You'd think there'd be enough crappy shows on TV that they wouldn't have to schedule the Earl/Office block opposite The OC, but you'd be wrong. I don't understand the move by FOX at all, even though you could make a case the impending Survivor and newly debuted Dancing With The Stars (poor Kenny Mayne) have a higher buzz rating than CSI at 9, but in terms of sheer numbers, there's no worse opponent for either FOX's primetime soap or NBC's Lee/Carrell powerhouse to be going against.
We'll all just have to adjust to our OC Thursdays an hour later, much like I'm about to have to adjust to moving back into the Bend. While boredom is spreading across a lot of the NDers still at home, I'm holding out well. Maybe it's my great ability to just sleep or surf the net for hours without feeling guilty, but I'm also moderately productive. There's the 200-some miles of biking I've done, the resumes filled out, the random stops at the post office to buy and then send out large envelopes. I keep myself busy, all while avoiding the temptation of buying useless goods online or at the various malls I frequent, with no stream of income to keep the bank account where I like it.
Sadly, I can't resist all temptation. Last night Dad and I were down at the Mills to see Munich (more on this later), and afterwards, on my way to Borders, I randomly stopped and bought a suit. It was on sale, you got a free shirt and tie with it - how was I to resist? I'd spent all of my willpower resisting the urge to buy Las Vegas Seasons One and Two off of Amazon that I had nothing left when fine threads were flashed in front of me. Suits and sunglasses, my two weaknesses. I should just be thankful there's no suit/dress shirt/tie/Oakleys combo offered anywhere, or my summer paycheck would be gone every other Friday without question.
Enough of my weakness. Onward and upward...
(Prugh pointed out the blog has been pretty football heavy lately, and for those of you who aren't exactly pigskin fans, I apologize, but you'll have to deal, as this is a rough time. The college season ending, the NFL playoffs just beginning and all the fun of the draft sprinkled in. This post will be mainly pigskin free, but if you don't think I'm taking a couple of shots at the Steelers after dealing with "Carson wouldn't have made a difference, we're the freakin' best!" all week, you are crazy.)
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Love this article on TV becoming better than movies. Taking in all the media I've taken in during the last year or so, I'd lean towards the TV side of the argument.
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Like I said, Dad and I saw Munich last night, and before I address the actual movie, I want to touch on the trailers and their crescendo of awkwardness and confusion.
First off, let's just say there's out-of-place, there's uncomfortable and then there's the "Pulling the shirt-collar, bail, Bail, BAIL" awkwardness of watching the Brokeback Mountain trailer unfold in front of you with your Dad.
I have no problem with the movie, it's views or anything like that, but it's not one I actually want to see. It's about gay cowboys, and that doesn't really fall into my wheelhouse of interests. But sadly, they went and made the damn thing so well, it's all award-winning now, and in order to be properly researched for Oscar predictions, I probably need to watch it. Granted, you're right, I could just send Sean and wipe my hands of it, but that's not proper research. Ah, to be a film aficionado the steps one must take.
But things just kept getting worse from there. A little while on was Mel Gibson's newest dandy, Apocalypto, a Mayan tale of the end of the world...and some jungles....and apparently devoid of any English. Somebody needs to tell Mel that unless he's portraying the death of the most influential figure of the last two millenia - much like Trey Parker and Matt Stone do so eloquently in "Red Sleigh Down" - people are probably going to want some English. It's going to be a rough wake-up call for him.
(And no, I still haven't seen The Passion, and nor will I, unless Vanessa requests it as a date movie or sometihng.)
Sadly, the worst was yet to come, in the form of Flight 93, or the cinema's way of making the question "Too soon?" a hundred percent rhetorical. I'm sure a lot of you were wondering when that first cringe-worthy, fictionalized account of September 11th would happen, and here it is. I'm pretty sure there wasn't anyone in the theater not expressing some form of "What the...." when they started reciting the dialogue from the actual phone calls home from the victims/heroes of the third plane to go down on 9/11.
Oh Hollywood, you never cease to amaze me.
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Stolen from the lovely Miss Christina Ginardi's away message, the New York Times article on Facebook. You're probably thinking "Wow, that's probably the oddest online phenomenom a big-time newspaper has written about in a long while", and you would be wrong. I submit to you The Washington Freakin' Post's story that features lines from the Random Chuck Norris Fact Generator every few paragraphs.
(You're going to need to sign up for both of those papers, I think, but you're all big kids. It wouldn't kill you to have accounts at a couple of the major papers.)
(And yes, I got my Post account years ago to read the Kornheiser and Wilbon archvies. Let's not judge, yeah?)
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It's not every day that one of my Beer Pong partners has a write-up on him in the newspaper, so here's the link to Big John's story from the Arizona Star. The beginning is inaccurate, because after the first seven push-ups, we all immediately gave up on attempting to lift him any more.
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rant
Has anybody else been watching this season of The Challenge, not nearly taking the place of Laguna Beach on MTV's Monday night Tenspot? It's terrible this year, as the guy challenges, after the first episode, have all been blow-outs, and the girls simply don't challenge. After Cameran gave up on last season's show, who thought she'd change this year? Is she that hot? (Rhetorical question, sorry) And why must there always be a random blow-up? It's like if they go 25 minutes without a fight, the producers bust out a cattle prod or activate a chip in the brain that makes somebody go crazy randomly. And how about some real challenges, as opposed to all of these sexually-charged "rubbin' up all on each other" contests?
/rant.
I miss the good ol' days of The Battle of the Sexes, but I just need to realize they aren't coming back. Speaking of MTV shows, Dill has informed me My Own is the scariest thing they've put on in a while, so I'll have to check out that, and I saw the worst Made ever, wear the skinny kid wanted to play football, only he kept giving up and eventually ended up running cross country at a prep school. Whose ready for The Hills, or the 25-year old body builders trying to pass themselves off as high-schoolers on Season Three of Laguna?
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Following in the line of Nano and the Slider as items I take out on the weekends that somehow magically make it back, here's my new baby:
Ain't she a beaut? 5.1 megapixels, 3x internal optical zoom. Still need to install the software on the laptop, but we're getting there.
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Just incase you thought I was the only person questioning Vince Young's arm motion in the NFL, Deadspin took it a step further with video. Accurate as the frisbee, I think.
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As far as Munich went, I'm not sure what to think. I don't know what I was expecting going in - I honestly couldn't tell you - but what we got was not what either my dad or I was expecting. It's obviously really well done, with Spielberg in charge and a John Williams score, and is apparently pretty accurate, but they didn't know where to end it. Hell, where do you end a movie that focuses on an issue that's still going on three decades later? Intense, long (though not as long as Kong) and gritty, I still don't know what to think.
However, I do know that Eric Bana should be getting some mad Oscar cred for his work, going from husband/expecting father, to newly-turned, still-have-a-conscious hitman, to cold-blooded killer, to family man whose falling apart in the world he's found himself slipping into. But after this, and movies like Troy and The Hulk, Eric Bana should just get to make a movie where he hangs out on a beach and doesn't have to be sad or turn green or do anything intense. Make him the new guy on Ocean's Thirteen.
(Also in the movie, the new James Bond, Daniel Craig, who I still think will be fine as 007. However, I can't think about Casino Royale without imagining how awesome Angelina Jolie would be in a Barbara Bach sort of way, being just as dangerous as Bond. Her pregnancy would obviously hurt her chances now, but if they had gotten on the ball earlier, this wouldn't be an issue. At least get Charlize Theron and not Jessica Simpson. I beg of you.)
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Joey Porter, wrongly chosen for the Pro Bowl on his celebrations, probably needs to be quiet. I don't even understand what his new comments mean when you consider this same Colts team completely out-physicaled the Steelers in their Monday Night game. Football is a thinking man's game, Joey, at least when your coach isn't completely and totally incompetent in the playoffs, like yours is. I kind of understand what he means about them not just lining up and running a play, but there's no rule that says you have to do that, and a lot of teams in the NFL run no-huddle offenses to keep their opponents off guard, change the pace and limit substitutions. Just because your coach is generally out-adjusted at half time doesn't mean you should call for all teams to stop making changes through the course of the game.
Besides, I'm not sure if Joey notices this or not, but his own team runs more trick plays than anybody else in the league. If that's not misdirection and "tricking", I don't know what is. The lesson as always? The Steelers, and anyone associated with them or cheering for them, are a little slower than most people. Despite Joey's claim that the Colts are a bunch of sissies, apparently, Big Ben is still pretty sure the Steelers are going to lose, barring some sort of collapse.
Good thing it's the playoffs and they're playing a Manning who hasn't played a meaningful snap since the weekend I got home from break. My prediction? Not sure yet, as a lot depends on the Colts level of rust, although I'm sure the Supahs can play with them. My wish?
The RCA Dome is struck by a meteor, around, let's say 1:30 Sunday.
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Old Lindsay Lohan.
New Lindsay Lohan.
~sigh~
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Finally, I leave you with a scathing rant on the "Lazy Sunday" video, which contests that the video has been over-saturated into the culture and that it's racist.
On the first issue, I can't really argue with it, but that's the nature of the beast in all things pop culture. Wedding Crashers, Dane Cook, Mitch Hedberg, Arrested, they're all extremely funny, but while the first two have become so dispersed through culture that they're everywhere, the latter two have remained "underground" enough that you can bust out a random Hedberg or Gob line and not have everyone at the party immediately follow suit.
(If you want to point out that the cause of this "underground"-ness is the fact Mitch Hedberg is dead and Arrested is about to be cancelled, then I'd tip my hat to you.)
Just like songs and commercials being overplayed, there's always the risk of something you really enjoy everyone really enjoying more, to the point they kill it. As far as the racism issue goes, I don't think it's making fun of black people as much as it is the rap industry, which while being predominantly black has had one it's greatest influences of the last decade be a skinny white guy.
I read somewhere, and really agree with this take, that "Lazy Sunday" is more making fun of how serious rap is with everything then anything else. Instead of emphasizing guns, drugs or hoes, Parn and Sandberg are stressing the importance of online map services and baked goods. It's funny just because it is so random and because of the accompanying graphic and facial expressions made throughout the video. If one, or both, of the rappers were black, it would still be funny. Imagine, instead of Adam Sandberg, Tracy Morgan. That's still funny.
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Anyway, enjoy Earl and The OC tonight, and to all you NDers, I look forward to seeing you Sunday, or Monday, whenever you get in. Sorry it took so long between posts, but I've been sorta busy. Really. Honestly....
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