Today is LeVar Burton's 50th birthday!! Makes me want to cut work to watch Reading Rainbow. You don't know what a tremendous exertion of self-restraint is keeping me in this desk chair. I wouldn't be surprised if I SWOONED from the strain of it.
I suppose LeVar is better known for his role in the miniseries "Roots" and amongst the nerd populace as the kooky shades guy on Star Trek the Next Generation. But I appreciate him for hosting Reading Rainbow. I was talking w/ my sis the other day about how kids today have 100s of TV programs and characters targeted towards them-- all the Playhouse Disney stuff, Nick Jr, etc etc ad infinitum. But when we were kids there was not such an overwhelming abundance. When I stayed home sick from school, it was PBS all day. Slim Goodbody, Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, and all that ... I must have, over the years, watched quite a lot of Reading Rainbow, because I am utterly incapable of hearing the word "butterfly" without internally launching into the Reading Rainbow theme song.
Here's something new & intriguing I learned about Burton today... he is in the video for Cameo's "Word Up". He plays this 40s noir type detective who is after the lead singer of Cameo for some unspecified offense. Well, they don't explicitly say what the lead singer's crime is, but if you watch the video you'll see it's fairly apparent that LeVar is representing the Fashion Police and is hauling Mr Cameo away for the ATROCITY of wearing a gleaming red codpiece (rightfully so!!)
Also, LeVar was born in Germany. And his Chinese zodiac sign is The Rooster.
Actually that last bit was not in LeVar's (I keep typing LeBar and it makes me chuckle...LEBAR BURTON..huh huh haaa haa) wikipedia bio. Because Chinese New Year is coming up on Feb 18, there's these news items online reporting on how we are about to commence The Year of the Pig. Actually, MSN Astrology proclaims "Welcome to the year of the Fire Pig!" It might amuse me to call someone at midnight Sunday a.m. and yell that and hang up. We'll see....
So, anyways, I was wanting to see if I knew any piggies (well I know several PIGS and I know a lotta hoggers, but that's not in a Chinese zodiacal sense of the term) I tracked down this chart--
because if I knew anyone born in 1911,1923,1935,1947,1959,1971,1983, or 1995 I was going to alert them to 2007 being their year (as of Feb 18) Y'know the last year of the Snake was in 2001 and I remember being somewhat stoked about it. I find it greatly distressing that I have to wait until 2013 to see another Year of the Snake. Do you know how old I will be then?? AAAAAGH! I do not want to will my fingers to type the figure and I don't want to look it on my screen...it's pretty simple math, I'll let you do the calculatin'.
Anyways LeVar is not a Pig, he is a Rooster. A fire Rooster? Beats me. I only have basic, restaurant placemat training when it comes to the Chinese zodiac. For all I know he's a Water Rooster, or a Silly Putty Rooster.
Thurs night TV was compelling as always. The Office was particularly good. I've had a bat home invasion before (multiple times), so all the bat scenes really struck a chord with me. Uggh...just seeing those vile little f-ers on TV makes me criiinge. I thought the scene where Michael showed up at Pam's "art show" was surprisingly sweet, touching, really. I wonder why Jimbo was a no show...did Pam not tell him? Is he being a douchebag just because she's having herself a li'l Roy relapse? Or maybe he's just being your basic oblivious guy...
On Grey's Anatomy, although I was in awe of Izzy's skull-drilling prowess, I was rather irritated with her at the end of the episode. They're all distraught, Meredith on the verge of death, and she makes this lengthy, quasi-inspirational speech about eating butter out of the tub and how George shouldn't have married Callie (and I beg to differ, BTW) That was awful. I prefer Christina's "Welcome to the dead dads club" pep talk to that rambling excerpt from Chicken Soup for the Trite Soul. Now I DID have a real cockle-warming "Awwww" moment, when Sloane came and sat vigil w/ Shephard in the hall. Foxy fellahs in severe emotional distress....Mmmmm.
Well, OBVIOUSLY they're not going to kill off Meredith. I say this not because of the show being named for her, but just because they're making death look so inevitable that her death would consequently be rendered a non shocker. Since all signs are pointing to her kicking the bucket, I feel sure that they're going to bust out the "shocking twist" of her just barely missing said bucket with this proverbial kick. See what I mean, Vern? Personally, I'm indifferent to whether Meredith dies or not. She is so not one of my fave characters. Being new to the show (a viewer only since the Season 2 finale) I didn't know who the guy hanging around with Denny in the afterlife sequence was. Well, I know he was Kyle Chandler in real life, but I didn't know who he was representing in the afterlife/ dream sequence. I just thought "Wow, if that's the Grim Reaper...maybe the whole death deal is not as unpleasant as it's made out to be..." But today one of the guys here filled me in that Chandler was a beau of Mer's in a prev season. Yeah, we were dishing on Grey's Anatomy this a.m. and I find out that this meathead, gym junkie, guy I work with watches the entire ABC Thurs night line up. That's -Grey's, Men In Trees, and Ugly Betty. We were all kind of giving him odd looks, and he's all "What??" And I had to break the news to him that he has a thing for chick shows. He really didn't know. Or he put up a very good facade of not knowing...
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