Full Disclosure Part 5

LOST



Technically, I'm in a fight with this show because it's on hiatus until January or February of 2008, which is ridiculous and seriously testing the limits of my fanship and sanity. But I would be remiss if I didn't include it, so...fine, J.J. Abrams. Fine.

I didn't watch this program for the first two seasons because I thought it was about dinosaurs. I got hooked when the boyfriend (not knowing he was lifting a crack pipe to my lips) plugged me into episode #1 downloaded on his computer. Fire! Dimples! Tracheotomies! Ocean! Handcuffs! Dimples!

You better have the patience of Job to watch this show - endless character flashbacks, slow as Christmas plot development, and enough red herrings for a fish fry - because if you don't (and I don't) you'll spend a lot of time yelling at people who don't exist and producers who do.

But I stay in this unhealthy relationship because Sawyer likes to take his shirt off a lot. Sayid just killed someone with his feet. And has skin like candy. There's creepy music that tells me what to feel and when. Two characters got buried alive just because viewers didn't like them. John Locke can talk to invisible people. They've played Wonderwall more than once. A man wearing an eye patch got electrocuted and I got to press rewind over and over to watch the blood explode from his eardrums. And there still might be dinosaurs.

Full Disclosure Part 4

The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries



This will begin to reveal itself even more as the list goes on, but I am a serious fool for all things mystery. And all things British. So combine the two and there'll be a real problem with me leaving the couch. The stories of Sherlock Holmes are smart and creepy and quirky and the genius that put these on the screen should get a bear hug. Yes, if you have to make a choice between reading the stories and seeing the program, you should read the stories. But that's obviously a ridiculous "if" posed in a ridiculous world I wouldn't want to live.

I have to watch this one with the sound jacked up, because the production quality of each episode is always questionable. It's unfortunate, because this is a program where every line is of the utmost importance. (See how fun it is to talk like him?) At the same time, the characters' facial expressions are close-to-unbearably intense, so you can usually tell what's going on with the sound off.

Jeremy Brett plays Sherlock and is beyond fantastic. He's probably 89% of the reason I watch this show. Sometimes he's whispering and then yells things at the top of his lungs just because he can. I always look around the room like really? Am I the only one who cares that he just did that? Admittedly, I'm confused whether he's a real person or not.

The answer to "What did you do Thursday night?" should probably never be "Watched Sherlock Holmes" but I'm also the girl who'd choose a bagel with Nutella over a beer every single time.

Full Disclosure Part 3

The Dog Whisperer



Although my little brother did - mysteriously - request that my mother puffy paint I LOVE DOGS onto his t-shirt at age 4, we were never the dog-loving-type family. Truth be told, most dogs (even the tiny yippy ones) used to scare the bejesus out of me. Now I want one with an unabiding fervor I usually reserve for flat boots and/or 35 cent packages of Peeps. So, I never thought I'd be pausing my manic channel changing on a show about dogs, let alone sitting quietly and enjoying it immensely with mouth agape.

Cesar Milan is a tiny Latino man with a big a#$ pack of dogs (comprised mostly of big a#$ pit bulls) who's got the ability to whip even the most heinous dogs into shape. If you were to ask him, he'd say he "rehabilitates dogs and trains people" but whatever dude, the man's half canine.

He's fixed skateboard-obsessed bulldogs, crazy-face chicks who use their dogs to cure panic attacks, demon puppies who kick their owners out of bed, and traumatized postal workers. And he's got a side gig in saving maybe-ruined-by-dog-issues-but-actually-dumb-people-issues marriages. You're impressed.

I don't have a dog (yet, CC) to make act better, but CM has improved my vocabulary. I can now request that family and friends please remain "calm-submissive" - the term he uses to describe a dog's ideal mental state - whenever they start acting feisty. It rolls out his mouth nonstop and smushed together into one word; it took me a couple episodes to even figure out what the heck he was saying. I felt confident it must be "con smith" which I thought might be a variant of "heel" or something in Cesar Speak.

I currently have 2 episodes at a time recorded to the DVR. Not exactly something I brag about at work, but I feel pretty good about it.

P.S. The C-Man's not gay? He's married with a child? Really? Well, knock me over with a minpin.