The DVR Files

As an Irish American, it is my sacred duty to like cops. Every Officer Sullivan, Fitzgerald, and Smith (or Sully, Fitzy, and Smitty) could be one of my uncles or cousins or friend on the old block, if I had grown up in a city instead the beautiful suburb of North Andover, MA. This veneration for police officers explains my love for the show Boston’s Finest among others.

Despite my affinity for the men in blue, one show I am NOT watching–yet–is Golden Boy on CBS about a hot guy who becomes the youngest police commissioner of New York City. He’s no Ray Kelly, let me tell you. In fact, he’s not even Irish American. He’s frigging English actor Theo James.

Yes, I would like those lips to seduce me.

Honestly–I have to fan myself every time I look at that picture. In the few promos I’ve seen for the show, his accent is so so over the top and thick it’s a bit ridic. Let’s hope that other aspects of him are thick too. Ha! I said it. I’m a BAD Irish Catholic girl. Get me to confession, quick!

Maybe Jon Hamm is his role model. A girl can dream!

I might have to start watching this show because Jesus from True Blood is also in it, and he might need some comforting after what happened to him and Lafayette.

Till then, I’m going to plot some crimes so I can get arrested by a hot cop. Anyone know where the best-looking ones are stationed in New York?

Last week I started watching Breaking Bad because I want to be like every other cool person I know. I also started reading the book The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright which is about the formation of Al-Qaeda and how it led to 9/11. Just your normal, fun, light beach reading. NOT. I’m not a dog person but now all I want to see are puppies because I need to believe there is good in the world.

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

Between terrorism and crystal meth, I’ve been just a LITTLE on edge. Luckily I keep a permanent recording of Golden Girls eps on my DVR to cleanse the palate to remember that it is better to be late than pregnant. Am I right Blanche or am I right?

I feel guilty about quite a few things . . . google stalking my crushes, microwaving Peeps to watch them explode (where is PETA???), thinking Jamie Bell was hot when he starred as Billy Elliot at age 13 . . . .

What can I say? I recognized the potential.

But perhaps what I feel the absolute WORST about is when I read an article about a child of a goddamn celebrity, and I actually have an opinion on it. Egads.

The latest example of this is, well, quite an important step in the beauty world. Suri Cruise got bangs. Yup, you heard it here first (or second, if you read the article on people.com as I did).

Such a vague stare and yet such blunt bangs.

Let’s be honest–and I know she’s just a kid–but home girl TOTALLY took the scissors to her own hair, which is something I also do after a few drinks when I decide I need a few snip snips. You’re in good company Suri.

Now I need to crawl under a rock because I am ashamed, so ashamed.

So my brother Andrew and his beautiful fiancee Sara are expecting their first child together, which means I will be an aunt. Yay!

I am such a natural with babies.

Let’s just hope that when I die Andrew doesn’t call me a beloved, er, cunt in my obit.

I am so happy that Vada Sultenfuss has found peace and love. Nearly 22 years after her best friend Thomas James Sennett was killed by bumblebees in every preteen’s favorite tearjerker My Girl, Vada has announced to the world via People mag that she is expecting her first child with hubby Shaun So.

This won best kiss at the very first MTV Movie Awards in 1992. Edward Furlong also won Breakthrough Performance so there’s that . . . .

Truth be told, it’s not actually VADA’s who’s preggers–after all, even though My Girl was released in 1991, it was set in 1972 and she’d be WAY past her child-bearing days–it’s the actress who portrayed her, Anna Chlumsky, who is knocked up. Now starring in one of my fave tv show’s Veep, Anna’s baby is due this summer.

Congratulations Vada/Anna. Thomas James would have wanted this!

As the Supreme Court debates the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 on gay marriage, the overwhelming support for equality for all has loomed huge on the social media frontier. Yay! And while this makes me super duper duper happy–as it should everyone–I am also reminded of a few gals who were ahead of their time.

This show could also have been called “The Progressive Girls.”

It got me thinking . . . which Golden Girl would you want to marry if you were a lesbian? Let’s discuss.

Sophia Petrillo: Sophia is perhaps the most liberal of the bunch, which is even more amazing since she’s in her 80s and grew up in a very small community in Sicily. When Blanche was upset that her gay brother Clayton was marrying partner Doug, Sophia  explains why he wants to “slip a ring on it.”

Cons are that if you are a gold-digging lesbian who wants to marry someone for, er, her will, Sophia would not be a very good choice, as she always has to borrow money from Dorothy.

Dorothy Zbornak: Dorothy is a dream candidate for a lesbian. Tall, grand, smart, she’s never met a shoulder pad she doesn’t like. She also is well-read and very loyal to her friends. So loyal, in fact, that she doesn’t mind being a guest on Good Morning Miami with Blanche as “two women who loved each and slept together.” Well, maybe she minds a LITTLE. But she still loves the gays.

Rose Nylund: Rose may be sweet, innocent, and naive, but home girl is easy to love. In fact, that bottle blonde is desired by intellectual men such as professor Miles Webber AND lesbians such as Dorothy’s old friend Jean.

Blanche Devereaux: Despite what Phaedra Parks proclaims that she is the ultimate Southern Belle on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, everybody knows that it is Blanche who is the REAL Georgia peach. And let’s be honest, a real hussy too. The lady loves to spread her legs any chance she can get among the bachelors of Miami. I say you go girl. And while she does initially have issues with having a gay brother, the aforementioned Clayton, she does come around to support his union with Doug, even if she doesn’t QUITE understand homosexuality.

So what’s my verdict? It’s a tough one. But I’m going to have to go with Dorothy. Even though I’d be initially attracted to Rose, even I fast forward through her goddamn St. Olaf stories, and I have ZERO desire to try gerflagaflugen, or whatever the hell Scandinavian special she is cooking this week. Let’s just hope Dorothy inherited some of her ma’s cooking skills!

I never watch MTV anymore because I am, you know, an ADULT.

Though I do watch Degrassi, but it’s Canadian and everyone knows foreign things are more sophisticated.

But I do wax nostalgic for the days of my adolescence when I’d spend the summer taping videos on my parents’ super reliable Toshiba VCR (that sh– lasted 20 years) and then watch them over and over and over again.

My favorite band in the 1992/1993 era was 10,000 Maniacs. In eight grade I even entered a songwriting contest judged by the Queen of PC Natalie Merchant (I didn’t win). God, I loved her. In 1993 they released the Maniacs released their album Unplugged, which is hilarious because their entire career is pretty much unplugged. But whatever. My favorite song off this album was Noah’s Dove. I honestly don’t know if I even listened to the words. But it sounded wistful, sad, mopey, and hopeful, all at the same time, and that was kind of my thing back in the day.

Enjoy the stroll down memory lane and watch the goddamn video below and swoon like a 1990s goddess.

Confesh: I JUST started watching Breaking Bad this weekend. I know, shocking, since I am probably one of the most cutting edge people you know, that I am jumping in FIVE years after a show premiered to finally take it all in.

Toto, I have a feeling Bryan Cranston is not Malcolm’s dad anymore.

The elitist snob in me is so embarrassed to admit this. Liz Simons doesn’t jump on the bandwagon, she frigging drives them and picks up people along the way. Toot toot. For example, I watched Mad Men before Jon Hamm’s package was even a thing, and I admit I was so bored by it (the show, not the package) that I gave it up after one season.

To be historically accurate–I actually DID watch the first two episodes of Breaking Bad when they premiered on AMC (American Movie Classics, y’all!) in January 2008. I was living in Brooklyn with two boys (God, you can practically TASTE the hipness oozing off of me) and I DVR’ed it and watched it in my bedroom. But then I moved to another apartment where I didn’t have control of the DVR, and then I fell so far behind that was the end of that. By the time I moved into my own apartment, the first season was already over and I said F it, plenty of other shows to watch.

Okay, so now let’s get back to the present. I decided to do something I rarely ever do–in fact it is unprecedented in the life of Liz Simons–I started to watch Breaking Bad from the every beginning so I could catch up in time for the series finale which will be airing this summer. Now, I’m too cheap to do Netflix so I requested the DVDs from the library. It took me 3 months, but I finally got Season 1 last week. Thank God this first season was only 7 eps, because even I have trouble watching 13 episodes at a time (you can keep DVDs for a week, and then it’s $3/day in fines!). And damn, is the show good. I get it. I like Walter White, even though he is kind of evil. And Jesse Pinkman, portrayed by former model Aaron Paul, looks like he could appear on an episode of Intervention, so the casting directors clearly did their work.

I’m enjoying it but damn but life is going to be all about meth the next few months. Sorry folks!

Easter is around the corner, which is great because I gave up sweets for Lent (except after midnight) and I want PEEPS!

United we stand!

I am honest to God a card-carrying PAYING member of the Peeps Fan Club. Evidence below.

Business in the Front

Party in the back

I joined back in 2002 when you had to PAY. As a member of the Marshmallow Peeps Fan Club (in good standing, of course), I received a tshirt, a hat, a box of Peeps, and quarterly editions of the newspeeper.

My brother loved to borrow my clothes.

Just Born, the company who manufactures Peeps, discontinued the club at some point and now we just have secret meetings at drugstores around the world the week after Easter. What I usually end up doing is snatching up 6 or 7 boxes at a time. Like an addict, I am a bit embarrassed by my hobby, so then I hit up another CVS and buy six more. One year I would up with about 25 boxes. And you best BELIEVE I eat them. Just pop in the microwave for 10 seconds and they’re like new!

What does this have to do with TV, you ask. Well, back in 1999 they made a Peeps COMMERCIAL. And I am just seeing it now and I keep hoping that they’ll make another one. Maybe someday! A girl can wish.