I am a sappy, lovesick guy in his mid-twenties (I turned 25 last week actually), so if there ever was a show tailor made for me, then How I Met Your Mother is it. Or maybe Love Monkey, or Ed, or Friends, or... Whatever, you get the point I'm trying to make. You listen to me week in and week out; I absolutely love this show. Along with the ongoing love story, this show has a very deep sense of comradery camaraderie. I grew up in the broken generation. The number of friends I have whose parents are divorced or just not together, is far larger than those whose have parents that are still with each other. Our ideas of families are radically different; our friends are our family, and that's something that comes across extremely well in this show. My friends are my family, and just like the mothers and fathers of yesteryear, they're the ones that keep pushing me to find someone (or at the very least "go out"), so once again, I sympathize with Ted. I'll go into more detail how, but I'll put it at the end so you can choose whether or not you want to read it (not everyone has a built in audience of a couple thousand). For now though -- On with the show!

The episode starts the morning after last week's episode. Marshall and Lilly immediately started pumping Ted for info on his night after he entered the room. Turns out, he had mysteriously disappeared early on during the festivities, not to be seen the rest of the evening. They've done it a couple of times before, but the writers love their flashbacks. They continually use them really well, so I'm never going to complain as long as the quality keeps up. Ted retold his adventures to Marshall and Lilly, and how he met the perfect girl; Victoria. It seemed like Victoria had had a couple of bad wedding experiences before though, as she laid down some ground rules for her and Ted's night: No kissing, No last names, No phone numbers, No contact after that one night. This would leave them with only the absolute best parts of a relationship, allowing them to look back years later and realize that they had at least one perfect evening with someone. And it would have been perfect, if both Ted and Victoria hadn't fallen head over heels for each other.

Back in the present, Ted realized just how great the night/Victoria was, so he decided to risk that perfect evening for an even more satisfying relationship. There was one snag in Ted's ride off into the sunset; Robin had now gained feelings for him. Something she didn't realize until seeing him in the arms of Victoria  after she had returned to the wedding to surprise Ted. This smacks of Ross and Rachel I know, but I trust the writers, and honestly, who doesn't know a "Ross and Rachel" relationship; that couple that can just never get their timing right? So during his search for Victoria, Robin had to do a little searching (soul-searching people) of her own before finally deciding not to tell Ted. The episode ended with Ted entering Victoria's bakery, (she made the cake at the wedding, that's why she was there) and getting his first kiss with her. Is she the mother in question? Still don't know, but she's a damn good fit, and the rumors I've heard are that we will at least "see" the mother by the end of the year.

How I Met Your Mother manages to do romance, fate, and all that other fun stuff, without getting too sappy. It's about that quest to find your "better half" in today's world, and how it's not as easy as those who've got it make it out to be. Or is it? For those that were wondering, the song at the end of the episode was a version of Spit on a Stranger by the band Nickel Creek. You can purchase the song off of iTunes, but it's not the one that was in the show. Still a good song though, which is something else that they seem to be doing very well; a bevy of songs that just "fit". From Chumbawumba to Michael Buble, the always seem to have the right song for the right moment. I'm going to try and get an iMix up on iTunes of all the songs that have been on the show thus far, and will let you guys know as soon as I have it ready to go, since there seems to be a request every week along the lines of "what was that song". Let us know what you think!

This concludes the review portion of the article, so those not interested in me can leave now. I'm always alluding to how much Ted and I have in common on the show, and I've gotten a couple of reader comments, emails, or questions in the chat room asking me how so. The short answer is, I sincerely suck at two things in life: Girls and Bowling. I just never end up with anything that I would consider "a winner" in either category. For example, I'm currently completely smitten with my neighbor, the problem is, she has a boyfriend, and although I'm a total smooth talker, I clam up every time I'm around her. I fele like I'm in 6th grade all over again. Oh, and last week, I managed to get a gutter ball during bumper bowling. How is that even possible? This is so gonna come back and bite me in the butt.