Television, Of Course

I've been mentally developing a list of best television episodes of all time. Here is the beginnings of draft one:

1. "Restaurant Wars" - Top Chef (any season)
There is something about the restaurant wars competition that makes for the best episode of reality television ever conceived by a team of high-powered producers. There is something so inherently dramatic about this competition that even the cheesy music and slow-motion action shots that the editors use to pump up the drama, feel suddenly warranted and appropriate.

2. "Blink" - Doctor Who (series 3, episode 10)
This is a strange episode of Doctor Who, because the Doctor has very little screen time, and it mostly focuses on a one-episode character named Sally Sparrow. I usually hate that. I watch Doctor Who for the Doctor, not for some random running around London like an idiot. But, Blink is an amazingly written story and one of the absolute best time-travel stories ever, ever created. It's clever, it's smart, and the parts with the Doctor are also some of his funniest bits all season. So, even though it's a bad, bad intro to Doctor Who, it's the only episode of a tv show that focused on one-episode characters instead of the main characters that I actually enjoyed.

3. "Mac Bangs Dennis's Mom" - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (season 2, episode 4)
I just started watching this show like three days ago, and I'm already near the end of the second season, and the whole show is hilarious, but this episode is my favorite. There is not one dull scene, not one missed line, not one lame b-plot, and the running jokes in the episode are the best example of that kind of cyclical and referential comedy writing that's my favorite to watch.

Dream Speech

This morning, on the way to work, I turned on the top 40 radio station to hear some Britney Spears and T-Pain before transcribing horrible stories of child-kidnapping for Dr. Phil. But instead of "Shorty Got Low" my radios station was playing the entirety of the "I Have A Dream" Martin Luther King Jr. speech. I had never heard the whole thing, so I stayed tuned in. Some things I noticed:

1. MLK Jr. uses a ton of metaphorical language in the speech, these really grand and beautiful metaphors, which I found to be extremely effective.
2. MLK Jr. aspirates his 'h's in "wh" words. As in, when he says "what," he doesn't say "wut," he says, "hu-wut," you know what I mean? Pronouncing your "wh" sounds like he does is generally considered, especially at the time he was speaking, a characteristic of "proper" speech. Most English-speakers don't do it now, unless English is their second language or they have a high-class British accent.

It Dings When There's Stuff

Almost a full month later, my friend Erica harasses me a bit and here I am again. Sorry, two people that read my blog, about being gone so long.

It's been an eventful month, but let's skip all that and talk about comic books. I dove heavy into a Warren Ellis phase last week, far more powerful a phase than when I powered through the first three trade editions of Transmetropolitan in one day. I read his new one-off called Aethric Mechanics [I think that's how you spell "aetheric"] and then powered through all forty-one issues of his webcomic in one day. I'm feeling very in love with Warren Ellis right now, despite the fact that he's a balding man who lives in London.

I'm moving also, from Santa Monica to West Hollywood in February. Moving sucks. Wish me luck.