Dublin is a lovely city. It wasn’t as large as I had expected, but keeping in mind the fact that Ireland itself isn’t that large, this makes sense. In actuality, the size reminded me of DC. You could walk everywhere you wanted to go, you just wouldn’t necessarily want to. I was only there for a weekend but I got to see everything that I wanted to, so I’m happy. I would’ve been happier if my boots had better arch support and I had packed a scarf and gloves, but I got to go to Dublin so I really can’t complain too much.

Dublin’s one of those cities that doesn’t really have skyscrapers. That makes me happy. Skyscrapers kind of freak me out. I mean, I’m not afraid of them or anything, but I prefer a less obtrusive skyline I guess. Like DC. It’s a fine, stately city and it doesn’t need any of those ostentatiously tall buildings to prove it. The only really tall structure in Dublin was the Spire. It was a nice landmark, in the heart of the city on O’Connell Street, but being in the very center meant I kept getting confused as to which way was which. A lot of the main city-center looks similar.

I did all of the super touristy things you can imagine that Dublin has to offer. I went to Temple Bar and saw a live band perform while I ate a dinner of bangers and mash and had a pint. I went on a Hop-On/Hop-Off bus tour. I went to Phoenix Park and saw the world’s second tallest monolith; I went to the Dublin Zoo and fawned over the red pandas and the arctic fox and the penguins; I took a tour of the Guinness Storehouse and had a pint in the Gravity Bar; I saw Oscar Wilde’s house; I went shopping on Grafton Street; I went on a tour of the Dublin Castle. I walked, and walked, and walked. Here’s some of what I saw:

To conclude, I present my pop culture thoughts on Dublin:

• On the train to the ferry port in Wales, the conductor announced a stop for Croydon. Naturally I thought of Emanda’s British friend Ashley on Revenge as that’s where she’s from.
• Our ferry was named Ulysses. I made the James Joyce connection. One of my traveling companions thought of the Odyssey. Perhaps because of the main character’s name in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• The ferry ride was 3 hours. Naturally the Gilligan’s Island theme song was stuck in my head the entire journey.
• No matter what country you’re in, radio stations use those annoying slogan jingles promoting themselves.

Use this playlist when you’re curled up in front of the fire on a cold night. Listen to it when you want to drown out the storm that’s raging outside your window. Put it on in the background as you work on your novel or while you’re writing love letters. Listen to it when you’re driving through the countryside, in the warm confines of your car. Listen to it on the bus, on the train, on the way home to your family for the holidays. Listen to it as you wind down from the stress of finals. Use it to keep calm in the face of family drama once you’ve been reunited.

Radical Face: Welcome Home

Bon Iver: Holocene

Mumford & Sons: Timshel

Of Monsters and Men:

Fleet Foxes: He Doesn’t Know Why

Deas Vail: Desire

Black Keys: Ten Cent Pistol

Dry the River: New Ceremony

The Shins: Young Pilgrims

The Dodos: Walking

Wilco: Handshake Drugs

Damien Jurado: Ohio

Florence & the Machine: What the Water Gave Me

Radiohead:  Reckoner

And relegated to Honorable Mentions position because it doesn’t have any video links:

• Crush: I Look Good

The leaves have all fallen. They’re a dark ruddy brown, dead, piled at the bases of the trees they used to adorn. I miss them. I miss the brief period where the leaves change and just start to fall and everyone just seems more aware of nature. Strangely enough, the is the first time in three years I’ve actually had a chance to view autumn in all her glory. As much as I love my adopted home in DC, you sure don’t have the opportunity to see the leaves change. But, in order to enjoy the changing of the leaves (leaf-peeping, it’s a thing!), I have to give up the simple things I enjoy stateside, like my football.

I miss football so much it hurts. While GW doesn’t have a team, I have never wavered in my support of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Unfortunately, there are “geographic restrictions” and a 6-hour time difference keep me from watching my team. It’s fine, I guess. It’s one of the really things that makes me realize, hey, I’m in a foreign country!

I’m also going to miss Thanksgiving this year. It’s not that I don’t love the holiday itself or the three days off from school, but huge Thanksgiving celebrations were never really our thing. I will miss the stuffing. And the potential for turning the leftovers into open-faced turkey sandwiches with gravy fries. Mmm, gravy fries.

But I’ve got to suck it up. To make up for missing Thanksgiving I’m gifting myself a trip to Belgium. It might just be a day trip to Bruges, it might be an entire weekend so that I can see Brussels (and find the elusive Pol’s, a place I’ll have to locate on hearsay from my late grandfather). Originally when I came to the UK I wanted to visit Dublin, Scotland, London, Oxford, Amsterdam, Belgium and Paris. Unfortunately with my class schedule, trips like those became improbable. I’ve ticked Scotland and London off of my list but that leaves a lot of open ends, of unmet goals. So, before I go home, in just one short month I hope that I can at the very least see parts of Belgium and Paris. Not too lofty of goals. Simple, practical, delightful.

There will be challenges. I have papers to write, presentations to make, exams to study for. I have to keep myself from freaking out that I only have a month left to enjoy before I return to the states. I have to keep myself from freaking out that I have to wait a month before I’m back in the states. I’m not necessarily homesick, but I suppose if you said that you wouldn’t be too far from the mark. And then there’s my personal challenge: since I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo, I’ve challenged myself to finish, or at least get 50,000 words written, on one of my three current writing projects. Wish me luck!

The town of Lewes in East Sussex has one of the largest Bonfire Night celebrations in all of England. Approximately 60,000 people show up each year. And this time around, I was one of them. There are multiple bonfires all over the city. The pyre I ended up crowding around was easily 30 feet tall. There are parades throughout the picturesque streets. There is fire everywhere. You’ll think I’m exaggerating, but I can assure you that I’m not. I stood on a lit torch. I picked a still-lit torch up off the street. One of my companion’s hair and scarf caught on fire. This is no joke.

And it’s not just fire. Oh, no. Tons and tons of fireworks. Not just the pretty kind that light up the sky for you to “ooh” and “ahh” at either. The explosive kind that leave your ears ringing and make you think you’re about to go deaf. These were a particular favorite of the young men marching in the parades. They’d pull a firecracker from their pocket, light it on their torch, and drop that sucker. You’d think gunshots were going off. Some of the delinquents were kind enough to put their foot over the top of the thing so it would detonate as a kind of controlled explosion, if you will. Others didn’t. As a result, a lot of people’s pant legs got singed.

But my dad taught me to not shy away from a photographic opportunity. So while everyone else was cowering from the flames and the noise, I took jumped into action, getting as close to the parade as possible to take pictures. I’m not sure what, exactly, contributed to my immunity to the firecrackers (I blame it on the four years of high school in which I sat directly in front of the drumline), but I got some good pictures out of the deal while my friends were taking cover. Shell-shocked, I was not.

Four episodes into the season and I can’t help but wonder when we’ll get more than one line a week about football on this show. The only football related tidbit of information this week was that Carson Palmer is thinking about retiring. So there you go.

The first thing we learn this episode is that Ruxin probably won’t be winning any “Father of the Year” awards in the near future for his treatment towards Baby Geoffrey. He lets the toddler throw food around the fancy restaurant before letting the kid eat ice out of a urinal. On a related note, why do we insist on calling him “baby Geoffrey?” Will not Geoffrey, or simply Geoff, suffice? It did for the Fresh Prince’s butler (What up, G?). That toddler is seriously “forever unclean” after the whole “water biscuits” thing but it’s still on par, grossness wise, with Kevin & Jenny’s daughter playing with their dog’s poop last season, so whatever.

Ruxin’s having a rough time being a parent with his wife out of town and Pete dating his au pair. She’s causing all kinds of problems for Ruxin, beginning with walking in on him trying to get a pee stain out of his pants (alas, he didn’t utilize Taco’s “pee bib”). She takes this embarrassing information in stride and decides to hold it over his head, using his house as her personal playground and slacking off from her nanny-ing duties. Because of her leverage, he can’t fire her so he tries to get her to quit, going so far as to allow his brother-in-law, Rafi, to move in. Rafi is so disgusting he’s basically a parody of himself. In the end, the joke is on both Ruxin and Pete, because the au pair likes Rafi, quits her job and moves into Rafi’s room, still living under Ruxin’s roof.

The other plot of the episode revolved around Kevin, who is freaking out because he found a grey hair. It instigates a terrible bout of vanity. He goes so far as to accept a spa visit with Andre. Kevin becomes so self-conscious about his greying hairs that he attempts to dye them. Things go awry when he attempts to dry the dye with Jenny’s blow dryer and he ends up setting himself on fire in the nether regions, for that’s where his grey hairs were. Clearly it’s not a good week to be Kevin. The fire gets put out, but only after Andre accidentally bashes Kevin over the head with a glass of water.

Also of note, Kevin didn’t know that he had red hair. To be fair, I didn’t either.

Parks & Recreation “Greg Pikitis”. This episode is the one that really solidified my love for the show. It had it all: costumes; a party; April and her gay boyfriend (and his boyfriend); the first appearance of Andy’s alter-ego, Burt Macklin, FBI; and a guest appearance by Louis CK. Plot-wise, Ann throws a terrible Halloween party that Tom helps save. Across town, Leslie is busy dealing with her arch-nemisis Greg Pikitis, whom she is sure will end the night vandalizing the statue of Pawenee’s mayor as he does it every Halloween.

Castle “Vampire Weekend”: First off, this episode is named after a great band. Second, a guy ends up staked in a graveyard and Castle makes a Buffy reference. Werewolves also come into play.  Third, everyone dresses up like a former character they have portrayed and it is wonderful. Ryan is in scrubs a la his sting on General Hospital and Esposito is in fatigues like his character from the HBO miniseries Generation Kill. Best for last, Castle dresses up like Mal Reynolds. Check him out:

Community “Epidemiology”: A super-contagious virus spreads across the Greendale campus, temporarily turning the student body into zombies. Boom: genre satire. Also featuring an Abba soundtrack, a shirtless Donald Glover and some Shirley/Chang sex.

First season community episode “Introduction to Statistics” gets an honorable mention solely based on Danny Pudi’s batman voice and Troy’s fear of eating himself if he woke up a donut.

Boy Meets World “And then There Was Shawn”: Despite airing in late February, this is actually a Halloween episode. It was the first parody I can remember seeing, ripping off thrillers like “Scream”, “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, etc. I still remember it as the scariest thing I had ever seen on TV.

Freaks & Geeks “Tricks & Treats”: Lindsay goes out with the Freaks while Sam goes trick-or-treating with the Geeks.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Halloween”: A classic tale, kids dress up for Halloween and get cursed into becoming their Halloween costume. Xander becomes a soldier, Willow a ghost, and Buffy ah helpless 18th century noble.

Have a favorite Halloween episode that I haven’t seen or didn’t mention? Leave me a suggestion in the comments.

Let’s just go ahead and assume that anything Taco-produced is wonderful in the way that it’s actually terrible. It’s so bad, it’s good. We start off the episode with Andre’s “I’m a Man”-themed video. Since Taco directed it, there are “subliminal messages” (animals copulating) that aren’t quite subliminal. Why does Andre need a man-themed self-aggrandizing advert you might ask? Because he’s turning to the internet to find potential dates. “Online dating services: where those who society has outcast get together and ideally colonize another planet.”

Meanwhile, Ruxin wants to hire a au pair since he failed so epically at getting baby Geoffry into a Jewish preschool. His justification for hiring an attractive au pair is so that his son can grow up used to being surrounded by hot girls.

Over at Plot Contrivance Central (Jenny’s Regional Real Estate Conference), Kevin and Taco spot ESPN “Fantasy Football expert,” Matthew Berry. Kevin dubs him the “prettiest girl in the bar” and tries too woo some football tips out of him. This is not unprecedented. Last season Kevin called Terry Bradshaw for advice. After a lot of flailing and floundering, Taco helps him out, getting Matthew’s card out of the deal.

Kevin is very excited about his potential relationship with Matthew Berry but doesn’t want to tell his wife Jenny. Really, though, I don’t see why he can’t come clean with her. She already knows he’s crap at fantasy football. The only seasons he even came close to the playoffs were when she was still covertly co-managing his team. Regardless, he doesn’t want to tell her. So, despite the fact that he’s a lawyer, Kevin can’t lie so he solicits Ruxin for some help. A couple of montages later and Kevin’s stuttering, “What? No!”s are turned into glib fibs.

The overarching theme of the episode which runs parallel to most of the plots is about vulturing. First, Pete’s fantasy football player vultures one of Andre’s player’s points. Pete deems it karma since Andre screwed Pete out of the 8-man mega-trade during the Sukkoth Pact 2011 last week. To rub salt in the wound, Pete later vultures one of Andre’s online dates. A couple of days later, when Andre and Kevin show up at the bar for their respective dates, Andre mistakenly believes that Mathew Berry is vulturing his date. She’s actually asking to be set up because Andre is a capital-C Creep. He proves this by picking a fight with unassuming Matthew Berry, coming on too strong, ultimately punching Kevin despite aiming for Matthew. Andre ruins both his and Kevin’s dates before they could even start.

Pete seems to be on fire this week, ending the episode by vulturing baby Geoffrey’s hot au pair.

That’s all for this week. Check back soon for next week’s recap. What did you think of the Au Pair. Hit the comments and let me know.

But, hey, remember when I was all “I’ll never have the perfect college experience?” and went on whinging about that for an entire blog post? Yeah, well I apologize and am currently retracting that statement. Kind of.

I’m 3000 miles from home and I found what I was looking for. When I was but an ideological high-schooler, dreaming of the perfect college  I pictured sprawling rural campus. I ended up in the middle of a city. Whatever, you know all this. But do you know how perfect the Sussex Uni campus is? It’s exactly what 16-year old me envisaged. Green everywhere, enclosed so you still have a campus feel but surrounded by bountiful (and beautiful) parkland. 20,000 students, but only about a third (all first years) live on campus.  The classrooms are mostly lecture halls, but instead of individual desks, they’re elongated and look like this picture, which I absolutely adore. And, AND, there are two pubs on campus. Yes, two. So close, so convenient, so deliciously cheap. So, no, I’m still not getting to tailgate, or go to football games, or whatever, but I actually feel like a college student. Going to lecture, taking notes in a notebook (not that many students use laptops in class), writing essays, and going out on the weekends! Unlike the States, where I can’t go out to bars or clubs and drink, I can do that here. I can, and do, go on pub crawls. I can now say that I’ve been to a house party. I’m meeting people! I’m getting drunk and attempting to navigate the bus system! And it’s legal! For the first time ever, I’ve been to a bar and had a cute guy buy me a drink (my tiny triumph of last weekend). So, despite the fact that I’m really looking forward to getting back to GW, I’m absolutely loving my time here. I’m really finding myself, getting comfortable in my own skin and just having fun.

Other little things:

• I saw a fox! On campus! On the way to a bar! Everything about those statements makes me giddy. Foxes are my favorite animal. The fact that they run around campus just thrills me to death. It was a fun little surprise passing one on the way to Falmer Bar last weekend.
• I got a job! Okay, to be technical, an unpaid position. But I’m writing recaps/reviews of one of my absolute favorite shows, Parks & Recreation. I adore both the show and the site that I’m writing them for, Off Color TV. It’s a really fun site to troll. I’m now a frequent reader and commenter. Everyone should definitely go and check it out. For those of you who know how much I love tv and recaps, you should know that I’m over the moon about doing this. Unfortunately there wasn’t a new Parks & Rec last night, but there will be a nice new post (by me) next Friday. I urge you all to read and comment on it.
• This one’s a little old, but I organized a beer pong tournament on campus a couple weeks ago. I imagined we’d have ten people show up, but around 30 exchange students packed into one of the dorm kitchens and hung around for a few hours. Not too shabby.
• I’m taking an archery class! That puts me one step closer to becoming Katniss Everdeen. 
• You might’ve noticed that I posted a recap of the season premiere of “The League”. I’ll be doing that weekly. They may be a little late, but they’ll get posted, regardless. It’s just a little something I’m doing to contribute to my family’s fantasy football newsletter. Whatever keeps me writing.
• I’ve been attempting (and mostly succeeding) to keep up with US television shows. Despite the fact that I have to watch them next-day (and avoid spoilers on Twitter) it’s been working out. I figure it’s acceptable since I’m still a social creature and not a complete recluse. Right?

The main story focuses on Ruxin and his quest to get his son, Geoffrey, into a Jewish pre-school. To woo the school board, he holds a Sukkoth celebration (aka Jewish Bonnarroo) at Kevin and Jenny’s house.  Because it’s 2006, Ruxin sends out e-vites to all of the potential Sukkoth guests. He immediately retracts them because the attached Google-Maps picture of his house features himself spray-painting a swastika on the pothole in front of his driveway. It’s not (just) that he’s a self-hating Jew, but in their neighborhood of Chicago, racist graffiti gets taken care of lickity-split; he hoped the workers would notice the pothole and fix it as well.

At the event-proper, the final version of the porno is unveiled. The video plays on a big-screen TV affixed to the garage. Drawn to the commotion, everyone leaves the Sukkah that Taco, Ellie, and Ruxin built as part of a Hebrew Habitat for Humanity and see the film. Andre is, in turn, nauseated and pissed. The school administrator is disgusted bans Geoffrey from the school in after calling the event a “suburban Kristellnacht.”

Andre is understandably pissed about the porno. He had no clue that his apartment had been so terribly desecrated. It does explain how he managed to contract thrush. He couldn’t figure it out since he hasn’t been sexually active in quite some time. Because she is my favorite, Jenny makes a joke, calling Andre’s misfortune the “Immaculate Infection.”

In the episode’s C plot, Jenny returns to work as a realtor. She excitedly shows Kevin her new bench ad which reads “The best realtor in town. Period.” She becomes less than thrilled as a homeless man takes up residence on her bench. Though she looks stunning in the ad, she’s clearly been photshopped, which Taco points out. Jenny forces Kevin to attempt to evict the homeless man from the bench because she feels that the guy is detracting potential clients. In a misguided attempt to convince the homeless man to abandon Jenny’s bench, explaining that he’s simply trying to please his wife, which is especially difficult at the moment because she’s on her period. Of course the homeless guy defaces her bench, using this information and the unfortunate wording of her ad. In the end, Kevin’s solution to getting the bench restored to its former glory is to graffiti it with a swastika, knowing that the government will have to clean it.

Much to my chagrin, Ruxin’s Shiva Ring makes a reappearance when Andre finds it in his couch. Ruxin actually vomits when it touches him, which makes me happy in a sadistic way.

Overall, not much football talk this week. Honestly, I watched a CW show (Hart of Dixie) with more discussion of football than this week’s episode of The League (about ‘Bama and Mark Ingram, no less). That there is just wrong. Regardless, Roll Tide!

Thoughts, comments, reactions? Hit the comments and let me know. I’ll be right back with this week’s actual recap for “The Au Pair.”

Previously on The League: a bunch of friends in Chicago have a fantasy football, you guessed it, league. Aside from the few out of town, thereby off-screen, members, the league is made up of Ruxin, Taco, Jenny, Kevin, Pete, and Andre. Ruxin won last year’s season and is the current owner of the Shiva. Andre, however, had the worst season and is in possession of the Sacko.

We open on a video-forum that the league members share. In said video, Ruxin is exercising his bragging rights by making a not-so-terrible copy of the Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” with his very own “Shiva Bowl Shuffle.” He even went so far as to recruit some of his fantasy league team members to provide backup: Maurice Jones-Drew, Brent Grimes, and Sidney Rice.

On the other hand, Andre, is being forced to serenade public transit users by playing flute and performing as a troubadour while his league-mates look on.

Later, at the bar, Ruxin, Kevin, and Pete mock Andre for his ridiculous hair, which he was forced to grow out as yet another Sacko punishment. This look favors neither his bone structure nor his severely receded hairline. According to his friends, he looks like a “magician who also rapes” (instead of a rapist who does magic) because, for Andre, magic always comes first.

As it turns out, Ruxin shows off the Shiva Bowl ring he had made. It is as gaudy as you would imagine (going so far as to say “Suck It” on the side). Andre makes a Lord of the Rings reference which no one gets or appreciates. Taco suddenly appears, home from his round-the-world trip, fresh out of the Taliban (“worst April of my life”) and a bona-fide television star. Well, at least in Algiers. Taco won a recurring role in an Arabic show, Sands of Passion as an “American rapper/cowboy/cautionary tale”, named Buck.  His catchphrase? “Bang, bang, what’s the hang?” The show included correct, if poorly pronounced Arabic, as well as an alternate ending to Taco’s story arc. Spoiler alert: he would either end up marrying his on-screen girlfriend or become a suicide bomber.

Meanwhile, Kevin’s wife Jenny is attempting to train their new puppy. While reading the training book, she realizes that it probably wouldn’t be that out of the question to train her husband using the same methods: lowering her voice and stomping a foot for emphasis. Because this is a TV show, it works. Normally, I would hate the trope of a wife “training” her husband, but in this case I’ll let it slide. He kind of deserves it for wanting to knock Jenny up just to prove his virility. It seems he’s feeling quite down because not only does he sucks as a team-owner, but his wife managed to make it to the Shiva Bowl. Anyway, Jenny’s training technique, while sound, clashes with Pete’s (a double-click on a pen). Adorably, both methods are reinforced by scratching Kevin’s ear. That right there is why you can’t blame Seth Rogen’s character for assuming them to be in a relationship. They’re just really cute together. Anyway, it turns out that Taco also has his brother trained. He “highnotized” him, or, hypnotized him whilst high.

Before we know it, the league, minus Ruxin, is assembled and ready to establish draft order. They have quorum, so they go ahead and start. Of course Ruxin’s name is picked first. Pete throws the paper back in and they re-pick. In a diabolical plan, Ruxin is made the penultimate pick so the draft doesn’t seem rigged and Andre gets the bottom slot as yet another Sacko punishment. When Ruxin appears, he calls bullshit and totes suspects their scheming. Before breezing out, he tells them the season will be suspect unless he wins. His parting line: “Pile into your clown car of lies, because you’re all going down.”

The next day (maybe? Who really knows?) everyone but Jenny and Andre are at the public library to meet with former league member Rafi who is day-drunk. I guess he really needed to distract himself from the fact that his Mexican child-bride was deported. Rafi’s there to help with the last Sacko punishment for Andre: banish him from his awesome apartment, despite the fact that it is draft headquarters, and film a Seth Rogen-directed porno before he returns.

Draft Day: Before the draft starts, everyone minus Andre, heads to the roof of Andre’s apartment where Ruxin has staged a Bachelor-esque celebration (complete with a single red rose and flutes of champagne) in honor of the new season. Taco goes inside to let the porn crew in, closing the patio door behind him. The rest of the group is, you guessed it, suffering a “Lockout.” While the actors are “acting” and the cameras are rolling, the auto-draft kicks in. Everyone gets stuck with terrible picks. (Poor Jenny gets two kickers and two defenses, both early in the draft). Andre, however, is furiously scanning Fantasy Football for Dummies, and is surprised by how quickly the draft is moving. He, too, drafts a terrible team.

After a brief reappearance of the Shiva ring, which we shall hopefully never see again, the episode ends and we’re left to wonder how bad the auto-drafted teams really are.