Bobby Bill's Entertainment Blog

US Open: And Now for the Men

2010-08-26T15:31:00.002-05:00

Instead of a clear number one pick, my picks for the men's champion come in tiers. The first consists of the first, second, and fourth (yes, I skipped third) ranked players: Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Andy Murray.

Nadal has not had the best summer since winning his second Wimbledon, a fast moving hard court is by far his worst surface, and he has traditionally not been at his physical best this late in the season. But Nadal WANTS this title, he wants to finish his Career Slam and prove to everyone (especially himself) that he's the best player in the world on any surface. The last time Nadal was this determined to win a title, he ended up winning Wimbledon, so don't count him out.

Andy Murray has had a slightly better summer season than Rafa since losing to Nadal at Wimbledon, but has looked sluggish and tired in his latest matches. He has also failed to bring his best game in his past matches against Nadal or Federer at the Slams. But if he could overcome whatever stops him from playing his best against either of these two when it really counts, he could finally pull off his first Slam.

Roger Federer is Roger Federer. He hadn't looked great this year since winning the Australian Open, then won in Cinncinati last week, looking like the dominant champion that he once was. his game might not be as flawless as it used to be, and his first serve percentage might still go down more than it did, but he has the constant mental advantage of simply being Roger Federer and being driven to retake his number one ranking.

My second tier is varied, to say the least: Novak Djokovic is the third seed but hasn't had the best results lately, and plays poorly in warm weather; if Andy Roddick gets his energy back after a recent fight with mono, he would have the crowd support, and he still has a great hard court game; but the American crowd could be divided if Roddick meets fellow American Mardy Fish, who has completely revamed his game after losing 20 pounds, and has numerous wins against top opponents (including Nadal, Murray, and Roddick) to help his confidence. The biggest problem for all these men is that they share the same quarter. Rounding them off is Robin Soderling, who could meet Federer in the quarters, and if he pulls off that upset, he and his giant forehand would be moving on with confidence into the semis.

There are plenty more men who might make a good showing, but it would be a genuine surprise if anyone other than my seven top picks comes away from New York with a trophy.

US Open Women: Who Outlasts Who?

2010-08-26T13:43:00.002-05:00

Serena Williams is out for another month with a cut on her foot. Justine Henin is out until October with an elbow injury that ended her run at Wimbledon. This leaves all the focus, and possibly too much pressure, on the defending champion Kim Clijsters.

Last year, Clijsters was playing slightly under the radar, not expected to go that far, and so had almost no pressure, helping her mentally in overcoming the rest of the field and winning her second Slam. This year, minus Serena, everyone is looking at Kim and expecting great things. This could be a problem, since mentally tightening up was always Kim's biggest issues on tennis's biggest stages, and she is now the biggest female star on tennis's largest stage. Also, she is carrying a possible hip injury, that clearly affected her game last week, when she played a horrible match to lose to Vera Zvonareva for the second straight time. While Zvonareva is a mentally inconsistent player who can be brilliant, Clijsters should have won these matches. The fact that she didn't, along with her mysterious hip problem, worries me for Clijsters' chances to repeat as champion.

However, I am still going with Clijsters as my safe bet for potential winner at Flushing Meadows. She plays a great hard court game and she does it with much more consistency than anyone else currently in the field. She could have an early round challenge with either Ana Ivanovic or Marion Bartoli in the fourth round, but, if she overcomes either of them, she has a good draw.

Coming in a close second, Maria Sharapova has finally been looking good on a regular basis again. Stymied by a shoulder injury and then wracked with double faults and unforced errors, Sharapova has dropped out of the top ten, but has recently started rising again. She tightened up during a rain delay of her recent loss to Clijsters, and seemed to surrender in a straight set loss to Victoria Azarenka, but she has been looking much better throughout a whole match within the last few weeks. She also has experience winning the big ones, and has a stubborn tenacity when it comes to winning.

But, she still insists on going for too much on second serves (in my opinion, anyway, it did work for a set and half against Clijsters), and when the errors creep in she starts to look like a different player. She also has a bad draw, possibly meeting top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round. Since Wozniacki is my third choice, I'll move on to her.

The Great Dane, Caroline (nicknamed "Sunshine" due to her sunny disposition) Wozniacki succeeds through others' failures. She has a good ground game, plays a wide variety of shots, and has a great defense. She's also successfully been more aggressive this season, and has continued to remain mentally strong despite dropping in the ranks due to an ankle injury early in the season. Wozniacki still lacks a power shot to make her threat to the power players (like Sharapova), but in a tournament plagued by injuries and where even the top players might just implode at any moment, an opponent who just returns more balls than you expect and refuses to go away could go all the way.

As for the rest of field, I don't even know where to begin. There are so many potentially dangerous players among the lower seeds, and so many potential upsets brewing from top seeds, it's impossible to cover them all. Here's a sample: Ana Ivanovic has some of her big forehand/ big serve game back, but was injured two weeks ago and has a hard draw; Venus Williams has an easy draw, but hasn't played since her horrible loss at Wimbledon, and is as inconsistent as much of the rest of the field; Svetlana Kuznetsova has been looking better, but she has a history of bailing out when it matters most; Victoria Avarenka (Brad Gilbert's choice to win it all) has power but not always control, and little experience, though she's still so young that she might not think about it too much, which could be the decider when the going gets tight.

On that last note, early upsets are likely to run rampant among the women, which is why it would not be all that shocking to see some young/ no name/ where the hell did she come from? player going deep into the tournament, and potentially shocking everyone by winning it all, while we all still struggle with correctly pronouncing her name. And if she's young, and doesn't know any better, and no one's looking her way until she's suddenly in the semis, it increases her chances of just floating in under the radar while the bigger names suffer under expectations and physical problems from playing a long hard season.

So this could be a very interesting U.S. Open. Or it could be filled with horrible play and matches between two players who played good to make it that far only to crumble when they started feeling the pressure.

This is Women's Tennis, welcome to it.

X-Games Overview: Attack of Travis Pastrana

2010-08-03T14:24:00.006-05:00

Freestyle Moto-X: Travis Pastrana won another Gold in this competition, but was it completely deserved? The judges loved that he used the course in unique ways, and he was hitting some unbelievable tricks. BUT X-Games rookie Levi Sherwood was also going huge on hits that were staring straight into the setting sun, and he altered his run throughout the competition. And yeah, Levi only lost to Pastrana by one point, but I thought my sister had a point when she said that it just seemed that the judges were favoring Pastrana a bit too much.

Keep in mind, Travis did hit the first ever double flip in freestyle competition, and if he had added that to his run he would have definitely won anyway, but it turned out he didn't need to. Travis did it anyway, but that's just Travis.

Finally, I have to say, the judges just didn't seem to have much love for Nate Adams' 360, especially considering he's still the only person doing it consistently.

Women's Super X (that's racing, FYI): Ashley Fiolek repeated her Gold Medal performance in one of the best stories to come out of X-Games in years. Besides only being 19, Ashley is also completely deaf, and has learned to ride and race using only the vibrations of the bike to tell where her opponents are. That nearly cost her the gold this year, when another racer got close to passing her, but she just didn't have enough, and ended up crashing when she pushed it too hard on the next lap.

It was also nice to see that the sideline reporter did not stick the microphone in Ashley's face, which is what happened last year.

Skateboard Vert: For the first ten minutes, this was a boring final. Shawn White got his first two big runs in, leading the pack by a distance while no one else either got anywhere near, or could stay on their board log enough to match his scores. Finally, reigning champion (and lone Canadian skater) Pierre Luc Gagnon got a huge run in, and then another, forcing White to push it for one last chance, which he fell on.

So those last five minutes were well worth the wait.

Skateboard Street: Ramos, Ryan Sheckler, and Chaz Ortiz all owned the course in the elimination rounds, then none of them were as good in the semifinals. Finally, Sheckler and Ortiz started hitting their jumps in the final, while Ramos hadn't got past the semis. Sheckler won, and was easily the best skater out there, proving what he could do all the time if he'd stop trying to act and stay healthy.

Rally and Super Rally: For reasons passing all logical understanding, the organizers changed the Rally course four times: one for warm-ups, one for qualifying, one for eliminations, and one for the finals. This led directly to numerous races being decided by a rider going off-course, which could have been eliminated had they been more intelligent when setting up the course, or by adding co-drivers to use as navigators, which is a staple in many rally competitions.

As it was this year, Rally was upstaged by Super Rally, in which four (street legal) cars had to race at once on a course so tight, it often seemed insane to attempt a pass, but they did anyway, (and even jumped nearly at the same time once), because who said rally car racers were sane? This was just awesome to watch.

Final Thought: Nice to see that Action Sports coverage and X-Games specifically continues to be the epitome when it comes to using a very attractive woman with questionable skills as a "sideline reporter" for the sake of ratings. This year, they tried out bikini model Jenn Brown, who at least got people's names right.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddddd We're Back

2010-07-13T13:45:00.001-05:00

Having returned from my apathy-induced absence from this blog, I'll just jump right in.

Burn Notice: I previously said that since every season of this show is almost a fully self-enclosed story that continues with the same characters, I couldn't judge last season's finale until I had seen how this season would turn out. Well, we're a couple weeks in, and I have to say, this season is going great! Michael was forced to cause the burning of another spy, Jesse (Coby Bell of the short-lived NFL sitcom The Game... also some doctor show I never watched), who has since joined Michael's crew, helping Mike to catch the guy Jesse was looking for prior to being burned, except now he's helping the people who ruined both his and Michael's careers, but only Michael knows it.

Yeah, it's kind of confusing when you spell it out like that, but it's much easier to follow on the show. And Jesse, unlike so many other new additions to shows before him, is adding a lot to the show and with his all-action approach to every situation, is creating a nice spot for him in the midst of Mike's spy crew.

One thing still bugs me about the show, though. Why is Michael still living in that crappy spot above the nightclub? Now that he's working for someone with resources and money, why can't he find a new apartment?

White Collar: It doesn't actually premiere until tonight, so there's not a lot I can say except this: according to my sister, Matt Bomer, who plays thief turned FBI pseudo-agent Neal Caffrey, is THE hottest guy on summer TV. Just passing that on.

Wipeout: I LOVVEEEE shows like this. Hell, I'm watching a repeat of Ninja Warrior (new season out in August!!!) as I type this. And Wipeout is helped along by the irreverent comments made by two hosts who themselves aren't going to get anywhere near any of these obstacles (also a great part of the sadly cancelled Crash Course). My one question is why aren't there more shows like this? Network insiders always claim that they prefer shows that aren't "myth-heavy" as they don't play well as repeats (even though I have Twin Peaks on four times a day); so what could possibly repeat better than a game show that will never age, because people falling is always funny?!

French Open Women's Final: Finally, a Good Match

2010-06-05T12:33:00.000-05:00

In the midst of a women's tour that has been fraught with inconsistent play, double faults, and doubtful service games, Francesca Schiavone became the first Italian woman to win a Slam in the Open era in a close, well-played match that was decided by one break of serve and one tie break.

Schiavone (all of 5 foot 5) won by handling Samantha Stosur's wicked kick serve better than either Justine Henin or Serena Williams, and, unlike Jelena Jankovic, Schiavone did not let Stosur take over every point with her crushing forehands. Schiavone also had a brilliant serve, hitting it hard and fast and out-acing the "second best server" Stosur.

In all, this was a really good match for both players and was well-played (Finally!) on both ends; something that hasn't happened at the French Open Women's Final in.... well, I don't remember. But it's been a while. And even though I am a big fan of Stosur's, Schiavone, at 29, pulled off upset after upset by playing fearlessly and flawlessly in what she must know might be her best (and only) chance at a major women's tennis title, which Italy hasn't had at all since the 1950s.

Chuckie Finale

2010-06-05T12:24:00.000-05:00

Hey, I used this as a sample writing for a job as a blogger for a site called Starpulse.com. Tell me what you think... or don't.

Going into making this season's finale, the creators of Chuck thought, as they did at the end of last season, that this could be their series finale. So, as many show runners have done before them, they decided to offer the network and their viewers a reset to the series, altering the show enough that they could potentially sell it as a new commodity, just with the same characters.
Last season, this meant adding fighting skills to the Intersect, along with a line from The Matrix ("I know kung fu"). This season, this meant doing away with Chuck (Zachary Levi, giving hope to geeks everywhere that all we need are downloaded special abilities and we too can get the hottest girls) as spy, and instead re-introducing him as a secret superhero, taking over where his deceased father left off in protecting the world in ways governments can’t… or won’t… or something like that. It wasn’t made all that clear in the episode exactly what Chuck’s father (They killed Scott Bakula! Who will travel through time to get two random people to fall in love now?!!) had been doing all these years, other than keeping files on organizations named after constellations.

I didn’t mind the re-invention of Chuck as a badass. I actually really liked how the show decided to handle it, by making so much of last season about Chuck coming to terms with being a spy all on his own. But that’s why I have issues with how they ended this season, because they decided to just ignore Chuck’s progression as a character and instead stick him in some completely new situation.

The creators even decided to do this just when it was perfectly set up for Chuck to finally become a world-class spy: everyone close to him was now aware of who and what he is, so it was just a matter of having them all (especially Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) who is somehow convinced she has to protect the super-spy) accept it, move on, and potentially help him out. Instead, both Chuck and the viewers have to get used to some brand new thing, and, of course, Chuck is no doubt going to go back to keeping secrets from his family, friends, and probably even his girlfriend (Yvonne Strahovski, just as hot in video game form).

I’m not saying I won’t watch the next season of Chuck (especially not when I love the show so much), or that I won’t necessarily like the next season. I’m only saying I think they made a mistake in what they could have done with the show and where they had already taken their lead character.

Lost: Jacob

2010-05-05T14:12:00.000-05:00

Let's face it, Jacob's a dick. He sets people up to be stranded on a weird, magic island they can't leave, gives them no assistance or guidance on how to survive, never says or does anything when his whole "plan" goes horribly wrong, and it's apparently all just to prove a point to a guy he's been stuck with for centuries.

Now I know you're all thinking this is a biblical allusion, with Jacob as God and the island inhabitants as Job. But there's some problems with that. For one thing, Job had unswerving faith before God tested him, none of the people Jacob brings to the island have any idea he's there or what he wants to prove, nor does he ever enlighten them.

Also, Job got everything back when his tests were over. All you seem to get for staying true to Jacob is either live forever (Richard) or spend your life on the island serving someone you'll never meet nor will you ever know if you're doing anything right (Ben and his predecessors).

Finally, Jacob's complete lack of interaction with his supposed "disciples" leads directly to the very violence, suffering, and death that he's attempting to prove won't always happen. If Jacob had just sent word to Richard to pass along to Ben that he should be nice to these newbies or maybe just leave them alone, Jack, Kate, and all the rest wouldn't have had a fraction of the problems they've had. Actually, those kinds of issues predate Oceanic 815, since the Dharma people had problems with the Others, and the Others were always armed and jumpy whenever Sawyer's group encountered them while time-travelling.

So, this god-like being Jacob spent who knows how many years causing more problems with his amazing powers than he ever solved (especially for his special, chosen few), and while he might have been "like a father" to Ilana, he's been a horrible curse to almost everyone else.

Lost: Wow, Just Wow

2010-05-05T13:43:00.001-05:00

There's an anime series I really liked that, with only four episodes left until their finale, killed off at least one major character per episode until there was simply no one left. I remember thinking, "Now THAT'S how you end a series."

Lost has apparently decided to do something similar, as in last night's episode, Sayid blew up, Sun and Jin drowned, Kate got shot, and Sawyer's head is bleeding (hey, I just realized, what happened to Lapedius?). So, now we're apparently left with unquestionably faithful Jack and "I see dead people" Hurley vs Smoke Monster Locke and Crazy Claire.

Now I'll admit that I'm pretty sad about Sun and Jin, but I did feel something like that coming. The two have had a whole "tragic love story" vibe for a while now: Jin almost dying to save Sun, then Sun coming back to the island to find him, then they were both looking desperately for one another, and even when they found one another I was scared that it wouldn't last long. And it didn't.

I really liked last night's episode, and the series is building up to a really good finale, but I will say I've had issues with this last season. For starters, instead of "answering questions" at the beginning, they just started adding characters who they then just killed off, which has always been an issue with the series, bringing people to light just so they can have someone die: "Hey, here's some people we've never noticed before, oh, they're all dead." Also, the flash sideways thing seemed like a waste of time, until they started linking them directly to the island action.

I realize that all (and probably even most) of our questions will not be answered or possibly even addressed (Why is the island so special? Why are these specific people candidates? Who built the statue? Why did Jacob never get a new weaving machine?), but I don't think I'll have a problem with that, provided they give us a good ending that doesn't require too much explanation. I am hopeful of this, despite a lifetime of disappointment.

Drugs on Television?? Shocking!

2010-04-30T14:58:00.000-05:00

So months back (I think it was actually late last year), Joshua Jackson (who's still Pacey in my book) was being interviewed on Attack of the Show when he said that the joke behind the scenes on Fringe was that Walter was making his own drugs and that's what all that lab equipment was really for.

Well, the last two episodes of Fringe, the creators have decided to stop being subtle about anything and have just come out and said, "Hey, people, Walter's high as a kite. Anybody care?" Two weeks ago, it was limited to a single line by Walter when he offhandedly mentioned that his marijuana was superior to what they'd found at a crime scene. This week, we actually heard Walter sucking up his homemade "Brown Betty" through a bong made out of a lab canister.

We still didn't see the drug use, mind you, but, just like on That 70s Show, it was brutally obvious what was going on. I'd ask why we still didn't see Walter toking away, but I know that's a whole Standards and Practices/ Censorship B.S. thing that's both vague and yet absolute in what they do and do not allow.

Instead, I'll just say that I liked this addition to the show. Drugs are apparently a major part of Walter's character, they should thus be a big part of the show, despite what the censors don't want us to see or imply. Also, if the end result of more drugs on Fringe is more awesome episodes like the latest one, I wouldn't have a problem with that. It was a mixture of noir and sci-fi and the characters of Fringe with some music thrown in, in a story that could only come from someone who was tripping balls while he told it, which Walter was.

So my message to the creators of Fringe is this: Say Yes to Drugs!

South Park + The Handicapped= Classic

2010-04-29T14:01:00.000-05:00

Ah, good ol' South Park. Fresh off receiving thinly veiled death threats for depicting someone who was supposedly the prophet Muhammad in a bear suit, they spent most of their season finale showing Jimmy and Timmy at a summer "cripple camp."

Knowing that no matter what they did with the mentally and physically handicapped or how they treated them they were sure to offend someone, Stone and Parker decided to pattern the handicapped off of classic cartoon characters. We had a stuttering Porky Pig, a forlorn-looking Droopy Dog, an Elmer Fudd lookalike who couldn't pronounce the letter"r" to save his life, we even got a kid who bore a striking resemblance to that idiot vulture who popped up as a villain trying to eat Bugs Bunny once or twice. And for the villains in this episode, we got Nathan and Mimsy, a duo who were apparently meant to be Rocky the dwarf gangster and his moronic partner Mugsy.

The episode was set up like the show Intervention, which I've never seen, mostly because using someone else's tragic life for the sake of ratings somewhat disgusts me. What surprised me most about this set-up though, is that, unlike what one would expect from South Park, the episode wasn't so much an outright parody (as they've recently done to reality shows Ghost Hunters and Whale Wars) as it was just ridiculous how serious everyone seemed to be taking everything.

Though I guess that is mockery in its own right, with Towelie's scenes being almost laughably serious and his drug addiction reaching ludicrous heights. I still really liked the show, it's just that the show was shocking to me by not being more shocking by bluntly insulting Intervention.

Anyhoo.... Oh, hell it's the prophet Muhammad! Everyone put your heads in the ground!

I Clearly Have Too Much Time on My Hands

2010-04-20T13:30:00.000-05:00

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT!!! DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU HAVE NOT READ WATCHMEN AND SEEN AND/OR READ KICK ASS!!! AND IF EITHER OF THOSE ARE TRUE, GO OUT AND READ/ SEE THESE FILMS/ COMIC BOOKS! THEY ARE AWESOME!!!!

Watchmen is the ultimate deconstruction of the superhero myth. Alan Moore took the archetypes that we were meant to idolize and worship as paragons of purity and justice and ripped back the layers, asking, "What kind of person really would dress up in a ridiculous costume and mete out vigilante justice," and "What would it be like to be an actual superhuman on a world where there's no one else like you?"

His answer was that these people would be sadists and fetishists; lunatic fascists and naive yet violent idealists; individuals who, believing themselves to be above the normal laws and limits of society, take the safety of others into their own hands and personally decree what is best for humanity.

The problem being, where do you draw the line? Is fighting purse-snatchers enough when you're not doing anything to stop the poverty that drove someone to be a criminal? Is stopping a local "super-villain" any different than killing a brutal, foreign dictator? In Watchmen, problems and solutions arise because the "heroes" decide that there is no line, that there is no limit to what they can and should do. Dr. Manhattan averts the energy crisis by using his powers to create the parts needed to make all-electric cars, powered by publicly-available electric hydrants (in the comic, not the movie); he also serves as a one-man nuclear deterrent and wins the Vietnam War (along with The Comedian, who's really just there for the fun of it); and then there's Ozymandias, who decides to take all the problems of the world and solve them in one broad stroke that just so happens to include killing millions. And it works.

Ozymandias effectively saves a world on the brink of nuclear holocaust by tricking world leaders into thinking that an alien invasion is imminent (again, comic not movie). It just so happens that his method to doing this requires him to kill most of New York City. But, again, it works. The comic which is somewhat an attack upon what kind of personality it would take to really be a costumed vigilante, upholds the methods those same flawed personalities use by having it all work out in the end.

Kick Ass does a similar thing. While Kick Ass the character is a satirical joke at the expense of every geek who ever dreamed of putting on a costume and fighting crime, Hit Girl isn't. Hit Girl and Big Daddy are Punisher-style vigilantes out for brutal revenge, with some of The Comedian's sadism added in for good measure. However, unlike Kick Ass's laughable attempts at heroism, Hit Girl and Big Daddy's uber-violent approach to crime fighting actually accomplishes something. In fact, Kick Ass isn't really much of a hero at all until he joins up with Hit Girl and copies her "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" tactics.

While one can argue the long-term affects of Kick Ass's costumed vigilantism (Red Mist's Joker moment at the end of the film is clearly an homage/ allusion to the end of another Batman film, Batman Begins), one can't argue that in the short-term, the bad guys have been defeated, the good guys won, and all is right with the world.

So while both Watchmen and Kick Ass ask the question of what kind of person would believably put on a costume to save the day and come up with some horrifying and ridiculous answers, the heroes in each save the day nonetheless.

It Just Sounds Wrong

2010-04-14T14:06:00.000-05:00

So, I keep seeing commercials for American Idiot, the Broadway musical derived from the Green Day album of the same name. I also watched (or, at least, tried to watch through pure morbid curiosity) the Green Day performance at the Emmy's that featured the cast of the show. And it just doesn't sound right.

I've had this reaction sometimes to Glee (All-American Rejects' "Gives You Hell" is meant to be partly a joke, not belted out by a jilted girly-girl) and always to those awful Kidz Bop commercials (which would reach new heights of horrendousness whenever they featured a song whose meaning is considerably more adult than the producers would like to imagine).

Now I know that the creator of American Idiot: The Musical, is picking instrumentation specifically designed to remain true to the original songs, and they aren't changing the songs themselves that much; but I just can't help but think that it doesn't sound right. It's like just hearing an entire chorus of highly trained singers prettying up songs that are meant to be yelled out by punk veterans, untrained singers Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool automatically misses the point.

Keep in mind, I'm not really much of a purist (the version of Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself" that the kid in the wheelchair on Glee did, I really liked), but I feel as if these songs are somehow less genuine by taking the band out of the equation and supplanting them with attractive people with all their lovely voices.

Also keep in mind that there's no way I (or anyone reading this) will ever be able to afford to see American Idiot in its Broadway run. So there is that.

Re: WTA Stars

2010-04-02T22:31:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention something in reference to my last post. The reason it's so important for the WTA or ATP to create specific stars is because tennis is a one-on-one (or two-on-two) sport so there's not an entire team to root for. Nor is there a team's structure and PR people to make stars of the players for the league, that's all up to the players' and their people themselves.

Also, tennis is an international sport, so there are often not the instant connection one might have for the local team. While some countries or nationalities have gotten fully behind their players (the Serbians for their few top players, the English for Andy Murray, and now the Chinese are rallying behind their women), as a whole, it comes down to one player making a connection and becoming famous for tennis fans around the world. That has, sadly, not always equalled mainstream fame and success.

"Stars" of the WTA

2010-04-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

During the 08 and 09 seasons of women's tennis, there was constant talk of a lack of "big name stars" on the women's tour: the Williams sisters only really gave their all for the Slams, and didn't (and still don't) play a heavy schedule anyway; Maria Sharapova went out with an injury and couldn't get back into top form (and still hasn't); the Serbians Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic rose quickly to the top of the game, gaining attention and fans, but then plummeted back down almost as fast (only Jankovic has been able to come back while Ivanovic has continued to fall); and no one seemed to care too much about top-ranked Dinara Safina, who mentally crumbled on the biggest stages.

But then a light of hope shone upon women's tennis. And it came from Belgium, of all places. First Kim Clijsters and then Justine Henin, both former world number ones and Slam champions, announced they would be returning to the game many felt they had left too soon. Their returns were lauded and praised as the second-coming and a return to consistency for the women's game, and suddenly the duo were celebrities again before they'd done anything.

Their fame has been ironic for two reasons. Firstly, while "Aussie Kim" was always a fan-favorite and much liked on the tour, she was too private and too quiet a personality to be the big cross-over star that the tour sees her as now. Also, Henin, while a perennial favorite among the French, was easily one of the most ignored number one players in recent memory. It was practically expected at the Slams that Henin would get the least press, but quietly and effectively progress into the later rounds regardless. So it is fitting that both of these players are getting so much attention for their "second" careers when they didn't always get it for their first.
Secondly, the consistency which many (including myself) were hoping would return with two of the more consistent players hasn't actually been seen, yet. Henin, with a specific dream of winning Wimbledon and completing her Career Slam, has been playing a more aggressive, offensive game which can lead to strings of unforced errors. She is also going for more on both of her serves, sometimes yielding double faults. Finally, both Henin and her coach have said that she wouldn't really get back into full champion form for several months (despite the fact that she made two straight finals to start her return). As for Clijsters, she has specifically lightened up her playing schedule (once one of the most intensive among the top players) to avoid the exhaustion that she felt the last time. By her own admission, this has led to her having problems getting into the consistent form that she once had, as she's now unable to find her game and just keep playing it week after week.

Keep in mind, I'm a huge fan of both of these players, and I really do want them to reach the consistent heights of excellence they once did. This is just a reminder of where their games still need work, and how insane the concept of "fame" really is, especially for sports stars.

I Heart Human Target

2010-03-18T15:52:00.000-05:00

I'll start with the negative, New Girl. I don't like New Girl, and I have no idea why they felt the need to add her. Well, I'll take that back. I have a guess that someone wearing a too-expensive suit, with an office that's way too nice for how little they probably do piped up in a meeting and said that this all-testosterone show needed a female as a series regular in order to appeal to a wider demographic. Well that idea sucks. New Girl's added energy and irritating naivete clashes with the more cynical, world-weary veterans of Chance (Mark Valley, Awesome!), Guerrero (Jackie Earl Haley, a creepy, psychopathic geek, Also Awesome!), and Winston (Chi McBride, Pushing Daises Ruled!). And yes, I realize that this too was part of the point of her character, to give "new energy" to the show by adding a newbie to the cast's dark world, but it just doesn't work. The only thing that would make her remotely interesting to me is if she turned out to be working for the mysterious Old Man that Chance and Guerrero used to work for.

Other than that, I really have loved this show. Every episode is like its own self-contained action movie whittled down to an hour (with commercials) which means that the most boring parts of action movies (set-up, exposition, conversations meant to build up characters, horribly forced love stories) are limited or just gone. They've already done Die Hard at a monastery, an episode on a hijacked plane, and a somewhat rip-off of The Gauntlet (which itself was much better when remade as 16 Blocks).

The show is now getting more into a recurring storyline of Chance and Guerrero dealing with their former, nameless employer (Chance and Guerrero aren't their "real" names, either, f.y.i.), but I'm not so sure they need it. I know why they would want it: to keep casual viewers coming back every week with a continuing storyline, but I liked the way it was before and I think enough other people did too (last night's show somehow dropped in their so-called target demographic according to Nielsen, but kept high ratings, proving once again that Nielsen is a lousy way to judge ratings).

I do like how the show is now having scary Guerrero and leader Winston do more than sit behind the scenes and set up the situation so Chance can do something unbelievable. Yes, I realize that that's another reason why they added New Girl, but that's another reason why I don't like New Girl. Those techie/ lab geek characters on these kind of shows/ movies that never seem to do anything tend to bug me because they're just scenery and they leave me wondering why are you even here? Why do you get lines and screen time at all? Can't we write around you? I mean, you just sit there typing while others risk their lives, for Gods' sakes, C'MON! When robots with advanced A.I. become common, these characters' roles will be some of the first jobs to go.

I guess now I need a conclusion.... ummm... Human Target's awesome. That's it.

South Park Pwns Golf

2010-03-18T14:13:00.000-05:00

Ah, South Park. How I love you and the way you remind us all that the problems of humanity can nearly always be blamed solely on humanity itself.

In last night's season premiere, South Park addressed the Tiger Woods issue, as well as sex addiction, the media, and Matt Stone and Trey Parker's favorite punching bag, the stupidity of people. They also bluntly mocked what should be obvious to everyone by now, that the Tiger Woods controversy has brought attention to the sport of golf from people who would normally have nothing to do with watching people hit a little ball into a hole, and will completely forget about golf again once this all blows over.

One other issue bluntly addressed in this episode was sex addiction, which Stone and Parker clearly believe to be nothing more than a complete fallacy, dreamed up to hide any man's (and probably woman's, though they didn't mention that specifically) excessive sex drive. This is consistent with Stone and Parker's past views on how addiction is treated in and by our culture. There was the female teacher who got caught having sex with Kyle's little brother Ike and used the "Mel Gibson defense" of alcoholism, and then there was that episode with the bleeding statue.

In case you've forgotten, in the episode, Randy's alcoholism was "cured" by coming into contact with the blood pouring from the statue of a female saint's anus. Many couldn't seem to get over the clearly-meant-to-be-offensive-to-someone statue part of the episode long enough to notice the much more blunt point of the episode, which was Stan arguing against Alcoholics Anonymous and how they treat alcoholism.

Though I'm sure Dr. Drew wouldn't agree (and keep in mind, Matt Stone and Trey Parker aren't doctors or experts... hell I'm not sure they finished college), the creators of South Park have obvious issues with our culture of addiction, and are not at all afraid to say whatever they want to about it.

Raj Patel is Living The Life of Brian

2010-03-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

So, there's this religious organization (cult, New Age weirdos, however you want to say it) called Share International who believe that the Buddha has been reborn in the modern age (in 1972, to be specific) and is the messiah they call "Maitreya." According to the group's leader, Benjamin Creme (yes, that's his real name), Maitreya recently outed himself by stuttering on a national, popular television show. The show was The Colbert Report, and the supposed messiah is activist, journalist, and author Raj Patel.

Colbert, upon learning this, brought Patel back on his show via telephone, and asked him point blank whether or not he was the messiah. Patel said "No," but Creme has said that the true messiah would reveal himself by refuting that he was the messiah. That is specifically from the film Monty Python's Life of Brian.

In the movie, Brian (Graham Chapman) is mistaken as the messiah by a large group of people, who then follow him to his home and gather outside his window. After Brian says he is not the messiah, the people respond with, "Only the true messiah would reject that he was the messiah!" So, Brian says, "In that case, I am the messiah!" to which the crowd calls out, "He admits it! He is the messiah!"

Brain then goes on to preach that the people shouldn't blindly follow him or anyone else, they should think for themselves. Strangely enough, that is exactly what Raj Patel went on to say on The Colbert Report after he had rejected his own rumored messiah-hood. "I think I would make a terrible messiah... I think that the whole point of social change is not that we follow leaders, but that we can think for ourselves."

One final thought: Patel has often written about a more fair, balanced distribution of wealth and goods and done a lot of work trying to get food and clean water to the poorest and most desperate parts of the world. Sounds like a good messiah to me.

USA Finales: Final Words

2010-03-13T13:14:00.000-06:00

Burn Notice: Though this season on Burn Notice wasn't as good as others (I felt the show was reaching a bit with Michael getting so into catching psychopath Gilroy), I loved the finale. It was full of twists and turns and Michael being the bad-ass ex-spy that he is.

However, I can't completely give a judgement on Burn Notice's finale specifically because the show has once again changed the game on Michael, having him seemingly join up with the ones who burned him to start the show. I have always loved how the show does that, instead of just sitting back and using an easy set-up, it makes every season progress to something new. So, I'll actually have to wait until next season to see how much I like how this season ended.

White Collar: I came late to this show, but have really liked what I've seen, and this was another great episode, featuring Neal at his master thief best, finally getting his hands on this famous music box.

I did have a couple issues with this show, though. For one thing: how could Neal not see that Alex intended to betray him? That was almost painfully obvious. Also, I didn't really like the way the show did what so many others do and build up to a character possibly going through with a major change, which then ends with that character abruptly being forced to stay right where he is, doing exactly as he's been doing.

Finally, a note to USA's advertising department, if you're going to end your season finale with a big, supposedly shocking explosion, could you possibly NOT put it in every commercial for said episode? You made me (and no doubt MANY others) know that ending was coming, which affected our enjoyment of the rest of the show.

P.S. I don't think Kate's really dead. People rarely die in explosions on television.

Psych: The show became even more of a self-aware, self-parody this season, and often featured meta-fictional jokes a la Boston Legal (Psych is still well-short of the meta-fictional heights of B.L., but then again, so is everything other than Moonlighting and the film Looney Tunes: Back in Action). I was worried about this since I thought it meant the writers were running out of fresh ideas. Then, I saw the finale, and I forgot about any worries I ever had.

The finale featured constant and intentional Hitchcock references, allusions, and even shots taken right out of Hitchcock's films, and it was brilliant! This cast and crew does parody better than almost anyone, and that was evident in the finale. Also evident was how well the show can blend heart and deep emotions with their jokes, as Shawn and Abigail shared a heart-rending scene, while Juliet broke down into the arms of Lassiter, of all people.

This is one of my favorite shows on TV right now, and I can't wait for next season.

Not Quite Fearless Oscar Predictions

2010-03-06T13:45:00.000-06:00

Best Picture: In any other year, right now, The Hurt Locker would be the favorite to win Best Picture in a walk. Having won both Director's Guild and Producer's Guild Awards (two good indicators for who wins on Oscar night), the fact that the film would top off award season with the biggest honor would be almost boringly predictable.

However, due to the odd ranking voting system the Academy has started this year for Best Picture, Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, or Up in the Air could still pull off an upset. That, by the way, is the order in which I would place the films as possible winners: Hurt Locker in first; James Cameron's money making machine Avatar as a very close second; Quentin Tarantio's violent take on World War II movies as the third-place dark horse; and recession dramedy Up in the Air is an Uber dark horse in fourth.

I'm picking The Hurt Locker to win, but it wouldn't be all that surprising to me if any of those top three took the top prize. And if Up in the Air wins, we should all throw away our prediction math, and go back to using an abacus.

Screenplay: This award is traditionally given to the loser of the Best Picture category. For whatever bizarre reason, the Academy sees this as the consolation prize for whoever won't be getting the Big One. In any other year, then, Original Screenplay would go to Inglourious Basterds. However, this is not a normal year.

To prove that, Entertainment Weekly picked The Hurt Locker to win Original Screenplay and Best Picture. I'm going against that choice and sticking with the Basterds, but, again, we're not completely sure what kind of impact the new voting procedure will have until it actually happens.

So, Locker might just take everything, which I wouldn't have a problem with.

Why Chuck is Like Smallville

2010-03-02T16:11:00.000-06:00

Something occurred to me while I was watching Chuck last night: the series has become more like Smallville has been in recent seasons. Not because Chuck's latest love interest, Kristin Kreuk, used be on Smallville (though that might be what initially gave me this idea), what's making Chuck more similar to Smallville is that they both started as fairly light-hearted shows with occasional darker or more serious moments, but they've both gotten darker and more serious as the series progressed.

On Smallville, the darker edge really started to take over when the love triangle between Lana Lang (Kreuk, again), Clark Kent, and Lex Luthor became so deadly the characters could easily slide into roles right out of a film noir, with Lana as a femme fatale, Lex as a murdered gangster, and Clark as a "hero" cop who arrests his own ex-girlfriend (they actually did that on one episode... it was better than it sounds here).

As for Chuck, the series' darker tone has come about as Chuck has progressed from "average guy with the intersect" to full-blown, bad-ass super spy. This has been jarring at points, and a little hard to get used to. On the one hand, I like the fact that the show is taking itself more seriously, and I think the writers, actors, and everyone else involved is doing a very good job with it (I even think Brandon Routh and Kreuk were great additions to the cast, and I like how Sarah is now the one willing to take a chance with a real relationship). On the other hand, it's not the Chuck (or Chuck) we're used to seeing, is it?

As Sarah (or Sam, I suppose) herself observed during last night's show, Chuck, the hero we've been following all this time has changed and the show has changed with him. In fact, the constant niggling problem I have with Chuck is the same problem Sarah/ Sam now has with Chuck: he isn't the same person we all used to like, and nor is the show. That constant light-heartedness is gone, and apparently we all have to get used to that.

With Smallville, I stuck through the tonal shift and still continue to watch and enjoy the show; which is what I'll end up doing with Chuck. It's just going to take some getting used to.

Olympic Snowboarding Overview

2010-02-20T20:38:00.000-06:00

First off, you have to understand that the scoring and judging for the Olympics is done just like in the World Cup circuit, which Americans don't do. This scoring especially emphasizes big air and goes by a 50 point scale, not a 100 point scale, like in the X-Games.

The reasoning to emphasize bigger air is because it raises the difficulty level by being much more dangerous if one falls. Also, a trick generally looks better the higher a rider gets out of the pipe. Finally, with a 50 point scale, scores can get close and judges have to get picky to differentiate between riders; so, bigger air comes in handy when one needs to separate a great run from a really good run.

This final point, of course, could be simplified if they just changed to a 100 point scale, which would offer more separation between the runs. Also, in my opinion, if a rider lands a whole, good, strong run, they should automatically be scored higher than someone whose run wasn't as good, but they went higher. Finally, if the pipe conditions aren't great and there's no way the riders will get bigger air, do you lower all the scores, or is it a comparative thing? On that note, if the conditions improve throughout the day (as happened Thursday, when the sun set and the pipe hardened again), do you score the later riders higher than the first ones, because they were lucky enough to go later and thus get air easier?

That being said, I didn't have a problem with any of the results except for how low they scored Louie Vito (I thought he deserved to be right with Scotty Lago and I. Pod. with a 41 something) and how high they scored Peetu Piiroinen (who eventually won silver).

I was disappointed to see how many riders went down throughout the competitions. I would prefer the final scores show who laid down the best run, with everyone doing their best, not who happened to finish. The ones I'm thinking of specifically: I. Pod.'s second run would have definitely raised his score; Kazuo didn't land either of his attempts and left the pipe bleeding with nothing to show for it; Gretchen Bleiler could have threatened Torah Bright's score had she landed either of her runs; Kelly Clark could have gone higher than third had she not clipped the lip and lost speed, forcing her to throw out the 1080 she had considered ending her run with; and I'm really sorry for Spain's Queralt Castellet, who was third after the women's qualifying run, then got injured in a training run, and couldn't even compete in the finals.

One thing I was glad to see was that the Chinese didn't win anything. See, the Chinese Federation's approach to snowboarding is the same as their approach to any other sport: harsh, regimental training focused solely on defeating your opponents and not enjoying yourself. While I can accept that something like this happening is the sad inevitability of the progression of the popularity of the sport, as NBC's analyst's said, "It's just not snowboarding."

The Chinese really need to look at all of the big names in women's snowboarding (Bright, Beiler, Clark, and Hannah Teter), and notice how they manage to be great, to stay focused on the sport, and yet enjoy themselves and not take it all so seriously. Hell, if the Chinese just got a foreign coach for the snowboarders who let them have fun like they did for the freestyle skiers, that would be a pleasant change, and the snowboarders might just get better like the skiers.

One final thought: Shaun White's run was EPIC! That will be remembered for quite some time as a moment that progressed snowboarding and brought the sport to a whole new level, and it left me cheering and feeling almost as good as if I had just landed it. It was just an awesome moment.

Update on Olympic Sports You Don't Care About

2010-02-16T23:31:00.000-06:00

So here's what happened to Lindsey Jacobellis.

On the first jump of the semi-finals, she was too close to Canadian and eventual Gold winner Maelle Ricker, so Lindsey had to land on her side. This caused Lindsey to spin-out just a bit, go off course, and then recover herself.

The one problem was that the damn gate was right where she temporarily lost control. Lindsey had already regained from her sketchy landing and it is easily believably that she could recover and make it into the finals. But she hit the afore-mentioned damn gate, which is against the rules, and was disqualified.

And that was all it took.

PS,
The lack of parity in Women's Hockey is a little embarrassing.

Olympic Sporting News You Don't Care About

2010-02-16T14:18:00.000-06:00

The Snowboard Cross course is hard. There are multiple hops up to a tabletop (flat surface) which then drop off sharply, several jumps (two of them big ones), and sharp "Daytona" turns (they're quarter-pipes, like in Daytona, hence the name... duh). Then there's the weather, causing snow conditions to vary from slush to soft powder to ice all of which affect the racers' speed and control.

What this all means is that it is not surprising that heavy favorites Nate Holland and Pierre Vaultier didn't metal, it's actually a miracle that anyone could stand long enough to cross the finish line at all. So if Lindsey Jacobellis does not "redeem" herself and win gold in Snowboard Cross, don't be too hard on her, it might just be the course.

The one woman with the best chance of stopping an American sweep in Snowboard half-pipe is Australian (and Mormon, who knew they had those in Australia?) Torah Bright. Her one flaw, sadly, is also her greatest strength: Torah goes BIG. She wants those huge tricks even when it isn't wise to attempt them. Of course, if she lands all her tricks and completes a full run, she is unbelievably good, but it's that IF that gets her sometimes. Hell, she just suffered two concussions within three days while training the week before X-Games, which was about three weeks ago. As for her American competitors, Kelly Clark is the most consistent rider on the women's side, but she doesn't always go big enough in competition (which is partly why she's so consistent). Gretchen Bleiler and Hannah Teter have bigger tricks, it's just a question if they can put down a whole strong run.

For men's half-pipe, if Shaun White puts down a run like he had at X-Games, he is unbeatable. So, assuming that happens, it becomes a fight for second, where the other Americans might have some problems. Louie "Tiny Dancer" Vito (yes, they really call him that, now) hasn't put down a full, strong run in the finals of a competition in quite a while. This is partly because White has pushed everyone else to raise their games to a level not all of them have yet, but this also seems to be something of a mental problem with Vito. As for the other two Americans, Scotty Lago has good consistency, good air, and strong runs, but he has also been coming up short in recent competitions, and Greg Bretz is the other guy just lucky to make the team.

The men's biggest foreign competitors include I. Pod. (I'm not even going to try his real name), Kazuo, and several others who are landing double-corks and following them up with other big tricks. It's a deep field and it could be hard for the Americans to snatch more than one medal, based on how they've been riding recently.

Hey NBC, SHUT UP!!

2010-02-16T13:59:00.000-06:00

So, it's Olympics time again, and again I have the same old complaint about the television coverage. NBC regularly insists on going away from the actual Olympic games to show these incredibly boring supposed "human interest" stories which are never very interesting and in last night's primetime coverage, didn't even mention humans.

Hey, NBC, you paid millions to have exclusive coverage of the games, you're losing millions on the damn games, you might as well show the Olympic games themselves instead of whatever random crap you make Mary Carillo do.

One other complaint I have is that if NBC is planning to show any of a specific event in their primetime coverage, they will show none of it during their day coverage, or post any of it online. They will, however, provide live updates and a live blog on what's happening in that event, as well as provide a full written recap of said event. Now, I can understand ratings and I know why they want to force viewers to sit through hours of talking and events they don't care about to get to the one they do, but then why do they post a live blog and live results? Granted, this is information one can find almost anywhere online, but why is the station forcing me to watch at night to see what happened during the day, telling me what happened during the day?

Also, they might not show all of an event in primetime so (as an example) if you want to watch every run in freestyle snowboarding (which I do) you're probably not going to, but you can read how everyone does in the live blog.

Heroes Finale: Good Ending, Bad Beginning?

2010-02-09T16:34:00.000-06:00

So I'll start with the positive. I really liked this episode. I liked Peter and Sylar teaming up; I liked the new "hero" Sylar; I liked the pacing; and I liked how everyone teamed up in their own way to defeat Samuel.

And how they took out Samuel was brilliant! How do you beat a psychotic cult leader? By getting his cult to lose all faith in him. Instead of joining powers and beating him down like he was Sylar at the end of season one, the Heroes cast got his "family" to realize what kind of man he truly he is: a lunatic who's been using them this whole time for his own crazy, super-villain, Napoleon-complex ends. Granted, they had to use mind-control on one of Samuel's enforcers to do it, but still, the good ending was achieved.

And I LOVED the scenes with Hiro and Charlie. It was heart-breaking, but believable; hard to watch but inevitable. Masi Oka just does not get enough credit for how good he is on this show.

So, I really liked this episode, but the cliffhanger beginning of the next chapter.... well, I'm still not sure about that. For one thing, NBC seems undecided as to whether or not the show will be coming back at all, in which case this was as close to a finale as we're going to get. But even beyond that, did Claire really have to go there? Now yes, there are only so "gas pockets," "sinkholes," and random, barely-explainable things that can believably happen in our modern, worldwide massive multi-media culture before it just gets ridiculous that the public has yet to catch on to the existence of super-humans.

However, to force it out into the public view like Claire did seems... I don't know. It's definitely a new direction for the show (assuming we get another season at all), but it was just so rash, wasn't it? It was like an "F.U." to Noah's beliefs made in the heat of the moment that could very well change the world, and will, at least, change her life and that of her friend's dramatically.

As to why Claire specifically did it, that was like the actions of someone who's just tired of hiding the truth of herself from the world. And yeah, she'd been under a lot of stress lately, so you can kind of understand why she just suddenly "came out" like she did.

But still.... it's the kind of thing that irks me until I see how the show is specifically going to handle it. So I guess I'll see what happens next, if anything.

Overall, though, I really liked this season, and I pray to all the gods of television that we get at least one more; if only so I'll see whether or not I was right to be unsure about this season's ending.

Fearless Oscar Predictions

2010-02-04T13:08:00.001-06:00

1. Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges will win Best Acting Oscars recognizing their careers as much as, if not more than, their nominated roles.

2. Mo'Nique and Christoph Waltz will win Best Supporting Oscars for their roles in Precious and Inglourious Basterds.

3. Jason Reitman and his writing partner Sheldon Turner will win for Best Adapted Screenplay while Quentin Tarantino will win for Best Original Screenplay.

4. Up will win Best Animated Feature, because Pixar always wins Best Animated Feature, that's the rule.

5. Kathryn Bigelo will become the first woman to ever win an Oscar for Best Director.

6. Best Picture: Now that's complicated.

See, when the Academy upped the nomination number to ten for Best Picture, they also changed the rules for how votes for Best Picture are counted. Now, voters rank all ten films and, in order to be considered, a film has to have a majority of top picks by the voters.

Here's how it works. Let's say this is your Oscar ballot for Best Picture:

1. An Education
2. Up
3. District 9
4. Precious
5. Inglourious Basterds
6. The Hurt Locker
7. Up in the Air
8. The Blind Side
9. Avatar
10. A Serious Man

Now let's say not enough people saw An Education and so didn't give it that high a ranking, so that vote of yours will be ignored and the Academy will move down to the next one. Older Academy members don't want to see an animated film win Best Picture, so they're not voting for Up, so that vote's out. None of the Directors of Photography are voting for District 9, because they all think the film over-used shaky cam (which it did), and Precious is being widely praised for its acting, but not enough voters think it classifies as "Best Picture material" so there goes those votes. Inglourious Batserds, however, has enough support to get high ranking votes, so that would be the one that counts on your ballot, even though you ranked it 5.

Get it?

Yeah, it didn't really make sense to me, either, but this will make the Best Picture race much more interesting than it usually is, because we're still not sure what exact impact this new voting procedure will have. Well, I'm actually sure of one impact this voting will have: negative campaigning (which the Academy has been trying to lower in recent years) now means more than it used to.

Notice how low I put Avatar on the sample ballot. If enough voters get enough support, they can effectively bury a film they don't want to see win, by just getting people to put it among their lowest numbers as I did with Avatar. Now how little voters want a film to win has as much to do with who wins as who voters would like to see win.

So no matter what happens Oscar night, one thing is certain: the Academy has successfully made the Oscars a little more dickish.

USA Minus Monk, Still Good

2010-02-01T13:56:00.000-06:00

White Collar: I didn't watch last season, because the show was opposite something. I no longer remember what. So the first episode I saw was the second episode of the second season. I still had no problems following what was happening and I was really liking the show. The premise comes from the end of Catch Me If You Can, where Leonardo DiCaprio starts working with Tom Hanks to catch other forgers and the like. Except in White Collar there's also this whole thing with the bad guy's ex-girlfriend and some evil FBI agent, and whatever. If you've seen the commercials, you know the story.

Anyhoo, even without any previous experience with the show, it's still good. While the show goes with the whole pairing a straight-laced guy with the bad boy thing that's been done a thousand times, it messes with the concept by making the bad boy ex-con man a hopeless romantic and gives the straight-laced stiff guy a hot, fun wife (Tiffany Amber Thiessen, Kelly from Saved by the Bell, yes, she's still VERY hot) and something of a rebellious streak.

Burn Notice: The best thing about this show is that it refuses to remain static. Its set-up of a burned spy helping others while trying to find out what happened to his career could have been drawn out indefinitely. However, the hero/ MacGyver bad-ass spy Michael found the people responsible for ruining his life at the end of season one, spent season two dealing with them, and then spent season three trying to get back into the spy game while avoiding people he'd pissed off who now knew how to find him. Now in season four, Michael has to take down a lunatic assassin who has a problem with him. And , oh yeah, he ends up helping people in his own way every episode, cause that's just what kind of guy he is.

One thing that you might get tired of in the show is how the fact that Michael goes undercover as someone to make some bad guy come out and get caught can get a bit old sometimes. But, the show is fun, cool, and the way they've handled Michael's relationship with on-again/ off-again/ ex/ current/ it's complicated Fiona has been great, especially this season.

Psych: While watching the season premiere of Psych, something occurred to me. What professional wrestler John Cena's previous attempts at film acting had lacked wasn't that the hero was as stiff as a steel beam filled in with concrete who seemed to be reading his lines right off the page, it was that they weren't action film parodies starring big John as the straight man in a farce, coupled with two people who are not taking the situation nearly as serious as they should be.

I love this show, I loved this episode, and the scenes between Shawn (James Roday) and his girlfriend Abby (Rachel Leigh Cook) were so good, you can't help but notice how much talent these actors really have. This season's started great, and I can only hope that continues.

And In Other Sporting News You Don't Care About

2010-01-24T14:38:00.000-06:00

Manchester City Forward Robinho said in a radio interview that he wished to be traded to another team to insure more playing time. Robinho wants to play more because he feels he needs more exposure in the English Premiere League (or wherever he ends up playing) to cement his spot on the Brazilian World Cup team.

Now, I'm no expert on how the Brazilian roster is chosen, but I have to think that more playing time on a sub-par team is not the way to guarantee a main spot on a top World Cup contender who is known for their blistering offense. Also, Robinho might just be looking for more money out of Real Madrid or another big money European squad.

So, this could all be about Robinho being a bit of a jerk, as he has been in the past.

Chileans Are Evil

2010-01-24T14:07:00.000-06:00

So, last year at the Australian Open, the Serbian and Croatian fans started a fight (shocking that the Croats and Serbs would have problems getting along) when two players from their respective countries met in an early round. This year, in the first week, eleven Chileans had to be removed from The Beer Garden (which we're now calling simply "The Garden," apparently to promote sober celebrating).

And then, during the matches of top-ranked Chilean Fernando "Gonzo" Gonzalez, the Chilean fans kept sneaking in flares and letting them off while the match was still going on, which, along with other disruptive behaviour, got several of them removed from the stadium.

In Gonzo's fourth round loss to Andy Roddick, the handful of Chileans in Rod Laver Arena would not shut up. There was singing, shouting, and cheering between points, there often yelling during points, and even an occasional jack-ass yelling right when Roddick was in his serving motion.

If you want to show support for your player and your country, fine. But you don't have to be rude about it, and you certainly shouldn't be intentionally disruptive to the other player. And what the hell's up with the flares? Are you trying to show how happy you are that Gonzo's doing well by setting fire to someone?

This is tennis, people, we stay quiet during the points whenever possible. Now, I'm not saying you have to be the Proper English Stiff Upper Lip Wimbledon Crowd, but you should still show respect to the players and the sport by not being a dick.

2010 Sic-Fi: Chuck, Heroes, Caprica

2010-01-12T14:13:00.000-06:00

Chuck: I'll admit I was worried by the new, amped-up Chuck. I thought that by making Chuck into more of an action hero and less of a nerd the show would lose its fun and sense of self. Instead, by keeping the Intersect (and Chuck's ability to use it) inconsistent, Chuck continues to be far from the super-spy he had dreamed of being.

Even more than that, though, the show is still good and fun as ever because of Chuck himself. No matter what he can or can't do, he's still awkward, unsure of himself and his capabilities, and still fumbling about his feelings towards Sarah. I don't even mind how the show has drawn out Chuck and Sarah's relationship, since it is what it is now because Chuck wanted to be more like Sarah, and now that he's still a "spy," he has to at least try to adopt an attitude closer to her's. I'm still liking this show, I just hope it gets the ratings to stick around (hell, NBC might as well keep it and put it at 9 p.m., nothing else it working then, anyway).

Heroes: This has been a really good season. The David Koresh cult thing with Samuel and his "family" is good because it is a new villain and new type of villain for the show, but it's the fact that some characters still refuse to change after all these years that is annoying.

Claire's still naive and gets into trouble; Peter has to be a hero and save everyone his way (often alone); Hiro has to be a superhero right out of comicbooks; Noah has to keep Claire safe by utilizing lies and deceit and take out the bad "powers" for the good of "normals;" Suresh has to be the borderline obsessed scientist; and Ando's just usually there for the ride. It's been four years, people, can't any of you move on to be someone or something new? Other than Sylar, of course, who seems to undergo a major transformation at least once a season.

Caprica: ScyFy's spinoff series to Battlestar Galactica doesn't premiere for another week, but the pilot's been out on DVD for months, and it is now available for free on my ScyFy On Demand.

By being a work of science fiction, BSG (I've never completely liked that acronym) didn't need to be subtle when addressing such issues as suicide bombers, insurgency, technology, religion, fanaticism, war, racism, elitism, faith, life, death, and what it means to be human. Caprica is no different. Within minutes of its beginning, a monotheist suicide bomber (the vast majority in this world is polytheistic) takes out a train full of innocents while screaming about "the one, true god." The show also features a foreign-led mafia, bluntly racist comments, and, of course, the pursuit of an Artificial Intelligence that is going to destroy the planet in little over fifty years.

However, the show's greatest strength, like BSG, is that it manages to address all these issues but do it with believable, relatable, and extremely human characters. We don't see them as black/ white; good/bad; rich, greedy villain/ poor, determined, working class hero; victims/ terrorists. We see them as people, no matter what they do or believe.

If Caprica keeps up what I've seen in the pilot, it might just come close to living up to its predecessor, which is the biggest compliment I could possible give it.

"Just Call My Name..."

2010-01-12T14:10:00.000-06:00

"And I'll Be There."

Wait, you won't be there.

You're dead.

This song is sad now.

(weeping, weeping)

Oh, God, is That What I Look Like?

2010-01-08T16:07:00.000-06:00

So there's now a picture of me on this thing, essentially guaranteeing that no female of at least a moderate level of attraction will ever visit this blog for more a few seconds.

Please refrain from retching on your computers, as it may cause serious damage to your keyboard.

MSN's Three Events to Watch: What a Load of Crap!

2009-12-19T15:32:00.000-06:00

So, according to msn, the three events "you should follow" in the upcoming Winter Olympics are Ice Hockey (Field Hockey being difficult when it's 10 degrees outside), Bobsledding, and Freestyle Aerial Skiing.

Before getting into the events one should REALLY be watching and why, I'll cover msn's supposedly valid reasons to follow these three specifically.

Bobsledding: With reigning World Champion Steven Holcomb coming back from an eye surgery that saved him from going all but completely blind, and Vonetta Williams attempting to repeat as the still only African American to ever win a Winter Olympic Gold medal, the sport has two inspiring stories.

Aerial Skiing: American Jeret "Speedy" Peterson attempts to find redemption for his disappointing seventh place finish at Turin.

Ice Hockey: It's Hockey. A large, worldwide, very competitive sport whose American roster could very well feature not a single returning Olympian, and has not had a repeat Olympic finalist since the NHL players started playing in 1998.

Now, I agree with Ice Hockey, and yes, the bobsledding story is moving, but Peterson is a jerk. After failing to land his signature move "the hurricane" back in Turin, he was asked to leave the games early, following a bar fight. And this is what he says about attempting his very difficult trick on his last try, when he had yet to land it in the competition: "Could you imagine if I had decided to step down to an easier trick, and I was only giving it 90 percent and I ended up in second? I couldn't live with that. I would definitely have to know that when I'm done, medal around my neck or not, that I gave everything I had. If everything clicks, I'd just beat everyone by a mile, and that's what I'm looking for."

What an arrogant prick! He lost four years ago, and then was asked to exit quietly to avoid embarrassment, and he still has the gall to say shit like that!

Here are my three picks for the three big events to watch, and my reason will be obvious: Ice Hockey, Freestyle Snowboarding, and Figure Skating (yes, Figure Skating). Here's why: these are the three winter events that gain the most attention outside of a connection to the Olympics. This causes a larger audience, more attendance at the live events, more competitors in the sports, and more pressure on the competitors themselves knowing how many people are watching them potentially fail, and how many other people could have potentially been there instead of them.

While Bobsledding and Speedskating and even Curling get a mention during Olympic seasons, in off-years, no one pays attention (unless you watch a lot of VS, and even they're not desperate enough to broadcast Curling on a regular basis).

So, suck it msn, screw "Speedy" Peterson, and go Shaun White!

10 Years of Stuff #8: Comedy Central's Political Satire

2009-12-18T13:38:00.000-06:00

The Daily Show started in the mid 90s. The show's original host was a guy named Craig Kilborn who left the show to become host of CBS's The Late Late Show. How'd that work for you, Craig? Oh, right, you were replaced by the Scottish guy from The Drew Carey Show.

The Daily Show's new host starting in 1999 was John Stewart, but I'm still counting his rise to comedic brilliance as part of this decade because it took the decline of genuine, modern journalism for Stewart to truly find his show's niche as the one place where you're guaranteed to find out the various hypocrisies and contradictions at heart in our modern political system.

Stewart was voted "America's most trusted anchor" in a recent poll. He called it the result of "the fuck you vote," but there is good reason behind this. On no other show are you likely to find two people with differing opinions having a genuine debate and discussion about the issues, without all the screaming, ranting, and certainty of one's absolute rightness despite any and all facts to the contrary that seem to have conquered our so-called "legitimate" media. Even time constraints don't stop Stewart, on The Daily Show's website, you can find interviews/ debates that last as long as twenty minutes without a single break.

And they're still funny! That's part of what makes it all so great, the show's sincere search for truth in the media and politics is brilliantly balanced out by their mockery of anyone and everyone involved, making the show a one of a kind combination of joke and genuine news.

And then there's Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report, bringing to life the maxim that the best way to do a satire is to take yourself completely seriously. Lampooning the modern media blowhards who get such high ratings by presenting their own opinions as fact; Stephen agrees with them, acts like them, and insults them all in one half-hour of over-the-top hilariousness. Hell, he's become such a celebrity himself, he's gotten the American people to help fund the US Speedskating team.

Is it sad that the best source for real, in-depth talks about modern politics is on Comedy Central? Maybe, but you can't sell a news show to most people now without some entertainment thrown in, so as along as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report keep up their high ratings, we'll keep getting at the contradictions and stupidity behind the people we trust to run our country.

10 Years of Stuff #7: Hi-Def Television

2009-12-18T13:19:00.000-06:00

Who could have foreseen ten years ago, that we would be getting an image at home that often looks better than reality itself?

Full 1080 Hi-Def makes everything that much more awesome! The added depth of image and sharper colors make a beautiful woman's curves look (without getting too pervy) almost unbearably sexy. The superior sound quality makes concert footage sound as clear as ringing a bell beside one's own ear. And oh, Lord, sports are just amazing!

Before I'd even seen tennis in Hi-Def I was already hearing how a tennis court had never looked that big on TV. Now, having seen it for myself, I don't know how I could ever go back. You can actually see the depth and curve of shots in tennis; a soccer pitch looks simply massive, making the effective long balls seem impossible; and I distinctly remember when my sister and I were first blown away that we could make out the faces of the crowd behind home plate. We have reached the point where one might easily be getting a better view in one's home than if one were actually at the game.

As for films, everyone usually remarks how great modern films shot in digital look, (like Dark Knight or Wall-E) and they do look amazing, but its older films that have had the biggest impression on me. One of the first films I saw in HD was Dr. Strangelove, and I recall ignoring the story and the characters because I was staring slack-jawed at the depth of the hallway they were talking in. It looked so big! And you have not seen the car chase scene in Bullit until you've seen those car's-eye-view shots in lovely 1080. It even made me a little light-headed the first time, and that's just AWESOME!

They say the next innovation will be fully immersive 3-d in our homes, a la James Cameron's Avatar. Hopefully, by that point they'll have worked out a way for me to see 3-d, because if there's something I really can't wait to see in 3-d it's... well, you can guess.

10 Years of Stuff #6: A Shift in Gaming Culture

2009-12-14T13:11:00.000-06:00

Two years ago, X-Play (the most successful show focused on video games in the U.S.) did a whole story about the rumored decline of P.C. gaming. They made the comment, which I already agreed with, that P.C. gaming wasn't "dead, it was different."

The difference is the massive, world-wide spread of casual, online gaming. The spread of computers (which keep getting better and faster) for business and personal use, combined with mobile phones that also keep increasing their speed and capabilities, have brought about the rise of flash games, which have turned the whole concept of "gaming" into something we all do when we should be working.

Even my sister, who's less of a techie than I am (you'll notice I still don't have any pictures on this blog), regularly plays a daily jigsaw puzzle online, got really into the flash game Flowerz (because she saw me playing it), and is now into some game where she shoots things with big eyes to make matching groups of three. Hell, she's even mentioned that she's considered getting a Wii, Nintendo's successful gaming system that clearly aims for the rising casual gamer market as well as the traditional gamer.

Many so-called traditional, hardcore gamers have had an issue with this spreading out of their world. As if its no longer cool if everyone else is doing it too. I, however, applaud the rising appeal of games. Flash games are quick, easy, cheap (often free) distractions one can just pick up, play briefly, and then put away and forget about while focusing on other things. They bring all the fun of other, longer games without requiring all the cost and time commitment. They offer enjoyable escapism minus cost or a huge devotion of one's free time.

The modern gaming world gives those of us who are broke, cheap, or just lack the inclination to spend money on gaming the opportunity to have just as much fun as you lucky bastards who have the money and time to spend blowing the hell out of everyone in Borderlands.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

10 Years of Stuff #5: The Cubs Still Didn't Win a World Series

2009-12-12T15:54:00.000-06:00

WOW. Over a hundred years and still no World Series Championship.

That's so sad, it's funny.

Or it's so funny, it's sad, depends on whose side you're on.

BUT, the Chicago Cubs still have a larger and much more devoted fanbase than the Chicago White Sox.

WTF??!!

(PS, Thank you Milton Bradley.)

10 Years of Stuff #4: Kick Ass Cleaning Products

2009-12-10T22:59:00.000-06:00

I used to think having hardwood floors would be such a pain. Sweeping wouldn't seem to get all the dust and dirt, so you'd have to stain the floors, and that would require moving furniture and blah, blah, etc., etc. Then, I discovered the Swiffer.

I'm pretty sure the Swiffer was actually invented in the last decade, but it was in this most recent decade when they spread the Swiffer empire out to dusters (since we were all already using the Swiffer cloths as dust cloths), the Wet Jet (if you really can see the dirt getting pushed around, it's been too damn long since you cleaned your floors!), and even the Swiffer Vac (now they're just messing with us).

Beyond the cleaning world of Swiffer, I've also found the various erasers to be incredibly effective (the Arm and Hammer ones are often most expensive and also the best), you just wet the things and you can scrape the dirt and stains off without having to really scrape or put up much physical effort at all. Oh, and now you can buy these Lysol or Clorox wipes that wreak of cleaning fluid, but, when you want a quick, easy clean-up of your kitchen or bathroom you cannot get better than these things.

In all, cleaning products have advanced much in this past decade by appealing to both the public's desire for cleanliness and our pathological laziness, as everything becomes more "germ-fighting" and "dirt destroying" while also becoming easier to use and "guaranteed fast-acting." Though I will always be baffled as to why lemon is the go-to scent for anything clean.

Charlie Brown's Christmas Conundrum

2009-12-10T22:00:00.000-06:00

Ah, the off-key singing of a chorus of children; the voice-over that doesn't always exactly match the animation; the tiny piano, stand-up bass, and guitar (that Snoopy hardly even plays) that's somehow meant to stand in for Vince Guaraldi's entire orchestra; it must be The Charlie Brown Christmas Special, the yearly show whose aim is to attack the commercialism of the season and put the "Christ" back in "Christmas".

There is an obvious flaw, however, with the special's aim: it has, itself, become a major part of the commercialism of the Christmas season. Indeed, on the Christmas tree currently in my eye line, there are Linus and Lucy ornaments depicting the characters as they appear in the special's musical finale, and that is merely the tip of the massive iceberg that is the Charlie Brown empire, which continues to get a yearly boost from the Christmas Special, which, again, argues against just such a commercial focus on Christmas.

However, I still buy the Special itself as sincere. Linus's slightly lisped, spotlighted (who's running the spotlight?), bible verse speech manages to still be (at least, somewhat) moving decades after it first aired, I still like it when Charlie Brown's sincere, puny little tree is made stronger by the power of love and togetherness (maybe that's what's happening anyway) and I always feel a little charge when Charlie Brown returns to find his friends together and the tree's now beautiful and he gets to have one good, happy moment at last.

But, all warm and fuzzy feelings aside, one can't escape the fact that the Special is attempting to bring religion to the forefront of Christmas celebrating, while we all ignore that and just focus on toys and gifts and decorating and cooking and sales and wrapping and television and movies and everything else, some of which is being sold as connected to the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

So, while I can't fault the Charlie Brown Special for what's been down with it and to it, it is always interesting to point out our inherent hypocrisy and greed.

10 Years of Stuff #3: Music.... No, Really

2009-12-05T12:50:00.000-06:00

While this decade has had the expected amount of financially successful, mass-produced bland (often blond) popstars, and while Karaoke Idol continues to be a perennial television hit, the last ten years have nonetheless managed to produce some genuinely great and original music.

The Strokes began 2001 leading the way for a "rebirth of rock," with their hard, guitar-heavy short songs that were a clear throwback to the rock hits of previous decades. Though both The Strokes and most of these bands eventually went the way of their predecessors, bands like Kings of Leon, Silversun Pickups, and Kaiser Chiefs continue to bring forth the blunt, unapologetic hard rock sound and kick ass doing it.

Meanwhile, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, having outlasted The Strokes, are still pulling off their original, "we can get away with anything" sound that has somehow gotten their most recent hit, "Heads Will Roll," wide stream fame, and they're not the only ones who have turned originality into success in this decade.

The Killers came out with a sound so unique, critics tried coming up with new names for it (none of which stuck); Panic! At the Disco's album Fever to Tell specifically defied nearly every convention modern rock has given us (verse-chorus-bridge, who needs it?); and Vampire Weekend decided what modern rock needed was more reggae and island sounds.

The Rap/ Hip-Hop world has also provided us with new sounds to mingle in with the old. Kanye West (yes, I'm praising Kanye West) and Akon brought the robotic auto-tune to the mainstream, which then quickly suffered from overuse. But, smaller acts like Chromeo keep it fresh and original while the slow rhymes of Kid Cudi give us someone to point at and say, "See, there's still new things to do in rap!" And then there's the raw voice of Lil Wayne that takes us back to a more simple, but still awesome rap style ("Prom Queen" is a great song!).

Standing atop the music scene in the past ten years (and deserving to be there) is Beyonce. She exists as the perfect bridge between the rap/hip-hop world and that of mainstream pop music, with a success that transcends both. She has the large, dance/ performance heavy shows to equal Britney Spears, but the fact that she can (and does) sing amazingly well raises her to another level entirely. She has somehow managed to do what almost no one else has (including J.T.), stretch out from her singer background to conquer other fields, but still be successful as a singer.

Basically, she's everything J. Lo. and Britney wish they were.

10 Years of Stuff #2: We Can Say Whatever the Frack We Want!

2009-12-02T16:18:00.000-06:00

Remember when "blog" still needed to be explained as an abbreviation for "web-log"? Remember when "tweet" was just the sound a bird made? Remember when Webster's Dictionary added Stephen Colbert's original catchword, "truthiness"?

As we progress into new and undiscovered technologies, the addition of new words to the English language has become a necessity. However, we've gone well beyond just words we needed to add, and started throwing whatever we felt like into the English language like it's a stew cooked by madmen, comprised of any old crap we find laying around.

Now, I was an English major and I have a Master's in English, so one would assume that I might have a problem with this free form approach to language, but I actually really enjoy the freedom it provides. I mean, "preggers" has now become a commonly used synonym for "pregnant" (I don't know why, it takes just as long to say and sounds ridiculous, but whatever), because gossip columnists started saying it and printing it in tabloids.

And remember that the English language isn't viewed like other languages. We're not the French, we don't have an English Academy locked away in some stuffy classroom voting on what should or should not be spoken by truly literate, pretentious people. Granted, we do have the aforementioned Webster's Dictionary, but Webster's includes slang and is constantly updating in order to keep up with commonly used words and phrases.

So the closest thing we have to a definitive guide on the English language adapts with us instead of forcing us to adhere to its rules and guidelines. The means that the people cited as being supposedly in charge of our language aren't really in charge, WE ARE!! We're literally making this shit up as we go along!

Hell, even grammar rules are changing from what I was taught. You know you can now correctly begin a sentence with "and" or "but"? One might be tempted to ask "Why?", but the answer is "Why the hell not? People were already doing it anyway, might as well go with the flow."

Ah, to be alive in a time when, if I get stuck writing because the word I want doesn't exist, I can do just as Billy Shakespeare himself did, and make the frackin' thing up.

(P.S.- "Frack" is what they used instead of "fuck" on Battlestar Galactica. Yes I'm a geek, but I admit it.)

10 Years of Stuff: The Roger and Rafa Rivalry

2009-12-01T15:06:00.000-06:00

So, we're about to come to the end of the decade without a name (the double aughts? the 00's? whatever), and everyone is making lists of the songs and bands and films and television and websites and everything else in the last ten years that have meant something to them for whatever reason. Well, I have joined the throng and am now making a list of ten things about the last decade that I have decided (on the spur of the moment and with little forethought) has struck me as interesting, cool, memorable, important, or just needed to get out there. Don't take anything too seriously with this list (as you shouldn't of any such list), and remember that this is just my babbling and there's no guarantee that I'll even come up with ten things.

To start then, modern tennis's greatest rivalry. Great rivalries always make a game more interesting. America's girl-next-door tennis champion Chris Evert had her polar opposite in lesbian, Russian Martina Navratilova; the reserved, big forehand, big server Pete Sampras had the mulletted rebel and brilliant returner Andre Agassi; and Roger Federer has Rafael Nadal.

At first, Federer's greatest enemy was himself. Suffering under the weight of heavy expectation, the Swiss finally had what was assumed to be his big breakthrough when he defeated "Pistol" Pete Sampras in what would be Sampras' final US Open match. Even then, however, Roger found he couldn't live up to his new assumed position as tennis's future great until he won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon.

The "Fed Express" really started the next season, when Federer began the dominance that would last four years, capturing eleven more Slam titles and holding onto the World Number One rank for a record setting 237 consecutive weeks. However, it takes a great challenge to make a champion greater, and without one, Federer started to look somewhat complacent.

He would appear bored in his early round matches, he never seemed to get too pumped up or excited about any of his staggering accomplishments, and I even recall his girlfriend Mirka being caught on live television confirming a reservation very soon after Roger had defeated Andy Roddick for one of his US Open titles.

Federer's brilliant, beautiful game became stagnant. He had stopped serving and volleying or doing anything too aggressive in his play. He didn't like to use his unbelievable dropshot as he felt it messed with the rhythm of play, and he mostly just stayed back, ran his opponents around, and might sometimes finish them off with a backhand or forehand angle that would make even Andre Agassi stare in disbelief.

Then he encountered the King of Clay. Rafael Nadal came out of nowhere to capture a French Open title in his first ever attempt! The speed of Nadal's progression from natural clay courter to great all around player shocked the entire world; except for Nadal himself who had always dreamed of winning Wimbledon despite the lack of success most clay courters had had on England's grass since Bjorn Borg.

When Nadal actually managed to beat Federer on tennis's greatest stage (and Federer's best surface), it sparked discussions on not only the end of King Roger's reign, but the start of Nadal's.

And what more perfect rival for Federer could there be than Nadal? The stoic Swiss maestro who never likes opponents to see him sweat and the energetic Spanish bull who seems to run forever. Federer, who used to love wearing opponents down, shocking them with beautiful play, now had to face someone who had no fear of him, ran down every point like his life depended on it, and added so much backspin his shots seemed to defy the laws of physics.

But just when Federer seemed over and done, he changed his game. Though he had been as loath to morph into a more aggressive player as Ted Williams had been to change his swing when teams started "the Ted Williams shift" (they would all go closer to right field, where Ted preferred to hit it, and he kept hitting it to right field), Roger was now the aggressor, trying to match Nadal's exhausting defense with offensive shots that couldn't be returned.

And his fire returned. We all started to see almost as much celebrating and reactions from Roger's side of the net as we usually did from Rafa's. He was driven to better his game, and the rest of the field followed. Newbies like Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin del Potro, and even the former world number one Andy Roddick have made the effort to match Nadal and Federer's drive to greatness with their own.

Granted, Federer once again seems to have focus issues having finished his career slam with a French Open victory and finally beating out Sampras for most singles Slam titles ever for a man (Steffi Graf has 21, only six more to go, Roger); and now Nadal's physical and possibly mental health have become recurring stories in men's tennis. But, I have hope that these two will both recover and continue to push themselves (and thus the rest of the field), to consistent high levels of play.

DWTS Finale: Well... Dammit

2009-11-24T22:18:00.000-06:00

Just because you see something disappointing coming, doesn't make it any less of a let down when it does. I could tell coming into tonight's Results show that Donny's fans were more than likely going to beat out Mya, the by FAR best dancer of the season.

Also, sadly, there was some negative reactions from some voters to Mya, especially towards the end. This seemed to stem from her having the most dancing experience coming into the competition; some didn't think she connected enough with the audience or even her partner; and some even claimed she had a superior attitude and called her a bitch, which is just not true at all! If anything, I think these final two reasons were just invented so people could validate their own negative feelings for someone who had never done anything wrong other than be better than anyone else.

The judges and the show tried to make it look fair by giving Donny the final victory and thus tying him in points with Mya. This then left the show's winner purely in the hands of the voters, and made Mya and Donny look even, which they really aren't. So, I will call a slight "Shenanigans" on the show for setting it up that much, but really, they knew Donny would win either way, they just needed to make it look better than it actually is. On that note, lucky thing Dmitry didn't do a better job of the freestyle performance, then Mya would have been the by far highest scoring contestant, but probably still lose.

I will give a resounding "BOOOOOOOO" to the fans in the studio. Their "support" for Donny and Kelly was offensive when compared to the relative silence Maya received. She put just as much into this competition as they did people, and she deserves at least some of the support you didn't give her when voting!

ABC also deserves a "BOOOOOOO" because the show was preempted until after football in some places in the west, but they didn't keep the voting open later to accommodate this. And they never mentioned this on tonight's show. Thanks ABC, nice way of pretending like nothing's wrong when you really screwed up.

To be fair, Donny did do a very good job with his final dance, but the Argentine tango is so much easier for the man. All you need to focus on is good posture and keeping a straight face while a beautiful woman leaps into your arms and wraps her legs around you.

So... Donny won. The consummate performer and beloved entertainer won over even more fans and proved, again, that popularity trumps talent. I am both let down and strangely numb to this outcome, since I saw it coming, but still hoped Mya would pull it off. That just goes to show where hope gets you.

Final Thought: Whitney Houston's beautiful voice is GONE! Her tone was way too low, she was short of breath, her range has largely left her, and at points she lost the beat and seemed to speak more than sing. While I admit that it would be all but impossible for someone to keep the incredible operatic range she had when she started twenty years ago, I think we all know what added to her vocal demise. (Say "No" to drugs, kids. Now take your Ritalin and shut up.)

I found it somewhat painful to see the woman whose cover of "I Will Always Love You" is still stirring digress into this faded shadow of her former self with less than half of her once unbelievable talent. And yet the audience still gave her a standing ovation and acted as if she were still the moving pop singer that she had once been.

Thanks for crapping on my childhood memories there, Whitney. You made a night I only somewhat enjoyed even worse.

DWTS Finale: I'm Worried

2009-11-23T22:24:00.000-06:00

Let me start this all by saying that I've never been a fan of the freestyle dance. Given total creative freedom and no clear cut guidelines, this performance rests mostly on the couple's ability to predict and live up to the judges' and audience's expectations of this expression of the celebrity's personality, as we have all determined it to be, based mostly on what we have seen on the show. So, it really comes down to how well they perform, based on what we think they're like.

That being said, Dmitry really dropped the ball this week. Not only does Hairspray not fit Mya at all (and you could tell, based on her initial reaction to Dmitry's idea), but it didn't do much to show Mya's biggest strength, namely that she's by far the best dancer of the three. Seriously, Dmitry, how could you not listen to your partner in a performance that's meant to best reveal her artistic expression? And how could you even think Hairspray would be a good idea? Nothing about the story of the lead is anything like Mya.

And everyone knew that the freestyle would be the dance Donny was probably going to get a perfect on; since this is what he's been doing successfully for his beloved fans (who vote for this show in large numbers) for several decades now.

As for Kelly, well... it's Kelly. She lasted into the finals through her popularity while more talented dancers kept losing. Her use of the song, "I Will Survive" for the freestyle seemed almost rudely ironic, as she again expressed that she has "survived" when, talent-wise, she already should have gone home. She didn't look good this week, despite all her confidence that she had a legitimate chance at winning the competition. And her freestyle was something of a nightmare, as she and partner Louis screwed up a lift and then ended horribly. The judges' scores of three 8's was entirely too generous, in my opinion.

The addition of the Mega-Mix in this season's finale was a good change, I thought. However, part of what makes it great is to separate the couples from best dancer to the worst, which would have been more important last year, when all three finalists were nearly perfect at the end. This year, there was Mya the dancer and Donny the performer with the large fanbase, and then there's Kelly. Keep in mind, I do think Donny did a great job with the Mega-Mix, and I'm sure it was a very close call as to who would take first, him or Mya. It probably came down to nothing more than Donny's poor posture at some points.

Going into the finals, I had the thought that Mya would need to be near perfect to beat Donny and his voters, or even to outlast Kelly's fans, some of whom have really turned on Mya. Apparently, since Mya had so much dancing ability coming into the competition, some people don't see that as being fair when compared to someone like Kelly who has none. That only helps Kelly's beloved underdog status, and makes her fans really hate Mya, who has done nothing but be the great dancer that she is.

The point difference between Mya and Kelly is significant, but is it enough? For that matter, will her slight point lead over Donny and her possible higher score tomorrow be enough to beat out his fans?

I am genuinely concerned that this could all come down to Dmitry's poor decision to ignore his partner's thoughts when it came to their freestyle performance.

John Woo Does Braveheart

2009-11-19T13:55:00.000-06:00

Included with the HD package I have is the channel HDNet Movies, which once a month shows smaller or lesser known films that only come out in a VERY limited release. This has allowed me to see good films (The Girlfriend Experience, Burning Plain) and not so good films (The Mutant Chronicles). Last night, I got to see the Chinese language film, Red Cliff.

Red Cliff is an epic, Braveheart scale historical war film directed by John Woo, King of the Hong Kong action film scene of the nineties. And the film looks like an epic, Braveheart scale historical war film directed by John Woo.

The story revolves around the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, when the Emperor's Prime Minister Cao Cao had basically taken over, and decided to conquer the two kingdoms to the south and west, ruled by Lord Sun Quan and Lord Liu Bei. Cao Cao attacks them with a vastly superior force, driving the Lords to the fortress at Red Cliff, and the large, final battle.

The main characters (and thus heroes) of the film are not actually the Lords, but Sun Quan's Viceroy Zhou Yu and Liu Bei's strategist Zhun Liang, who meet Cao Cao's staggeringly massive forces with clever strategies, formations, and plans. What's odd about these two being who we follow most in the film, is what happens in the large battles.

Despite how many thousands of soldiers are fighting, and no matter what the formation or strategy is, Sun Quan's and Liu Bei's generals always find a way mid-battle to take on and take out dozens of soldiers and showcase what big badasses they are. In the middle of a war film where our leads are praised as and prove to be brilliant strategists, these scenes seem out of place, and contradictionary to the rest of the film. It's intelligence that is supposed to matter most, not brute strength.

Also, these fight scenes look and seem like Dynasty Warriors: The Film, with one General killing soldier after soldier who's armed only with a little pike, slowing down only when the other side's general needs to be killed (yes, I know the Dynasty Warriors video games take place in ancient Japan, not China, before anyone corrects me), and they just seem too unbelievable in the reality of this film.

Speaking of the massive fight scenes, Woo tries way too hard at times to make them cool. He adds overdramatic, unnecessary zoom-ins and close-ups, the quick cuts and edits can sometimes make the action hard to follow, and the soldiers of the opposing sides can often be indiscernible mid-battle, making it difficult to know who to root for.

This last issue is intentional, and Woo's been doing it for years. In the bloody, brutal gunfighting sequences of Hard Boiled and The Killer, you only really know who the "good guys" are in the end because they're the ones with Chow Yun Fat. This is supposed to show the oneness of humanity, and that we're all brothers, and violence is never good, which Woo suggests in both of these films and Red Cliff. Here's the problem (and I've had for years with Woo films): how can you argue against glorifying violence, when you're glorifying it in the same film? In Red Cliff, Woo even has Zhou Yu argue for the greatness of lasting peace, while implying that this can only be achieved through bloody, costly war.

Two more, niggling complaints: the ultimate action scene, like a Harry Potter novel, takes up about the final fourth of the film, and just feels way too long before it finally stops; and the CGI used to portray the shockingly large number of soldiers in these armies does not always blend as seamless as it should, so the film looks too digital at points.

Despite all these faults, I really did like this movie. Woo does a good job with most of the epic war scenes, the characters are likable and well-played, and the film brilliantly manages to focus on both a war taking up hundreds of thousands of lives and the three men at the center of it all. And it's fun in the way films like this can be, when you find you're enjoying yourself, despite (or maybe because of) how serious the characters are taking the situation.

So, go look for Red Cliff directed by John Woo, or I'll go all tortoise formation on you (if you see the film, you'll understand why that doesn't really make sense).

DWTS: Early Overview

2009-11-17T22:53:00.000-06:00

Last season on Dancing with the Stars, we had Melissa Rycroft, Gilles Marini, and Shawn Johnson as the final three. Each of these three were all but perfect in the end, and were separated by the slightest of margins in the judges' scores. Melissa (a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader) had natural dancing talent coming in, Gilles clearly had had some prior experience on the dance floor, and Shawn was driven in the final weeks to continously get better, leading to her overall victory.

This season, we have Mya as the far and away best dancer (and her scores have finally caught up, now that she's learned how to please Len Goodman). Then there's Donny, Mr. Popularity with some of this show's biggest demographics (and one helluva performer), and Kelly, the reality-star-who-could that has beaten out much better dancers to survive this long.

While I did say which two it would come down to weeks ago (Mya's dancing ability vs Donny's popularity), I'm still bothered both by how obviously the show is a popularity contest this season, and how much less the talent is this season as opposed to last season. Granted, I have witnessed a genuine and very commendable progression in both Donny's and Kelly's dancing abilities (and it has been great to see Kelly putting so much into the competition), but in the end, they're still not as good as Mya.

Now I like Kelly and root for her in an underdog/ Rudy kind of way, and even I have to admit that Donny is a great performer, but Mya just blows them away in every category. Well, possibly every category but one: the number of fans.

Donny, of course, had the largest fanbase coming into the competition, and has managed to win over even more people throughout the season. Kelly, due to occasional drama, her noticeable drive to win, and her aforementioned underdog status, has gained more fans than she ever had in her career before the show (such as it was).

Meanwhile Maya has simply been consistently good, and has now advanced to great. But will it be enough? Will the finals prove that superior talent is enough win over the judges and voters, or that simple popularity is all that really matters?

I'll have to wait for next week to decide how much I've liked or hated this season.

DWTS: Well, That was Kinda Crap

2009-11-17T22:24:00.000-06:00

I did call this exact thing happening in a previous post. Granted, I called it an upset and mentioned it only as a possibility, but I knew that there was a chance Kelly's popularity could outstrip Joanna's superior dancing ability. However, now that it's happened, I have a problem with it.

Joanna has grace, she has musicality, she has sex appeal coming out of her pores, and this week, she finally showed a genuine emotions. Hell, she almost cried backstage after her second performance! And, honestly, she has grown on me and seemed increasingly nicer throughout the season.

But, in the end, Kelly's beloved (and apaprently growing) fanbase was able to pull her into the final three. Now don't get me wrong, I like Kelly. She has really dedicated herself to this competition and become a much better dancer as a result. She's been much less of a drama queen on this show as she was on the reality show, The Osbournes, and I will admit to rooting for her as the determined underdog. But she just isn't anywhere near as good a dancer as Joanna.

In all, this season... well, I'll get into that in another post. For now, I'll just say good-bye Joanna! I miss your beautiful blond body already. Oh, wait, you're in Playboy right now. Nevermind.

Humanity Insists on Disappointing Me

2009-11-16T20:55:00.000-06:00

Last week, NASA found water on the moon. Not the trace amounts they had noticed before, but gallons of water. This is revolutionary! This single discovery could advance science, and have unforeseen effects on humanity's ability to travel outside of our atmosphere.

But what did NASA scientists have to waste their time on last week, instead of devoting further study to something that could have a monumental impact on our entire planet? Assuaging the fears of people who firmly believe that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012.

As part of the promotion for the recently released fictional (repeat FICTIONAL) film 2012, websites were set up touting the theory that the world's demise was predicted by the Mayans to occur on December 21, 2012. These sites joined others already in existence, making similar claims.

Here's the problem. The Mayans did not (repeat NOT) predict the end of the world. Nowhere on the Mayan calendar does it ever mention anything resembling a worldwide apocalypse; and the idea that it does arrived in the 1960s (centuries after the Mayans' demise) through a horrible mistranslation perpetrated by someone who clearly didn't know any better.

Despite this, the idea that the Mayans accurately foresaw our doom in little over three years has persisted, helped by a large viral campaign for the film and plenty of crackpots. This campaign included internet sites that feature "scientific" articles defending theories and bringing forward "evidence" of the world's end, and even a site where one could join a lottery that promises one the chance of surviving the oncoming cataclysm.

Sadly, there are lot of people who believe all of this nonsense. Enough people, that NASA scientists finally had to start publicly responding to the worried letters and even threats they've received in recent weeks (one person even wrote NASA to inform them that he planned to take both his own and HIS CHILDREN'S lives before 2012 to save them from whatever he thinks is coming). So, NASA has started addressing each of the various paranoid fears for the world's end, while also assuring the general public that they are not part of a massive government cover-up.

To sum up, NASA, after finding something that could have an impact for years to come, has had to waste time, money, and effort to assure STUPID people (my sister says the correct word is gullible, but I'm sticking with STUPID) that they will not be forced to survive some geothermal, magnetic, dark matter, cosmic energy-caused crisis in three years.

Oh, and the film made over 60 million. Really people, how dumb can you get?

Mad Men: In or Out?

2009-11-12T20:28:00.001-06:00

I meant to post this a few days ago, but then I got distracted by my annoyance toward Serena Williams and celebrating Aaron Carter's departure from Dancing with the Stars (so many bitches, so little time).

Anyway, as for who joined the new Sterling, Cooper, Pryce, and Draper, the choices seem obvious. Don needed Sterling and Cooper for the money, and they all needed Pryce to actually pull it off. Don took Peggy because he has more of an emotional attachment to her than any of the other writers, and she is a better worker and better writer than anyone else he had. Also, he might still feel that he has more control over her than the other writers. They nabbed Pete because they needed his accounts to get more money to fund their new office, and Roger got Joan back to actually run the office (once they get an office). And then Cooper strong-armed Harry Crane into being head of media because they needed someone to lead the future of advertising and he is apparently easily bossed around.

So that's the new team. What about who they didn't let into the new clubhouse?

Kinsey's work has dropped, and it's been a while since he came up with anything good that Peggy didn't make better. It would be nice if they brought back Salvatore, but it doesn't seem likely. But what about Ken Cosgrove? He was over Pete, had worked there longer, and presumably had just as much money in his loyal accounts if not more (Pete even tried to steal at least one of Ken's). Pete did have the advantage of already lining up accounts to follow him as he bailed, but based on how Roger and Don reacted at the bar after they spoke to Pete, I don't think they knew he was leaving until they spoke to him.

So, why not Cosgrove? I've always really liked the guy. He's funny, doesn't take himself too seriously, and has so much more of a light-hearted attitude than Pete could ever pull off. Did they know Pete was bailing, and already lining up his clients? Or did Don and Roger just assume that Pete would be driven more than Cosgrove? Maybe they just assumed Cosgrove, being a not so serious, everything's a joke person, wouldn't risk his career by following them. But then, wouldn't he be more certain to follow? If he doesn't take his job that seriously, wouldn't he be that much more willing to drop everything and try something new and exciting?

The only answer I keep coming back to is that Roger and Don did know about Pete's planned absconding and took the opportunity to have the clients he was already stealing come to their new office (or hotel room).

Anyway, great episode. And I really did love the reactions of everyone left behind at the soon to be former Sterling Cooper.

Serena Williams: Are You Kidding Me?!!

2009-11-10T17:06:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday, the Italian Fed Cup team beat the Americans 3-0 to clinch their second ever title, with Flavia Penetta beating the young Melanie Oudin 7-5, 6-2 in the deciding match. The Italians won the title through their brilliant play which came from love of their team, country, and team work. Three concepts which Serena Williams does not even know how to spell.

The younger of the Williams sisters, current world number one, and recent winner of the year-end WTA Championships, had agreed to play against the Italians and lead the team which neither she nor her sister had been a part of in quite some time. Instead, claiming "exhaustion" after defeating her sister in the WTA tournament, Serena backed out at the last minute, leaving the just-now 18 Oudin to shoulder both the responsibility of lead and the blame in the loss (which she personally decided to take in interviews).

And Serena was exhausted. So exhausted that she was forced to sign copies of her autobiography in London and appear on the Jonathon Ross show, England's equivalent to David Letterman. Indeed, she's still so exhausted that she's appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight, and will be a guest on The Joy Behar show at some point this week.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!! Are these the actions of someone who has an ounce of team spirit or takes a moment to think of anyone other than herself? Is this really the kind of sports star people look up to now? Is this who children aspire to be? Someone who is so obviously self-absorbed that she'd gladly take whatever opportunity that benefits herself and to hell with anyone else? Someone who is so arrogant and deluded that she can actually go on The David Letterman Show and say with a straight face that she always gives "200%" in every match when anyone who's ever watched her outside of Wimbledon and the US Open knows damn well she doesn't?

Now, lightening up your schedule or even not putting as much into tournaments outside of the majors in the interest of your career's longevity is understandable in women's tennis (hell, they play about eight or nine months out of the year total). But blowing off your country's Fed Cup team in the Championships to plug your book literally makes me want to vomit, preferably all over Serena and whatever outfit she's selling in stores now instead of playing tennis.

None of this is meant to imply that the Italians didn't deserve their victory. Not only did they consistently outplay the Americans, but two of the Italians skipped the lower-tier year end WTA tournament to play in the Cup Champioships. Had team leader Flavia Penetta (already the highest ranked Italian woman since they started the modern ranking system) played in this tournament, she could have ended the season ranked in the top ten, which would have meant more money and an easier time at tournaments. Instead, she decided to think of someone else and focus on her country and her teammates. What a novel concept, eh Serena?

And I'm not alone in my Serena bashing, this time. Sandra Harwitt, a tennis blogger for ESPN.com lays blame on Serena for forcing the still-inexperienced (despite what she wants to think) Oudin on becoming team leader, both on court and off. And Oudin, when asked if she could understand someone skipping on representing the US, had this to say, "I wanted to come here. I wanted to play for my country. Other people... choose different things. Some people... didn't want to play as badly as I did."

Now, I'm not going to watch Serena's interviews on either the Daily Show or Joy Behar Show unless I hear that one of them asked, implied, or at least hinted at what I really want to know. "You bailed out on your country, teammates, and sport to raise sales of a book that, to an outsider, just sounds like more stroking of your already inflated ego. Mind answering WHY?"

DWTS: Fingers Crossed

2009-11-10T14:04:00.000-06:00

Even before last night's show, the two dancers in biggest danger of leaving this week were Kelly and Aaron. Kelly because she's easily the worst dancer left, and Aaron because she's (sorry, "he's"... Freudian slip) the least popular celebrity. After last night's performances, that hasn't changed, nor has last night made me rethink my pick for final three: Joanna, Mya, and Donny, with it all coming down to either Donny and his massive fanbase or Mya and her new-found fans.

As for this week, Aaron (as we all saw last week when he had great scores but had to win in a dance-off), is still not getting any of the fan's votes. I will admit that he has become a much better dancer and he has gotten better at hiding the raging, emotional drama queen inside of him; but he still looked like he was about to burst into tears last week when the judges announced that he had won! You just survived another week despite how few people like you, and you look worse than the guy who lost! Seriously, man, grow some balls!

Kelly, on the other hand, has gotten more and more popular as the show has progressed, winning over the older fan-base who might not recall her famous father, much less the attempted popstar Kelly. Kelly actually could sneak in as the not as talented but very popular finalist and beat out Joanna. First, of course, she would have to survive tonight, but I don't think that will be a problem.

Looking ahead to my picks for final three, Joanna has had a huge turn-around by toning down the bitchiness and coming across as much more gentle and likable, even backstage when the focus is not on her. Her partner Derek has helped with that a lot. His natural jokiness and complete lack of ability to take himself or anything else too seriously have perfectly balanced out Joanna's colder attitudes. Mya meanwhile, has toned down the performance part of her routines and stressed the dancing, and finally won over Len, her last obstacle to potentially winning the whole thing. Then there's Donny, the single most popular person going into the competition, and since his dancing abilities have gotten better throughout the season, he has won over even more fans, which could make him the first man to win in quite a few seasons.

So, here's hoping we're done with Aaron tonight! And win or lose, I'm sure we'll see some tears.

Mad Men Finale

2009-11-09T14:52:00.000-06:00

I REALLY liked this episode. It was a complete departure from the series' usual tone. While we've gotten used to the show being a slow, quiet, dramatic build-up towards a climax that is itself slow and quiet, this show had action, speed, and a sense of urgency. And it was funny! The show has always had enough of a sense of humor to keep it from being an over-the-top melodrama, but they really gave this finale a light-hearted tone, and it worked!

Jon Hamm was brilliant. The way he handled a new direction for Don Draper, one where Don has been humbled enough to stop fighting his wife's departure and move on to dealing with what comes next; and I loved Hamm's scene with Peggy. Draper finally had to face up to how he had treated Betty, Peggy, Roger, and well, everyone really. This episode was when Don finally realized he needed other people and he couldn't just treat them all however he liked, do whatever he wanted, and assume it would all end well for him.

Consistent with the quicker tone and action of the finale, Cooper and Roger finally did something, which was nice to see. Hell, other than show up for the odd meeting and give his random two cents, this was the first time I'd ever seen Cooper really working at all. And it took Don to get him, Roger, and Pryce off their lazy, executive asses to actively fight against the cold hearted businessmen that had done their best to buy their submission along with their ad agency.

Not to say that Draper, Sterling, Cooper, and Pryce will be any less greedy or shallow, but at least they're not in the habit of buying and selling people the way their new bosses have been. They're just a little too "It's not personal, it's just business" while dealing with people's livelihoods.

Sometimes shows hit a Reset button as a way to get various characters back together under circumstances at least similar to the way they had previously been, but I don't think that's what this was. The whole tone of the episode, the speed, the way the characters had to interact differently than before. This seems like more of a change in direction for the show; the building of something new as opposed to simply continuing what was already there.

This seems to be a shift in focus and direction for the show, but I'm loving it.

Note to Readers... All Five of You

2009-11-09T11:58:00.000-06:00

After you post a comment, make sure that it actually went up. For some reason, it doesn't always work on the first attempt; so just pan down after hitting Post Comment to make sure it posted. If it didn't, it should still be in the comment box, so just hit Post again. It always works for me on the first or second attempt.

I'll e-mail Blogger to see what's up, just watch out in the meantime.

This Season's Sci-Fi

2009-11-05T20:12:00.000-06:00

Fringe: After only slightly watching the show last season, I've really liked it so far this year. They decided to focus the show more, instead of just having the "monster of the week" format with an over-riding plot tying it all together. Starting with Olivia's meeting with Spock (or Leonard Nemoy, or whatever the hell his name is on the show... look, he'll always be Spock to everyone no matter what he does), they're now building up to an oncoming invasion by the beings from another universe. So, in lieu of "The Pattern" of last season, we now have a straight line pointing towards a big battle or war or whatever comes next. I think this has helped the show a lot, and they're handling the relationship between Olivia and Pacey (sorry, Peter) better than most shows. And Walter is just always fun to watch.

Flash Forward: This show has definitely lived up to its own insane hype. Following in the footsteps of Battlestar Galactica, the creators decided to feature an unbelievable, sci-fi premise, but then make the characters and situations completely believable. The actors have a lot to do with this, and the way they realistically handle knowing their own future is brilliant. This week, the show had its first major death when Al, one of the F.B.I. agents working to discover the truth behind the flash forwards, jumped off a roof to prevent himself from accidentally killing a woman he hadn't met yet. This is a big moment for the show, which up till now had been focused on bringing about the future everyone saw. Now, the show is giving us the possibility that the characters can change the future, its just a matter of how.

V: I was really looking forward to this show. And then I watched it. Well, I watched about fifteen minutes of it, which was long enough to tell that the characters were obvious, cliche, and horribly over-done; the acting wasn't good; and there was nothing likable about the leads. I now know why ABC limited the half-season order to a six episode mini-series. I'm only curious why they put this waste of airtime on at all.

Heroes: I still really like this show, to hell with what the ratings say. My one recurring issue is that the show keeps repeating itself in that it can't let any one character get too powerful. Ever since the first season, when Hiro lost his powers and then into the second when Peter had his mind wiped and then lost everything only to get some of it again and Sylar keeps getting weakened somehow and... Well, you see my point, and I'm just really sick of that. Let someone be a bad-ass! That would be a unique twist for the show at this point, and might bring back some viewers!

Supernatural: I am loving this show! Like Joss Whedon on Buffy and Angel, the creators have structured each season around one "big/bad" or one big issue, all the while building up to this season, which all involved swear is the final season. This means that even while having a "monster of the week," they're moving toward something specific. They've also been great at meta-fictional and self-aware humor, like when they had Paris Hilton guest star as a god who took the form of Paris Hilton to gain her fan's love, and then kill her. Or this week's episode, when the heroes, Sam and Dean, were trapped by a Trickster in numerous television parodies, including Grey's Anatomy (where they mocked that show's use of a ghost), a perfect C.S.I. send-up. a cheesy sitcom, and even a commercial for genital herpes medication. At this rate, the show is heading to one great finale!

Mad Men Randoms

2009-11-02T15:04:00.000-06:00

That other post had gotten kind of long, so I decided to leave out some other short thoughts I had for a separate post.

First of all, I do not like Peggy with Duck. For one thing, I never liked Duck, he always seemed like a smarmy little prick to me. For another, this whole thing with Peggy seeking out the comforts of an older man bugs me. I liked it better when she was like "one of the guys" and she just picked up some young college guy who thought she was a secretary then ditched him in the middle of the night. Though I did think it was funny when Peggy's roommate assumed that Duck was married. Because an older married man sleeping with a younger woman is standard for that world, a single older man dating a younger woman apparently seems strange.

I liked that part at the end, when Peggy decided to work through her mourning by actually working. She really is the hardest, most devoted worker at Sterling, Price, and Cooper.

How the hell is Salvatore "gone"? Where did he go? Was he fired for not letting that asshole molest him in the editing room? Did he move on to another job? While this is kind of par for the course with the show and how they deal with some people leaving, they usually provide us with more than one casual, throw-away line.

Finally, that whiny bitch Pete Campbell might have something valid to complain about this time. He just approaches dealing with his clients differently than Cosgrove, favoring their opinions of how their money's being spent as opposed to convincing them to like how their money's being spent. So, Cosgrove is the new boss, and Pete gets a new title for his door. Wonder if he'll even bother staying now, especially if the place gets sold?

Oh, that reminds me, was buying, cutting up, and/or re-selling businesses that common in the 60s? I know it is now, but I don't really know that much about business practices of the time.

Mad Men and Monogamy

2009-11-02T12:10:00.001-06:00

WOW!! Last night's episode had two of the most shocking lines I have ever heard on Mad Men! First was Betty's lover proposing (even though they haven't really done much yet, and, oh yeah, she's married!), then we heard Betty say she feels no love for Don! That was unbelievable! But, more on that later. For now, I'll focus on Roger Sterling.

Dear God, his daughter was a spoiled little bitch! She just kept whining because "everything's not exactly the way I want it to be and boo-hoo-hoo." And she actually called her father while arguing with her mother! I mean when the hell is she gonna grow up, if not right before she gets married? But, she recovered from everything, seemed to genuinely enjoy herself at her wedding, and she was nice. That was good to see, someone we've only ever seen as a spoiled, self-absorbed little girl smiling and having fun despite her wedding being overshadowed and her attendance being vanquished by national tragedy.

Speaking of turn-arounds, boy has Roger been back and forth lately. Last week, he turned down the girl who broke his heart, then looked sad as he spoke to Joan for the first time in a while. In all, last week he seemed happy with his young wife Jane while still looking back at the fish that got away. Then this week, he yells his head off at Jane for not doing exactly what he wants her to do (because God forbid a woman try to get along with her spoiled step-daughter), gets snippy when she refuses to see the woman who despises her, and drunk dials Joan, whom he apparently feels is the only person he can really open up to.

Though Roger did manage to be funny, charming, and likable at his daughter's wedding, despite how much he hated her attitude at the episode's beginning. Although, this probably goes along with Roger (a) preferring to laugh at everything and (b) I think he comes from old money, and if there's one thing they do right, it's ignore everything going on in the world and all the issues they have with everyone in their lives to put on a happy face and throw and good party for the public. Appearances always being so much more important than reality.

On that note, we move on to Don. Last week, he was finally forced to confront Betty completely exposed as himself. Jon Hamm was brilliant in this episode, as you actually saw the Don persona vanish, and he finally had to look at Betty as the man he really is, not as the man he created to leave his old life behind. That revelation seems to have changed him into a kinder, gentler man who actually stays at home and helps raise his children, instead of running around with his latest young thing.

Throwing a monkey wrench into Don's plan of at least attempting to be a better man is Betty's still-lingering negative feelings towards... well, towards everything Don has done in the past now aided by an attraction to an older man (younger woman seeks out older man following death of her father... hmmm, interesting). Still, how can her newly discovered lack of affection for Don play out? Both Betty and Don have always struck me as being of the opinion that once married, always married, certainly if there are kids involved. So can the possibility of another marriage be something for Betty to turn to, or would she stay where she is, or possibly choose neither? There wouldn't have been that many options for a woman in her position at that time, so another man might help make up her mind, but could she really deal with the havoc that would probably cause her family? And why does Betty keep doing things like this during times of crisis? She had sex with that guy she met in a bar during the Cuban missile crisis, and now she says she doesn't love Don any more after Kennedy gets shot. Maybe she should stop making big decisions while watching a lot of news on television.

What about Don in all of this? What's he to do, since he's exhausted the only things he knows to do to keep Betty and his illusion of a happy family going? And why do I pity and even like a guy who's done so much to deserve what's happening to him?

One last thing, what the hell's wrong with this guy, proposing to married woman he hasn't actually even had an affair with? Just because you're attracted to the younger married woman who you think needs saving from whatever doesn't mean you go all the way with it before you've gone all the way with her. What's he thinking, and how does he see this ending? Kind of hard to ride in on your white horse and save the damsel in distress when you look a lot like an older version of the knight she's leaving, genius.

DWTS: No Surprises Here

2009-10-28T14:47:00.000-05:00

In a complete turn around from last week, this week's bottom three actually were the three worst dancers left.

Melissa Joan Hart losing outright wasn't at all shocking, since (a) based on where she finished last week, she doesn't have that many of the audience's votes, and (b) she peeked too soon! Her Charleston was great, but that's a performance-heavy dance and not a talent-heavy one, so, as an actress, she had an easier time with it. In the weeks since she has been getting worse, making both the judges and audience turn against her.

Louie finally going out wasn't surprising at all, though I do suspect that the producers asked one of the judges to vote for him in the dance-off against Michael Irvin to bring it down to the final vote and add suspense. And now Louie can finally get back to his real job!

One last thing: I am tired of Aaron Carter. I know he's been dancing better recently, but he was so moved by the judges' compliments that he looked ready to burst into tears while they were saying nice things about him! If you were a woman, that would annoy me, but since you're supposedly a man, it actually angers me. I mean, really man, grow some damn balls.

"I got a rock."

2009-10-28T14:21:00.000-05:00

That is one of the greatest lines in animation history!

I mean, who are all these people who give out rocks as Halloween treats, and why do they keep giving them to the kid with too many eye-holes cut out of his bedsheet? Even Pigpen, walking in a permanent cloud of dust and probably smelling like dirty laundry dipped in a sewer, gets actual candy, but poor old Charlie Brown just keeps getting rocks.

And the line is delivered brilliantly. Peter Robbins, with this low, almost flat monotone adds an air of "Well, I expected this," to those four words, but with more than a hint of disappointment. As if on some level, Charlie Brown really thinks that maybe this next house will finally be the one that gives him something good, but still not believeing that whole-heartedly.

It's like Lucy offering to hold the football: every time Charlie Brown falls for it because he wants to believe that this time will be different, but he knows deep inside that it won't end well for him.

And that's part of why we all love Charlie Brown: he assumes everything will end horribly, but he still has hope.

Another Halloween's come and gone, and all I got was a bag of rocks.

How is it "Freerunning" if you have to do it in a Specific Spot?

2009-10-26T15:07:00.000-05:00

I, along with many people all over the world have seen plenty of Youtube clips of some lunatic attempting (and often failing) to do a backflip off of, or onto a building, jump from one piece of playground equipment to another, or do handstands in some of the most dangerous places imaginable.

When one succedes at these stunts, then one is partaking in a sport known as "freerunning" (when you fail, you just look like an idiot). This sport (sometimes spelled as two words, sometimes as one, I have no idea which is correct, nor I think does anyone else) evolved from the French "parkour" by adding more acrobatics and the new philosophy of a complete freedom of movement. Freerunners (as seen in the BBC specials Jump London and Jump Britian) cover urban landscapes in a new way, finding a path from one building to the next, from one street to another, or across or through any structure one finds in a city that no one else would even consider trying.

Thus, freerunning stresses freedom of movement and expression; a person's imagination and physical abilities the only obstacles to discovering a new way to look at and travel the cities of the world, even as these cities themselves become increasingly homogenous and repetitive.

So, how can you have a Freerunning Competition that forces the freerunners to do all of their work within a relatively small stadium?

I just watched G4's coverage of the 2009 Barclaycard Freerun Championships. The competition took place in London a few weeks ago, housed within a structure built specifically for this reason. The stage had mulptile levels, metal bars, concrete tables, and a seperate, smaller stage so competitors could leap onto and off of it. They had one run of sixty seconds, then, the top ten went a second time to determine a winner. They were scored on their tricks' difficulty, the fluidity of their runs, how well they accomplished their tricks, and creativity.

The competition was fun and impressive to watch and even though I'd never seen one of these before today, even I could tell that the winner Tim "Livewire" Shieff was, by far, the best one.
However, this is a competition in a sport that is supposed to stress freedom limited only by one's own capabilities. So, by putting it into a specifically limited space aren't you already going away from the initial ideas of the sport? There was scaffolding enclosing the competition space, which I thought looked perfect for some of these tricks (it would certainly help your creativity score), but, I kept wondering whether or not the competitors had been told to stay off of it or risk being disqualified. And if that's true, haven't you already lost?

I suppose this is how freestyle street skateboarders first felt when the X-Games and other groups started moving their freedom of movement sport to a small, prescribed space. Actually, some still feel like that, and there is an ongoing controvery between some freerunners, those who compete in freerunning compeitions, and parkour enthusiasts, who believe any competition completely misses the point.

Now that I think about it, any sport like skateboarding, freerunning, or whatever will come next has to lose some of its original spirit in order to become bigger and reach a wider audience. They are selling out to a certain extent, but they're also adapting to changing tastes as one's pastime gets more and more famous on a larger, worldwide scale.

So here's how it works: you start something that gets really popular among a select group; then it starts to spread out from your small fanbase to a wider audience; then you have to continue to grow for the good of the sport you made, so you change some things to make it more accessible; then it gets really popular and you're a genius and a founder of a major sport, but it isn't quite what you originally made, and you just have to hope you were among the first ones to start getting money from what you created in the first place.

Ying/ Yang, Female/ Male, Passive/ Active, Crap/ Could Be Cool

2009-10-23T12:51:00.000-05:00

I preface this post by saying that I have neither read any of the Twilight books nor seen the film. For that matter, I have no intention of ever seeing or reading any of the Twilight series of books or films, unless someone holds a gun to my head (and even then, Hell might be preferable to reading page after page of Stephenie Meyer's whiny, teenaged protagonist). I have also not read any of the Cirque Du Freak books, and I am still undecided as to whether or not I will see the film The Vampire's Assistant. All of what follows comes from what I've seen or read about any of the works involved. So, forgive me if I get anything wrong, but I have absolutely no desire to read a teenager gushing about her hottie Prince Charming Vampire for over a thousand pages.

In an interview about the film The Vampire's Assistant, John C. Reilly mentioned that this story is really a young male's fantasy version of the vampire story. This reminded me that I've always forgiven the popularity of Twilight as the epitome of a young girl's fantasy, but just consider how different these fantasies are.

In Twilight, the heroine, Bella, falls for and meets the vampire of her affection after he saves her life, which he then continues to do, while never going all the way with her because he loves her too much or some such nonsence (vampires I can buy, but a straight guy not gettin' down with his girlfriend Kristin Stewart, now that's unbelievable!). Bella plays the part of fairy tale damsel in distress with Edward as the Prince Charming/ bad boy of the story.

In the trailers for the sequel New Moon, Bella is even seen putting herself in mortal danger in an attempt to bring Edward back to her. Because that's a sign of a healthy relationship that young girls should definitely look forward to trying at some point in their lives. Hey kids, do you want to get that hottie ex-boyfriend to come back to you? Try almost dying! Why doesn't Bella just cut herself like so many of Twilight's fans are already doing?

Bella's role in the story is passive, even her activities are attempts to push Edward to make a move for her. Darren's role in Vampire's Assistant is active.

In this story, Darren has a normal, boring suburban, middle-American life until a circus comes to town and Darren decides to ditch his family, say "Screw you" to his best friend, and become a vampire. Darren isn't begging for anyone to save him from anything other than staggering normalcy; that's not how boys think, that's not what we dream of. We don't want some hottie Princess Charming to ride in and save our asses, we want to do the saving.

We want to have adventures, fight off the bad guys, save some girls (and whatever comes after that), and, oh yeah, live forever. To hell with getting old, getting some crap job, marrying some woman we might not be able to stand, having some kids, and then dying unfulfilled and bored in a retirement home somewhere. We want to be forever young with superpowers and kick ass until the world ends, which hopefully wouldn't be until we're done having fun.

Boys grow up reading comicbooks and that's what we dream of becoming, superheroes. Darren is Superman, Bella is Lois Lane (before feminism got hold of her, and made her intelligent and independent). Darren goes off and has adventures, Bella desperately wants someone to come to her. As to which one is the better fantasy in terms of the long-lasting impact upon the young who have them, I have no idea and I'm not even going to try to judge.

All I know is, I want the cool one.

DWTS: The Result of Having so Many Competitors

2009-10-21T14:52:00.000-05:00

There is a problem with having more competitors at this late stage than the show has ever had before. Namely, there aren't more viewers or vewiers with more of an attention span to go along with the larger cast. As a result, some celebrities simply get ignored by both the viewers and those who comment on and cover the show. This is part of why Natalie Coughlin went off WAYYY too soon on last night's show.

Here's my theories on the bottom four, Natalie, Aaron Carter, Joanna Krupa, and Melissa Joan Hart. Aaron is still suffering from his unpopularity of the last few weeks, but survives through a devoted following. Joanna, despite her dancing abilities, is something of a bitch (boy, did she looked pissed while waiting for the results!). And, if there's something the female audeince doesn't want to see, it's a woman who's both much prettier than they are, and has a horrible attitude. However, she no doubt recieved sympathy as a result of her partner Derek Hough's illness keeping him off the dancefloor this week. So, she gets at least one more try to get people to like her for reasons other her looks.

Then there's Melissa and Natalie. Melissa started off OK, and then got better. Meanwhile, Natalie has been good throughout. The female voters probably have a lot of love for Melissa as a mother and an older woman than others on the show. But Natalie, despite being graceful, expessive, naturally talented, and a great dancer, didn't have any drama, and thus no attention.

See, while Louie Vito and Michael Irvin have had rollercoaster performances (good one week, bad the next), their efforts to come back endear them to the audience, and makes them memorable, as do their personalities. Natalie is nice and comes across as a determined competitor, but, lacking the drama and outgoing personalities of her co-athletes, she's just not as memorable. And, when there are this many more dancers to follow and vote for, being noticed and remembered becomes even more important than in previous seasons.

So Natalie, Carrie Anne's favorite and a very talented dancer, goes out while neither Michael nor Louie are even in the bottom four, and these two were by far the worst dancers left! I'm saying that and I honestly like these guys, which raises another point.

Yes, this show is, at its most basic, a dancing competition. However, it is also a program people watch for the sake of entertainment. So, people naturally vote for those they find the most entertaining. It's how Cloris Leachman lasted so long despite the fact that she could barely move; viewers (including me) were getting an odd kind of joy watching an older woman be led around and molested by a younger dancer who also looked like he was having a lot of fun. This is the double-edged sword of this type of show: as a talent competition, the judges want the best ones to advance, while the viewers and voters (who are the only reason the show stays on the air) just want the ones they like to keep going, to hell with how good or bad they are!

The "dance-offs" of the coming weeks will help clear this up a little, but, it could very well happen that, fearing their loss in a dance-off, Michael and Louie's fans will vote in massive numbers to keep them out of the bottom four as they did this week.

Oh, well. As long as Mya wins in the end, the best dancer will prevail, it's just who else will be with her in the finals that might be questionable.

Warren Zevon, What were you On?!!!

2009-10-21T13:07:00.000-05:00

My crappy POS car has no working radio. Well, actually, the radio works, but it only gets AM stations, but since I'm not really old or a right-wingnut, I'm stuck using the old cassette player, which also doesn't always work that great. So, since I can't find one of those things that plugs into a discman and plays in a cassette player (Does anyone even remember what those things were called? Anyone?.... Bueller?....), for the sake of variety I've been buying used cassettes.

One of my recent purchases of the musical media that time forgot was A Quiet Normal Life: The Best of Warren Zevon, released in the mid-eighties. Now, I love Warren, I have for years, and I think the bittersweet brilliance of The Wind (his last album released during his lifetime) is unmatched by almost any other piece of modern music. I mean, he was recording this while recieving cancer treatments just to buy him enough time to finish the album and see the next James Bond film (he accomplished both, and I heard he liked the movie, which happened to be Die Another Day). The album is a fitting end to the over thirty year career of a man who always managed to be just to the left of massive fame and acclaim.

All that being said, however, I simply must ask, Warren, what drugs and how much were you taking when you wrote these songs? Even ignoring the enjoyably bizzare "Werewolves of London" (Why do you want to meet a werewolf's tailor? How can a werewolf's hair be "perfect"? What is "the werewolves of London" and how are Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney Jr. doing "it with the Queen?"), the greatest hits album is rife with imagery, lyrics, and concepts that make you go "WHAT"?

Here's a quick sample. This is from "Excitable Boy,"

After ten long years they took him out of the home,
Excitable boy they all said
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
Excitable boy they all said.

And that's the title track from one of his better selling albums!

Or here's another famous one, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner." The song tells the story of a mercenary hired to fight in Vietnam who then has his head blown off by the CIA that hired him. Roland, naturally, rises from the grave to seek vengence as a headless thompson gunner. The song is either meant to be metaphorical, allegorical, or just weirdness for weirdness' sake. Or it could very well be all three.

Warren's surreal storytelling isn't limited to the supernatural, either. In "Ain't That Pretty at All," an angry sounding Warren backed by guitars that seem to be stoking his rage, describes travelling back to Paris, visiting the Louvre, and then he's going to get a good running start and hurl myself at the wall!

Why? What could you possibly have against the walls of the Louvre?

His interactions with women are just as odd. "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" ends with,

Well, I met a girl at the Rainbow Bar
She asked me if I'd beat her
She took me to the Hyatt House
... I don't want to talk about it

If its something even Warren won't share, God only knows how that night went.

Then there's what passes for a love song on the album. The lovely and sad "Accidentally Like a Martyr" is a brilliant and touching song, but just try and make sense of this refrain.

We made mad love
Shadow love
Random love
And abandoned love
Accidentally like a martyr
The hurt gts worse and the heart gets harder.

How can you.... What does that even.... Oh, nevermind. Rest in Peace, Warren. If I took twice as many drugs as you, I still wouldn't have half your talent.

Mini-Post, DWTS: Samantha's Hair, WTF?!!

2009-10-19T22:44:00.000-05:00

Seriously, who is letting Samantha Harris go on live, national television looking like that? She looked like her head got gang-raped by curlers, extensions, and glue and then they kicked her out of bed and in front of the cameras. This isn't even the first time she's looked liked this; how the hell does this keep happening? I could do better hair than that, and I barely even keep mine clean!

I'd post a picture, but I'm not sure how to do that yet. I have got to start getting better at this posting thing. Also, apologies to my sole follower, but when one encounters hair this bad, it deserves a mention.

Mad Family Sunday

2009-10-19T12:49:00.000-05:00

This has been coming for a while now on Mad Men, and it finally seems to be coming to a head; Don's latest affair is getting creepily serious. I mean, what is she thinking? She had Don sized up right as soon as they met, the philandering husband who's always looking for the latest conquest. Of course, she falls for his charms anyway (you could see an obvious attraction even when she was rejecting him, and really, Jon Hamm is awesome!), but now she's getting genuinely attached.

Where exactly does she see this relationship going? Don's not going to leave his wife, and even if he were, it wouldn't be for you.

January Jones was brilliant this week. In the scene where Betty finds the key to Don's secret drawer, you can read this secret pleasure on her face as she anticipates finally seeing proof of Don's affairs and the life he has when he isn't with her and the children. Instead, she finds.... Dick. One can't even imagine what she was thinking to learn her husband literally had another life before they met, or how this will affect their relationship, though the teaser did show Betty packing a suitcase. However, I've gotten used to these being horribly misleading, so that might not mean anything.

Also loved that bit between Peggy and Kinsey at the end of the show. They were totally just making things up off the top of their heads (Don was surprisingly sympathetic towards Kinsey), and then Peggy just said something brilliant. Kinsey's reaction was priceless, he just stared at Peggy, aghast by her natural abilities which he apparently hasn't noticed until that moment.

Also on television last night, Family Guy did their take on three stories by Stephen King: Stand by Me, Misery, and Shawshank Redemption. They were well done and this was a good episode; in part because it didn't have my usual problem with Family Guy which is that its just a series of random jokes that have little to nothing to do with the supposed storyline (if you want to do a sketch show, do a sketch show, don't try to mask it with a barely-there plot!). However, this episode came the same night as the latest Simpsons Treehouse of Horror (another good show on Fox last night).

Now, I don't know who's fault that is, but it seemed that Family Guy was trying to go after one of Simpsons more famous episodes of the year with their own weird, short stories. So this is either a "booo" to the Family Guy creators for being dicks by going after a show that's one of the main reasons they're on the air at all, or to the Fox Network for scheduling these shows on the same night.

In other Sunday tv news, Titan Maximum finally ditched their random jokes and managed to stay focused on jokes that didn't just pop out of left field, and Venture Bros. came back with a new season. Venture Bros. was good, but the episode was told out of sequence and organized in a way that doesn't make sense until the end (and even then you might not get it if you're not as big a geek as I am), so, I feel like I have to watch the whole thing all over again. Although, the episode was good enough I really wouldn't mind seeing it again so I guess that's alright.

In all, a good Sunday's worth of television.

DWTS Update!

2009-10-14T21:44:00.000-05:00

OK, this is seriously starting to become Bobby Bill's DWTS Blog, but I really had to comment on what happened on this week's Results Show.

WOW!! Where the hell did that come from??!!! Now Chuck Liddell being in the bottom two and exiting wasn't really a shocker. He's never been a good dancer, and he wasn't going to be getting any better.

But Aaron Carter being in the bottom two!! Now that was surprising, and I'm sure it caused some tears the little wimp didn't want to show on camera. The big question though, is why? Granted, his scores have fallen in the past two weeks while others have been getting better, but he still wasn't as low as either Louie Vito or Michael Irvin. Yet these two survive unscathed, while Aaron had to wait the show out to the end.

So, what's the deal here? Is Aaron a little too "fabulous," or "light on his feet" for the fans? Or, is it the whiny, crying thing people don't like to see in a man? Well, a straight man, anyway, and even if Aaron is gay (I don't know for sure, but I have a pretty good idea) he would still be annoying.

Anyhoo, Louie not being in the bottom two was another shocker of the night (he and Irvin are easily the worst dancers left), but I have heard a good theory why the fans are starting to like the pro snowboarder they'd never heard of until a few weeks ago. Louie does not fit the "Whoa, dude, let's get stoned and hit the slopes," stereotype that quite a few viewers probably have about snowboarders (for the record, very few if any of the pros are anything like that); so he's a pleasant surprise while also being likable as such a nice and positive person. Meanwhile, Louie, being an athlete, has a competitive spirit, which drives him to keep doing better. And, while the fans are liking Louie more the more they see of him, they seem to be getting sick of Aaron and his histrionics.

So, in all, Go Louie! I'm a big fan, and have been for years, but, seriously, for the sake of your ACTUAL CAREER, it might be great if you have another bad week.

DWTS: Part Two, Louis, Louis

2009-10-13T14:45:00.000-05:00

Like most people who watch Dancing with the Stars, I don't know a lot about the dances being performed, and I probably couldn't tell one from another, other than having a guess if one were a latin or a ballroom dance (and there, you're helped by the music and outfits).

However, having grown up in a small town in mid-Missouri, I do know what a two-step looks like, while snowboarder Louis Vito and his partner Chelsie Hightower clearly don't. Now, I can understand if someone didn't have the bad luck of growing up near rednecks; however, if you know the dance is coming up, and you know you have to choreograph and then perform the damn thing, why not at least google it?!!

I know Louis didn't look good in last night's performance, but I really am putting the blame of this one on Chelsie. She's supposed to be the pro dancer, she's supposed to be the one who knows the dance, she's supposed to figure out how to make her partner look as good as possible. Instead, Chelsie put together a performance that seemed to say, "Nether of us know what to do, so why don't you just walk me around like a show pony, and I'll do flip tricks and stuff and smile and we'll see how that turns out."

Complicating things for Louis is the fact that Michael Irvin has a much larger built-in fan base among the show's demographic going into the competition. On that note, many members of the key demographic (being female and 30s, 40s or older... namely, the opposite of me), not only don't recognize the former Olympian, they barely acknowledge his sport as a sport.

So, I think this is it for Louis, but there is a bright side. Now, he can go back to his real job and start training for the Olympics, which he should have been doing all along instead of learning how to DANCE!!

Seriously, man, what were thinking here? The show lasts potentially until December, the Olympics are in February, did you really expect to turn around, qualify for the US team, and be ready for the largest stage in your sport in three months?! Shaun White's the best snowboarder in the world, and he didn't even compete in skateboarding this year to prepare for Vancouver.

Assuming you do lose tonight Louis, consider it a blessing. If, however, you don't get eliminated, you might consider just backing out. The competition just to qualify for the US freestyle snowboard team is stiff, and clearly, at the moment, your head's not in the right game.

DWTS: Part One, Explanation

2009-10-13T13:57:00.000-05:00

I begin this two-part post with an explanation. My sister started watching Dancing with the Stars, and I ended up watching the show with her.

Whenever Heroes and/or Chuck weren't on, or were in reruns, we would follow DWTS, or would flip to it during commercials. Now that Chuck has vanished until after the Olympics, we watch the second hour of DWTS (has anyone else noticed that we abbreviate everything now? we are so damn lazy) after Heroes.

Added to this is the sad fact that I now always feel that I have to have something on television to watch. I didn't used to be like this. In high school, I know I didn't watch that much tv, and I had homework, anyway. Then, in undergrad, I would work some nights, plus I had homework, and I still wasn't watching it every night I could. Finally, in grad school, I would work some nights, I had night classes, and I still had reading and papers to do for class.

So, it wasn't until recently that I found I had nothing else to do at night other than watch television, which leads me to watch and follow shows that I normally wouldn't consider (Eastwick being the worst example of this).

Also, when one watches one of the many reality competition shows on a regular basis, you start to get into it without trying or maybe even wanting to, then you become an avid follower, and then you find yourself rooting for someone, rating the performances, and possibly even seeing what the judges see (though I'm not sure anyone always sees what Len Goodman sees).

So, for all these reasons and through this transition, I have gotten into Dancing with the Stars. At least there are hot women wearing revealing clothing and dancing sexy, so I can pretend I'm still something of a guy while watching.

Titan Chicken, or Robot Maximum?

2009-10-12T13:20:00.000-05:00

Last night, I watched the third episode of Titan Maximum, the new show from the creators of Robot Chicken.

It is very funny, clever, and original to see a dead-on parody of celebrity and heroism. The show, which follows the adventures of the re-formed Titan Force Five as they defend the universe from their former douchebag comrade, is like revisiting an old Japanese giant robot cartoon through the modern eye of cynicism and celebrity scandal.

But, the creators seem to have an issue staying focused on their own plots. This was brutally apparent in the half-hour pilot, as the show kept going off on tangential jokes about characters all but completely unconnected to the show's plotline. They have done this much less in the two 15 minute episodes that have followed, but the fact that they still do it at all is distracting and a bit annoying.

See, for those of you who don't know, on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, a so-called 15 minute episode is really only about twelve or thirteen minutes; which is fine, considering the show is stop-motion, and if it were longer it would be a bitch to make a whole season. What is not so fine is when an actual plot-based show like Titan Maximum decides to take away from its brief episode length to focus on some random joke about people we'll never see again. It seems that the creators aren't used to limiting their focus on just a few characters and follow only one plot, being too used to Robot Chicken's random, unconnected sketch format.

None of this means I'm not enjoying the show (which I am) or that I don't think its funny (which I do, even the random, unconnected parts), but, if you want to make a plot-based show, make a plot-based show! Don't go only most of the way with it, and then throw us a joke out of left field about nothing to do with anything! Make up your damned mind, control your ADD, and this show will be even better than it is now!

And if anyone is actually reading this, please give me some sign. I'm new to the whole blogging thing, and could use the reassurance that its not just me talking to myself.

Hollywood, Stay out of Zombieland!

2009-10-10T19:56:00.000-05:00

I love zombie movies and Zombieland is a great addition to that genre. It's fun, funny, clever, and even the acting's good (and with this kind of movie, the acting is usually what you have to forgive to enjoy yourself).

Woody Harrelson is great as this cowboy/ psycho/ zombie-killing badass who is both awesome and hilarious. Jesse Eisenberg is, well, he's the same indie/ poor man's Michael Cerra that he's always played, but he's good at it, and you like him despite how little you might actually want to be stuck with him in case of a genuine zombie apocalypse.

Anyway, so I loved the movie, and, clearly, so did a lot of other people. However, here's my issue: if zombies are the new vampires, and Zombieland's success points to more zombie flicks on the horizon, it's only a matter of time before a big budget Hollywood zombie movie is made, and this would probably suck.

Now I'm not one of those "all Hollywood/ mainstream/ mass market movies suck" kinds of people. Hell, Dark Knight and Wall-E were my picks for last year's two best movies.

But, a big Hollywood budget comes with certain expectations. Like, the movie has to make as much money as it possibly can, so we have to make it appeal to as wide an audience as possible, so right away, we lose the over-the-top violence which (let's face it) is one of the best parts of a zombie movie. Zombies aren't vampires; if you stab them in the heart, you don't expect them to just disintegrate into dust. Zombies are like Monty Python's Black Knight, if you shoot off a limb, that bleeding, rotting, hideous thing just keeps coming. And we expect it to, just like we expect a human's death by carnivorous, still-moving corpses to be delightfully disgusting.

Also, in order to milk movie-goers of as much moolah as possible, a big budget Hollywood film must have so-called "stars." Now, it's purely debatable if the addition of that guy from Las Vegas and a Black former male model had anything to do with the ridiculous financial success of the Transformers movies, but the fact that they've made as much money as they have "proves" (in the half-blind eyes of Hollywood execs) that you must have someone easily recognizable to sell a film.

Now, I ask you, would Zombieland have been half as good if it starred Tom Cruise and Zac Efron? NO, IT WOULDN'T!!

Hell, I'll go one further: would more of you have automatically gone to see District 9 if it had starred that guy who plays Kenneth on 30 Rock, instead of some foreigner you'd never heard of? (If anyone answers "Yes" to that, I will hunt you down.)

Oh, and the biggest reason why a big budget/ we're aiming for mass appeal while sucking the life out of a genre about living dead things/ Hollywood zombie movie would suck? Because it might be made by Michael Bay. That guy's movies are horribly acted, too damn long, and so cliche-ridden and unoriginal that I'm convinced his scripts are written by an automatic screenplay-generator. He did his best work on the Playboy Video Centerfold of Kerri Kendall (and, in my opinion, he didn't get that great a performance out of his lead actress in that one, either).

So, Hollywood, do the whole world a favor: leave the zombie flicks with smaller budgets that they can actually make back, let me keep my deplorable violence, ignore the urge to ruin the genre with over-saturation, and keep out of Zombieland!

You'll make more money that way, and that's really all you care about in the end isn't it, you heartless, greedy bastards?