My roommate wandered in while I was watching a movie on TV. We’re still settling into our new place and she was retrieving and placing things in what she determined were their new proper spots. While she organized our housewares, I scratched my belly and left Coke-can rings on the couch arm.

“What’re you watching?” she asked.

“Perhaps the greatest theatrical effort of all time: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”

She didn’t believe me that this was an incredibly important film. So as she walked from living room to kitchen and then bathroom to bedroom, gathering towels from cabinets and DVDs from shelves, I’d call out the epic quotes.

“‘Two men enter, one man leave!’”

“Super. Thanks,” she said. “Is this your Batman cape?”

“Yes, it is. ‘Bust a deal, face the wheel!’”

She glided from one cabinet to the next, collecting all the spatulas and silverware and cups that seemed to be in the wrong order and replacing them in an organized manner. She popped into the room.

“What about this Darth Vader helmet?”

“That can go on top of the cabinet in the kitchen. ‘Who run Bartertown? Masterblaster run Bartertown!’” By now I was in a fervor, shouting at her.

She brought out a box filled with Legos, Transformers, and GI Joe action figures and set them on the coffee table. “These have to go somewhere,” she said.

“‘Everything marked, everything ‘membered. We ain’t been slack, Captain Walker!’”

She sat next to me and tidied up a stack of my Playboys and Spider-Man comic books. “Do you know if your Teen Wolf collector cups are dishwasher-safe? Never mind, we just won’t use ‘em. God, I can’t believe you like this movie,” she said, bold as a slap on the lips.

“Why, you dirty communist. This movie is amazing! Look at those shoulder pads! Check out his mullet! Tina Turner and that blind guy playing saxophone, and then there’s a midget and for some odd reason these primitive kids that talk like hillbillies. Why, this movie’s a masterpiece! I remember the day I saw it in the theaters. I put on my cowboy boots, cowboy hat, my Celtics green Larry Bird short shorts, and rode my bike downtown.”

“That outfit sounds cute. How old were you?”

“I was nine, and I was a little goofy.”

“Yeah, good thing you grew out of that and you’re not a huge dork anymore.”

WHAT I WILL AND WON'T WATCH THIS WEEK

Thursday, November 13
The World is Not Enough (1999)
USA Noon
Here’s the funny thing about British people and therefore logically also the funny thing about James Bond: nose-picking. Brits are unashamed nose miners. Remember that the next time you watch Bond, James Bond, holster a slim pistol in his couture suit jacket then adjust his cuffs. He’s three seconds and a different camera angle from cramming his pointer finger two-knuckles-deep into his honker.

Grey’s Anatomy
ABC 9:00 p.m.
Seeing as how the markets are saturated with medical dramas, you’d think someone would’ve come up with a dental drama. Just off the top of my head, there could be a fatal mix-up with a new assistant in which she confuses “air supply,” the compressed gas, with the piped-in Muzak of soft-rock group Air Supply. Blammo! I created a hit series right in front of your faces.

Friday, November 14
Super-Manny
ABC 9:00 p.m.
Apparently the first one wasn’t enough; ABC had to make another nanny show but this time involving a guy. “We need more nanny crap!” shouted some exec who had obviously left his Tuesday pills in his Wednesday pants.

Saturday, November 15
America’s Most Wanted: America Fights Back
FOX 9:00 p.m.
Here’s someone who needs to be hunted down and roughly placed into a debilitating choke hold: the bastard who thought it’d be funny to label the side of a coffee pot with “10 cups” when you really get about three and a half out of the damn thing. OH! How I’d smack that guy so hard!

50 Cent: The Money and the Power
MTV 9:00 p.m.
In several ways, we’re Canada’s Mexico.

Sunday, November 16
The Starter Wife
USA 10:00 p.m.
The better show is The Finisher Wife. Especially when Paul McCartney hides his ex’s fake leg and she has to hop after him. Hoppy: “You get back here, Paul McCartney! This isn’t funny!” Paul: “[snicker] Hold on a sec. Just have to pick my nose real quick.”

Monday, November 17
My Own Worst Enemy
NBC 10:00 p.m.
So this guy falls asleep, wakes up as someone completely different, and through a series of phone calls and email messages he learns that while he was blacked out he did dastardly things. Is that really enough to build an entire TV show around? If we include throwing up barbiturates, I call that “Sunday morning.”

Tuesday, November 18
The Mentalist
CBS 9:00 p.m.
If you’re so smart, why don’t you figure out a way to make a coffee table that doesn’t wobble. Seriously, we’ve put a man on the moon, but there isn’t a barstool, chair, or bench in all of America that doesn’t have a wad of newspaper or a matchbook wedged under one foot. For cryin’ out loud!

Wednesday, November 19
Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling
CMT 10:00 p.m.
Of course Danny Bonaduce is involved. Of course! Of course! Of stinking course he is! Of course! Of course! OF COURSE HE IS!

Living Lohan
E! 10:30 p.m.
Sure, this sounds interesting until you learn that the Lindsay isn’t involved. I’d hate to give any Lohan more press than she already gets, but damn, I’d really like to watch a hairy screaming hiss-fight between her and that man-woman thing she dates over the last line of powdered horse tranquilizer in the mansion. That’s just good TV.