Friday, May 20, 2005

After being canceled after its second season and running through a season's worth of plots in the last two episodes, Arrested Development has been rescued and given a third season with a move to Monday night. This is an extremely good thing. AD is the only half-hour comedy that I've watched regularly since I started losing interest in That 70's Show a couple of seasons ago. So how long will George Sr. have to continue playing his brother Oscar?

Speaking of That 70's Show, why are they bothering to bring it back for another season but without Foreman and Kelso? Why?!?

Back in the good thing category is the renewal of Numb3rs with the unfortunate downside that Sabrina Lloyd is leaving the show. I thought she was terrific in Sports Night (hell, everybody was terrific in SN) but she was very much underutilized in this show as the focus really became the relationship between brothers and father and the underplayed non-relationship between Charlie and his advisee. And who knew Peter MacNicol was capable of playing a sympathetic and humanizing character?

Who thought it was a good idea to do an updated version of The Night Stalker? And with Stuart Townsend (Dorian Grey in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) as Carl Kolchak? Drugs are really ruining the industry, aren't they?

I know it was the title of the book, but The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is by far the worst movie title since Operation Dumbo Drop.

I finally pulled out a couple of the album cover frames that I got for Christmas to hang in the guest bath upstairs (which really functions as my office bathroom). My first choice?  Who's Next. Just think about it a minute...

Woo-hoo - it's Friday!!

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Looks like I'm the latest victim in the current music meme thanks to jw, so here goes...

The last CD I bought was: a tie between Forever Hasn't Happened Yet from John Doe and Worlds Apart from ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead.

Song Playing Right Now: Well, when I read jw's post fingering me as one of the next victims, it was the sound of cooling fans in two desktops and one laptop. But right now it's Rock Lobster on 100.7 FM

Five songs I listen to a lot, lately (in no particular order):

Slow Jam, New Order - I picked up Get Ready in the used bin a few months ago and have been listening to it pretty much constantly since then.

 

Bye Bye Love/Moving In Stereo/All Mixed Up, The Cars - I'm counting them as one as they each feed right into the other one.  Part of my running mix lately and I keep hitting repeat when they come up.

 

Incense and Peppermints, Strawberry Alarm Clock - from the Austin Powers soundtrack. One of the classic one-hit wonders, but actually a reasonably complex, well-put-together song.

 

Hwy. 5, John Doe - this is what X would sound like if X was still around.

 

Jumpin' Jack Flash, The Rolling Stones - blame PC for this one as his mention of searching for a CD copy of Hot Rocks 1964-1971 got me listening to the rip I did from my ancient vinyl copy.

Nothing particularly earthshatteringly cool here, jw - hope I didn't disappoint! :-)

And now the baton is passed to...  JennySlash, PC, mapgirl, Anonymoses and Dad (Daddio, you can use the comments since you're not blogging... yet).

Monday, May 16, 2005

I really noticed today for the first time that despite the many downsides of me pretty much taking the month of March off from running, the good thing is that my right knee no longer sounds like it is stuffed with bubble wrap.

"I'll be damned, that's Serge Zwikker huffing and puffing up towards me. 'Hey, Serge!'" Chapel Hill - the place where extremely tall guys come to retire. In addition to 7'2" Serge, I saw 6'11" Warren Martin at the Teeter in Carrboro a couple of weeks ago and 7' Eric Montross in the new Great Outdoor Provision Company store at Eastgate around the same time. Guys make me feel downright puny.

I seem to recall the Cars' first album as not getting a lot of positive critical attention when it first came out, but there aren't many albums I can think of from the late 70's that can boast a three-song sequence as good (and as creepy) as Bye Bye Love, Moving in Stereo and All Mixed Up. And a note to Larry, Fred and the rest of the old "Joint and Several" gang - despite the lyrics we used to sing at the top of our lungs, it really isn't "it's just a fucking alibi" - it's "it's just a broken lullaby". Just so's ya know.

Color me not all that ready to fire everyone ever associated with Newsweek over the flushing-the-Koran-at-Gitmo kerfuffle. How dare I reduce a huge lie by the mainstream media that got a bunch of people killed to a "kerfuffle"? Because the attention is being focused on Newsweek and not the, uh, people that actually did the killing. And not the people (i.e. the Bush administration) that created the condition that made the story so believable. And because no one is really (if you listen hard) is saying that it was a lie. Understand this - no one with any credibility is saying that the Koran desecration did not happen, just that Newsweek now can't get confirmation of the story and that the investigation at Gitmo doesn't include those claims. There have certainly been other stories of such actions coming out over the last months and years - some undoubtedly false and put out by radical Muslims as propaganda, but was it all?

The more liberal end of the blogosphere (and please don't give me a hard time for refering to a sphere having an end) has done a pretty good job of covering this story and the sanctimonius reaction of the White House and the right wing blogs and press. Scott McClellan's response is particularly ironic (and not in that Alanis Morrissette non-ironic ironic way):

"The report had real consequences," McClellan said. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation."

Heh. Can you say 'WMD'? Can you say "connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda"? Can you say "1600 dead US servicepeople and 100,000 dead Iraqis"? Can you say "Don't forget Poland"? Sure, I knew you could. To quote the Poor Man's response to Glenn Reynold's Newsweek attack:

Interestingly, this lie, one of many which Glenn enthusiastically promoted up to and beyond the point of absurdity, was instrumental in launching a war which has killed, to date, over 1,600 American soldiers, and an estimated 100,000 Iraqis. People died, and the US military and diplomatic efforts were damaged, because — let’s be clear here — because of a concerted effort by the Administration and its “New Media” toadies to convince America that Saddam posed an imminent - no, a completely active and long-standing - threat to US civilians. It didn’t. It was the consensus opinion of all experts (those who weren’t in orbit around Lyndon Larouche, at least) that it didn’t, and, once Baghdad fell, even they were amazed at the extent to which it didn’t. But you’d never know it from reading Reynolds, or anyone in the vast and influential world of right-wing weblogging, and their scathing attacks on the irresponsible and partisan mainstream press. A thousand bloggers quote Reynolds quote The Washington Times quoting Laurie Mylroie quoting Doug Feith making shit up, and then pick up on a retracted story from an insufficiently jingoistic magazine piece as evidence of their greatness - a three-ring circle jerk driving the country into war, but none dare call it wanking. Advantage blogosphere.

Apologies to The Poor Man for quoting quite so much, but this is damned important. Somebody (and now I can't find it again or I'd do the appropriate cite) pointed out that if Newsweek is held to the same high standards that we hold our current administration, instead of heads rolling we'll see some Newsweek editors getting the Medal of Honor. That seems about right. Kos and Pandagon have more good stuff on this. Look, I'm not defending Newsweek here - no question that more diligence was necessary. But I'm not ready to blame the deaths of a dozen people on them - the people that rioted resulting in those deaths are kinda culpable. And the hand-wringing on the right is just, well, laughable.

If this all gets to be too much, I suggest taking a calming break by looking at Hard Core Kitty Porn or having a go at Kitten Wars (the latter is looking for donation, by the way).

Sunday, May 15, 2005

I've got posts up in a couple of new places this weekend.

First check out this week's edition of Tar Heel Tavern, hosted by Pam's House Blend - thanks, Pam! If you want to know more about the Tar Heel Tavern blog carnival or about carnivals in general, click away on the woodcut above.

Second I was invited by Dave at AnonyMoses to contribute to IdeaConsultants and my first post there went up last night. Thanks for the invitation, Dave! You'll likely recognize a number of the names there but will also hopefully find some new ones. Haven't quite figured out yet which posts I'll do here and which ones I'll do there and link to from here, but it'll probably become obvious to me in a week or two.