Day 86: I'm too excited about returning sitcoms

There ar few things as pleasurable in this world as watching The Office. Allow me to explain: I usually hate sitcoms outside of a few exceptions like The Office, Scrubs, and, I'm ashamed to admit it, Friends. I can explain the two former with ease, but the latter even makes me wince.

I got watching Friends one night with my parents out of shared boredom. They hate shit like that too. But for some reason stars aligned above us – and there was an eclipse and probably some other random crap – and we watched. And then we watched more. And then, later, we even met on who was the father of Rachel's baby (Season 9). I then got even more into the show during a summer home while I worked at the state mental hospital. My friend owned the nine seasons that were available on DVD at the time, and I watched each one...sometimes five episodes a night. I justify this behavior as such: days spent working around people calling themselves "god," watching some seriously messed up events that still kind of leave me freaked out, and getting punched on a semi-regular basis left me needing something so sugary it hurt. Friends fit that bill and left me able to cope with the daily grind of psychopaths.

Scrubs is something I really liked when it first started airing, but then I started college and didn't watch TV that much – yes even in the dorms. So I lost touch with it for a couple of years. Then I started working at the Indy, and I again didn't have TV, but I had stress...and Scrubs is relatively affordable on DVD. Thus I got back into the show and have watched all six seasons available on DVD. Now I only need to get into watching Season 7, which returns before The Office, but I'm too behind to justify watching it just yet... If anyone knows a place I can stream the episodes from I'd really appreciate it.

With The Office it comes really from a mutual appreciation of the show I share with friends, mostly my boys Tom and Karf (Yes, Tom Fite of Tomfite.com. He's also got some stellar Obama shots from Saturday's awesomeness I suggest checking out. Anything else he writes about – like coding – will probably just confuse you as much as it does me).

Tom and I made a habit of watching the show last year (Season 3) until my job at the Kaimin ruined Thursday nights – I had to design the pages for the Arts section, as well as edit the stories...and that meant no Rainn Wilson for me. But then Season 4 premiered and I was free and clear on my Thursday nights courtesy of the Indy printing on that day. Holla. And just when things were feeling good, the writers went on strike and ruined my Thursdays again. I'm totally okay with the strike, I just, ya know, missed my show.

But now it's back. I can again watch new episodes of The Office. It makes me happy. (I'll bring the Rice Krispy Treats™ guys!)

Speaking of TV, I spotted this news today. It seems The Simpsons are being pulled from Venezuelan TV so that episodes of Baywatch can be shown. Why? Because The Simpsons ran in the morning when children were watching and the government felt it was a bad influence on children. So, yeah, silicon breasts and rampant objectification of women, OKAY!, but an animated family's actions are bad...yup... Hugo Chávez made us all laugh when he spoke at the United Nations way back last year, but this is ridiculous. Seriously. I am very annoyed with Hugo right now.

Later kids.