At The Commercials: Alison Brie Needs Paychecks Now, Damn It!

 Listen, Alison Brie, I understand that things have been tough for you the past couple of weeks. Community wasn’t renewed for a sixth season by NBC. And… Well, okay, that’s probably the only thing bad that has happened in your life lately. And even that, well, Hulu is allegedly looking into commissioning a new season.

But still. Just because you lost a paycheck, it doesn’t mean you have to jump at the first commercial your agent offered you. Adam Scott, he needs to jump at whatever he gets. Alison, you can hold out for better. (Although, looking at your filmography, I’m worried about what your agent is doing anyway beyond Community and Mad Men. Get Hard will hopefully make a billion dollars, since it has Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, but still. A Kevin Hart movie can go south pretty, pretty, pretty quick, and that is a horrible name for a non-pornographic film.)

On the plus side though, you will always have this collection of sexy GIFs. Nobody can ever take that away from you.

Community: Now the best show on television.

I painted a tunnel on the side of the
library. When it dries, I'm going to try it.

The above is second favorite line from last night's Community. The best line? After Annie (Alison Brie, right) complains about how it sucks to always be the physical bait in all of their plots, she storms off. Abed says he didn't hear what she was saying. Troy says, "All I heard was suck." So good.

The actual plot of the episode is somewhat secondary to all of the awesome lines and moments. But it does have good cameos by Drew Carey (as the boss of Jeff's old law firm) and Rob Corddry (as the greasy partner who actually got Jeff fired). Shirley and Pierce are mostly secondary characters, and the secondary storyline is funny. It involves Senor Chang trying to win a pop-and-lockathon in order to gain entrance into the group. Oh, and Dean Pelton is doing his normal ridiculous boosting for the university.

Troy also had some other great moments, like when the security guard catches him and Abed going on a lawyer's computer, and Annie chloroforms him. This causes all three of them to freak out hilariously:


Troy says, "Ahhhh, I don't know what to do, my whole brain is crying!"

Other great lines? From Jeff, "Shirley, don't sue a stripper. Life sued her, and she lost." And also, "Pierce, do I even have to say it? It's bad to hunt man for sport."

Basically, if you like snappy, funny comedies, then you need to dump The Office and start watching Community. The early second season episodes don't rely on any previous knowledge of the show, so just start doing it.

Stats, stats and stats - August 17, 2010

Although most of my readers are women, page views spike when I include pictures of women. I have no idea why this is the case, but please enjoy Marla Sokoloff, Anna Kendrick and Alison Brie.

Back when I started this blog, I would originally see how my hits changed from month-to-month, and then post about this and my AdSense stats. However, this didn't really make for that scintillating of a post. (If you're curious anyway, you can check out those posts by checking out this tag.)

However, it has been about 10 months since I last did one, so I figured it might be a bit more interesting now. Also, I've seen other bloggers talk about their most-searched keywords, like here. I thought to myself, "Hey, maybe people have found my site looking for interesting things as well!" Well, the results are a bit disappointing, but hey... It's my blog, so I guess you'll have to read them anyway. (mwhahaha! ... wait, wait, don't go!) Ranked in terms of popularity...

1) Annie's boobs. This is a reference to the NBC show Community, which I like quite a bit. In an episode parodying Goodfellas, one of the characters gets a monkey and decides to name it Annie's Boobs. Annie is another character on the show, played by the lovely Alison Brie. (By "lovely" I mean that she is really hot and was a complete slut in college, which is luridly interesting.) If you Google Image for "Annie's Boobs", my blog is the first one to come up, although I personally like the picture to the right that includes the monkey. (Click for the full-size version of it.) It's from this awesome picture capture site. Annie's Boobs (the monkey, not the actual anatomy, unfortunately) also has a Twitter account, which you can find here.

2) Dash Worthington. Similar to the above-entry, my picture is the first that pops up when you search for the term. Dash is The Daily Show's senior correspondent, and by that I mean he's about 65 years old. I wrote an entry about him here.

3) My friend Kate. The actual search term used is her first and last name, which I don't really want to use in this entry. I have no idea why people are Googling her, after all, and I only make one reference to her on my blog, a throwaway comment about how the song "Kate" by Ben Folds Five always makes me think of her.

4) Abigail Spencer twix. Much like Katie White from The Ting Tings, Abigail is someone I find so drop dead gorgeous that I hope we will be married at some point in the future. (I'm not sure if she will be before or after Katie, or if I'm just going to go old school Mormon.) But anyway, Abigail isn't a really well-known actress, so my blog entry on her was one of the few floating around on the web about her for a while. Also, because I'm mentioning her now, it gives me an excuse to re-run her photo:


5) site:stephenonstuff.blogspot.com giants over cowboys. I have no clue why this is a popular search term, actually. My friends Bob and Kristin pick football games with me during the football season, but if anyone is seriously using the picks for gambling advice out there, they're really in trouble. This also reminds me, sadly, that I never revealed who won last year... Or sent the winner their prize...

Uh, let's just move on! Anyway, those are the most popular search terms. I don't really have any weird search terms, unless you consider "Rihanna sucks" or "Molly Culver naked" to be odd statements. (Both are understandable to me.) And now to close out the entry, some conventional stats:

Lifetime Blog Stats
Range: March 6, 2009 to August 17, 2010
Total number of visits – 10,868
Total number of pageviews – 17,767
Average time on site – 1:37
Percentage of new visitors – 57.19%
Most popular day – July 27, 2010 (92 visits)
Least popular day – October 7, 2009 (4 visits)
Browsers used - Firefox (54.69%), IE (18.47%), Safari (14.72%), Chrome (9.86%) and Mozilla Compatible Agent (0.86%)
Top Ten popular states – Rhode Island (1,919), Massachusetts (1,342), California (839), New York (711), Virginia (640), Texas (266), Mississippi (214), Illinois (214), Minnesota (212) and Connecticut (192)
Top Ten unpopular states – Delaware, Montana and South Dakota (3), Wyoming (4), Alaska (7), Idaho (13), Nebraska (15), West Virginia and New Mexico (19), and Iowa (20)
Top Ten cities, excluding Rhode Island – Ft. Myer, VA (441); New York, NY (400); Medfield, MA (271); Cambridge, MA (263); Providence, RI (188); Minneapolis, MN (162); Brighton, MA (155); Washington D.C. (154); Somerville, MA (151) and Biloxi, MS (138)
Ad revenue – $13.46

That's right, I'm rich! RICH.

The Anna Kendrick picture at the top is from here. Alison Brie's image is from here, and Marla Sokoloff's is from a spam site I'm not going to link to.

The Baggage Game: Saturday, August 14, 2010

Ah, the long lost return of The Baggage Game! For some past editions of the game, check out here. Today's contestant is Jet, a sports fan who's job is listed as "musical theater" in San Angelo, Texas. He's a dude with shady facial hair - a mustache and a five o'clock shadow. He wants someone who "likes to stay in shape" which is code for "hot." Jet himself is easy on the eyes, it seems. (EDIT: Episodes are back to being streamed online! I'll probably make a proper link-up of the episodes I've review with streams at some point, but for now, you can watch this full episode embedded at the bottom.)

His potential dates are: Tricia, a writer from Howell, Michigan, who is in a ruffled red dress and looks very, very slightly like Alison Brie from Community and Mad Men. (She's a dead ringer for my actress friend Kristen Casey too, except that no one reading this knows who she is.) Next is Maija (pronounced Mya, ugh), who is not black, but a tall, blonde journalist from New York. She looks like she is six inches taller than him. Finally, there is Susan, another blonde and a sports fan and masseuse from Northport, N.Y., but she is in this hideous blue dress. It looks like a cloth bag and ends mid-thigh; I'm a big hater of that style. booooo. Susan herself is good-looking, like a pretty Caroline Rhea. Tricia is definitely the most attractive, but she also seems like the youngest by a good five years.

Jet says he's excited to see "what's inside those bags," which sounds worse than it is.

First Round
Tricia: I refuse to ride escalators.
Maija: I'm a big pot smoker.
Susan: I'm an obnoxious backseat driver.

Tricia has obviously seen Mallrats. Jet quips, "I guess she's afraid of standing." Jet proves he's down with the herb, as he asks of Maija, "Is that really baggage?" This would be the biggest baggage with me though. She said she just smokes because she has a prescription, but then goes on a big pro-pot rant. Susan, meh. I'd just let her drive everywhere.

Second Round
Tricia: I stuff my bra. (As Jerry reads it, he quips, "I don't, but the person who this belongs to does.")
Maija: I sleep with my seven dogs.
Susan: I practice witchcraft.

Okay... The dogs thing is concerning, but the witchcraft thing, that's definitely screwed up. I'm pretty much Squares McSquaresville, so that's definitely the dealbreaker for me. Jet is actually a funny dude, at least so far, and he agrees with me. Susan is the one eliminated, and hopefully, she doesn't hex me for reading this.

The bra-stuffing isn't really that concerning to me, you know, as long as I get to touch them eventually. Tricia seems like a sweet person - She has worked five years as a Disney princess, she speaks French fluently and she sponsors some kids in Guatemala. Maija says that she is a big, big cuddler, and basically goes Full Slut (like Robert Downey Jr. goes Full Retard in Tropic Thunder) to attract him. She adds that she is working on a book right now. (Note: Despite her weird name, and the fact that she claims to be a journalist, I can't find any record of her on Google, which strikes me as odd, and makes me think she is BS'ing her job and background.)

Final Elimination Round
Tricia: I won't have sex until marriage.
Maija: I've been on 300 first dates in the past three years.

And, well, there goes Tricia's chances. Jet says he loves sex. I'm not sure how I'd handle that, and luckily, I don't have to chose :D Meanwhile, Maija, holy smokes. Jet jokes, "How'd you have the time to make it here?" Jerry notes that there seems to be a difference in their approaches. Maija says that she began Internet dating, and 98 percent of them were the wrong guy. (I've done Internet dating too, and gotten like... a date a month. I guess having large breasts would have helped me more.) She says this while sounding like the biggest hesher ever, so I'd definitely skew more toward Tricia.

Jet takes a dramatic step toward the stage, eyes them both for a couple seconds, and then... closes Maija's briefcase. Womp womp wompppp. Tricia seems happy to win, and has an awkward hug with Jet. His baggage is one of these three things:

- I slept with my ex-girlfriend's mother.
- I have a room just for my snakes.
- I sleep on my brother's couch, and I have no job and no car.

Ick. Of these, #3 would be the most concerning now, while #1 and #2 would just make me question his judgment in general. (Jerry jokes that she doesn't care so much about #2, because she won't be handling snakes until she marries him. ZING! He's on fire this episode.) Tricia agrees with me, and of course, Jet reveals that this is indeed his baggage. Jet spins some BS, about how he travels a lot between New York and L.A., and he's trying to establish a business with his brother. Shockingly though, she accepts his baggage anyway, and they exchange a little kiss. (Note: Jet is a beautiful bastard.)

After the episode, Jet says he was apprehensive about Tricia at first, because of the no sex thing. She then zings him and says, "Well you don't have a bed anyway." mwhahahaha. She is way too good for him. (p.s. Tricia call me!)

The Alison Brie photo is from here. And here is an embedding of the full episode, with the warning that the availability fluctuates from time to time:

An OMG moment in the Community all-hands-on-deck finale!

I will eventually have a post ranking all of the various shows I watched this year, but right now, Community is definitely in the Top 5, and possibly the Top 3, depending on how a couple finales shake out. While reviews are a bit mixed for the finale this past Thursday, I love it for a number of reasons, including the big news at the end of the episode, which I will tackle at the end of this entry. In no particular order otherwise:

- The continued expanded character roles for Abed (Danny Pudi) and Troy (Don Glover). While Troy learned in this episode that too much of a good thing can be bad for you, via his giant cookie, I'm not sure if this is true of the Community characters. If they ever did make a spin-off show, Troy and Abed are the obvious candidates.

With this pairing and a lot of the season, I think the writers deserve credit for seeing how the actors interacted and developing relationships from there. At the beginning of the season, I think there was an effort to develop Troy as a counterpart for Jeff, given the athletic background of Troy. However, as he and Abed clearly have a sort of goofy chemistry together, Troy's athletic background has been put on the back burner. This is definitely the right move.

- All of the guest stars for Community, who mostly play professors, were on full display in Thursday's episode. The most consistent performer, I've never even mentioned before on this blog: Jim Rash, the actor who plays Dean Pelton, and who somehow has 51 credits on IMDB. With his bald dome and mannerisms, Rash kind of reminds me of Stephen Stucker, who played the flamboyantly gay and energetic Johnny in Airplane!

Along with Dr. Ken (a.k.a. Senor Chang on the show), Rash is consistently funny as the overly-enthusiastic Dean Pelton. While the show lacks a traditional nemesis, Pelton serves as a mild antagonist, constantly enrolling members of the Spanish study group in his service. I like that there is an instigator, someone who motivates the gang to do things, instead of focusing solely on their interpersonal drama from week to week.

Thursday's episode also saw guest appearances from Jeff's former professor flame (meh) and John Oliver as the school psychologist. Oliver is great in this role, especially when he was getting loaded at the community college prom. I also loved the LOST reference, as Chang promised that he would find a loophole to get his revenge, and he did by the end of the episode.

- Finally, I suppose I should talk about the kiss. Given my profound love for Alison Brie, it was hard to see her lock lips, but at least it was with the dreamy Joel McHale. (I'm also slightly annoyed that I missed Brie during her art school phase. Damn!)

I also think this fits in well with the on-screen chemistry the actors have with one another. From the pilot and initial episodes of Community, it looked like they were playing up a possible Jeff and Brita romance. However, I just don't think they (meaning the actors) ever had that great of a chemistry. Therefore, I applaud the decision to go with a Jeff and Annie pairing, since there is electricity in all of their scenes together.

Now that they have made-out a bit though, I imagine the second season is mostly going to be concerned with logistical dilemmas. I think the two 1) initially downplay what happened and then 2) have a secret romance. My friend Matt advanced the hypothesis that Brita would be the last one to know about Jeff and Annie, which I agree with. I also wonder if the age difference gets brought up at some point - On the show, I believe Annie is in the 18 to 20-year-old range, whereas Jeff is closer to 30. That's a pretty significant gap, and I hope they don't just ignore the issue completely.

That being said, I honestly can't wait for the second season of Community. Of the various shows I watch, I definitely think it had the strongest end to its season, keeping in mind that several still have some wrap-up episodes to go. Community had a bit of a bumpy start, but it has grown-up to be a really clever comedy.

Finale grade: A+
Season grade: A

Annie grows up on Community

This week's Community was disappointing as compared to previous weeks, but hey, I've been saying that it is hard to get hitting grand slams week after week. If I was evaluating Two and a Half Men instead, I would say, "Hey, this episode of Two and a Half Men is the greatest thing I've ever seen on this miserable hack show!" But because Community has been consistently great this year, even a strong episode like last night's is a bit of a disappointment.

The whole scenario of the episode - Annie rats out Senor Chang for not having a teaching degree because she wants the Spanish group to stay together - resolved a bit too neatly at the end. You know, the part where Chang is now going to be a student at the community college, and presumably will be even more wrapped up in the study group's activities. (Speaking of, Starburns got another speaking part in Thursday's episode - I might have to eventually learn his name at this point.)

While the ending was a bit stereotypical and clean, the rest of the show was amusing. Abed was doing Abed stuff, and as my friend Tom said, there was a reverse Good Will Hunting going on with Troy and his innate knack to fix mechanical issues. Chang getting fired allowed him to play a big part in this episode, as he commiserated to Jeff and others about his situation. He also rocked a mean keytar (combination guitar and keyboard). Clips from all of these can be found at this here neat Atlantic blog.

Grade: B+

The picture of Annie and Senor Chang comes from this site.

TV Review: Annie's Boobs and Goodfellas make Community great

Community came back from its unnecessary couple-of-week break strong, as the gang at the community college did their best to setup a literal gang, as in a mob syndicate. The scheme? Controlling the chicken finger production at the school, the only decent thing at the cafeteria.

The linchpin for the plan was Abed, who of course immediately started acting like a movie mob boss with his new found power. While the primary spoofing of the episode was of Goodfellas, there was also some Casino and Godfather thrown in there for good measure. Starburns also got a slightly increased role in the episode, which was kind of neat.

However, the purest "laugh out loud" moment of the episode featured a stupid gag by Troy. At the height of the gang's good times, the Spanish study group all arrange lavish perks for themselves - Pierce gets cronies, Annie gets a new backpack (which is why she's doing the robot dance above), Brita gets a hair stylist, etc.

Troy somehow gets a monkey, which he names... Annie's Boobs. Well, to be precise, HE didn't name the monkey that - The monkey has his own Twitter. (p.s. It actually does!!! Right here!) This joke is so simple that it makes for cheap laughs throughout the episode. "I've got to give a banana to Annie's Boobs."

Anyway, this was probably my favorite episode of Community so far from start to finish. If you haven't seen the show yet, it is a good episode to jump in on, since you don't need a ton of past knowledge of the characters to get most of the jokes.

Grade: A+

TV Review: Community improves on promise of first half of season

Note: Big time Community spoilers coming.

So hey – Jack Black was on Community last night. And strangely, he was oddly compelling, playing (for him) a more-relaxed character. To me, Jack Black is my generation's Robin Williams. (“Your group needs a fat agile guy!”) When he's on, he can be unquestionably great, although he sometimes goes overboard. Dr. Ken (a.k.a. the Spanish teacher on the show) can have this problem as well, but he was hilarious in this week's episode, faking his own death. And yes, Jack Black got outrageous as the episode went on, but still not bad by his standards.

Anyway, I thought Thursday's episode was a great start to the second half of the first season. Annie was impossibly cute as the over-aggressive reporter, and Jeff “Hawkeye” Winger continues to impress me with his slickness. I'm still hoping that those two get together – the scene between them at the end gives me a bit of hope – but they're still portraying Brita as Jeff's main love interest. And outside of the main story arcs, the supporting cast, Troy and Ahbed especially, remain strong. Gotta love all the MASH references.

Oh, and by the way – Nice Owen Wilson cameo at the end of the episode.

The picture is from a fantasy of Jack Black during the episode.