Emmy Observations

Is it me or does it seem like nobody cares about The Emmy's? Me included. I make a big deal about The Academy Awards every year, but I hardly, if ever, mention The Emmy's. I look forward to The Academy Awards every year, whereas Sunday night I just happened to stumble upon The Emmy's. This doesn't really add up because if you think about it, I spend a lot more time watching television than I do watching movies. I mean, sure I'm a movie buff, but I'm also a TV junkie.

At this point, it almost feels like The Academy Awards are treated like the Summer Olympics and The Emmy's are treated like the Winter Olympics. In reality, the Emmy's should be treated more like the college football to The Academy Awards' NFL.

That all said, here are a few observations from The Emmy's.....

I'm thrilled that Modern Family took down the award for Outstanding Comedy Series. In terms of the other nominees, I've heard that this season's Curb Your Enthusiasm was amazing, so I wouldn't have been surprised if that won. Also, I still think 30 Rock is funnier than Modern Family (it's a different kind of humor), but they had a down season.

I get the feeling that Mad Men has become some sort of behemoth during The Emmy's. I think it's a really good show and worthy of winning Outstanding Dram Seriers, but it's nominated in virtually every category possible. It's almost like the academy has a when in doubt nominate someone from Mad Men policy. For example, January Jones is attractive, but she didn't deserve a nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series. Speaking of which, Christina Hendricks is curvy, but she shouldn't be nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for it. She probably stole votes from the girl that plays Peggy Olsen. Also, John Slattery plays a cool character (Roger Sterling), but in season 3 he sort of just blended into the background of the show (although this season he's back in a big way). Lastly, Robert Morse (Bert Cooper) got nominated for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Really?? Not only should he not count as a guest actor (seeing that he's been a part of the show from day one), but he only has about 4 lines every other episode. If anyone from Mad Men deserved that nomination it was Chelcie Ross who played Conrad Hilton in season 3 (and Ed Harris in Major League).

I couldn't have been happier about Top Chef winning the emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program. At the beginning of this current season I decided that it would probably be last, but now I'm torn. Top Chef is fantastic. It takes a while to weed out the bad cheftestants, but during that time the stronger competitors start to grow on you. Also, Padma is smoking hot. I'm sure none of you watched The Emmy's, but when Top Chef won, some woman stumbled terribly as she was getting out of the row to get up on stage and accept the award. She didn't totally bite it, but it was close. Her hand definitely touched the ground. The entire time the executive producer (or whoever) was giving his speech, the rest of the crew (Tom, Padma, Gail, etc.) were still laughing uncontrollably.

Guess who may have snuck back into my top 5 current celebrity crushes?


I don't know how she ever slipped out of the top 5

How does Connie Britton (Tami Taylor) not win for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series? Actually I've heard that The Closer is fantastic, so I guess Kyra Sedgwick/Mrs. Kevin Bacon was deserving. Also, Glenn Close easily could have won for her role as Patty Hewes in Damages.



Better yet, how does Kyle Chandler (Eric Taylor) not win for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series? Actually that category was stacked. This is like the AL East of The Emmy's. Bryan Cranston, better known as Tim Watley or the dad in Malcolm in the Middle, won for his role in Breaking Bad...for the third year in a row. How does Hugh Laurie not win for House? How does Michael C. Hall not win for Dexter?

John Hodgeman, who routinely appears on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, was given free reign to say whatever he wanted right after the winners were announced. For example, he was the guy responsible for saying things like, "This is Cranston's 6th nomination and 3rd straight win." Instead of just giving important facts, he tried to be funny, but wasn't....at all.

Outside of starring in a movie with Drew Barrymore as the female love interest (Fever Pitch), I love Jimmy Fallon. I think he's hysterical. His late night show is great. I mean, how can it not be when his house band is The Roots? His performance as the host of The Emmy's was very solid, but I think he played the guitar a little too much.

First of all, how is Outstanding Host For a Reality or Reality-Competition Program a category? Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, how was Chris Harrison from The Bachelorette not nominated? Easily the snub of the night. Nobody in the business says, "Take a moment...and say your goodbyes," quite like he does.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series should be Neil Patrick Harris' award to lose. And he did. Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cameron on Modern Family, went home with the hardware, although I would have voted for Ty Burrell, who plays Phil on Modern Family.


Ty Burrell

I like The Big Bang Theory and I think that Jim Parsons is funny in it, but Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series seems like a little much. Steve Carell and Alec Baldwin are definitely funnier. Speaking of other nominees from this category, Tony Shalhoub was nominated for his role in Monk which I'm stunned to hear is still on the air.

I think Glee was created with award shows like The Emmy's in mind. It was destined to rack up awards because they employ dramatic, comedic, and musical elements. While we're on the subject, Jane Lynch was a slam dunk for Oustanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. That award was about as obvious as Heath Ledger winning Best Supporting Actor at The Academy Awards in 2009.

My Generation

I'll be the first one to admit that I'm in a transition period in my life. In fact, if you're reading this you probably are too. We're in that awkward stage in our lives where we have some semblance of what we want to do, but we find reassurance in the possibilities of the future. This causes us to delay making important, big boy decisions because we're scared of the weight that they carry. If we choose job A, city B, or girlfriend C that shuts the door (or at leasts starts to close it) on job X, city Y, or potential girlfriend Z. This hesistance to make a meaningful decision helps define this period as one of transition. We feel like adults, but at the same time, we don't. Maybe we live in our own apartment, but our parents help pay the rent. Maybe we're in a good position on the corporate ladder, but we aren't in a committed relationship. Maybe we have a child (doubtful if you're reading this), but we don't have a college degree.

Psychologists point to five distinct milestones as a way to define this transitional period.

-completing school
-leaving the house
-becoming financially independent
-marrying
-having a child

Now if you're keeping score at home, I've only accomplished 2 of the 5 milestones (completing school and leaving the house) and I'm on my way to becoming financially independent, which I think helps explain why I'm fully aware of the transition that I'm participating in. Evidently, and I think we all could have guessed this, it's taking people our age longer and longer to achieve all five milestones.

In a recent NY Times article titled "What Is It About 20-Somethings?" Robin Marantz Henig writes,

"The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach For America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life."

So why are so many 20 somethings delaying adulthood?

Well for starters, once they graduate from college they are literally thrust into the real world to either sink or swim. They either hit the ground running or they revert back to their old ways (i.e. grad school, temporary jobs with no career trajectory, etc.). What makes the first few years after college tough is that 20 somethings are stripped of the structure that they had grown accustomed to over the past 15-18 years. Once school ends, they are sort of at a loss. By in large, students knew what they had to do to succeed. The structure was pretty simple and straight forward. If you met the minimum requirements (grades/credits) you moved on to the next grade the following year. Eventually though, there are no more grades to go to. It's at this point that this structure is literally just pulled out from underneath their feet and all they have to show for it is a framed piece of paper.

This post-school lack of structure is part of what makes this transition to adulthood so difficult. There's just no clear cut way to gauge progress in the real world. Everything is relative, so there's no way of knowing where young adults are on their journey toward adulthood. The structure that our educational system provides is by no means the only structure that there is, but it's the only one that 20 somethings have ever known. Once it's taken from them, it takes a while to make the adjustments necessary to find something to fill its place.

We may not even know it, but that's part of the reason why so many of us still cling to our college years. Sure we miss the parties, bars, classmates, etc., but we also miss knowing and understanding the rules of the game. What the guidelines are. How to succeeed. Unfortunately though, there's no syllabus in the real world.

This lack of structure, or change in the way that we find structure, definitely helps to explain this cultural shift, but the driving force behind the delay towards adulthood is fear. In fact, I think I would go as far as to say that fear is the number one driving force behind most human actions. 20 somethings are undoubtedly in an uncertain time in their lives, which means that they have a lot to be fearful of.

20 somethings, like most people, are afraid of change. No one likes leaving a comfortable environment for one that they are unfamiliar with. This plays into the point I made about structure. Recent graduates cling to college life because they are familiar with the way things operated there. Over the course of their four years they became comfortable with their surroundings and what they had to do to get by. Once they are removed from this comfort zone they dread having to achieve the same level of comfort in a new environment.

Young adults are also fearful of choosing the wrong path. We think we know what we want to do, but we aren't really sure until we actually do it. Not many people our age have a genuine calling or vocation. Even those that do (i.e. priests, teachers, etc.) still question whether or not they are making the right choice. 20 somethings don't like taking risks. We like to be sure of ourselves before we make decisions, but the real world waits for no one.

As scary as choosing the wrong path is, eliminating other possibilities might be even scarier. Most of us have been told our entire lives that we can do whatever it is that we want to do with our lives and that we'll be successful no matter what we choose. But what if we aren't sure what it is that we want to do? What if choosing profession A eliminates the possibiliy of profession B and when it's all said and done profession B would have made us happier? Simply put, we like options. We like having Plan B ready to go in case Plan A fails. Eliminating options isn't easy, so if we can put off doing so, we will.

Another reason that we 20 somethings are so fearful of these grown up questions is because of their significance. The decisions that 20 somethings face are literally life changing. I don't care how much schooling we've received, nothing can prepare you for that. Seriously, think about the hardest decisions 20 somethings have had to make thus far in their lives.

Who should I ask to the prom? Where should I go to college? What should I major in?

So when it comes to What should I do with my life? and Do I want to spend the rest of my life with her? it's only natural to delay really analyzing them.

"Decisions and actions during this time have lasting ramifications. The 20s are when most people accumulate almost all of their formal edication; when most people meet their future spouses and the friends they will keep; when most people start on the careers that they will stay with for many years. This is when adventures, experiments, travels, relationships, etc. are embarked on with an abandon that probably will not happen again."

I think many of us are simply scared to really ask ourselves these questions. Maybe we're scared of the answers. I don't really know for sure, but serious soul searching isn't fun. I for one know that I don't like to do it, even though it runs contrary to one of the quotes that I aim to live by.

"The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them." -Denis Watley

I think it's just that we don't want to get caught up in the seriousness of the questions. What if we aren't married with kids by age 30? What if we don't live up to the expectations we set for ourselves? I think we'd rather take a wait and see approach instead of deciding that we want something that might not happen. Again, we're afraid to take risks and we're afraid to fail.

"The stakes are higher when people are approaching the age when options tend to close off and lifelong commitments must be made."

It's interesting that we tend to shy away from asking ourselves these serious questions because this is the time in our lives when we are most consumed with ourselves. Soon, we will have significant others and kids that take away our attention. Our commitment to our own personal growth is at it's peak as a 20 something, yet we delay addressing these tough, personal questions.

Instead of dealing with the Is this the right career path for me to take? or the Can I raise a family in this city? we prefer to take the wait and see approach. We have such positive aspirations for our futures and we sort of expect things to just sort of work out in our favor. I mean, why would they not? We can do anything that we want to do and we'll be succesful in whatever it is that we choose to do, remember?

Believe it or not, a Yale psychologist named Kenneth Keniston noticed a rising faction of young adults who exhibited this "pervasive ambivalence toward self and society," back in the late 1960's. He wrote of, "a growing minority of post adolescents who have not settled the questions whose answers once defined adulthood: questions of relationship to the existing society, questions of vocation, questions of social role and lifestyle." He continued by saying that, "such aimlessness was once seen only in the unusually creative or unusually disturbed."

So maybe this is a cultural thing? I mean, I think we all realize that people are getting married later, having kids later, etc. We never really knew why, but we accepted that this was happening. Perhaps our recognition of this change in societal behavior has altered the way that we look at these significant adult events. A generation ago, most of my friends from highschool or college would be married, but in today's day and age, none of them are. I think a lot of that has to do with finances (my apologies to love) and that ties right in with this changing landscape of adulthood. People aren't as financial well off right out of the gate as they were back in the 1970's and '80's. Not to say that they were raking it in, but nowadays kids are just looking for a foot in the door, so they'll settle for an unpaid internship or hope to go temp to hired. If the finances aren't there, it's tough to buy an engagement ring, house, start a family, etc.

"Cultural expectations might also reinforce the delay. The changing timetable for adulthood has, in many ways, become internalized by 20 somethings. Today, young people don't expect to marry until their late 20s, don't expect to start a family until their 30s, don't expect to be on track for a rewarding career until much later than their parents were. So they make decisions about their futures that reflect this wider time horizon. Many of them would not be ready to take on the trappings of adulthood any earlier even if the opportunity arose; they haven't braced themselves for it."

Again, we feel like adults, but we know that we aren't truly adults. Not yet anyway. The decisions and actions that will make us true adults are on the horizon, but we're scared of heading in that direction. We won't ask ourselves the tough questions because we hope that the answers will just make themselves apparent to us. We just keep prodding along assuming that we'll figure it all out sooner or later. It hasn't even crossed my mind. I'm years away from that. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Well guess what? We're almost at the bridge. So start thinking about the answers to the questions that will eventually shape who you are and who you become.

"If you're feeling frightened about what comes next, don't be. Embrace the uncertainty. Allow it to lead you places. Be brave as it challenges you to exercise both your heart and your mind as you create your own path towards happiness, don't waste time with regret. Spin wildly into your next action. Enjoy the present, each moment, as it comes; because you'll never get another one quite like it. And if you should ever look up and find yourself lost, simply take a breath and start over. Retrace your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart... where your hope lives. You'll find your way again."

Top 25

With college football right around the corner I think it's only fitting that I release my top 25....actresses in Hollywood. These composite rankings take into account a multitude of factors.

-Looks- Looking good is half the battle and don't let anyone tell you any different.
-Talent- How good of an actress are you? Can you play multiple roles? Have you been typecast? Do you just skate by on your looks?
-Prestige- Will your name be enough to sell a movie? Does your acting resume stack up? Have you been nominated for, or won, big time awards?
-Exposure- Do I know who your husband/boyfriend is? Are you magazine cover worthy? Will the papparazzi leave you alone?
-Wealth- What kind of price tag do you have on you? What do you make per movie?
-Recent Activity- What have you done for me lately? When I hear your name can I easily recall the most recent movie that you've been in? If so, was that movie successful?

After weighing these factors, as well as my own personal biases, I have compiled the following power rankings. Television actresses were not considered.

And now without further ado....

1.) Angelina Jolie



First things first, Angelina Jolie is a an amazing actress. She's won an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress for Girl, Interrupted (1999)) and been nominated for another (Best Actress for Changeling (2008)). This should come as no surprise, seeing that the acting gene is in her blood (Jon Voight is her father). Secondly, she's an absolute babe. Thirdly, she's married to a hunk in Brad Pitt. Fourthly (is this a word?), she's in magazines more than almost anyone because of her relationship with Pitt, her adopted kids, and her activism all around the globe. Fifthly (definitely not a word), she is more than enough to carry an entire movie (see Salt (2010)). Honestly, I don't know if anyone else is as close to being the total package (as far as these power rankings go) as Angelina.

2.) Jennifer Aniston



She's clearly not the best actress out there, but the rom-com queen just continues to crank out films. And she's still bringing it by the way. I mean, she's 41 and she arguably looks better than when she was 31. She also gets perhaps her biggest boost on this list because her personal life has been covered 12 times over by the tabloids. Speaking of which, I feel a little bad having her #2 with Angelina at #1 after the whole Brad Pitt saga, but it is what it is. Lastly, I don't think it's that outrageous to say that she's more famous now than all of her castmates from Friends combined.

3.) Kate Winslet



When it comes to talent, from a pure acting perspective, I think Winslet is the best in the business. She just isn't out there enough to hang with Angie and Jen, although her separation from director Sam Mendes has put her in the spotlight more than she's used to.

4.) Meryl Streep



Although I loathe her, even I can't argue with her pedigree. Meryl has had an extraordinary career as an actress and she continues to wow audiences with her array of roles even to this day.

5.) Reese Witherspoon



Dare I say that she's underrated? She's adorable, extremely talented, and makes a killing per movie, but I get the feeling that she's never really in the best actress conversation. Of all the Oscar winning performances for Best Actress in my lifetime, I think hers in Walk The Line (2005) is head and shoulders above the rest.

6.) Sandra Bullock



The reigning Oscar winner for Best Actress has been everywhere ever since her divorce from Jesse James. As much as I want to have Sandra's back, I do put some of the blame on her because the guy was a trainwreck before she married him. I mean, just look at his tatooes. No wonder he was into a chick that had even more than he did. Also, he kind of looks like Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger. Lastly, Sandra recently went Angelina on us and adopted a baby (and I think it's black), so that definitely helped her in the rankings.

7.) Cameron Diaz



I don't think Cameron Diaz is a good actress, but she's made a lot of money by looking good in movies that have made a lot of money. In fact, she's hard not to like. She just has that bubbly, fun personality.

8.) Anne Hathaway



This might be my most surprising ranking of them all. In fact, I probably have her a little too high, but Hathaway's career has really taken off in the past few years. I'm actually not a big fan of hers (I don't really like her personality from the interviews I've seen), but I can't deny her rapid ascension into the Hollywood elite.

9.) Scarlett Johansson



Scarlet Johansson knows she's a great actress and she knows she's hot, but I get the feeling that she could really care less. For whatever reason she just strikes me as the type of actress that is completely artsy and all about the performance. There's no doubt that she could be even more famous and make a lot more money, but she'll stick to doing Woody Allen movies because they're more abstract. Seriously, she has all the potential to be one the top leading ladies, but I don't think that she wants to be.

10.) Julia Roberts



She was undoubtedly #1 on this list back in her prime (1988-1994) and it would almost seem like a crime if she wasn't still in the top 10. This Hollywood vet has name recognition some of these other actresses only dream that they can one day achieve.

11.) Vera Farmiga- Her body of work doesn't stack up with many of the other actresses on this list, but boy was she outstanding in The Departed (2007) and Up in the Air (2010). If she hits it out of the park in her next role, you can bet your bottom dollar that she'll find her way into the top 10.
12.) Penelope Cruz- 3 Oscar noms (1 win) in the past 4 years for this Latina sensation. Maybe that mental breakdown was a blessing in disguise?
13.) Halle Berry- She's still the best African American actress going. And she's still drop dead gorgeous.
14.) Jennifer Garner- I don't think that I've ever heard someone say a bad word about her. She just has that down to earth, girl next door kind of personality. And being Mrs. Ben Affleck doesn't hurt.
15.) Helen Mirren- Not only does she look goood for 65, but she's been nominated for 4 Oscars (1 win), including for Best Actress earlier this year.
16.) Keira Knightley- This British starlet is definitely on the rise in the acting world. She's stunningly beautiful and blessed with a natural ability on the screen.
17.) Drew Barrymore- Even though I despise her, she is still deserving of this spot. Don't ask me why, but her name carries weight around the Hollywood circuit.
18.) Ellen Page- She was awesome in Juno (2007) and showed her versatility in Inception (2010). She'll be marching up this list in the coming years.
19.) Jessica Biel- I don't think that Biel is all that talented as an actress, but she's arguably the best looking woman in Hollywood and she gets major bonus points for dating Justin Timberlake.
20.) Kate Hudson- Oh how the mighty have fallen. Last year she definitely would have been in the top 15 and may even have sniffed the top 10 (thanks to her highly publicized romance with A-Rod), but now she's falling quickly. I used to be her biggest fan, but I can't even tell you the last movie that she was in.
21.) Zooey Deschanel- My #1 celebrity crush was going to find her way onto this list one way or another. And for the record, she's excellent in Yes Man (2008) and (500) Days of Summer (2009).
22.) Amy Adams- I can't get enough of this red head. She's paid her dues as a supporting actress, but I still think she's a year or two away from really excelling in a lead role.
23.) Nicole Kidman- She's fresh off two busts (Australia (2008), Nine (2009)) and fading quickly, but her name still carries weight.
24.) Rachel McAdams- She has a very solid resume and she's attractive in that she's got something about her kind of way, but she lacks any sort of star quality.
25.) Kristen Bell- She's definitely an up and comer and probably would have been higher if I remembered her name when I was compiling this list. No joke, I wrote down "Sarah Marshall" because her actual name didn't come to me. On a related note, I don't know what I'd do without Google.

Others Receiving Votes: Natalie Portman, Megan Fox, Jessica Alba, Cate Blanchett, Hilary Swank, Anna Kendrick, Kate Beckinsale, Laura Linney, Katherine Heigl, Gwyneth Paltrow, Isla Fisher, Julianne Moore, Katie Holmes, Eva Mendes, Mila Kunis, Rashida Jones, Sienna Miller


I know I probably forgot someone worthy of mention, so feel free to let me know who I unintentionally snubbed.

Leading Role: Leonardo DiCaprio

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Turning in my man card

You might think that I'm an alpha male (or at least that I do a decent job of pretending to be one), but I'm pretty far from it. Sure I love beer, football, red meat, and occasionally objectifying women, but there are also plenty of things that I do, watch, or listen to that tend to counteract my alpha male status.

In fact, I think it's time that I come clean and admit the guiltiest of all of my guilty pleasures. Now, I know what you must be thinking. This has to be bad because he's already admitted to this and written about this. And yes folks, I'm afraid it is pretty bad....

I have watched the majority of this season of The Bachelorette...and I can't get enough. How this happened, I still don't really know.

For the better part of the last year I have worked on just about every Monday night from 4:30PM-1AM. It was one of the few staples of my constantly fluctuating work schedule. Then the World Cup came around and all of a sudden (thanks to the time difference) I was working from 7:30AM-5PM on Mondays.

At first it was a bit of struggle to wake up that early, but I eventually got used to it. The real curveball was deciding what to watch on Monday night. It was early to mid-June so MNF was out of the question and the shows that I normally DVR on Mondays were either in re-run mode (How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory) or not airing past episodes altogether (24, Damages).

So I started flipping through the channels and in what must have been the perfect storm of boredom and intrigue in a particularly good looking girl I gave the show a chance and within minutes I was hooked. I had heard that the show is very good and very entertaining, but I had always brushed it off because it just comes across as completely feminine (and it sort of is). Also, of the people that have mentioned how great of a show it is, most were female and just about all the males only watch with their wives or girlfriends.



It's gotten to the point now where I'm back to working on Monday nights (at least for the time being), so I DVR The Bachelorette and watch it as soon as I get home from work.

That said, here are a handful of my observations on the show....

-It's incredibly well done. Very well put together. It's literally packed with suspense and drama. I think a lot of this has to do with trying to guess who this girl likes the most and who she's going to send packing in each particular episode.

-They put these people in the most hyper-romantic places and situations possible, so it's almost hard for them not to at least fall for the allusion of being in love. Doing this obviously adds drama, intrigue, and a bit of glitz and glamour to the show, but this is fantasy world stuff. These people are hardly ever placed in real world situations, so it's hard to project whether or not their relationship would work in an everyday environment.

-Now, I could be wrong on this because this is the first season that I've seen, but I don't think the history of past contestants is very good. I know that the most recent couple from The Bachelor has already split up (because they took up about 40 minutes of one of The Bachelorette episodes a few weeks ago). I think this is a result of what I was talking about before. The show puts these people in beautiful, romantic places and atmospheres and they think they're in love and then all of a sudden somebody has to take out the trash and all hell breaks loose.

-Obviously this adds to the drama and suspense, but I don't think it's a good thing for The Bachelorette (Ali) to be so obsessed with marriage. She wants the person that she eventually picks to propose to her on the spot and she always says things like, "I know I'm going to find my husband here." To me, it's a little too aggressive.

-This chick literally makes out with everybody. It's out of control. I don't know how the target audience (which has to be women ages 16-50) is ok with this. Literally whenever she doesn't know what to say she just starts making out with whoever shes with. This can't bode well for the guys trying to marry her either. Like, it can't be a good feeling to know that your "girlfriend" is off making out with multiple other dudes when you're not with her. I don't know, I think this would be tough for me to get past.

-Sometimes I think the show is a little scripted. It sort of has a bit of The Hills feel to it from time to time. For example, one guy was only there "to become famous." He was secretly calling his girlfriend throughout the show. Another guy got a tatoo of a rose on his wrist. The guy that was the leader in the clubhouse went back to see his ex-girlfriend to "see if he was still in love with her" and showed up at her apartment with the cameras. She answered, they talked, and he "realized that he was still in love with her", so he had to fly down to Tahiti to tell Ali. I don't know, I just think it's a little too much to believe.

-When talking about other contestants some guys would say, "Oh, he's not here for the right reasons." Really? How many other reasons could someone be there for? I mean, sure you've got the guy that was apparently only there to become famous, but outside of him (and again, that must have been scripted), who isn't there to try to win this girl's heart?

-I think a lot of people watch and a lot of people go on the show because they want to believe in true love. They either want to watch or to take part in this fairy tale romance.

-The contestants and Ali all use the same words and phrases over and over and over. The all time worst is, "We have such a great connection."

-Last, but not least, Ali's down to Chris and Roberto. So, who's she going to pick? Roberto. Bank on it.

The Man in the Mirror

I recently saw a Stoli ad that asks what I think is a fascinating question.

Would you have a drink with yourself?

When I first saw the ad, I instinctively answered it and I said no. Despite being a loud, outgoing person, I'm pretty hesistant about venturing outside of my comfort zone. I also judge people like it's going out of style, so my general pessimism towards someone I don't know would preclude me from having that drink. Also, I generally don't open myself up or put myself on the line to people I don't know, so I couldn't see myself asking myself to get a drink.

On top of that, one thing that generally bothers me about having conservations with people is their lack of knowledge when it comes to sports. Now I realize that this is very arrogant of me, but I'm so inundated with sports information at work that it becomes borderline annoying to have sports related conversationa with most people. Because of this, I generally assume that I know more about sports than whoever I'm talking to (when I'm not at work), so I tend to avoid this topic at all costs even though it's my bread and butter.

These were my initial thoughts, but soon after I thought about it some more because, again it's a fascinating question, I think we all would like our answer to be "yes".

"Yes, I would love to have a drink with myself."

I mean, it's only natural for us all to want to be interesting, engaging people that others would enjoy having a drink with. Seriously, who doesn't want to bring something to the table?

A few days later I had a movie related conversation (sports are like my 4-seam fastball, movies are my 2-seam fastball, and obviously poop is my deuce) with someone and within the first 5 minutes he mentioned how much he loved my top 2 current celebrity crushes.

1.) Zooey Deschanel (go watch Yes, Man and (500) Days of Summer right now)
2.) Lizzy Caplan (Party Down is a fantastic television show. Trust me.)

After the conversation, I immediately thought that I would absolutely love to have a drink with myself. If I could get past my initial pessismistic, judgmental feelings than I think I would have a great time having a Bud heavy with myself. Seriously, someone to talk Blue Jays, Knicks, Syracuse, Notre Dame, movies, TV shows, etc. with? Sign me up.



In reality, it's kind of a loaded question (no pun intended) because almost everyone would enjoy having a drink with someone that shares all of their interests. That's mainly what friendships are based on: common interests. I think the question should be looked at like this- If someone you kind of know at work (who happens to be just like you) asks you to get a drink, would you say yes or no?

Sure enough, after being fascinated with this question for almost two weeks, I saw a similar Stoli ad, except this one had Julia Stiles literally having a drink with herself. Had I seen that commercial first, there's no wayyyy I would have written this. She's so not hot that she isn't even borderline on the hot or not scale.

Howl

Well, well well. Look what I stumbled across today....



I must say that the choice of James Franco to play Allen Ginsberg is pretty good (he's previosly played a gay character in Milk (2008). Not only that, but you can't really go wrong with Jon Hamm as a suave looking lawyer. Also starring in the film are Jeff Daniels and Mary Louise-Parker