Tuesday, April 29, 2014

AND WE'RE BAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!

....But for a limited time only.

Now, I'm not going to be so egotistical as to say that my post about boycotting KFC after they ditched the Double Down single-handedly convinced The Colonel to bring it back for another month....but I'm not going to not say it, either.

So, JUST IN CASE, here is a short list of other things I would like to see brought back, preferably for longer than one month, but I'm not too picky:


-  The Houston Oilers jerseys




-  Quarterback Crunch cereal

-  2Pac

-  New episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210-- but starting at Season 5, so no Shannen Doherty, yes Tiffani Amber-Thiessen

-  'Goosebumps' books

1 more year of college eligibility for Kirk Hinrich




 -  Norm MacDonald anchoring Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live

-  The Macarena craze, like when groups of 50,000 people were dancing it in the streets and shit

-  Hootie & the Blowfish

NBA games to return to NBC, strictly for the theme song





 -  'No Fear' t-shirts

-  Surge cola

-  Lil' Penny commercials





That is all at this time; I don't want so sound too greedy.  In the meantime, please forward all my mail to the KFC on 6th and Wakarusa until May 25th.  Thank you.


Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Favorite Movie Championship Belt

Sometimes I have ideas for the blog, and then sit on them forever.  A couple years ago, I had DVR'd The Fugitive, and was trying to convince Teens, who had never seen it, to watch it with me.  When she asked me to describe it, I started with, "Well, it was definitely my favorite movie when I was 11 years old."  And bingo, I knew I wanted to write a post where I go through the timeline of all the favorite movies of my life.  I also knew I wanted to frame it like a wrestling championship belt, since it fits well, and wrestling references are awesome.  In the two years since, Grantland has written columns with the same premise.  Why am I explaining this?  I guess I just wanted you to know I'm not intentionally being an unoriginal bastard here.

Anyway, from as early as I can remember, here is the timeline of what movie was my personal champion of the world. 

(Note:  I'm leaving all the Star Wars movies out of this exercise entirely.  It would skew everything and make this even more pointless than it already is.)

I can't exactly remember my first ever "favorite" movie.  My earliest memory of a movie was The Blues Brothers, and I know I was really into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Short Circuit, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.  Let's just start in 1990 with Home Alone and call it good.


April 1992- Terminator 2: Judgment Day



My parents were notoriously strict about what I could watch/read/listen to.**   So needless to say, it took a ton of cajoling, and a pre-viewing on their part, for them to let me watch this movie.  Between special effects and the time travel premise, I think this was the first time a movie really blew my mind.

**Example: in 8th grade, my friends were going to see Jerry Maguire, and my parents called the movie theater to ascertain every single questionable scene from the poor movie theater employee and decide if I could go or not.  Verdict:  Locker room scene, so no, I couldn't go see it.  In 8th effing grade!  Oh, so I can work 14 hours a day gutting our basement after the flood, but I can't see Cuba Gooding Jr. naked and yelling "SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!"?  OK.  I get it.  (And yes, I know that's not the right scene.  Maybe if my parents had let me see this movie, I would remember it better.)


August 1993- Jurassic Park



Dinosaurs, bro.  Dinosaurs.


December 1993- The Fugitive

We watched this at my 11th birthday party.  My previous two birthdays featured a) my friends and I attacking the Happy Joe's mascot and tearing the dog costume off of him, like literally jumping off a table like it was the top turnbuckle and putting him in various leg locks and sleeper holds; and b) Aubol's face getting skated over during a free skate at the old Englestad Arena.  So in comparison, when I told my parents I just wanted some pizza and some movies for this party, they were so relieved I probably could've requested a bukkake film and they would've approved of it.

A couple other things here:  I usually have weird pictures as my iPhone lock screen, which drives Teens nuts, as she is a girl and wants pictures of us everywhere.  Instead, I usually have a rotation of Roger Dorn from Major League, the Mighty Ducks Goodwill Games team from D2, and this one.  "YOU FIND THAT MAN!"




Also, if we ever buy a dog, there's a 100% chance we're naming it Doctor Richard Kimble-- that will be a prerequisite to me agreeing to get one.  If we have a son, I'd say there's a 27% chance I can talk Teens into that same name.  You might think those odds are high, but I can be pretty persuasive.


1994 was a shitshow of awesome movies that were all released within a few months of each other, and at one point I called each one of these my favorite, so rather than try and list them in order of when I think I watched them, I'm just gonna list them in chronological order of their release date.  As my trivia friends can attest, my memory is good...but it ain't that good.

Ace Ventura, Pet Detective- Jim Carreys tho!

Speed- Everybody loved Speed when it first came out.  I loved Speed.  You loved Speed.  It's OK to admit it, Jack.

No Escape- We had a couple-year tradition where we'd watch this movie at Easy E's birthday party.  At the time, we just thought it was a great movie.  With the benefit of age and wisdom, we now know that it's a perfect example of a good-bad movie.

True Lies- All things considered, probably the most embarrassing entry on this entire list.  There's at least one semi-defensible excuse for every other movie listed here.  This movie, on the other hand, co-stars Tom Arnold.  (However, I will say that between True Lies and Trading Places, Jamie Lee Curtis played a large role in bringing me through puberty.)  

Stargate- Another fantastic good-bad movie.  I think the fact that we were studying the Egyptian gods in elementary school around the same time may have influenced me a bit.

Dumb & Dumber- One of the primary personality-shaping pop culture cornerstones of my youth.


April 1995- Tommy Boy

Brother loves this movie as much as I do, but I would still be willing to bet that on some levels, he wishes this movie was never made.  Top 3 ways I have used this movie to annoy the shit out of him:

3.  Spilling things in his car, and remarking "I think they'll be OK in here...they have a thin candy shell.  Surprised you didn't know that."

2.  Since moving to Kansas, every time I'm back in North Dakota, riding in a car with him, noticing that an old business has closed down, and pointing and yelling "Hey, the old muffler plant's gone too!"

1.  Beating him home from school, locking the door and making him ring the doorbell so I could re-create this scene, over and over and over again.  Also, I haven't called him AJ since this movie was released.





January 1996- Mortal Kombat




Wanna know how I was spending my free time in 7th grade, besides locking Brother out of the house, talking to girls on the phone, playing a shitload of video games, and talking to girls on the phone while playing a shitload of video games?  Walking to the grocery store with Easy E, shoplifting candy bars and Mountain Dew (earmuffs Mom & Dad), and watching and re-watching and re-watching (and re-watching) our VHS of Mortal Kombat that we taped off of a STARZ free preview weekend.  Life was simpler in the 90's.


May 1996- Happy Gilmore



This was the summer I started really getting into golf, and really getting out of baseball.  Was it due to this movie?  Tiger Woods?  Or the realization that my "It doesn't matter how fast you throw, all you have to do is throw strikes" style of pitching rapidly became unsuccessful once we moved up a league and they moved the pitching mound back?  Whatever the case, I effing loved this movie-- and still do, it has held up pretty well for me, besides the fact that Julie Bowen's hotness level is on some Benjamin Button shit.  I can't wait to see her when she's like 80.


August 1996- Tommy Boy + Dumb & Dumber

Over the next couple years, these two movies just took turns beating each other and trading the championship belt back and forth, too many times to keep up with.  Sorta like The Rock and Mankind in the late 90's.


August 1998- He Got Game



As a pseudo-test, I used to make potential girlfriends watch He Got Game and Above the Rim back to back.  It was a decent idea in theory, but after awhile I stopped, as I realized that if I ever wanted a girl to touch it, I either had to ditch this movie fest, or move to the Bronx.  However, now this pendulum has now swung too far back in the other direction, as I discovered the other day that Teens has NEVER seen either of these movies.  This oversight will be corrected shortly.


December 1999- Fight Club



Probably my favorite movie for a couple days or so; that sounds about right.  The equivalent of when Yokozuna won the heavyweight championship from Bret Hart, but then lost it five minutes later when Mr. Fuji screwed him over and Hulk Hogan beat him for the title.  Find me a high school-aged white boy living in suburbia who didn't think Fight Club was the most badass movie ever, for at least a small amount of time.  HIS NAME.  WAS ROBERT PAULSON.


December 1999- He Got Game

There were some other challengers, such as the DVDs we wore out while shooting pool in Ike's basement (American History X, The Matrix, Office Space), but Junior and Senior year of high school, my "Damn, I wish I was black" hubris was at an all-time high, so He Got Game quickly returned to the throne.  Oh yeah, my first email address was jakeshuttlesworth@hotmail dot com.  You wanna holler, MSN me.


July 2001- The Godfather

The summer after I graduated high school, I took a road trip to Seattle and Portland with Karan and DR, both of whom were older than me.  It was my first real long-distance vacation without family, and among other things I learned on the trip (how to play the main guitar riff from 'Beat It'; what crack rocks look like in real life and how much they can be sold for on the street; a decent-looking college girl with a personality trumps a super-hot high school B every single time), I was introduced to the Godfather universe.  First I read the book, then I watched the movies, and my taste in cinema was forever altered.  Big ups to DR and Karan for my education.


October 2001- Goodfellas



The mafia movie hill proved to be a slippery slope, and while I was balls-deep in all these gangster movies (Scarface, Casino, Donnie Brasco, Heat, A Walk to Remember, etc.) one emerged from the pack as the clear favorite.  If we're continuing with the wrestling analogy (and yes, we are), then Goodfellas is probably the Hulk Hogan.  There were some challenges from The Macho Man (The Shining), The Ultimate Warrior (The Royal Tenenbaums), The Undertaker (Mulholland Drive), and Shawn Michaels (Donnie Darko), but he's still probably the champion of all champions.


August 2004- Anchorman



HEY-OOOOO!!!  It's me, Papa Burgundy!  I don't need to say much else; it's been discussed ad nauseum on this blog.


September 2005- Goodfellas

Paul had moved away, so Anchorman started bumming me out just a little bit since it reminded me of him, juuuust enough for Goodfellas to come back and reclaim the title.  Note from this era:  Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin are probably the Rowdy Roddy Piper and Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase of my lifetime, as in the best movies to never hold the championship belt once during their careers.


October 2006- The Departed



I saw this movie three times in the movie theater, a non-Star Wars personal record for me.  Obviously it was clear that Scorsese already knew how to cut to the core of me, but the bus that now had its wheels in motion was....


September 2010- Inception



.....Leo!  I used to make fun of DiCaprio and Titanic on the reg, but after The Departed, Shutter Island, Inception, Django Unchained, Wolf of Wall Street, and some re-evaluating of Gangs of New York and The Aviator after the fact....it's pretty clear that I'm just like every 13-year-old girl was in 1997.  I swoon over Leo too, just in a different way.


**********

So we're going on almost four years of the same champion now.  As you can see, as I get older, my favorite movie doesn't change every couple of months anymore.  I'm not sure if that's a sign of maturity....or just a result of Hollywood not making high-quality movies like Mortal Kombat with the same regularity anymore.  It's anyone's guess, I suppose.


Friday, April 18, 2014

Aye, I Ain't Never Smoked This Before

The song that I have been absolutely abusing on my iPod (and other people's phones, and jukeboxes, etc.) the last few weeks:





I'm kinda surprised I enjoy this song so much, since I usually don't like Pharrell Williams when he's runnin' solo.  I like him in small doses, like when he's just featured on other people's songs.  He's like potato salad for me.  Nobody would eat an entire meal of just potato salad**, but throw in a pulled pork sandwich (Daft Punk) and corn on the cob ("Blurred Lines") with maybe some coleslaw (Snoop Dogg) and Texas toast (N.E.R.D.).....well then, hey.  You got yourself a meal.  But this song stands alone beautifully.  Can't get enough of it. 

And now I'm effing starving.  Who wants to go get BBQ for dinner?


**That's a lie; not even two weeks ago I ate like 1.5 pounds of potato salad for lunch with nothing else accompanying it and called it good.  But still.


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Gettin' Ink, Brah




I've always kinda hated the feel of wedding rings, and when my buddies started getting married and I tried on their rings for short amounts of time, that fact was confirmed for me.  So I knew that getting a ring finger tattoo was always sort of the long-range plan for me.  After the wedding, I wore my ring on the correct hand for a couple weeks, but being a lefty, I despised it.  From then on, I wore it on my right hand, and just dealt with all the different connotations attached to that strategy.  Everyone told me that I would eventually get used to having it on my finger, and to some extent I did, but it still bothered me more than an acceptable amount of time.  Ipso facto, time to get the tattoo.

I thought it was going to hurt quite a bit, since a) it was my first tattoo; b) it was directly on the finger bone; and c) I'm a huge baby.  I thought we might have to take a timeout at least once for me to call Mom, but the whole thing only took about four minutes, start to finish.  So not only did it not hurt very much at all (it felt more like a small animal scratching me or something), I didn't even have time to bust out my impression of David Spade doing his impression of Michael J. Fox  (2:55 mark of this video.)

And so ends the era of the UNITY ring.  I love Rick James and Dave Chappelle and all, but I couldn't quite pull the trigger on getting my skin permanently imprinted with a throwaway joke from a 10-year-old comedy sketch-- to say nothing of what Teens would've allowed me to do.  I got her on board (barely) with getting UNITY engraved in my ring; even if I wanted it, I have doubts I could've talked her into that tattoo.





Rapid-fire answers to FAQs:

-  I'm not sure if this will be a 'gateway tattoo' or not.  Since it was so quick, I didn't really get that adrenaline rush that tattoo junkies talk about.  That being said, I'm not going to rule out a bunch of 'F.O.E.' ink in the future, in hopes of becoming the third Morris twin.  Say it with me now:  Family Over Everything.




-  No, somehow this did not make my Dad proud of me.  Apparently the tattoo needed to cover my shoulders and biceps, and more prominently feature American flags and/or bald eagles for him to be impressed.  We discussed this on The Boards, and we decided that I need to stop half-assing things, or the old man will never give me my props.  I start chewing...but only pouches.  I get a tattoo....but only a small one on my ring finger.  I take an animal's life....but only because the squirrel ran directly into my golf cart and I couldn't stop in time.

-  I'm not anticipating this to be a problem, but if Teens and I are to get divorced someday...well, I've already got the C, the J, and the H....I'll just need to get creative and throw an R in there somewhere and then, boom, we've got RCJH.  (Rock Chalk Jayhawk to the layperson.)  The threat of changing my tattoo to this acronym is also what I'll be holding over Teens' head for the rest of our lives, so I expect the quality of her home-made dinners to be pretty, prettyyyyy superb from here on out.

F.O.E.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

KFC Ya Later


When it comes to fast food, I am a petty, spiteful man.  One time in 6th grade I ate at Arby's, threw up shortly afterwards, and didn't go back for 18 years.

When Sonic got rid of the chili cheese wraps, I walked out on them and haven't looked back.  Despite never going longer than two weeks without eating Sonic for the first couple years I lived in Lawrence, it's now been almost three years since I've been back.

And now, in 2014, the KFC here in Lawrence got rid of the Double Down.  Unlike the Sonic incident, when I was too devastated to do anything but put my car in reverse and do the driving equivalent of the Sad Charlie Brown Walk back home, I stuck it out this time and actually ordered some other stuff off the menu.





And while the Famous Bowl is no effing joke (and clocking in at 700 calories per helping, it appeals to my fat kid sensibilities)....it's just not the same without the Double Down.  I highly doubt I will be showing up at KFC any time soon, unless it is to sit in the parking lot in the rain, listening to Bryan Adams and weeping softly.

However, in positive news: Teens, Gangel and I gave Burrito King a shot last weekend.  When I first moved down here, I was told that this joint had the greatest late-night drunk food in town.  With visions dancing in my mind of a potential plug for the still-fresh, gaping wound that the loss of Red Pepper had left in me, Lane and I first tried it after a day of tailgating at a KU football game.  Let's just say it didn't go well.  Fueled by copious amounts of booze and an anger that the "best drunk food in town" was nothing more than shitty Mexican food hastily slopped into flimsy styrofoam boxes, we reacted as any red-blooded 24-year-old Americans would've reacted...we punted our tacos into a large crowd of innocent bystanders and swore off the place forever.  (Side note:  If you've never punted a taco before, it almost goes without saying that I highly, highly recommend it.)

That was in 2007.  Last Friday night, for whatever reason-- maybe because Gangel and I eat Taco Bell every single night we booze together and we wanted to change it up a bit-- I decided I needed to try Burrito King again.  And it wasn't terrible!  Three tacos, spanish rice and refried beans for under seven dollars, and it didn't taste like wet newspaper?  Plus some seriously spicy hot sauce that delighted Gangel and I, and almost put Teens in tears?  I can get on board with that.  (Although we did go back to Taco Bell the next night and absolutely demolished it.  Rome wasn't built in a day.)

So I lost a fast-food restaurant out of my rotation, and I gained one right back.  It's the circle of life.  World keeps on spinnin'.

Friday, April 4, 2014

2014 All-Ugly Team

The All-Ugly Team was hit hard by graduation last year.  However, I received more nominations this year than in any other year, by far.  There were so many worthy candidates that for the first time ever, I considered inviting a few extra players to walk on, after all 12 scholarships were filled.  In the end I stuck with just 12 spots, but seriously, great hustle everyone.  You really went out there and hit the recruiting trail hard this year.  We needed a strong class, and we got one.


BENCH:

KC Caudill, Boston College.  (#5 in the photo.)  Give it a couple of years, and I could see him having his own sitcom on CBS, playing one of those goofy bastard dads who inexplicably has a smoke show wife, a trouble-making son, and a hot teenage daughter who gives him ALL sorts of problems.

Emanuel Chapman, North Carolina Central.  The good news is, nobody from North Carolina Central will ever get busted for smoking weed, because Chapman already smoked it.  All of it.  He looks like Redman, only with a bigger beard, and higher.  While scrolling through his pictures, I almost found myself looking for Method Man in the background.  Also, as Alfonso put it, "Pretty gummy."

Marcus Smart, Oklahoma St.  Everyone wonders what that loser Texas Tech fan said to Smart to make him instantly snap and go after him in the crowd.  I bet it was something about his shitty haircut and acne scarring.

Ryan Spangler, Oklahoma.  Like Happy Gilmore, he holds two records, and they're both terrible.  He is the sweatiest dude to ever set foot on a basketball court (yes, even sweatier than Jonye) and he has the worst mess of a tribal tattoo of anyone not currently serving a prison sentence.

{Side story:  Oklahoma played at KU the same day that Harold Ramis (Egon Spangler from Ghostbusters, among other things) passed away.  On our way to our seats, we happened to be crossing paths with where the visiting team runs from the locker room to the court, so naturally we stopped to heckle.  When Spangler jogged by, I had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I leaned in close and said, "Hey Ryan....I'm sorry about your dad."  He didn't get it, but DJ Bennett, the player running next to him, definitely did.  I thought it was clever as hell, personally.}

Brady Heslip, Baylor.  As the only returning senior on this year's squad, it's with great sadness that I say goodbye to my boy Heslip and his floppy side part.  I know I've said this before, but if he went to KU, right now we'd be having a ceremony to hang his jersey on my Wall of Fame.  You can forget about him for 10-15 minutes of game time pretty easily, since he almost literally does nothing but shoot threes, and then WHAM!  Out of nowhere, he makes it rain on four consecutive possessions, and all of a sudden he's getting cocky and throwing up three goggles and chest bumping black guys.  We'll miss you, Brady.

Stefan Nastic, Stanford.  I swear this isn't just because they took out KU in the tournament.  Between his goofy mannerisms and his awkward face, he looks like the wacky Eastern European neighbor on an 80's sitcom.

Cat Barber, NC State.  He looks like someone who would get busted stealing things out of dorm rooms on a recruiting visit.  Which is ironic, because he more than likely got busted stealing things out of dorm rooms on a recruiting visit.


STARTING FIVE:
 

Terran Petteway, Nebraska 



A bad beard by itself usually isn't enough to land you on the All-Ugly Team (otherwise James Michael McAdoo would've made it for his Rasheed Wallace patch-beard impersonation this year.)  A bad set of braids usually isn't enough either (unless you're the legendary Alex Tyus.  Never forget.)  But when you combine a terrible beard with terrible hair....welcome to the squad, Terran!  On top of that, Petteway is one of the rare people who has not enough tattoos.  Like, if you're gonna go full shoulder and bicep, you might as well cover the forearms, too.  It just looks weird to stop at the elbow and have nothing else.  It's like ordering a couple Big Macs, a 12-piece McNuggets, a McFlurry, supersizing your fries...and ordering a Diet Coke because you're counting calories.


Sean Harris, Utah St.



Quick math:  Charlie Villanueva + Carrot Top + Kid from Kid 'n' Play = Guaranteed starter on All-Ugly Team.


Matt Stainbrook, Xavier




Three things I can guess about Stainbrook by looking at him:  His favorite movie is The Matrix.  He uses the insult 'noob' at least once a day.  He has a tinder account, and uses it exclusively to show girls various photographs of his balls.  And judging by the look on the Creighton player's face, he smells like beef & cheese.

 
Adreian Payne, Michigan St.




He looks like he should be a creepy, possibly sinister mortician in one of the Final Destination movies or something.


Hugh Greenwood, New Mexico




So our old friend Hermie from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer takes over the captaincy in his junior year, but not without some controversy.  This season, Greenwood ditched the wannabe-dentist elf hair that I enjoyed so much.  Now he's going with this look, which can best be described as "Girl attends soccer camp, fails to bring a brush, straightener, or any sort of product, doesn't shower all week, and is now playing her heart out in the consolation championship on the last day of camp."


Wednesday, April 2, 2014

How I'll Miss Your Mother


The other night one of my favorite shows of all time ended.

I've been with How I Met Your Mother since the beginning, which I can't say very often, especially involving shows whose series finales are considered "events."  Usually I either get into shows after they're well established, or already finished (The Wire, The Sopranos, Arrested Development, etc.), or I don't really care about the show, and so all the end-of-series hoopla means little to me (Friends, Lost, 24.)  The shows I get in on from the beginning usually meet their end tragically early or with little fanfare (Chappelle Show, Ed, Party Down, Love Monkey) and I end up pissed off.  Or, in the case of Beverly Hills 90210, it lasts for like 17 years and I'm begging for FOX to just take it behind the shed and shoot it already.  (Hey Brando, thanks for the goodbye video in the series finale though!  Wouldn't want you to break a sweat or anything.)

So even though the last couple seasons of HIMYM have been at best uneven, and at worst unwatchable...here we are at the end.  I didn't laugh a whole lot this last season, but now that it's gone, I'm going to miss this show.

It's sorta like breaking up with a girl, and you're just about to pull the trigger...and then all you can remember are all the good times, like Barney on The Price Is Right (how does that clip not exist on youtube?!?!?), or Robin Sparkles, or the slap bet, or SUIT UP!, etc. etc.  You forget about how much the Barney-Robin relationship pissed you off at the time, or how much of a little bitch Ted could be, and you forgive all the stupid false alarms about when The Mother was going to be revealed throughout the years....and that's how you end up getting hammered and booty-calling your girl at 3 in the morning every couple weekends for the next eight months, and starting the spiral over, again and again.

{SPOILERS BELOW}

As for the series finale, I kinda liked it.  It was a bummer in a lot of ways, but I liked that it was realistic, and it showed a lot of soul in the process.  It can't always be Ross & Rachel or Jim & Pam or whatever.  People get divorced.  People have children out of wedlock with people they barely know.  Careers don't always work out like you hoped they would.  Spouses pass away, and years later, the widower might venture out to date again.  I have friends I've regrettably fallen out of touch with.  I still miss my college apartment from time to time.  If I was 21 years old, I don't think I'd enjoy this show near as much, but for people in my age range, it's pretty damn accurate. 

I know I'm in the minority in enjoying the finale, and I can definitely understand people who didn't like it, or who even hated it.  I'm not gonna sit here and tell people how they should interpret the last few scenes.  But here's one thing I think the general internet is maybe freaking out about a bit too much...I don't think the show definitively stated that Ted and Robin "END UP TOGETHER", or that the last scene signified that Robin was the love of Ted's life all along.  He was married to a woman he loved maybe more than anyone else, had kids, lost her to illness, is thinking about dipping his toe into the pool again, and hey, Robin and I are older and more mature now, why not give it a whirl?  All he was doing was going over and asking her out on a date (albeit with the blue french horn from the pilot episode, which implies a certain level of romanticism.)  But it's not like they showed them together 35 years later, happily married, sitting in their rocking chairs.  Just a date.  That's all.  There's nine years of evidence stating that Ted & Robin don't necessarily make it work.

For people who wanted a true happy ending after investing nearly a decade into the show, I can understand the frustration.  All I know is that someday soon, I'm probably gonna be drinking a bottle of Pendleton and texting an ex-girlfriend about how good we were together-- a.k.a. digging out the Season 1 DVDs and starting the show all over again.