Dr. Jack: Graduation Time For a Guilty Pleasure Show

Some would argue that we are currently in the midst of one of the greatest times in television history. Shows like “Lost”, “Breaking Bad”, “The Wire” and “Mad Men” are of a quality that few shows from other eras can compete with. However, these shows can also elicit fairly emotional responses due to their subject matter, and also require you to pay close attention. Sometimes that’s not always what I’m looking for in a TV show, sometimes I just want to escape thinking about anything and zone out. For that there are guilty pleasure shows and sadly one of my favorites came to an end last night.

When “Greek” premiered on ABC Family in 2007 I had recently graduated college and was working towards my TV doctor medical degree. I was not involved in the Greek system so I didn’t think much of the idea of the show. I only watched the premiere because my coworkers did. Four years later, I will admit it got a little dusty in my room when I was saying goodbye to the students of Cyprus Rhodes University.

Guilty pleasure shows are not meant to be taken seriously and they’re even supposed to make you feel a tiny bit embarrassed when you admit you watch them. They do offer something that’s always nice to be able to count on though; a happy ending. “Greek” was not the best show ever. At some point it wasn’t even all that good. But I sought comfort in knowing I’d always at least semi-enjoy the hour I spent each week at CRU and I don’t regret a second of watching it.

With the show now over I’d just like to go over a few lasting thoughts I have from the series run.

The Weather – CRU was located in Ohio, supposedly. However, every episode showed the student body in beautiful sunny weather and in clothing meant for temps no lower than 65 degrees. It wasn’t until the last season that we saw an episode deal with the fact that yes, it does snow in Ohio. I know I just said it’s a guilty pleasure show and stuff like that shouldn’t matter. But that always bugged me.

Calvin – For all the attention Kurt gets on “Glee” I always thought Calvin was a more positive homosexual character on TV. Most gay TV characters tend to unfortunately fall into stereotypes. Kurt dresses and speaks flamboyantly, likes decorating and is a fan of musical theater. Calvin was a star athlete in high school, pledged a fraternity and dated a guy from the rival fraternity and drew no attention to the way he talked. (I almost wrote “spoke like a normal person” but I don’t need letters to be written to CW calling for my resignation) I think both characters are good for the gay community to relate to, but Calvin represents someone who had been rarely seen before and should have garnered more notice. I’d also like to credit the writers for never having Calvin depledge Omega Chi and pledge KT, despite making it seem like this would happen every season.

Self Awareness – Usually I can’t stand any type of break in the Fourth Wall. I’m a traditionalist in that respect. However, I did enjoy the little pieces of “Greek” that poked fun at itself, its actors and its characters. It was nice to see the show never take itself too seriously as I think I’d be a little freaked out if the writers all thought their work on ABC Family was in line with the works of Charles Dickens. My favorite example would be Cappie saying he thought he saw their ex-fraternity brother on “Scrubs” as Dave Franco (James’ younger brother) joined that show after appearing in several episodes of “Greek”.

Dale – He became one of my favorites from the very first episode and stayed that way throughout. Dale was also the character who grew the most over the series. He went from being fiercely religious and anti-frat in Season 1 to pledging Omega Chi in the final season. Clark Duke also has the distinction of being the cast member to have the most success off the show as he was one of the stars of “Hot Tub Time Machine” and “Sex Drive”, and had a cameo in “Superbad”.

The Flashback Episode – What can I say? The second season wasn’t great and the show was on the verge of leaving the Doctor’s rotation. But then came this gem. I should add I had maintained since the show started there would be a flashback episode and my prophecy’s vindication might play a small hand in my love for this episode. Despite my bias I firmly believe this was the greatest episode the show ever did and included the best moments of the Cappie/Casey/Evan triangle that ended up dominating the series.

Rebecca Logan – Just like Dorothy says to the Scarecrow, I’m going to miss you most of all. You saucy, little minx.

I won’t tell anyone reading this they must go out and buy all the DVDs to catch up. I just hope they have a similar guilty pleasure show they enjoy as much as I liked “Greek”. If you’d like a suggestion, the TV Doctor’s Nurse watches “Pretty Little Liars”. I, however, am not a fan and who is the one with the TV degree here? After four years I’m now faced with a TV schedule absent of a guilty pleasure show. I’m going to miss those guaranteed happy endings at CRU.

Father of the Decade Candidate: Father Vows to Kill Released Killer of Son

Wrapping up on a very serious and outraging note this afternoon.

CRANSTON, RI (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - A man who killed a 5-year-old boy and allegedly ate him is set to be freed from a Rhode Island jail in August...Woodmansee is getting 12 years shaved off of his sentence for good behavior in prison. Jason's father, John, believes that Woodmansee was a cannibal that ate his son's flesh. Speaking to WPRO's John DePetro John Foreman said, "I do intend, if this man is released anywhere in my vicinity, or if I can find him after the fact, I do intend to kill this man."

Ladies and gents, the Father of the Decade. Heard some general debate on the radio and on the news this morning about whether this was the smart play from the father, whether or not the cannibal can press charges for verbal assault, is there a place for this in society, yada, yada, yada.

The animal ate his son.  People understand that right? Why would we expect him to have a rational reaction to the news that the man who ate his son as a TV dinner one night is being released early for good behavior? How fucking good could his behavior have possibly been? That's not a figurative question, I think we as a society deserve answers from the parole board as to which good deed in particular swung them in his favor and forgot that one day back in the 1980's he decided eating a child was a suitable alternative to your normal red meats. This is an outrage and a blatant slap in the face of justice.

Sure I believe in repentance and rehabilitation, I also believe people have the ability to reform themselves, I really do.  But I don't for one second believe that just because this guy may have found Jesus or earned a degree, or scared innercity youths straight that he should be forgiven and released for what he did.  There are just some things that no amount of good deeds and repentance can make up for.  You deserve to be banished from society and never seen again, if not killed.  And short of the justice system taking care of this for us I believe this father has every right to hunt down this sick fuck and slaughter Woodmansee in whatever way he sees fit.  I'm dead serious. No, haha, CW is joking around again. Nope, not this time.

And for that matter the police and all other authorities should turn a blind eye.  I think John Foreman 100% did the right thing here. He gave fair warning to this asshole which is far more than he's ever deserved.  Let the authorities and the public know that when something happens to Mr. Woodmansee it's not going to be a mystery, if you really have the balls to arrest this father for righting a wrong that our justice system is too screwed up to handle then you're going to have to deal with the wrath of the general public and strong distrust and hatred from your community. 

Boston's North End Traffic Situation

Boston Herald - A road war is pitting cabbies, truckers and business owners against each other as North Enders seek to limit traffic on hectic Hanover Street with a crackdown on idling vehicles and a proposal to make the storied restaurant row a one-way street....“This is not our parents’ Little Italy anymore,’’ DePasquale said. “The streets are clogged. Deliveries are being made by idling trucks at midnight. Taxis sit there waiting for new fares while people honk to get by. The double parking. It’s all having a negative impact here.” Taxi driver Ahmed Muhammed, 42, of Brighton, who was on Hanover Street yesterday, countered that cabs need to linger because it’s competitive. “There are a lot of us out there,’’ he said. “One-way street is stupid.”

At the risk of being placed on some kind of no fly list or being whisked off to Gitmo, I think I'm going to side with Ahmed Muhammed here. 

Frank DePasquale can cut the shit, you know why there is a cluster fuck of traffic on Hanover every single day? Because restaurants have their valet parkers double parking, illegally saving prime spots on the side of the road, and pulling U-Turns in the middle of a heavily trafficked street like a bunch of assbags 24 hours a day.  Don't get me wrong, I love eating at the restaurants of the North End, I just thing some of the patrons could use a short 5 minute walk to the nearest parking garage or lot after their veal cutlet rather than having some hustler go and retieve their BMW.  Make the restaurants buy lot space in the nearest garages and validate tickets for their customers. It's that simple. 

Oh and delivery trucks showing up at midnight?  Yea, that's annoying as shit, how about you and the rest of the restaurant owners of the North End wake your ass up and get to the restaurant for an early morning delivery just like 90% of all the other restaurants in the world do. 

As for the cabbies, sorry Ahmed, going to have to ask that a cab stand be set up somewhere off Hanover Street. Cops should be taking notice and ticketing cabs who idle double parked, with a cab stand there'd be no need for that.  First in gets the first fare, and so on and so on.  It works in every other major city, it'll work here if it's enforced.

And there ya go, CW fixing problems using common sense once again.

Boston Globe Compiles The Most Annoying Co-Worker Habits

Boston Globe- We compiled the best and most ridiculous coworker etiquette offenses that were submitted. There are a ton of complaints, from smelly fish in the microwave, to inappropriate work attire, to people obsessed with the speaker phone option. Read on for some more.


Boston.Com took it upon themselves to help me out by researching a the worst and most annoying in office habits, I was hoping they'd just go ahead and write this column for me, but after inquiring turns out they didn't even know I existed, apparently they did this research all on their own without even knowing I was sitting over here compiling my own list.  Oh well, I'll still take it.


And while they did a pretty good job compiling the list (they missed a couple) they didn't do nearly a good enough job shaming the offenders of these habits, so without further ado, a few of my favorites and a couple of extras they missed:


The Nail Clipper - This extends beyond just clipping nails, it goes to the makeup appliers, the mouth washers (yes I've seen it in cube) and anyone else who thinks their 5x7 cubicle is a personal bathroom. You're fucking gross.  There I said it.  I feel like these people should be publicly shamed with badges adhered to their cube right beneath their name tags.  "Here sits Diane Smith, public nail clipper and eye brow tweezer, feel free to ridicule."


Speaker Freaker - Unless you have an office with a door that closes, or you're sure no one is around you, just don't do it.  No one wants to hear your mundane conference call.  Hell, I don't even want to hear the conference calls I'm invited to, never mind all of my cube neighbors' calls as well. In reality there are very few occasions when the speaker phone is necessary.

Microwave Stinker - While the microwave stinker is a despised person, I'll go one further.  In my office we have what is known as the Asian Microwave Mafia.  It's pretty much exactly as it sounds.  A group of Asians who lunch together and dominate the cafeteria microwaves mercilessly.  Armed with a seemingly endless supply of Chinese food leftover filled Tupperware these thugs stake out the table closest to the microwaves each day and proceed to hog the microwaves for a solid 10-15 minutes each lunch hour.  Newsflash, you can put in more than one Tupperware container at a time, and I suggest you do it lest you want me to go Godzilla on your asses one of these days while I'm patiently waiting to zap my chicken and rice.


Cube Vulture - All right, I don't hate this person, I'm just jealous.  I'm never the first person to get to someones cube after they're fired or have quit, and therefore I never get any of the good shit.  I'm always stuck with a leftover ruler or felt tip pen, while Johnny Vulture over here makes off with a carpel tunnel wrist protector and a fancy new printer.  Mean while I'm stuck over here with a printer that jams every 3rd sheet of paper because it's rollers are flat and I can't get anyone up here to fix it.  By about 4 pm every day I just give up and don't print anything for the remainder of the day.


And a couple of extra submissions from CW:


The Eternal Optimist - You know this person, whenever shit is going down, the system is crashing, you're stuck working late, your boss just reamed you and your entire team out, they've always got to add their bright and cheery two cents of "Oh, it could always be worse."  Of course it could be fucking worse. The building could have collapsed, we could have been fired, the streets could be overrun by genocidal maniacs, I know it could be worse you dolt.  But you know what? This situation, right now, not some dream hypothetical in  your fucked up head, is real, and it sucks.  So don't tell me it could be worse like I'm not aware that there are worse scenarios. How about I kick you in the shin and then you tell me things could be worse.


The Eternal Pessimist - Equally annoying in their own right as the optimist.  I have a client who's an eternal pessimist.  Never had a pleasant conversation with them.  It could be 5 pm on a Friday, just banged out all the reports needed, call them to tell them the good news and this person will still treat my call like I'm the Grim Reaper notifying them that all their families have just been killed. Cheer the hell up.  Life is way to short and trivial to be that glum all the time, and frankly your mood is bringing down that of your co-workers. It's hard enough coming to work every day doing the same old repetitive shit for the same old pay without having to face Debbie Downer reminding you just how much your job sucks. 

I know it's odd to hear coming from a guy who gripes and rants on his blog all day long but I'm a fairly upbeat person day to day.  I do this for fun, all in all I tend to enjoy my life.  There's hardly anything in the world worth being miserable over day after day, and your 9-5 certainly isn't in that minuscule group.  Just do your job take your pay check and enjoy your time away from the office.

Teenage Girl Swallows Magnetic Tongue Ring, Lucky to be Alive

Fox News - Doctors say a 13-year-old Colorado girl is lucky to be alive after swallowing a magnetic tongue ring that could have burned a hole in her intestine. Lauren Garcia, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., accidentally swallowed the small magnetized ball bearings that are meant to look like a fake tongue, kdvr.com reports. The girl was taken to the hospital, where tests showed two sets of tiny ball bearings in her intestines. "You have one strong magnet in one loop of intestine, another magnet in another loop of intestine, and those magnets are so strong that they will bring those intestines close together and the two loops joined," said the girl's surgeon, Dr. Saundra Kay. "Slowly those magnets will burrow through the intestines and it makes a hole."

Bam, and just like that teenage fantasies everywhere shattered, while fathers of teenage daughters everywhere rejoice.

If the threat of oral herpes wasn't enough to faze these teenagers the threat of internal death by magnet surely should do it.  At least with herpes she'd only be non-popular during break outs, when you're dead, you're dead.

PS: Some of the things you find during google image searches, you just can't un-see.  I hope people appreciate the things I've had to view to find all these pictures for the blog.  It's going to take years of therapy to reverse some of them.

Ran out of Gas the Other Night, Yep It Finally Happened

White socks bro? Running out of gas is the least of your worries.

One thing you should know about me, I've been trying to run out of gas ever since I first got my license. 10+ years I've been pushing towards the goal of one day running out of gas.  10+ years of pussying out, sometimes mere drips away from absolute empty.  Well last week I decided not to let the fear get the best of me, I went for it all and came up a winner, of sorts. 

My ride started throwing up the warning flags last Saturday, the gas pin was on E, the empty light came on, a short while later the "Distance to Empty" mileage clicked to 0.  "Yea right," I thought. You're not fooling me this time.  So I drove on, Sunday, no issues, Monday-no issues, Tuesday-no issues, Wednesday...D-Day was upon us.  Riding home from dropping off the Maestro after another devastating indoor soccer finish (yea that's right I'm sparing you the weekly wrap ups this session) it happened. Exhilarating, a little scary, and actually a bit amusing.

First off, everyone should know the car really does make the clunking sound, just like you hear in the cartoons.  A couple of engine burps and that's it.  Luckily for CW, it happened on a hill which I just proceeded to roll down until I found a suitable parking lot...seemingly. 

My initial reaction was to turn the car back on and hope for one last trickle of gas...no such luck.  I now had to weigh my options, my phone was running low on juice from streaming pandora and tweeting blogs all day.  Do I call around and see who's available to help, risking a dead battery? Or do I take a short jog over the river to the nearest gas station...I would go on foot.

At least that was the plan. Until I hopped out and saw I'd parked in front of a fire hydrant.  There was no way I was leaving my car behind to be towed. 

Option two, calling friends.  No luck there.  Apparently all my local friends are deadbeats with out cars (cough Maestro cough) or alcoholics frequenting Boston bars on Wednesday nights for no particular reason.  

No big deal, here come a couple of cops walking down the street...I told them my situation, that I'd run out of gas.  Their response, and I quote, "Ran out of gas? That sucks." Gee thanks. Turns out they weren't real cops, just a couple of dude meter maids so I won't be too hard on them, their life is embarrasing enough.  But you'd think as a civil servant they'd be a bit more helpful.  I got them to confirm that I won't get a ticket or towed as long as I stay with the car, what a relief, you've been a huge fucking help.

Now the panic was starting to set in a little.  Extremely low on phone battery and lower on hope I made one last call, again my friend was unavailable, miles away.  He did however suggest I call AAA.  Yes, I hadn't once thought of calling the roadside service I pay a yearly membership fee for.  You may mock me for this blatant oversight.

Embarrassed but unfazed I quickly hung up and placed a call before the last of my battery died out...they would be there in 45 minutes.  It's a Wednesday night in the middle of Boston, hardly any cars on the road. How is it possibly going to take 45 minutes...it did.

When the AAA guy finally showed he threw a couple of gallons in my tank, enough to send me on my way, made a couple obligatory jokes about running out of gas (gee bud, how many times a night do you tell that one?), before having the audacity to inform me that I have to reimburse AAA for the two gallons, it would be $5.00.  I tell him I have no cash on me (a lie), but he can call in my card. He tells me AAA doesn't accept cards for under $5.  I offer for him to follow me to an ATM, he passes.  Apparently that $5 fee is a crock of shit, probably would have paid for his Dunkin Donuts run.  

And I'm still driving on that 2 gallons today, just hanging out below the "E" line again...nah I'm just kidding, I'm not that dumb...I filled up for a whopping $72 shortly after. Fucking Libya.

Smart Water, The Official Water of Jennifer Aniston's Sex Tape?

 And soon to be the official water of this blog after the girlfriend caught me googling "Jennifer Aniston Sex Tape."  Mission accomplished on that viral video.

What the hell Vitamin Water?  If you're going to get me busted googling for naked videos of Rachel at least deliver on the goods. Soon as she saw me searching that I had to come up with some lame excuse of; "oh, umm I'm going to try and get them to advertise on the blog, umm, yea that's it, hey, watch this cute video with puppies and Jennifer Aniston."  Yea that went over real well, I'm sure I'll be hearing about that one in some random argument 6 months from now. 

So that's where we are now, Vitamin Water.  You owe me some advertising dollars and I owe you a pitch. Here goes:

When I'm up late blogging and need something refreshing to keep me hydrated and thinking at my wittiest best, I reach for Smart Water.  Clean, refreshing, great tasting, and sure to keep my brain running well into the night without the wired feeling of caffeine. Smart Water. - CW, of TheAltTab.Com

Dating Video Rant and Subsequent Fail (vid inside)

"Just looking for someone to love, and hopefully someone the right proportion for me to stuff in my deep freeze after our date, discombobulation makes me queezy."

I wish there was a service that could just provided snarky, cynnical people like myself old dating videos. It should be it's own youtube channel (it probably is already for all I know). It must have been a lot easier to tell where someone fell on the hot-crazy scale (above) when people had to make videos, nowadays this guy would have a profile full of lies and a basement full of bodies.

"Height is in the eye of the beholder" ? No buddy, height can be measured, and if I had to guess someone is measuring a straight jacket for you right now.

See more funny videos and TBT at Todays Big Thing.