Their name is the BEAVERS!

Well, I'll be darned. The Tar Heels "couged." Way to go, Beavs!

Good luck to the Oregon State Cassidys in the College World Series finals

Having grown up in Oregon, I am mentally hard-wired to believe this is the kind of thing Oregon-based teams just don't win. Consequently, I think the Cassidys will probably lose. However, I wish them well.

Kristen, Kristen, Kristen

What were you thinking? Do you even have a stylist?

O.K., if this essay had been written today, it would mention that garment. But apparently it is made from 100% truffula fibers.

She's so cute, except when she dresses herself. Maybe she can hire the VM stylists?

What are you the head of again?

Still waiting for the right opportunity to use that line. Sigh.

"His name is KYLE!"

The Kyle Gallner interview podcast is now up at Neptune Pirate Radio. I'll be listening to it shortly. O.K., I thought of that title independently, but I can't say it was very hard.

If you haven't listened to all of their entertaining podcasts, you're only cheating yourself.

Ya think?

Not much going on on the VM front these days, which I'm sure explains the paucity of posts here on our fabulously colorful blog. But our off-season is Season One first-run time for people in the penumbra of America's global cultural hegemony. Despite the amazing persistence of that "sexy vegetarian" story on our news ticker, the ticker has managed to clue me in to how the show is being received in places like Canada, Singapore, South Africa and Australia. (Did I mention Canada? Which, by the way, is better and more enlightened than the United States . . . oh, I guess I did mention them—I got distracted momentarily by the need to invade a defenseless country.)

But I digress. It can be amusing to read the foreign TV critics' takes on VM and what it says about American culture. At times I feel they are as equipped to do this as I am to dissect the different characters' accents on MI-5 (a/k/a Spooks). So we hear that "Veronica spears the sacred cows of middle America with the same relish as the coiffured and couturied women of Wisteria Lane," an observation that makes me think Fergus from the Sydney Morning Herald may have been watching VM but perhaps not Desperate Housewives.

My favorite so far as been a Singapore writer's twist on the "they all look alike" school of cultural sensitivity: "[B]ecause of her physical resemblance to elfin blonde actress Allison Mack, it feels like we're watching a Smallville spin-off about annoying gumshoe wannabe Chloe Sullivan." Yeah, that's what it feels like.


They do have some interesting promotional tie-ins in South Africa: Tell Veronica Mars Your Secret Blog. Not a bad idea. So go ahead and tell me your secret. I promise to keep your name to myself while I distill the best elements of your secret down to a hilarious anecdote to keep us entertained here during the long off-season. Come on, spill it!

How is the missionary work going?

syp and I are proud to report that we have made a conversion, and I have just moved our friend CLD into the crosshairs. Also, I may try to convert my cousins at the family reunion I'll be attending over the July 4th weekend. How is everyone else doing? Mars needs viewers!

It's actually going pretty well. I've got a friend back East who watches, a co-worker, plus I'm working on a teammate of mine as well!

Keith Mars, TV's #1 Dad

MSNBC seems to think that Keith Mars is TV's best dad. I can't argue with such fine logic.

And, completing the symmetry, this blog names Aaron Echolls as TV's worst dad. Shocker.

The Music of Veronica's Life

I have been having VM musical moments this week. It started when I was driving home from work on Wednesday and poked one of the preset buttons on my radio to discover that the station in question was playing Elvis Costello's "Veronica". No longer can I hear that song and not think of the karaoke bar scene.

This got me thinking about other musical moments. I love love love Postal Service (was listening to that CD in the car this morning), and I remember watching the Season 1 episode where Veronica and Troy are in her car and you here "Such Great Heights".

Anyone else here have memorable VM musical moments?

A few Christmases ago I decided I would get my sister-in-law one of the CDs she had asked for, all of which were "New Age" / "Electronica" sort of stuff that she and my brother like to listen to while working in their home office. Generally, not my cup of tea at all, and I made an unsurprisingly large number of comments to people about how I was getting her Moon Safari by Air and how ridiculous all the song titles and song samples seemed, etc. (If you know me and yet didn't actually experience this commentary, you can still imagine just what it was like.) So then eventually I had to get in touch with her to see if she couldn't please, please rip me an MP3 of that track that (I think) is the first song in an VM episode. Or that was supposed to be according to the original pilot script.

Ah, yes, I am correct. The first two lines of the original pilot script:

EXT. CAMELOT MOTEL - NIGHT

Music cue: Air’s “La Femme D’Argent.”

For me, it isn't so much the music (don't get me wrong, I love it and have subjected my poor husband to it repeatedly). It's the yellow Exterra. Everytime I see one I think 'Logan!'

MP3 Alterna-Soundtrack Project

I thought it might be fun for us to collaborate on a virtual alterna-soundtrack composed of MP3 download links. Here are my initial offerings. All are free downloads that I originally found via 3hive.com. Please add others if you like and we'll have us our very own VM-compatible alterna-soundtrack.

"Rec Center (The Kids in this Town)" - Kid Casanova
"Boots" - Noe Venable
"Cursed Reality" - Kid Lunch ("Should you feel compelled to pay for this music, please be aware that the only accepted payment is a nice email.")
"Between the Lines" - Sambassadeur

By the way

In the Neptune Pirate Radio "all the girls" podcast this past weekend, we were invited to email questions about the show that they would then endeavor to answer. Such as "what was in the spy [sic] pen?" They claim that Rob Thomas told them the answer to that one. Something tells me they will be sharing it.

They also solicited listener questions for Kyle Gallner but seemed quite certain that they had already themselves come up with all possible questions any fan could ever want to ask him. I wonder about that (remember the part about me sparing you the finer points of my chlamydia research?), but I'm sure they'll manage without my detailed inquiries about how exactly Cassidy would have . . . never mind.

Next weekend on the Neptune Pirate Radio podcast . . .

. . . Kyle Gallner interview. Cool.

Best . . . cricket . . . coverage . . . ever

In case you're not reading the news ticker, I wanted to make sure you noticed this item:

England v Sri Lanka, third Test, day two
Over-by-over: morning session
Sri Lanka 231; England 139-5"

Always Take Backup!

The always awesome Glark has brought back the Always Take Backup t-shirt as one of TWoP's June Now or Never shirts. This is probably my favorite TWoP shirt that I own (and I own several) and due to an unfortunate mishap in my garage now has a small rip right in front. I'll be making sure to buy another one before the end of the month. Hooray!

Also check out the other NoN shirts on Glarkware, especially if you're an Alias fan. The new VAUGHN! shirt is hilarious and the return of Who's Your Spy Daddy is a fitting tribute to our dearly departed Jack. Sniff, sniff...Stupid J.J. Abrams killing off the best character on the show...excuse me. I have to go back to bed and weep. Again.

And if anyone would like me to make my exciting and ingenious 3:07 a.m. / Logan shirts available again on CafePress.com, please just email me. They looked like this:

Front

Back
Always Take Backup is one of my favorite shirts. I wear it places hoping people will say "I love Veronica Mars and TWoP!" I even wore it in Manhattan last week. Sadly, not a single comment.

Those silly, seen-it-all Manhattanites! They wouldn't acknowledge a good Veronica Mars reference if it poured out the back door of a LeBaron and latched onto their throats.

A small but important quibble with the wardrobe department

There is simply no way that my favorite character would be wearing a pre-tied bowtie under any circumstances, least of all to his own Alterna-Prom!

They seemed like such a normal family...The Secret Closet of Child Abuse and other forgotten developments

Thanks to HP for finally sending me a replacement monitor for my home computer since the original they sold me was a defective piece of crap. Unfortunately they gave me the same model, so I'm sure I'll find myself in the same boat a year or so from now. Bastards. Ahem. It's been a long two weeks.

Anyway, the good news is that I'm no longer shut out from the extensive personal Internet use that my pesky job tends to keep me from, and now I can participate in talking and writing even more about Veronica Mars than I already do on an almost daily basis. I may be obsessed, but that obsession has added another fan to our ranks. He just started season 1 and is digging it. Yay! Only 2 million more to go...

But I digress. Let's talk Mannings. It seems to me that the child abuse revelation about the family was written into the show for primarily two reasons:

1. To give Donut a reason to flee Neptune with the baby
2. Bus crash red herring

I wonder if the writers ever intended on wrapping up exactly what was really happening in that house or if it was strictly being used as a plot contrivance to write Duncan off the show. (And don't get me started on Duncan and Veronica's reasoning that he wouldn't be able to get custody of his own kid. That was pretty weak as far as plot developments go. Almost as bad as the evidence allowed at Aaron's "trial" at the end of the season. Eep.)

Of course, VM may revisit this next season and we may get some sort of closure. Maybe we'll learn that over the summer Lamb finally made himself useful. After all, he "brought down" one child abuser (yeah - brought down right out of the sky!), so maybe the Mannings were next on his checklist. Especially considering that not only was he gypped out of a trial for Woody, but first he lost out on putting the screws to Terrance, then Veronica showed him up (again) by figuring out that Beaver was a mass murdering criminal mastermind (that still doesn't make much sense to me, but whatever) and then Beav (sorry --- CASSIDY) took the scenic way down off the Neptune Grand's roof. No glory for Lamb - that's gotta frustrate our fair sheriff.

Wow. I'm already fanwanking season 3. And it's only June 1st. How will I make it to September?

Ideally, I'd like to see this resolved next season as a small 3-4 episode story arc. Maybe Veronica will somehow get in contact with Meg's sister, Lizzie, and the storyline will fire up again. Only time will tell. I would be very disappointed in the writers if they created a child abuse storyline just for the benefit of sending Duncan packing. It seems, as Cliff would say, tawdry. And very unlike Rob Thomas. After all, VM continuity is usually spot on. Unlike some shows I could name... cough ...cough ...LOST... cough...ahem...

Perhaps the baby is Mr. Manning's, and Duncan knew this because he knew that he and Meg had never consummated their relationship--and weren't we all more than a little surprised to think that they had, given how cartoon birds braid her hair and he's a closeted homosexual? (Hmm, maybe Duncan's involved with "CW"--an awfully familiar nickname . . . and why exactly did Wiedman leave the military? But enough of such speculation and back to other speculation.) This would explain why Duncan really did have to kidnap the baby to keep it from the Mannings. Of course, if this were true, it would mean he was willing to keep Veronica in the dark and allow the other daughters to remain in the Manning home--which means it's probably not true. So perhaps the father is really . . . Principal Van Clemmons.

I went down the "baby is Mr. Manning's" route earlier and decided that it was too far fetched and squicky even for RT. And then he had Beaver be the killer so perhaps we aren't too far from the truth with Mr. M. However, the speculation that Duncan and Saint Meg didn't sleep together would go a long way to explain that dream of Donut's where V looks "loose" and Meg looks, well, saintly.

This week's replay reminded me of the biggest SMP EVER, the flash drive containing all of Meg's files. Veronica resisted the temptation to download them, and I don't remember that we ever found out what deep dark secret(s) they contained, so deep and dark that Meg's parents would, in Lizzie's words, "pull the plug on her." I'll second the wish that next season devotes at least a little time to figuring out the Mannings, including the flash drive, Meg's saintliness or not, and Donut's true orientation.

Oh my god, I completely forgot about the flash drive! As I meekly admitted to MWR yesterday, I have not been watching VM since the season finale, but obviously, I need to do some rerun watching and refresh my memory on some of these vital points. I do agree that it would be nice if the show would wrap up some of these "hanging chads" early next season.