Am I watching the right show?

For the past few weeks, I’ve been going on and on about how the latest hours of 24 haven’t had enough Jack. The focus lately has been on political/legal intrigue in the White House bunker and love parallelograms at CTU. And while those are okay in the background, they cannot carry a whole episode (or multiple episodes) of 24 as they’ve been doing lately.

Tonight’s episode was boring. There were a few minutes of Jack in action near the end, but even that wasn’t enough to save this episode. In an effort to show that I think the show can do better, I have three things that should have happened this episode to have made it better:

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King Tom

WrestleMania Hangover

Last night, I was one of 80,000 plus that packed Detroit’s Ford Field to watch WrestleMania 23.

And I was pleasntly surprised, as it was a really good show.

The seats were in the tenth row of the second level. I could tell what was happening in the ring, but there was an overhead light that blocked my view of the video screen. I was happy with the results of all the matches, even if the rest of the crowd wanted to kill John Cena.

The only negatives- the sound was real loud. And Lilian Garcia has the world’s most annoying voice. So try imagining that at about a billion decibles.

The event ended before 11, and I got back to Columbus a few minutes before four in the morning. Considering that and the fact that it’s Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, I’m glad I took today off.

King Tom

King Tom’s Goin’ To WrestleMania!

I’ve been to a final game of the Stanley Cup Finals.

I’ve also been to the final game of a World’s Series.

In keeping with that theme, this Sunday, I’m going to WrestleMania.

My friend Ryan, who lives in the Motor City, procured tickets to the big event. I’ve been to a number of WWF live events before, including one of the worst pay-per-views ever, but I’m really pumped about going to a WrestleMania. Of course, this year’s King Tom’s Annual WrestleMania Bash ™ was re-scheduled for the Royal Rumble, but why host a pay-per-view event when I’ll be there in person?

My one wish that when all is said and done, Sunday’s show doesn’t go down in history as one of the worst WrestleManias. Some of my favorite wrestlers (Jericho, Rock) aren’t affiliated with the federation anymore, and Stone Cold Steve Austin, who’s refereeing a match, isn’t actively wrestling. Chris Benoit is stuck in a match with a jabroni. And there aren’t that many matches on the card.

But there are some positives. Useless Triple H isn’t involved. There’s no blindfold match. There’s really no bad guy expected to win the main event. And even if that does happen, Hulk Hogan isn’t expected to come out of nowhere and hog the spotlight in the main event.

I’m looking forward to it. I just hope I make it back home in time for Opening Day.

King Tom

Perspectives

For those Lost fans who have been paying attention to such things, it’s been forecasted for a while that tonight’s episode, Expose, would not focus on the main characters or reveal any of the big mysteries of the island. While I was initially skeptical of tonight’s episode for potentially not following up on things like last week’s hour of awesomeness, tonight had enough tiny moments of awesomeness to qualify as a solid episode.

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King Tom

A game with attitude

The Baseball Mogul series is one of my all-time favorite video game franchises.

It’s not just the concept of running my own baseball team, but the game’s humor also is also key. For example, the ’03 version contained a scouting report of a certain Yankees pitcher* that said:

Baseball needs more pitchers like Carl Pavano.

Well, four years later and the game can still bring the humor. I downloaded the latest version of the game and made a trade offer, to which the computer general manager replied:

General Manager Don Rickles

Oh yeah? Well, yo momma so fat, the back of her neck looks like a pack of hot dogs!

*Kind of related: in a conversation yesterday, my brother referred to Pavano as Mr. Ouchy McBreaks-My-Ass

King Tom

The Hour of Rain Man

If there’s one complaint that I’ve had about this season of 24, it’s there hasn’t been enough Jack. It feels like he’s been pushed aside in favor of focusing on the blossoming soap operas taking place at CTU and underneath the White House. And he’s only killed a handful of people. Jack Bauer has not killed this few people in a day since he was in junior high.

And so I’ve been thinking, what can, or will they do, to bring the focus back to Jack? In what way will they bring back the one-man killing squad that we’ve watched over the past six years?

The answer to those questions: team him up with Rain Man.
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King Tom

What’s In The Box?

Was it me, or was anyone else’s sound messed-up during tonight’s episode of Lost? During the first half of the episode, there was this weird echo (not an Eko) every few seconds. It sounded pretty neat with the soundtrack and music bits, but for the voices, it was really annoying. It was even happening during the commercials, and just on the ABC station. So I’m guessing it was my lousy local ABC affiliate, which wouldn’t surprise me, because they mess things up on a regular basis.

On to the episode!
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It’s Eight O’Clock. Do you know where Jack Bauer is?

Wasn’t it sometime in the past few weeks (or, for that matter, multiple times in the last few weeks) that I said a certain episode of 24 didn’t have enough Jack?

Well, now it’s getting ridiculous. Tonight’s episode of 24 (a very late-feeling 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.) had what had to be, at most, 15 minutes of Jack sandwiched in between CTU drama and White House bunker drama.

At least this episode had Jack flying into Bauer-rage, even if it was after hearing the news of Audrey’s death (although the King wants to know why make her death that prominent if she’s really dead). Of course, that probably means that he’ll go rogue trying to take on a billion Chinese, while Ricky Schroeder and the rest of CTU play chase the nuke. Of course, knowing it’s Jack, he’ll take care of the Chinese then step in with 15 minutes left on the season to clean up any mess CTU may have gotten itself into.

But back to tonight’s episode.
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King Tom

This song brought to you by CBS

Since first hearing them sometime last decade, I’ve been a casual fan of Fountains of Wayne. While they’re not the weez, they have a gift for making some really catchy pop-rock tunes.

One thing that bugs me about them every now and then is their songs delve into the “slice of life of someone else”/story-style song. I heard some bits of their new album, and they keep this tradition alive. The one song that stood out (and even though it was a story song, I liked it), was the first single “Someone to Love.”

I was listening to the song this morning, and two of the lines bugged me:

And a date with the Late Show’s all that you’ve got

But she’s sitting at home watching “The King of Queens”

Are they getting some kickbacks from CBS for the title dropping, or what?

On a kind of related note, the Civee and I recently saw Music and Lyrics, a romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant. The music in the movie was written by Adam Schlesinger, a cornerstone of FoW. No big surprise, the songs in Music and Lyrics are actually pretty good.

King Tom

Don’t Whizz on the Electric Fence

When I was in high school, my father had two dogs. To keep them in the yard, we got one of those invisible fence things. A neigobor wanted to get one for his dogs, but was curious as to how powerful it was. So after talking with my father, he took one of the dog’s collars, held the metal part in his hand and walked “through” the fence. He jumped, shouted, and said it was a big mistake.

With that in mind, I really don’t blame Locke for what he did tonight.

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King Tom