Happy Wednesday everyone!! I’m excited because tonight there’s new episodes of Veronica Mars, Lost, Bones AND the Amazing Race!!! That’s a lot of tv, but it’s all good tv so I’m happy.

Yesterday the weather was insane. There were snow flurries for a few seconds, then they stopped. Half an hour later, there was hail!! Fortunately it didn’t last too long. And then there were snow flurries again. Nothing has stayed and I’m holding out hope this is the last snow for the year. But it’s like the weather has PMS.

Lots of tv has been watched by me the last couple of days:

( 24 ‘10pm-11pm’ 5:16, Who’s evil now? )

( Grey’s Anatomy ‘The Name of the Game’ 2:18 )

( Gilmore Girls ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’ 6:17, Actually no-one’s okay except for Lane and Paris )

( Scrubs ‘My Chopped Liver’ 5:16, Why JD and Turk are the best friends ever! )

I was going to write about House (with Michelle Trachenberg!) but I was just alerted that the Conservatives are re-opening the same-sex marriage issue and holding a free vote about it. I am very mad and upset by this. WTF?!! No government should be taking away human rights. I recall having an argument with someone before the election in which he refused to believe me that the Tories would do this. This is one instance in which I hate being right. There is hope that this will fail because the Conservatives are a Minority Government and the other parties (Bloc Quebecois, NDP and most Liberals), who make up the majority, will vote in support of same-sex marriage. But still…. It’s hard to feel reasonable when we could potentially lose human rights.

To try and end on a happy note I wanted to rec some really good fic I’ve been reading recently:

globalfruitbat’s Heroes which is a beautiful and addictive post-Not Fade Away ensemble story.

octoberxsong’s Placebo which is an amazing Spike/Angel story that could also be a manifesto for the pairing.

Also, if you love Xander, check out the masterlist for The Replacement Celebration -- A Two Xanders Are Better Than One Brouhaha. It’s double your Xander goodness!

American pop culture is so dominant in Canada, that I’m always surprised when a television show isn’t aired here, or in last night’s case, that I can’t watch an alternate ending for my favourite show.

When I went to AOL last night to watch the much-hyped alternate ending to the Veronica Mars episode “My Mother, the Fiend” here’s the message I got:

“We’re sorry, but the content requested is only available for viewing from within the United States.”

Fortunately some nice folks on the televisionwithoutpity message boards described what happened. ( Spoiler: VM's alternate ending ) Fortunately, I don’t feel that I missed much because it’s a stunt to increase viewership and the scene isn’t part of the show’s canon.

The most frustrating part of that experience is to be randomly blocked from viewing something just because I’m not in the U.S. Okay, I know that I live in Canada (and am happy and proud to be Canadian) but it can be hard to remember that I’m not part of the U.S. I can’t imagine why I have this problem when I shop at stores like The Gap, The Body Shop, and of course, American Eagle. I get all the American networks in my digital cable package and watch almost exclusively American television (the only Canadian show I watch regularly is CTV’s very funny Corner Gas). I just watched so many American Thanksgiving themed shows last week that I’m starting to believe that I also just celebrated that holiday.

This kind of reflection leads me down the super highway to American Imperialism. Living in such an overall affluent country as Canada can make it hard to remember that, like most other nations, we’re actually under the arm of the United States. It’s a lot easier to forget that type of thing when you’re reaping the benefits of American dominance.

The last time I studies politics in any depth was a political science class many years ago, so I’m not going to attempt a likely simplistic and surface critique of American Imperialism. Besides, to be quite honest, I clearly like a lot of the American capitalist trappings. I’m at my happiest when I’m sipping a totally yummy Peppermint Hot Chocolate from Starbucks while reading Entertainment Weekly, and anticipating the next Veronica Mars episode or new Harry Potter movie.

Also, I suspect that my sudden righteousness about the dominance of the U.S. in Canada is just because I couldn’t see the alternative ending. I’m now feeling happier because I watched the live online interview with VM’s creator, Rob Thomas – yea to UPN for letting me watch stuff on its site!!!

It feels silly to get upset about American pop culture being an overwhelming presence in Canadian society when I actually love it. A long time ago, I realized that I’m a big fan of American pop culture. Although my love for it is complicated, it’s the source of some of my biggest pleasures in life and helps me cope with all the horrible and upsetting things I see daily on the news. I guess it’s only appropriate that I’m embracing American presence in Canadian society as I gear up to spend spend spend in preparation for Christmas.

I’ll just comfort myself that I’m resisting full American dominance by continuing to spell words the Canadian way … wait a minute, am I actually clinging to remnants of the older Imperialist power, England? Dude, this is making my head hurt. I think I’ll go re-watch last night’s awesome Veronica Mars.

So I just read this article about Sean Penn and other Hollywood celebrities helping out victims of Katrina and it made cry. It makes me so happy (yes, so happy that I cry) when celebrities actually use their position to affect positive change. If I had as much money as Sean Penn, I'd get a boat and go down there to help too. Of course the article had to be all snarky about Sean Penn's views about Iraq because we wouldn't want people to ever have different opinions than their President!!

The article talks about how many of the celebrities are affiliated with Oprah's "Team Angel" effort. I love this quote from Maureen Ryan (in her Chicago Tribune column): "Can someone tell President Bush to call Oprah?" Maybe Oprah should run for President, if I was American I'd vote for her. She's certainly more a leader than most of the politicians right now.

Now for something completely different!!! I finally got a PVR (Personal Video Recorder), it's like a Tivo because I can record 2 programmes at the same time, as well as pause, rewind, fast forward live television. As a few of my friends commented to me "You're definitely someone who actually needs a PVR, instead of just wanting one." Very very true - it'll be awesome to not have to worry about having enough tape space, and I'll be able to deal with those 4-shows-in-one-time-slot situation! It's very very exciting, particularly now that everything's set up correctly (with the help from a very nice Rogers tech support woman). Rogers has excellent phone customer service, everytime I call they're really nice, professional and very helpful.

It's bizarre, in a really short span of time I've gotten a laptop and the internet, and a PVR. I now feel very on top of the latest technologies, especially since none of my friends have PVRs yet (some do have digital cable). I used to feel more like Dru in this exchange on Angel:

Dru: "I saw you coming, my lovely. The moon showed me. It told me to come into the Twentieth Century."
Angel: "It's the Twenty-First Century, Dru."
Dru: "Hmm, I'm still lagging."

I enjoy this quote because I spent so much of my university career studying pre-1900 English Literature, that when I read Twentieth Century literature it always felt very modern (not to be confused to Modernist lit which it frequently was) and current - so this resulted in me forgetting that we've been in the Twenty-First Century for a few years now. Let's just say I've had exchanges like the Dru-Angel exchange, except without me being a crazy vampire.

Now I'm off to catch some films at TIFF!!