Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I'm on Google's Search Assistance!!


This is actually a monumental day for blogger Birv... if you type Fonzipan into Google's search bar, the search assistance actually comes up with my site at "Fonzip". Yes, small things like this actually make me very excited. Hooray for meaningless accomplishments!

We'll leave mom's current baby-craze until tomorrow, I'm still processing the horror of the most recent outbreak... so today you get a TV review. Hooray for Chuck! Really... I forget how much I enjoy this show, which is really the only thing I like to watch on Mondays (sorry, Heroes. I'm just not that into you). Anyone who's seen who I tend to date knows I am a sucker for the geeks, and what's better than a show with a cute geek totally out of his element?

Chuck has a lot of aspects that really help me enjoy it- Zachary Levi (le sigh), insider sci-fi/techie jokes (last night's Zune knock was delightful!!), the new addition of Tony Hale (Buster!!) and a genuine sense of light-hearted humor. This is a show where the nerd ALWAYS wins, without resorting to a canned Cinderella story. Chuck pretty much stays a nerd.

Chuck is also an homage of sorts to a peculiar trait of my generation: twenty-somethings that elect NOT to live up to their full potential, choosing instead to avoid the difficult choices in life. Rather than risk the potential for true failure, we seem to grasp onto the idea that if we only chose to apply ourselves, we could do whatever we want. By making the choice to drop out and live well below our percieved expectations, we keep everyone's expectations low... including our own.

Chuck is a TV example of this: kicked out of Stanford 12 credits shy of graduation, Chuck is working at the Buy More, a big-box Best Buy type store, living with his older sister and her fiance, whom he has dubbed Captain Awesome. Both are doctors. Chuck's aimless, though not unhappy. In Season 1, Chuck gets the entire CIA and FBI secret file database loaded into his head, forcing him into a secret double life of a spy.

Season 1 was charming, Chuck fumbling through terrifying situations and surviving through luck and the skills of his CIA and FBI protectors. I prefer Season 2. Chuck is beginning to adjust to the spy life-style, and is beginning to accept that he does have potential. Chuck has leadership, bravery and success thrust upon him, and manages to survive, sparking in him a desire to do more with his life than work at the Buy More. Conflict ensues when he can't, as he needs to maintain his cover. Wow...I totally got deep today! About a TV show! Hire me, Entertainment Weekly!

Anyway, where else can someone save the world by getting to the Kill Screen of Atari's Asteroid?

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