We just started watching the short-lived late 90s series Freaks and Geeks on DVD. Very funny and sweet. Especially if you were – ahem – not the most popular kid in high school. In the episode we watched last night, Lindsay, a smart girl who’s testing the waters of rebellion by hanging out with the “Freak” crowd (roughly, stoners), decides to throw a keg party while her parents are out of town to impress her new friends. But her “geeky” younger brother Sam and his friends switch the keg out for one filled with non-alcoholic beer in an attempt to forestall trouble. Problem is, the guests manage to convince themselves that they’re getting drunk anyway.

Unlike most TV shows about high school, the actors actually look like they are in high school, they talk like high schoolers, and they go through the same kinds of painfully awkward experiences that many people go through in high school. And the characters are sweet, funny, and likable. Naturally it was cancelled.

On the musical front I’ve been enjoying the 1998 album Something Wicked This Way Comes by the power/thrash metal band Iced Earth. These guys combine some of the epic and melodic sound (and fantasy-tinged themes) of bands like Iron Maiden with elements of thrash. Good stuff.