We Used To Be Friends

Happy Thursday, gumshoes! Yes, it's that time of year again: time to break out the VERONICA MARS season boxset of your choice and chug it like it's dad's good brandy and he ain't comin' home til late.

Let me chronicle for you my history with the show. Picture this scene: it's the start of sophomore year, you're living in a wacky trailer park called "the Mods." You've just caught the season premiere of GILMORE GIRLS, and directly following it is the new season of this show you vaguely remember as something more than one person has tried to get you to watch.

It's a mystery show, which you hadn't expected. How many mystery shows are on then? Other than the 6-episode RAINS, none. The flair and the humor immediately catch your attention, such as the realism captured when the two new roommates meet; or when the title character rips a necklace from the neck of a little girl, rolls up the window, and drives away. Within the first fifteen minutes, you know it: you're hooked.

Then, like RAINS, your other new favorite detective show, it gets canceled. But there's hope, season one and two. You spend a good few weeks of that summer searching for and devouring all the streaming sites that offer season one, and pick up some Chinese from the subtitles. By the time junior year starts, you're about halfway through season two, and the one conversation you ever had with the random third roommate was about how cool VM was.

You acquire the boxsets of season one and two, and watch them all with not only your roommates, but your mom as well. Season one over winter break, and season two crammed into spring break. You've seen the first two seasons three times over before your roommate gets season three for her birthday and brings it to school with her.

You never find the time to watch more than the first episode before you graduate. Five months later, when your mom finds out she forgot there was a third season she's never seen, that elusive boxset finds its way into your home no more than two days later. Now, you're two discs down, four to go, and then it'll be the end all over again.

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It is, to this day, a show you count among your top three faves. It's one of those you've got the companion books for listed on your Amazon wishlist (Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars - Priority: Highest). You've listened to the Dandy Wharhols' song "We Used To Be Friends" more than a hundred times, and included "a long time ago, we used to be friends" as a line in your latest movie. You sit through things like FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL or FANBOYS just because Kristen Bell is in them (but you couldn't stick MOONLIGHT out, sorry Jason). Your computer's name is Keith and the next external harddrive you get will be named Veronica.

In conclusion, VERONICA MARS is the sort of show that stays in your system like acid; the flashbacks are just as good as the original hit. Enough is never enough.

In other news, my sister's home from Paris. So I've had to hang out and do buddy stuff. Except today she ditched me for her real friends so I sat around and wrote a short. But actually, we've gone thrifting a couple times, and drove around and did whatever. We went to Blockbuster to pick out something fun to watch and everything she wanted to see I already owned, so that worked out well. I'm showing her CONSTANTINE later.

I guess other than hanging out with family and watching VM, I haven't really done much. Played with the cat. He's crazy. Those flowers I planted haven't become flowers yet, but the guy we transplanted/killed is growing new leaves, so yay. And there's mushrooms growing in the thing where he used to be, so that's randomly awesome.

It's been way cold, which I do not appreciate one bit. I'm wearing a long sleeved shirt and a jacket right now. WHAT. We've been over this. It. Is. Time. For. SUMMER.

I also got a Batman manga and Superman comic from the library. The first was weird and got better, and the second was pretty solid (Leob/Sale teamup, names you probably don't recognize from HEROES). I read the screenplay for THE BOONDOCK SAINTS, which goes along pretty like the movie. Then I started back at the original screenplay that won the Academy Award in 1933, ONE WAY PASSAGE. The next oldest they have is CITIZEN KANE, so I'm procrastinating on that one.

I am about to start a Rex Stout "Nero Wolfe" novel, because one can't have too much mystery in a single day.

Also, I'd like to make a correction from last week's note. I said I got 20k in Bejeweled Blitz, which is actually a pretty lame score. I can't cope with numbers, so I screwed that one up. I meant 200k.

I will leave you with this video of a cat jumping into a box.

Stay cool tuna fish.

-Steph