Top Ten Most Anticipated TV in 2010

10. Damages

OK, sure season 2 was a mess of convoluted plot involving a bribed judge, a double-crossing FBI investigation, and a cokehead stabbing Patty(Glenn Close) in an elevator, but I have high hopes that season 3 of Damages will return to the glory that was the amazing, thought-provoking, twists and turns of season 1.

Damages returns to FX on January 25th.

9. Jeff and the other chick on The Amazing Race

Last season’s winner of Big Brother, whatsherface, will be joining the cast of globe trotting contestants on the next season of The Amazing Race. But the big news is that her racing partner is none other than the ubersexy, Jeff, who you may remember was her (OK, fine. Her name is Jordan) showmance in the BB house.

I cannot wait to see him jetsetting for the million bucks. Preferably shirtless. Here’s to hoping the producers have come up with lots of hot locales to ensure maximum topless Jeff moments. I’m just saying.

Jeff and um... what was I saying?

8. Southland returns on TNT

I don’t know who’s in charge over at NBC, but it must be run by morons. They consistently cancel awesome shows like Journeyman, Life and Scrubs. Then they let a gem like Medium get swept up by the good people at CBS to make room for five nights of the chronically unfunny Jay Leno at 10pm.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevail over at TNT and they’ve given new life to the gritty police drama Southland. The season finale was a jaw-dropper so thank the TV gods that TNT will pick up the show so we can see how it all plays out.

7. Stargate: SGU

Thanks to my friend Cathy sending me all ten seasons of Stargate: SG1, I have another sci-fi franchise to add to my must-see list. I’m currently starting season 2 of Stargate: Atlantis, but couldn’t wait to get through all five seasons of that before diving into Stargate Universe which premiered on SyFy last fall.

SGU follows a band of military personnel, scientists, and civilians trapped on a spaceship built by The Ancients who developed the stargates as they try to figure out a way back to Earth.

Some of my fellow Stargate fans complain that SGU is more Battlestar Galactica than Stargatey, but that’s okay with me. I love the dark sets, mental manipulations, and catastrophes of the week plots.

6. The final episodes of Nip/Tuck

Tonight FX kicks off the final nine episodes of Nip/Tuck. Even though I can admit that the show has been bordering on very cheesy and plain-ass ridiculous for at least two seasons now, I am sorry to see it go. I will watch tonight, and for the next eight weeks, and begin my goodbyes to the sexy, super rich, but morally bankrupt doctors of McNamara/Troy.

5. V

We were teased with four episodes of the remake of the 80′s cult hit V. There were holes like, how the hell did the Vs manage to just drop off sleeper agents without anyone noticing? I mean, it’s not like dropping someone off at a bus stop. But overall, I’m hooked.

It just went back into production in January, so I’m not sure when the new epis will air. I’ll be there whenever that might be.

4. 24 in NYC

Two of my favorite things will be mixing it up on FOX: Jack Bauer and New York City.

Two words: Hells.Yeah!

24 returns on January 17th.

3. Caprica

Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel, tells how the Cylons (at least the Cylons of the 12 colonies of the series) came to be. The pilot was available on DVD last spring and I’ve been waiting like a crackhead ever since.

Caprica premieres on SyFy on January 22nd. Read my Caprica review here.

2. GLEE!

My new favorite show returns… in APRIL! I know! What the hell? We have such a long wait, but no doubt it will be worth it.

What will Quinn do now that everyone knows Puck is the father of her baby? What will happen with the new Shuster/Pillsbury romance? Will Rachel and Finn hook up now that he’s free? Will they please give Kurt more airtime and can we get a full hour dedicated to the awesomeness that is Sue Sylvester?

1. LOST

Come on, now. You knew this would be number one. The final season of Lost begins February 2nd .

SPOILER ALERT:

We’ve met Jacob and the creepy guy that has been trying to kill him since, like, forever. Creepy guy had apparently taken over Locke, who has really been dead all this time, and used him and Ben to finally get to Jacob. There was lots of time traveling and time shifting which led to a big-ass gun fight and Juliet falling down a shaft. Oh, and we got to see the smoke monster kick more ass.

I’m looking forward to all of my questions of the past five years being answered. That’s right. All 1384 of them!

What are you looking forward to? What shows do you miss the most?

Nigger Sticker

Wanna know the funny thing? The funny thing is that I didn’t even want to go to Walmart. We haven’t shopped there for groceries in months – not since I found a local supermarket that not only sells the same stuff cheaper, but does so without attracting the kind of people that make me itch.

But I need to replace the power cord for my laptop and the supermarket doesn’t sell power cords. It was New Years Eve and we didn’t want to make two stops. It seems easier to get the power cord and groceries necessary for the weekend shut-in we have planned from one place.

So, there I am in line with this sense of foreboding. Like, I shouldn’t even be there. But, there I was watching as the cashier scanned snacks, beverages, and groceries to get us through the next five days because Donny was on vacation and we have no plans to leave the house before then. We usually did the self checkout, but Jack started getting fussy in the cart and Donny decided to carry him. He wouldn’t be able to help (pass while I scan and bag or vice versa) so it seemed faster to use a cashier.

The cashier was friendly; an older white lady who agreed with me that spending New Years Eve at home was the best. She tried scanning the $1.00 package of Twizzlers I’d pick up as a check-out impulse buy, but the barcode wouldn’t read. She asked if Kali minded grabbing another, but the big tall black man behind Kali reached for one instead. I thanked him and felt bad that we were holding up the line so when the second package wouldn’t scan either, I told the cashier to forget it.

“Probably God’s way of telling me I don’t need to be eating it…. or that maybe I should buy it at Blockbuster when we go to rent movies later.”

We all laugh – me, Donny, Kali, the white cashier and the big black guy. I’m taking my debit card back from the cashier when I realize that a man in the next checkout lane has been looking at me. He looks away with a smirk on his face, looking in Donny’s direction and then away. The cashier is still making small talk, but now my attention is really on this guy. He was heavy and wearing tight jeans and a trucker cap. He was with his equally-heavy wife and he wore a gun on his hip. He gave off a bad vibe.

As I’m sticking my card back in my wallet, I wonder if he’d been checking that out. A lot of people stare at it because I have a small replica of my father’s gold shield from the New York City Police Department. I’ve had people actually ask if I’m a cop when they see it because the engraving on the leather wallet, “Detective’s Daughter,” is too small for them to see.

We put our bags in the cart and headed for the car. As we approached it, I noticed creepy gun guy and his wife are loading their groceries in a big red pickup parked right next to us. When he sees us, he starts singing something. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I just knew it wasn’t anything good. I stop at the back of the car with the cart and Kali is standing next to me. Donny heads to the passenger side backseat and waits for me to unlock the car so he can strap Jack in his carseat. I’m having a hard time finding the keys in my purse and I realize that this guy has me frazzled.

After searching for a bit, I said, “I bet they’re in my jeans.” I reached down to pat the front of my pants and sure enough, I felt the keys in my pocket. I never put the keys in my pocket so I laugh and Donny just kinda shakes his head. I hit the button to open the door just as creepy guy’s wife returns from taking their empty cart to the corral a few feet away. He has started his truck and revved the engine loudly. Kali jumps and then giggles.

“That scared me.”

“I think that was the point,” I said. I instinctively move her closer to me and our car as the pickup backs out of the parking spot. I also begin to move our cart out of the way so I can lift the trunk door without hitting it. Jack, and Donny’s top half, are in the car.

As the truck passes me, the creepy guy kinda leans out the window and says, “That’s a nice nigger sticker you got there.”

You know how a million things seem to happen at once, and when you relay them later to others, it seems impossible that they all occurred within a fraction of a second?

My first feeling was that I was not surprised. I have never been called a nigger to my face. And though, to be fair, he wasn’t calling me a nigger, I think we all know that if he considered Obama (whose mother is white) a nigger, he damn sure considered my ass a full-fledged nigger. But despite having gone 35 years without having a white person call me a nigger, in person, to my face, I was not surprised for my first thought was, “Of course it would be this guy to say something like that.”

Then, in the next fraction of a second, I glanced at the bumper sticker on the back of my car. I knew what he was referring to, of course, immediately. The only other sticker on the back of my car is the parking sticker for my college’s campus. And, to my knowledge, my school has never been called, “The Nigger College.” He was talking about the Obama ’08 bumper sticker.

Then, as I looked back at his car, which was now pulling off, I made eye contact with him in the driver’s side mirror. And he was smirking. And then I got pissed.  And despite the fact that I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to hear me, I wanted to yell, “Fuck you, you big fat redneck.” I also wanted to creatively tell him (you know, in a way that Kali wouldn’t understand) that I was sure he couldn’t see his tiny dick under all that belly fat, but words failed me.

I didn’t say anything. I just met his smirk with a squinty-eyed “are you really that ignorant” look of my own and then turned to Kali. She had that kind of dazed smile of disbelief on her face. You know, that inappropriate laugh or smile you get in a bad situation that you didn’t see coming.

“Get in the car.”

Donny pulls his head from the back seat, Jack is now strapped in, and I ask, “Did you hear what he just said to me?”

“No. What? Who?”

I repeat it and point towards the red pickup which is now stopped a stop sign, but too far away to see the license plate or even throw up a middle finger.

“Are you serious?”

“Very.”

My hands shake as I start to put the bags in the trunk.

“I wish I would have heard him”

Kali is turned around watching us. She knows what has just happened and I find myself praying this doesn’t shape her. That this doesn’t stick with her. That this won’t be some story she tells her friends in college ten years from now.

“One time, this white man called president Obama a nigger right in front of me.”

Every black person I know that has been called a nigger, can tell you every detail of that moment, that day. I did not want this incident to be a moment for Kali. And because he potentially made it one, I suddenly wished creepy guy and his wife would run head-on into a moving bus. A bus carrying barrels of gasoline. And sharks.

As I drove home, I knew that I shouldn’t let it spoil the evening we had planned – eating, drinking, and playing lots of Halo 3. I knew that was what he wanted. He wanted to hurt me and make me angry and I was angry with myself because he did. We pulled into our subdivision and I thought, we live in a nice home, but it doesn’t matter, he thinks I’m a nigger.

Donny went back out to rent the movies and pick up pizza. I sat there holding Jack, who was now sleeping, and thought, “How could someone say something like that in front of my children?” I know that the world is full of people who don’t give a fuck about children. There are people that kidnap, rape, and murder children. I know this. But for some reason, it really bothered me that this man couldn’t keep his hate and ignorance to himself in the presence of my children.

But why should he? To him, my kids are niggers.

It’s been four days and I’ve thought about it every day since, several times a day. This was unlike hearing the little boys we play Halo against toss around nigger. That doesn’t even make me angry. Those are young punks who think the worst two things in the world are to be black or gay. And if you really piss them off, you’re a “nigger fag.” They call people nigger and fag as easily as you and I might call people that annoy us “idiot” or “asshole.” They call everyone who plays better than them nigger. This was different. This was pointed and personal.

As much as I love my husband and even some of you that are white and reading this, I’d be lying if I said this incident hasn’t made me feel some type of way. I find myself wondering now if every white person I’ll encounter in this area thinks I’m a nigger. It has made me not want to be around white people. I’m applying to jobs, and I wonder what will they think if they’re white. Will they not hire me because they think I’m a nigger? We’re thinking of moving to a smaller place. Do I have to worry that people won’t want us living near them because they think I’m a nigger, my kids are niggers, and my husband is a nigger lover?

I think I’m gonna take my friend’s Mary’s advice and pray on it.

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