It's Been a Long Time Since I've Done That on Facebook

I don't use Facebook as often as I used to. I love that there's new versions of The Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, Jeopardy!, and Wheel of Fortune on there, but that's not how I like to spend my days. My stacks of books keep me pretty busy and happy.

Last night, I had intended to finish reading the rest of Rutherford B. Hayes by Hans L. Trefousse. 50 pages to go. But I had a yen to post the good news I had learned about Zooey Deschanel getting her own series on Fox for the fall TV season (The New Girl), and the Bones spinoff, The Finder, getting a series order. I'm especially excited about the latter because it'll be nice to see Michael Clarke Duncan on TV every week.

Then a chat window popped up. Greg Harbin, from Japan. An acquaintance-friend, I call him, though after last night's conversation, I'd erase the "acquaintance." I'd forgotten the benefit of a conversation with him for a solid hour. I knew him when I used to be a member of NP2K.com, run by Chad Peter, which started out as a Natalie Portman fan site, but then branched out into pop culture in general, and movies, and filmmaking.

I've always respected Greg because his opinions have always been sharp, and there's a wealth of knowledge behind them. As we talked last night (or maybe last night for me, since I'm never sure what time it is in other countries), he was watching Octopussy, one of the very few James Bond movies he hasn't seen. "Just wait 'till you get to Roger Moore in clown makeup," I told him. "It presages the terror of seeing Moore age rapidly during the pre-credits sequence of A View to a Kill."

The conversation really started with me mulling over a few of the multi-camera sitcoms on tap for the fall season, especially with the hidden news that Michael Chiklis's sitcom Vince Uncensored (about a guy who has a near-death experience and comes out of it deciding to be honest about everything. The pilot was directed by Kelsey Grammer) was picked up, based on Chiklis hosting the Boston Pops special on July 4 on CBS. CBS doesn't let that happen unless the host in question is doing something for them in the fall.

Greg told me that the last three-cam sitcom he saw was Back to You, starring Kesley Grammer. Then we went into Tim Allen's new show on ABC about a guy trying to keep floating in his world of only women (a household full of women), and then we talked about his excitement over Felicia Day retweeting something he had said. Actually, the chat window had popped up with that first.

He thought he should write a book about it and I jokingly suggested the title My Felicia Day Year: An Emotional Journey into the Dark Underside of Twitter for a Retweet. Greg figured that since Adam Bertocci, one of our other NP2K cohorts, but for a long time now a full-on Facebook friend, has had such success in the publishing world with his Shakespearean adaptation of The Big Lebowski (Two Gentlemen of Lebowski), that he would have a shot, too. Then he dug into past conversations and Twitters, seeing if he could use snippets of those conversations for the pull quotes on the book, you know, the ones praising the author. But instead of the usual praise, it would be something like:

"Damn, Harbin!" - Rory Aronsky

I treasure any conversation that winds down with talk of favorite Bond films. Greg told me, after finishing Octopussy, that that is probably his second-favorite Bond film. I asked what his favorite is and he said it's From Russia with Love. My favorite Bond film is On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and it's the best of the series because of how much time is given to developing Bond as a character. I'm not sure what my second-favorite Bond film is, but I told Greg it would probably be From Russia with Love. Or, thinking about it now, maybe GoldenEye. Or maybe Tomorrow Never Dies just for sentimentality's sake, since it was the first Bond film I had ever seen, back in 9th grade. Nah, probably From Russia with Love because it stays tethered to the real world.

By this time, 11 p.m. hit and I had to go to bed. Since I'm up between 7 and 8 each morning, and occasionally later than 8, that's the right time.

Greg had another hour and 40 minutes before his wife's flight got in, so he wanted me to stick around a little more. I would have liked to since it had been a long time since I had had such a solid conversation like that. But I'll log back on tonight and hope that he's around. I could use another round of beneficial mental aerobics like I had there.