The cuddle/snuggle distinction

What is the difference between "cuddling" and "snuggling"? Both suggest a prolonged period of affectionate touching with one's body pressed at least in part with another's body, but the terms are obviously different words so conceivably there's some difference.

The only definite distinction I can draw is that on the Simpsons "snuggling" is Marge's euphemism for having sex, and so as far as I'm concerned that can be the difference: the latter carries a sexual connotation (if it occurs between consenting adults).

When in doubt, look to Matt Groening's characters.

~

As further evidence of "cuddle" being the less innuendo-laden one, I offer that in the show Doc McStuffins when one of the characters is sad or in some distress it is said (by Lambie) he or she needs a cuddle--not a snuggle.

The doc is in.

You don't know what 'aarp' should mean

Commercials for the American Association of Retired Persons have included the slogan "You don't know 'aarp'" for a while now, and in the ad that ran during tonight's Emmy telecast still had that in the voiceover, bringing this to mind again.

Turning the initials into an acronym (so rather than it being pronounced by the individual letters in "A.A.R.P." it turns into a single-syllable term that rhymes with "harp") is in keeping with the clear push to make the organization seem not just for old fuddy-duddies.

However, to my ear, that pronunciation makes it one slight exaggeration away from being the acronym for the American Association of Retired Pirates.

Arrrrp!

(Perhaps it's in part from yesterday being Talk Like a Pirate Day yesterday.

No, it's just me. I know.)

More outdated children's shows observations: Daniel Tiger wears no pants!

On Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood the eponymous lead character is an anthropomorphic tiger living in a Mr. Rogers-inspired town with other anthropomorphic animals—Katarina Kittycat, O the Owl—and with human characters. The stories give lessons with little songs about topics like compromise and dealing with frustration. As previously noted, Our son finds it enjoyable.

One of Daniel's friends is Miss Elena, who it's shown has mixed race parents. So the show seems progressive in ways like that.

However, there is something that I notice that seems less congruous with that sort of theme. Now, I concede analysis of a show with such a clear distance from verisimilitude is utterly futile, but if nothing else we live in the era of utterly futile analysis so here goes:

Music soothes the fussy toddler (thanks, Doc McStuffins)

We don't let our son watch a lot of TV (to appease the Parenting-Industrial Complex I must note that) but we have put on some shows for short periods when we need to keep him occupied (like when we're getting ready to go to work in the morning). We have recorded some episodes of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Yo Gabba Gabba, and Doc McStuffins to be able to play when necessary.

What he particularly likes are the songs. Sure, all kids like music but he really responds to it. He started dancing almost as soon as he could stand up. At daycare when they have the "music man" come in on Fridays he's always the most excited of all the children.

Vanna White Keeps It Spinning on 'Wheel of Fortune' After All These Years

I'm not one who would consider himself a fan of Wheel of Fortune, but I have seen the show on and off since I was a child; these days I tend to see because it comes on after Jeopardy (when I see that) and it's perfectly acceptable to leave the TV on that channel as background while washing dishes or some such activity where I'm not actively paying that much attention. Its longevity undoubtedly stems from that passive involvement capacity (and the fact it doesn't involve the same level of actual knowledge as the show preceding it in syndication); you can watch it without the sound and still be able to play along.

Over my decades of experience with the show I've seen it transform from when the dollar amounts on the wheel were much lower, where the contestants had to "spend" their winnings from the round on a bunch of cheesy prizes, and where the tiles on the board were triangular and needed to be spun by Vanna. But while much has advanced—the dollar amounts have increased significantly, the contestants win the cash or trips or cars, and the tiles have gone to digital screens mimicking the old look—there is one part of the show that has not progressed as one might expect: Vanna is still by the board.

So let's acknowledge one thing:

If Wheel of Fortune were created as a new game show today, with the same technological capabilities that the existing show demonstrates (where the "tiles" can light up and display any letter, rather than need to be turned as was the case in earlier decades), it seems there would be no need for Vanna White. That's not a knock on her; it's merely the truth.

Getting grungy with 'Fresh Off the Boat'

In a recent episode of the new sitcom Fresh Off the Boat ("Success Perm"), the main character, Eddie, sees his cousin when the family visited. This cousin had turned him on to N.W.A. years earlier (the show takes place in 1995), which led to Eddie's love of rap. So when the cousin showed up, now into grunge, puts in a CD by Live and plays "Lightning Crashes," Eddie thought it was crap. (Eddie was right.)

The cousin dismissed Eddie's criticism as him being too immature to appreciate the emotion of grunge.

Saying goodbye to Jon Stewart (so we both can spend more time with our kids)

It was announced yesterday that Jon Stewart will not be staying on with The Daily Show after this year. Having seen every episode except one of the sixteen years of his tenure and an avowed fan (I've mentioned it in posts more than a few times) I will miss him, but I understand the desire to move on.

But I'm not as sad as I would be were I not a parent.

As it stands, since our son came along, I have found myself often recording a week's worth of episodes and having to squeeze them in on the weekend. When Stephen Colbert stepped away from "the Report" last year I was sad, but that was time I would need to devote to other pursuits.

Good grief: Parts of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" that will defy explanation

One lingering Halloween thought:

Eventually our son will be old enough for us to show him It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (which, of course, will continue air just before Halloween until network TV goes away altogether), and then some years later, given he's my son, it's likely he will start to question certain details.

I'm fairly certain it won't be questioning Linus' belief in the eponymous gourd-based character; that is the obvious basis of the entire plot; he'll get that much.

The Unexpected Majesty of the Every Simpsons Ever Marathon

Since a week ago Thursday through this past Monday the cable channel FXX aired the complete run of The Simpsons (#EverySimpsonsEver the hashtag reminded us) in a marathon. Over those twelve days I have tuned in to re-watch episodes when I had the chance, and have found it to be perhaps the best background viewing material available.

We'll get to Sesame Street later.

For example, last Thursday night as I washed the dishes I saw parts of the 2003 Treehouse of Horror episode. I didn't need to give it my full attention but when I wasn't rinsing I was reminded of the scene where Homer has killed Death and takes over as the Grim Reaper and goes to claim Jasper's soul—and upon seeing Grim Homer, Jasper asks "Where's the regular guy? Where's Doug?" Obviously that joke holds special appeal for me personally, but it's the way something like that can stand on its own as a moment without me having to then pause my task at hand made it particularly good as what I'd want on the TV when I couldn't give it my full attention.

Our first Emmys as parents

The older and more mobile our infant gets the more we as parents have to do on the weekends and the less time we have for "premium" TV (and in the evenings during the week the little time we have for watching we aren't really looking for anything other than light fare).

So, much as we'd aspire to catch up with the second season of Orange Is the New Black or the FX Fargo series, we won't be getting to those anytime soon (and certainly not before tomorrow's Emmys). Heck, we only finished up the last two episodes of the recent season of Louie a few weeks ago, months after they aired.

If the final season of Breaking Bad had not concluded while we were only expecting it's possible we still might not have seen it. And the last half of Mad Men's final season next year we may not see until our son heads off to kindergarten.

We had a good run being TV viewers (I wrote about it enough over the years to suggest that), but as any parent can tell you, that coming to an end was inevitable.

How I responded (or didn't) to the finale of 'How I Met Your Mother'

Although over the years I've spent more time on this than can possibly be justified it was impossible I wouldn't spend at least a little bit today on the finale to How I Met Your Mother that aired last night. It was a popular topic on social media, and every TV critic out there chimed in (not that I've read them all yet… but I probably will later); I don't pretend to have a different take on it, but I figured I owed the show one last post.

SPOILERS AHOY

Happy People-(Mostly-Advertisers)-Call-It-Presidents/Presidents'/President's Day

Although as I wrote two years ago today is a federal holiday officially known as Washington's Birthday (and as others mention every February)*, it is more commonly known by the position he held. Efforts to include Abraham Lincoln (or even others who have occupied that office) have come to make the colloquial name reference "President" in some way.

However, because it's not an official name there is no standard for whether it should be called Presidents (no apostrophe) or Presidents' (apostrophe after the s) or President's (apostrophe before the s), and that results in a variety of ways it appears.

For this post I wanted to offer a bit of an update of this post from four years ago by showing shots from commercials that mention it, to see how advertisers appear to think of it.

Most automobile companies are having an "event" for the long weekend:

Honda - apostrophe after the s (of course, given how they're clearly featuring Honest Abe they really need to play up the plurality and possession)

How I'm viewing How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother is ultimately the story of lead character and narrator Ted's (protracted) journey from meeting the woman he thinks is "the one" (Robin) through to the eponymous meeting of the mother of his children (to whom he is telling the winding tale in the year 2030). From its beginning in 2005 that's been the framework of the show. We know in the first season Robin is not the Mother (because narrator Ted tells us so in voice-over), so it's all a matter of him getting over Robin (which, as the series draws closer to its finale, in has… in theory—we'll get to that shortly).

When the series was new my wife and I were only dating, and HIMYM was a show we came very much to enjoy. It was probably more for the characters of Ted's friends Marshall and Lilly (and lothario friend Barney). By season 2 we were tuning in every Monday night. As the years have progressed we've gotten married and even had a son (just like Marshall and Lilly did on the show), and we've also kept watching (as I've written about before). We have a long-established relationship with the show.

That's what has made us stick with it (as I've also written about before) even though for several seasons it has not been anywhere near as good as it was in those early seasons that got us hooked.

Swaddle, side, sleestak...

A book we downloaded for after our baby would was born—The Happiest Baby on the Block—talks about the "secret" to stopping babies from crying in a process the author calls the five S's: swaddling, sideways, shooshing, swinging, and sucking.

Basically, that is wrapping the baby up in a blanket in a manner resembling a burrito (to replicate the confining nature of the womb), placing the baby on his side or stomach rather than on his back (which can trigger a fear of falling), making a loud "shh" noise to imitate the sounds he heard when in utero, rocking him back and forth, and giving him something to suck on.

Important lessons from 'Breaking Bad'

If I've learned anything from Breaking Bad it's mostly that I was inadvertently prescient not to retain too much from high school chemistry (all those years ago), so if I ever got a terminal disease I would never have the skills (whether I had the inclination or not) to pursue cooking up decent meth.

Knowledge is power, but sometimes that power is more than it's cracked up to be.

And if I did attempt to get into the illegal drug game I'm certain I'd get myself killed within the first month.

Sometimes our smartest decisions are when we choose not to be too smart.

Not breaking the end of 'Breaking Bad' / How we'll meet the Mother

Tread lightly when guessing the ending.

On a recent Hollywood Prospectus podcast they touched on the inclination some demonstrate to speculate about the ending for Breaking Bad, with only a few episodes to go. It's not surprising that with a show that clearly is heading toward a specific resolution that there would be those who'd play that parlor game of concocting a theory. Perhaps it's a desire to have bragging rights if one happened to think of the same thing that the obviously clever creators did and, by inference, to have been equally clever (at least in one instance). Certainly that's understandable.

I don't know exactly what this suggests about me, and it does seem to defy my analytic side, but I have no motivation whatsoever to try to glean the show's narrative destination. I am more than content to sit back and let it unfold before me. I don't know where it's going, exactly, but I expect I'll enjoy it most by sitting back, both literally and mentally, and going along for the ride.

Arresting the Development of TV Binge-Watching

As the entire internet is duly aware, Netflix released new episodes of Arrested Development weekend before last. In quasi-preparation for that debut my wife and I spent many hours in the preceding weeks re-watching the first three seasons through that online provider, being reminded of how much we enjoyed it back when it first aired (even the uneven third season), getting through the original finale in the late afternoon on Memorial Day.

Between then and the next weekend we have watched... three of the new episodes. And without spoiling anything (as we've been trying that to avoid by not reading reviews yet), our impression is... it's okay, with its moments, but generally unimpressive.

I'm not sure if having binged on those first three seasons raised our expectations for the "fourth," or if we simply tried watching them at inopportune times (twice my wife and I have started to drowse during them, on a warm, sunny afternoon, after eating), or if it's still too soon for us to judge (without seeing all the new episodes yet), but I can already say it's not inspiring us to want to keep watching the way gorging on the episodes from roughly a decade ago did.

Perhaps we are watching them ten years too soon. Maybe then the single-characters-focused, overlapping narratives will seem like genius.

But not watching them all in one big viewing gulp.

Grading the 2012-13 TV season

With the TV season (to the extent there is still a "season") coming to its "official" close this past week, it's time for me to justify that time on the couch by presenting...
Doug's Second-Annual Useless TV Report Card!

(Really. I did this last year for the 2011-12 season.)

Bear in mind that the shows are not graded on a curve (some brief details can be read below); even though the list this year is arranged by grade first (with the highest at the top), the secondary sort is merely alphabetical by title, so the order is not suggesting a superiority of one show as compared to another.

A	Bob's Burgers	Sep. – May	Fox
A *	Breaking Bad	July – Sep.	AMC
A	Key and Peele	Sep. – Nov.	Comedy
A	Louie	June – Sep.	FX
A	New Girl	Sep. – May	Fox
A	Scandal	Sep. – May	ABC
A	The Good Wife	Sep. – Apr.	CBS
A-	30 Rock	Oct. – Jan.	NBC
A-	Parks and Recreation	Sep. – May	NBC
A-	Portlandia	Dec. – Mar.	IFC
A-/B+	Happy Endings	Oct. – May	ABC
A-/B+	Raising Hope	Oct. – Mar.	Fox
B+	Fringe	Sep. – Jan.	Fox
B+	The Big Bang Theory	Sep. – May	CBS
B+	The Mindy Project	Sep. – May	Fox
B+	The Simpsons	Sep. – May	Fox
B	Girls	Jan. – Mar.	HBO
B *	Mad Men	Apr. –	AMC
B	Modern Family	Sep. – May	ABC
B	Suburgatory	Oct. – Apr.	ABC
B	Suits	June – Feb.	USA
B-	Covert Affairs	July – Nov.	USA
B-	Once Upon a Time	Sep. – May	ABC
B- *	Psych	Feb. –	USA
B-	Saturday Night Live	Sep. – May	NBC
B-	The League	Oct. – Dec.	FX
B-	White Collar	July – Mar.	USA
B-/C+ *	Maron	May –	FX
C+	Community	Feb. – May	NBC
C+	Go On	Aug. – Apr.	NBC
C+	The Office	Sep. – May	NBC
C	Ben and Kate	Sep. – Mar.	Fox
C	Burn Notice	June – Dec.	USA
C-	How I Met Your Mother	Sep. – May	CBS
D	Up All Night	Sep. – Dec.	NBC
incomplete	Archer	Jan. – Apr.	FX
incomplete	Nikita	Oct. – May	CW
incomplete	Totally Biased	Aug. –	FX
A	The Colbert Report	n/a	Comedy
A	The Daily Show	n/a	Comedy

And with that, I direct you to the comments pane below to allow you to tell me how wrong I am.

How I Keep Watching 'How I Met Your Mother'

As anyone who is remotely interested in the series the eighth season finale of How I Met Your Mother aired last night, and as anyone who is remotely interested in the series has already seen or heard, there was a surprise ending—which we will touch on—but this post is more general in its scope.

Last week, after the penultimate episode, we knew in advance that the finale would not be the Barney-Robin wedding (where it has already been revealed Ted first sees the woman who becomes the eponymous mother). In the eighth-season opener they teased us with a "flash-forward" scene where it's after the wedding and Ted is waiting at the train station and the woman with the yellow umbrella (whom we know from much earlier in the series is the mother) stands nearby, her face obscured by that item (below).

At that point (back in September) this eighth was to be the final season, so the groundwork laid there clearly suggested in the finale it would close with the continuation of that scene, presumably with Ted and the woman under the umbrella glancing over at each other. We'd get a shot of the mother's face under the umbrella, they'd share a smile as some uplifting song plays underneath, then cut to the kids in the future on the couch wiping a tear away as narrator Ted caps it with the obvious but appropriate, "That's how I met your mother." Roll credits.