Heroes And NBC

Categories: television, news, opinion

I haven't been spending as much brain power thinking about Heroes and the future of show like I have been with Lost, but over the weekend I came across a theory which makes sense regarding the show's tag line: Save the cheerleader, save the world. Sylar, the evil mutant that the FBI is chasing, has figured out that if he kills a mutant and takes their brain he can absorb their powers somehow. I remember seeing the artist, Isaac, dead with his brain missing in one of Hiro's time travel journies. Evidently there have been two other murders from Sylar with the same brain missing thing that I just didn't pay attention to. One was the murder of that girl's parents where we got introduced to the cop, and the other was the drawing of the dead cheerleader. So if Sylar kills he and takes her brain he will become impossible to kill. It makes sense. I am excited for tonight's episode and I expect that at some point in these next few weeks they will put some limitations on Hiro's powers, so that the show develops a stronger sense of urgency.

In other NBC news, 30 Rock, the Tina Fey/Alec Baldwin show is moving from Wednesdays at 8 p.m. to the 9 o'clock hour on Thursdays along with Scrubs, so it can hopefully piggyback on the popularity of My Name Is Earl and The Office. The change will take place November 30th. But that move also puts it up against CSI, Grey's Anatomy and The O.C.. So if you enjoy that show you better get your fill while it lasts, because I don't think it will be around much longer.
And in more NBC News, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip officially has two feet in the grave. According to Fox News the show is about to be canceled, despite the fact that NBC ordered three more episodes just this past Friday. I don't watch the show. As I have said before, it just doesn't appeal to me. But what I don't understand is why networks don't announce the mid-season series finales for their shows. Let their hardcore fans get one last shot at watching the show instead of just quietly sneaking out the back door and leaving people wonder what the hell happened. It already happened to me with Smith, and I am guessing at least one more of my shows will take a fall before Christmas.

CONTINUE

The Volkswagen Polo

Categories: humor, television, ads

Quite possibly the most ridiculously inappropriate television ad I have ever seen. But I can't stop laughing.

CONTINUE

The Instant Oil Change

Categories: humor, video

I know you were wondering. I've always wondered about this, and I must say it doesn't disappoint.

CONTINUE

The Monster Mash

Categories: television, weird, humor

This is from last year's Halloween episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Bobby Brown and Mike Tyson performing "The Monster Mash". An absolute trainwreck from start to finish.

CONTINUE

Wednesday's Episode Of Lost

A little more on Wednesday's episode of Lost and whether or not is fall in line with what we have been told in regards to the island(s). Here are three screencaps from Season 3, Episode 1 A Tale Of Two Cities. The first photo is the plane breaking up in the sky, just prior to the crash and the start of the show. The second is the reaction from The Others, in their previously quiet little village on an island. The third is the long view of the beach crash (the front section with Jack) and the tail section (the jungle crash with Ana Lucia).

This photo really isn't that important, mostly it just shows that The Others had houses and stuff that they no longer seem to want to live in.This shot shows the long view of the valley closest to the village with the beach plane crash and the jungle crash in the background. This is where I don't believe things make sense. Assuming this is one island, there is absolutely no way Ethan could make either crash site in under an hour like Henry Gale told him to. Even more unlikely for the other guy that was told to blend in with Ana Lucia's group. So the island is effing huge and there is no way people are moving around all parts of it with the quickness and ease that they seem to suggest. From this view you know it's not on the second island, because anyone in the water or especially Sayid in his boat would have seen it in about three seconds. So what I did was went to Google Earth and took a look at some islands that fit the picture I have in my mind about how this could all work. What I came up with were the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea. You of course have to ignore all the topography of those actual islands, but it gives a better illustration of the point I tried to make yesterday.
You can see the same identifiers for major landmarks of the show and about where they would have to take place for this to play out. All of this seems pretty reasonable I think. In fact if this is what they told me I would totally believe it. But then you start doing the math on what should happen based on what has been said and it totally doesn't work out. Sardinia is about 168 miles long and 68 miles wide with a surface area of about 9,300 square miles. Corsica is about one third of that size, with an area of about 3,200 square miles. We know from the show that the second island is twice the size of Alcatraz, or about 0.6 square miles. To put that in perspective, the island is roughly the size of Monaco.

That is all fine. The second island can be whatever it wants, they haven't trapped themselves into anything with that. But if you think the Sardinia layout is reasonable, and Ethan can make it from their village to the beach in an hour there are size limitations for the first island. Even if Ethan was a Kenyan marathoner and there was a flat, concrete path from the village to the beach he would be about 13 miles away. So the island is about 13 miles long, or at least the relevant parts of the island are. So how long do you think it would take a sailboat, starting from the main camp and sailing the coast to get into position to see island #2? An hour? Two hours? It just doesn't make sense. The other thing I was thinking of that supported my questions were Hurley, Jin and Michael getting washed up on shore on what is presumably the other side of the island. When they got capture by Ana Lucia's group they were on another beach that would have given them, all of them, a view of the entire east coast of the horizon (assuming the main group is on the west coast).

I don't know, I got a little distracted while putting this all together so again it didn't come out as well as I wanted, but I still maintain that the writers of the show have created some contradicting parameters for the islands, possibly without even realizing it.

I blame my fixation on 24. Before that show television was able to skip around between hours, days and minutes without really informing the viewer of the exact time line between events. Everything was implied and people understood there were some leaps of faith you had to make on the minor details in order for things to make sense. But since 24 holds itself accountable for every minute of every episode and uses a consistent pace to setup events, I believe I have come to expect that out of every show. If it takes half an episode to get from the beach to the hatch in episode 5, I expect the same in episode 10. I can't quite deal with people being able to walk faster than boats.

CONTINUE

Last Night's Episode Of Lost

Categories: television, weird, opinion

So here is what I don't understand about last night's episode. I haven't read any of the message boards or anything because it is sort of depressing that those people are quite a bit smarter than the actual writers. Anyhow, I figure Henry Gale/Ben has to be lying, but even if he's not we have seen the second island, which brings up a number of questions (with bad illustrations):

Between Sayid banishing himself from the group and walking the coast of the island (after he tortured Sawyer), the second group with Eko, Libby and Ana Lucia and Hurley's brief journey away from the group, somebody would have seen the other island. Russo said she had been there 16 years, and while she was a little crazy, I believe she would have mentioned it at some point to everyone. This doesn't even take into account Desmond's sailboat which was sitting there, anchored in a small bay on one of the islands that nobody seemed to know about but him. If "the others" were so familiar with that island that they could take off running to the two sections where the plane crashed within an hour, the island itself cannot be that big.
Then there is the whole issue of Sayid, Sun and Jin. They were sailing off the coast of the island, looking the base camp for "the others". Unless their island is a giant rectangle, it wouldn't take long for them to get away from the coast and see another big land mass out on the horizon. Still they could have seen it and not talked about it on camera. But then you have another issue, with the directions the others came from. Assuming the two groups are on separate islands, when they docked the sailboat and hid in the trees, they had to run a long ways to get to the dock undetected by both the main group near the hatch and Sayid. We also know they could not have come ashore in any of the previously discovered areas like black rock, the polar bear cave or Russo's area because anyone who was ever in those areas would have been able to see the other island. This limits the landing area to the one quarter of the island where presumably nobody has ever gone, but even that seems a bit ridiculous don't you think? The Others are able to travel by boat, dock and then travel on foot across the other island in such a short period of time? On top of that, it means that the village that they were living on when the plane crashed is on one island but the place they are living at now is on another, separate island. But that really makes no sense either, since they would have to have a pretty regular ferry going back and forth between the two in order to be that familiar with both areas. Sure they had years to do it (if what Ben says is true), but given the conditions in those two places, the exploration of one entire island, let alone two is probably a little far fetched. And then that would bring up Desmond's sailboat and how they could not know about it when it had been sitting there for something like 3 years.

I don't believe I explained this as well as I would have liked, but this makes sense right? With all the different instances of people exploring the island and the time frames in which they did it, this new revelation about a second island just doesn't fit does it? I don't think it does, and the only way it could is if Ben is lying and they are still on the same island. That could easily be the case, but it still doesn't explain why nobody has ever seen it.

What do you think? Also, when Jack said "she was already dead when she got here", do you think he was saying that he noticed she was dead and that they hooked up some fake monitors to try to trick him? Or do you think he just meant she never had a chance given the gunshot wound and the medical tools they had to use? I think he knows she was already dead and he could see her through their thinly veiled plan.

CONTINUE

An iPod Question

Categories: music, opinion

My iPod has this knack for picking songs I either hate or just don't feel like listening to from my pool of artists when I throw it into shuffle mode. I can't really blame it on anything, since most albums come with three radio hits, four really good songs that don't make the radio and 3-5 songs that just aren't that great. For example, I was listening to shuffle mode today and a Counting Crows song came up, "Holiday In Spain", which I don't know from any of the other 5,021 songs in my iTunes. But that triggered another song, "Omaha", by Counting Crows that I like but haven't heard in a while. Is there a way to hit a button that will take you to the library of music from the artist that is currently playing? If not there should be.

CONTINUE

Go Ninja Go Ninja Go!!

Categories: music, film, awesome

If that phrase doesn't trigger a very specific memory for you, then you probably weren't a 10 year-old boy in 1991. This is a perfect pop culture time capsule for that year.

CONTINUE

Catch Up On The Office

Categories: television, humor, awesome

I am not sure how long this will last, common sense tells me not long so you might want to act sooner rather than later. Every episode of The Office. You can't save them very easily, but if you're bored at lunch or something its a great way to kill 21 minutes. And Ryan is now my favorite charactor in Season 3.

CONTINUE

Secrets Of The Borat Movie

Categories: film, humor, awesome

There is an article on the BBC's website explaining a little more of the background behind how Sacha Baren Cohen fools his participants into appearing with Borat. The pattern they used for the film was to have an "assistant" from a fictitious production company call ahead to schedule sessions with the various professionals, experts, connousieurs and hobbyists Borat is always seen interacting with. They are told that they will be interviewed by a foreign news correspondent on the subject of their expertise. The day of the interview, the cameras arrive along with release forms for the footage and payment in cash. Only then does Borat come out and start the interview. It makes sense, but the article also mentions that there are typically breaks in the middle of the filming sessions, during which most participants question the authenticity of the whole ordeal. It all makes more sense now. I still find it hilarious. Here are the first four minutes of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I may have posted this before, but I don't remember. Watch out, there are some NSFW words.

CONTINUE

Frisky Dingo

Categories: television, humor, awesome

Last night after the Tigers game I was taking in my usual Adult Swim programming block when I came across an awesome show called Frisky Dingo. It is a parody of the generic superhero storylines you see in comic books. Billionaire playboy heads a corporation by day and fights crime by night, and deals with the minutiae of a double life in between. Here is the episode I saw last night. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. Especially the X-tacles bitching about their pensions. Part 1 above, Part 2 below. Each part is about 6 minutes long.

CONTINUE

Madden 2007

Categories: games, awesome, youtube

I am officially excited for next month's release of the Nintendo Wii. I had faith that Nintendo would have some fairly brilliant ideas for motion sensing capabilities of their new controller, but I didn't expect any of them to be a part of Madden football. I am fully in support of anything that can be used to create an extra level of difficulty for the casual user. It serves as an affirmation that the hours I spend on the game are not being wasted. The video explains it all.

CONTINUE

George O'Malley

Categories: television, news

T.R. Knight, better known as George O'Malley, is gay. On top of that I just found out he is 33 years old. There is not much else to say, he is not that interesting.

Here's the link: MSNBC

CONTINUE

Don't Be This Teacher

Categories: stupid, humor

Challenge authority. (from CollegeHumor)

Wow... just wow. I think everyone has had some version of this teacher at some point in their lives. Perhaps not this dumb, but certainly this stubborn.

CONTINUE

Stumble Upon

Categories: tech, cool, psa

I found a great browser extension yesterday called StumbleUpon. It is essentially a website randomizer that will bounce you around to sites other users have marked as cool or unique. What you do is install the toolbar and create a StumbleUpon account. You can choose from 15 categories: Hobbies, Regional, Arts/History, Home/Living, Religion, Commerce, Media, Sci/Tech, Computers, Movies/Music, Society, Health, Outdoors and Sports. Each category has about 20-30 subcategories that you can check that help define the type of sites you will stumble upon. Once you are all set you have a Stumble! button at the top of your web browser, and whenever you get bored checking ESPN, e-mail and CNN (or whatever your three or four staples are), you click the stumble button and get taken away to a random website, usually with pretty interesting content.

In my last go-round, I came across these sites, some of which I already knew about:

Pandora - The Music Genome Project
Input a band you like and Pandora will create a free streaming radio station featuring their music and lesser known artists with a similar sound. Lynn told me about this a couple of weeks ago, but I keep forgetting to bring it up.

Stewie Live
Type in a command and look/listen to Stewie's response. Right now I am lacking the creativity to really test this out.

PeekVid
Watch TV shows online, both past and current series.

FutureMe
Send an email to yourself from the future. Probably as useful for simple reminders as it is for time capsule nostalgia.

Storm Photography
Photos of storm clouds, tornados and general oddities from weather.

It's a pretty interesting tool.

CONTINUE

John McCain Has Lost It

Categories: politics, weird, news

From the Quad-City Times:
U.S. Sen. John McCain answered with some dark humor when asked today what he would do if Democrats gain control of the House and Senate.

“I think I’d just commit suicide,” he said with a smile.

“I don’t want to face that eventuality because I don’t think it’s going to happen,” he added.

Isn't this the same guy that was rumored to be a candidate for a split-ticket run at the Presidency?

That sound you hear is Hanoi putting some champagne on ice, just in case.

CONTINUE

Time To Rethink Lost?

Categories: television, psa

I swear this is not another excuse to put up a photo of Freckles. I think it may be time we re-evaluate how much stock we put into Lost and its creators. I no longer believe this show will deliver on the huge amount of potential it has. In an interview that will air on ABC's Nightline tonight (or maybe aired last night, I can't tell), Lost creators, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse say a couple of crazy things, including:

LINDELOF: Well, it wasn't really a fight at first. In fact, in the outline that we delivered, they signed off on the fact that Jack would die. It wasn't until we delivered the script and we had a meeting in response to the script that certain parties basically said, "Look, you spent half of the show making us fall in love with this doctor character and then you kill him off." And we're like, "That's the brilliance of it! It's psycho! Anything can happen on the show!"

Umm what? You were going to kill Jack in episode one, yet now he is the central character in the whole show?

And they (the Network) said, "We want you to at least consider not doing it." There was no ultimatum, but we started having conversations amongst ourselves saying like, "All right. This obviously will radically affect the second half of the pilot that we've written but they sort of do have a point."
ABRAMS: The flashback element is one of my favorite things about the show. And in theory you think, "Well, it's a flashback so it's not affecting the present-day story, therefore is it relevant?" I'm a huge fan of the "Twilight Zone," and I love tuning into a show and not knowing exactly what you're going to get every week -- it's sort of having a little surprise. It's a current network sort of no-no that you don't have an anthology, you have to have characters you're following every single week. But "Lost" allows us to kind of sneak in an anthology element into a series, which is: You don't know exactly who you are going to be following every week, and you have no idea where they are going to take you. The flashbacks are sort of a minipuzzle within each episode -- what that means or why that little plane is so important to her.
CUSE: Most things have a reason. Some things we just throw in there. Some things we throw in there sort of self-referentially. We'll do things in the show that acknowledge people's theories about the show.

That is stupid. I hope he actually means they did that once, and not multiple times.

CUSE: It's insane the amount of time that people put into the show and spend thinking about it and theorizing about it. There are people who spend more time thinking about "Lost" than we spend thinking about "Lost." And we spent a lot of time thinking about "Lost." There are a lot of people out there that are a lot smarter than us, in terms of how they've connected this to other things in popular and classical literature. They've picked out antecedents and things that maybe we saw sometime but aren't consciously part of our creative process.

ABRAMS: You know we are so grateful for the people who watch the show, care enough to write about it, and read about it. But I don't think you have to be one of those people who, you know, have theory upon theory to enjoy the show. I think it is ultimately a character show and you have to be careful you don't start serving the wrong master where it doesn't become about trying to sort of make a show that's all about hidden meaning. There's certain point that can become a distraction and sort of lead you down the wrong path.

I suggest you maybe put a little more time into it then, because people are going to be pissed if this turns out to be a glorified Swiss Family Robinson.

LINDELOF: Absolutely. I mean when we first started talking about the show in that -- in that very first meeting we talked about, you know, OK, everyone was saying what would season two look like, what would season three look like, what would season four look like? And we started having those conversations and obviously that conversation ended with "and here's where the show ends." This would be theoretically what the last episode of the show would be. But the reality is you're sorting running a race, a marathon, where no one has told you where the finish line is. So your plan at how how you're going to feel and how you're going to finish when you cross mile 26 changes because when you're passing the nine mile marker someone tells you the marathon has been extended to 40 miles.

So what our original ending is hopefully is going to still be in play. But the reality is the characters who were involved in that ending and what happens on the island might change as a result of external factors. God forbid, Josh Holloway decided to leave the show after six seasons, which is what he's contracted for. If that were to happen, we as writers would have to change our minds about certain story directions that we're taking. But the kind of conceptual idea of the ending is in place.

There is another part shortly after this answer concering two characters, that I wish I hadn't seen. So I am not including it here. It's not a big deal, but it might spoil a part of season three if you prefer going into each episode with a clean slate like I do.

I don't know, maybe its not as bad as I thought. There is a whole section in the middle about mistakes they have learned from watching Twin Peaks and X-Files, but for the most part it seems like they might soon shift from creating a central story line that spans several storylines to create multi-episode pockets of storylines within one season. And if they do that, the importance of having seen all seasons will quickly disappear. It won't matter who Boone or Shannon were, or why Libby or Ana Lucia were killed. People could start in the fourth season, take a look at the good guys and bad guys and have enough information to be interested in the show. In fact now that I think about it, they're almost to that point now. I hope fairly quickly they will get back to a more ambiguous enemy/threat.

CONTINUE

Military Commissions Act of 2006

Categories: politics, news, psa, stupid

I know the photo is a little overly dramatic, but it's not there are whole lot of places to use it. There is a new law on the books this month, and once again it constitutes a threat to the rights we have all been taught to assume we will have in the event we are accused of a crime. This is not quite a follow-up to a blog entry from about a month ago about the National Security Surveillance Act. This law is the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and with the help of Wikipedia I'll help explain what changes are on the horizon. If you want to hear it from someone a whole lot smarter than I, check out Keith Olbermann on The Death of Habeas Corpus. The provisions, with explanation:

An “unlawful enemy combatant” can be any alien and determined to be one by a “competent tribunal” established by the President or the Secretary of Defense. What comprises a competent tribunal is described in sections 948i through 948m. It can be an alien living in the United States, but it doesn't have to be.

UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT.— (A) The term ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ means— ‘‘(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or ‘‘(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense."

The Act changes pre-existing law to explicitly disallow the invocation of the Geneva Convention when executing the writ of habeas corpus for detainees who are not U.S. citizens. Basically nobody has to prove evidence of wrongdoing in order to detain you. Call this the Jose Padilla provision.
If the government chooses to bring a prosecution against the detainee, a military commission is convened for this purpose. The following rules are some of those established for trying unlawful enemy combatants who are not citizens of the United States. The Act does exclude these rules from being applied when trying unlawful enemy combatants who are American citizens
Certain sections of the Uniform Code of Military Justice are deemed inapplicable - including some relating to a speedy trial, compulsory self-incrimination, and pre-trial investigation. Okay these last two parts are tricky, if you are an American citizen determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant you will not get a speedy trial, you will not have 5th ammendment protections or a pre-trial investigation. If you are not a citizen you are supposed to have those rights under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but this act voids that one. No soup for anyone.

A civilian defense attorney may not be used unless they have clearance to view materials classified Secret. Fat chance of that happening.
Based on his findings, the judge may introduce hearsay evidence, evidence obtained without a search warrant, evidence obtained when the degree of coercion is disputed, or classified evidence not made available to the defense. So they can introduce unlawful evidence against you and you can't even see it.

A finding of Guilty requires only a 2/3 majority. What is this American Idol?
No defendant may invoke the Geneva Conventions in legal proceedings on their behalf. In case you missed it above, the Geneva Convention no longer applies.
The President determines “the meaning and application” of the Geneva Conventions banning the torture of prisoners. If you are lucky, the President might wish to actually ban your torture, but don't plan on it.

The accused may be tried for the same offense a second time “with his consent”. No double jeopardy, but I am going to assume that "with his consent" means they will torture you until you do.

If the military commission returns a finding of Not Guilty, its convening authority is not required to take action on the findings. Not Guilty doesn't mean you're free. It means they are going to circle the wagons and get you prepped for that second trial.

Finally, several amendments were proposed before final passage of the bill by the Senate; all were defeated. Among them were an amendment by Robert Byrd which would have added a sunset provision after five years; an amendment by Ted Kennedy which would have outlawed specific interrogation techniques including waterboarding, and an amendment by Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) preserving habeas corpus. Specter's amendment was rejected by a vote of 51-48. Specter voted for the bill despite the defeat of his amendment. The bill was finally passed by the house on September 29, 2006 and presented to the President for signing on October 10, 2006.

Now for the important part. Here are are the voting records from both the House and the Senate. As responsible voter you should know which of your congressman are up for re-relection in November. If you don't, just remember the names from your state and make a note when you're in the voting booth. As for Michigan, here is what you need to know:

Yea
Stabenow (D-MI, Senate)
Camp (R-MI, House)
Ehlers, Vernon J. (R-MI, House)
Hoekstra, Pete (R-MI, House)
Knollenberg, Joseph (R-MI, House)
Miller, Candice (R-MI, House)
McCotter, Thaddeus, (R-MI, House)
Rogers, Mike (R-MI, House)
Schwarz, J.H. (Joe) (R-MI, House)
Upton, Fred (R-MI, House)
Nay
Levin (D-MI, Senate)
Conyers Jr., John (D-MI, Senate)
Dingell, John (D-MI, House)
Dale E. Kildee (D-MI, House)
Kilpatrick, Carolyn (D-MI, House)
Levin, Sander (Sandy) (D-MI, House)
Stupak, Bart (D-MI, House)

The votes were almost right down party lines in both the House (250-170, with 218 Yeas coming from Republicans) and the Senate (65-34, with one abstention from a Republican. all 34 Nays were from Democrats).

CONTINUE

Six Degrees & Heroes

Categories: television, women, opinion

Honestly this is the best show on television right now. It's Six Degrees on ABC, Thursday's at 10 p.m. after Grey's Anatomy. I think it is as good as Grey's Anatomy was in its first season. I record it every Thursday and watch it over the weekend, so maybe I am part of the problem. The show is sliding in the weekly ratings, and last week lost about 40% of the Grey's audience. It has hot chicks, some decent storylines and the right amount of intrigue surrounding the connections between the characters. They aren't exactly friends, they are casual acquaintances that are just getting to know each other. They all have problems from either the past of present that they are trying to deal with, and in a couple of cases one person's problem is another person's solution. So when you watch you are sort of hoping that the problematic subject will come up and the characters will start piecing together their connection. It's kind of a tease, but you can't exactly expect some of the subjects to come up in casual conversation.

As for the women in the show, starting from the upper left going clockwise you have Shiri Appleby (Havoc, Roswell), Zoe Saldana (Drumline, Guess Who?), Erika Christensen (Swimfan, Traffic), Hope Davis (The Weather Man, American Splendor) and Bridget Moynahan (The Recruit, I-Robot).

Heroes last night was great. Especially with the completely English speaking, sword carrying Hiro Nakamura returning from the future to talk to the Petrelli kid at the end. These last two weeks I saw the potential for a really great series. I also enjoyed that they showed a fairly thorough abuse of powers from the good characters. It makes their superhero transformation quite a bit more credible, especially the cheerleader. The strange thing about all superhero shows and movies is that the evil people always have a better grasp of their powers early on. Anyways it will be interesting what NBC decides to do with the show in January when 24 returns.

CONTINUE

Illusions

Categories: science, weird, awesome

Color Illusion - video powered by Metacafe
I saw one of these a while ago, but it was on a site that crashed all the time and it wasn't a video like this one so I couldn't really put it here on the blog. Anyways, follow the instructions and don't blink.

CONTINUE

SETI

Categories: news, science, psa

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), is preparing to make what they call a "major announcement" tomorrow. According to a 2005 National Geographic article, the scientists have reported a steady stream of radio waves emanating from the center of the galaxy. The optimist in me says that SETI's announcement will be in regards to those same radio waves and that there will be some type of information worthy of discussion announced tomorrow. The realist in me says it has something to do with hardware, software or a bureaucratic change of position for a person I have never even heard of. But still I sort of wonder, what if? I have seen enough movies to have a fairly decent grasp on what the possibilities are. I think in the worst case scenario it ends up like Contact and it turns out to be some dead scientist chick's dad and nobody believes her. That was probably the most frustrating end to movie I can ever remember.

But anyways, tomorrow 10am PST there will be an announcement about something from SETI in regards to something.

CONTINUE

30 Rock

Categories: television, opinion

I watched 30 Rock on Wednesday before the Tigers game. I was not impressed, and that is saying something because I love Tina Fey. I can't identify the exact problem with the show except that it attempts to be a little too much like The Office. Not in that they have interviews and acknowledge the camera's presence in a faux-reality show. It is the humor seems to be about the awkward stupidity that comes with producing a telelvision show, such as dealing with eccentricities of insanely rich celebrities and businessmen. Essentially the show is a fish out of water comedy about the differences between crazy celebrities, a crazy network exec and a bunch of nerdy writers. But Tracy Morgan isn't Rainn Wilson (Dwight), Tina Fey isn't John Krasinski (Jim) and Alec Baldwin has a different style than Steve Carell. I don't think they intend to compare themselves to The Office but it is pretty hard to avoid it when both shows seem to rely on the actors making a normal situation funny rather than providing them a funny situation and allowing them to simply add fuel to the fire (like a typical sitcom). After one episode I think 30 Rock has quite a bit of work to do if they want to stick around.

As for Lost, I finally watched the episode last night. I hope that this is the last time I have to DVR the show and watch it later. I feel like I missed a lot of details because it wasn't the focal point of my entire night. Under normal circumstances I usually stare without blinking and put the volume loud enough that I am deafened into understanding all the subtleties of the show. Here are the things I learned this week: (1) The Others claim they have been on that island their entire lives. Well Ben/Henry at least. (2) Their headquarters are not visible from the water, (3) They definitely have contact with the outside world. (4) They don't seem to be aware of Desmond at all.

Now here are the parts that confused/annoyed me. First, Juliet mentioned something about "fine let them sail around in circles" in regards to Sayid, Jin and Sun on the boat trying to follow Jack and the good guys to their rendezvous point. That lead me to believe that their village wasn't visible from the water and that Michael and Walt have no chance of leaving. But clearly part of their setup is visible from the water, judging by the scene where Kate and Ben had breakfast on the ocean shore. It also makes you wonder why they wanted the boat so badly if there isn't a way to escape the island. Is it just me or did Sayid and Jin execute their plan about as badly you could imagine. Somehow they were spying the beach but not the dock? That just didn't make sense. It seems as though the others need Jack's medical expertise, but I am not sure what for.

I feel like I should have more to say but I don't. I really feel like I watched half an episode, but it could be that so much time was wasted filling in Sun and Jin's past that there really only was half an episode of present-time plot development. I would imagine in one of the next few episodes Jack will use the life of the woman that Sun shot as leverage for something. If I saw it correctly it was the woman seemingly involved with Ben that was shot. But aside from that I am sort of treading water after that episode, trying to figure out what in the hell they were doing with that farm work with Sawyer and Kate and how that girl Kate was talking to could possibly have escaped but still managed to hang out in the immediate surroundings of their headquarters. I think its a good cop/bad cop setup for a reason we don't yet know.

CONTINUE

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Categories: film, music, awesome, opinion

This is Halloween (Citizens of Halloweentown)

I absolutely love this movie, probably a little more than I should. My project over the next few days is to rip the audio to my iPod. My biggest problem is deciding if its a Christmas movie about Halloween or a Halloween movie about Christmas. Watching it now doesn't quite feel right because there is an extended Christmas part, and it doesn't feel right watching it in December because of all the Halloween stuff. I think today may have solved my problem though since I woke up to find snow on the ground. I actually had to find my gloves and snow scraper so I could clean my car off. I wish I could have seen my own face when I looked out the window. I did not see this coming, I was crushed.

Anyways The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D comes out a week from Friday (the 20th), and I may see it in theaters if I can find someone else that wants to go with me. Here are my three favorite songs from the movie:

What's This? (Jack Skellington)

Jack's Lament (Jack Skellington)

And it may or may not interest you to know that Danny Elfman does Jack's singing voice.

By the way, Peter and Rachel, I completely take back my recommendation that you show this to your daughter. I watched This Is Halloween thinking about how it would look to an 18 month old child and realized it would probably be terrifying. Initially when I mentioned it I thought about how the lyrics would just kind of go over her head, which might still be the case, but I wouldn't want to be responsible for creating the monsters under her bed or under the stairs.

CONTINUE

A Lost PSA

Categories: women, television, awesome

I have not yet had a chance to watch this week's episode of Lost. I apologize, I got to drinking some beer and watching the Detroit Tigers and decided it could wait. The Tigers haven't been in the playoffs in 19 years. As a penance for that transgression I offer a picture of Evangeline Lilly looking positively jailbait-errific.

CONTINUE

The Muslims Are Angry

Categories: humor, tech, news

This is the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in New York City. Actually what it is an elaborate skylight for an underground Apple Store. You can see it is cubic.So why are Muslim fundamentalists angry? Because it resembles the Black Stone at Mecca. Wonderful. Talk about crying wolf. These people play the "offensive to Islam" angle more than Jason Whitlock and Scoop Jackson play the race card.
Well they are both cubes. But last I checked Islam didn't have cubes trademarked. According to the ZDNet news blog, the offensive similarities are that the Apple Store is a cube and is open 24 hours a day (like the Black Stone), but it serves alcohol which is banned in Islamic culture. Evidently these Muslims have opted to use Babelfish to translate "Genius" and "Bar" as two separate words, rather than learn English and understand the store has a "Genius Bar"
They are going to be really pissed when they see this. Idiots.

CONTINUE

Annoyed By Television

Categories: television, stupid, opinion

Today I'll be discussing people from television that I would like to dropkick in the face for annoying me while I watch television:

The Subway Ad team: If its not that glib idiot Jared Fogle who thinks he figured out some revolutionary diet that helped him go from 400lbs to 200 lbs, they have Jon Lovitz driving me insane. Has anyone ever calculated how much money Jared spent buying subs at Subway? According to his claim "In March 1998, he started a diet of a 6-inch turkey sub, baked Lays potato chips and a diet soda for lunch, and a foot-long veggie sub for dinner." Now let's think about this. A 6 inch sub is about $3, and a footlong is about $5, ad chips and a drink and you're looking at another $2 if you round down for a combo possibility. So that's $10 a day. I can't find an article that says exactly how long it took him to go from 425lbs to 180lbs (he holds steady around 190 now), but I know the Jared ads started running in 2000. So I'll give him 18 months of this $10 a day diet. $10 x 548 days = $5,480. I can't figure out a reliable way to calculate how much money I spend on food, but I know its not $305 per month. So Jared, I'll kick you in the face if I see you. Subway sandwiches had nothing to do with your weight loss. You could have eaten Crisco twice a day for a year and you still would have lost weight so long as you walked your neighborhood to get it.

The Wendy's Ad team:
A few months ago I expressed frustration with the Wendy's ads where they relate money in terms of Wendy's dollar menu items. Well they're back and this time it makes me even moreangry. The particular scene is where the three guys are in a boardroom negotiating a sale. They are offered $9 million, to which one of the douchebags whispers "that's 3 million cripsy chicken sandwiches each".

Do you know how long it would take to eat 3 million cripsy chicken sandwiches? I do. If you ate 10 an hour without sleeping, you could be finished in just over 34 years. 34 years!! That commercial is totally ridiculous. I hate it.

CBS and Fox
CBS decides to cancel Smith, one of my favorite new shows on television. Yeah well they can suck it, because I am not going to watch Jericho or CSI: New York in response. Have fun with that you idiots.

Fox blew up my entire Tuesday schedule of shows. Friday Night Lights is going to be on opposite Standoff, and Justice will be on opposite Heroes, which had a really strong third episode. Looks like Fox will lose that battle, and in the end I'll simply return to ABC and NBC, the only two networks with the presence of mind not to jerk with their fans too much.

Sports Announcers
Be it Joe Morgan, Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Troy Aikman or any of the football or baseball announcers I have listened to in the past month I would like to make one request. Please don't ever talk about any professional athlete being "really competitive". It mocks my intelligence. I can't imagine there is a way to get to the top of your sport without being intensely competitive. Al Michaels, you really need to add the word injury to your repetoire. I didn't notice it until Sports Guy pointed it out, but to say that "Hines Ward was out with a hamstring during the beginning of training camp" sounds idiotic. It sounded especially bad sunday night when you mentioned someone in the Steelers/Chargers game "missing time with a foot". You suck. I don't care about "The Miracle On Ice", it doesn't give you carte blanche to speak poorly.

The Chicago Bears
Why is it that Peyton Manning takes crap from NFL fans and announcers for struggling in the playoffs, yet the Bears skate through it all without a word? 2001-2002 season Da Bears go 13-3, earn a bye in the playoffs and eventually get the Eagles at home. Donovan McNabb serves them a 33-19 ass kicking and Da Bears choke their season away. Fast forward to 2005 where the Bears go 11-5, get another bye week and home game only to get beaten 29-21 in a game where Steve Smith had more total yards than the entire Bears offense. Now they're 5-0 with wins over four crappy teams and one impressive win against a good team playing without their best player. I am supposed to believe the hype? Not until they win in January.

Michigan.Gov
For some reason the Michigan Department of Public Health/Safety is wasting tax dollars on this effort to raise preparedness in case of the largest natural disaster in the history of the state. The television ads ask "are you prepared for a power outage?", while showing a family calmly eating dinner during a thunderstorm before the power goes out and everyone runs for the basement. I can't remember the last time the power went out for longer than 3 hours, or the went out in an area larger than my neighborhood. My plan for a mass power outage is to drive to a suburb and grocery shop there. I think there is enough suburban sprawl surrounding Grand Rapids for this plan to work. Another thing that belongs in this category are the gubernatorial ad campaigns. I get, there are two candidates and each one thinks the other sucks. My guess is that everyone in the state either has their mind made up or will decide once they get in line to vote in November. You should try taking one strategically placed ad and using that. I have seen so much in the last 30 days that I will be flipping the channel every time during the next 30 days. And can we stop being faux-outraged at negative campaign tactics? Seriously, nobody is buying it.

CONTINUE

Debbie Downer And SNL

Rachel Dratch is vastly underrated on SNL. Now that Chris Parnell is gone, the only people worth watching are Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler and Fred Armisen. If you say Andy Samberg in the comments I will get your IP address and hunt you down. This Debbie Downer clip is probably the single funniest skit of the Rachel Dratch SNL era.

Here is a little transitional short SNL was running this past weekend between skits called New York Stories. This one featured Amy Poehler as Rosie Perez and Fred Armisen as Martin Scorcese. It was probably the funniest thing they did, along with Amy Poehler as Nancy Grace.

CONTINUE

A MySpace Lesson