Oh, I'm not denying that - just speaking to some general similarities in tone and style.

Well, I AM an anthropologist, so maybe it just seems more natural to me. :)

I have a low Michael Cera tolerance to begin with, so that whole scene was just agony for me. The HELL… ?!?

I'll admit to having an affection for "Circus" when I was a kid.

Speak for yourself! I'm TOTALLY a rho!

Well, I for one get a LOT from Media. Why else are we at the AV Club? :D

They've already had a flaming-eyed buffalo in closeup - they couldna paid for a few mammoth silhouettes put into a landscape filmed in Alberta or someplace?

OK - thanks.

But it's not like the writer asked her dates to elaborate on the semiotic significance of the names and mascots of the different houses, or contrast Rowling's portrayals of magical beings with those of Shakespeare.*

The challenge is how to recognize a particular behavior as a manifestation of douchiness.

"Dammit … just that one-word title of this article makes me all-of-a-sudden really miss Patrick and Richie and wonder how Dom and his Portuguese chicken restaurant are doing, and Agustin with the bear from Mean Girls, and Doris and Malik …"

Again, we only have the writer's limited report to go on, but it sounds like a lot of this is in the psyches of the peope she's interacting with, not the writer herself. If they "feel pressured to give an intellectual response", that's on them - explaining what you like about the thing you like doesn't seem like a…

We had 'em in Rochester! Still might.

They also had a tie cake for Father's Day for a while. Again, same mold.

She was also in an "Electrawoman and Dynagirl" reboot pilot that was promising but, alas, doesn't appear to have gone anywhere.

Like "Bloom County", with which it was roughly contemperaneous, it did the neat trick of combining good-natured low-brow gags and wild absurdity with poetic aspirations, and coming off all the better for the disjuncture.

I have still never watched an episode of "Friends", but will ravenously consume "Night Court" reruns whenever they come on LaffTV.

It's priceless.

I had to look it up. Yick.

Like I said elsewhere here, we only have the writer's self-reporting to go on, but what she describes sounds perfectly reasonable to me - she's trying to build a bridge of connection.