How I Met Your Mother Theory

Having just finished watching HIMYM Season 6 on DVD, I was thinking about it this morning before getting out of bed (where ideas are born and often, quickly forgotten). I arrived at a conclusion: I think The Mother is Barney's sister.

We know very little about Barney's sister, and this has to be on purpose by the writers. There are two possible reasons why they haven't introduced her character yet: 1) There's going to be an episode where Barney hits on her in a bar before figuring out she's his sister. (This is the most obvious one.) 2) She's The Mother.

Supporting facts: the only thing we've heard about her is that she's "in college." This makes her eligible to have been in the econ class Ted tried to teach, and to be the roommate of the Rachel Bilson grad-student character (both of which are mother-criteria). Also, surely she would be at Barney's wedding, which is where Ted is going to meet her.

That's all I've got, but I'm going with it. This is now my officially sponsored theory going forward (or until such time as they introduce Barney's sister and have her meet Ted without them immediately falling in love). Click here to read more . . .

Good Job, Headline Writers

#1:
Very poetic, ABC News. Maybe invest in a thesaurus, though?

#2:This has been on the Daily Beast for days. I guess Tebow's been busy! I assume he wasn't rescued, but was the one doing the rescuing. Click here to read more . . .

The Shingles

One of my personal notable events of 2011 was getting ye olde shingles. By request, here's an account:

Day 1: "Ew, what is this rash? It must be from the heat." [Ignores the fact that she never got a rash from heat while living in Texas, carefully cleans and airs out rash with blithe confidence that will do it.]

Day 2: "Wait, why is it WORSE?!? I was being so nice to it!!"[Resolves to go to doctor once the weekend is over, mostly enjoys Packers Family Night in spite of being itchy and stingy in the heat and, later, pouring rain]

The face of a person who is stoked to be at Lambeau Field, but is also secretly pretty uncomfortable. (Me, not Neal.)

Day 3: "Less worse than yesterday! Hooray?"

Day 4: Doctor: "That's shingles." Me: "SHINGLES?!? No, yeah, actually that makes a lot of sense." Doctor: "Take these horse pills."

Days 5-8: [Has exact right amount of sick time to sit on the couch, feeling sorry for self and watching Project Runway (season 8)]

And then the horse pills worked! The end. Click here to read more . . .

Review: Crossed

Crossed by Ally Condie

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Well. That wasn't good.

The biggest problem with Crossed is that it's extremely dull. The greatest strength of the first book, Matched, was the Society the characters lived in. This book takes the characters out of Society and puts them in a canyon, where they wander back and forth to no clear purpose.

If the characters were particularly vibrant or intriguing, this might still work. But as it turns out, when separated from the interesting concepts of their world, the characters are dull and generic. Also, half of the chapters are from the perspective of the female lead, and half from that of the male lead, but the voice they're written in is identical. I could only tell who was narrating from the headers and context clues. Say what you will about Stephenie Meyer (and heaven knows I have), but the chapters written from Jacob's perspective sound like a different person. (Oh, and either I had stopped paying attention, or the little interpersonal dramas made no sense. "You know that story you told about your mother and also it happened in a book or something? Well, I have deduced it was really about YOU!" Seriously, does anybody know what that was about?)

I liked the first one, and I still intend to read the third one when it comes out. The optimistic interpretation of how bad this one was is that Condie only had enough material for two books, but decided she needed to stretch the gap between points A and B because her publisher wanted a trilogy. The pessimistic interpretation is that once she ran out of plot to crib from The Giver, she was out of ideas. I'm hoping it's the first option, but we'll find out.



View all my reviews
Click here to read more . . .

Another Webcomic Recommendation

I know I read more webcomics than many people, but seriously, this one's very good: Basic Instructions. It's monochromatically hilarious!

I'll only put one sample here, since it turned out small (click on it to embiggen, or see the original page here):


And here are some links to my favorites:

How to Tell Someone that They are Wrong

How to Play Video Games "Together"

How to Get Amazing Kicks from Something "Normal" People Will Never Understand (it's about the show The Prisoner)

How to Calm a Frightened Child

How to Create a Weapon that is Devastating and Unstoppable

and, from just a few days ago, How to Live Your Dreams. Click here to read more . . .

My Favorite Lines from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Voldemort: "How do you live with yourself?"
Lucious Malfoy: "FAAAABulously!"

Neville: "I have snake murder in my heart!"

Snape: "Take [my tears]! Take them!"
Harry: "PENSIEVES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!"
Ron: "The Room of Requirement doesn't show up on the map. That's what you said last year, remember?"
Hermione: "That's right, I forgot! Thanks for finally putting right our gender roles, so now we can make out!"

McGonagall: "Longbottom, you and Mr. Finnigan go blow it up!"
Neville: "Blow what up, Professor?"
McGonagall: "The Alfonso Cuaron Memorial Bridge, of course!"

Every character, ever: "You have your mother's eyes!"Little girl who played young Lily: [has brown eyes]

David Yates, to the special effects guys: "I like this scene, but can something be floating in it? Always more floating!"

Little Albus: "But Dad, what if the Sorting Hat puts me in Slytherin?"
Harry: "Son, with that haircut, I'd be worrying about Hufflepuff."

Little Albus: "Why are they all staring?"
Ron: "Don't let it worry you. It's me. I'm extremely famous."
OH NO WAIT they didn't include the best line from the epilogue

and of course,
Voldemort: "And I would have gotten away with it too, if not for you meddling kids!" [dissolves into confetti] Click here to read more . . .

Today in Vanity License Plates

HEY IM JT

I think we all know exactly how this went down.

JT: Hey, yeah, so, can I get a vanity license plate that says "JT"? Because I'm JT.

Low-level bureaucrat: JT is taken.

JT: Um, ok, how about "IM JT"?

LLB: Taken.

JT, deep in thought: How can I let people know, with my car, that I'm JT? Hmmm . . . . Hey, I've got it!

58 MPG

The car with this one parks at the bank near my library. I don't know what kind it is, but I guess I'm supposed to be consumed with jealousy every time I see it. Click here to read more . . .