Still addicted…
Continue reading “Lost in thought”
Category: On TV
Things on TV
Here and there
So I’m back from my jaunt through southern Ohio. The trip was productive, even if the towns I passed through/stayed in were unspectacular.
The driving though, was fun. I was surprised by the number of interstate quality highways, especially U.S. 32. The best road (and of course, this was under optimal conditions), was OH-247 between Hillsboro and West Union. Lots of hills along that road, but still a fun drive.
Monday night, I caught the special three-hour Raw, and while it wasn’t enough to get me watching full-time again, it was an entertaining show. Two thoughts:
-Was it me, or did Koko B. Ware have Frankie stuffed?
-Did we really need to see the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man oops, I mean Shamu, oops (again) Triple H beat up Ric Flair for a whole 15 minutes? First of all, it made me want to throw up hearing Flair refer to Jean-Paul as the greatest wrestler ever, but then for JP to take out his roid rage on the Nature Boy was just a total waste of time. That’s one of the big reasons I don’t watch wrestling anymore.
I spent Monday night in Piketon. As exciting as it sounds. Tuesday night was in Jackson, where they have a Bennigans. I ate at said Bennigans. Don’t ask me how/why I remember this, but I also ate at a Bennigans the night Jack McDowell became the Yankee Flipper.
I succeeded with my two goals, catching Tuesday’s ALDS game one and making it home in time to catch Lost. I’m not worried about the Game 2 loss, but I’ll be much happier when the Yankees put the Angels behind them.
As for Lost: Damn, this show is addicting. It’s getting weird, but that’s what makes it fun.
I also caught Alias tonight, and damn, I would have never though Ted Williams was behind it all.
Freedom
-I don’t know what took me so damn long, but I finally got some type of broadband Internet access. And it’s like a whole new world. Or something.
-Watched Alias last night. It was okay. I bought the explanation behind last season’s cliffhanger. They didn’t try and shoehorn it in too much. On the other hand, I’m not happy with the other big event, and if they did this because of her personal life, I’ma be really pissed off.
-Yankees’ magic number is 3. Gonna be an interesting weekend.
Jack-Jack Attack!
Tonight, one of the few TV shows I make it a point to watch, Alias, has it’s fifth season premier. And while for now, I find Lost to be a more compelling show, Alias still has some great characters, especially Jack Bristow, played by Victor Garber.
I’ve been thinking about this, and this Jack has a lot in common with another similarly named character, 24’s Jack Bauer. The crack research staff at the King Tom Institute for Television Awareness have been combing through old shows and have put the following chart togetether. As Warner Wolf would say, “let’s go to the videotape!”
(Continued on the click-through for those of you who don’t want to be spoiled by various 24 or Alias plot points)
good career move, Beetlejuice!
Lost was good. More clues and hints, but no real answers. The Michael/Sawyer stuff was unintentional comedy at its finest. I would say more, but I don’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t seen it.
I read today that Michael Keaton was originally offered, but turned down the role of Jack Sheppard. Supposedly, he didn’t want to do a TV show. You know, because the theaters were just packed when he did that movie about the guy who was reincarnated as a snowman.
Must See TV
I haven’t been around here in a few days. I spent the last few days in Cincinnati. Also, I’ve been getting caught up on Lost- and I’m all ready to go for this season. I’ll admit I was wrong about it, because a year ago I was bitter about Alias being pushed back ’till January while having to settle for (what I thought was) a Gilligan’s Island ripoff, but in a way, I’m almost looking forward more to the new season of Lost than the new season of Alias.
Speaking of television, today, I caught a commercial promising an all-new episode of the Simpsons tonight. I was a bit surprised, partially because I thought they were going to start the new season after the World’s Series, but also, because a large part of me really didn’t care if I caught it or not.
I’m just not as into new Simpsons episodes as I used to be. Part of it’s real life- I travel a lot on Sunday nights. But part of it is because they just aren’t as good as they used to be. Every now and then, there’s a great episode, like Jaws Wired Shut, or the Catch Me if You Can ripoff, but the quality has (in my opinion) dropped drastically. It’s still a funny show, but the stories and characters aren’t as deep and the constant guest star cameos are getting annoying. And the last time I caught a new episode- sometime last spring, it felt like the whole first block was taken up by them crediting all 103 producers who work on the show.
Another part of it may be the DVDs. I’ve been looking through the 6th season set (which Christina got me for my birthday), and those were some quality shows. I have the other season sets also- and while the animation may not be up to today’s standards, most of those shows are better than the new ones they’re coming out with recently.
Damn, I’m getting old.
And for my Friday night dinner associates, I give you exotic fruit.
No more zeppelin cam, please!
Over the past two nights, the Yankees have been playing the Devil Rays. The games have been hard to watch, but not because the Devil Rays were ahead for most of the two games, but because of the YES network’s constant use of a blimp-cam.
I haven’t seen every pitch of the two games, but I caught most of them and it felt like every other camera shot was overhead from that damn blimp. And I’ll admit it was cool at first, and the last time they used it tonight, when Mariano entered from the pen (they took him all the way to the mound, then cut to a close-up of Hor-Hay handing him the ball while they piped in Enter Sandman from the stadium’s PA system). But overall, it was nauseating. I’ve often said that if I had the YES Network, I wouldn’t leave my house, but if they keep it up with the blimp cam, I’m going to go postal on that blimp.
Speaking of TV, thanks to djl, I’m now addicted to Lost. For me, it’s not on the Alias level (yet), mostly because it doesn’t have a Jack Bristow or Sloane. But talk to me at the end of this TV season after real life has had its affect on the fortunes of Alias.
And finally…back on a Tuesday in May, the director of another division at work came running (figuratively) to my group and said he needed us to start some urgent project. The due date was that Friday. We put together a workable version of what they asked for and presented it to them. But they didn’t check with their people as to what other content was needed and asked us to hold off on it. It went through some major changes and while they needed it done post-haste, they took their sweet time getting their act together.
Long story short, we sent out the project to a printer last week and got boxes of the item in early this morning. As much as I bitch about the news media, at least, for the most part, they know the meaning of the word deadline.
This may scare ya…
For some reason, I’ve been told I need a picture of the Burger King King up here. So here you go:
Doesn’t look anything like me. For reference:
Okay, it’s ten years old and it’s a drivers licence photo, but for some reason I really like that picture. And I really used to rock the Superman Curl.
I’m not coming off as vain here, am I?
Having worked in news for like five years (and having watched the news for much longer than that), I should say something about the passing of anchorman Peter Jennings (although, since he’s Canadian, shouldn’t it be anchourman?).
I never really cared for ABC news. Probably because my first-through-third grade babysitter insisted on watching the ABC news every night instead of whatever sitcom reruns were on WPIX at the time. I totally lost all respect for them as an organization around the turn of the century when they just decided to graphically edit out all of the NBC logos in Times Square. That’s a great company ethic there- just change reality to suit your needs.
(Even though I don’t care much for ABC, I still have some respect for Koppel and Donaldson. Guess that’s because they’re old school).
Working at NBC, I didn’t hear anything about Jennings. No idle rumors, no crazy-Dan Rather horror stories or Tom Brokaw idol worship. Jennings just existed. And even though I wasn’t watching, someone else did, so he must have had something going there.
Partially because it was such a big part of my life, I don’t watch news anymore. Instead, I get my news like Sledge Hammer, through rumor and small children.
Keep on truckin’!