Mr. Miyagi would be so proud.

So, we all know that I'm a fan of TV.

Lately, I've been rewatching the entire series of Scrubs and it's seriously reigniting my Zach Braff crush.

I'm also a fan of reality TV but not a ridiculous, obsessive fan.

Like, I don't watch Jersey Shore, for example.

I have, however, become newly fascinated by the horrible schlock show Celebrity Apprentice but mostly because Marlee Matlin's on it and I am totally in love with her. Also, I didn't know who Lil Jon or Nene Leakes were before the show, and now I love them both.

And Dionne Warwick is a horrible person who thinks that teaching 4- and 5-year-olds about deaf people is bringing them too much diversity.

Anyway, I like to be kept informed about the other significant reality phenomena around me. So I read and occasionally watch clips of this season's Dancing with the Stars.

And it features Ralph Macchio.

You know, this guy!
















Except, today, he looks like this.














Which is to say, EXACTLY THE SAME AS HE DID IN THE KARATE KID!

Like, it is freaky.

And he does this:



But, my absolute favorite part of that clip is that he named his son--WAIT FOR IT!--Daniel.

As in, Daniel-san.

SOB!

If I Were a Betting Woman, I Would Have Lost

You may remember that in 1998, a little show called Dawson's Creek premiered.

I was 15, the prime age for this show about smart, articulate, neurotic teens to totally sweep me away.

To be honest, I didn't get into it until mid-first season, but I was HOOKED and would meet my friend Liza the day after the show was on to watch the VHS she and her mom had made, so we could rewind and swoon to our hearts' delight.

People in my life understand that Pacey Witter is STILL my dream man.

I must admit that I haven't seen every single episode.

In 2001, I started college and tried to continue my religious following but school took over, as it should.

Still, my friend Bonnie and I would make special "Dawson's" dates, and I'll never forget watching the series finale, crying my eyes out when Grams told Jen she'd "see her soon."

Ugh.

Plus, dude, Pacey and Joey were so meant to be.

After Dawson's Creek ended, I would have bet that Katie Holmes and James Van Der Beek were going to explode.

That football classic Varsity Blues came out and suddenly, with his lower voice and brown hair, I thought Van Der Beek was hot and charismatic.

Maybe he was a better actor than I had realized while watching him whine and cry and bemoan his lack of charm with the ladies on the Creek.

Katie Holmes was in Go, basically playing Joey Potter except on a 24-hour madcap adventure through drugs and Timothy Olyphant.

My darling Joshua Jackson sort of fell off the planet.

And THEN, Michelle Williams, who had always been my least favorite, playing Jen with a scrunched up face and precociousness I found off-putting, appeared in Brokeback Mountain.

And showed up at the Academy Awards, where she'd been nominated, like this:

Win. On so many levels.

I remember, around this time, realizing that Holmes and Williams were suddenly SUPER famous, what with their famous spouses, and that the guys from the Creek had been lost in obscurity.

I was surprised.

What was the world without Dawson and Pacey?

So, here's how I rank them today, from most to least relevant, almost 13 (gulp) years after the premiere of a show that will always have a place in my heart (P+J 4eva).

1.
With another Academy Award nomination under her belt for her INCREDIBLE performance in Blue Valentine, Williams is still winning. I mean, that's Ryan Gosling. So yeah, no contest.

2.
I love him so much. In fact, I watch Fringe because I love him so much. It's also a good show, but I wouldn't haven't started watching if my boyfriend wasn't on it.

3. James Van Der Beek
Two months ago, I would have put him last, but these videos are hilarious, and it shows that he has a sense of humor about himself and his lack of acting skills. Plus, his wife just had a baby, so that's pretty exciting.

4.
A poor showing by a once-promising Holmes, who gets the distinction of being Mrs. Tom Cruise, but hey, at least her new miniseries The Kennedys will be out soon. On that distinguished network, ReelzChannel.

Wait.

If this is any indication, this year is going to be weird.

My friend, KL, has been in town since Wednesday, to celebrate the new year and to do important things like hat- and boot-shopping, and lots of cooking and eating.

After staying up for New Year's until about 4 AM and watching When Harry Met Sally on lots of wine and champagne, we had a very lazy day yesterday, the first of the year.

We stayed in our pajamas all day, ate at weird hours, and KL cooked a large meal for the house, which we consumed over about three hours.

By the time we were lolling about at the end of the day, it was already very late.

But she and I ended up playing an hours-long game of "Marry, Bury, Screw," where each player identifies three people (that you know or that you know of) and the players have to decide who they would marry, bury, and screw among them.

KL and I played a version where we were presenting three people to the other person, sort of as a challenge.

We had benign combinations (Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama) and mean ones (George W. Bush, George Bush, Barbara Bush). Totally silly ones (Nemo, Woody, Shrek) and totally sick ones (your sister, your father, your mother).

By almost 2 AM, we were throwing out totally stream-of-consciousness trios.

and

And another,

and

Finally, KL said, "Telephone pole, water bucket, stairs."

Without another thought, I said, "It's time for bed.

But I'd totally marry stairs."

*No disrespect intended to either Brian Dennehy or Jane Goodall.

The Wedding of Our Generation (in which I try not to sound too bitter)

So.

Prince William and Kate Middleton are engaged.

And, for some reason, I've been affected by this news.

It might be because I'm a little bit too young to remember Diana's wedding to Prince Charles, but when she died and there were all those documentaries about her on VH1, I remember seeing footage of that huge dress. It's like emblazoned in my mind.

So, I figure her oldest son's wedding to a statuesque brunette will pretty much be the news of the year, if not the decade. (If you don't count that Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are also probably getting married next year...to OTHER people.)

Remember when everyone called him Wills in the late 90s, when he still had a full head of hair and looked like this?

(I swear I didn't, like, Google "Prince William hair loss." This was the first picture that he looked super hot in when I image searched.)

Anyway, he's exactly one year (to the day) older than S.

So, maybe part of what I'm feeling is old and lonely.

Anyway, I'm excited for them, I swear.

I Wonder if Students Will Study This Show in History Classes

I've just completed watching the first season of Mad Men, on my trusty Chinese streaming channel.

This is a show of which I've seen most of the second season and have meant to go back and start from the beginning to get all caught up since around 2008.

That's when it started winning all kinds of awards.

I didn't quite know what to make of the show then, and, frankly, I still don't.

It's so weird.

It's like a strange, dark, history lesson, full of inexplicably long-sleeved flannel pajamas, liquor, cone bras, and hundreds of cigarettes.

Nobody is who he seems.

Everyone has sex on couches.

I find myself distracted by thoughts like:

Jon Hamm's hair steals every scene.

January Jones sure is gorgeous, but she's grating.

I can't figure out what I don't like about Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete. But he looks exactly like Wil Wheaton.

Hey, that's Annie from Community!

Too bad I knew Peggy got pregnant the first season. That would have been a real shock.

Wait, why don't they just use their cell phones?

What is it like for the actors to smoke all those fake cigarettes?

If they drank so much at work during that time, who did all the dishes?

And, I have always thought I was born in the wrong era.

If you put me in those cinched and tailored clothes and all that intense underwear, I would have looked exactly like this:



I swear.

I am a Pop Culture Genius: vol. XIII, the Saturday Morning edition

Does anyone remember TNBC?

Every Saturday morning, NBC would run scintillating half-hour comedies geared towards young teens. Illustrious programs like Saved by the Bell, California Dreams, Hang Time, and City Guys.

It is because of these shows that Anthony Anderson (of Law & Order fame) and Jay Hernandez (of Crazy/Beautiful and Hostel fame), who have certainly established themselves as legitimate actors, will always be known to me as "those guys from Hang Time."

Also, Rufio's brother was on City Guys.

My lovely ex-roommate is sharing her Netflix account with me, and I have wasted most of the weekend rewatching The Hills Seasons 1 and 2 on Instant Watch.

Finally, today, I decided to move on to more quality programming and watched a couple episodes of Weeds because I have heard consistently great things about it.

I recognized an actress from this show in the second episode:



Michelle Krusiec played Sui, the Asian One, who, if I remember right, was a bit of a ditzy shopaholic.

On Weeds, she played the tennis pro who is sleeping with (the fantastic) Elizabeth Perkins's character's husband and sticks a racket up his butt during sex.

Moving up in the acting world, for sure.

P.S. I guarantee the One World theme song will now be stuck in your head.

Celebrities are People Too, and It Usually Makes Me Cry

My mild obsession with celebrity gossip and trivia is well-documented and well-known.

I can rattle off celebrity baby names at a disturbingly rapid pace. I know famous people's birth names. I can identify celebrity voiceovers on commercials and in cartoon movies.

(These are all things I mention I'm good at on my online dating profile, btw. Because obviously they make me a charming, fascinating, and highly irresistible woman...)

But I have a confession.

Celebrities make me cry.

I refuse to watch awards shows in a large group because I take the telecasts very seriously and want to be able to sob in peace.

Sometimes I tearfully watch music videos over and over because I'm struck by a single moment when the singer is suddenly acting.

And I've been watching this new NBC show, "Who Do You Think You Are?" in which "seven of America's best-loved celebrities" travel the world to discover secrets about ancestors they never knew.

I literally weep through every commercial break.

I sobbed through Sarah Jessica Parker's episode...and Lisa Kudrow's.

There's something about these exceedingly famous people sharing their actual family stories and their real-life discoveries with a television audience that I find ridiculously moving.

The show is about coming to terms with family and death and history.

The Parker episode took her back to the Salem Witch Trials, which her ancestor survived by the skin of her teeth. And the Kudrow episode highlighted her father reuniting with a long lost cousin who had delivered news of their family's plight in Holocaust Poland and then disappearing.

It's heavy, real, tragic, life-altering stuff for them.

Of course, reading about the OG Bachelorette Trista Sutter's (nee Rehn) daughter's first birthday also moves me, so...

Yeah.

I am Totally Team Jacob

I'm a bit of a snob.

Theatre snob (I even spell it theatre now, thanks to Emerson), book snob (Jodi Picoult blows, people--she DOES!), grammar snob ("its" is the possessive of it; "it's" is a contraction of it is--yes, really), food snob (except for that occasional McDonald's meal), pop culture information snob (I only read classy things like People.com and EW.com, no Jezebel or TMZ or Perez Hilton for me!).

I am in no way, shape, or form, a wine snob. Give me your swilliest, sweetest, most grape-juicy tasting red wine. In fact, give me two glasses of it.

And sometimes three.

And I'll take any chocolate you might have on hand too.

I'm usually somewhat of a movie snob. Most of that, I think, is because of my training and outright judgement of acting and writing, etc.

However, I've also always called myself a pretty naive spectator. I can be swept away by even the silliest or schlockiest of movies.

Which brings me to my next point.

The Twilight Saga.

I was working with teenagers when the books came out and felt very old because I had no idea what they were about or why they were such a phenomenon. Then, I read some of one of the books over someone's shoulder on the subway once and was appalled. THE WRITING IS TERRIBLE!

"Bella said, 'You're beautiful.' Edward said, 'No. You're beautiful.'"

Monosyllabic sentences. No descriptive words.

I am not a fan.

Then...the movies came out.

And the world exploded with RPattz obsession and questions like "Will Kristen Stewart ever smile in public?"

It took me about a year, but I decided I had to see what all the fuss was about. This happened partly after talking to a good friend about how it's really about obsession and longing and unattainable love. She made it sound mildly interesting.

So, I watched the first film, which was terrible. Poorly acted. Poorly written. Poorly produced.

THEN, all that stuff about TAYLOR LAUTNER'S BODY started popping up. And I took notice, even though (vom!) he's only 18.

So...I watched the second movie.

And...I might be hooked.

Granted, I watched the 2 hour, 10 minute-long movie in about three hours because I could barely get through it. I needed frequent breaks because it was so boring in parts.

But also,
a) Taylor Lautner's body is pretty amazing, and I kind of loved how every time Bella saw it she couldn't help but do a double-take;
b) I also loved how every time Bella saw Edward, she couldn't keep the smile off her face--this seemed the most genuine of the acting between Kristen Stewart and Pasty Pattinson;
c) the chemistry between Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner is exponentially more powerful than her chemistry with Pasty Pattinson;
d) this film was far better produced than the first one.

I totally spoiled the next two movies for myself by reading the book synopses and I still don't plan on actually reading the books...but I might actually plan on seeing the movies.

Judge me, if you must.

Getting Better with Age

I've been meaning to do a monster picture post about the men in celebrity land that just keep getting better with age. There are a whole slew of them, and this is, by no means, an exhaustive list.

Let's begin, in order of importance from least to most.

First, there's Patrick Dempsey. He, of Can't Buy Me Love and Grey's Anatomy fame. I am not, strictly, a McDreamy fan, but you cannot deny that he looks better these days than ever before. Of course, this picture may be proving that he's gotten some work done, but still...


Next, Sting. Again, not someone I'm a huge fan of, but Kama Sutra, or whatever he's famously into is doing wonders...
Exhibit A, Sting, some years ago:


And Exhibit B, Sting today:


OK, now, Johnny Depp has always been a beautiful, beautiful man. Let's just pause to appreciate him for a moment, shall we?
During his 21 Jump Street years:


And today:


And, finally, Iron Man, himself.
In less healthy days:


And, these days:

Staying clean looks good on him, doesn't it?

Admittedly, this is a test of my photo posting skills. Bear with as I continue to learn...

Enjoy the Sunday eye candy! Oh, and if I've happened to forget anyone you think is important to this pantheon, let me know!

UPDATE: Shout-outs must be made to cj, who wants Sean Connery on this list. See him then and now. And S, who says Matt LeBlanc is an up-and-comer. See him here.

P.S. S called this the Silver Fox post. Well put.

P.P.S. One more addition, thanks to Catt. Bruce Wills, then and now.