Media-crity

Anyone not watching this show is crazy. The characters make up one of the best ensembles I’ve seen on TV in a long time. Individual stand-outs are Seth Gabel as charming party boy Jeremy Darling. He’s sometimes slimy but has this boyish glee about him in all he does that makes him lovable. The other is Glenn Fitzgerald as recently-defrocked priest Brian Darling. I love his relationship with newly-discovered half-brother and family lawyer/wrangler Nick George (Peter Krause) and his formerly-secret love child Brian, Jr. (aka, Gustav the Swedish orphan). He’s selfish, self-absorbed, whiny, pouty, childish … and completely irresistible. Hearing the actor speak about how awkward and humbled he feels on set, working with industry giants like Donald Sutherland cemented my love for both the actor and the character.

If you haven’t already, give this show a chance. You won’t regret it. It’s one of two shows I’ve managed to keep up with this season, despite my struggles with chemistry and my constant studying/working. The other being *coughgossipgirlcough* unimportant not in need of a discussion.

Even if I’m not engaging in my patented celebratory dancing and cheering, rest assured, on the inside, I’m happy for you. Really. It hurts a little, but I can be mature about this and say good job. Also, you crushed the Rays so good on you for that! My post-season goal of knowing, if not seeing, that Upton is somewhere crying like Jeter, has been realized.

So strap on your goggles, pop the champagne, and go to town. You deserve it.

CON: Got stood up without a phone call
PRO: I have an awesome husband who drove me 2 hours so I could see an artist he hates

CON: Didn’t get to see Malin with Matt like I had been looking forward to
PRO: DID get to see Eric, which is always awesome

CON: Left my license at the bar somehow
PRO: … I’ll have to get back to you on that one. Sigh. No one’s answering at the Iron Horse.

BONUS that made it all worth it: Another fantastic show. Eric’s review here.

He did all of my (most recent) favorites: Little Star, Aftermath, Riding on the Subway. I am a happy girl. Or at least as happy a girl who doesn’t have her license and doesn’t quite know where it is can be.

Lisa has thrown down the gauntlet, suggesting that we (the people whose blogs she reads) make an effort to post about 10 things on a topic every week.

This week is 10 Favorite Websites. For me, this changes a lot depending on what I’m obsessing over.

1. Universal Hub: Adam, the webmaster, combs a ton of RSS feeds looking for interesting, breaking, quirky stories about Boston. It’s the first place I check when something breaks because it gives me what people are saying, not just the quick hit blurb the mainstream news has. There’s a real community feel there that makes it more personal than going to boston.com or WBZ’s website which, most of the time, doesn’t even have the story up right away. I also enjoy his snarky headlines/comments on some of the stories.

2. Facebook: Enough said. I can’t get enough of finding out when my friends are making dinner or going out or using the bathroom!

3. Twitter: Like Lisa, I was suspicious of Twitter. It seemed pointless. But now, especially with the search feature, I’m a convert. Plus it’s nice to have somewhere to make a note of odd things I might encounter but don’t know who to tell, like the man riding a unicycle like a road bike a few weeks ago.

4. Center Field: A fantastic Sox blog with a plethora of Pedroia-related posts. That gets an A+ in my book.

5. Call of the Green Monster: He’s been on hiatus since August but it’s still full of side-splitting baseball-related (okay, mostly Sox-related) parody stories. I was going to link my favorite post but I couldn’t pick one, so go read all of them.

6. GMail: I love love love GMail because I was able to link it to my home email, allowing me to check all my email accounts in one place AND not have to deal with my hosting provider’s crappy webmail anymore. The search function is phenomenal. And it has gchat.

7. Goodreads: I’m not as active on Goodreads anymore but I do go back from time to time. I love being able to go back and see what I’ve read or what I thought about a certain book.

Flannery’s book montage

Powered by Goodreads.com

(this is getting hard)

8. Pandora: Streaming radio that plays songs based on a particular artist. I’ve had great luck finding songs this way.

9. Extra Bases: Boston.com’s Red Sox blog.

10. Group Recipes: They call it a Food Social Network but I call it a damn fine way to store recipes, and find new ones. The best part is the tag system, which is true of so much of the internet. You can search by flavor, season, cuisine, anything.

As many people around here know, the City of Boston started a tourism campaign called Visit the Pin, placing 12′ high lollipops map pins at various tourist traps interesting landmarks around the city. They each have a tag informing you of where you are, why it’s important, and a number to send a text message to for more information.

So, did this one have a few too many blue fishbowls at The Landing and stumble home, drunk, at closing time, only to wake up having no idea whose couch it was sleeping on?

Sunday, as I mentioned, I went to the Sowa Open Market with a craft-minded friend. I don’t think we stopped laughing the entire day, which was nice. It started when I was on the orange line heading down to meet her. A little girl, maybe 4 or 5, sat next to an older man in his mid-late 50s. She looked up at him and, in that disarming way kids have, asked him his name. He said it was Kim and asked hers. She looked at him, broke into a big grin and shook her head. “No it isn’t!” she said, as though he had just told her it was Mickey Mouse. “Your name is Grampy!” He took it very well and confirmed that he was, indeed, someone’s Grampy. She happily sat next to him, with her parents in the seats across from her, for a few minutes before leaping up to look out the window. She was so absorbed in watching the scenery go by that she didn’t notice when he got off until the next stop.

Furrowing her brow, she looked around, concerned. “Where did Grampy go?” she asked, confused. Our section of the train once again burst out laughing.

At the market we saw all sorts of neat stuff like decoupage map bracelets, purses with all kinds of lovely fabrics, beach-glass-and-metal pendants, handmade stationary, paintings, antiques, illustrations …

We looked at every booth and I came away with two purchases, which I am going to plug here because the artists were both so awesome and they deserve to be plugged and to have lots of people buy stuff.

The first thing I bought was the book Goodbye, Penguins by Greg Stones, the plot of which is “fifteen penguins go for a walk and disappear one by one in humorously tragic ways.”

It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time. Check this out!

One penguin was abducted.

That’s just one of the pages from the book! He also has a bunch of hilariously random watercolors involving penguins, robots, zombies, mermaids, and sheep. This is one of my favorites.

Penguins, Man, Baseball

Seriously. My friend and I spent 20 minutes in his booth crying from laughing so hard. And we weren’t the only ones.

The other thing I bought was a print from Eric Sturtevant. He draws this adorably, hilariously cartoon-y animals. If you have kids, you should definitely check this guy out. In fact, if I know your kids, they might just be getting some art this Christmas!

Look at how cute this is:

“Early Reading Time”

And some of them, like the one I got, are just hilarious:

“Medieval Firefighter”

He ALSO just got a contract with Barnes & Noble for puzzles and kids card games, which is so awesome for him. Anyone for Old Maid?

Finally, this is a plug for someone who isn’t local but I so wish was. And if she was she would have had the most popular booth at the market.

To start, my friend Laurel and her husband Lorne are some of the awesomest people I know. You may remember Lorne and Laurel from when they visited this winter, or from the link to her blog over there on the side. Well now they’ve gotten their shop, PenguinBot open for business! Please go check it out, you won’t regret the click.

For instance, wouldn’t you be the most stylish lady on the block with this tote?

Or how about this knit clutch with HAND-WHITTLED handles? HAND-WHITTLED, PEOPLE.

Or she takes custom orders! I had one custom-made back in February and eagle-eyed readers can spot it in several pictures around the blog, such as running into and out of the Pacific Ocean this past July. I carry it pretty much every day and I love it. It has a little pocket that’s the perfect size for my iPod and Charlie Card, curing me of my habit of tossing the card in after I tapped it and then spending 5 minutes the next time I needed to get on the T cursing and dumping the contents of my bag onto benches and floors throughout the city. She has also done things like custom diaper bags and a bag with a special pocket for a hunting knife. The possibilities are endless!

And now I will close with a frightening encounter I had on my way home Sunday.

I was standing on the orange line platform at downtown crossing, waiting for the train that had just been announced, when this guy came stumbling up. A guy carrying a large duffel bag, waving an American flag, and wearing a freaking Jason mask! He stood on the yellow line and yelled at the oncoming train, waving his flag and thrusting his hips at the train, then turned and lurched at me and got right in my face and yelled something before I jumped aside and he continued. I ran down to get in the next car because I was NOT riding with that dude. I sat all the way to the side and could see him in the next car. He stood way down at the far end of the train, leaning against the door to the conductor’s compartment. I obviously couldn’t hear him but I could see him gesturing crazily and waving his flag in peoples faces STILL WEARING THE CREEPY JASON MASK. I felt like I was in a horror movie and he was about to storm the conductor’s compartment and take over the train.

Fortunately, he didn’t. He got off at North Station and sat down on the bench.

CREEPY. Also funny now that I no longer fear having a supporting role in Final Destination XXVIII.

Okay so I lied. More baseball. I spent some time today reflecting on how incredible this team is and how proud I am to support them, win or lose.

First, there was this: the ad in the Globe after the sellout record was broken. Seeing all those moments and memories and asides listed in one place reminded me why, through the pre-2004 heartbreak and the post-2004 and -2007 bandwagon (ooh dirty word!) expectations, I have never given up on this team. Why I named my first car Pedro. It’s more than Papelbon getting it done, more than rings, more than rolling rallies or trophies. It’s being part of the year-round dedication and the community and the mutual affection between the team and the fans. It’s the late nights and the 2 Diet Cokes at 10 pm that, in the end, don’t matter if they win or lose because that’s not what it’s always about.

Not that it isn’t that much better when they do win. Ahem.

And, while I have love for the entire team, every last one of them, it’s no secret that my heart and attention belong to one little pony. So, in closing, I present the Top 10 Reasons I’m Proud to Rock the #15 Jersey:

1. He gave back the last two years of his ASU scholarship so they could recruit more pitchers. And, in typical Pedroia fashion, he shrugs it off as no big deal, saying that he knew the team could only get better if they could recruit more pitchers.

2. The story of his first meeting with his coach at ASU, in his cut-off white undershirt and his gun show.

3. Playing out the season and postseason with a broken hand and, again, shrugging it off with “Eh, I just changed my grip on the bat, made some adjustments.”

4. In contrast to 1 and 3, his cocky attitude just kills me every time. He truly believes he can hit every single pitch out there. He believes he’s the greatest. “The strongest 160-pound player in the league, right here!” indeed. See also, from ESPN magazine:

Now Pedroia hops up the dugout steps and shouts in Millar’s direction: “Hey, 2004 was like 20 years ago! And all you did was walk! Mariano let four fly! It was not, like, some 12-pitch at-bat!” Pedroia imitates Millar’s stance in that critical Game 4 moment against the Yankees, with the Red Sox three outs away from elimination. He mimics the way Millar steps in the bucket. He does it four times. “Ball 1, Ball 2, Ball 3, Ball 4,” he says. “That’s all you did.” Millar isn’t even paying attention.

5. Continuing on that theme: his swing. He puts everything he’s got into it, wringing his body like a dishrag by the time he finishes the follow-through.

6. The Ping-Pong Championships with Youk and Lowell.

7. The infamous story of the mystery fan who asked him to sign the ball “Dustin Pedroia 2007 ROY” early into the 2007 season when his stats were in the sub-basement.

8. His relationship with Tito and the rest of the guys. I’m a sucker for the genuine affection they have for each other and for him. He and Tito play cribbage every day! How cute is that?

9. This season, opposing teams grew to fear him as much, if not more, than Big Papi himself.

10. This smile right here:

He just loves this freakin game and he shows it day in and day out.

11. BONUS! This GIF:

As much fun as he has playing, he expects the very best of himself and it shows. He seems like a great mix of lighthearted, childlike glee and hardworking dedication to his craft.

Tomorrow, I swear, the story of how I got the crap scared out of me at Downtown Crossing by a guy in a Jason mask on my way home Sunday and a showcase of three awesome artisty people who make awesome things that you should buy.

I do have a few non-baseball related posts in the hopper, mostly about some cool artists I saw today at the Sowa Open Market but I need to go to bed, so I leave you with this:

“This is the coolest day I’ve ever had and I’m not surrendering! I’m not giving up!”
–~5 year old boy running after his mother at the Prudential B&N this afternoon

Kids are funny.

From what felt like calling up little leaguers to fill in the holes due to injury and illness, to late night miracles, to Manny Being Manny, to Manny Being An Asshole, to Manny Being A Dodger. From tall, leaping, high-five catches to little ponies. From blown saves to unreal comebacks. From bottomless slumps to grand slams. From the beginning this season to that out at 2nd, this has been an exhilarating ride with the best team in baseball.

Thanks, guys. I wouldn’t trade a second of it. See you in April.

(PS: Philly, give Upton hell for us.)

Oh go play in traffic, TBS. Guy knocks it out of the park in the #2 spot on his first at-bat and all you can do is comment on the strategy of taking down ‘the littlest guy on the field’? It WAY old now.

Know what’s not old, though? Steve Harvey. Teehee. Dumbasses.

For those of you not obsessed with baseball– who have probably given up reading my blog at this point, actually– TBS had a power outage issue last night and fans tuned in to watch a 10 minute “blooper” show followed by an episode of the everyone’s favorite classic TV show: The Steve Harvey Show. Yeah. There was a lot of screaming.

Whatever happens, I’m already crying. This is incredible.

I cannot BREATHE. I am shaking.

COME ON, BABY. YER UP. DO IT.

You can blow all the positive hot air you want now but we will never make up. It’s over.

Oh, okay. Whew. Back to normal with the 3 Manny mentions in as many minutes, topped with a few Lowell comments. Thanks.

I am done with this game. I’m either watching Gossip Girl or going to bed.

I made threatening gestures at my TV when that ball sailed over Pedroia’s head, just DARING them to say something about his height. And they didn’t. So thank you.

That being said, guys. Come on. Yer killin me.

This is how I’ve spent most of the night. Except I finished that bottle around the end of the 8th and then opened a can.

I’ve also been twittering up a storm, which is kind of fun. Those who follow me, this is what’s up with the constant stream of tweets with #redsox in them

I am so, so tired. Good day, though. Thwarted attempt to get apples (well, apples that had been made into donuts) followed by a trip to Chili’s with some friends who just moved to the area. Lots of laughing and waitress ineptitude.