This post contains only good news! Things that are making me happy and will hopefully make you happy too!

1. Thanks to everyone who voted in my 'Decide cordelianne’s TV Watching Schedule for Her' POLL - you have helped me!! ( Brief run-down of which shows I'm cutting from my schedule - all chosen by YOU )

2. Veronica Mars is loved by all! Or at least those of you who voted in my poll. You all approve of me watching it! I'm pretending that Gilmore Girls got similar love instead of a surprising amount of horrified votes.

3. AWESOME Veronica Mars news!!! On vm_navigator (which is a great newsletter because it really seems to cover a lot of the VM fandom as well as interesting VM news) I read that for those who live in Ontario, Veronica Mars has been picked up for the Fall 2006 schedule on SunTV (I think that's channel 15 in Toronto), in simulcast with the CW on Tuesdays at 9PM EST! Currently you needed digital cable, satellite or internet help to see the episodes close to when the show aired in the U.S. This also means I won't need to keep lending my tapes out as much!

4. According to a reliable source (okay, a co-worker but he's normally right about this stuff), Battlestar Galactica Season 3 will be airing in Canada (on the Space channel) only a day after it airs in the U.S. (Saturday night)!!! This is awesome news and means I won't need to use the internet to see the episodes. Also, now my friends and I will all be at the same point and I won't be trying to remember back to something I saw months ago when we talk about the show!

5. When I scanning through "the Initiative" to check details for my Giles/Xander drabble (ie. Is Xander wearing long sleeves? Do they have military gear?) I declared to my friend OMG I love this show even on fast-forward! I then stopped to watch Riley punch Parker and giggle gleefully. It's just so wonderful to still be so filled with love for BtVS after so many years.

6. I read this lovely Anne of Green Gables Anne & Gilbert ficlet by cherusha: Echo. It feels like a lost scene from the movie or book!!

It's a good thing that the most responses to my poll's question "Am I too obsessed with television?" were "Obsessed? Sure. But that’s what I love about you" ... because every item but one is related to television!! Oh, and I'm using this icon because it always makes me smile and hopefully will make you all smile too. *hugs*

I’m mostly caught up on this week’s television watching, except for tonight’s shows. The highlight of this week is definitely Scrubs. The episode reminded me why I fell in love with the show in the first place, but I will continue the gushing safely behind a spoiler tag

( Scrubs ‘My Lunch’ 5:20 )

Since I gushed about the incredible awesomeness of Scrubs, I’m only saying a couple of sentences about the other shows. Seriously, I’m actually succinct.

( 24 ‘1am-2am’ 5:19 )

( How I Met Your Mother ‘Mary the Paralegal’ 1:19 )

( Gilmore Girls ‘Super Cool Party People’ 6:20 )

( Veronica Mars ‘Look Who’s Stalking’ 2:20 )

(  Smallville ‘Mercy’ 5:19 )

Even though this post is ridiculously long (thanks a lot Scrubs!), I wanted to draw your attention to my new default icon! Thanks to femmenerd, who directed me to book_icons, I now have a bunch of Anne of Green Gables and L.M. Montgomery icons (including an Anne/Diana one!). This one is from the cover of the first edition of Pat of Silver Bush (1933). I actually own this book (as well as many other old editions of LMM’s work) and I love the cover art, even though it doesn’t really fit the book.

ETA: There are Veronica Mars season two spoilers in the comments up to episode 2:20 (Look Who's Stalking). There's also some really damn good speculation by ladyinhottpink about the answers to the major mysteries.

I'm taking advantage of the 3 day weekend and am visiting my family in Kingston. It's weird to be back in Kingston because there's always small things that have changed (a road where there wasn't one before), but basically it's the same. I'm very very thankful that my brother has wireless internet access set up in the house and that I brought my laptop. *clings to laptop* Of course, I'm now behind on my LJ reading because I've only just logged in now that my mom's gone to bed. We talked and talked, and then watched Moulin Rouge.

I did the worst thing today, and it was totally unintentional but I still feel really bad about it. I was up really late last night doing laundry, gathering my tax info (so my dad can do my taxes), packing, and organizing my tv recording schedule. Even though I had set my two alarms so I'd have plenty of time to get ready and meet my friend, who was driving me (and a friend of hers) to Kingston, I completely slept in. Not only did I sleep in ridiculously late, but the ringer was turned off on my phone (because I work late nights, I frequently turn the ringer off so I'm not woken up and it was still turned off from the previous night). So, not only did I keep 2 people waiting, I also caused my friend to really worry about me because she couldn't get a hold of me. I still feel really guilty even though my friend and I worked it out, and she was really understanding about it. I just hate being irresponsible and inconveniencing people.

In the car ride we did have a fun discussion about whether we'd sleep with Sawyer or Jack from Lost. The unanimous agreement was Sawyer. My friend suggested that Jack would probably cry, or be really clingy afterwards. We were torn about Jin and Sayid, but I think we all leaned more towards Sayid. I also noted that I'd sleep with Ana-Lucia because I think Michelle Rodriguez is HOT!!

Changing topics entirely, I've seen the username meme floating around and have enjoyed reading how everyone chose their username. I love talking about how I came up mine so I had to do it as well. ( The origin of my username. )


One last thing: If you haven't already checked out earth_vexer's new icons here, they're wonderful!! I'm now heading off to grab lots and lots, and exclaim with glee.

Today I was exercising with the tv on the station which plays Buffy the Vampire Slayer repeats, and "The Freshman" was airing. It was great background for working out, until the scene when Xander gives Buffy his Dadaist pep talk, because it made me cry. I've seen every BtVS episode a ridiculous amount of times yet there are certain moments that get me every time, even if I'm in the middle of Pilates. I just love this speech so much:

Xander: Buffy, I've gone through some fairly dark times in my life, faced some scary things, among them the kitchen at 'The Fabulous Ladies Night Club.' Let me tell you something, when it's dark and I'm all alone and I'm scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, 'What would Buffy do?' You're my hero. Ok, sometimes when it's dark and I'm all alone I think, 'What is Buffy wearing?'
Buffy: Can that be one of those things you never, ever, tell me about?

For some reason this got me thinking about the various fandoms and obsessions that I've had over the years, so I thought I'd list a few of my favourite fan obsessions and embarrassing fan activities (some of these are from when I was very young). Feel free to tell me your shameful fan moments!! ( Here's mine: )

I also did that Birthday meme, and the answers for September 2nd are ( here. )

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Friday night!!

One of my friends just told me that Chevy's letting people make their own ads as a cross-promotion with The Apprentice. She also gave me this link:

SEE THIS BEFORE IT'S TAKEN DOWN!!!!! The text is so very excellent!!
ETA: Sadly, it looks like it might have been taking down. It was a neat ad which looked like a serious car ad, but the text was a critique of environmental practices. It ended by saying that in the vehicle you can drive to what wilderness remains and stay in your car which is a padded cell. One of the lines that I actually remember word for word is "we sold our souls for oil."


I'm excited because one of my RL friends has gotten an LJ: mr_dave_gripes

Here's how he describes his LJ: So, my goal with this journal is to update it every day with a complaint (or possibly more than one complaint.) They're normally pretty amusing and/or make you say 'right on'. Here's a recent one: My kitty is very badly behaved. And she seems to know it, too. She is unrepentantly bad. Never a truer word spoken about mr_dave_gripes's cat.


In other news, I've had a very positive response to my idea for a BtVS/Anne of Green Gables crossover fic which I posted at entrenous88's Secret Fanfic Writing/Reading Shame Meme. If you haven't checked this post out, I urge you to because there's so many interesting and fun ideas there. Anyway, because of the good response - apparently there are more BtVS fans who love Anne of Green Gables than I had initially thought - I've been pondering actually writing the fic! I probably won't do it until the summer, because I'll need to do lots of Anne-related research (hee!) but I'm now seriously thinking about this fic. I've also realized that Giles needs to be there, and he and Marilla could have a tentative and sweet romance. *sigh*

My weekend was very relaxing!! There was probably too much ice cream and chocolate consumed, and not enough exercising but I’ve decided not to worry about it!! That’s for tomorrow’s cordelianne to deal with.

I’m now completely caught up on Lost and Smallville (I was 3 weeks behind on both shows). I adore my PVR (like a Tivo), but it’s bad in situations when networks (*cough*ABC*cough*) decide that it will be fun for their show to run an extra minute or two. Hello? Who is this fun for, other than advertisers? It screws over everyone who has a Tivo-type machine and people who programme their VCRs to stop at the hour. ( More grumbling about the recording situation. )

Seeing She’s the Man was definitely one of the highlights of my weekend. Between my 3 other friends and I we laughed throughout the entire movie. Frequently AT the dialogue. ( More thoughts on the movie, none very spoilery. )

My weekend - bizarrely - ended up having a completely unintentional Amanda Bynes theme because I also watched the series finale of What I Like About You (the tv show Bynes stars in with Jennie Garth). Since I’ve already disclosed that I paid to see She’s the Man, I’m freely admitting to crying during the episode (although I do cry at a lot of things, eg. One of the trailers before She’s the Man got me all teary). The episode had a number of the factors that can almost always make me cry: a wedding, a series finale (with sentimental flashbacks), and a happy ending. Now it becomes clear why I love Anne of Green Gables. Oh, I just remembered that there was a VERY slashy flashback, which I like to think they did just for me.

I love having a friend who’ll call me up just to tell me the Frighteners is on because she knows I’m a big Peter Jackson fan, but haven’t seen the movie yet!!! She also called me a bit into it to see if I’d caught Peter Jackson’s Hitchcockian cameo as a punk guy. Very good movie, by the way, very fun and thrilling in a scary way.

Tomorrow is new 24 AND 2 hours of new Everwood (8pm-10pm on the WB)!! It's been far too long since there was a new Everwood, I'm very glad it'll be back.

Happy 9th Anniversary Buffy!!! How awesome is that it's 9 years to the day when Buffy the Vampire Slayer first aired?!!!! Oh, and if you were wondering, I did indeed do the dance of joy. I've even done the dance of joy for my co-workers before, thus confirming for them my insanity!

molly_may has a fabulous way of celebrating by asking people to Pick an episode that you feel is underrated, and tell why you like it. This idea makes me so happy, so I rambled on about my love for "Doublemeat Palace" and "Bad Eggs" here. I'm now inspired to write up something coherent about why I love "Bad Eggs" which I'll hopefully post in the next couple of days (hint: love of Xander is involved).


globalfruitbat tagged me to write a list of the five things that are most effective in bribing me. When I was thinking about this, I realized that I don't really need to bribed as long as you're nice and respectful to me and other people. But, that's not fun, so here's my list:

1. Chocolate. As Buffy observes There is no problem that can not be solved with chocolate. Well, except for barfing!

2. Offer to drive me somewhere in a car. Bonus points if it's to visit my grandpa or parents. I don't own a car nor do I need to because I live in downtown Toronto right on the subway line. Also, I hate driving and am scared of driving in Toronto (this is a result of being from a small city). I love to walk and take transit, particularly because it's good for the environment. But sometimes I just love the convenience of being driven somewhere.

3. Talk about or offer to watch anything Jossverse.

4. Talk about L.M. Montgomery with me, or better yet buy me the first edition of Anne of Green Gables. Of course, if someone could actually afford to buy the first edition I'd do ANYTHING for them. Oh dear, I hope my stalkers aren't reading this. Just kidding, I don't have stalkers (*looks around nervously*).

5. Um, I'm having trouble coming up with a 5th one. So I'm going with: make me dinner. I hate to cook but love to eat yummy home-cooked meals.

Okay, I tag crazydiamondsue, crossoverman, entrenous88, monster_grrrl, and ozma914.

We actually celebrated International Women's Day at my work today (usually it's just another day). All the women were given cards with pears on them (I guess that pears symbolize womanhood?). We got to leave work for an hour, have warm beverages and PIE (I totally thought of entrenous88 when I had the pecan pie).

The first part was all very proper as we sipped our hot chocolate, ate pie and chatted - I noted that we were having the kind of celebration that L.M. Montgomery (aka author of Anne of Green Gables) would have participated in. Sadly, that comment only entertained me. However it did spark life into the group and we talked about everything from our breasts, online dating, the anti-abortion law in South Dakota, the age of consent laws in Canada, our first experiences in feminist groups and horrible IDW dances we've attended. It was actually a very fun time, and it felt like an appropriate way to mark IWD.


I haven't seen any of my tv shows since Monday because all I've been doing is working (stressful) and sleeping (because I'm still feeling ucky). But I do have tv news!

1. Season 3 of BSG won't air until October 2006. WHAT?! We'll have to wait ...*counts*...SEVEN months for the new season. Seven?! Seven months?!! Recounts. Damn, it's still seven months. You just know there's going to be a BIG cliffhanger and then the wait will be excruciating. Also, this doesn't seem like an effective way to retain viewers; peeople don't like to wait.

2. This is the last season of Charmed. I feel weirdly sad about the show ending, despite being amazed that such a crappy show has been on the air so long. Of course I'll inexplicably continue to watch it to the very end.

3. The Amazing Race and How I Met Your Mother both renewed for next season. Here's hoping that next year's The Amazing Race will NOT be the Family Edition. I adore How I Met Your Mother so I'm very happy about this. Also, yay for more Alyson Hannigan on tv!!

4. Speaking of How I Met Your Mother Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof will BOTH guest star on the season finale of the show. Alyson Hannigan, Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof all on the same show, this may top the Alyson Hannigan and Charisma Carpenter reunion on Veronica Mars!

5. James Marsters' next guest starring appearance on Smallville will be Thursday, March 30th at 8pm on the WB. That's also the night when the next new episode of Supernatural airs at its new time at 9pm on Thursday.


In honour of IDW, I leave you with this tidbit I learned from my beloved grandma who passed away in October: celery tastes amazing when it has been soaking in water. She also always used to say "let's play it by ear" which can be very useful to remember.

Was this Monday's the best Arrested Development ever?!!! YES. YES. YES! As I was basking in my love for AD I became worried that I'm setting myself up for heartbreak when it's canceled (whimper). This reminded me of one of my favourite exchanges in one of my favourite books of all time, Anne of Green Gables, it’s when Marilla says to Anne You set your heart too much on things, Anne, I'm afraid there'll be a great many disappointments in store for you through life.

Fortunately I also remembered Anne's response:
Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them. You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, `Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.' But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed."

I'm going to take this advice and enjoy looking forward to the next Arrested Development episode instead of worrying about it's doomed fate.

So in honour of optimism, I wanted to list some things that I love about some shows I've been watching recently.

Arrested Development

1. The Hysterical mocking of network ratings stunts. The 3-D moments (random tomato thrown at the screen!!!) *cough*Medium*cough*; the "live" moment at the end *cough*Will & Grace, The West Wing*cough*; all the celebrity cameos *cough*Will & Grace and every other show during ratings sweeps*cough*; and the cheesy promo at the beginning announcing that one of these characters will die *cough*all network promos especially for Veronica Mars and Prison Break*cough*. Interestingly they ended up mocking NBC a lot. hmm.

2. All the references to the show's imminent cancellation. Having the internet campaign "Save Our Bluths" as the title for the family's fundraiser. The discussions about being desperate, HBO, and Showtime. The direct addresses to the audience by the narrator begging us to get our friends to watch the show.

3. Responding to criticisms about the show not being accessible enough by appearing to have the characters conform to more "relatable" roles. Lindsey's "ham water", Gob as waiter, and the conversation about them being more relatable which veered to typically weird Bluth territory.

4. Andy Richter guest starring as himself as one of a family of quints. Could this be a reference to his previously canceled show?

5. Okay, okay: The whole damn episode!!

Scrubs

1. TWO episodes!! I appreciate that NBC is trying to make up for not airing Scrubs in the fall, so they’re giving us double the episodes now.

2. Carla: Why are you in your boxers?!
J.D.: When Turk gets sad he likes to call me his hunky Adonis.
They bought it? Are we that gay? sigh. I love Turk and J.D.’s friendship!!

3. J.D. laughing at his own bad jokes (I never do that!!).

4. Elliot is still endearingly neurotic!!

5. Carla convincing Turk why it’ll be cool to have a kid: Dr. Cox says it's like having a dog that gradually learns to talk. hee!

6. Jordan making friends: I am your new friend, so suck it!"

7. Scrubs is back!! It’s back!!!

Battlestar Galactica

I’ve now seen the first season of BSG - all in one day!!

1. The angst, I love all the BSG angst.

2. Starbuck aka my new girlfriend.

3. The issues that the crew have to deal with (eg. Finding water and fuel) are very real. The issues are very relatable and are exactly the type of thing one would actually be up against in that situation (you know if Cylons attacked and caused the apocalypse).

4. I love Mary McDonnell as President Roslin!! If this wasn’t seen as just a sci-fi series, she’d win an Emmy for sure, and she’d deserve it!! She’s so good at Presidential stuff, especially when she has to make cut-throat decisions, but I also love it when she acts like a mom (ie. When she chastises Adama and Apollo in “You Can’t Go Home Again”). She could totally kick Geena Davis’ ass.

5. The acting, the writing, the way it’s filmed … so basically the whole show!!!

6. The surprise at the end of the season one finale is distressing (in the best possible way).

Supernatural

I’ve now seen all the episodes that have aired so far – all in one day!!! (Thanks to the final days of my vacation.)

1. Dean and Sam Winchester’s relationship. Aw, I love the brothers.

2. I particularly love Jensen Ackles as Dean. He makes me swoony.

3. That the Winchesters fund their demon/ghost hunting with credit card scams and other illegal activities. It’s nice to see good guys not be good all the time.

4. Supernatural does scary really well. I jump at least once a show – it’s definitely daytime watching for wimpy me.

5. Good, fluffy (if scary) fun.

It’s been fun to get all excited about these shows and talk about why I love them especially because I felt let down after watching BSG season one. I really love the series so I was confused by my reaction until I realized that I’m unconsciously hoping to find a replacement show for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It makes me sad to realize that nothing will replace my obsession intensive love for that show. Sure, there’s lots of truly amazing shows out there that are really high quality with enthralling mythologies (VM, BSG, Joan of Arcadia) but they will never replace Buffy. Instead of perceiving this as a sad thing and wallowing in my disappointment, I’m reminding myself that I’d probably be devastated if I “replaced” BtVS. So even though I have lots of shows that LOVE and enjoy, I ultimately agree with Spike: You’re the one, Buffy.