Birthday Gratitude

Ahhhh.  I love my birthday.  I wish I could have a birthday every month. 

Oh!  Oh!  We should totally do this.  Let's start a FB page called "I love to celebrate my Monthday!"  You would celebrate your Monthday like a birthday, on the same day of the month that your actual birthday falls on.  So my Monthdays would be the 2nd of every month!  Who's with me?

So anyway, my birthday brought me a great deal of delight this year, as it does most years.  (We won't talk about last year's birthday, mmmmkay?)  My birthday is a day when I get loved on by tons of people.  Some send hilarious or touching cards, some offer friendly birthday wishes on FB or email, and some!  Some give gifts.

Have I mentioned that my love language is gifts? Earlier in my birthmonth (two weeks before and two weeks after my birthday) I posted my birthday wish list.  Everyone should do this.  As Mr. Peevie wisely said, "I like to give a girl what she wants"--and what better way for people to know what you want than to use social media to get it out there?

So at this very moment, I'm listening to my new Bruce Cockburn CD, You've Never Seen Everything.  And tonight I will be creating a delectable dinner in my beauteous oval covered casserole dish, thanks to Mr. Peevie and the kids.

Other birthday highlights included:

• Being serenaded in front of my house by three neighborhood children.
• The softest fluffy pink slipper socks you will ever touch.
• A birthday note from a 10-year-old that read, "you are very nice, pretty, and very good at working things out."  I love that last compliment especially much.
• Reminiscing with a friend at dinner about Howard Johnson's clam strips and chocolate ice cream with tiny ice flakes, served in a chilled metal bowl with a buttery, crispy cookie.
• Having the same friend guess my actual age to be 41.
• Planting my flower planters on the deck.
• 37 birthday greetings on FB, including one in Pig Latin.
• Homemade cards from each of my children, including a promise from C. Peevie that I "get to watch (3) 24 episodes with me without any complaints (any!!)!"  He has started watching season 1 of 24, and for some inexplicable reason, he hates it when I plop down next to him on the couch to watch part of an epi with him.
• $49 from my thoughtful MIL and FIL--one dollar for each year.  You're never too old to get money for your birthday.
• Birthday coupons from M. Peevie, including ones for "unlimited kisses," 1 cuddle," "1 masage [stet] and spa treatment," "1 storybook night," and "1 kick in the butt."  Girlfriend has a bit of an attitude.
• Birthday coupons from A. Peevie, including these: "As many cuddles," "As many free hugs," "5 of anything you want," "20 takings out of the trash," "50 stories," and "30 foot massages."  

A. Peevie," I said, "Does this coupon mean that in 30 years, when you're 42 and I'm 79, you'll still give me cuddles?"

"If you still have the coupon," he said.

When I told Roseanne this story, she laughed out loud and said, "You can't even keep track of your keys for one hour, let alone a scrap of paper for 30 years!"  Ouch!  But I'm taking it to the lock box at the bank today.  So there.

Blogging 24: Jack Gets Laid!

The following takes place between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m.

Smart move, putting the martyr's widow in place to lead the IRKsome peace process.

President Taylor: "Is CTU capable of handling security for the peace process?" Excellent question. I think we all know the answer.

Yes, why are you calling Chloe?

Chloe in provisional command? Chloe? CHLOE?! Has he ever met her?!

"Try to make the transition as quick and painless as possible." AH-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sexy Non-sexy dialog (tm: TWOP) from Hastings: "I let the snake into the garden."

...

Kissing? Kissing! Is Jack gonna get laid for the first time in eight seasons?

Yes. Yes he is. Finally.

Who's the old guy? I mean, who's the old dead guy?

Ah-ha. He was an old guy with a Vantage Point. And now there's a Peeping Trofim standing over his corpse with a high-powered rifle. Ruh-roh.

...

President Suvarov, you say? I remember him. He got blowed up in Season Six, but survived.

"There may be someone who can help us here--but you're not going to like it."

...

Samir has just gone into cardiac arrest. Oh, and he's foaming at the mouth. Hmmm.

Finally! The inimitable Gregory Itzin is back, playing the Nixonian President Logan. Will they still call him President Logan, even after he did all that bad shit?

Apparently, yes, they will.

Logan: "In some ways, the people there appreciate me more than the people in my own country."

Logan: "I'm going to be exercising some leverage--but the details must stay between me and the Russians. No laws will be broken." And also, we won't be breathing, blinking, or speaking.

Logan: "I made mistakes. Terrible mistakes, that stained the office of the presidency, and for which I will be paying the rest of my life. But I can still do some good." I love it when criminals refer to their crimes as "mistakes."

He's still weasely.

...

I'm pretty sure Agent Freckles is going to die.

Shot. In the gut. Can't be good. Bleeding.

(Mr. Peevie said, "She told the writers that she wanted her character to go out with a bang--and she went out with two!" Good one, Mr. Peevie!)

No happy endings for Jack.

Ever.

Silent clock.

Blogging 24: We Interrupt This Intense Program With a Weather Report. It's Raining.

The following takes place between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

6:00:00
The sun is rising over Manhattan. (Sunrise on April 5, 2010 took place at 6:33. Close enough.)

Ethan is still pasty and sweaty.

Wait. Remind me: why is the POTUS in New York again? In imminent danger of becoming POTUS-toast?

Tick tock. Tick tock. Wow. No dialogue. Just...waiting. Tick tock.

Ten seconds to STOP THE BOMB! SEVEN SECONDS!!

Tarin knows what to do.

Hmmm. What. WHAT? What does he know to do? That was pretty good suspense if you ask me.

...

"Can you hear me now?" Nice product tag line placement, Verizon Wireless!

Jack: "It's not our call. President Taylor said..."

Wait just a cotton-picking minute. Since when does Jack NOT second-guess the president and do exactly what he wants to do, even if it is in direct opposition to the president's direct orders?

A black SUV, of course. The Vehicle of Betrayal.

Bishop. The soon-to-be-dead agent's name is Bishop. Nice subtext on the name, writers.

Who is this actor playing Bishop? Looks familiar.

OH! President Taylor got slappy!

"It wasn't your decision to make!"

"I don't want deniability! I want Hassan!"

She's like, ready to cry. Baby.

And wow. That Rob is one cheeky bastard: "Really, Madame President? New York is safe." Um, yes. Really. Treason is treason, dude. That's why Tony Almeida and his Cubs mug went to prison, man.

...

If Dana doesn't stop pursing her lips I'm going to twist them with a needle-nose plier.

Bishop: "We succeeded. We saved Manhattan."

Aw, Boy Scout. You are such an honorable man. Too bad you didn't do a background check before you got engaged to a DOMESTIC TERRORIST.

Tarin, to Hassan: "You wanted the cover of Time Magazine!" Good one, Tarin.

The line that will cement Hassan's place in (fake) history as a Martyr for Peace: "Yes, I've made mistakes. But believing in peace was not one of them."

Aw. Hassan is crying. What a baby.

...

POTUS is putting a lot of pressure on Ethan to get back to work right away, isn't she? Shouldn't she at least let him take an hour off to recover from his MASSIVE HEART ATTACK?

Jack sure is familiar with New York City streets and traffic patterns. It's almost like he's urban-omnicient.

Dana! You evil bitch! Chloe does not trust you; therefore YOU. WILL. BE. CAUGHT.

Arlo! Keep asking questions! Go Arlo! But I'm pretty sure you're going to die and get stuffed into a vent...

Oh! Don't turn your back on her, dude! Don't turn...oh crap. Oh. Crap. Oh...Saved by the earpiece. Phew.

...

"You're on an island, you know. There's no way out." Heh.

Well, if you're going to steal a car for a chase scene, it's good to pick a fast one.

All anyone has to do is take one look at Dana's BitchFace to know she's behind all these shenanigans.

Wait another cotton-picking minute. How did they have a car and two henchpersons, complete with disguises, waiting at the parking garage which was a last minute diversion from the Real Plan?

AHA! The Cell Phone of Discovery!

...

Ad for Home Depot: "Break open a can of doing"? Lame

...

Wait, what? The Russian foreign minister? What do the Russians have to do with all of this?

Oh, yeah. I forgot. We started off the day with Renee separating a Russian mobster from his thumb to try to get to the Chief Russian Scalawag who was selling the Rods of Doom.

And that reminds me: Where has Sark been all this time? I miss him.

Oh. Oprah would not be happy. Jack is texting while driving.

Cole's feelings are hurt. He is probably going to say goodbye to love.

...

I know why Dana wants to talk to Jack Bauer. I'd want to talk him. Wouldn't you?

Excellent Get Smart doors.

It wouldn't be 24 without Jack pulling the old choke-hold-up-against-the-wall maneuver.

Did Renee just roll her eyes in whatever-boredom when Hastings gulped at Jack's rough interrogation techniques?

Dana: Tick-tock, Mr. Bauer. You're running out of time.

That is a cute little blue...WAIT. WHAT?! WHAT?!!!! Really, Fox-News Chicago -- REALLY?!! You're going to interrupt 24 with a freaking WEATHER REPORT? That is so wrong.

[I picked up the phone at this point and called Fox News Chicago. When the guy at the station answered the phone, I said, "Really?! REALLY?!" and apparently, he had received a few other similarly irate calls, because he said, "I'm very sorry, Ma'am, she'll be off in just a minute."

"Really, though?!" I said again, and he said, "I'm very sorry, Ma'am. She had to do a weather update because of the rough weather situation. She'll be off in a minute." And they couldn't just scroll "It's raining and windy in Chicago!" across the bottom of the screen?]

Ahem. Back to the blogging of 24:

Recycled plot device: World leader forced to confess heinous crimes over the internet under threat of public execution.

...

People keep saying, "Get over it."

...

I'm still mad at Fox News Chicago for breaking into the show with a fucking WEATHER REPORT.

Those bad guys must be rilly, rilly bad if they're actually against peace!

Kayla: "Can you guarantee that he will be saved?" No, dummy. There are no guarantees in life, and especially not in a hostage situation. The only guarantee in 24 is that the perimeter will be breached.

Where are these drones, exactly? How can they deliver such clear video?

Jack: "Renee, I need to talk to you. I want you with me on the assault team. I may need your circular sawing and stabbing skills." OK, he didn't really say that last thing.

She is like a little red-headed puppy.

...

What happened to "Renee, you must stay behind me at all times"? He actually held the door for her to go in ahead of him.

Why did Jack put that gun clip neatly on top of the fuse box?

Watch out, little girl with Etch-A-Sketch!

Oh, that woman on the couch is going to scream, isn't she? She's going to blow the whole operation!

No! Even better: she's the be-wigged one!

Oh my. Hassan is dead. The whole confess and then get executed show was pre-recorded. What a cheat. Good thing the wife and daughter weren't watching that.

And...silent clock.

More preview teases with Gregory Itzin.

Blogging the Festival of Faith and Writing:

Dateline: Chicago

Getting excited about the Festival. Arranging logistics: what time are we going to leave? Who will drive? Can we get there in time for the 1:45 interview with Wally Lamb on Thursday? Can we stay until Mary Karr gives the final plenary on Saturday night? (By the way: click on that link. It's an interview with Karr in Salon.com.)

No, no. We MUST stay until after Mary Karr's talk. To leave before Karr would be like going to the Oscars and leaving right before Tom Hanks announced Hurt Locker for Best Picture.

Here's what I'm slating on my dance card in between Lamb and Karr:

• Possibly Michael Perry on "Life as a Bumbling Agnostic," or Matt Ruff confessing "An Interesting Moral Education; or How I Learned to Lie for a Living."
• Another Wally Lamb event: "There But For the Grace of God: What My Writing Has Taught Me About Sin, Redemption, and the Complexity of the Crime-And-Punishment Equation."
• The talk by the poet Christian Wiman sort of intrigues me, even though I am not a poet, and only barely a reader of poetry. His topic is "Hive of Nerves: On Modern Anxiety and Its Ancient Remedy." I loved his essay, Gazing Into the Abyss."
• Maybe I'll check out Kate "The Tale of Despereaux" DiCamillo's talk on "Why Writers Write: Questions and Answers on the Craft of Writing."
• And, fondly remembering my conversations with Andras Visky both in my own home and also in Romania (name dropper!), I am interested in seeing his new play, Backborn.
  

There's more, of course; so much more. But this is a good start.

The primary reason I love to attend the Festival of Faith and Writing--other than the fact that it is three days of NO KIDS! NO DISHES! SHOWERING ALONE AND WITHOUT INTERRUPTIONS!--is that it is inspiring to me as a writer.

So far, the first thing I've learned from the FFW this year: I'm too lazy to be a real writer. These writers are prolific, focused, dedicated, focused, hard-working, focused, and apparently un-distracted by Facebook, 24, and Angel DVDs. So far, in reading through the speaker biographies, I have not read about any writers who seem even a little bit like me. They're all very evolved, spiritual, and terribly, terribly focused on their Craft.

Maybe I can spin that to a publisher as some kind of advantage.

Blogging 24: Hello, Plot Devices! Hello, Subtext!

Now that we know for sure that this is the last season for 24 (WAH! WAH! WAH! But also? Yeah. Smart move, since it's been getting a little shark-jumpy for the last three seasons.), I feel compelled to blog it more diligently.

• Wait, what? Jack just agrees to go and babysit a world leader during an imminent radiological attack? When he's in the middle of the action, he's going to willingly get into a minivan and go for a drive with a politician? Nuh uh. I call lame plot device.
• Nothing good ever comes from a man with a black goatee.
• PresidentTaylor to toady: We can't give in to the terrorists--"Not unless you're intent on destroying our moral authority!"
• And also: "Caving to any terrorist demand weakens this nation immeasurably." These are examples of what Dave Barry likes to refer to as "wooden dialogue" created by the "wooden dialogue generator."
• Hmm. Another plot-device heart attack. I remember that happening in Season Whatever when Wayne Palmer's girlfriend's rich, old husband collapsed and MorallyAmbiguousSherry stopped Girlfriend from giving him his meds.
• I thought they were supposed to take President Hassan alive so they could turn him over to the terrorists. When did that change?
• Did that tunnel get longer for the trip back? Or am I just confused by all the shooting?
  

So, it looks like some fun times are ahead for next week's two-hour episode: the inimitable Gregory Itzin will be back, which can only mean delicious trouble.

Also from the previews: "Tick-tock, Mr. Bauer. You are running out of time."

Aaahhhh. I love the smell of subtext in the morning.

24 Highlights of 24

In case you're not following Dave Barry's 24 blog (you're welcome, Dave Barry), and in case you don't have time to read M. Giant's hilarious recaps on Television Without Pity (ditto, TWOP), this blog is proud to bring you 24 highlights of the Season 8 premiere of 24, to get you up to speed in time for episode five.

1. The first shooting occurs maybe--MAYBE--four minutes into the episode. Excellent.

2. Little-known fact: The continuity staff of 24 use two cans of hairspray every day to keep President Hassan of Fauxraqistan's humungous pompadour pomped. Up.

3. Katee Sackoff, whom many of us in the a-little-too-fond-of-TV-set know as Starbuck, plays Dana Walsh, aka Jenny-with-a-sordid-past, who wears her hair in an affected side sweep over one shoulder. I'm not saying it's not cute; but it's definitely an affectation, and it would be more believable as a style thing if it was occasionally out of place, hanging straight down her back, or if we actually saw her playing with it absently, or chewing on it.

4. The chief bottle-washer of the New and Improved (read: lots of glass and chrome) CTU is none other than Forrest Gump's Bubba, minus the giant lower lip. He talks like a dick-wad, if I may be blunt; he says to Chloe, who's still getting up to speed on the new technology: "I'm all about efficiency, so if your performance doesn't improve, you may want to rethink working here. I trust this has been clarifying."

5. Best moment of Episode One: Jack using the fire axe to do thoracic surgery on the bad guy chasing him up the stairwell, with a mere four minutes left in the epi. Awesome. And then he uses the fire-axe-impaled bad guy to knock the second bad guy over the railing. Double awesome. Kiefer Kill Kount: 2.

6. Second-best moment of Episode One: the helicopter being blown up by a rocket-powered grenade that Jack actually notices in time to pull Freddy Prinz, Jr. down to safety. Because he's Jack Bauer, with lightning-quick reflexes. He's SuperJack!

7. BTW, Bluetooth should be listed in the credits as a character, because Bubba is constantly talking on it.

8. Fifteen minutes into episode two, Bubba displays his true colors, suggesting to Freddie Prinz, Jr. that he conveniently adjust the facts about the recent helicopter-blowing-up situation. Hey, a CTU head who's a CYA weasel! That's new! Not.

9. When Spawn insists on coming to CTU to pick up Jack, we are left with no choice but to laugh at the TV and say, "And that ALWAYS ends well, doesn't it?!" But surprisingly, it does. Hmmm. New writers?

10. Starbuck's dark past begins to come back and haunt her about half-way through episode two. We don't know what it's all about yet, but it has something to do with a scruffy guy, a name change, and some as-yet-unnamed illegal activities that give ScruffyGuy some hold on her.

11. So far, the most boring character is the fake-assassin-contact-insider-reporter-girl (FACIRG), Meredith, who serves as a plot device for diverting suspicion from the real assassin-contact-insider, President's Hassan's hippy-haired brother, Farhad, affectionately known as FarHair.

12. It's good to see that Jack's man-purse is back this season. That thing is probably a member of SAG. It probably makes more money than I do.

13. We've got a bullet in a thigh! And it's not Jack's doing! But otherwise, episode 2 is kind of boring.

14. In episode three, they're still interrogating the FACIRG, and I wonder: when a suspect's biometrics indicate that she's holding something back, why doesn't anyone ever remember that it might have nothing at all to do with the threat? This has happened so often that, were I the interrogator, I would immediately start mining those unrelated questions: are you secretly working for the CIA (S2), are you secretly gay (S4), are you having a secret affair with one of the principals (S1-8).

15. By 11 minutes into the third epi, Jack has fallen into the hands of BadCop--one who assumes too much and wipes the floor with Kiefer's ass for the next 20 minutes. Bad, bad cop. This whole sequence is a whole bunch of time-wasting, IMHO, to make sure 24 remains 24 and not 17 or 18.

16. ScruffyMcTrailerTrash shows up at CTU, and Starbuck actually gives him the keys to her apartment in order to get rid of him. Hmmm. Counter-intuitive, that. I predict that ScruffyMcTrailerTrash will end up dead, and Starbuck will have a body to hide before the end of the seventh hour (11 p.m., 24-time).

17. When CTU finds the plans showing the fake bomb in the U.N., and the dignitaries are rushed to their cars to get out of the building, BadAccentBadGuy gets put on notice that the car will be coming up the ramp in five minutes. Five minutes? By that time, if there really were a bomb in the building, they would be digging people out of the rubble. Plus, how long is the damn ramp? A freaking mile?

18. Another excellent explosion at the end of episode three, in which Freddie Prinz, Jr. saves the President of Fauxraqistan and gets almost blown up himself for the second time in three hours. My next prediction: They are totally setting FPJ up to be Jack's replacement in Season Nine, when Kiefer has gone on to other shows with explosions.

19. M. Giant wondered, and I did too: Where did Farhad-the-Hippie get the large pointy knife he used to stab the CTU agent and get away?

Seriously, a big old sharp knife. Has Farhad been carrying that around all day? While sitting at a table with not one but two presidents? Because if so, that's the biggest security failing of an entire afternoon that's been filled with them. --M. Giant

20. Agent Freckles is back, introduced by some extremely confusing exposition. Did she do this alleged undercover work with the Russian mob before or after last season, which was supposedly six years ago? Before or after she got fired from/quit the FBI? She referred to herself as a former felon--did she spend time in prison? Why? When? Or maybe that was her undercover persona.

I am so confused. I'm going to just let all of this go, and assume that it all makes sense. Like it usually does. Bottom line: She's now DarkAgentFreckles, with a bad-ass history of some bad-ass off-book shit.

21. Nu-KLEE-ar, Kiefer. Nu-KLEE-ar.

22. SARK! Is back! Yay! And he's now part of the Russian mob, into which Jack and DarkAgentFreckles will be going, undercover-like.

23. Holy circular saw, Batman! She cut off his damn hand to remove the parole bracelet! Girlfriend spends one day in the company of Our Hero, and decides his moral ambiguity is just the ticket for resolving her daddy issues. DarkAgentFreckles, indeed!

24. It's not a little bit ironic that Jack finds this bloody violence in the name of national security to be Too Too Much. It's fine when he shoots a government witness and chops his head off with a hacksaw in order to re-establish his cover (S2), but when somebody else starts cutting off body parts, he gets all huffy and indignant.

All he can say is, "Dammit!"--which is the perfect ending to a pretty good premiere.

24: Jack in the Saddle

January 17. Circle the date on your calendar. Highlight it with yellow. Put blue stars all around the edges. And then, right in the middle of the little square, with a thick black marker, write "24."

Because you don't want to miss the season eight premiere of 24. Even if the season sucks, which we pretty much expect it to after seasons five through seven, I'm confident that the first four episodes will NOT disappoint.

Remember the beginning of, what was it, S6?--when Jack went all Lost Boy on that dude, killing him by biting him in the neck? Remember the assassination of David Palmer in S5? The train wreck that opened up S4, with the giant ball of fire exploding up into the night sky? We are guaranteed that the first four hours will be exciting, dramatic, intense, and fraught with peril and explosions.

Here's what we know that makes us excited about the Season Eight kick-off:

1. Katie Sackoff. That's right: Starbuck has joined the CTU team as Dana Walsh, a data analyst with a past. (Weirdly, the Fox/24 website lists her character as "Renee Walsh"--but there's already a Renee, our friendly and conflicted Agent Freckles.) Anyway, we at the Green Room are happy to see Starbuck reincarnated and hooking up with Freddy Prinz, Jr. Although, I'm not sure, but she might be too much woman for him.

2. Drones. What could be more current in the world of cyber warfare, espionage and international intrigue than drones? And what do you bet that the CTU drone gets hacked and redirected sometime during the first four hours of 24? By a guy using a $26 software package?

3. Explosions.

4. My favorite 24 Leader of the Free World so far: President Allison Taylor, played by Cherry Jones. I just hope they don't ruin her character by making her morally ambiguous, like they did with every other president. And I also hope they keep her weaselly daughter in prison. That whole storyline at the end of S7 was a giant snoozefest.

5. Jack.

7. The fact that Elisha Cuthbert is not listed among the regular cast members for S8. She certainly is visible in the promos--but maybe a burning helicopter falls on her head or something, or she gets caught in the crossfire during the assassination attempt, or Freddie Prinz, Jr. accidentally runs over her with a sponsor-brand SVU. It's not that we don't like the actress--but the character and her story-lines could not be more annoying. And not in a good way.

8. Chloe, the queen of snark. And from the photo (above), she looks to be in full snark mode. Yay!

I got tickets to see a special screening of the Season 8 premiere TONIGHT. In NEW YORK. When I asked Mr. Peevie if I could zip on out there, he just looked at me. My heart, she is broken.

But I will survive. Just like Jack.

Flarp, Luigi and Smelly Cheese

"How will I know what's going on if you don't post?"

This from Mr. Peevie, who actually lives in this household. The rest of you, who live several zip codes away AT LEAST are probably FREAKING OUT by now.

So, in a lame attempt to jump-start my blogging mojo, and in order to get everyone up to speed on the Peevies, life in the Windy City, and Everything Else That Matters--here's what's been going on lately:

1. C. Peevie got his giant cast sliced off and replaced with an adorable, below-the-knee red cast. When I drove him to school that morning, I noticed that the car had an odor of old, smelly CHEESE. It was his leg. Gross.

2. It's three days before Halloween, and my kids don't know what costumes they're going to wear yet. This happens every year. I start trying to get everyone going on costumes in mid-September, we plan to get great deals on Ebay, the kids change their minds, we go shopping at the costume stores, we don't find anything, and here we are--three days to go, and no costumes.

One year A. Peevie employed his vivid imagination and his apparent lack of peer influence, and came up with a homemade costume he cleverly called Box Head With Knife and Gun. He cut a narrow slit in a regular cardboard box and put it on his head; and he held a rubber Bowie knife in one hand and a gun-looking sort of metal thing in the other hand--and that was his costume.

Lately he's been wearing Flarp on his hands and arms for no apparent reason, and I suggested that he could be Blob Boy, with Flarp covering his exposed skin. Of course that suggestion was met with much ridicule, and A. Peevie is back to wanting to be Luigi, his first choice. But of course it's too late to buy the costume on-line, and the stores are out. Anyone have any size 12 overalls, green turtleneck, and a green beret?

M. Peevie has gone from wanting to be a karate girl, to a ninja, to a detective. So now I have to find a Sherlock Holmes hat, brown pants, a trench coat, and a "real magnifying glass."

3. Tonight I saw my first preview for Season 8 of 24, that train wreck of a TV show that I love nonetheless, with its hot mess of a main character. I will be posting my predictions soon for S8, but just to titillate your TV taste-buds, here's the first one: Spawn (Kim) will be in DANGER sometime during the season.

And here's a bonus prediction: Spawn of Spawn (SoS)--Jack's granddaughter--(I KNOW!) will be in DANGER sometime during S8 also.

4. Someone stole one of our pumpkins right off our front steps last week. I mean, come ON. We live in one of the most densely-cop-populated (ooh, ouch--that almost came out wrong!) neighborhoods in the city of Chicago, and my PUMPKIN is not even safe on my stoop? SERIOUSLY? People are just rude.

Ten Things I Just Don't Understand

10. A trillion of anything.

9. How a person can justify taking a bonus of any amount, let alone a million dollars, when they've run a company into the ground instead of making it better.

8. Why small business owners think it's a good idea to go on camera in their own TV ads. Don't their production companies advise them against this? Lawyers and car dealers are the worst offenders. People--it just doesn't work. Your ads are obnoxious and annoying! Hire professional actors!

7. Why Adam Sandler is so popular.

6. Why Arrested Development was cancelled.

5. Why people make a big deal out of graduation...from preschool. Or kindergarten. Or elementary school. Or 8th grade. Isn't that setting the bar pretty low, to act like it's a major accomplishment? Stop it, people! Just say no to preschoolers wearing caps and gowns.

4. How anyone can resist bacon; and on a related note: how can bacon be so delicious and also, so useful. I believe the more bacon you eat, the lower your chances of getting swine flu. (Props to J.Ro.)

3. The Twitter craze. Can you explain it to me?

2. How an airplane that weighs 187,000 pounds can fly.

1. And the number one thing I just don't understand: How all the actions of Evil-Good-Evil-Again Tony make any sense at all if he was really Evil Tony all along. This point is moot, of course, now that we know that Evil-Good-Evil-Good Tony was out to avenge Michelle's death throughout the course of Day Seven. I guess he was just cackling insane, like Rush Limbaugh.

Of Chest X-Rays, Weaponized Bio-Agents, and Evil Tony

OK, fine. You can all breathe more easily now, because my chest X-ray came back negative. No tuberculosis. So you won't have to take prophylactic antibiotics or get chest X-rays. Aren't you relieved?

But now we're faced with not knowing what mysterious malady is marauding my mortal coil. Unsettling, isn't it? My doc has plied me with samples of Nexium, the new purple pill, in the event that all or some of my symptoms can be attributed to acid reflux disease. Like, I'm so sure.

To make matters worse, this morning I stupidly slipped on some stupid water in my stupid kitchen while wearing those stupid faux crocs that ALWAYS cause me to fall on my ass--and now I'm hobbling around like House, only slower and with more wincing. I twisted my leg under me in a way that violated the normal, isometric preferences of my ligaments, and I think I need a leg transplant to go along with my lung transplant.

My kids saw me tumble and came running over, filled with compassion and empathy. As soon as I could speak, I reassured them that I was OK--I think I said, "I'm fine" more times than Jack Bauer said those words to his new, short-term girlfriend Agent Freckles last night, which was far more times than a guy infected with a deadly bio-agent should say them.

Later, we talked it out, because I knew they were a tiny bit traumatized by seeing me writhing in pain. "Were you scared?" I asked them in the car on the way to school.

"Yes," A. Peevie said. "I thought you were unconscious."

Unconscious would have felt good, but no such luck.

"What does 'unconscious' mean?" asked M. Peevie.

"It's between asleep and dead," A. Peevie explained matter-of-factly. I thought it was a pretty good definition.

And speaking of 24, was anyone else throwing up during the Kiefer and Spawn scenes last night? To me, they were completely overdone--not the acting, so much, but the script. "Oh, Daddy!" "I love you, Daddy!" "Daddy, I'll save you!"

I just wasn't buying it, that they'd go from not speaking to each other or seeing each other for several years, to Spawn being all willing to put the past behind her and actually take responsibility for her own life. That is so totally out of character.

And finally: Evil Tony. Yay or nay? I say, nay. First he's evil. Then he's good. Then he's evil. Then he's good. Now he's evil again. If he's evil, does anything he's done in the last three hours make any sense at all?

Please explain it to me.

UPDATE: The little purple pills actually worked. Go figure.

I'm Done With the Shallow Life

Have you been enjoying 24 this season? Well, I haven't.

In fact, I've been completely disillusioned with the ridiculousness of it all. I mean, come on: one guy who's not even a superhero; who dies and gets resurrected more than once--but isn't actually Jesus; who makes the world safe for democracy over and over again; and who makes blondes, red-heads and brunettes fall in love with him with seasonal regularity--this guy who's so short you can store him up on your mantle, is not even super-great looking. I mean, I want a little more dish in my action heroes, don'tcha know?

Think Jason O'Mara.

And speaking of Jason O'Mara, I've heard that his show, Life on Mars, has been cancelled. They finally get a clever show with a supernatural twist and interesting, believable dialogue (unlike, say Lost, where they talk past each other like characters in two completely different plays), and a hot, HOT lead actor--and they cancel it. It figures.

It's enough to make me stop watching TV altogether. In fact, that's what I'm going to do. Starting today, I'm going cold turkey. No more Vincent, no more stupid Dancing with the Stars, no more Judge Alex. Cold turkey, man.

Oh, and no more American Idol, because Simon is too mean and Paula has too many unicorns dancing around in her cleavage; and also? No more Reno 911, because it's just too crude.

Seriously. What good is TV anyway? Does it help me love Jesus more? No. Does it improve my brain at all? Not really, except I really do feel that I learn some good stuff about rental laws and laws about whether you have to return the engagement ring if your wedding falls through from the judge shows, which could be very useful.

I'll use my new-found hours to better myself. I'll start exercising, I'll stop eating Pringles and Diet Coke for breakfast, and I'll read more. I've been reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain for about five weeks, and I'm only half-way through. Without TV, I will become a better person, I will finish The Seven Storey Mountain, and I will blog about the Important Spiritual Lessons I learned, and I will make the world a better place.

I'm done with the shallow life. Stay tuned.

24: Free Will and Moral Responsibility

OK, so I'm no Nostradamus: Jack and Agent Freckles did not kiss in this week's episode of 24. However, they did have a tender embrace, fraught with sexual tension, and he did have his hand on her hair. That's the next best thing. I'm calling it a near-miss. The kiss probably ended up on the cutting room floor, and we'll see it on the DVD extras.

But the real topics for today's 24-related post are free will and moral responsibility. We can't avoid this subject when we're talking about 24, because the characters are constantly saying things like, "We don't have a choice" and "I wish there was another option" and my favorite, "Whatever happens [if you don't let me torture this suspect] is on you." The correct responses are, in order: yes, you do; there are; and no, it's not.

Let me explain.

Human beings are free moral agents with freedom of choice and moral responsibility for their own choices and actions. This is a debatable philosophical point of view, but we have to start somewhere, right? And I'm guessing this is not the sticking point for the Jack Bauer sympathizers who stand with him in favor of using torture in interrogations.

I submit (to my vast Green Room audience) that every time we make a decision, we have a choice. If we're not aware of making a choice--in other words, if we act by instinct, without awareness--then it can be argued that we do not have a choice. In those situations, our actions and choices are products of our subconscious, our biology, our nurture, our environment.

But if we are aware enough to claim, "I don't have a choice"--we do indeed, every time, have a choice. It might be a very difficult one, or there might be more than one option--but we can never claim, as Jack Bauer does several times per hour, that we have only one choice.

I believe what Jack is really saying is, "Every other choice is untenable, indefensible, and unacceptable." But let's look at this assumption a little closer. Take the situation where Jack had a suspect who ostensibly knew the location of the next terrorist attack. Jack was in the middle of torturing the guy to get the information out of him when the president and her chief of staff stopped him. Jack was pissed.

"He was almost talking!" Jack insisted. In other words, let me keep breaking the law and making an immoral choice so that I can prevent something bad from happening and protect innocent lives.

Preventing bad things from happening and protecting innocent lives are both good things--but is it necessary or even acceptable to condone immoral and unlawful actions in order to accomplish them? This question presumes agreement with the proposition that torture is both unlawful and immoral. Here is a transcript of a FrontLine debate on the Torture Question, and here is the key article in The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War:

Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms ... shall in all circumstances be treated humanely...

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture.

Whether or not you admit that torture is in every case immoral, it is most certainly unlawful. And getting back to the point at hand--Jack Bauer does have a choice, and so do you. The example from 24 that comes to my mind is from several seasons ago. Jack is dealing with a terrorist who has ordered him to execute his own colleague or he will unleash a deadly virus that will kill hundreds or thousands of people. Just before shooting Ryan in the head, Jack shakes his head mournfully and says, "I wish I had another choice."

OK, this STILL bugs me even though it is FICTION and a PLOT DEVICE and it was several years ago. OF COURSE he had a choice. He could choose to not comply with the terrorist's demands, not kill an innocent man. (It was a great scene, however, and the guy who played Ryan Chappelle, Paul Shulze, acted the crap out of it.) In not complying, he is taking a risk that more innocent people will die--but not by his own hand. It is also possible that the trigger mechanism will jam, or that the terrorist will get caught before releasing the gas--or any one of a hundred alternative possibilities.

In other words, you cannot justify an immoral action by saying that the result of not taking it is untenable--because you technically do not know with certainty what the result will be.

One problem with allowing ourselves to say, "I don't have a choice" is that we start to believe it. We start to believe that we are trapped by our circumstances and have only one option. We even feel trapped--but the sooner we can step outside of the circumstance in which we don't have a choice, the sooner we will see that we do have choices. This process is often known as therapy. Get some.

Another problem with the "no choice" mentality is that it makes a morally objectionable choice less objectionable. We essentially separate ourselves from our moral responsibility, and assert that the circumstances are to blame for our actions. We don't have to feel guilty about our actions if we didn't have a choice. We don't have to take the time or make the effort to try to figure out another option if we don't have a choice.

We need to take this phrase right out of our vocabulary, starting right now. And I would appreciate it if the writers of 24 would attempt to deal with the issue of moral responsibility, instead of letting my little velvet-voiced Jacko get more and more thuggish with each passing episode.

24: Kissing, Moral Ambiguity, and Free Will

I haven't posted about 24 in a few weeks, but after seeing the previews for next week's show, I just have to make a prognostication: There will be kissing. Here's the back-story:

Little Agent Freckles started off the day with her professional ethics intact. She and her buddy, Boss Moss, were on the same page when it came to interrogation torture: it's wrong, don't do it.

But five minutes after hooking up with Jack "We don't have a choice!" Bauer, her integrity crumbled, and she told Jack to "do whatever it takes" to get an answer from a suspect. Later she backpedaled a bit, telling him that she didn't really mean whatever it took--it was just, you know, a figure of speech. I think he rolled his eyes at her.

But by the next episode, she was fully engaged, threatening to pinch a child if mommy wouldn't dish, and defending Jack's killing of a suspect to a disgusted and disbelieving Boss Moss. "We're supposed bring suspects in, not murder them!" he said. He obviously has not spent enough time in the company of Our Morally Ambiguous Hero.

So back to my point: there will be kissing. In the preview, Agent Freckles is upset about all the questionable interrogation practices. "Tell me it bothers you!" she yells at Jack. "Tell me you feel it!" Then she slaps him in the face. "Do you feel it?" She slaps him again. "Do you feel anything?"

And here's where the fan fic writers will get all moist and fire up their keyboards. Everyone knows that where there's sexual tension and slapping, there is kissing. The previews teased us and didn't show this, but I am willing to lay odds that Jack grabs her tiny wrist and tells her in a voice like gravel in a velvet bag tied with a silk ribbon, "Come here." She'll resist, of course, but he'll pull her close, put his hand on the back of her head, and kiss her--and then all moral ambiguity will melt away, and two lost souls will comfort each other in the knowledge that everyone else just doesn't get it. They didn't have a choice.

Free will means you do have a choice, Jack. You always have a choice.

But I still love you, even though you are a hot mess.

24: All the sugar, twice the caffeine

If you're wondering what to think about the first four hours of 24: Season Seven, you've come to the right place. Here are my observations:

Hour One: Jack looks good in a suit. He seems to have a little bit of an attitude problem, and he still does not understand the concept of "above the law," even when questioned about it directly. "I adapted," he said to the Senate investigation dude, rationalizing his various choices outside of the bounds of that annoying Geneva Convention.

(In an interesting connection to real life in today's news, a senior Bush official officially admitted that the U.S. had tortured a 9-11 suspect held at Guantanamo. For those of you who desire further reading on the definition, nature, and ethics of torture, here's a four-part article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

I like the befreckled Agent Renee Walker, AKA Agent Freckles. She's cute and tough. Kiefer seems to like her, too, even though he usually doesn't go for those Type A beyotches. It doesn't take long for him to double-cross her, though.

Walker's jefe, Boss Moss (tm Television Without Pity, AKA TWOP) appears far too twitchy and sneaky-looking to actually be a bad guy.

I've come up with a new drinking game: DRINK! every time Kiefer tells someone he's working with that they're making a mistake to handle things one way, but that they should do it his way (i.e., off-book, dark, sneaky-like, or illegally) instead. The first time happened about 45 minutes into episode one.

Hour Two: JoMama and I decided that it would be too difficult to orchestrate the collision of two specific planes on intersecting runways the way EvilTony did, thus blowing the credibility of the entire show. Because all that other stuff is completely believable.

M. Giant, the 24 recapper at TWOP agrees with JoMama and me, of course:

...not to belittle the vital work that air traffic controllers do, but I would almost think it would be harder to purposely crash one plane into a specific other plane than to keep them apart. Wouldn't Tony and Masters have been more likely to have put GSA 117 into the path of another plane on approach if they didn't know what they were doing?

DRINK! About 27 minutes into hour two, Jack tells Agent Freckles she'd be making a mistake to call in another agent to follow the bad guy they just spotted because of his tan workboots. She agrees, grabs car keys, and inexplicably tosses them to Jack. Why wouldn't she keep control and let him ride shotgun?

There are a bunch of characters showing up from 24: Redemption that I only vaguely remember. Like Colonel Dubaku from Sangala, for example. Wasn't he supposed to have been blown up when Jack's friend Robert Carlyle stepped on a land mine right next to him? Didn't he even get facial scar out of that? And that reminds me: when is this day taking place? Did we get a placeholder shot of the timeframe?

I like the Janean Garofalo character, Janis: she brings the funny without too much personality chafing. I'm looking forward to watching her and Chloe have a geek-off. Meanwhile, Janis does the triangulation thang to locate Jack and Freckles.

Best sexual non-sexual line of the night: Agent Freckles telling Kiefer, "I'll engage him. Cover my flank." I loved how Kiefer gets a little turned on by this, but at the same time, he's not sure if he wants the girl on top. He allows for it, because Freckles is very convincing. They kill the extraneous bad guys, and after a fierce tussle, Jack shoves EvilTony up against a wall, his arm against ET's neck, and they kiss.

Oh, no they don't. But don't tell me they didn't want to.

Stay tuned for Hour Three and Four. And please, let me know what you thought? Are you totally back on board the 24 train? Are you optimistic that the writers are taking their time to set up a story arc that won't collapse under its own weight?

Jack is (Almost) Back

This is the most exciting news I've heard in a long time: Jack Bauer will be back on November 23 for a two-hour movie prequel to Season 7.



The Fox/24 site says Jack is "working as a missionary in Africa." This has got to be the best news yet: Jack loves Jesus! I would not have guessed this plot twist in a bajillion years! It's just one more thing we have in common. Sigh.

More good news: We have a woman president in the 24 universe, played by the under-appreciated Cherry Jones. You might remember her as the police officer in Signs. And another one of my favorite under-appreciated actors, Robert Carlyle, plays Jack's friend, which means, of course, that he is doomed. I predict that his character will not live to see Season 7.

We have waited nearly a whole year for this event, thanks to the writers' strike last year. Don't get me wrong--I was completely on board with the writers on that one. I missed me some Jack-sugar, but it was worth it if the writers got, you know, an extra hundredth of a percent of royalties on DVDs. Or whatever ridiculous thing the producers were sniggling about.

But if you recall, Season 6 was not an excellent example of TV writing. In fact, after a strong first four episodes, S6 totally tanked. It went down the toilet. It jumped the shark. It sucked.

So this time around, being eternally optimistic, I'm hopeful that the extra months of writing time will mean that the prequel and S7 will be back to S1 standards: fierce, shocking, tense, breath-taking, non-stop action and drama.

It's not too much to ask, is it?

"24" Finale, Finally.

How painful was "24" this year?

On a scale of pencil callous to amputation without anesthesia, I'd say it was not quite childbirth, but maybe in the range of apendicitis to anal fissure. (I'm sorry--was that too gross for your delicate sensibilities? This blog apologizes.)

OK, so we had the "24" finale this week. Finally. This season was like a pile-up on the Kennedy Expressway: painful, but you can't not look at it.

Here are links to my favorite recaps of the finale and other episodes: Dave Barry's 24 Blog: http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/24/index.html and Television Without Pity's hilarious and on-point (by point) recap at http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a13099/.

(BTW, if you like TV, you might like TWOP's recaps of your favorite shows. Some of the recaps make me wet my pants, they are so hilarious.)

Here's what I liked about this season:

Kiefer (in handcuffs, stumbling out of the ocean, in black t-shirt and jeans, etc., etc.).
Vice President Darth Vader.
The character development of the Numbers guy.
Morris.
No Kim Bauer.
Shooting and hand-to-hand combat.
Explosions.
Milo's Sudden Demise.
Kiefer's Evil Brother Dr. Romano.
Bill Buchanan and his little lady in the White House, Karen.

Here's what I didn't like about this season:

The plot that made no sense whatsoever.
CTU soap operatics.
Marilyn.
Recycled plot-lines like the White House Staffer Unwittingly Sleeping With a Spy and The President Removed with a 25th Amendment Maneuver.
Everything being five minutes away from CTU or wherever Jack Bauer is.
Everything coming down to Jack's nephew. Huh?
Behroozed plot lines, like what ever happened to President Itzen?
Centralasia.
Middleastia.

I am addicted to "24". But after this season, I think I can be cured--unless TPTB (the powers that be) get new writers. It's not that they're bad writers--but they're done, they're tired, they're out of new ideas, and they need to work on Gilmore Girls or something a little less, well, "24."

Too bad Fox has already cancelled "Drive." It figures.

Website: Honorable Mention

I forgot to list another favorite website: Dave Barry's 24 blog. Here's the link:

Oh man, it cracks me up. At this point, I'm enjoying his blog more than the show itself.