About Barrett

Annie Barrett website

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Two Girls, a Guy, and a Peeper Place
(The Real World, Sept. 27)

Like a Virgin
(The O.C., Sept. 22)

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Alert level: Cuddly

Blogs are so, like, stupid.

iCan't believe iHave one.

Misery loves danish

Subway: drink fresh

Can you believe I only know three people who have blogs? Lame.

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  Annie Barrett is a writer living in New York City. Annie Barrett. Annie Barrett is probably insane. Annie Barrett doesn't care. TH

Maybe this will teach me to check the TWOP message board before wasting time taking a photo of my TV screen and, if that wasn't lame enough, making the extra effort to point out different components of the shot in magenta font.

This is from last night's LOST, which is not supposed to be written out that way, but I insist. I am loving this show so much more than last season. The early-computer-era props are really doing it for me. I can't stand the people who see something as ingenius as the past two episodes and immediately start complaining about how it sucks that we don't know what the numbers mean yet, or why the guy in the hatch injects himself with chemicals, or how he could exist in two different worlds at seemingly the same time. I love this shit. I dig not knowing. Get a life. Actually, their response to that would probably be that their lives are already so packed with other concerns than TV that they really need to find out now what's going on in LOST. They'd be all "you get a life." And I'd be all, "I don't want to. TV is enough." This is exactly how the conversation would go!!!

I need some sleep. Anyway, I thought I was the keenest LOST viewer that ever lived because I noticed the logo emblazoned on the shark-like creature's underbelly when it swam by during the show. What an idiot. Five seconds after I created this image, it occurred to me that I might look like a big tool for acting like I'm all that online. Of course, on the second page of discussion board comments for the ep, someone brought up the logo on the shark. So my image won't turn out to be as mindblowing as I'd hoped. I suck. Just not enough to hold back from posting the picture anyway. Whee.

Okay. So that's over. But where did I get the idea that "looking like a big tool for acting like I'm all that online" was something I could possibly avoid? That trend's been going strong on DR for over a year now and isn't about to let up.

Just noticed that everything I've written since falsely quitting the website has been about TV. I'm not ashamed of this, nor am I ashamed to suggest that this season of America's Next Top Model is already the best yet. It's actually relatively believable this time around. And the word "fierce" was used only twice tonight instead of its usual requisite 28 times per week, so this does... bode well.

Currently hating: expired butter
Currently loving: near-rectangular red seedless grapes

I'm glad Fox News finds it necessary to tell everyone in the New York area that they're shitty parents. This banner, which appears every weeknight right before the news, has always annoyed me, but recently I noticed the product placement that accompanies it. WTF? Is it J&R Computer World that wants to know where your children are? Or is this a non-subtle message that if you don't know where your children are, check the J&R and if they're not there, stick around and go shopping, and by the way, you're shitty parents? Either way, that's severely effed up.

By the way, couldn't they have found a nastier, sorrier looking kid than that one? Survey says: No. Oh, and if you don't find your children right this minute, they will sprout mutant hairstyles as inexplicable as his.

This is really pissing me off. I think the President is somehow behind this, becuase he's good at inspiring fear in people while making no sense whatsoever. Awww. I'm picturing my own parents watching the news in bed, turning to each other, panic stricken, and saying "No!" in unison. Guys, I'm right here, eating an old bagel and annoying the neighbors with my funky music played at what I consider to be a moderate volume. It's all good.

Is this Rachel Griffiths? I'm so confused. A Google search of "Rachel Griffiths Weight Watchers" is decidedly inconclusive.

I wouldn't think much of it normally, but I saw the WW ad on the same day that I saw an Amstel Light commercial featuring lookalikes of Thom Filicia from Queer Eye and Jennifer Beals from The L Word. Clearly neither of the commercial's actors are the celebrities themselves, but was this pairing intentional? Did people at the Amstel Light marketing meeting go "Let's have the poeple look like the ones in the gay shows?" I just thought this was weird.

Not to mention, it's the dumbest commercial ever. It's set to haunting organ music that reminds me of The Count's segements on Sesame Street when he used to say, "I loooooove to count! Ha, ha, ha, ha." Except in the commercial, the woman mutters, "I loved you. You were perfection. And then, you were gone."

Enter a more bug-eyed version of Thom, who gives her an "Are you for real? I brought you your fucking beer" look (left) before placing a full bottle of Amstel Light down to her empty one. Is this faux-glam scene supposed to embody Amstel's slogan, "Live tastefully"? Are the loookalikes planted to suggest some higher-arching sexual tension or lack thereof at work in the room? Do I need to stop watching so much television?

Rounding out DR's special advertising report is the new iPod nano commercial. The nano is so hip that it doesn't need a capital letter to make it distinct. It really is that small.

If you're one of the five people who read my iPod story last year, you may remember my insinuation that iPods are inherently racist. Well, in the new nano commercial, set to "Gimme That" by The Resource, a selfish white hand actually taunts a black hand with its iPod nano, and then pulls it away when the black hand tries to grab it from him. Gimme that! says the black hand, and the oppressive, hierarchical white hand says not in your wildest dreams can you have this bright white musical toy. Go back to your side and let me finish twirling around my nano as if it was a scratchy turntable and I was powering the song all by myself. Ch-check the technique, biatch.

The Arrested Development season 3 premiere is tonight (8/7c on Fox). Please watch. It doesn't matter if you've never seen it before. Tape it. Don't even work your schedule around it, because that might lead you to resent it before it even begins. And this would not bode well.

Clearly the development of my overwhelming obsession with this show is still chugging along just fine. Watching it always makes me feel creative and productive. (I'm aware that this makes no sense, but at this point I can't do anything about it.) I have season 1 on DVD and every episode of season 2 stored in my DVR/life partner. With a small, highly exclusive AD-watching posse, I view them again and again and again, take a walk, get some pizza, and again.

Sometimes it's fun to watch an episode multiple times in a row, choosing one character each time to watch the most closely. Lucille and Michael in particular make the funniest reaction faces. And as a general rule, like most everything else, AD parties are even funnier if you're hungry ("craving a frozen banana"), thirsty ("Thank god they've got my brands here"), or high ("I'll meet you down at the Big Yellow Joint").

I know how hard it can be to start watching a new show, so I'll type out a typical exchange between self-absorbed socialite Lucille Bluth and a person in the service industry -- in this case, a plump and cheerful waitress at a cheesy chain restaurant called Klimpy's:

Lucille (eyeing menu nervously): I'll have the Ike & Tina Tuna.

Waitress: Plate or platter?

Lucille: I don't understand the question, and I won't respond to it.

Okay, actually the only reason I wrote that out was so I could mention an amazing discovery I made. I'm good at obsessing over little quirks about pop culture, but not so well versed in it that I can rattle off an actor's working history. That's just not how I roll. But get this: The same Klimpy's waitress mentioned above is now a PTA mom in Showtime's new series, Weeds. I can't find her role on either show on IMDB, so I'm just going on faith... but I'm positive I'm right.

Sadly, the PTA woman is pretty nondescript and seems easily influenced by things Mary-Louise Parker says, so I doubt she'll have much of a role on the show. I feel that this makes my discovery quite random and very impressive.

It's gotten to the point where the majority of my socializing since I got back to New York has taken place in front of Arrested Development. I was going to write "with AD in the background," but that's completely inaccurate. The socializing has been the show. We gather, sit down, press play, and to be quite honest derive more amusement from checking out each other's reactions to the lines than from actually speaking to each other. Let's be honest. If I wanted to talk to these friends, I could text them or call their cells.

This weekend in a shocking upset, AD was temporarily phased out by HBO's The Comeback. Since it started in June, I haven't wanted to watch it because I didn't like Friends. Real mature, Annie. I shouldn't have been such a snob. This show and Lisa Kudrow are freaking genius, provided you have the patience to hold out for all 13 episodes.

I think the best part about the show is that until the season finale, it's really not pleasant to watch. More often than not, it was painful. Sometimes I just wanted to cover my eyes or even leave the room for awhile out of embarrassment for Kudrow's character, TV actress Valerie Cherish. All of The Comeback's characters are perfectly played, but they clash so horribly with each other that you feel uncomfortable to the core and picture the show as just a colossal train wreck. This, of course, is the point, and once it sinks in, you won't believe how smart and aware the show is being on so many levels.

It only just occurred to me to check out an official review of The Comeback. The reviewer didn't like it, but one of her problems with the show -- that the show is "as trying as the genre it attempts to skewer" -- is the exact reasons why I find it brilliant and oddly endearing. The "trying" part is what makes it work. It flails but does not fail. If you have On Demand, give it a shot and decide for yourselves. It might not be renewed, so you'll be able to say you knew it when.

Note: All of the above was written because I was going to write about the Emmys but my life partner ended up recording less than an hour of the show. WTF? I set it to tape the repeat tomorrow night on a different channel, but it won't be the same, damnit.

I didn't think my relationship with my life partner could ever be shaken, but it's been acting up a like this a lot lately. I told it that we needed to talk. So not looking forward to the conversation. I bet I barely get a word in. I'll let you know how that goes.

Here's my commentary about what I did see of the Emmys: ENOUGH ALREADY with Eva Longoria and Donald Trump. Jesus. Showering these two with all sorts of campy attention makes me dislike them even more.

Hey now. I'm not really feeling the blog these days. I have three jobs, an impending master's thesis, and other "creative" projects I need to work on NOW, things that typically get thwarted by an uncalled-for urge to update this piece of shit Web site. No more, I say.

DR apologizes to its 15-20 readers. The site will continue to feature random "About Town" photos so that I can feel like I'm making the most of my digital camera, but that's pretty much it. I would say "sorry," but nobody cares and besides, people like photos better than words anyway.

Up first:

I made a huge effort to snap this on the subway platform before nearly missing my train. Why? I assume the initial draw for me would have been "Oh, haha! Hot dogs! Awesome!" But now that I'm studying this ad more closely, it makes no sense and I absolutely hate it for so many reasons. Mike's Hard wouldn't taste good heated. There is no liquid in the bottle. Bottles don't spew forth typewritten thought-balloon messages. Grammatically, the bottle should be saying "dogs" instead of "dog" because there are plural hot dogs roasting nearby. It's just awful in every way. I'm embarrassed that I bothered to take the photo. Just not too embarrassed to throw it on my now-basically-defunct Web space.

P.S. Consider this post a double whammy because I also took the sunset photo at the top of the page. It's the Chicago skyline as it appears on a ridiculously clear day from New Buffalo, MI at sunset.

Stop coming. Really. It'll only get worse.

Now get back to work.