Battling Evil Is Cute
Posted on | June 20, 2008 at 7:24 am | 2 Comments
What’s up with the ABC Family channel lately? Actually, I’ve never really watched it except for reruns of Gilmore Girls, though I hear that their original shows like Kyle XY and Greek are making in-roads among the non-family orientated hip. Based on the buzz, I tuned into the pilot episode of new original show The Middleman and came away impressed. There was actual swearing in this show, although it was bleeped out and black-bar-over-the-mouth censored. It’s kind of like a combination of Heroes, Venture Brothers, Buffy and Gilmore Girls. The dialog is very snappy and quick, like GG, and frequently filled with comic book and pop culture references. Both of the principal characters definitely know their comic book history. The central conceit is that it takes place in a world like ours, but most people don’t realize actual supervillains (and heroes) exist. Young disillusioned artist Wendy is recruited by the titular milk-drinking ultraclean mystery man to be his new sidekick, and her eyes get opened to a whole new world of craziness. The two of them banter like Mulder and Scully on speed. The pilot guest-starred Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe from 24) as a deadpan scientist, and featured super-intelligent villainous apes, along with the inevitable dialog mentioning Gorilla Grodd. Yeah, the dudes in gorilla suits came off as cheap and lame, but it doesn’t pretend to be super realistic. The show runner is one of the vets from Lost. The leads are likable and engaging, and the writing is very funny. Yet, there’s also an undercurrent of drama and hints of an elaborate backstory that I assume will be revealed slowly over the course of the season, giving the show an essential arc.
It’s hard to tell after one outing, but I’m thinking it might have legs and I’m pulling for the show. There is a danger of it becoming a bit too twee or cloying or something – sometimes it seems like a bit less art-directed Pushing Daises. (Although I get the ABC Family channel in HD on my satellite system, and the art direction really benefits from the extra resolution.) For now I’ll keep watching and hoping that the quality stays high. It’s definitely something the whole family could watch, but there’s a lot of stuff in it for adults (especially us arrested development adults).
Note: I do not work for ABC Family.
In other developments, this morning’s Garfield really made my day (click to enlarge):
It sure looks to me like Garfield’s owner Jon is finally gonna get him some tonight! Maybe then his life won’t be so empty and he won’t feel the need to surround himself with pets, especially ones who denigrate him.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 57°F). Back up to the full route at last!
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Bed of Nails” (The Cavedogs)
- “Don’t Entertain Me Twice” (Feckless Beast)
- “Have We Really Got To Go Through This” (Yes)
- “Kiss and Make Up” (Blake Babies)
- “Midnight Coward” (Stars)
- “Xmas Trip” (Run On)
- “Waiting For Caroline” (Chris Brown)
- “Love Comes Inside” (The Maggies)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “phobias coconut”.
Modesty Blaze
Posted on | June 19, 2008 at 7:23 am | 3 Comments
According to this article, a study has shown that gadget buyers/early adopters like me are assertive and arrogant. We are also possessed of leadership qualities and high self-esteem. Damn straight, bitches. I set meekness and humbleness on fire. Ain’t no one more assertive than tech nerds. Hell, after stopping by CompUSA to check out the latest 2TB RAID drives and BluRay disc releases, I will frequently head on down to my local biker bar, where I drink all the dudes under the table and have to fend off all the comely lasses yearning to touch my iPhone. And when I’m out jogging with my new Kor One Water Bottle (”Water ReDesigned”), I’m frequently passing and sneering at the walkers, dog walkers, and other runners just to remind them who’s got the right stuff. And even though I don’t much like sports, I will often invite my neighbor over for an evening of drinking expensive microbrews and watching HD baseball on my 50″ 1080p Plasma screen TV, just so I can rub his nose in it and make him feel inadequate when he goes back home to his wife. I make his kids pay me to look at my mint-in-box original Star Wars action figures from 1977.
Just the other day I offered my sister and brother-in-law the Lost third season disc set to borrow, only to yank it out of their hands and loudly proclaim, “Oh wait… you don’t have a BluRay player” (true story). Yeah, I’m a big fat jerk. But I keep those R&D departments in business and I’m always showing other people the Way. Face facts: you need me, losers.
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: When other drivers cut me off or won’t get out of the way of my Prius because they think it’s a car for wimps. Oh wait, I think I did that one already.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “strapped or strapping on the or my or her or our bare”.
Exactly What Was The Question Now?
Posted on | June 18, 2008 at 7:56 am | 2 Comments
You see the strangest things driving around town (click on pic for the full photo):
And I thought the carpenter gig was hard enough?
Really – what is this trying to say? It’s not the name of the place. “This is where Christians go to have their pets cut?” What flummoxes me most is that comma after “answer”. I’m so confused!
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 66°F). Still working my way back up to the full route after the hiatus.
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Play for Today” (The Cure)
- “Bohemian Like You” (Dandy Warhols)
- “Kim Wilde” (Charlotte Hatherley)
- “Man of Two Worlds” (Ultravox)
- “Behave” (Charlotte Hatherley)
The iPod really liked Charlotte Hatherley today.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “where did my summer go?”.
Installing Big Brother
Posted on | June 17, 2008 at 7:30 pm | 1 Comment
They’ve started putting up the red light cameras in Denver (which I last blogged about here). The ones at 6th & Kalamath are already up. I drive by them every work day but I don’t think they’re operational quite yet. The pic here is of workers installing one of them at 6th & Lincoln, which I also drive past on the way to work. (There are a couple more photos of the process in the Flickr photo set here.) I haven’t checked 8th & Speer lately, so I don’t know if they’ve started on that one yet. That’s one I would hit on the way home from work instead of on the way to work. Although I usually take a route that bypasses 8th if I go home during rush hour, since it’s always so packed then.
Oh boy, this will be fun! I wonder if they will put up signs?
Update: According to this article, the first of the lights, at 36th & Quebec, just went online. I don’t drive by that one. The others are going live “soon”.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 55°F). Finally started running again after vacation and the back injury. Although it was a short one since I have to work up to the full route.
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “The Sea and the Sand” (Lloyd Cole)
- “I Wish I Had An Evil Twin” (Magnetic Fields)
- “Stray Talk” (Maxïmo Park)
- “King Of No One” (The Most Serene Republic)
- “Just Like The USA” (Aztec Camera)
Even though all these songs are on the “Fast Tempo” playlist, they’re all actually pretty slow or sparse or mid-tempo. The BPM detector didn’t do too well there. But that worked out okay, since I wasn’t able to run real fast yet anyway.
Pet Peeve of the Day: You apparently can’t check the date/time of a photo taken with the iPhone while it’s in the iPhone. Or if you can, I haven’t figured out how. You have to copy it to the computer and look at the photo data there. And it doesn’t seem to keep the photo data if you e-mail it directly from the iPhone to Flickr.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “old nuts”.
Fear Asphalt, End Truth, Make Back Love
Posted on | June 16, 2008 at 8:05 pm | 3 Comments
You can find out a lot of interesting things from Jonathan Coulton. That’s where I ran across Wordle. So of course, I had to try it out myself (click for the big version – must enable Java applets in browser to view):
Following JoCo’s lead, I took the lyrics from our Reign of Frogs album A Case Of Mistaken Serenity, most of which were written by me, although some were from Greg and some from DJ Smallberries, and ran them through the processor to generate the Word Cloud above. I did take some liberties with the source material. For example, I deleted repeating choruses/phrases so as not to weight them too much. It didn’t much matter – words in the choruses sprang to the top anyway.
Hmmm, somebody should do this with Scott Miller lyrics…
Latre.
Pet Peeve Of The Day: Accidentally buying fresh cilantro, thinking it was parsley.
Lawyers Are People Too
Posted on | June 15, 2008 at 9:41 am | Comments Off
I finally got to watch the last 10 minutes of Michael Clayton the other night, after Netflix sent me a replacement BluRay disc. That one worked.
I usually find it hard to sympathize with lawyers in movies, but George Clooney’s portrayal of a gambling-addicted “fixer” lawyer who finds himself in the middle of a really big moral quandary, made the character palatable. Tilda Swinton’s Best Supporting Actress-winning role as another lawyer who is “forced” to jump over the moral fence was… um… Oscar-worthy. The confrontation between the two of them at the end was worth waiting two days for. The plot was nothing spectacular, or nothing we hadn’t seen before (I’m getting a little tired of class-action lawsuits in movies), but the characters made it interesting.
The HiDef presentation on the BluRay disc was spectacular as usual. I almost like HD better on these character dramas than on the big action pictures, because it allows you to see what’s really going on in the faces of the players.
On the scale of last year’s Oscar-nominated Best Pictures, I would put it above No Country For Old Men (sorry, InfK) and behind Juno. I still haven’t seen Atonement or There Will Be Blood yet.
Latre.
Best Cereal-Related Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “can i use special k instead of corn flakes?”.
Runner-Up: “special k small bits flakes”.