"I Remember What It Felt Like. Just A Small Town Kind Of Life. If I Could Only Just Go Back In Time. 17."

Well, unlike Alex, there's no question as to Ariel Winter's birthdate.  And, since it's today...

Happy 17th Birthday, Ariel!

"Oh, Did I Miss Again?" (First Impressions - "Valentine's Day 4: Twisted Sister" - Season 6, Episode 14)

Unfortunately, I was completely off base with my hopes for this episode - the "twisted sister" in this episode is neither Alex or Haley, but instead Gloria's crazy sister (from "Fulgencio").  OK, maybe Alex not being a "twisted" sister (yet?) isn't totally a bad thing but it's still yet another disappointment given the title's potential.

"Disappointment Was My Closest Friend" (First Impressions - "Rash Decisions" - Season 6, Episode 13)

SpoilerTV's episode database confirmed this is the next episode coming up, but there's no copy of the press release on that site yet, but I found it at another site (broadwayworld.com)

"Now We're Getting Somewhere"

Two separate news reports (Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter) have come out with a major detail about the next new episode (February 4th): there will be a guest star (Aya Cash) playing the role of a college interviewer who will be interviewing Alex.

No word which of the five known upcoming episodes this will be (we can't assume it's "Closet? You'll Love It!" because there have already been several switches this season) - presumably we'll know when ABC issues a press release (hopefully in a day or two).

So that's at least one big story for Alex in the sweeps period.  Hopefully there's more to come?

“Livin' On A Prayer” (Second Quarter Review)

To put it mildly, it's been trying times for Alex these past few weeks.

“Mental Hopscotch” (Happy Birthday, Alex?)

Today, January 17th, may or may not be Alex's 17th birthday. I'm far from 100% sure of this – it might have been last Saturday, or another Saturday.

“I Don't Want To Sail With This Ship Of Fools” (“The Big Guns” Recap)

What a difference a year makes – last year at this time we were wondering just how good “Under Pressure” would be (I think I finally found my socks that got knocked off by it around mid-summer).

Last night the best we could hope for was an improvement over last week's stink bomb. Obviously that was a pretty low bar, and we could only go up from there, right? Right?

“Could It Be All That Hard To Bear?” (“The Day We Almost Died” Recap)

In this case, to answer the above line snippet from another Hall & Oates song (“Wait For Me”), yes, it can.

How bad was this episode?

Upside Down(side) - "The Day We Almost Died"

There doesn't appear to be any one big upside this week, but there a couple of little ones.  There also are a few possible downsides which might not be as small.

"Tell Me Doctor, Where Are We Going This Time?"

So it's 2015, but we're still waiting on hoverboards and self-drying clothes (those will probably still come along much sooner than a Cubs World Series win).  And I'm still waiting for this nasty head/chest cold that I got for New Year's Day to break (I'm not holding my breath on that either, except to keep from coughing my brains out) - I'm just barely lucid enough from all the drowsy medicine (not grape-flavored, sadly) to crank out one quarter-decent blog post.   Fair word of warning:  if my recap of Wednesday's new episode is more incoherent than usual, you'll know why.

Anyway, one little piece of news: Tomorrow's USA Network Modern Family marathon is actually intriguing - three of my top five episodes air ("Come Fly With Me" at 7:30, "See You Next Fall" at 8:00, and "Under Pressure" at 10:00), along with the heartbreaking "Strangers On A Treadmill" kicking things off at 7:00.  It's not a true Alex marathon but it has more of her episodes than the one time they did do a marathon for her back in April.

And with that I'm off to bed, again.