I'm with you, Painted Thumb.  I grew up in the Twin Cities, and lived for a while in NYC in my 20s-30s.  My wife grew up in Russia.  We both like the show, and mostly for the same reasons:  it's fun to see such a unblinking, critical eye reveling in the stupid shit we did when we were that age.  This show isn't…

I'm with you, Painted Thumb.  I grew up in the Twin Cities, and lived for a while in NYC in my 20s-30s.  My wife grew up in Russia.  We both like the show, and mostly for the same reasons:  it's fun to see such a unblinking, critical eye reveling in the stupid shit we did when we were that age.  This show isn't…

There are no villages in the U.S.  Sure, technically there may be places classified as "villages" in the state's or county's records, but every cluster of buildings anywhere is a "town" - from NYC to Crabapple Cove.  "Cities" are a different matter.

There are no villages in the U.S.  Sure, technically there may be places classified as "villages" in the state's or county's records, but every cluster of buildings anywhere is a "town" - from NYC to Crabapple Cove.  "Cities" are a different matter.

David Sedaris?

David Sedaris?

I'll disagree.  The 80s had their share of good-to-great sitcoms that were not maudlin at all.  Cheers, Night Court, It's Garry Shandling's Show, Newhart, as well as ones that spanned the 70s-80s boundary like WKRP, Taxi & Barney Miller.  And basing a sitcom around unlikeable characters was around since at least All…

I thought this episode had an incredibly strong theme running through it, to the point of being on the nose, to use a popular phrase around here.  Specifically, almost every character was exhibiting incredible pettiness and schadenfreude:

Presumably he was able to sell the old one.

Every time I see Elizabeth Banks I can only think of how awesome she'd have been as Cersei.

Noel referring to the banter as "practically family-friendly" seems odd to me.  Watching that show as a kid (nearly every Saturday - always "stuck at home" for me), I could scarcely imagine adults ever wanting to watch it - just as I was shocked years later to realize that Gilligan's Island was a prime time show…

So is it funny?  Son of the Circus was the last Irving book I read, while loving almost everything that came before it.  But SotC left so little impression on me that I could only tell you that it involved a policeman in India - probably Mumbai.  I don't remember it being funny at all, at least not in the same way the…

I could totally believe the "no virgins" guy.  Who among us hasn't sworn off some trait because a recent relationship turned out to be a nightmare.  My ex left me with a number of dealbreakers, rational or not.

Hipster/douchebag is more of a cartesian coordinate system than a spectrum, no?

I was genuinely concerned during that attempted breakup at the end - I wasn't ready to see Adam leave yet.  But ultimately the character will have to leave, either by changing into less of a cad we see now (if he decides he wants to keep Hannah around), or because Hannah really does leave him.  Of course, the third…

I first heard it from a coworker around 1990.  She was awesome - she used it as a hide-in-plain site "fuck you" to women she couldn't stand.  As her target would be going home for the weekend, she'd call out, "See YOU next Tuesday!" which would confuse them, as Monday wasn't going to be a holiday.

@avclub-bcb7c13ff9746a60fa8c3e748acd054d:disqus , see, I don't think we ever got much internal view into Littlefinger until AFFC, when he was discussing stuff directly with Sansa.  Despite his big betrayal of Ned, for the first several books, I always saw Littlefinger as "that guy who's always around, who is valuable…

My prediction:  We're still going to see Reek.  I'm guessing that the Bastard's assault on Winterfell will appear as a failure, and Reek will be one of the survivors, with Ramsey getting killed.
The way it was in the books was just too convoluted, as well as, in my memory, contrived - Ramsey getting captured incognito,…

I didn't care for this episode or the live one, and I think the biggest reason may be that I don't like Jack when he's in full-on flopsweat mode.  Jack is hilarious when he's in control and contemptuously self-assured, casually putting Liz or liberals in their place.  Having him run around panicked, pressing…

Really?  Where is this documented?  I've only known one transgender person, but we never got into the protocols for dealing with this sort of language.  It just seems almost belligerent to ask people to retcon their memories to fit your current life decisions - particularly if the transperson in question wasn't even…