Whedon

Joss Whedon.

The very name evokes a lot of different feelings in a whole lot of people.

Joss, as his fans usually refer to him, created two of my all-time favorite television series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

I still remember how I found out about Buffy. I noticed the listing in the TV Guide and realized I had to check it out. That night, I had some news for my husband. "We're watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer tonight," I informed him. He gave me a funny look but figured I knew what I was doing. As it turned out, he liked the show just as much as I did.

I was enthralled with Buffy, and later, with Angel. Joss did some incredible things with both series. Who would have thought a musical episode would work? Joss thought so, and it did. An episode with very little dialogue was even better; "Hush" was both absolutely hilarious and incredibly creepy. One of my favorite episodes of Angel was about puppets. I never knew what to expect, but I knew it would work.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer lasted seven seasons and ended in 2003. After five seasons on the WB, it moved to UPN. Angel, which began three years later than Buffy's premiere, ended in 2003 after a five-year run on the WB. These two shows introduced me to some of my favorite actors, and Joss has included many of them in his other ventures.

Before Buffy the Vampire Slayer became a series, it was a movie. The history and basic premise were carried over into the series, but with all new actors and mostly new characters. Now, a new Buffy movie is supposedly moving forward, but without Joss.

Buffy without Joss?

That's hard to imagine.

Viral Videos Starring Cute Animals

I love watching videos of cute animals. There's just something about them that manages to brighten my day. Dogs, cats, and ducks are just a few of the stars of the great animal videos I've seen.

If you enjoy watching videos of adorable animals, check out these great viral videos. They're guaranteed to make you smile.

U2

I was pretty much unaware of U2 until they released The Joshua Tree in 1987. That's when a friend urged me to check out their music. I was skeptical but decided to find out what all the fuss was about. I'm glad I did.

Here is a very short list of some of my favorite songs by U2:

"All I Want Is You" (Rattle and Hum)
"Love Rescue Me" (Rattle and Hum)
"One Tree Hill" (The Joshua Tree)
"Red Hill Mining Town" (The Joshua Tree)

Transitions

On Thursday night, while watching The Vampire Diaries, a new commercial got my attention. The announcer stated that vampires are in my area and that I should check out this website to learn more. A locally produced web series about vamps? Cool!

Transitions premiered last August and is being produced by Ream Enterprises, which is based near Kalamazoo. So far, the first half of season one is available on the website, and the remaining six episodes will be available later this spring. The second season is under development; auditions are by appointment.

I haven't been able to watch this web series yet, but I definitely want to check it out.

Spin-Off Ideas

Some of my all-time favorite shows were spin-offs of other shows. Angel was a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is another one of my favorites. Even Port Charles was a spin-off, although I didn't (and don't) watch General Hospital.

A while back, I wanted to come up with a few spin-off ideas for some of my favorite shows. Which shows had the best potential? I thought about what they would be like and who would star in them.

I came up with three shows that I felt had terrific spin-off potential, based on a character in each one. I planned them out carefully and came up with my dream casts. If you're interested, you can read all about them here.

Granted, this isn't something I would expect to happen. Most of my shows don't get spectacular ratings; they're usually hanging by a thread, hoping not to be canceled. In fact, since I came up with these fantasy spin-offs, one of these shows was canceled, but my ideas for its spin-off are still valid.

It probably seems like a silly waste of time to a lot of people, but I enjoyed it. After all, people are always thinking about their favorite shows and actors. They also like to come up with dream casts for movies or shows made from books. This isn't much different, and it was a lot of fun.

Protest ABC Across America

ABC's recent announcement that both All My Children and One Life to Live have been cancelled has a lot of people very upset. Protest ABC Across America is a campaign intended to let the network executives know that soap fans have had it.

Hoover is even getting in on the protest, with the company's marketing VP writing a message to fans of the two shows and pulling their advertising from ABC. In addition, Hoover has set up a special e-mail address for fans and promises to get all messages to the network. Wow!

Please visit the above links for more information. Even though they're on Facebook, the pages are public so that everyone can read them.

One-Hit Wonders

A one-hit wonder is a recording artist that has one major hit and then never achieves that level of success again. The exact criteria vary from one definition to another, from placing the song anywhere on Billboard's Hot 100 to maintaining that only #1 songs qualify.

While looking at a lot of lists of one-hit wonders and the songs that made them famous, I came up with a list of my favorites. I had doubts that some of the ones I saw really only had one hit, but I wrote them down anyway. Then I chose ten to mention here.

Here are some of my favorite hit songs by one-hit wonders, in no particular order:

1. "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (The Verve) - A phenomenal song, and a great video to go with it.

2. "Under the Milky Way" (The Church) - It's hard to get better than this song, which was later included in the Donnie Darko soundtrack.

3. "I'll See You in My Dreams" (Giant) - One of only two power ballads included on this list, although there are probably others I could have mentioned.

4. "Bad Day" (Daniel Powter) - A catchy song with a good video.

5. "Don't Close Your Eyes" (Kix) - The second power ballad I decided to include here.

6. "Tainted Love" (Soft Cell) - This one will always remind me of Port Charles, which made good use of the song during its "Tainted Love" arc.

7. "The Promise" (When In Rome) - This is a nice, catchy song.

8. "Cry Little Sister" (Gerard McMann) - This theme from The Lost Boys has been covered by several bands and re-recorded by the original artist, but the original version is my favorite.

9. "Cry" (Godley & Creme) - Somehow, I completely missed this one until seeing the video a few years ago. Priceless.

10. "Major Tom (Coming Home)" (Peter Schilling) - This follow-up to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" tells what happened to Major Tom.

Nolan North

Who is Nolan North? Many people recognize his name. In fact, if you're a gamer, you're probably quite familiar with his work; for the past few years, he's been concentrating on voiceover roles.

That's not the only place you'll come across Nolan North, though. His acting career started when he landed a major role on a new soap opera. He's also been on primetime television and in movies, and he currently has a recurring role on Pretty Little Liars, as Spencer's dad.