I’m not big on celebrations and holidays, so it’s worth noting that Thanksgiving is one of the events I actually enjoy since it involves food without God and aging. So I’ll admit I had a moment of depression and self-pity before I went ahead and decided I would just treat it like any other day where I’m cooped up all by myself. I’m a fatty so I definitely had enough food to create a feast, but I held back and made an assortment of farts:

Roasted brussels sprouts and potatoes and some quinoa I made in the rice cooker along with some hardboiled eggs. The meal was classily served in a takeout container that had a small amount of leftover pineapple fried rice from the previous night, when Lesley and I both decided ordering two entrees for myself was a good idea.

And then I sat down to enjoy a hearty meal without excess while finishing off “Band of Brothers” which I started immediately after “The Pacific”, both of which made me thankful that I don’t know what war is. Too bad the second to last episode involved the US military discovering a concentration camp – super downer.

At the end of the day, it’s a good thing Canada didn’t happen because the tread on my tires are pretty much gone so tomorrow, I will be Black Fridaying at PepBoys and getting a new set of wheels that I’ll barely use.

This might be “Gigalos” inspired.

Party Down is a show I finally started watching earlier this year when Netflix started streaming on the Wii. It had been in my queue for a while, but when I saw that season 2 had begun and would be streaming immediately, I started watching season 1 with plans to segue right into season 2. A couple things got in the way (namely Oz), but I started watching it again and just a few nights ago I finished season 2 at 6:30 am.

Party Down is really funny – just the right mix of predictably obnoxious characters with some characters that really draw you in. The best way I’d compare it is, you watch 30 Rock because the interactions between Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy are consistently great while Jenna, Tracy and Kenneth are funny but not always laugh-out-loud funny. The same goes for Party Down’s Henry and Casey – they’re the only ones who really know how ridiculous their situations are while Roman, Ron, Kyle and Constance (or Lydia) round out the cast with their clueless style.

Well, just like any great show that achieves cult status amongst fans, ie Arrested Development, the network just has to go ahead and cancel it due to low ratings. So, now that I’ve finished season 2 I won’t have any more episodes to look forward to. It’s fairly disappointing. Even though I didn’t get into Party Down with the enthusiasm I did with Arrested Development (probably because it’s damn sad when a show gets canceled, and I didn’t want to think about it), I was already starting to recommend it.

For some reason I thought because it was on Starz that it had a chance – I hadn’t been following the news until, after the first half of season 2, I went on IMDB and discovered that Starz had axed Party Down on last week. This was a surprise to me because I hadn’t paid attention to any of the news regarding the show – I just found it on Netflix one day, saw that Ken Marino and Martin Starr were in it and that Paul Rudd had co-created it, and I was ready to give it a shot. So then to like it and then discover it’s over is just bad news bears. Great writing + good acting + good directing = a formula for disaster, apparently. Le sigh.

I’ve only briefly tested out the functionality, but it looks like the Wii lets you browse from your instant queue as well as browse the regular menus without having to have all your movies pre-queued from a computer. That alone is pretty neat. While I won’t be able to stream any HD movies since the Wii is limited to 480i, I’m pretty happy that Netflix finally made it to the Wii because I don’t have a PS3, the XBOX 360 I once had access to required a Gold Live membership, and I’ll take what I can get.

I don’t watch all that much TV anymore. The few shows I do pay attention to I often forget to watch. I don’t have cable, so when I forget to watch those few shows, it pretty much means I forget to watch TV. And then I get bored reading the same news headlines online. Now this means I can stick on a movie, and depending how much I really care about it, I can do other stuff, like my creepy little exercises or pack with some mild entertainment. I used to love doing other stuff while vaguely paying attention to Law & Order, and now tons of their seasons stream instantly. So, depending on the show or movie, I’m either going to be getting a lot done now that I’ve got something to keep me going, or I’m going to get nothing done if I get completely immersed in Netflix. Either way, I’m probably going to be getting a lot out of my $9/membership. Yay.

Well, with Abe no longer in the picture, I finished seasons four and five of The Wire in two weeks. And that was with some restraint as well, as there were days when I was tired or had something else to watch. But mostly, I just didn’t want the show to be over. Every episode I watched just reminded me I was that much closer to having to find another show to be obsessed about. That made me sad. And, I was also saddened by the fact that after watching three seasons with Abe, I had to finish it by myself. I don’t mean this in a Debbie Downer way, but I liked that we shared The Wire together, and there were so many great moments in the last two seasons that I know he would have loved as well. You know, those moments when someone would get called “shitbird” or there’d be some exchange of dialogue that would make you grab the other and exclaim an Asian country’s name in glee because it was just so awesome and snarky.

Anyway, after putting off The Wire for the past few days I decided it was time for me to face the end and watched episodes 9 and 10 of season five last night. I have to admit, season five wasn’t exactly my favorite season, probably because I could feel they were trying to tie all the loose ends together, but I still enjoyed it. Without spoiling it for my non-readers, there were some happy moments, some sad moments, and most of all, moments that made you think, “Damn, this show is good.” Not like Battlestar Galactica was a good show – which it was, to be fair, but was also kind of dumb – but like Six Feet Under was a good show. While watching the series finale of Six Feet Under, I cried like a big baby. Okay maybe I cried a little when BSG ended too. This didn’t happen with The Wire, I was glad to not be too sad, but also happy to not be disappointed.

And while I didn’t have it as bad as those who watched the original run in real time on HBO, sporadically watching The Wire over the course of a year has made me want to start from the beginning again because I think enough time has passed for me to want to revisit all those characters that made me love the show. Maybe I will, after I start Breaking Bad. Until then, I’ll just have to have fond memories of that crazy little show that showed me a little bit more about Baltimore, which I once drove through at 3:30am when there was nothing but trash and scary looking people walking around the city that smells like farts.