At this point it's willfully stupid for me not to get in on the ground floor of any non-trashy ABC Family show.

I'm not sure why every critic has decided this is trying to be Mad Men, a diffuse, slow story more interested in exploring its characters, that started with an all-powerful Alpha Male and then started hinting at a mysterious backstory. This looks to me like it's trying to tell an interesting business/tech story first,…

I seemingly got better at Mario 64 the longer I went without playing it. I remember trying so hard to break 1:30 on Mario raceway, and never getting better than (around) 1:35. Put it down for six months, boot it back up, first try 1:29. Play for a while, get it incrementally down to 1:27, drop it for a year, come…

What good is a nice house that you can't afford to buy? We just closed on our first house a couple weeks ago, and I'm happy with where we ended up, but prices were going nuts. Houses went for more than 10% above asking. One house went up on a Tuesday and went pending Thursday without even a weekend to have an open…

I lost it at "[Pause] And there are striped hats."

Geek is supposed to be the general term for anyone who gets really into something or a few things. You can geek out about anything, from coding to Star Wars to cooking to football to 18th century European churches.

The very useful and wonderful www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/ also calculates this for you, though they only have shows in their archives that were still airing when the site started. But if it was still airing in 2004 (at latest, I just checked when Friends ended), every episode is there.

I watched this right before twitter, so I can't see exactly what I thought about it, but a search of my inbox reveals I thought it had great acting and terrible dialogue.

I don't think "regular bragging about something really unimportant" counts as humblebragging, but thanks.

Oof, I literally coined "Disaster Brandon" (http://www.avclub.com/tvclu… and called him sleeping with Dani 5 seconds after we met her (http://www.avclub.com/tvclu…, but even I am heartbroken that he's losing his hand. I've been beating the "Mike's going to jail" drum all season, so I was expecting that to be the…

I've lived in Portland, Oregon for two and a half years. I like coffee. What the hell is a "Dutch Bros?" My old apartment was, I swear, within 5 blocks of 5 different Starbucks, including the one sharing the building.

I'm sure writers intend tonight to be the end of Disaster Brandon (I'm so proud that's caught on!), but we'll see if he's actually an enjoyable character after this.

I really wish the Old English class I took in college hadn't met at 8am.

Trying to leave the viewer wondering if the entire series is a character's delusion, like in the Buffy episode in the mental institution. Believe it or not, I'm aware that the show I'm watching about vampires is fiction. I don't really care if it's one fictional iteration away from me, or if it's REALLY about a…

I don't think that complete disregard for continuity really ever happens anymore. I can believe it did in even the wonderful sitcoms of the 70s and 80s, but pretty much every show now at least somewhat respects what just happened, even if it's not outright serialized. Smaller things, like being shown out at bars and…

I wish it wouldn't all be framed as decisions she needs to make. Of course she should get adopted by her loving foster parents. But she's also 16 and there's nothing to stop her from pursuing some sort of relationship with her dad, either now or in a couple years. He seems like he's a decent guy trying to get his life…

I can't imagine shoes that look less suited for running super fast. The soles are too thin to provide any advantage on rough terrain but there aren't any spikes either, there's nothing resembling ankle or arch support, yet they appear to go up to mid-calf, they look really hot to wear, and they don't even look like…

Agreed that almost none of the shows I listed try to deal with, as you put it, the working poor, and that Raising Hope did.

So Zach's mom: bipolar, dissociative identity disorder, or traumatic brain injury? The first doesn't really match the memory loss and angry phone call, I'm not sure I want to see the show try and handle the second, so I'm hoping for the last. Do we know Zach's last name? Maybe it's Gage.

Predictions update: I no longer think Mariana's new boyfriend is going to be gay, and I actually, really, really like the way he's playing the character now. I think he's doing a great job subtly deviating from gender norms without acting like every tv character five episodes before they come out.