haven't done this in a while

#1 The Wire, #2 Sopranos, #3 Deadwood.

Those are elite shows that reward repeated viewings seemingly without limit, as do Game of Thrones, Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The first half of Season 5 of Breaking Bad was good enough that I went back and rewatched the rest of it, wondering if it was better than I'd remembered. It wasn't. It's a fine show but I doubt I'll watch it again, putting it in roughly the same company as Weeds, Mad Men, Lost, and Dexter. I might rewatch Parks & Rec, Community, Rome, Sherlock and 6 Feet Under, but doubt I'll ever consider them elite. Boardwalk Empire is enjoyable but I don't see it landing in the elite category.

rock on

things people without appendices do?

today has been a good recovery day.  i took a walk outside, and my bowels are getting closer to normal functioning*.  i'm going to eat a hamburger for dinner, and i might have a beer too.  it still hurts though if i do anything that uses ab muscles, which turns out to be just about every movement.

i've watched way too many movies and tv episodes over the last few days.  in the hospital i actually managed to read a lot, and finished chomsky's "Necessary Illusions."  but i've had trouble concentrating on reading here.  that will improve soon.   i've watched:

• entire season 3 of The Office, and the last 5 episodes of whatever this season is
  
• the 2 recent episodes of Prison Break, which apparently started back up again (guilty pleasure)
  
• several episodes of Life of Birds with Attenborough (always awesome)
  
• 3:10 to Yuma (pretty good for a western starring a brit and an aussie)
  
• So Goes the Nation (very limited value, and not in the way they intended)
  
• Bourne Ultimatum (always awesome)
• American Gangster (pretty good, but more boring than i expected)

on my walk i picked up 2 more documentaries from the library that i'll watch soon, and that will probably end the dvd binge:

• the smartest guys in the room (mark cuban's enron movie)
• not yet rated (some expose of the the movie ratings nazis)

i just noticed that i threw in some random capitalization of the movie titles, but not the last two.  i'm weird.

* - every once in a while it occurs to me that everything i write on this stupid blog could conceivably be available to read 50 years from now.  my grandkids could be reading this, seeing how grandpa's bowels were functioning back in 2009.  hopefully just as well as they are in 2059!

I just watched the new X-Files movie on DVD.  Holy shit was that awful.

gangsters

Dennis Perrin, 13-April-2009:

Democrats love spilling blood, believing they can do it better and more efficiently than those evil, crazy tea-bagging Repubs. The Dems as Michael Corleone to the GOP's Sonny.

adspar, 25-June-2008:

Democrats are dirty mob lawyers; Republicans are the mob enforcers. In the power struggle to be the next don, people get to choose between the no-neck tough guy (McCain) or the smooth-talking debonair schmoozer (Obama).

this is refreshing

I'm not watching the Superbowl.  No desire, and I got other stuff to do.  I like it.

kill your TV!

I've mentioned this before, but I think it might be worth saying again. I love not having TV. Life is just better without it. If there's a show or two that you can't live without, you can always watch them on the internet, only on your own schedule and without (or at least with far fewer) commercials. And you avoid the giant time-suck that is TV, and probably save some money. If someone had suggested this to me 2 years ago I would have thought it sounded nice but I couldn't do it. But I would have been wrong. Consider it!

Kill your TV

If I could pick any imaginary superhero power, I think I'd choose the ability to peacefully destroy every television in the world. Liberate some minds and whatnot.

Seriously y'all, get rid of your fucking TVs. Everything is better.

bummer: no LOST for me

We missed the last 3 episodes of LOST before we moved, figuring we could just watch them online when we get here. But ABC.com doesn't let you watch them from Canada, so now we're like 5 episodes behind. I'll have to find some way to download them or something. In the meantime, nobody tell me anything important about it.

The Wire Finale

I'm sad that The Wire is ending tonight, but I'm looking forward to the finale. This last season has been a notch below the previous 4, though that is a lofty standard. If we're lucky, we'll get a Wire movie in a few years.

Ricky Gervais on atheism

Ricky Gervais is the comic mastermind behind The Office (the BBC comedy on which the NBC sitcom is based) and the HBO comedy Extras. Here's his story about becoming an atheist. I'd highlight the same 2 paragraphs as PZ:

Wow. No God. If Mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? yes, but who cares? The gifts kept coming. And so did the gifts of my newfound atheism. The gifts of truth, science, nature. The real beauty of this world. Not a world by design, but one by chance. I learned of evolution—a theory so simple and obvious that only England's greatest genius could have come up with it. Evolution of plants, animals, and us—with imagination, free will, love and humor. I no longer needed a reason for my existence, just a reason to live. And imagination, free will, love, humor, fun, music, sports, beer, and pizza are all good enough reasons for living.

But living an honest life—for that you need the truth. That's the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, in the end leads to liberation and dignity.

Heroes or Zeroes

This is hilarious to me, and probably only to me. I don't watch Heroes but my wife does. Last night she watched it while I was sitting nearby but not watching, so I mainly just heard the dialog. And it was TERRIBLE. I made a point of saying so, repeatedly, which got annoying to her. But I'm validated now that someone else agrees. Seriously, there were some terrible lines.

• Like after some amnesiac found a plane ticket in his name to some Canadian city (Montreal?), he said "all the signs point to (Montreal)."
• I don't remember the exact words, but at some point a mother in her 30s wanted to join some young girls playing jump rope and they started giving her a bunch of shit, like she was some dorky looking white guy calling next at a street basketball game in the inner city or something. Apparently cute little girls playing jump rope are tough.
  
• My favorite was an ominously delivered, "Its Bob," followed by a short pause and then, "he's one of them."

So... yeah. This post really was just for me. Sorry for the diversion. I'll get back to doom and gloom pronto.

bits and bits

• The dramatic unveiling of Digby was really really cool. I'd put up links to explain it but I don't feel like it now. So I guess that is just an inside comment for people who know what I'm talking about.
• That kind of makes me revert back to a blogger identity crisis that I fall into from time to time. What am I doing? Am I informing? Commenting? Exposing? Ranting? I dunno. I just do whatever I feel like. Is that still a good way to do this.
• I still get ad revenue from poker sites. I play a few hands on Full Tilt every once in a while. I can barely stand to watch WSOP coverage on ESPN. I still enjoy High Stakes Poker though.
• Speaking of TV, the new season of Man vs Wild started last week. Bear Grylls is awesome. Les Shroud on Survivorman is also awesome, but I haven't seen any new shows from him in a while.
• Brice Lord introduced me to....
  

NBA woes

It is currently halftime of game 2 of the NBA finals. The Spurs are blowing the Cavs away, up 25 points, and we've got a feature on Tony and Eva's wedding coming up. Somebody please put my out of my misery.

Another reason to hate the Spur

Has any professional athlete in the history of sports received more attention for his love life than Tony Parker? I think they mention Eva Longoria at least 8 times per Spurs game, and have been doing so for like 6 years. I don't feel like doing the math, but I'm betting that is way more than Wilt's 10,000. Rick Fox, Sampras, Roddick, Jeter... those guys are no where close to Tony Parker.

I'm so sick of the camera cutting to Eva Longoria in the stands after every fucking jumper he hits. I don't care about their wedding plans. I don't care how Eva gets along with the rest of the squad. I don't care how Tony likes Mexico or how Eva likes France. I don't give a shit about Desperate Housewives. I don't want to hear about their sex life. I just want to watch a fucking basketball game without the coverage turning into gossip from the E! Channel all the time.

Who turns on an NBA playoff game and thinks gee I really wish I knew more about the point guard's love life? Don't worry, Craig Sager is on it with a live interview with Eva! "Hey, how does Tony get along with your mother??!!??! Does she speak any French?!!?!??!!!!?!?!!!"

We really need Greg Popovich or Tim Duncan to start slipping hot NBA groupies into Tony Parker's hotel rooms to try to break these two up. Or maybe cast Eva in some romantic role opposite Brad Pitt or Colin Farrell. Those guys always end up banging their costars right? Let's get her in a movie with Pitt and Farrell. And get Parker to hang out with Michael Jordon in Vegas during the All Star game. That has to work, right? Is there any other solution?

Fuck me. I'm sitting here blogging about Tony fucking Parker's girlfriend rather than watching the Western Conference finals. Kill me now.

Congrats to my cousin Jordin Sparks

She won American Idol last night. I watched a lot early in the season but I got bored with the show and stopped watching. I heard she performed very well, and obviously the whole family is happy that she won. She's always been quite the performer, so this is very nice for her.

Congrats cousin Jordin!

And congrats to that other guy for finishing second. (He makes cool mouth noises sometimes.)

I hope she introduces me to that rascal Simon. I'd like to pick his brain...

{picture: adspar and cousin Jordin at a recent family party}

American Idol, sorry

I want to write about American Idol. Deal with it.

Phil Stacey - Every single week I manage to forget that this guy always surprises me with how good he sounds. He consistently nails the vocals, and his Police song tonight sounded excellent. The problem is that he's such a Gollum. Totally creeps me out to look at this guy.

Lakisha Jones - She's the other one who always surprises me with how good she sounds, except in her case I'm expecting her to sound good but she sounds amazing. That said, I never remember her performance, just that I thought it was good. I was about to write that maybe I just can't root for a large unattractive girl, but I really like Jordin (large) and Melinda (unattractive) so I think it is just something about Lakisha that doesn't do it for me.

Cousin Jordin Sparks - Obviously I have to root for my cousin, but I really enjoy her performances. Her voice is amazing and she's got great personality on stage. The judges can't say a word to her without mentioning that she's so good for being 17, but she's good for being any age. The only time she comes off young is when she talks; she comes off like a young girl trying to sound mature. But I'll cut her some slack on that. Go Cuz!

Melinda Doolittle- Honestly this girl is just better than everyone else, and I don't even think it is close. You'll notice that I haven't said anything yet about how people will actually do in the contest, because I have no idea what America is going to do, given that they keep voting for Sanjaya. But if this was truly a singing competition as the judges love to say (and not a voting competition as some British pop star from the 60s pointed out on a recent episode), the contest would be over and Melinda would be the winner. We'll see how she actually does.

Sanjaya Malakar - From the first auditions, the girls have been so much better than the guys. Six of the final seven girls were better than all of the remaining guys. Of those 6, Melinda, Lakisha, Jordin, and Gina are still alive (Stephanie and Sabrina are out). Haley is still in it, and while she isn't as good as those four, she's still better than all the guys except Blake. I mention all that when I bring up Sanjaya because I hope Sanjay makes the top 5. I'd rather see him perform than everyone else except for Beatbox Blake, Melinda, Cousin Jordin, and Gina. The reason I like to see him perform is because he is a breathtaking disaster on stage. He's like a train wreck mixed with a partial-birth abortion, and the flesh-melting pain of his awkwardness is magnified by his bizarre hair. Top notch entertainment. Keep voting for this weirdo, America!

Blake Lewis - The crooked-mouth beatbox dude is by far the most interesting guy on the show. He's so unique, and he picks songs that are challenging and manages to pull them off in ways that nobody else on the show could. He seems like he's a very talented musician too, not just a good singer. I always look forward to his performances and it will be a long time before I think he'll be the one deserving to be voted off.

Chris Richardson - For me this guy is like Blake Lite, except less interesting. The judges always like him more than I do, sometimes showering him with praise that I just never understand. I've never really liked male performers with the soft voices, so maybe he's just not my style. Where Blake is totally unique, Chris goes with a similar style but more mainstream. He just seems like a mediocre pop performer at best. Any time he gets knocked out is fine with me because I worry that he might be stealing votes that would otherwise go to Blake.

Chris Sligh - Nobody has fallen so far in my graces than this guy. I loved him all through auditions when he seemed like a jolly, goofy guy that didn't take himself serious but could sing his ass off. Then early in the top 24 he picked a little fight with Simon and made it clear that he actually does take himself very seriously, isn't that funny, and plus he went to fundamentalism Christian Bob Jones University (only stupid stuff like that gets a Fox News link from me). His Sting song tonight was terrible, so I hope we don't have to see this tub next week.

Gina Glocksen - Gina has been my favorite girl for a while, probably because I dig the red streak in her hair and the alternative piercings. The whole grunge rocker chick thing is cool, and definitely a contrast to the styles of everyone else on the show, which I hope helps get her enough votes to at least make the top 4. She's improving every week which is good to see.

Haley Scarnato - I wasn't happy that Haley made the top 12 over Sabrina Sloan, but I've actually kind of enjoy her performances. I guess it helps that she's a cute girl with great legs, but there is some kind of authenticity to her, even when she kind of botches a song. One of the strangest moments of the season was after she totally bombed some performance and was visibly shaken and almost begged the audience to give her another chance. Especially given that I (unreasonably) blamed her for knocking out Sabrina who I liked so much better, I was surprised to find myself rooting for her not to lose that week. I don't think she has any chance to win at all, she's just not nearly as good as the rest of the ladies, but I hope she makes it at least another few weeks.

Oprah is officially an asshole

Oprah pwn3d by Randi

lost Seinfeld episode

Chuck

I love Barkley on TNT, probably because I love people who have no filter. Has anyone else noticed that he uses "first of all" and "numba one" as a verbal crutch constantly? I was thinking about keeping track of every time I heard him say it but I'm too lazy. He literally said "first of all" 4 times in the last 2 minutes, including twice within 10 seconds of each other.