When I was a kid, I enjoyed Home Improvement and Galaxy Quest. I have been a fan of Tim Allen for long time. The same goes for Kat Dennings who really should have had more time in the Thor films. I also enjoyed watching 2 Broke Girls mostly because of her. I haven't gotten into any broadcast sitcoms in years but I did give this one a shot.
I watched Shifting Gears this evening and it hits a little close to home when it comes to the more political dynamics. Especially since the start of the first Trump administration. My parents and I do not see eye-to-eye and there is some real tension as I see them move from what I would consider traditional Republican ideals to MAGA ideals.
Their approach on how they are going to live with each other is of interest to me. I have compartmentalized my life and we have our own separate personal spaces. I don't involve myself with any aspect of their social lives and they aren't a part of mine. We just come together for family time. It seems the family house is our neutral zone. In Shifting Gears, the daughter talks about building a bridge and meeting in the middle. It seems almost like a foreign concept to me.
It has been almost two years since I learned that Paramount+ was developing a new Star Trek series. The time has finally come!
Ever since Star Trek: Enterprise premiered, I have made a conscious effort to enjoy the various spin offs and movies on their own. I get tripped up every now and then, though, and get irritated for not following correctly from established Star Trek lore.
Star Trek Discovery has not been received well by a lot of people, including the closest trekkies in my life. I see their point. I don't enjoy it as much as previous spin offs but I still enjoy it. Actually, I enjoy it more than Picard which tends to bore me.
Aside from the wokeness that my friends complain about, my issue with Discovery has been this thread of depression that weaves through it. The stakes are so dire and the emotions are laid on thick.
For a season of Star Trek Discovery, they brought back the Enterprise NCC-1701 and its captain, Christopher Pike. TOS characters Number One and Spock were also featured. I thought that it would be an excellent idea to do a series with them. Forget the "prequels" of Star Trek Enterprise and Star Trek Discovery. That was the prequel I wanted to see. Apparently, I wasn't the only one to think so. To my immense delight, in May 2020, I learned that this series would go into development.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds, I hope, will bring back some of the old charm and optimism that I felt with The Original Series and the Next Generation. We're looking good from what I've seen!
Erin and I are friends that used to live together back when we were juniors in college. We got an apartment together. She got me watching one of her favorite shows: Gilmore Girls. At first I resisted but it grew on me and became one of my favorite shows. I'm nowhere near as much a fan as Erin was but when she told me that she was having a viewing party for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, I took her up on it.
If you haven't seen the show just stop now.
As you might have guessed, I was the only guy there but whatever. For over six hours we watched the four new episodes and when the fourth one was starting, I had some pretty irritated women on my hands. First of all everyone was #TeamJess and was upset that she was spending so much time with Logan. Personally, I was on #TeamWookie. Also, it looked like the show was heading for a split between Luke and Lorelai. Aaaaannndddd, where the hell was Sookie?!
The biggest shocker that everyone went on about was that at the very last moment of the show, Rory turns to Lorelai and reveals that she is pregnant. There were demands that this necessitated another season. To me it made a much better ending than what happened with the series. Quite frankly, I love that the Palladinos returned to produce these four episodes. And although there is a certain disturbing element to repeating the mistakes of your parents, there is a sort of parallel of sorts going on. She's about to go on a similar journey as her mother. Logan is her version of Christopher. Jess is her version of Luke. I don't know why, but while they are up in arms, I'm leaning back in my chair, satisfied.
The Opening Ceremony in Rio is currently playing on NBC. I am in bed not watching it. I had been earlier but the amount of commercials is ridiculous. I'm sure someone out there has the ratio of coverage to commercials. Just when you get settled into watching the ceremony, NBC puts in another set of commercials to watch. After a while, I said fuck it, I'll watch it some other time. I don't think I am missing much anyways. What I did see wasn't that impressive. I was FaceTiming with Dad at one point and he told me that it was because Rio is broke. They can't afford to be awesome. I am afraid that Beijing has set a bar that has yet to be met.
I've watched two episodes of CBS's new series The Briefcase. The show is about two families that receive a briefcase of $101,000. A sort of Prisoner's Dilemma is created. Each of the family is given the option of keeping all, some, or none of the money with the understanding that any money that they don't keep will go to the other needy family. The thing is that each family doesn't know that the other has been given the same opportunity.
Although I find the stories of theses families compelling, I can't shake this dirty feeling that comes over me while I watch. For the sake of our entertainment, families in need are put into the position where they need to make heart-wrenching decisions that can cause strife in their own families. What does one do when one spouse wants to give all the money aways while the other insists that the best thing to do is put their own needs ahead of others and keep the money?
I told my movie buddy, Kraig, that I wasn't keen on watching G.I. Joe: Retaliation. The move franchise hasn't captured my attention like the cartoon used to do. The same is true about the Transformers series as well. However, I told Kraig that I would go see it with him if he wanted and so we did. As I thought, it was largely a boring movie to me.
There was one thing that I want to comment about and that is the character of Flint. When I was a kid watching the cartoon, I had this strange feeling for Flint that I did not have for any of the other Joes. I couldn't tell you why, I just did. Only later did I realize that, yes, I do get crushes on fictional characters--two-dimensional, cartoon characters. Yeah, don't laugh.
Flint was missing from the other two movies, although Dennis Quaid came close to looking like him as far as I was concerned even though his character was Gen. Hawk. Flint made his appearance in this movie and whoa boy did I get that strange feeling again. Only this time, I don't feel so ridiculous about it.
Have you ever thought that some record company decides to resurrect some once-popular song? Like some sort of conspiracy to squeeze some more money out of an audience that loves nostalgia I swear sometimes, I'll be listening to a radio and song from the 90s will start playing. It will have been a long time since I've heard it and it'll be a wonder why they've put it into the day's playlist. Then something weird happens--the song starts cropping up elsewhere. You'll hear it again on the radio, then on a different station. Then you'll here it a commercial or this week--an episode of Glee.
So here is Natalie Imbruglia's Torn. Haven't heard it since high school/early college. Now I've heard and seen it quite a few times in a number of places.
I got news on the 13th that a number of televisions shows had been axed. Three of them are shows that I am sorry to see go. Scratch that. I’m upset.
I am really upset that V was cancelled, the last episode left everything pretty damn bleak. The two of the main characters ended up dead and the humans were falling under the control of Visitors. It’s not really a surprise that V was cancelled. It was a high cost show with mediocre ratings. Honestly, though, I think that it is the network, ABC, contributed to this program’s problems. The seasons were short, spaced too far apart, and scheduled broadcast times were shifted. All of those things do not help keep an audience, much less build one.
Brothers & Sisters were another casualty of ABC’s axe. It was a bit of a surprise because I had already read an article that said that ABC was renewing it for a final season. This final season would have the episode count slashed as well as the story time regarding the character of Kitty Walker. I have had declining interest in this show and even vowed to quit watching it early in the season when one of my beloved characters left the show. Still, I kept with it and in a way, I can accept the season series finale as good farewell to the show.
Sill, screw you ABC. I’m still mad about Eli Stone.
NBC decided that it didn’t want Outsourced around anymore. I know that there were a number of people that did not find this show funny. Some actually said it was racist. Personally, I found it funny even though I could tell that it was trying to find its footing. My only criticism over the season was when the Indian love interest of the main character seemed to be sidelined. I have a suspicion, though, that had Outsourced been renewed, we would have been seeing a lot more of her.
I'm an 80's child and I like my 80's stuff. One of my shirts has a big G.I. Joe logo on it and I wear it to work sometimes. I get thumbs up by my fellow coworkers who grew up watching the show but there is this one guy--Tyler... well let's just say that we sit on opposite ends of almost everything.
"Oh look. G.I. Joe. Nothing like a jingoistic TV--"
"--Shut up, you snake loving commie."
It's a good thing that the people who overhear that and worse, know that we really don't hate each other.
I just had put away my summer shorts. Now it’s warm and again and I’ve got to drag them back out. Believe me, that’s not a complaint!
As I put the shorts away, I went shopping for some thermal underwear. There harder to find than I thought. Meijer didn’t have any. (They don’t have much of anything for men.) Then I tried the tractor and supply store and they had plenty of thermal outerwear but not what I was looking for. I checked out Dick’s and they did have some—for $30 a piece. No way. Even though the Wal-mart website said that my local store didn’t carry them, it turns out it does for $6 a piece.
…Yeah, you’re not gonna see a picture of that.
Since I mentioned Walmart, I have just recently found out the term for a group of people that I look down upon: University of Michigan fans that have no connection whatsoever to the school. They’re called Walmart Wolverines. Check this out:
h/t to Forgazi for putting up (and creating?) this video.
That was a parody for the Pure Michigan ads that have been running for the past few years. If I remember right, there was an article that came out that said the money spent on these ads have been a good investment. That is, if you can say the tourism money that came to this state really is because of ads? Who really knows how much of it was would have ended up here anyways. But in any event, I do like the campaign.
Only days away to the elections and the races are tightening and the ads are maddening. I’ve got Jackie Walorski ads popping up not only on the TV and radio but also on facebook and YouTube. Ugh. I don’t even live in the district she’s running for. It's not just her, but I'm gonna be glad when the campaign season ends.
The season premiers start this week. I’m not planning on picking up any new shows. Actually… now that I think about, I haven’t seen many ads about the new shows. Hmmm.
Partly because I can no longer watch ABC over the air, but mostly because I’m not liking the direction of the shows… I am ditching Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters. Although I will probably stick with Brothers & Sisters for a while until Emily VanCamp leaves the show.
Since the changeover to digital, the number of effective channels that I have been able receive has went down from eleven channels* to three**. So I haven’t been too thrilled about it. When I moved to the new place, I decided that I wasn’t going to continue with satellite or get cable. That was too much money to spend per month. Besides, most of the television shows that I was watching were available to stream on the internet. As long as I had high speed internet I’d be fine. Unfortunately the summer is the dry season of worthwhile television shows so I have signed up for… Netflix.
To my surprise, I actually like this service. For nine bucks a month, it’s practically a steal. The cheapest rentals around here are $1 so I figure that if I watch at least nine movies a month, I’d be making it worthwhile. And I’m probably four or five months ahead at this point.
With Netflix, it’s been a trip into my past as I have been able to dredge up some almost-forgotten films and even television shows. Anyone remember that Around the World in 80 Days mini-series with Peirce Brosnan? Was anyone else upset when Earth 2 was canceled and now wishes to see those precious few episodes that aired? My last few movies that I watched were adapted from some of my favorite books that I read as a kid: A Wrinkle in Time and Where the Red Fern Grows. A Winkle it Time was pretty bad but the Red Fern, I liked.
If you like movies but don’t want to spend all that money on a DVD that you’ll probably only watch a few times, I think that Netflix would work well. I’m pretty sure my dad and sister would probably appreciate all the anime crap that is on there. :P
I got a lot to cover but I’m going to try to keep it to short bites.
I’ve been stressing out over work. Someone quit and I have been picking up some of the slack which involves me doing additional work. Not that I want to pat myself on the shoulder but I already sit on my ass and read, type, and think all day. This is stuff that I can see and manipulate. However, add in some more analytical stuff in order to locate missing things and I want to go bonkers. I come home and all I can do is veg out even though I should be studying or forging ahead with my job search.
I haven’t seen my friend Erin in months so we got together over the weekend. My intention was to find a new Chinese takeaway place since the one that I liked came under new management and their food is horrible. We weren’t terribly successful but we did find a sit-down and dine restaurant. You know, the kind that existed before buffets. They had excellent dishes but their prices were very high. So the search continues.
I’ve been following the news about the Greece fiasco. Some of the right pundits here point to that country and say that will be the US in a couple of years. While I do not argue that America is creating a mountain of debt by digging a hole to China, Greece and America are not exactly the best subjects to compare. After all, we can always manipulate our money such as devaluing it. Greece can’t since it uses the euro.
Normally, I’m the kinda guy that likes to see big time companies fall but I have to say, I feel bad for Toyota. While I think that they need to pay up and make these car owners whole and safe, I think that there are people who want to take this company down and bleed it for all it’s worth. I don’t think that it deserves that. I’m still willing to buy a Toyota.
East coast babies are still complaining about the winter snow and weather. Gimme a break.
I’m pretty much done with the Olympics. I did enjoy watching curling. Imagine that. BTW, what is it with the Scots inventing the most expensive sports possible—gold and curling? Will be watching the hockey game coming up.
I don’t want to get my hopes up but I’m looking at a position that may be opening up at a courthouse around these parts.
I was curious to see how Vancouver would follow up the spectacular opening ceremonies that Beijing put on. I couldn’t even imagine that they would even try. There was no way that Canada could put up that kind of money and manpower. From what was reported, Vancouver’s opening ceremony cost was one tenth the size of Beijing. For the amount they spent, it had the potential to be just as great as Beijing’s.
The ceremony started out great. Vancouver used an array of projectors that along with three dimensional objects created some stunning visuals. The stories that these visuals were trying to capture seemed interesting and relevant. They had a strong start but the presentation started to peter out. When they got to section covering the prairie provinces using Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now, I was bored—almost to sleep. Really, though, that wasn’t the big problem.
The most painful and awkward moment was during the lighting of the stadium cauldron. The plan was to have four pillars come out from the stadium floor. They would then tilt until they touched together around a central main column. Four torch bearers would then light the four columns simultaneously which would then cause the central and main cauldron to ignite. Unfortunately one of the columns failed. After a few minutes, I guess they decided to go ahead with their three functioning ones.
Some other things:
Unlike the summer Olympics, the parade of nations comes at the beginning. Personally, I think that this is a better idea. If I was an athlete, I’d want to be in the stadium watching the show rather than milling around in a parking lot somewhere.
The Queen of Canada didn’t make herself available to open the games, leaving it to her Governor General, Michaelle Jean. I know Queen Elizabeth II will probably do so for the London games, but c’mon, I think that’s a royal snub for a realm she rarely visits in the first place.
The ceremonies also called attention to Georgian competitor, Nodar Kumaritashvili who died earlier in the day on a luge training run.
I haven’t heard any music from Sarah McLachlan since the 90s. It was nice to hear her perform once again.
Earlier this year, I saw that there was a popular ringtone download. It was Filipino so I clicked on it and it sounded like a cute kid song. I liked it enough to download it for my phone but I had no idea what the song was about since I don't understand the language that well. I did manage to find where the sound clip came from and it was from this commercial:
Cute huh? After getting over the cute though, I couldn't help wonder how the average Filipino would view this commercial. I'm sorry but I have never ever set foot inside a home or a neighborhood that was even remotely like this in the Philippines. In my mind, this is a fantasy land that is only real for the uber-rich. So I have to wonder, is there a burgeoning upper-middle class going on in the country and that his commercial is making an appeal to them. If so, awesome, but I just didn't see it when I was there.
I have picked up three shows this fall: The Cleveland Show, V, and Stargate Universe but I’m only going to focus on the last two. V and SGU are going on mid-season hiatus and I’m sad to see them go so soon after getting into them.
Stargate Universe started off frustratingly slow and I was about ready to give up on it until a few weeks ago when the episode, “Earth” aired. That episode held the door open for me until the next one, “Time” came up and sat me back down. While I still have some worries about this series, I do think that it is becoming more enjoyable. I look forward to seeing more character growth because, quite honestly, Eli Wallace (David Blue), is the only one that I have taken a liking to.
V has had me in its reptilian grip ever since the pilot. It’s a remake on the original mini-series but I find this one to be so much better. They’ve simplified the story a bit, especially in terms of the casting. The original, I found, was harder to follow (but then, I was really young when that one came out). Kudos to Morena Baccarin who plays the head Visitor, Anna. Her way of delivering an icy nice personality is superb and really creeps me out. I think that kind of infiltration was missed in the original series where everything is great but there’s just something that doesn’t quite add up.
SGU will be going on its break after next week’s episode. You can catch up with it on hulu. I’m not sure when it will be back up exactly. I heard the second quarter of 2010, so I’m thinking April-Mayish on Sci-fy. V has already aired its last episode and will return in March after the Winter Olympics. You can watch past episodes on ABC.com.
A while ago Verizon came out with an ad campaign highlighting its 3G Coverage in comparison to AT&T. Watch this ad:
AT&T was PO'd big time and slapped a lawsuit claiming that the ads were deceptive in that they were leading viewers to conclude that AT&T doesn't offer coverage in the non-shaded areas. Apparently Verizon's coverage is so vast that people think that the shaded areas in both maps for Big V and Ma Bell was for cellular coverage period. Oh no, AT&T doesn't dispute the fact that these maps are accurate... just that Verizon's labeling of 3G is not sufficient notice for all the idiots out there who are watching the ad.
AT&T's request for an injunction has been denied but the lawsuit is till going forward. In the meantime, AT&T is hitting back with an ad of their own:
Oh, Luke, what happened to you?
So let's go with why I'm not with AT&T:
Nation's fastest 3G network. Oh that wold be nice if I lived in a 3G area in the first place. But even if I did live in such coverage, AT&T's network is still widely derided as pretty shit. I've seen vloggers from the San Francisco Bay Area just bitching up a storm on how crappy their service is.
Talk and surf at the same time. Hmmm... would be nice except I'm not that talented. Realistically, I'm doing one or the other.
Most popular smartphones. True. But what good is a smartphone when you don't have the network to back it up? Where I work, it'd be fancy brick. Where I live, I might get it to work if I cooed to it first.
Access to over 100,000 apps. Put an asterisk on that baby because the only way someone with AT&T is going to get that is with in iPhone.
Folks, I'm not saying that AT&T is total crap. It just is around here and I'm sure there are plenty of places in the country where Verizon is crap and AT&T is the king of all voice and data. If you are going to choose a network provider, don't choose one because of the bells and whistles with their phones, networks, and plans. Do your homework and choose one that best suits your needs.
