Troy Patterson can make fun of One of The Best Shows on Television, Ever, because he is very, very funny:

“When The Hills left off, Heidi—who now resembles an actress in a big-budget romantic comedy, not the cuddly lead but the uptight rival or the workaholic sidekick—had called off plans for her wedding to Spencer, presumably because his narcissistic shiftiness renders him absolutely unmarriageable. The show picked back up with her jaunting to her family’s house in Crested Butte, Colo., where she put matters into perspective during après-ski heart-to-hearts with her mother. Spencer arrived unannounced at the ancestral home. Heidi’s stepfather cast skeptical glances—eyes brimming with wariness, baffled stares garnished with pity—at the poor boy. Spencer played with his phone. They all went out to dinner. Heidi told Spencer off. Crested Butte looked like a very dull town.”

You can read the full story here.

No matter how many new entertainment options this great world has to offer, there are a few movies, television shows, books, albums and other miscellaneous items I always go back to when I’m feeling down or annoyed or bored, or I just want to experience something familiar.

I always tell myself I should branch out and try something new when I find myself listening to a song or watching an episode for the 12,000th time, but then I realize that there’s nothing wrong with finding comfort in something - especially if it’s something really good.

So here are a few of my favorites, the ones that never let me down.

“The Office” - Now, don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the American version of the TV show - in fact, I love the American version - but I’m talking about the British one. I think my good friend Dan originally told me about this work of comic genius and J and I eventually rented and watched all the episodes. I’ve written about this before, so I’ll try not to go off the deep end here, but instead provide a few reasons why I love “The Office” so much. There are only 12 episodes in all, plus a Christmas special that wraps everything up at the end so you feel like you’ve just watched a movie in several increments, rather than a weekly show. This, I think, is part of the series’ charm - that it ends when it should end so you aren’t dealing with years of unresolved romances, character developments and the same jokes over and over like you are when you watch most sitcoms. The storyline and characters are very similar to the American version (in some respects nearly identical) since the American version was based on the British show and the same team produces it. The boss in the British series, David Brent, played by Ricky Gervais, is, if you can believe it, a much more awkward character than Steve Carell’s character in the American version, but the payoff of getting all uncomfortable watching him get into one unbelievable situation after another is getting to experience one of the most hilarious and touching shows I’ve ever seen. I’ve watched “The Office” so many times that even the sound of the BBC music that plays at the beginning of the DVD is enough to put me in a happy mood.

“The Ricky Gervais Show” podcast - After my positive (obsessive) experience with “The Office” I naturally wanted to check out more of what Ricky Gervais had done and so started listening to “The Ricky Gervais Show,” which was my first experience listening to podcasts. The show’s format is really pretty simple: Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant (who co-created “The Office,” and “Extras”) sit around talking with their old radio producer, Karl Pilkington, who Gervais often refers to as a “shaved chimp.” The best part of the show is when the other two brutally make fun of Pilkington for his (as they put it) “idiotic theories.” The show is incredibly funny, but there’s more to it than that. I can listen to those three discussing the same things over and over again. It’s always a welcome break on a long car ride to turn off the news and put on one of those podcasts, no matter how many times I’ve listened. I can’t quite figure it out. I mean, I like listening to episodes of “This American Life” and “The Splendid Table,” too, but never more than once. Maybe it’s the witty, unrehearsed banter, or the anticipation of my favorite parts, but whatever it is, I’ll never be bored in the car again. Well, not for a few years, at least. You can download “The Ricky Gervais Show” on iTunes.

“Lost in Translation” - It could be the flashy Tokyo scenery or the fact that I like Bill Murray so much. Or that I’m never sure exactly what this movie is about, or that it seems to be about something different with every viewing, but I can watch “Lost in Translation” any time and am hooked from the moment it begins until the credits roll. I watched it again today, in fact, because I had a couple hours to spare and wanted to lay on the couch all wrapped up in a blanket and relax with something I know and love. And I did absolutely love it, just like I do every time.

“The Catcher in the Rye” - I read J.D. Salinger’s well-known novel when I was a teenager because I figured it was a teenager thing to do. But unlike most teenager rites of passage, like buying “cool” clothes at the thrift store (a phase I sincerely hope I’ve grown out of for good) and reading Kerouac’s “On the Road” (which I found cocky and annoying), I not only loved every word of “The Catcher in the Rye,” I read it again, about a year after I’d done so the first time, and then about a year after that…Holden Caulfield never growing a tiresome character…his complaints about life never growing trite or immature, but simply endearing the character to me more. I’ve never felt too old to read that book, and so I re-read it again, and again. In fact, it’s been some time since I’ve pulled out “The Catcher in the Rye” and it might just be the perfect time to do just that.

“Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” by Wilco - I try to make a point of not religiously reading Pitchfork music reviews because the sometimes-snobby, hipster review site can make you feel like you don’t know anything about music. Or that even if you love an album, you should actually hate it, and here’s why…But Pitchford awarded “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” a 10.0 rating - their highest score - so I’ll just let them do the talking on this one. And if you’d like to form your own opinion, you can check out the “Records” page on the Wilco site where you can listen to previews of some of their songs. Click on “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and check out “Jesus, etc.” Then go buy the album, if you haven’t already.

“Arrested Development” - I haven’t quite gotten to the stage where I can consider this amazing comedy series one of the television shows I have watched over and over again, but I’m on my way. The first time J and I saw this show, starring Jason Bateman, one Sunday night several years ago, we stopped what we were doing because it just seemed so…different…and so incredibly funny. Unfortunately the show was cancelled because not all Americans felt the way we did about it, but I know many people who can’t get enough of the show, and for good reason, so if you’re looking for a new series to rent during this writers’ strike, I highly recommend this one. Michael Cera playing Bateman’s on-screen son, George Michael, is reason enough to watch every single episode.

I’m starting a temp job tomorrow which I’m both happy and not happy about. How’s that for being specific?

I mean, let’s face it, I need to get out of the house and I very, very badly need to make some money. But then there’s also the fact that this is an administrative temp job, not a job in journalism, my field, or in any way related to journalism or even related to anything I like to do, and there’s always the fear that I’ll do this for a few weeks, get complacent, and stay at the temp job forever. This has never happened to me before, but there’s a first time for everything.

Anyway, since today was my last day lounging around at home for awhile, I decided to turn on the TV, park myself at the computer with the phone, my datebook and a long to-do list and get some stuff done. J and I may soon be buying our first house (!) and it turns out purchasing property requires lots of binders and folders and organization. Thankfully, the process has been much more manageable than I thought it would be, but it’s all still very time consuming.

Much to my delight there were back to back episodes of “The Golden Girls” on Lifetime this morning so that’s what I watched as I got to work. It was a pretty great setup, all in all. Cozy at home, being productive but also watching television, and no one there to make fun of me for watching “The Golden Girls.”

I was busy making phone calls and writing emails and eventually a Lifetime movie came on that I didn’t bother to turn off. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Lifetime movies. In fact, when you’re in the mood, there’s nothing better. It’s just that I was kind of busy and wasn’t sure I had the emotional energy to invest in characters that were going to inevitably die or get molested or something.

But before I knew what was going on I was mildly involved in the plot and decided that there was no point depriving myself of what looked - at the outset - like a somewhat interesting story. I didn’t catch all the details, because I was in the middle of various things, but basically this woman, played by the Peggy Bundy from “Married With Children” and her husband, played by the dad from “My So Called Life” had a baby very prematurely.

The baby turned out alright, but then the Bundy woman started having back pain that seemed innocuous enough but you just knew something was wrong. Big time. At this point I went downstairs to make myself lunch, and when I got back up here she was doing a lot worse and asked one of her girlfriends if she was going to die. “I think I’m going to die,” she said, answering her own question. Cue the dramatic Lifetime movie music.

For some reason the nurse who’d taken care of their premature daughter came to take care of her in her dying days. This nurse, played by the girl from “Mystic Pizza” and who also played Pudge in “Shag,” her best role ever, became very close to the Peggy Bundy character and encouraged her to write letters to her daughter since she wasn’t going to get to see her grow up. Meanwhile the “My So Called Life” dad is semi-freaking out because he can’t accept that his wife is dying.

You know what happened next. Peggy Bundy died in this incredibly sappy death scene that included her holding her now-flourishing baby daughter one last time. Everyone was puking all over themselves, it was so sappy. Ok, they weren’t, but I bet they were between takes.

I totally thought the movie was over. You know, that the dad would show his young daughter some pictures of his mom and they’d talk about what a special woman she was just before the credits started rolling. But instead the movie took another turn and all of a sudden the dad and Pudge are out at a bar having an awkward drink. I guess before she died, the mom had gotten it into her head that her husband and this neo-natal nurse/caregiver would be a good pair once she kicked the bucket and had suggested the idea to each of them individually.

You would have thought this plot couldn’t handle any more conflict, but turned out it could because in the next scene Pudge was talking to her adolescent daughter about how she wasn’t, couldn’t be, in love with the dad because he was still in love with his dead wife and their relationship would never work.

At this point I got on the phone to talk to my dad because, come on, what was going on with this movie? As I was chatting with him, the TV on mute, I noticed the new couple making out at some New Year’s party or something. I guess Pudge got over her misgivings. Then, of course, they got married and I think at the end there was some touching reminiscence regarding the Peggy Bundy character but I wouldn’t really know because I was on the phone again.

If this is your favorite movie, or you were planning on watching “The Incredible Saga of the Premature Baby/Death From a Painful Disease/Love After Losing a Spouse” tonight and I just ruined it for you, I am sorry, but I wanted to make a point, that point being that it may be just a temp job, but it is obviously rather urgent that I get out and about during the day because I can’t imagine sitting around and getting angry about the various complexities in Lifetime movies is a healthy way to spend my time.

No, no, this blog isn’t going to become a repository for the latest internet fads, but it snowed a little last night, I’ve eaten nothing but carbs today and I can’t muster up the inspiration to write something, you know, inspiring.

So, instead, here’s my favorite YouTube clip of all times. I realize I’ve probably sat many of you guys down and made you watch this more than once, but I can’t help it. This guy never fails:

J and I just finished the movie “Once,” and because my normal commentary on films normally goes something like “It was so GOOD,” (or, if I didn’t like it, “it wasn’t my favorite,”) I’ll let an expert - a movie critic at the New York Times - provide this very brief synopsis of this “modern day musical” (a phrase I also stole from the experts) set in Dublin:

“It is realistic rather than fanciful, and the characters work patiently on the songs rather than bursting spontaneously into them. But its low-key affect and decidedly human scale endow “Once” with an easy, lovable charm that a flashier production could never have achieved. The formula is simple: two people, a few instruments, 88 minutes and not a single false note.”

Anyway, I don’t want to over-promote it, or give it away, or scream at you guys or anything, but seriously, if you like movies, and you like music, and you haven’t yet seen this please rent it and spend a quiet night at home getting totally into the subtly romantic and moving storyline and the really amazing music played throughout the film. I loved it. And if my loving it isn’t reason enough to see it, and I don’t know why it wouldn’t be, visit the Fox Searchlight homepage for “Once” and listen to “Falling Slowly,” performed by the two main characters and I’m pretty sure that will convince you.

This has been another of my rare attempts to try and discuss movies with any authority. Don’t worry, it probably won’t happen again for a while, and in no time I’ll be back to talking about things I know something about. Like how, ok, I finally saw the entire first season of “The Hills” and I CANNOT believe LC chose that loser Jason over going to Paris…

I like that John Mayer song “Waiting on the World to Change” so much. I like it so much that whenever I hear it I drop whatever I’m doing and just think about life, and I feel really hopeful and good. I’m not kidding you, it might be my favorite song ever right now, and at the same time I’m really into the new Arcade Fire album and am having a renewed love affair with one of my favorite bands of all times, Pavement, and I sort of don’t know how to resolve it all. This is when I’m really glad we live in this modern age with iPods.

Last night, after a long day for both of us, J called me at about 9:48 p.m. asking if I could pick him at work since the buses had stopped running. He asked me with urgency in his voice and because we have a strong marital bond I understood, so I raced to my car and towards his building, where he bounded towards me and jumped in, then I did a quick turn and pointed the Civic towards home, where, yes, a late dinner was sort of in progress, and the bed was made and comfortable, but most importantly? The television was already tuned to NBC and thanks to our efficiency we’d only missed a few minutes of the new episode of “Law and Order: SVU,” and that, my friends, is teamwork.

Thanks to Max B. for pointing out this Variety.com article regarding my very favorite story about a man burdened by the “gift” of time travel and the woman he loves (Max sent me the link in an email with the subject line “your wildest dreams are gonna come true”).

I don’t write about music a lot because I don’t know what I’m doing. It would be like my trying to write about food in a critical or intelligent way, when all I could really muster is, “Have you tried that new restaurant IT IS DELICIOUS!” Same thing with music. It’s not that I don’t like either. Music and food are two of my favorite things. It’s just that I don’t feel I’m a qualified critic of, well, anything. Except maybe other people.

So forgive me if this post is lacking in hip jargon but I did want to mention that last night we went to see Yo La Tengo, my supposedly favorite band. I say “supposedly” not because of anything the band’s done. They’re great. I say it because I haven’t been a stellar fan. I’ve been too into NPR and old mixes I made in 2003 that turn up when I’m looking through our albums for actual good music. I listen to those CDs I made long ago, laughing at my taste in music, then secretly get really into it when I’m in my car, alone.

I first heard Yo La Tengo when I was a senior in college. They’d recently come out with the album “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out,” and I recall the exact moment I put it on for the very first time, sitting on my bed, just listening. I’m not generally like this - the type of person who sits and puts something on the stereo and just listens. Puts something on the stereo and listens while maybe eating some cookies and playing with my dog and reading some emails? Sure. But not just sitting there like that. And that’s how I knew I loved this band and wanted to hear all their music.

I don’t know if it’s because the band was formed by a husband and wife duo (Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, and by the way, at the concert last night Ira got so pumped that he broke a guitar and if that’s not rock n’ roll I don’t know what is) but some of their lyrics really get to me - in a good way, reminding me happily of my own relationship. In one song, for instance, they sing about “our punchline” - all the private jokes a couple shares. In another, “On Our Way to Fall,” Ira sings “I remember staring at my feet,” when recalling meeting a person he eventually falls in love with.

In fact, J and I talked about Yo La Tengo the first time we met. I’m not saying we got together because of a band, but he’d just bought “I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One,” my favorite Yo La Tengo album, and we spent of a good deal of the first night we met - at a friend’s wedding - talking about how much we both liked it, especially the song “Stockholm Syndrome,” which is kind of funny, because that’s definitely not one of those love songs I was referring to. It’s actually a pretty sad song (this musical theme, so you know, persisted in our courtship: after drunkenly voicing our feelings for one another at the World Beer Fest in Durham several months after that wedding we got into a tricky situation on the way home - the car was packed so tight with our friends that I was forced to sit on J’s lap, while “Love Bites” by Def Leppard played in the background…oh, and my boyfriend at the time happened to be driving that car, yeah, my boyfriend).

I’ve been a pretty sad example of a music lover lately. For one thing - and this actually isn’t a problem for me - but I think that in all relationships one person ends up dominating every given situation. Like J definitely is more into identifying birds and talking about art than I am. I’m way more into enjoying a good bottle of red wine and discussing American literature than he is. And in the music category, J’s kind of got me beat, I’ll admit. He knows way more about music in general and is always on top of new bands and albums and a lot of times when we get into his car he’s got one of these new albums blasting very loudly, like a true music lover tends to do. I do this too, don’t get me wrong, I just do it less often, after I’ve fully exhausted my capacity as a nerd by listening to “All Things Considered” and “The Diane Rehm Show” for about four hours a day. And because I’m not on top of the music scene like he is, I don’t know what to say when he asks me what I’d like to listen to on long road trips. This sometimes results in my telling him to pick “whatever you want to hear,” and then my response to whatever he wants to hear is to roll my head back against the seat and sigh really loudly making it clear that what he wanted to hear? Not what I wanted to hear, despite the fact that I couldn’t make up my mind.

Anyway, the point of all that is that I haven’t really been into music lately, not like I have been at other points in my life, for instance, when I was when sitting on my bed my senior year mesmerized by the new music I was hearing. But yesterday I decided, since we were going to the concert last night after all, to put in Yo La Tengo’s latest album. I’d given it a good, preliminary listen upon first purchasing it, but then had sort of let it fall to the wayside in favor of various downloaded podcasts or CDs I’d listened to three million times already. But when I put the album in, early in the morning on my way to yet another commissioner’s meeting, I was instantly reminded of why they are my favorite band. Because one minute I’d been driving along, bummed out at the prospect of another annoying Monday and the next I was listening to music that made me really happy…and sometimes sad, and thoughtful, too, but good music can do that. Even better, I realized, I was going to see my favorite band play that very night. And the concert, of course, was amazing. So I think I’m going to take a look through the many, many albums I’ve amassed over the years when I’ve got some spare time - albums I haven’t listened to in ages because I’ve simply been too lazy to find them and bring them back into rotation. I’m going to remember why I bought them in the first place. I’m going to listen to them really loudly in my car. .

You can listen to the song “Beanbag Chair” from Yo La Tengo’s latest album here. It will make you happy. I promise.

I logged into my MySpace account today (because yeah, I’m 29 and have a MySpace account) to find that Jennifer has posted a picture on my page. But not just any picture. This picture:

I know, I know, so many questions. Like, What is going on here? How did two awkward teens score a photo with such a sexy beast? And whose hair is more awesome, Cara’s or Fabio’s? (I think I win).

The simple answer is that back in day day my father was director of the National Italian American Foundation and their major fundraiser was an annual dinner held in D.C. Many Italian American celebrities and politicians attended over the years and I got to meet a lot of them, since my dad was in with the security guys. I met people like Perry Como and Debbie Gibson (that’s right, she’s Italian American) and Jon Bon Jovi - and if you think this picture with Fabio is a rather embarassing relic of my adolescent years, you should see the picture I have of me and Bon Jovi. Jesus Christ. Luckily for me, I’m not going to show it to you.

Jennifer and I attended a few of these and had many adventures, that got more age-appropriate over the years. For instance, when we were 14 or so, like in the picture above, we tried to score as many autographs as possible. We once, out of sheer good fortune (and because we were smaller than regular sized adults and could push our way in) rode the elevator with Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman and Dom DeLuise.

When we were a little older, we waited until everyone had left the banquet room, then went from table to table taking the mini bottles of Sambuca and other goody bag loot attendees had left behind.

Meeting Fabio, though, is probably the best story I got out of all the dinners I attended. And judging from the look on his face, it was one of the best moments of his life, too.