The one where I realize I'm a TV whore, and not a high-priced one

My vampire fetish has been well documented throughout this blog, on many occasions. Therefore, it's only logical to think that any movie or TV program featuring these bloodsucking fiends would appeal to me. I would dispute this claim except that I was most recently proven wrong, again.

I think I have standards but then something happens that reminds me that, indeed, I do not. Take, for instance, my recent immersion in the teen TV drama Vampire Diaries. It's basically One Tree Hill with vampires. And like One Tree Hill, I was very skeptical at first. Watching the pilot episodes of both these shows was like slowly shoving a fork in my eye. I did not have the faith. My stepdaughter encouraged me to hang in there. So I did.

Last year, we ended up watching six seasons of One Tree Hill in five weeks. There are about 22 episodes per season, at approximately 42 minutes each. You do the math. Once I had made it past the first five or six episodes of the first season of One Tree Hill, I was lapping that shit up like nobody's business.

The same holds true for Vampire Diaries. If you have the fortitude to get past those first few episodes, and the feeling you're simply watching an Abercrombie and Fitch commercial, the storylines, albeit not overly original, suck you in. The layers start to get peeled away, one by one, and you find yourself actually looking forward to the next episode, until it dawns on you - you're hooked.

It can't be any worse than watching America's Next Top Model. Actually, it's pretty much the same show,  with the addition of male actors.

Breaking Bad breakdown

I'd like to think my boyfriend and I are fairly intelligent people but sometimes things happen that make me seriously doubt this. Take, for example, our attempt to watch Season 3 of Breaking Bad. It all started when we went to our nearest video rental store. They only had three of the four discs but informed us that another store had disc 1. So, we rented discs 2 through 4 and headed north to the other location and rented disc 1.

We successfully watched the first few episodes on disc 1. Then, we attempted to watch the last one but fell asleep early on and decided we would watch it at a later date. One week passes. We're headed out to run some errands and decide we should bring back disc 1 since it's overdue. Did we watch all the episodes on that disc? Somehow, we convinced ourselves that we had, and brought it back. 

There was also added pressure to return these suckers. The chain of video stores we rent from was going bankrupt and would close permanently in a matter of weeks. We had to call and find out how long we had before they closed up shop and we wouldn't be able to return them and then we'd have creditors hassling us to purchase the damn discs.

A short time later, we settled in to watch the first episode on disc 2. Massive confusion. What the hell is going on? Did we miss an episode? Then, it dawned on me. Shit! We never finished the last episode on disc 1 because we fell asleep! Dammit! Highly frustrated by our lack of short term memory, we marched on, watched disc 2 and pieced together what we missed.

When we finished watching the second disc, my boyfriend put in disc 3, or so he thought. We watched all the episodes on this disc, and the last one had a great cliffhanger ending. I rushed to the DVD player to put in what I thought would be the final disc. As I removed the one we'd just watched, I looked at it in horror as I read: Disc 4, episodes 11-13. Whaaaaaaa?! How could this happen? How could we not know we skipped ONE WHOLE DISC when we were so confused after missing just one episode?

Then, I had an idea. I knew Season 4 was currently airing on TV and we had that channel on our On Demand service. OMG, we could go watch Season 4 now and find out what happened! So, we found the Breaking Bad listing, bursting with glee, only to have our dreams crushed. Only episodes 6-8 of Season 4 were listed. F*CK. We are idiots.

So, we resigned ourselves to watching the middle episodes of Season 3 that we missed. They filled in some details of the later episodes but we couldn't help but feel completely deflated by our stupidity. I mean, this is a kick-ass show, not something you want to f*ck up, you know? Now, we'll basically have to wait until Season 4 comes out on DVD, and find a new video rental store. Bollocks.

Yes, I'm a Twilight fan. Sort of. Ok! Are you happy now?

Last weekend I found myself in a strange, mysterious and slightly disturbing place - the teen vampire drama universe. My stepdaughter and I were trying to figure out what mindless drivel we would watch to pass the time, and I voluntarily (key word here) suggested Twilight, which I've seen already, like, three times.

We then decided that, in preparation for the release of Breaking Dawn, Part 1, the fourth installment in this wildly popular series, we would also watch New Moon and Eclipse again, both of which I've already seen, but only once, and at the time, I felt once was more than enough.

It's interesting what happens when time passes and you watch a movie again that you thought you kinda hated and it's... better than you initially thought. I'm already predisposed to these films due to my long-standing vampire fetish but I was surprised at my new found enthusiasm for what is essentially a lame-ass retelling of vampire lore.

I still can't convince myself that Kristen Stewart can act. She's shit, any way you slice it, and to this day, I can't understand why Hollywood has convinced itself that she's a talented performer. Luckily, the rest of the cast picks up the slack, especially my beloved Anna Kendrick, scene-stealer extraordinaire. She's awesome, any way you slice it. So is Taylor Lautner's bare chest. It's a character in itself.

I did sorely miss Rachelle Lefevre, who was replaced in Eclipse due to a scheduling conflict by Bryce Dallas Howard. How those bastards at Summit Entertainment couldn't work around Rachelle's shooting schedule is beyond me, but if I had to choose between working with Dustin Hoffman and Paul Giamatti on a film based on a Mordechai Richler story and the campy Twilight saga, I'd ditch the latter as well.   

Note to Robert Pattinson: hit the gym 'yo! Taylor Lautner is wiping the floor with your pasty, non-defined, skinny-ass torso. I understand your skin has to look abnormally white due to the vampiric nature of your character but that's no excuse not to get some bulk and definition. When in doubt, consult photos of True Blood's male vampire cast, most notably Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skarsgard. You should bare some resemblance to that body type to convince us of your truly irresistible vampire charm.

After having immersed myself in about six hours of Twilight saga-ness, I find myself actually excited to see the next installment, mostly because I'm curious as to how they dealt with a vampire/human sex scene and what can only be described as an incredibly unusual, violent birth. Sex and violence, that's all it really takes to lure me in. I know, how typically bourgeois.

Of course, I'm expecting some Kristen Stewart-esque bad acting but after having made us wait this long, we're finally getting to the good stuff, and they better not have f*cked it up. Of course, Breaking Dawn won't hold a candle to True Blood's sexual content but that's like comparing apples to oranges - it's a fruitless endeavour.

Vajazzle this!

Is there anything more exciting than learning a new word? Yesterday, my stepdaughter introduced me to a term she heard on a new show on TLC called Big Sexy, a show about fat chicks living in New York. 

In one episode, our Sex and the City plus-size cohort heads to the salon and one of them gets a bikini wax, with a twist. You see, if you'd like to add that extra layer of "sexy", you can vajazzle your vag, meaning the application of shiny, jewelery-like bits over your lady parts, on your lower abdomen.

Since it's a brand new word, I thought I'd come up with a few more definitions....

1 - Vajazzle, noun, masculin: man who drizzles giz everywhere after sex, except in your cooch; basically, a post-coital slob.

Used in a sentence: Honey, how many times do I have to tell you! My belly button is not a vagina. Why do you have to be such a vajazzle.

2 - Vajazzle, verb: a slang expression for "I'm gonna mess you up, bitch" 

Used in a sentence: Touch my vintage stapler one more time, and I'm gonna vajazzle your ass!

3 - Vajazzle, adjective: inappropriate article of clothing.

Used in a sentence: That is such a vajazzle top. No one needs to see your fake boob scars, or your eerily immobile nipples, for that matter.

4 - Vajazzle, noun, feminine: woman who washes her hair too infrequently and looks like she was attacked by a vajazzle (see definition #1).

Used in a sentence: Oh honey, when was the last time you washed your hair? Don't be such a vajazzle. 

5 - Vajazzle, noun, masculin: a snappy-dressing vampire.

Used in a sentence: Like, oh my God, Robert Pattinson is like, the best vajazzle EVER!

6 - Vajazzle, verb: a bejeweled varsity athlete.

Used in a sentence: Wow, it really sucks that (name has been blocked for privacy purposes) is benched again! Someone should tell her vajazzling is like, so last year.

If you've got any new definition ideas for this fabulous word, then please, share with the rest of the class...