Wedding Movies Left and Right for Grey's Anatomy Actors

This time, it's Patrick Dempsey starring in a wedding movie as a man in love with an engaged woman, who sets out to woo her after she asks him to be her maid of honor. The projected release date of this movie, aptly and wittily named Made of Honor, is May 2, 2008. This is the second wedding movie in production for members of the cast of Grey's Anatomy. Katherine Heigl (Izzie Stevens) is also starring in a wedding movie this year (27 Dresses) as a girl cursed to always be a bridesmaid and never a bride who is in love with her sister's fiancee.

What are they putting in the water over on the set of Grey's Anatomy? Because all of a sudden, there are weddings everywhere; real and fictional. Either way, I'll be at a showing of Made of Honor sometime in May because I am starting to develop a rather intense crush on Patrick. I mean, honestly, just check out these pictures of him in Entertainment Weekly. Goodness!

Samples from Patrick Dempsey's photoshoot with Entertainment Weekly

Remember Dr. Preston Burke?

The controversy surrounding Isaiah Washington and his gay bashing of openly gay co-star T.R Knight (AKA Dr. George O'Malley) seems not to have completely imploded his acting career, as many thought it would. NBC has decided to cast Isaiah Washington in a guest role as Antonio Pope for the show Bionic Woman. Isaiah appeared in the following five episodes: Trust Issues, The Education of Jamie Sommers, Faceoff, Sisterhood, and Paradise Lost.

So since the runaway hit of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Isaiah Washington has had a career consisting of five episodes as a guest on a show I have heard absolutely nothing about. On the one hand, his career hasn't completely deflated. But on the other hand, he managed to screw up the best thing that ever happened to him as an actor. I still think he deserves it.

Isaiah Washington hating himself for getting himself fired from Grey's Anatomy

OMG! It's Katherine Heigl!

Now, i know you are getting a little sick of the Katherine Heigl news, but it seems that none of my other Grey's Anatomy favorites are doing much with their lives outside of the show. And while combatting an overwhelming wave of boredom at work today, I realized I have been a Katherine Heigl fan for quite some time without even knowing it.

In 1996, I was 8 years old and absolutely crazy about Disney movies. You know, those made for TV type movies that have a feel good happy ending on the Disney Channel? Remember those? Well, anyways, my favorite Disney movie of all time was this movie called Wish Upon a Star, barring the yearly presentation of the Nutcracker Prince.

Wish Upon a Star was a fantastically cheezy movie about two high school aged sisters who both secretly wish that they had the other one's life. One of the sisters is tall, beautiful, popular and has a gorgeous boyfriend. The other is a short, stumpy, super smart loner. While sitting outside one night, they see the same shooting star and wish that they were each other. And it works! Hilarity ensues, but the important part of the movie is that they have a better understanding of each other in the end and eventually even end up liking each other.

After watching the movie for the first time, my eight year old brain was struck by the awesomeness of the older sister and the ability of the actress that played her to go from bitchy popular girl, to completely beleivable sweetheart in one scene. Okay, so the other actress had to go from sweet to bitchy, too. But I find that once you have made a first impression on me, it's rather hard to change it. In all fairness, I should have hated the popular girl for the rest of time because of my initial impression of her. But, no. I believed her to be honestly nice on the inside.

Anyways, just a few nights ago, I was laying in bed wondering to myself, whatever happened to that movie. It was a damn good movie. So, i looked it up on IMDB and lo-and-behold, the star of the movie is Katherine Heigl as the tall, popular, pretty sister. And now I know why I loved the popular sister's character so much. She was the set-up for the character Izzie Stevens. But, Katherine Heigl as a brunette kind of throws me off a little bit. She's barely recognizeable. Which is probably why I didn't realize it was her until IMDB enlightened me. Thank you Internet Movie Database.

Katherine Heigl (pictured right) as Alexia Wheaton in Wish Upon a Star

Of Course Everyone Lives Except for the Guy I Actually WANT to Live

This episode of Grey's Anatomy started out with a weird slow-motion techno montage of scenes that actually happen at the END of the episode. This is absolutely not the kind of thing that Grey's fans have come to expect. It was quirky and weird and almost made me wonder if I was watching the wrong show. But after that brief wtf moment, I realized I kind of liked it. It drew me in. It wasn't the same old whoop-de-doo self involved Meredith voice over. Of course, Meredith's voice over was still there, but much less pronounced and not so much the focus of the entire intro. Kudos, Grey's Anatomy, for trying something new.

Let's start with Meredith. She is working on the paramedic in the upside down truck. Remember him? The previous episode ended with Meredith crawling over the other, dead paramedic to get to him, only to realize that the live paramedic was only barely grasping life. Well, she got the ultrasound equiptment in the ambulance and blindly ran it over his chest, without being able to see exactly what was wrong. She is relying solely on the Chief, outside of the ambulance, to tell her when to stop and diagnose the problem. Evidently, the paramedic has blood in his peritoneal cavity. Now, I'm not sure what the peritoneal cavity is, or what it does, but i do know you are NOT supposed to have blood in there. So Meredith demands an 18 gauge needle to suck the blood out. However, the peritoneal cavity is located in a very specific spot, and if Meredith goes in even a fraction of a degree off-angle, she could clip the heart and kill him. Dr. Hahn, who has been requested to oversee this process, pretty much lists all the ways Meredith could kill her patient, who is conscious (although barely so), and can hear all of this. Now this is the part where Meredith earns my undying devotion. She comforts the now severely freaked out paramedic and then quietly turns around in the ambulance and tells the ever so smug Dr. Hahn to shut the hell up. Yay! I've been waiting for someone to do that forever. Anyways, the procedure goes as planned, with the paramedic telling Meredith that it felt good once she got all the blood out of that cavity. The rescue people come in with the jaws of life to rush the paramedic off to surgery while Meredith crawls out of the ambulance with only a few cuts and bruises. The chief commends her performance and her ability to stay calm in a stressful situation. After that, the day is pretty much done for Meredith until she finds McDreamy and explains that she doesn't want him to date other people.

Unfortunately, McDreamy has already kissed that nurse he's been flirting with. And let me just tell you, I am not happy about this. I actually yelled at the television when it happened. As a result, McDreamy will get only a bried synopsis as his punishment. The computer guiding the needle for his brain surgery case breaks. That icky, slutfaced nurse steps up and says although she only has 3 semesters of computer science under her belt, she can fix it. She fixes it. McDreamy completes the surgery. His patient lives. He kisses the whore in the scrubroom.

Alex's patient, the guy with the heart problem, also lives in spite of the fact Alex clipped his tube while trying to show off for his lady friend Ava, who is sitting in the Gallery. McSteamy notices Ava there, realizes who she is, and proceeds to tell Alex he is in deep shit. But they save the guy. Once at home, Ava tries to talk to him and console him after such a trying day. Alex ends up yelling at her because she is the one that got him suspended from work. He accuses her of playing dress up when she's with him because she has a husband and baby at home. He confesses he has been sleeping with Lexie all this time, and eventually explains that Ava isn't here to talk. Apparently Ava agrees, because she says nothing to his rather harsh speech and kisses him. I can only assume they engage in sex.

Although Izzie was first assigned to this case, awful Dr. Hahn sends her off to do little errands and help with other cases. When she asks Dr. Hahn if she should update the family, Hahn demands that Izzie start thinking like a surgeon and not a social worker. So Izzie goes off to do her other duties and when his wife asks her how her husband is doing, Izzie can't tell her anything because she simply doesn't know. The wife goes on a tear, blaming bad parenting for making Izzie such a horrible person. Of course, Izzie, being an angel and unusually sympathetic to families whose loved one is in surgery, takes this to heart and later tells George that she is not, in fact, hard core. She'll never be Cristina and maybe she's not cut out for Heart Surgery. George tells her its a good thing that she's not hard core. They profess their love for each other once more, but admit that it's probably not going to work out between them. However, they're still all lovey dovey. So I wonder, are they really breaking up? Will my question ever be answered?

Bailey is still elbow deep in Nazi man, as more and more complications arise. This makes her later and later for her lunch with her husband. Since this lunch was supposed to address the issues in their marriage, mainly the fact that Bailey is never home and always puts surgery above the family, the fact that she can't come because of a surgery nearly puts him in a tizzy. George acts as messenger between Bailey and her husband, and relays messages back and forth. Finally, Baiely's husband says this is it for him. He's giving up. During surgery, Bailey claims that Nazi man's incision is kind of jagged, which would require her to pull skin to close up the incision, effectively destroying his swastika tattoo. Everyone in the O.R. agrees that the skin is jagged and that something must be done. Once out of surgery, Bailey waits around at the hospital until her husband goes to sleep so she doesn't have to deal with the fight that would surely arise. Cristina approaches her and voices her indignation at being pulled off of Hahn's services to help Bailey with Nazi man specifically because of the color of her skin. Clearly Bailey could have done the surgery herself and Cristina resents the reverse racism Bailey employed so she wouldn't have to deal with Nazi man herself. Meanwhile, Nazi man is complaining that Bailey screwed up his tattoo on purpose and George essentially tells him to shove it because a black woman saved his life today and if it had been him conducting the surgery, he would have let him die because the world would be a better place without him. Although completely out of line, I say "right on George!"

Lexie is handling the situation with exploded corroded artery guy very well, even though she is literally drenched in his blood. Honestly, the back and forth between corroded artery guy and Lexie is absolutely adorable. Lexie stops the bleeding (at least for a little while) and calms him down. In response to her stopping the bleeding and making progress in saving his life, he says, "well I love you now". And it's just sweet, and cute and sort of made me go awww, when I should have been going ewww because of the gallons of blood everywhere. Eventually they move corroded artery guy to an O.R. leaving a lake of blood on the floor under the bed and a tiny trail from the room to the O.R. Unfortunately, corroded artery guy doesn't make it and Lexie is left staring at the table where his body once was. Cristina comes in and assures her that what she did was not easy, it was brave. Lexie then tells her, she has no one. Apparently, she was sort of hoping for something with corroded artery guy, if her survived and recovered (To be honest, the romantic in me would not object). In an effort to cheer her up, Cristina takes Lexie to Meredith's house where the three of them drink and dance their troubles away. Meredith is tolerant of Lexie, if not nice to her and that gives me hope for the two of them, as well.

In the end, Nazi-man, the paramedic and the heart patient with the worrying family all live. But of course, the one guy i was really rooting for, corroded artery guy, dies. There were some tears. And i can't even remember the last time I cried during a Grey's Anatomy episode. I can't believe McDreamy would kiss that slutty nurse when Meredith is finally willing to commit. I really hope this George/Izzie thing is almost over, because it is barely tolerable, at best. Basically, I loved this episode. It reminded me why I became a Grey's fan in the first place. Of course, sometimes the show dissapoints. But it's episodes like this that I live for. There was no preview for next week, and i can only assume that is because of the writer's strike. I'll also assume that Grey's Anatomy will be re-runs until after the winter break. But I'll keep you posted, as always.

Katherine Heigl Movie News

Katherine Heigl, who plays Izzie Stevens, is quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses. Not only is she adorably sweet on Grey's Anatomy, but her performance in Knocked Up was hilarious as a no-nonsense woman who finds herself pregnant after a one night stand with an immature, goofy guy.

Now she is starring in a new movie called 27 Dresses where she plays a woman always destined to be a bridesmaid and never the bride. Her situation is further complicated by the fact that she is now the bridesmaid in her sister's wedding and she's in love with the groom!

Katherine Heigl is fantastic and I absolutely cannot wait to see what she does with this part. The movie opens in theatres January 11th, 2008. This gives me a solid month to guilt my boyfriend into bringing me to see it.


But in real life, Katherine has no problem landing a man. Actually, she's set to marry Josh Kelley (a singer) on December 23. And apparently T.R Knight (George O'Malley on Grey's) is going to be one of her bridesmaids. How cute is that?

Grey's Anatomy: Keeping you Updated

Tonight, ABC is airing a special encore of the first part of the Grey's Anatomy Event. It seems they too have realized the problem of starting a two part event, only to break it up with a re-run right in the middle. To be honest, you could probably get more than sufficiently caught up on what happened during that episode without this special encore. Just watch the little one-to-two minute bit at the beginning of Thursday's episode, which opens with a very dramatic voice over of "Previously on Grey's Anatomy". But if you are absolutely dying to see what happened, scene by agonizing scene, well here's your chance: Tonight (12/4) at 9pm on ABC, the first half of that blasted Grey's Anatomy Event will air.

In Other News:



Apparently, I am not the only one grossed out by the Izzie/George Affair. Katherine Heigl herself says she has trouble getting into the role. On the George/Izzie plotline, she had this to say: "It was a ratings ploy. I'm trying to figure her out and keep her real." (Graciously brought to you by idontlikeyouinthatway.com).

Ha! I knew it. No way could the writers of this show have honestly thought that making Izzie and George (such close friends that they could be siblings) do the nasty was a good idea.


AND!




I know I'm a little late on this one, but I saw Enchanted, starring Patrick Dempsey, with my mom this weekend. Being a fairy tale lover from the womb, myself, I can't say enough about Patrick's performance as the unconventional Prince Charming, possesser of true love's kiss. I always love a story about a man sweeping a woman off her feet. And if that man is Patrick Dempsey, well, I guess I won't have such a hard time imagining myself as that woman.

I don't do the movie justice with my little spiel in my little blog about Grey's Anatomy. For a real review of the movie, read Courtney Smith's review here

That's all I have Grey's News wise. Check back Friday for a review of the second part of the Grey's Anatomy Event.

WTF is this?

Grey's Anatomy is a repeat this week. The second half of the Grey's Anatomy event will air next Thursday. The repeat this week may be a result of the Writer's Guild strike which started on November 5th of this year as writers for many films, television shows and radio shows could not negotiate their new basic contract with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers), which gets renewed every three years. The biggest issue is over payment on DVD sales and media broadcast on the internet. Because of the strike and the uncertainty regarding when it will end, perhaps the producers of Grey's Anatomy are attempting to stretch out the shows that are already written for as long as possible. But taking a mini break in the middle of a Grey's Anatomy Event? Come on! What happened to the guy with the exploded corroded artery? Is McDreamy really going to attempt to do brain surgery without a computer that is supposed to guide the needle? I'm on a need to know basis, here. This is taking cliffhanger to an entirely different level.

Anyways, the repeat is of the first episode of this season. If you need to be reminded of what what happened, read my review here




A picture of the striking writers of the writer's guild.

Exposed Corroded Artery

So this week's Grey's Anatomy seems hell bent on grossing me out. Once again, its all about the patients, each one meant to shock, induce catharsis and just plain freak out the audience. First up, we have the guy with the exposed corroded artery. He's a young man whose narcissistic girlfriend just broke up with him because exposed corroded arteries just weren't a turn on for her. He's been flirting and noticing Lexie all day and Lexie, the valiant girl she is, has been fending him off because of her almost thing with Alex. Sure enough, Ava shows up and convinces Alex to let her watch his surgery from the gallery so she can swoon at the idea of her lover being a hot shot surgeon. In the gallery, Ava runs into Lexie and lets the cat out of the bag; that is in fact, not supposed to be there but her super hunky boyfriend Alex let her watch. This causes Lexie to go back to the guy with exposed corroded artery and the two of them plot how they're going to get revenge on their exes. As they laugh about the various and sundry ways they will torture their exes, his exposed corroded artery explodes all over Lexie, who stands there in shock. We will have to wait to see what happens with this guy until next episode, as the writers have so generously left us with a cliffhanger.

Izzie and Cristina are in competition to be on Hahn's service; Cristina because cardio is her passion, her everything, her entire life, and Izzie because she wants to prove to Cristina that she can be as badass as Cristina. However, the patients needy youngest children grabs hold of Izzie and begs her to promise her dad will be ok. Izzie, being Izzie, complies and in a singsong fairy tale voice promises that they will do everything they can to fix her dad's "hurting heart". This causes Hahn to all but growl her disgust and Hahn chooses Cristina to be on her service. However, this assignment is short lived because Bailey insists that Cristina come help her with her patient. Izzie is freed up to prove just how badass she can be. But nothing really dramatic happens and the surgery is as ho hum as all the other surgeries featured on Grey's.

Cristina is called on by Bailey who has a white supremacist as a patient and he won't let her examine him because she is black. Since Cristina is neither black, nor white (the fact that she's not white drives home Bailey's point), she is chosen to perform the examination. While examining his abdomen, she finds a huge black swastika tattooed from his chest to below his navel. Her great grandparents evidently died in a concentration camp, which leads to Cristina doing everything in her power to keep from killing him herself. Both Cristina and Bailey get him into surgery so they can repair his lacerated liver, but of course, all he can think about is getting a white doctor in the OR to make sure the black girl and the asian don't kill him on purpose on the table. O'Malley is chosen for that job. While in surgery, Bailey realizes she is late for her lunch with her husband, where they were going to talk about their marital problems because she is elbow deep in "a nazi". She takes a moment to look around the room and declares that nobody better ever call her the nazi again. The present surgeons bow their heads in understanding.

Meredith is dealing with a pair of EMTs trapped in an ambulance after another ambulance careened into them, sending the vehicle rolling until it landed on its top. One of the EMTs has no chance of living as he is trapped in a door with a large piece of metal cutting him in half. Meredith is sent to find his wife, who coincidentally works in the hospital, to give her the worst news of her life. Meanwhile, the Chief decides he needs to bring the medical equipment out to the ambulance so they can see what is wrong with the other EMT before they move him and work desperately to save his life. This EMT has a piece of oxygen equipment piercing his back, which has torn a hole in some vital organs. Moving him without knowing exactly what they will do once they have him out of the ambulance would result in serious ramifications. As Meredith crawls through the passenger side window of the ambulance, and over the dead EMT, with the ultrasound equipment, she announces that they're "losing him".

McDreamy is off flirting with the nurse from last episode, insisting with all his charm and machismo that the two of them are friends and are allowed to talk even though Meredith decided earlier that she doesn't like the idea of her boyfriend dating other women. Before she gets around to actually telling McDreamy this, he finds out that the pretty nurse was once engaged, but it didn't work out because she knew exactly what she wanted and he didn't. Which is exactly the same problem McDreamy is having with Meredith. Isn't that convenient? Anyways, his patient is the girl who caused the accident with the ambulances after she had a seizure behind the wheel. Apparently she's never had a seizure before, but thanks to that tumor in her brain, she's had two. McDreamy's plan is to drill a hole in her head and go in with a computer guided needle to remove the tumor. But wouldn't you know it, right after he gets himself inside her brain, the computer that guides the needle breaks. Looks like he's flying solo on this one.

All in all, this episode was weak for what ABC advertised as "A Grey's Anatomy Event". Sure there is a second half and maybe the plot will pick up and make me actually care about these patients, but so far it seems the writers are relying and shock and gore to grab the audiences attention. And I have to say, it's all been done before. If I wanted shock and gore, I'd watch CSI. No thanks. Where's all my drama?

All This Show Needs is a Good Rod Stewart Montage

The title of this episode of Grey's Anatomy is Forever Young. The residents are forced to relive their high school experiences when a hoard of high-schoolers invade the hospital as a result of a school bus crash. Seattle Grace literally becomes a high school, complete with lunch room gossip, silly crushes and flirting and secrets. Oh, wait. Yeah, Grey's Anatomy already had all those things going for them. A certain freshman English research paper comes to mind.

Anyways, McDreamy is dating. Specifically, he is dating Sydney, which is enough to make every cell in my body cringe. Ok, I get that McDreamy is trying to get Meredith moving by provoking her with this date. But Sydney? Come on. You're supposed to be torturing Meredith, not yourself!

Meredith witnesses this entire date and gushes insecurity right onto Cristina, who seems to be caring less and less about this McDreamy disaster with each consecutive show. She must be channeling the emotions of the audience.

McSteamy is watching the date, too and is cringing for me so that McDreamy knows just how upset I am with this date. Ew.

The next day, at work, George and Izzie are avoiding each other. Remember all the bad sex their having? The lack of chemistry? It's a good thing they can be grown ups about it and talk through their issues. Oops, my bad. They aren't grown ups. Meredith is avoiding McDreamy too, because of the awkwardness of having to witness her boyfriend on a date with another woman. As a result, George ends up confessing how uncomfortable it is with Izzie, now that the relationship has moved out of the safety of the friends zone. Shortly thereafter, Izzie complains to Meredith about the same thing during Bailey's first lecture as new Chief Resident. Ironically, the lecture is about growing up; i.e. not gossiping, having sex or causing drama while on duty. Since Izzie is gossiping about her personal life during this lecture, she gets yelled at. It's so nice to have Bailey back in charge.

Due to the aforementioned bus crash, teenagers are everywhere and conveniently enough, the patients all represent the major cliques in school. There are two stereotypical teenage girls with superficial lacerations. They're there to annoy the hell out of the audience and to remind us all why we hated high school so much. They gossip in the cafeteria and giggle about McSteamy, leading the audience to believe they think he's cute. When they tentatively approach McSteamy, we find out that he looks just like one of their fathers. Looks like McSteamy's losing his touch.

Another girl, the head of the pom squad (it's like a cheerleader, but with more dancing than cheering), has a huge gash across her face and a broken tail bone. This effectively destroys her ability to continue on the team and her sympathetic 'friends' waste no time replacing her and then go about their merry way. All the interaction between her friends and her is done with the highest level of fake sympathy. If you ever needed and example of what a frenemy is: that was it.

Then we have the so called freaks. A boy is brought into the hospital with a pencil sticking out of his eye. The obvious question is: Why is there a pencil sticking out of his eye? And the obvious answer is: A bully put it there. Ok, so maybe the answer isn't so obvious. But you get my point. He is a loner. No one cares about him. No one, that is, except his one friend. The only one who went to the hospital with him and waited through his surgery. His parents didn't even show up. And although there were several high school students crying in the waiting room for him, they didn't actually know him and probably couldn't say for certain what his name is. More of those fake sympathy people. These two friends only have each other. It's them against the whole high school. Unfortunately, in surgery, an artery exploded, his head swelled and he was put into a coma he will probably never come out of.

Finally, we have a patient from Bailey's past. A man who affectionately refers to her as "Mandy". We come to find out that, in high school, Bailey tutored him. He was on the track team and she pretty much did all of his homework in the hopes that he would ask her to homecoming. He didn't. Still, nothing has changed for them. Bailey turns into a giggling idiot every time she has to talk to him and she even agrees to fill out the mountain of paperwork he has to fill out for the hospital. Although several people remind her that patients are supposed to fill out the paperwork themselves, Bailey continues to fall all over herself to do whatever it is he needs her to. He has a heart problem, she saves his life, and still he takes her for granted. This encounter sends Bailey right back to high school and she takes out her frustrations on McDreamy, who she assumes was one of the popular boys in high school. One of the popular boys that would never pay attention to her; She was a smart, band geek with glasses and pretty much got ignored by every popular guy in high school except for the track star. She finally realizes that he only paid attention to her so she would do his homework for him.

McDreamy takes offense to this categorization of 'popular' kid. Turns out, he too, was a band geek, was scrawny and had lots of pimples.

Meredith's dad ends up in the hospital because he put his hand through glass in one of his drunken tirades. He asks for Meredith to do his stitches. He apologizes for all the things he said to her after his wife died and talks about how he wished he got more time with her as a kid. Meredith obviously melts when she hears this, although she doesn't show it. But all of her relationship problems stem from her daddy issues. If those were fixed, she and McDreamy could live happily ever after. But when Meredith tells Lexie that their dad was there and that Lexie should keep a better eye on him, Lexie explodes. She basically tells Meredith that their dad didn't really mean any of the things he said to her because he's a drunk and one day you'll be his favorite daughter and the next, you're an ungrateful bitch. Lexie sarcastically thanks Meredith for advising her to keep a better eye on their father and then storms off.

This whole sister thing, in my mind, is fantastic. They're working things out; learning different details about each other's lives. Although these fights might make you want to climb the wall as you watch them, they are stepping stones to creating a real relationship as sisters. And now, my psychoanalytical rambling is finished.

Secrets are a huge part of this show. Lexie blames Alex for telling Meredith that their drunken father was in the ER. Alex shoots back that he doesn't really do the whole secrets thing because its immature and, like, so high school. Lexie argues that this wasn't about some irrelevant high school secret, this was her personal family life. Then Alex tells Lexie to grow up. He had to start taking care of his drunk father at age 7 and she's 24. She should just accept it and take care of her father like a grown up.

In addition, the whole Izzie and George having bad sex thing was supposed to be a secret. However, both George and Izzie told Meredith, who told Cristina, who told Callie, who told McSteamy, who announced it to an entire OR. Eventually the 'secret' ends up on an inter-hospital emailing system and Izzie storms off to find George and break up with him. After things cool down, they finally sit down and talk to each other like adults. Both agree that they want their best friend back more than they want to be dating each other, but they don't explicitly break up. I'm sure we'll find out next episode whether they're breaking up or if they're going to try to be best friends and boyfriend/girlfriend at the same time.


Some Side notes:

• Callie apparently didn't get fired from the hospital, just from her position as Chief Resident. She uses this experience to convince the dethroned head pom that she can go back to doing what she loves instead of doing all the organizing and stuff that the head pom is in charge of.
• Frenemy (n): Two people who are best friends on the surface, but secretly hate each other and do things that will tear down the other one. Example - Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
  

More of the same.

Izzie and George are having bad sex. A lot of bad sex. In fact, the sex is so bad that it makes them forget that they're in love with each other. I'm guessing the reason they keep forgetting why they're in love with each other has less to do with the fact that they're having bad sex and more to do with the fact that the only time they had really good sex, both of them were drunk out of their mind on scotch. Personally, I never really bought the whole Gizzie affair. It just doesn't work. It's like incest.

Dr. Hahn is still hazing Cristina. Every time Cristina tries to be involved in a cardio case, Dr. Hahn is intentionally mean and downright rude to Cristina. She even went so far as to deliberately tell Cristina that she was addressing Dr. Grey and not her. How immature is that? Hello, you're supposed to be a professional. Perhaps you want to start acting like one and actually do your job by teaching Cristina what she doesn't already know about cardio; a specialty she is clearly passionate about.

Meredith is still having issues with Lexie, but she's trying. She wants to feel a bond with Lexie but she just can't. It's taking Meredith a little longer than Lexie would like to open up to her.

McDreamy has basically become the Chief's wife. He drops off the Chief's dry cleaning and picks it up and the two of them even have dinner and a movie night. This is because the Chief never learned how to take care of himself. He married Adelle right out of college and she is the one that has been taking care of him ever since. Now that the two of them are separated, the chief is like a fish out of water and taking advantage of McDreamy's generosity. (Oh, and the Chief saw Meredith naked when he walked in on the two of them doing the nasty)

McSteamy has a thing for Dr. Hahn. Or maybe its not so much a thing for Dr. Hahn as it is a thing for her surgical skill, her no nonsense attitude and the fact that she wants nothing to do with him. For the moment. I have a feeling that might change. I mean, Dr. Hahn can't just be the mean old lady who picks on Cristina. She has to be having sex with someone on the show.

Callie got fired, although I'm not sure if she was just fired from her position as Chief Resident or fired from the Hospital completely. Dr. Bailey has basically been doing her job for her all this time without getting any of the credit. The Chief finally caught on, fired Callie and made Bailey Chief Resident. And I say, it's about damn time. That position should have been Bailey's anyway. It's good to see Bailey bossing around the interns again. Only, they're not really interns anymore, are they?

Alex and Lexie were prohibited from doing the horizontal bump after Meredith caught them last episode. This is because, contrary to what she says, Meredith does care that she has a little sister. And she doesn't want the local playboy to use her. Even if Lexie is most willing to be used, which it seems she is.

At the end of the episode, we find out that Meredith and Lexie's dad is a drunk, and probably has been since his second wife (Lexie's mom) died. I gotta be honest, I don't really see where the writers are going with this one. He pretty much wants nothing to do with Meredith and Meredith wants nothing to do with Lexie... so the two halves of the family don't really seem to have much of an interacting plot line. Either way, this information is new, although not surprising, and yet another dimension of drama has been added to the show. More drama, more awesome. It's a time tested recipe. Man, I love Grey's.

Seriously?

Ok, so the title of this entry is a little cliche considering it's the catch phrase of the entire show, but really, there's no other response to this episode of Grey's Anatomy. During this episode, we're introduced to a pair of bloody and battered women, both clinging to a wedding dress for dear life. Neither is willing to let go, even though one has a dislocated shoulder and the other one's nose is so crooked, you could mistake it for one of those yellow signs warning against the windy back roads of rural New England. The two have beaten each other bloody in an effort to get the other one to let go of the stupid dress, and neither particularly wants the dress. You see, it's not about the dress. It's about the contest. The last one left holding on to the wedding dress, wins $100,000 to put on her dream wedding. These two psychos have been at it for days, without sleep. And neither will let go now just because they need surgery. Callie, in need of operating on these women, and also still a little pissed at George, proposes that George act as a proxy for one of the women while she's in surgery. This leaves George holding onto a wedding dress for hours on end.

Meanwhile, Izzie decides that she and George are going to have perfect sex that night. Apparently the time limit of respect for Callie has been reached. She describes how the night is going to go and says she'll even shave her legs. Because perfect sex requires shaved legs. Her patient is a heart patient who is allergic to the anesthesia. So, she has to perform awake open heart surgery with Dr. Hahn. Hahn chooses Izzie to scrub in because she's still punishing Cristina for being Burke's favorite for all these years. Izzie is her typically super nice and calming self and does everything she can to put the patient at ease during the surgery. Cristina tells Izzie that she's not hardcore enough for heart surgery. Heart Surgery is Cristina's thing. Cristina's speech makes Izzie all insecure and she seeks out George to verify for her that she is hardcore enough for heart surgery, but hardcore in an Izzie sort of way, not a Cristina kind of way.

Cristina spends the episode trying to diagnose Meredith's issues by consulting a psych book. She comes to the conclusion that Meredith suffers from severe abandonment issue, which is preventing her from moving forward with McDreamy. (I so called that like two season ago. I'm gonna be a kick-ass psychiatrist). Cristina keeps praying for an intense surgery, and when a man comes into the hospital having fallen 12,000 ft without a parachute, Cristina thinks she's found it. However, the only thing wrong with this guy after falling thousands of feet into some shrubbery is that he has appendicitis. So, Cristina is screwed out of another surgery.

Meredith compares her near death experience to the skydiver. He's feeling all clear and invincible, but Meredith tells him that feeling goes away. So whatever he was going to do, he better do it now, while he still can. (Coincidentally, he was going to tell his skydiving instructor that he's in love with her). I have hope that Meredith is going to come to terms with her issues and hold on to her McDreamy. But as Cristina pointed out earlier in the episode, "realizing you have stuff and overcoming your stuff is two very different things".

The Chief now lives in a trailer right next to McDreamy's. And with the closer proximity, the Chief invites McDreamy to a "gentleman's evening". McDreamy convinces McSteamy to join them and the whole episode, the two of them try to figure out what a Gentleman's evening is. Is it a night of debauchery at a strip club? Or is it a night of poker and cigars? No one knows, and the chief is intentionally vague about it.

But the part of this episode that really and truly pissed me off, was when Dr. Hahn found out about the gentleman's evening and made it into a sexist thing. Apparently, she's pissed she wasn't invited simply because she's a girl. She compares this situation to when lawyers used to have country club outings and would intentionally not invite their black employees. I'm sorry, but it is so not the same thing. Inviting the male attendings to a boy's night is not sexist. It's the same thing as a bunch of girls getting together to watch chick flicks in their pajama's and eating ice cream. Sometimes you just need to be away from the opposite sex for a while. But Hahn still got to go to the Gentleman's evening, anyways. I'm predicting in a couple of episodes, McSteamy is going to perform her sex change for her. Obviously, there's a little bit of penis envy going on there.

And now, for the oh-my-god moment of this episode. Alex slept with the baby Grey and Meredith walked in on them. Apparently, Alex forgot to tell Lexie that he lives with her sister. Oops.

Ghouls and Ghosts of Grey's

Every network on television will at some point make a reference to nearing holidays. Last Thursday, Grey's Anatomy fell victim to this pursuit of network execs to bump up the ratings, when the writers crafted a "Halloween-themed" Grey's. It seems as though each new resident is haunted by the ghosts of their pasts. Throw in a gruesome amputation via chainsaw, and I suppose even the dullest viewer gets the hint that Grey's Anatomy is trying to cash in on Halloween. Regardless of the blatant Halloween reference, this week's show was still very very good. Plus, the chainsaw amputation was really cool to watch.

Meredith still hasn't dealt with her mommy issues. In fact, after cremating her mother, she just stuck her mother's ashes in her closet and tried to forget about it. However, with McDreamy slowly drifting away, Meredith decides she needs to put her mother to rest for good. She seems desperate to be "normal" enough for McDreamy. However, she can't figure out what to do with her mother's ashes so she pours them into a baggy and brings them to work with her. You could say her mother is haunting her. (Halloween reference 1). At work, she runs into a little boy without ears. Although he has the ability to hear, he has no actual lobes and as a result, constantly feels as if he's in a Halloween costume (Halloween reference 2). He asks McSteamy, the resident plastic surgeon to take pity on him and build him his ears for free. McSteamy agrees as long as Meredith can get a surgical team to donate their time, and the chief to donate an OR. The only way Meredith can seem to persuade residents to donate their time is to bring the boy around to each person she needs and let him "trick or treat" for ears (Halloween reference 3). Oh yes, they went there.

Alex, too, is haunted by a person from the past. Does everyone remember Ava, the woman who had a face transplant and who Alex fell in love with? Well, she came back. Turns out, even though she left with her husband, she was sorta hoping for Alex to do the romantic thing and chase her down. When he didn't, she went back to the hospital and sort of threw herself at him. Not that she was taking a huge chance there, since Alex is obviously nuts about her, but still. Thing is, Alex is sort of a coward and probably won't commit to Ava, even though he loves her because, well, he's Alex and it's sort of his tragic human flaw to screw up every good thing that ever happens to him. Ava and Alex canoodle in the room residents use to catch some z's during super long shifts, but of course, Alex is a doctor, so he gets paged and has to leave Ava there. Ava gets tired of waiting around for him and ends up leaving. But not without her shirt, which I'm guessing she left as a souvenir, but it begs the question, what did she wear out of the hospital?

Callie announces to everyone that Izzie and George are sleeping together. Cristina is disgusted, but Meredith tries to be happy for them. That's pretty much all that happens with the Gizzie affair this week.

Bailey misses her baby's first Halloween because she volunteered to help give the boy without ears the only thing he really wants. But her husband doesn't see this as a charitable thing and hangs up on her.

Cristina and Callie laugh with one another about how horrible their love lives are. At the end of the show, Callie moves into the apartment Cristina once shared with Burke. Looks like Cristina and Callie are gonna be best buds soon.

A man comes into the hospital complaining that his foot does not belong to him. He asks Bailey to recommend him a surgeon who will amputate it. Bailey responds with "I am a surgeon and I am telling you no surgeon will amputate a perfectly good foot". Instead, she offers him a prescription for anxiety medication. Apparently, this isn't good enough for the man. So he grabs himself a chainsaw and saws his own leg off. That's right folks, this man, with no drugs in his system what-so-ever, held a chainsaw to his leg until there was nothing anyone could do to save it and it had to be amputated.

Another patient, one in need of a heart transplant, is faced with an impossible task when his daughter is killed and he is offered her heart. As next of kin, he has the choice to take her off life support and give himself her heart, but does he really want to live the rest of his life with the knowledge that his daughter's heart is beating in his chest? George is the one who finally convinces the man to take his daughter's heart when he reminds everyone that his father died of heart issues too. He says that he would have given his heart to save his father if he could.

Dr. Hahn, who we may remember from the Denny episode, is brought in as the new heart surgeon. Essentially, she is replacing Dr. Burke. Before, Cristina is aware of this, Dr. Hahn basically accuses her of sleeping her way to the top. Cristina defends herself by calling Dr. Hahn unprofessional. It is only then that Cristina learns that Hahn is her new boss. This should get interesting.

The show ends with a very touching scene. Meredith finally decides to lay her mother to rest in the the sinks outside the OR. Since her mother only ever cared about her job as a surgeon, Meredith figured this is the only place she would be happy. The chief walks in on this morbid laying to rest and helps Meredith spread the ashes. Lest we forget, he too, loved Meredith's mother deeply.

So sure, ghosts were painfully obvious this episode. Everyone's past came back to haunt them. And the chainsaw scene was a clear play for the Halloween rush. But I was enthralled with every minute of this show. And maybe it's the psych major in me, but I just love it when the characters on this show start acting insane. For instance, bringing your mother's ashes with you to work in a plastic baggie. Or, perhaps even sawing off your own leg with a chainsaw. Say what you will about Grey's Anatomy, but I am addicted.

My personal Grey's experience

I didn't exactly get a chance to see Grey's last night, so I don't have a preview for you. Why?

Cause, I spent last night in the hospital. Boy was that ever fun.

See, earlier yesterday morning, I went to health services to be checked out by a doctor. He listened to my lungs and was like holy hell we've never heard asthma that bad. So he prescribed me an artillery of drugs. I filled my prescription and I took the z-pack since the other one wasn't supposed to be started until the morning. Almost immediately I started feel cramps. Cramps that only got worse as the hours passed. And then i threw up, and it says right there on the z-pack package that you're not supposed to do that. So I called health services again, told them my problems and they basically said, um, get down here now. So i got myself dressed, slowly, since the blinding pain in my abdomen was nearly unbearable, and i walked myself to health services with tears running down my face from the pain. The people at health services didn't know what the hell to do so they told me they were calling an ambulance and sending me to the hospital. Alone. I freaked out and called my roommate, Laura, who is a nursing student and she hurried over from target and ran through health services to be there for me. So she came with me to the hospital.

The ambulance got there and the EMT guy loaded me into the back. He told me I had to lie on the gurney. I asked him if that was absolutely necessar. After all, i had gotten all the way to the ambulance on my own the two feet. I just got a look. So i laid down on the gurney and got hooked up to all kinds of beepy machines and got an IV put in. So I rode in the back of an ambulance for the first time ever. Then they loaded me into the hospital on the gurney. First time ever. Once at the hospital they put me in a wheelchair with an place to hang my IV. I got to tell you, I felt kind of old sitting in a wheelchair hooked up to an IV with a blanket sitting in my lap. They brought me into some little room with a computer so some lady could take my information. And then the vomiting started up again. Several times. Do you know how hard it is to tell a nurse your home address and phone number while puking up everything you have left in your body?Anyways, then they let me sit in the waiting room for about three hours. Where I continued to have blinidng pain and random bouts of nausea. During this time it occured to me that I had to call my mom. If I didn't call her and tell her I was in the hospital, I knew she would be really upset. But at the same time, I knew she would freak out. So I called her and did everything I could to calm her down. I even let Laura talk to her. Nothing was doing it. So she got off the phone and called my aunt, who works in the pacU of salem hospital. And my aunt came down in the middle of her shift to check up on me. Family, right. I was finally seen, hooked up to another IV, this time with lots of different meds and stuff for the nausea (which didn't work). Had two nebulizer treatments because the pain was acting up my asthma. And got a chest x ray to make sure i don't have pneumonia. I don't. Yay!

As I was sitting there waiting, Laura was taking pictures of all the different things they were doing to me. Nursing majors, what are you gonna do with them, right? Then some nurse moved me out into the hall because a trauma was incoming and they needed my room. I continued to just sit there, with no more treatments left to take and nothing to do for about another hour, cause my doctor was nowhere to be seen to discharge me.When my aunt got out of work, she came down and got the ball rolling. Turns out, she has a friend in the ER, who discharged me. My aunt took out my IV and i was ready to go.

Thing was, no one could give me anything for the pain in my stomach so, I just have to ride it out until the Z pack gets out of my system. Turns out, that was the problem all along. Seriously bad reaction to the Z- pack, the heaviest, longest lasting antibiotic health services could muster up. And even though the pain isn't as intense or frequent, i still have it and will continue to have it until the Z-pack gets out of my system. Yay.

Did i mention i'm not a huge fan of hospitals, unless i'm watching them on tv?

Ah, there's the Grey's I know and love

This week's Grey's Anatomy was a return to the typical drama of the past. However, one storyline bugged me alot. Revamped storylines don't really hold the "oh my god" quality that I, personally, have gotten used to.

The writer's have decided to revive the theme of Cristina's competetive nature with Grey. Only this time, the Grey is Lexie. Lexie and McDreamy are bonding over Meredith, which leads to McDreamy being extra nice to the baby Grey. Of course, this gets to Cristina because in Cristina's world, all praise is awarded by merit. And since she has done everything in her power to be the best at everything, in her head, the praise belongs to her. Turns out, McDreamy was only trying to get Cristina to lighten up on Lexie and actually teach her, instead of telling her to get the hell out of the way so she could perform the surgery herself and keep all the credit for being brilliant.

The Gizzie affair hangs over the entire show. Callie knows about Izzie and George, and decides to forgive George because "they took vows" yadda yadda yadda. But at the end of the episode, she takes it back. She doesn't really forgive him at all. Callie confronts Izzie and tells her to meet her in the cafeteria at noon. It's all very high school, which I'm sure the writers were going for, since they seem to have found their target audience once again. But has no one else noticed the fractured flow since last episode? One week ago, the show was about being old, now the show is about high school drama and chick fights? Where is the consistency?

Alex finds out that Izzie and George are sleeping together and we find out that his torch for Izzie never really went out. Or perhaps his ego is bruised because Izzie slept with George, but refused to sleep with Alex after the whole Denny thing. But at the same time, Ava is still a big thing for Alex, too. So who does Alex really love? This is the question.

Norman, the really old intern I mentioned last week, accidentally tells a patient that she's going to die, when in reality, she only came in to get moles removed. The patient checks out before Meredith catches the mistake and proceeds to quit her job, put up her apartment, dump her boyfriend and buy a ticket to Iceland so she can start really living the rest of her life. McSteamy is put in charge of settling with the patient to prevent her from suing. After a new, four bedroom house, the patient isn't so upset about the wrong prognosis.

The chief's neice returns to the hospital with a huge lump in her throat, which prevents her from breathing correctly. It's the result of a resurgence of ovarian cancer throughout her chest and lungs. The prognosis doesn't look good and she decides at the age of 18, that she no longer wants to fight her cancer. She wants to go home and die in peace, and spend the rest of her days with her friends and family. The chief's wife, makes this about the baby she lost and sees her neice as the child she never had. She puts the chief in charge of changing their neice's mind, which is not something he can really ethically do, since he's emotionally involved in the case. But Grey's Anatomy doesn't really concern itself with silly little things like ethics. Anyways, the chief lets his neice decide for herself what she wants to do after presenting her with all her options and he places himself firmly back in the doghouse with his wife.

But the highlight of the entire episode is:


ready for it...


McDreamy told Meredith he wanted to marry her!
Ok, so he didn't really ask her. Why would he? Meredith is commitment phobic. But he says he'll wait for her to be ready... with one stipulation. Should he meet someone who is ready before Meredith is, well, maybe he and Meredith won't be so happily ever after.

But, oh man! He wants to marry her. I'm still giddy.


My hopes are high for the rest of the series. I'll make a weak episode allowance every now and then, simply because love like this is strong enough to forgive mistakes. But I'm not sure I'll have to make very many of those allowances in the future.

Grey's is back.

What Happened to Grey's Anatomy?

Seriously, what happened to Grey's Anatomy? This past week's episode was mind numbingly dull. Each time a commercial break came along I was tempted to change the channel, but my faith in the gloriously over the top soap opera that is Grey's Anatomy kept me from changing it, hoping that something interesting would happen in the next segment of the show. It didn't. Izzie spent the entire show trying to keep a patient whom the group lovingly named "really old guy" from killing himself after he woke up from a year long coma. Alex gets stuck with an intern who is old enough to be his grandfather and is just as naive about medicine as any ordinary grandpa. Alex's intern keeps getting in Alex's way and inhibits his ability to diagnose patients simply because Alex feels weird about disciplining an intern that is old enough to be his grandfather. But i don't buy it. Alex has respect for no one. In fact, later in the show, he tells all of George's fellow interns that he is, in fact, a repeat intern and not some genius of medicine. Why would he suddenly have this honorable feeling of respecting one's elder? Meredith's break up sex has reverted to secret break up sex, all in the name of sheltering poor Cristina, who no longer has Burke. I'm sorry, but since when has Cristina ever needed to be protected. Nothing gets to Cristina. Not even being dumped by Burke, apparently. When Cristina finds out Meredith has been secretly sleeping with McDreamy, she milks her abandonment at the alter. She puts on the most unbelievable sad act anytime she's around Meredith, but instantly perks up the second Meredith walks away. This leads to Meredith giving Cristina her surgery, all in the name of cheering Cristina up. McSteamy and the Chief preform a surgery neither of them have done before to prove that 'old dogs can learn new tricks', which crosses all borders of medically ethical, if you ask me. But i'm no nursing major, so what do i know? Long story short, McDreamy comes in and saves the day, and voila, the patient has the ability to speak again. Lexie continues to bother the crap out of me. Lexie is assigned to Meredith in this episode, and in the name of higher education, Meredith allows Lexie to practice an intubation on a guy who has been dead for fifteen minutes prior to his arrival. Lexie freaks out because her first intubation didn't go as well as hoped and the patient dies. The patient who was already dead before going to the hospital dies, and Lexie blames Meredith for not saving him. She insists that a good doctor would intubate herself instead of letting an intern learn how to. This ends with Lexie asking Meredith what kind of doctor she is, and I just want to crawl through the screen and smack her. Why has no one noticed that Lexie isn't strong enough for medicine? Anyways, the episode ends with Callie asking George to say out loud that he slept with Izzie, since both of them already know this is fact. Big whoop. It was entirely anti-climactic. George told Callie something she already knew. And if we're to be honest with ourselves, George knew that Callie knew. So really, what is the secret here? I mean seriously, is Grey's Anatomy getting old? Have all the storylines been done? Say it ain't so. I will chalk this week up to tired writers. I'll even go so far as to assume one of them had a mid-life crisis. But if this series is targeted towards college aged women, why was the show so focused on old age?

Did he say meth baby?

It’s very rare that a patient on Grey’s Anatomy steals the show entirely from the tangled plotlines of the characters. However, this week, the only thing that really caught my attention was the meth baby. That’s right, I said meth baby. His parents had a meth lab right there in the apartment, and the baby was crawling around in the residue left on the floor, the walls and basically everything in the apartment. And the reason he was even in the hospital was because that very same meth lab blew up an entire apartment building. Wow. Alex is the first one to detect that something is amiss with this baby; first because he won’t stop crying and second, Alex’s super smelling powers detected the scent of crystal meth on his skin and in his hair. After a tox-screen confirmed his suspicions, Alex, being Alex, confronts the father about his obviously poor parenting skills. The father, currently high and skittish about being sent to jail, punches Alex out, steals the baby and disappears. The chief of surgery blames Callie, new chief resident, for this oversight. As if she doesn’t have enough problems. George decides he needs to tell Callie that their marriage is over, since he’s now in love with Izzie. But when Izzie is assigned to work with Callie all day, she convinces him to delay the admission for a while. How long is a while, exactly? In the meantime, Izzie and George refuse to be physical with each other until Callie is aware that she and George are headed for divorce. There's an awesomely sultry scene in which they essentially torture/tease each other before Izzie finally walks away, agreeing that its only right to tell Callie before they start racking up the adulterous interludes. But when Izzie acts nervously and continues to drop surgical tools when Callie is the room, Callie puts two and two together and comes to the conclusion that Izzie and George are having an affair. She’s right, but I find it difficult to believe that a few clumsy maneuvers automatically add up to being “the other woman”. As predicted, Meredith and McDreamy are not really broken up. They’re just having emotionless sex. Well, emotionless on Meredith’s end. And even though it kills McDreamy to be with a closed off, emotionally stunted woman, it hurts him even more to walk away. Apparently, McDreamy and McSteamy are buds now. All the hostility is gone and they casually talk about the issues in McDreamy’s relationship with Meredith. McSteamy is even sent on a wingman mission to blow Meredith off for McDreamy. I'm sorry, but what happened to the fist fights? Didn't he still sleep with your wife and then try to hit on your mistress? Forgive and forget, i guess... Cristina spends the entire episode hiding from Mama Burke, who came to the hospital to get her key so she could pick up some of Burke’s things. And by that, she meant everything except the furniture. When Cristina returns home, it’s to a completely barren apartment. Mama Burke is such a sweet lady (note the sarcasm). Now Cristina really does have nothing, when just a few episodes ago, she was about to have everything. And just to really drive home the point, Mama Burke emphasises the point that Cristina could have been one of the greatest heart surgeons in the world if Burke hadn't left her, since he was her teacher as well as her fiancee. Nice lady. Lexie continues to try for a relationship with Meredith. (Have I mentioned yet that Lexie bugs the crap out of me?) But yet again, Meredith refuses to have anything to do with her. Lexie points out that they have the same father. Meredith counters with the fact that her father left when she was five, and that was not the kind of father Lexie had to grow up with. She blames her inability to have a functional and healthy relationship with McDreamy on her father’s abandonment, and since Lexie was a factor in that abandonment, Meredith resolves never to talk to her. The conversation brings Lexie to tears. Poor baby. But the meth baby overshadows all of this. In fact, his treatment is about half the show. I found myself caring more about what would happen to the baby than who was sleeping with whom this week. And in case you were wondering, the baby was treated and sent to live with his grandmother while his parents were carted off to jail. What a great way to start you're life, huh?