Keys to Pop Culture This Week

It's Friday! In fact, it's Good Friday! I hope you all have wonderful plans to eat lots of good food (and candy) with your families and enjoy the Easter holiday. Easter is one of my favorite holidays and has the best food: DEVILED EGGS. Yum.

Anyway, I'm here to bring you some of the important pop culture highlights of the week!

1. Mila Kunis made her first appearance since the announcement that she and Ashton Kutcher were expecting this past weekend at the MTV Movie Awards. She wore black and tried to conceal the baby bump, but we all know it's there. Is anyone else as excited as I am that Jackie and Kelso are a real-life thing and they're having a baby?!

2. In Game of Thrones news (Spoiler alert if you haven't watched last week's episode yet), we finally got some sort of justice for the disaster that was the Red Wedding. It was the Purple Wedding. Joffrey and Margaery finally got married, only for the brat that sits the Iron Throne to be poisoned and choke to death. Now Margaery has been Queen twice only to have her King killed before consummation... Oops.

3. Max Greenfield guest starred on one of my personal favorite shows, The Mindy Project, this week. He was not Schmidt, but a slimey, possibly married guy Mindy hooked up with at Peter's urging. Can we all agree that the addition of Peter Prentis to the Mindy Project has been fantastic? Love his and Mindy's dynamic.

4. The season finale of Scandal was last night. I don't know what happened though because I don't watch it. Am I the only one? I think so...

5. For one of my classes this semester, I am researching Social TV, aka when you post on social media while watching your favorite TV shows. If you are an active Social TV viewer, please consider taking my survey. The survey is closing Sunday morning, but I'd love it if I could get 50 participants before it closes. Thanks so much!

What were your pop culture favorites of the week?

Bromances

So, I started rewatching the SNL that Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake hosted (because, let's be real, JT really did co-host with Jimmy) and it got me thinking about bromances. They're a pretty great phenomenon and I love watching them. I thought it would make a great blog topic: Our Favorite Bromances!

One of the first bromances I remember observing is Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz on SNL in the early to mid-2000s. They were in almost every skit together and their sole purpose was to make the other one laugh. And they also joined up with Tracy Morgan and Chris Kattan to bring us "I Wish It Was Christmas Today," so obviously we're glad this bromance existed.

Now to more contemporary bromances. Starting with the greatest: Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake.

If you don't love the Barry Gibb Talk Show skits, I'm not sure we can be friends. It is the epitome of JT and Jimmy's bromance. Any time one of them hosts, the other shows up for this skit and random others. They're hilarious together. This might be my favorite bromance of all time. Find one that's half as funny as this.

Josh Elliott and Sam Champion from Good Morning America. Unfortunately, we no longer get to watch this bromance every morning before work and school because Sam left for the Weather Channel, but this bromance should be studied in the history of bromances. These two are clearly besties. I truly miss watching this bromance. They're hilarious together. No gifs, unfortunately, but I found this video of Josh crying on Sam's last day at GMA.



And then there's Jonah and Channing. You can't honestly tell me that after watching 21 Jump Street that these two aren't bromatically involved. You can tell that as soon as these two met they were best friends. They're too funny together.

So funny. I can't wait until 22 Jump Street comes out!


What is your favorite bromantic pairing?

Why Grad school is Actually the Hunger Games

After some particularly harrowing weeks of school and Catching Fire finally coming to theaters, I've been inspired to write this blog post comparing the Hunger Games (books.movies/scenario in general) to my short time in grad school.

That being said: SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't read the Hunger Games series, you really need to get on it ASAP. And go see the movies. But read the books first.



During the first week, you actually have stuff due. It's still "syllabus week" like in undergrad, but you're expected to have shit done already. It feels like coming up into the arena for the first time after you've just possibly said goodbye to your stylist for the last time.

During the first month, some professors expect you to already know what your thesis (or project) will focus on.

There's that one person in your program that ruins things for everyone else, naturally everyone starts an alliance against this person. We'll call them the Career.

If you're lucky, you have an awesome professor that everyone loves. They'll help you with your projects and be genuinely interested in your success in school, not just their class. This person is like your mentor and sponsor.

Of course, not all the professors are awesome. Some dislike you for no reason.

Sometimes you feel like you're in a literal fight to the death. With yourself. And the worst feeling is knowing that you've done this to yourself...

But you make great friends.

And you surprisingly laugh. A lot.

So maybe grad school isn't always completely like the Hunger Games, but some weeks it is. I'm just glad I've got my grad school besties by my side to help me.

Let's Talk Hemsworths

So I *finally* saw Thor: The Dark World yesterday afternoon. And Friday night I got to see Catching Fire, which was amazeballs. I can't wait to see it again. Needless to say, I had a weekend of Hemsworth brothers and I feel inspired to share my thoughts with you... In gif form, obviously.

Here's Chris. AKA Thor. He's like classic 90's Brad Pitt. But buff and hotter. And Australian, so he's got that accent thing going on...

Here's Liam. AKA Gale. He's the youngest of the three (yes, there's another one) Hemsworth brothers. Seriously, what are their parents doing right?!

So, basically any time they come on any screen (TV, movie, laptop, etc), I'm like...

Or...

And when I think about how lucky their leading ladies are (Natalie Portman in Thor and Jennifer Lawrence in the Hunger Games), I'm just like...

And I wonder why I can't be so lucky.

I can't even go on. In conclusion...

Do you love the Hemsworths?

Fan Friday: the Battle for the Iron Skillet

Two posts in one day? Three posts in one week? I know, guys, just be prepared for basically NO posts next month. I'm just here to tide you over while that happens...

Anyway, this weekend, TCU's "cross-town" rival, SMU, comes to town to play in one of college football's greatest rivalries: the Battle for the Iron Skillet. TCU and SMU have played each other every year since 1915 with the exception of six years. TCU leads the series, by like 5 games, I think. It would be more if we TCU didn't have a really sucky period back in the 80's when SMU was playing players with cars, drugs, and hookers. What college aged boy wouldn't play well with that incentive?

Anyway, I'm here to link up with Sarah for Fan Friday to explain the fun (and maybe a few not-so-fun) parts of in-state rivalries, especially between two private schools located about 50 miles away from each other that are both really good schools. Just maybe never good on the football field at the same time, although I will gives props to SMU because they've made four(?) bowl games in a row lately, so kudos.

Playing football after your bye-week and it happens to be a big rivalry.

When a delusional SMU fan says their school is better at everything, football included.

The one random year SMU beats us.

When we beat SMU and the Iron Skillet stays in Fort Worth.

Sitting behind drunk frat boys at the game with your mom in the rain...

When it rains every.year.at the smu game. every.year.

That time sMU thought they could get into the Big 12 before TCU...

That time TCU got into the Big 12 before SMU...

I'll say this though, between the frat boys at TCU and the frat boys at SMU, there is some nice eye candy at this game.

Do any of these apply to your college's big football rival? Oh and GO FROGS! Pound the ponies!

Fan Friday

I'm linking up with Venus Trapped in Mars for Fan Friday!

My original title for this post was "Placing Your Hopes in the Hands of 20-Year-Old Boys," but Blogger decided that was too long... but I'm here to talk about placing your football hopes and dreams in the hands of 18-23-year-old boys: aka College Football.

1. When the other team intercepts the ball or your team fumbles the ball.

2. When your really, really good quarterback gets suspended and leaves school for rehab (sad, sad, sadness for TCU last year).

3. When your freshman backup quarterback is better than expected and still gets you to a bowl game.

4. When your coach decides to go for and 2-point conversion...

5. When the 2-point conversion is GOOD!

6. Or when the 2-point conversion is not good and you've wasted the chance for an actual point.

7. When you have a beast like Tank Carder who knocks down the other team's 2-point conversion that would have tied the game...

8. When your quarterback who had to leave the team and enter rehab comes back.

9. Losing to an FCS team when you're in the FBS (I don't know how this feels and hopefully won't for the foreseeable future so I'm only assuming that K-State and Oregon State feel similarly).

10. Seeing your team's renovated stadium complete for the first time.

11. Having the best coach in college football (If I've never mentioned it, I love Gary Patterson).

12. And finally, after losing to LSU... Your team starting the season 0-1.

(But again, at least it was LSU and not an FCS team...)

Do you love your college football team? I mean, I don't know if you can tell, but I love TCU. Like, a lot. Go frogs!

Spoiler Alert

So, I don't know if you guys watch Pretty Little Liars, but I do and last night was the mid season finale and a huge ass bomb was just dropped. I don't read the PLL books, not that I think they've stuck to them very closely, so I have NO idea what's happening. And I avoid spoilers at all costs.

Also, you've been warned by the title if you haven't yet or don't watch PLL, stop reading.

Last night, watching PLL, finding out Ezra is A or part of the REAL A team, I felt how Game of Thrones non book readers felt after the Red Wedding.

I love Ezra. I love Ezria. I'm so upset and heart broken and shocked and I don't even know. I don't think I can trust anyone on that show any more. AND Ali might still be alive?!

I just... I don't know. And now we have to wait for the Halloween episode (which is, thank God, two hours) and then wait for January for the mid season premier! UGH.

Damn, Ezra, how could you?

If you watch PLL, please leave your thoughts in a comment. I need to talk about this with as many people as possible. I'm just way upset. I just can't even fathom what's going on.

Gif Love

I think we've all fallen in love with all these gifs. I definitely can relate to Ted Mosby in this gif. I think it's hilarious! (And while somewhat true, I have hope that soon my life will be headed out of east Texas for grad school! Woooo!)

Anyone else?