At least there were no woodsmen, or an heiress-turned-maid

It's bad enough to have a dream in which one is helping Veronica Mars move a futon mattress through a park.

It's worse when she guesses your age and is off by three years in the upper direction.

It's worse than THAT when you lie about your age in response.

Imagine if I'd eaten Chinese food that night...

How do you DO that, exactly?

It's nice to read that the BBC series Worst Week of My Life will get a Region 1 DVD release; the show was an amusing enough trifle and it's always good to know it can be Netflixed. But I'm kind of amazed to read that the second series of the program will air on BBC America in August. What would that be about, anyway?

Secret Wars re-enactors

And to think, I knew these guys when...

You work for Jimmy, you work hard!

When I saw the news story about President Bush declaring himself "The Decider," all I could think was, "Great, now we have Jimmy Wichard for a president..."

Batman as he should be

I know I keep complaining about the direction of DC Comics when I talk about comics here, but they still manage to do some things right. One of them is this spiffy action figure of Batman with a blue cape and a yellow oval around his bat-emblem and a utility belt with tubes instead of pouches that comes out in December. I must own it; everybody's Golden Age is 12, after all...

War on Easter

Are you a self-satisfied crybaby who needs your religious practices affirmed by powerful agents like the government, and department stores? Is fighting the War on the War on Christmas not enough for you? Good news, then! Here's how to do your part in the War on Easter!

(Via She Who Must Be Obeyed.)

Big Mars Love

I'm glad She Who Must Be Obeyed and I aren't the only ones who have noticed:

...how many Veronica Mars alums have parts on Big Love? The late Lilly Cain, computer whiz Mac and the unfortunate Beaver Casablancas from Veronica Mars have all shown up...

And while I'm enjoying the heck out of Big Love, despite it's fascination with Bill Paxton's fleshy bits, my reaction to the setup of one man having three wives remains: Why would you DO that?

(Via TV Tattle.)

David Morrissey

Last fall, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I discovered an astonishingly good actor by the name of David Morrissey in two series BBC America was airing. The first was Viva Blackpool, a murder mystery musical in which Morrissey starred as Ripley Holden, proprietor of a skeezy Blackpool amusement hall that he was trying to turn into a hotel casino. As Ripley, Morrissey turned in a terrific performance as a larger-than-live, Elvis-sideburn sporting character, whose outsize behavior masked outsize depth of character. He underplayed his part by overplaying it, if you follow what I mean; if I knew more about acting I could make it more sensible.

The other was State of Play, a taut political thriller in which Morrissey played an up-and-coming politician caught up in a scandal. This time he turned in a perfectly controlled performance as a consumate politician whose world was falling apart around him.

Either performance alone would have been noteworthy. But watching them in tandem was a revelation -- Morrissey's such a chameleon that he barely looked the same in either part; he inhabited the skin of each man so completely it was almost impossible to imagine him being anyone else. Surely, I thought, this was an actor to watch; big things no doubt lay in his future. In an idle moment, I thought that the folks who had case Daniel Craig as James Bond had missed out by not casting Morrissey -- but I put that thought aside. It seemed impossible that another perfect showcase would not come along.

But if the best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry, so too must the idle musings of a grad student who watches too much television.

You see, a big movie with David Morrissey as its male lead just opened.

It's called Basic Instinct 2.

Can't win 'em all, I suppose...