A Wii Bit of Monday Happiness

Ok, so I just had to post this because everyone hates Mondays but this is just wonderful:

The '70s had the Hustle. The '80s, the moonwalk. We have the faux-lesbian dance.

Mustard: How could anyone ask for more?

So NBC announced it’s intent to overhaul the company’s spending including cuts in expensive dramas and comedies in the 8 to 9 slot. I can’t help but think that this bodes ill for Studio 60 as well since it’s pretty pricey and getting slammed in the ratings.

Venture Brothers just concluded it’s 2^nd season. The finale involved an epic battle between David Bowie and Iggy Pop, a riff on the Neverending Story and was pretty much just genius throughout. They better green light Season 3.

So Jeff’s Top 5 Most Annticpated Movies…For the Rest of the Year:

(in order of release)

Borat – I can’t help it. The trailer has completely won me over that this could be the funniest movie of the year. Sacha Baron Cohen proved he’s the man in Talladega Nights and though I never really got into Da Ali G show, I’m dead set on catching this.

Stranger Than Fiction – At first glance this is a Nora Ephron movie. But then you actually look at the production and you realize it’s by the same guy who did Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland. Suddenly this movie has gotten a little more interesting.

Casino Royale – I desperately want this to be a good Bond flick. They’re overhauling the look, casting a new lead (and despite everyone’s complaints of a blonde James Bond, I think Daniel Craig has a very Connery look to him). I just worry that’s it’s still the same producers who have been steadily dragging this franchise down.

The Fountain – Darren Aronofsky directing a flick with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz? I’m there. Despite the long (and I mean long) delays in getting the project off the ground, I have very high hopes for it.

Pan’s Labyrinth – Guillermo Del Toro is back and looking to prove not CG visual effects can be just as effective as George Lucas’ digital wonderlands. This has such a great twisted fairy tale vibe to it I can’t wait.

Other notables:

Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny – Jack Black is hit or miss but I loves me some Tenacious D.

Running with Scissors – Brian Cox should just be in every movie (and usually is).

The Good German – The trailer just came out. Looks like Clooney is more and more trying to prove he’s Cary Grant incarnate. Love the poster by the way.

News and Notes:

If you haven’t caught the World of Warcraft South Park episode yet, please do yourself a favor and quickly go here and join the online sensation before we all murder you.

Anyone else wonder why hell Lauren Graham was even on Studio 60 this week as the host? They didn’t even mention her by name. Hopefully she'll have some point in next week's ep.

IE7 officially “launched” today. If you want a subpar Firefox clone, give it a try! Or better yet, just use Firefox.

Until next time:

“So...it's a cocoon...that flies...”

“Obviously!”

“I just realized...that makes no sense.”

“Duh! Monarch! Butterfly, butterfly cocoon, it's a theme thing!”

“Yeah, I get it, but why didn't you just make it look like a butterfly?”

“...Because that's gay?”

And get that security tape! I want a Quicktime of my minty-fresh entrance on my webpage by tomorrow!

I love Mustard cause it’s so delicious! Gotta go Mustard!

So let’s jump into it:

Following up last week’s post on Robert Downey Jr. being cast as Tony Stark in Iron Man, the role of Jim Rhodes has also been cast: Oscar nominee Terence Howard. Frankly I’m a little disappointed. They already had the perfect man for the role of the future War Machine who is already comfortable acting in metal armor right here. But seriously, for a superhero movie they’re going very Batman Begins-caliber in the way of casting. Oh, have I mentioned the movie is being directed by Jon Favreau?

Nathan Filion aka Mal from Firefly/Serenity will be appearing in an episode of Lost this season! Frak yeah! According to TVGuide’s Michael Ausiello, he’ll be appearing in a Kate flashback. This man needs to be in more roles.

So need reasons why Veronica Mars is officially the best show on television right now? Ok, let’s just look at last night’s episode:

1. Dan Castellaneta of Homer Simpson fame (and they had him put in a D’oh!)

2. Ryder Strong of Boy Meets World fame

3. Samm Levine of Freaks and Geeks fame (why the hell did they cancel that show?)

4. The continuing use of the word ‘frak’

5. Keith Mars is a badass (yet a sensitive badass)

6. Wallace and Logan’s bet

WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!

Studio 60 has really hit its stride and I am going to be a sad person if they cancel it.

Heroes: Look, you’ve got a great cast and a great premise, now they need to get things moving. If it’s about superheroes you need to get them doing more. Audiences do not like plodding stories where the superheroes barely do anything. Just ask Ang Lee.

Caught the Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning on my day off this Monday and I think congratulations are in order. This is officially the first movie I have ever walked out of! This was just absolutely awful. This wasn’t a horror flick for scares. This was just “hey how can we think up the most twisted sadistic shit imaginable and put it on screen”? Basically it was a big “F you Eli Roth, look what we can do”! Hell I own the first Eli Roth movie (funny enough starring Ryder Strong) and I could not stomach this. Then again this was from the guy who directed Darkness Falls aka the movie with the Tooth Fairy as the villain.

News and Notes:

So the weaker shows are starting to drop off. Now bring back Scrubs!

I’ll be putting up top 5 anticipated rest of the year movies next week.

Did anyone else ever think they’d live to see the day when Nicolas Cage and Peter Fonda would be starring opposite each other in a comicbook movie?

Until next time:

“Yeah. You'll never believe it - a maid from our hotel in New York found the Flash card with all our vacation photos on it. Look.”

“Hot dog!”

"Hot dog"?

“It's an expression of excitement and enthusiasm. Joe and Frank Hardy and I used to say ‘Hotdog’ all the time while we were waiting for the car hop to bring us our malteds at the drive-in.”

I bent my wookie!

Whoa, two Mustard posts in one week? Why? Cause I wanted to, that’s why.

So this is like a week old but Robert Downey Jr. has been cast as Iron Man. For those not in the know, Iron Man’s biggest character flaw is alcoholism. A little on the nose? Like a pink elephant balloon symbolizing the gay Republicans (it’s a Simpsons reference. No hate mail).

In the latest big movie stolen from a foreign movie, Scorsese’s The Departed opens today. It’s a remake of the Hong Kong flick Infernal Affairs. And it still looks awesome.

While I loved the season premiere of Lost, I think they need to give the fanboys out there a little love with an answer or two. I have no problem being strung along but I’m worried they might start alienating the average viewer who gets frustrated much more easily.

This is the single greatest thing I have ever seen in my entire life:

Ralph Wiggum for President.

Yeah at some point I will finish up the Ep commentary (I'm almost there, I swear) but until then check out Penny Arcade Love this site. One of my favorites:



Until next time:

“Did you make any friends?”

“Lord no!”

“Enemies?”

“Eh.”

“Well, it is a day that ends in a 'y’.”

Do you even know what diffident means? That's OK. That knowledge isn't really required for the retail doughnut distribution industry.

I loves me some my Mustard.

So I was watching Veronica Mars last night with an episode dealing with a serial rapist, a mob murder, and the aftereffects of a suicide and thought to myself, “You know what we really need right now? A bunch of idiot teenage girls in pajamas discussing whether or not Veronica and Logan will last. That would just be awesome.” Someone tell me what the flurking schnit is up with the “aerie girl” roundtable going on during the Gilmore Girls/Veronica Mars Tuesday nights? You’ve got two of the most intelligently written shows on TV right now and we have to sit there and listen to a bunch of frakking airheaded teenyboppers gossip over whether Luke and Lorelei were ever right for each other!? What the hell kind of value does this add the damn shows?! Damn you WB/CW/Whatever the hell you are!

On the other hand, I felt a little bit better about the future of the Gilmore Girls after last night’s episode. I still miss the Palladinos but this did feel very true to their direction of the show. Oh and Veronica Mars? Still that good the 2^nd time around.

So after two weeks of Heroes I’m still not 100% sold on it but I definitely enjoyed the 2^nd episode. Hey there’s Greg Grunberg! It took an hour and 45 minutes but we finally got him on the show.

Now it’s only in beta (isn’t everything these days?) but gotta say, I’m so far digging the Songbird media player. Based off Mozilla source code (ala Firefox which you should all be using by now), it’s not only a normal digital jukebox but also a Web player. If you’re on a webpage that offers a downloadable song (like say carybrothers.com) it’ll detect the audio file and display it in a window along with all other audio files on the site and allow you to easily save them to your library. Plus you can subscribe to something like a music related blog and it’ll automatically download the songs similar to a podcast. Pretty darn cool if you ask me. It also had audio search engines built in. Give it a try.

Mother F#$^#$!!!! Both Pedro and El Duque out for the playoffs!?!?!?! The Mets are in deep effing trouble. Missing out on a major arm during the trade deadline isn’t looking so great now, is it? Oliver Perez after losing 3 games and being sent down to the minors is supposed to come into the playoff rotation and make an impact? To quote Otto: “Disappointed!”

News and Notes:

Lost returns tonight! For six weeks at least.

The hockey season starts up as well. Call me crazy but was there any hype for the season beginning? Hell I live in DC and didn’t see a single Caps ad or promo. I swear I sometimes feel the NHL is just giving up. That season off really helped things didn’t it? And last year totally made up for it. You putzes.

Until next time:

“And you call yourselves college men. Where are the posters of beer and half naked women?”

“Oh, it's behind the case of porn and my shot glass collection.”

Oh, but which door to choose? That one can have fun, surprises, and a year's supply of Turtle Wax behind it.... or the polar bear from Lost!

Mustard: discuss.

Ok, so let’s jump right into things. Virgin Music Festival? Fan-freakin-tastic. The fact that Erin and I managed to worm our way up to about 20 feet from the stage during the Killers and the Who made it that much better. Honestly, best concert I’ve ever been to and yes, I realize that might be a little unfair as it was really more like 9 concerts but still, what a day.

Points on the day:

Kasabian was a great band to kick things off with as there wasn’t a huge crowd at that point.

I got to see the Who! And Pete Townshend is still a god on the guitar.

Killers were amazingly good live and played about 50/50 from their last and the upcoming album due out in October.

The Raconteurs – Jack White turned it up about 11 notches from their album. Also really cool cover of Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang (which you may remember from the opening credits of Kill Bill).

Gnarls Barkley – Cee-Lo is one charismatic mofo. Awesome watching Danger Mouse work. The whole band came out dressed as Romans.

Flaming Lips – Opened up with Captain American and Thor throwing lead singer Wayne Coyne, who was inside a giant hamster ball, out into the audience while a chorus of Santas and Aliens sang behind him. I cannot make this shit up.

New Pornographers – Performance of the day. Just an awesome awesome concert. Not as high profile as a lot of the others, just a solid rock performance that had you hanging on every song.

Oh and to top it all off we made it home just in time for me to see the ridiculous ND comeback of MSU. Go Irish!

So far the only pilot this year to really grab me has been Studio 60. Kidnapped was kinda whatever, I’m already getting this thriller formula from 24 and Prison Break. Heroes was enjoyable and I’ll stick with it for now but there was just something missing in the episode. Might be the fact that it was originally supposed to be a 2 hour pilot. Well let’s see how it’s looking after next week.

Returning shows have faired much better. The Office and Earl premieres? Hilarious. Greys Anatomy also has been coming back strong. Gilmore Girls? It was good but it did not totally allay my worries about a Palladino-less show.

And the best premiere of the year? Veronica Mars. Yes, I have seen it thanks/no thanks to MSN.com (it took me 40 freaking minutes to get the damn thing to play. Damn you Microsoft!). This show hasn’t lost a step since last season. Hell they actually explain what frak means in the show. They have a hilarious scene devoted to the habit of college girls laying out on the quad and the guys who go to watch them. My one qualm? Why the hell did they remix the Dandy Warhols theme? It’s super slow and not the exciting adrenaline pump that was such great lead in. Ah well. I swear this show is starting to pull away as the best show on TV right now. So start watching it!

News and notes:

Moving this weekend. 4^th time in 3 years. ARGH!!!

Have you been to “How It Should Have Ended” yet? These are awesome. Here’s one of my favorites:

Until next time:

“Okay, that's it. Back to the pool house, men. We have some serious
bucking up to do here.”

“I swiped some Scotch.”

“I'll reenact the Passion of the Christ.”

I insist you do something about this before I go out and find a stick and make it pointy and come and find your cubicle and poke you very hard.

As most will attest to, I’m a pretty big proponent of home theater. I was the guy who people pointed at and laughed (or questioned my sanity) when they saw how big my DVD collection was long before DVDs became a weekly purchase for most of America. I’ve got the big 42-inch HD TV with the 5.1 surround and the upconverting component video DVD player (unfortunately my TV does not have a HDMI port, only DVI while my DVD player is exactly the opposite. And yes, I’ve tried adapters and have not been pleased with the results). So keep this all in mind when I say I just do not get the HD/Blu-Ray push going on right now. The ongoing format war is just asinine and automatically makes me not want one. The players themselves are ridiculously overpriced. And I’ll be totally honest, I just don’t think it’s that much better quality to warrant such an expensive upgrade.

Maybe it’s the retailers’ fault. Right after the Blu-Ray players first were released I went into a Sony store to see their display and instead of blowing me away with a movie that would properly demonstrate the potential of medium, they played a preview of Ultraviolet on repeat. Oh yeah, I’m all ready to plunk down $1000 now. But it’s been that way ever since. I’ve not once seen a retailer with a nice setup, plugging away Batman Begins in High Def. And honestly, the studios don’t seem to care. It’s not like I’ve seen a marketing campaign telling me why I should be spending $10 extra per movie to see them in “glorious” High Def. Hence another reason why I will never be shelling out for the PS3.

Caught Zach Braff’s latest The Last Kiss last weekend. It was good but not as good as Garden State which, unfortunately, is what it will inevitably be compared to. The cast is excellent with Jacinda “I Was On The Real World” Barrett of all people turning in an outstanding performance. Braff as usual turns in great work and the supporting cast of Casey Affleck, Rachel Bilson, Tom Wilkenson and Bryce Danner really shines. Random as hell Harold Ramis cameo in there to boot. The problem I had with the movie is it seems like there are just scenes missing that would give the audience a little more insight into the actions and emotions of the characters. Braff’s character is supposedly having a huge 30 something crisis about his girlfriend’s pregnancy yet I honestly never felt like he was conflicted or trapped enough push him towards his actions in the movie’s second act (keeping it spoiler-lite). It was just as if there were scenes that got axed that would’ve dug a little deeper into his characters mindset and allowed us to understand how he could do the things he does. Another problem was that you could really tell what parts of the dialogue were in there originally by Paul Haggis and which ones were tweaked by Braff and Braff’s dialogue come off smoother and much more natural.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Never been a HUGE fan of Aaron Sorkin. He’s kinda like Citizen Kane, I know it’s genius filmmaking but I just cannot get into it. But after catching the pilot I was pleasantly surprised by how easily I ended up enjoying it. Maybe it’s that I can easily relate to the fact that SNL used to be amazing comedy and has since fallen to tired sketches that, to quote the pilot, they're just gonna shove down our throats until we laugh. I like the characters, the premise, the dialogue. Will it sustain my interest? Who knows. But for now, it’s got my Monday night at 10 slot.

New and notes:

We’ve joined the Mac revolution: Erin is now the proud owner of a new 13 inch Macbook. Now I want to use it. (She also got a new video iPod with it…jealousy rising).

Mets clinch! It’s only been 18 years. Bout damn time.

Virgin Music Festival this weekend! Gnarls! Killers! Flaming Lips! The frakkin’ Who!

Until next time:

“Hey, I just asked Lars if he was seeing anyone special. He misunderstood and he might be filing one of those sexual harassment charges against me.”

“What?”

“And you, because I said you made me.”

Wii'd Off

Why is Nintendo hell bent on giving me doubts on buying the Wii? I mean seriously, as of yesterday, I was sold, no questions ask, sign me up, I’m there. Then comes the announcements from today’s press conference…

First off price: $250. I don’t have a huge problem with this given the re-friggin-diculous pricing of the other two systems. Would I have liked to have seen it cheaper? Yes. But it isn’t a deal breaker. What I absolutely hate is that they are including only one controller and that it’ll cost $60 for another one! Look, one controller has been standard for a long time now but it’s stupid as Nintendo wants to get the whole family into the game. Why not include the 2^nd controller? But 60 effing dollars for another controller!? That automatically jacks the initial price up to a minimum of $310. Suddenly, we’re not so cheap anymore.

Next the launch date: November 19^th. Why the hell would you want to launch two days AFTER the PS3?! It makes no sense. Sony has already hung themselves out with a huge shortage of units. Why would you not want to steal their buzz by launching earlier than them with plenty of units to go around? Now everyone is going to be talking about PS3. Either about how great it is or about how crappy it is that they couldn’t get one. That hype will last a lot longer than 2 days and completely overshadow the Wii launch. But no, Nintendo still doesn’t get that it’s NOT the market leader anymore.

Launch games: Yeah, Zelda, I got it. Anything else? I’m sorry, Excitetruck doesn’t really get me all warm and fuzzy and Wii Sports is pretty much an expanded demo. Metroid 3? Coming out 2007. No mention of Mario Galaxy. Come on! Give me something here! I could also just be bitter that EA decided not to make NHL ’07 for the Wii. How could you not? They adapted Madden and methinks the Wii remote is a little more suited towards say SHOOTING A PUCK?

Finally the nickel and dime BS: Completely ripping off Xbox Live, you’ll be using “Wii Points” to buy things online. And of course by points we mean cash. Why can’t anyone just up and price the damn things without having to do some stupid point system where $1 = 100 points? Also, they’re going to charge points to download the web browser? Come on, if you’ve got wi-fi in your house, odds are you’ve got a laptop to use it. So then why should I fork over cash for a web browser (not the connection mind you, just the stupid web browser which on a computer is 100% free) to surf the net on my TV when I’ve already got internet access? Also launching the Gamecube version of Zelda on December 11^th? Couldn’t you maybe give parents who don’t want to buy the Wii a little more time than having to fight each other 2 weeks before the holidays?

So there ya go. Do I feel like spending $350 on launch day? Not particularly. Will I still do it? Probably. I’m sure not shelling out for those other systems and I’m honestly excited about the Wii’s possibilities. But damn you Nintendo, you can’t just make me happy to go out and buy one so easily, can you? God forbid you make things easy.

My Lincoln-Sense is tingling!

Welcome to the all-singing, all-dancing, all-music (almost) edition of the Mustard. Figured it’s been long enough and my music collection keeps growing so:

So the HUGE Apple press conference was today. The big news: the current iPod is seeing an upgrade where it will be brighter and play games with an option for an 80 GB edition. Also a bunch of nano updates (colors) and even a new iPod shuffle (that thing is still around?). ITunes is also getting an update with higher res video playback, different views like cover view (so we’ve caught up to Windows Media Center?) and there’s also a service to find missing cover art (this is actually very cool). Even bigger, you can finally use your iPod to transfer content between computers (provided the computer is authorized on the same account, sorry people, no stealing your friends’ entire music collection just yet). This is going to make my life so much easier with my home and work computers.

And of course there are now movies… Disney studio movies to be precise. Now before you freak out it’s all Disney owned studios so it’s also Touchstone, Miramax, etc. 75 to start with and counting. I like the new releases being 12.99 preorder and first week and then moving up to 14.99. Best Buy does the same exact thing. And most titles (aka old titles) will be $9.99. They’ll be at near DVD qualities and in Dolby surround. But you won’t be burning them to DVD so start work on hooking up your computer to the TV. I like this price point better than Amazon's at least and F- you other Hollywood studios who want to charge normal DVD prices for downloads. If it’s of a lesser value than DVD (and, with slightly lower video res and no special features, it is), we shouldn’t be paying DVD prices. Moving on…

Now I’ve commented before on my near obsession with the Mountain Goats’ Sunset Tree album. Well here’s the video (unofficial I believe though I’ve yet to confirm that) to the fantastic song Dance Music:

Tremendous.

So October 3^rd is officially the day to lose money on music. We’ve got new albums coming out that day by Beck, the Killers, Jet and the Decemberists. Ouch.

Mark down your calendars: January 23^rd. The release date for the oft rumored new Shins album, Wincing the Night Away. Is it refreshing that there’s a band out there who isn’t releasing a new album every year or just frustrating cause the Shins are that good?

Reviews! Recommendations! Redactionals!

Snow Patrol – Final Straw

Alright so the album’s song Chocolate is getting huge airplay now thanks to the trailer for Zach Braff’s new movie The Last Kiss. And it should cause it’s a great song. The opener, How to be Dead has a nice easy pace to it reminiscent of a more produced Matt Nathanson track. Run shows a strong Coldplay influence while still managing to be better than anything on their last album.

Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures

This band has a good diverse sound that’s very Death Cab-esque. Publish My Love in particular has the pounding guitar interludes reigning back into a low key verses that Ben Gibbard has perfected. The acoustic California has some great, haunting vocals that a reminiscent of Lost and Gone Forever era Guster.

Art Brut – Bang Bang Rock & Roll

Take the sound of Ramones or the more contemporary Franz Ferdinand, add a satirical disdain towards self indulgent rock while somehow celebrating it at the same, and you’ve got the entertaining debut of Art Brut. We Formed a Band nails this one the head with lyrics such as “And yes, this is my singing voice. It's not irony and it's not rock and roll. I'm just talking to the kids.” But the real gem of the album comes from My Little Brother with its biting guitars and straight minded lyrics of “My little brother just discovered rock & roll”. Great album.

Cat Power – The Greatest

The title track (and opener) is one of the strongest piano pieces I’ve heard in a long time. Living Proof livens things up with a more blues-crossed-with-gospel influence. Empty Shell swings into a more country mood that could’ve been pulled off of Bright Eye’s Wide Awake It’s Morning. Strong recommendation for this album.

Well that should hold you up for a while. True I’ve gotten a helluva lot more music than that since last I updated but we’ll get to that later.

News and non-music related Notes:

Speaking of The Last Kiss, it’s out this Friday. I’m quite looking forward to it. I’m not a HUGE Paul Haggis fan (though his guest appearance on Entourage brought me closer) but I’ve heard Zach Braff did a little work on the dialogue and if nothing else his writing on Garden State was excellent.

2 day countdown to Wii Day. Supposedly the big announcement of the price and date will happen at Nintendo’s press conference on Thursday. Rumored pricing of under $200. Please let it be true…

Joss Whedon, master of all that is good, has been announced as the new writer of Runaways taking over for the departing Brian K. Vaughn. Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-men was the reason I actually started paying attention to comics. I’ve read Vaughn’s first 2 volumes on Runaways and it’s excellent and I think Whedon is the only reason that fans of the series aren’t going to go on strike once he leaves.

Go Irish!

Until next time:

“Peter, what is that?”

“Well, I got the idea to build a panic room after I saw that movie The Butterfly Effect. I thought, wow, this is terrible. I wish I could escape to a place where this movie couldn't find me.”

Hello, my name is Cliff. I'll be your "if you can't afford an attorney" attorney.

Mustard: Surprise Frittata Edition

So back from a crazy weekend down in Atlanta. Damn good to hit an ND game again. But my oh friggin’ my was there a lot of whining and bitching going on. First off: the game. I think I was the only ND person in Atlanta who didn’t think the Irish were gonna walk right over Tech. Am I the only person who remembered last year when they took out #16 Auburn on opening day or how bout beating #3 Miami late in November? Oh and both of those were on the road. And you know what? Tech is not a bad team this year. Now that said, was it a pretty game for the Irish? Absolutely not. For the first half Quinn couldn’t get settled to save his life and Darius Walker seemed to juke himself away from every open hole. Oh and we can’t kick a field goal. But great play by Quinn to get that TD with no time outs left in the first half. And then came the call…

Sweet mercy crap people, the hit on Quinn did NOT cost Tech the game. Was it questionable? Yeah. But one play does not make a game. And don’t blame the refs for “favoring” Notre Dame. Look at the penalty breakdown: 11 on ND for 80 yards, 5 on Tech for 28. Twice as many penalties for over 3 times as many lost yards and ND was getting all the calls? Hell, 2 of the Irish penalties were called right after the Quinn hit. If your offense can’t score more than one touchdown and a field goal, don’t expect to beat a team which is quite frankly better than you.

And that brings me to my other problem: the Tech fans. I’ve been to just about every type of sporting event under the sun. I’ve seen all kinds of fans. I have no problem whatsoever with the back and forth ribbing between opposing team’s fans. Hell, that’s some of the best part of the game. And sure there’s always some drunk a-hole on both sides that goes too far and you have to expect it. But Tech fans were easily the worst fans I’ve seen and I’m from NY. Yelling obscenities at a 70 something couple wearing ND T-shirts? Legitimately trying to start fights while walking by an ND tailgater? Hell, after one exchange I saw an Notre Dame fan say “good luck with the game and enjoy your afternoon” and give a knuckle bump to a Tech fan who put on a look of disgust saying “Ew, don’t f%$#ing touch me!”. And during the game? Throwing trash on the field after the Quinn hit (when you didn’t know it would lead to anything other than the Irish not having to kick a field goal right away). Throwing trash on the field after the Irish TD? Throwing trash on the field after the game? Real classy people. You don’t have to cheer when things go badly for your team but grow up and try not to embarrass yourselves.

As for the Tech football team: good job. You scared the crap out of most of the ND nation and made sure people aren’t going to dismiss you anymore. The defense was vicious in getting to Quinn. Really if Tech can open up another receiving threat so that Johnson doesn’t get double teamed all the time, they’re gonna be a nasty team for anyone to play.

Changing leagues, the NFL starts up Thursday leading to the big game on Sunday between my Giants and the Colts. Clash of the Titans or Fraternal Ass-kicking? We shall see.

News and Notes:

Special thanks to Crowley for the lodging and setting up the gratuitous drinking over the weekend.

Looking to get rid of some of those crappy CDs you bought impulsively in the musically challenged 90s? Give Lala a try. You can trade away some of the more embarrassing discs in your collection (why did I buy Blink 182’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, why?) for something you may actually want now.

Supposedly Apple will be announcing a new iPod this month. Unfortunately, it will probably end up being a new 8 or16 GB nano.

Things that really annoy me: Celebrity Playlists on iTunes where the “celebrity” puts their own music on it. How obnoxious is this? And you wonder why musicians get pegged as being narcissistic and self serving.

Until next time:

"In the spirit of full client/investigator disclosure, I'm not offering you this beer out of the goodness of my heart."

"You're not?"

"Nope. I'm fulfilling a long-time fantasy of sharing a cold one with my favorite ball players. And after we're done, we're gonna play catch in the parking lot."

I hate fake deer, too. Everytime I see their stupid fake deer faces, I wanna grab a shotgun and go all Cheney on 'em.

Mustard: Better than a 2x4 to the head.

Emmy time has come and gone and really not a whole helluva lot changed. Tony Shaloub (I really like Monk but 3 times for the same character who doesn’t really change? How does Steve Carrell not win that field?) and Megan Mullally (shoot me, shoot me now) took home their trophies without trying. And I don’t really agree with Kiefer taking best drama actor (rage against me all you want but all he does is act ANGRY or whisper). 24 as best drama? Again, I love the show but it barely makes more sense than Prison Break. Of course I might just still be pissed about Veronica Mars not being nominated (just finished up Season Two on DVD and it really was THAT good).

They did some things right: Jeremy Piven finally gets his recognition. The Office was at least worthy of best comedy if not nearly as good as Scrubs or Arrested Development. My Name is Earl got its recognition for Directing and Writing (yet apparently Two and a Half Men is more deserving of a best comedy nomination).

Conan was a great host ("um, we kind weren’t invited") and Bob Newhart still has the best facial expressions in the business. Also major props to all nominees for the Variety/Musical/Comedy Program writing teams for their nominee videos (The Colbert Report’s bears take the prize in my book).

Finally got a new phone and, thanks to Google and some kind souls on the mobilepedia message boards, have figured out how to make my own ringtones. Right now I’ve got the chorus to Spoon’s Beast and Dragon Adored as my main tone. The sound quality on the LG VX8300’s external speakers is fantastic.

So Deadwood is over (as far as normal episode go, now there’s just 2 movies that’ll be coming out). This show is truly rewarding for those that have the patience for it. It’s not an easy show to watch (and I’m not just talking about the constant profanity or violence ie Dan’s fight with the Captain). It’s a slow burn show, incredibly deceptive of how much is going on in any given episode but it handles an ensemble cast better than almost any show on television. Ian McShane has officially hit my favorite actors list. Hell I almost went and saw Woody Allen’s latest cause he was in it and it takes a lot to get me to a Woody Allen movie these days. Great show, great story and I’ll miss it when it’s finally over. Plus it had Major Dad as the villain this year. Bonus points right there.

News and Notes:

Heading to the ND/GA Tech game in 4 days! College Gameday, baby! Finally back to an Irish football game. It’s been too long. NCAA Football 2003 predicted a 7-6 Irish victory.... maybe the scoring was a little low.

Zach Braff not heading back to Scrubs after this year? I don’t know what’s sadder: the thought of Scrubs without JD or that I heard about this through Erin’s Jane magazine.

I still do not understand the appeal of preseason NFL Football. I’m sorry, I just don’t.

Steve Trachsel: 14 Wins. Only 5 Losses. 4.98 ERA. And somewhere Roger Clemens weeps.

Until next time:

“Sexually transmitted diseases are no joke, Jane.”

“I wasn't laughing. I sneezed.”

“See how much you're sneezing when you have gonorrhea.”

What's wrong? You've been listening to Radiohead, haven't you? That's it. I'm putting you on a strict Nelly diet.

Mustard: Deep and I don’t think it’s playable.

Man, what a let down: after weeks of hype surrounding the Nintendo Wii press conference at the Games Convention in Leipzig, all Nintendo comes up with is to announce sequels to Super Mario Strikers and Battalion Wars. While good news, it’s not exactly HUGE. These were pretty much givens to come out. So apparently we’re now marking our date for Sep 14^th as the day they announce date and price. Which probably translates to an early November release as opposed to the October release previously rumored. Unless of course Nintendo decides to pull an Apple and just have the equipment ready for launch the minute it’s announced. No, I don’t think that’ll happen but then again Nintendo is obviously going the Apple route in terms of looks and being the different choice in the new gen console wars.

HUGE news: Scrubs will be doing a musical episode next season with music written by the composers of Avenue Q! How friggin' cool is that? The musical episode of Buffy remains one of my favorite TV episodes of all time so I am really looking forward to what the crazy Scrubs people can do.

So notable things about the Teen Choice awards: Host Dane Cook attempting to keep a straight face through the large amounts of [expletive deleted] that was going on around him. I swear some of those acceptance speeches were so full of inane bs I thought he was just going to run up on stage with a baseball bat and start swinging. One which was not bs however was the acceptance speech of one Mr. Nick Lachey. If nothing else, the creators of this crapfest have a sense of humor as they awarded Lachey the best song for his What’s Left of Me song chronicling his divorce from cohost Jessica Simpson. Fox had the decency to avoid cutting to a reaction shot of Simpson after the announcement of the win, something I’m very upset with them for. Of course Lachey is too much of standup guy to make some sort of comment, right? “I just want to say one thing: Um, awkward?” I’ve never been so happy.

So you may be wondering: Why the hell were you watching the Teen Choice Awards? Simple. I was anticipating the debut performance that would rival the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. That’s right: Kevin Federline’s first live performance. I sat through 2 hours of trying not to strangle myself to view the spectacle. And oh, did Mr. K-Fed ever deliver. The fake piano intro with the two boys lip-syncing to the Fed’s lyrics was tremendous but the moment when he was supposed to spring from the piano in “true” hip-hop fashion and he bobbled the mic, almost spilling it to the floor, was pure glee. And things only got better as he launched himself into a pure white-boy poser rap that had Vanilla Ice shaking his head in disgust thinking “it’s been done”. In an attempt to distract from K-Fed’s lyrical torture, there was a dancer pulling off acrobatic moves, hopping all over the stage as if to say: don’t worry folks, I know this is really bad but we’ve got some great commercials coming up so let me entertain you with a flip or two. Alas the entire stage could have caught on fire and burned to the ground revealing Jessica Simpson to be making out backstage with Dane Cook and it STILL wouldn’t have been enough to pull my eyes off the trainwreck that was Federline’s performance.

I really think this man should do the Superbowl halftime. Hell, have him do EVERY Superbowl halftime. The yearly K-Fed performance. I guarantee more people would look forward to see if the man can one up himself than watch the usual halftime snorefest. I think I’m on to something here.

In other news Prison Break is back and stop reading if you don’t want a MAJOR SPOILER: ……ok, so Robin Tunney is dead. I sort of cheered. Seriously, she was awful to the point where I don’t know who I’ll miss less, her or Mischa Barton. Oh and I’m sorry but Thatcher Grey is no replacement for John Billingsley. And they look NOTHING alike.

I hate the HBO is calling this next episode of Entourage the season finale. No, it’s the season mid-way point. It’s coming back in January. Stop artificially creating more seasons than there are. Maybe they should spend a little more time coming up with a pervasive season long plot. Cause right now it seems to be “Vince can’t get a job”. That’s not much of a plot. Oh and this is the greatest shirt ever.

News and Notes:

Holy crap, Episode III Commentary is up. And yes, I know I have a LOT of typos in there, I’ll correct them. And just so you know I’ve halfway through Ep IV so it really won’t be that long. Promise.

To the Red Sox, one word: Ouch.

GA Tech next week baby!

Until next time:

“So, senior year. How was your first day of school, honey?”

“Great. I beat up a freshman, stole his lunch money, and then skipped out after lunch.”

“What, no premarital sex?”

“Oh. Yeah. But don't worry, Dad, I swear you're gonna like these guys.”

“That's my girl.”

Ah, steak fries. Always soggy.

It’s Mustard time!

So Veronica Mars has officially become the greatest casting show ever! Not content to sit back and let the hiring of Steve Guttenberg be its casting pinnacle, they went out and hired Ed Begley Jr. as the new dean of Veronica’s college. This man may have appeared in just about every TV show ever made. It’s actually frightening to check out how long his IMDB page is. I remember him fondly from such roles as Stan Sitwell on Arrested Development and from the incredible role of Ebner Frost in Santa with Muscles (no, it’s a real movie, I swear. If you haven’t seen it you owe it to yourself to rent it, grab a case of beer, and watch Hulk Hogan attempt to prove that Shadow Warriors 2: Hunt for the Death Merchant wasn’t the worst movie ever made.). I most remember Begley from his guest starring role on the Simpsons where he invents a go-kart powered by his own sense of self-satisfaction.

Harry Hamlin, Steve Guttenberg, Ed Begley Jr. - honestly, if the show casts Peter Scolari next season, I’m ready to just give up everything else and watch Veronica Mars episodes on permanent repeat.

Down goes Pedro! Down goes Pedro! Ok, so maybe that’s a little alarmist, considering they still have a 13 game lead. While the results are out on the extent of his injury, let’s hope that it isn’t too serious. There’s still plenty of time for him to recuperate before the playoffs and that’s when he’s really going to need to be in top form.

Catching the game when they were in town this past Sunday was great. Thanks to my brother and sister for the sweet tickets.

So as if people didn’t hate the RIAA enough, when someone they were suing for music piracy died, they decided to give the family a 60 day mourning period before continuing their litigation (they’ve since decided to drop the lawsuit all together). Now as with any legal proceedings, the RIAA has every right to attempt to continue their suit against the deceased’s estate. But wow, how much bad press is one organization looking to collect?

The Guster concert was quite good if not quite as crazy as past concerts OnTap has taken me to. Guster themselves hit a high note of ridiculousness when the did the rap from Revenge of the Nerds with a woman translating it to sign language onstage. I enjoyed Rogue Wave more than Ray Lamontagne on the opening sets.

News and Notes:

This weekend: Snakes on a Motherf#$%in Plane!

I’m so far behind on music reviews it’s scary but lately I’ve been enjoying the Caesars, the new Guster and Joseph Arthur’s Redemption’s Son. I’ll throw up some more choice reviews in time.

Two weeks and counting to ND football!

Until next time:

“Oh, this is just wrong. Even for you. Look at her.”

“I have watched you pull out a man’s eyes from his head and make him dance like a marionette with his own optic nerves.”

“At least I didn’t break his heart.”

“You don’t know that.”

Welcome to the S.H., bitch!

Due to the summer lull, I’ve been re-watching some of last season's rerun/Tivo’d shows. Damn there was some great stuff last year.

So how screwed up are the Emmys? Check out this article detailing the nomination of Ellen Burstyn for Supporting Actress in a Movie/Mini-Series. Ms. Burstyn was nominated for a role in which she was on-screen for a grand total of 14 seconds and spoke a whopping 2 whole lines! Way to go Emmy, you're officially one step away from Grammy-level irrelevance. The only difference is they managed to have a category last year consisting of Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and… Rob Thomas? One of these things is not like the other…

Then again, I’m fairly certain that the people on the Grammy nomination committees actually listen to the music they nominate. They just have no taste. Moving on…

The big surprise announcement out of the Mac Worldwide Developers Conference this year is: absolutely nothing. Ok, maybe that’s a little mean. They did show off their 10 big features of Leopard, some of which do look pretty cool. But note to Steve Jobs: if you’re not going to really blow people off their feet with your announcements, stop taking the cheap pot shots at Microsoft. You’re just coming off as petty. We already don’t really care for Bill Gates. Just stick to your products and let the blogosphere make the anti-Redmond wisecracks. We’re already petty. That’s why we blog.

So Logan Huntzberger is going to be playing the half-brother of Logan Echolls this year! That’s right Matt Czuchry is guest starring on an episode of Veronica Mars. Cheap stunt? Maybe. But it’s pretty friggin’ cool.

Caught Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby this weekend. I laughed like hell. Not as good or even as funny as Little Miss Sunshine, the movie subscribes to the same “fling jokes at the wall and see what sticks” method as previous Will Ferrell fare (this time without a Wilson brother to be seen). Does it succeed? For the most part. The cast is fantastic. Ali G himself Sacha Baron Cohen as the Ferrell's gay French rival is hilarious. John C. Reilly could sit staring at a wall for two hours and he’d keep me entertained. Gary Cole: is there a more underappreciated comedic actor working today? This man steals the show in anything he’s in and the same is true here with him playing Ferrell’s estranged father. He has one scene towards the end where you think it’s going to be a beautiful touching moment and suddenly Cole just turns it on its ear. As for Ferrell, he’s playing pretty much the same role he always does as the idiot man-boy but by God he’s just that damn good at it. His saying Grace at dinner had me rolling. I enjoyed this much more the first time around then I did Anchorman. We’ll see how it holds up on subsequent viewings.

News and Notes:

FINALLY, I get to see my Mets who are coming into town this weekend. Right now it looks to be Steve Trachsel pitching who did a nice little job last night against San Diego holding them to 2 runs. Hopefully he’s getting back into the grove after the past two months of rising ERA.

August 23^rd: The big day when Nintendo is set to announce the info on all things Wii (hehe, wee…). Price, date, super secret surprises like Mario Galaxy being a launch title? Who knows? All I know is that it’s not going to cost $400 like the Xbox360 or $600 like the Playstation 3 (hey Sony, I don’t care that much about Blu-Ray).

Alright, until next time:

“Baby, she said she doesn't want to be helped.”

“If J.D. were drowning and he told you he didn't want you to save him, wouldn't you do it?”

“That depends. What if there're hot chicks at the pool? Maybe he wants one of them to jump in and save him?”

“Let's say there's no women.”

“There's always women at the pool, baby!”

“Fine. He's in a pond.”

“Oh, I would never swim in a pond! They're infamous for serpents!”

“You could swim at the Y on Tuesdays - men only.”

“Have you been to the Y on man night? Not me.”

“Ok, fine! Turk's the one who's drowning!”

“Oh! So now a brother can't swim!”

You're not speaking because of Friedrich Nietzsche?

I get no kick from Mustard…

So another week, another post. Let’s get to it:

Random news and notes:

The new Warner officially announced yesterday that the next Batman movie will be titled “The Dark Knight” and will star Heath Ledger as the Joker. Awesome title. As for the Ledger, I don’t have a problem with it. The guy’s a good actor despite not always choosing great roles *cough* Four Feathers *cough*. So far we haven’t really seen him do anything we could compare to this role. But I have faith he can put in an interesting performance. It’ll take a lot to beat the quintessential Joker performance which is of course NOT Jack Nicholson but rather Mark Hamill’s portrayal in Batman the Animated Series and it’s subsequent spinoffs. Nothing again Nicholson but Hamill added menace to the insanity while Nicholson just acted over the top crazy. I hope they stick closer to Timm’s version in the new movie. My personal pick? Benecio Del Toro. Check out his Jackie Boy in Sin City and tell me he couldn’t have pulled it off.

Just a quick IT help notice for you: If your Norton Antivirus keeps popping up and error message saying “Norton Antivirus 2006 does not support the repair function”, it’s just a bug in the last update Norton released. Just run liveupdate and it should automatically download a fix for it. The more you know…

Heading to the Guster concert tonight featuring Ray LaMontague and Rogue Wave. Awesome…

Even awesomer: Virgin Music Festival at Pimlico in September. A few in the lineup: Kasabian, New Pornographers, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Keane, Thievery Corporation, The Raconteurs, Gnarls Barkely, The Flaming Lips, The Killers, Red Hot Chili Peppers and a little band known as THE WHO!!!. Tell me this isn’t the greatest concert ever. You can’t do it. Not only does that list contain some of the most innovative artists of today with Jack White, Wayne Coyne, AC Newman and DJ Dangermouse but it got one of the greatest artists ever in Pete Freaking Townshend. Think I’m a little excited?

Caught Little Miss Sunshine last night at Georgetown (I love living in DC, all limited releases make it here). Not only is this is easily the funniest movie I’ve seen this year, it’s easily the funniest movie I’ve seen in the past couple years. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie. It’s just brilliant. This just shot past Thank You For Smoking as the best movie I’ve seen this year. The cast is just amazing: Greg Kinnear as the hapless Dad trying to pilot his own self-help program. Alan Arkin as the foul mouthed, heroin sniffing grandfather. Steve Carrell as America’s premiere Proust scholar who has recently tried to commit suicide. Paul Dano as the Nietzsche loving son who has taken a vow of silence. Toni Collette as the mother with frayed nerves trying to keep everyone together. And the remarkable performance of Abigail Breslin as the young Olive whose hopes of winning the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant is the catalyst for the movie. I don’t want to give anything else away but let’s just say the solution to how to drive the van with a broken clutch is genius and provides multiple instances of amusement. This movie is just amazing. The minute it comes close to you, drop everything and go see it. It’s rolling out over the next few weeks and should be pretty much everywhere by August 18^th. Check here for when it comes by you.

Alright, until next time:

“So we're gonna take all these to the studio”

“Unless you think we're gonna look like schmucks driving the same car.”

“ No. We'd be schmucks in Jettas. In Aston Martin's we look good. And independently wealthy.”

Do not put unauthorized cinnamon on the table!

Alright, I felt so bad about the low level of information in the previous post that I'm doubling up this week to give you some moments of humor and joy:


First off I'm sure everyone has heard of the Steely Dan vs You Me and Dupree battle by now. For those of you not in the know, Steely Dan is pissed because they wrote a song called "My Cousin Dupree" about a slacker who crashes on his family's couch. But they wrote a friggin' hilarious letter to Luke Wilson you can see here:

http://www.steelydan.com/heyluke.html

(thanks for the link Erin)

Also from Ainitcool/YouTube but reposted here...

2 ANIMATICS FROM THE SIMPSONS MOVIE!!!!!!!










Alright you crazy cats enjoy.

Until next time:

"I have learned to accept, Mr. Swearengen, that events sharing some effect on my interest does not make them part of a plot."

"You ain't the center of the universe in other words."

"Exactly."

" Don't that lead you to despair?"

"No sir."

"You're stronger minded than I."

Honey, do I need to recap my Concerned Dad lectures? No running with scissors, no candy from strangers, no smartening up the local criminal element.

Mustard: We wants it. We needs it.

So we’re going just random rumblings today:

Comic Con:

Once again it seems this is less and less to do with comics and more to do with a large platform with which to make announcements. Why is there big Lost panel there? Even more confusing, why is there a Veronica Mars panel? At least Lost you can say is sci-fi but Veronica Mars? But the big announcements:

- New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie out in ’07. See the trailer here. All CG, hopefully they don’t make it too kiddy (did you know that originally first movie was supposedly going to be rated R? Now that would’ve pissed off a lot of parents.).

- Spider-man 3 officially showing off Venom for the first time. Now if someone with a camera phone will kindly post a picture…

- The trailer for the Frank Miller’s 300 (based on the battle of Thermopylae) supposedly was the surprise hit of the show. Now if they’d post it for us people who didn’t happen to be in San Diego. Note to director Zack Snyder: pray that this movie goes off well cause I don’t think you have a shot in hell of doing Watchmen to fanboy standards. It’s just too complex a project to make them all happy and this is their holy grail you’re playing with here.

- Major buzz surround the Tenacious D footage. This can’t get here quick enough.

- Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime will in fact voice the character in the upcoming Michael Bay movie. Fanboys everywhere wet themselves.

So not only is Lost going 6 and 16 next season but those first 6 episodes are going to be shot like a “mini-series” according to producers. So we might not even get to really see some characters until the 16 series starts up (correction from an earlier post, it’ll supposedly be in January).

Caught the pilot for the Sci-Fi original series Eureka the other day. Definitely a “meh”. The idea is interesting enough but quite frankly it reminded me of Eerie Indiana meets Northern Exposure meet the X-Files and it does of none of them particularly well. The characters are shallow cutouts pretty much designed to have one trait important to the plot and the humor turning into Sci-Fi turning to just plain bizarre doesn’t blend well just comes off as jarring and choppy.

Got Erin hooked on Veronica Mars. I’m so happy!

I swear I’m the only person in the country who has yet to see Pirate of the Caribbean 2. One of these days…

Alright, this was weak. I’ll do better next time. Look for Ep III commentary soon.

Until next time:

“I would rather die than call that snake charmer for help. He'll never let me hear the end of it!”

“Alright boys you heard your father, we're all gonna die. So you might wanna line yourself up so that the spikes will pierce your brain or heart. Alright, alright lets get started positioning ourselves, no fun bleeding to death.”

I got to admit I always want to get Edgar Allen Poe in a headlock. That thing is like a pumpkin.

Mustard… better than a frying pan to the back of the head.

So I’m going a little technical here and trying out embedded youtube videos. First off youtube? I love it. Best place in the world to find truly random video clips such as William Shatner’s performance of Rocketman (fantastically parodied by Family Guy).

But in the interest of the ongoing debate/war on net neutrality between the telecos who want to be able to splinter the internet according to their whims and everyone else who doesn’t want to be held hostage (yeah, you can tell what side I’m on), this video is at once friggin hilarious and frightening as you realize that these people are who are deciding the fate of the net and the best way they can describe the internet is that it’s not a big truck you can dump stuff on….

Yeah, I send internets back and forth all the time. You putz.

Oh and before anyone cries foul over what side I’m on, yes I realize that right now this debate is all over theoretical future uses of the internet. Despite the Senators problems with sent internets, at this point traffic is not so congested as to be causing real problems. Will Hi-Def video on demand cause the “series of tubes” to fill up? Maybe.

In the end we the consumers are still getting stuck with the price tag for it whether it be passed down from the telecos/ISPs charging more for their bandwidth or the online companies passing the extra charges they have to pay to the telecos for using the “fastlane” tier. But personally, I’d rather it be an open internet we’re all paying more for than to have the telecos be able to extort money in order to ensure prompt delivery from certain sites while they themselves have the ability to ensure other content (perhaps their own competing content?) get through just fine.

If you want to know more about net neutrality (as I’ve been talking about it in terms of people who are familiar with the current situation), try here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality. Note that it’s under dispute as to it’s neutrality (which is pretty damn funny if you think about it), but I think it highlights the issues pretty well. Let’s face it, any article that highlights a contentious debate is going to have its neutrality disputed if one side doesn’t think it helps them enough.

Music You Should Be Listening To:

Joshua Radin – We Were Here

So Mr. Radin went out and got him self signed by a big time label. This has lead to a lot more production than his more sparse EP. It definitely throws you off when some of the changes sneak up on you. Closer appropriately takes the spotlight on this album as it’s easily his best song. The added background bells and strings only add stronger emphasis to Radin’s remarkably strong hooks and lyrics. Interestingly enough Today has actually had the production dropped from its performance on the EP to being a simple acoustic number. Everything is Gonna be Alright brings to mind a simple acoustic James Taylor. Sundrenched World has a little Elliot Smith to it while Star Mile reminds me of a good Nickel Creek number with maybe even a little folksy Simon & Garfunkel sneaking in. Overall Radin proves that he’s got what it takes to move up to the big leagues. Plus it doesn’t hurt to have buddy Zach Braff plugging for him.

Alexi Murdoch – Time Without Consequence

Talk about a guy who wears his Nick Drake influences on his sleeve, Murdoch is also making his jump from EP to full on album complete with upped production. But if he keeps putting out albums like this, I can’t complain about any aping of Drake. Both All of My Days and Song For You have the up front, very deliberate guitar picking complete with back strings. On Home, Murdoch suddenly decided to hop into Thom Yorke Radiohead land. It’s entertaining if a little seemingly out of left field. And Orange Sky has received a face lift after the EP version appeared in just about every movie and tv soundtrack in the past four years to feature independent music. Aided now by a piano and a clapping percussion, Murdoch’s re-recording seems to have a more confident sound to it.

News and notes:

Ok, so what the hell, Lost apparently is only going to have 6 new non-interrupted episodes this fall and then 16 non-interrupted in the spring? So that means it stops in November and doesn’t start back up again til February? No me gusta!

Oh, and this is friggin hilarious (Warning! Crude language ahead! You’ve been warned!)

Until next time:

“Is your Daddy here? Or is he busy peeking in people's windows?”

“You stop dressing up like Little Bo Peep, he'll stop peeking.”

I am sitting in the charred remains of my once-mighty Flying Cocoon. Anyone want to explain why my Cocoon is charred?

Back in yellow, I hit the… Mustard…?

Anyways, so after last weeks debacle of Emmy noms, I’m staying the hell away from that topic this week. So what do we move onto? How bout the fact that once again the National League CANNOT win an All-Star game. Why do I care so much? Cause this year the Mets may actually have a shot at the series and wouldn’t that have been nice to have home field advantage?

How bout that David Wright though? Runner up in the HR Derby and hitting a homer in his first All-Star at-bat? Now consider this: he’s only making $370,000 this year as part of a 1 year contract. The Mets sure as hell better make sure they take care of him the minute this season is over. I’m talking 5 or 6 year multi-million dollar offer because this kid is someone to start building a team around and he’s only 23! Ditto Jose Reyes. I was rough on the guy last year when he didn’t exhibit the ability to take a pitch but he’s grown up this year in a big way and come on, 6 more stolen bases than the 2^nd place SB leader?

Oh and Carlos Beltran stealing like a maniac? When he’s healthy, he’s worth every penny they paid for him.

I don’t care what people are saying, I’ve seen Superman Returns twice now and it’s a good movie. It earns points automatically by not having the resolution be Superman flying backwards around the earth to turn back time (why the hell would that stop the earthquake from happening all over again? Can someone please explain that to me?). Yeah, it’s a little long. Yeah, people who didn’t care for the original Donner movies might get annoyed at the constant references to them. No, I don’t think it’s better than Batman Begins. But it's infinitely better than Superman 3 and yeah, that’s a low standard to meet but then again, Superman 4 didn’t manage to hurdle it. The casting is well done. Brandon Routh makes both an excellent Clark Kent and Superman. No, he’s not as good as Christopher Reeve but come on, you can’t fault the guy for not living up to that. Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane bothered a lot of people, but not me. Maybe it’s cause I never like the Margot Kidder Lois (honestly, she wasn’t “spunky”, she was a pain in the ass). I like Kevin Spacey’s Luthor, however I was a little disappointed where they took the character or rather where they didn’t go. There’s a great line where in the beginning of the movie as Luthor exclaims that he’s not a God because “Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their power with mankind.” I thought, wow maybe their really going to get who Lex Luthor is. Not necessarily a cheesy super villain but rather a man who, while he is unscrupulous and power hungry, also views Superman as a threat to all humanity. But after that interesting beginning, they end up going the crazy real estate Hackman-esque scheme which doesn’t really develop Luthor into anything more than a jerk who wants money and power. But I can’t fault Spacey for that. Kal Penn is excellent as the guy who nods. He may only have one line in the movie. I say “may” because it’s a line spoken off screen in a group so you’re not exactly sure who said it. Overall though this was a good reboot for the series and Joss Whedon now has the pressure on as he takes on the last leg of the DC Universe pillars with Wonder Woman.

Music you should be listening to:

The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree

My thanks to Crowley for giving me the heads up on this band. Reminding me much of Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning only with less of a country and more lo-fi rock slant, this not a happy album. Focusing mainly on the childhood trauma at the hands of an abusive step-father, there’s enough pain going on here to fill an Elliot Smith album. In fact the song Pale Green Things does remind me of a soft Smith number. Up the Wolves uses a brilliant analogy of the story of Romulus and Remus to the overcoming of physical and more importantly emotional abandonment. The catchy upbeat tempo of Dance Music plays an effective counterpoint to not so upbeat lyrics. By far the best number though is the biting This Year. The minimal drums and guitar adds emphasis on the lyrics and the desperation in the chorus of “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me”. Bleak? A little. Excellent album? Absolutely.

The Flaming Lips – At War with the Mystics

Let’s face it, either you like the Flaming Lips or you don’t. If you couldn’t stand Yoshimi Versus the Pink Robots, don’t bother with this album. Lucky for me, I loved those Pink Robots, so Mystics is right up my alley. The album is a little more mainstream pop/rock (if any Flaming Lips album can be call “mainstream”) than Yoshimi but that’s not necessarily a terrible thing. Take the Yeah Yeah Yeah song. Probably the most radio friendly song on the album, it starts out with a steady chorus of “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah” before breaking into a uptempo jam complete with vocalizer (man, between these guys and Imogen Heap, the vocalizer sure is making a comeback). Free Radicals crosses a funk guitar base with the electric trappings of Beck (minus all the Spanish). It Overtakes Me harkens back to Yoshimi with its sirens, spacey electric distortion and any number of seemingly random musical effects. Mr. Ambulance Driver has been put through a little more production since it’s appearance on the Wedding Crashers soundtrack but still maintains it’s soft, melancholy tone. On the whole I still think I prefer Yoshimi however I have no qualms putting this album right beside it.

Until next time:

“Logan, can I have a word”

“Anthropomorphic. All yours, big boy.”

I look like Santa’s magic janitor.

So the Emmy nominations came out and I quickly realized there had to have been some mistake. After proudly announcing a new selection system that would be sure to give more shows a chance to be recognized, the Academy promptly went out and nominated the same shows it always does.

In my confusion I quickly dialed up the Academy to find out what happened:

Me: So how did that new selection system work out for you?

Academy: Oh terrific. It allowed us to continue to nominate the same old things, but we can pretend we tried a lot harder.

Me: Hey, wouldn’t be great if maybe some of the great work done by Lauren Graham was finally rewarded?

The Academy: Lauren who? Nah, we don’t know her, she sounds new and what’s new is weird and scary to us. Let’s nominate Stockard Channing. Wait, what’s that you say? Her show was canceled after 14 episodes? Eh, that doesn’t bother us. After all, we nominated Kevin James and he really hasn’t done quality acting in all eight years of the King of Queens.

Me: Well how about Kristen Bell and Veronica Mars?

Academy: Hell, no, that’s on UPN. We don’t award shows on UPN. That’s why we also didn’t nominate Everybody Hates Chris.

Me: You know, I hear that Donald Faison easily had one of the greatest season performances ever over on Scrubs not to mention that John C. McGinley has done as consistently good a job over the years as the aforementioned Lauren Graham?

Academy: Donald Faison? Wasn’t he the guy from Clueless? And John McGinley? Nah, not lovable enough. How bout that Jon Cryer and that Sean Hayes. Those guys are lovable. We can’t tell which is which but man oh man they bring a smile to our face.

Me: Aren’t you a little worried that next year you’re losing 4 of your nominees for Lead Actress in a Comedy?

Academy: Oh don’t worry, we’ve been scouring the ranks of the CBS sitcoms and we’ll have them ready to be plugged in come next year.

Me: Now, I’m a little confused here. Lost won best Drama series last year and this year it doesn’t even get nominated? And wasn’t the Sopranos supposed to be not nearly as good this year as in the past? And 24, though I dearly love the show, isn’t that the equivalent of nominating a Michael Bay movie for best picture?

Academy: Well, you don’t understand. The Sopranos has to be nominated every year, much like Will & Grace and the West Wing and all the shows in the past that have been nominated regardless of peaking and waning quality. And as for 24, Pearl Harbor was only the greatest movie ever! It’s a travesty it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar!

Me: How do you sleep with yourself at night?

Academy: On top of a big pile of money surrounded by many beautiful women.

You know what folks? I just don’t even know anymore. I’ll cheer for the Comedy Series race as Arrested Development, Scrub, the Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm go head to head but if Two and a Half Men win (why the hell is this nominated over Entourage? It's makes no goram sense!) I’m just going to officially declare the Emmys worthless. On a scale of 1 to 10 they are at .05 with how much I care mostly due to that category and Jeremy Piven’s nomination (I loved Will Arnett in AD but Jeremy Piven absolutely deserves to win). Normally I just don’t give that much of a rats ass but with the hype surrounding the new system I thought maybe some of the great shows would finally get recognized. I guess I also should’ve started believing in Leprechauns while I was at it.

Until next time:

“What the hell are we supposed to do with this crap? Make them laugh so hard they blow malt liquor out their noses?”
“No, I think you’ll have that covered when you storm the room in butterfly uniforms.”
“Oh ha ha ha ha ha. Nice onesie, Dick. Put snaps in the back so you can make poopie?”
“This is a speed suit, mister, not a onesie.”
“Fine. Maybe they’ll think you’re a three-year old with pyrexia and take pity on us.”