Kool Thingzzz

We've moved!

2011-08-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

To Tumblr!

All the cool kids are doing it.

http://koolthingzzz.tumblr.com/

Our Deal video

2011-08-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty good video with some very cool people. It was directed by Drew Barrymore, which is noteworthy, I guess. This is probably my least favorite Best Coast song, but I like the video enough.

Get More: MTV Supervideo, Music, Best Coast

Here's the thing. Why would you write that like that? It was unnecessarily confusing. Of course she killed you.

Season 4 of the Jersey Shore Preview

2011-07-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

I can already tell this is going to be my favorite season of the Jersey Shore because it rhymes.

Isn't this show great?! I'm so excited! Deena doesn't seem to be completely terrible! J-Woww is here ol' self! The Situation! Pauly D and Vinny's bromance becomes becomes bilingual! Sammi is barely in the preview! Snooki is arrested! They probably get real pizza at one point! This'll be great.

James Spader is joining the office! Hooray!

2011-07-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

Remember the season finale of the office this year? Remember how everyone was really concerned about who would replace Michael Scott? Remember how James Spader knocked it out out of the park? Well, now he's going to be on the show! Apparently he won't be replacing Michael Scott though. Instead, he will be replacing Kathy Bates. I am okay with that! Kathy Bates character was not very interesting, and James Spader's character is the exact opposite. However, the search continues for Michael Scott's replacement! Thankfully, Dwight is most likely out of the running. As you may recall, he accidentally shot a gun in the office while he was the interim manager. I'm still vying for Jim, because that seems like natural progression. I'd also like to see Kelly become the manager. She would bring the laffs. I also wouldn't be surprised if Pam took over, because apparently she can't hold the same position in the office for more than a few seasons. She was the receptionist for the first few seasons, then became a salesman and is now the office administrator, which she schemed her way into. I think she would make a good boss, because while she is pleasant, she can be very stubborn and is able to get things done. I would love to see Creed return to the manager position, but since he almost ran the company into the ground as the manager. Darryl would also be a suitable replacement. Basically, I don't who is going to take over, but I'm thinking it will be someone from the inside. Season 8 premieres on September 22, along with Season 3 of Community and Season 4 of Parks & Rec.

The Real World Season 1 - Episodes 3 & 4

2011-06-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

I know I mentioned this in my first post about this season, but the show has improved so much in the last 20 years. In recent seasons we see all of the action and the talking head interviews simply tell us how everyone feels about any given situation. Back in 1992, the talking heads, which are almost always shot at a cool 90's angle, tell us the story and the the only action we see is people walking to, standing in, or leaving a place. So far, the show is much less dramatic than in recent years, but does that really make it better? Yes and No. Yes, because it is really fun and interesting to just see these people get along. And no, because crazy people are always fun to watch.

Episode 3:
The first bit of this episode was dedicated to Julie being confused about directions. Eventually she found her way to the dance studio she was taking a class at, or something. She danced for a bit and this instructor told her she is at home and should have fun. And Julie was like "okay." We then met Andre's band. They are called "Reigndance" because it was the 90's and that is what a band would be called in the 90's. Andre is upset because he's sick and when he's sick he's not good, or something like that. He says he would rather be dead than sick, because at least when he's dead he can sleep. Good logic. While practicing with his band the cops are called. The cops come inside and tell them they have to keep it down because the neighbors are complaining. One cop tells them to play Frank Sinatra, because the neighbors like Frank Sinatra. Timeless reference! As the cops are leaving, one of them asks if the band takes requests and requests "I fought the law, and the law won." Clever cop. Eric gets a job modeling for an exercise magazine. There, he meets a girl named Karen. He and Karen hit it off and begin hanging out a lot. Apparently he's forgotten about his interest in Julie. Back at the loft, Becky has decided to cook dinner for everyone. She asks for Julie's help. Julie helps a little bit, but then goes upstairs where everyone talks about which Gilligan's Island character they would be. Norman originally picks Mary-Ann, but then says he would be Gilligan because he's "just so goofy." Becky, Julie and Norman go out to an art show, which Julie is very critical of. She says that it was more of a social function than an art show and the owners are phony. There is then a clip of Julie being very sarcastic to an old man who calls the group of them "kids." It's great because we see a part of Julie that isn't "the naive southern girl." After the art show they head to Andre's show. Becky is glad they went because her roommates went to her show a while back. Everyone gets along! How nice! Back at home Norman talks about finding men attractive in a very nonchalant manner. In a talking head interview Julie says they had never "had a big talk about his sexuality. He never sat everyone down and said 'I'm bi-sexual.'" Probably because he's not.

Episode 4:
Remember earlier when I said this season wasn't that dramatic? I was wrong. Apparently they were saving all the drama for this episode. Unlike episode 3, which had a thousand story lines in the half hour episode., episode 4 had one storyline. Eric vs. Kevin. Eric calls a house meeting to discuss the problems he, and everyone else, has been having in the loft. One problem was the mess of the kitchen. One problem was the sleeping arrangements. But the main problem was Kevin's absence. Everyone is pretty upset that Kevin is never around. They all assume he won't show up to the meeting. About half way through the meeting he walks in. He and Eric then get into it. Kevin is upset with Eric because Eric's sister has practically moved in, and Eric is upset with Kevin because that's his sister! The fight escalates and eventually they are just arguing to argue. Kevin writes Eric a letter, discussing his issues. Julie and Heather get ahold of the letter and mock Kevin's handwriting. Throughout the episode Eric simply complains about Kevin, who is, once again, missing. At the end of the episode Kevin walks in to find Eric sitting around the table with his friends, complaining. Kevin makes the point, in his interview, that instead of approaching him with his problems, Eric just complains to his friends. And that's the entire episode.

Forget Cars 2 and let it be next summer already

2011-06-27T10:29:00.001-07:00

This is the trailer for the new Pixar movie. The one that isn't Cars 2. THe one that actually looks good. It looks very good. Until you see the person, it doesn't even look animated. Pixar, you've done outside yourselves on this one.

I don't know what the plot of this movie is, but she just shot a bear with an arrow!

Also, Toy Story 4 is supposedly a thing that might happen.

Power Rangers: A retrospective.

2011-06-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

I asked my brother how many different incarnations of Power Rangers he could name. He just named different Harry Potter and LOTR books/movies. Then he said "pokemon." Come on! He couldn't even get Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

I don't really know much about the Power Rangers after MM, but I'll try to explain each version with the minimum knowledge I have.

MMPR: The original. The best. Plus, the fact that the black ranger was black, the yellow ranger was asian and the pink ranger was pink will ALWAYS amuse me. I don't know if that's still how they do it, but I hope it isn't.

Power Rangers Zeo: Oh shit! This is the one with the gold Ranger! The Red Ranger times, like, a thousand. Kick Ass.

Power Rangers Turbo: I think they had motorcycles in this one.

Power Rangers in Space: I assume this is just Power Rangers... but... in space. Which makes it even better!!

Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy: This one's also in space, I guess.

Power Ragers: Lightspeed Rescue: I remember this as the one I tried to watch to get back into the series, but it was lame. Motorcycles were in this one too.

Power Rangers Time Force: I guess all of the different Power Rangers are from different time periods. According to wikipedia "Many fans have compared this season to Power Rangers in Space for being more dark, emotional and realistic."

Power Rangers Wild Force: This is when the show started getting really fucking lame. They all had spirit animals or some shit.

Power Rangers Ninja Storm: You guessed it, they've got ninja abilities.

Power Rangers Dino Thunder: What is this? I don't even.

Power Rangers SPD: I'm assuming SPD stands for Space Police Department, which I feel like the Power Rangers have always been, they've just almost always been based on earth. So this title seems redundant.

Power Rangers Mystic Force: I didn't even know this was a thing until looking it up. I guess they have magic powers, which seems like cheating.

Power Rangers Operation Overdrive: I know nothing about this season, but based on the title it seems like they're trying too hard.

Power Rangers Jungle Fury: I don't see a difference between this and Wild Force. Apparently they have the ability to morph into other animals, or something.

Power Rangers RPM: Motorcycles, but for real this time!

Power Rangers Samuri: This is the current Power Rangers team. Congrats! I guess. It sounds a helluva lot better than RPM.

Possible Songs of the Summer

2011-06-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Every summer since its inception, tbtl has had a "Song of the Summer" contest in which they try to predict the song of the summer. The song you hear at all the summer parties and barbecues. These are the nominees for this summer.

Adele- Rolling in the Deep

I would be surprised if this didn't win. I'm hearing it everywhere. It is a good level of popular, as in, people know it but it's not Katy Perry.

Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks

I've been hearing this one quite a bit too. Though, if it was playing and you asked me the name of the band or song I would say "umm... I'm not sure... I think the song is like.... pumped up kids or something." I do really like this song though.

Fitz and the Tantrums - Moneygrabbers

Old School is TOTALLY trending you guys. I think it all started with "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. Now this, Mayer Hawthorne, Cee-lo green, Adele, etc. This song has that going for it, but it isn't all that summer-y.

Bruno Mars - Lazy Song

This is a bad song.

Jenny O - Well OK Honey

Much like the Fitz and the Tantrums song that's nominated, it's a pretty good song, but it isn't very summer-y.

Hoodie Allen - I'm Not a Robot

This reminds me a lot of Chiddy Bang, but Chiddy Bang has a VERY early expiration date. I'm afraid that will happen to this guy, who, by the way, is only 21. I really like this song. I could "jam" to it, as adults think kids say.

Rye Rye ft. MIA - Sunshine

It'll be tough for MIA for her to come back after the serious MIA backlash and I don't think this song is going to it. Also, Rye Rye sounds like Landi from Die Antwoord.

Brett Dennen - Sydney I'll Come Running

This si a pretty decent, but uninteresting, song. I don't think it will receive too many votes, which is fine.

The Belle Brigade - Where Not to Look for Freedom

Nice-n-folksy-n-upbeat, but THE summer song. No way.

Givers - Up Up Up

Givers, as far as I know, are still pretty unknown. However, they were on Fallon last night, and Fallon broke Odd Future. Then again, everyone hates Odd Future now, which I don't get. You knew what you were getting into when you started listening to them. That's something for an entirely different post though. I don't think this will be that song you here wherever you go. It's just too generic.

The Lonely Forest - Turn off This Song and Go Outside

This song is a paradox! How am I supposed to listen to the song if every time I try to I'm told to turn it off! But furrealz, this is a pretty good song. I saw them live a couple weeks ago. They are very good! I could see this song getting played quite a bit over the summer, but I don't think anyone would give it a second thought after listening to it.

Lady Gaga - Edge of Glory

Nope.

Jessie J - Price Tag

I guess as far as pop songs go, this is fine. But that's it. It's just fine. Jessie J seems like a pretty cool girl, but I don't think she's anymore interesting than any other pop star who's been on SNL. The best thing I can say about this song is that it is listenable.

Final verdict:
If Adele doesn't get the Airplanes Treatment, it will win.

You can vote here.

The Real World - New York

2011-06-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

First off, I want to apologize for not recapping this most recent season of The Real World. Here's a quick recap of the season:

Mike is very conservative in his beliefs. Leroy likes sex a lot. Dustin falls in love easily. Heather is the resident cute girl. Naomi is really confident and lives in the bronx. Nany is 21 and has had the same boyfriend for six years. Adam claims to have "no game" when it comes to girls, but gets Nany to break up with her boyfriend within the first few weeks. Dustin falls for Heather. Leroy and Naomi start sleeping together, but allow each other to sleep with other people. Leroy and Mike become best friends. Adam gets ridiculous when drunk and is kicked out. Nany's really sad about it. They get a new roommate, Cooke. She's pretty boring throughout the show. The roommates find out that Dustin used to do gay porn. Heather's really upset, so they break up, only to get back together a few days later. When broken up Dustin drunkenly kisses Cooke and all the girls are pissed at her. Adam visits Las Vegas and Nany decides she doesn't like him anymore. In the last episode Mike and Naomi have a fake wedding for fun. It was better than New Orleans, but not quite as good as DC.

The AV Club started recapping the FIRST season of The Real World, which aired in 1992. I was only a baby! I decided to also start watching the season on youtube. I have watched the first two episodes so far. And so far I really like it. It is just as stupid as every season I've seen has been. (I started watching casually in season 19, Sydney. I began watching regularly in season 22, Cancun. So far, my favorite season has been DC, which is apparently a lot of people's least favorite season because it was too serious.) The main character in the first season seems to be Julie, who is 19 years old, the youngest of seven kids and the youngest of the seven roommates. She grew up very sheltered, but is very open-minded. She becomes fast friends with Eric by the second episode. Eric is a model. In the second episode he is on a tv show talking about sexuality in television commercials. He is in a commercial in which he and a woman rip each other's clothes off down to their underwear to symbolize some big sale or something. I don't know. The ad was confusing. Surprisingly, Julie believes it is ok to wear only underwear on the television. Julie also becomes good friends with Heather, who is a rapper. And she's black, which Julie's dad doesn't like very much. Kevin is also black. One night in the first episode Julie and Kevin talk about prejudice. The conversation doesn't really go anywhere, nor does it accomplish anything. Other cast members include Norman, who is pretty obviously the first token gay roommate. It hasn't been said outright yet, but you can tell, also it's on wikipedia. And rounding out the cast is Andre, who obviously likes grunge so much. How do I know? Because it's the early 90's and he has really long hair and doesn't seem to care. Oh, I almost forgot about Becky. There's also this girl named Becky, who is a folk singer. In the first episode she has a gig and all the roommates come to watch. Norman than discusses it in his bathtub in his talking head interview. It was very strange. In the second episode Becky seems to catch on to the attraction between Julie and Eric. She is never seen during the "action sequences," but recollects everything that happened. She tells a story of how she asked Eric if it would be ok to bring a date for Julie to this party. Apparently Eric looked like he was going to shoot fire out of his eyes. He did not want to have Becky bring Julie a date. But Julie is just so sweet and innocent it doesn't seem that she understands what Eric really thinks of her. She probably just thinks they're friends.
It's really interesting to watch this so close to the end of the most recent season. (Season 25 ended last Wednesday.) It doesn't seem like MTV had enough crew to catch everything, as Becky only told the camera what happened to her during the second episode and Andre, Norman and Kevin were briefly, if at all, in the second episode. They've certainly got the show down to a science. I really like this season so far because one, it's interesting to see how unchanged the show is, and it's interesting to see how changed the world is. For example, when they don't have anything to do they simply sit around and talk about eating habits. However, a major part of episode 2, as mentioned before, was sexuality in advertising. In 1992, it was a big deal, but in 2011, this is the norm. Saying the show is entirely unchanged isn't completely true. The basic idea of show is still the same, throw seven (or eight) people in a house/loft/mansion/casino and see how they interact. In the first few seasons they were not given an assignment, since the fifth season, with a few exceptions, they had a job they had to attend to. I would say that the people have become more attractive since the first season, but I'm sure the people on the show were good looking for 1992, but none of them look like the girls in the most recent seasons.

The Rapture

2011-05-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

As you probably know by now, this Saturday marks the definite rapture, for real. People have been saying the world is ending on Saturday, which is not true. May 21 marks the Rapture, or Judgement Day. The world is ending five months later, on October 21. This Saturday, all of the good, god-loving, god-fearing christians will ascend into heaven and leave everyone else on earth. Then on October 21, 2011 the world will end. So, you need not worry about Saturday* because you will either ascend into heaven or live on the earth with a third less people. We're not living on the post-apocalyptic, zombie-ridden, sunless, leathery society** we've all dreamt of for those five months. If you somehow survive October 21, props to you. I hope it's everything Roland Emmerich imagined.

*because the rapture isn't real.
**feel free to add any of your favorite futuristic movie cliches to that list.

Successful Alcoholics

2011-05-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

This is the new short film from TJ MIller starring TJ Miller and one of my many girlfriends, Lizzy Caplan. It is very good. You should watch it. Warning: It gets sad at the end, but you can figure that out within the first five minutes. It is very sad. It is very funny. You should watch it.

Successful Alcoholics from TJ Miller, Lizzy Caplan & Jordan Vogt-Roberts from Lizzy Caplan

This is a song, apparently.

2011-05-17T15:56:00.001-07:00

This sin't so much a song as it is a collection of repetitive sounds. I really like the part when the music just stops and he repeats whatever it is he's repeating at that point. It's really quality. This video is very similar to the high times pizza party video in that it is only so long, but in both videos it feels like hours have passed from the beginning to the end of the video. Anyway, this video is great, or terrible. Who am I kidding? It's terrible.

Who should win Survivor?

2011-05-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

This season's twist was Redemption Island. The idea was, once someone is voted out they are sent to Redemption Island. The two outcasts would then duel. Eventually, someone would be put back in the game. Matt was sent to RI very early on in the season. He defeated everyone up to the merge, at which point he was put back in the game. He then came up with this plan to get Bawston Rawb out. He then decided he was too loyal and told Rob about the plan and aligned himself with Rob. Rob then decided to get his entire alliance to turn against Matt and send him back to RI. Rob's plan was successful. Matt has been on Redemption Island ever since. So who's left?

ON ISLAND

BAWSTON RAWB

This is his 4th time on the show. He first was on in the fourth season, aka "Old School Survivor." He was later on Survivor: All Stars and Heroes vs. Villains. He is very well liked and is probably the favorite to win. Unfortunately for him, he ahs made an alliance with almost anyone on the show, as well as everyone still on the island. The reason Russell lost in his first two seasons was because the jury was spiteful. That is probably what's going to happen to Rob if he makes it to the finals.

PHILLIP

Phillip is the resident crazy person. At one point in the show, someone called him crazy and Phillip accused him of being racist. But he wasn't being racist, Phillip is just crazy. He says that if he makes it to the finals, he has a fool-proof plan to beat Rob. I really hope he wins, or at least makes it to the finals because he is great.

NATALIE

Natalie is 19 years old and Rob's closest alliance. He's promised to take her to the final two, and has stuck by his word throughout the game. She hasn't pissed anyone off too much, so she might win. But, she's also uninteresting.

ASHLEY

Ashley is the other girl in the game. She was going to be voted out in the last episode, but won immunity. She is also fairly uninteresting, but won't win because no one really cares about her.

ON REDEMPTION ISLAND

GRANT

Grant was voted out because Ashley won immunity. If he makes it back in the game, he has a pretty good chance of winning.

MATT

Matt has spent a majority of the game on redemption island. Everyone was rooting for him in the first half of the season when he was defeating everyone. When he came back into the game only to allow Rob to vote him out again. I really hope he doesn't get back in the game. He does not deserve to win. He was voted out twice, has done nothing strategic, and simply skated his way through the game.

ANDREA

Andrea is going to lose the next RI duel or whatever. I'm not too concerned about her.

MIKE

Mike was a victim of Rob's takeover. He is the last person from the Zapatera tribe. There was nothing he could do to avoid getting voted out and can now only hope he wins the probably final duel (and any subsequent duels).

I have no idea how they are going to wrap this up. There are eight people left only two hours left of show. The finale airs tonight at 8 on CBS.

Brief Turtleneck & Chain Track by Track review

2011-05-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

1. We're Back!

Obviously great. So funny and great. Need I say more?

2. Mama

The one problem with Lonely Island is sometimes they can't keep sketches from songs and vice versa. This song would make a really funny sketch, but as a song, it's kind of boring.

3. I Just Had Sex

One great thing Lonely Island does is get really big music stars to make these stupid songs. Akon shines, as does Lonely Island.

4. Jack Sparrow

Such a great idea for a song that is very well executed.

5. Attracted To Us

The music in this song is kind of annoying, but the lyrics are hilarious.

6. Rocky

This sounds kind of like what would happen if Flight of the Concords did a Beastie Boys song, which is basically what The Lonely Island is. I really like how this song tells a story.

7. My Mic (interlude)

Really basic, really funny.

8. Turtleneck & Chain

Title track! Snoop Dogg! Greatness!

9. Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie & Clyde

Shy Ronnie has always been great. Rihanna is also really cool. Yeah! This song!

10. Trouble on Dookie Island

From what I could gather, they are running from the cops, and also they are pooping a lot. Great concept! Great song!

11. Falcor Vs. Atreyu (Classy Skit #1)

Good skit. right?

12. Motherlover

Justin Timberlake is amazing. Justin Timberlake hasn't put out an album in 5 years. Since then he has been featured on two Lonely Island songs. Maybe he should get back to making his own music, because it is also good.

13. The Creep

When this premiered on SNL a few months ago I thought it was really funny. But listening to the song, I was really bored. So much of this song relies on the visual gags, which is obviously absent in the song.

14. Watch Me Do Me (Classy Skit #2)

Also, very classy.

15. Threw it on the Ground

This reminds me of "Punching People in the Face while Eating," which was great. It's probably the funniest song so far on the album.

16. Japan

When I saw this song was called "Japan" I thought "I wonder how racist this will be?" Actually, not very. I also thought "How funny is this going to be?" Very. I really hope they make a video for this.

17. After Party

Obviously this song is great, as it begins with a reference to Remix to Ignition, which is probably the best song ever. It also does something Lonely Island is great at. They make these songs that sound really hardcore, but the lyrics are really depressing.

18. No Homo

Great satire of a really stupid phrase.

19. No Homo (outro)

Completely unnecessary? Maybe. Do I care? Nope.

The Killing is now half over and you still haven't watched it

2011-05-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

You should really be watching The Killing. Excuse me, You should be watching AMC's The Killing. Is there anything more obnoxious than on television than how AMC tags all of their shows with the channel's name? (Yes.) The sixth episode of the 13-episode first season aired Sunday night. It was very good! What I love about the show, and what I may have mentioned previously, is how slowly the story crawls along. Is it important that we see an entire phone call between Sarah Linden and her son that doesn't really move the plot forward at all? Yes. Do we need to see Holder smoking at the skate park doing nothing but smoking? Yes. Does it seem like this show is taking forever to make the point? Yep! Each episode is one day. And each new episode is one week after the last week. It seems like Rosie Larson was murdered a month and a half ago, but really it's only been six days. My favorite story line is the one of Rosie's family. Most of it is just long shots of her family members being sad and staring at the milk aisle in the grocery store for prolonged periods of time until they're interrupted by the increasingly uninteresting Councilman who's running for mayor. Yeesh. In the beginning I understood why he was a part of the show. His campaign was linked to the murder, but that's been resolved. Unfortunately for him, the main suspect is now believed to be a good friend of him. Unfortunately for us, the guy playing the politician is one of the worst actors on the show. The story lines for him and his campaign aren't very interesting. They seem like drama for drama's sake. Where as the story of the Larsen's depression and the ongoing search for suspects by the detectives are both very interesting. I like the police side of the story. Looking for clues, interviewing people. What I love most about the show though is, as previously mentioned, the Larsens. Rosie Larsen, the murder victim, had two brothers and her parents, oh and an aunt. They are all dealing with it in different ways. The mom (who is way too hot to be in mourning) stays quiet most of the time, but lashes out on occasion. Stan, the dad and maybe my favorite character, is stoic through most of the tragedy. When his sons want chocolate chip pancakes, he is sure to make them chocolate chip pancakes. But, he obviously can't keep his cool, collective nature up, but he can't also show that he's vulnerable. In Episode 5 he stops at a gas station and breaks down crying in the bathroom. It's amazing. We just have one static shot of Stan Larsen crying and falling to the ground, only to then get back up and drive him and his wife home as if nothing happened. The two younger brothers of Rosie's are very interesting. They don't really know how to feel, so they take t out on each other. They call each other "stupid" and "idiot," which Stan doesn't appreciate. In the latest episode, the family goes to Rosie's funeral. They are all respectful. The younger of the two brothers throws a map to their house in the grave and tells Stan's friend and business partner (who is also a pretty good character) the map is "so Rosie can find us, when she flies over." Everyone at the funeral leaves the grave except the older brother. He sticks around for a bit. He looks in the grass near Rosie's grave and sees a millipede crawling around. He then steps on the millipede. I'm really surprised he killed the millipede. Sure, it was an act of frustration, but I would think he's more sympathetic about death since his sister died. That bug has brothers, and parents, too, probably. I'm no scientist. A child would certainly think so. And I think a child exposed to death at such an early age would be more protective of all living things. But also, he's still pretty pissed about the whole His sister being murdered thing. He may have also been protecting his sister. He seems to be the more mature of the two boys, who I'm guessing are probably about 10 and 8. I can't seem to find anything on their ages, but I'm also not looking that hard. The point of this post is that The Killing is very good if you're willing to sit through very drawn-out episodes. The second point of this is that the characters, for the most part, are great.

So, Michael Scott's last episode was great

2011-04-29T09:02:00.001-07:00

Wasn't it fantastic? They did a great job with that. Instead of giving you all my long opinion on it, I'd just say: watch it! It's so good. I might watch it again it was so good. Also, Community and Parks & Rec were great. (Was it just me or was 30 Rock really off? The AV Club gave it a good rating, but I thought it was really bland and unfunny.)

The Office - This is going to hurt like a motherfucker

2011-04-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

Remember March 24, 2005? I had just had my 14th birthday and The Office was premiering. We were introduced to a number of characters. Now it's April 2011 and we are gearing up to say goodbye to one of the most beloved television characters of all time, which is strange. It's not strange that Steve Carrell is leaving, his contract is up and he thinks he's done all he can with the character. Fair enough. It's strange that we've come to love him as much as we do. He was not a likable character in the early seasons of the show. He was offensive and rude and unaware of who inappropriate he was. He was a "friend first, boss second and probably entertainer third." It seemed like he was only interested in being liked. That changed, at least for me, in Booze Cruise. Michael and Jim were talking about Pam and Jim was feeling bad about never being able to be with her because she's engaged. Michael inspires confidence in Jim (and America) by saying "BFD, engaged ain't married." and the sexual tension between Jim and Pam was back on track. JIm and Pam were such an integral part of the show in the beginning, but it's become very obvious that they are not good or interesting people. We made the mistake of thinking they were interesting in seasons 1-3 because they had a good, relatable story. In Koi Pond, which was probably one of my least favorite episodes of the show, Jim is caught letting Michael fall into a koi pond. My first thought when that happened was "But Jim's such a nice guy." He isn't though. While his pranks in the early season are funny and he's a good straight man to the increasingly over-the-top Dwight, he does not like his position at Dunder-Mifflin. "If this were my career, I'd have to throw myself in front of a train." Well, Jimothy, you have advanced in this company and worked there for at least seven years. Now, being married and a father, Jim has come to accept his job as a career, as predicted by Ryan was back when. "Jim has worked at the same place for five years. Jim eats the same ham and cheese sandwich everyday for lunch. I don’t know. If I were a betting man, I’d say he will have a fun weekend in Philadelphia." In the most recent episode, in which Erin (who is the greatest addition to the cast since Andy Bernard!) contemplates breaking up with Gabe. When Jim leaves the conversation he says "I'm sorry. That just... wasn't interesting to me." Pam isn't as rude a person as Jim, she's just boring. That's not to say I don't like these characters, they're nice when they need to be, but The Office isn't Parks & Rec. I don't get excited whenever any and all characters walk on screen. Instead it's like "Oh, it's Jim. Oh, it's Pam. Oh, It's Dwight." I don't expect anyone to be hilarious whenever they're in a scene. Except Creed, but he very rarely has lines. What's great about The Office is the interactions between the characters. Obviously, the early seasons were full of pranks between Jim and Dwight, but as Jim matured he didn't do that as much. He is now more interested in providing for his child and boring wife. There is a quote on Pam's wikipedia page from Jenna Fischer about her audition; "Don't make yourself all pretty, and dare to bore me with your audition. Those were her words. Dare to bore me." Maybe she's become more interesting in the last seven seasons, but I can't think of anything she's done that is terribly memorable. The Finer Things club was a collaboration between her, Toby and Oscar. Her marriage to Jim was more Jim's doing than her's. He planned the secret boat trip and it was the rest of The Office that danced down the aisle. Once again, I don't hate her or Jim, they play very good straight men, but the show is interesting without them. But is it interesting without Michael? I think it can be. My favorite thing with Michael was his father/daughter relationship with Erin. Erin is so great, as previously mentioned. Her imminent story line with Andy is bound to happen next season, as they've been hinting at it this entire season. Early in this season there was a great scene with Erin and Andy after his performance in Sweeney Todd. I can't remember exactly what they talked about, but it was nice to see the chemistry between them. Andy is also great. When he first came on it was very strange to have this new character (and Karen) it took me a while to accept him. I thought he was just some lame dude coming onto the show so late in it's run, back when three seasons was as many seasons as the Office had had. Now we're almost done with season 7 and he is one of the best characters. Andy is great because he can be both the straight man and the cooky character. Darryl is also great, as is Creed, as is Angela, as is Phyllis, as is Stanley, as is Toby, as is Kelly, as is Ryan, as is Meredith, as Dwight can be. It would be nice to see someone from The Office be promoted. My vote would go to Jim because they've been teasing the fact that Jim will never leave since the very beginning.

Jim: I don't think I'll be here in 10 years,
Michael: That's what I said... that's what she said.
Jim: That's what who said?
Michael: I never know - I just say it. I say stuff like that, y'know to lighten the tension. When things sort of get hard.
Jim: That's what she said.
Michael: Hey - nice! Really good! Bravo my young ward.

Kelly has also been talked about as Michael's replacement. Which would be awesome. More Kelly = More Laffs. I think Andy would also be a good fit, personality wise. Both he and Michael really want to be liked, are upbeat and inept at being in charge. Although, Michael got better as the show went on and we don't really know about Andy's managerial skills. If they were to bring in someone new, I wouldn't mind seeing Will Ferrell stick around. He's been pretty good so far. I'm interested in seeing him without Michael. There will be at least one episode with Deangelo and without Michael. If Will Ferrell doesn't stay on, I'd like to see Ricky Gervais come in as David Brent. While the cold open with him and Michael Scott was nice, there was practically no substance there. It was just riffing, until David Brent said "Do you have any job openings?" Then it seemed like he might come back at some point. Apparently he is. All of the news sources are saying that David Brent will return in one of the final episodes of this season, probably for an interview, which would be a great scene if that's all it is. If no big names are becoming the new boss (and if there even is going to be a new boss) a correspondant from The Daily Show would be good. It seems like a natural progression. Steve Carrell came from The Daily Show to The Office gracefully, as did Ed Helms. Perhaps Jason Jones? I'd also like to note that I accurately guessed Michael's departure way back when in July of last year. Although, I did guess, like, four scenarios. Shut up! Nobody asked you! Here's my great assumption.
Anyway, I'm probably going to cry when Michael finally leaves.

So, the Killing, right?

2011-04-18T11:59:00.001-07:00

Have you guys been watching The Killing? It's AMC's newest series and it's really good. It's not quite as good as Med Man or Breaking Bad or Mad Men. But it is better than The Walking Dead. What? Yeah.
But what is the pacing like? Is shit always happening? No! It's actually very slowly paced and the episodes always end on a cliffhanger! It's like if Freaks and Geeks and LOST had a tv baby. The show follows three story lines surrounding the same event, Rosie Larsen's murder. Now you see, Rosie was a 17-year-old girl. Her parents loved her and was fairly popular at school. One day, she disappears. No one knows where she is. We follow the story of her parents dealing with their loss, the police investigating the murder and a mayoral candidate. Rosie Larsen's body was found in a campaign car of Darren Richmond, who is running to become mayor. He was well received by the people and it looked like he was going to win the election, until the dead girl's body was found in the trunk of one of his cars. The car was stolen, but he's still thought of as the bad guy by the citizens. We also follow Sarah Linden, who had every intention of moving to LA with her teenage son and fiancee, until this case came up. Now she's stuck with this new guy, investigating the murder. The new guy is Stephen Holder, whose first day was the same day as Linden's supposed last day. She now has to finish the case with Holder before she can leave. I won't divulge anything else about the show other than it is very good and you should watch it. Also, the theme song is really good and I really like the art in the opening/promos for the show.

Just like Rebecca Black, I love The Weeknd

2011-03-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

The internet's been blowing up about this band/music project thing called "The Weeknd." When I say the internet's been blowing up, I mean that pitchfork gave it the "best new music" tag, Donald Glover posted the download link to "House of Balloons" (which I assume to be the debut album) on his tumblr and apparently Drake has been raving about this guy on twitter. "This guy" is named Abel Tesfaye and is 20 years old! I am 20 years old and I still haven't taken the internet by storm and I've been posting hard on the internet for four plus years. Apparently the cool new thing in music is to be really young and make really great, interesting music. See: OFWGKTA (that stands for "Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All," mom. Don't look them up, mom. You'll hate them, mom. Everyone else though, download away. Watch there performance on Fallon and the Woodie Awards and be blown away.) So what's this weeknd thing all about? Firstly, you must understand, It isn't The Weekend, it is The Weeknd. Great! But what does it sound like?! Only awesome. I went into listening to this with no expectations. I had read nothing about The Weeknd, nor listened to anything by them. I downloaded it and was like "I really need to listen to that." I finally started listening to "House of Balloons" tonight, and let me tell you. Super-duper-great! All of these vague, positive adjectives! But what does it sound like?! Well, you know what popular R&B from a few years back sounds like? Good. And you know what Justin Timberlake's solo work sounds like? Good. And you know what the genre chillwave is? Good. (I'm not a huge fan of the last one, but I do like some of the bands that could be described as such.) You take all that and mix it together and make it sound really good and that's The Weeknd. You could also describe it as R. Kelly, but without the rape. There are some things I don't love about it. Sometimes his voice is auto-tuned. And sometimes they do that thing where they take the singers voice and drop it really low for a couple seconds and the bring it back to the normal pitch. I don't understand the appeal of that effect, but it sells. I wish I could say it works in this, but it doesn't. It's incredibly distracting and doesn't sound good. The major problem with this entire record is a lot of the songs deteriorate into echoey repetition of the singer "Oooing" nicely and the same drumbeat over and over. It isn't a huge problem though. It's all very well put together and a solid record. DOWNLOAD IT. Overall, I think pitchfork accurately rated it with an 8.5/10.

My So-Called Life: Episode 1

2011-03-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was this show called "My so-called life." I didn't watch it when it originally aired because I was two years old. Now I am 20 years old and have heard great things about the show, so I've finally watched the first episode. The show is a "teen-drama" from the 90's about a girl in high school who is bored with her life. The premise is fairly similar to Freaks & Geeks, which is one of my favorite shows. However, Freaks & Geeks aired in '99 and took place in the '80s. My So-Called Life was shot, and as far as I can tell, takes place in the early 90's. Watching this show nearly 20 years after it aired, it feels like a period piece, exploiting 90's fashion and lingo. But it isn't, people really did wear half-shirts and say things like "Wicked" back then.
Netflix had guessed I would give the show 4.2 stars out of 5. I thought for sure I would like the show, but early on in the first episode I thought the main character was really annoying and complain-y. It was obvious that you were supposed to like her and feel her pain of her boring life in boring high school. I was never a huge fan of high school. I thought it was fairly boring for the most part, but I also don't think it was borintersting (made up word) enough to make a tv show about it. I'm all about melancholy in my teen dramas, but this just seemed to be way too invested in that idea. As I watched the rest of the episode, I found a lot of things I really liked and decided I really liked this show.
Claire Danes plays Angela, a sophomore who is totally bored with her life as an A student (it's never mentioned that she's an A student, but there is one scene where she's hanging out in the bathroom with her new, cool friends and the bell rings and she runs off). She starts hanging out Rayanne Graff, because she "thought it would be fun." And oh is she in for a treat. Rayanne and her gay friend, Rickie, help Angela dye her hair. When she meets her mom with the new hair and her new friends her mom is thrown for a loop. From then on she and her mom continue to butt heads. That is one thing I really like about this show. The relationships between Angela and her mom and Angela and her dad are fantastic. I'm really looking forward to seeing their relationships progress. (note: This show only lasted one season, and I know that.) There is one scene in which her dad catches Angela coming out of the shower with a towel, and her dad is flabbergasted. Her narration explains that her dad feels awkward about "her breasts," as she puts it. She explains that she and her dad used to be very close. Angela, Rayanne and Rickie go to this club because Angela's crush is going to be there. As they're waiting to get in, Rayanne and Angela get drunk. These two guys start hitting on the girls, but one of them decides they're too young, while the other guy throws Rayanne against a truck and molests her. Angela says in her narration that something was finally happening, but "it was too actual." Angela pulls the guy off her. Some cops come up and put the girls in a patrol car and drive them home. As Angela's getting into the car Jordan, Angela's crush, sees her and says "Hey, I know that girl" to his friends. Angela smiles because she thought she was invisible to him. When Angela gets home her neighbor, Brian, who is kind of a friend, helps her out of the car. They walk around the corner and see Angela's dad with a women who isn't his wife. Angela is so surprised. She stumbles backward. She starts running down the sidewalk and falls down a few times. Brain helps her up. They talk about her crush on Jordan briefly and Brian is obviously jealous. Angela goes home and apologizes to her mom about her hair "and everything." She falls asleep in her mother's arms and it's very nice.
So, this show is pretty good, or at least the first episode is. I'll continue to watch it, I may even post reviews and recaps of each episode if I feel so inclined. Who knows? I don't.

Hey you guys!

2011-03-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

The only reason The Real World exists is for drunken rampages, and I am okay with that!

2011-03-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

As you recall, Adam is a terrible drunk person and also a major douche. He likes to smash things when he's drunk. It's cool though. He and Naomi, who you may remember from the first two episodes as being nearly non-existant, go down to the club. Adam gets super-drunk again and takes his shirt off. He hijacks the dj booth and is escorted out of the club. Yeah! This again! He comes home and hears Leroy talking about him. Leroy is saying things like "Adam only cares about himself" and "He doesn't care at all what he does." Adam hears him talking and decides the logical solution is to throw a beer bottle on the floor. You're a good person! Leroy and Adam nearly get in a fight, but Leroy walks away. Adam obviously won that confrontation. The roommates get their assignment the next day. They are working with the casino! The same casino they live in, which is also the same casino they party in. No big deal, they totally didn't get the worst location in Real World history. That would be Chicago, I hope you guys enjoy your 6.9 square miles of Lake Michigan! Just kidding, I like Chicago. Their first task is to help Carey Hart, the former Mr. P!nk, with some motorcross thing. Whatever, uninteresting. Leroy and Adam were put on a team together, or something. I just know neither of them were happy about it. Adam may have gotten drunk again, or maybe this was the first time he got drunk, either way, he finally opens up to Nany about being in Juvie, Juvy? Juvy. She's is so glad he finally opened up, but still wants him to talk to everyone else. The next morning, Mike, aka Mike mike, is talking to Adam and Leroy about how his parents went to jail when he was really young. Adam relates to Mike mike and tells him about his time in juvy. Leroy doesn't care though. He still finds Adam rude and obnoxious. That night, while Adam is drunk, Leroy is doing a confessional. Adam comes to the door and wants to talk to him. Adam tries to explain himself, but Leroy's still upset. The next day they have a good talk and are bros again. Oh, also, Dustin and Heather finally had sex. So, there's that.

The first two episodes of The Real World 25

2011-03-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

You may notice I've ceased recapping Jersey Shore and Survivor, because nothing has been happening in Jersey Shore and I don't think anyone cares about Survivor who reads this blog. I'm totally willing to bring it back. Write all over my facebook wall so I look popular.

ANYWAY

The Real World is now two episodes in. I decided not to immediately recap the first episode, because it's always pretty uninteresting. I'll just recap both episodes in one run-on sentence like they're the same episode. The roommates are as follows, Mike, who is very devout. He just lost his virginity about a month before coming to the show. Nany, which is pronounced like the bread, not the occupation. She's a very pretty girl, as it is a requirement to get on the show. Adam recently graduated from college. He and Nany hit it off immediately. You should know though, Nany has a boyfriend. The two of them have been dating for six years. Nany is 21. Leroy is the chill black guy on the show. Dustin is charming and southern. Heather is charming and southern (maybe), and a cute tiny girl. And finally we come to Naomi, who is just kind of there. Nany makes a point that she and her boyfriend are very serious, even though everyone else in the house is single. She tells Naomi that she and her boyfriend are at the point in their relationship where if they take a break, they're going to break up. Whatever that means. She says that because she's attracted to Adam. Adam is also attracted to Nany. Both of them are the worst. They are tied for the worst. When Nany calls her boyfriend she says "So, this guy here is attracted to me." And her boyfriend, very logically, says "Well, yeah. I'm not surprised. You're a good-looking girl." Then she gets really offended that he's not really offended. Then they shout at each other and she hangs up the phone. Elsewhere, Dustin and Mike are talking about who the hottest roommate is. They both say Heather, fair choice. But they've forgotten that Naomi wears half shirts! half shirts! Really, none of them are breathtakingly gorgeous, they're all just slightly more attractive than average. Dustin says that he falls in love easily. He doesn't say that he used to be a porn star, but he was, according to the wikipedia page for this season. He and Mike decide that "you don't shit where you eat." They're bros. But, Dustin eventually gives into temptation, as does Heather, who had the same philosophy, and the two hook up. Adam continues to hit on Nany and is really annoying about it. He says that he wants to marry her. When they go to the club that night, Adam brings home some girls. Adam thinks Nany is jealous, but Nany seems more confused because Adam said he wouldn't bring home any girls and would only concentrate on her. They go to lunch the next day and Adam tells her that last night was first time he ever brought a girl home like that. He also tells her that he is really shy around girls, which Nany believes is bullshit, and probably is. Adam goes on a date with the girl he brought home and proceeds to tell her that he's really shy around girls, and has no game at all. The roommates go the club again. Once there, Adam starts drinking. Nany is upset because she can't flirt with all za boys. Leroy comes over and says "You're in Vegas, you should have fun." And she dances the night away. Adam continues drinking. He tells Nany that he's drunk after one shot. Maybe he shouldn't drink an entire bottle of Grey Goose, but he does. He gets drunk and belligerent. A bouncer comes up to him and grabs his arms. His solution is to start kicking. Another bouncer comes up to him grabs his legs. But he had a fool proof plan! The bouncers bring him back up to the penthouse. Mike and Dustin see him and are like "What's going on?" Adam kicks the door shut and runs around. He grabs a glass vase and throws it to the ground. He looks at Mike and Dustin and asks "Where's Leroy? Is he getting it in?!" He is! Nany and the girls come back and Nany puts Adam to bed as he murmurs "Why does Nany have a boyfriend?" over and over. When Adam wakes up the next morning, everyone tells him he needs to apologize to the hotel, but Adam won't have any of it. Everyone but Dustin goes to Subway. After Subway, they play Truth -or- Dare. Leroy dares Heather to make out with Mike. But, Mike feels really bad about it. He doesn't want to upset Dustin. They make out anyway and Mike tells Leroy that Dustin will be pissed. When they get back, Leroy tells Dustin right away. Dustin seems fine with it, but after he sits with it for a while, he gets pissed. He tells Mike that if it had been reversed, Dustin wouldn't even think of doing that. Mike points out that 1. It was a game and 2. Dustin does not own Heather. Mike and Dustin were the two closest bros in the house, but not anymore it would seem. Heather is simply sitting in the girls' room with Nany and Naomi and says "It was just a kiss. Can't everyone just get over it?" So far, this season is great. Next week Adam is going to get super drunk again and cause a scene, even though he promised the hotel manager he wouldn't.

The ultimate guide to podcasts worth listening to

2011-03-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

The original plan of this post was to shame you into watching Parenthood, but then I decided to make a list of Podcast's you should listen to instead. You should still watch Parenthood though. Dedicate all of your free time this week to catching up. New episode a week from tonight. But Jake, can't you just write two posts? Shut up, this ain't yo' blog!

Comedy Death Ray Radio: Hosted by Scott Aukerman (or Hot Saucermann or a number of other fictional names), Comedy Death Ray is about an hour and a half, weekly show. Scott Aukerman welcomes comedians and actors to his show as well as a number of hilarious characters. New episodes: Mondays. ~90 minutes

Doug Loves Movies: Previously called "I Love Movies," Doug Benson brings three friends to the UCB theater in LA to talk about movies and play the most fun game ever "The Len Maltin game" New episodes: Fridays ~45 minutes

How Did This Get Made?: Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukos talk about their favorite bad movies every other week. New episodes: Tuesdays ~30 minutes

Kool Thingzz Podcast: This is our podcast! It's two podcasts in one! The Kool Thingzzz podcast, which is JakenThom (and sometimes others) discussing pop culture and whatnot. PLUS, the regularly produced Bad Movie Night, in which JakenThom bring on their friends to talk about (hopefully) laughably bad movies. (We are always accepting requests to be on and movie suggestions. Hit us up on facebook/twitter/tumblr/blogger!) New episodes: Tuesdays, or wednesdays if we forget to upload them. ~however long we feel like it (probably 30 - 60 minutes, but no guarantees)

Mike Detective: An episodic podcast! Mike Detective is an "unlicensed, uninsured private eye." He is currently on a mission to solve a missing persons case. The show is full of pop culture references. One episode was almost entirely U2 references. New episodes: Tuesdays ~7 minutes

The Nerdist: Chris Hardwick, Jonah Ray and Matt Mira talk about themselves and interview comedians/actors/artists and are great in every way! New episodes: w/ guests: mondays, hostful: fridays ~60 minutes

The Pod F. Tompkast: Paul F Tompkins puts on more or less a variety show. He opens each show with him rambling over serene piano. He plays parts of this live show in LA, has conversations with Jen Kirkman and does sketches with his impressions. It may be my favorite podcast, maybe! new episodes: first of each month ~60-90 minutes

Sklarbro Country: Jason and Randy Sklar host yet ANOTHER earwolf podcast. This one's about sports, but has a very similar tone as Comedy Death Ray and Nerdist. New episodes: fridays ~80 minutes

Too Beautiful to Live: I wrote a big long piece about how much I loved this show a couple weeks ago. Basically, Luke Burbank and Jen Andrews (and sometimes Sean Detore) talk about their lives and the news and pop culture and it's really nice and inviting.

I know Thomas also listens to quite a few of these, but also some others that I don't listen to. Maybe he'll post his later, maybe not. Who knows? We don't talk.

As expected, the smurfs movie looks terrible.

2011-03-11T13:28:00.001-08:00

OH SHIT! I totally forgot to recap Jersey Shore!

2011-03-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

OH SHIT! I totally forgot to recap Jersey Shore! I'm sure you're all so upset. Let's see if I can remember what happened. As you know Sammi is now back and all the girls are so excited for "Single Sammi" which I'm pretty sure just means "Slutty Sammi." Ronnie's pretty upset though. He was just getting over her and now she's back! But they have a heart to heart and now they're friends! They and Snooki create the sober team, or something like that. Everybody else goes out and gets druuuuuuuunk. The Sober Team decide to prank Mike. It is a goooood prank. They take a bunch of cheese and put it under Mike's sheets. When he brings a girl home that night to fuuuuuuuuuuuuu he can't do it. Because she smells like cheese! HAHAHA! He has to kick her out because she smells like cheese! HAHAHA! That prank went off without a hitch. He didn't bother cleaning his sheets, he just sprayed it with Axe. Snooki is gettin all hot and bothered when it comes to Vinny. She tells him not to bring a girl home and he promises not to, but he does. UGH MEN! Snooki is so upset. The next day she cries a lot and Vinny tries to console her. Man, the sexual tension is killing me. Oh, also, there was this three episode arc about their toilet being clogged. It was totally uninteresting so I pretended it didn't happen. ANYWAY, The Real World: Las Vegas starts this week and it looks AWESOME. Drunken rampages abound!

RUSSSSSELLLLLLL

2011-03-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

Redemption Island is so crazy! Actually, just kidding. It's pretty much just a challenge slightly changed for single players, rather than a team. In the first redemption island challenge, two people from each tribe went to watch the duel! The orange team sent the two blonde girls, one of whom was shacking up with Matt. The purple team sent the Gary Hogaboom/Titus Welliver hybrid, I think his name is Steve, and this guy who might be named David. Matt and Francesca/Fransesqua have to build a long stick out of shorter sticks and grab three keys. The three keys then unlock three locks. Once all the locks are unlocked, they have to run through the now open door. Fransesqua destroys early on in the challenge, but struggles on the third key. Matt catches up and wins the challenge, sending Fransesqua home. We will never see the Fransesqua/Phillip showdown we were all hoping for. "Steve" and "David" decide to tell Russell that Francesca won. Or as "Steve" put it "The black chick beat that blonde guy." Russell says "oh, okay." Then walks away. "Steve" then tells the rest of his tribe that it was actually Matt who won. GREAT SCHEMING! "Steve" seems to be becoming the leader of the purple team, which is fine. He's a likable guy, I just wish he hadn't set his sights on Russell, because Russell's my favorite. "Steve" decides to throw the challenge. I understand why he did it, he really wants Russell gone and that's the easiest way to do it. But, throwing challenges is dumb and I hate it always. I don't care what the reason is, it's never worth it and it isn't fun to watch. AND THEY THREW QUITE POSSIBLY THE BEST CHALLENGE EVER! I think they first did this challenge in Heroes vs. Villains. It's the one where three people are tied to a wheel and dunked under water and have to spit the water into a bucket to release a ball, and ultimately do a puzzle. Because this is Survivor and every challenge ends in doing a puzzle. The purple team successfully throws the challenge and Russell is pisssssssed. The orange team goes back to camp and everyone starts looking for the hidden immunity idol clue. No one can find it. Bawston Rawb notices that the chair they won is lopsided when Phillip is sitting in it. He asks Phillip to move to the other chair, because the one he's in is broken, BUT ACTUALLY IT'S THE CLUE! Bawston Rawb grabs the clue and runs into the jungle and reads it to himself. The clue is incredibly vague and Bawston Rawb says one of the greatest lines in Survivor history, "The clue could have said 'the idol is somewhere.'" Back at the purple team, Russell and Stephanie are scheming with their third in command. They've figured out that it's six vs. three. Russell, Stephanie and Blonde girl vs. Everyone else. Russell asks Stephanie if Julie would be a good addition. So, Stephanie talks to her and they seem to come to an agreement. Russell, Stephanie, blonde girl and Julie (who I didn't know existed until this episode) will vote Ralph, and Steve's six, which he believes Julie is a part of, will split the vote Russell and Stephanie. They go to tribal council and Russell Stephanie and Blonde girl vote for Ralph, but Julie decides to stay with Steve's alliance and the vote comes out a 3-3-3 tie. Stephanie, Russell and Ralph aren't allowed to vote. The rest of them go back to vote and everyone but blonde girl votes for Russell. NOOOOO!!!! Russell is sent to Redemption Island. This is the first time, in the three seasons he's been on the show, he's ever been voted out. And "[he does] not like it." After Russell leaves, Stephanie turns to Julie and says "Storm's a coming." I don't know what she's planning, because she was down six to three within her own tribe, now it's just her and blonde girl versus Steve's six. I guess she'll have to use her charm and good looks, which she definitely has one of.

Jersey Shore is so much better without Sammi

2011-02-25T09:54:00.000-08:00

You guys! Jersey Shore is so great when the plot is minimal! Sammi is gone, and Ronnie is pretty upset about it, but everything else is great! Well, other than Snooki and Deena. But I don't have a problem with J-Woww. She doesn't really do anything. And MVP is really funny. Ronnie is really upset and calls his dad, who comes down and hangs out with Ronnie. They have a nice lunch and his Dad convinces Ronnie not to leave. Yeah! Ronnie's great when Sammi's not around. While everyone is out, Snooki and Deena decides that the best prank in the world would be to stick marshmallows all over the house. Then they decide to leave so no one asks them about the marshmallows. Great plan. The Situation is on the phone and Snooki and Deena need a cab, so The Situation calls them a cab. The girls want to go a place called Jenk's, but Mike tells the cab to send them to Times Square. Legitimately good prank. So they get in the cab and think they're going to Jenk's. When they first ask the cabbie why they're going on the highway he says there's a lot of traffic. Then they keep going on the highway and the girls don't ask to turn the cab, they just yell "Where are we going?! OHMIGAWD!" and are really annoying. Back at the house, The guys decide to go to Rivoli's and Vinny, I think, sings "Rivoli's, Rivoli's, where you can get Cannolis!" Mike takes forever to get ready, so they leave without him. When he comes downstairs, J-woww tells him that they left. He decides to just go get a feast for himself and eat alone, but pretending his housemates are still there. He says things like "Can you pass the salt, Vinny? Thanks." It's pretty amusing. Snooki and Deena come back and are equally as annoying as they usually are and Mike's like "Sorry, I thought you could turn around whenever you wanted." The guys get back and they make drinks in the kitchen. As Ronnie's blending and everyone's laughing, Sammi walks in. Pauly says "Hey Sammi" and Ronnie looks up and escapes out the door next to him. Sammi, I'm really happy for ya, and Imma let you finish, but this show was much more entertaining when you weren't around.

Survivor: Redemption Island: The Adventures of Phillip

2011-02-24T10:10:00.000-08:00

As long as Phillip is still in this show, it will be great. However, he's on the orange team, and I support the purple team. That's Russell's team. In the first episode, Russell said he was going to play a different game this season. That was a lie. He quickly picked out his second in command, Stephanie, and in this episode picked his second girl, I-forgot-her-name. He's happy because he's got the numbers necessary to vote out anyone he wants. But that doesn't stop him from going out to find the hidden immunity idol without a clue. As he's running around camp, Ralph, the down-south farmer, is collecting rocks. He passes a tree and sees a rock inside a hole in the tree and grabs it. As it turns out, it's actually the hidden immunity idol. lololol Back at the orange team, Phillip has promised Bawston Rawb that he has his vote. Bawston Rawb's like "alright, that's great." and walks away from Crazy Phillip. The two tribes meet at the challenge. Ralph hands Jeff Probst the immunity idol and says "We'll get it back." Which gives Phillip's craziness another moment to shine. Jeff Probst asks Phillip if Ralph saying they're going to win generates any sort of competitive force inside him. And Phillip says "Yes. It releases the animal inside me." Then he growls or something. So the challenge starts and my purple team wins. I would go into detail about the challenge, but really, who cares? Matt, from the orange team walks over to the purple team and congratulates them on winning, which pisses Bawston Rawb off. He creates this mastermind plan to vote off Matt, to break up his budding romance/alliance with Andrea and flush the idol from Kristina. Bawston Rawb tells his alliance, which is everyone except Kristina and Phillip, that they're splitting the vote. Girls vote Kristina, guys vote Phillip. "Keep it easy." Someone points out. But, that's not what's happening at all. They're actually voting out Matt! Oh man! Back on the royal purple team, Russell has picked up the reward basket from the challenge with the sole intention of finding the hidden idol clue. Little does he know, Ralph's already found the idol. Russell finds the clue and hides it in his pocket. He and his girls read the clue in secrecy. They get water while they're reading it and Ralph approaches them. He asks Russell if there was a clue and Russell deny deny denies. Then he says things like "This is how the game is played." and "You're either with me or you're against me." I really would like to see Russell win, because I think the only reason he didn't win was out of spite from the jury. So, I'm rooting for him this year, but he's making it very hard to do so. Back at the orange team's camp, Phillip asks Bawston Rawb who he should vote for. Bawston Rawb says that it isn't decided yet and he will let him know when it is. Eventually Bawston Rawb comes up with this master plan to touch the shoulder of the person Phillip should vote for while they're at tribal council. Phillip thinks this is a great idea. They go to tribal council and Jeff Probst asks Phillip about his animal comment at the challenge. Phillip then goes into this explanation of why he's a silver-back gorilla and a lion. Phillip was told by Bawston Rawb to act like he's the one going home. And Phillip is pretty good at it. He admits his mistake at the challenge and basically offers himself up for voting out. He says that if he does end up going to redemption island, he will not lie down and die because he will meet his nemesis. They go to vote and Bawston Rawb rubs Kristina's back and Kristina's like "thx/wut?" and Phillip knowingly nods. They all vote and Jeff Probst starts his "If anyone has the hidd-" and Kristina gets up and hands him the idol. She's now safe. Jeff Probst reads the votes and the blindside of Matt is successful. Matt's sent to Redemtion Island to a very surprised Fransesqua.

Too Beautiful To Live

2011-02-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

So, there's this podcast called TBTL I've been listening to since June-ish of '09. It used to be a radio show on a news talk station in Seattle, but was cancelled in September of '09. Since being kicked off the radio, it has been a daily podcast and is totally my favorite. Since listening Luke, Jen and Sean (people you will come to love if you start listening) have become my friends, even if I've never met them in real life. Jen "Flash" Andrews was the producer when the show was on the radio. Luke is the host and Sean was the engineer. Late in 2009 Jen went on a US Road trip with her husband, Jason, and dog Mr. Knightly. A few times a week she would call into the show and talk about the little towns she would visit. Her final destination was Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Jason has an architecture project. She's still living there and calls in everyday and quite possibly the nicest lady in the world. Sean Detore is still part of the show, but is not on as often. His appearances on the show are filled with hilarious/terrible puns and jokes. He was recently diagnosed with some disease in which he apparently is unable to stop himself from making the jokes. Luke Burbank is a long-time radio personality. He had a kid when he was 17, who herself is now 17. He frequents Taco Time and drunkenness and tells stories of how he's upset his fiance in the process. The show is usually around an hour long. They talk about the news on occasion, but usually they talk about their drunken "adventures," shame, vanity and bettering their lives. And themselves. They talk about themselves a lot. This one time the talked really in depth about their drinking habits and it was very interesting and not quite as light as most episodes. You may be asking, why write this now if you've been listening to the show for almost two years? Well, this week is the "tbtl-a-thon," which is their fundraiser. They first did it last year when they were unsure on the future of the show. They successfully made it through 2010 and it's now time for the tbtl-a-thon again. This week would be a great week to start listening. Don't try to listen to it from the beginning. The show used to be three hours long every night until it was kicked off the air. This week they have some good themes for each show.

Monday: Listeners Favorite Moments

Tuesday: Self-Aware John Tesh Rip-off

Wednesday: Regrets

Tomorrow: Cooking with Sean Detore

Cooking with Sean Detore is long running segment in which Sean cooks for the team. A couple months ago there was a contest for someone to make a tbtl-themed recipe. The winner was "Tons of effing Risotto," which is a reference to the "Tons of effing sequins" video, a tbtl favorite.

Some other episodes worth listening to are:

Rachel Dratch interview, which went terribly wrong and ended with Rachel Dratch leaving in a huff during a break. It is often mentioned Listen to it here.

Patton Oswalt interview, which also went terribly wrong and is often mentioned. Listen to it here. A major beef was started between tbtl and Patton Oswalt, a beef which Patton Oswalt was mostly unaware of. Luke Burbank ran into Patton Oswalt a few months ago, at Bumbershoot maybe. Patton Oswalt was slowly remembered his interview and asked if Luke was the guy from that nighttime radio show and if he was really rude on it one time. Yes to both.

I would also suggest the Maria Bamford episode. Not so much because it's a fantastic episode of tbtl, but because Maria Bamford is crazy intersting.

The first episode as a podcast with guest Adam Carolla. Listen to it here.

TBTL is fascinating people, in which Luke and Jen interview each other because their offended by Barbara Walters Most fascinating people list. Listen to it here.

I'm posting this because 1. TBTL is a Kool Thing, which is the name of this blog (if you've forgotten) and 2. Ever since the John Tesh episode (yesterday) Luke's been playing Roundball Rock like crazy. AND FOR GOOD REASON BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME! I emailed him about how I never want him to stop playing that song. I also mentioned that I was unable to donate to the show because I don't have money to spare at this time in my life. He emailed me back saying "so glad you are feeling the power of the roundball rock. it is in fact, super-powerful." He then mentioned that I need not worry about donating, which I kind of was because I want this show to be successful, I just need to tell three people about the show. I'll do him better. I'm posting this to my blog, which has 12 followers on blogspot and 80 fans on facebook!

You guys should really listen. I'm sure you'll love it!

Official Website: http://www.tbtl.net

Also, terminology cheat sheet: http://mynorthwest.com/?sid=107409&nid=142

Max Tannone, you guys.

2011-02-23T11:29:00.000-08:00

Max Tannone, who you may know from Jaydiohead and Mos Dub has made something else awesome! It's a mixtape inspired by Moon, which is an awesome movie. It's only five tracks, but it's also pretty cool. You should download it here and listen to it.

All of the Lights video

2011-02-19T12:53:00.000-08:00

So much of this video is great. My biggest problem with this video is that it's only five minutes long. Kanye West should have used this as the storyline for his film instead of Runaway. All of the Lights has much more of a story with it, whereas Runaway, while a great song, was just eight minutes of Kanye West wailing about his problems and very self-indulgent. Anyway, even though Yeezy is making ANOTHER album for this summer, he should stretch this out to another 40-minute film. ALSO THIS VIDEO IS AWESOME!

COLORSCOLORSCOLORSCOLORSCOLORSCOLORSCOLORSCOLORSCOLORSCOLORS

KHAN-YEAH!!

New Radiohead Album - "King of Limbs"

2011-02-18T12:38:00.001-08:00

The biggest problem with Radiohead is that they create seemingly unmeetable expectations for themselves. Another problem with Radiohead is that I can never seem to figure out what my favorite album from them is. In Rainbows is incredible. I could listen to that album whenever I listen to music, or just listen to it all the time without stopping. Much like In Rainbows, Kid A/The Bends/Amnesiac/Hail to the Thief/Ok Computer are amazing. So, naturally, I was really excited when I heard King of Limbs was coming out this Saturday, and even more excited when it was released a day early (today!). I was sure not to listen to it immediately because I was sure it was worth the wait. I burned it to cd and listened to it when I went to get my oil changed today and I was not impressed. It's a serious departure from In Rainbows, which was all over the place when it came to the emotion and intensity of each song. 15 Step was such a powerful start to an incredible album. And it ended with Videotape, which makes me want to cry almost every time I hear it, but I don't because I'm a man. King of Limbs didn't make me want to dance, and didn't make me want to cry. I don't mean to say it's not good. I did like it, there are just so many things that go against it. Obviously, I can't compare it to any of their other albums, because every Radiohead album sounds like no other Radiohead album (which is one of the reasons they're my favorite band.) so I won't do that. But I like my albums to come with some sort of range and this entire album felt very level. It starts with some nice, slightly distorted piano stylings, and quickly transitions into weird effects and whatnot. Which would be fine, but it never seemed to leave that place. I'm going to have to listen to it a few more times before I can judge it accurately. Music is coming off a very dance-y year, with Kanye West, Girl Talk, LCD Soundsystem, Gorillaz, Surfer Blood, Big Boi, Arcade Fire, MGMT, etc. That's why I didn't have Beach House or The Walkman higher on the list, because 2010 was dominated by loud intensity and they weren't that. Maybe this year will have more variety. Let's hope. It is the last full year we have.

Who knew Sammi was such an integral part of Jersey Shore?

2011-02-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

Last night's Jersey Shore was good because there wasn't too much Sammi/Ronnie drama, so nothing really happened, which will make for a short recap, which means I don't have to write too much. (It is all about me!) So, Sammi left last week and now Ronnie's really bummed. He sends Sammi flowers to apologize and to her sister for her birthday. Deena's pretty upset because she thinks people don't like her. One night she gets really drunk at Karma and starts wailing, but Ronnie assures her that everyone likes her. Snooki brings this guy back, who turns out to be the same guy who cock blocked Vinny weeks earlier. You might remember this guy and his uncle coming to pick up this girl from the house. Vinny decides to swap roles with him and kicks the door in when he and Snooki are making out. DONE.

Redemption Island is rather redemptive

2011-02-17T07:20:00.000-08:00

So Guess what! The first episode of Survivor: Redemption island was great! As mentioned yesterday, Bawston Rawb and Russell are back! Yeah! One of those people is my favorite! Before they're introduced, we are introduced to the survivor newbies. They seem like the usual bunch of Survivor contestants. They're standing on the beach and Jeff announces there are two more contestants and Russell and Bawston Rawb climb out of a helicopter. Well, Bawston Rawb climbs out of a helicopter and everyone cheers. Then Russell climbs out and the applauding ceases. Everybody's talking heads say that they're really looking forward to playing with Bawston Rawb. Then there's this one girl, I think her name's Stephanie. She says she tried to give Russell a look like "that girl's got some evil in her." So, Bawston Rawb and Russell draw for tribes. Bawston Rawb goes to the orange tribe and Russell to the purple, with Stephanie. Favorite team? The purple one. Then the two tribes get tools to build their shelter! What? When did they start doing that?! Whatever. As the orange team is building their shelter, Kristina is looking through the toolbox for a hidden immunity idol. Bawston Rawb catches her and they joke about it, but really Kristina's put a big target on herself. Back at the purple team, Russell has taken Stephanie aside and made her his right-hand-hot-young-girl, as he does with someone every time he plays. He ensures the tribe that he's playing a new game this time, which may or may not be true. On the orange team, Kristina is now looking in the jungle for the hidden immunity idol. And she finds it! She kind of hits it off with Francesca, so she tells her about the hidden immunity idol. Kristina has come up with a plan to get Bawston Rawb out immediately. Great idea! He's really good at this game! They go to Phillip, who claims to be a former Special Agent. Phillip reluctantly agrees to go along with their plan, but not before seeing the hidden immunity idol. Elsewhere, Bawston Rawb is formulating a plan with all the young girls on his tribe to vote out either Francesca or Kristina. They're going to split the vote so they can't lose. Bawston Rawb figures Kristina found the idol. The two tribes meet up at the challenge. They must push a bunch of really heavy stairs together and then climb them, then break some ropes to release another set of stairs and at the top of those stairs is a puzzle. The purple team comes out ahead, way ahead. They get to the puzzle before the orange team is breaking their ropes. But, the orange team comes back at the puzzle. It gets really close but the purple team wins! Yeah! So the two teams go back to their respective camps and the orangies do some more strategizing. They go to Tribal Council and it is better than any tribal council from any last season AND THIS IS EPISODE ONE! They all sit down and start talking to Jeff. Jeff asks Kristina about Bawston Rawb's experience in the game and wether it makes him a target or a leader and she gives some answer in which she says something like "and if Rob gets voted out tonight, which he won't..." And let me tell you, that sets Phillip off. Now, Phillip is a former special agent and therefor very loyal and honest (or something, he's kind of crazy.) Phillip starts talking about how he, Kristina and "Francesqua" ("Francesca" Francesca points out.) had planned on voting out Rob. And that Kristina wasn't nervous because she has a hidden immunity idol. Phillip keeps calling Francesca "Francesqua" because he has a dry mouth, but he's getting treatment for it. It's really funny. Jeff asks who Kristina's hidden idol news to and everyone but the aforementioned three raise their hand. Then Rob asks to see the idol. He asks for the idol and tells Kristina that if she gives him the idol she won't be voted out tonight. YOU SHOULD DO THAT KRISTINA! THEY OBVIOUSLY WANT YOU OUT! She declines the offer and they all go vote. Francesca and Kristina change their votes to Phillip because he's annoying, but everyone else sticks to their vote. Jeff comes back with the votes and asks if anyone has the hidden immunity and wants to play it. Everyone looks at Kristina WHO DOESN'T PLAY IT! Whatever. Jeff begins to count the votes, Kristina get three, Phillip gets two and Francesca gets four and is sent to redemption island. Congrats, Kristina. Maybe this will gain you some respect from Rob, or not. Next week we get to see what Redemption island really has to offer!

Survivor 22: Redemption Island

2011-02-16T09:10:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the premiere of the 22nd season of Survivor. It seems like the last one just ended, but whatever. Survivor is by far my favorite reality show (Sorry, the Jersey Shore/the Real World). The premise stays basically the same season to season and the interactions between the people and the alliances formed/broken are are always interesting. The social aspect of the game is always overlooked, and that's my favorite part of the game. That's also the main reason Russell can't win the game. He's a jerk, and I don't think anyone would argue that. He could be a nice guy in real life, but as for survivor, he is despicable. He's also my favorite person ever to be on survivor. As Jef Probst said in this season's preview "Russell is one of the most evil people to ever play survivor, but also one of the most successful." He came in second and third place in the two seasons he was on the show. Now he's back (as is Bawston Rawb) and I couldn't be more excited. It's always a good season when people return (except Fans vs. Favorites. That was stupid). All Stars was great, because it was everyone's favorites back again. And Heroes vs. Villains was the best season since the early years. I'm not sure what the idea behind bring Russell and Bawston Rawb back was, but I like it. I hope they bring someone from an earlier game back every season.
This season is called Redemption Island because the people voted out get a chance to return later in the game, but have to fight the other most recent person voted out, or something, until the merge maybe. I'm not sure exactly how this is going to work. I do know that someone will be on their own island, which should be great because isolation is always interesting.

New podcast!

2011-02-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

Listen to it! It's great!

http://blip.tv/file/4769903

Want to try something crazy?

2011-02-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

The Flaming Lips put out a new song in 12 parts on youtube, because Zakeera was such a good experiment. You're supposed to get twelve people together to play it, but I only have one person right now. So another fun game is to open 12 tabs and press play on each video at different intervals to create a different song.

Valium Times Day Jersey Shore

2011-02-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Last night's NBC sitcoms were all about Valentine's Day, because holidays! I guess that makes this episode of the Jersey Shore the Valentine's episode as well. And Valentine's it was. I often give the Sammi/Ronnie episodes shit because they're incredibly uninteresting and repetitive and uninteresting. But this one was a lot better because Mike got involved. Apparently Mike had promised Ronnie that he had his back. You may know it as "Guy Code." Sammi and Ronnie get into a huge, near breaking point, fight. Later, Sammi and Mike are talking about it. Mike says that their relationship is unhealthy. Ronnie is in the bathroom hearing their conversation and thinks Mike is more committed to girl code than guy code. I think that may be why Sammi and Ronnie are perfect for each other, because they're both crazy people. Ronnie is really upset about Mike going back on his word. Mike's goes to work and Ronnie tells everyone about what he did. When Mike comes back he asks everyone "Want to go get something to eat?" and Ronnie says "Why don't you aks Sammi, she's your friend." Mike's confused and says "We're all friends." Then Ronnie freaks out and starts yelling about Guy Code and Miami and a bunch of other stuff. Who knows/cares? Mike decides the only way to diffuse the situation (but not The Situation) is to apologize. So he does, and it works. The two hug it out and all is well. However, Ronnie and Sammi are still in their perpetual fight. Let me remind of what Sammi said when they most recently broke up: "I will move my stuff out of the room tomorrow." Since then they reconciled or something. But now they've broken up again. Officially. It's over. Really, you guys. Sammi decides to go out with the girls and Ronnie with the guys. Sammi is putting make up on the closet door/mirror and Ronnie walks into the room and asks to open the closet and proceeds to do so. Ronnie asks her to get her shit out of his room and Sammi freaks out "YOUR room?!" Then they get into a huge fight again. Mike is also in the room and runs downstairs to get Pauly D and Vinny's help, because the fight is escalating quickly. Ronnie starts throwing her stuff outside. He picks up her bed and she leaps on it trying to weigh it down. But, Ronnie is the hulk so Sammi's 110 lbs. does almost nothing to weigh down the bed. He throws her mattress outside. Vinny and Pauly D are pulling the star-crossed lovers away from each other. Ronnie is walking backwards away from Sammi and Sammi is trying to run toward Ronnie yelling "I hate you! I hate you!" over and over. But really, when ever she said "I hate you" she really meant "I love you." The guys eventually settle Ronnie down and they go to the club. Snooki and Deena come up with this great idea to get Sammi really hot and go out to the club. While Sammi is getting dressed, Snooki and Deena decide to take Sammi's bed down to the girl's room. Great idea! They can't get the bed downstairs because it's too big and they're too stupid to realize the bed comes apart. Snooki says "The bed saw too big to get down the stairs. It's kind of an analogy of trying to get Vinny's penis in my pinhole." Yep. Thanks Snooki. So Sammi gets all hot and the girls all go out. Sammi comes up with this great idea to hook up with the hottest guy in the club to spite Ronnie. She's "going to get Ronnie back the only way she knows how." But, I thought she hated him. Even though they both bragged to each other about bringing someone home, neither of them did. Ronnie came home first and destroyed Sammi's stuff even further. Sammi came home soon after and found her glasses broken. Mike and Ronnie are sitting outside when Sammi comes outside with her broken glasses, crying. Mike leaves the two to talk to each other and Mike has one of the best lines in the shows history. In a talking head interview he says "Ronnie's talking to me about guy code, but what about basic human code." Strangely profound, Situation. Ronnie tells Sammi that she really embarrassed him at the club and she said that he had embarrassed her plenty of times. Ronnie apologizes about everything he's ever done to hurt her, but she still isn't satisfied. She's just to broken. The next morning she talks to each of the roommates one-on-one about her leaving. When Ronnie asks Vinny what she's talking about he says "It has something to do with packing and it rhymes with... weaving." So Ronnie goes to talk to her and then they cry on each other's shoulder. Multiple times Sammi has told Ronnie he will never be with someone like her, but he will be, always. He just has to look in the mirror. So, Sammi leaves and everything should be good now, right?

Cocaine Pizza? Yes please!

2011-02-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

This video features everyone ever and also is the best!

Early contender for this years (and final) Extra Va Ganza, as next year won't have one, what with the 2012 and all.

Apparently Jersey Shore is required to have at least one Sammi/Sonnie episode per season

2011-02-04T14:38:00.001-08:00

Season 2 of Jersey Shore was by far the worst because a lot of it was about Sammi and Ronnie's budding/crumbling relationship. This episode was all about their relationship. Luckily, the producers of the show let us see three trips to Karma to make up for the fact that Sammi and Ronnie are terrible, uninteresting people. Last week, Ronnie and Sammi seemed to hit rock bottom and are finally rising for the ashes. NOPE! Everything seems fine, everyone in the house is getting hella drunk at Karma. Mike picks up some girl. Snooki hooks up with one of Ronnie's friends. You know, the usual. They all go back to the house. Ronnie drank WAY too much though and is now throwing up in a shopping bag while The Situation is on the other side of the room situating himself with this girl. (ew.) The next morning Ronnie is pooping blood. lolololol But seriously, that's terrible. He goes to the doctor and the doctor's like "You're pooping blood, you shouldn't drink alcohol." and Ronnie's like "OK." Then he and Sammi make bloody poop jokes in the waiting room, after the appointment. Apparently they don't understand what a WAITING ROOM is. Snooki is on the boardwalk, the same boardwalk on which she once danced with herself, with Ronnie's friend, Paul or something. She and Paul are having a gay ol' time, but then Paul drops a bombshell. He used to be engaged! Snooki freaks out. He tries to make it up to her, but she won't have any of it. Later he calls the house and has a shouting match with Snooki. She hangs up on him. Female Empowerment! (right?) He calls back and Pauly D answers the phone pretending to be the answering machine. A clip so great I'm actually going to embed it!

(Aol bleeped out ass at the end, for whatever reason. Net Neutrality! (right?))

Pauly D is my favorite. For as often as the lot of 'em go to the club, or smoosh, you would think that's my favorite part of the show. It's not. It's actually the mundane times when they're just sitting around the house pretending to be answering machines or come up with words that kind of sound like Stalk. As you may have guessed from watching that clip, they were getting ready to go to Karma. They're all ready, waiting for Sammi to come down stairs and get in the cabs, which are here. She's busy straightening her hair, which is already straight as Mike points out. She's yelling at Ronnie about something and he's yelling back. Vinny mentions "This must be what hell is like." and Mike says "Yep." like he's never agreed with anything more in his entire life. She finally yells downstairs that she's not coming. She'd rather stay home with Ronnie, who wants only to stay home alone. At Karma, Pauly D finds Whatsername, the stalker from season one and threw a drink on Pauly D early on in this season. They make up and he brings her back to the house. Once there, Vinny gives her shit about being a stalker, as does Deena, who wasn't there in season one. Later everybody's sitting on the couch and Pauly D and Vinny, quite literally, exchange words that sound like "Stalker." As great as pauly D and Vinny hanging out is, we have more important matter to attend to. For example, Ronnie and Sammi's relationship. Sammi's been asking Ronnie if they should break up, but Ronnie's pretty apathetic about the thing. Finally he can't take her anymore and says "Fine. We're done." But Sammi isn't satisfied. You see, he's trying to sleep and not facing her. She tells him to turn around and break up with her. Eventually he does. FINALLY! No more dealing with Sammi's craziness! OOPSISPOKETOOSOON! Now she's asking him for closure. What? You forced him to break up with you. Coming this summer, The Jersey Shore Movie starring Andrew Garfield and Brenda Song.

Apparently Jersey Shore is required to have at least one Sammi/Sonnie episode per season

2011-02-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

Seriously Funny Kids should be called Heidi Klum Underestimates Children

2011-02-02T09:06:00.000-08:00

Remember Kids Say The Darndest Things? That show was great! What made it so great? Bill Cosby, obviously, or Art Linkletter, if you're over, say, 40. Heidi Klum has decided to resurrect the fool proof concept of asking children questions you'd normally ask adults! It's a pretty basic concept. The Cos (or Art), if I remember correctly, would sit down a panel of kids and be super nice to them and then go "Oh ho ho!" When they something inappropriate, or slightly funny. Heidi Klum took that genius idea to the next level. Instead of just asking a panel of kids questions, she interviews them. One on one, like a really talented interviewer. But she's not. She is a terrible interviewer. A favorite question of her's is "Do you have a boy/girlfriend?" And the kids' responses are ~~always~~ never hilarious. This one kid has five girlfriends, but can only remember the names of four of them. OH Children! Another kid says he doesn't have a girlfriend, but his dad does. The Klumster looks at the camera like "What an inappropriate thing to say." Which is a pretty inappropriate response, because his dad probably does have a girlfriend. She seems to forget that we're living in a brave new world. My favorite part of the show is the transitions. She takes the kid she was just with a dances with them in front of a plain white background. Another aspect of the show is a candid camera sort of thing. The first one she brought in these kids and told them not to feed her fish, then she left. Then the fish started talking! Oh my god you guys! It was so funny! The kids were all like "What?" The fish were like "You should give us food!" and the kids were like "No." Oh man, it was seriously funny. Another kid she made her secretary. Heidi Klum, once again, has to leave, but she has so many phones! One of them is a psychic phone! (What?) So she leaves and this kid has to fend off so many phones calls! It is seriously funny. He does a pretty good job answering the phones and telling the callers what they need to know. Then these two people come in for an interview and treat the kid like he's an adult! Oh my god! It's like they don't even know! At this point all of the phones are going off and he's answering them all with only slight difficulty. Then Heidi Klum comes back in and tells him that it was all a hidden camera prank and the actors and Heidi Klum all have a laugh and the kid goes "oh." The premiere was two half hour episodes back-to-back. If you'd like to watch them, they're probably on Lifetime's website, or at least highlights! I didn't even get into the HILARIOUS outtakes.

Deadly Premonition Movie

2011-01-31T19:22:00.000-08:00

We don't often delve into video games. Mostly because our readers (all 12 of them (the majority of whom are ladies (Hey, Ladies!!))) aren't major video game nerds. Movie/TV reviews have become our forte, especially reality shows, especially Jersey Shore (RIP VH1 Celebreality). But this video game has a plot so great, and is so crazy insane it must be made into a movie. If you are unaware of the game "Deadly Premonition," let me summarize it to you quickly:

Francis York Morgan is a special agent for the FBI. He is brought into a small town to investigate a murder case. Once there he is greeted with open arms by most of the residents. He and a police officer slowly fall for each other. Pretty basic so far, right? Here's where it gets kind of crazy, Agent Francis York Morgan talks to someone named "Zach," who is his imaginary friend. He talks to Zach about everything, especially movies. They both love movies. Here's where the game gets REALLY crazy. Every night some strange zombie/ghost/supernatural beings appear. If Agent Francis York Morgan is out at night he must fight for his life against these things. Every once in a while he will go down a dark hall or basement or the like and will discover some of these monsters. I don't want to talk about it anymore because I don't want to spoil anything about the game if you haven't played it, or our future movie.

Here's my desired cast list:

Agent Francis York Morgan

Nicholas Cage

Emily Wyatt

Mary Elizabeth Ellis

George Woodman

Daniel Day Lewis

Thomas MacLaine

Adrien Brody

Harry Stewart

Clint Eastwood

Forrest Kaysen

Daniel Roebuck

Ushah Johnson

Usher (PUNS!)

Michael Tillotson

Cillian Murphy

Happy Friday! Happy Jersey Shore recap!

2011-01-28T09:19:00.000-08:00

Remember Snooki's friend Ryder? She makes an appearance this week! But, when she walks into the house, Snooki is still at Jenni's helping her with her dogs and whatnot. So, Ryder, Vinny and Deena hang out in the kitchen and it's hella awkward because, as Vinny points out he and Ryder "have a past." Since Snooki's not around and Deena is just as obnoxious, Deena and Ryder hang out. They go on rides and drink alcohol, a grand ol' time by any account. Jenni and Snooki return WITH DOGS! That night all of the roommates go clubbing and I think to myself, is Ryder actually attractive or just in the context of the girls on The Jersey Shore? I determined she's actually a good looking person, but she is definitely the most beautiful girl in the room (the whole wide room). At the club Vinny meets this girl and they hit it off. Almost immediately after meeting the girl Vinny is accosted by this girl's brother and uncle. Vinny thinks it's kind of weird, but still takes the girl home anyway. Yeah Vinny! Elsewhere in the club, Ronnie is talking to this girl and Sammi will have none of that. She stomps over to him and yells "Who's that?!" He tells her it's his friend's girlfriend and Sammi goes "yeah, right." They all go home with their respective sex friends. The roommates decide to celebrate Ryder's birthday. They invite Sammi and Ronnie to the party, which is quite literally on a different part of the deck than them. Sammi shrugs them off and they're like "Whatever, you're a terrible person anyway." Sammi continually asks Ron how he's cheated on her and Ron denying anythings happened since that one time in Miami WHEN THEY WERE NOT TOGETHER. But Sammi doesn't believe because she's a crazy person. Ron starts talking to Jenni. Sammi finds out when Mike walks into her room and she asks him what Ron is doing, who she just saw five minutes ago. You're so beautiful, Lisa. Sammi jumps out of bed (still clothed, for whatever reason) and shouts to Ron from the balcony "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!?" And Ron says "Talking" That exchange goes on for a while, until Sammi is downstairs talking to Ronnie and this exchange takes place about 20 - 30 times Sammi: "Are you friends with her?" Ronnie: "I don't want to talk about it." Sammi asks him one more time, then punches him in the face! LOLWUT! YOU'RE A CRAZY PERSON! She gets all sad and whatever and calls her mom. She's going home the next day. "FINALLY, We don't have to hear from her anymore!" -Everyone The next morning Sammi gets up and packs all her stuff and has every intention of leaving. She crawls into bed with Ronnie and is like"Will you help me get better" and Ronnie is like "yeah." So she calls her mom and decides to stay. UGH! Sammi promises that she's going to work on her relationships with everyone in the house. Hopefully that means we can avoid all the Ronnie/Sammi drama, right? Nope, next week: more Sammi and Ronnie drama. Those two are obnoxious.

The most predictable Oscars ever

2011-01-25T09:26:00.001-08:00

This morning Mo'nique presented the oscar nominees, because she was in Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, probably. (I've always thought Queen Latifah would have been a better choice, but whatevs.) When I read the nominees I was like "OBVS" so many times.

BEST PICTURE

• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The Kids are All Right
• Toy Story 3
• The King’s Speech
• The Social Network
• True Grit
• Winter’s Bone
• 127 Hours

There's no doubt in my mind that The Social Network will win. I may be biased because The Social Network was my favorite movie in a very long time. I think The last half of Black Swan should be nominated because the first half was just the boring parts of The Wrestler, but with Nat's Ports* instead of Mickey Rourke. I wouldn't be too upset if The King's Speech won. That movie looks really good and anybody who's anybody raves about it. I'm still voting for The Social Network though.

*Natalie Portman should start a winery called Nat's Ports.

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

• Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
• Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
• James Franco, 127 Hours
• Jeff Bridges, True Grit
• Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Obviously, I'd like to Jesse Eisenburg win but I imagine he's going to get a lot of shit from people for "always playing the same part," which he definitely didn't do in this movie, but whatever. Jeff Bridges was really good too, as was Colin Firth, I assume. I liked James Franco in 127 Hours, but mostly because James Franco seems like a cool guy. I don't think Javier Bardem will win because Biutiful was "Pitiful," according to Armond White.

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

• Annette Bening, The Kids are All Right
• Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
• Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
• Natalie Portman, Black Swan
• Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Natalie Portman is getting all kinds of buzz for Black Swan (not to mention her future wine endeavor.) She should definitely win. If she wins we'll probably hear her laugh again, which is great/terrifying (kind of like Black Swan) Also, if she wins then she'll be inducted into Conan's Oscar Winner F-Bomb Hall of Fame.

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Christian Bale, The Fighter
• Mark Ruffalo, The Kids are All Right
• John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
• Jeremy Renner, The Town
• Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

I've heard good things about Kermit the frog in The Fighter, so I guess I'm rooting for him since Spiderman isn't nominated.

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Amy Adams, The Fighter
• Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
• Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
• Melissa Leo, The Fighter
• Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

I'm always really amused by the preview for The King's Speech when Helena Bonham Carter sits on someone. I realize that isn't a testament to her acting ability, but it's still pretty funny.

BEST DIRECTOR

• Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
• David Fincher, The Social Network
• Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
• Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, True Grit
• David O. Russell, The Fighter

If David Fincher doesn't win, the Coen Bros. should. I feel like I should remind you, THE SOCIAL NETWORK WAS SO GOOD!

ANIMATED FILM

• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Illusionist
• Toy Story 3

Much like last year, I'm going to assume the only animated film to be nominated for best picture will win best animated film. Keep doing you, Pixar.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Mike Leigh, Another Year
• Scott Silver, Paul Tamasay, Eric Johnson, The Fighter
• Christopher Nolan, Inception
• Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, The Kids are All Right
• David Seidler, The King’s Speech

The King's Speech will definitely win this.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufroy, 127 Hours
• Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
• Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, True Grit
• Debra Granik and Anne Rosselini, Winter’s Bone
• John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, Michael Arndt, Toy Story 3

Is Toy Story 3 considered an adapted screenplay because it's a sequel? Not that it matters, No one can catch The Social Network.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Biutiful, Mexico
• Dogtooth, Greece
• Incendies, Canada
• Outside the Law, Algeria
• In a Better World, Denmark

Farts, who cares, amirite?

Free Snooki

2011-01-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

Two episodes of Jersey Shore in one week should happen every week. This episode continues the theme of this season, which is greatness. As you well remember, Snooki was arrested in Monday's episode for "drunken public intoxication," as Deena and J-Woww put it. But fret not! After a quick rehashing of the last episode Snooki is released from jail. Huzzah! I don't know how I would have liked this episode if Snooki wasn't in it. As if Snooki getting out of jail wasn't enough drama for one episode, J-Woww and her boyfriend Tom are on the rocks. Yeesh. While they fight over the phone, J-Woww is becoming more attracted to this guy named Roger. She promises herself (and us!) that she won't do anything with him until she breaks up with Tom, which is only a matter of time. MEANWHILE, MVP goes to the club with Deena. MVPD night! Woo! Deena takes a body shot/makes out with this girl at the club. You know, normal shore stuff. Then Deena meets this guy who looks exactly like Ronnie! OMG!!! He doesn't look exactly like Ronnie, but according to my mom "All the boys look the same" and this guy does look more like Ronnie than he does anyone else. Naturally, they take him home. All the guys call him Ronnie, even though his name is Dean. They take him into the confessional and pretend he's Ronnie. They bring him up to Ronnie and Sammi's room and ye;; "HEY RONNIE! LOOK! SAMMI! THIS IS YOUR BOYFRIEND! YOU GUYS LOOK!" Ronnie looks up. By the way, the lights are off in the room so no one can really see anything. Ronnie looks up and says "Is that Dean?" and everyone yells "Oh my god! They know each other!" Then Sammi opens her stupid mouth and says "His girlfriend's name is Sam too." NoooOOOooOooOOO!!!! He was supposed to hook up with Deena tonight. Their couple name was going to be DEANA! Get it!? I just thought of that on the spot! So all the guys leave Sammi and Ronnie to their boring person nap and go downstairs. They ask Dean if he has a girlfriend and he says yeah, but you know "it happens." Whatever that means. So, he and Deena get in the hot tub, more like HAWT TUB! Amirite? Inside Pauly and Vinny see DEANA making out in the hot tub and talk about how they should write an anonymous note to Dean's girlfriend. It's really funny. Pauly and Vinny are the best part of this show, and that should be mentioned whenever they are together. As for J-Woww, she and Tom break up over the phone. A little later J-Woww's dad calls her and tells her that Tom left her dogs to fend for themselves. She and Snooki drive to her house and save her dogs. Yeah! The dogs are ok! Snooki's goes upstairs to the bathroom and finds that J-Woww's bed is gone. LOL! They look around her house and find that a bunch of stuff has been stolen. But, it's all okay (for us anyway), because it looks like her dogs are coming back to the Jersey Shore house with them.

Best Coast - Crazy For You video

2011-01-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

If you don't like Best Coast, Cats or high fives as much as the next guy, watch this video. Your likeness of all those things will most definitely increase.

More Zooey Deschanel than anyone asked for

2011-01-19T11:34:00.001-08:00

Even though Zooey Deschanel has made some pretty terrible career choices, (500) Days of Summer, The Happening, Gigantic. But, she is a pretty girl in a band that I like called She & Him. Maybe you've heard of them? Even though nobody who writes for this blog has been into Zooey Deschanel, for, like, three years, She & Him isn't terrible. That being said, UGH! THIS VIDEO! This is the video for a song called Don't Look Back, I think. It was on their 2010 record "Volume II" probably. I didn't really listen to it very much. It's a well made video for a song I like. The whole 50s instructional video theme is fairly amusing, and the dancing! Oh the dancing! But Zooey Deschanel's face looks like she just came in from the winter with her red nose and eyes. And where's the Him half of She & Him? Barely there, that's where. Anyway, here's the video:

She & Him - Don't Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

This season of The Jersey Shore is nearly as good as Season One of Jersey Shroe

2011-01-18T11:34:00.000-08:00

I think that we can all agree that Season two of the Jersey Shore was terrible. It was uninteresting and hard to watch. But, Season one was actually fascinating. This season is no season one, I'm willing to admit that. But it is so much better than season two, which was the worst. I'll try to recap every episode of this season, because it's really great and I like it. As much as these people have become parodies of themselves, I still find their lives incredibly interesting. It was fairly evident in season one that all these people had huge egos, and those egos have been inflated by each season. In season two, because of his ego, if The Situation didn't get what he wanted he would become really rapey and it was hard to watch. But last night's SPECIAL EPISODE was fantastic. Because these people have been staples of MTV, household names even (!), they can get away with pretty much whatever they want. Even the Sammi and Ronnie story line (which is the worst) seems to be coming to a close. Unfortunately, that means we still have to hear from the two of them for a few minutes each episode. As always, they're fighting about nothing. All this drama started with the infamous letter explaining what Ronnie did when he and Sammi WERE BROKEN UP in early season two. Maybe I'm siding with Ronnie because I'm a male and so is he. Maybe I'm siding with Ronnie because Sammi because is a bitch, the sweetest bitch I'll ever meet in fact. Ever since Sammi read they've been fighting. But, they aren't fighting about the letter anymore. They're fighting about Sammi's insecurities. For whatever reason Sammi doesn't trust that Ronnie's being faithful to her, which is ridiculous because all he ever does is lay in bed (or LIE in bed if you ask Sammi! Terrible pun, sorry.) with Sammi. That night, everybody goes out to the club. B2B (Back to basics.) The first, and quite possibly greatest, thing that happens at the club is Deena's getting incredibly drunk and subsequently getting kicked out of the club within the first ten minutes of being there. (If you're wondering how she got so drunk in ten minutes, she was drinking before they left the house.) I like Deena. As she's said on multiple occasions, she a walking holiday, by which she means, she's a walking "That one movie with Queen Latifah." Just kidding. She means she gets drunk a lot. She was sticking to form that night, just like everyone else. MVP was MVPing. Sammi and Ronnie were being antisocial and uninteresting and J-Woww and Snooki were being awesome (?). Because of their celebrity, I assume, they were able to go up to the empty top floor of KARMA. They have their own dance club, because why not? It's not like the point of a dance club is to be rubbed upon by strangers. That's the point, right? I've only ever been to a dance club once and it was awful. J-Woww has to pee, but there are no bathrooms on the second floor of the club. GREAT LAYOUT KARMA! The obvious solution is to pee behind the empty bar. DUH! Eventually everyone goes home and Deena really wants to smoosh, smush? with The Situation. But, the situation isn't into it. Snooki's bummed because Vinny won't sleep with her. Snooki comes up with the brilliant idea to have a threesome with Mike! Yeah! This show is tops! Mike's pretty excited, because, um threesome. Who cares if the girls are repulsive? Once they all get in bed, Snooki slips away. Sweet move Snooki! Now Mike is stuck with Deena, oh, did I mention the potential threesome was with Deena, because it was. Mike must use his patented move, the kitchen ditchin'. Classic. He goes down to the kitchen and ditches Deena. Sweet move Mike! So, that day is finally over. The next day Snooki is WAY too hung over to go to work, but she does anyway, in a blanket and slippers. Upon arriving at work, she tries to steal beer from the refrigerator. Before asking yourself, the employees drink on the job? Remember, this a t-shirt shop at the Jersey Shore. At some point between Snooki being hungover and her being drunk again, Sammi apologizes for being the worst person ever. NOW THAT'S OVER, right? Snooki decides to go get a coffee, but takes shots with old people instead. B2B. Snooki eventually gets off work and takes more shots! Yeah! This show is tops! J-Woww and Deena meet her and Snooki gets more and more drunk. She darts down the boardwalk screaming "Where's the beach?" She sees this old guy and asks him "Where's the beach?" He points behind him, because they live on the beach. Snooki finally finds an entrance and runs into the water, with her clothes and purse and everything. J-Woww and Deena catch her and bring her back onto the beach. They're almost back to the boardwalk when Snooki runs back at the water. Some cops show up to help her home. She's really rude to the cops and they arrest her for public intoxication. J-Woww and Deena didn't even know you could be arrested for such things. This show is tops!

Ricky Gervais and Conan O'Brien are the funniest people

2011-01-14T10:47:00.001-08:00

My mom's take on Jersey Shore

2011-01-14T09:01:00.000-08:00

Last night my mom watched Jersey Shore. Fun times. I tried recording the entire thing, but my iPod stopped recording after 22 minutes. But, I did get some good quotes.

During the fight in the beginning of the fight my mom asked about Snooki: "Where's her poofy?!"

"What's that? Their deck? That's a cool looking deck!"

"Do these people have jobs or anything?"

Seven minutes into the episode my mom started yawning.

"All the girls kinda look the same to me and all the boys kind of look the same to me."

"Why are they going tanning? It's a beautiful day out."

"I'm trying to figure it out. They don't do anything but party and fight. Where's the substance?"

"Why do they have suitcases? Don't they have dressers?"

"That's a dumb phone. It has a duck on it."

"Here's what I wonder, What do their parents think of this?"

"Would you say Snooki's a normal person? ... She's not.''

"They're not attractive now, but when they get to be my age..."

"Do they do anything but tan?"

The Human Centipede is awful

2011-01-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

With it now being 2011, The Human Centipede came out two years ago. I guess I'm a bit behind. I was really hoping I could say "Even though this is a really terrible and disgusting, it's actually a pretty decent movie." But nope. Focusing purely on the filmmaking aspect of this movie, it is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Usually, a good movie has a good director, good writing and dialogue, good actors, etc. The Human Centipede has none of that. Every scene is either way to bright or so dark that you can barely see anything. The movie starts with the doctor shooting a trucker in the back with a tranquilizer. But, that's almost impossible to know that because the entire time the director is shooting into the sun. On multiple occasions the doctor is doing something in his lab with no lights on and no windows open. Have you ever been stuck in a small room with absolutely no light except a small crack under the door. So you look at that crack of light, because otherwise your eyes won't be able to adjust. That's what a lot of those dark scenes are like. Just blackness with the occasional movement. Let's just pretend this movie was a normal movie, a movie that isn't disgusting, a movie that isn't about three people sewn together mouth-to-anus. Let's just pretend. This would be the most boring movie ever. The doctor kidnaps this trucker and two american tourists. The doctor has to kill the trucker because his tissue doesn't match. He kidnaps this Japanese guy. Then he explains this surgery to three of them and they all scream a lot. Then he does the surgery and they all scream a lot. Then it's just an hour of this creepy guy smiling and three people crying. Eventually the cops show up to investigate a missing persons report and the human centipede decides to attempt escape. The cops ask the doctor to search the basement. He declines so they go get a search warrant. Doctor McCreepy goes back to the basement but his experiment is gone. He goes into the next room and is stabbed! The head of the centipede incapacitates him and they run upstairs. The doctor gets up eventually and crawls up the stairs after them. They try breaking this window, but the doctor has caught up to them. He has the scalpel now. The japanese guy in front picks up a broken piece of glass. It's time to fight! Actually, no. He thinks the doctor is God and this is his punishment. Then he slits his neck and dies. The cops are back and the doctor retreats to his pool room. They come into the house. One of the detectives finds the doctor, but is shot. The other detective finds the human centipede, but freaks out and tries to find his partner, who's just been shot and killed in the pool room. The last surviving detective runs to the pool room, sees his dead parter and is shot in the gut by the doctor. As he's falling to his death, he shoots the doctor in the head and kills him. This is a terrible movie. I would rather watch the entire series of The Hills than this again. I would rather listen to Nickelback than watch this movie again. I would rather watch Across the Universe again rather than this. If you haven't seen The Human Centipede, don't. And if you have, invent a time machine so we can go back to a time when we hadn't see it.

Summer Glau is Glautastic in The Cape.

2011-01-09T21:04:00.000-08:00

There's a reason The Cape premiered with two hours. The reason being that the first hour was fairly boring. The second hour was pretty great though. Hour one is all about Vince Faraday's backstory and his family and life as a cop and boring stuff like that. Fuck backstory, I wanna see some ass kicking! I understand backstory is important and all, but can't every backstory ever be "there was this really cool superhero, then he turned into a different really cool superhero!" I guess not. Apparently, Vince Faraday's backstory has to be, cop, hot wife, kid. Luckily, it wasn't too uninteresting or drawn out. "Vince Faraday" is killed within the first 40 minutes by a company called ARK that is trying to take over the police force. They frame Vince as "Chess," the villain who killed the police chief early on in the episode. Chess also doesn't have nearly enough chess puns and/or metaphors. FLAW #1! Chess is actually the leader of ARK, the company that ultimately plans to take down Chess. It's kind of like Syndrome's plan in The Incredibles. Vince figures out the plan and tries to stop it. Unfortunately, he's captured by ARK and has Chess' mask stapled to his head. ARK releases Vince and simultaneously goes after "Chess." He rolls underneath a train car and on top of a door. He breaks the lock on the door and falls underground. The train car is actually a giant tank of gas and it explodes as soon as Vince hits the ground. He covers himself with the now unlatched door. It doesn't do much good because the blast still knocks him out. He's awoken it what I'm pretty sure is an underground circus. IT'S FULL OF CHARACTERS. The "ring leader" is Max Malini. He tells Vince that they are the "Carnival of Crime." They rob banks. Other members of the aforementioned carnival include this girl, a hypnotist and Martin Klebba, who you may remember from Pirates of the Caribbean, Scrubs or an episode of iCarly in 2009. Vince is conVINCEd (sorry.) to become part of the gang. Up until this point, the show has been pretty slow. But then a montage saved it and I was interested again! They rob banks, Vince learns to hypnotize, he fights the little guy. It's a good montage. Then he finds the titular cape. It used to be Max Malini's. Max teaches him about the magic of The Cape and Vince becomes cocky, something the hypnotist warned against. Vince decides to go after a man named Scales. Scales is a villan with british accent. For whatever reason every bad guy has an accent on this show, so far. As he's observing the rigging ship Scales is organizing. (It's rigging, like, explosives and other bad guy stuff.) he encounters someone else doing the same thing. They meet up, by which I mean, Vince chases them down. He uncovers their mask and it's Summer Glau! Hi Summer Glau! How have you been since Dollhouse/Terminator/Firefly?! Summer Glau is a muckraker amongst the Palm City PD named Orwell. The two of them team up and everything is cool. Vince goes out to find the man who effectively killed him. The man is the british accented Peter Flemming, the leader of ARK. But he's ready for Vince. He has his french friend, Cain, A greasy haired assassin who specializes in poison. Vince is poisoned and decides his best course of action is to jump out the window, which is definitely more than 10 stories high. Through her connectivity, Summer Glau discovers Cain may be a member of an assassin group called Tarot. Throughout the episode, a congressman named Patrick Portman (cool name!) is fighting to keep the prisons a government operated system, something else ARK is trying take over. By this time Vince has taken the moniker The Cape, despite still not being in possession of the cape. He meets Patrick "cool name" Portman in his home late at night. He lets him know that he's not the only one fighting against ARK. Eventually, Patrick "cool name" Portman is at this fancy restaurant with Flemming. Summer Glau finds out and pretends to be a food critic so she can get into the completely booked restaurant. She uses her knife as a mirror. CLASSIC SPY MOVE. The chef brings her some wine, but the chef is Cain. OH SHIT! She's invited back to the kitchen and they fight. When it looks like all is lost for Summer Glau, The Cape appears! Then The Cape and Cain get in a fight and The Cape wins. Yeah!!! The show ends with The Cape on top of a tall building. It's cool and Superhero-y.

It's like they never left: Jersey Shore Season 3

2011-01-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Jersey Shore has started again, because why not? It's the Mad Men of MTV, which itself is the Pretty Little Liars of AMC. Pretty Little Liars, as you might suspect, is the Jersey Shore of ABC Family. Just like the season 2 opener (or any other episode ever), nothing all too interesting happened. Snooki brought a friend from home to be the new roommate. Her name's Deena and she's a lot cooler than the all the girls on the show (which isn't hard), but not quite as cool as the guys on the show. Like every episode, they all get really drunk and OMGDRAMA! Let me tell you. Sammi still has beef with Snooki and J-Woww. Where's the beef? With Sammi, that's where. As you OBVIOUSLY remember, J-woww and snooki wrote a letter to Sammi explaining Ronnie's cheating ways and got mad at J-Woww and Snooki, because ignorance is bliss, or whatever. So, that's still going on. Also in the category of "I don't give a fuck," Sammi and Ronnie are still together and really obnoxious. In the category of "bloggable" Vinny is still the coolest. He brought a shower caddy, which holds all of his shower things. Everyone laughs at Vinny and we all have a good time watching their laughter. Deena, the new roommate, gets really drunk and then naked in front of the Situation. His reaction, which will most definitely be a .gif all over the internet come morning looked a lot like Tom from Parks and Recreation like this one here. Eventually everyone goes to bed, except Deena who still wants to party. She goes to Mike's room and tries to convince him to come snuggle. Sammi laughs at her and it's like we're back in season 2. Fists and F-words are flying. Also, the C-word, but that didn't have the alliteration I was looking for. Anyway, great episode! I liked it! I can't wait for more!

EXTRA VA GANZA 2010 COMETH!

2011-01-05T13:11:00.001-08:00

http://koolthingzzz.blip.tv/file/4596093/

Kool Thingzzz Top 25 Albums of 2010

2010-12-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

The final, definitive list of the best music of this past year!

25. The Black Keys – Brothers

24. Disappears – Lux

23. Frightened Rabbit – The Winter of Mixed Drinks

22. Wolf Parade – Expo 86

21. Natural Child – 7”

20. Dom – Sun Bronzed Greek Gods EP

19. Das Racist – Sit Down, Man

18. OK Go – Of the Blue Color of the Sky

17. No Age – Everything In Between

16. Thee Oh Sees – Warm Slime

15. Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record

14. Explode Into Colors – Quilts

13. Ty Segall – Melted

12. Robyn – Body Talk

11. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today

10. The National – High Violet

9. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

8. Superchunk – Majesty Shredding

7. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

6. Beach House – Teen Dream

5. Surfer Blood – Astro Coast

4. Girl Talk – All Day

3. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

2. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening

1. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Thom's Top 25 Albums of 2010

2010-12-30T23:30:00.000-08:00

25. Crystal Castles II - Crystal Castles

24. Of The Blue Colour of the Sky - OK Go

23. Before Today - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

22. Champ - Tokyo Police Club

21. Brothers - The Black Keys

20. Everything In Between - No Age

19. Congratulations - MGMT

18. Scott Pilgrim: The Game OST - Anamanaguchi

17. Lisbon - The Walkmen

16. Expo 86 - Wolf Parade

15. The Winter of Mixed Drinks - Frightened Rabbit

14. Body Talk - Robyn

13. Astrocoast - Surfer Blood

12. Sit Down, Man - Das Racist

11. Cosmogramma - Flying Lotus

10. The ArchAndroid - Janelle Monae

9. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West

8. Majesty Shredding - Superchunk

7. Teen Dream - Beach House

6. High Violet - The National

5. Halcyon Digest - Deerhunter

4. All Day - Girl Talk

3. Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty - Big Boi

2. This Is Happening - LCD Soundsystem

1. Plastic Beach - Gorillaz

Honorable Mention:

How I Got Over - The Roots

The Suburbs - Arcade Fire

Transference - Spoon

Gorilla Manor - Local Natives

Snakes For The Divine - High On Fire

Jake's Top 25 Albums of 2010

2010-12-30T15:41:00.000-08:00

25. Best Coast - Crazy for You

24. Belle & Sebastian - Belle & Sebastian Write About Love

23. Tokyo Police Club - Champ

22. No Age - Everything In Between

21. Das Racist - Sit Down, Man

20. Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks

19. Wolf Parade - Expo 86

18. MGMT - Congratulations

17. Deerhunter - Halcyon

16. The National - High Violet

15. Spoon - Transference

14. The Black Keys - Brothers

13. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

12. Robyn - Body Talk

11. Childish Gambino - Culdesac

10. The Roots - How I got over

9. OK Go - Of the Blue Colour of the sky

8. Superchunk - Majesty Shredding

7. Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot...

6. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

5. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

4. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

3. Girl Talk - All Day

2. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening

1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Honorable Mentions

Sufjan Stevens - Age of Adz
Ben Folds and Nick Hornby - Lonely Avenue
The Dead Weather - Sea of Cowards
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
Beach House - Teen Dream
Miniature Tigers - Fortress
The Walkman - Lisbon
Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo
Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
Broken Bells - Broken Bells
Janelle Monáe - The Archandroid
Magnetic Fields - Realism
Jónsi - Go

Jeneen's Top 25 Albums of 2010

2010-12-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

Beach House – Teen Dream
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today
Ty Segall – Melted
Explode Into Colors – Quilts
Thee Oh Sees – Warm Slime
Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Dom – Sun Bronzed Greek Gods EP
Natural Child – 7”
Disappears – Lux
Beach Fossils – s/t
Grass Widow – Past Time
Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal
Rangers – Suburban Tours
Surfer Blood – Astrocoast
The Fresh & Onlys – Play It Strange
No Age – Everything In Between
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker
Best Coast – Crazy For You
Kurt Vile – Square Shells EP
So Cow – Meaningless Friendly
Games – That We Play
Caribou – Swim
Big Troubles – Worry
The Strange Boys – Be Brave
The Art Museums – Rough Frame

Love me some lo-fi and noise, haters! (Haters = Jakenthom)

2010 Extra Va Ganza Nominees!

2010-12-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Guilty Pleasure TV Show:

Survivor

Pretty Little Liars

Jersey Shore

Koolest Questionable Song:

Club Can’t Handle Me - Flo Rida ft David Guetta

Like a G6 - Far East Movement

Whip My Hair - Willow Smith

Koolest Viral Video:

Double Rainbow

Marcel the shell with shoes on

Nic Cage losing his shit

Don Draper says what

A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever

Smooth Jazz Enter Sandman

BrodyQuest

Pizza Party

Koolest Music Video:

Giving Up the Gun - Vampire Weekend

Wide Eyes - Local Natives

This Too Shall Pass - OK Go (and this one)

Stylo - Gorillaz

Fuck You - Cee Lo

Whip My Hair - Willow Smith

Koolest Guy:

Donald Glover

Kanye West

James Murphy

The RZA

Jim James

Richard Holbrooke

James Franco

Bill Hader

Isiah Mustahfu

Jon Hamm

Koolest Girl:

Lizzy Caplan

Alison Brie

Gillian Jacobs

Bethany Cosentino

Annie Clark

Victoria Legrande

Marion Colltiarde

Aubrey Plaza

Emma Stone

Best TV Show:

Community

Mad Men

Breaking Bad

Terriers

Parks & Rec

Louie

Archer

LOST

Best Movie:

Inception

Social Network

Scott Pilgrim

127 Hours

Black Swan

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Cyrus

Hot Tub Time Machine

WORST:

Glenn Beck

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS

Japan

Kesha

Katherine Khloe Cahoon

Wavves

Tyler Perry

Personal Blogging

OUTSOURCED

Oprah

Oil Spill

Tea Party

BEST:

Kanye West

Nic Cage

Edgar Wright

Doug Benson

Troy and Abed

Joakim Noah

Andrew WK

Brian Wilson

Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert

Pavement

Devo

Conan O’Brien

Christmas Podcast!

2010-12-25T20:26:00.001-08:00

http://blip.tv/file/4558491

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T05:46:00.001-08:00

Jake's top 3 Christmas Movies

2010-12-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

It's the end of the year, and that means it's the time for lists. It is also Christmas time, which means it is the time for Christmas movies! Below, I have hastily compiled my top 3 favorite christmas movies.

3. The Santa Clause

This movie reminds me of childhood, which is what Christmas movies are all about.

2. Elf

It's the perfect Christmas movie, plus Will Ferrell being funny and Zooey Deschanel before Zooey Deschanel got annoying.

1. Catch Me if You Can

I somehow always end up watching this around christmas. Not only does a lot of it revolve around Christmas, but it's also a really good movie.

Jake's most mentionable moments in music of 2010 (hyperlinks galore!)

2010-12-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

Instead of posting my favorite songs from this year, I think I'll countdown top 25 moments that need talking about this year in music.

Sleigh Bells

- I kind of get why people love this band. If you don't think about it too much, it's really fun. But if you listen to it too closely, shit's turrible. Here are all of the lyrics to their song "A/B Machines"
"Got my A machines on the table
Got my B machines in the drawer"
One: What does that mean?
Two: Even Black Eyed Peas have more lyrics than two lines.

Gregory Brothers

-They made what was probably my favorite viral video of the year into a super great song, and a less interesting, but still popular, video into another really great song.

Pavement

-REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD

Damon Albarn

-Between the two Gorillaz albums from this year and that Blur song this is the year of Damon Albarn.

The Beatles are on iTunes

-and no one cares.

Best Coast

-When I'm With You would totally be in my top songs, if I was doing that.

Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young

-I was originally going to put his cover of the Fresh Prince theme, but that actually happened in November of '09.

Whip My Hair

-Great song or greatest song?

Sprawl II by The Arcade Fire

-If this song was the only song that ever existed, I would be completely okay with that.

All of OK Go's videos from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky

-They sure are really good at making videos, not to mention music.

Champ by Tokyo Police Club

-When I first heard this record I was like "YES! This is definitely going to be one of the best records of the year!" Then a ton of other really good albums came out this year, so it probably won't make it. But it is really good and needs the recognition it deserves!

I Just Had Sex by The Lonely Island and Akon

-Could this be the next I'm on a Boat? I think yes.

Surfer Blood

-If indie rock had a draft, this band would be pick No. 1. (Sports metaphor!)

Sufjan Steven's 25 minute song

-Age of Adz was a nice departure from his usual folksy. orchestral sound and that song kicks all kinds of ass.

James Murphy stating that This is Happening is the end of LCD Soundsystem

-Everyone sad.

Kanye West's VMA performance

-That was so crazy and it introduced us to Runaway, which is a totally great song!

Thom's Top 25 Songs of 2010

2010-12-18T22:41:00.000-08:00

We're less than a week from Christmas, so it's high time we started our barrage of year-end lists. As usual, I'll start the jamboree off with my favorite songs of the year (which I hope Jake and I Jeneen contribute to this year, rather than only album lists). Before I get to the list, though, I have big news! Jake, Jeneen, myself, and two SPECIALS GUESTS (no one famous, so temper your enthusiasm) will be having a special edition round table podcast on our favorite music of the year! That should drop sometime in the next week or two, and it should have lots of drama, disagreement, and yelling. Regardless, here are my favorite songs of 2010:

25. The Wrestle - Frightened Rabbit

24. How I Got Over (feat. Dice Raw) - The Roots

23. Wide Eyes - Local Natives

22. Ramona - Beck

21. Giving Up The Gun - Vampire Weekend

20. Wait Up (Boots of Danger) - Tokyo Police Club

19. Angela Surf City - The Walkmen

18. Rapping 2 U (feat. Lakutis) - Das Racist

17. Learned to Surf - Superchunk

16. Congratulations - MGMT

15. Fool's Day - Blur

14. Infinity Guitars - Sleigh Bells

13. Little Golden Age - Wolf Parade

12. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) - Arcade Fire

11. Norway - Beach House

10. Coronado - Deerhunter

9. Afraid of Everyone - The National

8. Floating Vibes - Surfer Blood

7. POWER - Kanye West

6. Dancing On My Own - Robyn

5. Fuck You - Cee-Lo

4. Tightrope (feat. Big Boi) - Janelle Monae

3. On Melancholy Hill - Gorillaz

2. Shutterbug (Feat. Cutty) - Big Boi

1. All I Want - LCD Soundsystem

Who should win Survivor?

2010-12-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

This season of Survivor has been quite the season. It wasn't quite as good as Heroes vs. Villains, because that concept is SO GREAT! It's always good when the entire cast has already been there. The season finale is tomorrow night and I'm pretty excited. We're don to the final five and they all have reasons they should and shouldn't win.

FABIO:

Why Fabio should win:
He was nice to everyone and never, or at least rarely, went back on his word. He looked out for himself without ruining anyone else's chances to drastically.

Why Fabio shouldn't win:
The only reason he's still in the game is because he wins immunity challenges and is charming. He "flew under the radar" for most of the game, which seems like a cheap strategy, but it is just as much a strategy as the "manipulate everyone into doing what I want" strategy.

SASH:

Why Sash should win:
He successfully manipulated everyone into doing what he wanted. He made great moves throughout the game to ensure his place in the finals. He was the Russell Hants of this season, just not a douchebag.

Why Sash shouldn't win:
He masterminded his way though the game. He controlled the game the entire time, which you could argue is a reason he should win. But, he used everyone for their vote until he didn't need them anymore. He is just as cunning as Russell from the last two seasons and just as much a douchebag. He just has a nice smile so no one thinks twice about him.

HOLLY:

Why Holly should win:
She was the "mom" of the game. Whenever anyone needed motherly advice, they would come to her. She was a very nice lady throughout the entire game.

Why Holly shouldn't win:
She was originally going to quit, but Jimmy Johnson convinced her otherwise. She never made any major moves. She was basically just a pawn of Sash's. (Although, if you really want to get into the chess metaphor, Holly is more like a Knight or a rook. She doesn't do a whole lot of good, and if you lose her, it's not the most devastating thing ever, but she is still helpful.) Aso, she reminds me a lot of Kate Gosselin.

DAN:

Why Dan should win:
He never won any individual challenges, but is somehow still in the game.

Why Dan shouldn't win:
He never did ANYTHING in the game. He never formed a strong alliance and only got to the final episode by complete luck.

CHASE:

Why Chase should win:
He somehow aligned himself with the most powerful players in the game, which, I guess, is somewhat of a strategy.

Why Chase shouldn't win:
Much like Dan, he didn't do anything in the game. His only successes were being bros with Sash and having a hidden immunity idol.

So, I guess, Team Fabio?

Top Gear: USA

2010-11-30T15:48:00.000-08:00

First, I'm glad it's not actually called "Top Gear: USA" because this isn't Law & Order. Second, the show is actually pretty good. The first episode was a bit boring, but maybe that's because we were all expecting the chemistry that comes from three guys that have been on a weekly show together for nearly a decade. Instead, we got three guys that were just sort of thrown together. Then, the first guest was Buzz Aldrin, who stepped foot on the moon in, like, the 13th century. He is so old. His interview was pretty brutal. Adam Ferrera, who is NOT Adam Carolla, basically just listed off all the cars Buzz Aldrin has owned in his life and Buzz Aldrin would simply say "yep." BUT, the second episode was a great improvement. Tanner Foust, AKA the best host by far, raced some skiers down a mountain in a car. That was fairly entertaining. Dominic Monaghan was the guest and had a very good interview with Ruttledge Wood. I like the Wood (definitely not a nickname that will stick, mostly because I just made it up). He doesn't have the best comedic timing and he has a kind of awkward stage presence, but you can tell he likes cars and knows what he's talking about. Tanner Foust is REALLY good. If he was the only host, that would be fine. Or, if there were three of him to all co-host. He is SO good at driving and he is SO good at talking and he is SO good at liking cars. However, Adam Ferrera is the worst host to ever appear on this newly premiered show. He was obviously chosen to be the funny guy, but he is not very funny. Whenever he's around I feel like he just wants to beat everyone up. If they get him off the show by next season, I'll be happy and the show will be much better.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

2010-11-22T14:46:00.001-08:00

Seriously. It is so good. Nicki Minaj appears on a couple tracks and I hate Nicki Minaj and this album is still incredible. Even the really weird autotune part in Runaway fits really well. Perfect? Pretty damn close. Puuuurrfect? Puuuurrrhaps.

NBC Comedy Night done right is almost 100% good again

2010-11-16T18:35:00.000-08:00

I've always been a fan of NBC's Thursday night comedy line-up, as I've mentioned many times on this here blog. This year has been pretty great so far, with three of the four shows being superb and one being totally the worst thing ever. In January, NBC is switching up the schedule a bit. Firstly, PARKS AND REC IS COMING BACK. Also, SIX sitcoms, rather than four and then a terrible drama/reality show/whatever-the-fuck-the-marriage-ref-was 30 Rock is moving to 10:00 and Outsourced will be on at 10:30, which is coincidentally my newly enacted bed time. The new show is called Perfect Couples. It stars Olivia Munn and The Waitress. Don't confuse it with "Friends with Benefits," another NBC midseason replacement. It stars Ryan Hansen, who played Kyle on Party Down and Zach Cregger from WKUK. But, I can't find any news on when that will air.

LINE-UP:

8 p.m. "Community"
8:30 p.m. "Perfect Couples"
9 p.m. "The Office"
9:30 p.m. "Parks and Recreation"
10 p.m. "30 Rock"
10:30 p.m. "Outsourced"

Preview for the reclusive "Friends with Benefits."

Looks pretty good, right? Death to Outsourced! Right?

ALL DAY

2010-11-15T14:29:00.001-08:00

Girl Talk's new album is available for free download on Illegal Art's website. You can download it as one long track, or multiple tracks. It's called "All Day."

LINK: http://illegal-art.net/allday/

Willow Smith's Whip My Hair

2010-10-20T16:37:00.001-07:00

You guys, I love this song. Usually, when I talk about a popular song with this much fervor I'm being sarcastic. But, I swear to you, I legitimately love this song. Here's the video:

SURPRISE PODcAsT?!?! SURPRISE PODCAST!

2010-10-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

Click To Play

Tommy Wisaeu's SECOND masterpiece

2010-10-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

The House That Drips Blood On Alex
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos

Modern Family vs. Parenthood: The Debate Rages On.

2010-10-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's the coke, pepsi debate of our generation. You can't talk about one with out talking about the other. Parenthood or Modern Family? Which is the better show? Which should you love and which should you hate? Actually, I'm pretty sure no one is debating this at all. They are two totally different shows that only have slightly similar plots. They are both in their second season and are both about family. OTHER THAN THAT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME AT ALL. COULD WE PLEASE STOP DEBATING THIS!? I really like both shows. I find myself looking forward to Parenthood every week, where as I think "I'll just watch it on Hulu" when I think about Modern Family. I don't think Modern Family is a worse show. After all, it's got Emmys. Parenthood ain't got no Emmys. Parenthood is nice because it is very relatable. Modern Family is nice because it is very funny. Parenthood is also funny, but in a much different way. Modern family has a lot of jokes and the characters seem more like characters on a comedy television show. The characters on Parenthood seem more like people I know from my life and family. I don't very often giggle in my everyday life, but I giggle SO MUCH at Modern Family. In this week's episode, when Cam said "Can you do my shoulders?" obviously asking for a massage and Mitchell thinking he meant he wanted a shave had me escalate from a quiet squeal to a one-man brouhaha. (OR BREW-HA-HA BECAUSE BEER OR SOMETHING!) That's how I laugh at most of the jokes on Modern Family. I'm watching with a straight-face, then I see the joke coming and I start smiling really big and when the joke hits, I'm cracking up. Most of the jokes are very obvious on Modern Family. (One of my favorite not so obvious jokes from last week's Modern Family: "No way, I'm not playing Good Cop/Mom.) Whereas, with Parenthood much of the EL-AY-double-EFFS comes from cringe-inducing moments, like whenever Lauren Graham's character tries to be the "cool mom." You feel bad for her character, and her kids, but also it's pretty funny. The nice thing about Parenthood, versus Modern Family, is any scene with the entire extended family. Maybe I just like it so much because the scene looks like NBC just filmed any time my family gets together. Everyone is trying to be heard, so they're talking over everyone else and ultimately no one is heard. That happens a lot in Parenthood, and almost never in Modern Family. I also think Parenthood is a stronger show because of the ensemble cast. Parenthood has 15 people in the main family, all of whom are regularly featured in each episode. The Modern Family family has only 11 people in it, and usually is only focused on the parents. Occasionally we'll get a plot point with one or two of the kids, but usually they're only there to say funny things. I prefer Parenthood, but I'm not going to watch Modern Family. It's got Emmys.

Dear Right-Wingers:

2010-10-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

Those of us who associate with the left side of the political spectrum will let you keep your precious guns if you let us allow gay marriage to happen. Deal? Deal.

Thursday Nights are Comcastic with Comedy!

2010-10-08T09:11:00.001-07:00

Remember back between the years of 2006 and 2008 when "Comedy Night Done Right" on NBC was My Name is Earl, The Office, 30 Rock and Scrubs (as well as Andy Barker P.I. occasionally). That was great. Now we have what's looking to be a great second season of Community, as usual 30 Rock is great and The Office has been much better this season than last. But, for whatever reason Parks & Rec has been replaced with Outsourced. It's okay though. I can simply watch my first hour and a half of great programming, take a half hour break then watch FX's great hour block of comedy! It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The League.

For the most part, last night's 2 1/2 hours of comedy was great. Community was pretty great. Plus, the oil barrel in Brita and Annie's oil protest was a Wilde Oil barrel, referencing Running Wilde on FOX. Cross-Network promotion! Yeah! Both of those shows are very funny. The only thing I can fault last night's episode with was the lack of Troy/Abed/Annie scenes. Everybody talks about how great Troy and Abed are together, I think Annie complements them incredibly well (see: last week's episode). Patton Oswalt also guest starred, and he's funny. John Oliver made another appearance as the substitute anthropology professor and was hilarious. So, you know, watch that show if you're not. It's consistently getting the worst ratings on NBC thursday night. We don't want another Pushing Daisies.

Then, 30 Rock. There isn't really much to say about last night's episode, other than, it was great!

I'm really liking this season of The Office so far. Last Night's episode was pretty much exactly what we've been asking for throughout all of last season. An episode for Andy and his affection for Erin that doesn't rely too much on Jim and Pam, because they're boring now! As we all know, Erin has started dating Gabe, who is the worst. Actually, I don't have a problem with Gabe. He's a pretty nice character. In last night's episode, Andy vies for Erin's attention by inviting her to his play. Ultimately, she babysits for Jim and Pam. For the most part, their only part in this episode was finding a babysitter for their kid. Andy spends most of the episode hoping that Erin will show up. At one point he completely derails one of the scenes in his play because he thinks Erin is texting him. It was a very good cringe humor scene, which we haven't gotten in a while. We also got Merideth being an alcoholic and Michael being terribly awkward, both plusses. We got some good, weird Angela/Dwight action. But ultimately, this episode was about Andy and Erin's blooming relationship. It is very reminiscent of early Jim and Pam. Near the end of last night's episode Erin tells Andy "I'm really glad we're hanging out again outside of work." and Andy smiles and says "Yeah, me too." AWWWWW They're so cuuuute! I'm really glad that they're developing this relationship more. I'm looking forward to seeing if they just rewrite the basic story line of Jim and Pam from the early seasons. Is Andy eventually going to profess his love for Erin at the end of next season, but be shot down? Will he go find his own Karen? (If he does, I nominate Abby Elliot for the part.) Also, how old is Erin supposed to be? According to wikipedia, Andy is about 38. I always assumed Erin was in her mid 20s by her personality. Anyway, this season is great so far. Next week has more of Andy trying to get Erin's attention and Holly will make an appearance.

Last night's episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was quite possibly the worst one ever. When the show is on, it's on. But last night it was not on. I'm afraid that it's turning into a caricature of itself. There was one joke last night that was really good. Mac kept calling people "Jabroni. When Charlie asked what it meant he said "I don't know, but it sounds cool." Later he calls to guys "Jabroni" and they say "cool word." I think the reason last night's episode wasn't very good was because Mac's shirt had sleeves throughout the entire episode.

The League, you guys, The League. It is so good. I've only seen a couple episodes, but they've both been great. I didn't watch the first season at all, so I might do that this weekend, but seriously, you don't need to know anything about Fantasy Football. The show is so funny, nay, SO funny.

Glee.

2010-10-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

I walked into the tv room last night to see what was happening on Glee last night. They were singing "Losing My Religion" and I said "I hate when they do songs I like." Then my sister snapped at me "You don't have to watch it!" Then I left.

Is Cougar Town worth watching?

2010-09-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

No. But, it also isn't worth dismissing. I finally watched an entire episode of Cougar Town last night because I was too lazy to turn off the tv after Modern Family. I mean, come on, the remote was all the way over there. I want to say I absolutely hated it because every promo I've seen for it is the most obnoxious. I didn't hate it though. Although, I also didn't like it a whole lot. Courtney Cox was pretty annoying, which may be the premise of the show. If it is, you are successful [creators of this show]! If it isn't, ugh. Christa Miller basically plays an exaggerated version of Jordan from Scrubs. I really liked her on Scrubs, or so I thought. Maybe I just liked her interactions with Dr. Cox. There's this girl who is 10-15 years younger than the rest of the most of the main cast (Who I assume are all in their mid-40s, which, as we all know, is the new mid-30s). She is basically just the shallow, dumb blonde who says funny things (none of which are particularly funny). None of the jokes made me crack up (unlike Running Wilde, a show that just started on FOX that I highly suggest you catch up with because it's only two episodes in). There was one running joke that was actually pretty funny. The show starts with one of the character walking into Courtney Cox's kitchen and everyone else greeting him by throwing their arms up in the air and shouting things. The guy says "What just happened?" in an annoying tone. Courtney Cox says "Remember how the sushi chefs greeted us like that and it was great? We decided to start doing that to everyone. Isn't that fun?" (or something like that) and the guy says "No, I hate it." and notJordanfromScrubs says "Good. Then we'll only do it to you." and they do only do it to him for the rest of episode. The main plot point of this episode was Cortney Cox's son going off to college. The dumb blonde says that she loved drinking games in college, so all the adults play a drinking game. In the middle of the (very fun) drinking game Courtney Cox says "Don't drink yet. You're not of age." And the kid says "No. It doesn't even look fun." Other than those two jokes, the show wasn't that great. If that new show about a baby on FOX is a step above Outsourced, Cougar Town is a step above that show.

Justin Timberlake is the coolest.

2010-09-30T08:14:00.001-07:00

Jimmy Fallon is also pretty cool, not to mention the Roots.

Episode 2 of my highly acclaimed* LOST web show!

2010-09-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

*According to me.

Podcast #7! Fall TV Episode

2010-09-26T12:00:00.001-07:00

Click To Play

THE EVENT is not the new lost. Stop saying that.

2010-09-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

I was afraid to watch THE EVENT because I thought it would be really bad, but also grab my attention. Luckily, that didn't happen. Instead, it was just really bad. We begin with a bunch of people freaking out and a shaky camera. It sounds like a plane is about to crash. Then, 23 MINUTES EARLIER, we know it's exactly 23 minutes earlier because the title card tells us and there would have been no other way of explaining that the scene of people boarding, and on, an airplane was probably very recent. So, Jason Ritter is being all sketchy on this airplane. The airplane lifts off and soon after (I don't know exactly how long because it wasn't written on the screen) Jason Ritter gets up and holds one of the flight attendants at gun point. He demands that someone open the cockpit door. FLASHBACK EVEN MORE! 11 DAYS EARLIER. All this time jumping sure is confusing. I'm glad that they tell us whenever we're in a different time period. I hate having to figure out time lines on my own. LOST was really confusing because of that. I have the same problem with Quentin Tarintino movies. Jason Ritter and his girlfriend are getting ready for a cruise and Jason Ritter asks his girlfriend's dad for his blessing. He's like "yeah, okay." Also, Jason Ritter's girlfriend has a little sister, who is seven. She's kind of important, I guess. BUT NOW WE'RE BACK IN THE AIRPORT! Keepin' up!? This guy calls the control tower and is like "There's a terrorist on the plane" And the guy in charge of the control tower's like "I don't believe you!" And the guy's like "fine! There's a BOMB on the plane!" and the control tower guy goes "OH NO!" and tries to contact the plane, but the pilot's cut off all contact. OH NO! NOW WHAT! I'll tell you this guy's master plan. Since he can't stop the plane rationally, which is saying that there's a bomb on the plane, he'll stop it himself! How? He doesn't have that authority! That's right, but he does have his car. He decides the only solution is to drive at the plane. So, that's what he does. He drives his car at the plane. He finally gets his car up to speed with the plane (by the way, THIS IS A PLANE!) and does nothing. There's nothing he can do because he's trying to derail A PLANE with his Jeep. good plan, guy, good plan. The plane takes off and, like, terrorist stuff. Jason Ritter promises he's a good guy though. There are also flashbacks of the cruise where Jason Ritter and his girlfriend meet these two people, who don't seem like the best people and probably know about THE EVENT. The episode ends with the plane barreling toward the building on Florida coast where the president is about to give a press conference about some detainees (who won't tell the truth!) in Alaska. Suddenly, the plane disappears! What happened to the plane?! Who cares?

Here's my theory. The Event is not a specific time when something is going to happen. It's actually this secret organization and event is an acronym for something. Maybe I'm wrong Maybe I don't care about this show. I lied, I definitely don't care about this show.

Just when you thought there was not going to be anymore lost talk.

2010-09-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

Surprise! Glee is back and still the worst!

2010-09-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

I hate to be a hater, but haters gonna hate. I don't mean to be rude, and everyone has their opinion on things and opinions may differ and I want you to know this is my opinion and I don't mean to state my opinion as fact, as it is just my opinion, but this show is the worst! I totally respect that the show is doing something different that isn't Viva Laughlin, but can't it just go away? Unfortunately, it can't. If you haven't heard, it's already been renewed for a third season. This show plays a lot on stereotypes. But not in that they make a gay character that isn't flamboyant, or a black character that's a nerd. They simply take a stereotype of a certain person and play up that stereotype throughout the entire show. The other characters make assumptions about the pregnantteenager/blackgirl/quietkid/footballplayer and eventually the assumers are found out and the assumed gets really mad and everyone goes "maybe assuming things IS a bad thing." To which I say, didn't we already establish this with the footballplayer/quietkid/blackgirl/pregnantteenager episode? Now we have a butch lesbian football coach?! She's so butch and so lesbian! She must be hitting on/inappropriately touching the hot cheerleaders! What?! You mean those allegations were fake! Oh, and that pregnant teenager from the first season? Now she supports abstinence only education, because she's stupid. (oops, I'm assuming. But really.) And the quarterback, he was kicked off the football team and now he's an outsider! He's an outsider now! He's a glee club outsider now! He's an outsider! Do you get it?! This is important! This is the message we're telling you! You need to be open minded! Because, like, that's really important and stuff! yeah! You know what a much better show is that sends a good message without beating you over the head with it? Parenthood. That show is far more relatable, funnier and has better story than glee.

One more thing that doesn't really go with the overall theme of this post: The creator, or writer or somebody important on the show said in the first season that all the performances were audition processes or practices or performances, so it seems more realistic. Well guess the fuck what? The final scene of this episode was the ex-quarterback's girlfriend singing a sad song about falling in love down the hallway with no one acknowledging her! Realism. Check.

Oh, and that slushee thing. It's fucking stupid. It's like Glee's "We have to go back!"* Didn't it only happen in one episode? Why is it still being advertised.

Once again, this is only my opinion.

*When that first aired, oh my god, it was so good. Real classic Lost with that episode. And the way that plane flew over Jack's head at the end. Incredible. (I will never hesitate at the chance to talk about Lost.)

SURVIVOR IS BACK!

2010-09-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

I missed the first season of Survivor, but I watched every season from the second one to the eigth, which was all-stars. That, I guess, was considered the first generation of Survivor. Just 20 people on an island battling for $1 million. The second generation introduced Exile Island (which was stupid and, as far as I can tell, rarely used anymore.) and the Hidden Immunity Idol. Last night's 21st season premiere is the beginning of the third generation of this show. I didn't watch much of generation 2 because I didn't really care about the show anymore. It didn't seem to differntiate much from earlier seasons and was still trying to capture the essence it had in the first few seasons. Once Heroes vs. Villains came around, I was hooked again. I watched about the last half of Russel's first season and was amazed by how well he played the game. I thought he was robbed by an angry jury. I figured alums of the show would understand his strategy more and let him win. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. BUT THAT IS THE PAST AND WHATEVER HAPPENED HAPPENED! Generation 1 seemed to do what the real world does occasionally, in that it focused a lot on where the game was being played. Generation 3 seems like it will focus more on the people playing the game. (Generation 2 focused mostly on how great and groundbreaking the show still is. Also, there was that one season that bordered on racism.) Last night we were introduced to "the Medallion of Power." What's the Medallion of Power? Exactly. It's very mysterious and important.

Two groups of people are walking through the Nicaraguan jungle. They all assume that these people are their tribe. They approach Jeff Probst in front of a lagoon and he briefly interviews they group of them. He asks them about first impressions and whatnot. He then tells them about the Medallion of Power and releases them into the lagoon. A young Asian woman finds it up in a tree and everyone comes back to where they'd been standing before. Jeff asks someone, who assumes he's on the young Asian's girls team how he feels about the medallion of power. He says something along the lines of "This is really going to help our tribe." Jeff says "Well, it would, if these were your tribes." He tells them that the tribes are going to be divided by age. 30 & Younger in one tribe, 40 & Older in another. The young tribe is offered either fire, or to keep the medallion of power. If they take the fire, the old tribe gets the medallion. And that is exactly what happens. This works out well for the older tribe because the make fire without the flint in less than half an hour and they have the medallion of power. Everyone is freaking out about having Jimmy Johnson in the game. Two guys are talking, one of them says, "Is that Jimmy Johnson?"

"Yeah."

"No, Jimmy Johnson was the coach of the Miami Dolphins and the Dallas Cowboys."

"Yeah, that's him."

It was quite possibly one of the greatest conversations of Survivor history. Eventually, it's challenge time (CHALLENGE TIME!) Sometimes, the challenges represent something in the native land they are filming on. Sometimes, the challenges don't. Sometimes, the challenges are simply transporting water from bucket to bucket in an interesting way. This challenge was that. One person was on top of a tower with a big tub of water and a bucket. Four people made a gutter that emptied into another bucket. Once enough water was in the second bucket, puzzle pieces would drop and the remaining tribe members would have to complete it. Naturally, I was rooting for the U30 tribe, because I'm under 30. They won, so I was happy. Other than age, though, I could really care less about the young team. The Old team has Jimmy Johnson and this really cool black guy who was really pumped when Jimmy Johnson gave them a pep-talk before the immunity challenge. After the challenge, everyone scrambles to figure out who to vote out. The general consensus is Jimmy Johnson or Wendy, because they are the two weakest players. They all head to tribal council and talk to Jeff. It becomes evident that Wendy is going to be voted out. Jeff says "ok, it's time to vote." Wendy jumps in and says "Wait! Can I say something?" Jeff allows her to say something and she rambles about how she can be a strong asset to this tribe. She also complains that no one asked how old she is, to which the aforementioned really cool black guy says "because that's impolite." and Jeff explains to her that in regular culture, you're not supposed to say that. Then he asks her age. "48." she tells everyone. "but you look so young." the really cool black guy says with a hilarious, sarcastic monotone. They go to vote and everyone who was debating Wendy or Jimmy votes Wendy. Everyone but Wendy votes Wendy. She votes for Eve (pictured), who I was convinced would be on the U30 tribe. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this season.

Finally, this season of The Real World is over

2010-09-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

If you were looking forward to the live blog of last night's Real World finale, sorry. I decided I didn't really want to do that, because I'm an adult and I can do what I want. BUt, boy oh boy, last night's episode was great (and by great, I mean mediocre.) Ryan has come back to New Orleans to do a photo shoot with the roommates and everyone is SO mad at him. But that doesn't last very long. Then Eric and preston reminisce about all the good times and all the bad times. The night before they all leave they go out and get really drunk. Yeah! Shenanigans! Preston takes a bath (shenanigans!). A very drunk Knight takes a plastic tree in the house and throws it into the bath. He continues to throw more things in the bath and it's really funny. Then they all leave and everybody's really sad. Overall, fairly boring season. No one even wore ONE panda hat!

POST 300!

2010-09-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

In honor of our 300th post (300!) We'd like to have a toast.

Here's Kanye's performance form last night's (worst) VMAs (ever).

2010 MTV Video Music Awards - More VMA Video

Sleigh Bells second chance

2010-09-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, people love (LOVE!) Sleigh Bells. Hipsters, ya know? As I do have some hipster blood in me, because I like Pavement and wear glasses, I figured there must (MUST!) be something I'm missing. So, I re-listened to the album. I decided they are not a band to think much about. Sleigh Bells are to music as The Transporter/Crank movies are to film. I can not differentiate one Transporter movie with another, just as I can't differentiate any Sleigh Bells song with any other Sleigh Bells song. I know that in one of the movies, Jason Statham jumps a jet ski onto a bridge and then runs through a school bus (full of kids!) and punches a guy in the face at the front of the bus. How cool is that?! If you wanted to watch a good, quality film with an engaging story and good character-development, you wouldn't watch The Transporter series. But, if you wanted to sit down and watch a movie for pure, mindless entertainment, then The Transporter series is great (GREAT!) choice. Sleigh Bells are not Radiohead. They aren't making grandiose music that you're supposed to listen to closely and analyze and find beautiful. By no means will they be in this year's top 20 albums on KoolThingzzz, but I'm not going to actively avoid Sleigh Bells. If you want to dance to some music at a party and you've heard that one Black Eyed Peas song one too many times, Sleigh Bells are your saviour.

The Real World, in which homeless people runaway and get drunk

2010-09-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

I think this season of The Real World has finally found a formula that works. Knight and Jemmye are always crazy in love, and the Preston/Ryan fiasco has always been really hard to watch, although, also kind of funny. Eric never gets an episode dedicated to him, same with Mckenzie and Ashlee doesn't really do anything but look hot and be nice to everyone. Sahar episodes are always kind of bland, until now. Sahar was the main plot point of this episode, witht the secondary plot point being everyone's favorite, Knight! Knight! Sahar's boyfriend, Pablo, is coming to New Orleans to visit. Yeah! Sahar loves her boyfriend. And, Oh. My. God. They are SO cute together. (not) Knight and Jemmye, on the other hand, are perfect for each other. So perfect, in fact, that their housemates have decided to plan a wedding for the two. Knight's not too happy about it though. Probably because he's afraid of his feelings, because he's a man. (or something, Romantic Comedy, etc.) Jemmye thinks that they really have something here. "It's not just sex. I think it started with sex, but it's more than that now." WHERE IS THIS SHOW'S PEABODY?! Finally, Sahar's boyfriend, Pablo, shows up with his two friends. Yeah! That night, the lot of them go out clubbin (baby seals, just kidding, or am I? I am.) While at the club, one of Pablo's friends says that he "gets more ass than toilet seats." Knight feels really bad for Sahar, but he decides not to say anything because that's not his place. Sahar also has a show with a local band. Pablo gets really drunk throughout the day and hits on Mckenzie. At one point he puts his hand in her hair and says "Mckenzie's really pretty." In his defense, Mckenzie is really pretty. He says he doesn't really care about Sahar's performance and everybody feels terrible for Sahar, because she's so nice and Pablo is such a douche. While backstage, Sahar is kind of freaking out, but Eric comes backstage and pumps her up. Oh, they all pretended to be homeless by sleeping outside behind the soup kitchen one night. Knight and Ashlee ran away though and it was really funny. Loretta (the kitchen boss) caught them when they came back and had a deep conversation with Knight. It was nice. It was a good episode. Next week, Ryan comes back! OH NOOOOOOOO!!!

This is what happens when people stop being polite.

2010-09-05T16:56:00.000-07:00

As you know, The Real World is the true story of eight strangers picked to live in a house work together and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. And Real did they get? This was SO dramatic, like, TNT dramatic (TNT: Very Dramatic). Ryan's brother and cousin, referred to by Ryan as "brother" and "cousin," respectively visit New Orleans for his brother/cousin. Before they arrive, though, the housemates want to have a house meeting about Ryan's behavior. But Ryan decides not to do that. They continually try to have a meeting with him, and he continually avoids it. Eventually they all corner him in his room. But, he somehow weasels his way out. Finally, Brother and Cousin show up and they have a gay ol' time. Because of recent events, the housemates decide to all go to a drug abuse class. Of course, Ryan shows up late. But wait, it gets worse. He is also drinking a beer at the class. Everyone is incredibly offended, but Ryan doesn't understand why. The rest of the housemates become more angry with him. One night, when Brother and Cousin are visiting, Ryan takes the car out, gets drunk, and forgets where he parked the car. Eric and Knight wait for Ryan to go find the car. Ryan tells them that he's parked parallel to the beach. They finally find it, perpendicular to the beach. Eric then gives us a very nice lecture about what parallel and what perpendicular mean. They also get a ticket and become even more angry. That night, Ryan, Brother and Cousin go out. They come back very late and everyone's asleep. Ryan's upset because no one answered the door for them. Eric gets so mad at him and chews him out. The next morning, the housemates try to have another meeting, but Ryan won't have it, again. They kind of just shout things at him as he walks by like, "You need to get a better attitude, or leave." He tells them that no one needs to like him and he doesn't care what anyone thinks. He then walks into the phone room and calls his brother to come pick him up. He's moving out. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The rest of this season is going to be so great!

Watch this movie: the Fearless Freaks

2010-09-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

This is "The Fearless Freaks." It's a documentary about the Flaming Lips. It's really good.

So, I guess Persons Unknown is over. PART 3

2010-09-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

Janet wakes up in a hospital. She wakes up in a hospital. She rips all over her IVs out and gets out of her bed. She opens her shades to discover a REALLY FAKE LOOKING BACK DROP SAN FRANCISCO! She's finally home! Or is she?! DUN DUN DUUUUUN She runs out of her room and the doctors are like "You are a crazy person." And she's like "Nuh-uh!" And the doctors are like "yuh-huh." Then they give her drugs and she passes out. Elsewhere, Moira and Erika are hiding in some middle eastern throws in some middle eastern country and never mentioned again. Kat and Mark are walking around on the side of the road when a car drives past. They try to flag it down, but no luck. What jerks. Who are those jerks? Charlie and Bill are those jerks. They decide to pull over to rest at nightfall. But it's later revealed that they are still being watched by the program. Back in the hospital, Janet is assigned a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist is, of course, the director of the program. Janet explains the town to her, but she's not convinced. That night Janet falls asleep in her hospital bed. The next morning she wakes up in the hotel bed. She looks around and stares into the camera. Joe also wakes up in his own room. They each look in their bibles and find the key to get out of them out of the room, just like the first episode. Joe goes around and knocks on people's doors telling them about the key. Slowly, the rest of the guests awake and come out of their rooms. Then Mark, Janet's ex-husband, comes out of his room. Joe introduces himself and Mark says "I know who you are, father Joe Tucker." Janet gets into the elevator with the rest of her guests and it now becomes obvious that Joe and Janet are not actually in the same hotel. Joe goes to his elevator and his new guests follow him. They go to the lobby to find the new night manager, Tori Fairchild. Janet's elevator doors open and everyone expects to see the lobby of the hotel. Instead it's the first night manager who says "Welcome to level two." (I never explained levels. There are multiple levels to the program. When first captured, they were all level one. The night manager was a level six and the director was a very high level.) The camera zooms out and we see that they are now on a massive freighter in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. Great ending to a sometimes great show. It was great because it wrapped it up rather nicely in a "you can never get out of the program" kind of way. But, if NBC orders more episodes, there is definitely potential for more story. If you didn't watch the show at all, I suggest you do. It can be pretty engaging at times. It's also kind of slow at times. But, I liked it overall. I wouldn't mind if it got picked up for a second season and i wouldn't mind if it wasn't. It was originally written so that one story would be introduced, told and wrapped up in 12 episodes, and that's what happened. There is some talk of another season, and it's very possible. If NBC hadn't moved it to Saturday nights it probably would have gotten much better ratings. It got anywhere from 1.5 to 3 million viewers when it aired. I'd say that's not too bad for a summer tv show that was jostled around like it was Arrested Development.

So, I guess Persons Unknown is over. PART 2

2010-08-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

Back in the town, Liam, the new manager, falls for Janet. I don't understand why people are always falling in love with Janet. She's the most boring person. First it was Mark. They loved each other so much they got married. Then Joe, then Erika and now Liam. What's the deal?! He brings her to the viewing station and explains that they are monitoring almost every inch of town. The next morning all the guests wake up to find the elevator not working. As the walk around the town, they notice that all of the furniture is missing. They go into the bank and find body bags. Six of them. There are seven people in this town. Janet goes over to Liam and asks him what's up. He tells her that the people in charge aren't going to kill them. They'll start killing each other because everyone wants to be the one to survive. The group gets together and they all promise themselves that that isn't going to happen. They're all going to stick together. Blackham isn't entirely on board though. He thinks the program can still help them all. They decide as a group that everyone needs a partner. They all pair up and Blackham is left alone. He goes to the bank and starts crying. To be fair though, it was a tear bank and he was making a large deposit. Erika and Janet are monitoring everyone and notice Blackham crying.Then someone comes into the bank and starts beating him. Janet and Erika run to the bank to save him, but it's too late. His body is already gone. Charlie runs in and notices everyone's face. He asks where Bill is and Janet tells him "he's gone." Charlie freaks out and attacks Erika. They pull him off her and it's all good. For now. Moira and Erika (oh, by the way, Moira and Graham have developed a bit of a relationship. It was pretty uninteresting for the most part, so I didn't really report on it.) are in the chinese restaurant and Charlie walks in. Suddenly, he collapses. OH NO! They're all dying so rapidly! The rest of the group rushes in to find an injection wound between his fingers. Someone accuses someone else of killing Charlie. Later, Erika is playing piano, drunk, like a regular Tom Waits, and Moira comes in. He beats her head against the piano and throws her to the ground and beats the door against her head until she's dead. The remaining guests run in and Moira runs away. They run after her and Graham promises "She's not crazy." They run after her and Graham finds her on the balcony of her room, about to jump. Graham talks her down and holds her hand. She throws him over the balcony and he lands on his feet from a second story window. That would definitely kill you. There's no way it wouldn't just break your legs. Moira walks back in and Janet attacks her. They start fighting and Joe yells "Girl fight!" Janet takes fire extinguisher and wraps it around her neck, choking her. Now it's only Joe and Janet left. Elsewhere, Kat returns to her job to find that they've been bought out by something called the Mansfield Institute. Back in the town, Joe and Janet are reliving the glory days of their kidnapping. "Remember that time we almost died all those times. Classic." Joe takes a big swig from a bottle of scotch (maybe) and offers some to janet. Janet drinks and as soon as she swallows, Joe spits his out. JANET! You've never been my favorite, but that was SO OBVIOUSLY a ploy. Now you're dead and Joe is the sole survivor. All of the body bags are stuffed into a van and they're off. Once they've been driving for a while, Janet unzips her bag and lets everyone else out. WHAT?! ZOMBIES!? not zombies. It turns out that they orchestrated an elaborate plan to fake everyone's death. Classic Persons Unknown. They lot of 'em attack the driver and the van runs off the road. The next time we see Janet, she's walking down some random street. Then she collapses.

PART 3 of this summary tomorrow!

So, I guess Persons Unknown is over.

2010-08-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Persons Unknown ended rather abruptly. I was convinced that there was at least one more episode to air. But no, instead, they aired one episode exclusively online. So, I watched the last four episodes yesterday and today and let. me. tell. you. The ending was pretty great. (SPOILER ALERT!)

As you know, Kat and Mark have just walked into the town. They go into one of the buildings and hide when they notice a bunch of guys in blue suits drive into town. They aren't sure what's going on, but it's not good. In the hotel, the guests awake and board the elevator. When they get to the ground floor they find a new night manager. "Hello, my name is Liam." He tells them. No one trusts him. They are told they are relegated to this floor for a while. They are told they will each receive a complimentary gift for their understanding. When they all receive their gifts they realize the significance to their gift. Charlie gets a paper discussing his embezzlement charges, but also finding him innocent (thanks to the program!). Billy "the kid" (implementing new nick names at the end of the show is the best time to do so!) receives an old football and the obituary of his old coach. It's touching, because Billy "the kid" blackham used to be really fat, but then he played football and made the winning play on his high school football team. Erika gets a campaign poster of her son, who's running for class president. Moira got a scarf, the scarf she used to kill her parents. Graham's gift was the belt his mom beat him with until he ran away at 14. Janet got something too, I don't remember what. Probably something about her stupid kid. While Kat and Mark are hiding in the bank, they find a bunch of bodies in body bags in the safe. They think one of them may be Janet, but none of them are. They notice that all of the corpses thumbs are severed. One of the corpses gets up out of the body bag. Zombies! Not actually zombies. He tells them that he has severed the thumbs so the authorities can't identify them, or something. Both Kat and Mark describe this as "genius." And I have to agree. it's a good thing those people don't have 9 other fingers to be identified with. (only one thumb was removed.) The men in suits notice the three of them in the bank and chase them. They steal one of the jeeps and drive out of town and are chased ruthlessly, or until the guy with the thumbs jumps out. He gives Mark his thumbs and tells them to bring them to the proper authorities. So he does. Unfortunately, as soon as they land Mark is arrested on account of kidnapping Janet Cooper. But he didn't do it!

PART 2 of this summary tomorrow.

This season of The Real World is the best season of the real world

2010-08-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I said that this was the worst season of the Real World. How wrong I was! It's so great! It has all the aspects of a great show. There is an intense amount of drama, quite a few shenanigans, somebody to love, somebody to hate and a group of people who all complement each other really well and Sahar! This week's episode of the real world was so much better than this week's episode of Jersey Shore (which focused on Sammi and Ronnie's relationship and only that!). This episode starts with Ryan discovering that one of the fish has died. He and Knight decide to cook it, because why not? They put some spices on it and eat. I guess it's delicious. Ryan runs around the house offering it to everyone else, but everyone's really offended. That night, like every night, they go out to the clubs. Ryan gets REALLY drunk. As they go home in the taxi, Ryan starts punching the seat and banging his head on the window. Then, in a very Tommy Wisaeu-esque manner yells, "I'm fed up with this wuurld!" He didn't actually say that, but he did sound a lot like Tommy Wisaeu. It was really funny. We later discover that Ryan has OCD and has been having a really tough time handling it while in Nolins. He decides to schedule an appointment with a therapist, so all is good, right? BUT NO! Ashlee had gotten her tonsils removed a year ago and had some percosets left over that she's been carrying around ever since because of how that's a normal thing to do. Ryan had apparently asked for one a while ago and Ashlee was fine with it. But now they're all gone! OOPS! Maybe you shouldn't allow a crazy person to take your drugs, just a thought. Ryan claims that he only took two and Knight had one. As you know, Knight has a history with drugs. Knight decides to take a drug test to prove he didn't take anything. So all eyes are on Ryan. Meanwhile, Sahar is prominently featured in this episode! She gets in contact with some local musicians and learns some songs with them for an open mic night. Once at the open mic night she starts singing and is doing okay. People are picking up what she's putting down. They're digging on her jams. She's doin' alright. But then she forgets the words. But it's okay because everyone is very supportive. After Sahar performs, Eric performs a free style rap about how cool Sahar is and she feels better about screwing up. Overall, pretty good episode, pretty great episode. Next week looks to be even better though. Ryan may be getting kicked out.

Once again, sorry about the missed real world.

2010-08-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

I hope this will make it up for you.

OOPS! I TOTALLY forgot to post about last week's Real World!

2010-08-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

Oops! I watched it and was sure I was going to post about it. But now a new episode has aired and I still haven't posted about last week's! Oh well. I can't remember what happened at all. Jemmye was probably annoying, Knight probably said something funny and Ryan was probably dramatic about something. I'll post about the newest episode in a couple days.

Gathering of the juggalos

2010-08-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

Recently, Tila Tequila was attacked at the Gathering of the Juggalos. That's sad. But, this is great:

Piranha 3D is the new Hot Tub Time Machine

2010-08-17T10:03:00.000-07:00

Piranha 3D: For Your Consideration from Piranha 3D

How can you not want to see this movie now?