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Nicole

Nicole Sweeney

The return of television brings a new assortment of awful shows to drink to

Things are reaching a new level of absurd. At present, working at my mom’s art gallery (very) part-time is still my only job. I have had four consecutive days off and I am running out of ways to fill them. On Tuesday I actually yelled at my mother when she wanted to borrow my car at a time that would prevent me from going to Cardio Dance Party, which, in spite of my ineptitude, has become the highlight of my week. Fortunately, after the endorphins kicked in, I had the good sense to apologize for being a crazy bitch. I was looking at dresses I really want and it dawned on me that I have come to almost exclusively wear my gym wardrobe. In light of all of this, applying for less career-oriented, lower-paying positions became a must, if only so I could leave the house on a more regular basis. And have money to buy dresses. And maybe even places to wear those dresses.

Another thing that upset me more than it reasonably should have: the realization that mycartoonlife.com is taken. I think I was less annoyed by the fact that I couldn’t buy the URL than by the fact that the site was so unimpressive. If you are going to let users “cartoon” themselves and “share their cartoon lives,” you should be prepared to take that to the next level and offer some sort of awesome comic book-y formatting. Not that I have any idea how you would go about doing that, but it’s an awesome idea so these people should work on that. Anyway, I officially changed my site name because the discrepancy between the URL and title was bothering me. Blah blah blah, you don’t care. I told you, I am running out of ways to occupy myself.

Fortunately television is returning to my life soon, so I’ll feel all sorts of fulfilled. Not that I didn’t love So You Think You Can Dance, and Degrassi: The Boiling Point (I would judge me too), but I need a more complete television schedule. Also, my television watching is starting to get a little heavy on the “legitimate shows” side and a bit thin on “trashy awesomeness.” I was a bit worried that after Gossip Girl became completely unwatchable, I’d be at a loss for good trashy television. Then, while watching an episode of Degrassi: The Boiling Point, I saw the face of my favorite Disney kid, Aly Michalka. Even better, she is apparently ill-cast as Eliza Dushku’s character on Bring It On, if that movie were set in college and centered around Missy instead of Torrance. I was also pretty sure I spotted Ashley Tisdale, but I had to imdb to verify, since her new nose still throws me off (though not that much, because I was right).

BEHOLD:

This show appears to be exactly the sort of trashy, awful, ridiculousness that I was looking for. After three years, I am also willing to set aside my deep hatred for Dawn Ostroff, because I can accept that Veronica Mars was too good for the network that would go on to pick up a show like Hellcats canceled three years ago and I really need to let it go.

I’m thinking I should develop a drinking game for the pilot in advance. A drink for every derisive use of “peppy” or its synonyms. A drink for every predictable snide remark about Aly Michalka’s character being poor. Add a pop-culture skill component: you get to issue a drink to someone else for every Bring It On parallel character you can identify. Of course, this implies that you have friends to watch and drink with, which some people might not feel is a requirement for the game.

Between this and the fact that MTV is doing another Challenge season soon (though the cast list is not particularly exciting) my need to lose IQ points in front of the television should be satisfied. I am always open to suggestions though — what are your favorite trashy television shows?