I like watching The Hills, but sometimes I find aspects of the MTV reality show difficult to relate to: the Hollywood lifestyle, the high fashion, the excess of blonde…

That’s why I was excited to watch MTV’s newest reality series, The Paper, about the student staff of The Circuit, the award-winning student newspaper of Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla. It’s got just the right combination of drama, comedy, touching moments and dorkiness.

The first episode opens with: “Journalists are the most important part of world. They really are,” a surely indisputable truth spoken by the show’s best character, a power-tripping egomaniac named Amanda who also happens to be editor-in-chief. Naturally, just about everyone on her staff wants to do her in. They exclude her from all social activities, gossip about her behind her back and plot at every chance they get to undermine her power.

Fittingly, Amanda has been afforded space to write on The Paper’s web site. To give a taste of her character, here’s what she wrote after watching Episode 2, where she has just won the editor-in-chief position and her staff is still stewing about it:

After watching the episode, I noticed a glaring familiarity between the situation between my peers and me and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during the most recent democratic debate. I watched the screen and noticed the consuming glimmer of passion that seized our eyes, the exchange of heated glances, and the putrid stink of unrelenting competition.

It’s this air of self-importance — every reporter has it — added to the deliciousness of high school drama that make the show worth watching.

The Paper airs on Mondays at 10:30 p.m. HST. I’d say it’s the best thing to hit MTV in a long time — but I guess I might be a little biased.

photo: www.mtv.com

I love the music/photo nerds on Flickr. They’ve come up with a photoset of pop songs ingeniously expressed in chart and graph form:

Other favorites include “When Doves Cry” by Prince (or whatever he goes by now) and T Pain’s “Bartender.”

Anyone who believes they can come up with a better graphic representation for “99 Luftballons” is invited to try.

I don’t get some of the others…

(Thanks, Gawker. )

Bush gave his final State of the Union address Monday evening. Did anyone watch?

Hopefully if you’re over 21, you realized that this was your very last chance to play the annual Bush SOTU Drinking Game, which has really grown since its inception a few years ago.

The rules have changed as well: added recently or this year are “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” (1 drink, plus 1 if he pronounces it correctly), “foreclosure” (Yell out the name of your favorite “Monopoly” railroad and drink; Do NOT Pass Go) and “discretionary spending” (1 to 3 drinks, your call).

And, of course, the traditional favorites: “nukular” (1), “freedom” (1) and “terror” (worth 1 drink however it’s pronounced).

Note: I do not condone the irresponsible consumption of alcohol, even for the purpose of celebrating Article II, Section III of the US Constitution.

Here’s to the beginning of the last of eight crazy years. Bottoms up! To democracy!