and every time I've held a rose it seems I've only felt the thorns

I spent much of last night catching up on television, which is sort of a ridiculous thing to do with one's time, but it was a snowy Monday night so I didn't feel too badly about it. I am now nearly up to date on all the shows I care about, a field that has grown these past few months to be slightly unwieldy. The joy of the Tivo is that it lets me watch whatever I want on my own time, but the curse of Tivo is that it makes me feel like I can watch everything that piques my interest. Something will likely have to go on the chopping block, since I'd rather dedicate more time to socializing and gaming than watching recorded shows. But what? Its all so good.

Starting from the top, Heroes was back last night. I continue to heart Hiro Nakamura so hard. Much of the plot was slowed to a crawl, likely so that the show can allow new viewers to catch up, and also because we've reached the first chapter break. The show has passed through its first set of climactic events and is now metaphorically catching its breath and taking stock of where it is. These are all very good things, and speak to a story that's actually going somewhere (unlike say the X-Files.) war_pug pointed out last night that my real problem with Battlestar Galactica is not with the show itself but with how its marketed. BSG is, he contested, basically about its characters, whereas Heroes is fundamentally about its plot. Take away the characters in Heroes and you could likely invent new ones to tell the same story. Perhaps it wouldn't be as good (and perhaps none of them would touch your heart as much as a certain time-travelling round-faced Japanese guy) but you could do it. Whereas in the absence of its compelling characters there really isn't that much to Battlestar Galactica at all.

Its an interesting point, and he's right to a certain extent (war_pug is, after all, a pretty clever guy.) I wouldn't be so bothered about the plot if all of the promos and advertisements for BSG didn't continue to promise plot development instead of focusing on what I actually enjoy about the show, the interplay between a cast of characters so diverse and deep that even when there are single actresses playing multiple different characters they all seem distinct and individual. Boomer Sharon is not Athena Sharon, and barring some intentional misdirection on the part of the series it feels like it would be hard to confuse the two. This is also a very good thing.

Studio 60 also made its understated return last night, and if it continues to falter then I find myself increasingly forgiving of it, because bit by bit its doing more things right. Wilson White has come to the foreground and become more than just a sketch of a character, bringing much of the gravitas demiurgent noted as being absent, even if good ol' Ed Asner insists on delivering his lines so slowly and deliberately as to nullify the snappiness of the Sorkin dialogue. Danny Tripp's tongue-in-cheek declaration, slipped in before the opening credits on the sly ("at least I'm back on television") can be forgiven because it was clever enough to make me smile. The plot involving Jordan McDeere and her new VP for alternative programming was admittedly pretty bad, but not so bad as to damn the entire episode. In the midst of good and interesting conflicts there are storm clouds on the horizon in the form of Simon's fight with Darius, but assuming the best that will not be awful and things are moving in an overall positive direction. Am I equivocating in favor of something I want to like? You betcha.

Finally I caught up on the first couple episodes of the new season of Rome. Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo continue to be wholly unstoppable badasses. And the series continues to feed my love for Octavian, who I am delighted to report they have not recast as I once foolishly feared, instead allowing the actor to age quite naturally into his role. war_pug refuses to concede to my description of Octavian as a "stealth badass," but does agree with me that he's badass in much the same way as Caesar was: even-tempered, manipulative and exceedingly shrewd in politics. And on an entirely different note the girl playing his sister, Irish actress Kerry Condon, is even cuter this season than last. Rome wins so hard. And there were promoes for the new seasons of Entourage and the last season of the Sopranoes this Spring. Too much television...

I wanna find Anne Frank before I bite it

Amusing anecdotes in the history of pooka_madness: go!

Flash back several years to the Spring of my sophomore year of college at Evanston's own Northwestern University. Like many people I had grown disillusioned with the housing lottery and dorm life in general and become intrigued with the possibilities of moving off campus. After some cajoling my parents, citing wholly specious figures about the cost of the endeavor, thablueguy and I began the search for an apartment within walking distance of South campus. Neither one of us was looking to spend the kind of money necessary to live in a really nice place, and so it was that we gravitated almost inevitably to the already-infamous Blue Whale.

The Blue Whale, a building affectionately nicknamed for the coat of cyan paint on the front wall of the building, was a much-esteemed edifice in the undergrad community at Northwestern and practically a dorm unto itself. Not as sketchy or far away as the theater ghetto, yet neither as close nor as condominium-esque as Evanston Place, the Blue Whale appeared to occupy the comfortable middle ground, perfect as a college apartment for a couple of regular guys. Oh how foolish and young were we. Admittedly this was in the days before the elevator started routinely smelling of cat and hobo urine, when the building's entryway door was not so horrifically mangled as to render it perpetually unlocked. We were hooked and we were sold, and so we got the place.

Or rather we tried to. We were hooked by a leasing agent from B&A Realty, then owners of the property. This woman, about whom I remember virtually nothing except that she was large and black and seemed friendly enough, showed us the place and did all the usual things salespeople do in this situation, assuring us that she was showing the same apartment to several other people that very afternoon and pressuring us to make our decision quickly. Which is why it proved so frustrating that when we actually wanted to sign the papers and give her money she was nowhere to be found.

Several days of distraught phone calls simply kept coming up dry. At first the denials seemed casual enough: she's not in the office today, but she'll be in tomorrow. Oh she's not in today either, but try back on Monday. Soon however it became clear that something was up. Both thablueguy and I were increasingly stressed the longer the matter went unsettled. In choosing to get an apartment we had more or less opted out of the housing lottery. The thought of throwing ourselves on the mercy of the undergraduate administration was too depressing to consider. There was no turning back; it was get an apartment or bust, and this apartment which had seemed like an acceptable compromise was increasingly looking like the holy grail. Once they start to go in Evanston they go fast, and our field of options dwindled. We kept calling.

In my memory its not me or thablueguy but manslayerliz who was finally able to wrestle the truth of the matter from the fine folks at B&A, but then I'm notoriously unreliable about these sorts of details (I don't even remember the agent's name, after all) so that may or may not be true. Where was our leasing agent? Why was she never in the office? Had she rented the apartment to someone else? Had she screwed us? Had she totally and utterly screwed us?!

No, came back the halting reply. No she had not screwed us. Yes we could still rent the apartment. She hadn't been in the office, its true, but that's because she had... well...

... died.

Oh.

Seriously?

We were assigned a new leasing agent, in the end. We signed the papers and thus began the two years of absolute bedlam that was thablueguy and I living together. Its important to remember how these things begin. Looking back I suppose maybe we should have taken it as an omen, that a seemingly perfectly healthy (well, OK, she was kind of obese, but its not like she was particularly old or anything) woman would inexplicably drop dead before we could get this apartment.