My "Fuck Blockbuster!! Hello Netflix" selection of the day: "Grounded for Life"

For as long as I remember, even before my life long addiction to protruding breasts and thunder thighs, I have been a bona fide movie feign. Whether it was those fantastic Bruce Lee flicks playing my defacto baby sitter as a kid, studying those John Hughes flicks as a pre-teen and Molly Ringwald becoming one of my first caucasian masturbatory thoughts, me praying to the alter of Spike Lee and his innovative vision, and now as I devour mass amounts of independent flicks that people with actual lives have never heard of. Because there is only one independent movie theater which is about 15 miles away from my house, for the past few years I was forced to peruse that cluster fuck of commercialism in the movie rental game that is "Blockbuster". Yes, the same movie rental scam of an establishment that once claimed that I owed them money for an overdue rental that I never ordered. It's true, people make mistakes, but I was so outraged when I saw what they were charging me for I screamed, "Look at this!!(shoving the receipt in the cashier's face) I would never rent a movie with Mo'nique in it!!! NEVER!!" Phantom charges aside, their horrible selection, irritating customers with their lack of film knowledge, and a staff that wouldn't know a good movie if Ebert and Roeper both put them on the business end of a sexual 3-way. So, after friends urging me to do so, I finally decided to burn my Blockbuster membership card in effigy and join Netflix.

The first thing I ordered, primarily because I'm a big fan of the show, was Season 1 of the television sitcom "Grounded for Life". GFL was a comedy that started airing on FOX, got cancelled after 2 seasons, then was picked up on the WB network and aired for 3 more seasons. The show centers around Shawn and Claudia, a couple that became parents way too young and their struggles trying to raise three kids in Staten Island. I know that I use hyperbole as often as I use my right hand during those "intimate moments" alone, but Grounded for Life is by far one of the funniest shows I have ever seen. From the father, Shawn, who in order to sell his son on the idea of seeing a Ramones show instead of doing a science project that he had due the next day, said, "The Ramones are more important than school!!" Claudia, the mother, who once bought old potato salad for her son's class, thus creating a virtual vomit-a-thon the next day throughout his catholic school. Shawn's brother Eddie, the proverbial slacker known for his shady hook-ups, who has a penchant for getting his ass kicked and shocking women that he sleeps with by wearing their blouses post coitus. Their 12 year old son Jimmy, who once got his sister's friend intoxicated so he could make out with her, the youngest child Henry who embarrassed his family when he started dancing on the street for food, and the oldest child Lilly who is the epitome of teenage angst packed into a half hour show.

The writing on this show is brilliant, and I was able to see a few episodes that I had never seen before while viewing that 3 disc package sent by Netflix. Check out the show and tell me what you think, they play 2 episodes back to back on the "Family Channel" from 4pm-5pm..