I've been really bummed since I found out a few days ago about Kidnapped being cancelled. It was the first new show I'd being looking forward to in five years. (I didn't start watching House till after the second season had finished; it sounded interesting, and I recorded some, but I just didn't get around to watching till this summer). Some of my favorite actors, and a couple of new ones to enjoy, too. Dammit dammit dammit. At least they're going to film and air 13 episodes, so that's something, and at least I've been recording them. I'll just have to get my Hutton and Sisto fixes elsewhere. Dammit. It's all the network's fault for putting it opposite CSI and something else really popular, and after a show that has practically no common audience denominator with it -- Biggest Loser. Ugh. That show is just wrong on so many levels, but I don't feel like getting into a political rant about fat rights and the way the media and society brainwashes us.

I love Sisto with a beard, too. Damn.

I used to be a huge huge huge baseball fan. Watched on TV almost everyday, even when my favorite teams (Giants, Red Sox, Cubs, and Mariners) weren't playing. Listened on the radio. Drove a few hours a few times a year to go to a game. Watched the standings every day. Then a few years ago, other things started taking up more and more of my time, so now I really don't pay attention at all -- except that House won't be on for a month because FOX is airing post-season baseball. Sigh. Thank goodness I have 30 episodes (every one that has aired so far) on DVD to watch over and over, two with executive producer commentary, the House board here to keep me busy, and maybe some other things, too.

I have my third editorship now: the Person Stephen Fry, who is the half opposite Hugh Laurie of the British sketch comedy show A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which I'm also editor of. Whee!!

I might even watch Veronica Mars tomorrow night. A friend and fellow House fan has recommended it to me, saying that Veronica is much like a younger, female House. I also noticed in someone's sig on the fora rave reviews about it from my favorite author (Stephen King) and one of my favorite writer directors (Kevin Smith). I can hardly imagine liking a show about a wealthy high schooler, but... well, my friend watched Kidnapped on my recommendation, so I feel like I should reciprocate and watch what she suggested. I can record it, at least.

I haven't been doing well this week with reading other people's blogs because I've been *gasp* doing some actual writing (i.e. besides stuff here). What a concept!

Today's stats:
Level 9 / 39% / Door Number 2 (man, I loved that show!)
Accepted 181 / Pending 0 / Total 199 / Acceptance 91%
Forum posts 73 / Reviews: Episodes 1; People 1
Editorships: Shows 1; People 2
Blog entries 10 / Friends 25

I need to start keeping count of how many blog entries have been autocensored. This is #2. It's PG.

This list was a LOT tougher to make than I expected. I'm actually making two separate top 10 lists, one for before I turned 18, the other is after. I'm not just using 18 as an arbitrary child/adult divider. My TV watching habits changed greatly when I turned 18, because I went away to college. Back in those days (heh), not too many kids had TVs in their dorm rooms; I only knew three people who did. There was one TV in the lobby of our dorm, which housed about 200 students. I was outvoted during the General Hospital time slot. So...

Top 10 Favorites, pre-18
1. One Day at a Time I wanted to be Valerie Bertinelli, not her character (the younger daughter), but the actress.
2. Eight Is Enough Yum, Willie Aames! (the one with curly sandy hair)
3. Charlie's Angels Jaclyn Smith was my favorite.
4. Laverne & Shirley I wanted to be like Laverne.
5. Happy Days
6. Partridge Family Yum, Danny! (the smartassed redhead)
7. Captain Kangaroo I thought it was so cool that I had the same birthday as Captain Kangaroo. I loved the ping pong ball thing. I probably still would.
8. Alice Yum, Alice's son!
9. Starsky & Hutch Yum, Starsky! (Paul Michael Glaser, the dark haired one)
10. General Hospital
I'm not sure if I'd like any of the above shows now, except Captain Kangaroo.

Top 10 Favorites, post-18
1. House #1 all-time favorite show. Seriously. By a lot. I've seen every episode at least three times, going on four. Some more. When I say addicted, I really mean addicted.
2. American Idol The first reality show I ever watched; I liked the idea that the audience could vote. I started watching from the first episode.
3. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Quark rocks. My Pug is named Garak, after the Cardassian tailor-maybe-spy.
4. Queer As Folk Guh. Drool. Swoon. Yep, **** here. F@gh@g, that is. Funny that it let me say smartassed (see Partridge Family).
5. Six Feet Under Peter Krause! Jeremy Sisto! Eric Balfour! Lauren Ambrose! More gay characters!
6. Jeff Corwin Experience Not quite as over the top as Steve Irwin, though I loved him too.
7. South Park Cartman is my hero.
8. MADtv Swan. Stuart. Yes.
9. M*A*S*H Mmm, B.J.
10. Jeopardy! If only I had the guts to go audition...

Depending on how they go, Kidnapped and My Name Is Earl might end up on this list later.

Today's stats, while I'm here:
Level 8 (Super Friend) 78 %
Contributions: Accepted 115; Pending 11; Total 184
Forum Posts: 64
Blog Entries: 9 autocensored: 2
Reviews: 1 person, 1 episode
Editorships: 1 person, 1 show
Friends: 22

Which reminds me!!! I keep forgetting to say thanks to everyone who added me to I can have the pretty little butterfly. Yay! I'm working on getting another Person editorship; I hope to get it in the next few days, depending on how much time I have to work on it and how fast the QoD goes. Last week when I was working toward getting A Bit of Fry and Laurie, I was working in the middle of the night once and got my submissions approved almost immediately. Someone in editorland really rocks.

Breaking out the champagne! Come and have a glass, there's plenty for everyone

A Bit of Fry and Laurie was a BBC comedy sketch show starring and written by Stephen Fry ("Who?!" Americans say) and Hugh Laurie ("Ooooh, House!!" the world says).

I can say that about Americans because I'm one of those (previously) ignorant Americans who had never heard of Fry or Fry & Laurie until becoming addicted to House and looking up everything Hugh Laurie did. The DVDs of seasons 1 and 2 ABoF&L just recently became available in the US, so I got them. I love them. They're like Monty Python, except starring only two men, rather than a handful.

Right now there's a thread on the House forums entitled "You know your [sic] obsessed with House when..." I guess I need to post there responding, "You go get the DVDs of Fry & Laurie and love them so much that you go for and get the editorship of the show on tv.com."

There's a ton of work still to be done there. Very few of the episodes have recaps or any notes, quotes, trivia, or allusions, even though there are plenty to submit. If you're not ready to invest in the DVDs, Netflix has them. Plus it's kind of cool to see baby-faced Hugh, clean shaven and in his early 30s rather than late 40s, even though I find Hugh at 47 (i.e. now) sexier than Hugh at 33 (then). Oh yes, and Hugh sometimes sings and plays piano. Stephen knits. It's awesome.

I am now a Super Friend, which is awesome -- I so loved that show when I was a kid. I probably won't go up tomorrow since I'm only at 5%, but that's all right. I can't go around thinking I'll go up every day, especially since it's going to get harder. I'm working on adopting some more poor editorless pages; there's one I'm hoping to pick up tomorrow, depending on the pendings, haha. Hey, cut me some slack, it's near my bedtime, I've been researching liek woah, and so I'm punchy

Sometime this week I'll probably do a list of my Top 20 TV shows, like jameswilson245 did. I might break it into two Top 10s, childhood and adulthood, because I'm sure that most of the shows I loved as a kid I wouldn't love now, but they're still important. Heck, some shows I loved ten years ago I can't stand now.

Yesterday I got on the top 10 contributor list of House, which I'm way jazzed about. I seriously think it's my #1 all time favorite TV show. Seriously. It's that awesome. The number of times I've seen each episode is quickly approaching a gazillion. Well, okay, four. But that's a lot.

EDIT: Misspelled Word Suggestions: jameswilson245: camisole's, capsulising, camisoles, Maxwell's, maxwell's, capsulizing, Maxwellian.
Yeah, I'm definitely punchy, because that's really funny right now.

WARNING: This entry takes a detour around the autocensor and thus is PG (only PG, it's a five letter word, not a four letter one) for language.

I've been crazy about Timothy Hutton for over 25 years, since Ordinary People first came out. He played Conrad, the suicidal teenage son whose older brother died when they were both in a boating accident. Now he's playing another Conrad, the dad on Kidnapped. Not the kind of show I'd normally watch, too depressing, but with Timothy Hutton and the added bonus of Jeremy Sisto, I am so there.

So this morning I was sitting here, submitting contributions to House, waiting for the level change for the day, wondering if I'd make it to 6 (yes, I did) and if I'd get Timothy. The day before I had 37 CPs for Timothy because a couple of my submissions were rejected; they were duplicates of info submitted by someone else earlier than me. I was all nervous, figuring I had competition for the awesome little blue hat and blue pencil. I had to look hard for some more good things to submit. I've learned from phf3947 that IMDb and Wikipedia are not reliable sources, and I wanted to submit quality stuff, accurate as well as interesting/informative/amusing. I think it's kind of funny and cool in a way that he and his dad once got evicted from a Hollywood apartment for playing their jazz music too loud. So I'm watching watching watching for my level to change, for a PM from tv.com saying something like "Congratulations, you are now the editor for Timothy Hutton, please read the editor guidelines at [link]." I'm not quite sure how long the blue cap was nestled in between my level emblem (which was still 5 at the time) and my penny emblem before I noticed it and then I yelled "YES!!!" and raised my fists in victory. My husband came to see what I was all excited about, and I said "I got the editorship for Timothy Hutton's page on tv.com, the site I always get all that House trivia and episode guides from." and hubby says, "Oh. Which one is he?" So I had to explain, no, Hutton's on that new show Kidnapped, he's the one who played the son in Ordinary People, you know, that one that you call "the one with Mary Tyler Moore being a real **** " and then he remembered. [EDIT: oooh, I've been nabbed by the autocensor! Obviously it's the nonghetto version of beeotch.]

I'd read the FAQ about editorship before, but obviously it was time to review, so I did, then read everything I could find in the fora, fixed up some stuff on the page, like condensing a couple blurbs with overlapping info into one blurb. I can hardly wait to see my first submission in queue!

Thanks, DaveJS124 for your good wishes Thanks, Gislef and phf3947 and missybea for being good, serious editors and teaching me about how to make good contributions (still learning, of course, always learning) and hopefully be a good editor; thanks KraigA and Im2Crazy4U and studog2961 for answering questions, both ones I asked and ones other people asked and for providing so much to tv.com in general (which also goes to the other three listed above). Haha, this is like an Emmy acceptance speech

Today's stats:
Level: 6 / 20%
Contributions: 108 accepted / 0 pending (great work on the QoD, guys!!) / 123 total
Forum posts: 47
CPs: Hutton 61, Ejogo 14, Kidnapped 15, Laurie 6, House > 33 (not yet on the board), plus handfuls scattered here and there

Hurray, I reached level 5! I'm now eligible to be an Editor. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I got my Side-kick'n Contributor (50 contributions) emblem as soon as I made my 51st contribution, many of which were still pending. When I went over 100 total, I did not get the emblem -- which was how I thought it would be, that you didn't get the emblem till you had that number of accepted contributions. Depending on how many more I do and how fast my pendings go through their queues, I should get it in a couple of days.

For folks who are new-ish here, I can't recommend enough Gislef's blog entries on how to make good contributions. http://www.tv.com/users/Gislef/profile.php They're incredibly helpful, and I should have read them much sooner than I did.

Today's stats:
Level 5
23%
accepted: 71
pending: 20
total: 105
forum posts: 38
reviews: 2
blog entries: 5 (including this one)
days active: 9 (starting Sept 14; before that I was just reading House episode info)

Last night/this morning (it's all the same to me, since I got up about 11:00pm. I sleep at odd times, especially this week) I submitted eleven contributions to the House page. Some of 'em were quick & easy quotes; some involved some serious research to look up exact words or phrases and to point the editor to good (i.e. not Wikipedia) sources of the information. I don't mind the research, especially when I can actually find what I'm looking for, because the things I research for House are always things that intrigue me. The origin of the phrase "a pound of flesh." I knew it was in Merchant of Venice, but I thought there might be something about it, maybe in parable or allegorical form, in the Bible too. And now I know. (there's not, at least not that I could find with indices online or that my resident Bible expert [long time Christian AND Master's degree in Religious Studies] knew of. I'm like House in that I have to know. I love the net so much, it's an information addict's dream come true. Three of my eleven contributions were rejected, but that's okay; Gislef is wonderful about commenting and telling me why, and the reasons make sense. I figure the more I contribute, the more I learn about what's a good contribution and what's not so good, and those comments help me to know why a not so good one isn't good. I felt pretty jazzed by some of the things I noticed in the episode, too. I hope Joel Grey isn't looking that bad in real life; it's wild to compare him as Ezra Powell and as the MC in Caberet. He's pretty amazing. I was a little miffed by what I felt was uncharacteristic rat behavior (I'm a big fan of pet rats) in the teaser, but what House said about it made me feel better.

I'll probably end up writing a review of the show in general, even though it's a daunting task to describe what it's like and why exactly I like it so much without just saying "Hugh Laurie", "Robert Sean Leonard", and "ineffable." If I do write such a review, I'll post it to my personal blog, too, and maybe I'll get one person to watch one episode... and then they'll be hooked forever, just like me, mwahahahahaha!

P.S. At this rate, I'll have my 50 Blog Entries emblem in about two months. Heh. It's funny how easy it is to blather.

P.P.S. Thank goodness levels moved today so now I'm at 4 with 30%. Also, the contributions I made to a Person who has no editor only took four days to be approved, so I'm pretty impressed and plan to contribute a lot more tomorrow, now that I know that the dreaded Queue of Doom isn't all that bad, definitely not a black hole or an abyss. That's the main reason I want to move up in levels once I get to 5, to be higher up in the queue. There are a lot of Persons that I really like who are editorless...

From his page here: Lee admitted that if a scene requires him to be shirtless, he often trims his chest hair and "sucks in his gut".

Sob. I like chest hair. I like it a lot. I think waxing, especially for men, is the work of the devil. These thoughts in my head were sparked by the latest blog entry of KFCgravy (awesome user name!) Speaking of Jason, he'll be on Leno tonight. Jay should surprise him by making him take off his shirt. Heh. I need to hurry up and return the Netflix I currently have so I can get Season 1 of My Name Is Earl when they come out tomorrow. Or I might just go buy them. I'm so glad the show's doing well; it seems like a lot of shows I've liked over the years have gotten cancelled quickly.

I joined TheFriendAgency; yes I want the emblem and the help going up in levels, plus it's nice to run into some intriguing people. Any of you who are here from there, hello!

I'm very proud of my banner: it's the very first banner I've ever made in my life, and it only took me about an hour to make, haha. I do hope that's highly amusing to all of you who could have made it in five minutes. My graphics skillz are next to nothing (that's still more than nothing, as House fans know), because back in the day when I started working with computers, there was no such thing as graphics except the ASCII ones. This was when computers took up entire rooms and had to be air conditioned at something like 65F or lower so they wouldn't overheat. Data was stored on huge reel-to-reel tapes and data punch cards. There were, of course, no such thing as Windows or even Macs; all commands had to be typed in. And because of the radiation, buildings the computers were housed in had to be ten miles out of town, away from everything else, and you had to walk to them, you couldn't take cars or even bikes within ten miles of them. Okay, no, I'm kidding about the radiation and ten miles out of town bit. This is what happens when I blog at 5:00a.m. I should probably go watch another episode of House and find some new allusion or quote to post. Perfect excuse for watching episodes yet again!

Last night, I submitted about twenty trivia-to-quotes changes, as per the new guidelines. I just found out now that apparently only the editor or trusted contributors can do that, because they have to be manually deleted from the trivia section. Oh well, at least I didn't do more than twenty of them. I also had a no thank you (albeit a polite one, thank goodness) for a definition of a Yiddish word, which apparently is unnecessary. It didn't seem to me to fit into either trivia or quotes or allusions, so I submitted it under Notes, forgetting that those were for off-screen production notes. Oops, my bad.

Now I feel really nervous about submitting more stuff. I'm afraid the editor/trusteds won't see it as worthy of being on the page, or be wary of it from such a newbie (I'm level 3, 62% as I write this). I try to also give the reason why I think the quote or allusion or trivia is significant (kind of a contradiction in terms in the case of trivia, but of course there's a limit to how minute that stuff can be) as well as at least one/reference source about where I got the information. I love quotes and allusions so much, and they're one of the things I love so much about House. I've got Writer Envy because they're all so good, especially with dialog, and I love the way they toss in so many cultural references. There are plenty that go over my head, too, so I love reading them in the episode guides and thinking "Ohhh, so that's what that meant!"

I've also submitted some things to Persons who don't have editors, and I know my submissions are very far down the Queue of Doom since I'm such a low level. Maybe I'll wait till I get up to level 5 at least before submitting more of those. Heck, for all I know, the people I've submitted or plan to submit bios for already have some submitted by someone else. At least at this low level, I can still beef up pretty fast by adding people and shows to favorites and things like that.