Sick, Travels to Foreign Lands, Meats of Evil, TV Worth Watching

Today I am sick beyond description. Starting January 1, I've been having trouble sleeping, and have had two nights now with no sleep at all until 6am. I'm averaging five hours a night total. Last night I spent 13.5 hours in bed, but only slept 4.35 hours. The rest of my time was spent coughing and trying to get comfortable. You know how when your sinuses get clogged and you change your head position and then a sinus begins to make a sort of squeal noise? All night, and most of today, it's been "wheennni, wheenniiii, wheeeennnniiii...." Girl kid thought that there was something wrong with the cat. In other words, I'm ready to shoot myself in the head and looking for distractions as if life depended on it.

So, in hopes that a trip outside would help, Girl Kid and I went to the U District to acquire some florescent green earrings to go with her Gay and Lesbian Tolerance presentation for school tomorrow. (Don't ask.) Getting down there was a bit dreamlike—we were talking about stuff, and the suddenly I noticed that we were driving down the Ave and I couldn't fully remember how we got there. Is that wrong? At least I didn't run over any hobos. I think.

Anyway, afterwards Girl Kid had a jones for mini-burgers from Denny's, so after the radioactive green earrings were successfully captured, we drove back up to the den of geriatrics near our house. In the due course of events, mini-burgers arrived and we compared what came to the table with the picture in the menu. One had glowing buns of perfection, perfectly puffed, with a shiny gloss on top and cute little beef patties peeking coyly out from under their cheddar topping. Plump french fries waved in a friendly fashion. In other words—the incarnation on earth of God's Own Lunch, If He Wanted Mini-Burgers That Day. The other was flattened and wrinkly shards of beige-ish substance containing evil looking cubes of carbon and a yellowish smear of what I can only hope was cheese. Fries lurked threateningly on the edge of the platter, ready to pounce. Guess which of these was the actual meal? Meats of evil indeed.

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TV to Love (and sucks to be you if you don't have cable for no.'s 1 and 2)
1) Project Runway (Bravo). Yes, this is the dreaded reality TV, but this one is really great. Wannabe fashion designers compete for a spread in Elle Magazine and a runway show during NYC Fashion Week. The thing we love about this show is that these contestants actually have some skills and talent. Plus, based on Season One and what we've seen so far of Season Two, the producers make sure that there will be at least a couple of contestants who are unglued to a spectacular degree. Verdict? Fun on a Bun.

2) Daisy Does America (Also on Bravo). This British chick comes to America and visits every state and tries her hand at something uniquely "us". So far she's won a beauty pageant in Texas, and a dog show (I forget where, and she has to score a second dog to win), and plans a couple's wedding in Tennessee. Apparently, people from Tennessee are insane, surprise, surprise. She manages to make total fun of the people she interviews and yet win us over with her barking mad charms. I hear this is getting lousy ratings, so check it out before it's cancelled. Verdict? The British are adorable.

3) My Name Is Earl (NBC). I have had a major crush on Jason Lee since Chasing Amy, and he finally is getting his shot at the big time in this inexpressibly sweet and hilarious story about a guy who tries to right all of his (considerable) wrongs against friends, family, former girlfriends and random neighbors, one by one. The whole cast and the writing is perfection, but seeing Jason sporting his truck stop hair and handlebar mustache gets me all warm and fuzzy, if you know what I mean. Verdict? Handlebar mustaches are coming back; can the mullet be far behind? (Please God, no, not the mullet!)

That's it for now. If you wish, please vote for me for the 2005 Bloggies: http://2006.bloggies.com.

In the meantime..."wheennni, wheenniiii, wheeeennnniiii!"