Grey Matter

I think I am having a wee deja vu moment.  I remember getting hold of Seasons One and Two of Grey’s Anatomy a couple of years ago and watching all the episodes back to back while I was recovering from yet another IVF surgery.  And I remember thinking at the time that it wasn’t my best laid plan….

I really like the show – most of the characters are engaging (most – Callie is a bit of a drop kick but I really like Christina), the dialogue is interesting (probably due to my lack of medical knowledge) and there is enough romantic entanglements, professional rivalries, complicated friendships and Machiavellian politics going on to sink a battleship!   So it’s on the edge of your seat drama every step of the way…. Dr McDreamy and the Wicked Witch of OBGYN who screws over the doey Meredith….  the really unlikely Burke and Christina thing… the unrequited George and Meredith fiasco with the sad tragic sex thing…. the Mom with the Alzheimers and the inappropriate disclosures about the boss…. and then of course the Izzy and Denny and the thing with the thing…. OMFG.  Talk about exhausting.  I remember thinking that watching this show one episode after the other like that probably isn’t wise.

Anyway… mark forward a few years and I have gotten hold of Seasons Three and Four and I thought I’d sit down and watch Season Three.  Yeah I know… major drama TV probably not advisable when you’re already down in the dumps.  But what the hey?  I thought maybe their lives will be more crap than mine and all will be well with the world.  So I start watching Season Three and quickly realized that I have NO idea who is who… or who is with who… or what the hell was going on… or what has come before.  Totally confused.  I then proceeded to do something really stupid.  I went back to the beginning of Season One for a refresher… and am now nearing the end of Season Three and I am absolutely drained!!!

It feels like being put through the proverbial emotional wringer and yet I can’t stop watching.  I need to know what’s going to happen next.  I think I am going to have to take a forced sabbatical before attacking Season Four as I doubt very strongly that all this high drama would be advised by my psychotherapist…  if I had one of course.
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A picture is worth a thousand words.

I was recently told that this month’s Australian’s Women’s Weekly (a magazine whose oxymoronic name is NOT on my regular reading list) has a picture of Magda Szubanksi on the cover which I am informed I suddenly have an uncanny resemblance to.  I’ve never really followed Magda Szubanksi’s career… but I know she has been in many skit comedy shows like D-Generation, Fast Forward and that fuckin’ dreadful misrepresentative parody of Australian life – Kath & Kim (God I hate that show).  Yes I know… I am generally acknowledged to be somewhat humourless… but personally I prefer to think I have a more sophisticated sense of humour and this sort of ‘lowest common denominator’ crap is just not my thing.  To be fair it’s not just tacky Australian bullshit comedy that I don’t identify with.  As it happens I also dislike shows like Little Britain or The Might Boosh and I’m not exactly into the cinematic delights provided by the Ben Stillers and Adam Sandlers et al either.

So while Magda Szubanksi is, I think widely acknowledged to be one of the country’s foremost comediennes…  I’m not a fan.  She always seems to play the same role – that of the funny but fat and unattractive sidekick.  So I’m unsure whether to be flattered or insulted to be told by many (including the Small Child) that I resemble her somewhat on the cover of this month’s Women’s Weekly…. now that she’s dumped a pile of weight and has been photoshopped to high hell of course.


 
I can kinda see where they’re coming from – I have a similar round face shape, similar complexion, similar hair colour and style and we also share the same square chin thing.  Given that it’s supposed to be a remarkable weight loss story I hope they haven’t digitally ‘slimmed’ her down for maximum effect.  Though with the journalistic integrity (cough, splutter) being what it is often reputed to be with these chick magazines I wouldn’t be surprised…. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have. 

Personally looking at the magazine cover I think Magda and I have a remarkable and extraordinary resemblance to an iconic television star from my youth.  So I hit the photoshop too and took a photo of myself and touched it up a bit (seems fair – no doubt Magda had the benefit of a professional makeup artist and hair stylist for her picture) and I have made a new cover that I think looks much more ‘me’….

 

 

I’m really rather pleased with the results.  Not only does the new cover more closely resemble me personally… now I’m also a ballsy, karate chopping, frog-loving, prima donna into the bargain!  Much better than the funny but fat and unattractive sidekick.
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Our whole universe was in a hot dense state…

I’m always a bit behind the times when it comes to keeping up with great new TV shows.  Ususally this is beyond my control seeing that the networks Down Under seem keen to keep us many many steps behind our cousins in the northern hemisphere.  It’s probably also due to the fact that I don’t read trashy tabloid magazines and tend not to watch commerical TV anyway so am rarely exposed to trailers encouraging us to watch new things that are coming up….. I think I’ve been scarred by the whole Big Brother thing.  I saw what it did to Big Sal and have decided commercial TV just isn’t for me.

Over the last week or so I’ve been watching The Big Bang Theory and while I am unfashionably late to the party I am certainly glad I turned up!  I haven’t seen anything this piss funny in years.  Amongst my general acquaintance I don’t think ‘great sense of humour’ would immediately come up in the top five if you asked them to describe me.  I think I have a keen sense of humour… it just tends towards the absurd, sarcastic, witty, sometimes dark and off kilter.  I’m definitely more Absolute Power and Californication than Mighty Boosh or (urgh!) Kath & Kim if you know what I mean.  

So if by any chance anyone is even further behind the times than I am… The Big Bang Theory is one of the first shows in ages that is really tickling my fancy.  Watch it. Tis good.

Oh and apparently the intro theme song has an extended version out there somewhere…

The Bing Bang Theory Theme Song – Bare Naked Ladies

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait…
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!

"Since the dawn of man" is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late
And they all died (they froze their asses off)
The oceans and pangea
See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya
Set in motion by the same big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

It’s expanding ever outward but one day
It will cause the stars to go the other way,
Collapsing ever inward, we won’t be here, it wont be hurt
Our best and brightest figure that it’ll make an even bigger bang!

Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating out while here they’re catching deer (we’re catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy
It all started with the big bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!
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Once again (the) Fox screws the Pooch

I’ve been watching New Amsterdam.  It’s a TV show about a modern day New York homicide detective John Amsterdam (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who is basically immortal.  He was gifted (or cursed) with immortality in his early 20s in the year 1642.  Which means he’s wandering around New York City at the ripe old age of 366 solving homicides.  Naturally having lived for so long, he brings a wealth of life experience to his job and more knowledge of local history than should be possible.  There’s a wide scope for story lines connecting to his past… past employment, past relationships, children he’s had, places he’s been and things he experienced centuries ago.

So why, oh why, after barely eight episodes, has Fox canceled it?  I hate it when they do that.  You get interested in a show, start to get a feel for the premise, begin to enjoy or empathize with the characters and then…. yoink!  Studio pulls it… never to be seen again. 

The bastards. 
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Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!!!

Mr K, Yale and Angel went off to something called GenCon yesterday while I was at the Mt Cotton doing the advanced driving course.  Sounds like they had a really good day.  Angel got to play some Pokemon, Yale got a game called Heroscape (or something like that) and Mr K got to ogle the teenage Cosplay chickie in her Princess Leia gold bikini get up (who I’ve heard mentioned no less than 5 times since they got back 🙂

So apparently BSG’s Jamie Bamber …. Lee “Apollo” Adama was supposed to be there but for whatever reason didn’t end up being on the schedule.  Instead they got to meet Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame who we also loved in Death of a Funeral, A Knight’s Tale and the Serenity movie to name just a few.  Cool huh?  AND the Mr K bought me a photo signed just for me by ‘Wash’ himself…..

Wash picture with Alan Tudyk's Signature

But wait there’s more!!!

Angel was playing with the toy dinosaurs that they had on the table where he was signing autographs and the particularly impertinent manner familiar to parents of seven year old boys the world over… Angel asked Mr Tudyk if he could have it.  So how cool is this guy that he signs the dinosaur and gives it to him and now Angel is the proud owner of an autographed stegosaurus signed by Alan Tudyk.

Angus Alan Tudyk Dinosaur