Just once I’d like to get in on something from the beginning, instead of a year and a half after everyone else. I’d also like it to be aimed roughly around my age range. Until then, here is my book report on “Veronica Mars.”

“Veronica Mars” is a show about a high school student in her mid 20s who solves crimes for her dad’s detective agency while investigating her best friend’s death and the disappearance of her mom. She used to be popular but now she is not after her dad accused her ex-boyfriend’s father of killing his daughter, who was her best friend and her ex-boyfriend’s sister. She has a pet pit bull and a friend who is black and another friend who is Latino. The biggest mystery is how the UPN managed to land a series this good.

Seriously, it’s just solid. It’s got a lot of buzz around it on the internets and in Entertainment Weekly, and you can kind of see how solid it is by the trouble its supporters have in describing it. I’ve seen it compared to Nancy Drew, Twin Peaks, Peyton Place, The Outsiders, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Philip Marlowe, the OC, Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson’s Creek, Colombo, and Star Trek. I made up the last one, just because it seems like it needs more of a “hook,” when it really should just be able to stand on being a very well-written and well-acted show. With a lead actress who’s really just perfect with the part and is also pretty hot. Which I don’t feel any guilt pointing out, because I’m just not buying her as a 17 year old for one second. And I’m the guy who didn’t believe that the kids on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” were around my age.

Like every other series these days, it does the self-contained episodes thing with a bigger storyline going on in the background. Unlike other series, it actually handles both well. And the thing that really surprises me is that it almost never panders. The dialogue isn’t affected, the mysteries are neither too convoluted nor too obvious, the plots aren’t predictable, and both the humor and the drama genuinely work 99% of the time. I thought I had a major series plot point telegraphed, and when they revealed that I was right, they pointed out how everyone was foolish for not realizing it before and put an interesting spin on it in the next episode.

I’m genuinely impressed. Not blown away by it, but you don’t really need to be. It just does its thing and does it very well. And now I’m intrigued to know how the first season ends.

I’m going to have to stop watching extra features on DVDs and the like, because I keep running into situations where I see somebody whose work I like a lot, but get the feeling that if I met them in person I’d just never stop wanting to smack them around.

I already bitched about David Cross earlier, but left it kind of vague. Mac and I were watching a little bit of his “stand-up” routine, only enough to see the bit where he said he was pro gay marriage and got a huge round of applause from the crowd. That’s what crystallized what it is that bugs me — it’s not that he’s Varney, it’s that he’s so earnest. I’ve already said I’m getting tired of the whole spirals of irony thing, and appreciate it when people aren’t afraid to just come out and say what they mean.

But if you’re a comedian, don’t you have to keep it funny? I haven’t seen his entire stand-up routine, but I have seen a lot of the stuff he’s done, and I just keep seeing predictable parody in order to Make A Statement. Bob Odenkirk’s stuff is pretty shallow, but at least on “Mr. Show” you got the sense that he was enough of a counterbalance to let things get absurd when they were in danger of getting too much into obvious social commentary.

The image thing would work better if I could say that Jim Varney was always too cross, but I don’t think that was true.

I was watching the special features on the Serenity DVD, and there was Joss Whedon talking about the fans and why they were important and his philosophy of the show and the movie and what they meant to him. And the dude is just fey. I realize that shouldn’t annoy me, but it just made me want to yell at the screen for him to shut the hell up. Serenity is an amazing movie, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is one of the best TV series ever made, I even read the second trade paperback of his Astonishing X-Men series and thought it did everything exactly right. But every time I hear him talk, he just strikes me as a more subduded, more self-aggrandizing, nerdier version of Charles Nelson Reilly. Maybe it’s just me.

And again, the image thing doesn’t really say anything about Tina Fey. The whole concept needs a little bit more work, I think.

I looked around online and it turns out there already are versions of “Celebrity Sudoku,” but they’re just versions of the real Sudoku that use pictures instead of numbers. I think I didn’t understand the rules of real Sudoku, either; apparently the numbers don’t add up to anything, you just have to list all 9 digits. I still think it’d be cool to have a game where you have to put actors into a 3×3 square, with the rule that all 3 of the people in each row or column have to have been in a movie or TV show together. Maybe that would be a fun rainy day project.

Technically you’re supposed to wait on these things until somebody passes the baton, but it’s 4 AM Pacific Time and I’m still awake browsing the internet and I’ve already seen 4 different variations of this thing 4 times tonight.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: video store clerk, working the shrink-wrapping machine at a Maxell tape warehouse, accounting assistant at a veterinary school, computer game designer.

Four movies you could watch over and over: Raising Arizona, Young Frankenstein, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Four places you’ve lived: Decatur, GA; San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Athens, GA.

Four TV shows you love to watch: “Alias,” “Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law,” “The Venture Brothers,” “The Daily Show”

Four places you’ve been on vacation: Tokyo, Paris, Dublin, Rock City

Four websites you visit daily: Achewood, Gizmodo, Musty TV, GameSpot

Four of your favorite foods: Japanese curry soba, biscuits and sausage gravy, the Chick fil-A sandwich, my mama’s corned beef hash

Four places you’d rather be: in bed asleep; seeing the sunrise from the Boardwalk at Disney World; taking a leisurely tour of Kyoto; at the top of the Empire State Building

Four of your favorite songs: “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin, “Sweet Thing” by Van Morrison, “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You” by Alison Krauss & Union Station, “Song for My Father” by Horace Silver

Thanks to Steve Jobs and Robert Iger, I was able to see the first three episodes of “Lost” this season. Picture quality is lousy blown up to full-screen size, but it was detailed enough to see the Dharma Initiative logo tattooed on the shark that was threatening to attack Sawyer.

I’m not going to post any more spoilers here — I know what it feels like because my mom and brother keep trying to spoil what’s gone on in Season 2 so far. I’ve managed to resist the temptation to download the other episodes so far. I don’t understand how TV is going to work in the New Age, when everything is timeshifted; as it is I’m afraid to go on the internets until I get caught up with anything remotely popular.

I’m still looking for something to fill the time until I get back and get caught up. The wireless internet connection here is way too slow to waste as much time web-browsing as I do at home. I guess I should technically be embarrassed that all my leisure activity involves a net connection more than things like oxygen and sunlight. But in my defense, it is Georgia. And we keep seeing reports on the news that the world’s largest aquarium is sold out for tickets.

Skip got season one of “Veronica Mars” on DVD for Christmas, and I’m going to borrow those and see if that’s worth watching. In case it gets cancelled, I can’t be blamed because it’s on UPN and that’s pretty much equivalent to being perpetually on the brink of cancellation.

I’m not enough of a presence in the blogosphere to get pulled into any internet memes yet, but I can do the next best thing and get into a blog argument. My friend Seppo fired off a post killing Santa Claus, and now I have to use the healing power of the internets to restore the faith in humanity to the children of the world.

Seriously, though, I should make it absolutely clear that Seppopolous is not one of the arrogant, soulless jerks referred to in the title. This woman is. That is, of course, the substitute music teacher who couldn’t read “The Night Before Christmas” to her students without telling them all that Santa Claus isn’t real. Because, she explained, it’s important for children to know The Truth. Seppo’s post reminded me of the story and how much it pissed me off.
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Unless you’re a raging insomniac like I am, by the time you read this I’ll be on my way back east for Christmas with the family. Not having a week of build-up and shopping and a big Christmas tree this year has thrown everything out of whack somehow. It’s hard to believe that it’s only two days away, and I can already tell that it’ll seem like it’s over too soon.

I know I’m looking forward to seeing the family again — it already feels like it’s been much longer than a month since Thanksgiving — and to having a week off with no obligations. It’d be better if I could get off the damn internet and get to packing and such, but I’m getting around to that. (See “raging insomniac,” above.)

I hope everybody has a happy holiday and sees exactly as much of their family as they want to see this year.

I finished the first season of “Lost” sometime over the past week. I like it a lot; I can’t say that I’m wetting myself to see what happens next, but I do have to admit to downloading the first few episodes from iTunes so I can watch them on the flight back home. (TiVo has been recording a few, but not all of them from season 2. According to the episode guides, I’m missing episodes 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42).

Favorite moment so far is when Hurley is running through the airport and there’s the soccer team with the numbers on their shirts. Next favorite would be Arzt’s final scene, and I got more about that to say in a minute. Most annoying characters are now Walt and Michael. Yeah, they’ve had a tough time and yeah, you’ve got to feel sorry for them, but come on. All they do is pick fights with people and fail to connect and conjure polar bears. The annoying people you feel sorry for are the worst kind of annoying people, because you can’t just come right out and be mean to them and tell them to go away.

I admit that Sun and Jin’s story gets me every time they have an episode with them. Also, Sun is hot. And I also got a little weepy at Jack’s story where his dad told him he wasn’t able to let go. That was like a double-whammy of sad, in the flashback and the present day.

I’m thinking that this is one of the rare shows that’s better in weekly episodes instead of watching them all in one go. It’s still good, but I get the impression that the reason it caught on with so many people is because they had time to ponder all the cliff-hangers and mysteries and build up the speculation around them. When you watch the whole thing in two weeks, it’s hard to have a reaction more profound than, “Well, that happened.”

One thing that concerns me, though, is that I watched a couple of the documentaries on the last disc and I’m worried that I might already be too much invested in what’s going to end up being a disappointment. Obviously, there’s a lot that they’re just making up as they go along, but that’s not that bad as long as the stuff they come up with has payoff and isn’t just filler. (They’ve proven they can come up with stuff on the spot and make it work; according the documentary, they invented the characters Sun and Jin at the last minute just because they knew they wanted to cast Yunjin Kim).

What bugged me was how they were talking about the pilot and how it originally had Jack be killed by the monster when they find the cockpit. Kate was originally supposed to be the hero of the show. It was that way pretty late, too, apparently; they have footage of both Yunjin Kim and Evangeline Lilly auditioning for Kate’s part using her dialogue after Jack’s death. The reason that annoys me is because it’s such a cheesy gimmick. It’s the kind of stuff high schoolers write when they’re trying to be daring and bust up cliches. You get attached to the hero, and bang! He dies! Sure, Hitchcock did it, but he kind of ruined it for everyone else.

Now, you could say that the bit with Arzt was the same thing, but it’s not. The reason I liked it was because it was such an obvious gimmick, that everyone could see coming from a mile away, and there was never any doubt whatsoever how that was going to play out. So it played with the gimmick by making it all about timing. Your suspense doesn’t come from wondering what’s going to happen, but when. And the timing of the punchline was just about perfect.

So I’m still hoping that what’s down the hatch is cool, and the monster is cooler than just black smoke, and whoever The Others are is cool, and the story behind the numbers, and Claire’s baby, and Walt’s “being different,” and the whispering, and the island itself all turn out to be worth the investment. I’m actually highly skeptical that the revelations themselves will be all that great, but I still have faith that they can make the lead-up to the revelations great. Like in “Twin Peaks.” Finding out who killed Laura Palmer wasn’t all that impressive on its own, but leading up to it were some of the most downright horrifying moments in television ever.

And unlike “Twin Peaks,” and “The X-Files,” and “Buffy,” I’m hoping that they know when to quit.

Turns out there really is a Bob Loblaw Law Blog, a fact which makes me about as happy as anything on the internet can. (It doesn’t look like a fake site done as a “Arrested Development” tie-in, because a) it’s been up since November, b) if it is a joke, it’s an unbelievably subtle one, and 3) that would imply that Fox pays to advertise the show).

Yesterday was about as crappy a day as I’ve had in a while. When I got back from King Kong Sunday night, I stayed up a couple of hours later to finish some work I had to get done. And then I couldn’t get to sleep, at all. I wasn’t wired or anything, just absolutely unable to get the brain to turn off. It was around 7 am before I could get to sleep, and that was only after I watched an episode of “Lost” that upset me so much I just wanted to lie down (it was the one where Claire’s baby is born and Boone… well, you know). I was awakened at 10 am by a phone call, but when I answered it they’d already hung up, and then I just fell into a coma again. Missed a phone meeting, missed the work I was supposed to get done, just completely f-ed everything up.

When most people get insomnia, they’re at least able to get up the next day and be tired but semi-functional. For me, I always get into this weird state where I’m semi-conscious but physically unable to get out of bed. I guess if nothing else, it’s a reminder that I don’t need to be actively seeking more caffeine.

I also headed out to the post office to pick up a package my parents had sent. (Presumably I was asleep when it was originally delivered). The line stretched all around the post office, and there was a separate line in the back to pick up packages; that line had about 10 people in it. So I waited for about 20 minutes, until there was one woman in front of me. The guy handed her her package, mumbled something no one could make out, then closed the door. The woman turned to the rest of us waiting in line and said, “He said they’re not taking any more customers.”

It was one of those things where I just shut down; I had absolutely no idea how to react. That somebody could be that much of a dick — not even saying to my face that he was closing up, but just shutting the door and slinking off into hiding — my brain doesn’t know how to handle it. The woman behind me did, though; she shouted “Asshole!” and stomped to the other line. Everybody else who’d been standing in line filed past me to the other line or out the building to come back the next day, and I just kept standing there.

Sure, my rational brain knows that cussing at the guy or pitching a fit wouldn’t have done any good and would’ve just gotten me upset, but the whole thing was doubly annoying. Once for wasting my time, and double for giving me another opportunity to just stand there filled with impotent rage, wondering what would be a better course of action than just standing there like a wimpy doofus, or getting into a profanity-filled screaming match with a stranger.

The rest of the night was good, anyway. I had a big steak.