Ryan j Budke

I feel like a recent episode of Lost, I HAVE to go back. We have to find a way. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I spent last Friday night at The Playboy Mansion. No matter how awesome you think it is, multiply that by roughly 8,000. It was THAT cool. Hef sitting in his smoking jacket, the exotic animals, the trampolines, women dancing on platforms out in the middle of the pool, I saw it all.

For me, the most surreal moment was sitting in the infamous grotto having a drink with the guys. Such an amazing night.

If you don’t believe me, make sure to check out the pictures on flickr.

I just finished watching Undeclared again on DVD from Netflix. For those that missed it, and considering it barely lasted half a season on Fox back in 2001/02 I’m going to assume that’s everyone, it was Judd Apatow’s television series that followed up his equally brilliant Freaks & Geeks, and followed a group of friends through their freshmen year of college. I find myself laughing at the experiences and situations, but definitely from a with them instead of at them mentality. Everyone knew someone with the girlfriend or boyfriend that they had in high school that didn’t last two weeks in college. Or the slacker who never went to classes. Or the mysterious roommate that you didn’t even realize you had.

I’m happy I watched both Undeclared and Freaks & Geeks for the first time AFTER I had become a fan of Jason Segel from How I Met Your Mother, because I don’t think I would have been able to look at him the same on that show. He’s very good at playing the slightly creepy, and too needy boyfriend on both. Hopefully that should make him a natural in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the new film by Apatow’s crew where he plays *drumroll* a slightly obsessive ex-boyfriend. See? Full circle.

I’ve been reading a few books by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk, and I came across a passage today in Peace Is Every Step that really struck a chord with me.

One day, I offered a number of children a basket filled with tangerines. The basket was passed around, and each child took one tangerine and put it in his or her palm. We each looked at our tangerine, and the children were invited to meditate on its origins. With some guidance, they began to visualize the blossoms in the sunshine and in the rain. Then they saw petals falling down and the tiny green fruit appear. The sunshine and the rain continued and the tiny tangerine grew. Now someone has picked it and the tangerine is here. After seeing this, each child was invited to peel the tangerine slowly, noticing the mist and the fragrance of the tangerine, and then bring it up to his or her mouth and have a mindful bite, in full awareness of the texture and taste of the fruit and the juice coming out. We ate slowly like that.

This story reminded me of when I was younger and would watch Mr. Rogers, or Sesame Street when they would take a visit to some big factory or show you the behind the scenes of how something worked and how cool those episodes were. I specifically remember Mr. Rogers visiting a crayon factory (which was particularly awesome because of all the bright colors and mess) and then later that day looking at my crayons and thinking how awesome it was knowing how they got there. I don’t know what I did after that because I can’t draw for shit, but it was cool knowing how the crayon had come to be.

Granted, it’s much easier to get into the state of amazement as a child, but I’ve been slowing down and trying to appreciate everything a little bit more today. I wish I could have found the crayon video, but most of the Mr. Rogers videos on YouTube are all prank call vids, so here’s a random episode that I found.

Mr. Rogers

Actually it’s just me, no we, and I’m not going to start talking about myself in multiple third person like Perez does, but I’m watching Bender’s Big Score on DVD in preparation for it’s triumphant return this weekend on Comedy Central.

I’m still catching up from the past couple of weeks, and have lots to recap, but just wanted to write a quick post since I caught shit from Chuck for not uploading my blog. Hope you’re happy.

After getting sliced and diced this morning, I had the opportunity to catch up on some TV from the past few weeks. One of the shows was NBC’s quarterlife which started life as a serial on MySpace and then aired on MTV. Holy shit, avoid this trainwreck at all costs. It was supposed to be about a group of friends pretty similar to myself, in their mid-twenties, “finding themselves in a digital age” was one of NBC’s tags for it I believe. In retrospect I’m ashamed to say I was actually looking forward to this. Luckily it looks like all of America agreed, and the show is going to get yanked after a single episode, but I’m at a rare juncture of no pain, no drug haze and rage at the moment that I’m going to rant on.

First off, it was envisioned and being headed up by “the team behind thirtysomething“, let’s just pause and reflect on that for a second. Now, I’ve never watched thirtysomething, but I’ve hardly heard a bad word about it, and the reason it continues to get such praise today is because it was a very personal and poignant show written by a group who were going through the same trials and tribulations that were reflected in their stories. That was 20+ years ago, when they were actually IN their 30’s. So who the f*ck thought they’d be able to write from the perspective of their children in today’s age?

quarterlife was like someone pulled out a list of bad Web 2.0 buzzwords and were peppering and already shitty script with as many of them as they could. “Did we have her say blog in the past five minutes? No? What about video-casting?” Do the writers even know what this stuff means? I don’t know who this was marketed towards, because I don’t know anyone in my demographic who would relate to it, and my parents and grandparents both have better grasps of what the online world is like that they couldn’t be shoveled this shit.

This is all just the icing on a truly truly awful story and cast. Oh, look at our main character, she’s misunderstood and doesn’t tuck her shirt in. She’s spunky and she’ll stand up to her comic book-esque evil boss though in a moment of grandeur. No, she’s 25, if she can’t dress herself, she doesn’t need to be running a website. Grow the hell up.

Comedy Central sent me an early screening of Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil, and you know what? It’s really funny. Now, you might be saying to yourself “But Ryan, aren’t all shows on Comedy Central funny? I mean the channel’s name is Comedy Central after all” and I’d say to you “Shut the hell up. Why do I keep writing really really stupid comments that I pretend are coming from my audience.” No, Comedy Central gives a lot of shows a chance, but for every Sarah Silverman Program, there’s a dozen Trucker and T-Bones, Halfway House or American Body Shop. It looks like they’ve definitely got another winner on their hands though.

The premise is a play on all the reality court shows. Lewis Black acts as judge and presides over which of two “blights on humanity” is the real “Root of all Evil”. The first two episodes pitted Oprah against The Catholic Church and Donald Trump against Viagra. Two comedians then argue the case that the entity their representing is the true root of all evil.

I don’t want this to sound like a review or a commercial, it genuinely is a funny ass show and I would expect most of you guys will love it. I was laughing for almost the entire time. Granted I do live with one of the most hateful people in the world who thinks he’s Lewis Black but comes off more like Oscar the Grouch and that adds a whole new level of funny… but it is a funny show and I’ll always take more Lewis Black.