To All the People Who Bring Their Kids to Costco on the Weekend:

Leave your noisy, little, walking obstacles at home.  You think they're behaving perfectly?  Bullshit.  If little Suzie wanders two feet from you, she's in someone's way.  Just having kids with you is a nuisance.  You - yeah, you, parent - aren't paying full attention to shopping.  Either you're keeping track of your two-legged Agent of Chaos -- no doubt the result of drunk, unprotected, temporary make-up sex -- or you're ignoring the mini-shit as s/he runs across the crowded aisle forcing everyone to hit the shopping cart brakes while you try to decide whether two pounds of cinammon is enough for a batch of cookies.  Either way you're clogging the flow.

Weekends at Costco are for professional shoppers.  Those with lists and a plan.  Everyone else is in the way.  Junior and Missy are too young to stay by themselves for 2-3 hours?  Lock them in a closet.  Chain them to heavy furniture.  Keep them the fuck out of Costco on the weekends.

And that goes for your addled parents, too.

In the News:

As if we don't have enough wretched ways to die, scientists in The Netherlands and the U.S. decided it would be a great idea to develop a bird flu virus mutation in order to study a mutation that lets the virus transmit easily between mammals, i.e., more directly, from person-to-person.  Try to prevent the next pandemic by, you know, creating a virus that could start the next pandemic.  Brilliant.  And some self-proclaimed genius thought that publishing the data would be a great idea.  Cause no one would take pure scientific research and use it for nefarious means.  Fortunately, someone did think of the bio-terrorism possibility and halted publication until a review of the article can edit out the parts that might literally kill millions if the virus is released into the general population.  Thanks, science.  The world was looking for a more efficient Spanish Flu (estimated 40 million died 1918-1919, according to the above article; 50-100 million according to Wikipedia.  And, yes, I know the scientists were studying H5N1 and the Spanish Flu was H1N1.).

Happier news:

 Elizabeth Smart got married. Personally, I don't believe in a Cosmic Wheel of Fortune (I also deny the existence of Pat Sajak).  However, if Fortune is out there jerking our lives around, Ms. Smart is one young lady who deserves a lifetime of happiness.

Back to the Shit:

Think burning witches ended in the 17th Century?  Hardly.  A woman in Nepal was burned to death after being accused of witchcraft.  Beaten and burned.  In front of her 9-year old daughter.

Because Everyone has an Opinion on Whitney Even if They Have No Opinion:

Stunning voice.  Truly a remarkable instrument.  Her music bored the hell out of me.  I grew up with Marvin Gaye on the radio.  Do not tell me Whitney Houston was an R&B superstar.  She sold a lot of middle of the road, crossover-designed product.  Anyway, R.I.P.

Token Gay Celebrity News:

The absurdly good-looking star of White Collar, Matt Bomer, came out during an award acceptance speech.  Bomer thanked his partner and their three kids.  So this wasn't exactly a deep, personal secret.  And I only brought this up as a cheap segue to --

Me and My TV -- We've Got a Good Thing Going On:

At some point during the last couple weeks, Ms. Stim and I realized that White Collar  supplanted Castle as the show we most look forward to seeing.  Which doesn't indicate that our opinion of Castle has declined in any fashion.  White Collar, especially the cast, has jelled.  The bromance between Bomer's character, ex-con Neal Caffrey, and Tim DeKay's FBI agent, Peter Burke, might be the most entertaining relationship on the tube.

Does anyone else watch Archer?

Everyone has an idea of what constitutes a classic sitcom.  Among my standards, I include longevity.  The Dick Van Dyke Show lasted five years.  Five years of excellence.  That's the minimum.  With that milestone in place, in its third season Modern Family blows me away at how good it is.  Not just how good it is, but how much better it is than whatever might be the second best sitcom on the air.  And not just how much better it is than its competition, but how it matches with the acknowledged sitcom pantheon.

The writing, of course, is superb.  Seemingly seamless at its best.  The show breaks the fourth wall with ease, whether it's speaking to the camera or a character quickly glancing at the camera in scene.  One probably has to go back to The Mary Tyler Moore Show to find a cast so uniformaly exceptional.  [I'm now seeing that this could turn into its own post, which I'm not going to do.  So, jumping to the end of my praise ...] 

Through intertwining the stories of three parts of one family, Modern Family is a departure from the pantheon sitcoms that revolved around one character:  I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Dick Van Dyke Show (sidenote -- DVDS was the first sitcom to show a character both at home and at work), All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Fawlty Towers or a small number of leads with supporting characters:  MASH (which quickly became The Alan Alda Show), Cheers and Seinfeld (whose popularity completely escaped me).  Modern Family has six main characters, none of whom could be called a "lead."  Plus the show's supporting characters are kids (with the exception of Sara Hyland, who is one young-looking 21-year old).

In short, give me another 2 1/2 seasons at this level, and I'll argue that Modern Family is the equal, and possibly the best, of any sitcom ever.

I wonder if anything has popped up in my Inbox yet.