“Call me crazy, but child actors were way better back in the ’80s.” — Barney

The theme of acting ran throughout the episode tonight on How I Met Your Mother. I’ve got a couple of observations, and a couple of questions.

Lily has been acting for 12 years, pretending she likes Marshall’s mother; then, she fixes it with Marshall by acting like she’s on the phone with her (it’s really “Betty”). So is acting all that bad? It made Marshall happy for 12 years when he thought Lily liked his mom, and then it made him happy again when she faked the phone call.

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Computers are my life. Well, a big part of it anyway. And since you’re reading this, chances are they’re a big part of your life too. We use them for work, school, play and everything in between. Then again, you could be someone’s technically unaware grandma who found this printed out on some crumpled up paper used as packing material for your newest Hummell.

Not only are computers part of our lives, but they consume the lives of those we watch in movies and TV. Some of them are as large as cities, some of them talk and have personalities, and some of them even have pet names. Here’s a list of some of the more notable computers on TV (and before you whine, this is not counting robots):

ARDVARC (Get Smart)
The Automated Reciprocal Data Verifier And Reaction Computer is the central computer owned by Max’s employer, CONTROL. Its best friend is a cigarette machine — how quaint for a show of the ’60s. And let’s not forget the lack of political correctness of the time: on episode number 50 (”The Girls from KAOS”), ARDVARC scans its databases for a particular Asian KAOS enemy agent, but eventually concludes it can’t find the agent because “they all look alike.”

Sadly, on episode number 109 (”Leadside”), ARDVARC blows up. Rumor has it the cigarette machine, overcome with grief, traveled to Japan and now dispenses iPods and eyebrow trimmers in downtown Tokyo.
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(Season 34, Episode 12)

There was a lot of excitement about Neil Patrick Harris hosting Saturday Night Live, particularly around the secret hidden CliqueClack home base. Expectations were high, which is always a dangerous thing. My expectations were fairly high for Hugh Laurie too, and I ended up hating that episode. Luckily, NPH (and credit has to go to the writers too) delivered a great episode of SNL. It was definitely one of the better episodes of the year, and certainly the best since the election ended.

I was slightly disappointed that they didn’t have a skit about the recent lunch meeting between the five current/future/former presidents. I think that could have been a really funny scene. Oh well, I won’t look this gift horse of an episode in the mouth.

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Aryeh S. is back guest clacking for us again this week ….

First of all, I’d just like to say that How I Met Your Mother is one of the best shows on television today. Granted, the premise has gotten lost (no complaints from me) and the relationship between Lily and Marshall makes no sense (I can’t stand Alyson Hannigan, and Jason Segel returned from this past hiatus thinking he was better than the show). But Mother is hands down one of the funniest shows out there right now. And no, I’m not taking what I can get; if it was going head-to-head with Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond (I realize that’s not possible, but go with me on this one), I’d honor the latter two with TiVo and resort to my bedroom VCR for Seinfeld.

Now, to my point. How great is Neil Patrick Harris’ Barney Stinson?  Let me count the ways (in no particular order):

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