1 Happy St

I had a conversation with a friend of mine on Friday about last Thursday's episode of The Office. It went something like this:

Him: "Did you see The Office last night?"
Me: "Yeah."
Him: "Wasn't it awesome?"
Me: "For real?"
Him: "You didn't think so?"
Me: "Eh."

I'll admit after looking back on some of the posts I've had here recently that I've been a little bit down on things. And for that, I apologize. I also hate being "That Guy"*. But in my opinion, this whole season of The Office has been kind of weird. It's had its moments (just about everything with Nard Dog or Darrell), but overall, I can't think of a single episode all season where I'd call it a classic while previous seasons had a classic episode just about every week. And I don't really see where they're going with this Jim and Pam thing. This show has always been kind of awkward, but it's also been funny at the same time. That lunch with Jim's brothers wasn't funny at all; it was just painful. And I could have done a better job of acting than the two jokers they got to play them. Who were those guys?

* By "That Guy", I mean the kind of person who hates anything that's popular. I can come up with a whole list of things I like (and still do) that have been or currently are popular that some people will hate for exactly that reason. Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, DMB, O.J. Simpson. So I strive to not be That Guy.

It's only November; there's still plenty of time to right this thing. I just hope Jim's brothers are done making appearances 'til the wedding.

I laughed out loud probably 10 times while watching The Office last night. When Kevin saw the bouncy thing and ran towards it and Phyllis yelled to him to take off his shoes, I even snorted and I never do that. I don't think I've ever done that. I make fun of people who do that. But last night I did it. He passed for a retard and they didn't even change the way he delivered his lines. How brilliant is that?

The whole time I was watching Lost last night, I thought it was the last episode. I guess I wasn't thinking because the season finale is always a 2 parter. So after the episode ended last night, I wondered how they could leave us hanging with that. Then I saw the commercial that started out "in 2 weeks, the 2-hour season finale........."

Hells yeah! A 3-parter! I can't wait.

A Random from me on Monday: What would we say instead of "he'd be turning over in his grave if he saw this" if the guy we're talking about was cremated?

Paraphrased quote from Andy Bernard in tonight's episode of The Office - "My Grandfather would be turning over in his urn if he saw me playing golf with you."

Yeah that's right. I totally wrote an Office joke 3 days before it aired. And a joke for the Nard Dog on top of it.

Oompa, loompa, doompity dawsome. The Nard Dog used my joke, that's totally awesome.

I should mention that this was the only picture of Jenna I could find. Trust me, I looked everywhere. In the interest of being fair, if you can find a picture of a half-naked Dwight, send it to me and I'll be happy to put it up here.

Of course I might make it a lot smaller.

By now you're probably aware that I am not a big fan of Joe Morgan. Correction - I'm not a fan of his analysis on ESPN baseball broadcasts; he could be a great man otherwise, but how would I know? I've critiqued some of his work here, some of you have read it, almost all of you have wished I didn't. Anyway, about a year ago, a commenter named Billy Batz turned me onto a website that practically made a living out of critiquing Joe Morgan called FireJoeMorgan.com. The main writer for that site goes by the alias of Ken Tremendous. We've even shared a few emails back and forth as we share similar interests (baseball, things related to baseball, and hatred for Joe Morgan). Yesterday "Ken Tremendous" finally gave up who he really is. It turns out he's Michael Schur, writer for my favorite show "The Office". You might know him better as Dwight's cousin Mose.

All this time I've been exchanging emails with Mose and I had no idea.

Kind of cool. I bet I can beat him at ping-pong.

Break me off a piece of that Chrysler Car.
Break me off a piece of that Snickers Bar.
Break me off a piece of that Applesauce.
Break me off a piece of that Football Cream.
Break me off a piece of that Lumber Tar.
Break me off a piece of that Grey Poupon.
Break me off a piece of that Fancy Feast.

It's the cat food! Nailed it!

If you didn't watch The Office last night, you probably don't want to read on because there will be spoilers.

Overall, I thought the season premier episode of The Office was fair. It might just be that I need build up my immunity to the asininity of Michael Scott again. His personality is so grating that last night was like nails on a chalkboard. I'm sure that after a couple episodes I'll start to find him endearing again, but last night he was just irritating.

Pam and Jim are together. But they're not telling anyone? Why? I think it's just because they like playing with people's heads. It's driving Kevin insane not knowing. Jim and Pam were pretty much just lovey dovey yesterday which I suppose is a shout out to all the teeny-bopper fan sites that were clamoring for "Jam" to get together. Hopefully the whole season won't be like that. I don't really care what Jim and Pam do after work, but in the office I want them inventing diseases and hiding cell phones.

Dwight killed Angela's cat. On purpose. Classic Dwight. Will we see Andy make a go at Angela this season? That would get us back to the Dwight-Andy conflict that was so great last year.

The "fun run" was a decent enough story line and all the circumstances surrounding the giant check were brilliant. I'd give this episode a B-. It wasn't their best effort but there were some memorable scenes.

What were your thoughts on the episode? Where do you think they're going to go from here?

***UPDATE: Remember to vote in the Office Poll on the left column!

There's a new poll posted in the left hand column in honor of the season premier of The Office this Thursday.

Let us know your favorite character in The Office. Feel free to let us know why you chose who you did in the comments section of this post.

Dinkin flicka!

NOTE: Some Spoilers

"Entourage" had another less than stellar episode last night. Is it impossible for them to come up with a joke or situation that isn't entirely contrived and unfunny? Between Drama continuing to give off vibes that he's into guys, Turtle wanting to date a girl with a psycho father, and Vince/Eric putting all of their efforts into a movie project that I can't see anyone ever wanting to see (would you see a movie called "Medellin"?), this show continues to frustrate me. Why can't they go back to the story-lines that made me want to watch from the beginning: Drama getting road rage, Turtle coming up with Zack Morris-esque money making schemes, and Vince bagging hotties? As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke........

Only 2 episodes left of "The Sopranos". I'm excited if only to see how they plan to wrap up 500 different story-lines in 2 weeks. Have you noticed that they continue to introduce new characters? Wrap it up Boys, we're running out of time. I do appreciate that they're giving tons of screen time to A.J. even though he's never shown the ability to act. As Rob Schneider, Dana Carvey, and Adam Sandler imitating Jerry Seinfeld would say, who are the ad-wizards who came up with that one? This still remains the best show on TV though. Every week, we're treated to a new 1-hour movie. I'm gonna miss it.

If you haven't been paying attention, you probably didn't realize that MTV has given the go-ahead to the biggest no-brainer in television: reuniting the cast of Real World Vegas for another go 'round so we can find out what happens when 7 unrealistically good looking people who like to engage in acts that shouldn't be shown on regular television get together in Vegas again, and start gettin' real. Oh trust me, I will.

And finally, good work Jim. It only took you 3 years, but you done good. Karen was the fun choice that you brag about to your friends. Pam was the right choice for the long-haul. You won't see that on a Hallmark card, but it's the truth. Thursday night's episode was 60 minutes of brilliance. Hopefully Jim won't screw this up Ross Geller-style.

• So a bunch of guys do illegal steroids, then the guys who rat them out go to jail? What kind of screwed up system is that?

• I want to go to Olive Garden sometime and order the "piskety".

• As stressed out as I was last October, I'm almost glad that the Sox decided to suck their way out of contention this year. Candy corn anyone?

• Did you see the season premier of The Office last night? An instant classic. The scene with the Jello mold was by far the funniest moment in the show ever. Can that really be done? My cubicle neighbor has a bunch of stuff that needs to be Jellofied.

• Is it okay to find Jamie Pressley kind of attractive? That doesn't make me white trash by association does it?

• What's the statute of limitations on how long I have to keep a greeting card? Is 10 seconds long enough?

• Did anyone watch Survivor last night? I missed it. In case you hadn't heard, they've separated the teams by race this year. I'm not sure if their intention is to show that stereotypes are incorrect or that they are correct but just off the top of my head, here's a quick list of events the producers probably don't want to have happen this season:
  
• An asian team member wins the car and subsequently drives it into the ocean.
• The chubby white girl gets romantic with one of the black guys. (Ok so there isn't a chubby white girl this season, and I think we know why)
  
• Someone on the white team says the words, "you people".
  
• The hispanic team escapes the island and swims to Miami.