For many years I didn’t have TV – not just a lack of cable but no basic channels either. I would catch up on network programs on my computer at lunch, but there were so many shows I didn’t even know existed at the time. I’ve since embraced satellite television, and although I’m not one to argue that there is certainly a lot of terrible, mindless crap on the boob tube, there are also some really impressive endeavors I’ve run across lately. Some are well known cultural successes and some I don’t really hear about besides the internal monologue playing in my brain. These are a few: 1. My Mother’s Ravioli Much to my delight, I discovered this Cooking Channel gem one weekend morning surfing around my usual “nothing’s on” go-to’s. The premise centers around multi-talented Mo Rocca, whom you may know from The Daily Show, The Tonight Show, and CBS Sunday Morning among other things (I’m also a radio nerd who catches Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me whenever I can, and he’s always hilarious on that too). Rocca visits with the senior generation, one person or couple at a time, learning to cook their favorite dishes. He also delights us with humor and antics in-and-out of the kitchen as he gets to know these people and their histories in a way that only such a gifted and personable journalist can. This might be my favorite discovery of the year, I like it that much.   2. Defiance Maybe a lot of you are already watching this show from the Syfy Network (and playing the corresponding game), but I haven’t heard much talk about it for how fresh and well executed I find it to be. As a lifelong lover of science fiction, fantasy, steampunk, etc (I could go on), I’ve checked out many a TV show that looked promising only to find it derivative, badly executed or under-appreciated and therefore cancelled before it could really grow to fruition. My boyfriend discovered this show during a recent weekend marathon, and we were almost instantly hooked. While there are other decent sci fi shows on right now, this one constantly impresses me with its creatively imagined world. It takes its cues as to what works from shows gone by (Next Gen, Firefly) while still creating a very original set of species and characters. It’s also, on the whole, exceptionally well cast. My timing is a bit bad on this one as they just had their season finale, but if you can catch up on it, check it out – you won’t be disappointed.   3. The Newsroom Ok, so this is a highly advertised HBO series from the likes of Aaron Sorkin (who I admit most people I know have a “love ‘em or hate ‘em” relationship with), but for how amazing I think this show is for anyone watching, regardless of political leaning, even amongst my liberal friends I don’t know many who are watching this fantastic offering. Obviously I think you can tell I am a fan of Sorkin, but I actually came to much of his other work through falling in love with this show – The West Wing and Moneyball – so I (rightfully or not) feel like I took this show in with a clean slate. The cast is tremendous, able to carry comedic moments with the same ease as politically charged or romantically charged plot lines. Veteran actors Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer and Sam Waterston are expectedly excellent, but the rest of relatively unknown names also shine: John Gallagher Jr., Dev Patel, and Alison Pill to name a few, with the biggest surprise for me being Olivia Munn, who has grown leaps and bounds over the last season and really holds her own. If you aren’t already watching this show I probably won’t be able to change your mind, but if you aren’t, you should...

It is hot in Los Angeles this week. Everyone always thinks it’s hot — ideas of palm tree paradises flocked with bikini clad women and men in sunglasses, relishing the look of themselves in their convertibles have somehow managed to infiltrate the rest of the country like a fairy tale at bed time. As a native Angeleno I’ve never particularly identified with the love of palm trees or convertibles. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fancy the ocean, but that is just a simple water affinity. I’d be just as happy near any lake or coastline in existence. Hell, just get me in a pool and I’m all smiles. The Pacific Ocean just happens to be the water body of my home. That being said, I haven’t been to the beach in years. Perhaps it is because I’m self conscious, perhaps the reported toxic water conditions play into it, but I have the feeling that I am more a product of so called normality than anything, even in this city of supposed dreams. I work. I clean. I buy groceries. I go to the gym, but not as often as I should. I sit in traffic. I sit on the couch watching prime time television, glad to be home from a long day of drudgery – often times worrying about the days to come. It’s frankly odd to live in a city with so many preconceptions, even odder to have grown up in one. It so often seems that the populous at large forgets that people are at their core just people, so many of us just trying to make our way from day to day in this life without glamour or dramatic turns. Sometimes I’ll pass the palm trees on the side of a freeway or road and think to myself that I don’t really care for them. They aren’t a symbol of any sort of lifestyle to me, they are simply a tree, and not a particularly nice one. I suppose they are symbolic of Los Angeles. They are not native of this region and have to be planted purposefully with much cost and circumstance, but I think Los Angeles is so much more than what could be bound to that analogy. Feature Image Credit: Meet Me In...

1. Crepes I know some people are crazy about these dubious offerings, but every time I see one I tend to get the feeling I’m in the presence of food with an identity crisis. Are you an omelette? Are you a pancake? Are you a savory main dish or a dessert?!? Make up your mind, man! For the time being, I’ll just stick with my benedict, thankyouverymuch.   2. Cross Walk Buttons I have the sneaking suspicion that the entire system of the well known green walking person vs. red hand is a perfect example of appeasing people by making them feel like they have some sort of control. I am one of the minority of Angelenos who actually walks a fair amount in our lovely smog ridden city, and I would bet you a Ruth’s Cris porterhouse that pushing that damn button does NOTHING. I have to chuckle to myself sometimes when in the presence of someone who thinks that pushing it multiple times – like someone ringing a doorbell with an axe murderer on their tail – will somehow speed the changing of the lights. No sir, don’t trust ‘em.   3. Packaged Lunch Meats First, I must admit to the fact that from about the age of 14 until the age of 29 I was a vegetarian (it was the bacon that brought me back, damnit). Even now I would say I’m not the most devout of carnivores, yet from the earliest memory I’ve always been a bit weary of packaged lunch meats. Upon opening the vacuum sealed container, one gets a wiff of something with absolutely zero resemblance to a nice baked ham or roasted turkey, and yet we perserevere, even when the obviously slimy texture hits our fingertips while we make our turkey Sammie. Maybe I’m alone on this one folks, and I totally still eat them from time to time, but I’m not comfortable with it.   4. People Who Hover In The Checkout Line PEOPLE! This is a public service announcement! Getting thiiiis close to the person in front of you buying some Bud Lite and cantaloupe or splurging on those cute summer sandals will NOT: a) help you get done any quicker; b) lead to making a friendly new acquaintance; or c) do anything whatsoever helpful and not uncomfortably annoying. Why do you feel the need to make actual physical contact with my purse? My inching away from you is NOT, in fact, a coy way of saying “here, let’s go THIS way ever so slowly together!”. No more of this.   5. Shifty-Eyed Dogs Homer Simpson had it right. You just can’t trust them. Look how shifty! He’s plotting something, I’m sure of it.   Image Credits: Wives With Knives Driver’s Ed Pinedae.Blogspot Midwest Dairy Association Teal Like The...

1. Showbiz Pizza Screw Chuck E. Cheese! In my youth it was all about Billy Bob the Bear and the kick ass animatronic band *The Rock-afire Explosion convincing my young mind that if you had pizza and game tickets, all was right with the world (and that there was definitely not pee in the ball room). *Now THAT is a band name. Anyone want to start The New Rock-afire Explosion with me? Coachella, here we come! Image Credit: Geekologie 2. MTV I know that this channel technically still exists but I’m talking about actual Music Television. Many more generations have grown up without this societal boon than have but I was one of the lucky ones who looked forward to not only a new album coming out, but a new video as well. An added bonus was the entire “Unplugged” series, which brought about several classic performances in their own right. Now I’m all sad and angry. Image Credit: Simeone’s A2 Media 3. The McDLT Ah McDonalds. I know the Big Mac tends to be the reigning king of your hamburger empire but I remember fondly those days of yore when you offered up a burger housed in such a unique way I’ve never seen it replicated. What a rarity in the fast food wars. The McDLT ingeniusly came with the hot elements on one side of a Styrofoam container, while the cold elements chilled out on the other side, just waiting to be joined in delicious union. This was a really smart idea but apparently most of their patrons preferred hot tomatoes and wilted lettuce for their lunch purchases. Silly people. Image Credit: Fanpop 4. Colecovision My first gaming console and still the closest to my heart. I remember playing The Smurfs (and marveling at the fact that when you walked in Gargamel’s castle it sounded suspiciously like passing gas. Just me?), Q-Bert, and Donkey Kong on my parent’s bed and knowing that in fact, the future was NOW. This system looks so lovably rinky-dink in this day and age but to a kid in the 80s, it couldn’t be beat. Image Credit: Video Game Gazette 5. Firefly There are no jokes to be made here, nor any explanation needed. It had to be said. Now if you need me, you can find me weeping in a pile on the floor for the rest of the...

On any given day I pass you shouldering your duffle bags as you make your way into an intermediate modern, hip hop or barre technique class, ready to stretch, gyrate and twirl for an hour in a mirrored room smelling of sweat and resin, and I lower my gaze as I hurry by. Or sometimes I stick out my jaw and stare straight ahead. It varies, but the truth of my end of the encounter does not. Please know that – rational or not – for myself and perhaps for others who are braving the treadmill even though we are a bit out of shape or doughy or haven’t seen our tricep muscle, well, ever – your unstudied, bonelessly lithe pixie-visage greeting our sweat soaked form as we hobble out to the parking lot after a spin class like a bow-legged chimpanzee is relentlessly intimidating. Your graceful stride and slender form – obvious even under what seems a dozen or so layers of perfectly mismatched clothing under the summer sun – is something that many of us couldn’t dream of pulling off, even if we subsisted on only tofu, carrots and a daily relationship with the stair master. Although I don’t know you, your happiness or your health personally, and as someone who studied dance in my formative years but would never consider myself to be a true dancer, I am jealous. I move out of your path and shuffle past in my bleach-stained sweats and corporate softball t-shirt and all the hard work and perspirative progress that I have just experienced dissolves and is momentarily rendered pointless. You are simply too cool. Some social truisms never seem to change. In conclusion, I ask that perhaps the next time you pass by someone like me – someone who still feels the need to curl her hair when she dresses up, has a pair of booties that will never make sense no matter how many times tried on, someone who is terrified equally by the likes of mixing prints and late night bacon-wrapped street dogs, know that although my life is in many ways happy this is my ridiculous, inescapable truth. Know this, and perhaps if the moment arises smile as you walk by. Feature Image Credit: My Less Serious Life Image Credit: London...

1. Chopped – The McLaughlin Group Edition A very special episode of everyone’s favorite quick thinking cooking show. In this episode, John McLaughlin and 3 members of his weekly discussion panel open up their mystery baskets in an effort to please three renowned chefs using unusual food combinations in a way that doesn’t immediately make you want to vomit. Things take a unique turn when the contestants cannot come to a consensus as to the best way to open their baskets and spend the duration of air time in a heated debate about picnic etiquette and basket making.   2. The Daily Show: Guest Host Ryan Lochte If The Daily Show tends to be a tad too “political” for you, this is definitely the episode to watch. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte will run down the latest in beer, bromance and babes with a frequent “Jeah!” to punctuate the importance of those issues. The episode will also feature a breakdown of Ryan’s daily hair maintenance!   3. Martha Stewart’s Scared Straight Martha will open her home to a group of “at risk” youths to show them the bleak reality of breaking the law. Watch their horrified faces as she forces them to create a table scape using only what is in her basement and bake a batch of cranberry sage scones using dried cranberries and powdered sage! Martha eventually breaks down herself, however, when she realizes she has run out of unpasteurized goats milk. It’s a learning experience for all involved!   4. Dance Moms Catch A Predator The long running hit show To Catch A Predator is joined by Abby and the moms, who hope to catch a creepy pedo on national television. The pairing only lasts for one episode, however, as the man they successfully netted escapes when the moms fall into a heated discussion over whose child served as the most successful bait. Of course Abby thinks they are all terrible bait and need more practice.   5. Bates Motel Impossible Veteran hotel operator Anthony Melchiorri takes on his biggest challenge to date: whipping the Bates Motel and owner Norma Bates into ship shape! He must master such tasks as creating community interest in the motel for reasons other than homicide, distance the operation from any human trafficking rings and try to keep himself and designer Blanche Garcia alive long enough to realize their redesign...

1. The Pole Package Live audience vote-in competition to find the best exotic dancer in the country. Ex-Playboy playmate and reality television superstar Kendra Wilkinson, famed dancer turned actor Mikhail Baryshnikov and zany comedic personality Rosie O’Donnell bring multiple viewpoints and a range of show business experience to the judges’ table. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll spend $10 for a Diet Coke! Image Credit: Pole Fitness Congleton Cheshire   2. A Pole Lotta Love A concurrently airing spin-off of The Pole Package following a former/current contestant’s search for true love. Each “Soul-John” competing to win her heart will either be given a glass platform heel to advance or be bounced to the parking lot by 6’5″ human-tank Bruno. Tune in for your weekly dose of romance, adventure, and pasties! Image Credit: Made-In-China   3. Undercover Aristocrat Eat your heart out Eliza Doolittle! In this new series, each week an excessively privileged contestant will have to infiltrate a group of “average citizens” or face having to pay student loans. The bougie who most successfully convinces the commoners of their proletariat status wins their pick of cushy employment from the other contestants’ fathers. There will be bus riding! Image & Feature Credit: Jenny Lindh   4. Plaque To Basics A group of highly successful dentists compete to see who can traverse the length of the Mississippi River with only a rowboat, hockey stick and a limitless supply of Jolly Ranchers. Hosted by Gary Busey’s teeth, this high octane ride is sure to leave you chomping at the bit for more! Image Credit: Unite and Prosper   5. The Real Housewives Of St. Paul Just when you thought the drama of The Real Housewives’ franchise couldn’t be topped, they’ve done it again! The Real Housewives of St. Paul explores the tumultuous daily lives of five Twin Cities’ residents. Thrill as these reasonable human beings buy groceries, attend PTA meetings, try Zumba and contribute to church bake sales! Image Credit: CRBC...