I'm Not Looking for Cool

In the last post, I mentioned how I had been avoiding doing important things, but what I didn't mention was how I had been avoiding said things. My strategy was two-fold: books and television. I am actually reading about 5 books right now: Garner's Modern American Usage, Emma, Healing Fibromyalgia, A Manual for Writers, and the summer issue of Poetry. But several others have been in rotation of late and I have been devouring books now that I finally have time to myself again that doesn't by necessity revolve around my thesis and my students. I started a book group this summer with my friends Katie and Lydia and we've gone through The Gargoyle, Sunshine, and Oryx & Crake. Our original plan was to actually talk about the books, but thus far we usually end up with about 2 1/2 hours of eating, drinking and gabbing and 20 minutes of book discussion. Either way, it's a great excuse to read stuff we mightn't have found otherwise.

The other thing I've been devouring is television. Since I graduated just over two months ago, I have gone through Fringe, The Dollhouse, Weeds (though I gave up a few episodes into the new season), the last season and a half of Heroes, So You Think You Can Dance, True Blood, and Chuck. As you can tell, I am not a movie snob. I don't think that television is worthless. I think there are some damned interesting, smart, and entertaining shows out there and the internet has done much to enable viewers to weed out the mediocre. Like Chuck, for instance. I had seen the "poster" for Chuck and automatically dismissed it. Whitebread dude shrugging with hands stuffed into pockets next to Hollywood blonde in a black bosom-popping shirt? Meh. Not something that's gonna grab the attention of most straight 29yo gals.

However, I watched an indie film a few weeks ago with Zachary Levi and loved it so much that I decided to look him up. Turns out he's in this cheesily bepostered show, and it's rated a ridiculously high 4.6 on netflix. Well, I decided to check it out. And here's the thing. It's kind of frakkin' awesome. It has action (for the boys), unrequited luvst (for the girls), geek/gamer humor (w00t), and honestly the smartest dialogue I've seen on television since Veronica Mars (high praise coming from me). The truth is, my timing coming into this show is the same as it was with Veronica Mars. I started watching right after Season Two finished and things were very up in the air as to whether there would be a season three. As it is, this show was almost canceled and got picked up by the skin of its teeth. But it won't resume airing until next March. As usual, the cream of the crop fails to garner the audience it needs. Tune in next week for tales of my search for the ultimate zit zapper.