老爸老妈的浪漫史 第四季

谁都会在人生遇到那样的一个阶段：事业不如意，爱情遭遇危机，做啥啥不顺。自觉人生已经跌入谷底，殊不知，le pire est à venir.
这一季的Ted就是面对着这样一种境遇：走上圣坛前几分钟被甩、被炒鱿鱼、还被一只母山羊海扁一顿...似乎所有的坏运气都到了他这一边，没有最倒霉，只有更倒霉。
但对于这一切飞来的“横祸”，当事人除了去承受（just live it），事实上也没有更多其它的选择。因为有些时候，那些糟糕的事情不是你凭意志就可以阻挡得了。
年纪渐渐变大，便逐渐习惯于用一种宿命的眼光去看待周围发生的一切事物。常常觉得，即便是那些最糟糕的事情，它的发生也是冥冥之中有所安排的。如果不是因为Robin在吃坏了肚子在节目上呕吐、Ted就不会选择去别家买bagel，如果不是因为Marshall的那些破表格，Ted就不会在那个叫花子的面前多耽搁那么一会儿、就不会再次遇见Stella、也不会获得Tony提供的教书offer，也不会后来遇见那个大家翘首以盼的“mother”。
有时候也会用这样的角度去审视自己的人生。譬如在回顾与某童鞋相遇过程的时候，会想到：如果不是某次考试失败，就不会回到某个地方，也就不会遇见张三，而不遇见张三，就断然不会遇到后来的李四。而这个局面，如果再顺藤摸瓜往前推算，还应当感谢王二当年果断的离开......
因此，常常会想，那一切错误的、失败的、悲伤的、灾难的、毁灭性的(总之就是一切你能想到的贬义词...)事情之所以发生，是否就是为了把你引导向一个正确的结果？生命中那些所谓的“偶然”、“机缘巧合”，从宏观的局面去看，谁又能说它们就不是一种“必然”？
梁静茹唱到“挥别错的才能和对的相逢”，但我觉得更重要的是，只有“遭遇”了错的，才有可能“挥别”错的（当然了，不排除少数执迷不悟还“陷落”在错的当中难以自拔、不肯走出的情况）。归根结底，遇见“错的”或许不是坏事——或许，这“错的”恰巧正是通向“对的”开端？
或许此刻的我们都面临和Ted一样的问题，无法得知现在身边的李四是否就是那个真正的“the one”。如果他是，当然要恭喜。但倘若他不是，谁又会知道，当李四真的离开了，那个真正的“the one”不会在街角处等着你呢?
关于本剧，个人觉得笑点和亮点没有前面几季多，以至于追剧的速度和动力都大不如以往。不过本季最后两集依然精彩。另外，令人欣慰的是，Robin和Barney终于愿意正视自己的感情了。

Barney砸电视笑色了
每个花花公子总有一个让他收心的人

接机那段很感人
这就是我想要的爱

I know that you're tired of waiting
and you may have to wait a little while more
but she's on her way
Ted. And she's getting here as fast as she can

累了
看看这段话吧
也许有帮助

不冒险，就不知道人有多少潜能，

不转身，就不知道朝阳天天升起，

有时候，计划和梦想真的把人束缚住了，

也许奋力一跳，就能到达一个完全不同的境地；

这一季华丽的完结了，没想到最后一集走到了青春励志的路线上；

三个男人站在天台那一段让人感想颇多，

而两段表白也十分感人，

期待下一季。

By Defay

 

I have been watching How I Met Your Mother recently. I love it so much that I spent an entire weekend watching it non-stop. The show is really hilarious yet full of wisdom. Despite how insane and exaggerate the stories the narrator tells are, he really tries to teach some lessons here.

 

An interesting thing that I have to mention about this show is that at first I think Barney Stinson stinks, but gradually I fell in love with this character. Okay, "fall in love" might be too strong a word but it's true that Barney Stinson, the character along with the actor who plays it, is becoming my new favorite. I myself felt very confused sometimes, as Barney is not supposed to be liked by so many people, especially by me. He is a total liar and playboy who does not care about other people's feelings. He is conceited and selfish, greedy and arrogant. And above all, he is frivolous.

 

Yet I was deeply touched by Barney three times by the end of season 4.

 

The first time was when Marshall and Lily break their engagement, Barney lures women away from Marshall so that he can remain faithful to the woman he truly loves. It is later revealed by Lily that it was Barney who convinced Lily to come back to New York, even buying her a plane ticket home.

 

The second time was when Barney was secretly in love with Robin, he acted like a baby. He did everything he could to help Robin, especially that time when Robin accidently quit her job and might be expelled from USA. Barney wants Robin to be around him so much that he helped Robin to make a video tape as a resume to find jobs. Later during video shooting Robin was irritated by his ideas and he finished her e-resume alone by himself. Eventually he succeeded in finding Robin a job and kept her in the group.

 

The third time was when he heard that Ted was hit by a car and was in hospital. He did not hesitate even for a second and rushed to hospital. When he found he could not get a cab, he ran on foot to hospital. Just as he was a street-across away from the hospital, he was too tired and did not notice a fast-driving bus that he himself was hit by it and badly injured.

 

See why they still hang out with him? Everyone in the gang owes to Barney.

 

Put aside his personal life, Barney does have very special and sparkling aspects in his personality that are so rare and precious that it is very hard to find them in a human being.

 

First of all, he is rational. Recall that he is always keen to experiment on all kinds of tricks to hit on girls to test which ones of them actually work. No matter how many times he fails, he just keeps on trying till he reached a scientific statistical conclusion. That's right. 83%. That number applies to everything.

 

Secondly of all, he challenges himself all the time. "Challenge accepted" even if for most of the time, nobody challenges him. He just enjoys it, setting goals, thinking up strategies, taking actions, and eventually, achieving goals, which is closely related to another big merit of his, persistence.

 

Third of all, he is persistent. Recall that once he raised his right hand to high five but nobody responded him. He raised his hand till someone slapped him five. Barney is so driven to succeed, he will do whatever it takes to get what he wants, including lie, cheat or bribe his friends. If he's trying to get a hot girl, he might even pretend to be an astronaut or a taxi driver. Barney will talk trash, or even tell the truth if that's what it takes. He always gets what he wants. You have to admire drive and determination like that.

 

Fourth of all, he is audacious and passionate. We always see him running to do things. He never hesitates. When he wants to do something, he does it, immediately, or over a shockingly long period of time, secretly plotting. Of course, we should exclude the circumstances when he was deeply in love with Robin, which weakened his ability to make resolute decisions. His love for Robin actually completes him as a human being. We can see him as vulnerable, soft and caring as any man in love can be. We can see he has a breakable heart just like everybody else.

 

Fifth of all, we know that he is confident for sure, but sometimes he is peculiarly calm. Once, a big merger in the company Barney works in fell through and Barney was getting blamed for it. Marshall overheard that Barney might be fired. Everyone is worried except himself. Or at least he acted like he is not worried at all. He launched his project of "Perfect Week", e.g., sleeping with seven women in seven days without a single rejection, to deal with the stress. On the next Monday, Barney keeps his job. And his boss says it must have been a stressful time for him. "I barely slept," Barney winked.

 

Last but not least, he keeps rules. Despite the crazy and maniac ideas and actions, Barney keeps rules, except those rules are written by no man but himself. Still, he lives to it, devotedly. His Crazy/Hot Scale, Platinum Rule and Lemon Law are just a few of his dating guidelines. He has rules to govern his professional life. (Actually doing things gets you fired.) He updated the definition of cheating. (It's not cheating if you're not married, if the girl has two consecutive vowels in her name or if she lives in a different area code.) But his rules governing bro-to-bro relationships were so important he published them in a book called "The Bro Code."

 

Just think of having a friend like him around you. You can laugh at him every day because he is mentally strong enough to keep your unintentionally hurtful words from actually hurting him. Yet he brings you all these novel and original stories and ideas and other things that you've never heard of every day, to share with you or to brag about. He urges you to do crazy things you've never done in your entire life. It's so not boring when you are with him. Suit up! Phone five! It's gonna be Legen-wait for it-dary! I'm awesome! There are so many amazing and amusing or even annoying things he talks about. If you don't hear him say for one day, you will even feel something is missing in your life.

 

I think the most important reason is that, even though Barney is a playboy, he only hits on bimbos. And only bimbos buy into his lies and acts. Girls clever as Robin or Nora would not be easily seduced to his moves. He knows it and he tried even harder to prove to everyone that when Barney Stinson is not a jackass, he could really be a dreamy boyfriend that every woman would want. He is always handsome, wears a suit every day, even in his sleep (he wears a suit-jamas at bedtime) and he is clever and wealthy. Nothing can stop him.

 

BTW, the actor who plays Barney Stinson is actually gay. Heart-broken, huh? Still, I admire his exquisite acting skills, as well as his magic tricks, acrobatics and singing performances.