Quality Television

I'm not even gonna explain the long lay-off. All I'm gonna say is "I told you so". On to the blog.

I've spent probably the last 6 months catching up on Television shows from the past 5 or so years that I never watched. After spending that time effectively watching a mixture of ESPN, MTV, 24 and whatever reruns I could catch of my favorite old shows, I decided to hop a few bandwagons. Frankly, all I'm wondering now is what took me so long.

1. The Wire: Well, my excuse for not watching this show was simply that I didn't have HBO. I actually watched the first episode one vacation when I was home from school (right when my dad first got HBO) but didn't keep up because there was no way for me to continue watching. Then I sort of forgot about it.
Well, I'm sorry I did. I started my bandwagoning with this show, and as my friends over at General Musings from Generalists and Bill Simmons (towards the bottom of the column) can attest to, this may just be the best show ever made (and I'm only through season 2). There isn't much I can really say about it that hasn't already been said, but it's just a really well done show. I highly recommend this show to, well, everyone.

2. Rescue Me: This isn't so much a bandwagon show as just a really entertaining show. I'm only through season 1 right now, but had Blockbuster Online gotten their stuff together I would have been through season 2. It's not for everyone, and it's really not near as good as the other shows on this list, but as far as quality Television, and compared to most of what is on TV today, this is well done.

3. Scrubs: This is actually my most recent bandwagon show, as I started watching it over the Christmas holiday. I don't really know what kept me from watching it initially, or what got me watching it now. All I know is that each time it comes on (which is about 10 times over the course of the day) I pretty much have my TV tuned to it. It's amazing to me that the best shows are the ones nobody watches, and that this show was almost cancelled on several occasions.
I think, what I like about it, more than anything else is the realism that it brings. Now, if you've ever seen it, you understand what I mean by "realism". The fact is, it uses the old trick comedies used back in the 90's, when characters learn lessons within each show. However, the difference between this show and others is that nothing is shoved down your throat. The lessons they're learning are for their benefit, not for ours. They're not trying to teach or preach or anything like that. It's a comedy about working in a hospital, but they have no problem reminding you that these people do, in fact, work in a hospital, which can be a very emotional and depressing place. But they do it with charisma and style, and there really isn't a bad thing I can say about this show. I feel like, if you haven't gotten on the bandwagon, it's not too late. I think I've seen half of their six seasons in the last month just off syndication (Comedy Central, 11am and 11:30am Eastern, and 7pm and 7:30pm Eastern). So, check it out.

Other than that, I feel like there hasn't been Quality Television quite like there currently is in a while. Shows that I personally enjoy include Lost, Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, My Name is Earl, Numb3rs, Las Vegas, and House. And there are apparently good shows that I don't even pay any mind to (Desperate Housewives, Gray's Anatomy, etc.) as well as old favorites (Law and Order, etc.) So I'm just happy I have my TiVo. Because without it, I would probably have even less to do here in St. Louis.

Coming Soon: Why 24 is like my best friend from Elementary school who suddenly became cool in High school and stopped talking to me.

Bianca Ryan

Bianca Ryan

This just left me absolutely speechless. If you haven't heard of this girl yet, you're really in for something here.

If only life didn't get in the way...

I just wanted to pass on a hilarious post on a friend's blog, which is especially funny if you hold an appreciation (as I do) for fantasy sports.

Just can't get rid of me...

Things I should have blogged about or thought about blogging about during the longest month and a half of my life:

1. V for Vendetta is probably the most intellectual action movie you'll ever see.
2. Freakonomics was not really that impressive a book (more on this later).
3. Every trip to the Big City of Dreams is fantastic/overwhelming/thrilling/non-stop/too short. I think that each day that passes I come closer to deciding to move back home.
4. Re-reading "The Things They Carried" and how it seems a lot shorter the second time around. Maybe I have developed my reading abilities a bit since high school.
5. The Yankees taking over first place.
6. How St. Louis takes the life out of me sometimes.
7. Everything that I wanted to put on this list and now can't remember.

I guess this is what I get for being so busy/lazy/tired. But I'm going to work on getting back into this, if for no other reason than it's good for me to keep writing.


On another note, normally I share something I wrote on September 11th, 2002, retelling my story of that day, I suppose. I think at this point we've all heard enough about it. So the best I can do is to offer up my love to those that have been there for me throughout the years, and attempt to not take for granted the blessings I have in my life.

I encourage anyone else to do the same.

The Da Vinci Code, Follow Up

It has recently occured to me, that towards the end of my Da Vinci Code post, I stated that I would later discuss the impact of the movie and the discussions it started. Well, I cleary have not followed through in my pledge. So I ask that you give me a couple of days to get my thoughts together, and I solemnly swear that by this time next week, I will have a post up on the subject. I do appreciate the patience, however.

In the meantime, I would like to quickly talk about a recent bill that was passed in the Senate. Essentially, the bill makes it a crime to transport a minor across state lines to get an abortion without her parents consent. (For your reference, it was voted in favor of by 51 Republicans and 14 Democrats).

Personally, I'm a bit torn on this issue. As a person classified as pro-choice (and please, before anyone lights up my message board with anti-abortion comments, pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion - I'm keeping those thoughts to myself - and if you don't know that by now, well, you've got some reading to do), I don't agree with any bill that prevents a person from their right to have an abortion if they so choose. The fact is, I believe this bill is an attempt at the beginning of the end of abortion (which will, in fact, not end it at all, just end it in a safe and legal manner). However, one thing that strikes me about this bill is that it's claiming to be "in the best interest of the safety of the minor." Personally, I don't really buy it, but it does bring up an interesting point.

I think that it can be dangerous for a young girl to be traveling hundreds of miles to places she doesn't know to get an abortion from a doctor she may not trust. Personally, I think it would be much better if parents would be more open to discussion with their children, as well as if children would be more open to discussion with their parents, and if everyone would put their sense and safety ahead of anything else. However, that's not the case, and therefore the only thing I really have to go on is my dislike and distrust of Congress. I guess, in that sense, I've made my decision.

Maybe one of these days I can get something positive in here.

Frustration, Part 2

From today's New York Times, an article on Bush's veto of the Stem Cell Bill:

Critics of the legislation have said it still involves “taking something that is living and making it dead for the purpose of research,” as the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, put it on Tuesday.


Just wondering how that would be different than possibly "taking something that is living and making it dead for the purposes of oil, fattening pockets, etc."?

Frustration

After reading both an article on the new Stem Cell bill (that will be vetoed by "President" Bush) and an article about the arrest of the head of a Sports Betting company in London, I think I may be hitting a new point of frustration.

Now, I don't know much about stemm cell research. I haven't been keeping up to date in the political bullshit because, frankly, I believe it's bullshit, and so I've separated myself from it. However, so far as I can tell, the idea behind stem cell research is simple: it will help to attempt to find cures for diseases such as Cancer and Parkinson's. So maybe I don't get it. Perhaps I'm simply naive. But as simple as I can really put it, isn't curing diseases a good thing? But I guess it makes sense. As more Americans and Iraquis and countless others get killed for oil, there's no reason no to sacrifice those at home so Congressional pockhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifets can stay fatter, right?

Meanwhile, the government is going all out attempting to indict Barry Bonds for *allegedly* taking steroids (and while I do believe he did, I think the government is wasting it's time, his time, my time, and money), and they're now targeting online gambling. Now, I understand gambling is illegal (unless of course you're in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Tunica, Reno, on a Native American Reservation, in any one of the legal Casino's that are "on the water, not on land," etc.) But come on. Ralph Reed just lost the Georgia Lieutenant Governor Republican Nomination because he was involved in the Jack Ambramoff scandal where they took money from a Louisiana Native American Casino to illegaly shut down a competiting Casino in Texas. Clearly gambling is not a problem with the government. People making money overseas on Americans, is.

Frankly, I'm sick of Congress. We've got a growing problem of Global Warming, more diseases spawned every day that we can't fight, hunger, poverty and violence the world over, and they're wasting their time attempting to send Bonds to jail and arresting people who take sports bets. We're trillions of dollars in debt, gas prices are rising and the disparity between rich and poor is growing daily.

I consider myself a Democrat, more because to me, it's the lesser of two evils. But frankly, I'm more anti-politician than anything. I don't like, appreciate, or have patience for bullshit (which is a cause for my current dislike for my job), and Congress is full of it.


In lighter news, good look to DJ Bnapperish, for shouting out The Thought Process, in her blog Brittany Goes To Washington (and has since come back).

Conservative Hollywood?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/movies/16ande.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

After reading my blog the other day, my father e-mailed me this article. Kind of funny how things work. And apparently people do read this thing. Who'da thunk it?

(Actually, quite a few people have let me know that they check for updates semi-regularly. And for that I thank you.)

Trying to get back into the swing of things...

Due to my recent work load/exhaustion, I've been lackadaisically posting external links that have interest me, but provide me the minimum amount of work while still attempting to keep up the blog. And because some of that weight has been lifted as of today (read: business trips) then I thought perhaps this would be a good time to get back into the swing of things.

A question was posed to me a few weeks ago (in my Oscar's post) as to whether I agreed with a Tony Kushner statement that "political theatre is usually theatre of the left. That right-learning theatre tends not to be progressive or socially engaged theatre." I attempted to look for the article of which this reader was mentioning, and couldn't find a free version (I really need to set up my Times Select account...), and will therefore have to take this quote as is (not that I assume he was misquoted, I just prefer to get an entire background on something before forming an opinion).

As for the question, I would honestly have to say I don't know. As I'm not a huge theater buff, I couldn't tell you that I know a lot about theater, political or not (though having a sister obsessed with Broadway has kept me in the loop). It would seem to me, however, from life experience, and theaters distant counsin the cinema, that Kushner's comment would be a true one.

Considering my recent viewing of An Inconvenient Truth, (which Puff over at General Musings for Generalists recently blogged about), and the wealth of documentaries out there, I supposed I can come to a reasonable conclusion as to why this is.

What it seems like to me, is that "the political left," to me, is nothing more than advents of positive change (or perhaps not-so-positive change, but generally people don't like for things to change for the worse). The reason I say this is not because I think "the political right" doesn't want positive change as well. The way I see it is that we still, today, have a conservative leaning society (which I beleive will always be the case), and because of that "the political right" are more comfortable with the way things are. If you're comfortable with how things are, you're not going to make a documentary (like Who Killed The Electric Car?), a movie (like Brokeback Mountain), or a play (like Caroline or Change). It would seem to me that the point of writing political theater is to stir up something - be it a movement, an idea, or whatever - to change the way society behaves. Nobody would spend their best efforts writing/producing/filming something that would cause you to leave thinking "boy let's keep things the way they are," because that would be a waste of time, energy and money (and as much as we in this country like to waste all three, we prefer to be less obvious about it).

I think another reason for this would be that, it seems, those in Hollywood and in the Broadway community are more "left leaning," (or so they say), and therefore what they put out would generally have more of a "left leaning" tendancy. I think, the ultimate fact is, that it's "cool" to be a rebel, to disrespect authority, and even in your adult years the "popular" people will express that. In this case, government and society are more "right leaning," and therefore any type of response from what would be considered the popular crowd would be opposite of that.

That's really just my take on it. Feel free to add yours.

Crazyness

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/07/07/paperclip-house.html


It's stories like this that make me think I need to get out there and make things happen.

Gary Matthews, Jr. robs a HR from Mike Lamb

I guess it turns out I did see Superman this weekend.

Why I Hate The Mets, reason number 18,452

Click it. You know you want to.

St. Louis Drivers

Growing up, we had a term for people who couldn't drive: "New Jersey Drivers." Well, since spending the last five years out in the Midworst, I have a new term: "St. Louis Driver."

You see, to me, one of the greatest feelings you can get is when you first get on the highway and are able to hit that accelerator and feel the car jump into a higher gear. It's a freeing feeling, like there's nothing standing in your way. And the exact opposite of that, then, would be traffic.

Most traffic I can deal with. I mean, everyone hates traffic, but bumper-to-bumper, big-city traffic, accident traffic, it's all within reason. There is a method to the madness. It's not unfounded.

St. Louis traffic is just that. Unfounded.

St. Louis traffic comes as a mixture of several things:

1. Poor planning. Interstate 170 ends at the intersection of Highway 64/40 and Eager Road. It just stops. What kind of a highway, a three lane highway, for that matter, just stops? Anytime there's an average amount of cars on the road, the amount of congestion at that intersection is ridiculous and unfounded. There are various places around this city in just that manner. The highway 70, 44, 64/40 intersection by the Arch. The traffic lights by the Landing. Random stop signs where there should be lights and lights where there should be stop signs. It's like someone took a map of the street of St. Louis, closed their eyes, and played pin the light on the intersection.

2. Lack of knowing what you're doing/where you're going. Clearly St. Louis residents have absolutely no idea what is going on. Despite that they've been here long enough to figure it out, they still don't know when their exit is, what lane to make right turns from (right lane), to look in their side mirrors and blind spots, etc. Between the Skinker Road exit on Westbound Highway 64/40 and the intersection of I-170 and Brentwood, there is ALWAYS traffic. However, there's no cause for this traffic. The highway doesn't suddenly merge two lanes, it doesn't have a lower posted speed limit. It is a mixture of a few large turns and people getting over too early/too late. The traffic is pointless and unfounded, and it's enough to drive you insane.

3. Lack of courtesy. I don't know if it's the fact that people in St. Louis are stubborn or what. I do know, however, that they don't have the proper courtesy. While they'll sit at a stop sign for five minutes waiting for you to go when they, in fact, have the right of way, on the highway they'll do whatever they please, whenever. One of the main reasons there is traffic in St. Louis is because people drive too close together. Why do they do that? Because they don't have the courtesy to either a) speed up or b) slow down. Instead, they will tail each other - six, seven, eight cars at a time. The first car will not speed up to gain separation, and none of the cars following behind will slow down. However, since they're driving so close to each other, to be safer, they drive slower as a group (especially when making turns - they've never heard of accelerating into the turn?), and make it worse on everyone around them. I've had constant traffic issues because of this fact. I like to call it "The Clump Phenomenon."

My last point is not a reason for traffic in St. Louis, it's just an example of why they're the worst drivers I've ever seen. When a light turns green, the cars at the front will sit there a good 10-15 seconds before they begin to (slowly) accelerate. Why do they do this? Because red lights mean nothing in this city. A just-turned red light only means that you can get three more cars through the intersection. Therefore, the cars waiting at the green light take longer to start, causing the cars in the back to run the red light so they can make the light they should have made in the first place, wash, rinse and repeat. It's absurd. Factor that in with unusually short lights at some major intersections, and you can spend more time at one light than it will take you to make the entire rest of your trip combined.


On second thought, though, maybe they're the best drivers. They would have to be to not have 100 accidents a day.

The DaVinci Code

I'm back. And since it's been a while, how about we just get right to it, huh?

I went to see The DaVinci Code this past Memorial Day weekend. Initially, I felt that I was going to go into the theater mostly bored, and dislike the movie. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. However, I felt that the intellectualism of the book, the aspect I enjoyed so much (the story didn't do as much for me, I felt it was a bit predictable), was going to be hard to translate on screen.

Boy was I wrong.

Now, first, let me say that I read the book two years ago. I didn't remember most of the little details, just the major essence of the story (the aspects that moved the plot, the general idea, etc.). The person I went with, however, read the book about a month ago or so, and his experience was almost opposite of mine.

We both enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed it a lot more, however, because I wasn't sitting there picking apart the movie, seeing what was different from the book and what was the same. The fact is, they had to remove a lot of interesting and cool stuff because the movie was 2 and a half hours as it is, and it felt like it moved really fast. It was impossible to make a 400+ page book that's written like a movie into a normal length movie without removing some things. But we found that reading the book recently enough to remember most or all of it - then seeing the movie - is not a good mix. It disappoints you, and you miss what the movie does really well, which is capture the essence of the book.

I was certainly intrigued by the intellectual aspect (even though I already knew most of the things they revealed), and generally entertained by the movie. The only thing that seemed to move slowly was the end, but that was done well also, I think, and it was necessary to slow it down a bit. There was one change at the end that I initially was put off by, but after a couple minutes of thought I decided I actually liked that change better than the original (it made more sense, in my opinion). So, all in all, it was an enjoyable time, and certainly worth the money.

What's my recommendation, you ask? If you haven't read the book yet, don't. Go see the movie. Enjoy the story. Then go read the book and enjoy the intellectual aspect. The movie shouldn't ruin the suspense of the book, especially since there's more in the book, and the suspense that's built up for the end is (mostly) predictable anyway. If you have read the book, however, don't fret. Just enjoy the movie. Don't pick it apart, compare it. Think of it as two different entities. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you let the movie take it's course.

One last thing. Something that I'm probably the only person in the world who cares about: in the movie, one thing Ron Howard made sure to do was to have French people speaking in French to each other. It seems like a simple idea, but in so many American movies French people speak English to each other. It's something that has frustrated me for years. So props to Mr. Howard for the realism. We're all adults. We can read a couple of subtitles.

Later in the week I'll discuss the impact the movie had, the discussions it started, and why I think they're important.



I sound like I'm teaching a class or something.

And since I've figured out how to embed videos...

This cat's dexterity is ridiculous:

The Atlanta Hawk

So a good friend of mine took this video, and he's gotten 23,000 views on You Tube in the past two days. So I figured I'd throw it up here so my reader(s?) know that I saw it first. Haha. Enjoy.