Murder For Less

Amazon.ca has season 1 of Castle for only $19.99! Granted, that's only ten episodes, but there's all those delicious extras (not to mention delicious Nathan Fillion.) Oh, I wants it...

Dravida Kazhagam!

Now Playing: La Roux - Quicksand

Major Malayalam Fail: For the longest time, I thought 'nammal thammil' - between us - was actually 'nammal thamizh' - we the Tamils - which I understood to be some expression of pan-Dravidian identity, which I further took to be a very, very macro way of saying 'us.'

Really.

And then I was always so confused why people were using such a large-scale expression for such personal situations.

It's hard out here (for a Leafs fan)

Dear Maple Leafs,

It is difficult to maintain the delusion of the Leafs attaining Stanley Cup Glory when the only team with a worse win percentage are the Carolina Hurricanes (who've only won 18.52% of their games thus far this season, compared with our 24%.) Now granted, I'm a hockey-illiterate chump who still doesn't know what offside is - but please, Leafs, do something, anything to stop the Habs fans mockage. There's really something wrong when the most valuable team in the NHL hasn't made the playoffs since 2004 (Pat Quinn I miss you!)

Maple Leafs, I understand your lack of motivation. Your fans are among the most fanatical/delusional in the NHL, so you could be ice-dancing and people would still pay money to see you... (Really, Kaberle and Beauchemin doing a pas-de-deux, I am so there - but I digress.) Last year, you guys ranked 121 out of 122 professional sports teams in terms of fan satisfaction - and that's not just the NHL, that's including the NFL, the NBA and MLB - and still people will pay an arm and a leg with a couple of fingers thrown in as loose change to watch you. The only other team I know that gets that kind of mindless rabid adoration is the Indian cricket team, which - when they're good, they're good, when they're bad, it's all with the hoyvin-and-the-glayvin-and-the-CARNAGE! - and from my experience with them, I know the only thing to do is to fasten my seatbelt, put my tray table in the upright position and wait for the turbulence to end.

To conclude, Maple Leafs, the last time you won the Stanley Cup, my parents were still in high school. Sometime in the future, I expect to procreate, and if you could bring home the Cup before my kids graduate high school? That would be great.

With my best wishes,

Sharon

Dear Rihanna

Regarding your decision to send naked pictures of yourself to your boyfriend, and the subsequent decision to justify yourself in the following words:

"If you don't send your boyfriend naked pictures, then I feel bad for him."

Are you mental? I'm not even getting into your getting back together with Chris Brown after he used you as a punching bag, which, also stupid, but this? "Hello impressionable youth! Ok, so going back to CBrown was stupid, but take it from me, certified relationship expert, y'all should totes be sending your bfs nekked pictures of yourselves! Just because my nekked pictures leaked doesn't mean yours will!"

No love,

Sharon

PS - That umbrella song? Still annoying.

Want, Order, Have

Now Playing: Steve Miller Band - Fly Like An Eagle

I was watching Demons the other day - the show is nothing special, except as a showcase for Philip Glenister's inexplicable "American accent" and if I were him, I wouldn't draw attention to it - when a character was told to read Bram Stoker's Dracula and asked, "Can I watch the movie instead?"

We - Generation Y for Youtube - take it for granted that a given text has been adapted for either the big or the small screen and further assumes that these adaptations are readily accessible, whether through Blockbuster, Netflix, or any of the plethora of legal and illegal download options. Caveat Lector: the faithfulness of the adaptation is never guaranteed. In fact, it cheers my cold, cynical heart to think of some hapless high school student writing about Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale's happy ending and promptly getting an F for his or her troubles.

In fact, we're not just the Youtube generation, we're the on-demand generation. I remember being lectured by a TA, "You guys have it so easy! When we had to look papers up, we had to actually go down to the library and look up references on index cards! All you guys have to do is sign on to Pubmed, work some key-word magic, and BAM!" (By this point, I realized that an extension on that assignment was highly unlikely.)

The cliche is coming true: the internet can bring most of the world to your finger tips if (a) you have a credit card or paypal account and live somewhere covered by major retail websites' shipping policies, or (b) you have good bandwidth and flexible ethics. The flipside of this is that "getting it done online" has gone from being one option among many to the only choice. If some horrible, Jericho-esque apocalyptic scenario does occur, the sound of clicking Ctrl + Z en masse will fill the land, fading out slowly as people die of radiation poisoning.

Or how about that other classic of apocalyptic fiction - the zombie epidemic?

"We're out of ammo and the zombies are getting through!"
"Don't worry, I ordered us fresh supplies from Amazon. One Day Rush!"
"There is no more Amazon, f***er!"

And then the crazy, right-wing, right-to-bear-arms, guns-and-ammo-stockpiling nutjobs will inherit the earth.