Look, I'm a 50s-Era Ad Guy

Courtesy of AMC, here I am engaging in some ribald talk with Zoe Bartlett, highball in hand. Whenever I put together this kind of picture (like when you Simpsonize yourself, etc.) I am always sort of sad at how basically white I am. Brown hair, brown eyes, no real flair. Plus, I put myself in a suit, as is the custom of my profession, so I look even less interesting. But then I gave myself some tired looking eyes, which I think is accurate these days.

I actually just started watching Mad Men (the source of this pic) and while it was a little slow for a couple of episodes--perhaps because I was boned tired Saturday night--the beauty of Blu-Ray gave me 5 to watch on one disc, and I am now pretty hooked.

Why was I bone tired? Because I built this on Saturday:


That big wall on the right of the picture was already framed, but we sheetrock'd it and then raised it up, like the Amish and their barn shenanigans, but probably not as bearded.

Then we unloaded lumber and framed two more walls, including the one on the left, which we raised and centered and all that jazz. It was probably the most accomplished I've felt at a Habitat outing, simply because it was the structure instead of finishing (flooring or siding) that I'd done previously.

But boy howdy I was tired. And then on Sunday, exquisitely sore. In that really good way.

So Much! Too Much?

Man, I step away for a minute and like, 15 different things happen. Let's get into it.

The King of Pop is dead. Long live the King? There is much gnashing of teeth and hand-wringing about how to "celebrate" the life of such screwball. On the one hand, he made some great music. This is an area in which if you disagree, you are Wrong. Sorry, but while you don't have to like the music (that's called taste) you have to appreciate what MJ put together. I can only somewhat recall, because I was so young, the fervor with which 80s-era kids loved the man. But some of those songs are eternal.

But, he was a whacko. Ultimately, I have no problem expressing remorse at his passing because, despite the messed up life he was leading, death is it. It closes the door on any redemption or the possibility of a turn-around. MJ will never call a press conference and say, "Jesus, I was pretty messed up, wasn't I? I apologize to my fans for so much screwy behavior." And even if such a statement was super unlikely, I can mourn for the lost opportunity. It is a bummer.

Senator Stuart Smalley. Not too much to say about this because Franken should have had this months and months ago; but I'm glad to see the rule of law win out in an election scenario. Coleman may have been a good man before this mess, but his inability to let it go when absolutely nothing was in his favor has lessened my opinion of him quite a bit. I don't know what kind of senator Franken will be, but it will definitely be interesting. 6 years! And away we go.

True Blood is Entertaining. But it got a lot better after the first few episodes. It's really like an adult-themes Twilight, though, which isn't so hot. Because Twilight is horrifically stupid.* But it's still pretty hokey at times, and the characters are teetering right on the edge of being too stupid for words. If Jason Stackhouse ends up sleeping with the preacher's wife, for example, and without clear explanation how it got to that, I'm gonna be pissed.

There is a piss-poor method of character development that hack writers use to establish that someone is "lusted after" or "sexually adventurous." Basically, you have the character meet the eyes of some hot young woman (it's almost always men that need this development) and then immediately cut to them having sex. Californication does this ALL THE TIME, and it's really, really lame. No explanation of how they got to that point, or the woman's motivations for doing so. It's actually a hugely sexist and misogynistic form of character development that feeds the adolescent male fantasy of being an irresistible sex machine. The women don't matter at all; they're just tools to show that this guy is "totally awesome and the chicks can't stay away!!!"

To be fair, Jason Stackhouse has benefited from better writing during his own escapades. He has only had sex with one random chick that I can recall, and that was because he was high on vampire blood. But the show is dangerously close to the "lusty eyes -> immediate sex" cut in his interactions with the preacher's wife, and it makes me wary. The fact that people are "amazed he didn't screw that Christian singer AND the wife by now" (as mentioned in my office) just shows you how close to ridiculousness his character has been.

*I've been told. Have not yet been so bored that I actually need to read those books.

The Tigers Give Me Ulcers. Jesus they win like, 7 straight and then lose a series to Houston? The ASTROS, Detroit? Come on. They're suffering from the same problems that always plague them: power outages at hitting and unreliable closers. If you include the fact that they've only got 2 or 3 reliable starters (and just one really good and reliable pitcher) it's hard to see how they're even in first in the division.

But, they are. Improbably, amazingly, they are 3.5 games ahead of Chicago. They have a chance to win the series with Oakland today (here, in Oakland) but by all objective measures they probably should have swept the lowly, last-place A's. We'll see. I will try and keep the faith.

Oh but did anyone see that Baltimore-Boston game last night? The O's came back from a 10 to 1 deficit to win! I dislike the Orioles most of the time but that's just impressive, especially against Boston.

Needless Update: Apparently blog posting is a jinx. The Tigers are sucking it up and losing 4-1 in the 6th as I write this. Verlander just gave up a homerun to freakin' Jason Giambi, who is batting .195 this year. Pathetic.

The New Draconian Recycling Plan in My Office. We now have 4 different types of trash. It includes Compost and "E-Waste" but me and my juris doctorate cannot figure out where to put the Starbucks cup. I mean, the top is plastic (Mixed-Recycling) but the cup is paper (Compostable?) but the sleeve is cardboard (Recycling?) and there's a slight bit of food still inside.

Seriously, it could not be harder to decipher if it was written by Soviet-era Russian intelligence. Candy wrappers are "Waste" but waxed cardboard cups are "Compostable" but cardboard is "Recycling". The office needs a recycling czar.

Missing the Big Picture

I saw a new (to me) "Mac vs. PC" ad this weekend. The PC decides to use a time machine to travel to the future to see if the "problems" with PCs have been worked out. Of course, when he arrives future PC freezes in mid-greeting. Haha.

First, my PC never freezes. I have three if you count my work computer. I don't know anybody who suffers from this problem, unless they have spyware or other malware on their machine.

Second, I think the Mac guy inadvertently missed a big point in the ad: the PC built a goddamn time-machine. I think the winner, no matter who freezes up or has stability issues, is the company that can TRAVEL THROUGH TIME.

Seriously, Apple. I love my iPhone, and the iPod is great, but you all are some smug assholes. I don't see myself ever buying a Mac, and part of the reason (beyond the exorbitant price and the fact that I don't do any video editing) is that you guys are dicks.

Turns Out, It Stands for Emergency Room!

I remember when ER first came on television. I was 16 and I had just recently gotten a television in my room, and though I don't specifically remember my "bed time" back in 1994, I have some very specific memories of watching the show in my before bed on Thursday nights.

Back when ER debuted, it was an amazing show. The long takes, and the very human characters, were the best points. Over the years they lost some of that humanity in favor of more fantastic plot lines (helicopters chopping off arms, and major transportation disasters befalling the city of Chicago on a monthly basis). It was about this time that ER became less compelling, and fell into the Law & Order class of TV for me. Not that L&O is bad, but each episode is so self-contained that it really doesn't matter if you miss one, two, or ten per season. ER still had more character development, but the characters didn't resonate as strongly.

Still, it was a great show. And it had some of the best short-run guest stars of any television show out there; not just one-and-done types, but actual recurring characters played by amazing actors. Stanley Tucci, William H. Macy, Maria Bello, Thandie Newton. Mariska Hargitay got her start there, way back in the old days. Jorja Fox and Marg Helgenberger, too. Elizabeth Mitchell (from LOST) was a doctor for like a dozen episodes. Djimon Hounsou was great. Even Ving Rhames was all over the place at the very beginning.

ER was a great drama. But it was never better than the early years. When Dr. Greene died, that was the climax, and though it has been entertaining and full of moving stories since then, it was never the same without him. Last night's finale was a nice way to remind us of that through his character's daughter.

Even though I wasn't watching regularly anymore, I will miss knowing that it was there. Nothing else has been around for as long, or with as much consistency.

Let's Talk Time Travel

Some of you probably watch LOST. It's a great show, so you should be watching if you aren't already. Some spoilers ahead for those who haven't been watching this season, but intend to do so later.

Also, this is bound to be boring even to those who watch LOST. I just need to get my thoughts straight.

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So, one group of Losties traveled back in time to the 1970s. Specifically, they traveled back to 1974ish and lived there 3 years. Then, the ones who got off the island traveled back to 1977 and met up with them. Where everybody else has gone is unknown at this point. But there is a lot of discussion as to the nature of time travel (in the fictional LOST universe, of course) because now they have the opportunity to change their futures.

A lot of this centers around the main Big Bad, Ben. He's there in 1977 but he's only like, 12 or something. So the Losties are confronted with that age old question, "What would you do if you could go back to 1905 and kill Hitler as a boy?"

There is much hand-wringing as to the nature of time travel. Can you do that? The obvious problem is, if you go back and kill Hitler/Ben, then Hitler/Ben won't torment you later and you won't go back in time to kill him. So he WILL grow up to torment you, and you WILL go back in time, etc. etc. ad infinitum. It's a paradox and seems to make time travel impossible, or universe-breaking.

Unless you look at it this way: everything that happens, happens once. It happens one way, one time, because that's how time works. It's linear. You can slow it (so says Einstein) but you can't reverse it, stop it entirely, or otherwise change that slow forward motion. Therefore, you can't go back in time to kill Hitler as a child because you know what? That didn't happen. You can go ahead an invent a time machine, and travel back, and shoot him, but something else will happen because Hitler didn't die. You can't change that.

Some feel that this is an attack on the concept of free will. Like, what if it was you shooting and wounding Hitler that made him go nuts and become his historically crazy self? Then, you say, what happened the first time, before I went back and shot him? The same thing happened, there was no "first time". You can't go back a second time and stop yourself from shooting Hitler because that's exactly what happened. Congrats, you caused the holocaust. Jerk.

Anyway, this theory both puts my mind at ease and makes me sad. The sad comes from thinking that I probably won't go back in time to see dinosaurs or Starland Vocal Band or something. But the relief comes from the fact that also, nobody will destroy reality by creating a temporal paradox. So, that's a bonus.

Note: This is mostly based on watching LOST and having a healthy dose of other sci-fi based education with regard to temporal physics. I don't claim to actually know anything about this stuff. I'm just sayin'.

Other Note: Theoretically, even though you can't go back in time, you should be able to go forward in time. Time keeps marching on, so all you have to do is slow your own perception of it somehow. Special relativity and time dilation would let that happen. Right on.

72 Hrs.

It's been a busy week, or at least it feels that way. I've had to get up at 6:30 a.m. for 3 days straight (tomorrow will be 4) and it makes the days seem especially packed.

Other notable (and sometimes ignoble) occurrences from the past 72 hours include:

- Virginia Tech winning in the first round of the NIT in double overtime. Go Hokies! I know it's just the NIT, but I'm still proud of any sport Tech excels at that isn't football. I mean, I'm proud of football too but they're supposed to excel in that area.

- But Georgetown lost a pretty tight game, which is a damn shame. Next year, Hoyas.

- On the recommendation of my mother, I've been watching Showtime's The Tudors via Netflix. I'm 6 episodes in, and while it's a pretty entertaining series, it has one fatal flaw: I know what happens already. It's not really the show's fault; if they changed history, it'd be a much bigger problem. But I already know that Henry marries Anne Boleyn, and starts the Church of England, and all that. So I can't be all that effected during tense scenes with Catherine of Aragon. She's out, and she don't even know yet! Anyway, still pretty entertaining.

- NOT ENTERTAINING AT ALL, on the other hand, was Max Payne. Now, I didn't play the video game. And we all know that video game --> movie adaptations do poorly. But my god, this was a piece of crap. It made no sense, the acting was terrible (but hey, shout out to my man Marlo for a tiny role) and it was ridiculously boring for a movie about gunfights and hallucinogenic valkyries.

In fact maybe I'll just write a new movie using that same set-up. I guarantee it would be better. I give it the rarely-used 1 star.

- This weekend, I'm headed down to Big Sur! Although technically, I'm going on Monday, it's all part of my weekend. Mini-vacations are the BEST vacations.

"Ain't nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day."

So the big news today (besides that plane thing) is that Stringer Bell is coming to The Office. Well, okay, to be fair he will probably not play Stringer. But everytime I see someone from The Wire show up someplace else, I get a little weirded out.

Like when Marlo showed up on Heroes are started punching the hell outta everybody. That was actually pretty close to what Marlo would've been like had he had a super-power (as well as being a cold-ass sumbitch).

Stringer on The Office, though. I expect to see some good mashups using the dialogue from his Wire scenes where he tries to rally his lieutenants to sell better. Seems like an easy cross.

In other news, I'm halfway through Season 4 of The Wire and it's awesome. You know it is, but I'm just sayin'.

It Didn't Make Me Shake with Rage

I've spoken about my... hate-hate relationship with the NBC show "Heroes" before. Twice, even. The show is just stupid. It lacks the most basic fundamentals that any narrative arc requires: coherency and continuity.

Lately, the "heroes" (I use the term loosely because you give me a baseball bat and I could probably do a better job hero'ing my way around town than these idiots) have had their powers stripped, returned again, and are all playing some sort of power shifting, stealing, and sharing "Musical Chairs".

Monday's episode, however, wasn't a complete insult to the intelligence of a 3-year-old. I mean, it had plenty of idiotic parts (see below) but the storyline was tighter: one main story, one minor, and one... small stupid one. You can't win them all, I suppose.

Now, I consider this to be a brief oasis in an otherwise cancel-worthy season, but it reminded me of why the show used to have so much potential. The writers managed to keep the exposition to a minimum (a Heroes minimum being only 4 or 5 times an episode will a character literally narrate what he/she is doing) and the main story was actually fairly good.

But then, of course, they're still a bunch of morons. Five minutes with just ONE person's powers and I've got all their problems solved. But not them!

- Hiro can teleport through time and space, as well as stop time outright. So why does he let the bad guy steal his powers and fling him off a roof? Probably because his writers hate him.

- The speedy chick, name forgotten because I don't care, drags her friends from Iowa to NYC at super-speed? How would that not kill them? How is she strong enough to DO that? Lazy, stupid writers again.

- The bad guy, who possesses something like 4 different super-healing abilities, is killed with a bullet to the brain while his powers are being neutralized. Now, I liked that the neutralizing guy had trouble keeping him in check. But the show has already shown us, several times that the healing folks come back to life if they happen to die while being de-powered. Maybe he's just not dead. But why do the people responsible for his death figure it's all good? Especially when one of them had this exact thing already happen to him?

See, I thought it was a solid B- episode (they are usually D+ at best) and now I'm already rethinking it down to a C. But I really did like the Hiro-Momma Hiro story, and even Claire's story. Although, seeing her hold and coo at her 1-month old self (time travel, folks) was unbelievably creepy.

Of course I will watch next week's "2008 finale". I can't look away.

Oh, and...

How awesome is it that The Office is back? Last night was spectacular.

Does anybody still watch ER? Why they gotta be all up and killin folks? That was depressing.

Heroes: Still Inept

Monday night* saw the too-long season premier of Heroes on NBC. I went off on the show back in November (which ended then because of the writer's strike, if memory serves) saying that it had to get a helluva lot smarter to make watching worth my time.

Well, they may have tried. I'm not sure if show creator Tim Kring actually listened to the legions of people who were simply pissed off at the complete idiocy of the characters, but they seem slightly less stupider than last season.

But that's not saying much. Because wow were they a bunch of morons last year. This year, things seem to be moving at a brisker pace (so far) and the number of pointless speeches has decreased (but not disappeared).

On the other hand, the new characters are annoying. The new "speedster chick" would be fine if her powers made a lick of sense. But Hiro can stop time, he doesn't just slow it down. So how come she freezes like everyone else, but then unfreezes at will?

I've said it before--most notably in my rant against poor Underdog--but it bears repeating: you've got to establish a mythology, and then stick to those rules. If some guy can fly, then he can fly! Don't put him in situations where flight can solve a problem, and then have him not use it!

I will give it another episode, or maybe two, but without a spectacular change in tone and direction, this potentially great show is just a couple weeks away from my "Avoid This Crap" list.

*Also Monday night: How I Met Your Mother returned. It's still funny, though I hope they don't keep this Barney-Robin storyline up for long. I like insane-misogynistic Barney, not polite-cares-about-you Barney.

"Reality" is Killing The Office

So that whole Writers' Guild strike is still going on, and as a result almost all the good TV shows are out of scripts/episodes for the season. And it's only December.

Sadly, we are rapidly approaching the mid-season scripted show killer: goddamn American Idol, which apparently comes back in January or thereabouts. This is bad, not only because it's inherently silly, but because it will bump ratings back up for the studios (read more about that here).

My plea, and this really only goes out to those that watch reality TV (I think we all do, to some degree) would be to boycott such shows for the rest of this season. Not forever (I know such a plea is all but impossible for some of you) but just for now, so that the studios will give the writers what they want and we can go back to a nice mix of good and bad-but-we-watch television.

And please note: since I do not believe any of you are Nielsen families, you have to be even more careful. No visiting reality-TV show websites, no using Tivo or other DVR devices that report what you're watching to some higher power. You gotta think outside the box.

If you ARE a ratings-determining household, go watch PBS and Friday Night Lights. I don't really watch either, but then nobody cares what I think. Go!

Three(ish) Things

Thing the First:

Heroes, man. This show is KILLING me. Two weeks I declared, openly and loudly, that the show was really pushing its luck and would have one more chance to make me interested.

Then, it was good. Last week's had action and moved the plot along and nobody was exceptionally stupid as is the usual course of business at Heroes Inc.

This did not last, sadly. Monday's episode was at the top of its game, idiocy-wise, and I am now thankful that a writer's strike is occurring because maybe the show will stop being on TV for awhile.

First of all, to call Peter a moron is to insult morons. He can read minds but he doesn't read Adam's? He doesn't question why he would untie the woman who has tried to kill them, when even a blind monkey could tell you he was planning to eliminate her? And then, even though he knows Hiro personally he decides that he has to beat him down to protect the guy that doesn't die. Also, his weird obsession with some chick he abandoned in the future, and his completely irrational idea that preventing the plague will somehow help her, makes me want to push his stupid superface into a wall.

Don't get me wrong, everybody else in the show was stupid too--Hiro could prevent problems by saying "Dude, I went back in time and Adam tried to release the virus in 1977" but instead it's all weird posturing. Claire has made some vague threat about going public, with the idea that this will somehow damage Veronica Mars, but her cheerleader logic escapes me. And Suresh is still setting the stupid bar far lower than most doctorate-holders could imagine.

I don't even like Sylar anymore. He has no powers, he's annoying, and I'm really hoping that someone sticks a(nother) sword through him. I am convinced at this point that a plague killing 93% of the earth's population would be great as long as it guaranteed the death of everyone on this show.

Thing the Second:

I was righteously indignant about something else this morning, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

Thing the Third:

I go to Starbucks regularly. So sue me. I don't mind when my co-patrons come with friends, but when all three or four or (god forbid) FIVE of them stand together right in front of the pick-up counter, it makes my eyes glaze over with murderous rage. EVEN AFTER PEOPLE HAVE TO "EXCUSE ME" THROUGH THE IDIOTS, THEY DON'T MOVE.

Perhaps I am angry today, or something. But just as with inattentive drivers, people who stand around on the street or in places of business and cause trouble for everyone else, through their sheer inability to observe their surroundings, are making life a little less pleasant for everyone around them. Cut that shit out.

Best Ends

Let's just pretend I've apologized profusely for the lack of updates, and then move on to an actual post, eh?

Best Movie Ending: This is a tough one for me, as I have seen a great many movies (984 at last count). But the first one that comes to mind was The Shawshank Redemption. Say what you will about the feasibility of two ex-cons living in a shack in Mexico, but from the moment Andy escapes, to the moment Redd begins his search, I was on the edge of my seat.

Best TV Ending: It seems to me that it's really, really hard to pull of ending a television show well. The format just doesn't lend itself to a non-episodic ending (problem, non-solution, failure of non-solution, realization of actual solution: all in 22 to 43 minutes) and many shows have met their end with decidedly mixed results. The best you can generally hope for is for a few kernels of excellence in an otherwise so-so finale.* The exception (you knew there had to be one) in my opinion is the series finale of The Office (UK version, of course). I won't give it away -- because it's absolutely amazing if you don't know what happens -- but it achieved exactly 100% of what I wanted from that series. Brilliant.

Best Game Ending: Another area that is rife with disappointment. Beyond the "YOU HAVE WON PLAY AGAIN?" of the NES days, even today's whiz-bang games still often lack a real punch at the ending. I'm not terribly well-rounded when it comes to games -- console titles like Resident Evil or Final Fantasy aren't my thing -- but from the many computer games I've played, the Starcraft and Diablo series stands out as pretty well-finished products. Perhaps that's only because the entirety of the storyline was good, and the endings just kept up the excellence.

Best Book Ending: Tough call. I am not as well-read as I'd like, so it's difficult for me to really say. In fact, I'm just going to leave this to the librarians and English majors, and plead ignorance.

Best Life Ending: Trick question. Life doesn't really end, does it? I guess if someone dies while saving 80 nuns and 120 children from certain doom while curing cancer and ending world hunger, that'd be a pretty good ending. Until I do that, however, the story is often better than how it ends, as far as life goes.

*Buffy ended this way; so did Angel. Seinfeld, in my opinion, didn't really even reach the so-so level. MASH probably holds the gold in this category, but since I didn't see it at the time, and thus did not have the emotional connection to the characters, I went with my own personal favorite.