Got A Number Of Irrational Fears That I'd Like To Share With You

In the most general sense of the word, I would call myself a pretty sensible person. I can’t bring myself to buy lottery tickets; my only concession to my desire to make foolish wishes is when I drive under yellow lights. Even my bad habit of always assuming the worst case scenario is about to come true stems from a mildly sensible place--at least when things do go my way, I’m pleasantly surprised.

But ever since I was a kid, I’ve had some pretty ridiculous irrational fears.

Like how I used to be afraid of stormtroopers. I’m not talking about the kind of fear where you think to yourself, “Hey, those dudes are kinda creepy.” I mean heart-pounding apprehension. I think it all began at the Star Tours ride at Disney World that featured lifesize models of stormtroopers and Vader, looming over my pint-sized self, threatening to harm me with their steely, expressionless masks.

I’m not afraid of stormtroopers anymore. I mean it; I watched all three Star Wars movies in a row with my family on Christmas Day. Any rise in my heart rate was completely unrelated to those armored white beasts.

But that fear was replaced by one that makes even less sense: feral children. I know, right—what? But somewhere along the way, I developed an actual fear of feral children, the raised-by-wolves, language-less, walk-on-all-fours kind. In my daily life I have little to no interaction with feral children--thank god. I’m not entirely sure from whence this irrational fear came, but if I had to venture a guess, it would bring me to my next unholy terror.

Anybody remember Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark? From around 3rd grade probably up through early middle school, these iconic black-and-white-and-red volumes were a staple of classroom bookshelves everywhere, and if they didn’t inspire sheer terror in the hearts of children, I’m not sure what would. It was Stephen Gammell's illustrations that did the trick, though. The stories were your typical urban legends--men with hooks for hands; dead people rising from freshly-dug graves; a girl raised by wolves (see?). But those detailed, gruesome images will haunt me forever. Incidentally, it seems the current editions of these tomes are illustrated by a different, tamer artist. Probably for the best. Nightmares about spiders hatching from a young girl’s cheek aren’t the most pleasant of dreams for a 9-year-old to have.

If the Scary Stories books weren’t your style, you might have gotten your spooky jollies with a little show called Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon. Once I was old enough to stay up late and catch this one, I loved the thrill of the fear. But oh, there was fear. A secret door that led to nothing; an old man with a shovel; a boyfriend who’s unknowingly dead--these stories don’t still fill my head with the terrifying imagery that the books did, but I remember burrowing under the covers once my 9:30 p.m. bedtime hit, hoping that the creepy clown from the magic shop stayed far, far away from my bedroom. For a kids’ show, they sure weren't kidding around.

None of these fears affect my daily life. I can watch Star Wars marathons with ease, read about the origins of the Roman empire without Remus and Romulus making me a little nervous. Occasionally a picture from the Scary Stories books will pop into my head and I’m not saying I like it, but I can keep calm. Are You Afraid of the Dark?, lacking a presence in my DVD collection, is but a distant memory. But you know that feeling you get when you stand atop something very high, that feeling in the pit of your stomach like you’re sure to fall in spite of the two thick layers of gates and glass protecting you from just that? These things can still inspire that jolt of adrenaline, that prickling of the spine, that dizzy certainty that doom is imminent.

I said I was sensible. I never claimed to be rational.

New Year's Revolution

I’m bad with dates. By that I don’t mean going out with cute boys-- I’m a fantastic date. No, I mean months, days, years. I always had the most trouble with remembering time periods and dates in history classes. They just all blend together-- did something happen in 1824 or 1928? Couldn’t tell you.

In the same vein, I have no idea what happened in 2010 vs. 2009 or even earlier. I can only be sure a given event didn’t take place in 2011 because I haven’t mastered the art of time travel (yet). So it’s hard for me to compile a list of the best movies, music, books, et cetera, from the past twelve months.

Instead I give you this: a list of some stuff I discovered or enjoyed this year, regardless of release date, in no particular order.

Top Chef All Stars
I’ve watched most every season of Top Chef, and this one is by far providing me with the most entertainment. Typically it takes several episodes to even learn the cheftestants’ (I love that word) names, but this time I’m familiar with all these folks and all this drama from day one.


Cougartown
The show no one will watch because it has a stupid name is actually really, really funny. I was hesitant at first, but now that I’ve caught up on it, it's one of my favorite comedies. Parks and Recreation almost makes the list for similar reasons-- check it out when it returns in the spring.

The month of January
It was a good one.

Harry Potter
I don’t think that the Deathly Hallows Part I tops my list of favorite Harry Potter movies, but it was still an exciting lead up to this upcoming summer's finale. And I'll never turn down a midnight showing, complete with nerdy t-shirts.

TT.TKO [The Podcast]
I can’t technically unbiasedly call TT.TKO my favorite podcast of the year, but I'm going to call it that anyway.

Anchovies
I’m on an adventurous eating kick, and I’d call whole anchovies at least reasonably adventurous. I’m a little bit obsessed with grilled Caesar salad anywhere I can find it.

Braves baseball
I’m slowly but surely getting over my irrational dislike of all Atlanta sports teams that stemmed from my own watered-down brand of teenage rebellion against my Braves-loving parents. I think my record was 6 for 8 in games I attended this year. With any luck next season will be even better.

Cute dresses
No one who knew me in my t-shirt-and-jeans high school days would believe my closet now, but I make this look good.

Running
I picked it up in June, ran my first 5K in July and now my foot hurts and I can’t run ‘til it stops or I bother to go see a doctor, but whatever. I still dig it.

Netflix
Best $10 a month you can spend.

40 Dogs (Romeo & Juliet) by Bob Schneider
I Shazaamed the song when it was on the radio in maybe January and kept it on repeat most of the spring. Now it's the song with the second highest playcount in my iTunes library, only two plays behind the Avett Brothers' Distraction #74. Check it out.

TT.TKO [The Blog]
Well we have fun with it.

2011 had better bring its A-game. Just sayin'.

'Tis The Season

The holidays are all about giving. Giving to friends, giving to family, giving to charity. I happen to love giving gifts, and I have it on good authority that I’m an excellent gift-giver.

But I don’t want to talk about giving. I want to talk about getting.

Mikey and Mattie covered their best gifts ever on a podcast episode, so if you want to know all about them, you can go ahead and fire up your iTunes and give that a listen.

In the meantime, what were my Christmases like?

One year I received Moon Shoes, Nickelodeon’s low-tech, plastic-and-rubber-bands attempt at simulating low gravity. These were the loudest, clunkiest contraptions ever created and so of course I spent my Christmas day afternoon galumphing around the cul-de-sac, disturbing the neighbors with the terrible sound of hard plastic on cold concrete. Surely my parents regretted this purchase right away.

Technically the best Christmas present I ever received was probably my DSLR. Two Christmases ago I got a Nikon D60 and a couple of lenses, and while I barely used it for the first year I had it out of sheer terror of breaking it with my clumsy recklessness, I use it a lot more now, and surely will well into the future. Unlike the camcorder I received Christmas of maybe 9th grade, when I was sure I was going to be an award-winning filmmaker, which sits in its case to this day, underneath some forgotten shelf in a dusty closet.

The worst gift ever? Probably pajamas picked out by grandparents. Don’t get me wrong; I love pajamas. But I sleep in t-shirts and cute comfy shorts. I don’t need a matching pair of long-sleeved shirts and pants with cartoon reindeer saying “Ho ho ho!” silk-screened onto the front. If you’re going to go that far, at least go all out for the grown-up footie pajamas. But I think I’ll stick to my standard shorts-and-t-shirts, thanks.

Footie pajamas aside, being a grown-up sucks in a lot of key ways, and I think Christmas is one of them. When you’re a kid, it's the best day ever, because you wake up in the morning to all these toys and then you have all day to play with them. As an adult, your Christmas list consists of clothes, and “necessities” like a new DVD player to replace one that broke, or an external hard drive. After the initial unwrapping, you’ve got the whole day ahead of you to... play with your brand-new Gap winter coat? That doesn't sound quite like the makings of the most wonderful day of the year.

This Christmas? Well, I'm hoping for some awesome boots. I still need a football to complete the sporting good store in my car's trunk. What else will be up to Santa. I'm just hoping it won't be coal. Or grandma pajamas. I've been good; I swear.

Well. I'm trying.

You Don't Know Me, But I'm Famous

I used to have a dream.

Ever since probably high school, I've aspired to someday be a contestant on Jeopardy. I would watch it weekday evenings before primetime TV, sitting on my couch doing math homework and shouting answers in the form of questions at the television in between problem sets.

Freshman year of college, my roommate and I would videotape Jeopardy when we remembered-- that’s right, these were the olden days, pre-DVR-- and watch it at night, yelling answers at the television screen. This was the exciting season of Ken Jennings, the man who set the record for most consecutive wins on the show. But no matter how many answers good ol’ Ken got right, he couldn’t compete with our favorite week of the season-- College Jeopardy.

Eventually being on College Jeopardy became my goal. The questions tended to skew younger and had a bit more focus on pop culture than standard Jeopardy questions. Each episode usually featured at least one cute, smart boy. And you got to wear your college hoodie. What could be greater? It helped that in our play-along-at-home college dorm room, the record wasn’t Ken’s, or my roommate’s; it was mine.

However, laziness intervened. College Jeopardy week would sneak up on me, and I’d lament never having bothered to find out how you go about auditioning or testing. I’ve since met people who have gone through Jeopardy auditions, and it seems like a lengthy process. Well, maybe next time, I’d think, over and over, for the next four years.

Today, college has come and gone, and so have my chances of ever rocking College Jeopardy. Oh, sure, I could always try out for the regular version. But my utter lack of knowledge of local, US or global geography would surely thwart my efforts. In short, grown-up Jeopardy is just too damn hard.

So I have a new dream. It’s perfect. How can I simultaneously impress the world with my trivial knowledge AND not have to answer any really hard questions? That’s easy: Celebrity Jeopardy.

You’ve seen SNL. It’s not a far cry from the real version. These people are morons. I may not have any idea where the longest river in the world begins, nor do I know the capital of Tanzania. But I’m no moron. I would more or less dominate.

Now there is a little kink in my plan, and I think you may have figured it out. It’s not the aforementioned laziness-- I can fight that when necessary. No, it’s something a bit tougher to surmount-- I don’t know that I could technically be considered a celebrity.

But I’m no quitter. It’s Celebrity Jeopardy or bust. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get famous. You know that as much as I once wanted to, I probably won’t be doing it in the fields of figure skating or professional singing. It’s just not in the cards. So what else could I do? I have a few ideas.

• Reality TV star. It’s cheap; it’s easy; it’s lowest-common-denominator television. All we need is a video camera and I could be a star. I could trick an Atlanta Falcons player into marrying me and then I’ll be a Real Housewife. I’m not having a bunch of babies, so the Octo-mom idea is out. What about the Balloon Boy? I’m sure some Georgia Tech engineering student could make a contraption that I could fly away in.

• I'm practically locally famous for my unending devotion to Diet Coke. Think we could make that happen? I was born to be a Diet Coke spokesperson.
  
• Last ditch effort-- tell all your friends about the blog. Then they read it, love it, tell all their friends, and so on and so forth until the whole world falls madly in love with me and Alex Trebek books me as a professional blogger. Get on it.
  

Just give me a little time. Rome wasn't built in a day, and international superstars aren't created overnight. Look out, Trebek. I've got my eyes on the prize.

Milk, Eggs and Fabric Softener

You know you're old when you're watching Home Alone for the millionth time with a group of similarly-old friends, and all any of you can remark on is the irresponsibility of all the characters' actions.

You also know you're old when Home Alone came out twenty years ago. Dear god.

Check out the Home Alone Lunchtime Quiz Mental Floss did a couple weeks back to feel smart.

A Christmas Memory

It’s officially December, marked by a chill in the air, tree lots outside every grocery store and the commencement of ABC Family’s 25 Days Of Mediocre Christmas Movies.

This is not a story about the kind of Christmas movies that you fold into your family’s holiday traditions, watching year after year with a nostalgic glint in your eye and a candy cane in your hand. This is not a story about the classics. I’m not here to preach to the choir about how awesome Home Alone, Scrooged and Elf are.

No, instead I want to talk about the Christmas movies I couldn’t get enough of as a child. They’re almost certainly terrible, but I’ll almost certainly never, ever watch any of them again, so they’ll live on, perfect and faint in my fading memory.

When I was very young, I had a VHS copy of Babes In Toyland, the made-for-TV version starring a young Drew Barrymore (and also, apparently, Keanu Reeves and Mr. Miyagi. Whoa). I practically wore this video out, and my parents hated it—perhaps only partially because of the repetition, as it can’t have been good. All I really remember about it now is wanting to live in Toyland, but then, what kid wouldn’t?

Or what about Prancer, the 1989 classic about a little girl who keeps a reindeer as a pet or something? I think it was sick and she nurses it back to life, only to discover it’s really one of Santa’s reindeer. Or maybe it’s a movie about a girl having a schizophrenic break, but either way. Who didn’t love movies about kids with weird pets? Andre, Free Willy, Monkey Trouble—as kids we’re suckers for the idea of having an exotic animal for our very own, or at the very least, as our BFF. Although I don’t think a reindeer would provide the kind of stimulating conversation I’ve come to expect in a BFF.

Next up was All I Want For Christmas, a family film about a pair of kids trying to reunite their divorced-or-maybe-just-separated-I-can’t-remember parents in time for the holidays. Ethan Embry played the boy, and I might have had a crush on him, but I’m not sure. IMDb tells me that the kids’ elaborate scheme involved “mice, telephone calls, and an ice-cream truck,” though none of that rings a bell. To be honest, all I really remember about this movie is that it exists. Which is probably how I’m going to keep it.

Later came Christmas Every Day, the made-for-TV movie that basically ripped off Groundhog’s Day with a kid instead of Bill Murray. The kid in question was Erik Von Detton, on whom I definitely had a crush (later making Brink a cinematic masterpiece in my household), and he has to learn to not be selfish or to be nice to his sister or to shoot a basketball or something. In any case, it’s like Groundhog’s Day with training wheels, and who doesn’t love Groundhog’s Day? Ergo, Christmas Every Day—probably every bit as awesome as I remember. Maybe.

This Christmas season, I’ll probably be watching Love Actually, maybe Home Alone 2 (though never 3), possibly a couple versions of Miracle on 34th Street, but I think I’ll leave these others to my memory. We grown-ups just can't appreciate quality Christmas movies.

I Just Can't Get You Out Of My Head

You know how it can be kind of annoying when you get a song in your head and just can’t get it out? How about when having that song in your head means you’ll be replaying entire episodes of classic TV shows in your mind for days on end?

Okay, there are worse fates. But isn't it funny how, years and years later, these songs and their lyrics stick with us like the state capitals or the elements of the Periodic Table never really could? 

For some reason it's alarmingly hard to find videos of the actual intros to some of these shows on YouTube. Apparently watching theme songs for nostalgia purposes is damaging to a given media conglomerate's bottom line and must be stamped out with haste. In any case, here's a sampling of the theme songs I'll never, ever forget:

1. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

This song is an instant classic.Who can't identify with the Fresh Prince? There were guys who were up to no good making trouble in my neighborhood, too.

It helps that Bel Air-ing is my favorite internet meme since the Rickroll came on the scene. I guess I prefer my memes laden with cheesy 80’s pop, but if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

2. Saved By The Bell

 Saved By The Bell was my absolute favorite throughout childhood (and let's face it, my favorite on those early high school mornings, too). My first crush that wasn't on Dale from Rescue Rangers was on Zack Morris. I dressed as Kelly Kapowski for Halloween two years ago. But this song and its 80's-tastic intro probably ranks as the most memorable thing about the show to me.

Incidentally, if you want to listen to Mikey and Mattie yell at each other about whether Saved By The Bell or Fresh Prince is the best, we've got you covered.

3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Yum, pizza. And Michaelangelo is best BTW.

4. Doug

Not be confused with the later version, after Doug moved to Disney and everyone started looking kind of funny and Patti Mayonnaise became tanorexic. Apparently any and all videos of the real Doug theme have been tragically stricken from YouTube. This is probably for the same reason that Doug is one of the only NickToons Netflix doesn't carry, and thus life is a cruel joke.

While we're specifically only discussing theme songs, I do want to give a shout out to such classic Doug tunes as "I Need Mo' Allowance," by the Beets, and "Bangin' On A Trash Can," by Doug, et al. They're on my iPod (for jamming purposes) and should probably be on yours, too.

5. Duck Tales

The Duck Tales theme is probably my favorite of the bunch, and I've been known to have frequent Duck Tales Dance Parties in my car. But who can resist that catchy melody? The "quack quack quack quack"? The "woo oo"? I defy you to listen to this song without at least humming along, if not totally rocking out.

I mean, come on. After all, life is like a hurricane.

Re: Fight Club

Who wouldn't want to punch this face?

All Grown Up

I didn't have a childhood.

Or at least, that's what some would have me believe when they find out that at the advanced age of 25, I've never seen The Goonies.

Months and months ago, I borrowed a copy from a friend who effused that I had to watch it, that I would love it. Life was incomplete without experiencing the shared nostalgia of millions of Goonies fans. Well, months and months went by and I never felt like watching it, for fear of it not living up to the hype. Until tonight.

Did it live up to the hype? Nah, not really. I enjoyed it, and I know I would have really enjoyed it as a child. But some things have to be experienced at a time and in a place, or else it never really feels right.

Surely there was a toy you always wanted as a kid, the one you begged your parents for every year before your birthday, the one scribbled in thick marker, highlighted and triple-underlined at the tippy-top of your Christmas list year after year. And of course you didn't get it-- you got a pair of pajamas, which was pretty lame, and maybe a Polly Pocket set, or if that wasn't your style, a TMNT action figure. Maybe you were even lucky enough to recieve one of the more coveted gifts wrapped up under your tree-- Rollerblades, or Moon Shoes (I totally had Moon Shoes). But it was never exactly what you wanted, because it wasn't that one thing.

I wanted a freaking Power Wheel. For years. I had a neighbor who had one-- the red Jeep, if you must know-- when I was 3 or 4, and she would never let me drive. Not content to be ever the passenger, I wished and prayed and cajoled for my parents to give in and get me a Power Wheel of my very own. If I remember correctly, I had my sights set on a convertible. Well, I never woke up to discover one under the tree, wrapped in a bright red bow, and I likewise went without on birthday upon birthday. I'm not sure when the longing went away-- the website seems to have designated these cars as being for ages 2-6, so maybe after first or second grade I just gave up. To this day I'm jealous of kids who had Power Wheels. However, if I were to get one now? I just don't think it would fulfill my expectations. Where is the iPod hookup, I might inquire, and what is the cup-holder situation in this thing? Anti-lock brakes? Just how many horses power this engine? I don't know that it would satisfy my 3-year-old self's imagination.

So I missed out on The Goonies. So I wasn't a licensed driver, cruising around my elementary school playground. I think I turned out okay in spite of it. Surely we all missed out on something that everybody else seemed to experience. At least now I can finally join the throngs of the culturally elite in understanding Goonies references (they never say die, I hear).

P.S. Did you know-- and I'm SURE that you didn't-- that they make a Power Wheels Cadillac Escalade? Um, what?

The Weekend Edition

What's Friday night for you these days? Date night? How about Saturday evening? Another night doing shots at the bar with your friends, or perhaps a tasteful grown-up party, complete with canapé and chardonnay? But it wasn't always that way. There was a time when, once the weekend rolled around, that meant it was time to pop the popcorn and settle in for a long night of quality television. Two of them, in fact. I am, of course, talking about ABC's TGIF and Nickelodeon's Snick.

TGIF started first, way back in 1989. I was 4, and probably not watching a whole lot of Full House quite yet. The iteration I know best began in the 1993 season with Family Matters, Step By Step, Boy Meets World and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (which I don't actually remember ever watching-- maybe 9:30 was my bedtime at 8 years old). In the following years, the line-up fluctuated, introducing us to classics and one-season wonders alike: Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Dinosaurs, Teen Angel and several more that lasted such a short time that I can't even name them.

According to ABC's fall schedule, Friday nights in the 2010-2011 season will be filled by a show called Secret Millionaire (sounds like an instant hit, what with "millionaire" in the title), another hour-long called Body Of Proof (let me guess-- it's about dead bodies and evidence and justice and some law and maybe a little order, too, if there's time), followed by everybody's grandmother's favorite show, 20/20. Sounds like a party. No wonder our generation drinks a lot-- our weekend TV choices have gone significantly downhill. To be fair, though, 20/20 has filled the 10 o'clock hour of ABC's Friday night since 1987. We just stay awake a hell of a lot later these days. ABC can't really be blamed for our skewed sleep schedules.

So Friday night, oh what a night. But I always looked forward even more to Saturdays. Snick premiered in 1992 with Clarissa Explains It All, Ren & Stimpy, Roundhouse and Are You Afraid Of The Dark. Favorites, all. I loved the shows that began in the ensuing years, too-- The Adventures of Pete & Pete, The Secret World of Alex Mack, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo (somebody got a little formulaic with their titling, eh?), All That, Kenan & Kel, Space Cases (starring a pre-Firefly Jewel Staite on-- you guessed it-- another spaceship). And who could forget that iconic orange couch?

(Incidentally, Nickelodeon ran a contest in 2002 and apparently gave away the couch in question, filled with $25,000 and 6000 cookies, which means that I definitely quit watching Snick a few years too early, because that would have been totally awesome to win. However-- think of the crumbs!)

Based on sheer number of quality (or at least, nostalgia-inducing) shows alone, Snick wins by a landslide. Boy Meets World really carried TGIF for me. Would anyone from our generation pick our childhood Fridays over Saturdays? I defy you to find that person and bring them to me, so I can sit them down and make them watch my Pete & Pete DVDs until they see the truth.

In any case, our grown-up weekends will never really compare. I love drink specials and dancing as much as anyone, but I'm not sure if it would quite get the approval of the Midnight Society. They're a tough crowd to please, you know.