Free love on the Freelove Freeway

I was irritated at the video store tonight.

I was tired, and there were a lot of people, and all of them seemed to be in my way, or crying children. I did laugh at the one girl, who was about ten, who brought that movie with Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson to her father and said, "Dad, this is said to be funny." Because seriously, what ten-year-old talks like that?

But anyway, I was tired and irritated and just wanted a movie that was smart and funny and not totally predictable, with some kind of drama, and a little bit of romance, and that I could watch without feeling disturbed, scared, upset, or guilty at the end. In that frame of mind, I rejected The Departed, The Prestige, any movie about third world countries, a movie about a heroin-addicted mother whose baby is given to Nick Nolte, and many more.

And in the end, I got the BBC version of The Office (first 6 episodes). Once I got past comparing it to the American version, or at least the characters to their American counterparts, I liked it. The two shows are very different . . . the U.S. version is, for lack of a better word, more American. More loud and boisterous and over-the-top. Less dark, less dry. The difference is pretty much summed up in the theme songs, I think.

And that Gareth is one weird-looking guy.