This has a long run time, but it’s relatively complex for a Korean game show. The rest of it is available through the related links. I’m not entirely through the videos myself, but I’ve been interested in this game because it had subtitles and they weren’t just sitting around making funny noises and doing stupid stuff like they normally do in Korean game shows.
I watched The Simpsons for 10 years or more on a nearly daily basis. I could repeat entire episodes from memory. I loved The Simpsons to the point where my brother and I would have entire conversations with only quotes from the show. Our parents never watched it, but we were allowed to record it and watch it over and over again. Finally all that trivia and minutia from the show came in useful.
Scene it The Simpsons Edition was exactly what I was preparing for with all those serial reviews of the show. Having memorized most of the first ten seasons paid off big time when it came to a quiz show based on the game. I was kicking everyone’s ass. It was glorious. I haven’t watched the Simpsons in close to ten years, but I still got the majority of questions included in the game. It was a well put together quiz game. I think I have a few old college friends that might be able to beat me, but it would take an exceptional amount of preparation for anyone that isn’t a hardcore fan to challenge me.
Anyway, I got it at a steep discount, but it was totally worth the evening’s play. Pick up the Scene it Simpsons Edition up if you can get it on sale.
Broken Bells -with Christina Hendricks
I like this song because it’s like early Gorillaz without a rap interlude.
I finally got around to finishing off the last season of The Wire like I had set out to do sometime at the beginning of my vacation a few months previous. I’d say the experience was highly rewarding. I liked the show for the entire run. It’s also fairly quotable. (Spoilers: Part 1 and Part 2.) The tale might have been an allegory for something more than just a police drama, but I don’t think I liked it on any other level than what was shown. I think I’ll skip the post modern deconstruction and just enjoy it for what it is for now. The simple truth served by watching the show weave the story of all these characters was fascinating. Every character seemed realized and true.
That is an amazing achievement in a drama set in a real city. The pace and flow of the story would have driven me crazy if I didn’t always have access to the next episode right away. I usually watched it in long chunks if I had any free time, and frequently I would get up to go to work a few hours short on sleep because I needed to see the next episode to see how it was going to work itself out. If I had watched it “spoiled” it wouldn’t have nearly the same impact on me. I managed to avoid the show entirely until I watched it this year, which was completely refreshing.
My favorite part of the show would be the arc of the fourth season which dealt with inner city youth and the problems in the school system. I’ve taught in dysfunctional schools before, but the chaos was inspired by greed and ignorance on the part of the management. The children in my classes deal with entirely different problems at home. Still, it was rough to watch school life in the inner city portrayed by some talented child actors with such heartbreaking stories. I’ve been at words with the upper management when I needed to “Teach to the test”; ignoring the students needs and betraying my duties as a teacher. My students might occasionally have a tough background, but it’s not like gangs and drugs are a way of life here. I’ve taught some messed up kids before, but I never felt physically threatened by students in all my time here.
I think I’ll let this one stew for a couple of years and revisit it.
This will be how I curse for the next few months.
Some friends of mine bought tickets to the 3D version of Pocahontas, who Dances with Wolves in Ferngully and is also the Last Samurai Avatar that was showing at a theater in town. They made the reservations a few days in advance, guaranteeing a good ticket for us. I’m too lazy to get to a theater to see a movie about blue cat people, but if someone else does the work I was willing to go see it with them. That being said, I’m glad I went. That movie in particular was only really worth seeing projected in 3D in a theater. It was beautiful, well made, and stylistically cool, despite starring giant furries. If I was a kid today, this is the movie that would make me a fanboy for science fiction.
The story was a well done take on something you’ve seen half a dozen times. How they packaged the story, the scenery of the world was presented in a novel manner thanks to the special effects and 3d. You weren’t there for the story, but the spectacle of it all. The bomb dropping left and right in the battles were heavy handed metaphors, but they blew up and looked so pretty! I had a hard time remembering that some it CGI some of the time, which is rare. In 20 years time, when all movies look like this and are in 3D, people will laugh at how bad this movie is, but this is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, and that’s worth seeing in the theater.
I felt that the most interesting part of the entire premise was the technology they absolutely skipped right past. There was a vat grown creature linked to another that could somehow connect via a giant body coffin, allowing one wheelchair bound marine to become a capable furry cat guy. That was the entire premise of it being called “Avatar”. They don’t explain why this is possible, but the entire story builds off the idea that people infiltrate another society by wearing their bodies, learn their culture, then exploit their sympathies to gain their resources. Sometimes I feel that I am training people to do exactly that as a teacher. Not only that, but the entire planet had a symbiotic relationship, and creatures could control each other by linking minds. That was a fascinating concept.
The whole “got to get the resources that happen to be in a inconvenient place” aspect was only there to create the conflict. Any society with the level of technology the humans displayed would have been able to extract the resources without disrupting or alerting the alien culture to their presence. I have to give credit to having the balls to call a plot device “unobtainium”. Why didn’t they just call it “MacGuffinaium” instead.
The idea of wearing someone else, being able to replace your body with another, the idea of leaving yourself and acting remotely? All of that has been done, and better, by Dollhouse. While I was coming home on the subway, I watched the third to last episode of that stellar program (Title: Getting Closer). Avatar was gorgeous, with lots of spectacle, but the only thing that floored me, or made me say, “OH MY GOD!” in public today was the mind blowing twists on Dollhouse this episode. It doesn’t take 3D or blue cats to make me happy. All it takes is a well written and executed story with a good twist or two.
Holy shit, Dollhouse is being cancelled. There are only two episodes left, but it’s going out on top! I haven’t seen a show that has warped my mind as much as this one has for a long time. The twists in Dollhouse make Battlestar Galactica’s lame ending all that more infuriating. BSG had a stronger, longer run, but absolutely fell apart at the end. The poor ending made me think the less of the entire show for all the broken promises. You can’t have “…and they have a plan” in the credits for 4 seasons and not pay it off! The more you learn about “The Plan”, the more you want to punch all the Cylons in the face for being idiots. The mythology of BSG gets lessened the more you find out about the motivations of the characters. Up until the end of the show, this wasn’t true.
Dollhouse might have taken a few episodes to find its legs, but damn it kicks like a mule. Joss Whedon blew me away this past episode. Damn I’m going to miss it when it is gone, but at least it will go out telling a good story.
Everyone in the office at work was talking about “The Wire” for a long time. They were passing around the DVDs so that people could catch up on the first season. I hadn’t heard a bad thing about the show, but I didn’t get in on borrowing them because I didn’t have the time to watch a cop drama while managing all my new responsibilities. I’m always up for new materials to watch. Hearing people recommend the show was fine, but most of the people heaped on so much praise that it was hard to believe anything could live up to the hype involved. The Wire had been praised by everyone for so long that I just figured I’d get around to it eventually and I didn’t want anything spoiled for me. I wasn’t in a rush to see it, but I would watch it when I got the chance.
I’m currently watching the first season, and I’ll start on the second season not long after. It’s good stuff. It’s not as hard hitting as “The Shield” in my opinion, but it’s played way more real to life. They take their sweet time with their case, and it feels like each episode is a slow progression on a story of two sides playing a game of chess with one another. It’s all morally grey, but occasionally speaks a clear truth that comes from a good story. The characters feel self-motivated and self-interested in a very believable manner, which is where it has the upper hand on The Shield.
Anyway, I hope to finish at least the first season of the show so that I can have something to talk about in the office when I’m back there next week. While it isn’t my favorite show, it is a very good, well written show that I’ll watch more of in the future. I’ll have to listen to other people’s recommendations in the office since they proved right in this particular case.
Sunday is usually my day around the house. I don’t work, and I don’t have the opportunity to travel. I get to sit around, catch up on sleep, or do whatever I need to get done before the week starts. Recently the routine has been walk the dog, then clean the house. Vacuum first, then steam clean. Once I’m finished with that, I set up a speaker and listen to some podcasts while I wash Yoshi. In total, that usually takes around two or three hours, depending on how far and how long I walk.
Today my routine was ruined by rain. We couldn’t walk. My whole routine was thrown off. I cleaned the house, washed the dog, then didn’t have anything else to do. My usual excuses for going out on a were all moot, and I had nothing big entertaining me. I had My television shows had been watched. My book, finished!
I eventually started watching Psych on our IPTV service. It’s a comedy/crime procedural/parody totally new to me. A guy pretends to solve crime by being a psychic, but is actually just very observant and clever. He’s not actually psychic, but has to pretend. That’s the gimmick of the show. They follow the Dexter model in the episodes I watch. There is always a flashback to the past, possibly to a lesson between a father who was a cop and a son in law enforcement about training the son has because he is special. The father wants to pass on his talents in crime solving to the son. Then an event in the current events of the show that directly ties into that long lost lesson.
I like how they treat superstitions as a silly thing and parody crime shows. I do not watch crime procedural shows, and this show has a very “case of the week” style plot that makes me weary. This one held my interest for two episodes. I fell asleep twice while watching, which is not something I do. I’m not sure if I’ll continue watching it simply because it is too episodic for my tastes. I might give it another chance if I have another lazy Sunday.
