Category: Arts & Entertainment
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Fat Man and Little Boy and Jughead
After watching this week’s episode of “Lost” (called “Jughead”), I think I’ve finally figured out the secret of the island: it loves killing unnamed people. If I were a Flight 815 survivor at this point, I’d be going around to everyone who would listen, introducing myself and giving a little bit of my backstory. And…
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A Disquiet Follows My Mid-Season Break
Or, “We Never Said They Had a Good Plan.” So last week was the big return of “Battlestar Galactica” (with “Sometimes a Great Notion”) after months of speculation after a huge cliffhanger and the promise that all our questions would be answered. I didn’t really say anything about it at the time, because I was…
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SPOILER: Caesar dies
This weekend I finished watching the last episodes of the HBO series “Rome.” It’s been a hard road to the end of the series: it was recommended by a friend on here, but it took me a long time to get into it. And they nearly lost me a few times in season 2, because…
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Density Calls
The “Lost” season 5 premiered with a two-parter, “Because You Left,” and “The Lie.” You can tell that they’ve finally mastered the “Lost” formula because they aired two full hours jam-packed with over a dozen characters, eight or nine locations all over the world, multiple flashbacks, a genuinely surprising reveal of a familiar character, multiple…
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On the Air
About two months ago, I did the unthinkable and cancelled my satellite TV service. It was both an attempt to save money as well as a social re-engineering project on myself: I’d gotten so dependent on having live TV that it never even occurred to me I could go without it. It was an essential…
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Rags to Raja
Hang on, we may need a last-minute recount on the best movie of 2008, because I just got back from seeing Slumdog Millionaire. Considering it’s been getting near-universal praise from critics and audiences, I hadn’t heard that much about it. I would’ve passed it by if an internet pal hadn’t recommended I see it in…
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Two Thousand Eight
I realize that year-end “best of” posts only make sense for bloggers who get paid by the post (and just barely even then), but it’s a good way to acknowledge that the year wasn’t all bad, and give a call out out to the stuff that was excellent. Plus, it gives me one more opportunity…
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Literacy 2008: Book 9: More Information Than You Require
Book More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman Synopsis John Hodgman got famous from “The Daily Show” and those Apple ads and also he’s friends with Jonathan Coulton. (Actually: a continuation of his almanac of made-up facts, begun in The Areas of My Expertise). Dismaying Fact Discovered Hodgman is only 24 days older than…
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And Santa Can Be Our Regular Saturday Night Thing
I know it’s been done before, but what can I say, I’m a sucker for tradition. Here’s wishing everybody (including Mr. Swayze himself) the haziest, laziest, Swayziest Christmas of them all. Pain don’t hurt, everyone! Pain don’t hurt us one and all.
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Sack o’ Monkeys in My Pocket
I was wandering around the internet last night and ended up spending at least an hour looking at MST3K clips on YouTube. It really was the best television series ever. There’s the Idiot Control Now song from Pod People: (You can see the bit they’re making fun of as well). And the Fugitive Alien Medley.…
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Lepton of Disappointment
The worst thing about Quantum of Solace is that it has to follow Casino Royale. That’s the capsule review I’ve been hearing in the past few weeks: “It’s not as good as the first one, but still okay.” And that’s a shame, because it’s not a bad movie; in fact, it’s still in the top…
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Forty Years of Banging the Crap Out of Things
Another year means another post from me imploring people to see the San Francisco Taiko Dojo’s Concert in Berkeley in November. This year is the 40th Anniversary Show, so it should be a pretty big deal. I’m especially looking forward to it because I missed last year’s concert in Berkeley as well as the past…