When Scrubs had its series finale, I was sad that I’d never see the janitor, played by Neil Flynn. But then ABC came to my rescue in the form of a pilot sitcom called The Middle, starring Neil Flynn as the father. It’s about a blue collar family living in Iowa. They have three average kids, average jobs, and average lives. I love this show because it’s more realistic than most sitcom families. The kids aren’t all model gorgeous, in fact they’re downright goofy. Their youngest son talks to himself and his best friend is a backpack. Their teenage daughter is a complete klutz and their oldest son is going through his evil teenager years.
D and I crack up watching this show because I think we’d be so much like the parents. I love how the husband thinks of new crazy punishments for his kids, like when he makes his oldest son stay within 30 feet of him at all times. It’s hilarious when they go to the public pool and his son can’t talk to girls.
I also love how down to earth this family is. They aren’t high powered working parents yacking on their Bluetooth headsets or model gorgeous living in fancy houses. They’re in a regular house, much like the one I grew up in, living regular lives. It’s the perfect comedy for middle america, and definitely perfect for current economic times.

Instead of recapping the latest episode of Cougar Town, which opens with Jules have a sex dream about her neighbor Grayson, let’s focus on Grayson. He is such a hunky piece of man meat! Yum.

Grayson is played by Josh Hopkins. I first got my actor crush on Josh when he guest starred on Private Practice. He was a total sleaze ball then, but still hot. Now he’s kind of charming in his bachelor way in Cougar Town. He tries to pretend he loves being the sexy new divorcee, but you can tell he’s kind of lonely. I’m not sure if he’s the kind of guy you’d say yes to if he gave you certified diamonds if you know what I mean, but he is a hottie. I wonder if the writers will have Jules and Grayson hook up. I almost hope not, since he is such a playboy. Still…that would be one steamy scene wouldn’t it?

HIMYM is a show that keeps getting better. This week’s episode started out with the cast using bagpipes instead of a naughty four letter word. It was their special brand of humor, and reminded me of the Christmas episode where they replaced the word bitch with the word Grinch.

So Robin and Ted’s new neighbors “play the bagpipes together” all the time. Ted’s ready to show them the exit signs and send them packing. It was a great episode opener!
The rest of the episode centers around Barney having “new couple smugness”. I love this show because it’s so true, they focus on real things that happen in relationships.
Barney convinces Marshal that it’s a problem that Lily asks Marshal to wash the dishes right after he dirties them, instead of leaving them in the sink. I cracked up at this, because I’m the exact same way. I hate when dishes sit in the sink!
So Marshal is an idiot and listens to Barney’s advice about standing up to Lily and telling her to wash the dishes herself. Marshal does it, and oh guess what? It backfires, of course!
But it doesn’t actually backfire because of Barney’s advice, Marshal actually screws it up completely. Then it snowballs into fight spinoffs, which cracked me up even more. Have you ever had a fight with your significant other and it turned into a fight about all kinds of things, and not really at all about what you started the fight about?
So Marshal and Lily keep fighting, and Robin and Barney act more and more love-y dove-y until Ted realizes that it’s just a big cover up for the fact that they fight all the time.
I’m loving this show just as much as I did when it first started. It’s actually way better than whiney Ted last season. I have to say though, where is Ted lately? They haven’t had any big moments with him. It’d be nice to see the show focus on him a little bit more, and I don’t know…maybe the MOTHER?!

I’m a fan of Jodi Piccoult and her books about heavy issues and when life turns your world upside down. This one…while I liked it, I had my issues with it. It was definitely not my favorite Piccoult book.

The book is about a woman who spends her life helping to find missing persons. Then one day her father is arrested for kidnapping her as a little girl. It turns out that he took her away from her mother, then lied to her and said she had died.

Parts of the story were really good, and they had me hooked. Such as why her father did it, and whether or not he had good reason. The side story about the love triangle between her and her fiancee and their best friend was completely lame. I hated that the main character Delia cheats on her fiancee, and then has the nerve to justify it. Then there is Piccoult’s weird obsession with writing about molestation all the time. In the other book I read by her, I could see why it was necessary, but in this one it just made it disturbing. Maybe that’s also the intrigue of her books, and for me I just wasn’t in the mood for it. She isn’t afraid to write about the tough subjects, the things no one wants to talk about. But I think I just prefer a book with a happier quality to it.

Watching this show about plane crash survivors makes me wonder how I’d do in a situation like that. I’m pretty sure I would never sleep, especially after people started getting kidnapped and getting killed. I’d be praying there were sleep pills among the wreckage just so I could get some rest. But seriously, if I ever were in a survivor situation, I think I would actually rise to the challenge. At least I wouldn’t be as whiney as that girl Shannon. God she’s annoying! Who would have thought one plane would have so many people with such crazy back stories? But then again, that’s what makes the show so intense.

Ender goes through hell in this book, as he is chosen to be trained as a military fighter. They are training young children to fight in an impending war against aliens, whom they’ve nicknamed the “buggers”. There is a lot going on in this book, and far too much to write about. It breaks your heart to read about this little boy, who never gets the chance to be a kid. He never gets to sit with his family and open
holiday gifts , he never gets to just play. The “games” the children play in battle school are all training sessions for the real thing.

I was surprised to learn that this book was written in the 80s, before personal computers were all the rage. The book deals with laptops, called “desks” and the author’s insight into future technology was almost eerie. It’s a great book about morals, and nature versus nurture. While it is sad in parts, I definitely think it’s a book worth reading, or listening to in my case!

Last night’s episode went from present time backwards, but from many different points of view, hence the name, I Saw What I Saw. In this case, they were trying to determine why a patient died, and two board members and the chief of medicine were interviewing all of the doctors who worked on her. It was a great episode with the way it was told.

However, with the absence of George and Izzie, and also Meredith, there was a lot missing from the show. It didn’t have that something that it used to have. Hopefully when Mer comes back, and Izzie as she’s rumored to, things will be ok. Izzie and Alex better patch things up. How weak sauce is it to not talk to your own husband and explain yourself?

Hopefully next week’s episode will show a little less rivalry between the Seattle Grace and Mercy West doctors and a little more spicy Grey’s that I’m used to watching.

I definitely won’t be doing a week by week of this show, because it’s just too packed full of awesomeness for me to be able to give any kind of justice to the show.

For those of you who haven’t seen the promos (they are everywhere, with good reason) here is the basic premise of the show: Everyone in the world blacked out at the exact same time, for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. And all hell broke loose. As the world picked up the pieces, people started to compare stories of what they saw when they blacked out. It turns out almost everyone had a vision of the same day, six months in the future. For some it was the fulfillment house they’d be dreaming about, or they landed that job they had applied for. For others, it was the end of their marriage. For one main character, he doesn’t have a flash forward, and he is convinced he is going to be dead in six months.

As these stories keep coming out, the main characters watch in horror, or delight, as the futures they saw start to come true. The show is intense and super addicting, and I absolutely love it. Apparently it’s from the LOST creators, and I think I really need to watch that show now too. Anyone else check out FlashForward? What do you think? Do you think that our futures are predetermined, or do we have the ability to change them?

The Mercy West doctors are here. I love how Seattle Grace “ran out of blue scrubs” so now the Mercy West docs are in orange. So it’s obvious the blue vs orange dynamic.

My heart hurt for Callie, when she realized her father wasn’t there to reconcile but to “pray away the gay.” I’m glad they patched things up, and I absolutely loved the scene between Arizona and Callie’s father. “I love your daughter, and I fight for the people I love.”

I can’t BELIEVE they fired Izzie! What happens now?! That was all she had going for her, to keep her strong. I’m mad that she jumped to the conclusion that it’s Alex’s fault and that she left him. After all that he did for her…she’s leaving him? He tried to keep her job for her. After all the hype from last season, I was like, what now she’s leaving the show? But then I did a little digging and it looks like she’s on a five week maternity leave to spend time with her new baby. So that’s a relief! Because Izzie and Alex are meant to be together, and the show just wouldn’t be the same without the two of them.

I appreciated the breakdown that Cristina has in front of Meredith. I love it when the writers make Cristina vulnerable. She really needs a cardio god to come into play. It makes me wonder, especially after watching Private Practice, are they going to send over PP’s very own McHandsome, Sam Bennett? He would be a great addition to Seattle Grace, but he’s also pretty sensitive. I don’t know if that will blend very well with Cristina and her dark and twistiness. I wonder how long they’ll let Cristina suffer before they let her shine in the surgery room again.

I don’t think I’ll ever be as wacky as Marshall though and make up a song and photo montag for every single event. D teases me about this because I do one of those videos every year at Christmas, but that’s for family, not people I just met. Ok, maybe I am too much like Marshall.

The other part of the story involves Ted and being the “Sexless Innkeeper” because women only come over to his apartment because it’s right above the bar and it’s a place to crash. They know Ted’s a nice guy and won’t try to seduce him, hence he’s dubbed, the sexless innkeeper. There’s a great scene where Barney does a little poem. Classic Barnicle!