It’s official. The Snook loves The O.C. I even caught him playing air piano during the theme song tonight. (The only other show we do that for is Buffy.) We squealed our entire way through the most recent episode, which involved Ryan becoming Marissa’s boyfriend, Ryan telling Marissa that her mom is boinking Seth’s grandpa, and Summer finally realizing she likes Seth while he’s on a date with Anna. My own personal snort-Chardonnay-out-the-nose moment came when the Snook, musing aloud about Ryan’s past romantic relationships, actually wondered: “What is the difference between bitches and hos?” God bless ‘im. Oh, and I am developing a very unhealthy crush on Tate Donovan. *sigh* Life’s too short to not enjoy crap television once in a while.

Ebert has an excellent Answer Man this week in which he answers some of the criticism Stephen King’s been throwing at him (from the aforementioned Entertainment Weekly column). Oh, and in an unrelated item, Ebert uses the phrase “quote whores.” That made me giggle.

My So-Called Closure
At last. Remember when I ordered the My So-Called Life DVDs, oh, two years ago? What a nightmare that turned out to be. First of all, the company turned out to be completely dodgy and it took over six months for me to finally receive the discs. Then the “exclusive” deal turned out to be not-so-exclusive and the same set turned up on Amazon for less than I paid. The company swore they’d make it up to us with a MSCL lunch box and bonus disc, but before that could happen the owner got arrested by the FBI for various other swindles. It’s been well over a year and I sorta wrote the whole thing off. Lo and behold, today I got an e-mail from a wholly unconnected third party who’d managed to get his hands on both the bonus materials and the list of customers! (Thank God I still check my old Yahoo address.) All I had to do was pay another $15 for shipping to Australia. Which sucks, but hey, I’ll finally get my damn lunch box. If you were involved and haven’t heard anything from them yet, check the forums. The guy in charge seems to be pretty helpful, considering he’s doing all this for free.

As the Sydney Morning Herald is now fully requiring registration to read their articles, I’m starting a personal boycott against them. I’ll be getting my news from the ABC from now on. I also sent the SMH an e-mail complaining about the policy and pointing to this story about the New York Times, which points out how irrelevent the Times is online as a result of their stupid registration requirement. My rage is sated.

Oh good grief. How do I get myself in these situations? I somehow got roped into playing basketball on a co-worker’s rec league team tonight. I’ve told her repeatedly that I haven’t touched a basketball in 15 years, that I’m out of shape and I doubt I’ll last the match, that I’m clumsy and I’ll most likely wipe out on my face at some point. They still need me. Now I’m freaking out that my teammates will be expecting some giant American ringer. My only hope is that the other players will all be tiny Asians and I can just stand under the basket with my arms up in the air.

Update: We won! And I didn’t fall down! Oh my god, am I tired. We only had one sub so I was in most of the 40 minutes of the game. They even made me do the jump ball at the start! (I didn’t get a single finger on it. My vertical is, like, two inches.) I took two shots but I missed them both. My real contribution – if I do say so myself – was on defense. Since it’s a coed league, guys aren’t allowed to block girls’ shots. If they do, the girls automatically get the two points. Since the other girls on our team were little, my job was to be Shaquille O’Neill and get in their faces. This one girl was totally like, “Ref, come on!” when I had her cornered down in the paint. Oh yeah, I was intimidating. My real highlight came at the end of the first half. The only really good player on the other team was this Asian guy who was just schooling us every time he touched the ball. He was barrelling down the court and I just thought, “Self, he’s not gettin’ past you this time.” So I stepped up, threw out my hip, and laid his ass on the floor! Stopped him dead in his tracks. It was a massive foul of course, but he only made one of the free throws so I think it was a moral victory. Go me! (I’m going to have bruises tomorrow.) After the game I was like, “Dude, you rock. Sorry about that, uh, body check back there.” And oh yeah, I wore the big white sweatband. Check out my Intimidation Face!

Saturday night we headed out with Amy and Rob to see Hellboy and eat Chinese food. The movie was pretty good and I can see where the comic fanboys would totally love it. To be honest, it didn’t do a lot for me though. I laughed a couple times and flinched a few more, but I never really got emotionally involved with the characters. I just didn’t care about them very much. There were also a couple confusing plot holes that never got resolved. (Spoilerish example: Why did Rasputin visit Liz at the mental hospital and cause her to burn it up? That served no purpose in his plot. Random.) Sad to say, but the highlight of the whole experience for me was watching the Snook piss himself with laughter during the preview for Dodgeball. Is it any good? Because we can’t wait to see it. That and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. We like stupid movies.

PLUS – I had a moment of pop culture genius at the Chinese restaurant when we were all trying to guess who the hell “Ron Perleman” – who played Hellboy – was. I was like, “You guys, seriously, wasn’t he in that “Beauty and the Beast” show with Linda Hamilton? And he looked like a lion and lived in the sewers? I didn’t dream that, did I?” But I was totally right. And I never even watched that show!

The Snook and I have officially chosen our Vegas hotel: the Stardust. I was tempted at the last minute by a great deal for a room at the Luxor but we decided to save a hundred books and kick it old-school, Rat Pack style. Now we’re just trying to decide if we can actually do the drive from LA only a day after our 14-hour flight from Sydney. Greyhound is only $50… Maybe we’ll just bus it. Any thoughts?

Anybody in the States up for a food swap? I’ve been having a craving for Little Debbie lately that cannot be ignored. (Yeah, yeah, diet schmiet.) I’m willing to send off a little care package of Australian goodies in return. Who’s up for it?

Andrew pointed me to this website about a 90-year-old man trying to walk every street of Sydney’s suburbs. He’s already done 100 out of the 500! Unfortunately he hasn’t been to Chippendale yet.

Crankiness and tears.
My allergies officially crossed the line today from being merely irritating to completely debilitating. It was stupid, but I ran out of Zyrtec a few days ago and decided to go without it to see what would happen. (I dunno; sometimes I wonder whether pills actually do any good, you know?) As a result, within two minutes of waking up this morning my eyes and nose were streaming. My sinuses were burning and I couldn’t stop sneezing. I felt awful. I couldn’t even think straight; it was like my head was filled with nasty steel wool. Even after some emergency Zyrtec I still felt like ass. My head hurt and I was completely dehydrated. I was supposed to go to a Stitch-and-Bitch at my coworker’s place but instead spent the whole day lying on the couch. This sucks. Frickin’ dust mites… I don’t get it! I’ve been washing the sheets in boiling water; we had the carpet steam cleaned; I’ve been vacuuming regularly. Nothing helps. So back on the expensive nightly Zyrtec I go. My allergy specialist has decided that I need “desensitization therapy.” Basically they’re going to inject me with little bits of the stuff I’m allergic to – repeatedly – until I get used to it. I’m just waiting for the allergens to arrive from France (the apparent allergy capital of the world). Then come the shots. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to have surgery on my sinuses! Man, this sucks. Anybody want to chip in and get me one of those Japanese nasal teapots?