My Emmy Ballot

So the Emmy nominations are going to be announced on Thursday which gives me today to share what I would pick (not predict) to nominate in the drama categories out of what I actually took the time to at least watch a few episodes from last season, and then tomorrow I'll do the comedy categories.

These are ranked in order of preference. Go ahead and share your own picks in the comments. It's not that I overlooked Lost... I just made a decision early on to wait until the series was finishing up to start watching it on DVD so I may start watching season one here pretty soon.

DRAMA SERIES
1. The Shield
2. Breaking Bad
3. Dexter
4. Mad Men
5. True Blood

DRAMA ACTRESS
1. January Jones "Mad Men"
2. Anna Paquin "True Blood"
3. Elisabeth Moss "Mad Men"
4. Mary McDonnell "Battlestar Galactica"
5. Glenn Close "Damages"

DRAMA ACTOR
1. Michael C. Hall "Dexter"
2. Bryan Cranston "Breaking Bad"
3. Michael Chiklis "The Shield"
4. Damian Lewis "Life"
5. Johnny Lee Miller "Eli Stone"

DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. Anna Gunn "Breaking Bad"
2. Christina Hendricks "Mad Men"
3. Katee Sackhoff "Battlestar Galactica"
4. Roma Maffia "Nip/Tuck"
5. CCH Punder "The Shield"

DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. Aaron Paul "Breaking Bad"
2. Walton Goggins "The Shield"
3. Zachary Quinto "Heroes"
4. William Hurt "Damages"
5. Nelsan Ellis "True Blood"

DRAMA GUEST ACTRESS
1. Frances Fisher "The Shield"
2. Lizzy Caplan "True Blood"
3. Sigourney Weaver "Eli Stone"
4. Krysten Ritter "Breaking Bad"
5. Taraji P Henson "Eli Stone"

DRAMA GUEST ACTOR
1. Michael J Fox "Rescue Me"
2. Bob Odenkirk "Breaking Bad"
3. Zeljko Ivanek "Heroes"
4. Stephen Root "True Blood'
5. Colin Hanks "Mad Men"

DRAMA DIRECTING
1. Michelle Maxwell MacLaren "Breaking Bad" (4 Days Out)
2. Clark Johnson "The Shield"(Family Meeting)
3. Nancy Oliver "True Blood" (To Love is to Bury)
4. Allan Arkush "Heroes" (I Am Sylar)
5. Matthew Weiner "Mad Men" (Meditations in an Emergency)

DRAMA WRITING
1. Vince Gilligan and J Roberts "Breaking Bad" (Peekaboo)
2. Shawn Ryan "The Shield" (Family Meeting)
3. Michael Angell "Battlestar Galactica" (Blood on the Scales)
4. Bryan Fuller "Heroes" (Cold Snap)
5. Rand Ravich "Life" (One)

Top 5: Harry Potter Characters We'd Most Like to Snog

As I mentioned yesterday, it's Harry Potter week! Liz and I kicked off the celebration by crushing all comers at our local pub trivia contest where this week's quiz finished with an all Harry Potter section (it was really too easy). And here at The Watchword, I thought we'd start things off as we usually do...lusting after people who don't actually exist. Here now are the 5 dreamiest Potter characters (as determined by me):

Oliver Wood - Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team in the first 3 books, Wood can be a bit of a task master, but his good looks and Scottish accent make up for all his faults.

Viktor Krum - I'm a sucker for Eastern European dudes, even if they are a bit dim. Hailing from rival school Durmstrang, Krum is a superstar in the Quiddich world before he's even out of school. Tall, dark, handsome and athletic. Yes, please! (Bonus points for the adorable way he utters Hermionie's name.)

Cedric Diggory - The king of Hogwarts during the Goblet of Fire, every dame wants to date Cedric and every dude wants to be him. Naturally, like all dudes, he has an Asian fetish. It doesn't hurt that he's played by dreamy Robert Pattinson in the movies (I like his hair in that picture. Shut up). Gone too soon. RIP!!!

Remus Lupin - He's a werewolf. Does it get sexier than that?

Bill Weasley - Reportedly, the dreamiest of the Weasley clan, Bill works with dragons and bags Fleur Delacour. Plus, he's a ginger. You didn't think I'd make a list and not include a ginger, did you?

Your own picks in the comments.

Don't look at me like that. You know I love you both, too.

Happy Harry Potter Week!!!

In case you live under a rock and have not been ogling Daniel Radcliffe and/or Emma Watson (depending on your persuasion) for the past few weeks, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie comes out this week! We here at The Watchword are serious fans so we're dedicating the entire week to the magical peeps at Hogwarts. Get ready! More to follow...

James Franco's Rejected UCLA Commencement Speech

James Franco's Rejected UCLA Commencement Speech from James Franco

OMG! R.L. Stine is my favorite author, too!

Friday is for random stories

This one time I was up at the San Diego County building in Kearny Mesa for something to do with work. Now, San Diego County is kind of a hotbed of aviation. Charles Lindbergh's plane was built here, and he trained for his cross Atlantic flight here. Since the weather is usually so nice, a lot of people still fly small private planes here, and plus, we have a huge military presence, so its not odd to look up in the sky and see an experimental Navy jet or a Cessna flying around.


But this one time in Kearny Mesa, I saw a weird convergence of the two: A pair of Marine or Navy jets were up there, doing the Top Gun thing where they're flying together, doing the same manuevers, looking like they might crash into each other at any second; and then also, up in the wild blue yonder, was this little red bi-plane, like the kind you see in old photographs with flappers dancing on the wings.


I was staring at it, and this parking lot attendant came over. She was an older woman, maybe in her 50s or 60s, really short and fairly squat, and she saw me looking at the planes and starts giving me the rundown on everything they have been doing for the last 20 minutes. "The jets were up there and then the bi-plane came in and it was following them for a while, then it hung back" etc., etc., etc. Not knowing a damn thing about aviation, and to be honest, not totally caring, I gave her a polite, "Yeah, it's pretty cool."


Then she tells me, "I live around here and I see the planes all the time and I love it. A lot of people complain about the noise but I tell them, 'That's the sound of freedom right there.'"


"Indeed," I told her.


Indeed.

Top 5: Movies for Summer Vacation

I obviously don't get summer vacation anymore and my life is all the worse for it. The worst part is I work very near one of the best beaches in the country (IMO) and every day I see tons of tourists and locals enjoying the sand and surf and sunshine and I become very jealous. But this post isn't about me and my irrational jealously. It's about me and the movies I'd watch, over and over again, on summer vacation.

1. Summer School - Dreamy Mark Harmon stars as Mr. Shoop, a gym teacher who's forced to teach summer school because the dbag principal is jealous of his hotness. Of course, summer school is usually full of either losers (see: this movie) or overachieving dorks who want to get lesser classes out of the way so they can take more AP classes during the year (see: my life). Anyway, the students don't want to learn so Mr. Shoop bribes them with favors (he teaches one girl to drive, let's some other degenerates throw a party at his awesome beach house, allows Allison from Melrose Place to crash at his place and start acting like a crazy girlfriend). I think you can see this movie is pretty much the best thing ever. And look at the poster! A dog! In sunglasses! It doesn't get better than that, kids.

2. Field of Dreams - If you haven't seen this, I'm pretty sure that makes you a terrorist.

3. IT/The Stand - These made-for-TV Stephen King miniseries were perfect because they took up most of the day and that's what summer vacation is all about. Spending as little time socializing and running around outside as possible. Amirite?!?!

4. Clue - This is one of my all time favorites. I enjoyed rewatching over and over again in an attempt to spot any inconsistencies between the three endings. I never found any.

5. JFK - Another movie which took up most of the day and another movie so full of detail it seemed there was always something new to discover. I may or may not have also had a serious thing for Kevin Costner. Ah, the follies of youth!

What about you? How did you spend your summer days back when you weren't stuck in an office, enduring the slow soul suck?

Reblog!

I like this:
Via a bunch of sites

Bye bye, MJ

This is pretty much what I want my funeral to be like, complete with a program, red carpet, people dressed as me, speeches by Al Sharpton and Brooke Shields, and at least one performance by Usher. I don't want it in the Staples Center though, I think that's a little over the top.

An Open Letter to Kelly Clarkson

Rob Pattinson has nothing to do with this post, but I saw him and thought, "Why the hell not?"

Dear Kelly,

Thank you for entertaining me so very much at your concert last night. Sure, I felt a little out of place, being a music snob of sorts and without a gay boyfriend at my side (I'm between such companions at the moment), but I want you to know I sang heartily and totally did your jumping up and down dance when you sang "Since You've Been Gone."

I'm writing to let you know we should pretty much be best friends. We have so much in common! When you joked about your mic pack falling out of your back pocket because you have a big butt, I though, "OMG! I have a big butt, too!" When you told everyone the confessional nature of "Because of You" makes you want to "barf," I thought, "No way! I use the word 'barf' All. The. Time!" and when you covered Janet Jackson's "If" I realized I totally love to dance to that song and may or may not still know the wacky dance moves from the music video!

Needless to say, as your BFF, I promise to never upstage you when you make me one of your backup singers, help you with your psuedo-tragic fashion sense (Seriously. Enough with the terrible black bell-bottoms!), stick up for you when people say you're a lesbian because you don't have a boyfriend (The Stars: They're Just Like Us!) and kill whomever runs Google images for suggesting "Kelly Clarkson fat" when I Google image your name (sometimes, I really hate this universe). So, yeah. Call me Kelly because my life kinda sucks without you.

xoxo,

Red

Happy Birthday America!

Only I could get sick on the Fourth of July. Needless to say, I don't care. Liz and I will be celebrating our freedom in traditional fashion at our favorite watering hole. Hopefully, you're doing something similar. Be safe! And have fun! You never know when an impromptu dance party may happen upon you!

I'll be somewhere just left of this photo watching fireworks tonight. God bless The Diego!