Back to your regularly scheduled programming

The Daily Show (3-30-2006) - Jason Jones reports again from Denmark where he gets high. Lou Dobbs phones it in during an interview (get it, he was on the phone, therefore phoning it in, see? Pun!) Yet more proof that Bush was hell-bent on invading Iraq regardless of any actual proof of WMD or any other type of real reason for us to be there. Sharon Stone was the special guest but it seemed like she didn't want to be there.

Star Trek DS9 - Finished watching DS9 Season 3. This is the season it starts to get good with the Dominion and starting to see where that story is going. Also the characters start taking on better personalities. The Next Gen is and always will be my favorite Star Trek, but DS9 is really good and this is the season it starts.

DL.TV (Episode 48) - I just want to rant a bit here because Robert Heron has a hard-on for LCD tv's that I do not understand. The picture quality sucks and if you plan on watching football or hockey, they're the WORST TV you can possibly get as the motion blur is terrible. The Sharp 45" looks good, but it's 50-100% more than a similar plasma. A pretty neat segment on different visual file inspectors which was nice to see and I used one of the programs and found a 2.x gig file I didn't know.

Mix it up with a little Music Review

Last night we (Lace and I) saw Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers play at the Grape Street Pub (on Main Street) in Manyunk. Man they put on such an awesome show, and we're both big big fans. We're going back tonight to The Stone Pony in Asbury Park to see them again.

Last night may have been my favorite show of theirs I've seen so far with a really nice mix of songs from Americano and older Refreshments stuff with other RCPM stuff too. Didn't play Una Soda (but they did last year, and it's rare they play that) which is probably my favorite Refreshments song and Andrea will be sad to hear they didn't play Jack vs. Jose either, but it was really really cool. Switchblade, which might be my favorite RCPM song, was played as well as Lace's two requests Leaky Little Boat and Mekong (but they ALWAYS play Mekong, which is awesome.) I wish I had the complete set list so that I wouldn't have to try to remember what they played. No songs this time I didn't know, like Captian Suburbia or any other Covers or non-album work.

I'm really curious to see what the show's like tonight. I've never been to two shows in two nights of the same band.

Pretend this is yesterday

Ok, pretend this post was posted yesterday, as it was all written up, but I forgot to post it :)

Well, it was Lacey's birthday yesterday so we didn't get to watch must last night. But, anyway, here we go again.

Amazing Race - Good Thing I Took That Human Anatomy Class in High School - I like the geeks, and I like the hippies. This used to be my favorite of the reality shows (although, like all reality shows, it goes in my eyes and I forget it. In fact, it's hard to write this review because I forget what I watched.) It isn't good, but it is usually the most watchable. However, if Amazing Race has another season with a complete asshole and a wife that lets him verbally abuse her, I swear I'm going to stop watching.

Distraction (3/28) - Pretty funny episode, but the elf guy that won is a dumbass. Ice cold slushie shots, then the boring ping-pong in the face and finally nudists in a phone booth.

The Daily Show - 3-30-2006 - Stewart loses it at one point which is always funny. Queen Latifah is the guest based on her voice in Ice Age II. Since I'll be seeing Ice Age II, that was pretty nice. She seemed excited to be on the show.

The Evidence - Down for the Count - Well they're two for two so far. Yet another show where one of the main plot pieces had already been done in C.S.I. And the whole gimmick of showing the Evidence doesn't really work, I don't think, because you're not able to actually use this evidence to figure anything out until they show it to you in context. In that case, why bother?

Like my new Template

Well, do you?

It's from the fine folks at www.adagio.com who sell excellent loose leaf tea. You may not know that I'm a huge tea drinker and since finding Adagio, I've been drinking even more. So if you're in the market for some really good tea, give 'em a shot, you won't be dissapointed.

As an asside, they have some of the fastest shipping I've ever seen. If I order by 3 PM, I usually have the package the next day (it does help that their headquarters are in NJ.)

3-29-2006 (boring title, but what the hell)

Shows watched since last blog :)

Prison Break (By the Skin and the Teeth) - Prison Break is the most unbelivably unreal show, even more so than 24. But it's so much fun and I'll watch just for that reason. Pretty good episode, even if you know what the outcomes are going to be. We'll see how Michael can work his escape plan now that he's lost a bunch of the map (due to a burn)

Daily Show (3/28/2006) - Laughed really hard when Stweart started quoting the bible during a firing from Fridays in 1982 (I swear this sentence makes sense if you saw the show.) Jason Jones reported on Denmark actually FROM Denmark intsead of in front of a green screen. This made for a nice recurring gag on the show. Fareed Zakaria (I have no idea if I spelled that right) was on again and he's a solid guest who's entertaining AND informative.

Oh, we cleared our DVR of Jeopardy last night. Yeah, we record it. You can squeeze Jeopardy down to 17 minutes if you don't watch the commercials or the interviews and it makes you smarter.

Cranky Geeks (Episode 2) - crankygeeks.com - This is John Dovorak's IPTV technology show. Heres my thing with Dovorak. I hate him on TWIT because he's loud, obnoxious and pretty much always wrong. But on his own show where he gets to decide where he's going, I actually like him and think he's pretty insightful. I really didn't like the one guy who was a big-business apologetic who thinks AT&T is in the right to force a tiered Internet and that Apple is in the right to not license the iTunes DRM to other providers having an effective monopoly on online music.

Nazi Expedition - I watched this National Geographic show on how the Nazis tried to prove they were the Aryan Race using anthropology and going to places such as Tibet. It was interesting. Hitler was a messed up guy, but I think Himmler might have been even more wacked out.

Diggnation - Episode 38 - Live from Reno. Kevin and Alex get REALLY drunk in this episode. Actually, maybe a bit too drunk for my tastes because they have a hard time keeping on topic. More so than usual. But I'm okay with these rediculous types of shows every once in a while, but I think they're going to need to another tea show after this one.

geekdrome - Episode 18 - With guest star Scott Klopfenstein of Reel Big Fish. One of the funniest episodes talking about one of the most disgusting sounding things ever (no I didn't check.) If you're curious, you can go to the geekdrome forums and check it out, but don't. If it's even close to as bad as they said, you don't want to see it.

dl.tv - Episode 47 - Basic tech show with some funny commentary.

New Kind of Blog for Me

So as you can tell I'm not good at blogging. Mostly because I don't have much good to say. But I do spend an inordinate and probably unhealthy amount of time watching TV and/or Movies. So I thought I'd spend a few days and see if I can get a running tally of what I'm watching and what I think. These are just my opinions, you don't have to agree with them (and I welcome discussion.) Also, I'm going to be assuming you watched it too, which is probably a bad assumption, but if you see something you HAVE seen, my comments will probably make more sense. Also, since I watch just about 100% of my stuff on DVR (or downloaded, shhhh) I may or may not review something anywhere NEAR when it actually aired.

Last couple of days I've watched some TV. Monday I caught up on the Simpsons (Homer Simpson, This is your Wife) from Sunday and it was pretty good. Lots of funny shots at FOX and them stealing shows from other channels. Overall forgettable, though. After 17 years, they start to run together.

Family Guy (Sibling Rivalry) was also okay. Kinda weird with the whole fat sex thing. But I was a fan of the Stewie battle in the playground. Oh, I laughed hard when Peter knocked over the sperm, even if it was predictable.

Sopranos (Mayhem) on Sunday (also watched Monday) was pretty damn good. I like that they're back to wacking people and talking Mob stuff. Also, the dream/purgatory sequences weren't nearly as jarring as the last show. The look that Carmella gave Paulie and Vito in the elevator was gold. So far, she's a shoe-in for an Emmy for actress this year.

In Justice (Side Man) is the first show I'll talk about that you might not have seen or know about. So I'll tell you what it is briefly. It's a law/cop/procedural show where the Justice League (or something like that, I don't think that's right :)) take on cases of people whom they feel were wrongly convicted. This show is not very good, I don't think. It has moments (like a few weeks ago when they DIDN'T get the guy off death row) that it's really good, but other times it's just the same-old-same-old. I'll give it a few more weeks, it's a pretty good show for background noise. I think for this show to work they'll need to spend more time in the lives of the lawyers instead of just the cases. The cases are nice, but what makes you really LIKE a show are the characters themselves. A nice balance is needed.

Evidence (Pilot) - This is a new Cop/Procedural show that gives you all the evidence first, and then shows you how they find it all etc. It has Orlando Jones who I really like. Also, it was pretty funny, thanks in part to Jones. Must have really hurt the writers of this show when their big "reveal"/plot twist was done in C.S.I. a few weeks ago. Even though the evidence points a specific way, you don't really think one thing is going to happen until it does, which was nice. Another show I'll give a few weeks before deciding on. I hope they don't spend too much time on the one guys dead wife problem. I'm sure that's going to be part of his character but it's a story line I can see grow old really fast.

Daily Show (3/27/2006) - Funny as always but nothing that really stood out for me.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Past Tense Part 1 and 2) - In this episode Sisko, Bashir and Dax are transported back in time to the year 2024 where all the homeless or those without jobs are put into a Sanctuary District. Really nice piece of Social Commentary about ignoring the welfare problem and just letting the problem grow and grow. Reminds us of the need to help those who are in trouble instead of trying to ignore and separate them in hopes that the problem will go away.

Podcasts

Yeah, I've gotten the bug, listening to podcasts.

Do you listen to any?

I listen to a bunch, which I'll list and comment on:

TWIT = This Week In Tech - Leo Laport and a bunch of other guys talk tech. They sometimes release a video version, too which is nice. Funny and topical. Weekly

diggnation - Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. Funny, and they drink and get funnier. Comment on stories submitted to digg. Weekly

DL.TV - Not technically a podcast but it's close. Patrick Norton and Robert Heron. Also a tech based vidcast. Twice a week.

geekdrome - I forget their names, but probably not someone you've heard of before. They talk movies, comics, video games, etc and they're pretty funny. The like to curse. I'm working through their back episodes now. Weekly

Radio Free Burrito - Wil Wheatons podcast, which can be really really funny. Only has a few episodes and I'm not sure if he's going to continue it or not, but we'll see.

They're the big ones I listen to. Theres a few others I'll listen too to (InDigital, Margent Sergent's Unscrewed, Cranky Geeks) but not enough to really comment on them.

New Film Critic feature!

Hey guys! Long time no update, but I added another The Film Critic feature to the site.

It's called Live Search. It works better in Firefox than IE but it works in both. Go to the site (www.misdb.com/movies.) Enter something to search for, like Rocky but don't click search. See that! Neat huh?

You can still hit enter and it will do a normal search, too.

Just something I've been playing with.