Made Of Awesome (full feed)

#SYTYCD “Awesome Dance of the Week” - Top 16 (DonnaK)

By DonnaK

A bad night for the #SYTYCD dancers….

DonnaK: Last week I had a lot to say about how I felt the choreography was off this season and not giving the dancers as much to work with. Well, this week the choreographers delivered… it was the dancers that failed, some quite miserably. For at least four of the eight couples it was somewhere between an off to a really bad night and it had nothing to do with the choreography. It was just bad dancing left and right last night… perhaps all the claims that this cast is superior to last season’s isn’t quite as accurate as everyone has been saying? With the early loss of Billy and Bianca - two of the biggest and brightest of the season - combined with the loss of Mia Michaels, I’m doubting this season will have the strength of last season. I’ve one more choreographer rant for the week, though… but I’ve save that for later.

Despite all the missteps there were some wonderful moments on the show and I think some clear stars are emerging. We started the evening with Karen and Kevin doing a Maria Torres hustle - a dance I admit I know nothing about. I’m going to have to trust the judges that this was technically strong although it didn’t particularly move me.

Jakob and Ashleigh followed that up with a Mandy Moore jazz number… which I hated. I want to cry for Jakob because I love him so but I just really cannot stand Ashleigh. I didn’t buy her performance at all because I didn’t feel she ever got into character. She’s just not capable of disappearing into a role because of her own need to be noticed, and because of that I felt the routine suffered badly. Why the judges continue to praise her is simply beyond me as I feel she one of the weakest links on this show. Let’s hope America starts agreeing with me.

Pauline and Peter danced the dreaded quickstep next and, from where I’m sitting, did surprisingly well. Let’s face it - no one is going to ever nail the quickstep so focusing on the technical mishaps isn’t entirely fair. What is fair is that the performance was light, fun, and full of chemistry and life, which easily glossed over and errors that were present. I liked this dance a lot.

Kathryn and Legacy were up next and danced a simply amazing Andy Blankenbuehler Broadway number. I admit it - I was happy that Legacy made it into the Top 20 but I didn’t think he’d last through the Top 18. All I can say is WOW! This kid is growing and learning at a rate that is simply astonishing. Legacy is quickly becoming a favorite of mine and I’m loving watching his growth. I love Kathryn as well and I thought she did exactly what she was supposed to do in this routine. I didn’t feel the judges criticisms were fair, especially about Kathryn. What’s with the judging this season?

Channing and Victor should have had an easy time with their Stacey Tookey contemporary routine, but it was just… meh. Technically it was impressive but I felt no passion and no chemistry in it at all. Huge disappointment for me and I immediately marked these two down for the bottom three.

Things continued to go downhill as Ellenore and Ryan made a gigantic mess of a Lil’ C hip hop routine. Honestly there is nothing good to say about this dance - these two were simply horrid. They’ll wind up in the bottom three for sure and they deserve it, as much as I like both of them. However… I have to note something here. Remember I said I had another choreographer beef? It’s with Lil’ C, who for the record I love as both a choreographer and a dancer. My problem? This entire dance was reused from a routine he did in season one. Don’t believe me? See for yourself. There is NO excuse for reusing an entire dance like that, and frankly Lil’ C should be ashamed of himself for doing it. I will say this though… watching Natalli and Vincent is season one slam this routine makes Elllenore and Ryan look even worse. *cringe*

As if things weren’t bad enough, they got worse when little Mollee and bubbly Nathan had to get dirty and sexy in a Gustavo Vargas samba. This was horrible, embarrassing and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mollee simply does not have the maturity (or the hips) to be on this show. I could barely stand watching it, that’s how awful it was. Mollee needs to go and she needs to go TODAY. Bottom three for sure unless the fans save them.

However, the show saved the best for last. Noelle and Russell ended the night with an Afrojazz numb er by Sean Cheesman that was simply outstanding and walked away with the Awesome Dance of the Week prize. Russell is easily my favorite guy on the show and he showed why again this week with his power, character, intensity and his partnering skills. Noelle really blossomed as well and the two of them are definitely going to grow as a couple. I’m delighted to give the Awesome Dance of the Week Award to these two.

By my count this leaves Channing, Ellenore and Mollee as our bottom three girls and Victor, Ryan, and Nathan as our bottom three guys. I don’t see the judges sending Mollee home as much as she deserves it, so my gut is telling me Channing is out. I’m sure the judges won’t touch Ryan, but both Victor and Nathan have weakness. I would cut Nathan and I hope the judges agree.

So what did you think? Guesses, comments, thoughts? Let’s hear it!

Tags: sytycd,so you think you can dance,nigel lythgoe,sonya tayeh,tyce diorio,dave scott

#SYTYCD “Awesome Dance of the Week” - Top 18 (DonnaK)

By DonnaK

Wow, did #SYTYCD screw up this week or what? *shakes head*

DonnaK: First of all… yes I know this post is late again. I have a hundred reasons for it, none of which anyone cares about I’m sure, but I am sorry nonetheless. I’ll try not to get behind again.

Second of all… So You Think You Can Dance is lucky that I stopped fuming long enough to even write this post this week. I am SO angry and infuriated with the judges at their elimination choices this week that I think I want to stab someone. To make it very clear how pissed off I am at the judge’s decision this week, let me just say that if I was not seriously rooting for one other contestant I might well have stopped watching in protest of this horrible decision. And this is coming from the one who still can’t turn off Heroes no matter how god awful it gets, so that ought to tell you something. But I won’t get into all that now - I’ll save my rant for the end of the post.

There was a bit of good news at the start of the show. Noelle’s knee healed enough for her to stay in the competition so good for her. Plus we got word from Nigel that Billy would be allowed into the Vegas Top 100 and Brandon allowed to audition again from the beginning for season seven, which is marvelous news. I didn’t think it fair that those two got penalized for Billy’s sudden illness and I’m glad SYTYCD is making that situation right.

The performances on Tuesday were in general… well… less than average. It’s ironic that while the quality of dancers that are on the show keeps going up it seems that the quality of the choreography this season is substantially less than last season. There were only two choreographers all night who really impressed me, which is saying a lot. Even Nappy Tabs, who I love immensely, seems to be missing a step. Maybe the loss of Mia Michaels is being felt harder than we the audience know? In any case, IMHO the routines as a whole were weak this week.

However, despite weak routines, the dancers really stepped it up. I really enjoyed Russell and Noelle’s Jamal Sims hip hop, although I did think those props really got in the way. Russell is a HUGE favorite of mine and I hope he makes it all the way to the end. The downside was the routine showed how weak Noelle is in other styles, and I immediately called her for the bottom four. Despite the fact that I REALLY want to punch Ashleigh in the face, I have to admit she was stunning with Jakob in their Viennese waltz. It was a gorgeous routine and she shined in it… as much as it pains me to say that. I personally loved Bianca and Victor in Tyce’s broadway number, although I definitely felt Victor was much flatter than Bianca. I was frankly astonished when the judges came down on them like hammers - I didn’t think it even close to as problematic as the judges thought it was. We had Bollywood again courtesy of Nakul Dev Mahajan and the team of Mollee and Nathan. However, this was the weakest Bollywood the show has seen yet - none of the power moves that have defined past routines were present here. My guess? Mollee couldn’t pull them off, but she got praised up and down by the judges. Bias much? Channing and Phillip bombed horribly in a Tony Meredith samba which was weak on every front imaginable. Really… there wasn’t much that was good here save for how gorgeous Channing looked. Karen and Kevin shined in a lack-luster Nappy Tabs number, making it look better than the routine was. This is a pair to watch - I think they’ll go far and I simply love Karen. The surprise of the night was the astonishingly good Stacey Tookey contemporary number danced by… wait for it… Kathryn and Legacy. Yes… I did say Legacy, and he erased all the doubt from my mind that he might not be able to handle this competition. He was amazing in this and I hope he’s with us for a long while. Pauline and Peter shined in their insane Wade Robson pop jazz routine. Such a strange routine but it worked amazingly well - I really loved this. The night ended with a smoldering and technically amazing Argentine tango by Ellenore and Ryan who set the room on fire with their work. Again, another couple to watch - they’ll go far.

I was really torn about who to give the Awesome Dance of the Week Award to this week as the last two numbers were both so amazing. If it was based purely on the dancing, Ellenore and Ryan would have it easily, but it’s not. It’s about the complete package, about the dance that packed the most punch and was most memorable and dynamic. With that in mind, I have to present the Award to Pauline and Peter for their amazing work in the Robson jazz piece. Dancing Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” couldn’t have been easy, but they knocked this one right out of the park. I’ve got my eye on these two - I think they’ll be around for a while yet.

Here is comes… the announcing of the bottom four. I had called Noelle, Victor, Channing and Phillip to be in the bottom four. Imagine my utter shock when, instead of Channing, the judge threw Bianca to the wolves and put her in the bottom four. BIANCA?!?! One weak routine and she’s in the bottom four??? Especially when Channing stunk up the joint as badly as she did? That made no sense to me at all. But, I figured Noelle was a lock for elimination so I wasn’t worried. I thought Phillip had been weak on both shows and that he was destined for elimination over Victor. I *LOVED* Bianca’s solo - it was imaginative and out-of-the-box, especially with her musical choice. Noelle did a Kayla impression and flailed around the stage - color me unimpressed. Both Victor and Phillip’s solos were amazing but I felt Phillip was the weaker dancer overall and would go.

Well, I was right about Phillip - he was the eliminated boy. What I was not prepared for in any way was the judges eliminating Bianca as well. Now, last season I thought the judges made an unpardonable mistake in the Top 18 eliminations by getting rid of Max. I still think that season would have been dramatically different had they allowed Max to stay. However, this Top 18 decision made the elimination of Max look like nothing. Bianca was a finalist. She is dynamic, personable, charming, incredibly talented and charismatic. She is everything that this show asks for and yet… she was eliminated. And to eliminate two tappers in one night? That’s just ridiculous. I’m far from alone in my outrage - all of Twitter was on fire with outrage over Bianca’s elimination for days - people are still angry over it. Hell, I know I am. This was the single worst elimination decision I’ve ever seen on this show and it makes NO sense at all.

Okay, okay… I’ll shut up now. All I can say is thank the gods we get to start voting next week as the judge have clearly lost their minds. So what did you guys think? You as pissed as I am about Bianca? Let me hear it!

Tags: sytycd,so you think you can dance,nigel lythgoe,sonya tayeh,tyce diorio,dave scott

Some teh funnay, some teh sexay (mostly SFW?) (JimK)

By JimK

And that is why I love the internets.

JimK: Totally unrelated, but so? Awesome nonetheless.

Teh funnay:

I love the part where he trips at the gas station. I want to buy a giant bat costume and do this now, and I don’t even care how dumb that seems.

Teh sexay:

Bike riding is good for you. And also your photographer. And everyone on the internet who gets to look at your photo. The heels aren’t very practical, though. Couldn’t really get a good cadence that way. And now I need to punch myself in the face for worrying more about her damn shoes than her damn butt.

Tags: beautiful women,video,babes,funny,youtube,YouTube

#SYTYCD “Awesome Dance of the Week” - Top 20 (DonnaK)

By DonnaK

A week of surprises for #SYTYCD and some really bad news.

DonnaK: I’m so sorry this post is so late. I wrote most of it right after the show but needed to get some names. I saved it as closed… and then promptly forgot about it until just now. So sorry - polishing it up to reflect current changes and here it is…

This season of So You Think You Can Dance is going to be outstanding. The talent I saw throughout the auditions and in Vegas was just off the charts. I am disappointed at how many fantastic dancers they spent time featuring in Vegas only to cut them later. That time could have been better spent featuring a wider swath of people that would make it into the Top 20. There are a few dancers that were cut that surprised me, but my biggest surprises were saved for two dancers that made it into the Top 20 that I *SO* do not believe belong there.

Let’s start this off with Mollee Gray. Yes, she can dance. Yes, she’s incredibly advanced for her age. However, the judge were bang on right when they said she was simply too immature in her dancing to be in the Top 20. Watching her is like watching a 15 year old - she just doesn’t have the maturity to pull off most of the mature routines this show will throw at her. To put her in the Top 20 was a huge mistake IMHO.

WTF with Paula? Why on earth would she wait until she was on stage being told she was selected before she told the producers that she couldn’t be on the show? That move was either completely staged or Paula is truly inconsiderate. The moment she knew she was cast in a movie and could not appear on the show she should have taken herself out of the running to make room for a truly talented performer. She didn’t, and because of her actions that day, we are now stuck with Ashleigh Di Lello.

Let me make this one perfectly clear. I HATE ASHLEIGH. She is fake, plastic, annoying, clingy, jealous, abrasive, and not nearly talented enough to be in the Top 20. Yet here she is and I’m simply counting the days until I don’t have to look at her smug, arrogant, fake face anymore. Yes, she really does annoy me that damn much. I have this visceral hate reaction to her and her attitude - I just cannot stand her, and as long as she’s here I’m going to be growling at my screen in anger. *grrrrrr*

In Vegas I picked who I thought had this competition in the bag this season. Billy Bell showed himself at every turn to be far and away the best dancer this show has ever seen or had. The second they confirmed him for the Top 20 I knew he would go all the way. My heart just bout felt through the floor when I heard the news of his illness and his doctors pulling him out of the show. That is such a huge loss - I’m just hoping that the show will let him back in again next season since he technically never competed.

With Billy gone I had to rearrange my favorite picks for the boys and the girls. For the boys the first slot was easy - Russell, who I’m calling Final Four on right now. My second slot is hard - I’m torn between Jakob and Victor, but in the end I’m going to put my money on Jakob. The girls were similar - my first pick is Bianca, who I’m also calling Final Four on right now. My second favorite was again torn between two people - Karen and Ellenore, but in the end I’m going with Karen from what I’ve seen so far.

The performance show was a FANTASTIC idea - it was a tremendous way to get to know that contestants and really get a feel of how they stacked up against one another. It was this show in fact that helped me sort out my favorite for the season as the field really is so narrow and dynamic this year. I have to say I do NOT like the bigger stage - I miss the intimate setting of the old stage, especially the stairs and space in front for the dancers to utilize. Big mistake moving this to the bigger stage for the whole season - it should really be reserved for the last show.

The first elimination show was… bizarre, to say the least. To first lose Billy and then Noelle was a huge blow. Brandon, brought on to replace Billy at the literal last minute, didn’t stand a chance, and Russell was severely handicapped by having to work with two different partners in one week. I know MLB trumps SYTYCD and I see the need for the judges to make the first few eliminations, but I think they should be kept to the same rules we would be - they must nominate COUPLES, not individuals, and then choose between them. Furthermore, they should keep it to a bottom three and not two as they did that night - it’s more suspenseful and what would be occurring if baseball was not interfering with the schedule. I’ll say no more about the judging for now but I do want to wish Noelle a good a speedy recovery.

Most of the routines for the night were quite good and even in consistency and technique. Channing and Phillip did a marvelous jive, although I wish Phillip would take the tap smile off his face in other styles. Ellenore and Ryan shone in their Sonya jazz number, as did Karen and Kevin in their cha cha. My dislike of Ashleigh aside, she and Jakob did a respectable Broadway routine, although it’s easy to see that he’ll be carrying her for as long as she’s around. Mollee and Nathan’s disco was passable but lacked the fire I thought it needed, and I put that blame squarely on Mollee’s young shoulders. It was too much cuteness and not enough passion, and that’s not going to work for long.

The two standout routines of the night are my two picks for Awesome Dance of the Week. I have to say I’m really torn between the two and I’m having a huge time deciding to whom to give the award. My first nominee is Bianca and Victor’s amazing contemporary routine choreographed by Travis Wall. It was mature, captivating, elegant, and tremendously performed by both of them. It’s hard to believe Bianca’s a tap dancer when you see lines like that. My second nominee is Kathryn and Legacy’s Dave Scott helmed hip-hop number. The power and precision of that piece by both of Legacy and Kathryn was AMAZING. It may not have been the best choreography of the night, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. And it’s for that last reason - the fact that I was so taken in by the number - that I had to give the Awesome Dance of the Week Award to Kathryn and Legacy. I don’t expect Legacy to last long in this competition - he just doesn’t have the overall chops for it - but he’ll do well for a while.

Okay… time for some judge bitching. I guessed my bottom two and I was three for four on my pick. I naturally assumed that by picked Ariana that Peter would (rightly) be on the block as well. Choosing Russell was just… well… insane. Not only was he phenomenal under rotten circumstances he is easily one of the best on the show. Peter gave a far weaker performance and should have be up there, not Russell. I’m going to agree with the general populace and say the judges did it knowing they would be sending Brandon home and they wanted Russell to be able to show off his skills to anyone who had not been watching through Vegas week. It that was the ploy it worked - Russell seems to have only gained fans since that elimination show. Ariana was a good choice to go, although I would have MUCH preferred to see one of the two ladies that annoy me so much leave instead. How long are these judges going to coddle Ashleigh and Mollee? Only time will tell.

This season is definitely shaping up to be interesting, especially with the departure of my favorite choreographer in Mia Michaels. I think next week when things settle down a bit we’ll have a much better handle on how this season will play out. I’ll say one thing - with this talent, the only place to go is up.

Tags: sytycd,so you think you can dance,nigel lythgoe,sonya tayeh,tyce diorio,dave scott

Halloween Post: Death In Space (Rann)

By Rann

Death for the franchise, usually, but sometimes a lot of fun anyway.

Rann: Let’s face it, every long-running horror movie franchise eventually heads off into space. (With the possible exception of Nightmare on Elm Street. I guess going to sleep in a spaceship/space station is scary enough even without homicidal demigods.)

So let’s take a look at a few of them just for the memories, and then you can bring up your own favorite “IN SPACE!” horror movie/game/whatever.

Critters 4

Leprechaun 4

Jason X

I think what I love the most about the New Line trailers is how serious the trailers were, especially when they were working with franchises that had either long since ventured into camp and self-parody or even started out that way.

Hellraiser 4

There’s just something about that fourth film, I guess. I’m sure I’m missing a couple, so feel free to chime in. But just for a nice sense of symmetry (because it sure as hell isn’t for the sake of quality), I thought I’d wrap it up with a franchise that started in space and wound up in a nice little Earth town full of slaughterable teenagers.

AvP: Requiem

Tags: youtube,horror,movie,YouTube,trailers,halloween

Halloween Post: Fridge Fright (Rann)

By Rann

A collection of after-the-fact thoughts and ideas that might make you a little uneasy laying in bed.

Rann: You know what a fridge moment is. It’s when you’ve watched a movie and later, some little bit of it that makes you go “Huh?” hits you. The idea is that it hits you when you’re at the fridge pondering leftovers or whatever just after the show, but in reality it can be a lot of things. A comment someone else makes, seeing something in another movie, whatever. It can hit as you’re leaving the theater, or even as you’re seeing the movie again years later.

What I wanted to do for Halloween was compile a list of things about various movies that are actually only scary when you think about them too much… that, or they get a lot scarier.

1. Jack Skellington Knows Where You Live

In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack knows all of the houses he needs to go to and leave presents at. He knows which kids need a dolly and which ones need a batskin cap. He never takes any sort of list from Santa, and he’s working on gifts long before he’d have the chance to anyway. He knows how many to make, and he knows just where to go.

That means a towering, mostly-insane animated skeleton that believes fear, dread, and terror are the highest expressions of affection knows just where you live. He knows where your children live. And just like good ol’ Sandy Claws, he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake.

(Art courtesy of BrokenWindmill.)

2. Freddy Krueger Is A Demigod

Oh sure, Freddy’s a freakishly powerful vengeful spirit, as we all know from the lore, even leaving aside the movie where he’s actually a meme of primal horror or something.

But take a minute and think about the things he’s done. He’s rewritten reality on a whim, on nothing more than the necessity of the one around whom he’s rewriting it being asleep. He’s fashioned the dream world into his own sick little universe over which he reigns supreme, which means that either there was no one powerful (or evil) enough to do so before he came along, or he kicked whatever demonic motherfucker had it before out and took it for his own. All it takes is a little belief in him, and not just the dream world but the real world is his plaything.

Belief strengthening his powers only adds to the idea that Freddy is actually a deity of some sort, and sleep is communing with him… even if you’re praying to some other god to get you the fuck away from him. And if he’s really as deific as all that… what if he decided he didn’t like his own limitations and just made them go away?

3. Charlie Brown Has A Conspiracy Against Him

Okay, maybe not so much “scary” as “sad and depressing”, but it’s Halloween-related. Charlie Brown gets a rock. He always gets a rock. Let’s leave aside the fact that he’s in a neighborhood full of sick bastards that apparently collect rocks before Halloween to give to some kids while others get candy. The fact that poor Chuck always gets the rock, every time, means that basically this neighborhood would have to be conspiring against him.

All of them would have to make sure that they have at least one rock to give out. All of them. Then, just to make sure that none of them slipped up and gave a rock to some other kid in a bedsheet with holes cut in it, they’d have to call around to all their neighbors and say “Yeah, that little Charlie Brown fuck’s the one in the sheet with all the different holes in it. Make sure to give the little bastard some rock candy, haw haw!”

If you want to take it to its saddest, most depressing extreme, figure that to make absolutely sure no one slips up and drops a piece of candy in there, his parents call ahead and warn people what costume he’s wearing.

4. Clover Has Really Tough Skin

Seems like no big deal, right? After all, what kaiju doesn’t have skin that can easily shrug off rocket-propelled grenades and even missiles?

But Cloverfield is supposed to be the “realistic” giant monster movie. Sure, all the info is in strange, scattered places, but it’s all supposed to make sense. And as any whaler can tell you, an oceangoing creature doesn’t necessarily have armor plating just because it’s big and dives deep. But Clover survives all kinds of shooting, explosions, and quite possibly lives through the biggest ordinance that the armed forces are willing to use on US soil. So it’s obviously evolved to stand up to a lot of punishment. But things don’t evolve defenses like that for no reason at all.

Which means that it’s entirely possible there’s something out there that is intended to be a predator to Clover’s species. Yeah, that’s right… something that hunts, kills, and eats those things.

5. ALL The Damn Ghosts Got Out

Towards the end of the first movie, the Ecto-Containment Unit is shut off by Agent Dickless of the EPA. The gigantic column of energy blasting into the sky is the bajillion ghosts that the guys have caught up to that point being released all at once. They then begin wreaking havoc on New York.

But it seems the Ghostbusters were themselves busted and put out of business not too long after. Wouldn’t most of these ghosts still be running around? Hell, Slimer at the very least seems to not only be free, but to now be free to roam where he wishes, no longer confined to the area of his previous haunting. And did that column disperse the ghosts? Is the world now infested with completely free-roaming ghosts?

Obviously there’s plenty of ghosts still around by the second movie, as it never really addresses the matter of what happened to the first batch… for that matter, what about all the ooze? Was one night of singing and brotherhood by New York enough to dry it up and turn it positive? Or are they going to have new ghosts exploding out of nowhere the next time there’s a traffic jam?

6. Holy Shit Zombies

In real life.

Remember back in 2007, in Peru? That “meteor” hit, and people started having strange symptoms? Only then it wasn’t a meteor but some sort of explosion? And then it wasn’t an explosion but something else but don’t pester us about it stupid reporters?

Yeah. So right about now would be when the zombies have wandered around through the Peruvian jungles, finding various curious American explorers to chomp on, plaguing ancient tribes, and of course being ferried to a variety of research facilities around the world, just waiting for someone to do something stupid and unleash them upon the city populace.

Just in time for Halloween, when people people would be complimenting the zombies on their great costumes right up until teeth sank into flesh.

Tags: movies,horror,zombies,list,halloween

Heroes - “Tabula Rasa” (DonnaK)

By DonnaK

#Heroes… I just don’t care.

DonnaK: Warning below, yada yada yada….

**SPOILERS BELOW!!!! LOOK OUT FOR SPOILERS!!!! THAR BE SPOILERS HERE!!!!**

Yeah… this is how I can tell I’ve reached my limit on Heroes. This week’s fare, “Tabula Rasa”, was pretty good. Quite good on many levels in fact. If this were early last season I’d be over the moon right now. But I’m not and I don’t think I can ever be over the moon about anything Heroes again.

Why? I don’t trust this show not to let me down… hard. Every single time this show makes a turn for the good I’ve put my trust in it to stay at least semi-decent, and each and every time it has failed me. Every time this show sets up an interesting paradigm with rules and relationships I expect said rules and relationships to remain stable and concrete, and each and every time they have not. Every time I become attached to a character the show finds a way to ruin that, usually by altering said character until they no longer resemble who and what I cared about in the first place. Every time I become attached to a plot line they sell it short and every time they have a plot line I disliked they run it into the ground.

I know this is a strong metaphor and I apologize if anyone takes offense to it, but I’m not playing the abused spouse role with this show anymore. I ‘m not going to keep taking the waffling, the cliches, the shockers, the inconsistencies, and the outright screw-ups any longer. I’m just not. I would LOVE to be excited about the Carnival, about what we saw develop both with Samuel and Sylar. I’d love to start positing theories as to whether or not any of Sylar is in Gabriel’s head or if it’s all in Parkman. I’d love to guess at Samuel’s motives and how he plans to use Sylar. I’d love to know If Sylar can ever manifest without being “released” from Parkman. These are all great storylines… but I can’t talk about them. I can’t talk about them because I don’t want to waste my time predicting a rash of things only to find out that next week they’ve rewritten some important detail and thus my theories can no longer hold. Why bother making guesses when they keep changing the rules on you? It’s a no-win game, and I’m not willing to play anymore.

I liked meeting Jesse. I liked seeing HRG again. I loved seeing old-school Hiro teaching a newcomer how to use her powers for good. But I can’t trust it, not one single second of it. This was a good episode, it really was. But I think I’ve been burned enough to not stick my head in the oven again right now.

I’m gong to take a couple of weeks off Heroes I think. I just don’t have the heart to put into this show right now. I’d rather write a post about what I think is the best show on TV right now, Sons of Anarchy. I’ve got some great ideas about that show that I don’t think I’ve read anywhere yet. I’d like to talk about how Castle has completely and utterly destroyed my ability to watch Californication (this is totally true - I really can’t). I’d love to write up the changes in House, particularly the visuals of the show, and analysis those choices and discuss why I think it’s a major leap and improvement for them. SYTYCD is back and I’m going to be doing weekly write-ups on that. And there’s a certain rockstar I really want to share with you guys. With all this, I see no reason to put energy into a show that I just don’t give a shit about.

Now, if anyone wants me to at least write something short about Heroes instead of doing other things, speak now or forever hold your peace. If no one speaks up, I’m putting Heroes on the back burner for a month or so and putting effort into other things. Deal?

Tags: comics,heroes,tim kring,sylar,television,hrg

Heroes - “Hysterical Blindness” (DonnaK)

By DonnaK

I think #Heroes and I are just about done professionally…

DonnaK: Warnings as per usual…..

**SPOILERS!!!! SPOILERS BELOW!!!! EVERYTHING BELOW THIS IS A SPOILER!!!!!!**

On Monday nights Jim and I watch both Heroes and House. Every week it’s the same ritual. I ask him which one he wants to see first, he says he doesn’t care, and I proceed to put on House first because I adore that show so much. Things went the same way this week - I asked, he didn’t care, so House was up first and Heroes followed. However, after this week’s Heroes Jim turned to me and said “Can we stop watching Heroes so late? It puts me in such a bad mood that now I’m so pissed off I don’t want to go to bed.” I had to agree - I was so angry after last night’s show I wanted to punch walls.

I think that kind of sums thing up rather nicely. Heroes is starting to suck again so badly that we can’t stand to watch it too close to bedtime because we end up ranting and raving at the idiocy of the show for so damn long that we can’t sleep. And when a show gets you this fucking angry time after time after time… well… I can’t see having that show in my life for much longer. I’m seriously - I don’t know how much more of this inconsistent, sloppy, messy, going-nowhere bullshit I’m willing to take. I keep watching it for the five good minutes or so that I know will be in any given episode, but it that enough? I don’t think so.

So why am I so fucking tired of this shit this week? Fuck lists, I’m just going to lay it all out for you and you can tell me if you agree with me or not.

The biggest question going into this season - what will happen when Peter touches Nathan? Would he automatically sense that it wasn’t Nathan or does Peter have to actively search for powers in order to take them? We all waited to see how Heroes was going to resolve this dilemma. We watched when Peter shook hands with Samuel and didn’t feel nor take Samuel’s power. We watched him take the super speed of the other carnie with a quick touch, but it was made clear that was deliberate. So when Peter finally did touch Nathan it wasn’t a surprise he didn’t feel Sylar’s powers - he wasn’t looking for tem. Peter’s ability to absorb a power had been made an ACTIVE one, one he needs to willfully activate in order to take someone else’s powers.

So… can someone please fucking explain to me why Peter, with no intention of taking or even looking for powers at all, absorbed Emma’s powers when he saved her life? He wasn’t looking for powers. He wasn’t trying to take powers. All he did was catch her from walking in front of a bus. There was no active movement on his part to take her powers… mainly because he didn’t even know she had a power. We know this latter thing is true because when he tried to run fast and couldn’t and instead saw sound he was stunned and surprised. This means Peter’s power this week was a PASSIVE one… which negates EVERY FUCK THING that happened last week with Nathan and the week before with Samuel. They took a perfectly plausible explanation and made it ridiculous for no good reason whatsoever.

My gods I’m so tired of this. I’m tired of this stupid, lazy writing that sets up very important rules and structures one week and then turns right around and breaks them the next. It’s sloppy, it’s lazy, and it could all be avoided. The problem is that no one seems to give a shit that expecting us to blithely follow along even when things make no fucking sense like the rules of Peter’s power is downright insulting. It’s insulting to me that the writers don’t think I’m smart enough a viewer to notice these glaring errors. It’s insulting to think I’ll just keep writing them off and not expect the writers to, oh, I dunno… DO THEIR JOBS. It’s this kind of lazy bullshit that doomed Volume three and much of Volume four, and it’s already casting a pallor of doom over Volume five.

Also… can we have some damned action already? Hey, I get that we’re trying a “return to normal life” angle, but that doesn’t excuse lingering on plots points and scenes for far too many precious minutes that could be better spent on other things. How long was that scene with Peter and Emma at the piano? Hey, I get it - they can both see sound as color. Did we really need four fucking minutes of watching the semi-cool color effects to get that point across? Of course not. That’s time that could have been spent in a more useful way, especially when you have this many front-burner storylines and characters. Wasted time will be one of the many deaths of this show.

And while we’re talking about wasted time, can we PLEASE GOD PLEASE get a moratorium on the Claire storyline for a minute? Last week both Buzzion and I said we know we can’t have every character in every episode, which is of course accurate. Except that rule doesn’t seem to apply to Claire, who has been a lead in every episode of this Volume. Even when we didn’t have Claire in college (which is about as interesting as watching paint dry), we had Claire with Daddy giving him life advice. I can’t get away from this girl and yet her storyline is absolutely the most boring story of this Volume thus far. So why? Why all this emphasis on Claire? Yes, I liked the little revelation that the sorority chick was in the Carnival and Gretchen wasn’t the evil bitch we all thought she was. But I’m sorry, that little pop of a moment wasn’t enough of a pay-off for making we watch umpteen minutes of sorority speed dating. Sorority speed dating. On Heroes. Seriously? Where’s Parkman? Where’s the Carnival? Where’s HRG? Where’s Tracy? Where’s Hiro? Anything would have been preferable to the endless bore that is Claire in college. Isn’t this show supposed to have some action in it? Where the fuck is it? Scattered here and there in bits and fragments that aren’t long enough to matter or interesting enough to get my attention? NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

However, there was something that was beyond good enough this week that I have to halt my tirade for a moment and give some serious kudos. The storyline with Sylar this week was EXCELLENT and Quinto was simply superb in these segments. Quinto is a nuanced enough actor to have remembered how to play not Sylar or Nathan but Gabriel, and Gabriel he was when he was being interrogated in the station. He nailed the character dead-on and I was totally convinced with his mental confusion and loss of identity. It was a beautiful job by Quinto, and the end payoff with Sylar joining the Carnival was simply marvelous. However, the writers couldn’t even let this lovely storyline play out without inserting a fair amount of ridiculousness. Why would Ernie Hudson’s cop character pull a gun on an obviously hurt, bloody, mentally confused man wandering in the road? Sylar looked hurt and in need of medical attention, not arrest. And why would this cop continue to push so damn hard to have Sylar committed before learning anything about him or what had transpired with him? And how is it that this cop could be present in the room during Sylar’s psych evaluation? That’s not even legal, guys. Nothing about this cop’s behavior made any sense - it was all deus ex machina to move the scenes along.

And if you get right down to the meat of it all, that’s the overarching problem of Heroes. They write these inconsistencies, these pieces of fluff and nonsense, this laziness because it’s convenient for them. It’s convenient to just throw Cliche #14 at a situation than try to resolve it rationally. It’s easier to just change rules around than try to work with the rules already in place. It’s easier to just coast along and not try to develop anything challenging, interesting or sustainable. It’s easier… but it isn’t better. It’s eminently frustrating because each and every one of these problems I’ve been railing about could be fixed so easily. If the writers would just sit down and think for a minute instead of pulling out there Big Book of Cliches none of this would be happening. These are fixable problems… it just seems as though Kring and the writers don’t WANT to fix them, and that just makes me angry. I don’t know when these writers will realize that taking the easy route out is the exact wrong thing to do, because gods know it’s not due to lack of feedback or the ratings dropping like heavy stones. When Kring and the writers decide to stop pulling easy cliches out of their collective asses and actually do some real, challenging writing they’ll get some respect from me, but not a minute before.

For the Sylar segments alone I’ll give this a two out of five. It should really be a one-and-a-half, but Samuel showed up enough times for me to leave it at a two. However, this is a really bitter two star rating from me. There may not be many more Heroes reviews because I don’t know if I want to keep wasting my time and energy on a show that gives me so little. So tell me, Heroes… is taking the easy way out worth losing your fan base? Because that’s what’s going to happen if you keep going in this direction, and I doubt I’ll shed a tear when the show finally gets canceled.

What a shame and a waste. *shakes head*

Tags: comics,heroes,tim kring,sylar,television,hrg

Heroes - “Acceptance” (DonnaK)

By DonnaK

Wow… didn’t take #Heroes long to start falling apart, eh?

DonnaK: Well… to say I was disappointed by this week’s Heroes would be an understatement. The spark that I saw in the first two episodes of the season were gone, the plot lines I found the most compelling were gone, the direction mundane and… you guessed it… inconsistencies throughout. I have no idea why it seems so damn difficult for Heroes to keep their plots and details straight, even within the same f’n episode, but it simply seems that consistency is something that Heroes just doesn’t do. I don’t think any of you reading this need another lecture from me about how much I despise inconsistencies, so let’s just move on to the list of things I liked, was ambivalent about, and disliked.

THINGS I LIKED:
—The return of Angela Petrelli. Watching Christine Rose play Angela is always a treat, and I loved her interactions with Nathan this week. If Parkman refuses to help ensure that Sylar remains buried, the job is left to Angela, and it was a masterstroke to bring him a box of Nathan’s old things so Sylar would create/restore Nathan’s past. Very clever plot and beautifully acted, as always, by Christine Rose. Bonus points for having that beautiful scene with Rose and Swoozie Kurtz - those two grande dames work so well together.
—We got at least a glimpse of the Carnival. I know we can’t have the Carny on every week, so I was happy when we got at least a small taste of the Sullivan Brothers at the end of the show. Something’s better than nothing, right?

THINGS ABOUT WHICH I WAS AMBIVALENT:
—Tracy Strauss getting her life back. While I’m VERY happy to see Tracy back on the scene (I’m still hoping she turns into a super bad-ass), I was just “meh” about this storyline. Yes, I know that this season is about the heroes attempting to fit back into their lives. But… does it have to be so damned boring? I knew what was going to happen with Tracy’s whole storyline from the opening scene - it was obvious and telegraphed. Why make me sit through a long, drawn out explanation of “you can’t always go home again?” Was there no better way to do this? Hrmmm.
—The meeting of Nathan and Peter. So… we finally have our answer to the burning question of whether or not Peter would instantly know on touch that Nathan was actually Sylar. By establishing last week (when Peter touched Samuel and felt nothing) that Peter has to “look” for powers in those he touches I understood why Peter didn’t recognize Sylar on touch. It’s what happened in the rest of that meeting that’s bothering me. Say you’re Peter. Nathan shows up and shows you he suddenly has telekinesis and object memory. If you’re Peter and can search people for powers… why wouldn’t he touch Nathan again to see what the heck was going on with Nathan’s powers? Those revelations would warrant a touch-test, don’t you think? I know I would want to browse around and see why my brother was suddenly developing multiple new powers, and so would power-happy Peter. This didn’t jibe with me.
—What happened to our new hero? Hey, remember Emma, the deaf woman who could see sounds as colors? Me too. I guess we’re the only ones because we’ve seen hide nor hair of her since then. Why introduce a new hero unless you were going to use them right away? By the time they get back to Emma I’ll have forgotten her or just care even less than I do now. I don’t get this storyline at all.

THINGS I DISLIKED:
—The whole Hiro story arc. I’m sorry, I don’t buy any of this shit for a single second. You cannot go back and change the past without having some kind of ripple effect. This was my argument from episode one and I stick by it. By changing the past so that Ando and Kimiko became a couple so many things would be been affected. Ando would have spent more time with Kimiko than with Hiro. He would have sided with Kimiko in disagreements. He wouldn’t have had so much time to partner up with Hiro on adventures. The whole dynamic of those two would have changed, and yet it didn’t. BULL. It was the same this week - you can’t change one event and have only that one thing be affected. It’s not a time-travel model that holds any water and I’m extraordinarily disappointed that Heroes is doing this. Add in the fact that Hiro *knows* that changing the past is wrong and has disastrous consequences and I don’t get why any of this is happening at all. Not good, sir.
—No more Claire! I’ve had it up to *here* with Claire at this point. We can’t have any Parkman, Sylar, or Samuel… but we can work more boring Claire in? Sorry, I’ll pass, thanks.
—Where are the good storylines? No Parkman, no Sylar, no Samuel, no action… all this week had was a whole lot of talking, and very little of it was interesting. This is a mistake Heroes keeps on making - they cram all the action-packed/fun/best storylines into one episode and leave the dregs for another instead of spreading things out more, and I’m getting sick of it.
—INCONSISTENCY! Maybe I’m being petty, but when the Hiro storyline centers around Hiro jumping back in time to disable a copier and get smeared with toner ink… I EXPECT HIRO TO BE SMEARED WITH TONER INK IN ALL THE SHOTS. His toner smudges were actually missing on more than one occasion and changed in others. Come on! This is simple detail! You can’t tell me this is THAT hard to get right! And how about the jumper telling Hiro in one breath that he hasn’t told anyone he was fired and in the next telling Hiro how ashamed his family was when they knew he was fired. HUH? Did he fool them for a month or didn’t he? The two sentences were maybe thirty seconds apart. They can’t be consistent for thirty seconds? This is me, banging my head on the wall.
—The direction. Last night I watched House before Heroes and spent that hour remarking on how amazingly well House has been directed this season. House - a procedural dressed up as a drama - had become quite visually arresting, with last night’s episode being particularly so. Then I watched Heroes, which was directed hap-haphazardly with little to no flair or style. I should NEVER find House more visually arresting than Heroes. NEVER. And yet I did. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

I’m sorry, but with all the problems I can’t give this episode more than a 2.5 out of 5 stars. It was boring, slow, visually dull, and had no real action or movement. I don’t think this bores well for the season, I really don’t. If Heroes is going off the rails this quickly I really don’t see much hope for it. *sigh*

Tags: comics,heroes,tim kring,sylar,television,hrg

Heroes - “Ink” (DonnaK)

By DonnaK

#Heroes is holding its own. Color me impressed.

DonnaK: Usual warnings, of course…

**SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILERS BELOW!!! LOOK OUT FOR SPOILERS!!!!!**

I have to say I’m refreshingly surprised at how well Heroes is doing so far this season. Of course, we’re only on week two so I’m not about to start throwing parties yet, but I’m hoping that The Heroes gang can hold it together for at least a little longer. Call me crazy, but both Jim and I have been feeling like before Fuller left for greener pastures he left one mother of an outline, an arc for this season that, if followed, will keep the show on track. This season simply feels a lot more like Fuller than Kring (thank the gods) and if that is indeed the case I think we might have a chance for a good season of the show. I’m keeping it short again this week and just hitting you with my lists of things I liked, things about which I was ambivalent, and things I disliked.

THINGS I LIKED:

—More Robert Knepper! I so love Knepper’s addition to the cast and I’m quite intrigued by his character, Samuel. Samuel’s power is an interesting one - something we’ve not seen on the show before. We’ve had fire masters and water masters, but Samuel is our first earth master. It’s a bold power that, if used correctly, could be devastatingly powerful. I like the ambiguity of his character and how we can’t be sure if his intentions are noble or sinister… or perhaps a little of both. I’m very interested to see where they go with this character and I’m overjoyed at Knepper’s portrayal. I just wish he could keep his accent a bit more consistent.
—Sylar vs. Parkman. I’m absolutely enthralled by the mental duel between Parkman and Sylar. This is a fantastic way to keep Sylar on the show and to have potentially an amazing story arc. We know from last week that “Nathan”‘s body retained Sylar’s powers, but it’s really starting to feel like the true essence of Sylar - his soul, if you will - is now inside of Parkman. How long can Parkman hold out against the powerful mind and drive of Sylar? How long until the young Jedi Parkman turns into the evil Sith Lord Sylar? Dig if you will this picture - Sylar’s mind in Parkman’s body with Parkman’s IMMENSE power. With Parkman’s ability he could rule the world, which is of course Sylar’s dream. My bet is that Parkman will be whittled away a little more each week until Sylar’s mind takes over. This could be the new evil that the heroes must band together to stop - Sylar inside of Matt. Loving this storyline and loving the acting done by both Quinto and Grunberg in it.
—No Mohinder! I’m sorry, I know this makes me a horrible person, but I’m seriously enjoying the lack of Mohinder on the show. There’s just something about his character that has rubbed me the wrong way for a while and it’s just nice to get a reprieve from him.

THINGS ABOUT WHICH I WAS AMBIVALENT:

—The introduction of a new hero. Emma seems perfectly nice with an interesting power… but do we really need another hero? How about we deal with some of the older heroes that have been forgotten or lost in the past first, eh? Besides, it seems as though Emma *might* be a retread of Monica with her ability to learn the cello that quickly. I’d honestly rather see Monica again than meet another new hero. I guess time will tell on this one.

THINGS I DISLIKED:

—Claire in college. Yep… really not enjoying this storyline. It’s boring, it drags, I don’t like the casting of Madeline Zima as Gretchen, and Claire is being her usual, gullible self. I’m tired of it and I don’t care. If Claire’s storyline had been replaced with more of Nathan this episode would have shined. Instead I felt it dragged in spots because this storyline is just not at all interesting.
—No Nathan. I know we are going to have to dole this story out in small doses, but I just kept thinking that juxtaposing Nathan’s struggle with Sylar with Matt’s struggle with Sylar would have made for a much more consistent and interesting arc for the episode than watching Claire. I’m quite intrigued to see where they’re going to go with Nathan/Sylar and not having that crucial story played out even a little this week disappointed me, especially since Sylar/Matt was the frontburner story of the week.

All in all, I’d say this was another solid four-star episode. I loved the Parkman/Sylar story and I’m very anxious to see it play out and I’m also loving the addition of Samuel. If we could just move off of Claire and onto a more interesting story-arc I could see this rating climbing. I’m still holding out hope for you, Heroes. Don’t let me down.

Tags: comics,heroes,tim kring,sylar,television,hrg

Heroes - “Orientation”, “Jum, Push, Fall” (DonnaK)

By DonnaK

Is #Heroes back? Yes. Will it stay? That’s the real question.

DonnaK: The formalities….

**SPOILER ALERT!!!! SPOILERS BELOW!!!! EVERYTHING BELOW IS A SPOILER!!!!!**

We’re back with a new season of Heroes, and I have to just be very, very honest here… I’m not looking forward to writing this show up anymore. It was one thing when I started and I was just getting my rocks off by pummeling a really, REALLY bad show in Volume Three. It was another when the show I had loved showed promise again, only to vault sickeningly back and forth between quality and mediocrity. Now? I don’t know how much I have left in me. I don’t know that I want to invest hours writing a detailed review of a show that has let me down time and time again with no real signs of understanding what their problems are. So I’m not going to invest serious time into my Heroes reviews, not unless they can prove to me - as Lost did - that they deserve it. If that day comes they’ll get the Lost treatment, but until then I’m going to give much quicker and snappier reviews.

The double episode “Orientation” and “Jump, Push, Fall” was actually quite a good one. To be really fair, I don’t have much to complain about. The plot was smooth and consistent, the acting good, the direction adequate, and the return to the heroes dealing with normal life a refreshing change. A quick list, then, of things I liked, things about which I was ambivalent, and things I disliked.

THINGS I LIKED:
—The addition of Robert Knepper to the cast. Knepper is perhaps the only reason I continued to watch Prison Break through the third season. He’s a strong, creepy, talented as hell actor who will make for a very interesting addition to the cast. I have a dream of seeing Knepper and Michael Emerson (Ben from Lost) playing against each other in a suspense-thriller who-done-it. I so need to write that movie!
—Watching our heroes try to return to normality. Watching ordinary people suddenly thrust into extraordinary positions and try to deal with these issues within the framework of the everyday was a large part of the charm of Volume One. The loss of that ideal was, in my opinion, the second biggest downfall to this series (the first being its inconsistency). Watching Parkman at work, Claire at school, Peter at his job and Hiro and Ando up to their old tricks was a refreshing step back. Let’s hope it stays that way.
—Sylar’s guest spot in Parkman’s brain. Watching Quinto play Sylar is without question my greatest joy in the show. Having Sylar show up in this manner was both appropriate, eerie, and quite powerful. Would you want that guy wandering through your mind? I wouldn’t. How long until Parkman begins to act more and more like Sylar? Could Sylar actually take over Matt? Interesting questions were posed throughout these segments, ones I really liked pondering.
—Adrian Pasdar’s acting. I never thought he had it in him, but Pasdar is really convincing as we watch his mind race between Nathan’s memories and Sylar’s. I’m loving this build up and I’m quite impressed with how it’s being played. I also like the fact that they have demonstrated distance between Peter and Nathan as we know that one touch from
Peter will expose Nathan as Sylar. Well played all around.

THINGS ABOUT WHICH I WAS AMBIVALENT:
—The break-up of HRG’s marriage. It didn’t seem reasonable to me that Sandra would abandon HRG after everything they’ve been through. It still doesn’t. I understand they most likely wanted to write Sandra out of the story, but I still don’t feel as if an adequate reason was given for it.
—The death of Danko. I know it had to be done. I really, really do. But to lose a talent such as Ivanek hurts me to the bone. I’ll miss you, Danko. :(
—Hiro’s new mission. Hey, I get that Hiro’s dying, but I don’t see that fact or that single experience at the carnival as reason enough for Hiro to break his code. I also don’t see how NOTHING save for Ando and Kimiko’s relationship was changed from the altering of that one event. Did no one in the writer’s room watch “The Butterfly Effect”? I know, I know… this is going to spice up the show, but I’m not buying it or liking it very much.

THINGS I DISLIKED:
—The quick flip of Tracy Strauss. One minute Tracy is poised to be our newest super villain, and the next she’s working with HRG? I loved watching her use her powers for evil… at least for the 4.56 seconds we got to see it. I don’t want to see her as HRG’s new partner. I want to see her as a bad-ass. I’m highly disappointed in this change as I really felt she could have been a villain to truly reckon with.
—Claire in college. While I like the fact that we’re seeing the heroes try to return to their lives, Claire’s adventures in college land were rather mundane. I was actually more than a little bored by most of it. I actively hated her roommate and I can smell the Single White Female vibe off of Gretchen a mile away as well. I realize that this is part of watching the heroes try to rebuild their lives, but this was poorly executed at best.
—Parkman and Janice. Ummm…. hello? Anyone remember Daphne? Y’know, the love of Parkman’s life who was killed not that long ago? Oh, how quickly we forget! Well, I haven’t forgotten, so every scene with Matt and Janice together seemed hollow and fake to me. Matt has no call to be jealous - he was attempting to spend the rest of his life with another woman! Wrong, wrong, wrong.

All in all, I’d give this double episode of Heroes a rather solid 4 out of 5 stars. The good far outweighed the bad and I think the direction of the show and series seemed solid. My problem? I have zero faith in the writer’s abilities to keep it on track. Let’s hope they prove me wrong.

Tags: comics,heroes,tim kring,sylar,television,hrg

#Cycling, Slimming, Smoothies and School (JimK)

By JimK

OMG BEST SMOOTHIE EVAR, plus new excuses.

JimK: My latest excuse for not posting anywhere, ever: SCHOOL! I started. Love Nutrition 102, hate my Psych 112 class, as we mostly chat about the immature 50+ instructor’s life while he makes young girls touch his broken collar bone. Hopefully that won’t be happening EVERY fucking week. His single-page syllabus noted that we’d be covering all of Chapter 1 in the first class. We covered the first two paragraphs of Chapter 1. That was it. And the material will be on the test. So this class will be fun.

Wait what’s the exact opposite of fun? A weekend with Ashton Kutcher talking at you. Only when he’s 55. Same guy, just…older. And wrong about most of what he says. You know, like Ashton Kutcher.

Cycling! OMG so much fun it’s awesome I am doing it all the time wheeeeeeeee….and all that. I busted my stem today. So that happened. Stupid thing has been locked in a too-close, too-high position for weeks now after I stripped the bolt. I was planning to live with it until after I got clipless pedals, which was supposed to happen last month but didn’t and may not happen until late September now but I digress. The stem. So I hit a pretty deep pothole while I was full-on leaning on the handlebars. I just didn’t see it. And “CRACK” something inside the adjustable bit let go. It flopped forward and stuck there. Luckily I was about a mile from a bike shop. They fixed me up with a cheap Dimension fixed stem that was a little further out and a little lower than where I had my adjustable set, and so far I like it. It has improved steering and I can all of a sudden ride with no hands, which i could not do with the other stem. Also it weight one-third what the other stem weighed so that’s nice. And they offered to swap it out whenever I want as long as I don’t abuse it. If I was longer, shorter, less angle, whatever, they’ll switch it out for another one.

I also picked up a beater bike off Craigslist for $50, an early 80s Araya Rex “Deluxe Bicyele” and that is really what it says on the frame. Bicycele. Engrish, yo. My beater bike has Engrish on it. I bought some $5 Cheng Shin tires and $5 Pyramid tubes and changed the rubber, re-wrapped the bars and changed the brake pads. Unfortunately the wheel desperately need truing and the brakes need a pro to adjust them…I just keep fucking it up. Also the front derailleur cable snapped on me. So next week it’s getting a basic tune-up. They’ll true, re-cable and adjust everything for another $50, so for a total of $120 I have a bike I’m not afraid to lock up anywhere, but also a bike that fits the way I ride better than my mountain/hybrid monster. Unfortunately, they weigh about the same. The Araya is a beast…I think the tubing might be solid steel and not tubing at all. Or it is filled with lead. One of those. Rides like a Cadillac though. Very smooth. Up until I snapped the cable, that is. Now it sits in the garage awaiting its appointment with the bike doctor.

As far as achievements, I don’t have any huge milestones to report, I just keep riding and getting a little faster here and there. Hills still suck, and will until I’m well under 200 pounds. Shit, they’d still suck if I was 125 pounds. Greg LeMond once said hills never get easier, you just get faster. So…that’s depressing. But man can I haul ass on flat-to-rolling terrain! me and every other person who ever rode a bike, right? I have a 25 mile loop I ride a lot…there’s a water fountain along the way and a bathroom at the mid-point, so I use this route often. I’d say 95% of my rides involve at least part of this route. It used to take me two hours or more. I did it this week in 1:30:29. Which is slow for good riders until you remember that I am carrying the equivalent of another rider on my back while I ride. It’s fast for me.

Speaking of weight, today I weigh less than I have since…well, since before Bill Clinton was President. I am at a pre-Clinton weight. What is better than that is I feel more fit and stronger than ever. I feel like, maybe, under this layer of pudge I might be in better condition now than when I played football in high school, which is weird to me. Now all I gotta do is burn off this spare ~~tire~~ sport-utility vehicle I am carrying around. Which is happening at a faster pace this past month thanks to a shift in workout style…working harder, but shorter, and getting to a zone 4 heart rate from weight lifting, then not lifting again for a week. The week-long break is not something I planned, I just sort of noticed that the couple times it worked out that way, I felt so much better and was so much stronger the next time I lifted…turns out it’s a valid scientific theory detailed in the book Body by Science: A Research Based Program to Get the Results You Want in 12 Minutes a Week. So yay for my intuition.

And now…the best smoothie recipe EVER. Well, I mean, you can make a tastier smoothie, with cream and ice cream and sugar and some flavor of some kind or another, and that would technically probably be the best smoothie ever although it’s more of a shake, really. However, it would also make you fuh-huh-king faaaaat. As fuck. Sooo, I’m calling this The Best Reasonably Healthy Post-Workout Recovery Protein Smoothie Ever. Not the most simple of names, but look, you’re the one that brought up the ice cream, so shut up.

Wait that was me. My bad. Sorry.

The BeReHePoWoReProSmoEv smoothie will require:

1 medium banana
2 medium peaches, or 1 grotesquely large peach, or 3 if they are itty bitty baby peaches.
2 tablespoons non-dairy creamer. Feel free to use fat-free if you need to, this is mostly for texture anyway
2 scoops whey protein. I like plain vanilla flavor or unfllavored
3 packets Truvia (or if you are so inclined, two teaspoons of real sugar but I save that for my coffee)
A decent blender.

I know…most blenders suck for ice. I too also want a Blend-Tec. And someday I shall have one. In the mean time I have a $30 Oster that pretends to crush ice. It’s so cute how it thinks that it’s a real blender.

Step 1: Chop fruit. Put in blender. Blend on pulse until it’s all liquid-y.
Step 2: Add dry ingredients. Blend again. If you have a smoothie setting, use it for about 60 seconds.
Step 3: Add ice in SMALL BATCHES! If your blender has an “Ice Crush” button, it’s fucking lying to you, but still, “Ice Crush” is usually “Pulse” so, yeah, do that. The amount is up to you. How much smoothie can fit in your glass? I’m using a big-ass 26 oz. Pat O’Brien’s hurricane glass, so I throw in fistfuls of ice until I see enough smoothie to fill the big-ass 26 oz. Pat O’Brien’s hurricane glass.
Step 4: Pour into glass and drink.
Step 5: Reap the benefits of a delicious smoothie that is good for you and will help you build muscle after a workout or a bike ride.

Now, there could be a Step 3.5 in there. Some Jack Daniels, maybe some Southern Comfort, Stoli peach, a nice rum, all of these things sound like they would be utterly delicious in said smoothie, and that would certainly make you feel a lot better about all the lifting/riding/running/dodging dogs off leashes you just did. However, it’s not really a healthy smoothie anymore, it’s a drink designed to peel panties off of ladies who like to pretend they aren’t capable of knocking back bourbon neat like old men at the yacht club. So, sure, booze it up, who the hell am I to tell you not to? In fact I kind of wish I did that to the one I just had. A SoCo smoothie sounds fucking great right now.

Mmm…booze.

Tags: personal,cycling,school,workout,smoothie,recipe

Futurama: Beast With a Billion Backs (Rann)

By Rann

Actually I’m pretty sure it should have been in the trillions, but I doubt that would look as good in big retro letters on a DVD cover.

Rann: I caught this Futurama movie on TV last night, and thought I’d take a few moments to throw my thoughts on it out there. Nothing in-depth, since I don’t have a DVD to go through again as I review it, but maybe a kind of general “heads-up”… and possibly a warning for when Futurama really does return to the airwaves in its upcoming whole new season. (And one or two minor spoilers.)

The first, and possibly for many the only, question is this: Is it funny? The answer: Yes it is. It’s the quirky brand of humor you’ve come to know and expect from Futurama in many a rerun, refined in some ways and degraded in others. There are a fair number of decent chuckles in there, and if that’s all you want or expect out of this, then you’re good to go.

The major problem is that especially with this movie, Futurama seems to have become… well, Family Guy post-uncancellation. Which isn’t about politics… that, mercifully, seems to have been almost completely left out of the movie. (Well, unless you count the constant low-key axe to grind they have with Nixon, which I doubt anyone would. It’s just kind of a trademark of anything related to a Groening property.) Rather, it’s how self-referential and almost self-parodying Futurama has become.

When Family Guy returned to the airwaves, it referenced itself almost as much as it referenced stuff from the eighties and other random pop-culture. McFarlane and crew knew that the whole reason the show was back was the massive amount of fondness people had acquired for the show and certain pieces of it in the constant reruns on Adult Swim and Comedy Central. And so we were inundated with references to them, putting the Greased-Up Deaf Guy in there at every opportunity, having another random fight with the Coupon Chicken, all that. Characters, already rather thinly characterized beyond their quirks, started being there pretty much to make jokes about how people were aware of those quirks. Hey, everybody, Joe’s in a wheelchair! Let’s point that out, because we know how much you liked all the funny stuff we did with that before! Also, his wife’s still hugely pregnant! Let’s say how long she’s been pregnant, that’ll be good for a laugh! And Quagmire’s horny! Oh god how horny Quagmire is!

Beast With A Billion Backs really gets into this territory more often than I’d like, considering Futurama‘s imminent return to the airwaves in episodic format. At one point, Nixon stops an important speech so that he can repeat the “Charleston Chew” gag from an episode of the series. Seriously, they do the exact same gag out of nowhere, and the only way it would even be really a little bit funny is if you were going to laugh at it being a callback to the earlier episode that had Nixon shilling for sponsors in the midst of important speeches. The Smelloscope gets a workout at every opportunity, since it was such a quirky and favorite fixture of the series. At one point for a gag, Farnsworth even outright says “You know how I always say ‘Good news, everybody!’ when I’m about to send you on an incredibly dangerous mission?” WHY GEE, PROFESSOR, NO I HADN’T, THANKS FOR THAT REMINDER. It’s not as bad or annoying as the allcaps might make it seem, but it is an example of how the humor has gotten into that area where they’re actually explaining their old gags so that they can build gags off of them. It’s getting into a very Ctl+Alt+Del level of explaining jokes and wall of text, and I think we can all agree that if there’s anything Futurama doesn’t need, it’s Tim B^Uckley’s brand of suck.

The characterization thing is pretty heavy, too. Yes, guys, we get it, Fry and Bender are sort of like a gay couple. We know. We get it. You can get another joke now. What, Fry is an idiotic loser that makes bad decisions, you say? And Zoidberg’s creepy and dumb? And Leela’s bitchy? Wow. I never would have known if you didn’t have Fry doing the absolute most idiotic things possible, Zoidberg jabbering about naked men thrusting against cake, and Leela being the only person in the universe who finds things to bitch about in Heaven.

Bender gets it the worst, though. The series had it well established that yes, Bender is evil. He is amoral and selfish and really only cares about other people for how they make him feel or what they can do for him, and that he’s at least semi-serious about wanting to kill all humans. He’s a jerk and a sociopath, but he was regularly given his little “pet the dog” moments so that he stayed at least marginally inside the “lovable jerk” area. I don’t know why the writers decided to take these mannerisms to an extreme. Considering who it is, it’s possible that they’re trying to teach us a lesson and/or make some kind of point about how someone like Bender shouldn’t be lovable no matter how many dogs he pets, and possibly so that they can sneer and feel superior when a lot of people love him anyway or even love him more; it’s equally possible it’s just horrible character writing.

So we know that Bender often takes disproportionate insult to small or imagined slights, and that he’s pretty uncaring about who he hurts to get his way. Alright. So why not have him… oh, I don’t know, decide that the time has come to actually kill all humans just because Fry didn’t want to go get a beer with him, and when the Robot Devil demands his first-born son in return for an army of the damned to do so, have Bender go retrieve said firstborn son and cheerfully violently slaughter him?

I’ll tell you why not. Because regardless of whether or not people should like Bender, they do. And a scene like that is either going to make them stop liking him, or they’re going to like him even more, so what have you accomplished by trying to make that statement? (Well, other than straining your elbows patting yourselves on the back, but hey, Hollywood.) But putting aside all issues of what the fans will think, since it’s unlikely anyone involved with Futurama actually cares… where do you go from there? You had Bender go retrieve his own child that he ran out on, just so that he could hum happily while tossing him into a vat of molten metal to kill him. Then you had him destroy the universe’s chance at eternal life, peace, and happiness just so he could have Fry back. Where do you even go with him after that? What’s left to do? The Futurama movies had already partly moved from being about Futurama and closer to being about The Bender Show as it was, all about what new depravity Bender could giggle with sociopathic glee as he committed it… so where do you go from there? We’ve had him happily try to kill his best friend, happily kill his own child… what do you even have him do to top himself?

Where is there for Bender to go in future movies or the series? Rape? Robot kiddy porn? Having a stomach and anus installed just so he can projectile spray diarrhea on people? More than that, Fry arguably hit his lowest point ever in this movie, with the woman who treated him like a collectible and broke his heart and then went off on a self-righteous rant on him… she’s the only one who gets to stay in Heaven after he and Bender get everyone else kicked out. What do you even do to the poor bastard after that to play the “lol Fry is a loser” card for a laugh? Have his dick fall off? Have him contract a space-disease so that every woman who punches him in the face tastes chocolate? Have Bender rape him?

As usual, I’ve pulled a Yahtzee and wound up focusing almost totally on the negative stuff, mostly because that’s what stuck with me. (I guess you could add that to the negatives… there weren’t any laughs well and truly big enough to stick out and be memorable, while the annoying bits are seared, SEARED into my memory.) There are lots of little bits that I did like about it. While there were a lot of “lol future technology” gags, I actually approved of the proliferation of those… one of Futurama‘s problems is that it often came off less like the future and more like just some weird alternate dimension of present day. (Even going so far as to have gags about “satellite versus cable”, which was probably supposed to be the point, but I digress.) Actually having more common everyday stuff with futuregadgets in it instead of just randomly throwing in wacky goo-beings and whatnot made it more of a “year 3000” and less of a “Flintstones a la the Jetsons” thing. They fiddle with the status quo a bit, too, which is always nice… in some ways they do revert it to keep things from moving ahead too much, in other ways they tease that yes, things have changed. (After Fry’s latest crush gets into Heaven, he asks Leela if she’d like to give it another try. She’s bitchy as usual, since how dare he have dated someone else after her long years of not giving him the time of day, and he just kind of shrugs and grins and blows her off.)

Beast With A Billion Backs is likely to make you chuckle, but it’s unlikely to make you laugh out loud. It also serves as a bit of a warning… don’t get your hopes up too high for Futurama‘s imminent return to the airwaves with new episodes. It’s entirely possible that, like with Family Guy, you’ll find yourself wondering why you ever wanted this show back in the first place.

Tags: tv,review,humor,Review,Futurama

Girls in bikinis reading Star Wars. (JimK)

By JimK

I believe I have said enough.

Awe. Some.

Thanks Vodkapundit!

Tags: video,babes,youtube,star wars,YouTube,bikini girls

My new favorite website (JimK)

By JimK

Thank God someone is preserving this stuff for future generations of lols!

JimK: My new favorite website is http://emailsfromcrazypeople.com. Loving it so, so hard. It’s not just emails…there’s letters and notes and generally any kind of crazy person communication that involves writing down words. Like these words:

Good chance much of this is fake? Probably. Don’t care. Lol’ing anyway. Enjoy.

Tags: humor,funny,stuff,websites