Captain's Log

The Dead Zone and Psych

Network TV isn't was it used to be 10 years ago. A flood of reality TV and the 3 second attention span of TV execs have hurt the quality series based television shows. Where the networks have slipped, the cable networks have picked up the slack with several original series of their own, as I mentioned in my post on Entourage. Two USA original series that I recently got started on are The Dead Zone and Psych. They have a seemingly similar premises - psychics, but they are totally different in execution.

The Dead Zone stars Anthony Michael Hall as a man who acquired psychic abilities when he awoke from a 6 year coma following a near fatal car accident. He sees a whole lot of bad stuff, and the plot of the series revolves around him trying to stop what he sees in the future. He also has to deal with 6 years missing from his life, which separated him from his then fiance and his son who was born after his accident. The series is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, and there's a motion picture from the 80s based on the book also. You can read a more in depth plot summary at TV Tome.

The Dead Zone has some neat and original story ideas and a very engaging long term story arc. The acting is pretty good overall with some occasional dips in quality. Some episodes vary greatly in tone and it also suffers from what I term Smallville "freak of the week" syndrome. A lot of the episodes that stand independent of the major story arc have the same formula. Johnny sees something bad about to happen; he tells people but they don't believe him; he tracks down as much evidence as possible which sometimes gets him into trouble; in the end he narrowly saves the day and is redeemed in the eyes of non believers. While this case-closed-by-the-end design is no different than a show like CSI or Law and Order, in those shows there is no engaging long term arc to tease you while you work through the cookbook episodes. The Dead Zone's long term story involves conspiracy, the government, and armageddon, and it's what brings a sense of urgency to the show. Those warnings aside, I think the show is still pretty good and worth a try. Season 5 just ended tonight, but it's best to start from the beginning if you can.

Psych is a comedy about a son of former detective who has convinced the local police department that he's psychic. He solves cases for them using skills he's picked up from his dad, but passes his skills off as psychic abilites. James Roday is excellent in the character and is reason enough to try the show. The snappy dialogue and his delivery provide plenty of comedy, especially his interaction with his sidekick, played by West Wing alum Dule Hill. While the comedy doesn't have the brilliance of The Office or character power of Entourage, Roday and Hill defintely bring a lot to the table. It's only been 8 episodes so far, but they haven't been repetitive and I'm still into each episode, though the plots are on the predictable side. You're really not watching Psych so much for the plot though, more for the dialogue and interaction between characters. At the end of each episode they show 'psych-out' moments which include outtakes and Roday and Hill singing various hits from the 80s and 90s. I think these are hilarious and add to the endearing silliness of the show. The show I'd say it's most similar to is Scrubs in the way that you enjoy instead of dismiss the silliness.

Some rambling: Oddly Scrubs, Psych, and The Dead Zone all have Caucasian lead characters with African-American sidekicks. I realize now that I don't have a Scrubs blog entry, along with a bunch of other shows which I watch or have watched. I guess that means there'll be more TV blog entries coming soon. I made my comment at the beginning about broadcast vs cable, because neither of these shows would have a chance of surviving on broadcast networks at all. Shows that don't cater strongly to the mainstream or that don't pick up ratings quickly will get the axe. Also, if you are already acquainted with these shows and with their sibling, Monk you should check out some of the cross promos USA has run for these shows at Youtube. (Monk/Dead Zone, Monk/Dead Zone, Monk/Psych, Monk/Psych) They definitely support the spirit of USA's tagline for these shows, "Characters Welcome."

Entourage

People who say there's no good TV anymore just aren't looking in the right places. There are still a few good shows on broadcast TV, but the field of 'shows to watch' has expanded greatly in the past 10 years to include cable. HBO, Showtime, FX, Sci-Fi, and others have put out a ton of great original shows, although not everyone has cable or premium channels.

Entourage is another great HBO show about four guys who grew up in Queens. (Corrected, thanks Sheelpi.) One of them finds stardom in Hollywood, and the rest join him out in California as his entourage. Each of the four characters brings something different to the table, and they are all likeable. The dialogue is well-done. You accept the plot, because a stars life is foriegn to the rest of us. The cameos are crazy, fit in really well, and lend an air of credibility to the show. You really believe the characters are who they are. Jeremy Piven plays the agent and steals every scene he's in. His character is, in a word, intense. Andrew, Sheelpi, and G all approve of the show. Season 3 starts June 11th, and the Season 2 DVD comes out on June 6th. If you have a chance to watch the show, give it a try.

So where have I been? I've been very unmotivated in terms of updating my blog. It's not that I haven't found any cool stuff to share over the past few months, I just haven't had the drive to post about it. That should be changing this summer.

Updates: West Wing and Gmail

A few quick updates: The West Wing Season 4 will be out on DVD April 5. It's already available at Amazon among other places for preorder. (It's amazing how much stuff you can trim off an Amazon URL and still get to the same page. For example, this was the original WW link I got after a search for 'west wing')

Gmail started allowing forwarding and POP access a while ago. It looks like it has to be done over SSL, but any reasonable email client will be able to handle that. With it's monster disk quota and superior interface, it's hard to imagine using any other webmail services unless you are sticking with an old address. I've thought about having all my future mail forwarded to gmail, so I have a web accessible copy, and I can still check it with POP using Eudora and save a local copy. With 1 GB of space it'll be a long time before I have to cull through the crap on the site, except for attachments.

Also if you need a gmail invite, let me (or anyone else you know with gmail) know. They gave everyone 50 invites a while ago, so now there's plenty of supply to meet the original demand for gmail accounts.

Groundhog Day

In case you didn't notice when you looked at your calendar today, it's Groundhog Day. Every year they prod Phil (the groundhog) out of his hole in Punxsutawney, PA so that he can give his take on the weather for the next six weeks.

Last night I watched the 1992 classic movie Groundhog Day with G and his friends from work. Every time I see this movie it gets funnier. If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth a rental. It's Bill Murray at his best, with the smug look, unseriousness, and witty humor. I don't want to give away the fun part of the story, but it involves Murray playing a weatherman sent down to report on Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day. He starts out as a 'prima donna' reporter, but his extended stay in Punxsutawney changes him for the better. It's a great movie, and I think it's one of the best comedies of our generation. (As stated by today's Daily Quickie at ESPN.)

If you want some random trivia about the movie checkout IMDb's trivia page. Did you know the guy who plays Buster, the head groundhog guy is Brian Doyle-Murray, Bill Murray's brother or that the groundhog in the movie bit Bill Murray twice? Also if you want to buy the movie the special edition is about $15 in stores or online.

In case you were wondering, Phil saw his shadow this morning, so six more weeks of winter.

Arrested Development

After hearing strong recommendations from Parker and John, I 'obtained' the first season and the new episodes from season two and went on a watching spree. The show is hilarious. The characters are outrageous and the humor is sometimes subtle and other times so blunt its painful. There are so many memorable lines, especially from GOB.

It's won an Emmy for Best Comedy Series and Jason Bateman just won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy series, and the first season is out on DVD. If you get a chance to watch it from the beginning you should. It may be a little hard to jump into the middle of the second season, since there are so many subtle references to previous episodes that you'll miss. Also the first episode does a good job of introducing all the characters. So borrow the DVD from someone and start watching.

TV Shows on DVD

I just found out that you can pre-order the Wonderfalls DVD and order the Keen Eddie DVD at Amazon now. Wonderfalls isn't coming out until February 1st, but here are the details if you are interested. In case you are wondering why I'm posting about these shows, I watched them both until FOX pulled the rug on both series after only 13 episodes each. I made posts about Wonderfalls and Keen Eddie previously. I already made an effort to capture/download all the Keen Eddie eps and burned them to a DVD. The quality is lacking, but it does have the original music, unlike the DVDs. Hopefully I'll be ordering Wonderfalls in the spring.

Also, to make the post agree with its title, I'm throwing in a link to a neat and possibly useful site, TVShowsOnDVD.com. The title of the site is pretty much self-explanatory. It's a site which lists TV shows which are coming out or currently out on DVD. It also lets you vote on what other shows the studios should release on DVD (basically a place where fans voices can get organized for a DVD). It's neat if you want to find out about old shows or if you are lobbying for a new one to come out on DVD. Where else could you check to see that the first season of Mork and Mindy came out on DVD in September?

Star Wars Trilogy DVD Review

There are probably tons of other Star Wars DVD reviews out there, but I thought I'd throw my opinions out there with the rest of them. In case you want to read one written by people with more insight, you can try here. I love the movies. I think they are classics and the story is probably the biggest epic written in our generation.

But what about the DVDs? Well, a lot has been made about the changes to the original movies over the years, and people have thrown out lots of opinions on what is good, what is bad, and how evil George Lucas is. I'm going along with his changes, because I trusted him in the first place, and I think he knows more about making Star Wars than I do. Somethings are a little jarring (musical number at Jabba's in Return), but the overall improvment in color and clarity makes the whole thing a lot better. If you are curious about the changes, DVD Answers did a comprehensive review of the changes (video and audio) in all three movies along with some commentary. Frames and sounds clips from different versions are included in the review. If you have any interest it's a neat read:

Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
The Return of the Jedi

I don't have a lot to say about the movies that isn't already said in the links above, but I do have some general comments about the extras. The commentary was decent overall. There is a whole lot of talking and very little dead time over the whole movie. It's good that there's a lot to be said, but it's more like they are talking over the movie and not really watching the movie with you. You can decide whether you like that, but I found lots of times where I just wanted to watch a scene when I came to it, and someone was constantly talking. Lucas sometimes talks over big scenes, but isn't talking just about that scene (which would make it less distracting), but he's talking about the trilogy/story as a whole. He does a lot of that... Ben Burtt, the sound designer, throws in neat little facts about how sounds were made here and there, but if doesn't interest you, then it could get boring really fast. I liked it for the most part. (I now hit metal guide wires whenever I get a chance) Dennis Muren, the visual effects supervisor, has some interesting comments, but he doesn't have a whole lot of air time. Carrie Fisher has some neat, inside perspective comments, but also has some weird/awkward ones. On the Empire DVD, Irvin Kershner directed, and he has some pretty neat commentary. You can see where some of the tone and attitude of Empire comes from when he describes what he was trying to do in certain scene. Lucas doesn't do enough of this, I think.

The extras disc has some pretty cool stuff on it. There's a 2 hour documentary, Empire of Dreams, which is 'the most comprehensive documentary ever created on the making of the movies.' That's stolen from the back of the DVD, but I agree. The other featurettes are also cool, and I wish there had been more. Overall these behind the scenes extras rounded out the DVD package well. The trailers were neat, if only to see what previews looked like 25 years ago. I didn't delve much into the still galleries, and I don't have an Xbox to preview the game. I stayed away from the Episode III preview, as I'm trying to go into the movie without having seen 1/3 of it in previews.

If you are a big Star Wars fan, you should definitely think about buying/watching these DVDs sometime. The DVD set was a no-brainer purchase for me. Only $40 for a trip to a galaxy far far away.

Television without Pity

I mentioned Tv Tome as a good website for finding TV show information and episode guides in a previous post. The guides have paragraph long recaps and can't really tell you much in terms of details. If you are interested in longer episode recaps of current shows, and wouldn't mind a little 'snark' or sarcasm along with some good cultural allusions, then a good site to visit is Television without Pity. It has episode 'recaplets' in the day or so after an episode airs, which are followed by length in-depth recaps of the episodes in a few days. They are usually pretty well written. Sometimes they can be funny, since they are sprinkled with opinions from the recapper, but sometimes you just want to find out what happened when you don't have access to the episode. In any case, it's worth a visit sometimes to read a recap of an episode, even after you've just seen it, because the writing is pretty good. Give it a try on a show you like...

More Wonderfalls

So Wonderfalls only had a 4 episode run on FOX before they axed it. The producers made 13 episodes of the show, and the last 9 never aired. They tried shopping it around to other networks, but no one took it on, so it looks like there won't be any new Wonderfalls episodes filmed.

It seems that a lot of people really liked the show and wanted it to continue, and like all shows with fan followings that go under, a website popped up in support of the show. SaveWonderfalls.com is a great, well-organized site that has all the info you'll want on Wonderfalls. Thanks to the efforts of SaveWonderfalls, other Wonderfalls websites, and a letter/postcard campaign, it looks like Wonderfalls is coming to DVD around Christmas, with extras and everything, which is really cool. Some of the unaired episodes have been screened for small audiences in LA, which is pretty neat.

If you can't wait till December to know more about the story, some of the shooting scripts are available at SaveWonderfalls with some other extras. Also there are 'bootleg' copies of a bunch of the episodes (both aired and unaired) floating around the internet. You can grab some of them by torrent here. Don't know how long that last link will work. Another place you can try is Suprnova under TV Shows and then Wonderfalls.

A Uniform Used to Mean Something.

I didn't want to rock the boat with two posts in the same day, so here we are on April 2nd. I meant to put this in yesterday's post, but I just forgot.

I usually read the Celebrity News and Studio Briefing that are posted daily on the right side of IMDb's main page. Yesterday there was a blurb about how a NY Times critic, Lou Lumenick, thought that a five minute movie featuring Jerry Seinfeld and an animated Superman was, "the year's funniest new movie so far." I went to the website to watch the movie which is titled A Uniform Used to Mean Something and it was pretty funny. I don't know if it was the funniest new movie this year, but for a 5 minute American Express commercial, it was pretty good. You can watch it in all its full screen glory with Quicktime or Windows Media. There's another 'webisode' or whatever it's called coming up with Jerry and Superman stranded in the middle of the desert. How Superman gets stranded, I don't know, but I'll put my faith in Seinfeld that it's funny.

In case you missed the link to the movie in the paragraph it's here.

Also as Andrew noted in a comment on my last post Wonderfalls has moved to 8 PM Thursday. This must have been a last minute thing, because it was listed as Friday on the DVR programming guide as late as Monday. I guess this is a good thing, even though competition is stiffer on Thursday, because there's just nobody watching on Friday.

First post! (in a month)

So I decided not to post anything in March. I didn't have much to say, since I was ridiculously busy during the middle of the month. So here's a post for April 1st. And no it's not a joke.

Sunny sent me a spreadsheet which had a bunch of frames from movies. You identified the movies by entering the title of the movie into a cell on the spreadsheet. The neat part was that all the people were removed from the frames - they were invisible. It was a neat special effect. The answers had to be exact, which was annoying, because the answer key had some misspellings. The spreadsheet was locked, so you couldn't just go look at the answers, but there ar a number of ways to get around that: 1. You could crack the spreadsheet, like I did. 2. You could use external references to get around the fact that the workbook was locked as Sunny's friend John suggested (i.e "='[moviequiz(blank).xls]Sheet1'!$S$19" in another workbook) 3. or you could just google the answers. You can see the answers here.

After some searching, I found that these images came from a website, FilmWise.com, which has a ton more images like that, which are called Invisibles. The image above was stolen from FilmWise. They put out weekly Invisibles quizzes along with tons of other neat stuff like movie quotes, unique text and visual quizzes, and contests. The site looks really cool, and when I get a chance I'm going to sink my teeth in and find more cool stuff. Also, the people at FilmWise contributed to the game scene it?, which comes highly recommended from Dion. It's a movie trivia game that comes with a DVD full of movie clips used as part of the game. Sounds like it would be fun. They already have an expansion pack out, which is good. My biggest worry about the game is that the reply value would go way down once you'd played through all the questions that use clips.

One more TV related thing to mention is a new show on Fox called Wonderfalls (beware flash-heavy site). It's not the show of the year or anything, but it's entertaining to watch. Since I'm getting lazy, I'll steal some words from Fox's blurb about the show:

There's a good review of the show at the Village Voice if you are interested. The show is neat, quirky, and funny. It uses fast, odd camera movements like Keen Eddie does. The lead actress, Caroline Dhavernas, has an attractive quality I can't quite explain. Most of the critics seem to agree that it's a funny, refreshing show, but the idea of plastic animals talking to the main character could get old after a while. Pretty much all the critics think that the show won't last long in the dead end time slot that is Friday night at 7 central. I think the show is entertaining, and I'm going to enjoy it as long as it's around.

Keen Eddie

Unfortunately network television is so ratings driven that 'good' shows get the axe way before they get a chance to grow an audience. You only need the examples of Seinfeld and Cheers, two 'good' and extremely successful shows, to know that a good show might not garner great ratings at first. So why am I bringing this up?

Keen Eddie is a police comedy/drama about a New York cop who relocates to England to make up for a police bust gone wrong, and then decides to stay there and start over. The show has snappy dialog, fast-paced direction, cool camera perspectives. The acting fits the parts very well and the characters draw you in. It's different from a lot of the shows on television on today, but it's not good just because it's different; it's good because it's good.

The sad part is that Fox planned to start to airing the show in the second half of the 2002-2003 season, but then pushed back the release till the summer, which is probably not the best time to release a new TV show. Then FOX proceeded to shift around its time slot, delay airings (for National Geographic specials...), and finally cancel the show after only airing 7 episodes. (The OC took its original time slot) I caught 2 or 3 of them during last summer, and I started to get into the show, only to have it get cancelled. The good news is that Bravo is airing the 13 episodes that were filmed over the next few months. So if you want to check it out, it airs Tuesday nights at 8 PM Central, and repeats a bunch of times during the week. You can check out the airing schedule here.

In case you need a second opinion I think Keen Eddie has the Andrew seal of approval.

Bush in 30 seconds

Following a link in a comment on slashdot, I ran into a website sponsored by MoveOn, a very liberal 'grassroots' internet organization doing its best to "bring ordinary people back into politics." The organization was one of the first groups to really leverage the internet well for politicking.

MoveOn sponsored a 'Bush in 30 Seconds' contest to find a creative 30 second commercial to show voters what Bush's policies have done to the country over the past few years. The winning entry, "Child's Pay" (high band, QT) is straight-forward and well done. I'll let you take a look at the ad for yourself.

MoveOn raised tons of money and wanted to air the ad during the Superbowl, but CBS refused to air the ad. (google news links) MoveOn thinks CBS is picking politics over free speech, but CBS says it has a policy of not airing advocacy ads. I know I'd like for people to see the ad, but no such luck.

You can pass this link onto people if you want to let them know about the ad not airing. It has a small text intro followed the movie all wrapped in a Flash container.

Coupling

On a recommendation from Sunny, who followed Yono's recommendation, I downloaded and watched, the British comedy series, Coupling.

The series is about 6 thirtysomethings in what seems to be London. People compare it to Friends, but it's not really like that at all. It just happens to be a sitcom with three men and three women. The show is sharp, well written, and very funny. The topics and humor in all the episodes are very adult oriented, but not tasteless. The show manages to mix ridiculous (but excellent) dialog into improbable sitcom-like situations, but still comes out extremely funny. The acting works well with the writing and British humor. I miss out on allusions now and then but can usually get by with context, or if I'm really curious I look it up afterwards. I read that it's all written by a single person, Steven Moffat. What's cool is that he even posts on the discussion boards!

So far everyone I know who has given it a chance (i.e. tried more than one episode) has liked it. There are 6 to 9 episodes in each series of the show, and there are 3 series. (The do things differently in Britain) Also they are 29 minutes each, as there are no commercials on the BBC. I watched them all in a pretty short amount of time and, now I'm waiting for new episodes. The 4th series is going to be taped sometime in February 2004.

So if you've got some time to watch it, it airs on BBC America, you can try downloading the files, or ask me and I can try to get them to you (assuming I know you already). The first and second series are already out on DVD in the US, and the third is coming soon. The third series is also going to air on BBC America (268 on Time Warner Digital in Austin) starting Jan. 29th, although I strongly suggest you start from the beginning. There was an American version on NBC earlier this year, but it was a critical and ratings flop unlike its British predecessor. If you've seen the NBC version and were turned off give the BBC version a try before you write the show off. G approved the BBC version after disliking the NBC version.

Little facts: If the main character, Steve played by Jack Davenport, looks familiar, it's because you probably saw him as the stuffy British guy who Elizabeth is supposed to marry, Norrington in Pirates of the Carribean. After some research Andrew and I discovered that the theme song, 'Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps' is a cover which is also covered by Cake on Fashion Nugget.

Quick Rant.

So why is it that people in the UK can get seasons 2 and 3 of the West Wing on DVD soon, but people in America can't?? It's about the United States! I think we'll end up getting better extras, but that's still not good enough of an excuse.

That was my entire rant. I desperately needed to post something, since I haven't posted much in a long time. Look forward to more stuff in the future, although I'll definitely have to admit it's very hard to come up with good content. I may have to lower standards. Or I might even have to start talking about random things. That's a last resort though. I would say 'Stay Tuned,' but I don't know if I would myself...

yes.net

(Edit: yes.net doesn't work anymore, but you can try mobile.yes.net. See my updated post.)

Have you ever been driving somewhere while listening to the radio and tried to figure out what song is playing? Sometimes you can't figure it out, because you might not know the artist. Sometimes the lyrics are so hard to understand you can't remember a phrase to look for later. Or worse the only phrase you remember is something like "I love you." and there are 50 million songs with that line. Well here's one solution to this problem.

yes.net is a website that keeps track of what a lot of radio stations play on the radio. You can look up a station and a time (when you know you were listening) and see what was playing. The last 24 hours are on the page, and most popular stations (but not all) are listed. It's pretty neat and it might help you find out the name of the song you've been looking for. One bad thing is that it actually identifies the song by actually listening and looking for matches in a database. So if the song isn't in the database, then it won't show up. This was the case with the last song I was looking for, It's My Life by No Doubt because the song hadn't been released. I guess it does mean that it will catch requested songs, where as something that reports a playlist wouldn't.

This isn't a very new idea. Sony came out with the eMarker a few years ago that makes note of the time you heard the song, and then you can plug the marker into your computer (USB) and pick out which radio stations you might have been listening to. It's was a free service once you buy the product. I say was, because they discontinued the service a long time ago. I don't know why Amazon is still selling the marker...

The West Wing

The West Wing is one of the most intelligent, thought-provoking, entertaining shows on TV. It's hard to compare to comedies like Seinfeld and the Simpsons, but among dramas, The West Wing is at the head of the class. The writing and dialogue are smart, witty, and faster paced than almost any other show. The scope of issues dealt with on the show far exceed what you might see in a hospital/crime/law drama. The authority of the office of the president gives a sense of importance to what happens on the show. The actors play their roles extremely well, and are believable, I think.

If you are a conservative, it might be a little hard to deal with the extremely liberal views primary characters. The show is fictional, but in the roughly 2 seasons that I've watched they have brought up a lot of issues that are unresolved in America today. It's not that the show has answers or that it's right, but just that there is a lively discussion on a topic you would only otherwise see on Sunday morning political talk shows. The rhetoric is tilted to the liberal side, but I feel that no matter what side of an issue you're on, the show makes you think about it a little. A lot of popular shows on TV today are mental popcorn, like Alias and Smallville, but The West Wing is far far from that. It's compelling and smart at the same time.

Aaron Sorkin did an excellent job with the show over its first few seasons, and set a standard that will be hard to meet now that he's left the show. (The show is currently in its fifth season.) If you've watched Sports Night (also a Sorkin creation) then you'll probably enjoy The West Wing a lot.

You can catch the new episodes on NBC, Wednesdays at 9/8 Central, and reruns on Bravo Monday through Thursday several times during the day. The newest episode airs at 6 PM and again at 10 PM, and older ones sometime air at the other times (5, 10, 11 AM). Also, the season one DVD is coming out November 18th. You can get it at buy.com or amazon for about $40. If you're looking for more info on the show (episodes, characters, etc.) this is a good site.

I could go on and on about the show, but the best way for you to know what I'm talking about it is to watch it.

Moon Junkie

Nick just borrowed From the Earth to the Moon from me, and I realized that I had never posted about it here. It is one of the best pieces of film/TV that I've ever seen. If you have any curiosity about the space program or the moon at all, you should give it a try. Amazing moments in the space history are recreated from a first person point of view. The set design, cinematography, and acting are awesome. Most importantly, it faithfully recreates the mood and atmosphere of a long gone era.

Nick said that he visited the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal after watching each episode. The journal has TONS of information and media on the Apollo program, and someday when I get time I'll spend hours and hours just looking at the pictures.

One of the episodes features the Apollo 12 mission of Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon, and Alan Bean. Paul McCrane and Dave Foley played Conrad and Bean extremely well. The episode was funny, informative, and interesting. Nick and I were talking about the episode, when I decided to do a search for some paintings by Alan Bean. He started painting in the mid-80s, and I think he has the unique perspective of an artist who has actually visited the location he's painting. I came to a great website that has a gallery of Alan Bean's paintings. Some of the paintings were just really neat. Some of the originals are on sale at some galleries for $20,000+, and if someday I become a rich rich man, I'd like to acquire one. Until then I think I may order a print or just marvel at the cool ones on the web. Like this one.

Red vs. Blue

After reading a /. post, I downloaded a Halo-based clip of the warthog vehicle getting blown into the air in a bunch of different ways. It was a neat display of the Halo physics, and was cut together with some appropriate/funny sound clips.

But the next link I followed was much cooler. The same guys that made the Gamer's 'switch' ad are making a series of short Halo-based clips titled Blood Gulch at redvsblue.com. They are hilarious and awesome, and people who aren't hardcore gamers will find them funny. Juan (video clip) and I watched the first 14 episodes of Blood Gulch (2-6 minutes each), and they were great. There are going to be 26 in total, with a new one coming out every week on Sunday. I suggest you check them out for a good laugh. I have the first 14 on my computer, or you can get them from the Blood Gulch page, which is probably faster.

24 - Season One

I'm sure everyone who watches any TV has heard of the FOX TV series 24. The show follows 24 consecutive hours in the life of Jack Bauer, an LA counterterrorist agent. Each season is a full 24 hours, no bathroom breaks (that we see) or naps. It may seem a little weird when you hear it, but after you start watching, the show sucks you in. The action continuously rises for the first 12 hours of show, which is amazing. The show is great at building tension and holding the viewer hostage as much as the characters.

Sunny, Yono, Jackson and I split the DVD for Season One for a pretty low price at Walmart, and then proceeded to watch the entire season in about 36 hours. If we has timed it better we could have done it 24 hours, since it was only about 20 hours of video (commercials removed). It was quite an experience. We didn't want to stop after each one, even though we were pretty tired at various points. Although it didn't leave a lasting impression on me like some other show/movies, it was some of the best television I've seen. I highly recommend you give it a watch sometime if you haven't seen it.

Followup on Lifted Riffs

Yono has informed that the 4 riffs have some similarites, but that there are significant difference. With some help from Yono I made the table below to describe the riffs. They are all 4 chord riffs and have the same rhythm for the most part. In the center is rough description of whether the next chord is up or down (in the progression of four) and on the right are the actual chords. I stole the chords for the riffs from the Online Guitar Archive. You need the up/down cues to tell which way the chords are going, since the A-F-C in Offspring and Bush are actually different.

If you have no clue what Absus4 means, go here. If you don't know what Bb means, the little b is supposed to be the flat symbol. If you don't know what flat means in this context, then this might be over your head. It's nearly over mine.

So looking at this table, we can tell that the riffs are arguably different, and we'll never know if anyone of the groups actually lifted the riffs from another. The order that the songs came out was Boston (1976), Nirvana (1991), then Offspring and Bush at about the same time (1994). Given how big Nirvana was in the early 90s, I'd be surprised if Offspring and Bush weren't influenced by one of the biggest songs of the decade, Smells Like Teen Spirit (especially Bush).

More comments from guitar knowledgeable people is welcome...

Lifted Riffs

I heard a long time ago that the main riff from Offspring - Self Esteem was lifted from Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, and after listening, it did sound pretty similar to me. I was telling this to a few friends (Yono and Sunny) who didn't believe me, so here's 'proof.' Again all this shows is that they are very similar riffs, not that one actually copied the other, because it is of course possible that two bands could come up with the same riff...

While searching the web for info on this, I ran into a page that said Bush also lifted the main riff in Little Things. Also Noe said that another guitar player had told him that the Nirvana riff is actually very similar to Boston's More Than a Feeling, which really suprised me, but I listened to it, and it was. So here are short clips from each songs (just the riff) and a few overlays for you to listen to, so you can decide for yourself, if you don't believe me.

• Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
• Boston - More Than a Feeling
• Offspring - Self Esteem
• Bush - Little Things

Since all the songs aren't the same tempo, I timed the riff for each song. 4.072 seconds for Nirvana, 4.319 for Boston, and 4.477 for Offspring. Then I increased the tempo (preserving pitch) on the Boston and Offspring songs, and then overlaid each on top of the Nirvana, so you could hear the similarites. It's a little hard to listen to, and the beats aren't exactly on top of each other, but I'm no recording wizard, so it'll take a little imagination on your part. It's kind of neat to hear Boston singing over Nirvana's rough guitar. (I didn't do Bush, because I was getting lazy.)

Nirvana and Boston
Nirvana and Offspring

As a side note, I don't see anything wrong with 'lifting' riffs. A good riff is a good riff. It's just good to know where the music came from. It's cool that the riff was a part of 4 hit songs. Objections, comments, and insights from more knowledgeable people are requested, since I don't know much more than my ear tells me, which isn't much. Some tab/sheet music comparisons would be better than what I did...if anyone is up for it.

Two TV Shows

So if you are looking for some TV shows to watch I have two for you. Both of these are without out a doubt not the best on television, but they are entertaining to watch and cool for a few reasons:

Alias - ABC, Sunday 8 PM Central - At first this show was about Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), a double agent working for the CIA to destroy the organization she unknowingly worked for SD-6. Her family and friends get tangled up (or were already tangled) in her already crazy life. The show has changed a lot in its second season, and now it's moving even faster. You can read the plot details here or here. The show has lots of eye candy for men (Jennifer Garner) and for women (as you can see here), plenty of action, well-played characters (I think), and a crazy overall plot line. It's taken on a sci-fi/fantasy tinge, which adds an element of craziness to a show you'd expect to more like Mission: Impossible than X-Files. The dialogue is fairly well written, and I think the characters are pretty strong. The plot keeps you guessing, and the action is always fun.

Smallville - WB, Tuesday 8 PM Central (moving to Wed in Fall '03) - The story of Superman, but from the point of view of a teenage Clark Kent growing up in Smallville, KS. Everyone is familiar with the stroy of Superman, but this is a new twist. For the show overall, Akash described it best as "superman meets dawson's creek." There's plenty of teen confusion and drama, but there's still the story of Superman, which is what draws me in. The story isn't exactly the same as the traditional superman myth, but most of the big details will come out the same in the end, at least we think they will. One major difference is that one of Clark's best friends is a not-yet-evil Lex Luthor, who now lives in Smallville. There are plenty of hints at his evil side, but the shows writers have made it a habit of giving the viewer hope that he'll be good. You can find out details about the show and plot here. Overall the show is targeted at a teen audience, and doesn't require much brainpower to watch, but it's definitely entertaining.

We Didn't Start the Fire

Hopefully you've heard the Billy Joel song We Didn't Start the Fire. If you haven't go find it and listen to it now!

The story goes the Billy Joel was talking to a disillusioned kid in the late 80s about how things were so bad in the world at the time. The kid said Joel was lucky to have grown up in the 50s, when not much happened. In response, Joel wrote this song. The lyrics are rapid fire allusions to political, cultural, and historical events between 1949 and 1989.

I thought about making a page describing the references, but there are a zillion of them already out there, so I just went looking for a good one. After dogding a bunch of sites with obnoxious colors schemes, I found this one. All the references are linked for your laziness.

(Edit: Removed the link because it was dead. There's a good page with links on Wikipedia.)

If you are feeling adventurous, you can watch a crazy flash representation of the song. It has pictures that pop up in sync with the references in the song. Once you get past the annoying text, subliminal messages, and crazy colors you might enjoy it.

My high school US History teacher, Coach Bryan, played the song in our class, and went over the references as a cultural review of the time period just before our AP exam. I'd heard it before, but hearing it in class gave it more meaning, and I had a chance to learn about all those significant events which led to the world that we live into today. All that in a #1 pop song...

Abandoned Pools

In an effort to push non-radio music:

I thought the Clone High theme was kind of catchy, so looked into it, and the the band that does the theme is called Abandoned Pools. The frontman/main dude is Tommy Walter. He left The Eels a few years ago. The music is popish (isn't everything I listen to) and mixes lots of melodies in typical alt-rock fashion. Not sad or angry, but bittersweet and angst-filled. (to steal words from the following link) There's info on the band at allmusic.com. Also, there's a review of their first album, Humanistic. Bands that are supposedly similar are: Radiohead, E, Weezer, Oasis, and Travis.

I think it's interesting, and you guys might want to check it out.

Clone High

There's a new cartoon on MTV called Clone High. The premise is that some super secret government people dug up the DNA of famous people and cloned them in the mid-80s. Today these clones, such as Abe Lincoln, JFK, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, and Gandhi, are teens in high school. The show does a great job of mixing historical and cultural allusions, downright stupid humor, and witty dialogue. There are some instant classic quotes and unforgettable characters.

The show is in the middle of it's first season on MTV, and is on hiatus at the moment. It'll be returning in the next month or so, so be sure to catch it then. You can look for showtimes at TV Guide or MTV in a few weeks. For those of you without cable, or who can't manage to get to a TV when Clone High is on, contact me and I can tell you where to find them online or send them to you. The whole first season has already aired in Canada, so I have all the episodes. They are worth the effort.

For more cool info on the show and all it's wackiness go to The Unofficial Clone High Interweb Whatever or this Clone High Forum.

Don't miss out on this awesome show and Mr. Butlertron, Wessssssly!

Also Buddyzoo is over 1,000,000 screennames. Go sign up if you haven't already.

Conquest

Conquest is a show on the History Channel where the host/narrator, Peter Woodward, takes on the challenge of learning a new form of competition or combat and teaching it to a group of laymen. Some of the topics the show has covered are the Bow and Arrow, Stone Age weapons, and today's episode was Urban Ops (SWAT team type stuff). You can read the episode summaries here, and see when the next few episodes are airing, by clicking here, and then typing Conquest in the search box at the bottom of the page.

I think the show is filled with a ton of interesting facts and I learn something new and cool everytime that I watch. Sometimes Woodward gets a little dramatic, but I don't mind as long as he's presenting things well. I've been capturing episodes as they have aired over the last two weeks, so if you are interested in seeing it, but can't find time to watch it on TV, then contact me. (This is assuming of course that I know you personally, because I'm not sending eps to random people).

Audioscrobbler

To save myself some trouble, here's a description of Audioscrobbler from the front page of its website:

"In a nutshell, Audioscrobbler endeavours to be your personal music advisor. It grows to know what music you like by monitoring what songs you play on your computer. From this information you can discover other users that share some or all of your taste in music. You can also view data showing what your most-played artists are, and find out who likes a particular artist the most. Basically The Audioscrobbler Project is turning into a fantastic way of discovering new music, and discovering people who like the same music as you."

I'll say that it's very interesting, and it's beginning to do what it says it can do. The setup is really easy. Go to the website, register, then download and install the winamp plugin, and make sure you enable it. That's it! The plugin runs completely transparent, and even caches data if you are offline. Then you can go to the Audioscrobbler home page and view your statistics as well as the statistics of others. To give you a feel for what you will see, here are some stat pages to look at:

My personal stat page
What people are currently listening to
The most popular artists. (It's pretty rock-centric)

What Jackson, Keyur, Dan and Gautam are listening to. Tag your songs G!

The the creator, RJ, made it has a project for one of his CS classes, and it just took off. There are forums with active people, and they are actively improving the system every day. It's a little rough around the edges some time, but still pretty neat. Hopefully people will find new artist they like with this system. If nothing else, it gives stat-whores like me something to look at.