TV. mad men

after reading so many great review of this amc channel original show, and after it, and its leading man, both won golden globes, i figured i should check it out. over the past several weeks amc has been rebroadcasting the episodes in their original order, so i tivoed them. this past weekend i had a little extra time, so i took the plunge and watched the first three episodes.

first a little background: the show is set in the 1950s and follows the a handful of employees of a new york ad firm. it shows the life and working work of the 'big city' back when women were suppossed to have a roast and a drink ready for their husbands the moment they arrived home from work.

its cool to see the period recreated so perfectly- the offices look perfectly like the retro-futuristic look of the 'modern' 50s, all the cars are huge and wing tiped, and all the men drink like fish and smoke like a chimney. seeing all the characters smoke non stop is such a stark difference from how things are today that its very strange to see. also, its quite jarring to see all these men so openly harass and look down on the women in the office, and show little respect for the wives at home. im sure the rolls are exaggerated, but its still quite strange to see.

so far the storyline has been interesting, watching all the different men deal with the pressures of the job, and trying to deal with their emotions in such a restictive setting. these men arent allowed to show any emotion other than confidence. the ways they deal with whats going on often is the cause of their problems, and often leads to relationships becoming even more distant.

the story is engaging and the perspective on the time period is interesting. it seems they have gained a new viewer.

TV. craigs a citizen!

after a couple years of him joking about it, craig ferguson finally became an american citizen! hes always had jokes like 'i better be careful what i say, they could deport me!' and just a few months ago he challenged everyone to ask their local mayor to accept him as an honorary citizen. he finally took the test, and he passed! last week they showed him at a mass meeting being sworn in, and now he is a full fledged citizen, he can vote and everything!

as a way of celebrating him now being an american, he had on a really cool scottish band called the wicked tinkers. its a cool band made up of guys playing drums, bagpipes, digeridoos, and other strange and fun instruments. they have been on the show once before, they performed on the show as a tribute to his father soon after he passed away. it was really a very moving episode, to be honest. but this time they were there to celebrate! and boy, did they. craig even loosened his tie, grabbed a drum, and joined in! they actually played two songs, and it was a riot! it was fun to see craig genuinely excited and loving it- it was very contagous!

TOYS. hellboy figure

ive been a hellboy fan since about 2001 and have been collecting anything related to him for almost as long. i have half a dozen or more figures, some from the comic, others from the movie. i have all the trade paperbacks of the comics, and the three disc version of the movie, i even have the hardcover 'art of hellboy' book. but recently i came across the coolest hellboy thing ive ever seen: its an 18 inch figure of hellboy. the detail is positively amazing! he has a leather coat, with real working snaps, actual pockets, detailed trinkets hanging from his belt, and even an amazing looking 'samaritan' gun. even the box art is amazing. here are a few more pics of it. its so awesome...

TV. super bowl commercials

i, like many others, watched the super bowl last night. now, im not much of a football fan, but i do enjoy watching every once in a while (and once a year is just about right). the game was fun, it was always close, and for someone who doesnt care who wins, that makes is more enjoyable. mostly though, i watch for the commercials!
here, in no particular order, are my 10 favorite, and my reaction to them:
1. pepsi max- in this one everyone was falling asleep, heads bobbing, while the song 'what is love' played in the background. they become wide awake after taking a sip of pepsi max. kind of funny, but the clincher was when they woke up they kept head bobbing, but this time like the guys from 'night at the roxberry', and then chris katan shows up and is pissed 'aww, come on!' funny!
2. bridgestone tires- a squirrel is in the middle of the road and a car starts coming and he screams, as do all the forrest animals as they watch in terror. the best was a really tiny bug screaming in a really high voice. quite cute.
3. Audi r8- a guy wakes up in his bed and sees a strange dark liquid on his hands, he pulls back his sheets and in his bed is the front end of his jaguar. he screams. a silly take on that 'godfather' scene with the horse head. oh, and the new audi car looks amazing!
4. fed ex- a delivery company uses carrier pigeons instead of other transportation. a guy asks 'how do you ship the big packages?' the camera pulls back to reveal twenty foot pigeons flying around dropping packages and terrorizing the residents of the city. humorous.
5. tide- a guy is being interviewed for a new job, and has a stain on his shirt. the stain starts talking giberish over top of the guy being interviewed. probably my biggest laugh of the night!
6. budweiser- every year they have thier clidsdale horses in a commercial, and this year they show one of them not making the line up and the dalmation telling him hes going to help him train for next year. then we hear 'eye of the tiger' and a rocky-eque training sequence, and the horse getting picked the following year. a smile.
7. iron man- they showed a new preview for the upcoming 'iron man' movie with robert downey jr. now, ever since i saw the first preview a couple months ago i have been giddy as a school girl for this movie! i dont really care for iron man as a comic book character, but for some reason this movie has me geeking out big time! awesome!!!
8. corolla- a guy is put into the car with a sleeping family of badgers and told if he wakes them they will attack him. they they proceed to fire off a cannon near the car. its so quite inside that they dont wake up. then his cell phone rings. oops! kind of funny.
9. sobe life water- a woman starts drinking and all kinds of lizards start dancing. kind of lame, except for the fact that the song playing is michael jacksons 'thriller', and the lizards are doing that cool zombie dance. kudos for the mj nod.
10. amazon.com- justin timberlake gets pulled around to all kinds of crazy places. eventually its shown that a couple girls just downloaded his song and it takes him there. cool effects, but kinda a dumb commercial.

all in all, i would say that the iron man commercial was the best!

TV. golden globes

the golden globes were on last night. usually i get excited for it, i get a bit of a kick out of awards stuff, especially the oscars. but things were a bit different last night than they usually are. due to the writers strike they changed the show alot. they were not able to have any written stuff for the show, and most of the actors and actresses wouldnt have shown up anyway out of solidarity with the writers. so, they were forced to change the show from a fun event with the stars celebrating and drinking too much, into a boring news show where they just announced the nominees and then said who won. boring. it was such a non event that i almost forgot i had even watched it. oh, and they picked some sucky winners. im starting to think that the hollywood foreign press is as lame as everyone says.

this better not happen this year for the oscars, or heads will roll...

GAMES. super mario galaxy

i forgot. im sorry, but i had forgotten. i forgot just how fun video games can really be. i had spent too many nights playing monopoly party on the gamecube, and too many nights playing wii sports. i forgot that a video game can be so immersive and addictively exciting when you really dig into it and let yourself be taken away. im sorry, i wont let it happen again.

for christmas i got super mario galaxy for the wii and figured 'its gotten such good reviews, maybe its worth a try' and boy is it ever! i wasnt much of a fan of the last couple mario games. 'mario 64' didnt do anything for me, and 'mario sunshine' didnt hold my attention, and i think it best if we all just forgot about 'luigis mansion'.

'super mario galaxy' is everything one would hope for in a game. the story is simple, but it leads to such incredible levels and worlds that its so easy to loose yourself in the game.

now, i dont really consider myself a gamer. i am interested in the video game industry and enjoy picking up a controller every now and then, but my attention span for games is usually limited to a half hour. but this one? well, i think over the past four days ive logged in almost 15 hours of game play! the levels are some of the wackiest ive ever seen, the characters are adorable and a blast to control, the enemies are varied and challenging, and the objectives are exciting and interesting. the controls on the wii are some of the most fun and inventive ive ever seen. after about ten seconds it becomes second nature to control that little guy on the screen and jet around on all the different adventures in store. the only draw back from playing so much is the really messed up dreams!

i would talk about it more, but ive got a craving to go play some more! later!

TV. late late show

'hello everybody, and welcome to the late late show, i am your host craig ferguson. its a great day for america...' thats how craig always starts out his show, and tonight was the first time ive heard it in far too long. why? because craigs back on the air!!! ive been waiting eight long weeks for this. along with every other show on tv, it has been affected by the writers strike. now, the strike itself is a good think if it gets the writers more money, but im sick of it and i am glad craigs back on the air. for some reason david letterman got the writers guild to allow writers back to his and craigs show. i dont know how, but im happy.

and tonights episode, let me tell you, was a great one! i knew the strike was coming back in november, and i tried to plan ahead by keeping some episodes in reserves on the tivo for whenever i might need my craig fix. well, that went dry a couple weeks ago, so this is perfect timing for me! tonight craig was in fine form- it was very obvious that he was excited to be back. he was grinning ear to ear the whole monologue and sounded positively giddy the whole time. we was going off on tangents the whole night and making himself laugh just as much as he was making me laugh! there were no guests on the show tonight, rather, they had a bunch of skits to show off the great writing. in one bit he answered a phone call from the governor, but said 'hello?' before he picked up the phone- he started laughing at himself and riffing on it so much that they almost had to scrap the skit because there wasnt going to be enough time!

all i can really say is that im glad hes back on with new shows, i was running out of great jokes i try to pass off as my own material!

GAMES. wii zapper

for christmas i got the wii zapper. its a plastic attachment that you pit the remote and nunchuck into to turn it into a gun style device. its only twenty bucks, and comes with a zelda game. so, i figured id try it out. the game is called 'link's crossbow challenge'. its a fairly basic game, mostly designed just to utilize the zapper attachment. its really quite fun, it involves about 8 levels, each level consisting of three stages. the fun thing about each stage is its variety. now, the game itself is basically a glorified light gun exercise, but it finds many interesting and fun ways to use that premise. the first stage of each level is a target shooting game, basically its like a shooting gallery carnival game. the second stage is a third person shooter where you move around and shoot at the bad guys. the final stage in each level is a first person shooter, which can sometimes be like a duck hunt or lethal enforcer style game. each level is challenging and a lot of fun. a fun aspect of the game is the multiplier for successful hits in a row. if you hit your targets consecutively the point value can jump from 50 to 5000 or more.

it was very fun. i figure a good indicator if its fun level is the fact that a half hour after playing it i wanted to play it again!

THEATER. too much light makes the baby go blind

back when i was in college i was involved in a play called 'nobody move, and nobody gets hurt'. it was a very strange play. we took our idea for the play from a group called the neo-futurists. the basic premise is this: we perform about 40 short plays in 90 minutes. each play is unique- it may be a work of poetry, a monologue, a short drama, or anything else we could think of. the fun twist of the whole thing was that the audience would decide what order we would perform the plays in. we had a clothesline going across the top of the stage and pinned in to it were sheets of paper with the numbers 1-40 written on them. in the audiences playbill would be the titles of all 40 plays. at the end of each short play we would say 'scene', at which point the audience members would yell out the number of what play they wanted to see next. what ever number we heard first would be the next performed.
the play was an astounding success. we quickly sold out each night that we performed, with may people coming to the show multiple times because the order would change the play so much. (for example, if we start off with a silly slapstick play it could influence the mood for when we would get to the more heavy drama plays, and vice versa) we added a couple more shows, but even that wasnt enough to fill the demand. so, about two months later we opened again (with 15 of the 40 plays being new) and performed about 8 more shows to sell out crowds. the show, as strange as this sounds, actually went on tour! at the beginning of the summer our college has a drama group go around to different high schools (who are still in class) and perform, and we were asked to do it that year. unfortunately i backed out at that time, i had summer job commitments and all, but they went on the road and had a great time with a replacement actor.
anyway, the structure for the play was lifted from the neo-futurists who perform in chicago and every weekend they perform their version called 'too much light makes the baby go blind'. ive been living close to chicago for over 4 years now, and i finally went down and saw the original. a couple friends and i went one saturday night and had a great time! part of the fun for me was just reliving my time in college, but it was also cool to see how these professionals work the idea. they were quite a bit more extreme than we were, they would pour water and shoot mustard at each other, and other things that we didnt do (mostly we didnt want to have to worry about the clean up...) it was also cool to talk to my friends who went with about the experience from their fresh perspective- it seemed perfectly normal to me, but they thought it was really strange. and fun.

AUDIO BOOKS. stardust

last weekend aaron gave me a copy of the 'stardust' audio book. i knew it was going to be a tough drive home for me, having not gotten enough sleep the night before, so i figured a book on cd would help keep me awake. well, it worked!

i finally finished it earlier this week, and totally loved it! i was already quite familiar with the story. i had read the book a couple summers ago, and saw the movie in the theater with jeffry lee a couple months ago. but what really got me about this audio book was the power of the spoken word. it is read by neil gaiman himself (hes the author, if you werent aware), which was quite a delight. it always seems cooler when the original author is able to read his own stuff aloud.

the book is more different from the book than i remembered (i know, very poor sentence structure, get over it). when i saw the movie i remembered bits and pieces from the book, and thought they came pretty close to what was written. now, looking back, there were many big changes. but, fortunately, all the changes made sense and would have been really hard to do the book stuff on film. and the movie did do a good job of keeping the spirit of the book.

listening to the book on cd was a lot of fun! i havent listened to a book on cd in a long time, so it was fun to have that experience again. granted, some times its hard to focus on the story and the road, but it was great to hear little clips of the story through out the week as i drove in little ten to fifteen minute bursts. all week ive been looking forward to driving around a bit.

now that ive got the audio book bite, i went out and got my next listen: 'measure of a man' by sidney poitier. ive wanted to read this one for a while, but once i saw that the audio book is read by poitier himself, i figured its a no-lose deal.

DVD. friday night lights

a couple years ago a couple friends and i went to see the movie 'friday night lights' because we had heard such good things about it. it turned out to be ok. im not really that into sports movies (well, except 'field of dreams', but thats a requirement of all guys).

this past tv season nbc decided to make an hour long drama based on that movie, and the book of the same name that inspired the film. i heard about it and quickly dismissed it. i didnt really care for the film, so why should i give the show a chance? after the show got fair ratings i figured it was an easy choice since nbc would probably cancel it anyway. it turns out that nbc renewed it for next season, not because of ratings, but because they believe in the show. strange, huh?

fast forward to this week. i kept reading reviews of the show all season and each one was glowing about how great the show was. it just came out on dvd this week and it seems that nbc is really getting behind the show. they are selling the first season (22 45 minute episodes) for only twenty bucks, and on top of that, they are offering a money back satisfaction guarantee that if you dont like the show they will give you you twenty bucks back.

i just so happened to find myself in a circuit city yesterday and decided to take nbc up on the offer. last night i watched the first 4 episodes, and i must say, it is a lot better than i had anticipated! the focus is well balanced between football and the relationships of the towns people. the acting is good, and the writing is refreshingly believable. ive got 18 episodes to go, but at this point i dont think ill be sending it back...

WEBSITE. thinkgeek.com

after jeffry lee introduced me to this website, i spend some time rooting around and checking out what they had to offer. the site is really cool, its mostly for people who like unique stuff thats kind of geeky. for example, they have a little thing you can attach to your faucet, it has led lights that make the water coming out look red. cool, but geeky. they also have tee shirts with the transformers logo that lights up. totally rad, but geeky. and there in lies the fun. these things are strange, but at the same time kind of cool!

i decided that i needed to get some nintendo stuff, so i got a 5 inch yoshi action figure, and a little fire mario figure on a block that when you push him, the box makes noises from the game! i have decided that i am going to use this thing all the time in my classroom! oh, the kids will get so annoyed with me! but really, isnt that what teaching is all about?

GAMES. sales figures

its no secret that i am a fan of nintendo. im not just a fan, im one of those people who would be considered a 'fanboy'. what i mean by that is that what ever nintendo puts out, i will buy. the flip side of that fact is that i also care very little for xbox or playstation. now, the life of a nintendo fanboy was a hard path to travel a couple years ago. in the last console race the gamecube did horrible. the playstation 2 blew away all the competition.
when it was time for the companies to begin releasing their next gen consoles, and it was expected that sony would blow away the competition, and actually had many people wondering why nintendo was even in the hardware business anymore.
then something strange happened. nintendo presented its next console to the world: the wii.
as it turned out, they werent out of the race just yet. now, a little over 9 months later, the wii has just surpassed 10 million sales. this is really impressive because the xbox 360 has only racked up about 11 million sales, and it was released a whole year earlier. heres the best part though: the playstation 3, which was heralded as the 'best of the next gen gaming consoles' has only 4.2 million sales. (by the way, the stats come from this site)
all is right in the world for a nintendo fanboy, as it should be.

TV. relationship builders

lately there have been a couple shows on that are quite interesting. the two shows that have caught my interest are vh1's 'the pick-up artist', and 'scott baio is 45 and single'. both are kind of lame reality shows, but there has been some aspects about them that have brought up interesting ideas about how to build and keep a healthy relationship.

'the pick-up artist' is a vote-off show a la 'survivor', but in this particular show the contestants are a bunch of shy guys trying to learn how to talk to and relate to women. at its core its somewhat superficial, but the ideas brought up are cool. it deals with getting over nerves, instructs the contestants how to start conversations, and how to actually listen to what others are saying. the host/judge is a guy nicknamed 'mystery', and he teaches the guys how to be confident and comfortable with themselves and around others. most of the contestants are very nerdy and hapless in social settings. this show has a big potential to become lame, but so far it has been really interesting to watch.

the other show, 'scott baio is 45 and single', has a similar theme. baio has been a swinging bachelor all his life, caring little for the women he sees (by his own confession). he is scared to death of commitment and marriage, but he feels it is time to start dealing with that and settle down with someone. the show follows him as he hires a life coach and works through different exercises to better himself and come to a place where he can accept the next step in his life. one of the exercises was visiting with old girlfriends and asking them what he did wrong, and how he can improve himself. it is fun to watch his journey because he doesnt put up with his therapists bull, but is willing to admit when he is wrong and she is right.

its always insightful to learn more about how we as people relate to each other.

DVD. stargate sg-1

ive written before about my recent unnatural obsession with stargate, but this week it went to a whole new level. ever since the series finale last month i have been looking forward to this tuesday. the reason is that this tuesday the 1oth season came out on dvd. i knew that in the past best buy has always had a special on the old seasons when the new ones come out. when season 9 came out i was just getting into it, so i picked up a couple seasons (oddly, i started with seasons 4 and 5. go figure...) and over the last month have watched all of the episodes from those seasons. often three or four at a time. and then often again with the director commentaries.

with the new season out this week i was planning on picking up a couple more of the seasons at the much cheaper $20 price (usually they are double that at $40). after a bit of hunting early in the week i bought three seasons, but i then found out that the lower price would only be offered if i also bought season 10 on the same receipt. so i planned to get them on tuesday. but by the time i got to best buy they had already sold out (i guess im not the only loser who likes this show after all!). i went hunting around all the other locations in town and none of them had any left, and by their comments i was doubtful if they would get any in by the end of the week, when the deal would expire.

i decided to take matters into my own hands. i tracked one down and drove out to get it. where? lets just say i got to listen through my new silverchair cd a couple times each way... after making such a long hike to take advantage of the deal, i figured i would just go all in and get the rest of the seasons i didnt have yet.

so, i guess my birthday gift to myself was seven seasons of stargate sg-1. that means i have roughly 160 episodes to watch. yikes, what have i gotten myself in to?...