I’ve always liked the guys behind Reno 911 and The State, so normally anything they do is great. But when you combine them acting as authority figures with already socially awkward people at the ComicCon… pure magic.

Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant in Nerd Alert: Comic Con 2008 from Comic Con, Thomas_Lennon, and Ben_Garant.

It was at an ABC Family Party that Keith was nice enough to drag me along to, and Stacy was there. So after a little liquid courage, a little prodding from Keith, I got up the nerve…. and totally wussed out.

You won this round fate, but I’ve now rededicated myself to the cause. It’s on.

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’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.

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

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.

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.

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.