The Televisionist

Is there anything more satisfying than watching a character take a just and righteous revenge on someone who has smugly screwed them over at some time in the past? Not in this writer's book. I love the cinema of revenge, and Netflix Instant happens to have a crop of Revengers that includes some of the best ever made.

With Easter just passed, I've been thinking a lot about faith — why we need it, what purpose it serves, and just how devout many of the people who claim to be religious really are. It's a question for the ages, and will probably be debated until the sun goes supernova or language finally devolves into a series of squeaks and grunts, whichever comes first.

Hidden gems from Netflix Instant.

We're watching a lot of Netflix Instant these days, but it seems like we spend most of our time endlessly flipping through one awful-sounding choice after another.

On 'Small Town Security' and 'The Regular Show.'

Yes, it's come to this. Now, just the act of being somebody who was once married to somebody famous who you later kicked to the curb (or kicked you to the curb, as the case may be) is enough to warrant a starring role on your own reality TV show.

Though we supposedly live in The Information Age, with all the knowledge of mankind at our fingertips at the click of a mouse, the problem of the Internet is not one of quantity, but of quality.

If you're not reading sex advice disher Dan Savage's "Savage Love" column every week, stop what you're doing right now, go to the blog of the Seattle's The Stranger and start reading.

Worth watching.

Plus, Kevin Smith in 'Comic Book Men.'

If you're from Arkansas, and you haven't read the works of Arkansas novelist Charles Portis, do so. Do it now. Blow off work, drive to your nearest bookstore and buy "True Grit" or "Norwood" or "The Dog of the South" and spend the rest of the day reading in your car in the parking lot.

One of the saddest things in the world is that every bit of love you get from a pet is tempered with the knowledge that it's all going to come to an end sooner rather than later. With cats and dogs, you get 10 good years at best, and that's if they don't run out into the street and get creamed by a passing car.

It's hard to put into words how much a band can mean to your life. I'm not just talking about just any band. I'm talking about that special band; the first band whose music really makes you think differently about the world and your place in it, whose songs serve as the soundtrack to a significant chunk of your life. For me, born in the mid-1970s so that I wound up situated squarely in the middle of Generation X, that band is Pearl Jam.

On 'Weed Wars,' 'Virgin Diaries,' 'The Layover.'

"Walking Dead" marathon,"A Very GaGa Christmas" and "Edward Scissorhands"

I've often been heard to call TLC "The Freak Show Channel" in this space, owing to its tendency to peek in the back door of rather odd American subcultures.

Most folks who are married have a mother-in-law, and sometimes it works out well. That said, I know there are those mother-in-laws who seem like the spawn of Satan.

It's time to dig your Nirvana t-shirt out of the closet and get that case of OK Soda you've had aging behind the water heater, because "Beavis and Butt-head" is back.

With shows like "Sons of Anarchy" and "Rescue Me," FX has proven itself to be one of the groundbreaking networks when it comes to pushing the dramatic envelope. Now comes what might be their most edgy and WTF-inducing project to date, the sexy, spooky and sinister "American Horror Story."