aruan | surviving this week merits a shoutout (Reply)

WORK Note to everyone: If at all possible, avoid switching to a new software system if at least a third of your office is over the age of 30 (even if there is an endless supply of Halloween-size chocolates and candies in the training room). But more generally, avoid it on the principle that nobody should have to endure three 12-hour workdays in a row in its name.

Especially when one of its consequences is doing Local on Sunday and then NOTHING BUT EAST POLK WHICH IS JUST AS PAINFUL AS IT SOUNDS for the rest of the week. I realize that's because the section is "going live" on the new program, one of the first to do so, and it's a huge vote of confidence on the part of my boss to trust me to handle it. I'll try to remember that when I'm going to work at 3 p.m. (I got into this business on promises of no earlier than 4:30, damn it!) and making all the mistakes of opening day. Here's hoping my designer will be John or Laurie.

All you need to know? I finally put to the office that I'd like to write in addition to copy editing.

TV Not that I have time for the television I already watch, but when's that ever stopped any of us.

Sadly, with prior commitments to catching up on SG-1 (now that the 'Gates are on hiatus until MARCH OMGWTF) and Gilmore Girls (though don't talk to me about the show this season and how Lorelai sounds perpetually stilted because she keeps getting to the ends of her lines and teetering there as if on a cliff but no, she's not forgetting them, there just aren't any more WOE), not to mention staples like the nightly Stewart/Colbert (d00d, GEORGE FREAKIN' LUCAS enterted the green screen challenge) block and returning favorites The Office, Nip/Tuck, and Battlestar Galactica, despite the promising fall lineup there just wasn't going to be time enough for much of anything.

Smith and The Nine seemed too much like Heist anyway (which I liked but already saw, also in movie form). Ugly Betty has a time conflict with two other things I don't compromise on, so that was out immediately. Missed the first episode of Jericho and Standoff, so those were out. Boston Legal is my lawyer dramedy, so Shark didn't have a chance (relatedly, the only reason I was interested in Brothers & Sisters was Calista Flockhart, but she's not going to be playing a neurotic lawyer in a funny little firm, so the show would be perpetually unsatisfying.)

I did acquire another not-so-new show somewhere in the course of human events - CSI: Miami is my new crime drama of choice. Well, as new as anything that's just had its 100th episode, but still. With all that outrageously beautiful high-contrast aerial cinematography of South Florida? Fetishizing it is so meta, it makes my toes curl. Oh, and that Adam Rodriguez fella can smile slily at me in a lab coat ANY TIME. Brandon's taken to Grey's Anatomy, so that's officially on the schedule as well. But only if George starts realizing just how brilliantly dirty hot Dr. Torres is, and NOW, O'Malley.

But the biggest news of all is that I'm in passionate monkey love, and its name is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, for all of these reasons:

-Suzanne's "Are you here to save us?" line.
-Bradley Whitford as a recovering drug addict.
-That the show is essentially rehab for real-life drug addicts.
-That Aaron Sorkin is vicariously reclaiming Saturday Night Live.
-ON AN NBC SHOW.
-The way Matt and Danny own their lives, mistakes and triumphs all.
-And that their theme song is Under Pressure.
-They frolic - excuse me, manfully settle their differences - in the sand.
-How Danny reins Matt in, runs interference for him and grounds him.
-It's a television drama about a television drama.
-But most of all, that true to form, the good guys win.

Totally willing to overlook the whole character of Harriet and her transparent tete-a-tete with Matt for it, too, because I'm usually riding high on the scene before it with Jordan and Danny, who are beyond great together.

All you need to know? [prostrates self at Aaron Sorkin's feet]

LIFE Temperatures are finally flirting with autumn, which means walks to Starbucks and leaving the sliding glass door open at night.

Thanks to accrued vacation time, Brandon and I will soon have a three-day weekend together, during which we plan to sample all that Central Florida has to offer in seasonal fare: Busch Gardens' Howl-o-Scream, Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, and the coup de grace, Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights. Excited doesn't even come close.

After a Local feature story on the new regional SPCA director last week, Brandon suggested we go down to their Lakeland shelter, and OMG PUPPIES. Skeeter (five months old, Labrador-boxer mutt, beautiful light brown coat with white paws and all love), I would buy a house just for you.

All you need to know? We're going to