the results from the rooftops either way, so keep an ear out in November. (Yep, more than THREE MONTHS before I find out. And yet somehow I feel confident that my law firm will keep me too busy to worry about it in the meantime…)

Also, California bar examiners, if you happen to be reading this, please believe me when I say that there is no point to having a third day of testing. None of us are coherent after two days of six-hour sessions, so you’re really just wasting the graders’ time by adding another day, because they will be reduced to assigning us random number grades based on an inability to figure out what we are trying to say. Really. I’m not just saying that because you’re unnecessarily prolonging our anguish.

But I will say, law students are the nicest I’ve ever seen them during the bar exam. I don’t know if it’s a sense of solidarity, or a desire to avoid incurring bad karma, or what, but people are exceedingly friendly.

Except, apparently, for a guy in Santa Clara. Here’s what we know: During the bar exam in Santa Clara, with about a half hour to go, the fire alarm went off. Here’s what I heard from a friend of a friend who took the exam in Santa Clara: Some guy taking the bar exam accidentally wandered outside of the testing zone. (If the set-up in Santa Clara was anything like the set-up in Oakland, I don’t really know how that could happen, since there’s proctors everywhere and signs warning you that YOU ARE ABOUT THE LEAVE THE TESTING ZONE, but anyway.)

If you leave the testing zone during the exam, you will not be allowed back in. Period. This guy was no exception. He got really pissed, and apparently decided that if he couldn’t take the bar exam, nobody could. And pulled the fire alarm.

Now, this guy is a you-know-what, no question. But I can understand the irrational rage that would drive him to such acts. Imagine that you’ve spent two to three months studying for an incredibly intensive exam that will tell you whether or not three years of law school was a waste. You begin the inevitable suffering of actually taking the exam, and during the session, get up to take a much-needed break. You walk around, trying to get some feeling back into your body, because those fold-up chairs were not meant for heavy usage. Then you start to go back to your seat, but a proctor stops you, and points to the sign. You have done the forbidden. You have left the testing zone. And you didn’t even mean to. And now you’re being told that the three months you spent studying and the hours you’ve already spent taking the exam were for nothing.

Of course, I have no idea if that’s how it actually happened. I’m just saying, the bar exam can drive people to do crazy things.

That said, the Oakland Marriott is a surprisingly pleasant place to take the bar exam. Not Oakland itself, mind you, just the hotel. They have a special price for people taking the bar exam (which is, to clarify, lower than the normal price, unlike the hotel in Albany for NY bar takers, which also has a special price that goes in the opposite direction). Not just that, they have a whole set-up just for bar exam time; when I checked in at the hotel, they gave me an info sheet detailing all of the services they were offering especially for bar takers. For instance, those of us staying in the hotel could order a boxed lunch to be delivered at lunchtime that wasn’t as crazily priced as the regular room service, they set up a room for people to leave their luggage on the last day of the exam (since a lot of people were leaving the same day, so they had to check out beforehand), and everyone who worked there would ask us how it was going and wishing us good luck and the like. And the hotel itself is extremely nice, especially after their recent renovations. (I had actually stayed there in September for a job interview, and believe me, there’s a noticeable improvement.)

So if you happen to be taking the CA bar exam, definitely consider doing it in Oakland. (Just don’t go outside.)

Colorblind (But Not Really)

Aunt Vivian: Gee, when Janice described him she didn’t mention that he was…tall. Not that I have a problem with people who are…tall.
Uncle Lester: My cousin used to date a girl who was…tall.
Uncle Phil: Heck, the boy go to a predominantly…tall school.
Will: Now, am I alone on this or didn’t y’all notice he was white?

~ Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (Episode #2.6, Guess Who’s Coming to Marry)

In a short article in the February/March 2009 issue of Scientific American Mind, Siri Carpenter discusses two studies done by psychologists at Tufts and Harvard indicating that people who avoid mentioning race may actually appear more prejudiced. In the experiment, one white participant was paired up with one black participant, and they were each given the same set of photographs of random people. The black participant would choose a photograph, and the white participant had to figure out as quickly as possible which photograph his/her partner had chosen by asking him/her questions about each one in succession. The study was designed so that the matching process would go much faster if the white participant asked about the race of the person in the photograph. Significantly, the study found that the “intrepid few” who asked about race were deemed less prejudiced by black observers than the vast majority of white participants who didn’t mention race at all.

If that finding is accurate and generally applicable, then we as a society have totally f***ed up in making it a taboo to mention someone’s race. We have conflated defining someone by their race with simply acknowledging their race.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

In January, I went to a shooting range for the very first time ever. I’m kinda petrified of guns, primarily because they can kill you. But I’ve been working on writing some crime stories, and some of them involve characters with guns, so I was thinking that it would be a good life experience to have. So I went with the Women’s Law Association and the HLS Target Shooting Club up to the Manchester Firing Line Range in New Hampshire. At the time, the shooting range featured this charming picture on the main page of their website:

I should also note that New Hampshire is an open carry state. Makes you take the whole “Live Free or Die” thing a little more seriously, doesn’t it?

The Manchester Firing Line Range has two shooting ranges, a nice one and a, er, not-so-nice one. Guess which one we went to? Yeah, it was small and dingy, unremarkable except for the fact that it had guns on display.

As we were standing at the counter, waiting for the rest of our group to show up, I noticed a couple of odd-looking posters. Both were clearly from the 70′s, featuring a middle-aged, heavyset guy, wearing rather unfortunate aviator glasses. In one of the posters, he wore a ski mask (still with the sunglasses), pointing a gun at the viewer. In the other, he was holding a depressed-looking woman hostage, pointing a gun at her.

Then I noticed the traditional silhouette targets around it. That’s when it hit me: they weren’t decorations — they were targets. Incredibly disturbing, photographic targets. (I’m pretty sure the Scarface poster was just decoration, though.)

After that revelation came the paperwork. I filled out my name, address, date of birth, and so forth, before arriving at this question: “Have you ever been committed to a mental institution?” Hilarious though that is, I think we can all agree that the real point of interest is what happens if you check “yes.”

After our fearless leader chose the guns that we would be using, the guy behind the counter put the guns and ammo into red shopping baskets, like the ones you get at CVS or the grocery store. Without a visual, it’s hard to capture the full absurdity of the situation, but I’ll try anyway: Imagine you’re at the drugstore. You pick up a red shopping basket, and stroll down the aisles, checking things off your list. You pick up some toothpaste, aspirin, hand lotion, and a Smith & Wesson revolver, then you head over to the cashier to pay. The end.

As we found out during our crash course in gun safety, the shopping basket was a safety precaution, to make sure that no one accidentally pointed a gun at anyone else. During the safety lesson, the manager person went over how to load ammo into each of the guns, fire it, and then make sure it was empty. I nodded, paying close attention. It seemed fairly straightforward: make sure the gun is empty, push the bullets into the clip, put the clip into the gun, take the safety off, pull the hammer back, fire until said clip is empty, make sure there’s no bullets left in the gun, put it back on safety. And above all, follow the two cardinal rules:

1. Don’t point the gun at something unless you want to put a hole in it.
2. Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to put a hole in it.

As soon as we walked onto the range, I promptly forgot all of it. Well, not the part about not aiming it at people, but everything else.

It was a cold, bare space with a concrete floor, something like what you’d expect at a warehouse. Except for the acrid smell from the gunsmoke, of course. And the fact that we had guns.

I hung back, trying to psych myself up, which was not easy with the sporadic gunfire. (One girl observed, and I think this is probably true, that the noise was scarier than actually shooting the gun.) My skittishness was not aided by one of girls swinging around to ask for help, taking the rifle with her, immediately followed by us shrieking at her to point the gun away from us.

Anyway, eventually I stepped up to the metaphorical plate and tried firing a revolver. Even though I expected the gun to be heavier than I expected, it was still heavier than I expected. If that makes sense. Which I don’t think it does.

I also discovered that size does not in fact matter, which is to say that the recoil/kickback of each gun had very little to do with its size. The .38 revolver had a kickback like whoa (and of course it was the one that I had started out with), but there was hardly anything from the rifle. (I’m assuming that there is in fact a method to the madness, maybe something to do with the caliber and the length of the barrel, but my very limited point is that it is not simply big gun = big kickback.)

All in all, I shot a Smith & Wesson .22 revolver, a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver, a Ruger .22 rifle, a semi-automatic Glock 9 mm, and an M-4 assault rifle. Awesome, but also terrifying.

Both of the guys working at the range were military vets who had served in Iraq. Jimbo (I swear to God) said that it had reached 147 degrees Fahrenheit while he was there, with a lots of guys getting medevaced for heat stroke (medevac = medical evacuation). The other guy, Joshua, couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than me. So basically, he’s already fought in a war, and I haven’t even held a real job yet. Something profound should be said here, but I honestly don’t have it in me.

Anyway, after we finished up at the reject building, we took a stroll over to the brand-new one. It was humongous, with a lot more guns on display. Of course, my feminist attention was immediately drawn to the female mannequin in a tiny t-shirt and itty-bitty shorts, posed next to a massive machine gun. But we also saw a very cool machine gun from World War I — it had a huge water canister to cool the barrel down, presumably to keep it from exploding or some such. (Don’t ask me how we keep barrels cool now — I have no idea. I think it involves air instead of water, but there’s a good chance I’m making that up.)

Then, at long last, we went home. Well, back to campus, anyway.

So now that I’ve had this life experience, how do I feel?

In a nutshell: It was fun. But I’d also be okay if I never did it again.

The Bloody Nose Knows

In the past few days, I’ve learned more about bloody noses than I ever wanted to know, so I thought I’d share my hard-earned wisdom.

The backstory: Whilst playing basketball, I was becoming increasingly annoyed that the other team, having a ridiculous number of players over 6′, kept getting all the rebounds, so I played defense a little more fast and loose than in hindsight was wise, with the end result that one of said giants’ elbows came into forceful contact with my nose.

Immediately blood was gushing out of my nose at an amazingly rapid rate, making me incapable of anything except freaking out. Luckily, there was a rugby veteran on my team, so in short order, I was sitting on the sidelines with an icepack and a mountain of gauze, while another teammate cleaned my blood off the floor so that the game could be resumed in due course. Then the concern turned to: a) whether blood would ever stop pouring out my nose, and b) whether I would end up looking like Owen Wilson.

Owen Wilson has quite the schnoz.

The answer to the latter, thank goodness, is no. It’s all well and good for Owen Wilson to look like Owen Wilson, but I like my nose unbroken, thank you very much.

And now, onto the hard-earned wisdom:

1) If your nose is bleeding, do not tilt your head back. This will simply cause the blood to pool inside your head instead of on the ground, and how is that possibly going to end well?

2) Put ice on your nose to reduce the swelling. (One of the more obvious ones, granted, but I thought I’d stick it in anyway.)

3) After 10-15 minutes, the blood should start clotting, so once the blood has slowed down to a trickle, try to avoid touching your nose in any way so you won’t interfere with the clotting process. I was too afraid to stop holding my nose in case more blood was waiting on the sidelines for its turn to pour out, with the end result that while the bleeding slowed down, it never actually stopped, evidently because I was preventing it from clotting all the way.

4) If your nose is broken, you will know it. Primarily because you will be in excruciating, never-ending pain, and secondarily because you will have people telling you whether or not it looks broken. (Speaking of which, if you must get a bloody nose, try to get one while surrounded by veteran athletes who have lots of experience with this kind of thing.)

5) If #4 does not apply, just go home because there’s nothing to be done. Even if your nose is fractured, the doctors can’t really do anything about it. But if it really bugs you, you can opt to have a cosmetic procedure done later if you feel there is any visible crookedness.

6) Take ibuprofen, as it will reduce the inevitable swelling. I was initially hesitant to do so because I knew that you weren’t supposed to take ibuprofen after surgery because it’s a blood thinner, but apparently that’s what you’re supposed to take. But do NOT take aspirin or Alka-Seltzer, because they interfere with platelet production, and platelets are necessary for clotting.

7) If your nose isn’t broken, the only thing that really stops you from playing is the possibility that you might get smashed in the nose again, and my understanding is that it hurts a hell of a lot more the second time around. So the general rule of thumb is that you can play again after the soreness goes away, which will take about a week.

So there you go. You are now equipped with the basic knowledge needed to go out in the world and get hit in the nose really hard. Good luck.

UPDATE: Also, you’re not supposed to blow your nose for as long as humanly possible. As I live in a cold, cold place that causes my nose to constantly run, that may well have been the worst part.

The Delights of Restaurant Week

Oh dear. My vow to write a post at least once a month appears to have crashed and burned. Oh well. The important thing is, I’m here now, right? Right?

Anyhoo, although I hope to have my post on my first (and likely only) trip to a shooting range up in the next week or so, this post is on the joys of Restaurant Week. (I know, kind of a letdown once you know there’s a post on guns coming, lol.) For those of you who don’t know about it, Restaurant Week is when restaurants in a particular city offer a prie fixe multi-course lunch and/or dinner menu for a set price that’s usually well below what they would normally charge. In Boston, that means a 2-course lunch for $15.11, a 3-course lunch for $20.11, or a 3-course dinner for $33.11. It’s usually done twice a year, once in the winter and once in the summer, although the specific dates vary from city to city.

I went to a grand total of 6 restaurants over the two-week period. I know, I know, Gluttons ‘R Us, but I just can’t help myself when it comes to Restaurant Week. (In fact, I was supposed to go to Temple Bar as well, but they seem to have forgotten about the substantial number of Jews, Muslims, and vegetarians in Cambridge, as all of their first-course options and one or two of their second-course options included some form of pig.)

So here’s the breakdown:

1) Monday, March 7: 3-course lunch at Henrietta’s Table in the Charles Hotel.

Although best known for their Sunday brunch (at 45$ a person, it’s no chump change, but I fully intend to do it before I leave Cambridge), Henrietta’s Table is always a solid choice for lunch. During Restaurant Week, they essentially keep their regular menu, but put it at Restaurant Week prices. No complaint there. For the first course, I had spinach salad with satsuma mandarins, Westfield Farm’s chèvre (tastes like a cross between feta and goat cheese), topped with a spicy maple pecan vinaigrette. (To clarify, I did not memorize it, I’m copying and pasting from their menu.) Solid choice — Henrietta’s Table is known for their delicious local cheeses.

For the entree, it was Giannone Farm’s chicken breast with butternut squash and an apple cider reduction. It was definitely good, as everything there is, but I was not blown away. I mean, it’s chicken — difficult to make that exciting.

Now, when it comes to dessert, I usually just go for whatever’s chocolate, but this time, I had the warm pear cranberry strudel with cinnamon ice cream. Tart in all the right ways, my friends. And cinnamon ice cream is freaking awesome. I also sampled the taza chocolate and raspberry mousse parfait, and the chocolate bread pudding with caramelized bananas and vanilla bean ice cream. The mousse parfait was good, albeit not spectacular (I have high standards when it comes to mousse, since it’s so easy to make), and the chocolate bread pudding was pretty darn good as well, although bread pudding’s not really my scene.

Henrietta’s Table has a great atmosphere, classy but also homey. (Also, their cranberry walnut bread is incredibly delicious.) The only complaint is about the service. Even though we told our waitress we were in a rush (one of us had to get back for class at 1 pm), every course took forever for her to bring out. Yes, the restaurant was busy, but not that busy, know what I’m saying? Now, this should not be imputed to Henrietta’s Table as a whole, because during the summer interview program (where law students do nothing but interview with firms for a week), we went there for lunch during RW Summer 2010, and our waitress then was great about bringing things out quickly when I said I was in a rush, even though half our party came in at different times. But still, a little consistency would be nice.

2) Tuesday, March 8: 3-course dinner at L’Espalier. L’Espalier wasn’t officially doing Restaurant Week for dinner, only lunch, but they were offering their RW lunch menu the whole month of March and, more importantly, were offering a $54 3-course dinner in lieu of the usual price of $85. Lest you think that’s still outrageous — and it is — L’Espalier is the only restaurant in Boston with a 5-diamond rating by AAA. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but having experienced L’Espalier, I’m going to take a wild stab and assume it means fancy as hell.

When you first walk in, it doesn’t seem that different from any other nice restaurant, until you notice that no one is speaking above a whisper. And the waiter brings out complimentary hors d’oevres that look like something from the Top Chef finals, i.e., looks beautiful, but you’re not entirely sure what you’re eating. Meanwhile, I’m fervently hoping we still get bread, because I’m starving and those little hors d’oevres wouldn’t satisfy a very small bird.

Oh, and we do. But not just a basket. Instead, a waiter comes around with a tray of bread, tells us what each one is, and then places whichever one(s) we choose on our plate. For the record, I would have preferred a basket, if only because I don’t want my carb-inhaling tendencies to be known. For the wine, we were each presented with the bottle and allowed to sample it. Mine wasn’t actually that good (a Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon), but I felt too awkward to say anything except, “Mm, that’s good.” My comfort level is inversely proportional to the fanciness of any given establishment, so I was already feeling awkward-tastic. I still don’t know how I managed to get through dinner without dropping anything or spilling my wine all over myself.

But I digress. My first course was a salad. As it was two weeks ago, I don’t remember anything else about it, but the dressing was AMAZING. I’m not someone who gets excited about salad dressing as a manner of course, but it was fantastic. I should have stolen a menu so I’d know what it was. I think it was some kind of spicy pear vinaigrette, but on the other hand, I’m making that up, so it’s difficult to say.

(I should add that before each course, our waiter would explain to us each dish in front of us. As far as I’m concerned, if someone has to explain to me what I’m eating, and I’m not in a foreign country or ethnic restaurant, something is wrong.)

For the main course, it was Arctic Char with spring pea risotto and two little baby shrimp. I’ve never had Arctic Char before (it looks and tastes somewhat like salmon), but it was really, really good. And I’m not a huge risotto fan, but the other people I was with indicated that it was amazing, so there you go.

But really, all of that was just a build-up to the dessert: a dark chocolate caramel gateau with all kinds of foam and vanilla Chantilly cream. FREAKING AMAZING. Words cannot describe the wonder that was that dessert. My friends indicated that I had quite the look of bliss on my face while I was eating it, and possibly may have made an involuntary noise of ecstasy. The texture of the cake was perfect, moist without being too rich, the Chantilly cream was wonderful, heavy and decadent, and there were raspberries on the side with orange and passion fruit foams.

Yes, I get very, very excited about dessert. We’re going back to L’Espalier in April for their afternoon tea (read: tea and lots of dessert), and I cannot wait. No, seriously, why haven’t we made a reservation yet?

3) Thursday, March 10: 3-course dinner at Rialto in the Charles Hotel.

Always a solid choice. During the summer Restaurant Week, I went there, and it was wonderful. I had bluefish, which I’ve never had before or since, but it was great, and peach sorbet, even though I should have gone with the chocolate espresso torta. In fact, that’s pretty much the reason I made people go back to Rialto for winter RW — I really, really wanted that chocolate espresso torta. Also, it’s a great restaurant. With great dessert.

I had a salad for the first course, which was nondescript but good. I mean, it’s a salad. Hard to screw up, but also hard to make spectacular. Second course was roast lamb leg with potatoes, peas, and grains of paradise (still not sure what that is, aside from some kind of grain). Apparently the chef recommended it medium rare, but I prefer to make sure my meat is dead, so well done it was. Delicious.

And finally, the dessert. The chocolate espresso torta was everything I’d hoped for — too rich for some people, but just right for me. The thing about tortas/tortes is that they’re flourless, so they don’t mess around. You have to commit to that dessert. None of this light, fluffy stuff. Luckily, I’m very good at committing to desserts.

Overall, two thumbs up. Great food, great atmosphere, great service.

4) Friday, March 11: regular dinner at Trattoria di Monica in the North End, because it turns out they don’t do Restaurant Week on Friday.

Considering that this restaurant was recommended to me and got good reviews online, it was kind of a disappointment overall. It’s not just that it was a hole in the wall, since many North End restaurants are while still being amazing. Nor was it my untimely discovery that they don’t do RW on Fridays. Or the fact that their bathroom was quite possibly smaller than the ones in airplanes.

Who am I kidding, it probably was. But I also believe it had something to do with the food not being all that great. First of all, the waitress rattled the specials off so fast I could only understand every other word. When I asked her to repeat it, she repeated it at the exact same speed. When I asked her to explain what a pizzaiola was… Well, let’s just say that when my dish arrived, I was confused. Also, I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be a limit to the chewiness of pasta.

In short, I wouldn’t particularly recommend this place. But afterwards we went to Modern Pastry for cannolis, and all’s well that ends well, right?

5) Monday, March 14: 3-course dinner at the Meritage in the Boston Harbor Hotel in Rowes Wharf.

I had very little idea what to expect, aside from knowing that it was fairly fancy place and on the wharf. Though I will say that, after L’Espalier, it takes a LOT for me to consider a restaurant ‘fancy’, so this fell medium-high on my fanciness radar. Which was actually perfect as far as I was concerned (see aforementioned discomfort and awkwardness in overly fancy places).

Overall, it was wonderful. We had a spectacular view of the harbor, our waiter was fabulous and delightful, and the food and wine (a RW-special cabernet-merlot blend) was excellent.

I took a break from first-course salads and had lobster tail with snap peas and satsuma tangerine essence instead. Turns out I’m not a big fan of lobster tail, but that’s certainly not their fault. And the satsuma tangerine stuff was delicious. For the main course, it was the pan roasted Atlantic swordfish medallion with carrot ginger essence. I’ve only recently gotten eating fish, so anything besides salmon is generally a huge leap of faith for me, but I was well rewarded in this case. My dad got the filet mignon and couldn’t shut up about it. (I tried some, and it really was quite perfectly cooked.)

And now for the star feature: the dessert. (Are you noticing a trend?) It was a chocolate tasting plate: a white chocolate and vanilla bean semi-freddo, a coconut cocoa bar, and a dark chocolate espresso brulee. What’s better than one chocolate dessert? Three. My understanding is that we were supposed to eat them from left to right, which I initially tried to do, but then I discovered that it was actually more delicious when you mixed it up. Not literally mixing them up, just to clarify — I just mean taking bites of each, rather than finishing one dessert first before going on to the next one. Either way, totally amazing. Oh, and parking at the hotel is free when you eat there.

Highly, highly recommend. Definitely planning on going again for the summer 2011 Restaurant Week.

6) Wednesday, March 16: 3-course dinner at the Parker House in the Omni Hotel.

I had gone to the Parker House for RW Winter 2010, and it was by far the best out of the three I went to. Chez Henri wasn’t as good as the fancy French name promised, not aided by the fact that my dad got food poisoning from the seafood soup, and Ruth’s Chris Steak House left me wondering why it had such a great reputation — both the service and the food left quite a bit to be desired. We actually had to flag the valet down, and the rest of the night did not improve. However, none of us got the steak, so maybe that was where we went wrong…

Anyway, back to the Parker House. The food and service were perfectly good, but I think that after the Meritage, in conjunction with our high expectations from last year, it was a bit of a letdown. The Parker House is famous for its Parker rolls and Boston cream pie (which is NOT to be confused with that weird stuff they put in the Boston cream pie donuts at Dunkin’ Donuts). I don’t see what the big deal is about the rolls, in fact I’m not really a fan, but the Boston cream pie is great. However, unfortunately, it had a lot to live up to after my previous fabulous desserts. So while it was delicious, it didn’t make me drool. So to speak.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. For the first course, I had pumpkin ravioli. It was a little too rich for my taste, but fine.

For the main course, it was pan seared salmon, roasted braised greens, tear drop tomatoes, and citrus beurre blanc (don’t ask me what that last thing is, I have no idea). Last year, I had the salmon as well, but with shallots (tiny onions) instead of tear drop tomatoes (tiny tomatoes), and I think it made a difference. Not that I know anything about cooking. But I do know quite a lot about eating.

Anyhoo, again, it was very good, but nothing to write home about. Here’s the problem: On its own, it’s a great restaurant. But this time around, it had to contend with some real heavyweights, and it just wasn’t up to it.

So there you have it, folks. On tap for RW Summer 2011 is the Oak Room, and possibly revisiting the Meritage and/or Rialto. There may also be some D.C. restaurants mixed in, since that’s where I’ll be starting work in the fall… If anyone has any recommendations for restaurants in either Boston or D.C., I’d love to hear them!

Midseason Premieres: Breakdown

UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that I neglected to provide a review of Off the Map. So here it is: It’s from the producers of Grey’s Anatomy. Enough said.

But while I’m here, I’ll say a few more words about The Cape, since I’m still clinging to the hope that it will straighten itself out. Summer Glau‘s acting hasn’t gotten any better, and I despise child actors (what kind of a name is Trip, anyway?), but Mena Suvari was freakin’ awesome in the latest episode, guest-starring as a girl who can ‘see the future’ because her brain works out the probabilities of what’s going to happen (something about quantum mechanics — physics is not really my strong suit). Also, James Frain is so much more delightful as the bad guy than David Lyons is as the goody-two-shoes hero, even if David is prettier. Also also, while the actual script needs hella work, it looks like there are some interesting plot twists planned…

~*~

Two posts in one week? I’m on a roll!

Before I begin, let me say this: I love TV. When I’m about fall over from exhaustion, it’s there to cushion my fall. And there’s always new shows coming out! Granted, most of them are crap, but it’s been my experience that if you have the patience to sift through the rubble, you can usually find the diamond in the rough.

Now, TV is getting a bad rap because, as one health site put it (can’t remember which one — probably RealAge), it’s literally the most sedentary thing you can do. I still remember sharing a hotel room with some girls from my class on a school trip, and as soon as the television in our room was turned on, it was like they had been turned off: their jaws went slack and their eyes glazed over. I wish I were exaggerating, but it was literally like they were in a vegetative state.

To be clear, that is not how I watch TV. First of all, I have standards. Second, my TV watching involves a lot of yelling at the screen and flailing my arms around wildly. (No, not just for sports.) Third… Well, I don’t really have a third, but I like my reasons to come in threes.

Anyway, the point is, I love it.

Now to the assessment of midseason premieres:

• The Cape. I was looking forward to this show the most (to the point where I stayed up to watch the pilot despite having to leave early for NYC the next day for fellowship interviews), for two reasons: 1) I desperately need a comic book-type show to fill the void that Heroes left after it jumped the shark*, and 2) it has quite possibly the best cast ever.
  • [*jumping the shark = derived from the episode of Happy Days where Fonzie jumps over the shark; used to express one's sentiment that a show has lived past its prime]
  • The cast:
    • Keith David. I love love love Keith David. Ever since I saw him play Moses Whitecotten in Where the Heart Is (yes, the movie where Natalie Portman gives birth in a Walmart), I’ve been enthralled. You may also know him from his appearance on one episode of Gray’s Anatomy in the first season, where he plays the chief’s dying gay friend who flirts with George. He’s hilarious in a very understated way, and he just has an incredible voice.
    • Summer Glau, a.k.a. River Tam from Firefly. I thought she was amazing on Firefly; let’s face it, the girl plays a crazy brilliant chick pretty damn well. But alas, it turns out that that may be the only thing she’s good at, at least acting-wise. Thus far, her acting on The Cape has been painfully stilted, and I don’t see any hope for it getting any better.
    • Vinnie Jones. He was fantastic in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and his character in The Cape is much the same, i.e., totally bad-ass. Which, for the record, is fine with me. I say, if you do something really well, go with it.
    • Martin Klebba, a.k.a. the the mini-pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean. At the moment, he’s head-to-head (or is it toe-to-toe?) with Vinnie Jones for best bad-ass on the show. Or as Vince Faraday/The Cape put it, “He’s little, but he’s mean.” Love it.
    • James Frain (who, incidentally, was also in Where the Heart Is). I think he’s great, even if incapable of playing a character who has to be physically coordinated. You may remember him as Villefort in The Count of Monte Cristo, also known as the only other movie in which I have ever seen the bad guy (Rochefort) from Disney’s The Three Musketeers.
    • Richard Schiff. I didn’t even know he was going to guest-starring, so imagine my elation when Toby Zeigler appears on the scene! Seriously, I loooove West Wing (well, at least the first four seasons, which had Aaron Sorkin and Rob Lowe), and especially Toby. “I’m smiling on the inside.” Love it. And he had a slapstick comedic moment in The Cape, which is so unlike the dry wit that I’ve come to expect from him, that I was utterly charmed.
  • But alas, the scripts leave something to be desired, although I was thoroughly entertained that our hero, The Cape, kept getting his ass handed to him. The show tries too hard to be poignant, and fails miserably. Just have fun with it. It’s like when Xena tried to get all deep and spiritual — dude, that’s not why people watch the show. If the show had better writers (and perhaps better actors for a few roles?), I’d say go for emotional valence, rock on, but that’s not the kind of caliber show we’re talking about. At this point, three episodes in, it’s been pretty hit-or-miss. Overall, I enjoyed the two-hour pilot immensely, but I couldn’t even get through the second episode, and the third episode was decent, though not spectacular by any means. I’m sticking with it for the time being, but with reservations.
• Being Human. Okay, first of all, stop stealing British TV shows! It never ends well (see, e.g., Coupling), excepting The Office. Second, it wasn’t that good the first time around. Still too emo for my taste, although I like the premise in the abstract (a vampire, werewolf, and ghost just trying to get by).
• Harry’s Law. I was really looking forward to this premiere, because I’ve been looking for a decent legal show aside from Law & Order, and if anyone was going to do it right, it’d be Kathy Bates. Right? As it turns out, not so much. I mean, it’s not bad show, it’s just not…that good. I think it’s probably just a little too corny for my taste. But if you’re into that, please enjoy.
• Fairly Legal. I had doubts about this show from the beginning, mostly because it’s a USA show, and shows on USA tend to be cheesy and generally just eh. But it stars Sarah Shahi, who was Detective Dani Reese on Life (did I mention that I love browsing Hulu for obscure and underappreciated shows?), as well as Michael Trucco from Battlestar Galactica, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I think I managed it for about 10 minutes. The thing about USA shows is that they’re ‘cute’, and cute makes me want to stab myself in the eye. (Not cute like puppies, I love puppies, but cute like trying too hard to be cute. Just to clarify.) The USA version of being edgy is having a ship named “Welcome A Broad.” Yeah.
• Perfect Couples. I was turned off by the previews, but then I watched a behind-the-scenes thing on iTunes, and it looked like it might be cute in a good way, so I got the free download of the pilot from iTunes and settled down to watch. The thing is, I can’t decide whether I think it’s hilarious or not. It’s either incredibly funny, or just crazy. Unclear. But stay tuned, it could be good.
• Lights Out. You may also know this as the FX show that has billboards everywhere with Holt McCallany decked out as a boxer, blood pouring down his face, and the tagline, “Everybody loves a comeback.” I don’t get cable, so I was super-excited when I discovered that the episodes would be on Hulu. I’m kind of in love with Holt McCallany. I don’t know why, he’s not the type I usually go for, but my love cannot be denied. You may remember him as one of the fight club members in, you know, Fight Club, or as Ricky in the second season of Heroes. (Speaking of which, whatever happened to Jack Coleman, a.k.a. HRG? He was the best part of Heroes!)
  • This show is fantastic. But it’s uber-gritty, to the point where I can’t actually watch whole episodes all at once. I have to watch them piecemeal or else the grittiness makes me overly anxious and uncomfortable. Another notable on the show is Stacy Keach; I should note that the cause and effect relationship between him and grittiness is unclear. I think it’s been fairly well-established by this point that he is only capable of grit, if American History X and his run with the Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C. as King Lear is any indication. But does he actually make any production he’s in be gritty, or does he just keep getting cast in pre-grittified roles? The mystery continues. But definitely check this show out (although beware of the, er, mature content).

Okay, I think that’s about it from me. Let me know if there’s any that I missed!