Small post

Didn't watch anything last night because I was golfing.  So short day.

The Daily Show - 6/29 - Jon starts the show recounting a personal story that probably isn't true but is still funny.  Apparently Stewart is a threat to America.  I call bullshit.  Some flag desecration stuff too.  YAY!!! This week in God with Rob Cordry.  Is till miss Colbert doing this one, but Cordry is pretty funny too.  AND Back in Black with Lewis Black.  Wow, great show :)  Special Guest is Kevin Spacy.

The Colbert Report - 6/29 - Colbert thinks we should abolish the SCOTUS because they're not ruling correctly.  Congress wants to make sure they get their tax money from pimps.  The Word is "Monkey Butter."  I didn't know what it meant either.  Christopher Noxen was the special guest with his book Rejeuvenile.  He was okay.

*** Misc Reviews ***
Henry Weinhards Blackberry Wheat - I wasn't a huge fan of this beer at all.  I didn't have a full glass cause I'm currently on some medication, but I wanted to try it.  You can really taste the blackberry, but it's almost as though it's fighting the wheat beer taste for dominance.  It was very pale yellow, no suspended yeast (not typical in my favorite styles of wheat beer) and no head to speak of.  I was slightly surprised, however, when I found out later it was by Miller Brewing Company.  I didn't expect them to try something that wouldn't appeal to everyone like that, but I guess they've learned their lesson based on Coors' Blue Moon (which is excellent.)

Whoops, forgot to post this yesterday

Dane Cook's Tourgasm - S01E03 - Tourgasm continues and the guys ride Segways in Chicago and go-karts somewhere in Michigan.  Dane also does a show in New York City and Michigan on the same day, which is pretty impressive.

America's Got Talent - Yeah, this show still sucks, Hasselhoff is still a tool and I'm still watching.  The 11 year old girl was okay, but I wasn't as blown away (yes, she has an amazing voice, but I like some of the other stuff better.)   Not sure I get the scary 7ft russian balancer dude.

Daily Show - 6/28 - Warren Buffet is giving lots of money to charity and Samantha Bee reports on what it's being spent on (Cancer Society Mansions and Champagne mostly)  Cut and Run, Spend and Bleed, Lie and Die, I hate Congress.  Al Gore is the special guest and he's really good.  I'd like to see his movie, I think it's pretty important to at least see it and make up your own mind.

The Colbert Report - 6/28 - Stephen isn't happy that the flag burning amendment didn't get passed (again.)  Stephen takes on Superman in The Word.  The special guest was some ex CIA guy and it wasn't a very good interview.

Cranky Geeks - Episode 15 - The guys don't like AT&Ts new privacy policy.  Also Bill Gates talk about him leaving Microsoft and giving a LOT of money away.  Pretty cranky episode, not bad actually.  I liked the Dvorak photoshop stuff.

dl.tv - Apparently Wednesday (or Tuesday) was Back up your Data Day.  Hrmm, didn't realize.  I need to get a copy of all my digital pictures somewhere else, just in case, I have about 6 gigs or so of them.  Umm, yeah, so Pioneer releases a  Blu-Ray burner for your computer, which will burn Blu-Ray, DVD, etc but won't play or burn CDs.  How dumb.  They also show off the Samsung Blu-Ray player.  Streamload gives 25 gb of free online storage, kinda neat, but you pay to get your data back. Kororaa looks kinda neat a live Linux CD with XGL windowing.  I might have to try it out.

Beer Nutz - Boston - The guys of Beer Nutz go to Boston.  Umm, yeah, I need to go to Boston and drink beer, lots and lots of choices.  One girl on the show reminded me of my sister, here they are drinking excellent beers from all over the world and the one girl likes Miller Lite the best; uggghhh.  There's a bar in Boston that has 112 beers on tap, so, yeah, need to go there for like a week and try each one.  Who's with me??

Again, damn meetings

The Daily Show - 6/26 - Lots of war on terror talk and how the current administration would rather keep us in the dark instead of letting us know what is going on,  Sorry, Democracies aren't supposed to work that way.  Lance Armstrong is the guest, and it is true that he is a source of inspiration to a LOT of people.  He was a pretty good guest too.

The Colbert Report - 6/26 - Nice jab at the Republicans about how they treat the less fortunate.  I'd be lying if I said I actually watched this, it was on as background noise while I was working today.

The Daily Show - 6/27 - The Bush Administration is pissed at The New York Times (again) because they disclosed a program that everyone pretty much knew they were doing anyway.  "This administration is literally one step away from yada-yadaing Sept. 11th."  How true.  Report on the Pink Taco scandal in Arizona.  Helen Thomas is the special guest, she's pretty good actually.

The Colbert Report - 6/27 -  Didn't catch The Word (again, I'm trying to do SOME work here :))  Movies that are corrupting America was okay.  But I hate Strangers with Candy.  Stephen, of course, likes it since he's in it (and actually I think he was one of the creators.)  Chris Mathews is the special guest.  He's a blowhard, but said some stuff I agree with.  He might be okay as a person when he doesn't get to control the interview the way he tries to.

Damn meetings keep me from my podcasts.

Dane Cook's Tourgasm - S01E02 - Second Episode, more of the same.  The funniest part is still the bits of stand-up they do show, but, to me at least, it's worth it for them.

dl.tv - Episode 72 - AT&T has changed their ISPs privacy policy to show that your records are not yours anymore, they belong to AT&T and they'll give them to the feds if they ask.  Talk some Blu-Ray news.  Reviewed XGL on OpenSuse, which is actually pretty cool.  Robert basically said that you can't go wrong with any of the main 42" Plasmas, which I basically agree with, but would put Pioneer and Panasonic on my really short list to look at.  He also said Hitachi and Samsung have good panels.  And I need to build a Cantenna like Patrick did, fricken awesome looking.

More reviews. Lots of Twit

Criss Angel: Mindfreak - Episode 7 Season 2 - Criss does closeup slight of hand magic this time.  Some of it is really really cool.  Some is pretty lame, but, hey, it's magic.  You like it or you don't.

Dane Cook: Tourgasam - Episode 1 - Dane Cook and 3 other comics, who's names I can't remember, go on a 20 show in 30 day tour and tape their lives while doing it.  Dane Cook is fricken hilarious.  I had an interesting conversation with my sister's fiancee (Chris) about Dane Cook.  Chris considers Cook to be an average to above average comic, but not one of the funniest.  But he claims that he's levereaged the power of the Internet, especially My Space, and has become the first Rock Star style Comic, at least in a long time.  I may agree, but I think he's really funny.  The show is pretty good, but the best parts of the show are the clips of the stand up.

Lewis Black - Red, White and Screwed - Lewis Black might be my favorite Stand Up comedian.  He is really funny and talks about relligion, politics, weather, whatever and is always funny.  You might want to boo him for making fun of someone or something you like, but in the next second you'll be laughing to hard to remember why.  Really funny stuff.  This particular special is okay, but not great.  I like some of his CDs better, problem right now is that the jokes he's doing have all been done on The Daily Show too much, because it's too easy to make fun of the current administration.

Diggnation - Episode 51 - Kevin Rose shows off some of the new features of Digg v. 3.0.  I've used some of them today and they're pretty good, I like the site.  For those who don't know what I'm talking about, go to www.digg.com.  Not bad, but this wasn't really a diggnation.

Twit - Episode 58 - Video - good.  Divix video - better.  Divx Sound?  Terrible, only came out of one speaker, drove me nuts and I had to downlod the low-fi version just to listen to it.  Okay podcast, nothing really special.

Twit - Episode 59: Roots - Twit goes back to its roots with the old gang.  It was really nice to hear everyone that I've gotten to "know" through these podcasts discuss the news and what matters.  I still think Dvorak brings this show down and is much better with his own show.

Geekdrome - Episode 31 - They're both wearing green and reminisce about the green M&Ms making you horny.  Dan just saw The Fast and the Furious 3.  They both thought it was dumb, but both liked some things about it.  I'll be buying it when it comes out.  Jon LOVED Nacho Libre, and Dan liked it, but thought it was too long.  Some comic book talk, nothing really to write home about, and some horror movie talk.  They're talking about a 360 price drop, we'll see, I hope to god it's true.  I liked it when Jon jumped on Dan in a wrestlers outfit.  Awesome.

Small Day

Inked - Episode 6 - Only thing I watched last night because we played Poker at my sisters house.  This episode was okay, Dizzle had to go to Grants old tattoo shop to learn how it's really done, and then had to tattoo Rick somethingorother a really well known tattoo legend.  Did a pretty good job too.

The Daily Show - 6/22/06 - Judgment at Nuremberg making fun of the USA in the World Cup.  What happened to being ranked 5th?  I liked Iran's stretch limo.  Also liked the montage of old movies and robot soccer.  Jason Jones reports from Butte Montana and their toxic water pit.  Adam Sandler is the special guest promoting Click which actually looks pretty funny.

The Colbert Report - 6/22/06 - So Fox News makes fun of Stephen Hawking and basically called him stupid.  Umm, yeah, so any little credibility you might have EVER had goes out the window, because Hawking brain exists on such a higer plane that its ridiculous.  Cut and Run is The Word.  Better know a District, Colorado's 1st (a.k.a. Denver.)   Special Guest is Doug Brinkway who wrote a book about Katrina.

Scrubs - Season 3 - Finished watching Season 3 today (for the first time.)  Excellent season, quirky and heartfelt at times.  Not sure I like how they ended the season, but I'll know more about it when I watch Season 4.  Zach Braff is awesome.

Watched a lot for this post.

Watched Hotel Rwanda last night which was amazing.

American has Talent - Episode 1 - Umm, okay.  So we watched this after Hotel Rwanda.  It's your standard judging contestants based formula - 1 British guy, 1 girl who likes everyone and 1 tool.  Oh, it's Executive Produced by Simon Cowell, surprised?  As for the tool, you should read Lace's blog about that, at http://ill-blog-you.blogspot.com because David Hasselhoff is a HUGE tool, and this coming from a guy who LIKES and owns all 4 seasons of Knight Rider. But as I explained to Lace last night, you don't watch Knight Rider for the giant (yeah, Hasselhoff is HUGE like at least 9 ft tall) you watch it for Mr. Feeny in a car.

Jamie Kennedy's Blowin Up - Episode 4 - Yeah, read my back posts on this show.  It's still dumb, I'm still watching.  In this show Jamie is trying to get more popular by hunting celebrity girls and trying to get his picture taken with them.  Hopefully this will make the tabloids think that he's dating one of them so he becomes more popular.

Jamie Kennedy's Blowin Up - Episode 5 - Yeah, so in this episode Jamie and Stu try to dress up as black guys to get more "street cred"  Yeah, WHY am I still watching it.  I dont' know, but I'll continue because it's like a damn train wreck.  Then they rapped at a 3-6 Mafia concert and bombed.  Yeah, it was bad.  Oh and a nice ending about being yourself.

Jamie Kennedy's Blowin Up - Episode 6 - Three in a row.  Jamie needs a
video so he starts making one.  George Lucas makes a cmaeo and Bob
Sagat comes back and steals the show.

The Evidence - Yi vs. Li - It's been a while since I've seen one of these, and it's a pretty straight foward procedural.  The hook, of showing you all the evidence beforehand, is okay.  This episode was kinda neat, but nothing really to write home about.

The Daily Show - 6/21 - Congress is spending a lot of time debating video games and ratings.  It's dumb.  Jon Stewart - "Seriously, the House of Representatives is filled with complete jackasses."  Anderson Cooper is the special guest.  He wrote a book.  He laughs a lot, but he's not very funny.

The Colbert Report - 6/21 - Colbert makes fun of Fox and Friends for a bit.  Stephen has a big soccer star on to help him with trash talking.  Actually a pretty funny bit.  Then a bit of tip of the hat, wag of the finger.  Bay Buchannan is the special guest and she wants to build a fence on the Mexican border.

The Evidence - Wine and Die - Interesting episode.  The murder occured during an apparent Wine robbery from a VERY expensive collection.  I can't imagine spending several hundreads, or even thousands of dollars on 1 bottle of wine.  I liked the way it worked out.  Very cool idea for an episode, that's for sure.  And I liked the joke at the end of the episode.  I knew that it would be back, but it was stillf unny.

Two more new shows (see bottom)

Commander in Chief - The Elephant in the Room - Mac's appendix burst and she's out of commission.  Because of the line of succession, Templeton takes over for a day.  Good episode, but predictable.

Commander in Chief - Happy Birthday, Madam President - The President has a terrible birthday, being up for 27 hours and having to deal with a terrorist situation in Turkey.   Not a bad episode.

Commander in Chief - Unfinished Business - Templeton announces that he's going to be running for President.  If the show is really canceled (and I'm pretty sure it is), it's a shame because I'd like to see where they're taking the daughter and Templeton's aid's storyline.  I also liked the talk of the ERA amendment, which is a piece of law that I don't know nearly enough about to have an opinion.  Oh, yeah, if you couldn't tell I watched the last three Commander in Chiefs yesterday.  Which is kinda wierd because now all we have left on the DVR is Jeopardy.

Cris Angel Mindfreak - Episode 6 - In this episode he escapes from a box chained up before a car hits him.  I'm mildly impressed, but it's been done before.

Colbert Report - 6-19-2006 - Some Microsoft talk in the very begining and he showed a clip of Balmer jumping around like an idiot which is always funny.  A very gay themed episode since it's apparently gay pride week, including a gay themed threat down.  The special guest is a guy who wrote a book called Ask a Mexican.  Didn't catch his name.

The Daily Show - 6-20-2006 - He just said political masturbation, which is funny.  Typeodong is a funny word, but unfortunately it's a very scary prospect.  Juliet Eilepren is the special guest, she wrote a book called Fight Club Politics and talked about how current politics, especially people of the House, are babies who cry and go home when they don't get their way.

Colbert Report - 6-20-2006 - Stephen screws up his intro and pronounces Report correctly, instead of the way it is on the show.  Pretty funny, actually, sometimes the funniest gags are when the people screw up.  I hate the argument about letting gays marry means that people will be able to marry snakes.  It's just dumb.  The Word is - Everything Must Go - talking about GM needing to sell their gas guzzlers.  I kinda just listened to the end, so I'm not sure who the special guest was.

dl.tv - Episode 71 - Good news in the beginning, but same stuff you've heard elsewhere if you're up on this stuff.  Lots of laptop bags that they showed off and reviewed.  Also some talk about how to lengthen the life of Laptop batteries (don't keep your laptop plugged in all the time.)  Reviewed the new Shuttle PC.  I know they're supposed to be SFF PCs but it's quite a bit bigger than I imagined, but you can fit full size cards and hard drives and stuff in it.  Shocker, Creative drivers suck in Vista.  No shit, they've NEVER been good about upgrading drivers, not even for existing systems, let alone Beta systems.

Two new shows on INHD (an all-HD all the time channel) caught my attention so I watched them.

Three Sheets - Belgium - A guy, I forget his name, goes to a Belgian bar that has over 2,000 beers to choose from and samples a variety of them.  Really cool and I want to go to Belgium.

Beer Nutz - Denver - Two guys travel the country looking for the biggest Beer Nutz and their first stop is Denver.  Denver has a ton of microbrews and brewpubs, again, I need to get out there.  One bar they went to had 75 beers on TAP!  Also talked a bit about the different beers and showed where they were brewed which was pretty cool.  Also spoke about pairing beer with food, as beer can be paired to food just as wine can be.  Pretty neat.

New show, same blog

Lace and  I watched the first two episodes of the new show Treasure Hunters.  It's kind of like the Amazing Race mixed with National Treasure and/or The Da Vinci Code.  We'll see if it gets better or not, the first two were okay at best.  Kinda neat how each group of 5 teams only thought there were 5 teams then they meet up and realize that there are really 10 teams.

Cris Angel - Mindfreak - Episode 5 - Cris makes an Elephant disappear on a street completely surrounded by people.  I'm impressed.  I've seen the trick done with mirrors before and it's neat, but I couldn't see how the mirrors would work in this situation, so I'm really impressed.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit - Numbers - Showed why numbers and polling is bullshit, anyone can word a question to basically show whatever they want, just by rearranging the words or putting emphasis on positive or negative connotations.  Interesting.  Side note, they interviewed this one professor and I thought the inside of the building looked familiar.  Turns out it was Gore Hall at UD, guy was a prof there.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit - Abstinence - The shows premise (which I agree with) is that abstinence is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is unnatural for humans.  If you're going to recognize that kids WILL have sex (and they will) you should be teaching that abstinence is good, but how to use a condom too.

The Daily Show - 6-19-2006 - Wow, the beginning of the show wrote itself with Connie Chun signing off of her MSNBC show.  Damn politics sucks Home Games vs. Away Games in War??  What the hell??  Now politics get into the congressional softball game.  Special guest is Calvin Trillin a writer for The New Yorker who also wrote a book called "Heckuva Job."  He's very funny but it's a dry humor.

The Show with zefrank - 6/20 - This is my new daily podcast, which is about 2-3 minutes long daily.  By new, I mean it's been around a while, but I just heard about it for the first time yesterday.  It's really funny, you should check it out at http://www.zefrank.com/theshow.  I won't review it everyday just because there isn't enough to do a review everyday without just recapping the episode, but if one is particularly funny, I'll make sure I mention it.

Weekend catchup

Wow, if you look to the left, you'll see I've seen quite a few movies this weekend.  I think I watched 6, Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and Dogma (getting ready for the 21st of July, Clerks 2 baby) Eurotrip and The Chronicals of Narnia, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Yeah, so between that and Jeopardy, I didn't watch anything else really.  Anything else below I watched on Monday before posting this.

Diggnation - Episode 50 - Live episode, so you get the background crowd laughing and you get Alex and Kevin being drunker than normal.  Alex gets it, I want to go to the moon.  They also have a cool cake.  Interesting audience poll with the super high MP3 thing.  It was a pretty good episode and I want to see Digg v3.0.  I think this is the best live episode they've done, they didn't get completely wrecked and stayed pretty much on topic.  Not bad.  Oh, props to the guys for releasing the one live to everyone on Saturday.  I like Diggnation and wouldn't be opposed to becoming a rev3 member but not until they get more than just Diggnation and Geekdrome on a schedule that is regular.

Twit - Episode 57 - Some good discussion on Net Neutrality, but it's really hard to follow because the panel is too big and they're all talking over one another.  Thank god for the video because without that it would be impossible to follow.  Yeah, after watching the whole thing, it was extreemly informative and very good discussion, but DAMN, the one guy (Andrew I think) needs to get to the fricken point in his "stories" especially when he keeps getting cut off because he's taking too damn long.  I really enjoyed the content of the show, but I think the panel was just too big.

Geekdrome - Episode 30 - Not a huge fan of this episode.  They reviewed Cars, one liked it and one didn't but overall nothing really stood out about this episode.  Some funny talk about a really terrible movie, but I forget what it was, umm, yeah, I'm the worst reviewer ever.

Yeah and I'm in agony.  I got just the tiniest bit of Poison Ivy but it's between my fingers on my right hand (a.k.a. mouse hand) and it's been killing me all day.  Need to go get some Calamine lotion or something to relieve this itching.

Another Friday is in the Bag.

The Daily Show - 6/15 - Bush's speech writer leaves, not really that big of a deal, though.  Samantha does a bit of investigative reporting about the government spying on us.  Wow, robots are going to take over the Earth?  Louie Sieka (spelling?) is the special guest and he's pretty funny.  A little "Father Knows Best" fake commercial, not bad.

The Colbert Report - 6/15 - Yeah I'm starting to like this show.  The whole Black Friend thing gets a bit old, but is still funny.  The whole GitMo thing went way too long, though.  The special guest (sorry forget his name) was okay.

Crankygeeks - Episode 14 - Umm, what the hell was up with the like 1 min intro before anyone talked?  Huh?  Come'on guys :)  Seriously, I can't complain too much about free programing that they let me download and fast forward through he commercials.  I completely agree that the main problem with Net Neutrality not passing is that the people who own the pipes CANNOT be the same people that own the content.  Because it makes it impossible for someone with an opposing viewpoint to get heard.  Dvorak talks a bit about baiting people to get them to write more and get angry and make the news themselves, like Dvorak baits Mac Zealots and stuff like that.  Some interesting arguments about the e-book.  I want one, but the problem is getting the text.

dl.tv - Epsidoe 70 - Big show, apparently.  Weird Al makes less money for digital sales compared to album sales, which sucks.  Bill Gates is going to step down from Cheif Software Architect of Microsoft to focus on philanthropy.  Some dude is homebrewing Cell Phones for GSM networks.  Umm, yeah, that's way too geeky even for me :)  Cars video games got a good review.  And the guys get taken to task because they don't take the Hot Laptop Lap seriously.

Last night we watched "Das Experiment" a very cool German movie.  See my review at The Film Critic

P.S.

Just watched a Scrubs and it reminded me,

Everyone likes Journey.

More reviews, more reviews, more reviews

Inked - Episode 5 - A nice episode with a follow up of what happened to Thomas after he left H&H, starting his own clothing line.  Hope everything works out for him.  Also, Jenn gets a talking to, because she's a slacker.  Maybe they should stop hiring receptionists because they're cute and hire ones that want to work.

Daily Show - 6/14 - Why is Darryl Hannah in a walnut tree?  Oh, Bush is still an idiot.  Wow - some weirdo wants to decriminalize drunk driving from Friday at 4 pm to Sunday sometime.  And she won her district thingy by a coin toss.  Yeah, it was weird.  Tim Russert is the special guest.  Sounds like he has a nice book and it sounds like a great gift to give an expecting father.  Then talked about Rove for a bit.

Colbert Report - 6/14 - Starts off with some Bush in Baghdad talk.  Better Know a district - Georgia's 8th, pretty funny.  Tried to get a guy who wanted the 10 commandments to be put in public buildings to recite them all, and he couldn't by a long shot.  David Sirota is the special guest who wrote a book saying something everyone knows, that the Government is bought by the big business.

dl.tv - Episode 69 - VOIP calls must be allowed to be tapped.  Which sucks.  Also Net Neutrality is still up for debate, no one knows what's going on right now.  Some really neat reviews of small sub-laptops.  I want one.  Microsoft caps the Vista Beta 2 downloads because they said if they gave it more bandwidth they'd "break the internet" :).  Google Earth Beta 4 is out.  And there's no good wireless solution for fast uploads yet, but I'm not surprised.  Heron seemed like he was high this episode.

Ask a Ninja - Episode 22 Ninja Excuses - Some seriously funny shit.  How to get out of things, the Ninja Way!  Without killing.  Nice.

I also started watching/listening to a beer brewers podcast.  I'll post specific reviews when I get caught up and start listening to them weekly instead of 3-4 at a time.

Light day

Light day today, didn't watch much TV since last post (except some recorded Jeopardy, but we're still about a month behind) and only two shows:

Daily Show - 6/13 - "Thats our audience folks, cheering for a man to go to prison"  Funny stuff.  Rob Cordry reports from Baghdad.  New segment - Heart v. Head with a bit of penis thrown in.  Again, had you seen the episode, you'll understand the reference.  Bill O'Riley is a tool.  The Republican head of party, Ken Mehlman is the special guest.  What's interesting is when Stewart needs to interview someone who is so completely different in viewpoints from his own.

The Colbert Report - 6/13 - Starts off with some Rove not being indited talk.  Stephen has a bird named after him?  An Eagle?  That's funny.  Stupid people who get all up in arms about cursing and stuff in my TV.  Give me my damn TV and keep your hands off.  You don't like it?  Don't watch it.  He took some calls, which were pretty funny.  Special Guest - Tim Flannery with some talk about global warning. 

Whooops, forgot to post again. Man am I dumb.

So Lace and I decided to take a little trip down to A.C. last night.  Talk about two completely different players.  I dislike slots, as a whole, but have decided that if I'm going to play them, quarters or higher, none of this nickel shit.  Lace, yeah, she was on the penny slots.  Won 10 bucks on them too.
I was up ~$95 playing the quarters.  We took a little walk on the boardwalk, stopped for some pizza and ice cream.  Then played a little roulette, which I quickly lost $40 and Lace won about the same.  Played a few more machines on the way out and together we were up about $60 which is pretty darn good for a few hours in A.C.
As for reviews - Ceasers is a nice place to go on the weekdays when it is less crowded.  I hate going there on the weekends.  Ballys is a dump as is Wild Wild West.

The Daily Show - 6/12 - Stewart starts the show off with some soccer talk.  John tries a glasses prop that failed miserably and was funnier BECAUSE it failed.  Talked a bit about Zarquai, of course, it's still big news.  I'm pretty sure that the Rob Cordy interview/expose was done already but I could be wrong.  Special Guest is Thomas Freedman who had some good points about energy usage.

The Colbert Report - 6/12 - Starts off with a little talk about The Tonys.  I didn't watch them because I would have no idea what was going on.  Quoted Tom DeLays farewell speech and god I couldn't disagree with that ass more.  Thank god he's out of there.  Wag of the Finger, Tip of the Hat was pretty funny.  Special Guest was Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - who works for Rolling Stone??  It was a pretty funny interview, but if I were RFKJr I would be pretty pissed.

geekdrome - Episode 29 - Both guys liked The Break Up a lot.  Which is interesting with respect to a romantic comedy.  Thankfully they let us know when they were going to spoil it so I could skip the ending talk.  They were right on, when someone says "You need to get my sarcasm" then they aren't sarcastic, they're mean and/or defensive and they need to lighten up about everything.  Pretty good/funny episode.

*** Music Reviews ***
Eels - Souljacker - Just a little warning to start off the review.  I'm a huge Eels Fan.  I think E (Mark Oliver Everette) is an absolute genius (is that spelled right?).  This album isn't my favorite of his so far, but his albums have a way of sneaking up on you and becoming better the more you listen to them.  It's still excellent, just not one of my favorites.  I really think everyone should check out the Eels.  Because if you don't you might be missing your new favorite band.  Or you might not like them very much, which is also fine because they really don't fit any of the current musical models, but you should at least give 'em a shot.  My favorite album is probably Daisies of the Galaxy, but Shootenany is really good too as is his new live album Live at Town Hall.  All three of these albums sound completely different though, so if you like one, you might not like a different one and vice-versa.

Eels - Rotten World Blues EP - Included as a bonus disc when I bought Souljacker.  B-side material and Rotten World Blues (the song, not the EP) is, I guess, an early version of a song on the Live from Town Hall album.  It's not bad, but I'm gald I got it without paying extra.

Mmmm, beer (see bottom) and some more stuff

Numb3rs - Hot Shot - The season finale, in which it was pretty much all character development.  It was interesting because it wasn't the usual season finale.  I liked it, I think.  Can't wait for the next season, we'll see if the cute girl stays on the show or not.

Inked - Watched the first three episodes of the show for Season 2.  The show isn't as good with Thomas not on it, but it's still somewhat interesting.  I like the stories when someone gets a tattoo.

Mindfreak -  Yeah, watched way too much Mindfreak.  Again, I know that it's an illusion or a demonstration, but it still really freaky.  In "Vanish" he made a person from the audiance completly disapear with a 360 crowd and no mirrors that I could see.  In "In Two" he sawed himeself in half, and again I couldn't see what did it.  And on the last one, "Walk on Water" Criss walked on water in a pool, with someone swimming UNDER him as he was doing it.  I assume that it uses the same trick as "levitation" but I'm not sure.  It's really weird, and really "mindfreaky."

Jamie Kennedy - Blowin' Up - Episode 3 - Please somebody stop me from watching this show.  It's so terrible.  Yet I'm still watching it.  I don't know why.  Please please let me stop.  Or at least bring back Bob Sagat.  In this episode Jamie goes to Houston, gets Grillz and does a commercial for some mattress dude who is apparently really big in Houston.  Don't know who he is, though.

TWIM - Episode 9 - I finished this podcast, which I talked about a bit last week.  Talked some about SIRA (I think that's the name) the new bill that the EFF is really against.  Also they talked about broadband in airplanes (can't wait and next transcontinental flight, I'll probably buy the service, but I'll need a new laptop by then.)

Diggnation - Episode 49 - Oooh, is that a Steam Beer see in Alex's hand?  Oh, yes, yes it is.  Kevin's drinking a Hoegarden white beer, both good choices.  I actually had my first Steam Beer last week.  Oh, I should review it.  Recorded from the digg offices this week, which was interesting.  Very echo-y  sound quality.  XBox 360 had a 125 upgrade download avaliable.  Which, was actually like 5 upgrades and 120 bug fixes.  Kevin checks whats on digg from a bar.  Pretty funny.  Oh those Crysis pictures were insane.  Some dude got his car searched because he had burnt CDs in his car.  He also had a loaded gun in the front seat, but the reason for searching the car was the cds.  Stupid, stupid.  And the guys are HUGE Magic Bullet fans.  I want on, bad.  Also, Diggnation now has a P.O. box to send stuff too.  If I ever get more into Homebrewing, I'll have to send them some.  Good episode.

*** Misc ***

Anchor Brewing Company Steam Beer - Anchor has trademarked the name Steam Beer, which USED to be a style of beer in California (San Fran specifically) but isn't made anymore and no one knows how to do it.  Anyway, this is a good beer, amber color (a.k.a. darker than your typical American Lager, but not really dark) kinda off-white head, not really think.  Nutty beer, mild taste, easy to drink.  Expensive, though.

Smuttynose IPA - It's a cool bottle with two old guys in lawn chairs.  I have no idea why that makes me laugh.  The beer pours a golden color with a medium white head.  Smells of citrus and tastes of citrus and hops, but not too much on the hops, especially for an IPA.  Being a hophead (lover of hops) I was left wanting more, but I think I'll finish off the six-pack.

TGIF

Seriously, TGIF was the COOLEST thing when I was a kid.  I loved that set of shows on ABC on Friday Night.

Criss Angel: Mindfreak - Building Float - Yeah, he levitated from one building to another.  I like magic.  Yes, I know it's a trick or an illusion, but it doesn't take away from the fact that, when done properly, you can't see the trick and it's awesome.

Numb3rs - Undercurrents - I liked this episode because while the actual story wasn't that important, it was good character development.  I'll miss Almedia's (spelling?) character if she leaves the show, and she might.  The show centered around Charlie, and did well at that.  The actual story was a little bit stupid, bird-flu storyline.

The Colbert Report - 6/7/06 - Stephen is searching for a new black friend and threw in a bit of Nigerian 417 scam email in the mix.  Pretty good.  Talked about Al Gore's movie, which I'd like to see.  Big Deal is the word.  I really liked the guest, a guy from NASA and I think the JPL.  Talked about the Mars Rovers, which is really cool.  They were supposed to last like 90 days, and they're on day 800 and something.

The Daily Show - 6/8/06 - Started off the show about getting that terrorist Al-Zarqawi in Iraq.  Pretty good musical montage with Al-Zarqawi and "Had a Bad Day."  Stewart talked about terrorists hating Canada and making fun of them for it.  Also talked some World Cup.  The overall question in EVERY American interview I've seen about the World Cup is why don't more Americans care?  I know why I don't care, I find the sport very boring, but I know there are some people that like it, I've just never gotten it.  I'd rather watch Golf on TV which I think is very boring to watch but fun to play.  Lili Tomlin is the guest.  Pretty good interview, but nothing absolutely special.

The Colbert Report - 6/8/06 - The Word is Goooooooaaaaaal.  Colbert makes fun of soccer too.  But you know what?  I don't get NASCAR either, and it's HUGE in the U.S.  Another boring "sport" (soccer is a real sport, I just don't like it, but NASCAR??)  Fake interview with Tom Delay which was pretty funny, after a Better Know a district.  Special guest was the guy who wrote Everything Bad is Good for you.  He's pretty good, he's been on different shows I've seen before.  Not a bad guest, but nothing very special.  The Colbert Report is starting to grow on me a bit.

Crankygeeks - Episode 13 - Adobe is making a bad move - money power grab by trying to charge Microsoft for something they give Apple for free.  Stupid.  I liked that this episode didn't focus on just one issue and beat it to death, they kinda jumped around a bit which was nice.

dl.tv - Epsidoe 68 - Talk some tech news, Vista Beta 2 available, ESRB sues Minnesota.  dl.tv is starting to think about going to a 16:9 format (awesome.)  Hopefully someday a true HD version too.  We'll see how it works.  And I can't wait for the brass bar :).  Interesting review of TVs coming out from SID.  Saw some LCDs that I'd think about getting, with LED backlights that can turn themselves on and off and make black levels really really good.  Scott needs treatment.  Talk about AllOfMP3.com and Urge and iTunes and eMusic some as well.  I like eMusic.

TWIM - Episode 9 - Today they talk about Green Screens.  Again, most of what they're discussing is over my head, but I still like to listen to it.  They're "phone" conversation this year, instead of Skype or whatever.

Thursday, Thursday, Thursday

The Daily Show - 6/7/06 - Talked about gay marriage some more, which is understandable because it is the hot topic right now.  Started the "Road to Indecision 2006" about the mid-term elections.  And YAY - Lewis Black.  I've said it before, the show is funnier when he's on, which is pretty damn awesome because the show is funny without him, but in this one he talks immigration.  And is funny, as usual.  Bonnie Hunt LITERALLY makes Jon fall of his chair laughing so hard.  It was funny.  I think I like the word funny.

Discovery Channel - The Da Vinci Code Myth - It was an interesting show because it took both sides and tried to show why the people who belive in the the FICTION book are idiots and also why people who blindly believe what the Church tells them aren't much smarter. There's a lot of shit that went down hundreds of years ago that might, and probably is, lost forever, but the one thing this book does better than anything else (well, besides weaving a very cohesive storyline from many different myths and legends and making it seem "real") is getting people to start asking questions.  And I'm a firm believer that it is NEVER a bad thing to ask questions.

dl.tv - Episode 67 - Talked about the meeting between the Attorney General and major ISPs.  The gov't wants the ISPs to voluntarily store 2 years of data on searches, downloads, etc, so they can subpoena it if they need to.  Scary stuff, because I think there should be a right to privacy, at least somewhat, online.  As Robert said, strong encryptions is looking might good.  Also did a preview of the Core 2 Duo - umm, yeah this is why I'm waiting until I build me new PC until the end of July.  The dude talking about the new processor was boring.  Talked about 50" Plasmas, which I'm interested in because I want one :)  Talked about piracy some too.  It's an interesting area.  I download a LOT of TV Shows.  I also pay money each month to my Cable Company for both cable AND a DVR.  But my DVR doesn't allow me to watch recorded shows on my computers that I have all over the house, so I download a lot of shows I also record (The Daily Show and stuff like that, especially.)  I don't *illegally* download music, or if I do, it's to listen to it once and then delete or buy the CD (i've done that on occasion.)  I do, however, download and use programs without paying for them.  And that's very wrong of me, I admit.  Oh, and I think the only movie I've downloaded in the past 2 years or so was Harry Potter 4 - AFTER I saw it in the theater and wanted to check something.

diggnation - Episode 48 - Umm, yeah, they're pretty damn drunk already, even before the show started.  Talk Pirate Bay for a while.  Rose didn't like X-Men 3.  Talked about hot chicks gaming.  Overall, just an okay episode.

Discovery Channel - Seven Wonders of Ancient Greece - Very interesting show about 7 wonders of Ancient Greece.  I could get into them all, but I won't because I don't want to bore you :).  But I liked the show.

*** Misc ***
How NOT to steal a SideKick II - Pretty funny site about a guy who's friend's Sidekick was stolen and how he tracked down who had it.

Some reviews a new section, Misc, that I'm going to try.

Arrested Development - Season 1 and 2 - I'd only seen bits and pieces of this show up until now.  Yes, I know, that's blasphemy to a large part of the Internet crowd.  I knew I'd like the show, it's my kind of humor, and damn straight it's funny.  Laugh out loud funny at that.  The first two seasons are some of the best TV I've seen in a while, and the funniest comedy I've seen in a long time.  It's a different type of comedy, but remember how hard you'd laugh during the Mathew Perry Coke years?  When he was so high but everything that came out of his mouth was golden?  Yeah, I laughed like that during Arrested Development.  Wish I woulda watched it when it was on, maybe my one viewing could've prevented it from being canceled.

The Daily Show - 6/6/06 - 666 - Day of the Devil, or regular numerical sequence??? :)  Also the special guest (forget his name) and Stewart had a very interesting debate on Gay Marriage.  The guest firmly believed what he believed, and Stewart did the same.  I liked the debate and if you know me, you know which side I fell on.

Colbert Report - 6/6/06 - Decided to given Stephen another shot.  I'm starting to like him, we'll see if it continues.  I keep going back and forth with my liking or not liking of this persona he has.  I used to love Colbert on The Daily Show, and honestly, wish he would be a correspondent on that show again, but maybe the Report will grow on me some more if I give it time.

Discovery Channel - Did Aliens Build the Pyramids - Interesting question.  Didn't really like the show though because it was done TOO skeptically.  I think that it's probably that there wasn't an alien influence but I do recognize that it's possible.  And some of the most interesting questions were never answered, such as why the Great Pyramid is pointed exactly North-South (within 1/10 of a degree, pretty damn hard to do.)  It was still interesting though.  It would answer a lot of my personal religious questions if an alien influence is responsible for civilization as a whole, but that's an entirely different discussion.


*** MISC ***
This is for things that don't fit above categories.  I'll also be posting funny links and stuff like that in here when I find them.

Amazon Prime - This could possibly be the worst thing in the world, for someone like me.  Amazon has a deal that you spend 70 or 80 dollars to sign up for Amazon Prime.  You then get free 2-day shipping on just about everything (everything you would have recieved free shipping on orders 25 and more at least.)  So, yeah, the problem is that I tend to just buy stuff because I no longer need to get $25 of stuff before ordering.  So yeah, it's bad.  Luckily I'm in a free trial, don't know if I'll re-up or not.

YouTube - Death Star - Very funny YouTube video!

Sorry, forgot to post yesterday, again, again.

The Sopranos - Kaisha - Ummmm ..... Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan.  I thought this season was pretty good, but this was the season finale, something big shoulda happened, IMO.  Then again, I'm not David Chase, and I haven't made millions creating my own show, but still, I watch a lot of TV and season finales should be big deals and this one wasn't.  I did think it was interesting that the smartest person in the Soprano's family (Meadow) is the only one not there, as if she was smart enough to get the hell out of Dodge this season.  And in the span of a few weeks (Thanksgiving to Christmas) AJ turns into a family man, Christopher gets hooked on drugs, cheats on his wife and goes back to AA and NA.  I was still disappointed.

The Daily Show - 6/5/2006 - Bashed Terrorism Detection Funding cuts to New York City because NYC doesn't have any "National Monuments."  Dumbasses.  Talked about NJ being one of only two states that have Full Service gas, no Self Serve.  I could go either way on this one.  I like Full Service sometimes, like when it's raining or cold, but sometimes it's slower.  But if it's going to be Self Serve, price better go down.  Special Guest was Caroline Kennedy, pretty good talked about an award given to Senators if they do courages things, like speak out against someone doing bad things, like, oh, unfounded war or torture or anything like that.

Geekdrome - Episode 28 - Dan's sister sets him up and sends him to a gay bar in Tel Aviv.  It was a really funny story.  Jon wasn't a fan of X-Men 3, I haven't seen it yet, so I can't comment.  Although, big spoilers in this episode, so if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to skip this podcast.  But then again, is anyone but me listening to this (of people who would read my blog that is, they have a large following, but it's mostly geeks.)  Both thought Da Vinci Code was just okay.  I haven't seen that yet either.  Not a bad episode.

Large Weekend and Monday Post

CSI: Miami - One of Our Own - Pretty good season finale, we find out who the mole is, we find out that the DA really doesn't like H.  and we get a pretty neat little cliffhanger to the next season.  We'll see how they do the whole Brazil thing next fall.

CSI - Bang-Bang - Interesting episode that really did a good job of keeping you guessing as to what is going on.  Good ending too, because right when you think everything is going to be good, Brass gets shot.  Awesome.

CSI - Way To Go - Jim Brass is in the hospital after being shot last episode.  Pretty good finale, Brass turns out to be okay, but it was touch and go for a while.  I liked main story with the weird corset based civil war re-enactor.  Oh, btw, I don't get those re-enactor people.  I just don't understand it, but I don't get LARPers either, so it's probably the same thing.

dl.tv - Episode 66 - Talk about Vista errors that they had on their demo unit.  Also talk about the Rambus problem with price fixing of DDR memory too low so that Rambus was priced out of the market.  The only reason I currently care is because my computer had RDRAM and I can buy a new computer with 2 gigs of ram for the same price as upgrading my current computer to 2 gigs.  Also talked about a mock-up of a nuclear reactor based car.  DS Lite review, I like the look of the DS Lite.  Some neat bluetooth headphones, which is an interesting idea.

Crankygeeks - Episode 12 - Talk about computers and testing in H.S. and college.  Don't care anymore, I really don't.  I used to but since I don't see myself, at least no time soon, taking another college level course that I care about my grade (side note, I'd like to take an intro to Art History and/or Architechture someday but could care less if I passed the class or not) I just don't care.  Touched upon Net Neutrality, which I think is going to be a really big issue in the near future.  Dvorak is a fricken idiot a lot of times, though.  He talked about the Apple vs. Thinksecrets (I think) case and asked the EFF guy if the EFF took a stand on the case.  The EFF guy reminded Dvorak that it WAS the EFF's case.  They argued it to the court and represented the defendant.  Idiot.

TWIT - Episode 56 - Leo, Dvorak, Norton, Doug Kaye, Michael Geoghegan and Molly Wood - They talk about ThePirateBay.org's raid and the fact that they're already back up.  I like The Pirate Party in Sweden which wants to reform copyright law, which I'm all for.  Also discuss AllofMP3.com some, which is a very impressive site, even if it is illegal.  Adobe sucks, btw.  I hate the Acrobat Reader to read PDFs and now they're forcing Microsoft to look into a way to CHARGE for additional PDF creation, which Adobe has released for free.  It's weird.  Vonage IPO flops, goes from $17 to $12  in the first day.  God damn, Dvorak is an idiot.  He talks about problems from articles he doesn't read.  Stupid stupid ass.

TWIM - Episode 8 - Some patent issues that they discussed.  It was kinda interesting.  Good discussion talking about film vs. digital.  I'm all digital, but that's not surprising, if you know me.  They talk about macro blocking on your TV's digital cable, which is interesting.  I see it but not everyone does.  Hopefully you don't because it makes watching some channels (see FINE Living *for The Thirsty Traveler*) almost unwatchable on a larger TV.  Also a lot of talk of unbundleing of cable channels and good and bad things about it.  I'm a fan of the idea, because their really isn't that many channels I'd like to get, and I would hope my bill would be less if I did that.


**** Software Review ****
Performancing - Firefox Extension - Performancing is a firefox extension that allows you to have a scratch pad and then post that scratch pad right to your blogger blog.  I've been using it for my past few blogs, and I like it a LOT.  One thing I wish it had, though, was a spell checker as you have, I'm sure, seen, I can't spell.  But, if you use Firefox (and you should) you should check it out, it works really well and makes it really easy to post stuff.  I also, kinda got the spellbound extension to work.  Which makes things a little easy/nicer and gives you some spell checking capabilit

Blingo - Love it, Use It

Justin turned me on to the search website: Blingo.

It uses Google, so it's no big deal to switch over to it, in fact it's painless.  And every few minutes someone wins something cool, gift certificates, ipod nanos, etc.  Justin actually just won a Nano, which is really fricken awesome.

You should check it out and use it to search :)  Here's my friends invite link, so sign up through me.  Because the other cool thing is that any winner's inviter also wins said item.  So if you sign up and win something, I win it too.  Rock on.

http://www.blingo.com/friends?ref=znLPRtA5-TUQUPdPgMPLKEy4Q6Y

Cool,

bigger post coming later today.

And now for something a little bit different. I may have used this title before.

CSI: Miami - Rampage - Good followup episode but you feel bad that Caine is only married for like a day.  I wasn't sure I liked the ending because it was a little bit too unprofessional, but then again, it's something I probably would've done myself.  Can't wait to see the finale, the end of this season has been pretty good.

**** Beer Reviews ****

Weren't expecting that were you??  Well, I picked up a 12 pack of the Summer Sampler from Magic Hat Brewery.  I sampled two beers last night, one Hocus Pocus and another Batch 374.  Magic Hat likes to make these weird numbered batches occasionally and not tell anyone what type of beer it is.  The Hocus Pocus is a very very light wheat beer.  Doesn't have a ton a flavor.  I could see it being exactly what the bottle describes, a great beer for mowing the lawn, but it wasn't what I was looking for last night.  Batch 374 is a much darker amber ale.  It's pretty boring, overall, but it isn't bad.  Magic Hat was my introductory to "craft" brewing and I still enjoy thier beer occasionally, but it is overall pretty bland.

Can't sleep, might as well blog

CSI: Miami - Shock - I liked this episode, and the cliffhanger at the end of the episode was great.  Damn DVR screwed up and didn't record the second half, so I had to go download it so we haven't seen it yet.

CSI: NY - Heros - My biggest problem with this episode was that there were two really compelling stories that BOTH should have been the main story.  I thought they were almost overshadowing the Marine storyline with the Aiden one.  Still a very good episode, one of the strongest this year.

dl.tv - Nice review of WinHEC and some of the neat stuff coming from Windows in the next few years.  They did talk about one person sending a screenshot, but it wasn't mine.  I sent them a screenshot of our download speed, because it was 20 Mb/s down from them, which just rocks.