This is unbelievably awesome.

Although [your mom] may appear to be a recent phenomenon, one can trace its roots far back in history. Indeed, William Shakespeare appears to utilize such a device in Act I Scene 1 of Timon of Athens:

Painter: “Y’are a dog.”
Apemantus: “Thy mother’s of my generation. What’s she, if I be a dog?”

“Your mom” can be combined with most types of insults, although suggestions of promiscuity, obesity, or lack of intelligence are particularly common.

“Your mom” is also sometimes used as a sarcastic retort to either a mild criticism or even an innocuous statement. This often results in a sexual innuendo, as in the following example:

Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: Your mom!

Another technique is to respond to the original speaker with “your mom” substituted in for the original subject of the sentence, as follows:

Speaker 1: That car looks like trash.
Speaker 2: Your mom looks like trash.

This all started, by the way, when a few of us were talking about Pogs at work. Remember Pogs? Me and Scott both have fond memories of rushing down to the Pog store to stock up each afternoon after school. Frank’s a bit older and missed the craze. So I thought I’d sent out some info:

On 6|26|07 19:08 PM, “Dickinson, Justin” wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogs

On 6|27|07 8:33 AM, “Piacitelli, Frank” wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lame
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbles
BAM !

On 6|27|07 8:35 AM, “Wolf, Scott” wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Mom

After over two months, $320, and countless failures, stalls, bummed rides, and weekends spent at home, my car is finally fixed. I salute you Buick Century, you glorious bastard, this is the second major breakdown you’ve survived. Let the record show I never gave up on you, even though all logic pointed in that direction.

It all started April 15th. Not being able to find a ride to the airport I decided to leave my car in long term parking. It was going to cost me about $15 bucks. Call a cab? Don’t even talk about cabs. $22 from the airport to my door. Gas doesn’t cost that much, assholes. I get back and it’s pouring rain. No big deal, there’s a shuttle out to the lot. I get in the car, slightly damp and ready to go to work (it was Monday morning). Turn the key. Nothing.

Two days later I get my car back from the garage where it had been towed. Thank god for AAA. The battery van guy actually brought me to an ATM to get cash to cover the fee when he got back with the truck (it was in metered parking). Then he brought me home and was nice enough to tell me his entire life story, show me cell phone pics of his new tool box, and explain how he started his own DJ business: the lusty leopard or screaming seagull or giggling cheetah or something then charge me $80 to tell me he didn’t find anything. In fact, as soon as he had it towed in, it started up fine. Even so, he felt the need to spend five minutes turning it on and off every twenty minutes for an hour. Assholes.

Then it was April 21st and time to go to Toronto for Flash in the Can. Why did I offer to drive? Go ask the owl. It drove up fine, and even drove home well enough. Then the problems started. Randomly not starting, randomly stalling at a light or when idling, transmission problems, the outlook was bleak. I took it to the wonderfully whimsical Dial-A-Tire who surmised they could find nothing wrong and maybe it was the transmission. Wade (the owner) became my instant mechanic-for-life when he didn’t charge me for the labor since they couldn’t find anything.

For those of you who haven’t owned a car more than ten years old, believe you me that the words “it’s the transmission” is pretty much a death sentence. It’s hard to pay for a repair that costs more than the car’s worth (that’s called ‘totaled’ kids). Much like Napoleon at the height of power, my strategy was to wait and see.

Through an evolution Darwin would’ve been proud of, the problems got more varied, idiosyncratic, strange, inconsistent, and mind-boggling. By getting to know my co-workers better through begged rides to and from work (thanks again Emily, Jill, and Pete), I made it through a few weeks. Oh, speaking of Pete, he gave me the only small victory in this battle by changing all my plugs and wires while I was away one weekend. Not like “surprise, new plugs”, I dropped it off at his house before I left. That seemed to solve problem #9 - randomly not starting. ‘Randomly’ isn’t the right word, it was sort of predictable. As the importance of my arriving on time at my destination went up, the chances the car would start went down - a direct inverse proportion.

I adapted to a schedule that allowed me to drive to work, and drive home, with no stops along the way and no going out once I was back for the night. I couldn’t drive anywhere else (in case it didn’t start) or drive anywhere that would require me to sit idling (since it would stall). That included days in which traffic was heavy on the way to work. Those days included Friday, June 15th when my car stalled in the middle of a two lane road and had to be pushed, in reverse, over an incline into a bank parking lot. That’s even less fun than it sounds.

This was getting ridiculous. Summer means road trips and I needed a car that wouldn’t leave me stranded on Rt. 17. For those of you who don’t live upstate, as you drive down Rt. 17, you have to turn up your stereo to drown out the banjo music rolling forth from the porches peppered along this rustic almost-highway. Horseheads NY? Assholes.

One more chance. the Hail Mary pass, I decided to give Dial-A-Tire another shot. The problems had gotten consistent enough to diagnose. I dropped it off yesterday morning. Wade called me that afternoon. It lives!

Turns out the internal computer had gone all wonky. Who knew ‘93 Buicks even had a computer? I always assumed my car ran on wishes and magic. Apparently I wasn’t far off since the computer was controlling the engine as if I was teleporting back and forth between the south pole and the equator. Do you know what happens when the engine suddenly thinks it’s -40 degrees? It floods with gas and everything stalls. Oh, and the idle goes nuts.

What’s the best thing about big, common American cars? Every garage has the necessary parts laying around and a new computer only costs $240. The radiator fan wasn’t working but rather than charge me for anymore parts or labor, good old Wade just whacked it with a wrench and it started up again. Reminds me of my mechanic back home who would stick a jack-knife into battery connections to check for live voltage.

I can’t express how good it feels to have a car again. I don’t have to hold my breath at every stoplight. I can go out at night for dinner, or groceries, or the gym, all without begging my neighbor. I can eat lunch at work, even if no one else is going out. If I forget my sunglasses at the cigar bar I don’t have to wait for two weeks until I’m in the neighborhood on my way to the liquor store with Rex. I honestly didn’t realize how stressed out I was about not having it. I guess you don’t know what you got till it’s gone it comes back.

I’d heard this or that about Dirty Sexy Money, one of the new pilots ABC will be rolling out this fall, and I was substantially excited mostly due to the presence of Peter Krause. He popped up on my radar as Casey McCall on the hugely under appreciated Aaron Sorkin series Sports Night although he’s probably best known as prodigal son Nate Fischer on HBO’s Six Feet Under. The film We Don’t Live Here Anymore and the Sci-Fi miniseries The Lost Room cemented his talent for playing jerky, selfish guys you can’t help but like.

I was feeling a bit tepid for DSM however, mostly due to the title (in addition to the usual wide birth I give to pilot network dramas). Until today. Color me excited because I found out on James Poniewozik’s blog that Samaire Armstrong will star as a spoiled daughter on the show.

I first saw Armstrong on Entourage where she had a short lived relationship as both Ari’s assistant and E’s girlfriend (although I dig her, I must say E has traded up since. Sorry Samaire.). Later I saw her drop sick vocab on The OC (”anathema” has never sounded so hot) and caught her early role as a Noxema-commercial-pretty dead-head on Freaks and Geeks, which went unwatched by me until just recently. Since then I’ve caught her on various prime time procedurals and music videos (like the one at the end of this post). I find her hipster look more than appealing (plus she meets the “strange name” requirements for my top-three celebs) and the characters she plays to be nuanced and accessible.

With these two actors this show has moved up to the top of my list for new series I’ll be Tivoing this fall.

Samaire in Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” music video:

I found a post at Failed Success talking about the golden age of children’s programming. What a rush of nostalgia! There really isn’t anything today that even comes close to the quality of Nickelodeon programming during the 90s.

From that list, there are a few shows I disagree with. My mother’s overbearing loving attention to the quality of television I was allowed to watch bred into me a certain snootiness for the more bourgeoisie shows- a pretention, I believe, that has persisted to this day. This included Salute your Shorts, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Rugrats, and You Can’t Do That on Televison (which my mom flat-out forbade me to watch). Were these shows actually bad? Probably not, but I’ll never know.

The vast majority of the list I agree with whole-heartedly. I loved shows like Clarissa Explains it All, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Ren and Stimpy (which always left me a little uncomfortable but intrigued - my first experience with modern art), Double Dare, Eureka’s Castle, Hey Dude, and Doug. Including a few other Snick regulars that got left out:

What Would You Do (1991 - 1993)
This spin-off of Double Dare was also hosted by Marc Summers. Audience members were asked to vote on the outcome of various pre-recorded situations and certain families (usually a parent and child) were chosen for live competitions. Failure to complete a given task would result in a family member, usually the parent, being placed into some sort of pie-throwing contraption (like the pie-slide above).

While I preferred Double Dare, this show was always entertaining. Thad, a friend of mine from college, actually went on the show and had a chance to throw a pie in his dad’s face. That’s family bonding. I can’t stand Unwrapped so I like to remember Mark Summers from these shows, when I thought he was the coolest guy I’d ever ran into in an airport when I was eight.

Round House (1992 - 1995)
This show, from the creators of In Living Color, was a collection of sketches, dance performances, and live music recorded in front of a live audience. All music was written and produced for the show, and performed by the house band.

I remember this being the first show I felt was edgy and cool. The sketches dealt with current events in pop culture and were more entertaining that moral-driven. I was from a small town and grew up mostly around adults so this was as hip as it got back then.

All That (1994 - 2005)
This show took the sketch format a step further and created what was basically Saturday Night Live for kids. Replete with a theme song by TLC, actors in drag, re-occuring characters, celebrity impersonations and musical performances, this was quality adolescent entertainment. This is where Kenan Thompson, currently an actor on Saturday Night Live, perfected his skills including his now-famous Bill Cosby impression. The movie Good Burger was based on a sketch from this show.

I had no idea this show went on for as long as it did. I stopped watching it around ‘97 and never looked back. I still have fond memories of “Coach Kreeton” and “Mary Beth Denberg with Vital Information for Your Everyday Life”.

(turn the sound off. best I could find on youtube)
The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994 - 1998)
A replacement for Clarissa Explains it All, the show debuted on Snick in October 1994. Alex Mack, played by Larisa Oleynik, was a girl who had super powers-mainly telekinesis and the ability to morph into a silvery liquid-that were the result of accidental contamination from chemical GC-161. Her best friend and sister were the only ones to know of her power as she had to keep it secret since the company who produced the compound that contaminated her wanted to find her for experimentation. Several guest stars appeared on the show including Jessica Alba.

Larisa Oleynik was probably my first crush (nothing personal Melissa Joan Hart). Maybe it was the controversial nudity in the first episode (the first time Alex morphs into a liquid, her clothes are left behind. She materializes behind a set of strategically placed boxes) which went on to be included in the opening credits throughout the series. I wouldn’t see her again until 10 Things I Hate About You where she played the younger sister of that girl from Save the Last Dance.

Kenan & Kel (1996 - 2000)
A sitcom spin-off of All That featuring Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell, Kenan & Kel followed the classic comic duo setup with Thompson as the straight man to Mitchell’s crazy character. Kenan plays a smart kid who is always hatching some sort of nefarious scheme with Kel as his goofy sidekick who really loves orange soda. The theme “Aww, here we go” was by Coolio.

This show has the distinction, I believe, of being the first Nickelodeon/Snick show to feature a prominently African-American cast of major characters. For me, it was a segue into the other African-American family sitcoms I was so fond of like Family Matters, The Parent(hood), and, to a point, The Wayans Brothers and The Jamie Foxx Show.

The characters on these shows dealt with what we were dealing with - social cliques, popularity, new feelings for the opposite sex, responsibility, jobs, parents who didn’t seem to understand, and the simultaneous need for both independence and group acceptance. The characters weren’t adults yet but the themes were more mature. They captured that strange emotional fluctuation that is adolescence.

The actors on these series were famous, but it was a different celebrity climate then and the focus was more about the show than the actor. We never read about Melissa Joan Hart’s clubbing proclivity or which of the actors on Round House were sleeping with each other. Today’s programming seems to be one vehicle after another to launch an actress’s singing career or an obvious attempt for some kind of hip-hop street cred. From a story-telling standpoint, they’re all lacking in originality and substance.

Maybe it’s the Gen-X/Gen-Y gap (which I consider myself to be right in between, leaning slightly to the X side). There was an innocence and vulnerability to these shows that made them more real and accessible.

I just started my long-anticipated, much-requested food blog. I’d been hemming and hawing for awhile and finally decided to pull the trigger. All my food posts from here have been removed from here and migrated over there. There’s a good chance I’ll update that more often since I spend so much time cooking, reading about cooking, and thinking about cooking.

Visit Sacre Bleu now.