Better off Ted - 7.5

In the last month or so, I've worked my way through Better off Ted, and its a pretty damn funny show. It got less than no press (and even lower ratings), and as a result it's almost definitely getting canceled, but if anyone is interested in a very funny, easy to watch, show where you can turn your brain off and laugh, it's worth grabbing the DVDs or checking out online. Oh, and there is also the outtake embedded below --- which really makes me wish HBO or Showtime would make a decent sitcom.

Good Idea/Bad Idea

Possible subject lines for an email about viral load in asthmatics:

Good idea - Viral Summary for Steering Committee Meeting
Bad idea - Virus

Guess which one I picked ...

Music for Thursday - "The French are weird" Edition

Lost Season 6 Premiere

I think I'll faux-twitter as I watch the Season 6 premiere(s) of LOST.

• First things first, as long as all 3 stories converge by the end of the year (and I think they will), I like the new non-crash timeline a lot! 
• That said, the underwater tracking shot at the end of the opening scene was Cheeeeeeeeeee...eeeesy. Weak sauce. 
• Apropos of nothing, Hurley talking to dead Jacob is pretty sweet!
• A nice job introducing Charlie by hiding his face for the first 5 seconds and making me think they couldn't sign him to be in the episode.
• Kind of wishing Juliet was dead right now honestly. Angry Sawyer is a lot more fun.
• Hey, wish granted! For an episode or 2 at least, I bet!
• OK, done with the first half ... Maybe episode 2 will head to the back half of the plane and we can get some good Paolo and Ana Lucia action in. Seriously though, I'm a little bummed we didn't get to see Claire, Michael and Walt on the plane, but other than that, episode 1 was pretty sweet - definitely hope they continue following that timeline in LA. Interested to see what is next. So far the time lines rank: 1) Plane 2) Lock/Smokie 3) Post-Nuke
• Nice. More with the plane folks in the 2nd half.
• Crazy monk clan anyone?! What the what?
• I do believe Miles has a little bit of a muffin top. Also, I think the term muffin top is great.
• I know we've seen him before, but I can't for the life of me remember who the translator with the Monks is. Lostepidia after the show ...
• Heh, the head monk just bitched Jack. Also Post-Nuke world just got one whole hell of a lot cooler. Then again crazy monk tribes that apparently like to drown people for shits and giggles make everything one whole hell of a lot cooler. I'm pleased. 
• Nice to see, Claire. 
• "You're the monster." - "Lets not resort to name calling." - heh. 
• Dude, if they restart the damned love triangle now that Juliet is dead I am going to be pissed the hell off.
• Not sure why it took me this long to realize Post-Nuke and Smokie Locke were on the island at the same time, but obviously they are. Duh. Jacob saying "I died an hour ago" was pretty clear (although you never know with times in this show).  Anyway, that's cool I guess. 
• Jack remains an obstinate bitch. Oy. And Sayid is alive. No big shock there I guess. 
• So, all told, that was a pretty bad ass set up for what should be a very interesting final season. I'll go read all the write-ups now, but I am fully in the "That was great" camp - Not quite a top 10 caliber episode, but it got the ball rolling towards a few of those - that's for sure.

Groundhog Day - 9.5

Real life is busy today, Alexa is flying off to Mexico (we think) and then to Paris. I've got piles of work to do. We're trying to figure out wedding stuff and plan a trip for when my parents are in Chile. We've got an episode of Chuck to watch and two hours of LOST coming. All of that, however, does not excuse me from my most important commitment of the day, which is playing in the background as I type. I really do love this movie.

"Go to Hell, St-uke"

This video (via Duba) made me feel old ... no, screw old - it made me feed downright elderly, and since that is the case, I will now proceed to tap my cane and complain cantankerously.

The end of the video demonstrates that there is still confusion at the end of UNC's school song. Can we please agree once and for all that it is Duke, not State, that needs to be told to go to hell? This is not all that difficult. Telling State to go to hell is a little bit like kicking a homeless person. In fact, since they are basically already in hell, it's really just telling them to go home and have a nice evening. I mean, really, why legitimize State with a mention in our song? Can one of you ex-politicos arrange a student body president candidacy with this as it's goal? Really, this has gone on long enough.

Music for Monday - Indie Twang Edition

Switching Pictures (Monday) and Music (Thursday) this week in hopes of having a project done later in the week. Here's some country/indie hybrid action from my newest favorite band:


The Avett Brothers - Murder in the City and Ten Thousand Words

The camera work on this next one is, uh, not great. So I wouldn't recommended watching it fullscreen if you have a weak stomach (CoughAlexaCough). But I still wanted to post it because a) I love this song, b) it's from School Kids in Chapel Hill and c) they have such great energy live. 

Whiteout

I've been surrounded by Katrina-related projects lately, reading Zeitoun and now a big analysis regarding post-Katrina asthma for work. So, for whatever reason, the picture of New Orleans (a city that is 2/3rds black) on the front page of the NYT this morning featuding a bunch of peppy white football bandwagoneers bugged me. 

Music for Thursday - Chuck Edition

Chuck's third season is now well underway and it continues to be hands down the most likable show on TV. I really do look forward to every episode. Anyway, the music is part of what makes the show great. Here are a couple of songs from recent episodes.

Coming Soon

5 Albums I'm really looking forward to:

1. The National (May)
2. Frightened Rabbit (March)
   
3. Broken Bells (March)
4. LCD Soundsystem (March)
5. MGMT (Spring?)

Home Cooked Meals (but not really)

Top 5 Restaurants I Miss from NC
1) Carburritos
2) Q-Shack
3) Fosters
4) Sitar India Palace
5) Chick-Fil-A

As you can see, it's not the fancy restaurants I crave; there is plenty of good quality upscale food in Santiago. It's the quick meals and the ethnic food that are lacking here. OK, I just made myself hungry. Time for breakfast.

Comments

Bloggy Housekeeping - So the site I was using for comments (Haloscan, blargh) died. I was annoyed with it anyway since ads had magically appeared in recent months, but was too lazy to do anything. Well, now I don't have much choice, and since there is no way (or at least no easy way) to import those comments to Blogger, we're going to lose all the old comments. Annoying, to be sure, but not the end of the world. Anyway, I'm going back to the standard blogger comments, which I still don't love, but are much better than it used to be. If anyone has any problems commenting, let me know.

Oh, and PS, if anyone wants to follow the comments in their RSS feed. Here is the new link.

Sherlock Holmes - 4.0

Man, what a dud this movie was --- and an unnecessary dud at that. All of the pieces were there for it to be awesome:

• The characters were good. It is freakin' Sherlock Holmes after all.  Not exactly rocket science there.
  
• The casting, for the leads at least, was perfect, and their acting was solid.
  
• The sets from early industrial London looked pretty sweet as well.

So, you tack on a good villain, a few good action scenes and bada-bing, you've got a hit, right? Wrong.

So, what went wrong? Well, the script just plain sucked. The pacing was terrible, the love interests were poorly developed and basically completely unnecessary. The villains were uniformly ho-hum. Also the best two action scenes, the rather awesome sequences where Holmes mentally previews how he is going incapacitate the guys he is fighting, took place in the first 30 minutes which made the following hour and a half of dullness even harder to bare. Oh, and them there was the worm-infested cherry on top: the two minute there-is-no-way-in-hell-you-could've-known-this-at-the-time-but-this-is-how-he-did-it wrap up at the end of the movie which just royally pissed me off.

So, yeah, my advice, save yourself 2 hours and skip the movie. Just watch this instead:


Or even better yet, watch a fight scene from Ritchie's good movie.

Good things about Chile

?

Why is freecell not preinstalled on Macs? Actually installing freecell is just too terrible to consider. It would be taking an proactive interest in my own future demise - like keeping a noose around just in case - but really, what else I am supposed to do when awake at 5:12 am?