Four

Earlier this evening I settled down to watch Scrubs and Committed. A commercial came on for Cialis shortly after the Scrubs episode began. We've been bombarded with increasing pharmaceutical ads the last few years, for everything from allergies to depression to indigestion, and the list of side effects spoken rapidly by the announcer at the end of these ads seems to get longer and longer(no pun intended). The side effects seem often to be the very thing the drug is supposed to treat, too. An allergy medication may cause sinus problems. A pill for indigestion may cause nausea and upset stomach. As for the mood these ads create, the stand-up routine sampled in ”Underwear goes Inside the Pants” hits the nail on the head. At any rate, the warning at the end of the Cialis ad I saw cautioned that ”erections lasting more than four hours require immediate medical attention.” FOUR HOURS. Be careful what you wish for, eh? My dad was watching with me but is hard of hearing, and often naps during commercials. I didn't dare glance over to see if he'd heard what was just said. I felt uncomfortable enough as a kid once I found out what feminine hygiene products were. I'd be watching with my folks and a “do you ever feel unfresh?” commercial would come on, and I totally had to avoid eye contact and zone out.

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Scrubs was great as usual, the perfect blend of crazy humor and the sort of drama we all go through. The ability to laugh in the face of pain and hardship is important, and that show definitely serves an important purpose. Committed continues to be my favorite new sitcom, and I hope it sticks around. There was a great sequence tonight in which one character tries to return keys to another character by throwing them to him across a busy New York street. Just as she throws them, a cab drives by with an open window and they land in the back seat. He tries to catch the cab to no avail. Later in the episode he sees her to a cab and after she gets in she finds the keys. She calls out to him and tosses the keys out the window, and INTO THE OPEN WINDOW OF ANOTHER CAB DRIVING BY. Damn funny stuff.

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I mentioned yesterday that I'd gone to see Elektra with Curt. As an added bonus, I got to see the Fantastic Four trailer, which is now online. This movie has a LOT of potential and the effects look AWESOME. I still think they screwed up the Thing's head but his body had a lot more craggy definition than in the early clips and stills I'd seen. Besides, if this is an origin story, he does look closer to how he did in the first few issues of the comic before he mutated further. So I'm willing to give this a chance. Right now, based on the trailer, this could be the next Hulk(bad) or the next X-men(good). I will say that though I found the wording at the beginning of the trailer amateur and student-filmish, the APC tune that comes in halfway through really got me stoked. I've read some comments that felt metal inappropriate for sci fi(which is what the FF is as much as a superhero tale), but I thought there was a good blend between the traditional ”Stargate SG1”-ish music and the metal for the action sequences. Right now, July seems too far away, and I don't just mean because it's about FOUR degrees outside right now....

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Seriously, though. FOUR hours?!