For Discussion

Blogging is getting really boring as no one seems to be commenting on anything anymore. In an effort to stir things up (and take the heat off of my attempts to rile poor Shocho) the following two posts are meant to posit two questions I have from last week's tv. Beware that there are spoilers from both BSG and Heroes from last week.

I would love to hear what you think.

An Eye For A Tigh

Ugh. That pun was worse than the last. Sorry.

SPOILERS!!! If you didn't watch Battlestar Galactica last week, stop reading now.

I'm really happy that the last two episodes of Battlestar Galactica were much better than the 2-hour season premiere. The space battle last week, albeit brief, was simply amazing. Adama (both) was great and everyone turned in a superb performance, most notably Michael Hogan who plays Col. Saul Tigh. I thought he was a cartoon in the season premiere but the pain of his loss was very well portrayed last week. My big problem though, is WHY did he have to kill his wife? Things happen in war and everyone does things that might be questionable. Yes, her actions (strictly on his behalf) lead to at least a few deaths but haven't all of them been responsible for sacrificing lives at one point or another? I just thought it was a bit of a stretch. Obviously, there will be ramifications later (or, what if she turns out to be one of the as-yet-unseen Cylon models?) for Tigh. I just don't think it was necessary.

Please discuss!

We Don't Need Another Hiro

Ok, this post really has little to with Hiro, but I couldn't pass up a play on words for 80's Top 40.

SPOILER!!!! If you didn't see Heroes last week, stop now.

So we saw the Hiro from the future last week confront Peter Patrelli (Peter PARKER? Geez.) on the frozen subway train. Pretty cool ending, I must say. I was having lunch with a colleague last week and we were talking about the show, particularly Peter. He then something that I hadn't considered. He said "I don't think Peter can fly at all, unless he's around his brother (which Peter DID once say). I think more than likely he can duplicate the powers of whoever he is near."

Ah, now that suddenly makes Peter a lot more interesting than being half of the flying Wallendas.

Discuss.

F Yeah

Terrorism Is Real - I Have Proof

My good friend Shocho once said that Terrorism was a farce and we should be more concerned about peanut allergies. Well I'm saddened to report that terrorists are indeed real and I have proof.

The following news story hit the news media today informing us that 7 NFL football stadiums would be targets for "dirty bombs" (low grade conventional bombs that scatter radioactive materals) and that hundreds of thousands of Americans would die. This was mostly dismissed as a hoax by some crackpot. However, I am convinced it was a threat by an actual foreign terrorist. Here's my logic:

1) Terrorists want to kill Americans.
2) Terrorists want to kill LOTS of Americans.
3) Terrorists would love to target football games because LOTS of Americans go there.
4) Cleveland Stadium, home of the Browns, was specifically mentioned as one of the targets.

You see where the "hoax" argument breaks down?

Everyone in the U.S. knows that the Browns totally suck this year. No one is going to the games. Should a dirty bomb go off in Cleveland Staduim this Sunday, we'd lose 14 hot dog vendors, 5 beer guys, a parking attendant and "Big Dog". Also, the Cuyahoga River actually caught fire back in the 70's so a dirty bomb can't possibly do anymore damage.

That's proof that whoever made this threat is NOT from the U.S. That makes the list of suspects very short indeed. I have it narrowed down to Islamic Terrorists, Kim Jong-Il, and General Zod.

Remember the old WWII movies where they would always ask suspected foreign spies "who won the World Series last year"? Today, the way to spot a terrorist is to ask them who the worst team in the NFL is. Naturally, they'll say "the Cubs".

Be afraid folks. I fear the worst is coming. I wonder though, if Cleveland is ahead when the bomb goes off, does that count as a win?

It's 4th and Goal and This Game Sucks

Well, this was a weird football day. Most notably, was the fact that THREE games I watched were unceremoniously dumped by the networks (FOX and CBS) for other games when the score just went south for one of the teams. Hell, I was watching the Steelers / Chiefs game (which was arguably lost about halfway through the first half) and it was 4th and goal for the Chiefs. They switched to the Miami game before the Chiefs were about to snap the f'ing ball!

Not sure I like this new policy.

Short Takes

I don't feel like a long rambling post (and I'm sure you don't want to read it) so here we go (in the tradition of Larry King) with some short takes:

- I like Studio 60, the new Matthew Perry show on NBC. It's funny and witty. I hope it doesn't get cancelled.
- I discovered how "not with it" my wife was when I bought her an iPod for her 40th birthday yesterday and she didn't know what it was.
- I really like the cat we bought for the kids last Christmas. She's just cool and I think she knows it.
- This Summer and Fall have been spectacular here in the upper NW. The leaves are just turning and it smells like Fall. I love this season.
- People who love Halloween are the coolest people. We put 25 pumpkins (some fake) in my yard and my neighbors responded with the Disneyland of Death. I'll try to get some pics up.
- I won't buy a DVD version labelled "unrated". I have enough marketing savy to know that's for f'ing stupid people.
- There's nothing better than discovering a new pizza place you like.
- Someday work will slow down. It probably won't be tomorrow. Or anytime soon.
- The XBox 360 is getting harder to resist. I KNOW I don't video game enough to warrant one, but the announced lineup of games is just awesome. I honestly have no interest in a PS3.
- I wish, just once, someone would buy me an awesome gift that just blew me away. I don't think that has ever happened in my life. It doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to push that button.
- Why does Rachael Ray have a talk show? I mean, why?
- More frequently than not, I'm the oldest person in the room. That saddens me beyond belief.

We Interrupt the Fate of Humanity For This Newsflash

I finally got a chance to watch the Season 3 premiere of Battlestar Galactica and was really, really underwhelmed. Now, I'm mature enough of a TV viewer to know how to watch Galactica. It's not about space battles and robots and explosions. This is drama in (sort of) space. What really turned me off about this episode was that it was nothing more than a parable on the Iraq War. (For the record, I'm sick of that too, think it was a mistake, and wish we were out of there.) Humanity is the Iraqi people and the Cylons are the occupying U.S. military. Hell, the night raid by Iraqi, sorry, Human police, even looked like CNN footage with night vision goggles. Ronald Moore simply cannot resist being the latest filmaker to offer his 2 cents of celluloid to his resentment of U.S. policy. What sucks is that he's completely turned the show upside down to do it. Tigh has now turned into "Poopdeck Pappy" from the old Popeye cartoons. Apollo is Sherman Klump. Adama looks like an aged Mexican porn star. (And the only person he can talk to is Sharon? Is ANYONE buying that crap?) I don't even know where the nonsense with Starbuck is going. Then, the biggest and stupidest letdown of the entire episode is when the President is seemingly gunned down in a mass grave only to be shown alive and well in the preview for next week. Guess we don't need to question what happened there. The Cylons stepped on a roadside bomb and were blown to bits. The Iraqis, sorry, Humans, escaped.

It really seems that this show is going the way of Boston Legal. The comparison, is that Alan Shore (James Spader) was one of television's terrific characters. That is until David E. Kelly used him to become the his personal mouthpiece against social and political injustice. The courtroom rants by Shore (interspersed with hilariously stupid "questions" from the sitting judge to act as "devil's advocate") have become ridiculous tirades that have reduced the character to nothing. Several TV and Entertainment magazines have noticed this as well and the once appealing show has become a skip on Tuesday nights.

With Galactica, I sense a giant "reset button" coming. I think that Moore has taken his personal agenda and painted a portrait of crap. I still think back to how this all started with Baltar falling asleep on his desk. This could all still be a dream sequence. I guess it wouldn't be any worse than this dreadful season premiere.

Should This Bother Us?

I mean, are we the kind of society that should be beaming our location into space or should we just be content tucked away in our little corner of the galaxy?

You decide.

Let's Shoot High, Shall We?

The first Fantastic Four movie was not so good. Now, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I did sort of enjoy a few moments. As my assistant at work put it, "the FF is kind of goofy by nature, so how good can it be? They're not the X-Men, you know." True enough.

A few weeks back, the 2007 sequel was officially named "Rise of the Silver Surfer". Well, that tells us who's in it although I'm not certain "rise" is the proper word for a being who comes DOWN from the cosmos. Maybe I'm being too picky. The big question, was whether or not Galactus was not far behind. As of last week, the answer is yes. This leads to an interesting conundrum for director Tim Story, who has an awful task ahead of him. Not only does he have to do one of Marvel's most loved characters (and one that will be nightmarish to present despite the fact that WETA Workshop is doing the SFX) to bring to life, but now the most powerful character in that corner of comicdom.

They certainly won't delve into the origin of Galactus as that would make Tommy and Susie, the common date-movie couple, blow a brain cell or two and walk out. For those of you who don't know, Galactus was the only surviving life-form from the previous universe before the latest of a string of infinity-spanning "big bangs". He's either pissed or bored and is working to consume all of the energy of this universe before it collapses again. Got that?

Anyway, the big problem with all of this is that the only reason the Fantastic Four EVER beat Galactus is because Reed tricked him or the Watcher intervened. Since Reed in the previous FF movie is pretty much a moron, I don't see that happening either.

I think they got a little ambitious with this one, and should have probably gone with the Mole Man and monsters rampaging through New York. That would have been a good, low cerebellum requirement pop-corn movie good time. The Surfer and Galactus is strictly top-shelf. I hope Story is up to it.

300 - Minutes long, all slow motion

The trailer for the Frank Miller "masterpiece" 300 has finally hit and the fanboys are absolutely salivating over it. I lost interest in Miller's art a long time ago because after about 10 pages into the second issue of "The Dark Knight Returns" it turned to absolute shit. "DK2" was just pure crap from start to finish. I'll also draw the ire of my blogging buds, but I really didn't care for "Sin City" either. Lastly, the final nail was the immortal line that Miller got paid probably waaaaaay too much money for, "I'm the Goddamn Batman!". Geez.

So the trailer for 300 is up. It deals with the "Battle of Thermopylae" (I had to look it up too) where 300 Spartans fought 1 billion Persians in front of a green screen in slow motion. If the trailer is any indication, the movie is 27 minutes long if it was shown at the normal frames per second.

It might be cool, but it looks to me to be just another film where the style far outweighs the story. That's what I thought happened to Sin City. I could be wrong here, and hope I am. Hollywood could use something decent happening these days. However, I'm not sure "I'm Goddamn King Leonidas" will fit that bill.

Heroes - Huh?

Ok, I'm not going into a long winded review of the new NBC show Heroes as many of the other blogging pals have already done so. It's a decent show that's trying very hard to be Lost. I'm willing to give it a shot as I want to see where it goes. Here are some random questions and observations:

- Everything cool seems to be happening during blackouts. That's gonna get old fast.
- Why did Jackie step up and take credit for Claire's actions? It made no sense in her character (with the limited introduction we got). What I thought was going to happen was that Jackie would then disappear having drawn the attention to herself. Apparantly not and in episode 2, we find out that Claire's dad is on to her. So much for that suspense. I'm not sure how that was supposed to go but it seemed awful short.
- So they've put a 5 week timeline on the "disaster" that hits New York on a 26-week show. Also seems to be cutting things short. I'll give Kring the benefit of the doubt.
- I wonder how long we'll have to wait to understand Nikki. I think there's a doppleganger that is physically present but can only be seen in the mirror. Just pure speculation but that's fun. I hope they resist the temptation to make the kid part of her power. However, it's broadcast TV so the "kid is the most powerful character" schtick is probably hard for them to resist. (NBC Executive: "They'll never see THIS coming!")
- I was very surprised they didn't put a graphic violence warning at the start of that episode. Heads cut open with evacuated brains is a bit strong for the 9pm Monday time slot.
- I really like Greg Grunberg. It's humorous that one of the more physically capable characters gets the wussy mental powers. :)
- The eclipse is bugging me. Total red herring. Since we already saw some of our heroes using their powers before the eclipse, it appears to have nothing to do with anything. It's one thing to have Nature play a role and act as a symbol (the island in "Lost"). It's another thing to set it up as a potential catalyst and then refute it in the first 10 minutes.

All in all, it's an interesting watch. There are some neat touches. I'm still rolling my eyes at the "Lost inspired crossovers" though. We'll see how it progresses.

Update on Me

I promised to post updates on my diet, but well, never did. A lot of you seemed interested in how I was doing but I let the topic drop. The reason, is that I kept falling off of the damn thing. This wasn't so much due to temptation or being hungry, but rather my Summer travel schedule. There's just no way to do this diet when you're on the road. However, my last trip for the season ended in late September for I finally got back on track and just closed out two weeks. The diet promises that you'll lose 9 pounds every two weeks. Me, I lost 8. All in all, I can't complain.

It is a difficult diet at times. The meals are not really planned as "meals" but rather two foods you can at eat at the same times. Every once in a while, I'll have tuna and scrambled eggs come up at the same time. Ick. To be honest, when that happens I'll skip the tuna.

The diet has been running through my office. One guy has lost over 60 pounds since April, another 50 and I'm not sure how much the third guy lost. It is based on carbohydrate reduction (similar to Atkins) but milk, bread, fruit, etc pops up every couple of days so you don't miss out on your favs. Plus, every 11 days you go OFF the diet for 3 days and can eat what you want.

Again, it costs $27 to access the website (and the diet plannner) for 90 days. All in all, I have to say that I'm happy with the results.