What's With the Look On Her Face?

This could really be the second half of the conversation from that episode of The Simpsons where Homer wants steak for dinner but they can't afford it.

Gladys: What do you want for dinner, Brutus?

Brutus: Steak?

Gladys: Money's too tight for steak...

Brutus: Steak?

Gladys: Sure Brutus. Steak.

Later that day...

Brutus: What? Salad for dinner instead of steak?

Gladys: When did I ever say we were having steak?

Veeblefester's Rich So He Can Afford Life Support

Well, on the plus side, at least Brutus isn't boring enough to kill somebody--just put them into a near-death, comatose-like state.

This Could've Easily Been a Daily Strip

I'd be pretty ticked off too that my steak took seven panels to be brought out to my table but in that restaurant's defense, it's pretty cool that you get your own personal waiter who just stands there watching you eat your food...and waiting.

Mickey Rooney, 1920-2014

Mickey Rooney, one of the most famous child actors in entertainment history, star of the Andy Hardy series of films, has passed away as the age of 93.

How We Met the Mother

It's finally over.

I say that as someone who is sad to see one of his favorite television shows end and as someone who hates to see good shows languish on the line. How I Met Your Mother joins the small echelon of shows I've watched from beginning to end at the time they aired that also lasted at least five seasons. Before HIMYM, only Boy Meets World (1993-2000) and Smallville (2001-2011) made that list. Only three shows. Other shows I picked up a couple seasons in, some I quit watching because, to me, they were done. HIMYM almost fell into that category.

I started watching How I Met Your Mother because the premise intrigued me. I was at a time in my life where I, too, was looking for Mrs. Mosby and it didn't hurt that the characters were similar in age to me. It wasn't long before I met someone and I could show them this amazing show. I had bought the first season DVD collection and that first season is just the best television I've seen in a long time. There is not a flaw in it and no other modern TV series has a first season like it. I loved cuddling with my girlfriend and watching it with her. Unfortunately, just like Ted's failed relationships with Robin, Victoria, Stella, Zoey and many other women that just lasted one date, we broke up but after the mandatory mourning period, I kept Ted in mind as he was still positive and upbeat knowing that his The One was right around the corner. Even though Ted soon became a supporting character in his own story, I still enjoyed following him around every Monday.

Then the finale happened. I try not to go into series finales with grand expectations but I have dedicated half an hour nearly every Monday night for nine years on this show and I expected closure. Instead what happened was a callback to the magnificent pilot. Don't get me wrong. I'm pretty sure that if I were in the Ted and Robin camp, the finale would've made me happy. I'm sure I've written and mentioned before that the last scene with the kids was filmed before the second season began and that was back in 2006. I learned last night that had the show only lasted one season that Victoria (Ashley Williams) would've been the mother but the ending would've been the same. The Mother would've died and the story would've been about Robin.

Seriously?

I loved Ted and Robin in the beginning. I stopped loving them when their relationship was beaten into the ground with a dead horse which was about the time Barney and Robin got together. Unfortunately, I feel the story--whether it's Ted and Tracy or Ted and Robin--was marred by fans who, for some reason, wanted to see Barney and Robin together, Victoria come back and CBS for milking the show after it should've ended. The original plan, from what I remember, was six seasons which then became eight. CBS then ordered one last ninth season.

I'm just going to point you to this chart again about what happens to TV shows beyond the seventh season.
To make bigger, click here.

But what about Tracy? The titular mother who was introduced at the end of the eighth season and we got to know and love over the coarse of the ninth season? She wound up just being another catalyst in getting Ted and Robin together. The way I see it, Tracy is still, despite her and Ted loving each other, having two kids, getting married, Ted's second choice. Ted and Tracy don't get married immediately, it takes them about seven years or so. They never give an excuse why. Was he still waiting for Robin? It's all up to the viewer. I think the biggest problem is having Tracy die. We never saw Ted mourn nor did we see Tracy fully interact with Ted's friends. We saw how Robin was drifting away from the group and that Ted was seemingly the only one who kept her close all because the writers (and creators) felt like they had to finish the story they started back in 2005 despite the ending not following the spirit of the show.

Ah, Mrs. Mosby, we hardly knew ye.

HIMYM was always a comedy bordering on a dramedy akin to The Wonder Years but in the finale, the tone changed drastically with Bob Saget's usually upbeat and positive narration of Future Ted replaced by the dour and mostly depressing narration from Josh Radnor, who plays present Ted. I didn't understand the change just like I didn't understand why Bob Saget was doing the narration in the first place. The only thing I can think is that the change in narration signified the change from a story about Ted and the Mother to a story about Ted and Robin. But yet, the story was never about how Ted met their mother, it was always about how much Ted loved Robin, wasn't it? And that's why, to me, this finale ended badly. I wanted to see Ted with the mother, not Aunt Robin.

Until next time, I remain...
~Brian

WANTED!

A few people to create content to fill a couple holes on our posting schedule.

For information, please contact me at tauycreek [at] gmail dot com.

In Which My Faith In Kansas Plummetts

House Bill 2453 easily passed the Kansas House of Representatives on Wednesday. The bill claims that it protects religious freedoms. Hey, that's a good thing. It's time we get some reassurance that your religion is yours and if you don't bother me with yours, I won't bother you with mine.

But that's not what this bill does. According to the bill as written:

No individual or religious entity shall be required by any governmental entity to do any of the following, if it would be contrary to the sincerely held religious beliefs of the individual or religious entity regarding sex or gender: Provide any services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges; provide counseling, adoption, foster care and other social services; or provide employment or employment benefits, related to, or related to the celebration of, any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement

Essentially what the bill does is allow businesses to refuse goods, services, accommodations and amenities to gay people. The bill is even written so that essentially a police officer or fire fighter could refuse to help a gay person based on their religious beliefs. According to the legislators, this bill was written to make sure that if the courts strike down the state's same sex marriage ban, they are still discriminated against and find it difficult to get married in the state of Kansas. So what the legislators admitted was that they are losing this battle but want to continue to try to win the war. Or maybe it's losing the war but wanting to try to win the battle.

Kansans that I follow on Twitter were adamantly against this bill as most people should be because why would you want to discriminate and you would be losing out on money because last I knew, money used by gay people was the same as money used by everybody else. As for our legislators, they know this bill is illegal, unconstitutional and will be challenged in court because they already have a number for how much it will cost to defend it. $250,000. The state refuses to fund education, hasn't created one decent job bill and cuts taxes for the wealthy resulting in an estimated 700 million dollar budget deficit but we have the money to find bills we already know are illegal? I know Governor Brownback said Kansas would become an experiment but an experiment in what? Bad lawmaking? Most court cases lost?

Now I understand that these old white men who run our state may think gay people are icky and that they are just following what the Bible says but our constitution says that there is freedom of religion. And that freedom goes both ways. It keeps your religion away from me and my religion away from you. Imagine if, by law, you had to listen those missionaries who come to your door to bore you about Jesus Christ. It's freedom of religion that allows us to say "Please stop" and close the door. What would happen if the federal government made discrimination of sexual orientation illegal like with race, color, creed, gender? Would Kansas draft a bill saying the federal government has no jurisdiction? Why not? They've done it before.

As of now, Senate president Susan Wagel has said that she believes the bill to be discriminatory and will not pass the senate as is. Whether or not she truly believes this or Governor Brownback told her to squelch this negative press that is going national is unknown but the Kansas legislature has done this before. They draft a terrible, controversial bill, the state and even the country get in an uproar so the bill dies either in the senate or at the governor's desk and, no joke, our politicians raise themselves as heroes for stopping the upopular thing they started in the first place.

The real problem I have with all of this is that I am a huge Kansas booster. I've written about Kansas, researched Kansas, explored Kansas and defended Kansas for most of my life. It's becoming harder and harder to boost and defend my state when it constantly does terrible things like this. When Sam Brownback became governor he made us believe that his administration would make the rest of the country look up and take notice. He was right but they are looking at us for all of the wrong reasons.

Until next time, I remain...
~Brian

Cars, Vehicles and Automobiles

One of our cars broke down late last week roughly a week before we had planned on getting a new one. I think it heard us talking bad about it and decided to commit suicide. I'm not a huge car person. I feel they are not worth the problems you could get with them. And there are people out there who will swear that it's all about what kind of car you get but I like to think of it more like getting cable or satellite service. It can work fine all the time for me but someone with the same service down the street could be calling a technician every other day. Despite being made on an assembly line, every car is different.

When I was in high school, and I went to a rural high school, cars were the main thing the kids, boy kids anyway, talked about. Chevy is better than Ford. Foreign cars are the worst. Why don't you have a truck? Kias are made from the recycled metal of Fords. It was all very stupid but now I work at that same high school and things haven't changed. Chevy is still better than Ford but in power, not reliability. Foreign cars are still the worst and don't get me started on trucks. Occasionally I'll get someone asking me what kind of car I drive. I tell them but I also mention that cars, for me, are just a mode to get to point A and point B. For some reason, now that I'm thirty, I don't really care what car I drive because I have more and bigger things to worry about.

I knew several people growing up who would swear by one type of car and they owned that one type of car but even if the car ran, every weekend it would be worked on which led me to wonder was having that car worth it? My first car was a 1987 GMC Jimmy. I loved that car despite it being a piece of crap. Right after I bought it the starter went out so I had to get that fixed then my wipers stopped working so I got that fixed, then something happened to my transmission so that was fixed (luckily it was a just a hose needing repaired) and then the brakes went out. I tried to get those fixed on the cheap but I couldn't. I realized the vehicle was more of a problem than it was worth so I got rid of it.

Our neighbors have a car in their driveway that hasn't run since they towed it onto their property roughly six months ago. Every decent weekend he and a couple other people spend the entire day standing in the driveway attempting to fix it. They haven't succeeded yet. I call these gatherings an "Old Fashioned Redneck Car Fixin'" I'm not making fun. I've been a part of these Fixin's before but in none of them has anything ever been accomplished. I am all for an excuse for friends to get together, imbibe in some alcohol and just shoot the shit but why does it have to be centered around repairing a car that may or may not ever run again? If you spend $1,000 fixing a car but it took you a year and half to do it, wouldn't that be same as taking it to a professional, spending $2,500 and getting it back in one to two days?

But it's not really about fixing the car is it? Maybe but it's a very minute reason. You just want to drink and hang out with friends so whatever. When you finally get that car working, I call shotgun.

My last car, before this one that just died, has been, by far, my favorite but once it started costing too much to keep on the road it was time to get rid of it. While I may really like my car, I know when to let go. I don't know understand why people who let their cars do nothing and drain their money are sometimes the same people who hate when people do nothing and drain their money.

Yeah, maybe that was a bad analogy.

Until,next time, I remain...

~Brian

Sid Caesar, 1922-2014

Sid Caesar, star of the 1950-1954 television series Your Show Of Shows, has passed away at the age 91. From the 1970s and for the rest of his life he made numerous appearances in television shows, movies, nightclubs. Caesar has been credited for making the variety show format what it is today.