My Official Halloween Horror Story of 2011

Dear Parents

by Nick Miranda

Dear Parents,

Your child was delicious.

Sincerely,

The Faculty at Riverview Elementary.

*     *     *

Dan had read the letter more than a dozen times. It was on the school’s letterhead—all very official-looking.

The worst part was that he hadn’t seen Emily since Wednesday, when he put her on the bus  taking her and her classmates for a school-sponsored camping trip. If he had opened the letter on a day where he had picked her up from school, he would have tossed it out without more than an aggravated second thought. But her absence was the fertilizer for the seed of insanity that the note had planted in his mind.

Dan loosened his tie with one hand, afraid to let the letter out of his grasp; afraid that if he set it down the words would change. He had to wait for Kelly to come home—needed to show it to somebody, to have another opinion. Kelly would tell him it was a joke and he would believe her. She would call him silly for even having the slightest inkling that the faculty at the elementary school were flesh-eating monsters. She would call one of the other parents in Emily’s class to reassure him. She would poke fun of him for the rest of the night, casually deflating his perceived fear.

But until she got there, Dan felt trapped, isolated. He was aware that it stemmed from his memories of Emily’s mother, Ruth. She had been raped and murdered on her way home from the grocery store. She’d said that she would be right back—and wasn’t. He should have gone with her, should have turned off the damn baseball game and went just for the hell of it—like in college when they would wander around Wal-Mart at two in the morning for no other reason than to do something together. But the Reds had been creeping up on the Braves, scoring three runs in the top of the eighth and bringing the score to within one. A win meant a wild card spot in the playoffs. The grocery list wasn’t that big; couldn’t she handle it without him?

He had succumbed to a masochistic, self-flagellating torturous guilt. He was starting to snap often. If Emily coughed, he had to be talked out of taking her to the emergency room. If she let go of his hand for more than a second, his mind frantically went through all the horrible scenarios resulting in her brutal demise. Just when he really felt that he couldn’t live his life is such a way, he met Kelly during a family therapy session. She meant the world to him and Emily. Having suffered the loss of a brother at a young age, Kelly knew the pain they were suffering and she had practically been running the group when Dan joined. The personal attention she paid him was really the catalyst that cemented his feelings for her. Emily took to her fast and gave Dan the go-ahead to marry her.

When Kelly came in, Dan shoved the letter in her face before she even had a chance to shut the door.

“I need you to read this and tell me what you think,” he said, his voice coming out in a single, rushed wave.

Kelly took the letter and read it. Then read it again. She did not smile like Dan had hoped. She looked at him over the top of the paper, then read it for a third time. She let out a long sigh as she lowered the letter to her side, out of view.

“What is this?” Her tone was flat, careful not to be accusatory.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I opened the mail when I got home and I thought it was something about the camping trip.”

Sensing his eminent, emotional collapse, Kelly reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly.

“Probably just a nasty joke from one of the older kids at the school,” Kelly said.

“I thought about that. But then I started to wonder how they did it.” He began pacing, two steps one way, two the other.  “Could a school kid break into the main office and type this up, print it off, and put it in the out-going mail without anyone knowing? Then I started asking myself if any other parents got one, or just us?”

Kelly pulled him to her, embracing. He felt how tense his own muscles were, a subtle trembling in the arms he wrapped around her. She smiled and he realized for the first time that he had said “us” when talking about parents. Had he finally included her into his life so deeply that he considered her Emily’s parent? Emily thought so, calling her Mama-Kelly. But he had to keep an eye on things, make sure she didn’t forget about her real mother.

Dan broke away. He felt better, but his face was pallid and his posture rumpled. She vigorously rubbed his back.

“Come on,” she said, smiling. “We’ll order some Moo Shu and I’ll call Vicky, see if she was pranked, too.”

It was just like Dan had expected from her. She was going to help him, going to fix this.

Kelly had turned her back to Dan when she called Vicky Bollinger so that Dan couldn’t see her face while she spoke. She often did that for his benefit so that he wouldn’t get freaked out if it was bad news. Dan mentally tallied all the little things she knowingly did to ease his stressful condition. All the times she went casually through the paper and pulled out the pages with content he might find disturbing. Sure, his mind spent a few seconds wondering what terrors those missing articles contained, but in the end he forgot about it while reading the drollness of the rest. One of his friends called these actions of censorship, said that Kelly was babying him. Dan called them acts of tenderness.

He could hear Kelly’s part in the conversation with the other woman, a mother of a little boy in Emily’s class. There were lots of “Uh-huh” and “Mmm.” He briefly wished that he could hear what Mrs. Bollinger was saying. Had she gotten a letter as well? Were she and her husband taking it seriously or had they done what Dan should have done and pitched it a second after reading it?

Kelly said “Goodbye,” and turned, hanging up the phone. She tried her best to keep a poker face, letting her eyes stay locked on the molded plastic answering machine next to the phone. Her hair dangled in front of her eyes, blocking Dan’s view of her face.

“Well?” he asked impatiently.

“The Bollingers also got a letter,” she said. Kelly lifted her head and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear that didn’t stay there for more than a second. Her face reminded Dan of a life-like rubber mask—yeah, it looked like Kelly, but there was just enough wrong with the expression that he felt lied to, bothered. She wasn’t taking this as well as she was pretending. “They think it was some kind of joke being played by a student or a janitor, maybe even one of the teachers.”

“But how?”

“The school sends out mass mailings all the time. We get four or five a month about fund-raisers, rule changes, and up-coming events. It wouldn’t be hard for one of the night cleaning crew to print off a fake letter and send it out to the entire enrolled mailing list.”

Her forced casualness bugged Dan. And she wouldn’t look at him, which made him think she was more concerned than she wanted him to know about.

Dan felt the collar of his shirt begin to dampen with nervous sweat, making the fabric feel cold and heavy, like it was slowly tightening around his neck.

Not able to stand it any more, Dan grabbed the letter from the dining room table and walked out of the house. Evening was birthing night quickly. The sky was the blue-gray color of the milk in the bottom of Emily’s cereal bowl after eating one of her sugary, fruity breakfasts. He knew that if he wasn’t able to find a suitable answer by the end of the night he sure as hell wouldn’t be able to sleep—maybe not until Emily came back on Sunday afternoon. If she came back. After all, the letter said that she’d been eaten, hadn’t it?

Across the street, and four houses down, was the Chapman residence. Christine Chapman was the room mother for Emily’s class and often drove her son, Todd, and Emily to school. Dan remembered that she worked for the police as some kind of analytical accountant. Maybe she could help, call in some favors, get a cop—or SWAT—to head up to the campsite and check on the kids. If not, then she could at least use some clout to start an investigation as to the letter’s author. She probably owned a gun—didn’t everyone who worked for the cops have a gun? The thought of stealing the gun crossed Dan’s mind, but he pushed it aside when he realized that he, first, didn’t know what he would do with it, and, second, that he was too much of a coward to actually use it.

Dan knocked on the Chapman’s door, his knuckles rapping out a variety of hurried rhythms. Why weren’t the answering? Was Mrs. Chapman already deep into her frantic search for her own child? Was she, at that very moment, on the phone with the squad commander, organizing the police raid on the campgrounds, strutting through her living room in her pants suit and high heels, talking firmly and authoritatively, plotting the safe return of her son?

Engrossed in his own series of scenarios, Dan didn’t notice the door fly open. The sudden shock sent him jumping back. He tripped on his own feet and stumbled into the railing.

“Christ,” Bob Chapman cried. He paused and waited for Dan to recover himself then said, “What the hell do you want, Dan?”

Dan stepped forward, brandishing the school’s letter like a TV cop showing his badge.

“Did you get one?” he asked.

Chapman squinted at the letter in the softening light. He looked from the letter to Dan, then turned to look over his shoulder. He stepped out on the porch, closing the door quietly behind him.

“Now’s not really a good time, man,” Chapman said. “Christine’s a little upset.” His eyes darted to the letter at Dan’s side, then back up. Dan knew that Chapman had hoped that he hadn’t seen him look.

“What did yours say?” Dan demanded.

“Same thing as yours,” Chapman said.

“Is she doing anything? Is she calling her friends on the force? Has anyone gotten a hold of the principal?”

The door opened and Christine Chapman stepped out. She was pale and her hair hung in knotted clumps—clearly she’d been running her fingers through it many times. Dan could see the stress attached to her like dust on a forgotten curio.

“Ten other parents,” she said, “got letters today. All of them have kids on the camping trip.”

The air thickened in Dan’s lungs. That was most of the families with children on the trip. Were they being targeted because their children weren’t home? If so, then it had to be someone at the school who knew who was going on the trip.

Christine finally looked up and saw Dan. She didn’t need to see the letter in his hand. “You make eleven.”

“And no one got one who didn’t have a kid on the camping trip?” Bob Chapman asked. Christine stepped closer to him and his arm hooked around her waist.

“Not that I’ve been able to tell,” she said softly.

Dan got the sense that he should go, that the Chapman’s needed each other. Silently Dan left their porch and started back home. He had just crossed the street when Kelly came flying out of their house, her eyes wide. She grasped him by both elbows, and took a second to catch her breath. Dan felt her heartbeat in her thumbs as they pressed into his arm—it couldn’t be thumping that fast from just the short run.

“Just got a call,” Kelly said, her words kicked out of her mouth in favor of big gulps of air. “It was the principal—some kind of prerecorded message.”

“What did it say?”

“I don’t know. The machine got it. I heard some of it, but I was too far away."

*     *     *

“Hello, parent,” the principal’s voice said. It came through the small speaker of the answering machine with a hollow, plastic sound. “We’ve gotten many distressing phone calls regarding a letter that some of you have received today. Let me assure that the letter is completely—.” Dan gripped the edge of the counter as the words were erased by the ringing of the school’s bell in the background. The clanging lasted several heartbeats, each one, Dan considered his last. “I hope that clears everything up,” the principal concluded. “Have a good evening.”

The machine clicked and was silent.

Dan looked at Kelly. Her face was a mirrored expression of confused shock.

“I didn’t hear what he said,” Kelly whispered.

Dan played the message twice more, and each time the important part was buried under the startling claxon. Kelly touched his hand, he knew, just to quell the coming flood of paranoia.

“Are they kidding?” he demanded. “I’m supposed to hear that and feel comforted?”

“Please, Dan,” she soothed. “Think about it rationally. I know you don’t want to hear the word ‘coincidence,’ but isn’t it at least sort of likely that things are turning out this way by chance?”

How could she ask that? It was nearly impossible that so many random events could transpire to create such a coincidence. Was he really supposed to believe that someone hacked into the school’s system and printed a fake letter? That the letter was mailed, by chance, to just those parents who had children at the school-sponsored camping trip? That a call from the principal of the school was accidentally diluted by the ringing school bells—at nearly six in the evening?

“You’re getting that look,” Kelly said. “You’re going to make yourself nuts. I wish I could convince you that on Sunday, the school bus will pull up and that Emily will come hopping down the steps.”

Dan stepped into her embrace, gripping her as if he were afraid she would be yanked away from him at any second.

“This is going to be a long weekend,” he sighed.

*     *     *

The rest of Friday and most of Saturday bled together. Dan stayed on the couch watching a variety of the worst television imaginable, trying to get his mind on Emily’s safety. He subjected himself to game shows, to mindless sporting events, even popular, scripted reality shows. Though his eyes took in the images, Dan’s brain refused to process them. Kelly made several attempts to encourage him to do something—anything—but sit there and fester in the insanity he was making for himself.

But Dan didn’t think he was crazy. He couldn’t separate himself from the creeping nastiness of his imagination, but he could differentiate between the plausible and the impossible. It was more than plausible that the letter was a real communication. It was even quite possible that the principal’s message was precisely timed to coincide with the blaring school bell, to distort the information that desperately desired. But it was impossible for Dan to shatter the glass prison of his overprotective subconscious. Kelly tried, and he appreciated her efforts, but he really would have preferred to be left alone.

His mind was constricted with memories of his bad decisions that had ended even worse than he could have thought possible. Naturally, he thought of Ruth. He recalled the look of genuine disappointment on her face as she looked over her shoulder at him, just before she closed the door and went out to die. He thought about the woman he dated just after Ruth’s death—how guilty he felt bringing her home for Emily to see, like the woman was some kind of animal in a zoo. Emily had looked right into the woman’s eyes and said, “I don’t think I want you for my new mommy.” The woman had left and never spoken to Dan after that. And then he’d met Kelly in therapy. And his decisions seemed to turn around and actually be the right ones.

Until he put Emily on that bus.

She hadn’t wanted to go, but Dan and Kelly thought it might be good for her. A chance to building intrapersonal relationships, they called it. As she got on the bus, she gave Dan a similar look to the one her mother had. Immediately Dan wanted to yank her down the steps and cradle her and kiss her and tell her she was never allowed to leave his arms again. But the firm pressure of Kelly’s hand on his shoulder seemed to override his better judgment. Then the doors closed and the bus rolled away, Emily’s small, round face smiling warily at him as it grew smaller and smaller, then indistinguishable.

Dan turned off the television and rubbed the rough stubble on his cheeks and chin.

“You ready to go?” Kelly asked.

Dan was already on his feet, his hands firmly clutching the car keys in his pocket. He strode briskly to the car and waited impatiently for Kelly to catch up. He drove a little more recklessly than he normally would have, but the bus was due back at the school in fifteen minutes.

Dan pulled into the parking lot and saw several cars parked at awkward, disjointed angles, some with the doors still hanging open.

“Looks like a scene from a zombie movie,” Kelly said, trying get him to laugh. In response, he grunted. “You know, when the people come across a freeway clogged with cars?” Dan found a spot set apart from some of the other cars. He got out. He didn’t wait for Kelly, but had to keep himself from running towards the throng of other parents.

The pack of parents were mostly silent, some whispering sibilantly to one another, but it was loud with nervous movement. There was the hushed rasp of rubbing cloth, the brash crack of a nervous cough, and the surprising shock of a sneeze. Dan waded into them, most looking down at their shoes. The tension was palpable. They had each gotten a strange letter stating that their child had been eaten. Dan looked over at the Chapmans. Bob looked at him with a strange coldness. Christine was sallow and had dark circles under her eyes. Dan hoped he didn’t look that bad. But his heart went out to her—he knew exactly what she was feeling, the horrors going through her brain at the speed of synapse snap.

Dan looked over his shoulder at Kelly. She was standing away from the rest, arms folded. She smiled when she saw him looking at her. She gave a quick, comforting nod.

“Here it comes!” The voice belonged to a woman.

In unison, the parents turned their heads. Dan saw a shimmering yellow blob coming down the street. There was a collective sigh that he could almost feel rustling around him like a soft breeze.

The bus got closer and closer and finally made the turn into the parking lot of the school. It came up to the knot of people as if it were sizing them up. It stopped and the doors opened.

The only thing that came out was a rush of hot, dry summer silence and the faint odor of roasted meat.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Welcome to HorrorHouse

I am basically sick of being unemployed. The job market sucks, and even though I'm qualified for every job I've applied for, I'm still sitting here without any steady income. So it would seem that the best option would be to go into business for myself.

A few months ago, I made a Facebook update that I was thinking of starting my own magazine. Some of you asked some very good questions that I could only answer with a blank, manquin-stare--which made me fee really stupid, by the way. But it taught me one thing. That I was thinking on the small scale. Who would buy a magazine about everything? So I took that idea and ran with it.

Right now I'm in a class on small-press publishing, and, according to the professor, at the end of the class I will technically have all the information and skills needed to start my own independant press--which will be our final assignment in the class (capital and actual publication not included). So over the last few weeks I've put in some work into researching how things work at a press and have come up with something I like. I've developed a logo, a mission statement, and a target market. I'm sure I'm missing a few things, but this is just a rough idea anyway.

HORRORHOUSE PRESS

Mission Statement: We strive for the advancement of horror and dark fiction through the publication of new or experimental material that pays homage to the origins of the genre, but not mimicking it.

Target Auidence: The devoted fans of horror in all its forms, literary readers, and those interested in experimental fiction.














I really like the logo I've created. It is the basic idea of what we know a house to be, but it is constructed of the double-H in HorrorHouse. It is one of thouse simple designs that just happens to work well, I think.

The mission statement took me many drafts and attempts to get it just right. I didn't want to come right out and say that we want to piss on the Twilight Saga or that a lot of this mainstream horror sucks balls because it is all just a copy of what was done thirty years ago during the creative boom--well, acutally it was more of a publishing boom due to the success of the writings of Stephen King; every publisher clamored for horror so they could have that top-selling weird guy on their payroll. Anyway, I tried to find the one thing that I thought was lacking in the horror genre today and say "That's the stuff I want to pulish. The stuff that fills the gaps." I'd like to publish good writing, first and foremost, so it doesn't matter what the subject is, as long as it's good horror. I know that zombies are tops right now and that lots of houses out there have a zombie book or nine on the shelves. But a zombie book that I would publish would be different. It would have to scream at me that the horror isn't in the zombies, but in something else, with the zombies just being another obstacle for the protagonists to overcome. Like in World War Z, where the horror comes from the degeneration of society as told through the eyes of people from all different backgrounds.

As with the mission statement, my target auidence took a little time to craft correctly. Again, I didn't want to just come out and say "My target demographic is ME!" So I had to deconstruct what I like to read and classify that into the categories of different types of readers.

Now, I've read a lot of guidelines for submitting manuscripts to publishers and editors for all kinds of presses: commercial, independant, magazines, literary journals. There are a lot of things that they get right, but even more that they fail to address. Especially to someone like me who has a lot of questions. So here are the guidelines I've come up with for submitting to HorrorHouse Press.

Submission Guidelines:

(Note: all submissions should be sent hardcopy and include a SASE. Submissions that do not follow this important rule will be recycled without consideration.)

Novels: All novels should be queried before submission, and no queries should be sent for unfinished manuscripts. In the query letter, please indicate what makes your novel different from all others in the genre. If you have a literary agent, please include their information in the query letter. Should your query letter gain our interest, we ask that you submit a complete breakdown of your novel, chapter-by-chapter, as well as send three sample chapters; one from the begining of the story, one from the middle, and one from the end.

Short Stories/Collections: Short stories should be submitted via hardcopy to the address provided. Please include an introductory letter that explains who you are, what you are submitting, and where you have previously been published (if applicable).

If you are submitting a collection of short stories for consideration, you will need to follow a similar process as with submitting a novel. Query first, then provide samples should they be requested.

Poetry: Poetry submissions should follow the same guidelines for short stories, unless you are submitting an original epic poem, in which case you should follow the steps for submitting a novel.

Stage/Screenplays: Follow the process for submitting novels, except that instead of sending a breakdown by chapter, please create one that details the action by Acts. Also, if requested, send three scenes instead of chapters.

Okay, so how is this going to get off the ground? Hell, I have no idea. One thought was to hold a contest and charge a reading fee (actually pretty standard procedure for writing contests). The money from the fees could pay for a printing as well as a small prize (including a copy of the completed piece). That's just one idea, though. Everything is subject to change. And this will probably die a quick death, to be buried in the vast potter's field that is my mind.

On a final note, my card:

VERSUS: Match One!

WHO: Edgar Allan Poe VERSUS William Shakespeare

PREDICTED WINNER: Poe.

WHY: Poe's wirey and cranky and he's deeply devoted to whatever passion he's fulfilling at the moment.

LET'S GET IT ON!!!!

Poe didn’t care where he was—didn’t even care that after turning down a foggy alley in his beloved Boston the ground beneath his feet had changed from the uneven cobblestones to slimy, pitted earth. All he cared about was finding out where that wonderful smell was coming from. Oh, the sweetness of it. Like burning sugar and cut wood. Whiskey.
After spying a troop of drunken ne’er-do-wells flopping out of a doorway, singing aloud to a song with no melody, Poe figured he’d found his destination. The place was small, dark, and dirty. Just the place for his weary mind and heavy stomach. Again, his tunnel-vision prevented him from noticing that he was being noticed. Everyone in the place was glaring at him. But he sat down and ordered a whiskey. Silently, the inn keeper filled a wooden cup with the brew and gave it to the large-headed man with dark eyes. Poe took a single sip.

“This is terrible,” he said. Then he slugged it down and ordered another. But before he could bring the bowl to his lips, there was a commotion behind him, drawing his attention. A puffy-shirted gentleman came into the bar hollering incessantly about something or other. Poe’s head throbbed too much for him to care.

The huffy man slammed his hands on the bar and bellowed a guttural bark of frustration. Then he turned and looked at Poe, his eyes scanning him up and down like they were on springs. Poe admired the man’s costume, complete with starched, frilly collar. He certainly was a dandy. Must be part of some traveling group of actors up from New York, he thought.

“Sir,” the man said to Poe. “Be thee an alien?”

Poe looked at the man from the corners of his eyes. There was a striking familiarity to him, but the horrible alcohol was already clouding his overcast mind. He simply nodded and drank down his whiskey.

“From where dost thou deliver?” the man asked.

“Boston,” Poe grunted.

“Boss tone,” the man repeated. “Be it near far-Germania?”

Poe set the cup down on the bar and sighed, motioning the inn keeper for a refill.

“If you pardon me, sir, I wish to drown my sorrows in quiet melancholy,” he said. “I bid you good afternoon.”

The man took a step back, his round face reddening in the cheeks as if his wide collar had suddenly gone tight.

“You address me thus?” he huffed.

Poe turned on the man. He just wanted a quiet afternoon with his favorite vice, his most recent muse. Why wouldn’t this over-educated buffoon simply let him drift into maddening inebriation? Instead, he chose to ignore the gaudy purveyor of stage-English and downed his whiskey hurriedly.

But then the man’s hand gripped Poe’s shoulder and thrust him backwards, spilling his wooden cup of liquor.

“Dost thou take me for a rogue?” the man demanded. “Am I little more than the shite ‘neath his lordship’s heel?”

At that instant, Poe saw the man’s hand slipping closer and closer to one of the many belts he wore around his waist—the one carrying the small dagger. Without much need for mental clarity, Poe took up the nearest weapon to him, the wooden bowl, and tossed it into the brash bastard’s face. And in the instant the man closed his eyes and reacted to the projectile, Poe leaned down and charged his rival, slamming his large head into the man’s soft belly.

The two fell to the floor in a tangled heap, Poe doing his best to land a solid hit through all of the fabric the man wore. When that failed he raised up slightly and brought down both hands onto the man’s nose with the force of a meaty hammer. The man yelled in pain and flung his attacker off, curling into a ball. Poe took the opportunity and lashed out with his leg, the wooden heel of his boot connecting firmly with the side of the injured man’s head.

The man went down, groaning. Poe strode up to him, towering over his prostrate frame. He could hear the soft whimpers of defeat coming from the loud-mouth’s bloodied lips. My God, how good he felt. It was the first fight Poe had ever won. All those times as a child when he was the one bleeding came back to him. Like the ghosts of so many of his stories, the faces of the bullies lingered just out of his field of vision. And they made him angry. He wanted them to watch, wanted them to be afraid. He’d tried it with words with some success, but now he would give them something new to fear. Something new to himself.

Poe lifted his leg and brought the heel down again. The patrons in the bar gasped in horror. Good. They gasped when he did it again and again. Soon they stopped gasping, but Poe did not stop. Not until he was drunkenly satisfied.

He left the bar, trailing bloody shoe marks in the rugged dirt road. And after a bit of wandering, he passed through the fog bank and tripped over the memorable cobblestones. When he woke later that night, still in the alley, he found it hard to walk. Upon returning to his apartment, he discovered the heel of his shoe was missing and his trousers caked with dried gore.

With his head buzzing from the inferior whiskey, he lay down. Just before he shut his eyes, he noticed a small bust above his writing desk. It was of a huffy man with a too-wide collar, with similar features to the man Poe had bested the previous night. The engraved name: William Shakespeare.

WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED: Basically, Poe went ballistic and took his adversairy by surprise. I think that had Shakespeare been given another heartbeat, he might have pulled that knife and stuck Poe, ending this early. But Poe's built up rage actually worked to his advantage here. He lives to fight another day--probably with his own demons, though. And he might not win that one.

Introducing VERSUS!

I haven't done a blog in a while, mainly because school has started up again and I've overloaded myself. But Friday's are set up to be my easy days, so I might get to do one a week--more if I get nice and tweaked.

Anyway, with all the down time I don't have, I've decided to to start up a new thing to try and gain a wider reading audience--these four people just aren't cutting it (not that I don't totally love you guys for reading, because I do. You all rock!!)

I'm going to be doing a VERSUS column.  What is that, you ask?

VERSUS is going to be a fictional encounter between any two people where I come up with a setting, and a reason, and let them duke it out! Oh yeah, you heard me. I'm talking prime-time fighting revolving around two random people (real or fictitious). I'm going to break it up into three sections. Section One will be the breakdown: who's fighting and who's predicted to win. Section Two: the fight (ding, ding). Section Three: recap and explanation of why it turned out the way it did. 

I know that Wizard Magazine used to do something like this with comic characters, but I haven't been able to afford one in a long time, so I don't know if they still do. But mine is going to be awesome! You want Darth Vader versus a ninja? You got it! How about Superman versus the Little Mermaid? Boom! Done. I'll even throw in Mother Teresa versus Cthulhu just because I can.

BUT HERE'S THE BEST PART: I'll be taking suggestions from my friends on who goes at it next. And if I get stuck, I'll post a poll where you can vote on the victor--but the most popular choice might not necessarily win. Why? Because anything can happen, baby!

So if this sounds interesting, then tell your friends to follow me here or on Facebook so that they can get in on the action, too. But don't wait too long, because you never know when I'm going to change my mind. Sometimes I can get a little bit like Hunter S. Thompson on acid, mushrooms, and booze.

Somebody Help Hamburger Helper

I was at the store the other day, checking out the Hamburger Helper section--yes, we're that poor that Hamburger Helper is now in our cupboards. I looked at all of the different Helper helpers and was actually kind of impressed that they have such a variety, breaking it down into meats (tuna, chicken, or hamburger), and then into ethnic varieties (Italian, Asian, Mexican). I wasn't really paying that much attention though, because my eyes skimmed over most of them without a second glance.

But then I saw this young mother reach out and grab a box of Hamburger Helper Italian Spaghetti and Meat Sauce. It took me a second to register what had just happened. Now, I know that a box of Helper is pretty cheap, usually around $3, and in these hard times people look at price more than ever. But I can't for the life of me figure out why someone would bypass an entire aisle in Wal-Mart containing all kinds of flavored sauces and shapes of pasta for a box of Helper. Yeah, a jar of sauce is about the same price as a box of Helper; a pound of beef is about that much too, so you've doubled the price. Then factor in that the pasta costs a little less. So you're looking at a meal that costs about three times as much as the Helper. But think of the serving size.

The recommended serving size on Helper is 1 cup, prepared. That isn't much. And when you consider that when they show the stuff in the commercials, there is usually about three side dishes and a salad and bread. I doubt that mother was fixing such a lavish meal to her and her son. Now compare that to the jar, meat, and pasta and you get something different.

I mean, honestly, in most families, when it is spaghetti night, that is the feature item, usually served with a salad and bread, but nothing much. It is a meal in itself, with protein, grains, vegetables, and dairy if you like cheese (and who doesn't?). Plus if you get the big box of spaghetti, you can serve, like, ten people as much as they want.

I don't know. Maybe I'm missing the point of Hamburger Helper Spaghetti and Meat Sauce. Maybe it exists for the same reason the Chef Boyardee has canned Spaghetti and Meatballs. But I can see a need for canned, pre-cooked pasta. With the Helper, you still have to cook the noodles.

Anybody out there had Helper Spaghetti? What did you think? Worth it? Or is it better to get a jar of sauce and a box of pasta and make it your damn self?

Scott Pilgrim vs. Me

Thanks to a free trial weekend of Cinemax, I was able to DVR a bunch of movies I have not yet seen. One of which was the much-hyped Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Let me start by saying that I'm sick of Michael Cera. I liked him as George Michael Bluth on Arrested Development--and so must everyone else, because that is the only character he plays! From Superbad to Juno to Youth in Revolt, Cera plays the same stammering, weak-voiced kid with a chip on his shoulder and a desire to prove he's more than his character's cliche. But he always fails. Now, I actually liked Youth in Revolt, but that was only because of the alter ego his character created. The pathetic loser Scott Pilgrim is no different. From the very beginning, I hated the kid. He moped around for most of the movie, mumbling, whining and making me want to kill myself, and I'm supposed to identify with this idiot? His few shining moments actually came out of the blue, as in, he'd be getting his ass kicked and then come up with some cunning strategy for defeating his rival. And don't give me the argument that this is a movie about a kid who has video game-style battles, that I shouldn't take it so seriously, because all of that aside, this is a character-driven story, and the characters sucked.

Moving on to Romana. Mary Elizabeth Winstead was amazing as that character, but I, again, hated the character. Chicks like Ramona suck! They're selfish, egotistical, and fake. They pretend to be edgy and open and all about sexual power and freedom, but all they really want is for someone to look at them and want them, though they don't want to be tied down or labeled as a "girlfriend"--which is why girls like that are usually the ones who end the relationships, as shown in the movie. If there is one thing this movie got right, it is showing how ridiculous girls who act this way can be. I'm sorry, but I don't care how hot you are or much you pretend to be into me, if one of your ex-lovers shows up and demands I fight, then see ya! No girl is worth a vicious uppercut from a vegan-powered, anime-inspired, former Superman, Brandon Routh. And to make matters worse, this bitch runs off and hides when there is a fight (over her, by the way), only to randomly pop up later and say that "I do that sometimes." Piss off, you ditsy cow! I whooped up on three super-beings for you and you disappear, probably off flirting with some other unsuspecting loser to get a free cup of coffee. Gah! I hated Ramona and really think that Scott should have gotten back together with Kim, the cute, girl-next-door drummer.

Whew! Moving on . . .

This film actually did something a little different in that the actors they cast to be in their early 20s looked more like they were in their early teens. Usually, it's the other way around. I mean, is Sarah Michelle Gellar still playing a high school girl? While I thought that it was a good choice to actually cast actors into their age-appropriate roles, it looked off to me. Maybe I'm just too old. The little Asian girl who played Knives was actually the only one who I thought was just perfect. She was supposed to be younger than the others and really looked it.

My absolute favorite thing about this movie was Kieran Culkin! His portrayal of the openly gay, laid back, witty roommate and bed-buddy of Scott was genius. I could have watched a whole movie about him. Usually, I dislike gay characters in film and TV because I often feel as though they are thrown in there to be gay, and for no other reason. Lately there seems to be a rash of randomly gay characters popping up where sexual orientation plays no part in the story and is just there for a shock value. But Wallace Wells is the kind of homosexual that I'd like to party with. Why? Because he's cool with his sexuality and isn't forcing it on those around him. He isn't there to creep out a homophobe or make sassy, really faggy comments. He's just gay--and yes, it does play into the story, so I'm all for it.

Though I really didn't care for the story, I loved the way it was presented. Sadly, I think the irony of the 16-bit video games were lost on the characters and most of the audience. These kids were born into the N64/Sega Genisis/Playstation era and weren't around for the golden oldies of Contra, Super Mario Bros., or The Legend of Zelda. If this story were about a bunch of 30-year-olds looking to rekindle their past, it would have made a lot more sense--and I could have tolerated Scott Pilgrim chasing the worst kind of female creature there is.

Over all, I rate this a C-. It lost heavy points for having shitty characters and an over-used plot, but it gained points for its unique style and excellent use of star cameos.

Fight the Future of Video Games!

Every video game needs some kind of major hook in order to make it more appealing to consumers. Some developers give things away when you preorder the game, which is by far the most appealing and most expensive option. But the most popular option is the downloadable content (DLC), special things--usually costumes, weapons, levels, or entirely new games--that you download to your gaming platform of choice for a small fee or for free with a special code.

But what about people like me who have a slow internet connection, one that isn't hooked up to my P$3? Well, the game industry has come up with an answer: TOO BAD!

I was in a video game store just recently to sell some of my old games and I asked the guy working there about the Back to the Future video game, and when it would be released for the consoles. He told me that there are absolutely no plans for the game to be released on a disc that I can pop in my machine and enjoy. His information was confirmed by the video game's website. So here is a game that I really want to play, one that I've been waiting for since it was first announced some three years ago, and I'm being told I can't play it. Oh, sure, I could spend the money and download it to my computer, only to have the download time itself out after eighteen hours or so.

I'm just sick of all of this DLC that sounds pretty cool, but that I'll never be able to see. And to make matters worse, the companies act like it's my fault--basically by saying that it isn't theirs. But yes, it is their fault. They are the ones who are taking this content out of the game and putting it someplace where only a select number can access it. If they wanted to, it would be easy for them to include the stuff within the game itself and just require a code to be entered to access it. That's how it used to work.

The one company I will give props to is Rockstar Games. They released an expansion pack that was DLC for their successful western Red Dead Redemption called Undead Nightmare, which is a handful of new missions, weapons, and characters centered around a zombie outbreak. Then, they did something sweet. They released it on a disc so that rural slobs like me could have a chance to play it. I don't know why this is so hard for other developers to do.

Sadly, this is only the beginning. We're already seeing entire music albums being released online only. The same goes for the "webisodes" of television shows. Even movies are gaining success with internet releases, so it was only the natural step for video games to follow. Unfortunately, this means that more and more heavily-hyped titles are going to be released online only, because it is much cheaper for the game makers to sell just the data than it is for them to produce thousands of plastic discs and packaging. There is already a device that you can buy which gives you access to games, much in the same way that Netflix lets you watch movies through your internet-connected console. I forget the name of this thing, but I can only imagine a near future where the P$4 won't even have a place to insert a disc because it will be an all DLC machine.

And that's where I'll stop. Because I like pretty cases sitting on the shelf that I can stroll over to and pick up and look at. People have tried to tell me that books will soon be phased out for this Kindell or Nook, or that magazines and newspapers will become extinct and available only on the iPad or some other tablet. But that's horseshit. Books will always be printed. Video games are another story. And with games going straight to DLC and never seeing shelves, it won't be long before video game stores only sell used games and places like Best Buy and Target won't even sell them anymore--more likely they'll sell gift cards you can use to purchase the DLC much in the same way they sell cards for iTunes.

I'm just tired of feeling like I'm being punished because of where I live. When we lived in town we had high-speed internet, but not out here in the boonies. Though we get phone calls and mailers telling us we can get AT&T or Charter cable internet, when we call them about it they say it isn't available, and that there are no plans to make it so anytime soon. It isn't bad enough that I'm already treated like an outsider because I don't go online and run around digital mazes, shooting at other players (or, more likely, being shot again and again and again) for hours on end, but now I'm being denied the chance to even play a game that I really want to. So the best thing to do is just shrug my shoulders.

It may not be fair, but it's the future.

Superheroes: More American Jobs Lost to Outsourcing

Whenever there is a big-budget superhero film in the works there is always an electric buzz of anticipation surrounding who will be cast in the title role. But lately there has been a disturbing trend involving our beloved American warriors on screen: the actors aren't American. The most recent victim has been Superman, the hero who fights for truth, justice, and . . . her Royal Highness? Yup. Henry Cavill, who plays Clark Kent/Superman in the upcoming Man of Steel, was born on the small island of Jersey in the English Channel between Great Britain and France.

Another recent addition to Her Majesty's forces of good was Andrew Garfield, who nabbed the top spot in next summer's The Amazing Spider-Man. Oh, sure, you could argue that he was born in the U.S. and moved to England when he was four, but that doesn't count. Duel citizenship only goes so far as the accent, buddy. And he's quite proud of his nationality. And that's fine. I don't blame him, anyway.

Another of the big names fighting crime under the Union Jack is King Turd on the Guano Pile himself, Christian Bale from the over-appreciated, over-exposed, and heavily-defended The Dark Knight. It is well known that Bale heavily researches his roles (they call it method acting), even going so far as to study accents from around the world to accurately depict the people he's portraying. He takes it a step further and uses that accent when doing press junkets and television appearances, to keep the audience with him and not alarm them. Bravo to him for being that hard of a worker.

Hugh Jackman as the grumbling, easily-angered Logan from Wolverine and the X-Men films is an Aussie (okay, so Wolvie is actually Canadian, but he's badass enough to let it slide).

Famke Jensen as Jean Gray in the X-Men films is from Holland.

Eric Bana from the first Hulk film (though some would say it was a disaster), another Aussie.

Ioan Gruffudd from "America's first family of heroes" The Fantastic Four, another Brit.

You know, at this point, I should probably stipulate that I'm all for hiring the right actor for the job, and it doesn't bother me who plays the part as long as they play it right and from the heart. It has just been something that I've picked up on of late. I don't know if Britain is just churning out better actors, or if the directors (many of whom are also from other countries) are looking for actors with passports, because a lot of these movies are filmed in Australia, New Zealand, or England because of the lower costs to work there--something else this country needs to work on to increase revenue.

It doesn't really matter because we still have Robert Downey Jr. (oh, wait, he's starring as the iconic British detective Sherlock Holmes--haha! Take that, you Limey bastards!)

An Open Letter to Food Network

Dear Food Network,

I have watched your programming for more almost two decades now and I have finally reached my breaking point. For too long your "celebrity" chefs have gone out of their way to create dishes that are neither new nor exciting, instead relying on special ingredients to "enhance" flavor. But the fatal flaw in nearly all of the cooking shows you produce is your lack of consideration for the majority of your viewers, relying more on expensive and hard to find items to make the cooks feel special and seem more cultured than the rest of us.

First, I want to address how the Food Network kitchens do not concern themselves with the fact that there are people who watch their show who live in the Midwest, some in small, rural areas. When I watch a chef talk about the ingredients they use, I am impressed with how they can make them sound desirable. Yet there is no way that I can procure these items as some of them are just to exotic (pickled pineapple leaves? Really?). I often hear them tell me that the item can be found at most "megamarts." Well, Food Network, I'm here to tell you that it cannot. I have searched high and low for things like fresh lemongrass in my town and it just doesn't exist. Now, this usually only relates to those specialty items that go into whatever it is that the chef is making, but it usually those specialty items that make the dish sound appealing in the first place. Which leads me into my second point.

If, on the rare occasion, I can find that secret ingredient, I am usually let down that it costs some kind of exuberant amount of money--especially for the amount the dish calls for. This often leads to me buy the item, use a small amount, then let it rot in the fridge until I toss it out, because I'm not about to go looking for recipes that call for that ingredient to have every night of the week until I get my money's worth. It's called variety. Now, I know that you have all kinds of money to toss around, and that your test kitchens and studios are located above one of New York City's premiere markets where you can procure just about anything at any time. But I live in the middle of Farm Country, USA, and I can't just pop over to the store and get just a little bit of anything. Going to the store around here is a day-long event where all the weekly necessities are purchased in one stop.

I also think that you should be more responsible when it comes to balancing cost and diet. It seems to me that your shows that are devoted to eating healthy, again, fail to consider that many Americans cannot afford to eat natural, organic foods. For instance, I just watched a show where one of your cooks devoted the whole episode to healthy substitutes for common snack foods. I was more than a bit curious. However, when this person went to the grocery store to give me some simple ideas to cut fat and calories, I was shocked at her suggestions. Not because I didn't agree with the choices, or thought that they were giving me bad information, but rather because they seemed to assume that money was no object. A prime example of this came in the form of the suggested milk substitute. They offered up almond milk in exchange for skim milk. And while I agree that almond milk contains less fat per serving than skim milk, it also costs a lot more--at least around here. A gallon of milk costs between $2.75 and $3.50. A quart of almond milk checks in around $4.00. So a gallon of almond milk costs $16.00. At the end of the cook's segment, they proclaimed that, with a shopping cart full of healthy foods, they had saved me, the viewer, almost 2000 calories. Yes, but you just upped my weekly grocery bill by about $300! And that is just irresponsible! And yes, I could go on and on about how unfair it is that food manufacturers are responsible for the high cost of health foods, not you. I've seen it for myself in that two similar foods are placed next to each other; one is a healthy option--however when you look at the details, there is actually less of the healthy product in the packaging, and they are charging you a much higher price. Basically, more for less. I could also rant about how they complain that it costs them more to make the healthy stuff. But I won't.

One way that I have thought up to elevate some of this anger and disillusion is for the cooks in the test kitchens to be thoughtful to the plight of the 9.2% of Americans who are unemployed, and come up with alternate ingredients. If I can't find candied plums, what else can I use? Or let's say that my local megamart doesn't carry West African Tanta root. Is there an alternative? I have passed on so many recipes that actually sounded good because I know for a fact that I can't get the stuff to make it.

I think that it would be a real nice thing if you could somehow stop the over-use of these high-priced, hard to find ingredients. Not everyone can just stop by the Wal-Mart on their way home from work and pick up lobster stock--let alone afford the lobsters to make their own. So I'm begging you to please be considerate to your viewers who have no money and live in the middle of nowhere. We're not all stupid rednecks who think that gourmet cuisine comes from that there Fazoli's. Like you, I want to make great-tasting food at home for my family to enjoy.

It is up to you to start controlling your chefs by paying attention to what they make and what they use to make it. Take a second and think: Can farmer Bob get his hands on this ingredient? If not, what can we use that is readily available almost everywhere?

Thank you.

P.S. Oh, and one other thing: get rid of Bobby Flay. There are only so many different ways to prepare a cheesesteak or steak and eggs, and he has done them all ten times over--who cares if he created a new pepper sauce to go over it? The man lost so many of his throw-downs that he threatened to quit the show, until you stepped in and (I'm assuming) bought his victories. I mean, come on, the man used the words "crusty nut sludge" when describing the perfect chocolate chip cookie . . . then proceeded to put hot pepper powder in the cookie dough. Two words: cattle prod! 'Nuff said.

Movie Review: Laid to Rest

Title: Laid to Rest
Genre: Horror/Slasher
Written and directed by: Robert Hall
Grade: D
Best Death: Tire inflation goo used to fill up the guy's head through the ear.
Worst Death: Knife to the chest.
Effects: A+ (they were practical, not digital; used foam latex and corn syrup)

I almost turned this movie off after the first ten minutes. But I muddled through and got to the end, and I'm glad I did, because in all, this is a good, solid C+ horror/slasher flick (thought I'm pretty much going to demolish this movie in this review). Yet the first little bit was one of the worst I've seen.  Here's a breakdown of the opening scenes:

- Flashy, ADD montage with lots of shots of different kinds of blades and some POV camera images of crying girls all set to annoying techno music over the credits.

- A young woman wakes up in a coffin, she panics and starts thrashing around.

- Woman escapes by knocking coffin over and breaking it open and proceeds to wander around funeral home trying to open doors, but not very hard (seriously, she just jiggles the handle, cries, then moves on--how about trying the deadbolt?)

- Woman finds a phone in the embalming room and dials 9-1-1 (there is actually a Post-It on the wall that instructs her to do so in an emergency); she says that she was "in a box" at "the dead people place." Operator tells her to stay on the line for 30 seconds so they can run a trace; but girl sees body in storage drawer and walks over to it like she's in a trance, pulling the phone cord out (actually, the cord breaks with the jack still in the phone, so the connection isn't really broken and the trace should have completed and the cops should have shown up--thus no movie!!).

- Woman sees killer and panics; old man appears and tries to unlock door, but he fumbles with his key chain and the dozens of keys he has--killer gets him!

- Woman escapes after injuring killer and is picked up by a stranger. She tells him she can't remember anything, only that she was "in a box" at the "place with the bodies"--which naturally leads the stranger to believe she's come from . . . a cemetery?

After the first ten minutes, I retitled this movie You Stupid Bitch. There were so many opportunities for her to escape, but she never does, instead relying on her weakness and the help of others (but more on that a little later).

From the moment the stranger picks her up, this actually gets kind of watchable. The stranger is a really cool, mid-40s bald guy. He's a bit of a redneck, but nice enough to take the woman back to his house to see if he and his wife can help her. Now, I'm not going to go through the entire plot here. It is long and doesn't make sense most of the time, so I'll just hit on some of my observances.

This is the story of a young woman and her attempt at escape from a killer who wears a mask that is a chrome skull and wears a small video camera on his shoulder to document his actions.

For one thing, I understand that this is a small town somewhere in Georgia, but NO ONE has a phone! Of the two people the young woman meets, neither has a phone--but one does have the Internet.  Which leads me to another issue. After the killer takes out the bald guy's wife, they drive off and come across a house, wherein lives a late-20s nerdy guy who's mother just passed away (the body the young woman saw in the funeral home). The nerdy guy uses the Internet, which the bald guy thinks is some kind of magic--he honestly has no idea what it is or that it can be used to look up information.

In another scene, the trio of the woman, bald guy, and nerd go to the police station (this is after sending an e-mail to 9-1-1--yup, they sent an emergency e-mail!) for help. Upon entering, the bald guy calls out for the sheriff, and when he gets no answer he kicks open the metal cage door that leads into the station--after just calling out once. What if the sheriff was pooping? Some one's a little too gungho. Well, naturally, the killer is there waiting on them, having taken out the police, right? Of course. So he attacks them an they escape and drive away . . . leading to the funeral home where the girl makes them stop because she says it might help her remember. So now (with the funeral home doors now unlocked) they go inside. But wait, the killer has somehow beaten them there (and don't think that this is one of those movies where there are two killer posing as one--it isn't).

That is just the first third of the film. At this point, our victimized heroine suddenly grows a pair and gets all brave when she sees the killer moving about an old barn next to the funeral home, stating that is now time some one took something from him for all that he's taken from others. She investigates, after being told not to, and is again, taken by the killer *sigh*. Again she's rescued by the bald guy who went home to get a gun; he shoot the killer a few times and they escape in the killer's Chrysler 300--nice car.

This movie also features the "floating issue" of fuel (a floating issue is a story element that pops up again and again and has really no effect on the story itself). When the bald guy picks up the woman, he asks if she's out of gas, and tells her that he doesn't have much. Later, they take the nerd's car, and it is specifically mentioned that he only has 1/8 of a tank. The killer's car has a full tank. This is what I mean by a floating issue. Also, there is an issue with camera batteries that comes up later, which suddenly transforms into video tape instead as the batteries magically recharge.

Anyway, the girl steals the killer's car while the bald guy and nerd are back at the nerd's house checking the emergency e-mail (the response is that they should CALL 9-1-1 if there is a real emergency). She drives to a small gas station (there's that fuel thing again), but the killer uses his remote GPS system to lock her in and make her do what he wants--which is get more video tape (this after the batteries in the video camera died and were reborn anew). She goes inside, takes too long, and the killer strikes. Her friends show up to rescue her. Unfortunately, the bald guy must be nearsighted because he could hit the guy from fifteen feet away in the barn, but misses blindly from about five feet.

To top the whole thing off--and to eventually lead to a final showdown between the woman and the killer--the bald guy attacks the killer in order to give the woman time to escape. But instead of running, she collapses on the floor and cries. For his heroic efforts, the bald guy gets a knife in the chest. The woman isn't even the one who kills the killer. The nerd set a lame trap for the guy and that's what gets him. So even in victory she's lame, but she does get a parting shot at his head with baseball bat after he's already dead. What a warrior she is.

Okay, so if that wasn't bad enough, there were a few lines of dialogue that made me roll my eyes. Here is a breakdown of how the woman speaks through most of the movie--I'm assuming she's supposed to be having memory trouble due to drugs, but it isn't really addressed. She refers to a casket as a box. She calls the funeral home the place with dead people or the dead body place (or some variation). At one point she tells the nerd that the killer wants to "make me dead." And a tire iron is called a tire stick.

The only real thing that kept this movie from getting an F was how great the effects were. The killer mostly used a customized Bowie knife, so there was plenty of close-up shots of grisly mutilations.

I only saw this because it was on one of the Encore movie channels and I didn't have to pay to watch it. I still kind of want my money back though.

My Favorite TV Shows (Currently Running): Part Two

In continuing with yesterday's trend . . . in no particular order:

30 Rock (NBC). Trying to describe this show to someone who hasn't seen it is like trying to describe the beauty of some one's face using only their hand for reference. Alec Baldwin has finally embraced his comedic talents that he used to flaunt so wonderfully on Saturday Night Live; it also helps that he's now kinda fat and old, so no more action movies with ex-wife Kim Bassinger. Tina Fey makes me fall in love with poor Liz Lemon every episode, mainly for her archaic 1980s pop culture references. And unlike other shows (both animated and live-action) that use cut-away gags for laughs, 30 Rock uses them correctly, that is to say briefly. Their cut-aways last no more than twenty or so seconds, and when your show is only twenty-two minutes long, seconds count. But the show's greatest achievement was this past season's live episode.

Community (NBC). When I first heard about this show, I had two thoughts. I figured it was going to be either the worst thing on television, or the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Luckily for me, and every one else, it was the latter. I really gave this show a chance because of my devotion to Joel McHale on The Soup (E!), but I am now grateful for the chance to have been introduced to Donald Glover, who plays Troy. Apparently the guy is a comic busy-bee, doing everything from stand-up, to hilarious raps, and even putting on a campaign to play Peter Parker in the new Spider-Man movie that will be out next year (he did not get the part). But like so many other shows on my list, it is the ensemble cast that makes this show work. Without all of them sitting around the study table in the library, the balance would be tilted and dull. It's also good to see Chevy Chase back in comedy where he's actually funny. Another highlight is the girls, for those of you into that sort of thing. First there's Gillian Jacobs who plays Britta, cast as the hot one, but isn't. And there's Alison Brie, the hot one cast as the one who isn't. To see what I mean, check this out.

Parks & Rec. (NBC). The third of the NBC Thursday night lineup to make this list. When I first hear they were doing a spin-off of The Office, I cringed. Then I saw Parks & Rec. and I laughed until I cried. Amy Poehler is at her comedic best, even if they spent most of last season trying to hide her pregnancy, as Leslie Knope, the well-intentioned, hard-working second-in-command (but really the head) of the Parks Department for the fictional Pawnee, Indiana. Again, it is the supporting cast of soon-to-be-superstar Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Chris Pratt, and Aubrey Plaza that ease this show along. Another thing that makes this show watchable is how quotable it is. There is at least one line per episode that should be used as a Facebook status update.

Psych (USA). A fake psychic and his best friend hang out in Santa Barbra, CA and solve murders. This is another one of those rare shows where the humor and drama balance out nicely. The truly great part of this show is that James Roday and Dule Hill make you want to hang out with their characters Shawn and Gus. They'd be awesome to go to the taco stand with, as long as you're buying, because on the way you'll probably get sucked into some horrible crime where you life will probably be on the line. This was another one of those shows that I had to be talked into watching, and now I'm glad I listened. It's far from perfect, but it has all the 80s and 90s references you could want, and some great one-liners.

Rake (Audience). I'm guessing that most of you don't know anything about this show because it airs on a Direct TV-only station--and because it's Australian. Here's the gist: it's about a hard-living lawyer in New South Wales, Australia. He does drugs, drinks gallons, and sleeps with just about every broad he can come across, all while defending the most detestable lot of clients he can come across. It's vulgar and coarse and I love it. Just as a taste, the first episode featured Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, Lord of the Rings Trilogy) as a cannibalistic economics professor. And yes, it was awesome.

Being Human (BBC America). A vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost . . . stop me if you've heard this one . . . This is seriously one of the best TV concepts that's come around in the last decade or so.  Here's this trio of supernatural beings trying to live a normal, human life. Like that's ever going to work. The first season was light-hearted with some darker spots, as we learned a little more about the characters and how they interacted with one another. The second season went darker, but retained some of that humor that made them "human." And the third season went balls-to-the-wall dark, but not in the horror kind of way, more in the Seven kind of way. There's George, the squeaky-voiced, child-like werewolf who is quickly growing up; Mitchell, the sociopath vampire who's just trying to survive; and Annie, the ghost who loves everybody. I don't think this show would work if you removed any of the elements, because it is about people who have no family trying to live like one and the hardships they deal with. Oh, and you can see an American version on SyFy network, but it isn't as good and seems to be vampire-focused--imagine that.

Dr. Who (BBC America). The longest running sci-fi show on television (though there have been large gaps at times) has been on since the 1950s. I'm not going to spend hours relating all the information about this show, you can check wikipedia for that information. The truth is that this show didn't really pick up a ton of steam until 2005, when Stephen Moffat redesigned it for the new millennium and it was rebroadcast in the U.S. on the Sci-Fi network on Friday nights. After the departure of David Tennant as the title character, Matt Smith took over. Personally, I like Matt as the Doctor. The newer season (in which I actually cried during the season finale), was powerful and well-done. The Smith episodes continue with the darker themes presented in the final Tennant shows where the Doctor was alone and a little depressed. But then the next Doctor picked up Amy Pond, played by the too-damn-cute Karen Gillan, and was off on new adventures. While most of the show retains the original lightheartedness of the other Doctors, the newer episodes are much darker, I think reflecting the slow degeneration of the Doctor's psyche as he gets older and contemplates all that he has seen and done. I don't think we'll lose the Doctor any time soon--besides, how do you kill a character that can regenerate his physiology while dying as a form of preservation?

My Favorite TV Shows (Currently Running): Part One

Recently I did a countdown of my favorite shows that were cancelled too soon. It was sad and depressing going back and remembering the great losses I have suffered, so I decided that I would come up with a list of my favorite show that are still on the air--but I'm not ranking them, because each one holds a special place in my heart, not to be measured with another.

Anyway . . .

Futurama (Comedy Central). Like the "sweet zombie Jesus" that Adult Swim used to bleep out (but Comedy Central leaves in), this show came back from the dead with a fury. It took four independently produced movies (Bender's Big Score, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game, and Into the Wild Green Yonder) to get anyone to pay attention, but it worked. Audiences saw that the writing was still great, and executives saw that there was still money to be made. So Comedy Central aired all of the movies in half-hour increments as the first "new" season. Now they're back on a regular airing schedule and I couldn't be happier. What's better, is that they never lost any of the original cast. If things keep going well, Futurama could very well be the next South Park, but for nerds, not hipsters (did I just zing South Park?).

Franklin & Bash (TNT). It's good to see Zack Morris all grown up. No, I don't mean the actor. The character of Peter Bash is exactly how I imagined the character of Zack to be in 2011. But all that aside, it is a great show. It's like Psych meets Law & Order. There's plenty of humor and drama, both. It just wrapped its first season on TNT last night and I was honestly impressed. The writers didn't go for a lame cliff-hanger ending, and polished off the episode's troubles in the full hour. My only gripe about the show is that season one only ran ten episodes. I will be eagerly awaiting the return of this show because TNT renewed it just last week! Hooray. Are you paying attention, FOX?

White Collar (USA). This show is smart and cute. Yes, I said cute. The dynamic between Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey is something that isn't seem much in television today. They are complete opposites, that find common ground and have built a friendship around that little parcel of land. The supporting characters do more than support--and in the current season they've paid particular attention to each one of the supporting characters by giving them their own episode to shine. Not that this show is totally perfect. Neal is clever and smart, but he seems to know everything--like in an episode of Knight Rider where they give KITT a new feature, just to test, and, sure enough that little gizmo is the key to saving the day in the end. Also, as a poor person, I'm starting to get a little tired of all the glitz and glam the show depicts. Apparently, in New York City, everything is clean and shiny and everyone can afford bagels and coffee three times a day. I would like to see someone who drives a car that is more than five years old--and I know that Ford sponsors the show, but still . . .

The Closer (TNT). I'll admit that I never watched this show when it first came on several years ago. Honestly, I didn't like Kyra Sedgwick, and I still don't. She looks like she's in her 60s, regardless of how many makeovers they give her, and she's too skinny. But I love Brenda Johnson, her character. However, it is really the supporting characters that make up this show! Lieutenants Tao, Flynn and Provenza, Detectives Gabriel and Sanchez, and Commander Taylor and Chief Pope are really to thank for the success of the show. The writers do an excellent job of weaving the stories so that it isn't Chief Johnson who come up with the winning idea every time. She relies on her team, and goes to bat for them constantly. This show really goes beyond the typical police drama and captures the family unit that makes up a tight-knit group of people who work together.

Haven (SyFy). I started watching this show last summer because it was "based on" a work by Stephen King. Then I read the book this show is based on. I'm still watching the show, but it has very little to do with the book. The show focuses on supernatural happenings call "the troubles," while the book--which I read in a single sitting--is a simple mystery story that is never actually solved. I like the show because of all the crazy stuff that happens, and because I have a little fan-crush on Emily Rose, who plays female lead, Audry Parker. The setup is a Kingesque style of a small town in Maine where bizarre thing take place, and each episode centers around one particular incident. However, this show has fallen victim to the cliche that so many have in that there is usually a season-underlying event going on that you have to keep watching to get all the pieces. Though when the season ends, there are still more pieces and the puzzle isn't even close to done. I'm afraid this show will get the ax and leave so many questions unanswered. But while it's on, I love it.

Warehouse 13 (SyFy). I was super-excited about the premise of this show when it first started, and I still really like it, though the current season is starting off a little weak. The first season was highlighted by the two characters of Pete and Myka going around looking for crazy objects with supernatural powers, usually once owned by someone historically famous person. Near the end of season one they introduced Claudia (played by the near-scorching hot Allison Scagliotti), as a teenage tech-wizard who played around with and enhanced may of the outdated Warehouse systems. The trouble with this show, like many others, is the underlying, season-long story arcs. First it was Artie's former partner and his madness, then it was the escape of female H.G. Wells (yup, apparently Wells was really a woman in this universe). None of these shows have really been bad. They're a little bit like Dr. Who meets the History Channel. Obviously some are better than others, but in all, I'd like to see this show keep going for at least another two seasons.

Well, that's part one. Hope I inspired you to tune into some new shows, or look them up on Netflix or some unnamed website that hosts them in some fashion (I don't condone piracy in any form *wink wink*).