My friend MJ sent me an e-mail last week in which she lambasted her favorite show, Grey’s Anatomy, for the disappointing season finale:

I think i am going to strike against the writers’ strike by watching more TV than ever now. Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to strike and the Grey’s Anatomy writers are included. Not to mention maybe they would be getting paid more if they wrote better episodes instead of the crap ones of this season…

Disappointing season finales seem to have been the norm this year. Last Friday night’s blogger happy hour season finale, though, lived up to the hype. As always, we met up with old blog friends and were introduced to several cool newbies (I’m looking at you, and ).

I started the night by reuniting at the Sculpture Garden with friends from my last job for our Second Annual Ice Skating trip. Last year, Brewies Chewies and I raced from one side of the rink to the other. I think I won, but we’ll never know since BC tripped 10 feet from the finish line and took a header into our friend Chosang’s ice skate. He split his head open, suffered a mild concussion, and started to ask why some leprechaun was after his lucky charms.

This time, there were no ambulances called but we were reprimanded by rink personnel for doing a conga line, taking photos on the ice, and generally having too much fun, which is apparently against the rules.

Afterward, we all went to the Four Fields (it’ll always be the 4 P’s to me) and had a bloggety time. Thanks to my awesome co-hosts for an outstanding night out, which was capped with me staying up until 3am schooling Baby Bien at Wii.

Front row: , Me, , Kassy K;
Back row: INPY, Roissy.

Also, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I redesigned my blog theme. I loved my previous theme (thanks, Chris Pearson) but I felt it was time for a change. Hope you guys like it, because even if you don’t, I’m not changing it. Here’s one last look at my old theme:

UPDATE:

Fixed my theme problems. Sorry, Roosh, the alphabetical listing remains. Thanks to all who wrote me for your help troubleshooting. In the end, it was something stupidly small. Figures.

While catching up with a certain TV show on Netflix a few weeks ago, I told a friend who was a fan of the show that I had one episode to watch. And not just any episode. The season finale. He looked me right in the eye with excitement and asked, “Oh, so you already know that Rosebud was the name of his sled?”

Now, he didn’t really say that. But what he did say was the end-of-the-season twist ending to a show I had invested a lot of time in. (I don’t want to mention which show it was in case some douchetard finds it funny to ruin it for readers who might want to see the awesome show.)

“Uh, no, I didn’t know that,” I told him incredulously.

“Oh,” he replied.

“I can’t believe you just ruined it for me.”

“I thought, I mean, um…sorry.”

People love season finales because they are fraught with hope, expectation, cliffhangers, and surprise twists. Even people born in the 1980s understand the implications of uttering the phrase, “Who shot J.R.?”, perhaps the symbolic archetype of the pop culture phenomenon known as the “season finale”.

Season finales carry with them the weight of anticipation built up often over the course of many months. They often end with landmark events that mirror everyday life, such as a wedding, a birth, or the killing off of a beloved character. No one that I have ever read has analyzed season finales as a concept in American culture, but I think someone should (I’m looking at you, ).

The Blogger Happy Hour crew is throwing its own season finale but hopefully with less bloodshed or gestational expulsion. This happy hour is not only the last of 2007, but may be the last for a while as bloggers flock home to their families for the holidays. The plan: Friday, December 7, at 8pm, at the Four Fields (it’ll always be the “4 Ps” to me) in Cleveland Park.

The usual cast (INPY, Kassy K, , and ) is hosting, with a special guest host cameo by Roissy, who is vowing his own brand of controversy.

After the amazing turnout of the last happy hour at Chi Cha Lounge, this one promises to be one spectacular finish to an outstanding season, one whose finale may be discussed during the summer break.

Aside from this happy hour, here are my top five season finales of all time:

1. Kirk Gibson, 1988.

Gibby caps off his 1988 season by doing his best Roy Hobbs impression and belting a homerun off the best closer in the game, creating the greatest moment in Dodgers history and spiraling Big Blue into a 19-year spell in which they don’t win one playoff series.

2. Cheers, Season 5, 1987.

Diane leaves Cheers in the final episode of the show’s seminal season as Shelley Long wisely moves on to other illustrious projects like “Troop Beverly Hills” and “Don’t Tell Her It’s Me”. Never heard of those movies? Exactly.

3. Myself, Karate, 1987. At the age of 12, I cap off my final season as a karate student by successfully testing for the Tang Soo Do green belt. I abandon a prominent career in karate and the promise of many cheap, plastic trophies. Last time I tried a flying leg kick I broke a hip.

4. End of Spring, every year.

Is there any better time in the year than the end of spring, which harkens the beginning of summer, warm weather, the beach, and, most importantly, my birthday? Nope, didn’t think so.

5. Oregano.

What? This is a seasoning? Not a season? Oh well, it’s my favorite seasoning and should be added to everything. I love putting it in Ramen noodles with a fried egg on top, Frosted Mini Wheats, and my hand. I think I’ll have some tonight when I eat some pancakes.

Heroes is over, The Office is no more, and summer is a looooong way away. So come join us for this season finale.

Because the next day, everyone will be talking about it.

One night last century when I was a beat reporter for the Journal Newspapers, I had a dream of my entire workday. In this dream, I followed leads, interviewed sources, wrote my story, and turned it to my editor to be hacked to a manageable 15 column inches.

This dream was very realistic. I could actually see in my mind’s eye myself typing out the story on the screen. It seemed so real, in fact, that when I awoke and realized I still had to go into the newsroom and crank out a legitimate story, I actually said out loud to myself, “Now I have to do this all over again?”

That is how I imagine it might be to write a novel in a month. Every day. For thirty days. Like your own personal Groundhog Day that never ends, but with less Bill Murray.

But many idiots prospective novelists will try to do just that starting tomorrow, when they challenge themselves to write 50,000 words during National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo and winner of the Most Awkward Acronym award.

That’s 1,667 words per day. Approximately 175 pages. Like Amway, many will try but few will succeed.

Like most delusional people, I have often thought I could write a novel. I put this American-Dream-of-an-aspiration at the top of my list of “Things I Want to do in my Life (But Probably Never Will)”.

I never lack for ideas and often bore The Princess most nights with the latest plot I devised on the bus ride home.

“How about,” I tell her, “a novel about a compelling character who must overcome some sort of obstacle and at the end he would become richer from the experience?”

“Shut up, I’m watching America’s Next Top Model,” she says encouragingly. “Go fix me some bedtime tea.”

My ideas are usually better suited as short stories since they’re not “well-rounded” or “interesting”. This is why I actually admire anyone who can write a whole novel, let alone a good one (not, for example, the highly overrated The Kite Runner).

But I realized recently that, though I didn’t accomplish it in 30 days (seriously, NoNaWriMo, November? With the Thanksgiving break? Why not just pick February with its 28 days?), I have written a novel!

Sort of.

Not counting this entry, I have written on Arjewtino.com 45,866 words over 114 blog posts since March, roughly 402 words per post. I need about 10 more blog posts to pass 50,000 words and I’m not even counting my in the equation.

I know, I know, 124 blog posts does not a novel make. Having a string of disjointed thoughts about and dating shiksas does not mean I met the rigorous NaNoWriMo standards of what constitutes a “novel”.

Whatever. I accomplished something, like with fewer leg cramps. I may not turn in my blog to any publishers, and you may never see Arjewtino in the Barnes & Noble bargain bin for $1.99, but 45,866 words is something I’m proud of.

Make that 46,381 words.

If my blog’s new theme doesn’t prove that I should no longer be allowed to make bets with my friends, I don’t know what does.

Shortly after meeting INPY earlier this year and becoming BFFs over SoCo and limes and our Dodgers-Yankees rivalry, we made a bet on the baseball season. Since INPY documented it on his blog, I’ll let his words speak for themselves:

[Arjewtino] and I have a little wager that I will now make public. He is a Dodgers fan, but I don’t hold that against him. (Not TOO much) It could be SLIGHLTY worse and he could belong to the tribe that is known as Red Sox Nation. (Gag) But, as a true baseball fan he knows of the storied history our two teams share…the anger, the WS run ins…all of it. And since the Dodgers are FINALLY picked to actually do well, we have put this little wager together;

It’s a head to head, Yankees v. Dodgers straight up who will have the better year. If, say the Yankees make the playoffs and the Dodgers don’t…game over. If they both make the playoffs it’s who wins more games/advances further. And if, by the grace of God we meet in the WS (as many are predicting) then it’s a straight up winner take all…

And what is on the line?

Loser has to (1) dress up in the jersey and the hat of the other’s team and allow photo documentation and (2) the Blog gets a makeover in the other teams colors and logos for a full week.

The season started out great for Big Blue as we (yes, we) won 10 of our first 14 games. We started May over .600 and in first place in the NL West as the Yankees played under .500 through June. By the time the All-Star break rolled around, the Dodgers were up 5 games on the Bronx Bombers.

INPY was nervous about the bet and admitted as much to me. Hell, he barely cared about it when he saw the Red Sox build a season-high 14-game lead in the AL East. To his credit, he kept fending off immature attacks from RSN yokels and promised his Satanic team would stage a comeback.

Sure enough, the Yanks’ season, and my chances at winning the 6-month-long wager, started to change.

By the end of July, the Dodgers were up on the Yankees by only a half-game. By the end of August, the Dodgers were down four games and playing like Alyssa Milano was manning third base. Seriously, Tommy Lasorda could have hit better with men in scoring position.

On September 16, the Yankees held a 4 ½-game lead over the Blue Crew.

My team responded to this deficit in typical Dodgers’ fashion: by losing 10 of their next 11 games. The Evil Empire, however, finished the regular season by winning 9 of their final 13 games and securing the AL Wild Card.

Final Line:

Yankees 94-68 (.580)
Dodgers 82-80 (.506); 12 games back

I am an when it comes to betting. I may win at blackjack in Atlantic City or at Roshambo against HAL, but when it comes to wagering my dignity against my friends, I have the willpower of The Princess around champagne and cupcakes.

Still, I felt it was a fair wager and there is some satisfaction in having seen the Yanks get spanked by the Cleveland Indians in the first round. We agreed that photo documentation was unnecessary since neither of us remembered actually saying those words when we made the bet but that the blog makeover was instrumental.

So here it is. Enjoy Arjewtino’s new look this week, INPY. Soak it in, relish the images of Jeter and the NY logo on my banner.

‘cause there’s always next year.

Thanks to Kathryn, a Yankees fan herself, for designing my banner.

One of the most frequent running themes at last Friday’s incredibly attended Invite Your Blog Crush Happy Hour -– other than butt-smacking, shot-taking, and indoor-smoking –- was the idea of blogger privacy.

To varying degrees, each blogger chooses his or her level of privacy early on in that blog’s lifecycle. Some choose to hide every aspect of their lives, while others reveal everything about themselves short of their Social Security Number or the fact that they used to participate in Amway.

Most of us fall somewhere in the middle, opting for a semi-veiled kind of security for any number of reasons.

Blogger happy hours, though, have a way of dropping that veil.

We meet otherwise secretive people we happen to read online; we learn their names and their favorite drinks; and we share intimate stories we’d rather forget.

This creates an uncommon sense of camaraderie most of us find unusual but which we all understand. We have to bond with each other lest we allow our private information to be exposed. We tell things to people who already have heavily read, public media with which they could expose this information.

With that said, here are photos of unidentified bloggers wearing black bar glasses from Friday night. No, those are not “Photoshopped” strips of black bar over our eyes; they are actually glasses that create the same effect.

Remember to stalk invite your blog crush.

Credit: Kathryn

The earliest crush I remember was when I was 5 and I just knew I was in love with a girl named Sarah.

She had blonde hair and was mean to me. She ran away when I came near her and told me I was ugly. I didn’t care. To me, she was beautiful.

Once, during recess, Sarah got in trouble and was “benched” by our teacher, which meant she had to sit on a bench away from all the fun tag, four-square, and kickball for five minutes. This, I decided, was my chance to talk to her. I walked right up to some kid who was standing in front of our teacher and pushed him to the ground.

“Arjewtinito!” screamed the teacher. “You’re benched! Go sit down!”

Yes!, I thought to myself, now I can sit next to Sarah and make her my girlfriend!

I swaggered to the bench with the confidence of a mini-Casanova, mentally crafting the poetic words that would soon win Sarah’s heart and make her mine for all-time. I was about to sit down on the bench, the playground altar of our future love, when the teacher pointed to Sarah and said, “You can come off the bench now.”

Oh cruel fate! I thought. Shakespeare himself couldn’t capture the daggered heartache I felt at that precise moment. Why, teacher, why did you take my love away? May you die a thousand deaths, though each would be less painful than what I was suffering!

“Oh, and Arjewtinito, I want you to think about what you did for the next five minutes,” she added. “And I’m going to have a talk with your mother about this.”

Fuck.

I never did tell beautiful, blonde Sarah how I felt about her, though she did come to my 6th birthday party and I have a photo of me with my arm around her. The crush dissipated soon after, and I learned years later in high school she served time in juvenile hall.

Everyone has had crushes. They’re fleeting and intense and invigorating. Blog crushes are no different.

So join me and the regular crew of bloggers next week for the Invite Your Blog Crush blogger happy hour.

That blog you first fell in love with that inspired you to start your own blog? Tell him. That blogger who makes you laugh and makes you look forward to her posts everyday? Invite her. That blogger whose photos make you feel tingly, you know, down there? Contact her.

Have more than one blog crush? Invite them all. Either way, you and your blog crush are invited to the happy hour, which, as always, is open to EVERYONE, bloggers, non-bloggers, lurkers, readers, commenters, etc.

Details:

What: Invite Your Blog Crush Blogger Happy Hour
When: 8pm, Friday, October 19
Where:
Hosts: Myself, I Now Pronounce You, , Kassy K, and
Special Guest Host: Jess from

Report card day always brought a sense of dread when I didn’t receive good grades. I would conspire with my Hermanita to not tell our mom about her report card, using physical threats or monetary bribes to convince her.

None of that was necessary Friday night as we celebrated the end of summer by holding a Back to School Blogger Happy Hour at Madhatters. No straight A’s on this proverbial report card, but a pretty good GPA:

Baby Bien brought one of the three $25 gift certificates to Madhatters that we won the previous week on their trivia night. He cheated by texting our friend to look up a few answers on the Google: C+

INPY met me early for pre-gaming and shots of SoCo and lime. Later in the evening, we punched each other in the face and then made up over a manly series of masculine, totally heterosexual “I love you, man”s: B

GoPats and J-Vo brought Brajewlian, my Brazilian-Jew doppelganger, and his wife Jess, both of whom I hadn’t seen in years. Brajewlian didn’t rub in his country’s 3-0 defeat of my country in last month’s Copa America: A+

reminded me of my notoriously bad memory when I drink. He said something else I couldn’t remember: B

showed up early and was one of the only bloggers to have a sober conversation with me before the shots started. Not sure if that’s a good thing: A-

, in her first gig as a co-host, showed up to the bar early and wore a sexy argyle sweater-vest that was consistent with the happy hour theme. No Catholic schoolgirl skirt, though: A

Collateral Damage made true on her promise to buy me a fanny pack and brought my long-awaited present. She also brought her old school Polaroid camera but yelled at me for shaking the photo she snapped: A

Starting Today bought me a beer with someone else’s money and made out with a girl: A+

Boztopia let me call him Boz, which I think is awesome, and reminded me of outdated 80s action heroes: A-

continued to insist the Arizona Diamondbacks would win the NL West (over the Dodgers). I told him if they did, I’d hunt him down and punch him in the throat: D

Sexy old school bloggers Kassy K, , Sparkle Pirate, and Circle V brought some tradition to the event, bringing back memories for many of past happy hours and good times. Also, Kassy K and DC Cookie hung out late night with some strippers: A

showed up really late, ignored many text messages, and wore a skinny black tie that looked better on him than most waiters. We argued over who would pull more women if we were competing and he insisted he would. Poor, misguided friend: C

Listen to Leon, a blogger I had wanted to meet for a while, might be my personality twin: B+

HAL, who recently convinced me I may not hate the Yankees, didn’t remind me of New York’s better record than the Dodgers: B+

I managed to talk to and That’s What She Said without offending either of them. I think: B

, Hey Pretty, and stole my lunch money but couldn’t stuff me in my locker: D+

Sisco came late and bought me a tequila shot, which might have contributed to my late-night hallucinations: B

is a blogger I met that night who may have the best blog name I have ever heard: A

Hot Sox Bartender was there even though she wasn’t working and promptly reminded me that thinking I don’t hate the Yankees anymore makes me a pussy: A

, an early 50/50 at coming, made an exalted appearance that quickly devolved in making fun of each other. About what? I don’t remember: B+

I gave a REALLY hard time for falling off of the face of the blog world. Then she reminded me that I flaked on her birthday party: B-

, one of the first bloggers I ever met, unfortunately left Mini-Red at home, using some excuse about the bar not allowing 9-years-old or something: C+

Joe Logon, who I hadn’t seen since March’s Shamrock Fest, didn’t make any height jokes: B

DC Blogs, who will be announcing some changes to his site soon, showed up but left before I was able to buy him a promised beer: B

By my calculations, that is an overall GPA of 3.05, which is higher than most of my semesters in college. Another outstanding blogger happy hour, great to see so many of you and meet you newbies. If I forgot anyone (quiet, WiB), let me know and I’ll give you a grade.

Your hosts

Your happy hour hosts. Credit: Kathryn.

On my first day of sixth grade at Hale Junior High, the sister of the girl who played Heather on Mr. Belvedere called me a nerd.

During my first week in third grade in Islas Malvinas in Argentina, I approached the girl I developed a crush on, Jimena, and told her I thought she was pretty. She told me I was ugly and to go away.

Going back to school has never been easy. Rodney Dangerfield learned that lesson and he had to face William Zabka and Kurt Vonnegut. You have to make new friends, buy new Trapper Keepers, and avoid getting stuffed in your locker. Gone are the long, summer days followed by slow, warm nights, trips to the beach and lounging by the pool, hikes, vacations, and grilling in the hot afternoons.

For these reasons, perhaps, first days back to school can be so memorable, almost traumatic. I still remember my first day of high school at El Camino Real. I proudly wore a UCLA shirt, a denim jacket, white Nikes, and a heinous pimple I had tried to scrub off all night.

The Princess remembers always wearing a brand new outfit on her first day back to school -– but not before her dad ritually took a photo of her and her sister.

These back-to-school first days are long gone for most of us (sorry to those first-year teachers and grad school students), but no one says we can’t still celebrate.

So join us at our Back to School Blogger Happy Hour this Friday, September 7th, at at 8pm. I am co-hosting with Kassy K, , I Now Pronounce You, new host , and special guest host, .

Dress up in your Catholic school uniform, wear your hot librarian glasses, or bring your school books. Your summer is over. Might as well start drinking like it’s fifth grade all over again.

The World Famous DC Blogger Happy Hour is coming soon…details next Tuesday.

Here’s a hint: September 7th.