Picture #304: "Clear your mind of questions... and head over to the electronics department."

So embedded in my brain is this scene from Empire Strikes Back, I instinctively struck this pose when I stumbled across this Yoda backpack while browsing around J and R today. I was a little confused that they felt the need to change the dimensions of Yoda - he's already backpack sized!

The returns of my over-priced, under-useful electronics actually went smoothly today, despite their being past their return windows. The beauty of big box stores. Plus, Yoda backpacks.

A lovely dinner in Chinatown and then some football. Because I'm very manly. And then... Saturday Night Live. I don't often watch SNL live, because it's like waiting to see shooting stars in the sky on a cloudy night. You stare and wait and there's the occasional chuckle or guffaw, but otherwise, a lot of the same. Daniel Radcliffe was hosting this evening, he was decent, but two things struck me. The first was a sketch making fun of the mediocrity of internet bloggers and YouTubers - the basic premise was that people on the internet have an overinflated sense of their own value and worth, and no one ever tells them how middling or bad they are. REALLY Saturday Night Live? You're going to comment on the Emperor's New Clothes nature of YouTube users, while repeating a half dozen sketch ideas for the umpteenth time? REAAAAALLLLY?

The second sketch that stood out to me was, ironically, a repeated Weekend Update segment, where the two characters sort of mumble. Yes, hilarious, so glad they brought them back. But this time, it was two non-Asian characters dressed up as Korean people! Yay! Great way to commemorate MLK Jr Day, by putting your actors in yellow face! Again!

Anyway, on a positive note, it's always entertaining to watch the talented cast members work really hard. Kristen Wig works SOOOOO hard to squeeze every last bit of funny out of the stones that are handed to her - she's really quite amazing. As do other cast members, but she really stands out because of the sheer volume of material they write for her.

Well, back to mediocre blogging and making mediocre YouTube videos for me. Thanks, SNL, for pointing out how lame grassroots arts are on your fourth-place network legacy show! You sure showed us!

When Exactly Did I Start Finding Tina Fey Attractive?

When did this happen? When she first started co-anchoring on Saturday Night Live with Jimmy Fallon, I never liked her delivery - she had a bad tendency to smirk and chuckle after all her jokes. Come to think of it, so did Jimmy Fallon. In addition, I thought the Weekend Update material during that period was really subpar; the new standard having been set by Jon Stewart and Company on the Daily Show. On basic cable. Stewart's crew was churning out 22 minutes of fantastic news-based material every single night, yet SNL, with it's network budget and writing staff could barely manage 10 minutes of quality current events commentary a week. It was sad. Granted, I thought she was physically attractive, but her comedy left me flat on the package as a whole.

Then 30 Rock came out. And I STILL didn't like her comedy. I preferred the wit and perfectly timed repartee of Studio 60 to the "wacky hijinks" of Fey's sitcom, and felt that Alec Baldwin was carrying the entire show on his classically trained shoulders. I'd spent two decades watching various female stand-up comediannes do their "it's so tough for a woman to be single/diet/deal with her mother" schtick and felt the show was just rehashing the entire cannon of double X chromosome comedy.

But I kept watching. At first I told myself it was just to watch Baldwin chew the scenery in every episode, but then I found myself watching Fey. And at some point... ::click::... HOLY FRAK... I'm ATTRACTED to Tina Fey! What the hell?!?!?

I think, more than anything, I'm drawn to her work ethic; I myself have a horrible work ethic (I'm working on it!).

WAIT! That's it! It was her American Express commercial where she's running around multi-tasking!

Well, that's one mystery solved.

Or maybe it's her breasts...