Last post for a while

Sorry for not posting yesterday. Since I'm leaving for vacation in 2 days, of course NOW is when we get busy at work. SO I do apologize. I guess now would be a good time to let everyone know that this will be my last blog until I get back as I'm only going to be at work for a few hours tomorrow and then it's off. We're going to Austria, Germany and Switzerland and taking 18 of Lacey's students. Should be a good time.

Anyway, on to the shows I've seen the last couple of days.

Sopranos - Mr. and Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request - Pretty good episode. I'm trying to figure out if Tony actually did reinforce his position at the end of the episode or if the "family" saw through it or not. We'll see how this plays out in the next few weeks. I can see major shit happening between NY and NJ sometime in this season.

C.S.I. - Spellbound - In this episode a weird psychic (who was probably an extortion artist) foretold her own death. Greg was convinced and Grissom was, of course, not. Also some wired old murder was solved. I don't know, it was an okay episode, but not anything really good.

Prison Break - J-Cat - This show needs to do something. I like it a lot, it's addicting, but it needs to do SOMETHING as it's starting to get to the point that you're getting bored with it. Maybe it's time to break out of prison. I liked the scene with LJ and the Secret Service guy.

Numb3ers - Dark Matter - This was a pretty cool episode because Computer Geeks break into school networks and that was fun. Except they used that knowledge to kill people. Also, the whole "bad gamer, gamer kills" mentality is getting really really old. I played LOTS of Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3d, etc when I was younger and I never killed anyone.

Ctrl-Alt-Chicken - Baked Alaska - REALLY FUNNY. I like this show. In this episode they attempt to make Baked Alaska and it's a lot better than the last episode. Also this episode was shorter, which is, in my opinion, a bonus because the last one ran a little long, especially in the lab scenes.

Diggnation - Episode 40 - Back to drinking beer this week (except they're drinking out of cans, yuck.) Good solid tech episode, with little of the off-topic stuff that can be the funniest yet drags the show down too. Oh, I'm wearing my Diggnation t-shirt today.

Conviction - Madness - This might be my favorite show so far of this series. That's not saying much, but it had good stories, humor, loss and it the characters had to make tough choices. That or I was just in the mood and this show still isn't very good, but we'll see.

The Simpsons - Kiss, Kiss Bang Bangalore - The powerplant is outsourced to India and Homer's along for the ride. Then he becomes a God (again? didn't he already do that?) Last 3 minutes were worthless. We need another good episode from these guys.

Family Guy - Deep Throats - Brian gets a parking ticket he doesn't like. Adam West, the Mayor, is to blame, always funny when he's on the show. Also Peter and Lois get stoned trying to write a song, which lends itself to some humor. Funny.

Just another Manic Monday (whoa, whoooooaaaa)

Didn't watch much over the weekend. Did see Final Destination 2 - so check out www.misdb.com/movies and check out my review if you'd like.

Also saw Ice Age 2 in the theaters, you can check my review out there as well.

Went on the Flying Fish brewery tour. As far as reviews go, I was a big fan of the Hopfish I.P.A. very hoppy. The XPA wasn't my favorite, but I could see myself drinking the Farmhouse Summer Ale sometime in the future as well.

And while I'm reviewing beers, I picked up a 4-pack of the DogFish Head 90 min IPA. The taste is good, but very alchoholy, as it is a 9% beer. I'll have to drink another one or two before I make up my mind.

TWIT - Episode 49 - I always like TWIT when Kevin Rose and Patrick Norton are on. Pretty good episode, talked a lot about BootCamp and some other things. Apparently, they were having problems with lag this week, but it sounded really good, I wonder what they'll do going forward.

Crankygeeks - Episode 03 - Talked about the 30th anniversary of Apple. Also, discussed BootCamp a little bit, as that was some of the biggest news in tech in the last week or so. Learn how to train your brain with a game from Nintendo. I want to ride on the Space Elevator.

Crankygeeks - Episode 04 - Well, I need to watch these every week because my review about ep 3 was wrong as I thought they were talking about Boot Camp, but it was just a theory. But it IS Boot Camp reviewed now in Episode 4. Discussing about the Blackberry devices. I'm not sure if I like them. I don't think I do, as I like to be able to type fast and I simply can't type fast on those small keyboards. Maybe my next phone will be a PDA type phone, but I doubt it because I also don't want to spend the extra money each month to be connected to the network.

Geekdrome - Episode 20 - I just like this show. Good weekly show about all things geek and this week was no exception.

Stay tuned for my review of Ctrl-Alt-Chicken episode 2, hopefully tomorrow :)

2 ... 2 ... 2 Days in 1!

From yesterday (that'd be Wed night and Thursday during the day)

Amazing Race - Sleep Deprivation is Really Starting to Irritate Me - I like the new time slot, we might actually be able to watch it the night it's on now. Yes, we're very old and sleepy people. Too bad the Geeks got kicked off, I liked them.

Distraction - Pretty good episode, scary woman body builder (yeah, body building women scare me.) Cracking eggs on head, wrestling and answering, funny funny shock if they blink and finally destroy prizes if they get questions wrong. The tool who won, only got a new computer.

Phillies Game (4/5/2006) - Second game second loss. Same old phils.


And now for Last night and today:

*WARNING POLITICAL RANT TO FOLLOW*
Penn and Teller: Bullshit! - Boy Scouts - Nailed my feelings on the boy scouts to a "T." I'm not against scouting and think that it's a great program, in theory, that has the ability to teach life long lessons for young boys and men. However ever since it's been taken over by the Mormon church it's gotten scary conservative. But, they are a private organization and if they want to prevent gays or atheists from joining thier club, they are welcome to do so. EXCEPT that they receive federal money from my tax dollars to run their bigoted club. If you want federal money (and who doesn't?) you shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against anyone, regardless of thier sexual oriantation or religious belifes.
*END POLITICAL RANT*

Daily Show (4/5/2006) - Pretty funny episode where they take a look at racism in America. Rob Cordry is the main correspondent and he's pretty funny. A General (forget his name) was the guest and bascially was saying that the Bush Administration isn't actually listening to their generals on the ground as they have claimed so many times.

Daily Show (4/6/2006) - Same old, today for the most part. They go to Spring Break and show, again, how college kids are getting too drunk and spending too much money, especially on credit. Oh, well, can't have a great episode every day. Josh Hartnet is the special guest.

Geekdrome - Episode 19 - The guy that hosts DVDusday on Attack of the Show was a special guest. He goes on a rant at one point that's pretty entertaining. They talk about V for Vendetta, Fight Club and one trailer that neither liked. Apparently, Jon London and Dan Trachtenberg are not big fans of Denzel Washington.

DL.TV - 0049 - A cool tour of SUSE and the installer. Also a quick tour of Office 2007 beta (which sure looks pretty, but I'm pretty happy with 2003 and probalby won't upgrade until I need to for some reason.) Some talk of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, which I really want to see in person, the sooner the better.

DL.TV - 0050 - Windows XP runs on Mac Minis legally. Apple released a boot-loader that lets you dual boot both OSX and Win XP on the same box (well, the same Apple box, OSX still doesn't run on your Dell, at least not legally.) They show off a $6000 gaming PC. We have servers here that cost less than that!!!! Woo-hoo multiple exclamation points! Dual watercooled graphics cards and a couple of gigs of RAM. It's pretty. The RAM has built in LED for no reason at all. It's windowed which is cool and comes with a etched nameplate.

Tomorrow

Got busy at work today, so I didn't have a chance to write my reviews. Hopefully tomorrow :)

I'll have to figure out a way to title these one of these days.

Prison Break - An interesting episode that showed how all the cons got INTO prison. It was neat, but did nothing to further the story and it felt like filler. But I understand why the did it, just didn't happen to be my favorite episode.

C.S.I. - A very cool episode where a brilliant 12 year old girl introduces reasonable doubt into if her brother committed a murder or not. I liked how they played Sara and Nick off each other during the discovery.

Daily Show - 4/5/2006 - Had Sen John McCain on via satellite. He's my current choice for President in the next election. If he runs and get pasts the primary, I'll most likely vote for him. I disagree with him speaking at Jerry Fawells college, but he's got to do what he's got to do. Made fun of that crazy black woman senator from Georgia who attacked a security guard and made fun of that crazy rich white guy Tom DeLay who *finally* resigns. The guest was Studs Turkel. Again, I probably should know who this is, but I don't.

Diggnation - Started the episode off basally apologizing for the last episode and being TOO drunk. I'd agree, they were too drunk. Actually was a pretty boring show, for the most part. Still had some good news, and I'm interested to see where the Google Wi-Fi is going.

TWIT - Apple 30th Anniversary special. I hope they get back to normal TWIT next week. I don't use Apple and while it's a neat theory, I really don't care. Although some of what they talked about was kinda neat, like realizing that this was the start of a revolution.


Book Review

Tom Clancy - Teeth of the Tiger - The latest of the Jack Ryan Universe books. In this one, Jack Jr. becomes an intelligence agent. And he's pretty good at it too. The book is okay, but predictable, more so than most of the ones in the past. Nowhere near as good as the heyday ones such as Hunt for the Red October but better than Red Rabbit.

TV and MORE!

Sopranos - The Fleshy Part of the Thigh - Tony continues his recovery with an interesting discussion on life, death and metaphysics. I laughed hard when Bobby missed his guy's thigh and shot him in the arse. I like to say arse. It'll be interesting to see where Paulie goes this season, and my guess is that he won't make it through the entire season. Oh, and lets hope for an all-out-war between NY and NJ. It would make for fun TV.

Depserate Housewives - Don't Look at Me - I really liked this show last year, but this year it's starting to wear on me. However, I liked last nights episode because I dislike the Andrew character and like to see his punk-ass get knocked down a peg or two. I think the show's in trouble, however, because the central plot is always lost in the side plots and there really isn't an underlying thread this year that ties the series together.

Grey's Anatomy - The Name of the Game - This show started out on a VERY high note with the knitting. Knitting is really funny, especially when done in a bar by someone who can't knit and a friend who is knitting because the other can't knit. If you saw this episode you'd understand. George is broken but you can see that he's going to start to come back to form now and he's a nice guy. Alex gets to tell off Burke for something he believes in, but this is going to get him in trouble later on in the series, I guarantee it.

CSI:NY - Live or Let Die - I like CSI NY, not as much as Vegas but more than Miami. Yes, it is the same old, same old as the other shows with little invitation. But the characters are solid, Gary Sinise is awesome and the stories are pretty good. Last night had a hijacked helicopter carrying a transplant liver and a weird stalker/phone sex caller girl. Also a nice twist at the end bringing back an old case.

Flip This House - Attack of the Garden Gnomes - This is an older episode that I saw for the first time last night. In this show they take old run and beat down homes, fix 'em up and try to sell them for a profit. Pretty funny episode, especially when the dumpster crashed into Chris' Car. I woke Lace up with my laughter during that part (yeah, she was sleeping on the couch.) It bothers me that a guy who is that bad at keeping track of his money (he had $7,000 in uncashed checks sitting in his car) can make it as a businessman.

Daily Show - 4-3-2006 - YES! This Week in God. Funniest segment the Daily Show has. Ricky Gervais is the guest. I probaby should know who he is, but I don't. He was really funny, though.


MUSIC REVIEWS

Eels - With Strings: Live at Town Hall - Wow is about the first thing I can say about this album. It's excellent. I'm a big Eels fan and this album is a live album of a bunch of his songs, some album some not. With an excellent string arrangement around it. I may have to pick up this DVD as I hear it's available. I'm not sure I really liked the ending of Flyswatter, but it was still kinda cool. If you've never heard the Eels before, I'm not 100% positive that this is the best one to start with, but it might be. I don't know. Anyway, next time you see me, if you actually know me, let me know and I'll play some for you. Oh, you may know him (I say him because the Eels is really only one guy) as the guy who wrote the song My Beloved Monster from the Shrek 2 soundtrack.

Luna - Romantica - This is an older album that I heard for the first time today. It's a very nice album with good vocals and a very indie type sound. I enjoyed it.

Weekend Viewing

Saw Roger Clyne again in concert Friday night. This time in Asbury Park at The Stone Pony. He was excellent again and it was nice that the sets were very similar but had enough different songs to make it interesting. Didn't play Una Soda :(

Also watched Survivor Friday night. Eh.

Watched King Kong yesterday. I overheard a discussion between two people about this movie where one was claiming they spent too much time on Skull Island and another who was disagreeing. I also disagree. In fact, if the movie had any flaw, it was that they should've gottent to Skull Island 30 mins earlier so they could've spent another 30 mins there.

American Inventor (Episode 3) - Umm, this is not a good show. They attempt to take the formula from American Idol and do it for inventors. It doesn't work. I'm holding out hope that the second round will be better than the tryouts (kinda a reverse American Idol) but we'll see if it works.

The Simpsons - Million Dollar Abie - For the most part, I'm not a fan of Grandpa centric episodes, and this one is no exception. It wasn't bad but there just wan't anything I really liked about it, either.

In Justice - Crossing the Line - This is the 13th episode and the last one that ABC has currently developed. We'll see if they pick it up for a second season. This particular episode is pretty good, drug smuggling and immigration issues plus prostitution. All in one episode. I still think they need to flesh out the characters a bit, but you can see that they are TRYING to do this, just not completely successfully right now. A pretty gruesome scene in this episode was kinda cool.

Conviction - Savasana - See above when I complained about not enough of the personal lives? Well Conviction has too much of it and it's all corny. This show is good background noise but I won't be surprised if it's cancelled.