Goodbye Chuck

On January 24, 2010 (yes, I remember the date), I discovered Chuck, and although I was 4 years late to the game, I became one of its rabid fans.  It took me just 6 days to completely catch up on the series and then on February 1st, I started watching again.  Call me obsessed; I know I would.

I knew the show was “on the bubble” and would probably not receive a 5th season, so I was surprised to learn that it got a 13 episode pick-up.  I was ecstatic; I was getting 13 more hours of Chuck.  Tonight, the clock struck midnight, and I feel like Prince Charming watching Cinderella as she leaves the ball.  I have to say, I am a little disappointed in the series finale, but I have seen worse (Dollhouse *cough cough*).  After it ended, I decided to do a marathon of my favorite episodes, but trying to choose only a few episodes out of 5 seasons was hard, especially if I planned on only watching 1 night’s worth of episodes.  (I realize I should have done this last week as a way to lead up to the finale, but whatever.)

Here is my list:

Season 1:

1. The Pilot
2. Chuck vs. the Alma Mater
3. Chuck vs. the Imported Hard Salomi

Season 2:

1. Chuck vs. the Cougars
2. Chuck vs. Tom Sawyer
3. Chuck vs. the Santa Claus
4. Chuck vs. the Colonel
5. Chuck vs. the Ring

Season 3:

1. Chuck vs. the Angel de la Muerte
2. Chuck vs. Operation Awesome
3. Chuck vs. the Beard
4. Chuck vs. the American Hero
5. Chuck vs. the Other Guy
6. Chuck vs. the Subway & the Ring Part II

Season 4:

1. Chuck vs. the Coup d’etat
2. Chuck vs. the Couch Lock
3. Chuck vs. the Leftovers
4. Chuck vs. the Balcony
5. Chuck vs. the Push Mix
6. Chuck vs. Agent X
7. Chuck vs. the Last Details
8. Chuck vs. the Cliffhanger

Season 5:

1. Chuck vs. the Business Trip
2. Chuck vs. the Hack Off
3. Chuck vs. the Santa Suit
4. Chuck vs. the Kept Man
5. Chuck vs. Bo
6. Chuck vs. the Bullet Train
7. Chuck vs. Sarah & the Goodbye

Looks like I’ll be watching a lot of Chuck.  What about you?

What’s the Difference?

I’ve been derelict in my blogging over the last several months.  There are probably dozens of reasons that I could site for this, but none of them really matter to anyone but me.  The reason I am writing at a quarter after midnight less than a week before Christmas after months of silence is because of a discussion I had with my aunt this evening—or yesterday rather.  One of my young cousins just got a facebook page and my aunt wanted to see her page—she likes to know what we’re all doing at any given moment, but she doesn’t want to have her own facebook page.  She didn’t have any major problems with the page…until she got a look at my cousin’s pictures.  Now, I know what you’re thinking—she must have one of those scandalous bathroom pictures and a ton of make-up, but that isn’t the case.  What bothered my aunt was the type of friends that she had, none of whom were white like her.  (Unlike my own response, which was one of both surprise—the little brat’s got a really diverse group of friends—and one of pride.)

 

My aunt, it seems, has gotten rather racist over the last four decades because my mom swears that she had Hispanic and Black friends when they were teenagers.  She was absolutely sure that these kids, who looked rather wholesome to me, would get my sweet, impressionable, twelve-year old cousin in trouble.  Let me tell you, you couldn’t have picked my jaw up off of the ground with a forklift.  What exactly would Hispanic and/or Black kids do that could get a little white girl in trouble?  Most of the kids I knew at my cousin’s age were all white.  Each and every one of them was trouble.  The year I turned 12, a bunch of the kids in my class (all of whom were whiter than white) were caught drinking at the school sponsored Fashion Show (one of these kids actually stole the alcohol from the restaurant and got so drunk that he was unable to come to class the next day).  At the same function, most of the girls in the grade above me were caught smoking in the bathroom.  A few years prior to this, one of the girls a year older than me got in trouble because she managed to get onto the internet and do some really inappropriate things while on there (the rumor at the time was that she was having cyber sex—I don’t know how true that was; she was only in 5^th grade, however, if there was a girl that would have had cyber sex at the tender age of 10, this was the girl).

 

In high school, my social circle grew to include Black, Hispanic, and Indian kids—all of who were in my honors and advanced placement classes.  The reason these kids became my friends was that they were the ones in my classes.  These were the kids that I had the most in common with—we had the same teachers, classwork, and homework.  We all had the same gripes.  A few of my friends were white, but the majority was not.  Why was this?  The white kids were all in the remedial classes.  Most of them couldn’t read See Spot Run let alone Moby Dick.  They were also the ones that would set the local park on fire at least once a week.  Several of them got pregnant and dropped out before we managed to make it to Senior Year.  If these were the kids I was supposed to hang out with, I wonder what would have happened to me?  Would I have graduated from high school, gone on the college, and eventually obtained my Masters Degree?  Probably not.  I would probably be a stoner with a gaggle of brats—all with different fathers–, who was fired from the local McDonalds because I couldn’t maintain focus long enough to flip a burger.  It is safe to say that I am really glad that I didn’t hang out with the white kids in high school.

 

I have nothing against white people.  Most of my current friends are white for the same reason most of my friends in high school were Black and Hispanic—they were the people I went to grad school with and so they are the people I have the most in common with.  It just makes me so mad when someone who seems like a good person suddenly says or does something so completely insane.  The thing is that this is not the first time my aunt has said something so stupid based on race—when I was looking for roommates in Boston, she told me to stay away from the Black girls because they bring their Black guy friends over.  She claimed that was bad because they would get me in trouble.  I’m not quite sure what kind of trouble they would have gotten me into, but apparently it was scary enough that she warned me away from them.  My brother, my cousin, and I have also been told never to bring a Black boy or girl home with us and that we are not allowed to marry a Black person because we would have mulatto kids and that would be unthinkable.  What???  Why?  President Obama is bi-racial; is there anything wrong with him?  (That is a whole other can of conservative worms that I don’t have the inclination to open right now.)

I just don’t get people.  What is the difference between a white person and a black person?  I don’t see it.  How do others?

In A Heartbeat…

I sometimes forget that there are people who don’t understand what it was like to be a New Yorker on 9/11.  This isn’t meant to diminish what these people felt or what that day means to those people, but being a New Yorker, I am easily insulted when people aren’t somber enough in the days prior to the anniversary.  I understand that you may have other things going on and that day may have meant something to you prior to that terrible day, but you can’t expect everyone else to be chipper just because that date was/is special to you.  Maybe this is a fault in me, but no matter what happens on future September 11th’s, that date is a dark day.  What saddens me is that despite the fact that we claim we’ll “never forget” future generations will not place the same significance on the anniversary as those of us that lived through it.  In 1941, December 7th was a “date that will live in infamy,” and even though every American knows what that day was, we don’t really observe it.  We don’t go to school or work with little American flag pins on or wear black arm bands because most of us weren’t there for it, so it is removed from us, so maybe that is why some people don’t get what 9/11 is to a New Yorker (or to someone from the DC Metro Area–or even Boston where the planes originated).  They weren’t really here for it.  They didn’t know someone that they worried they would never see again because they worked in or near the Towers or at the Pentagon.  Their friends or loved ones were not NYPD or FDNY, so they didn’t have to fight the fear that their hero wouldn’t come home.  In a way, their lives didn’t change as irrevocably as someone who lived in New York’s life did.  They didn’t have to look at the shell of a skyline every time they road the A Train or looked out of the art room’s windows.  They didn’t have to pass the huge whole in the middle of Manhattan.  They didn’t have to go back to work blocks away from Ground Zero in the days and weeks after the attack.  They didn’t flinch every time a plane flew overhead, especially when it was the Concord, which was so loud that it sounded like a bomb going off.  They didn’t fear that every plane crash was an act of terrorism.  They didn’t suddenly have shelter drills in case a nuclear bomb was dropped on Manhattan.

Yes, the entire world changed after 9/11, but for New Yorkers it was personal.  We all knew someone or knew someone who knew someone.  I remember talking to some random girl in the hallway a few days after 9/11.  She and her friends were at the Towers a couple of days before the attack.  I remember my uncle coming home from Ground Zero, where he was helping with the clean up, tell us about finding a shoe with the foot still inside.  I remember my aunt walking around in a fog for weeks after the attack because she was in the city when the Towers fell and witnessed the walking wounded.  I remember my cousin telling me about how she had heard a loud rumbling while she was on the A train that she thought was a really big truck and that when she got off at her station, she found out that the rumbling was one of the Towers collapsing.  I remember my mom signing me out from school, not knowing what to write on the paper.  I remember hearing my name called and thinking that my aunt wasn’t coming home.  I remember watching dozens of students run into the hallways when their names were called because their family members worked in the city.  I remember the silence in the cafeteria at lunch and seeing people crying in the halls.  I remember watching the white smoke looming over what had become of the New York skyline.  I remember going to church and lighting candles.  I remember the memorial that was held at my church, and watching my brother’s classmates stand up (of their own volition) while singing God Bless the USA.  I remember going back to school, and avoiding every window that looked out over Jamaica Bay into the city so I wouldn’t have to see the spot where only days before the Towers stood.  I remember closing my eyes as the train crossed the bridge into Broad Channel, so I wouldn’t think about seeing the Towers there that morning.

I also remember everyone rallying around New York in the weeks after.  I remember the first time the Mets played at Shea Stadium after the attacks, and how it didn’t matter to any of the Braves fans that they had lost.  I remember watching the Concert for New York, and seeing all of the British performers come out to support us.  I remember looking at the sea of cops and fireman and their families.  I remember watching them jam to The Who and cry to James Taylor.  I remember watching all the television shows and seeing American flags everywhere.  I remember watching the news each time they found someone alive under the rubble.

I remember … I remember … I remember.

I remember that in a heartbeat nothing was ever the same again.

Kids and Rules

Everyone who knows me knows that I have no patience for children and even less patience for parents (or guardians) who let their children run wild.  I really think that if parents were stricter (but not too strict–I have an aunt who is absolutely nuts with rules) with their children the world would be a MUCH calmer place.  For example, imagine going to a nice restaurant without getting a headache from the sheer number of brats running around the place while their parents just ignore them.  You don’t know how many times I have had to squash the urge to slap some parents when I go out!  I remember a few years ago, my family went to my favorite Italian restaurant, and this entire family comes in–2 kids in total, although it felt like about a 100).  The parents sit down and start chowing down on the pizza bread.  The kids, however, decided to run screaming “duck, duck, goose!” at the top of their lungs.  The worst part was that these kids were old enough to know better–they had to be at least 8.  I was seriously ready to kill someone by the time their food arrived.  I don’t get why parents don’t coral their kids or if they can’t why they don’t just stay home.

Last week, I saw a piece on the local news about a restaurant in Pennsylvania that refuses to serve children under 6.  I absolutely love this idea.  Why should those of that don’t want to be around kids have to be around them?  I mean if I wanted to hang out with a bunch of whiney brats I would either go to McDonalds or just stay at home and listen to my mom and aunt argue.  There is no reason I should be subjected to someone else’s kids.

Anyway, the reason I started writing this is because I have a 6-year old cousin for whom there are no rules.  He’s allowed to stay up to all hours (as I write this, it is 11:38 pm, and he is still awake and planning his birthday party), he dictates what he eats and when he wants to eat it, he is allowed to yell at adults who dare to challenge him, and he is allowed to make all kinds of noise at any hour as long as it keeps him busy.  Why is this?  He’s Autistic and has, apparently, been dealt a stacked deck.  Let me tell you, his life is so easy, it isn’t even funny.  When I was 6, I was already responsible for my younger brother–if he did something wrong, i was the one that did it because he was only 3 so it couldn’t possibly be him.  Once, he went tumbling down the steps, and somehow that ended up being my fault.

The problem with this is that he is generally a good kid.  He’s sweet and really smart (the kid reads at a 3rd grade level), but at the same time he is a terror.  If he doesn’t get his way, he pouts or he yells until someone gives in–and they always do because he’s “special”.  I think its so funny that they criticize people who let their kids run around when that is exactly what they do with my cousin.  Today, we got into an argument at dinner because he didn’t want to eat the steak that the rest of us were eating.  Instead he wanted a hot dog.  This kid eats 2 foods–hot dogs and pizza.  He is 22 lbs underweight; he needs to eat more that hot dogs and pizza, but whenever anyone (usually my aunt or me) want to make him eat with the rest of the family, everyone else says–oh, he’s eating something, so that’s good enough.  That is not good enough!  Every time someone lets him eat what he wants, he knows that he can do whatever he wants without any repercussions.  That is not a lesson you want to teach a child, but that is the lesson he is learning from everybody.  It needs to stop.  There needs to be rules.  Just because he is slightly Autistic doesn’t mean that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it.

The End of an Era

I started reading the Harry Potter novels when I was 11 years old.  At the time, I wasn’t a very big reader, so my mom didn’t expect me to actually read the book–she bought it for my 8 year old brother, who loved to read, especially the Matt Christopher and Wishbone books.  However, he hated the first book (he read the first chapter and claimed it was boring–not a ringing endorsement, I know). For some reason, I picked up the book, which had been left on the coffee table, and to my surprise, I loved it. I remember wanting to read the second book right away, but it hadn’t come out yet, so I had to wait. I’m not quite sure what happened, but I didn’t pick up the 2nd book in the series until September 2001, several years after it had been released. (As a matter of fact, I was reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on 9/11.) At 14, I was more enchanted with the world of Harry Potter than I was at 11, and from that point on I devoured the books, however, I put off seeing the first movie. I didn’t think that it would do justice to the book. It wasn’t until 2 weeks before Chamber of Secrets was released that I caught Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on ABC Family.  Again, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed something Harry Potter related.  Since my dad was coming in from California for my 16th birthday the week the 2nd movie was being released, I asked him to take me to see it as a birthday present.  So, the weekend before my birthday, we made the trek to  the now defunct Crossbay movie theater.  From that point on, I only missed seeing 2 other Harry Potter movies (HP 4 and HP7.1) in the theater.  (I always loved the fact that the movies tended to be released on or around my birthday–at least until that Twilight dreck began competing for viewers, forcing the Potter movies to come out in July.)

When the last book came out in 2007, I held tight to the notion that there were still several more movies coming out, so it wasn’t really the end–I just got a big jump on all the spoiler sites.  However, as each movie came out, I knew we were getting closer and closer to the end of the series, and now that it is finally here, I’m finding it hard to let go.  This is a big part of my adolescence that is ending; it’s almost like a neon sign telling me that I now have to grow up.  Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the Hogwarts gang did, so now its my turn, despite the fact that I am at least 7 years older than the characters at the end of the Battle of Hogwarts.  I still have the DVD’s and (most) of the books, so I can revisit them whenever I want, but it’s not the same as reading/seeing it for the first time, although there are advantages to knowing what is going to happen. (SPOILER ALERT) Each time I saw Nagini during the battle, I was waiting for Neville to come up and kill him.

That said, I want to give my impressions of this final movie.

1. It was amazingly true to the book.  Sure there were a few things left out–we never get to meet Teddy Lupin or find out that Neville ended up being a professor at Hogwarts.  There was also a lot of the Dumbledore storyline left out–there was nothing about his relationship with a dark wizard back in his school days or about his father’s imprisonment for killing a bunch of muggles, his sister’s death (and his part in it), or much of anything about his brother, Aberforth.  There were also a few changes to the movie.  In the book, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione returned to Hogwarts, they snuck through the castle, looking for Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem BEFORE any staff members knew what was going on, and the first professor to see Harry was Professor McGonagal, who was in her dressing gown when Harry came upon her.

2. Alan Rickman is a great actor (not that I missed that in the first 7 movies or Die Hard for that matter).  Snape ends up being a very complex character.  (SPOILERS GALORE)  He starts out a misunderstood little boy (not that much is shown in the movie–this scene was much better in the book, imho), then a bullied teen, an angry young man, however, underneath that all there was love for Lily.  Everything he did was about Lily.  True, he swore allegiance to Voldemort, but once he knew that Lily was in danger, he was ready to do anything to protect her (and her son).  I think the most telling part of this sequence was when he angrily argued with Dumbledore over the fact that Harry needed to die at the hands of Voldemort in order for Voldemort to be killed.  You can see that he has truly learned to care for Harry, despite the fact that he reminded him of James.  Rickman did a wonderful job of making Snape human for the first time in the series.

3. Neville Longbottom is the most underrated character in the series.  Sure, he was there when Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna broke into the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix, but he never seemed all that important.  The last book, and moreso this last movie, showed us that he was just as important as any of the main characters.  In a way, Neville is Harry.  Like Harry he lost his parents when he was a year old just as Harry did.  Yes, he was raised by his grandmother, who loved him, but nothing could replace the parents that he could have had, should have had, if not for Voldemort and his Death Eaters.  In the end, Neville is very much his parents’ son.  He’s every much the hero of this story as Harry is.  (Actually, I can see a romance novel featuring Neville as the hero =).)

4. The epilogue felt just as unnecessary in the movie as it was in the book.  Of course, it gave the movie a happy ending, but it was kind of jarring coming out of the battle.  One minute, Harry’s killing Voldemort and the next he’s 19 years older and bringing his kids to the Hogwarts Express.

5. The movie should have been released May 2nd–the date of the Battle of Hogwarts–or July 31st–Harry’s (and J.K. Rowling’s) birthday.

What did you guys think of the movie?

The Hottest Kisses on Television

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been stuck in my tiny, backward hometown for 2 months now, and I haven’t been able to do anything but watch television and read. With all the television I have been watching, it seems that my brain is stuck in the t.v. sphere. All I can think about are the character relationships on the shows that I watch (since I am currently lacking in that department irl). One of the things that has been on my mind for awhile is the whole Klaine kiss from Glee. A lot of people were going nuts over it moments after it happened (and why wouldn’t they) because it was one of the hottest on-screen gay kisses (more about this later). This got me thinking about all of those lists about the hottest movie kisses (and the ubiquitous upside-down in the rain kiss from Spiderman). What I have never seen is a list of the hottest television kisses, so I have decided to list my favorites (in no particular order). Obviously since this is a list of my favorites, not everyone will agree with me (and I have a feeling that a lot of the hicks from the aforementioned hometown will want to burn me at the stake for some of them).

1. Chuck and Sarah’s First Kiss Chuck vs. the Imported Hard Salami; Chuck (2007) Charah may be newlyweds now, but back in the the first season of Chuck Sarah served as Chuck’s beard, his fake girlfriend to coverup the fact that he was part of a CIA-NSA operation. Nine short episodes into the season, reality and the lie came head to head when the couple uncovered what they thought was a bomb with only 24 seconds left until detonation. Sarah orders Chuck to leave, but he insists on staying with her. When it is clear that they aren’t going to disarm the “bomb”, they stand there like a couple of putzes (I mean seriously, she is a trained CIA agent!) until Sarah moves in for their first real kiss–a kiss that she regrets almost instantly because they aren’t dead and she still needs to protect him from the slew of bad guys to come.

2. The Doctor and Rose/Cassandra New Earth; Doctor Who (2006) Those that know Doctor Who are probably wondering why I chose this kiss and not the one from Journey’s End. In New Earth, the recently regenerated 10th Doctor takes Rose to New New York on New Earth, where they run into cat people who are breeding humans to develop vaccines for every disease known to man, and Cassandra, who they believed was killed by the 9th Doctor back in the 2nd episode of the 1st season (that’s a lot of ordinal numbers for one sentence!). As soon as Cassandra learns that Rose is at the hospital (and that the doctor is a completely different man), she manipulates them into being separated, so she can hop into Rose’s body (the Doctor has no idea this is happening as he is meeting with the Face of Boe, who may very well be Captain Jack Harkness). Before the Doctor realizes that Cassandra has taken over Rose’s body, she kisses him, and while the kiss is a little awkward, it is their reactions to it that makes it hot. He declares, “I’ve still got it,” and she is visibly flustered. I like to think that there was a little Rose in that kiss, seeing as she was still in there somewhere. Plus, we know that she was infatuated with him from almost the very beginning. The reason I didn’t pick the kiss from Journey’s End is because I feel like the biological meta-crisis Doctor is a consolation prize that the real Doctor is giving to Rose because she cannot have the real thing. Yes, they share the same memories and they look like each other, but they are in fact different people. The meta-crisis doctor is part Donna, and at time even talks like her.

3. Kish Kiss One Life to Live (2009) Soap operas often portray hot-button issues that prime time shows are too afraid to touch, and this was definitely the case when One Life to Live paired up Kyle Lewis, the med tech that helped Stacey Morasco cover up the fact that she wasn’t the one to donate bone marrow to her nephew, and Oliver Fish, the clean-cut Llanview cop, in 2009. At the time it was obvious that the two men had a connection, and at first it appeared that Fish may have been involved in something shady when they were in college (really what were we supposed to think with Kyle’s background?). However, it quickly became evident that the shady business wasn’t in college–it was the lie that he was living in the present: that he was straight. He denied up and down that he was gay, and he even got his very own beard, the unlucky-in-love Layla Williamson. (He also knocked up Stacey Morasco after she propositioned him, so she could pass the kid off as her sister’s boyfriend’s baby.) Frustrated, Kyle planted one on Fish just as Christian Vega, Fish and Layla’s roommate, came upon them. Eventually, Fish comes out–at a protest in which he was asked to arrest Dorian Lord for illegally marrying her same-sex campaign manager. (Unfortunately for Kish fans, they didn’t get to watch their couple for long; conservative homophobes put pressure on ABC/Disney, and the actors were let go from the show–they were, however, honored by GLADD and AfterElton.com.)

4. Ross and Rachel’s First Kiss The One Where Ross Finds Out; Friends (1995) and The Prom Kiss The One with the Prom Video; Friends(1996) When Friends began its 10 year run in 1994, the one question on everyone’s minds was whether Ross and Rachel would ever get together. It was obvious to pretty much everyone that he was head over heals for Rachel and that she just did not think of him that way. Throughout the first season, we watched him pine for her while she dated Paulo, and just when we thought that something was going to happen, he gets sent to China, where he meets Julie. At the start of season 2, the tables are turned and Rachel is left pining for Ross while he and Julie get closer. Finally, in The One Where Ross Finds Out, Rachel drunkenly tells his answering machine that she is over him (causing him to ask when she was under him–what a moob). The cat was out of the bag, but neither knew what to do with it, especially since Ross and Julie were thinking about adopting a real cat, but at the end of the episode, they argue and then they kiss in the rain.  However, all is not well because Ross still doesn’t know what to do about his relationship with Julie, so he makes a list comparing Rachel and Julie.  Rachel finds out and decides that she doesn’t want him after all.  (Right, that’s why she dates Russ–Ross’s doppleganger.)  This allows the will they/won’t they to continue a little longer.  The answer finally comes after the gang views a video of Monica and Rachel getting ready for their prom, in which they learn that when Rachel’s date was late that Ross put on his father’s tux and was going to take her to the prom.  (“Monica exclaims, “I can’t believe you did that,” as Rachel makes her way over to Ross…sigh…and Phoebe says, “He’s her lobster.”)

5. Captain Jack and Ianto are reunited End of Days; Torchwood (2007) and The Good-bye Kiss Children of Earth: Day One; Torchwood (2009) When Captain Jack Harkness was introduced in the first season of Doctor Who it was established that he was omni-sexual, meaning that pretty much anyone and anything was game.  He unabashedly flirts with both Rose and the Doctor, so when the character migrated to Torchwood there was little doubt that his sexual exploits would prove interesting.  What no one expected was for him to develop real feelings for Ianto Jones, the Alfred-esque majordomo for the Torchwood Institute.  At first, it seemed like it might be another one of Jack’s casual flirtations, especially when he describes Ianto as looking good in a suit, but by the end of the first season, it started to become clear that there was something real going on between them.  In End of Days, Gwen, Owen, Toshiko, and Ianto open the rift against Jack’s wishes (Owen even kills him to do so, but being Jack he just comes back to save the day).  Shortly after pulling a Lazarus, Jack rushes out to battle Aberdon the Destroyer, who was released when the rift was opened, causing him to die multiple deaths and to stay dead for several days.  This time when he reawakens, he makes a bee-line for Ianto, kissing him in front of everyone.  What makes this short kiss hot is the knowledge that Ianto is completely in love with Jack (when he thought that Jack was dead, he held on to Jack’s RAF jacket and sniffed it…aww).  Over the next season, their relationship progressed (despite Jack’s feelings for Gwen), and by the time Children of Earth premiered in 2009, Ianto wanted to define their relationship (Jack was less willing, but it appeared that he was more afraid of what that meant than of actually being in a relationship with him).  At the end of Day One, Jack, Gwen, and Ianto learn that a bomb has been implanted inside Jack and that there is no time to get it out and disarm it.  Neither Ianto nor Gwen want to leave Jack, but all it took to get Gwen to leave was to remind her of the baby she was carrying.  Ianto, however, did not want to leave, forcing Jack to make him go.  ”There’ll be nothing left of you,” Ianto exclaims just as Jack kisses him.  ”I’ll come back.  I always do,” Jack says as he sends Ianto up in the invisible lift.

6. Klaine Kiss Original Song; Glee (2011) The kiss that started me thinking.  Anyone that has watched season 2 of Glee knows that Kurt has had such a crush on Blaine, but that Blaine (somehow) had no idea what Kurt’s feelings were.  It wasn’t until Kurt calls him an attention hog and then sings Blackbird by the Beatles as a tribute to Pavarotti (the bird not the tenor) that he realized that Kurt was the guy for him.  In an emotional scene, Blaine confesses that he had a “moment” and that he wants to sing a duet with Kurt for regionals.  Then the kiss that was heard round the teenage blogosphere.  Within an hour there were .gif’s all over the place and reactions to the kiss put up on youtube (it took me forever to find the actual scene!).  It was almost as if every single teenage girl in the world had an urge for a cigarette, but didn’t know why, so they turned to their webcams.

7. Castle and Beckett’s First Kiss Knockdown; Castle (2011) For two and a half seasons, fans watched Castle and Beckett dance around each other, and in Knockdown there was finally a pay-off.  While trying to get the jump on some bad guys, they pretended to be drunk and began making out in the middle of the street.  Less than half-way into the kiss, it stopped being just a means to an end and became a real kiss, causing Castle to claim, “That was amazing,” which he quickly covered up.  That kiss followed them around for the rest of the season until Castle calls Beckett out on being afraid of what they could have in the finale.

8. Gwen and Carys the Alien Day One; Torchwood (2006) Gwen’s first day at Torchwood starts off with a bang when she and her boyfriend Rhys witness what looks like a meteor crashing and she receives her first call from Jack.  When she gets to the site, she accidentally releases an alien that apparently feeds off of orgasmic energy.  Once they track down the girl that the alien is possessing down, they bring her back to the hub and lock her in one of their cages, sending Gwen in to interrogate it.  Not long into the interrogation, Gwen gets into the cage to see is Carys (the alien) was okay and Carys pushes her up against the wall for the mother of all snogs.  Upstairs, Owen catches the show and Jack goes to rescue her.  Fortunately, by the time he gets down there Carys has pushed Gwen away because only a man’s orgasm will work.  (As an aside, Gwen is not gay; Carys was simply giving off so much sexual energy that Gwen got sucked in.)

9. Shawn and Juliet’s First Kiss One, Maybe Two Ways Out; Psych (2010) and Oh, What a Kiss Extradition II: The Actual Extradition Part; Psych (2010) Five seasons into USA’s Psych, Shawn finally got what he wanted–a kiss from Detective Juliet O’hara.  Unfortunately, she was getting ready to leave on a two week vacation with her new boyfriend, Declan, when it happened (even worse, fans had to wait 2 months to see what would happen!).  Extradition II picks up shortly after One Maybe Two Ways Out, and nothing has been resolved.  Shawn’s still confused and has no idea whether Jules left with Declan or not, so he takes off for Canada to see Desperaeux, the art thief he helped the cops catch the season before.  When he learns that Jules and Lasiter are in Canada too, he is overjoyed, but every time he tries to talk to Jules things go wrong.  Finally, at the very end of the episode, they get some time alone, and it looks like she’s changed her mind.  ”We’ve missed our moment.”  Shawn is about to leave, but decides to tell her that “Since the moment I met you I have been thinking about getting a car” because his motorcycle, while offering the greatest freedom he has ever had, isn’t big enough for two.  Jules understands perfectly, and they kiss–only to be interrupted by crazy Canadians with cameras.  The kiss then continues in the true Psych fashion.

10. Captain Jack Kisses Captain Jack? Captain Jack Harkness; Torchwood (2007) Before Jack got serious with Ianto, there was another amazing kiss.  This one was all about Jack–he and Tosh are transported to 1941–right in the middle of the Cardiff Blitz–, where he meets another Captain Jack Harkness.  It turns out that when Jack needed an identity for an undercover assignment (maybe the assignment that had him in London when he first met the Doctor and Rose), he took the other Jack’s identity (because he liked the name and the man had died).  After meeting his namesake, he comments that he never knew he was so hot.  While Tosh ran around trying to get them back to 2007, Jack focused on helping the other Jack have a great last night (he was to die the next day).  He tells him to get his girl and spend the night with her, but what he doesn’t count on is the fact that his attraction wasn’t one-sided.  All of a sudden, Jack-the original, pulled Captain Jack onto the dance floor, shocking the others in the dance hall.  As they’re about to kiss, Owen gets the Rift to open, and Tosh calls to Jack to get him to come with her.  Before leaving, he goes back and finishes the kiss (and I think every television and computer screen it played on melted just a little bit).

11. The Christmas Kiss The Santa in the Slush; Bones (2007) Hart Hanson has promised that next season Booth and Bones will finally be a real couple, but their first on screen kiss was in this Christmas themed episode in which a street corner Santa was found dead in the snow shortly before the big day.  The Jeffersonian team wanted to close the case quickly as they all had plans for the holiday.  The kiss was the result of a deal with Prosecutor Caroline Julian, who promised Brennan that she would get her dad and brother in the same prison trailer for a family Christmas if she and Booth kissed in front of her (Caroline was one of the original shippers lol).  So, Bones sets up mistletoe and eventually swaps spit (and gum) with Booth.  (Too bad we didn’t even get this much when he knocked her up after the death of Squintern Vincent Nigel-Murray.)

12. Where Do We Go From Here Once More With Feeling; Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2001) From the very beginning of the series, creator, Joss Whedon, wanted to do a musical episode (thank God he waited until after David Boreanaz and Charisma Carpenter left), and in the 6th season he finally got what he wanted.  Airing on November 6, 2001, Once More with Feeling quickly took on cult status–one of the reasons for this was the Spuffy kiss at the end of the episode.  A season prior, Spike realized that he had actual feelings for Buffy (which he revealed to her in the aptly titled Crush), but she didn’t feel the same way.  Fans waited with bated breath to see if (a) the WB would cancel Buffy (b) if another network would pick it up and (c) if anything would happen between Buffy and Spike.  BtVS did make the switch to UPN, allowing a Spuffy relationship to be possible, and as soon as OMWF started it was clear that this would be the episode when it finally happened.  In the final scene of the episode, as the music swelled, and as both Buffy and Spike reprised their songs from earlier in the show, fans got what they wanted…and more than they bargained for with this dark and twisted relationship.

13. Suicide is Painless Goodbye, Farewell, Amen; M*A*S*H (1983) Lasting eight years longer than the war it depicted, M*A*S*H was the perfect blend of comedy and drama, and so when it went off the air in 1983, it was one of the highest rated series finales ever to air on television.  In the months leading up to the finale, the script was kept top secret, despite the fact that producers were approached by people wanting to buy it.  (Unlike the other shows listed above, I can’t tell you what fans thought since there is really no way for me to know–not having been born yet.)  When the episode starts, we learn that Hawkeye has suffered a breakdown, and it is eventually revealed that it was caused by the death of an infant.  For most of the movie-length finale, Hawkeye is a guest at a mental hospital, and when he is finally released he returns to the 4077, and though still emotionally scarred begins his work again.  Not long after returning, though, the war is officially over, and the doctors and nurses (and Klinger) are free.  Each person gets a chance to say good-bye (the best of which comes from BJ–goodbye spelled out in pebbles for Hawkeye to see as his helicopter flies overhead).  While waiting for transport out, Hawkeye, BJ, Col Potter, and Margaret stop to say their goodbyes. and instead of a kiss on the cheek or a handshake Hawkeye and Margaret end up making everyone else uncomfortable.

14. Count to Ten Stolen Kisses; Dawson’s Creek (2000) I have to say that this is one of my absolute favorite episodes of Dawson’s Creek simply because it is so romantic.  All season long, we watched as Pacey fell in love with the Potter girl, who for some odd reason had a crush on Dawson when it was Pacey who bent over backwards to do things for her.  (I honestly never understood why anyone liked Dawson; he was so annoying.)  In the previous episode, Pacey finally tells Joey how he feels about her after she calls him to pick her up from Boston when AJ dumps her.  In this episode, the Capeside gang (minus Jack who stays home to spend time with his bf and ends up hanging out with his previously homophobic dad, too) head to Dawson’s aunt’s house for Spring Break.  After an episode of tension, the kiss.  Pacey tells her that he’s going to count to 10 and then he’ll kiss her.  Best. Countdown. Ever.

Midnight Train Going Anywhere…

I’ve been back home for almost 2 months now, and it is killing me. All I do is sit at home watching Doctor Who and Torchwood online (I’m a little late to the game, so I’m catching up) or studying (I just took my comps for the 3rd time). I can’t go out because there is nothing to do here. There is one bar in the entire town (both sides–you would think in a neighborhood 50% Irish there would be more bars, but there’s no such luck), not that it would make much of a difference. I don’t have many friends here. Most of the people that actually like to hang out with me live 4 hours away in Boston. I haven’t found a job and I’m not in school, so I haven’t made any new friends. When I want to go out, my family complains. None of them actually see me as an adult; I’m just some kid–unless they want me to find a job. I’m 24 years old, but I’m not allowed to leave Queens–at least not at night. Apparently, there are vampires or werewolves of some kind hanging around the city after dark. It isn’t as if I want to stay out all night or go to sketchy areas, unless you consider the NY Public Library on 5th Avenue or a karaoke bar a few blocks from Madison Square Garden a sketchy area. Next week, I’m trying out for Millionaire, so I’ll have to be in the city after dark, I wonder what they’ll do then. They seem to forget that I have been living on my own for a year and a half. Did they think I just sat at home, cowering in the corner because it was too dangerous to go outside?

I’m at the point where I just don’t care anymore. Unless it is pouring out tomorrow, I will be going to the lecture at the library (members of the Mystery Writers of America are going to be talking about the ways in which they choose to kill off their characters). I’m even kind of hoping that my cousin wants to meet up in Long Island instead of the city this weekend–the further away from home the better. I don’t even care about shelling out $22 for a round trip ticket on the LIRR. It only takes 45 minutes to get to the city–it will take much longer to get to and from the Island; the more time I am away from the house the better.

I honestly cannot wait until I get a job and have enough money to move out again. I hate having to answer to anyone about what I’m doing and when I am doing it. I always have, but it is worse now, because I know what it is like to be able to come and go as I please. I feel like I’m being fenced in–I live less than an hour from one of the greatest cities in the world, but I can’t leave my own back yard long enough to actually go there. It is just so frustrating! I’ve never had Cabin Fever, but I guess that is what this is. It is absolutely ridiculous that I can’t go anywhere without having a chaperone. There are places that I want to go, but I can’t because there is nobody that wants to go with me. There is a double standard in this house. No one cares if my baby brother goes to the city for the night–to see a Knicks or a Rangers game–hell, he even went to Jersey to see the Rangers play the devils at the Prudential Center (in Newark!!!). No one even blinked when he wanted to do that (and he was only 19), but if I want to go to a decent section of Manhattan (at 24), they look at me like I have 2 heads. My mom argues that my aunts never hung out in the city, but the thing is that when they were young it was actually dangerous in the city–Giuliani hadn’t cleaned it up yet. Today, it is safer to walk around the city than it is to hang out in my hometown, which is only safe as long as you have bleach blonde hair, orange skin, and dress like a guido (and those things won’t save you if you bring someone of a different race with you). (Things may be changing. There were actual black people in Crossbay Diner this weekend! Maybe we’ll actually get some diversity soon.)

Proud to Be an American?

In the week since Osama bin Ladin’s death, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the sudden surge of patriotism that he death has brought out across the country. People are waving flags and declaring America’s superiority. I get it–the man who has literally been the face of evil for the last decade is gone– but what I don’t get is why everyone is proud to be American? While America isn’t the worst country in the world, it is far from the best country in the world. We have so much potential–it is all right in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

However, we always stop just shy of actually living up to these ideals. We’re told that we’re all free to be who we want to be and do what we want to do, but are we really? Are we any freer than people in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran? We like to think that we’re different, but the funny thing is that anyone who is different is denigrated. They’re made to feel like they’re the lowest of the low because they don’t look like or act like the way the moral police believes that they should. If you don’t look like the girl or boy next door and acting like someone out of a 1950′s television show, you’re not really allowed to exist. You’re not allowed to have a voice. You’re supposed to deny who you are and conform because it makes other people more comfortable with themselves. That’s total bullshit, but that is what we do in this so-called greatest country in the world. We hide ourselves behind a mask of acceptability, going so far as to put down others who aren’t afraid to be different just because we’re afraid of what that represents–what it means for us. We take the Booker T. Washington route–we stick our heads in the sand and try to not make waves. We pretend that we’re happy with what we’ve got because we don’t want to risk that to try to get that bigger piece of the pie that we’ve been denied since the dawn of time. The morality police (also known as the Bible Belt) want everyone to be like them. They want everyone to be exactly the same, thinking the same thoughts, and deleting everything that isn’t uniform, and we appease them by pretending to be just like them. It needs to stop. We need to accept people that are different for who they are and not who we want them to be. It will be hard, but I have faith that it can be done, and when it is, that is when I will be proud to be an American.

Exercising Our Right to Free Assembly–Protesting the Cancelation of AMC and OLTL by ABC

Recently, I posted a blog about my anger over ABC’s cancellation of not one but two iconic soap operas–All My Children and One Life to Live. AMC is set to go dark in September and OLTL will end in January 2012. I am now hearing that General Hospital may also be canceled sometime next year. If that happens, there will only be three soaps left–Y&R, Days, and B&B. Despite the fact that I cannot stand the way GH has been written in the last few years (the annihilation of core families, the focus on the mob, only showing certain characters, etc.), I don’t want to see it go. It was of course at one time the highest rated soap on television; now it is down in the cellar. There are many reasons for this, and the easiest way to remedy the situation would be to find a new head writer (Bob Guza is a total ass, who believes that women are stupid and need to be trained to like his storylines). For some reason, Brian Frons, who at this point seems to be a bigger ass than Guza (you’re seriously going to make jokes about Agnes Nixon when announcing that you’re canceling two of her soaps?), seems to like the direction GH has taken, and is unlikely to force Guza out anytime soon.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. Almost immediately after the announcement, dozens of fan groups popped up to protest the cancellation. One of the biggest groups is Protest ABC Across America. It is a facebook group that combined with several other facebook groups to present a united front. It is in the process of organizing nationwide protests outside Disney/ABC studios on April 26th. They have also started a phone campaign, trying to get sponsors to pull their ads from ABC, and it seems to be working. Yesterday, Hoover announced that it was pulling its ads from the 1-3 time slots. Hoover has also created an e-mail account, saveoursoaps@hoover.com, and it has promised that any e-mails it receives will be sent to their contacts at ABC. Today, another sponsor, Excedrin, has also announced that it intends to meet with ABC executives to discuss the possibility of pulling their ads as well.

If you want to help, there is a list of sponsors and their contact information on the wubtub.

Update: Here is a link to Protest ABC Across America’s website. There is contact info for local ABC affiliates and links to event pages for the protests next week. For my fellow New Yorkers, our protest is outside of the ABC Studios on West 66 St. on Tuesday, April, 26, 2011 at 10 AM.

Deeply Disappointed in ABC Daytime

As many who read this blog know, I have been watching soaps for almost 16 years. I started watching in 1995 after my mom was released from the hospital, and the first one that I ever paid any attention to was General Hospital. This was back when Jason was still a Q, AJ was an unabashed drunk, the Spencers and the Cassadines were still feuding, and the writers knew what they were doing.

I don’t know when I started watching All My Children; it was a natural progression from watching GH. One of the first things I remember seeing was watching Dr. Maria Santos Gray walking down the hallway of Pine Valley Hospital. I can’t tell you why that one scene stuck in my head when there were probably dozens of more memory-worthy scenes. All I know is that I looked up from dressing my Barbie doll and there she was. The first story I remember was Julia and Noah’s wedding. It was so romantic.

I do believe that GH was more addicting back then. I can remember more of the storylines than I can for AMC. Unfortunately neither show is anywhere near as good as it was over a decade ago. The last really good story that GH told was the MetroCourt Hostage Crisis, and I couldn’t tell you the last time AMC has really had a great story, although the stories that are currently unfolding are much more watchable than anything GH has aired in the last 5 or so years.

In the last few years, the one soap on ABC that has been consistently good is One Life to Live. Unlike GH (and to some extent AMC), OLTL writes for veteran actors/characters. Erika Slezak’s Vicki has had several storylines in the last few years, as has Robin Strasser’s Dorian, who has recently married Tuc Watkin’s David Vickers, a character that is always funny, but never on enough (that’s what happens when you split time between OLTL and Desperate Housewives). I do not understand how ABC could have canceled OLTL or how it could be replacing it with more reality and talk shows. A lot of fans are trying to get Oprah to pick both AMC and OLTL up for her OWN network, which knowing her love of soaps could be a possibility if ABC is willing to let go of the rights to both shows. However, knowing the way ABC Daytime has been run in the last few years, I doubt that the network would do anything that wasn’t a direct “fuck you” to the fans. (Well, here’s my fuck you to ABC.