1:24 Porsche Carrera S (997)

Last 2 weeks, I purchased a bottle of Mobil 1 engine oil for my Boxster S and was surprised to find out that it comes with a free Porsche model. I was told that with any purchase of any Mobil 1 engine oil products customer is entitled for a free 1:24 Porsche Carrera S model! If I am not mistaken, there are two type of models available for the campaign. One is the Carrera S and the other is Boxster S.



Mobil 1 5W-50 Fully synthetic engine oil recommended by Porsche


Here is the freebie! Porsche 911 (997)


Product by Welly, I do not expect much as they manufactured low end car model for the mass market


There is just one problem with the model, the molding line are visible both on the side panel and rear panel of the cars


Apart from that, everything else is not too shabby for a 1:24 die-cast model


I shouldn't complaint much as it is hard to grab 1:24 Porsche 911 (997) die-casts or model kit. Unless you go for the original model from Porsche Catalogue


Size comparison with my newly acquired 1:18 Guard Red Porsche GT3


Will post the 1:18 Porsche GT3 very soon....

American Idol: Top 10 results

Quick "American Idol" results spoilers coming up just as soon as I point out that, again, an overly-padded show wound up running past 10 o'clock, which means anyone who DVR'ed won't know if the judges bothered to use their stupid Save...

So, Katie Stevens, Tim Urban and Did Benami were the bottom three, Katie was sent to safety first, and the voters sent Didi home. She did a very strong reprise of her "Rhiannon" from the semi-finals, but the judges sure weren't going to use the Save on someone who's just been kind of hanging on since the semi-finals began.

I liked Didi a lot in Hollywood, and while she wasn't the best of this season's doll-voiced singers (that would be Lilly), she was still distinctive enough that I'd have liked to see her go longer - and certainly longer than the likes of Tim.

Meanwhile, for all of the talk that this would be a season for the ladies, we've had women eliminated every single week of the finals. We haven't had an all-female final 2 since Fantasia and Diana in season 3, and we haven't had a woman in the finale at all since Jordin Sparks won it three seasons ago. Is that just a fluke, or a sign that the "Idol" audience is trending towards people who will throw more support behind the guys, all things being equal? And if the latter, I'd say the odds of a Crystal/Siobhan finale (which weren't that great to begin with, given Siobhan's polarizing nature and recent struggles) just got lower.

What did everybody else think? And how was the results show (which I didn't put on for good until Diddy turned up) overall?

Locker Rooms in TV

Cristian Sancho´s scene in "Botineras" TV serie

Soccer Player´s gay kiss

Caught in Showers

Firewall & Iceberg podcast, episode 10: Treme, Miami Medical and the V countdown clock

Another installment of the Firewall & Iceberg podcast is up, with Dan and I jumping the gun on "Treme" due to the likelihood of me being off next week (and also because it gave me the chance to tell one David Mills story that I left out of the earlier post). So stream, download, listen, etc. (the NJ.com link has all the relevant details, including the rundown)

In the mailbox

When the little neighbor kids came over, I got out the crayons and paper, so that they could draw at the table while I cleaned the kitchen. I can’t write or grade papers amidst their noisy chatter, but I’m very used to doing housework with small kids around. Our bulletin board is filled with pictures they’ve drawn.

“I’m drawing you a picture,” Little Biker Boy announced. “But you can’t see it yet.” He stapled two pieces of paper together so that it looked like an envelope and put the drawing inside. “I’m going to send you this in the mail.”

He’d never sent anything in the mail before. So I showed him how to write my name and address on the outside. His big printed letters took up the whole page. We got a stamp from my desk drawer. Ponytail, who was watching with interest, begged for a stamp to stick on her arm.

Our plan was to walk into town and mail the envelope from a post office box. But when we got to the end of the driveway, Ponytail wanted to go the other way, down to the traintracks for our walk.

“But I have to mail my picture!” Little Biker Boy wailed. "It's your present!" He was still clutching the envelope.

“That’s okay, you can mail it from the mailbox,” I told him, “And you can put up the little red flag as a signal.” Our mailbox lists sideways, the usual after-effect of being swiped by a snowplow, but the little red flag still works.

A few days later, when my husband brought in the mail, he handed me the envelope. “You’re getting mail from Little Biker Boy? Where did he mail it from?”

“From here,” I said, “He put it in our mailbox.”

Boy in Black looked up from his computer and grinned. “He put it in the mailbox here so that it could go the post office, and then get brought back here to the same mailbox? That's efficient.”

Gary Vaynerchuk: Do what you love (no excuses!) | Video on TED.com

Have a listen to this...passion and energy by the bucketful


Gary Vaynerchuk: Do what you love (no excuses!) Video on TED.com

David Mills, RIP

David Mills died last night. He was an Emmy-winning writer and producer who'd worked on shows like "NYPD Blue," "Homicide," "The Corner" and his own "Kingpin," and who was helping to run the writing staff of HBO's "Treme," which debuts in a week and a half. He was also a kick-ass blogger who ran the very entertaining Undercover Black Man blog.

He was also my friend, about whom I'll have much more to say after the jump.

Mills was, in fact, the very first friend I made in the TV business, and one of the few for whom I wouldn't have to put quote marks around the word. When I was in college running my "NYPD Blue" website, he was an up-and-coming writer on staff at that show, and he e-mailed me to tell me how much he liked the site and appreciated my work. I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into when he reached out like that, because I became an incredible pest to him over the next few weeks and months, asking him for inside dope on how the sausage got made, about his journalism career(*), about what it was like to work in television, why Sipowicz said such-and-such in this episode, etc., etc., etc. David was always patient and generous with his time, and through him I developed my earliest understanding of all the real-life factors that can affect the scripted narratives I was obsessed with.

(*) Mills was, like college classmate and "Treme" co-creator David Simon, a former newspaperman, having written for the Washington Post and Washington Times. His most famous moment as a reporter came in an interview with rapper Sister Souljah, in which she infamously said (as part of longer and much more involved discussion about the Rodney King riots), "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?".

When I got my job with The Star-Ledger a few weeks after graduating, and found myself going to my first TV critics press tour in LA a few weeks after that, David invited me down to the Fox lot to meet him, and he set up interviews with both Steven Bochco and David Milch, which was a big deal for me as both a novice TV critic and devout "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue" fan. (Milch actually wound up taking Mills and me to the racetrack with him, with much of the "interview" taking place in the car. The tape is unfortunately lost to history, which is just as well, since Milch was in particularly esoteric form that day.)

From that day on, it became a ritual that Mills and I would go out for a bite (albeit not at the track) whenever I was out in LA, or on the rare occasions when he was on this coast. (I remember we once trekked 20 blocks through a New York snowstorm because I wanted to introduce him to the 2nd Avenue Deli; the picture above is us on a quest to find somewhere good to eat on Rodeo Drive, just cuz.) He was, as he had been from the start, always very helpful if I had a technical question, and very encouraging of my career.

Mills was tenacious, and he knew what he wanted. After Simon helped him break into the business by inviting him to co-write the script for "Bop Gun," a season 2 "Homicide" episode with Robin Williams that remains one of that great show's best episodes, Mills bounced around a few other jobs (including a brief "Picket Fences" stint where he and the other staffers sat around while David E. Kelley wrote everything), then read a newspaper account of a speech Milch gave about the lack of African-American TV writers. Mills was so irked by Milch's comments that he wrote him a letter objecting to much of the content of the speech and its assumptions about black writers. Milch was impressed enough that he commissioned Mills to write an episode for late in season two, then hired him for a staff job in season three.

Though Milch tended to heavily rewrite the scripts of his staffers, a Mills "NYPD" script always stood out to me as being uniquely his even after Milch had taken a pass or three. As the only writer of color on the show, he tended to deal with race more: in one episode, Sipowicz got in trouble for using the N-word in front of a black community leader, while another had Lt. Fancy seeking revenge on a bigoted patrol cop who humiliated him during a traffic stop. But it wasn't just the subject of race that made him stand out. Because he had been a newspaper writer with a good set of eyes and ears, his scripts tended to be richer in detail than the ones from many of his colleagues. There was more of a sense that the characters were people, and not just servants to a plot, whether they were supporting characters or minor guest stars.

After "NYPD Blue," he spent some time on "ER," where he created the character of Rocket Romano (and left before later writers turned him into a two-dimensional clown, then cut his arm off, then dropped a helicopter on him). He won a couple of deserved Emmys for collaborating with Simon on the moving HBO miniseries "The Corner," then spent a long time developing his own shows for different broadcast networks.

Only one ever made it to air: "Kingpin," a kind of Mexican spin on "The Godfather" with Yancey Arias as the head of a drug cartel. (Mills talked about the show, and embedded a few video clips, here, here and here.) Though Mills would later write for "The Wire," "Kingpin" was a very different kind of drug war story, more pulpy by design. I loved it, but felt a bit too close to the creator by that point to review it, and asked Matt Seitz to write that column: Matt called it "fiendishly entertaining" and said, "the series is a triumph for Mills, who has always been respected for his intelligence, but rarely for his showmanship. 'Kingpin' has both qualities in abundance."

NBC didn't order a second season of "Kingpin," giving its token low-rated critical darling renewal slot to "Boomtown" (which they then canceled after two episodes), and none of Mills' other pilot scripts went very far. (Here's an excerpt from "Mayor of Baltimore," a script he wrote for CBS.) He started up the blog(**) in part because he wanted a creative outlet during those years when he wasn't otherwise writing very much. The scope was pretty varied, from archival interviews from his reporting career, to long conversations with people like Simon, to streams of whatever music Mills was listening to (David was a devout funk fan, and tried and failed on several occasions to educate me on the genius of George Clinton), to funny but cutting racial commentary like his periodic Misidentified Black Person of the Week posts and one of his favorites, Attack of the Giant Negroes!!.

(**) The name came from a handle Mills used to use in one of his favorite pasttimes: posting on the message boards of white supremacy websites to see if anyone could give him a coherent argument justifying their racism. He told me he wanted to call himself "Undercover Negro," but the name would get rejected, because many of those sites have filters to prevent people from using racial epithets, because they feel it puts the wrong face on the movement.

Mills was incredibly proud of "Treme." He'd written for "The Wire" in its later seasons, but here he got to be part of a show being built from the ground up, got to spend a lot of time in New Orleans (this post has perhaps my favorite Mills photo ever), and was as excited about it as I'd heard him since "Kingpin" was about to debut.

I was pretty excited myself about the April 11 premiere of "Treme," not only because I think it's a terrific show, but because it would give me an excuse to be in more regular contact with Mills after we hadn't talked much in a while, due to the usual distractions that come with any adult life.

Last week, I e-mailed him to say I'd seen the first three episodes (including the third episode, which he wrote), and said that I really liked them.

"I'm relieved to hear that, Alan," he wrote back. Mills chose his words carefully, and his use of "relieved" made me smile; even though we hadn't seen each other in a couple of years (he was always out of town when I was in LA), he was reassuring me that my opinion, and our friendship, still mattered to him.

That was the last of many, many e-mails I would ever get from him.

Mills was in his 40s, too damn young to die, and it feels a particularly cruel twist of fate that it would happen so close to the premiere of a project he cared so much about.

Goodbye, David. And thanks.

American Idol, Top 10: R&B/Soul Night

Due to the Passover holiday, as well as my own disenchantment with this season, I took the no-frills approach to watching "American Idol" this morning: just the 10 songs (plus the judges' comments on Andrew and Crystal, because I was busy doing something else for a moment during each). Quick thoughts on how things went just as soon as I point out that the bumblers producing and directing this show somehow ran a minute or two long even though they had 10 performances to sprinkle over two hours...

After mentioning in the column linked to above that Crystal and Siobhan were the only real reasons to watch, Siobhan turned in a complete stinker, while a couple of other contestants stepped up. Still not a great night overall, though.

Siobhan Magnus, "Through the Fire": Starts off bland, then turns disastrous quickly. If some of her previous performances were about showing off the power of her upper register, the message here was "with great power comes great responsibility to find the damn key and stay on it." Terrible.

Casey James, "Hold On (I'm Coming"): Once again, Casey James being Casey James (and sounding oddly more like Huey Lewis than on last week's "Power of Love"). He has his one thing, he does it pretty well, and he at least made an attempt to step away from the mic stand for a moment. Definitely his most energetic performance to date, but there's not a lot of variance to what he does.

Michael Lynche, "Ready for Love": The blinding white spotlights didn't really suit the vibe of this relaxed, intimate ballad, and the idea that he was performing behind the judges kept distracting me. (I know other performers have done parts of songs on that riser, but the whole thing?) Solid but unspectacular on a night you figured Big Mike would own.

Didi Benami, "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted": I've got a high standard for blonde women singing this song, which is Joan Osborne's incredible cover of it from "Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and Didi doesn't have the range, power or confidence to do something like that. Instead, it was her usual sultry thing, a bit sleepier than usual, and her attempt at a big note just seemed goofy - like it was something she felt she should try, but not something she was comfortable doing.

Tim Urban, "Sweet Love": I will confess I started fast-forwarding about halfway through this one, in part because I was creeped out by the stalker eyes, in part because it's yet another Tim Urban arrangement that strips away anything remotely challenging about the song so he can be sure to hit the notes. Zzzz....

Andrew Garcia, "Forever": Much, much better. Like Casey, Andrew's only got the one trick, but he's very good at it (and for some reason has attracted the judges' ire for sticking to it, while Casey gets a pass). Not only was he much more comfortable with the acoustic guitar again, but his voice again sounded crisp and clear, where he's had a lot of pitch issues the last few weeks.

Katie Stevens, "Chain of Fools": Speaking of high bars, this is Fantasia's song as far as "Idol" is concerned. (I wonder if the show should start retiring certain songs if a contestant does a definitive rendition of it, the way sports teams retire uniform numbers.) Katie's vocals were okay (if froggy as usual), but couldn't quite overcome the inherent goofiness of her trying to sing this song.

Lee Dewyze, "Treat Her Like a Lady": Lee has always had a good voice, but he's hit a lot of bum notes in past performances, and he wasn't particularly confident on stage the last couple of weeks. Tonight, though, he was strong vocally throughout, very energetic, very committed, and his voice was a great match for this Cornelius Brothers oldie-but-goodie. When I handicapped the Top 12, I said Lee was one of the few with a chance to win. If he can deliver a streak of performances like this one, he's got a definite shot.

Crystal Bowersox, "Midnight Train to Georgia": I appreciate the effort to not do the same thing every week - piano instead of guitar, high heels instead of Birkenstocks - and I suppose that's necessary to keep (some of) the judges and/or the audience from getting tired of her, but I'm with Simon: Crystal knows who she is and should do just fine sticking to that. This was one of the best of the night, but also probably my least favorite performance of Crystal's so far. The phrasing was great as always, but you could tell she was distracted by the piano-playing and then the move to stand up, and the falsetto wasn't that strong. A necessary gambit, but one I hope she doesn't try to repeat later on.

Aaron Kelly, "Ain't No Sunshine": Another snoozer, with Aaron, as usual, sounding strained in spots, passable in others.

Best of the night: I'd probably give it to Lee, followed by Crystal and then Andrew.

In trouble: Andrew could still be at risk, because you'll often see a singer who's been struggling but skating by finally get some compliments from the judges and then go home, because the fanbase gets complacent. My hope is that it's Tim (Fienberg suggested that Simon performed the famed reverse juju on him that he's used to eliminate the likes of Kevin Covais in seasons past), but I fear we're stuck with him and his stalker eyes for another week or two.

What did everybody else think?

The Terrible Old Man by H.P. Lovecraft

The Terrible Old Man

by H.P. Lovecraft

This very short story by Lovecraft feels almost like a Poe tale, only slightly more ambiguous. Three criminals--Angelo Ricci, Joe Czanek and Manuel Silva--intend to rob the New England home of the nameless Terrible Old Man (Maybe we should call him Tom). He's such a Terrible Old Man, in fact, that the locals pretty much avoid him at all costs, choosing instead to spread a barrage of rumors in hushed tones behind his back. One such rumor is overtly important to this tale, another perhaps less obviously so.

RUMOR THE FIRST: Tom is hiding a vast treasure somewhere within the confines of his old home.

RUMOR THE SECOND: Tom has a strange collection of bottles, each one containing a chunk of lead dangling from a string like a pendulum. And he holds conversations with these bottles, referring to each one by its own unique name: Scar-Face, Long Tom, Spanish Joe, etc. Not exactly the poster child for normalcy.

The criminals are, of course, more interested in Rumor the First, but as the casual and curious observor, we're naturally more drawn to Rumor the Second. Talking to bottles? What the hell is up with that?

I wish I could tell you. The criminals get their just desserts by story's end, and you get the vague idea that Tom's Amazing Bottles are somehow connected. It has a subtle supernatural feel to it, but it's only hinted at and never even remotely explained. Just a little more information would have made this story much better than it was.

Speaking of subtle, Lovecraft takes another racial jab at immigrants here--notice the surnames of the thieves: all three belonging to different racial backgrounds. Were they our heroes here (anti- or otherwise) this would be a symbol of racial harmony, but sadly this is not the case. And just to make sure that we got the point, Lovecraft makes mention of their "alien stock". Not quite as blatant as in his earlier story "The Street", but it's still there.

This story, short as it is, is notable in the Cthulu Mythos for being the first story to take place in Lovecraft's fictional town of Kingsport. The Terrible Old Man, Tom himself, even makes a return engagement in the later "The Strange High House in the Mist".

"The Terrible Old Man" was originally published in the July 1921 issue of The Tryout.

--J/Metro

Lost, "The Package": Ticking clock... BERSERKER!

A review of tonight's "Lost" - and a rant about the ABC gimmick that tried really damn hard to ruin it - coming up just as soon as my brain takes a little stroll...

"Some people just aren't meant to be together." -Keamy

Okay, we have lots of things to discuss about "The Package." First, though, allow me a paragraph or three to be pissed off. Really, really, really pissed off that ABC saw fit to clutter the bottom corner of the screen with a "V" logo and a ticking count-down clock to point people towards tonight's return of that show.

On-screen clutter has been one of the scourges of television over the past decade, as networks think nothing of putting annoying flashing billboards all over their shows, sometimes for other shows, sometimes to remind you of the name of the show you're already watching. I remember writing a column way back in 2001 bitching about how NBC interrupted an episode of, I think, "West Wing" in order to use a bug to promote a new show called "First Years." I wrote that I was so irritated that I hoped "First Years" would fail just to prove the gimmick wrong. "First Years" did fail, quickly, but clutter has only gotten worse. I manage to avoid a lot of it because I watch so many shows on screeners (had I been forced to watch "Men of a Certain Age" on TNT, rather than on DVDs, I likely would have felt much more harshly about that show, knowing how much TNT loves its clutter). I, like the TV executives who approve crap like this, don't always watch TV the way regular people do (which is no doubt why said executives don't think it's a bit deal to approve it), so I manage to avoid the worst of the worst. (Matt Groening once said that he imagines a good chunk of people who buy "Simpsons" DVDs are doing it so they can see the episodes without all the clutter Fox inserts into the broadcasts.)

But because I watch "Lost" live like the rest of you, there was no way to avoid it, and it was ridiculous: between the large red "V" logo, and the ticking clock, it was impossible to not notice it, virtually ever moment it was on screen (which was everywhere except right before or after a commercial break), and in at least one case the stupid clock obscured the note Sun was writing to Jack. Well-done, ABC. Really freaking well-done.

Again, I accept that I've lost the clutter fight, but there are some shows and moments that should be above this junk. As Mike Schneider wrote, "this is "Lost." The final season of "Lost." It's sacred ground. You don't clutter the screen during one of the show's final, pivotal episodes. Or you piss people off."

Count me in among the pissed, and the only thing keeping me from going full-on ballistic is the fact that "The Package" was middle-of-the-pack "Lost" - an episode that's necessary because it moves a lot of story points along but isn't that thrilling in and of itself. Had they pulled a stunt like this during "Ab Aeterno," a shoe might well have gone through my flatscreen.

After last week's extended Richard flashback, the sideways universe returns, and once again we find out that things are different but in many ways better for two of the characters who have declined to take Smokey's side. Alt-Jin and Alt-Sun aren't married, but she's still carrying his child, and their relationship is much warmer without the stress that Jin carried as Mr. Paik's son-in-law. Of course, Keamy does try to kill Jin on Paik's orders, and Sun winds up getting shot during the battle with Bakhunin(*), but until that point, they're happier than they were in the real 2004, which certainly goes along with my epilogue-in-advance theory, where the people who go against Smokey get a happier ending than those who follow him. (Though at the moment, the only sideways we've gotten that qualifies as the latter is Sayid's.)

(*) And Bakhunin, of course, gets shot in the right eye, because some things have to remain the same from timeline to timeline. By the way, think we'll ever get any Patchy backstory from the real timeline - i.e., was he really a Dharma guy who flipped to Ben's side, or something more complciated? - or is that one of those questions Darlton don't want to/have time to answer?

Still, good as Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim are together - and this is the first episode where they've shared extended screentime together since the end of season four - this wasn't one of the more compelling sideways stories. Maybe, like the others, it plays better in a few months after the secret of this universe has been unlocked, but here it was a charming love scene and then a lot of Keamy hamminess. (I really liked Keamy's return in the Sayid-ways, but seeing him in so much of this episode made me realize the less-is-more nature of Kevin Durand's performance, you know?)

As for the island material, we at least got that great moment where Widmore shows Jin the pictures of Ji Yeon(**), and we got a bunch of questions answered: Widmore says he's working to stop Smokey (when there was some ambiguity in his reaction to Sawyer's belief that this was his goal in "Recon") and has a plan that involves the island's electromagnetic anomalies (as mapped by Jin and the rest of LaFleur's crew back in the '70s), Desmond is revealed (as many of you guessed) as the "package" inside the locked room on the sub, and Smokey needs Jacob's remaining candidates to get off the island(**). And we got a reminder of what a good duo Jack and Sun were back in the day. (Seriously, that final scene was the most likable the real version of Jack has been in many, many seasons.)

(**) Daniel Dae Kim absolutely killed that scene, and between that scene and Jack's promise to Sun at episode's end, I think I may be just as invested in seeing the Kwon family get their happy ending as I am on guard that Desmond, Penny and baby Charlie sail off into the sunset.

(***) And because the list on the cave wall differs from the list in the lighthouse - specifically, in that Kate's name is not crossed out in the lighthouse - Smokey appears to be making a big mistake in giving Claire permission to kill Kate once she helps them reassemble the remaining candidates.

It wasn't all thrilling, but there was at least a sense of the story moving forward, my man Desmond is back in play, Sayid's soul is gone (but he looks really cool coming out of the water at night), and Richard finally has a plan for Team Jacob, even if Jack seems determined to not let it happen. There are a lot of agendas at play now, a lot of weird moving pieces, and if "The Package" didn't get my blood racing (though the stupid "V" clock got it boiling in spots), it at least has me interested to see how what happened tonight plays into the bigger picture.

Some other thoughts:

• I wonder if there's going to be a larger plot point to Sun's temporary loss of her English, or if it's there to create a parallel to season one, where when the Kwons finally reunite, Jin will speak English and she won't.

• It occurs to me that Jack and Sawyer now seem to be occupying the same moral space on their respective sides; seeming to play along but really only concerned with getting their friends the hell off Craphole Island; imagine what they could accomplish were those two crazy kids to join forces!

• So part of the "cork" properties of the island seems to prevent Smokey from using his powers to get off it, but doesn't keep him from hopping on an outrigger to row over to Alcatraz. Hmmm... Seems an odd loophole. (And, once again, someone with a gun takes an outrigger but does not shoot at Sawyer's season five group. Sigh...)

• Nice to see the return of the weird indoctrination/rave room that Karl was locked in during Kate and Sawyer's escape from Alcatraz in season three. If that place was just another Dharma experiment, as Zoe claimed, why exactly would Ben stick Karl in there? Just as punishment for annoying him?

Finally, a programming note: I'm due to take a couple of weeks family time starting either next week or the week after (a couple of pieces are still being moved around), which means I may either skip over two of the next three episodes, come to them very late, and/or touch on them very briefly and then open up the conversation to you. Sorry for the inconvenience, but the timeframe only has so much wiggle room, and can't wait until after this season. I promise that as soon as I see each episode during the time I'm off, I'll get up some kind of quick post; I just might not see each one right away.

Ticking clock-related rants aside, what did everybody else think?

you belong to me

http://charlotteronson.com/campaign/video/video_spring10.php

donald cumming is back in charlotte ronson's spring 2010 video look book. how can one boy be so tall, thin, and disgustingly delicious? someday i will write an essay on how i skipped the "dating-a-so-hipster-it-hurts-and-i-haven't-showered-in-2-weeks" portion of my life (you know, minus the not showering part) and i bet you any money the central thesis will be it's because i never did get my claws into donny.

"we'll get that peanut butter i like."
"at the deli. on ninth street?"
"uh huh, yeah. but that's not gonna keep us, like... that's not fun... the whole night. half the night, sure."

Justified, "Fixer": Straight outta Lexington

A quick review of tonight's "Justified" coming up just as soon as I second-guess your neck hair...

FX actually sent "Fixer" out for review a few weeks after I'd watched the 1st, 2nd and 4th episodes, and there's always the worry that the odd episode out was held back because it wasn't very good. But I'm told the issues here were just post-production-related, and I found "Fixer" to be quite a bit stronger than last week's "Riverbrook."

As with the Elmore Leonard books (and the many crime authors influenced by Leonard), the style is going to be to split the action between Raylan and his quarry. I didn't think it worked last week because the bank robber and his motley gang weren't all that interesting. I liked this combo of inept, backstabbing thieves much more, particularly David Eigenberg as the titular fixer and Page Kennedy as one of those classic Leonard-style bad guys who becomes obsessed with living up to some pop cultural ideal of violence (in this case, dying because he's too distracted trying to prove himself as a quick draw artist).

The parallels between the Fixer and Raylan in their desires to get out of town, ASAP, weren't overdone, and the theme gave us some extended quality time with an off-duty Raylan flirting with, and eventually succumbing to the charms of, the lovely Ava. I like to joke that Timothy Olyphant plays every role like he can't wait to put a bullet through his co-stars, but he's doing very well in Raylan's more relaxed, charming and, yes, romantic moments.

One question: this is now two bodies that Raylan's dropped in three episodes (and he just barely avoided killing Body). Are you okay if the series maintains (or even accelerates) this body count rate? It's one thing for Raylan to get chewed out for his supervisors about this over the course of three books published many years apart, but as an ongoing part of a weekly series? I don't mind it (certainly, plenty of TV show heroes have racked up an even bigger/faster kill rate), but I wonder if anyone does.

What did everybody else think?

Kurosawa Marathon on TCM (03.30.10)

Turner Classic Movies is completing their celebration of Akira Kurosawa's 100th birthday with three more of his films tonight. If you've come this far, don't even think about backing out now.

8:00 PM Dersu Uzala (1975)
A Russian explorer brings the Asiatic hunter who saved his life back to civilization.
Cast: Maksim Munzuk, Yuriy Solomin, M Bichkov, V Khrulev Dir: Akira Kurosawa C-141 mins, TV-PG

10:30 PM Kagemusha (1980)
Japanese clansmen force a poor thief to impersonate their dead warlord.
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara, Kota Yui Dir: Akira Kurosawa C-180 mins, TV-PG

1:45 AM Ran (1985)
An aging lord's decision to retire brings out the worst in his sons.
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu Dir: Akira Kurosawa C-163 mins

Celebration in Argentinian Locker Room II

Celebration in Argentinian Locker Room I

who doesn't love to shop?

Well this couldn't have happened at a better time in a sense ... meaning just in time for True Story Tuesday .... And this is going to be a 2-part series because the story in it's entirety is really something that deserves to be blogged about ...

For more stories, click the pic above ... for MY story, read below ....

Let's start this story at last Wednesday when I called the car repair shop to get my car in for a tune up. It's been running a little rough, and at 11 years old, needs that kind of tender loving care. The day, I swear to jeezus, the day I called the shop, my cars little rough running turned into roughER running right to the point where it was taking a good 30 seconds to pull away from a dead stop. And since most of you have never seen me drive, that's NOT acceptable. I pass any and all on the roads, no matter who or what it is. I have a collection of speeding tickets to prove that I simply can't tolerate that kind of behavior from my vehicle. And I've been around the block several times with bad cars (and I'll get into that in part 2 of my series), so I knew what was going on with the car. I did once own a car that went through a litre of tranny fluid every few days and I actually parked it over a heap of cat litter to soak it up so it wouldn't look trashy in front of my house (aaaa am I ever killing myself laughing at that in my head ...). So as scheduled, I dropped the car off at the repair shop this morning, gave them a quick update and hopped on the bus to work. And I just got the call. THE call. My poor ugly little honda civic has a list of "problems" that need to be "addressed", from the tires, right up to the battery, and a good chunk of everything in between ..... Unbelievably, to the tune of $5000 ladies and gentlemen. Which was really overkill on their part because I wasn't planning on spending even $1000 to fix 'er up. So, my new task (never mind the house repairs or the gym for a while I guess): 

I have some shopping to do. And not the good kind. The time consuming expensive kind, the kind that will test the character and worthiness of my financial institutions.

V, "Welcome to the War": Pick up the pieces

Because every episode of "V" is so heavy on special effects, ABC couldn't make a completed version of tonight's return episode - the first in months, and the first under new showrunner Scott Rosenbaum - available for review until late last night. So I couldn't write about it for today's column (that, instead, became a collection of "American Idol" gripes), but I'll have a few non-spoiler-y thoughts on it after the jump, and feel free to use this post to discuss "Welcome to the War" after it airs tonight...

Rosenbaum has worked on two of my favorite shows ever in "The Shield" and "Chuck" (where he most recently wrote "Chuck vs. the Beard"), and so I was hopeful he'd be able to turn around the drab, pointless remake that "V" was during its brief fall run. And there are definite improvements in tonight's episode: more of a sense of forward momentum from the human resistance (and a more plausible sense that they actually have a chance against the Visitors), some more emotional resonance for several characters who had previously been paper-thin, and a few very creepy reminders of how un-human the V's are.

The problem, though, is that Rosenbaum has to mostly play the hand he was dealt by the previous creative team, and there's only so much he can fix at once, especially since "Welcome to the War" also has to serve as a kind of refresher course for the series after the long time away. So we're still stuck with Elizabeth Mitchell's annoying teenage son getting played by the V's, still stuck with a cast that isn't terribly charismatic outside of Elizabeth Mitchell and Morena Baccarin, still going through the motions we expect from this story, whether we saw the '80s show or not.

I'm going to give Rosenbaum time, since you can't turn a freighter around on a dime, and it would be hard for him to come in and immediately ditch all the elements that weren't working. But you may want to manage your expectations for tonight's show.

Life Unexpected: Checking in on Lux and company

Due both to the timeslot crunch and my waning interest in the show, I haven't written about "Life Unexpected" lately. But last night, I caught up on last week's episode and this week's, and I was pleased (moreso with the first episode than the second) to see the stories start to move along, and to see the show go more in-depth with Lux's history as a foster kid.

That said, I'm not crazy about where we seem to be heading with the wedding, Baze's rekindled interest in Cate, etc. Cate and Ryan have already broken up once over Baze, and if it happens again - and in such short order - it's going to even more annoying than starting off the series with so many episodes in a row of "Ryan and Cate screw up, Lux runs away, then they win her back with a big speech."

Who's still watching? What do you think of the show's progress heading into the final episodes of the season?

There is a new blog logo. Discuss.

Passover prep distracted me from posting the new logo yesterday, but it's up now. This week's theme was suggested by reader Mike Willis.

And, as always this post contains links to, and explanations for, all the previous logo themes.

pq - Louise on Earth (7'')

Somewhere in the middle between ambient, acoustic rock, electronic and modern classical music there are pq . This 7'' has two very calm, relaxing tracks on it, Louise on Earth and Countdown To Elise. If you are in the right mood, both of those tracks can send shivers down your spine and both tracks are only a taste of what pq, hailing from Bruges, Belgium, have to offer. They have also finished recording their debut album which was set for release on Expanding Records in 2009 but has not yet come out.

Until then, you are left with two beautiful little tunes that I definitely urge you to listen to.


Genre: Ambient / Acoustic Rock / Electronic / Modern Classical
320 kBit/s (VBR)
(05:42)


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United States of Tara, "Trouble Junction": Wake-up call

A review of tonight's "United States of Tara" coming up just as soon as I literally have my mind blown...

"I'm trouble. I am trouble." -Tara

Oh, indeed you are, Tara. And at the moment, you're the only one who knows it.

Last week, we found out that Buck was back in the picture, and this week Tara finds out, too, repeatedly - first regaining control of her body in a strange neighborhood while wearing Max's clothes(*), then being confronted by Pammy in the supermarket parking lot, and then waking up naked(**) in Pammy's bed after another night of wild passion between Pammy and Buck.

(*) Because they threw out everything of Buck's - except, for some reason, the glasses. As I said in my preview of the season, ditching the alters' costumes is a nice touch - Toni Collette's too good to need the crutch, and on a character logic level, it feels like having that stuff around just enables the alters to feel like they should be in charge. So why keep Buck's specs?

(**) Toni Collette's a fearless enough actress that I'm sure she's been nude on-screen before, but it was still a jolt to see her topless here, even on pay cable. I guess the idea is to emphasize Tara's femininity after she's woken up from another Buck episode?

And because Tara and her family have just been through such a golden, alter-free period - as exemplified by that splendid duet of "All Out of Love" she and Max perform at the Hubberd house (before a cover of the song plays over Buck and Pammy's foreplay) - and because she's still fairly ashamed of her condition and the things her body does when the alters are in charge, she doesn't tell anyone. Not Max, not Pammy (who could have used a much sterner, more explicit warning than the one I quoted above), not Charmaine nor anyone else. And that should be bad for Tara and a lot of people around her, shouldn't it? Sometimes, the cover-up's worse than the crime.

It's clear Tara's relationship with the alters - or, at least, the show's approach to depicting them - is different this year than before. Not only are the costumes gone, but we see Tara and Buck interacting even while Tara's in charge, in a mental state that's known as co-consciousness. And Collette's terrific not only at playing against herself (or, rather, at giving two separate performances in a vacuum that can be spliced together), but also at Tara's dawning horror and shame at discovering that she's not better - that she's stuck with Buck and the rest of them. I'd forgotten that a number of episodes last year featured Tara keeping video diaries of her blackouts, but the "Blair Witch"-style flip-phone confessional after she talks to Pammy in the parking lot was a great moment. Watch her be that scared and angry and ashamed, and you understand exactly why Tara would keep this mess to herself for as long as she can.

As Max starts pondering the idea of buying, renovating and flipping the Hubberd house, his plumber buddy offers to "Sully-rig" the pipes, coming up with a fix that won't be permanent but will last long enough to push the problem onto the next owners. By not fessing up to everyone that the DID is back in effect, Tara's trying to Sully-rig her own life.

Some other thoughts:

• While Tara's body is being used against her will to have sex with a woman, Marshall backs off from his big political statement last week and lets himself become Courtney's gay boyfriend. Everyone on this show knows Marshall's gay, Marshall included, but he's a teenager, and he's freaked out - and intimidated by Lionel, who's unapologetic and confrontational about his own sexuality - and he's experimenting.

• The debt collection office is still too broad (particularly when Kate's male coworker slobbers over the pictures of Princess Valhalla Hawkwind), but the job sort of turns into a means to an end, which is introducing Kate to Lynda P. Frazier, played by the wonderful character actress Viola Davis. Lynda, like Tara, is an artist, and she also has something of a more manageable alter ego in Princess Valhalla Hawkwind ("I will always be her... a little"), so she could prove to be a kindred spirit to either Kate (who'd love to be around someone similar to her mom but less crazy) or Tara herself.

• Charmaine's re-virginization plan suggestions a Bridezilla-in-the-making, but moving her into Max and Tara's house should be good for the character (and for people like me who are fans of Rosemarie DeWitt).

• Fynder-Spyder is usually the fake search engine name of choice for movies and TV shows that don't want to give Google free advertising. Here, Kate uses "Sirchbot," which I haven't seen before.

• Between "Breaking Bad" last night and Courtney and Marshall's make-out session tonight, it's been a good week for ouija boards on cable, hasn't it?

What did everybody else think?

Nurse Jackie, "Twitter": Are you there, God? It's me, Zoey

I said last week that I'm both too busy and too underwhelmed with "Nurse Jackie" season two to review every episode, but as tonight's was the best of the 8 I've seen, I wanted to at least mention how good both Merritt Wever was (Zoey and "God" make a great comedy team) and how much I love the idea of Coop getting his own Twitter account, not only because Peter Facinelli himself has an insane Twitter following, but because Tweeting his innermost thoughts seems exactly like the sort of thing Coop would think the world would want.

What did everybody else think?

Chuck, "Chuck vs. the American Hero": Love is a battlefield

A review of tonight's "Chuck" coming up just as soon as I fill out a pair of slacks...

"What are you even doing here?" -Sarah
"I'm here for you." -Chuck

"Chuck vs. the American Hero" was designed to be the penultimate episode of "Chuck" season three, before NBC ordered six more episodes. And as such, comparisons will be inevitable to season two's next-to-last installment, "Chuck vs. the Colonel." "American Hero" actually holds up better to the comparison than I would have thought - it's one of the strongest episodes of this season, up there with "Chuck vs. the Beard" and "Chuck vs. the Tic Tac" - but it does illustrate some of the larger flaws that have kept season three as a whole a notch or two below last year.

Some of the problems couldn't be helped, like the reduced budget. It's kept the supporting characters shuttling in and out (which becomes particularly noticeable in contrast to an episode like this that features everyone but Big Mike and uses all the characters well), and it's reduced both the scope of the story and the coolness of some of the action. "Colonel" climaxed with a bunch of planes bombing the hell out of Ted Roark's would-be Intersect army at the drive-in; here, we get a lone stealth bomber dropping a single bomb on a small warehouse, creating an explosion so small that Sarah, Chuck and Shaw are unharmed standing only a few feet away.(*) Meanwhile, Chuck's commando assault on the Ring base went fairly quick and easy (even if it was supposed to be a temporary place set up to mess with Shaw, you still would have seen more bad guys and/or a longer fight scene a year ago). I appreciate that they don't have the money to work with that they had last season, but it's been unfortunate and noticeable.

(*) That lack of scale, coupled with the fact that until this week the group never seemed to do anything but try to kill Shaw, has led to The Ring thus far seeming less imposing than Fulcrum, even though we keep being told it's the much bigger, more dangerous threat.

But I also think there have been a few miscalculations on the part of Schwartz, Fedak and company. Shaw has been a misfire, less because he's been an obstacle to Chuck and Sarah getting together than that he's been an obstacle to Team Bartowski working well together. It's not a coincidence that two of the season's stronger outings ("Nacho Sampler" and "Tic Tac") both had Shaw absent so we could watch our three leads interact. Even if they weren't all getting along splendidly (Sarah didn't approve of Chuck's handling of Manoosh in "Nacho Sampler," and Casey was rogue for much of "Tic Tac") the three actors/characters have such chemistry and such history together that Shaw often seemed like a buzzkill.

I had begun to hope, like some of you, that Shaw was going to be revealed as a Ring mole, and/or that Sarah - whose character arc this season has at times been compelling, and at others felt like it was serving the whims of the plot - was playing him to find out. Instead, it turns out that what we saw with Shaw was what we got, but also that Shaw's obsession with avenging his wife's death was so great that he's now looking to do something very bad to Sarah, who doesn't realize that Shaw's wife was the victim in her own "red test."

But if the way things ultimately played out don't give Sarah back some of the agency her character has lost this season, it at least sets us up for what I hope will be a very strong close to Season 3.0, with Chuck having to save Sarah from Shaw - and, maybe, get his first kill for real in the process?

What was so satisfying about "American Hero," though, is that Chuck has already defeated Shaw in one way: he got Sarah back.

Sure, there's still the matter of rescuing her from Shaw's insane clutches, blah blah blah, but the woman made her choice. She was packing a bag, and I feel confident her destination was going to be Union Station even before Casey stopped by to confess to killing Hunter. Chuck (sometimes with the aid of the Bizarro Team Bartowski of Casey, Morgan and Awesome, sometimes by himself) put on such a charm offensive with Sarah and got to be a more overt hero in carrying Shaw out of the exploding building (remember, Sarah has a type) and laid his heart bare for her about the train station(**) and their future together that she had to have thrown in her lot with our man. The smile on Yvonne Strahovski's face when Casey told Sarah the truth didn't so much read as "Yay, now I get to change my mind," but "Yay, I made the right call."

(**) In a bit of symmetry from the season premiere conversation in Castle about meeting at a train station.

So, in effect, Chuck and Sarah have finally chosen each other at the same time, and all that's holding it up is a temporary plot complication (Shaw's desire to kill Sarah) rather than a character one. Whatever missteps the creative team may have made, they're not stupid enough to end what was supposed to be the whole season with Chuck and Sarah still not together. I don't know everything in life, but I feel very confident in this.

And we can argue not only about whether this took too long, but about whether the characterizations were consistent (I, frankly, would have liked some clarification on whether Sarah was simply turned off by Chuck-as-killer, or if she felt guilty that she had helped make him into one), about whether there's been too much focus on the relationship, not enough, whether the darker tone worked, whether the government would really risk the Intersect as a run-of-the-mill spy, etc., etc., etc.

But here's the thing: when "Chuck" is good - and budget issues aside, "Chuck vs. the American Hero" was very good - all the questions and complaints have a way of not mattering as much. I don't mind the plot holes (though I will still list some of them below), nor the idea that certain character or story arcs haven't played out as smoothly as anyone might have liked. When I watch a sequence like Chuck making his move at the restaurant while Bizarro Team Bartowski attempts to back his play from the van - with Morgan and Awesome(***) both accidentally saving Shaw from being kidnapped - or when I watch Jeff and Lester prove their epic stalking powers to Chuck, or when Chuck keeps saying "I love you" to Sarah just because it feels nice to say, everything else goes out the window. This is the show I fought to save last spring, and even if parts of this season have been bumpy, I can deal with those bumps when we get to moments like the ones that we got in abundance in "American Hero."

(***) I thought it was a very nice touch to have Devon once again mistakenly tackle the good guy, just like he did to Casey in "Chuck vs. the Angel De La Muerte" - only for it to mostly work out here.

One episode to go of this original batch of 13, then two weeks off for repeats (which should coincide with some time off I'm supposed to take in early April), then Season 3.1 starts. I'm assuming next week's semi-finale will clear the decks of a lot of elements from 3.0, and I can't wait to see what the team has in store for the final push. And I'll sweat renewal later.

Some other thoughts:

• I always enjoy those rare instances of General Beckman interacting with Chuck one-on-one, in person, because she has much less patience for his "process" than Casey or Sarah do. I still have a hard time believing that, even with the Intersect 2.0, anyone considers Chuck qualified to be a spy, but it was at least smart to suggest he'd have his own team around him (even if said team almost certainly wouldn't include either Morgan or Casey).

• Also, I kind of wish that Morgan didn't have a selfish reason for wanting to help Chuck. I know it created a thematic symmetry with Casey and Awesome, and I also get that Morgan's life would be extremely empty without Chuck in it, but at the same time, I like those moments where Morgan just has Chuck's back because that's what best friends do.

• This week in "Chuck" plot holes: a bunch to choose from, but primarily that Beckman would be willing to send a bomber into a civilian neighborhood with no more intel than that Shaw's tracker had stopped moving for a while and gone underground. That's more a hole in Shaw's plan than in Beckman's reasoning, I suppose, but either way, the idea seemed awfully thin. Anything could have been happening at that bunker. (And what, for that matter, would have happened if Chuck hadn't picked up the tracker and it had remained under the overpass? Would the military have blown up a bridge by mistake?) Also, what happened to the fellowship Ellie got that was going to force Devon to abandon his Doctors Without Borders scheme? And while I understand Devon spending the night in jail, what exactly were Morgan and Casey charged with? And why does the Castle electrical grid somehow affect one of the displays at the Buy More? And how does Casey get back into Castle so easily, when presumably the access codes got changed after Beckman gave him his burn notice? And if Shaw's wife was killed five years ago, are we supposed to believe Sarah had only been an agent for two years when she met Chuck?

• This week in "Chuck" music: only one song (bizarre for a Josh Schwartz show, I know), with The Temper Trap's "Down River" playing both as Chuck invites Sarah to meet him at Union Station, and again as Casey tells Sarah the truth about who really shot Hunter.

• This week in "Chuck" pop culture references: Morgan's "Love is a battlefield" line is, of course, a reference to the iconic early '80s Pat Benatar song and video, and the "Dr. Jibb" soda machine as entrance to the Ring underground HQ could be read as yet another "Spies Like Us" homage, as the military guys accessed their own base via the Pepsi machine at an abandoned drive-in.

• This week in recognizable "Chuck" guest stars: sci-fi/action-caper show Hey It's That Guy! Mark Sheppard played the mysterious Ring director, while Roger Cross (one of Jack Bauer's longer-serving sidekicks on "24") was Sheppard's henchman.

• Ellie hasn't been a particularly well-serviced character this year, and at times comes across as way too controlling about Chuck's life, but her speech to Chuck about getting Sarah back - "You're a Bartowski, Chuck. Start acting like one." - was a very nice moment for Sarah Lancaster.

• Ultimately, Casey's refusal to let Chuck tell Sarah what happened at the train station wasn't that satisfyingly resolved. They needed to show some kind of Chuck/Casey interaction later in the episode where we saw Casey change his mind, and/or his conversation with Sarah needed to come across like a much bigger gamble than it ultimately became. Casey knows Sarah well enough to know she would never tell anybody else, so his earlier reluctance just became another plot device - albeit one that put Casey in a van with Devon and Morgan, so I'm okay with it.

• My head scratched when I saw the subtitle pointing out "DNI" headquarters, until I noticed a comment in last week's discussion that referred to Beckman working for the "Department of National Intelligence." Have we ever heard this name/acronym before? When the series started, Casey and Beckman were NSA, Sarah and Graham (Tony Todd) were CIA, and Operation Bartowski was a joint agency task force. Did I miss some administrative change after Graham blew up in the season 2 premiere?

• I pointed to the flash-grenade scene from "Chuck vs. the Beard" as an example of rookie director Zachary Levi showing off a bit too much, but veteran director Jeremiah Chechik largely went with the same style for the flash-grenade scene here, so either that was something other forces (maybe the DP?) cooked up in "Beard," or else Chechik liked it enough to make it part of the series' house style.

• Interesting: Chuck can shoot someone (with a tranq gun) without having to flash. Is the "Duck Hunt" really paying off, or are some of the Intersect skills starting to become part of Chuck's muscle memory?

• If Jeff is, indeed, the Picasso of creepiness, and this is his blue period, would you pay to own any of his work?

Finally, everybody did a great job of staying civil and rational in discussing the episodes after the Chuck-pocalypse that was "Chuck vs. the Mask," but last week we got into the crazy/obnoxious territory again, and I had to delete some comments. Let me remind you one more time of the single most important part of the commenting rules: Be nice. TALK ABOUT THE SHOW, NOT EACH OTHER. If you can't find a way to disagree without attacking the people who disagree with you, DO NOT COMMENT.

This shouldn't be hard, and I appreciate that for most of you, it's not. But for the small handful of you who are having trouble here, please relax, or else find some other place to discuss the show.

What did everybody else think?

Back in my day, phones were communal

When Blue-eyed Ultimate Player called my cell phone one day, it was because none of my sons were answering their cell phones. I didn’t know where my sons were — probably throwing a disc around somewhere — but I chatted with Blue-eyed Ultimate Player for a few minutes.

After I hung up, I thought about how I miss having one landline for the whole family. I used to chat with my kids’ friends or my husband’s friends when they called. I wonder if, with the proliferation of cell phones, that kind of small talk is a lost art.

I can remember the first phone call I ever made, back in first grade. I stood on a wooden chair in the kitchen, reaching up to the black phone that hung on the wall, and carefully dialed the number that Kindergarten Friend had written down. I was painfully shy, so calling anyone on the phone was a very big deal.

I called, and the phone made this weird noise. “That means no one is home,” Red-haired Sister said. I hung up the phone.

Then I called again. I got the weird noise again I called again, and got the weird noise again. I called again, and hung up again. I was frustrated because I knew that she was home; it didn’t make sense.

“Their phone must be broken,” I said to my sister. I dialed again, just to show her. I held out the phone to let her hear the weird noise.

Just then a man’s voice said, “Hello?”

I answered shyly, “Hello?”

Then I said the line I’d practiced. “May I speak to Kindergarten Friend?”

“I’m her Dad,” he said. “Was that you calling before?"

I was terrified — his asking me a question was not in the script! But his voice seemed gentle.

“Yes,” I managed to squeak out that one syllable.

“See, you need to let it ring awhile to give people time to get to the phone,” he said. “When you hear the ringing noise, count until you hear it ring ten times before you hang up.”

What he said made sense. For the rest of my life, I always counted until I heard the dial tone ten times before I hung up. That is, until people started getting cell phones and answering on the first ring.

For a shy child, chatting with the parents of friends I called was often terrifying, but it forced me to learn the skill of making small talk. I had to identify myself, say something polite, and then ask for my friend. That was the formula.

I miss the days of the landline, the way that sharing a phone helped integrate a community. Sure, the cell phone is convenient, but I’m sad that we’ve lost those conversations between generations. I guess I have to look instead for messages from my kids’ friends on my facebook wall.

Weekend In Wichita

Triple Feature at the Drive-In 

Cop Out

Directed by Kevin Smith from somebody else's script, this doesn't really feel like a Smith film. That can be good or bad, depending on your tastes. It started out a little rough, but turned out to be a decent but by-the-books buddy cop flick.  Besides, it had that drug dealer from Weeds in it, and he's pretty much a badass.

The Crazies

 I have heard some people complain that this movie was just a rehash of 28 Days Later placed in a rural setting. In actuality, 28 Days Later was an urbanized rehash of the original The Crazies (along with a certain other trio of Romero films). This remake isn't going to crack your Top Ten unless you have only seen nine other movies, but at least it's honest in the fact that it's a remake and doesn't hide between the claim that it's an homage.

Shutter Island

My wife and I had already seen this one, but were willing to watch it again. Unfortunately the fact that we had put in a full days work before the 3 hour drive to Wichita, and that we had already been up for approximately 22 hours caused us to call it quits about halfway through. Still, I think we got our ten bucks worth.

My Purchases

Black Hole by Charles Burns (Graphic Novel)

Borders, $18.95

Been wanting to read this one for quite a while.  Don't really know why it took me so long to get around to buying it.
 

Books of Blood Vol.3 by Clive Barker (Book)

Book-A-Holic, $1.75

I've already read Vol.1, and Vol.2 is still languishing on my shelf, but this volume is difficult to find in used bookstores, so I had to pick it up.  And it was oh-so-affordable, too!

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams (Book)

Book-A-Holic, $2.50

This book probably can't live up to the manic genius of the Hitchiker series, but the idea of Douglas Adams writing a detective novel is far too sweet to pass up.

Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac by David Amram (Book)

Book-A-Holic, $7.00

Slap the word 'Kerouac' on any book, and my wallet flies open like your uncle's belt after Thanksgiving dinner.

The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (Book w/ Free Digital Copy)

Book-A-Holic, $20.00

I love Bob Dylan, I love encyclopedias (I'm a geek, I know), I have a bookself AND I have a Kindle, so this one was a slamdunk.

Greatest American Hero Season 1 & 2 (DVD 2-Pack)

Target, $12.99

Believe it or not, I'm walking on air.  I never knew I could feel so free.

Arctic Monkeys:  Humbug (CD)

Best Buy, $12.99

I love pretty much any band that has the word 'monkey' in the name. Arctic Monkeys. Sprung Monkey. The Monkees.  Atomic Death Monkeys.  Monkey Ate My Baby.  Monkey Monk and The Monk-Lites.  (Okay, so maybe I made a few of those up.)

Spoon: Transference (CD)

FYE, $9.99

I was listening to Spoon before that cellphone commercial made it cool. Or, at least that's what I tell people.

Cult Classics 20 Movie Pack (DVD Box Set)

Borders, $4.99 

Featuring the following titles, how could you not fork over a fiver?

1. Chained for Life
2. Child Bride
3. Cocaine Fiends
4. Delinquent Daughters
5. Escort Girl
6. Gambling with Souls
7. Joyless Street,
8. Mad Youth
9. Marihuana
10. Marijuana Menace, The
11. Omoo-Omoo, The Shark God
12. Reefer Madness
13. Road to Ruin
14. Sex Madness
15. She Shoulda' Said "No"!
16. Slaves in Bondage
17. Ten Nights in a Barroom
18. Terror of Tiny Town
19. Test Tube Babies
20. Wild and The Wicked

Oh, come on. You know you're jealous...
--J/Metro