Merry Late Christmas!
Spoiler- the bottom of the article is a let down; turns out they're just taking his show off the air, not locking him in a bunker underneath a mountain like they did with Carlos Mencia.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
End of Decade List
So I called it my "End of Decade" list because I really wanted it to have that "End of Decade" punch, but here's the thing; whether it's an "End of Decade" list or an "End of Year" list really depends on what I do next year, right? I mean, if I do something strikingly similar, then this is going to kind of feel like an "End of Year" list, but if I wait 10 years before doing another list (impossible, we'll all be dead by then... 2012 People! It's in the Bible) then this will seem like an "End of Decade" list... it's a tough call. Regardless, with the end of the decade fast approaching everyone's clamoring over each other to list things and as the list of "End of Decade" lists got longer, I found myself thinking "What?! Do they think they're better than Me?!"
So without further ado, here's my list of 100 things!
I sincerely thank all three of you for reading! Happy New Year!
So without further ado, here's my list of 100 things!
- Lime Juice - if orange juice and lemon juice came to a party, and they had a child and you were like "That child could be theirs, or it could be adopted, it's hard to call also it's good on Mexican food." that child would be lime juice.
- Spaceships
- Racket Balls - When I was a kid, I loved racket balls... don't know why, maybe it was the blue, maybe it was the rubber, maybe it was because when you open a can of them they smell like old fake peanuts.
- Toothpaste
- Canned Tomatoes
- Retirement Plans
- Third Base –The second most advantageous place to be, offensively, in baseball. Also slang for an arguable array of adolescent sexual conquests.
- Texas
- John Leguizamo - The Jerk... Well, that's all I can think of. I know he did other stuff, no time for a trip to IMDb though, I've got 97 more items on this list!
- Mid-day
- Ontario (Canadian province)
- Ontario (California)
- Horse-Diving –Remember that movie about the girl who went blind from horse high-diving? Also, remember in Braveheart when he jumped the horse into the moat? Awesome.
- The color red - the go to color for things that you want in red. less effective for things that you want in green.
- Operation
- “Softly”
- Flatware
- 67
- Name Tags - the world’s second most efficient name delivery device.
- Time
- The Concept of “Time” –yeah, you’d think I’d have something to say about this, I don’t.
- Tree Frogs
- Questions - Seriously, where would my blog be without them? Where would my life be without them? Where would any of our lives be without them?
- Textiles
- Fairhaven
- Mayan Calendar- More date combinations than Heidi Fleiss -Zing! Take that mid 90's pop culture reference and "Hollywood Madam"! I certainly took her down a peg. Also it predicts the grisly end of the human race or something.
- Queen Victoria
- Jell-O
- Existence
- Trains
- The Dodge Challenger - Honestly, I don't know much about it, but it's a thing. This is a long list of things.
- Pineapple
- Heidi Fleiss - Hmm. Heidi Fleiss beat out the very thing with which I zinged her -on my own list of things. Now I've been taken down a peg.
- Text
- Murphy Brown –Sass by the boatload!
- Extreme Sports
- Quitting - Constant companion, always whispering in my ear that there is a better way.
- Doing things half assed -A little more work than quitting, but can often be played off as "an honest effort"
- Murderous Rampages
- IMDb - Honestly, if my blog came with a bibliography, it would look like this:
- IMDb.com
- Mike's Big Book of Made Up Stuff
Also, it would be incorrectly formatted. - Bunny Rabbits
- Sticky Notes
- Patagonia (The region of Argentina)
- They Might Be Giants –Nothing in particular about them… I was just reading an interview with John Flansburgh (he’s in TMBG) and I thought to myself; “I like them”.
- Contextualizing things
- Facing your own mortality –more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding than facing someone else’s mortality.
- Actions –Particularly the ones that “speak louder than words”
- Old Timey Bicycles
- Terms of Service - the second least read collection of words in the English language. The first; Sarah Palin's Going Rouge. -I know what I wrote.
- People that think they’re better than their old man
- People that think they’re better than me
- People that think they’re too good for conventional fabrics
- Adolescents that think they’re too cool to be dropped off by Mom in front of their school.
- Sarah Palin - in 2008 she proved that "I'll be more attractive than your average fat old white guy" was a valid campaign promise. Also she was zinged by me on thing # 52.
- Nature
- Any list that involves a run on “people that think they’re better than, or too good for, something”
- Accents –Not the talky kind, the kind that tie a room together
- Accents –The talky kind
- Eternal Youth
- Sandals - One thing's for sure; they cover less of your feet than conventional shoes!
- People that hold steadfast to music that anyone in their 30's probably listened to and liked at some point, but we should all be ashamed of.
- People that use jokes about their friend's musical tastes to advance their blog's dumb "End of Something" list
- The US Postal Service
- Calvin urinating on things
- Cincinnati - considered to have been the first American boomtown in the heart of the country in the early nineteenth century to rival the larger coastal cities in size and wealth.
- Kayaks
- James Taylor
- James Gandolfini
- Pregnancy – The most effective way to propagate our species. The Second most effective? Destroy the Mayan Calendar and avoid the destruction it promises.
- Nostalgia –The #1 way to make things better than they were.
- Patriotism –Best if it’s misdirected.
- Thresholds
- The word “Labradoodle”
- Kirk Cameron –If there’s anything better than regular faith-based passive aggressive conversion campaigns, it’s cleverly organized faith-based passive-aggressive conversion campaigns to be carried out on college campuses nation-wide. Also, he was in Growing Pains with Boner.
- Boner –Not like that! Jesus!
- Low Hanging Fruit
- Synergy
- Trespassing
- Exact Matches
- Acronyms
- The Blues – “The Blues isn’t about making yourself feel better, it’s about making other people feel worse” –Bleeding Gums Murphy (may not be true). Also, it’s a nice portion of the color spectrum.
- The Anasazi
- Chewing Gum
- The Wikipedia page for “Spells in Harry Potter”
- Dentistry
- WikiHow
- Pottery –You ask; “What has pottery done for me?” I ask; “What hasn’t pottery done for you?”
- The Volkswagen Thing –Apparently it’s known in the United Kingdom as the “Trekker”… so am I.
- Canaries
- "Feathery"
- Personification –There are a lot of things. If you’re going to make something something else, why not a person?
- Wood –A major component in wooden boats, wooden houses, woods, etc…
- Weightlessness –I’ve never experienced it myself… but it seems pretty cool, no?
- The grisly end of the human race –As discussed in thing #75. What would the Mayan calendar, the book of Revelations, Nostradamus, and the Discovery Channel do without it?
- Hyperbole –The unrivaled absolute champion for delivery of anecdotes… Unrivaled
- Jesus –Some people think he’s God in human form, some people think he’s just a guy. Something everyone can agree on; He -at the very least- exists as a concept.
- Me –Yes, I beat out Jesus… well it’s my list, isn’t it?!
- Inconsistency –Like, say, listing 100 things as though they have no rank or meaning, then occasionally commenting on one thing ranking higher than another thing.
- “End of something” lists –There’s no better way to sum up a period of time than a hastily put together list.
- The Fiancé –Call it a self serving #1 on my list of things, I don’t care. Call it “sappy” or “Persian” or "elegant", even “exemplary” I don’t care. You don’t like it, get your own list.
I sincerely thank all three of you for reading! Happy New Year!
Quick Link
I'm working on Year-end stuff. Also, I promised -and plan to deliver- Marci X, I just haven't had time yet.
Anywho, despite my "working on Year-end stuff", I couldn't let this one fall through the cracks;
This is one of those ideas that seems great until you think about it for more than 45 minutes -unless you're me, it only took me 3 minutes, but I'm very bright.
Go Here
Anywho, despite my "working on Year-end stuff", I couldn't let this one fall through the cracks;
This is one of those ideas that seems great until you think about it for more than 45 minutes -unless you're me, it only took me 3 minutes, but I'm very bright.
Go Here
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Winter is a season for giving
And CBS has given me so much.
Also there's a Jewish version... I'm pretty sure he over enunciates "schmear" at the end... it's not Yiddish.
Also, CBS realizes that Jewish and gay aren't the same thing, right?
Also there's a Jewish version... I'm pretty sure he over enunciates "schmear" at the end... it's not Yiddish.
Also, CBS realizes that Jewish and gay aren't the same thing, right?
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Meet the Spartans. Also meet Mike who's begun a slow descent into madness.
"I am a man of my word... until it becomes too hard. Then I quit." - Jesus
All right, Jesus didn't say that, I did. That's not the point.
I have not quit yet! Standing a mere 10 paces out from the starting blocks in this marathon of bad movies I've embarked upon, I can respond to questions of my impending early exit with an enthusiastic "Not yet!"
I watched Meet the Spartans. The Fiance watched Meet the Spartans. I laughed a handful of times, she laughed a handful of times, but I'll get to that in a minute.
This movie gave me -for the first time since my dramatic declaration last week- a realistic view on just how much of this metaphorical marathon will be uphill. The answer; all of it.
We watched the "Pit of Death" edition which the fiance clocked at an hour and 9 minutes (according to the blu-ray player... yes, we watched this on blu-ray). This creates two questions in my mind; first, I'm assuming that it's the "Pit of Death" edition because it has some kind of extra footage or something, how much extra footage could there possibly be in an hour and 9 minutes? Oddly, this is a harder question to answer than one would think. IMDb lists run-times of 86 and 84 minutes for Argentina and the UK respectively. I couldn't find a US run-time on IMdb, though netflix lists it at 89 minutes (I'm assuming we skipped 20 minutes of previews and credits). An hour and 9 minutes of actual movie is sparing (I choose my words carefully), which brings the second question; is the short run-time of this movie a sign that there might be some glint of self-awareness in the film's creators? Or is it just a sign of abject laziness? It's certainly not the former. A case could be made that this was not a result of laziness, that this is just the best that Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg can do. Based on the evidence from the "unrated" version, I could entertain that argument, but the number of times this movie showed any comic wit leaves no room for argument that there was any sort of "comic timing" involved in it's length (or, really anything else). Which leaves us at; Lazy or just really bad at what they do? I'm going with (c) "All of the above."
I did say earlier that there were a "handful" of times that The Fiance and I laughed. The aforementioned laughs? I can arrive at two; Leonidas (played by Sean Maquire, who also played the title character on Comedy Central's "Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire", and Jason Begley on Growing Pains) swore a few times that if the Spartans made the Persians attack through this narrow valley that "their numbers won't count for shit!". Side note- Kevin Sorbo (Hercules in the late 90's television series... um, Hercules) also had a supporting role in this movie. Two main actors with histories in "fantasy warrior" television series... hmmm.
The second chuckle; the entire existence of Ken Davitian (his IMDb photo is priceless- and inset
in this paragraph) . Ken Davatian played Xerxes, who's character was pretty consistently left out of crude, unfunny, jokes -save the his introduction which involves a nipple-ring tearing/staple gun incident... not funny. Anyway, Davatian's been around, the only role I could identify (and it was identified for us by the movie itself) was Borat, but he's at least not so much in your face obnoxious, which is saying something for this particular movie.
Bonus chuckle: The scene with the oracle was mildly (and I stress mildly before I imply that any part of this movie was funny) funny. Also, the Spartan's skipping to battle. That's it.
This was essentially a feature length version of Hans Moleman's "Football in the Groin" padded with poor attempts at homophobia and "hot chicks", and dated-before-they-were-put-on-film pop culture references. The Fiance said it well (I'm paraphrasing); "You know a movie's bad when the 'hot women' aren't even that hot... I mean, how hard is it to get actual hot women, there's a lot of them."
That's why I'm marrying her.
Next movie: Marci X
I do this for science.
All right, Jesus didn't say that, I did. That's not the point.
I have not quit yet! Standing a mere 10 paces out from the starting blocks in this marathon of bad movies I've embarked upon, I can respond to questions of my impending early exit with an enthusiastic "Not yet!"
I watched Meet the Spartans. The Fiance watched Meet the Spartans. I laughed a handful of times, she laughed a handful of times, but I'll get to that in a minute.
This movie gave me -for the first time since my dramatic declaration last week- a realistic view on just how much of this metaphorical marathon will be uphill. The answer; all of it.
We watched the "Pit of Death" edition which the fiance clocked at an hour and 9 minutes (according to the blu-ray player... yes, we watched this on blu-ray). This creates two questions in my mind; first, I'm assuming that it's the "Pit of Death" edition because it has some kind of extra footage or something, how much extra footage could there possibly be in an hour and 9 minutes? Oddly, this is a harder question to answer than one would think. IMDb lists run-times of 86 and 84 minutes for Argentina and the UK respectively. I couldn't find a US run-time on IMdb, though netflix lists it at 89 minutes (I'm assuming we skipped 20 minutes of previews and credits). An hour and 9 minutes of actual movie is sparing (I choose my words carefully), which brings the second question; is the short run-time of this movie a sign that there might be some glint of self-awareness in the film's creators? Or is it just a sign of abject laziness? It's certainly not the former. A case could be made that this was not a result of laziness, that this is just the best that Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg can do. Based on the evidence from the "unrated" version, I could entertain that argument, but the number of times this movie showed any comic wit leaves no room for argument that there was any sort of "comic timing" involved in it's length (or, really anything else). Which leaves us at; Lazy or just really bad at what they do? I'm going with (c) "All of the above."
I did say earlier that there were a "handful" of times that The Fiance and I laughed. The aforementioned laughs? I can arrive at two; Leonidas (played by Sean Maquire, who also played the title character on Comedy Central's "Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire", and Jason Begley on Growing Pains) swore a few times that if the Spartans made the Persians attack through this narrow valley that "their numbers won't count for shit!". Side note- Kevin Sorbo (Hercules in the late 90's television series... um, Hercules) also had a supporting role in this movie. Two main actors with histories in "fantasy warrior" television series... hmmm.
The second chuckle; the entire existence of Ken Davitian (his IMDb photo is priceless- and inset
in this paragraph) . Ken Davatian played Xerxes, who's character was pretty consistently left out of crude, unfunny, jokes -save the his introduction which involves a nipple-ring tearing/staple gun incident... not funny. Anyway, Davatian's been around, the only role I could identify (and it was identified for us by the movie itself) was Borat, but he's at least not so much in your face obnoxious, which is saying something for this particular movie.Bonus chuckle: The scene with the oracle was mildly (and I stress mildly before I imply that any part of this movie was funny) funny. Also, the Spartan's skipping to battle. That's it.
This was essentially a feature length version of Hans Moleman's "Football in the Groin" padded with poor attempts at homophobia and "hot chicks", and dated-before-they-were-put-on-film pop culture references. The Fiance said it well (I'm paraphrasing); "You know a movie's bad when the 'hot women' aren't even that hot... I mean, how hard is it to get actual hot women, there's a lot of them."
That's why I'm marrying her.
Next movie: Marci X
I do this for science.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
My Brilliant Scheme or How I Ended My Engagement
Hello Dear reader!
Seriously, at this point I'm positive that I've driven away even the most tolerant reader I might have had with my inconsistency -or more accurately my consistent non-existence. Still, I have a blog, and I intend to use it!
Good News! I've been struck with an immensely brilliant idea. A unbelievably brilliant idea that will, undoubtedly, result in the following three things happening: First; it will either make myself immeasurably more dim-witted or immeasurably more cynical -probably not both, Second; it will cause The Fiance to vomit with rage, and third and most important; it will give me an angle that should give me blogs through -at least- the end of the year, if all goes well, it could get me through considerably longer.
At this point, you're probably asking yourself -well, you're probably not, because no one's still reading, but if I were reading, I'd be asking myself; "What is this brilliant idea he speaks of?! Could it be learning to use a semi-colon properly?!" No. It is not learning how to use a semi-colon properly; I have always been, and will always continue to be an artist that can't be limited by the rules of "proper punctuation"... myself and e.e. Cummings.
Anyway, my idea is this: IMDB has a list of the 100 worst movies of all time. I will -for your sake dear reader (funny side note here: I'm pretty sure my only reader at this point is The Fiance, and since we live together, and watch movies together, I will not be sparing her from anything) Anyway, for someone's sake, dear reader, I will ingest and report on every one of these 100 worst movies of all time! (another side note: some of these movies are way old, and foreign, and obscure, I may not be able to find them... I don't know what I'll do when I come to that, but I'll do something).
The list is here: http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom
One more thing: I'm assuming this is a dynamic list. Because that could cause all sorts of problems, I'm going to stick to the list as it is right now:
Meet the Spartans (2008) Marci X (2003) Hababam sinifi merhaba (2004) Doogal (2006) Levottomat 3 (2004) Bolero (1984) Daddy Day Camp (2007) Blackwoods (2002) Kazaam (1996) It's Pat (1994) Büyü (2004) Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000) Gigli (2003) Araf (2006) Hababam sinifi askerde (2005) Hababam sinifi 3,5 (2006) Alien from L.A. (1988) The Smokers (2000) Ed (1996) Alone in the Dark (2005) Love in Paris (1997) The Underground Comedy Movie (1999) Phat Girlz (2006) Simon Sez (1999) Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) Cool as Ice (1991) Nine Lives (2002) Baby Geniuses (1999) Epic Movie (2007) American Ninja V (1993) Mitchell (1975) Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996) 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998) Demon Island (2002) In the Mix (2005) Chairman of the Board (1998) Ein Toter hing im Netz (1960) Son of the Mask (2005) Laserblast (1978) I Can Do Bad All by Myself (2009) Leonard Part 6 (1987) Snowboard Academy (1996) Car 54, Where Are You? (1994) Space Mutiny (1988) Feel the Noise (2007) Glitter (2001) Troll 2 (1990) Santa with Muscles (1996) House of the Dead (2003) The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964) Eegah (1962) Surf School (2006) Anne B. Real (2003) Tangents (1994) Going Overboard (1989) L'uomo puma (1980) Keloglan kara prens'e karsi (2006) Santa Claus (1959) Soultaker (1990) The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II (1985) Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam'in oglu (2006) The Hottie & the Nottie (2008) The Creeping Terror (1964) Ator l'invincibile 2 (1984) The Tony Blair Witch Project (2000) Crossover (2006) The Apocalypse (2007) The Wild World of Batwoman (1966) Die Hard Dracula (1998) Girl in Gold Boots (1968) Stjerner uden hjerner (1997) Who's Your Caddy? (2007) Zodiac Killer (2005) The Maize: The Movie (2004) The Hillz (2004) Kis Vuk (2008) Los nuevos extraterrestres (1983) Troppo belli (2005) The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) From Justin to Kelly (2003) Hobgoblins (1988) Disaster Movie (2008) Emret komutanim: Sah mat (2007) Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996) Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag (2007) Pledge This! (2006) Dis - en historie om kjærlighet (1995) Zombie Nation (2004) Track of the Moon Beast (1976) Fat Slags (2004) The Final Sacrifice (1990) Zaat (1975) Ben & Arthur (2002) Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) The Skydivers (1963) The Starfighters (1964) Monster a-Go Go (1965) Daniel - Der Zauberer (2004) Night Train to Mundo Fine (1966) Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)
So when does this start? This weekend I will watch The Mist -BTW, fantastic monster horror movie, with one of the most awful, rip your heart out, unfair endings of all-time. Seriously, I like the movie, but probably a good idea to stop 5 minutes from the end... as soon as he gets out of the Jeep turn. it. off! Seriously. So when I finish The Mist, I will return it to Netflix and my next disc will be #100 on the list; Meet the Spartans. The Fiance may quash this before it ever gets off the ground- But at least I wrote a blog.
Seriously, at this point I'm positive that I've driven away even the most tolerant reader I might have had with my inconsistency -or more accurately my consistent non-existence. Still, I have a blog, and I intend to use it!
Good News! I've been struck with an immensely brilliant idea. A unbelievably brilliant idea that will, undoubtedly, result in the following three things happening: First; it will either make myself immeasurably more dim-witted or immeasurably more cynical -probably not both, Second; it will cause The Fiance to vomit with rage, and third and most important; it will give me an angle that should give me blogs through -at least- the end of the year, if all goes well, it could get me through considerably longer.
At this point, you're probably asking yourself -well, you're probably not, because no one's still reading, but if I were reading, I'd be asking myself; "What is this brilliant idea he speaks of?! Could it be learning to use a semi-colon properly?!" No. It is not learning how to use a semi-colon properly; I have always been, and will always continue to be an artist that can't be limited by the rules of "proper punctuation"... myself and e.e. Cummings.
Anyway, my idea is this: IMDB has a list of the 100 worst movies of all time. I will -for your sake dear reader (funny side note here: I'm pretty sure my only reader at this point is The Fiance, and since we live together, and watch movies together, I will not be sparing her from anything) Anyway, for someone's sake, dear reader, I will ingest and report on every one of these 100 worst movies of all time! (another side note: some of these movies are way old, and foreign, and obscure, I may not be able to find them... I don't know what I'll do when I come to that, but I'll do something).
The list is here: http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom
One more thing: I'm assuming this is a dynamic list. Because that could cause all sorts of problems, I'm going to stick to the list as it is right now:
So when does this start? This weekend I will watch The Mist -BTW, fantastic monster horror movie, with one of the most awful, rip your heart out, unfair endings of all-time. Seriously, I like the movie, but probably a good idea to stop 5 minutes from the end... as soon as he gets out of the Jeep turn. it. off! Seriously. So when I finish The Mist, I will return it to Netflix and my next disc will be #100 on the list; Meet the Spartans. The Fiance may quash this before it ever gets off the ground- But at least I wrote a blog.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Something about shows I haven't seen before
Oh boy,
It's been years and years since I've blogged, so much has changed; people no longer tie a team of horses to their carriages to get from place to place - they now use so called "horse-less carriages". They no longer use block ice to keep out perishable foods cold, they now use "Electric Ice-boxes". I no longer wait for the second, undoubtedly thrilling installment of the Twilight movie series, and most importantly, The Fiance is no longer referred to as "The Girlfriend"... in fact, she will henceforth be referred to as "The Betrothed".
So I've decided (over the last 45 seconds) that I'm in my wheelhouse when talking about new shows -at least shows that are new to me- and recently a reader (or a person who did read my blog, you know, when I used to update it) a reader who -for the sake of anonymity, and because it's funny to me- will be called "Gummer Soff" told me that I should watch "Community" and I did. Here's the thing; is it funny? Yeah. Does it belong in "the squared circle" with the likes of The Office, what appears to be the future of Parks and Rec (that's turning into a good show!), and the ghost of 30 Rock past (that's turning into a not-so-good show)? No, certainly not. If ABC knows what's good for them, they'll -oh- if NBC knows what's good for them, they'll make this a one-season and done series, I just don't see a future in it.
My sister, a non-reader, we'll call -for the sake of anonymity, and because it's funny to me- her "Laura Lester"... crap, that doesn't work with her name... we'll call her "Naura Nester" told me to watch ".... I don't remember the name of the show... it's the one with the guy who played Al Bundy on Married with Children. It doesn't really matter. I didn't watch it. I did record it though, so I might watch it later.
Bam! Blogged!
It's been years and years since I've blogged, so much has changed; people no longer tie a team of horses to their carriages to get from place to place - they now use so called "horse-less carriages". They no longer use block ice to keep out perishable foods cold, they now use "Electric Ice-boxes". I no longer wait for the second, undoubtedly thrilling installment of the Twilight movie series, and most importantly, The Fiance is no longer referred to as "The Girlfriend"... in fact, she will henceforth be referred to as "The Betrothed".
So I've decided (over the last 45 seconds) that I'm in my wheelhouse when talking about new shows -at least shows that are new to me- and recently a reader (or a person who did read my blog, you know, when I used to update it) a reader who -for the sake of anonymity, and because it's funny to me- will be called "Gummer Soff" told me that I should watch "Community" and I did. Here's the thing; is it funny? Yeah. Does it belong in "the squared circle" with the likes of The Office, what appears to be the future of Parks and Rec (that's turning into a good show!), and the ghost of 30 Rock past (that's turning into a not-so-good show)? No, certainly not. If ABC knows what's good for them, they'll -oh- if NBC knows what's good for them, they'll make this a one-season and done series, I just don't see a future in it.
My sister, a non-reader, we'll call -for the sake of anonymity, and because it's funny to me- her "Laura Lester"... crap, that doesn't work with her name... we'll call her "Naura Nester" told me to watch ".... I don't remember the name of the show... it's the one with the guy who played Al Bundy on Married with Children. It doesn't really matter. I didn't watch it. I did record it though, so I might watch it later.
Bam! Blogged!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Glee is back from the future to stop the creation of Higg's-bosson particles in a way that gives everyone an equal chance.
Whoo! I'm feeling good this morning! Had a mid-week Veteran sponsored break, Glee's back, birds from the future are ensuring that the Higgs-boson particle is never found, it's a goo.... You thought the "birds from the future" thing was just one of my insane ramblings? Oh, foolish reader (not you,The Girlfriend, my other reader... who's probably stopped reading due to the unreliable nature of my blogging, and my propensity towards calling them foolish)... anyway, check this out:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091111/wl_time/08599193737000
Did you catch the part where they tried to justify the theory by saying that a lot of the currently accepted laws of physics seemed improbable at first? Now I'm no physicist (No, really, I'm not) but "A particle can have the properties or a wave or a point depending on how you observe it" gets this reaction from me: "Oh." Whereas "'Nature' or 'God' - we don't want to leave anyone out of our insane theory- is blocking the creation Higgs-boson particles from the future" gets this reaction from me: "Oh." Anywho, if "God" or "Nature" has the desire to send animals back to keep horrible things from happening, how do you explain Missy Elliot? (Dated? Yeah, probably... I really don't like her though).
Well Glee is back -take that World Series!... is it cliche to hate the Yankees at this point? I think it is, but I still do. Anyway, Glee's back, and they are going straight for it tonight... whatever "it" is.
I don't think I blogged on the last one, but -to bring you up to speed- the gay kid came out to his dad, and -I'm assuming- everyone else... but everyone already knew, and his dad was cool about it. Also last week Sue kicked Quinn off the Cheerios for being with child.
So this episode was all about equality. glee club director (I can't remember his name, it's just not there) wants to move the club away from pop music to something the judges at "sectionals" will find more pleasing... namely, Broadway. So the song they're doing is from "Wicked" and of course it's the lead girl's song (man, I've got NO names in me this morning... makes for a rough blog... anyway, it's the dark haired one... I don't know.). But gay kid (still can't remember his name) also wants the lead part. So originally glee club director's all "no way" but then gay kid's dad gets all up in the school's hizzy because it's discriminating against his son. As a result, Glee club has to hold auditions for the lead part, and the Cheerios have to hold auditions for a replacement for Quinn.
Enter high school girl with Down's syndrome and 30 minute period of the show in which Mike holds his breath... I can make fun of anyone. I draw the line at Down's syndrome, or really any sort of real developmental disability. It's mean, it's low hanging fruit (and I mean that in -honestly- the least offensive way possible), and it's mean. I lost a lot of love for American Idol the year that they made fun of the fat obviously mildly retarded kid... not OK (and yes, I realize how using the term "retarded" betrays my point... I'm not perfect, take me down from the pedestal).So I'm holding my breath, DS girl plus Cheerios tryouts plus Sue equals trouble for a show I'm really starting to like. Then to make matters worse, the DS girl gets the spot on the Cheerios. Glee club director -who's watching the tryouts to ensure that Sue is fair- voices my concerns; "What are you planning Sue?".
In the mean-time, gay kid's dad gets harassing phone calls and gay kid throws the audition to save his dad from more harassing phone calls. Also, Quinn is all over Finn to get a job to make money for the baby, meanwhile mohawk guy (the baby's real father) keeps trying to give Quinn money and getting denied, which is legitimately breaking my heart for everyone but Quinn. There's also some stuff about a bake sale to try to earn money to get a bus for sectionals that the wheelchair kid can ride on... here's the thing: it's not a realistic plot line, and it's not a hugely entertaining part of the show, so I'm going to ignore it for the rest of the blog.
Back to Sue and the DS girl; We've dropped the anchor of dangerously mean comedy into the murky waters of Sue. It turns out those waters are much deeper than originally thought. This episode ends with Sue reading "Little Red Ridding Hood" to an older woman who also appears to have Downs Syndrome. I came away with the idea that it's Sue's sister, but I can't say for sure if the show said that, or if I just assumed.
Anyway, tonight's episode was a little messy, a little erratic, but it appears that Glee has thrown down the gauntlet. This is a ridiculous show, I won't argue that. There's still a good 10-15 minutes of uncomfortable musical numbers per show. This weeks episode brought another side to that; I think I might actually care what happens to these characters.... but not so much Missy Elliot.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091111/wl_time/08599193737000
Did you catch the part where they tried to justify the theory by saying that a lot of the currently accepted laws of physics seemed improbable at first? Now I'm no physicist (No, really, I'm not) but "A particle can have the properties or a wave or a point depending on how you observe it" gets this reaction from me: "Oh." Whereas "'Nature' or 'God' - we don't want to leave anyone out of our insane theory- is blocking the creation Higgs-boson particles from the future" gets this reaction from me: "Oh." Anywho, if "God" or "Nature" has the desire to send animals back to keep horrible things from happening, how do you explain Missy Elliot? (Dated? Yeah, probably... I really don't like her though).
Well Glee is back -take that World Series!... is it cliche to hate the Yankees at this point? I think it is, but I still do. Anyway, Glee's back, and they are going straight for it tonight... whatever "it" is.
I don't think I blogged on the last one, but -to bring you up to speed- the gay kid came out to his dad, and -I'm assuming- everyone else... but everyone already knew, and his dad was cool about it. Also last week Sue kicked Quinn off the Cheerios for being with child.
So this episode was all about equality. glee club director (I can't remember his name, it's just not there) wants to move the club away from pop music to something the judges at "sectionals" will find more pleasing... namely, Broadway. So the song they're doing is from "Wicked" and of course it's the lead girl's song (man, I've got NO names in me this morning... makes for a rough blog... anyway, it's the dark haired one... I don't know.). But gay kid (still can't remember his name) also wants the lead part. So originally glee club director's all "no way" but then gay kid's dad gets all up in the school's hizzy because it's discriminating against his son. As a result, Glee club has to hold auditions for the lead part, and the Cheerios have to hold auditions for a replacement for Quinn.
Enter high school girl with Down's syndrome and 30 minute period of the show in which Mike holds his breath... I can make fun of anyone. I draw the line at Down's syndrome, or really any sort of real developmental disability. It's mean, it's low hanging fruit (and I mean that in -honestly- the least offensive way possible), and it's mean. I lost a lot of love for American Idol the year that they made fun of the fat obviously mildly retarded kid... not OK (and yes, I realize how using the term "retarded" betrays my point... I'm not perfect, take me down from the pedestal).So I'm holding my breath, DS girl plus Cheerios tryouts plus Sue equals trouble for a show I'm really starting to like. Then to make matters worse, the DS girl gets the spot on the Cheerios. Glee club director -who's watching the tryouts to ensure that Sue is fair- voices my concerns; "What are you planning Sue?".
In the mean-time, gay kid's dad gets harassing phone calls and gay kid throws the audition to save his dad from more harassing phone calls. Also, Quinn is all over Finn to get a job to make money for the baby, meanwhile mohawk guy (the baby's real father) keeps trying to give Quinn money and getting denied, which is legitimately breaking my heart for everyone but Quinn. There's also some stuff about a bake sale to try to earn money to get a bus for sectionals that the wheelchair kid can ride on... here's the thing: it's not a realistic plot line, and it's not a hugely entertaining part of the show, so I'm going to ignore it for the rest of the blog.
Back to Sue and the DS girl; We've dropped the anchor of dangerously mean comedy into the murky waters of Sue. It turns out those waters are much deeper than originally thought. This episode ends with Sue reading "Little Red Ridding Hood" to an older woman who also appears to have Downs Syndrome. I came away with the idea that it's Sue's sister, but I can't say for sure if the show said that, or if I just assumed.
Anyway, tonight's episode was a little messy, a little erratic, but it appears that Glee has thrown down the gauntlet. This is a ridiculous show, I won't argue that. There's still a good 10-15 minutes of uncomfortable musical numbers per show. This weeks episode brought another side to that; I think I might actually care what happens to these characters.... but not so much Missy Elliot.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
What?
I know I'm all clips and half-assed comments today, but -seriously- what?!
Also, apparently Tyler Perry owns an island.
Also, apparently Tyler Perry owns an island.
Apparently Growing Pains had nothing to do with Evolution
Ok, so I don't post much anymore... I think I predicted this in my first entry... and I think I discussed it in my last entry, but it's been a while, so I can't be sure. Anyway, I'm blaming the whole thing on a television lull. Honestly, I can admit that it's my own damned fault. There's a lot of good TV on Thursday nights, and I can't bring myself to write a blog on my day off... you see how this is my own damned fault.
And speaking of my damnation... Here's Kirk Cameron:
Did you stick with it? I certainly hope so, because Kirk is trying to save your soul, Ok? Did you catch Kirk's insistence that all they want to do is present the "opposing and correct view"... clearly this is all presented in a very objective manner.
Kirk- "This is a life of death issue"
Me- Really?
Ok, I know this is low hanging fruit... but in this day an age of rampant atheism and agnosticism at our highest levels of education, I feel like I've got to take any chance I can get to crank out an easy blog.
And speaking of my damnation... Here's Kirk Cameron:
Did you stick with it? I certainly hope so, because Kirk is trying to save your soul, Ok? Did you catch Kirk's insistence that all they want to do is present the "opposing and correct view"... clearly this is all presented in a very objective manner.
Kirk- "This is a life of death issue"
Me- Really?
Ok, I know this is low hanging fruit... but in this day an age of rampant atheism and agnosticism at our highest levels of education, I feel like I've got to take any chance I can get to crank out an easy blog.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Really? Is this news?
All right, of course I always promise I'm going to blog more so; I'm totally going to blog more from now on.
To the point. As far as I understand H1N1 or the "Swine Flu" is everywhere, right? Some huge percentage of flu victims have H1N1 as apposed to the regular flu. It's a common thing.
That being said, couldn't they have found a higher caliber celebrity for this "Another Celebrity has Swine Flu" piece... Are Boyz II Men even celebrities anymore? Isn't that like calling "City Slickers II: The Legend Of Curly's Gold" the "Surprise Hit of the Summer"? Though I do love that Billy Crystal.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/03/boyz.ii.men.flu/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn
To the point. As far as I understand H1N1 or the "Swine Flu" is everywhere, right? Some huge percentage of flu victims have H1N1 as apposed to the regular flu. It's a common thing.
That being said, couldn't they have found a higher caliber celebrity for this "Another Celebrity has Swine Flu" piece... Are Boyz II Men even celebrities anymore? Isn't that like calling "City Slickers II: The Legend Of Curly's Gold" the "Surprise Hit of the Summer"? Though I do love that Billy Crystal.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/03/boyz.ii.men.flu/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Three things I have to say... one of them is a waste of your time.
Ok, I only have three things to briefly riff on today;
One. this:
I literally have nothing to say about this. I'm just glad it exists.
Number two: I have to post an official retraction/update to my post yesterday. The Girlfriend is in no way anything like Manga nerds. Manga nerds are all like "ooh, look at the newest Japanese thing that's come out of Japan, I'm in poor shape and I have bad skin" whereas the girlfriend's all "I'm way hot, and the best girlfriend the world has ever known. Also, I like the BBC"... See, there's no similarity and the fact that I indicated that there might be a similarity was nothing short of irresponsible.
Third and last: So You Think You Can Dance is fascinating to me. I know nothing about dancing, like not even a little bit, and I suspect that at least 75% of the viewership of this show is in the same situation. Why is it then that The Girlfriend and I sit in front of the TV commenting on the quality of the dance performance being presented to us? Why is the rest of the 75% of unknowledgable viewership doing the same thing? Honestly I can't say. I think it might have something to do with consumerism and the constant stream of information thrown at us. Something about the erosion of our ability to not have a strong opinion about anything. Also, maybe I'm the only one with that issue, and The Girlfriend's just along for the ride. Doesn't matter, watch the clip again, buy some VitaminWater.
One. this:
I literally have nothing to say about this. I'm just glad it exists.
Number two: I have to post an official retraction/update to my post yesterday. The Girlfriend is in no way anything like Manga nerds. Manga nerds are all like "ooh, look at the newest Japanese thing that's come out of Japan, I'm in poor shape and I have bad skin" whereas the girlfriend's all "I'm way hot, and the best girlfriend the world has ever known. Also, I like the BBC"... See, there's no similarity and the fact that I indicated that there might be a similarity was nothing short of irresponsible.
Third and last: So You Think You Can Dance is fascinating to me. I know nothing about dancing, like not even a little bit, and I suspect that at least 75% of the viewership of this show is in the same situation. Why is it then that The Girlfriend and I sit in front of the TV commenting on the quality of the dance performance being presented to us? Why is the rest of the 75% of unknowledgable viewership doing the same thing? Honestly I can't say. I think it might have something to do with consumerism and the constant stream of information thrown at us. Something about the erosion of our ability to not have a strong opinion about anything. Also, maybe I'm the only one with that issue, and The Girlfriend's just along for the ride. Doesn't matter, watch the clip again, buy some VitaminWater.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I'm gonna drop a little 14th Century knowledge on ya. Also, the BBC has low standards. And Brits don't take care of their teeth, I hear.
Wow, so I haven't written a blog since early in the 14th century. Seriously. I'm pretty sure I remember being excommunicated by Pope Clement V for blasphemous writings in my last entry. Seriously. The Hundred Years' War has begun and ended since my last entry. Seriously. The Black Death has killed off a 3rd of Europe since I last graced the electronic "pages" of this fair blog. Norway Sweden and Denmark were united into one kingdom since I last flapped my fingers against my keyboard in an attempt to contribute something useful to the Internet.
Nah, I kid, I'm not trying to contribute anything useful to the Internet. So here's the deal, I've got hundreds -literally hundreds- of excuses to why I haven't posted in so long, the strongest of which is that I've been too busy at work, which is where I post. The excuse that I'm going to use, however, is that I was taken prisoner by native peoples of the Amazon basin, tied to a stake and prepared as a meal. Luckily I escaped... the details of my escape are too crazy to recount here, but I assure you, they were details.
As this is a blog about TV, or TB, or the illusion of TB, I probably aught to talk a little about my subject matter. Speaking of matter, my cat brought a dead bird into the house yesterday. Here's the thing: My cat is not a model of feline fitness. But the bird -while totally dead- was actually bleeding on the floor. Which leads me to believe that he didn't find the bird but actually caught the bird. I just don't get it, I'm pretty sure he couldn't outrun me at this point.
Speaking of dead things, I watched a marathon of this show on BBC America this weekend -Side note: you know how there's those super nerdy comic book kids who are way too into Japan? The Girlfriend is like that with Britain, except she's not super nerdy or into comic books... and she's way hot. The point being; The Girlfriend loves her some BBC America, and despite the fact that she is one super supportive lady, I'm pretty sure a fair amount of her agreeing to watch the show I've failed to talk about thus far is that it was on the BBC.
So you've got these three twenty something roommates (flatmates)... only here's the catch, one's a vampire, one's a werewolf and one's the ghost of the late girlfriend of the landlord... Whoohoo and wackiness ensues! No, not really. The best thing about this show -and despite the fact that we recorded all the episodes, we only watched the one- the best thing about the show is the myriad questions it unearths. Questions like; "Wait, so they're roommates?" and "Ok, I get the vampire and werewolf, but does the ghost really need to rent an apartment, also, how come she's all solid like the rest of them?" and also "So, there's a ghost, and a werewolf, and a vampire? And they managed to find each other to rent a flat together?" and finally "So can you like apply online to produce a show on the BBC? Is there even an application process?"... except you have to say process funny... you know, cus it's British.
Also, it's called "Being Human" or something along those lines. Also all Brit bashing aside (I'm really just worried that The Girlfriend's going to leave me for some bloke with an accent) the show has promise. Stay tuned for further critiques.
Here's a trailer... turns out the ghost isn't all solid and crap, who'd have known?
Nah, I kid, I'm not trying to contribute anything useful to the Internet. So here's the deal, I've got hundreds -literally hundreds- of excuses to why I haven't posted in so long, the strongest of which is that I've been too busy at work, which is where I post. The excuse that I'm going to use, however, is that I was taken prisoner by native peoples of the Amazon basin, tied to a stake and prepared as a meal. Luckily I escaped... the details of my escape are too crazy to recount here, but I assure you, they were details.
As this is a blog about TV, or TB, or the illusion of TB, I probably aught to talk a little about my subject matter. Speaking of matter, my cat brought a dead bird into the house yesterday. Here's the thing: My cat is not a model of feline fitness. But the bird -while totally dead- was actually bleeding on the floor. Which leads me to believe that he didn't find the bird but actually caught the bird. I just don't get it, I'm pretty sure he couldn't outrun me at this point.
Speaking of dead things, I watched a marathon of this show on BBC America this weekend -Side note: you know how there's those super nerdy comic book kids who are way too into Japan? The Girlfriend is like that with Britain, except she's not super nerdy or into comic books... and she's way hot. The point being; The Girlfriend loves her some BBC America, and despite the fact that she is one super supportive lady, I'm pretty sure a fair amount of her agreeing to watch the show I've failed to talk about thus far is that it was on the BBC.
So you've got these three twenty something roommates (flatmates)... only here's the catch, one's a vampire, one's a werewolf and one's the ghost of the late girlfriend of the landlord... Whoohoo and wackiness ensues! No, not really. The best thing about this show -and despite the fact that we recorded all the episodes, we only watched the one- the best thing about the show is the myriad questions it unearths. Questions like; "Wait, so they're roommates?" and "Ok, I get the vampire and werewolf, but does the ghost really need to rent an apartment, also, how come she's all solid like the rest of them?" and also "So, there's a ghost, and a werewolf, and a vampire? And they managed to find each other to rent a flat together?" and finally "So can you like apply online to produce a show on the BBC? Is there even an application process?"... except you have to say process funny... you know, cus it's British.
Also, it's called "Being Human" or something along those lines. Also all Brit bashing aside (I'm really just worried that The Girlfriend's going to leave me for some bloke with an accent) the show has promise. Stay tuned for further critiques.
Here's a trailer... turns out the ghost isn't all solid and crap, who'd have known?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I stand atop a pile of discarded blog material, and hold out to you my crowning acheivement: a 14.8 billion word Hell's Kitchen Finale blog
At this point, I'm blogging about as often as something unprecedented happens in Hell's Kitchen. Which is to say, about once a week. I'm sorry, I wish I could have come up with something a little funnier, used a little more hyperbole, but I didn't and there's no going back now. There. Is. No. Going. Back. Now.
And there it is, my opening paragraph. So, Didja watch Hell’s Kitchen last night? Didja? Because I did, and I’m going to blog about it… and here’s the thing; it was the final episode, so I’m going to tell you who won…. I think they call that a “spoiler”, but I’m going to call it “I’m going to tell you who won”. Yes, I’m stalling. I’m leaving time for the slower of you to decide whether you watched Hell’s Kitchen last night, and then whether you want me to tell you who won –In truth, this is completely wasted time since I think The Girlfriend and the Pissed Off Line Cook are the only people reading. First off, I don’t think POLC watches the show, and I know The Girlfriend watched it because we watched it together. Also she’s way smarter than me, so she wouldn’t need any extra time to determine whether she wanted to keep reading or not regardless. More or less, I’m writing this crap because I haven’t blogged in like a week, I’m rusty, and I’m building up steam going into the next paragraph. So you can skip the previous paragraph, if you want. [Editor’s note: Yes, I edit my own blog, that doesn’t mean I can’t have editor’s notes- As I was saying –typing- Not only can you skip the previous paragraph, you can skip every other paragraph for the duration of this entry –it’s a long one.]
Well, Dave did it. It’s funny, I think I wrote in an earlier blog that I thought Dave had a learning disability (I may have decided against that obviously inflammatory comment, I don’t remember, the point is, I thought it). But the last couple of weeks, it’s been pretty obvious that if his hand didn’t fall off, he was going to win. At least that’s what I remember thinking now. I definitely remember reserving the right to change my story at any point due to the fact that this is my blog.
But I get ahead of myself. It was a two hour show and some other stuff happened. For example, the reward challenge at the beginning of the show was for each of the three (Ariel was still there) chefs to recreate a cuisine from a different culture. You know, because Whistler will host the 2010 winter Olympics -consequentially, our last winter Olympics as the world will end in December of 2012- and the Olympics involve people of many different cultures –Until December 2012, at which time we will be removed from the Earth by some sort of “space vacuum”. So, Gordo had three of those, things… you know, the silver plates, with the fancy tops… you know. Gordo brought out those fancy plates and had each of the chefs randomly pull the fancy top off the fancy plate to reveal a little flag and something else -really, I don’t remember what the other thing was. I’m not generalizing. I don’t remember- which would reveal which cuisine they’d be attempting to recreate. Ariel went first, because Gordo’s a English gentleman before all else, and got Chinese. Which spawned this exchange between The Girlfriend and I:
Me: “Is that Chinese food like Chinese food, or like Chinese food?”
TG: “That’s a good question”
My good question was never answered. Dave went second and got Indian food… predictable reaction from Dave (or anyone): “I’m F**ked”. I agree, not because Indian food is hard to cook, but because Dave’s a moron -or mostly a moron; he recognized that one of the challenges of creating food for Indian people was that not all meats are OK. However, after carefully considering this fact, he chose… wait for it… Pork. Yep. The only way Dave could have chosen a meat more likely to be forbidden by someone’s religion would be to choose human. But Dave went with pork, didn’t really seem to hurt him.
Kevin chose last. Kevin got Mexican. Really? Chinese, Indian, and Mexican? They could have gone with Chinese, Indian, and French Fries. Or Chinese, Indian, and Jell-o. So Kevin’s got it locked up, right? Well, luckily for those of us that think Kevin’s a douche-bag -namely anyone who doesn’t have a nurse or family member tuning their hospital room TVs to Hell’s Kitchen for them- Kevin forgot to put the Mole sauce on his dish –Side Note: I’m pretty sure Kevin’s dish was Cilantro Lime Tequila Rojo Mole Verde Chicken Poblano. Seriously, as he was describing it I took a power nap, thank God, because that’s the only way I could make it past my 10 o’clock bedtime to get all this in for you, my two readers.
As a surprise Gordo brought in chefs that specialize in each of the aforementioned cuisines (I guess that’s why they didn’t go with Jell-o), and those chefs determine who did the best job. Yawn. Dave won, which meant that he got to hang out with each of the chefs while they prepared their signature dishes for him. Also, we discovered during this bit that Kevin may be the only chef in Hell’s Kitchen history that doesn’t smoke. Interesting.
Dinner service was the annual “Can you run the kitchen?” service where Gordon calls each Chef up and has them run the kitchen. I think this is my favorite episode of the season. It’s predictable, someone always goes over the top, but it’s entertaining, because someone always goes over the top. This year, I was dead sure that Kevin would be the over the top chef, but he actually did a really good job, good enough for The Girlfriend to think he was going to win (didn’t work on me, I think Gordo’s been set on Dave for a couple of weeks). He caught all of the sabotage plates and had the kitchen running pretty well. Still, I knew that if there were a fair and just God, Kevin would not win. There is a fair and just God.
Anywho, it was, in fact Dave that did his best Gordon Ramsey impression. He was kicking the garbage can, whipping his towel around, it was one “This risotto is f**king delicious” away from “spot on”. Brits. Dave missed the sabotaged plates –note here: Ramsey’s sous chefs confuse me. Is there job better than the one these chefs are competing for? Are they barred from competition? What gives? Also… Sous Chef Fella (I don’t know his name, but he’s the dude) is hilarious when he tries to pretend that his sabotage tests were in fact accidents.
Ariel had a bit of trouble controlling the kitchen, and by “controlling the kitchen” I mean “Keep Dave from sabotaging her by pretending he can’t cook scallops” but other than that I thought she did OK. She caught one of her two sabotages in which Sous Chef Some-guy substituted Salmon for Sea Bass…. I’m pretty sure they’re drastically different colors… but it was under a bunch of stuff, so good on her!
Regardless, Ariel went home, leaving Kevin and Dave in the finals. For the first time that I can remember –This week! An unprecedented development in Hell’s Kitchen!!- For the first time, the two finalists didn’t spend any time “designing” their restaurants. Could be because the Araxi (is that the name? Does it matter?) already exists… I know this because the head chef at the Araxi was at the restaurant during the finals. I couldn’t be the only person to find this confusing, right? It’s pretty likely that Dave and Kevin’s response to the news that the “head chef” from Araxi was in the restaurant was something along the lines of “So… wait… Who’s out there?”… but I get off point. There was not restaurant design this season, only a menu design. Kevin went complicated, Dave went simple… in fact Gordo –in what was phrased like a compliment- called Dave's menu “pedestrian”. That couldn’t be a compliment, right? Does “pedestrian” mean something different in England? Anyway, I don’t remember what he said about Kevin’s. I’m not sure it matters.
I just realized that this blog is running up around 1.3 million words. That's a lot. I'll sum up: So Dave wins based on comment cards. Robert's a douche. And Whoopi is mysteriously absent. Bummer.
One more thought before I go; At the end of hell's Kitchen, they both stand in front of a door leading to the balcony above the restaurant where all their friends and family are. Gordo counts to 3 and they both try to open and walk through their respective doors, only one doesn't open. Is there a more humiliating winner announcement in all of Reality TV land? When you loose in Hell’s Kitchen 4 things happen in very quick succession:
1. You try to walk through a locked door. This is heartbreaking in any situation.
2. You realize you’ve lost Hell’s Kitchen to a man with one arm
3. You have to continue to stand behind your door while aforementioned one armed man stands just on the other side receiving the adulation of his friends and family
4. You get consoled by Gordon Ramsey.
Is there a more spirit crushing loss in TV land? I don’t think so.
Until 3 weeks from Tuesday… stay classy, POLC and The Girlfriend.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Like Peanut Butter and Jelly
Apparently The Pianist was just a springboard;
http://weblogs.variety.com/bfdealmemo/2009/10/brody-leads-predators-team-for-fox.html
I've been predicting this since Angels in the Outfield (Yeah he was in it... look it up!)
http://weblogs.variety.com/bfdealmemo/2009/10/brody-leads-predators-team-for-fox.html
I've been predicting this since Angels in the Outfield (Yeah he was in it... look it up!)
Back from the Flu! Again!
Whoo!
Centuries have passed since I last blogged... see, I've been sick. like way sick. Like so sick I didn't even think about doing a blog until yesterday, but then I got lazy and didn't do it, which is a shame because Hell's Kitchen on Tuesday night was great! I think I had all sorts of witty comments about it, but again, I was way sick, so it could have been like the night after drinking -if you're prone to this type of behavior... not me, I tend to wake up thinking I must have said something stupid. But I imagine some people wake up thinking that they were comic geniuses the night before, when they clearly weren't. Myself? That's part of my everyday experience.
I'm not going to try to go back and recapture the imaginary gold I left on the couch Tuesday night (that could be read wrong... in fact, I don't think there's a way it could be read right. I'm leaving it in.) And I'm not going to try to recount the 65% of last night's Glee that I watched. I will say two things though (one per show).
Hell's Kitchen- I'm going to say more than one thing about this show; It's occurred to me that I totally look forward to Hell's Kitchen every week, and it's almost over. That's sad. Also, RIP Whoopi. I was sad to see her go, I'm in Dave's camp now. That guy's a trooper. I'm hoping it will be him and Ariel in the finals, though I'm not sure how they would kick Kevin out... maybe he'll be exposed as a weasel now that there's only two other chefs.
Glee- Sue is GOLD in this episode! Definitely one of the funnier characters on TV right now.
Which brings me to the body of this blog. I just got done having a texting conversation with my boy Mikey of pissed of cook... uhh... well, not fame per say, but he writes the pissed off cook blog. Anywho, we were discussing our top 5 TV people -I'm positive there's a more elegant way to say that, but unless I fix it in the editing phase of my blog -yeah, I actually edit this tangled mass of tangents- we'll blame it on the lingering flu. We were listing off our top 5 TV personalities fictional or otherwise, and I thought "this is a good idea for my blog". So that's what I'm doing. I've decided to remove order from the list (unless I come back and fix this later) and stretch it to 10.
And, with no further ado, my top 10 TV personalities:
1. Tim Gun, Host of Project Runway
All right, I'll say it, the show sucks. I've never watched a season of it before, so I have no comparison, but I hear it's worse than it used to be, and I'm not at all shocked by that. The one bright spot? Tim Gun. If I could choose a pair of gay fathers, it would be Tim Gun and... Oh, I don't know, Burt Reynolds or something.
2. Steve from Ghost Hunters.
Look, unless you suck it up and watch some Ghost Hunters, I've got nothing else to say about this. -I'll admit, I'm a little thrown off by the aggressiveness of that first sentence, especially because I know that 75% of my readers (namely, The Girlfriend -I'm not sure how that percentage comes out that way either) watches this show. So Steve and this guy -Dave Tango- are Ghost Hunters' answer to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern... or Brian and Stewie, Penn and Teller, Lavern and Shirley, Balkie and Cousin Larry, etc... They're the buddy comedy/comic relief duo of the show. Tango is nothing, he could be a bear in person pants, wouldn't make a difference. But Steve? Steve is great! If I could have Steve incorrectly recap everything story anyone tells me, my life would be infinitely more entertaining.
3. Cat Deeley, hostess of So You Think You Can Dance. We've been through this, she's a delightful 8 ft tall Australian woman. I have nothing else to say about that. Except that her delightfullness is but an extinguished match held up against the light of the Sun that is The Girlfriend's delightfulness.
4. -We may drop this down to 5, I feel like I've been typing forever
4. Barney on How I Met Your Mother.
Ably played by Neil Patrick Harris. I don't have much more to say about this character. I think he's more enjoyable if you've watched from the beginning, but I don't know that he's not enjoyable if you haven't. Also, he may be more enjoyable because he's playing next to Ted (I don't know who plays Ted... don't care) who is actually more of an insufferable shoe-gazer than Zach Braff.
5. -Yup, stopping at 5, I still have to edit this crap.
5. Alton Brown of Good Eats.
I've been watching a lot of Good Eats lately. See, I was sick. sick so I knew I'd be spending most of my time in front of the TV these last couple days. As a result I recorded anything and everything that I thought I'd be even mildly interested in watching. Thus, I recorded every episode of Good Eats I could find. Anyway, Alton's appeal can be summed up best by the following quote from The Girlfriend; "It's a cooking show for smart people!" and it is. If you have any interest in cooking or watching people cook, do yourself a favor and watch an episode of this.
Just for poops and giggles, the next 5 without explanation
6. Michael Scott -The Office
7. Jay -Ghost Hunters
8. Sue -Glee
9. Jeff Probst -Survivor
10. Gord-O -Hell's Kitchen
Now that I've made the list and read back over it. It's crap, don't put any stock in it. I've been reading "High Fidelity" there's a lot of lists, my brain eats that and regurgitates it as this crap. Whoo! Lists!
Anyway, I'm glad I'm back to the blog. Now I'm going away for the weekend. Will I write a blog on The Girlfriend's laptop from Oregon? Doubtful.
Centuries have passed since I last blogged... see, I've been sick. like way sick. Like so sick I didn't even think about doing a blog until yesterday, but then I got lazy and didn't do it, which is a shame because Hell's Kitchen on Tuesday night was great! I think I had all sorts of witty comments about it, but again, I was way sick, so it could have been like the night after drinking -if you're prone to this type of behavior... not me, I tend to wake up thinking I must have said something stupid. But I imagine some people wake up thinking that they were comic geniuses the night before, when they clearly weren't. Myself? That's part of my everyday experience.
I'm not going to try to go back and recapture the imaginary gold I left on the couch Tuesday night (that could be read wrong... in fact, I don't think there's a way it could be read right. I'm leaving it in.) And I'm not going to try to recount the 65% of last night's Glee that I watched. I will say two things though (one per show).
Hell's Kitchen- I'm going to say more than one thing about this show; It's occurred to me that I totally look forward to Hell's Kitchen every week, and it's almost over. That's sad. Also, RIP Whoopi. I was sad to see her go, I'm in Dave's camp now. That guy's a trooper. I'm hoping it will be him and Ariel in the finals, though I'm not sure how they would kick Kevin out... maybe he'll be exposed as a weasel now that there's only two other chefs.
Glee- Sue is GOLD in this episode! Definitely one of the funnier characters on TV right now.
Which brings me to the body of this blog. I just got done having a texting conversation with my boy Mikey of pissed of cook... uhh... well, not fame per say, but he writes the pissed off cook blog. Anywho, we were discussing our top 5 TV people -I'm positive there's a more elegant way to say that, but unless I fix it in the editing phase of my blog -yeah, I actually edit this tangled mass of tangents- we'll blame it on the lingering flu. We were listing off our top 5 TV personalities fictional or otherwise, and I thought "this is a good idea for my blog". So that's what I'm doing. I've decided to remove order from the list (unless I come back and fix this later) and stretch it to 10.
And, with no further ado, my top 10 TV personalities:
1. Tim Gun, Host of Project Runway
All right, I'll say it, the show sucks. I've never watched a season of it before, so I have no comparison, but I hear it's worse than it used to be, and I'm not at all shocked by that. The one bright spot? Tim Gun. If I could choose a pair of gay fathers, it would be Tim Gun and... Oh, I don't know, Burt Reynolds or something.
2. Steve from Ghost Hunters.
Look, unless you suck it up and watch some Ghost Hunters, I've got nothing else to say about this. -I'll admit, I'm a little thrown off by the aggressiveness of that first sentence, especially because I know that 75% of my readers (namely, The Girlfriend -I'm not sure how that percentage comes out that way either) watches this show. So Steve and this guy -Dave Tango- are Ghost Hunters' answer to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern... or Brian and Stewie, Penn and Teller, Lavern and Shirley, Balkie and Cousin Larry, etc... They're the buddy comedy/comic relief duo of the show. Tango is nothing, he could be a bear in person pants, wouldn't make a difference. But Steve? Steve is great! If I could have Steve incorrectly recap everything story anyone tells me, my life would be infinitely more entertaining.
3. Cat Deeley, hostess of So You Think You Can Dance. We've been through this, she's a delightful 8 ft tall Australian woman. I have nothing else to say about that. Except that her delightfullness is but an extinguished match held up against the light of the Sun that is The Girlfriend's delightfulness.
4. -We may drop this down to 5, I feel like I've been typing forever
4. Barney on How I Met Your Mother.
Ably played by Neil Patrick Harris. I don't have much more to say about this character. I think he's more enjoyable if you've watched from the beginning, but I don't know that he's not enjoyable if you haven't. Also, he may be more enjoyable because he's playing next to Ted (I don't know who plays Ted... don't care) who is actually more of an insufferable shoe-gazer than Zach Braff.
5. -Yup, stopping at 5, I still have to edit this crap.
5. Alton Brown of Good Eats.
I've been watching a lot of Good Eats lately. See, I was sick. sick so I knew I'd be spending most of my time in front of the TV these last couple days. As a result I recorded anything and everything that I thought I'd be even mildly interested in watching. Thus, I recorded every episode of Good Eats I could find. Anyway, Alton's appeal can be summed up best by the following quote from The Girlfriend; "It's a cooking show for smart people!" and it is. If you have any interest in cooking or watching people cook, do yourself a favor and watch an episode of this.
Just for poops and giggles, the next 5 without explanation
6. Michael Scott -The Office
7. Jay -Ghost Hunters
8. Sue -Glee
9. Jeff Probst -Survivor
10. Gord-O -Hell's Kitchen
Now that I've made the list and read back over it. It's crap, don't put any stock in it. I've been reading "High Fidelity" there's a lot of lists, my brain eats that and regurgitates it as this crap. Whoo! Lists!
Anyway, I'm glad I'm back to the blog. Now I'm going away for the weekend. Will I write a blog on The Girlfriend's laptop from Oregon? Doubtful.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Exciting news about Flavor Flav! Oh, also, I watched Glee!
I can't breathe, too many jokes:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ie41d1967dbc1d0964549480c356a07bb#
I might have blacked out for a minute... Whoo, but seriously, is there a high school in America that would allow Flavor Flav to enter as a junior? I want to believe that this show would follow Flav as he studied for the GED. I want to believe that.
OK, on to Glee.
I spent a majority of the show last night wondering where I knew the guest actress from. I spent a majority of this morning wondering if she was, in fact, a guest actress. OK, not the case, I've been awake for three hours, it would be absurd if I had spent in excess of 90 minutes thinking about Kristin Chenowith's future with Glee. I did arrive at where I know her from, though. She played Olive on Pushing Daisies -Appropriate side note: Some line cook recently made fun of me by saying, in a round about way, that I was "a straight guy that writes about gay TV shows". I didn't get it as a dig at first, I was encouraged by the fact that he described me as a "straight guy".
So Glee got a guest star this week. If my predictions are correct -and let's be honest, I'm pretty good at predicting this crap -and let's be honest about that; it's a sad thing- If my predictions are correct, Kristin (April Rhodes on the show) will be around at least one more week. More on that later... or I'll completely abandon it and never mention it again... it's equal odds either way, really.
This week wasn't that great. There was a glaring lack of Kurt and Sue. Something about their characters tips the show just that little extra bit over the top, without them the show is dangerously subtle. They help frame the satire. In both cases though, their brief moments stood out.
Kurt: While she was trying to befriend every member of Glee, April won Kurt's affection by giving him her "vintage muscle magazines" and telling him that a little drink before school every day would give him the confidence to be himself. When April's proverbial house of cards is starting to fall, Kurt shows up looking like he woke up in a gutter outside an LA night-club in 1986.
Sue: Rachel goes looking for Sue to lodge a complaint about the musical. She finds Sue nonchalantly walking down the hall taking down fliers. As she pulls the last one down we see that they're fliers encouraging kids to join Glee. Rachel tells Sue that she would like to return to the musical, but that "changes need to be made" Sue responds: "Rachel, I couldn't agree more. When I heard sandy wanted to write himself into a scene as Queen Cleopatra I was aroused then furious."
I'll watch next week hoping for more Sue and more Kurt. As far as April goes, I'm never one to rally against trashy, wine-swilling, horse tranquilizer eating, empty house squatting middle aged women going back to finish high school (wow, I just caught the connection to Flavor Flav... I'm clearly doing all of this by accident). But her character fell flat for me, I just didn't like her. She was too self absorbed, too reckless, just generally too much.
As for my teaser of a prediction; this time I'm going to deliver. The show featured a split screen duet of April and Rachel doing a song from Cabaret. April was clearly more Broadway in her singing, and the duet was shortly followed by the director of the play (Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day)
Anyway Ned Ryerson -Ned Ryerson in Groundhog day, Sandy Ryerson in Glee. I'm sure there's something to that, but someone else can figure it out. So Ned -Sandy- tells Rachel that he needs someone with more life experience, yadda yadda yadda basically describing April. Of course, as I discussed in Sue's best scene, Rachel takes over direction from Sandy at the end of the episode, but she also rejoins/saves Glee while replacing April. April still needs to finish high school. Do I think that April will end up in the musical? Yes I do.
Do I have anything else to say? Nope.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ie41d1967dbc1d0964549480c356a07bb#
I might have blacked out for a minute... Whoo, but seriously, is there a high school in America that would allow Flavor Flav to enter as a junior? I want to believe that this show would follow Flav as he studied for the GED. I want to believe that.
OK, on to Glee.
I spent a majority of the show last night wondering where I knew the guest actress from. I spent a majority of this morning wondering if she was, in fact, a guest actress. OK, not the case, I've been awake for three hours, it would be absurd if I had spent in excess of 90 minutes thinking about Kristin Chenowith's future with Glee. I did arrive at where I know her from, though. She played Olive on Pushing Daisies -Appropriate side note: Some line cook recently made fun of me by saying, in a round about way, that I was "a straight guy that writes about gay TV shows". I didn't get it as a dig at first, I was encouraged by the fact that he described me as a "straight guy".
So Glee got a guest star this week. If my predictions are correct -and let's be honest, I'm pretty good at predicting this crap -and let's be honest about that; it's a sad thing- If my predictions are correct, Kristin (April Rhodes on the show) will be around at least one more week. More on that later... or I'll completely abandon it and never mention it again... it's equal odds either way, really.
This week wasn't that great. There was a glaring lack of Kurt and Sue. Something about their characters tips the show just that little extra bit over the top, without them the show is dangerously subtle. They help frame the satire. In both cases though, their brief moments stood out.
Kurt: While she was trying to befriend every member of Glee, April won Kurt's affection by giving him her "vintage muscle magazines" and telling him that a little drink before school every day would give him the confidence to be himself. When April's proverbial house of cards is starting to fall, Kurt shows up looking like he woke up in a gutter outside an LA night-club in 1986.
Sue: Rachel goes looking for Sue to lodge a complaint about the musical. She finds Sue nonchalantly walking down the hall taking down fliers. As she pulls the last one down we see that they're fliers encouraging kids to join Glee. Rachel tells Sue that she would like to return to the musical, but that "changes need to be made" Sue responds: "Rachel, I couldn't agree more. When I heard sandy wanted to write himself into a scene as Queen Cleopatra I was aroused then furious."
I'll watch next week hoping for more Sue and more Kurt. As far as April goes, I'm never one to rally against trashy, wine-swilling, horse tranquilizer eating, empty house squatting middle aged women going back to finish high school (wow, I just caught the connection to Flavor Flav... I'm clearly doing all of this by accident). But her character fell flat for me, I just didn't like her. She was too self absorbed, too reckless, just generally too much.
As for my teaser of a prediction; this time I'm going to deliver. The show featured a split screen duet of April and Rachel doing a song from Cabaret. April was clearly more Broadway in her singing, and the duet was shortly followed by the director of the play (Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day)
Anyway Ned Ryerson -Ned Ryerson in Groundhog day, Sandy Ryerson in Glee. I'm sure there's something to that, but someone else can figure it out. So Ned -Sandy- tells Rachel that he needs someone with more life experience, yadda yadda yadda basically describing April. Of course, as I discussed in Sue's best scene, Rachel takes over direction from Sandy at the end of the episode, but she also rejoins/saves Glee while replacing April. April still needs to finish high school. Do I think that April will end up in the musical? Yes I do.
Do I have anything else to say? Nope.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Hell's Kitchen?! Hell's Yeah!
There was a lot of discussion on the couch last night about the difference between the chefs of Hell's Kitchen and the chefs of Top Chef. Why do they seem so different? Is it the networks playing to their demographic? Does Top Chef draw more talented Chefs? and if so, why? Does Gord-o specifically want amateur chefs? I don't have an answer to those questions. Sure there were some interesting theories batted around; it's the network; the shows are edited that way -you know, Fox is all trashy, Bravo is all something else; The shows have built audiences based on the atmosphere around the show, and the chefs come from those audiences. All just proverbial spaghetti thrown against the wall, I don't know if any of it stuck because I stopped caring. But I'd bet my good buddy and Pissed Off Line Cook, Mikey could chime in with some opinion.
Anywho (that might be getting over-used) how do you describe a platonic crush on a person of the opposite sex? It's not a man crush, because she's not a man, and it's not a regular crush because she's Whoopi Goldberg, but with Van gone, Tennille is keeping me in this show. Yeah, you've got Kevin who's ambitious to the point of deviousness -He tries to talk Dave out of the competition under the guise that he's legitimately concerned about Dave doing permanent damage to his hand, and you know he overcooked the rice for Whoopi's risotto on purpose -Also, what's the deal with Gord-o and risotto, he's cuckoo for risotto! You've got Dave, who's a legitimate threat despite only having one hand. The other two women are pointless to even talk about, Suzzane's got a small mouth, and Ariel seems pleasant... But, Tennille's keeping this show afloat right now. Doubt me? I present to you two incontrovertible facts:
Fact #1: She looks like Whoopi Goldberg
Fact #2: She yells everything she says!
Bonus Fact #3: Did anyone see her confessional last week? (ala MTV's Real World... I don't know what else to call it) The one where she was all "This is for anyone who's ever been told they can't do something!" She obviously really meant it, how can you not like someone like that?!
Let's get this out of the way so I can get on to my finale prediction: Some other crap happened. And ultimately, small mouth went home. It was inevitable. Kevin -in my opinion- had the worst service, you know, because he couldn't cook rice, but Whoopi and small mouth got sent up, and small mouth went home. The Girlfriend had an interesting question; She wondered if the chefs talk about the fact that their nominations don't matter because Gord-o will put up whoever he wants and it's all cut out in production to maintain the illusion that there's rules to this game. It's a good point.
I had been holding Kevin as my dark-horse winner. I'm off of it, there's too few chefs and he can't hide anymore, he's out front, he's devious -Side note on overtly devious reality show contestants: Watch Survivor. Do it.
My current prediction: -mind you, I'm allowed to change my prediction at any time with no explanation for why the previous prediction failed. -You know, cus it's my blog. My current prediction is Tennille and Dave in the finals. I have this to go with: Whoopi's a winner personality wise. No one likes Kevin because regardless of what they say, everyone hates a New England accent, and Dave and Ariel are the human equivalent of unflavored ice-milk. Also, the preview showed Dave having trouble with his hand, an obvious false lead. The overall winner? I want it to be Whoopi, because I want to hear her yell about it, but I think it's going to be Dave and we'll all be forced to listen to him sleep-talk about it. That's my prediction, because that's the kind of guy I am this week.
So I wrote a blog, Small Mouth went home. Gordie's speech? "First she had a red jacket, then a blue jacket, then a black jacket. Now she has no jacket." Clever.
Yes. This exists: http://www.rickygervais.com/index.php
Anywho (that might be getting over-used) how do you describe a platonic crush on a person of the opposite sex? It's not a man crush, because she's not a man, and it's not a regular crush because she's Whoopi Goldberg, but with Van gone, Tennille is keeping me in this show. Yeah, you've got Kevin who's ambitious to the point of deviousness -He tries to talk Dave out of the competition under the guise that he's legitimately concerned about Dave doing permanent damage to his hand, and you know he overcooked the rice for Whoopi's risotto on purpose -Also, what's the deal with Gord-o and risotto, he's cuckoo for risotto! You've got Dave, who's a legitimate threat despite only having one hand. The other two women are pointless to even talk about, Suzzane's got a small mouth, and Ariel seems pleasant... But, Tennille's keeping this show afloat right now. Doubt me? I present to you two incontrovertible facts:
Fact #1: She looks like Whoopi Goldberg
Fact #2: She yells everything she says!
Bonus Fact #3: Did anyone see her confessional last week? (ala MTV's Real World... I don't know what else to call it) The one where she was all "This is for anyone who's ever been told they can't do something!" She obviously really meant it, how can you not like someone like that?!
Let's get this out of the way so I can get on to my finale prediction: Some other crap happened. And ultimately, small mouth went home. It was inevitable. Kevin -in my opinion- had the worst service, you know, because he couldn't cook rice, but Whoopi and small mouth got sent up, and small mouth went home. The Girlfriend had an interesting question; She wondered if the chefs talk about the fact that their nominations don't matter because Gord-o will put up whoever he wants and it's all cut out in production to maintain the illusion that there's rules to this game. It's a good point.
I had been holding Kevin as my dark-horse winner. I'm off of it, there's too few chefs and he can't hide anymore, he's out front, he's devious -Side note on overtly devious reality show contestants: Watch Survivor. Do it.
My current prediction: -mind you, I'm allowed to change my prediction at any time with no explanation for why the previous prediction failed. -You know, cus it's my blog. My current prediction is Tennille and Dave in the finals. I have this to go with: Whoopi's a winner personality wise. No one likes Kevin because regardless of what they say, everyone hates a New England accent, and Dave and Ariel are the human equivalent of unflavored ice-milk. Also, the preview showed Dave having trouble with his hand, an obvious false lead. The overall winner? I want it to be Whoopi, because I want to hear her yell about it, but I think it's going to be Dave and we'll all be forced to listen to him sleep-talk about it. That's my prediction, because that's the kind of guy I am this week.
So I wrote a blog, Small Mouth went home. Gordie's speech? "First she had a red jacket, then a blue jacket, then a black jacket. Now she has no jacket." Clever.
Yes. This exists: http://www.rickygervais.com/index.php
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Big Bang Theory vs. Mike's Sitcom Theory
At times I'm inclined to believe that no one reads my blog. Other times I'm inclined to believe everyone reads my blog. For instance -I wrote that opening sentence once before, then I forgot to save it and rebooted my computer. I think it was better before... For instance -is it worse that I interrupt myself, or that I'm offended by it? FOR INSTANCE! ...if you watched this week's episode of The Big Bang Theory, you could easily deduce that the writers read my blog, then sat at their bull-pen style round table that all Hollywood writers have and said -all at once- "You know that guy Mike, that blogs and always thinks no one reads it, well, I read his blog. To be more specific, I read the blog he wrote last week about sitcoms. And you know what?! He's right, damnit! The sitcom is a wondrous thing, possibly the most wondrous contribution of late century western society! We've got a great sitcom here with The Big Bang Theory, let's trot it out there this week in all of it's sitcom glory!" That's what they'd all say at once while sitting around their bull-pen style round table. Also 3 of them would have their feet on the table, because they're creative types that can't be bothered with society's "rules".
Anywho, as I watched BBT this morning (c'mon! it comes on at 9:30!) I thought to myself "......." -All right, I didn't think anything specific or groundbreaking to myself. But I did find it greatly entertaining. Much more so than the season premier, and I was thrilled with the classic sitcom elements that it "rocked out with" this week. Also, this week's Simpsons was awesome.
Number one, top of the list effort this week to keep BBT in sitcom nirvana was the failure of Penny and Leonard's burgeoning romance. Let's be honest; geeks love when TV lead character geeks get the girl. This show is clearly aware of it's geek audience. I am also clearly aware that I'm a big geek and as such, I'm aware that part of me was happy when it looked like Leonard was going to get the girl. But in sitcoms as in life, what's good for the goose, is not always good for the gander -I'm aware of both the fact that I messed up that adage, and that it's lame. We've already covered that this is my blog and I do what I want.
You see, if Penny and Leonard become a couple, all of the sudden there's some reality to this show, some weight, it can't be a straight ahead sitcom. SitcomTown is built on top of landfill, and it's a very loosely packed landfill, if you start to add too much weight, or shake things up too much... BAMN! Sinkhole!. Look at The Simpsons; 20 years and how many real changes have they made? I can think of three. The death of Maude, Bleeding Gums Murphy, and Dr. Marvin Monroe. That's it. They make a joke of it: revealing that Principle Skinner is an impostor only to agree at the end of the episode that no one will ever mention it again; Adding new character Frank Grimes and killing him off by the end of the episode; but it's an important aspect of why they can hold on for 20 years (man, I'm freaking old!) they don't shake up SitcomTown, they don't pile too much weight on the landfill. BBT should take cue -of course, it's got the distinct disadvantage that it's characters will age- but it would do well to enjoy it's time in the light airy world of SitcomTown.
So can I follow all of that with a recount of the show? Sure I can.
Anywho, as I watched BBT this morning (c'mon! it comes on at 9:30!) I thought to myself "......." -All right, I didn't think anything specific or groundbreaking to myself. But I did find it greatly entertaining. Much more so than the season premier, and I was thrilled with the classic sitcom elements that it "rocked out with" this week. Also, this week's Simpsons was awesome.
Number one, top of the list effort this week to keep BBT in sitcom nirvana was the failure of Penny and Leonard's burgeoning romance. Let's be honest; geeks love when TV lead character geeks get the girl. This show is clearly aware of it's geek audience. I am also clearly aware that I'm a big geek and as such, I'm aware that part of me was happy when it looked like Leonard was going to get the girl. But in sitcoms as in life, what's good for the goose, is not always good for the gander -I'm aware of both the fact that I messed up that adage, and that it's lame. We've already covered that this is my blog and I do what I want.
You see, if Penny and Leonard become a couple, all of the sudden there's some reality to this show, some weight, it can't be a straight ahead sitcom. SitcomTown is built on top of landfill, and it's a very loosely packed landfill, if you start to add too much weight, or shake things up too much... BAMN! Sinkhole!. Look at The Simpsons; 20 years and how many real changes have they made? I can think of three. The death of Maude, Bleeding Gums Murphy, and Dr. Marvin Monroe. That's it. They make a joke of it: revealing that Principle Skinner is an impostor only to agree at the end of the episode that no one will ever mention it again; Adding new character Frank Grimes and killing him off by the end of the episode; but it's an important aspect of why they can hold on for 20 years (man, I'm freaking old!) they don't shake up SitcomTown, they don't pile too much weight on the landfill. BBT should take cue -of course, it's got the distinct disadvantage that it's characters will age- but it would do well to enjoy it's time in the light airy world of SitcomTown.
So can I follow all of that with a recount of the show? Sure I can.
Monday, September 28, 2009
The Girlfriend's so much better at this than I am
Watch Glee!!! Watch Glee!!! Watch Glee!!!
Of course, you may not find this funny or entertaining. In which case you should check your pulse. If you have confirmed that you are, in fact, alive but still do not find this entertaining ask yourself the following questions:
1) Do I like babies?... not new-borns when they're still all weird looking and crap. But babies when they've reached that stage where they're fairly normal looking and cute and can interact and what not.
2) Do I like puppies?
3) Do I like cashews on pizza?
If you answer "no" to any of those and you don't find this clip enjoyable, then don't bother watching Glee. You don't have a soul. There's no hope for you. In fact, if I were in your position, I'd move to a large city and take to the night, foraging on the leftovers of society. This is what happened to Dwanye Wayne after A Different World.
Anyway, here's the clip:
Of course, you may not find this funny or entertaining. In which case you should check your pulse. If you have confirmed that you are, in fact, alive but still do not find this entertaining ask yourself the following questions:
1) Do I like babies?... not new-borns when they're still all weird looking and crap. But babies when they've reached that stage where they're fairly normal looking and cute and can interact and what not.
2) Do I like puppies?
3) Do I like cashews on pizza?
If you answer "no" to any of those and you don't find this clip enjoyable, then don't bother watching Glee. You don't have a soul. There's no hope for you. In fact, if I were in your position, I'd move to a large city and take to the night, foraging on the leftovers of society. This is what happened to Dwanye Wayne after A Different World.
Anyway, here's the clip:
American Dad, mailing it in, and products that some teenage girl outside of Houston is in the process of loving.
It's unfortunate that the major preoccupation of my day has been whether my inability to breathe through my right nostril is constant, or at least chronic. This seems like a question that should be easily answered. If I were to keep a "which nostril can't I breathe through today" journal, I think I'd be onto something. But I don't. I don't even keep a "snarky comments on TV shows I've watched for use in my blog" journal. Luckily, I have just enough memory to hold together enough to write a blog every once in a while. If I tried to remember snarky comments about TV shows I've recently watched, and which nostril I can and can't breathe out of day to day, I'd forget how to drive.
It was a good intro, one of my best. And yet, I'm pretty sure the following paragraphs will disappoint. It just feels like that kind of blog entry, I only hope I can come up with a you-tube clip to redeem myself.
I watched American Dad this morning. Last night there was a season premiere of all four animated Fox shows; The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show (I think that's what it's called), Family Guy, and American Dad. I love the Simpsons, always have, always will. I will ignore their decline in hilariousness and relativity until I'm laying on my death-bed. At which point I'll use my last breath to admit that the last 75 seasons of the Simpsons have been "a bit of a disappointment".
Family guy -as a series- has suffered from coming late to the dance -speaking of which, watch Glee, for the love of God! WATCH GLEE!. The Simpsons and King of the Hill -Not a big King of the Hill fan, just doesn't work for me- had plenty of time to establish their characters. Family Guy showed up after the Simpsons and KOTH had hit their full stride, and as a result had to deliver immediately. Family Guy -for the most part- has been able to achieve that, but the characters never felt personal to me, when the jokes fall flat, there's never anything else there. Family Guy is a sketch-comedy show, whereas the Simpsons is a sitcom.
Astute observation. Inspired even, perhaps this blog will be saved. I'm getting off point -also, I've read ahead... the blog won't be saved. American Dad -for whatever reason- has been able to give more time to character development, and, as such, sits right at the top of the Fox animated show pile (well, maybe right below The Simpsons, who have had no drop in quality -ever!). So this morning when I thought "I have 30 minutes of TV before I absolutely have to get out the door and on my way to work, what can I watch then blog about?" -that's right, this blog is part of my morning plan. How sad is that? Don't answer that. When I was trying to figure out what to watch, American Dad was my only logical choice. The Girlfriend would want to watch The Simpsons with me, and I don't know anything about this "Cleveland Show" deal, it could be horrible, and that may put me in the wrong place going into work.
So I watched American Dad (is anyone taking bets on how many times I say "So I watched ****" during a blog? What's the over/under? 35? 40?). It was a decent episode, not season premiere quality in my mind, but acceptable. There were two central story-lines. This is standard for AD, there's a straight story-line involving one of the family, and a zany storyline involving Roger -the Family's alien, if you're not up on your AD. This week, Roger's story-line wasn't zany enough, it had it's moments, mostly centered around the meal he wanted Francine to cook for his pay-per-view Barbara covers Celine event. I believe he described the bird as "a meal so shamefully decedent that it's eaten under a napkin to hide your shame from God". Also at some point Roger dresses Klaus -The Family's Nazi war criminal transported into a fish- as the bird and uses it to trick Haley -The Daughter- into giving him the pay-per-view code. When Haley discovers that it's Klaus and not the bird Roger intends to eat: "Sorry Haley, Roger tricked me, he told me he was going to dress me up as Mr. Wendell from the Arrested Development video".
The straight story-line was, frankly, pretty boring. There was a paint-ball Vietnam war reenactment held at a country club. A few good gags, but for the most part, there just wasn't enough pay-out.
So that's my American Dad blog... I'll see what I can come up with tonight.
Happy Monday (is there a way to specifically mark a non-exclamatory sentence?)
It's official, we will live to see Humanity eat itself. I'd recommend no more than 45 seconds of this clip.
It was a good intro, one of my best. And yet, I'm pretty sure the following paragraphs will disappoint. It just feels like that kind of blog entry, I only hope I can come up with a you-tube clip to redeem myself.
I watched American Dad this morning. Last night there was a season premiere of all four animated Fox shows; The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show (I think that's what it's called), Family Guy, and American Dad. I love the Simpsons, always have, always will. I will ignore their decline in hilariousness and relativity until I'm laying on my death-bed. At which point I'll use my last breath to admit that the last 75 seasons of the Simpsons have been "a bit of a disappointment".
Family guy -as a series- has suffered from coming late to the dance -speaking of which, watch Glee, for the love of God! WATCH GLEE!. The Simpsons and King of the Hill -Not a big King of the Hill fan, just doesn't work for me- had plenty of time to establish their characters. Family Guy showed up after the Simpsons and KOTH had hit their full stride, and as a result had to deliver immediately. Family Guy -for the most part- has been able to achieve that, but the characters never felt personal to me, when the jokes fall flat, there's never anything else there. Family Guy is a sketch-comedy show, whereas the Simpsons is a sitcom.
Astute observation. Inspired even, perhaps this blog will be saved. I'm getting off point -also, I've read ahead... the blog won't be saved. American Dad -for whatever reason- has been able to give more time to character development, and, as such, sits right at the top of the Fox animated show pile (well, maybe right below The Simpsons, who have had no drop in quality -ever!). So this morning when I thought "I have 30 minutes of TV before I absolutely have to get out the door and on my way to work, what can I watch then blog about?" -that's right, this blog is part of my morning plan. How sad is that? Don't answer that. When I was trying to figure out what to watch, American Dad was my only logical choice. The Girlfriend would want to watch The Simpsons with me, and I don't know anything about this "Cleveland Show" deal, it could be horrible, and that may put me in the wrong place going into work.
So I watched American Dad (is anyone taking bets on how many times I say "So I watched ****" during a blog? What's the over/under? 35? 40?). It was a decent episode, not season premiere quality in my mind, but acceptable. There were two central story-lines. This is standard for AD, there's a straight story-line involving one of the family, and a zany storyline involving Roger -the Family's alien, if you're not up on your AD. This week, Roger's story-line wasn't zany enough, it had it's moments, mostly centered around the meal he wanted Francine to cook for his pay-per-view Barbara covers Celine event. I believe he described the bird as "a meal so shamefully decedent that it's eaten under a napkin to hide your shame from God". Also at some point Roger dresses Klaus -The Family's Nazi war criminal transported into a fish- as the bird and uses it to trick Haley -The Daughter- into giving him the pay-per-view code. When Haley discovers that it's Klaus and not the bird Roger intends to eat: "Sorry Haley, Roger tricked me, he told me he was going to dress me up as Mr. Wendell from the Arrested Development video".
The straight story-line was, frankly, pretty boring. There was a paint-ball Vietnam war reenactment held at a country club. A few good gags, but for the most part, there just wasn't enough pay-out.
So that's my American Dad blog... I'll see what I can come up with tonight.
Happy Monday (is there a way to specifically mark a non-exclamatory sentence?)
It's official, we will live to see Humanity eat itself. I'd recommend no more than 45 seconds of this clip.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
My Economic Stimulous Plan, or Mike's Free Ride
Hello Dear Readers!
I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to be a night behind the action for a while. It's just the way things are, there's a lot of TV to watch, and not and endless supply of time to watch it in. I haven't even gotten to the Big Bang Theory yet! And Survivor starts this week! How am I possibly going to be able to pull this off? I've got a plan. The blog's going pay-site- yup. I figure there's, what, like 3 of you that read this? maybe? We'll say there is. If each of you can pay, say, $30,000 a year, well that's a pretty comfortable living, and then I could concentrate full time on the blog. Of course I wouldn't work weekends, or holidays... and I couldn't be expected to put out more than 3 columns a week... but. Well, think it over, eh?
Where I started going with that is that I'm a day behind, and I'm learning to be OK with that. So today I blog about Hell's Kitchen. This was shown (and recorded by my DVR) as a two hour block, but it was really just two shows, and I only watched one -I know, this is the type of thing that could be remedied by my previously mentioned donation plan, I'm calling it "Mike's free ride". If you remember from last week -and honestly, I can't remember if I wrote about it or not- Gordie had sent small-mouth to the men's team. The men were not welcoming. Kevin was decidedly hostile -Kevin: "Suzanne, let's get one thing straight. We're not happy about this one bit. We don't like your attitude, and we don't like you." Ouch. He also told the camera that they would "rub her out, just like we rubbed out all the weak ones, we'll rub her out too"... umm, so what you're saying, Kevin, is that every time a weak chef is added to the team, you have to rub one out?
All right, all childishness aside, Suzanne VonSmallMouth actually seems to have taken the hint from everyone's stated dislike of her. She went full force into the blue team. They didn't really come around on her, granted -there were numerous shots of her trying to give input and the guys acting as though she wasn't there... like literally not there. But Blondie Blonderson was getting the same treatment on the women's side, so I'm not sure it's indicative of anything. Anywho, the chef's had to create three courses and use ingredients out of a pile of Pacific Northwest ingredients... but there was lamb, because you know, sheep just run wild up here in the northwest. So they made there meals and had some Olympic athletes (two of 'em... I don't know) come and determine which side did the bestest job -yeah, because if you want someone to judge food, get Olympic athletes, those people know their food!
So I think the blue team won, yeah, they did because the red team had to go to a farm and clean out the pig pen, a punishment Gord-o couldn't get out without laughing (he promptly told the blue team to stop laughing, cus you know, it's mean). So the blue team ate food somewhere and the red team cleaned out pig pens, and everyone smoked. (The Girlfriend is intrigued by this "Apparently 95% of chefs smoke" thing, maybe I can get her to guest blog about it... we'll see)
This was the dinner service where the chefs create their own menus and the guests order off of one or the other. In the past I remember the winning team being decided by how many people ordered off of each menu, but this season is officially off the rails, I don't think there are any rules anymore. The blue team ended up winning (Despite Van's inability to cook fish)... oh wait, they didn't win, both teams lost. But yeah, Van couldn't cook fish, and apparently doesn't do well under pressure (good choice of career). Funny he said he can't handle people yelling at him, but he's got -what appears to me- to be a blatant military haircut, and the military's all about the yelling, right?
So Van and Blondie Blonderson (she couldn't cook fish either, maybe it's not them maybe they got some kind of heat resistant Halibut) got put up, Van goes on a tirade and Blondie gets sent home... At the end of every episode, Chef does a little voice-over while he hangs up the chef's coat and their portrait bursts into flames... his voice over this week was priceless;
Gord-o: "Sabrina wanted to be the head chef at Whistler, now all she has to do is take those red lips and whistle her way out of here". Man Chef Ramsey can turn a phrase! You see, when she came in she had her red lipstick and her hair did, she was big bitch on the block... actually those are her words. yup.
All right, one last thing. Progressive commercials. I know there's only 4 of us (honestly, am I being overly optimistic?) but let's see what we can do about this, eh? Certainly we can each tell two people and they can tell two people and eventually we'll have that Flo lady finding another character to play. I was going to embed a Progressive commercial here, but after writing that sentence, I'm just too mad.
Also, two recommendations; 1) if you're ever going to watch an episode of Survivor, watch tonight, the first episode is always by far the best and 2) Find the Magic Bullet infomercial... that's it. do it. Stay with it. You'll thank me.
I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to be a night behind the action for a while. It's just the way things are, there's a lot of TV to watch, and not and endless supply of time to watch it in. I haven't even gotten to the Big Bang Theory yet! And Survivor starts this week! How am I possibly going to be able to pull this off? I've got a plan. The blog's going pay-site- yup. I figure there's, what, like 3 of you that read this? maybe? We'll say there is. If each of you can pay, say, $30,000 a year, well that's a pretty comfortable living, and then I could concentrate full time on the blog. Of course I wouldn't work weekends, or holidays... and I couldn't be expected to put out more than 3 columns a week... but. Well, think it over, eh?
Where I started going with that is that I'm a day behind, and I'm learning to be OK with that. So today I blog about Hell's Kitchen. This was shown (and recorded by my DVR) as a two hour block, but it was really just two shows, and I only watched one -I know, this is the type of thing that could be remedied by my previously mentioned donation plan, I'm calling it "Mike's free ride". If you remember from last week -and honestly, I can't remember if I wrote about it or not- Gordie had sent small-mouth to the men's team. The men were not welcoming. Kevin was decidedly hostile -Kevin: "Suzanne, let's get one thing straight. We're not happy about this one bit. We don't like your attitude, and we don't like you." Ouch. He also told the camera that they would "rub her out, just like we rubbed out all the weak ones, we'll rub her out too"... umm, so what you're saying, Kevin, is that every time a weak chef is added to the team, you have to rub one out?
All right, all childishness aside, Suzanne VonSmallMouth actually seems to have taken the hint from everyone's stated dislike of her. She went full force into the blue team. They didn't really come around on her, granted -there were numerous shots of her trying to give input and the guys acting as though she wasn't there... like literally not there. But Blondie Blonderson was getting the same treatment on the women's side, so I'm not sure it's indicative of anything. Anywho, the chef's had to create three courses and use ingredients out of a pile of Pacific Northwest ingredients... but there was lamb, because you know, sheep just run wild up here in the northwest. So they made there meals and had some Olympic athletes (two of 'em... I don't know) come and determine which side did the bestest job -yeah, because if you want someone to judge food, get Olympic athletes, those people know their food!
So I think the blue team won, yeah, they did because the red team had to go to a farm and clean out the pig pen, a punishment Gord-o couldn't get out without laughing (he promptly told the blue team to stop laughing, cus you know, it's mean). So the blue team ate food somewhere and the red team cleaned out pig pens, and everyone smoked. (The Girlfriend is intrigued by this "Apparently 95% of chefs smoke" thing, maybe I can get her to guest blog about it... we'll see)
This was the dinner service where the chefs create their own menus and the guests order off of one or the other. In the past I remember the winning team being decided by how many people ordered off of each menu, but this season is officially off the rails, I don't think there are any rules anymore. The blue team ended up winning (Despite Van's inability to cook fish)... oh wait, they didn't win, both teams lost. But yeah, Van couldn't cook fish, and apparently doesn't do well under pressure (good choice of career). Funny he said he can't handle people yelling at him, but he's got -what appears to me- to be a blatant military haircut, and the military's all about the yelling, right?
So Van and Blondie Blonderson (she couldn't cook fish either, maybe it's not them maybe they got some kind of heat resistant Halibut) got put up, Van goes on a tirade and Blondie gets sent home... At the end of every episode, Chef does a little voice-over while he hangs up the chef's coat and their portrait bursts into flames... his voice over this week was priceless;
Gord-o: "Sabrina wanted to be the head chef at Whistler, now all she has to do is take those red lips and whistle her way out of here". Man Chef Ramsey can turn a phrase! You see, when she came in she had her red lipstick and her hair did, she was big bitch on the block... actually those are her words. yup.
All right, one last thing. Progressive commercials. I know there's only 4 of us (honestly, am I being overly optimistic?) but let's see what we can do about this, eh? Certainly we can each tell two people and they can tell two people and eventually we'll have that Flo lady finding another character to play. I was going to embed a Progressive commercial here, but after writing that sentence, I'm just too mad.
Also, two recommendations; 1) if you're ever going to watch an episode of Survivor, watch tonight, the first episode is always by far the best and 2) Find the Magic Bullet infomercial... that's it. do it. Stay with it. You'll thank me.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
How I Met Your Mother, Passed in My Man Card, and Took Way Too Long to Post, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Sitcom
All right, I'm back after an extended hiatus -I know, I never take a break, it's impossible to believe I could now! I also never type in bold italics for emphasis, or dream of building a robot. Regardless! Here's my Tuesday morning promise to you: I will write a blog about How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory every Tuesday morning. Now that I've made that promise: I didn't watch Big Bang Theory. But the blog continues!
Here's the deal. I grew up on the sitcom. The Cosby Show, Cheers, Family Ties, Perfect Strangers, Growing Pains, etc... this is where my love for TV comes from. So when I come across the sitcom done well, it touches me in a place so deep, if the prosecutor were to ask me to show on the doll where the sitcom touched me, I'd have to tear it at the seams and point to the stuffing that had sprung from inside. Sitcoms reside in a place so deep within me, it's can't physically exist. A place that would be dark and cold had my parents denied me 8:00 TV on weeknights and made me read.
I'm sure you're asking your imaginary representation of me at this point "But imaginary representation of Mike, you always write about reality TV, and now you're professing your love for the sitcom, what gives?!"
See, I love reality TV, and I've spent a fair amount of time here demonstrating that, but if you were to look closely at the glowing reflection in my tears, you would not see confessionals, producer manipulated drama, and ignored camera crews. You would see a single camera, no more than three sets on an average night, broadly drawn characters, and people behaving in ways outside the realm of normalcy. Fair enough, the last two cross the board, but my point is that I love sitcoms. And because I love sitcoms, I love the fall, which brings with it a vast array of TV joy; new shows, new episodes of my favorite shows, football -and therefore guaranteed Sundays on the couch, and so on and so forth.
But I'm way off topic. This blog's topic is How I Met Your Mother, and how much I love How I Met Your Mother. If Big Bang Theory is sitcom by-the-books, then HIMYM is sitcom within throwing distance of the books -my 94 year old grandmother's throwing distance of the books (which is still quite impressive for being 94). For one, there's a story line, and it's comprehension is necessary for complete appreciation of the show. I found myself explaining to The Girlfriend the back story in preparation for the show, because I realized how much of it wouldn't make sense if she didn't know -she's never watched. The Cosby Show, Cheers, any of the classic "sitcoms" that wouldn't have to happen. You could jump in at any episode, and receive at least 75% of the full appreciation. Big Bang Theory falls under that definition, also Better off Ted -which misses other classic sitcom qualities, but is a fantastic show. HIMYM does not.
The Girlfriend pointed out the re-use of a phrase throughout the show as vaguely Seinfeldian (yup, actual term used -and, to my knowledge, coined- by The Girlfriend). She's right, and it's done often in HIMYM. Last night was reference to "The Talk". "The Talk" being the talk in which two people who have previously just been -as the kids say- "hooking up" decide what kind of relationship they want to have with each other.
Which brings us to the plot of last night's HIMYM; Barney and Robin (Neal Patrick Harris and some lady who deserves for me to know her name) have spent the summer hooking up, but have refused to define their relationship. Every time they begin to have "the talk" they just end up sleeping together instead. The rest of the cast, except wet blanket and narrator Ted (who spends the show teaching his first Architecture 101 class... kinda) urge NPH and LWDFMTKHN to define their relationship, to the point of locking them in their bedroom until they come up with a suitable definition. That essentially the plot, any more than that would ruin the outcome.
HIMYM seems to have discarded some of Barney's (NPH) standards; I didn't see any high-fives, he never uttered the word "Legendary", and I think they did it at the perfect time. Legendary had traveled as far as it could being repeated to the extent that it was, having it show up occasionally is the only way to go now. The important thing -for the show- is that they manage to do do this and stay true to his character: Early on we see Ted and Barney in the Irish pub downstairs from Ted's apartment wearing tuxedos -Marshal: "Why don't I ever get invited to Tuxedo night?!"- and Barney is explaining to Ted how to keep a girl from becoming your girlfriend using the rules for keeping Mogwai from turning into Gremlins -Follow up question from Ted: "How do you choose a tie?" Barney: "Simple. Do you remember Terminator?"
Some more highlights from the show: the status of Robin and Barney's relationship is tested when she goes to a hockey game with the bartender of their local watering hole. It's a great part of the episode; Robin yells incomprehensibly at the hockey players -Robin's character is and over-the-top Canadian stereotype-, Bartender man is only too happy to have "The Talk" which for him starts out with "I was born a little different", and Barney -in a fit of jealousy- punches Bartender, and promptly falls to the floor crying something along the lines of "We've been fighting all night, let's give this a rest and declare a truce". Also, the hockey scene reveals that home ice for the New York Rangers has only 5 rows of bleachers (The Girlfriend in response to this observation: "Yeah, it's a sitcom").
I see this as being the last season of HIMYM, I'm not sure how they can stretch it much farther (if you're following the plot line, you know that the titular "Mother" is in the class that Ted mistakenly taught architecture 101 to). It's off to a good start, definitely worth watching.
That's all I've got for today, likely nothing tomorrow as I'll being watching Pearl Jam tonight instead of TV. But I'll be back Thursday after Wednesday's Mammoth Night of TV.
Here's the deal. I grew up on the sitcom. The Cosby Show, Cheers, Family Ties, Perfect Strangers, Growing Pains, etc... this is where my love for TV comes from. So when I come across the sitcom done well, it touches me in a place so deep, if the prosecutor were to ask me to show on the doll where the sitcom touched me, I'd have to tear it at the seams and point to the stuffing that had sprung from inside. Sitcoms reside in a place so deep within me, it's can't physically exist. A place that would be dark and cold had my parents denied me 8:00 TV on weeknights and made me read.
I'm sure you're asking your imaginary representation of me at this point "But imaginary representation of Mike, you always write about reality TV, and now you're professing your love for the sitcom, what gives?!"
See, I love reality TV, and I've spent a fair amount of time here demonstrating that, but if you were to look closely at the glowing reflection in my tears, you would not see confessionals, producer manipulated drama, and ignored camera crews. You would see a single camera, no more than three sets on an average night, broadly drawn characters, and people behaving in ways outside the realm of normalcy. Fair enough, the last two cross the board, but my point is that I love sitcoms. And because I love sitcoms, I love the fall, which brings with it a vast array of TV joy; new shows, new episodes of my favorite shows, football -and therefore guaranteed Sundays on the couch, and so on and so forth.
But I'm way off topic. This blog's topic is How I Met Your Mother, and how much I love How I Met Your Mother. If Big Bang Theory is sitcom by-the-books, then HIMYM is sitcom within throwing distance of the books -my 94 year old grandmother's throwing distance of the books (which is still quite impressive for being 94). For one, there's a story line, and it's comprehension is necessary for complete appreciation of the show. I found myself explaining to The Girlfriend the back story in preparation for the show, because I realized how much of it wouldn't make sense if she didn't know -she's never watched. The Cosby Show, Cheers, any of the classic "sitcoms" that wouldn't have to happen. You could jump in at any episode, and receive at least 75% of the full appreciation. Big Bang Theory falls under that definition, also Better off Ted -which misses other classic sitcom qualities, but is a fantastic show. HIMYM does not.
The Girlfriend pointed out the re-use of a phrase throughout the show as vaguely Seinfeldian (yup, actual term used -and, to my knowledge, coined- by The Girlfriend). She's right, and it's done often in HIMYM. Last night was reference to "The Talk". "The Talk" being the talk in which two people who have previously just been -as the kids say- "hooking up" decide what kind of relationship they want to have with each other.
Which brings us to the plot of last night's HIMYM; Barney and Robin (Neal Patrick Harris and some lady who deserves for me to know her name) have spent the summer hooking up, but have refused to define their relationship. Every time they begin to have "the talk" they just end up sleeping together instead. The rest of the cast, except wet blanket and narrator Ted (who spends the show teaching his first Architecture 101 class... kinda) urge NPH and LWDFMTKHN to define their relationship, to the point of locking them in their bedroom until they come up with a suitable definition. That essentially the plot, any more than that would ruin the outcome.
HIMYM seems to have discarded some of Barney's (NPH) standards; I didn't see any high-fives, he never uttered the word "Legendary", and I think they did it at the perfect time. Legendary had traveled as far as it could being repeated to the extent that it was, having it show up occasionally is the only way to go now. The important thing -for the show- is that they manage to do do this and stay true to his character: Early on we see Ted and Barney in the Irish pub downstairs from Ted's apartment wearing tuxedos -Marshal: "Why don't I ever get invited to Tuxedo night?!"- and Barney is explaining to Ted how to keep a girl from becoming your girlfriend using the rules for keeping Mogwai from turning into Gremlins -Follow up question from Ted: "How do you choose a tie?" Barney: "Simple. Do you remember Terminator?"
Some more highlights from the show: the status of Robin and Barney's relationship is tested when she goes to a hockey game with the bartender of their local watering hole. It's a great part of the episode; Robin yells incomprehensibly at the hockey players -Robin's character is and over-the-top Canadian stereotype-, Bartender man is only too happy to have "The Talk" which for him starts out with "I was born a little different", and Barney -in a fit of jealousy- punches Bartender, and promptly falls to the floor crying something along the lines of "We've been fighting all night, let's give this a rest and declare a truce". Also, the hockey scene reveals that home ice for the New York Rangers has only 5 rows of bleachers (The Girlfriend in response to this observation: "Yeah, it's a sitcom").
I see this as being the last season of HIMYM, I'm not sure how they can stretch it much farther (if you're following the plot line, you know that the titular "Mother" is in the class that Ted mistakenly taught architecture 101 to). It's off to a good start, definitely worth watching.
That's all I've got for today, likely nothing tomorrow as I'll being watching Pearl Jam tonight instead of TV. But I'll be back Thursday after Wednesday's Mammoth Night of TV.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Twilight is Going Totally International and Crap
So wait, did Dan Brown write the second Twilight book?
Credit to The Girlfriend
The Girlfriend pointed this out to me: She's a very funny woman.
Notice: All of the women in this commercial who's "Birth Control failed" not only "felt like they were alone", they were actually left alone in their beds.
I'd like to suggest an alternate tag line; "For when you were too drunk to be sure he did it right, or know what time he left"
Notice: All of the women in this commercial who's "Birth Control failed" not only "felt like they were alone", they were actually left alone in their beds.
I'd like to suggest an alternate tag line; "For when you were too drunk to be sure he did it right, or know what time he left"
Fine! I'll blog about America's Next Top Model! But I won't type Tyra's made up words!
Holy Jesus!
I said I wasn't going to write about America's Next Top Model, but I have to. Why? Cus Tyra Banks be crazy! Crazy! Wow.
I'm pretty sure if you turn the volume up real loud on that you can hear the screams of hell. I'm pretty sure that when they boarded the ship in Event Horizon and reviewed the logs that showed the horrific events that had resulted in the disappearance of the crew, somewhere this clip was included.
This episode was light on bloody eyeball, which I found disappointing. And they offed two of the models that I thought were the least insufferable.
Also, they bleached the hair and eyebrows of two of the girls which makes them look like creepy immortal beings, and every once in a while (unfortunately, not enough) they'll sit really close to each other and it looks like the cover of a techno album (I'd imagine, I don't actually listen to techno).
Any other thoughts on America's Next Top Model? Not really, I dislike Tyra Banks more than I thought I would (and I wasn't coming in with high hopes) and I like Miss J more than I thought I would, he's really quite likable, especially next to Tyra.
I'm done.
Right now any reader who happened to see the show (that would whittle my audience down to The Girlfriend) is probably asking herself (yep, I'm that sure it's only the Girlfriend) "Wait, how could he write the whole blog without mentioning the made up word that Tyra kept using, and forcing other people to use?". Well, this is the deal, dear The Girlfriend; I just don't want to give that word any more of a push. Granted my added momentum would be equivalent to a fly running into the tail end of a 747, but I don't want to take any chances.
I said I wasn't going to write about America's Next Top Model, but I have to. Why? Cus Tyra Banks be crazy! Crazy! Wow.
I'm pretty sure if you turn the volume up real loud on that you can hear the screams of hell. I'm pretty sure that when they boarded the ship in Event Horizon and reviewed the logs that showed the horrific events that had resulted in the disappearance of the crew, somewhere this clip was included.
This episode was light on bloody eyeball, which I found disappointing. And they offed two of the models that I thought were the least insufferable.
Also, they bleached the hair and eyebrows of two of the girls which makes them look like creepy immortal beings, and every once in a while (unfortunately, not enough) they'll sit really close to each other and it looks like the cover of a techno album (I'd imagine, I don't actually listen to techno).
Any other thoughts on America's Next Top Model? Not really, I dislike Tyra Banks more than I thought I would (and I wasn't coming in with high hopes) and I like Miss J more than I thought I would, he's really quite likable, especially next to Tyra.
I'm done.
Right now any reader who happened to see the show (that would whittle my audience down to The Girlfriend) is probably asking herself (yep, I'm that sure it's only the Girlfriend) "Wait, how could he write the whole blog without mentioning the made up word that Tyra kept using, and forcing other people to use?". Well, this is the deal, dear The Girlfriend; I just don't want to give that word any more of a push. Granted my added momentum would be equivalent to a fly running into the tail end of a 747, but I don't want to take any chances.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
"Design Star Finale" or "Who Do More Design Star Judges Want To Do?"
Design Star ended Sunday night.
That's the end of my blog.
Well, not really (I know, I totally had you fooled, right?). So Sunday night I was all "Can't watch Design Star tonight, I gotta get to bed!" So I did, but then Monday morning I was all "I want more stuff to do at work!" I suppose this is one of those be careful what you wish for things, but uh. Anyway, here we are, and I've done something to my keyboard that makes quotation marks act funny... and I'm in IT... can't figure it out.
Anyway, Design Star! Here's the dizzle; Antonio won. I know. Here's the thizzle; The Girlfriend and I turned on the Design Star like three weeks in and immediately said "Oh, Antonio's the winner". Nothing has changed. Dan has had a number of moronic moves (ie. buying a gazebo with 40% of their backyard remodel budget). Antonio? He "decorated like a hobbit"-according to Vern, who totally has it out for Antonio -And I'll tell you why- He's all up in Dan's shizzy. That's right, all up in his shizzy. How then -you ask- does Antonio pull off the win when one of the judges clearly has an eye on Dan's bizzle? Easy! The other two judges are eyeing Antonio's bizzle. Don't believe it's as simple as that? You're wrong.
Really though, watch the last two episodes it's clear that the judges are divided along sexy lines-with sexy results! No sexy results, sorry. But there was some full house makeovers -ooh, remodels. Dan is all about mirrors, seriously, Dan's remodel had so many mirrors that the reflected light that escapes the house will actually help slow global warming -so many mirrors.
He also covered up a window, which both Vern and I think is stupid, but Vern wants his dizzle, so Vern thinks it works this time. Other than that, I'm not really sure what happened with Dan. There were some purple walls.
Antonio's remodel did not include 10,000 mirrors, but it did include 10,000 monkeys at 10,000 typewriters. That's not true. Honestly, I was attentively watching Design Star last night, there just wasn't much there. Maybe because they were remodeling a whole house, there was less time for individual items to stand out? Maybe the show was only 20 minutes long and I blacked out for 40 minutes... I'm not sure. One thing is certain, Antonio's remodel was better. Everyone thought so, except Vern, and we've been through that. The other thing that stood out to me, is that while Dan seems to get along fine with his carpenters, his relationship with them is very much like any other HGTV host; He's clearly separate from them. Antonio? Not so much. It's interesting, it's more than just a "Heeey, I'm a regular guy like you" thing. Antonio really can run a team of carpenters. It's an interesting difference between the two, and I think it resulted in Antonio getting better results.
Anywho, my most frantic and scattered blog to date will end as it started... well, it won't really. but it will end.
Long Live Antonio!!!!
That's the end of my blog.
Well, not really (I know, I totally had you fooled, right?). So Sunday night I was all "Can't watch Design Star tonight, I gotta get to bed!" So I did, but then Monday morning I was all "I want more stuff to do at work!" I suppose this is one of those be careful what you wish for things, but uh. Anyway, here we are, and I've done something to my keyboard that makes quotation marks act funny... and I'm in IT... can't figure it out.
Anyway, Design Star! Here's the dizzle; Antonio won. I know. Here's the thizzle; The Girlfriend and I turned on the Design Star like three weeks in and immediately said "Oh, Antonio's the winner". Nothing has changed. Dan has had a number of moronic moves (ie. buying a gazebo with 40% of their backyard remodel budget). Antonio? He "decorated like a hobbit"-according to Vern, who totally has it out for Antonio -And I'll tell you why- He's all up in Dan's shizzy. That's right, all up in his shizzy. How then -you ask- does Antonio pull off the win when one of the judges clearly has an eye on Dan's bizzle? Easy! The other two judges are eyeing Antonio's bizzle. Don't believe it's as simple as that? You're wrong.
Really though, watch the last two episodes it's clear that the judges are divided along sexy lines-with sexy results! No sexy results, sorry. But there was some full house makeovers -ooh, remodels. Dan is all about mirrors, seriously, Dan's remodel had so many mirrors that the reflected light that escapes the house will actually help slow global warming -so many mirrors.
He also covered up a window, which both Vern and I think is stupid, but Vern wants his dizzle, so Vern thinks it works this time. Other than that, I'm not really sure what happened with Dan. There were some purple walls.
Antonio's remodel did not include 10,000 mirrors, but it did include 10,000 monkeys at 10,000 typewriters. That's not true. Honestly, I was attentively watching Design Star last night, there just wasn't much there. Maybe because they were remodeling a whole house, there was less time for individual items to stand out? Maybe the show was only 20 minutes long and I blacked out for 40 minutes... I'm not sure. One thing is certain, Antonio's remodel was better. Everyone thought so, except Vern, and we've been through that. The other thing that stood out to me, is that while Dan seems to get along fine with his carpenters, his relationship with them is very much like any other HGTV host; He's clearly separate from them. Antonio? Not so much. It's interesting, it's more than just a "Heeey, I'm a regular guy like you" thing. Antonio really can run a team of carpenters. It's an interesting difference between the two, and I think it resulted in Antonio getting better results.
Anywho, my most frantic and scattered blog to date will end as it started... well, it won't really. but it will end.
Long Live Antonio!!!!
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