seinfeld

jamie and i have never really talked much about seinfeld together. we tend to focus more on the big three: friends, the office, and will and grace. but there are shows such as arrested development, frasier, scrubs, mad about you, the simpsons, and yes... seinfeld... which also deeply catch our attention. the following is a brief concentration of our favorite episode of seinfeld, "the abstinence." pure genius, and very us.
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first of all, we simply love elaine in this episode. here's a bit of explanation as to why:

elaine: "hypochloremia, not metabolic acidosis... duh!"

elaine: "how come he's getting so smart? i stopped having sex with ben three days ago, and i don't know no portugese."
jerry: "are you alright?"
elaine: "i don't know... the past couple days, my mind has been kind of... not good."

elaine: "i need a four letter word. winnie the blank"
ben: "pooh"
elaine: "poo... hahahahahaa"
ben: "no, it's winnie the pooh"
elaine: "ahhhh..."

there's also the brilliant scene of elaine looking at the rotating tires outside that makes us laugh every single time we see it. just... amazing.
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another favorite storyline/situation is kramer's smoking. he supposedly exposes himself to a lifetime of smoking in 72 hours, and the discussion he and jerry have about his face/physical appearance is priceless:

jerry: "what did you expect?"
kramer: "emphysema, birth defects, cancer, but not this!"
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now we're brought to george, who i hate so much it is difficult for me to write about him. but, in this particular episode, he's included in some pretty damn funny quotes. as he realizes he begins to get smarter as he stops having sex, both jamie and i find great amusement in his situation. here are some great george-related quotes from the episode:

girlfriend: "i can't have sex."
george: "with me, or in general?"

george: "i don't want to be one of those guys."
jerry: "what guys?"
george: "...like us."

george: "just by conversing, you can really learn a lot about a person."

jerry, about kramer: "you can make all the laws you want, he's still going to bother people."

jerry with a head of lettuce: "let's say this is your brain. from what i know about you, your brain consists of two parts. the intellect (very small) and the part obsessed with sex (large)."

elaine: "what... what is with all these books?!"
george: "...i stopped having sex."

george: "perhaps i can better serve the world this way"
jerry: "you mean not subjecting women to your sexual advances..." ...
jerry: "so you're never going to have sex again?"
george: "oh jerry, there was a pretty good chance i was never going to have sex again, anyway."
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and now, a fun kramer quote:
"why does radio shack ask for your phone number when you buy batteries?"
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we find it interesting that we identify with so much of this episode. because, you see, jamie and i do not get more intelligent when we stop having sex. but, we still love it. i am afraid to say that we turn completely into elaine, but we definitely get close from time to time. this is evident when we talk on the phone and have 20-second or longer portions of time in which we just awkwardly laugh or grunt words like the men on king of the hill. when we try to figure out why we like it/why it's funny that we like it/why we connect with it, we simply can not. we haven't yet started saying "duhhhh" yet, though. well, i do sometimes, and jamie tends to get mad and take a deep breath and just tell me i'm "something."

(...she really is something.)

-maggie
-jamie