I'm not an inventor. Hell, I'm barely a typer. But what I am, is someone who gets irritated at life's little "fuck you"s and b/c I'm female and demanding, I want it to be fixed.
For instance, why can't someone come up with a pack of smokes that holds 40 Half-Smokes. For the times when you need that hit of nicotine, yet you don't have 5 mins to smoke it out. Or if it's cold and you just want to burn one right quick then get back into your warm house. And don't tell me to pinch it out and re-light it, b/c that sucks and the first drag always tastes a bit like warmed over ass.
I need someone to invent a better laptop. One made of some kind of durable space shit with a retractable handle so I can carry it around in airports w/o spazzing that someone's gonna bump into me, I'll drop it, and then it'll be all fucked up. I don't feel like buying some 200 dollar POS Laptop Carrier. I'd rather spend an extra 100 bucks on a laptop that I didn't have to worry about and that came with a handle. Look into, nerds. I'm sure it's feasible.
I want someone to invent a roll of toilet paper that my 11 month old daughter can't unravel in the space of 12 seconds. I don't care how you do it, just make some sort of plastic cover that prevents tiny hands from spinning out a double roll of Charmin onto my floor while I'm trying to put my contacts in.
I want the assholes who make screws and bolts to have some kind of online database. I want to be able to type in "The movers lost the screws to my chair and now I have no back. They are X size holes. What screw do I need?" b/c right now, I'm stuck with going to fucking Home Depot every 3 days trying to find the screws that my idiot movers lost. Ok, fine, I shouldn't blame the movers. It's just as possible that while unpacking, I possible threw them out in a fit of metal rage.
But hey, I just get irritated at the little things. Luckily, on the grand scale, everything is roses. :)
Monday, December 15, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Chuck - Just Go With It
Man, how much can a person love a tv show? And I say this knowing full well that I've become enamoured in years past with The X Files, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, BSG, Alias, Bones, etc, etc. But Chuck is new breed of show. Chuck was created by Josh Schwartz, the genius behind The OC. Yes, that show got to be incredibly stupid, but you can't argue with the first season's awesomeness. I must admit, tho, that Josh kinda pisses me b/c he's MY age and he's this crazy mad creative guy while I'm, well, I'm just Jeanine. :o)
I stumbled upon Chuck from reading one of my favorite tv columns, TV Gal on www.zap2it.com. Amy would go on and on about this little show and I'd read all these great one-liners that she would quote in her column and I would think, "Damn, I gotta see this!" Of course, the fact that Adam Baldwin of Firefly and Angel fame was in it didn't hurt. Unfortunately, Chuck premiered in September of '07 and I was living in Italy at the time. Thus, no NBC for me. And Hulu wasn't up and running then, either. Those bastards. Didn't they know that I needed them? But anywho, I kept reading about it and when I did make it back to the good ol' U S of A in April of '08, I was able to catch a few eps of reruns and then I was able to catch a few more on Hulu. I finally got around to renting Season 1 on DVD just today and watched all 4 eps on the first disc in one glorious Chuck-filled go. I admit, it had a shaky start. It was very unbelievable and I wasn't invested into the show yet to allow it to slide. But of course, from the eps I had seen and from all of Season 2 that I've faithfully watched, I knew it would improve. And improve it did! While the first ep had only a few fun moments, the second was chuck (heehee) full of them!
For the uninitiated, here's a synopsis of Chuck:
Chuck Bartowski is your everyday slacker. He lives with his sister and her fiancee, who are both doctors, and spends his nights playing video games with his childhood best friend, Morgan, and his days working at the Buy More (like a Best Buy) fixing computers. He hasn't dated since his college girlfriend dumped him for his roommate, and this was 5 years ago. He got kicked out of Stanford b/c said roommate also turned him in for cheating, even though he wasn't. So he's been at the short end of the stick for years, but isn't a bitter asshole about it. He's just a nice, albeit nerdy, guy with no real goals.
Enter Bryce Larkin. Bryce is currently a CIA agent and is also that same college roomie of Chuck's. Bryce has gone rogue and has stolen the "Intersect". This Intersect is actual a computer program that's a huge pot of information from the CIA and the NSA. ALL the information. Every file, every image, every secret operation, it's all on this Intersect. Bryce downloads the Intersect onto his handy dandy (I watch too much Blue's Clues) Blackberry, blows the original computer to shreds, emails the file to Chuck and then is shot and killed by John Casey (Adam Baldwin). Chuck opens the email and all that data is downloaded into his brain. (Now here is a sticky part for me. Would you really remain standing for 12 hours while being bombarded with images and information? And how would you be able to retain all that info? Hell, I can't even remember the name of my 1st Grade teacher. But this is what I'm talking about when I say you gotta just suspend your disbelief and go with it.) After the download, his computer is fried and Chuck wakes up on the floor. (C'mon, who hasn't had that happen before?) Now, whenever he sees anything that was on any of those files, he "flashes" on that file, and it basically opens in his brain and he knows everything about it. At first, there's some confusion, but then a hot blond comes into the store and everything melts away. Until he finds out that she's a CIA agent trying to protect him from being killed by the NSA. It ends with the CIA and NSA deciding to join forces to protect Chuck, aka The Intersect, in the beautiful forms of Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and John Casey (Adam Baldwin), respectively.
This show works on multiple levels. First and foremost, there's the great humor! Chuck is so lost in this world of spies and espionage and Casey is, well, he's a dick, but he's funny at it. Much like his Jayne character on Firefly. Sarah is sweet and lethal. She has such a crush on Chuck, as he does on her, yet they can't really be together b/c her job is to protect him, not date him. Secondly, this show has some great action scenes. Be it blowing up the random car here and there, having Sarah get into a raging fight with Casey, or even the pratfalls that Morgan has to do when getting mercilessly shoved aside by a tunnel visioned Casey, it all works and it's never cheesy or overly CGI, nor does it rely too heavily on stunt doubles (which seriously pissed me off on the early seasons of Buffy before SMG got her tae kwon do on).
I love this little show and it's rare to have a show that I can actually Laugh Out Loud at during every episode.
For some escapist fun (don't think too hard, just go with it), I recommend Chuck.
I stumbled upon Chuck from reading one of my favorite tv columns, TV Gal on www.zap2it.com. Amy would go on and on about this little show and I'd read all these great one-liners that she would quote in her column and I would think, "Damn, I gotta see this!" Of course, the fact that Adam Baldwin of Firefly and Angel fame was in it didn't hurt. Unfortunately, Chuck premiered in September of '07 and I was living in Italy at the time. Thus, no NBC for me. And Hulu wasn't up and running then, either. Those bastards. Didn't they know that I needed them? But anywho, I kept reading about it and when I did make it back to the good ol' U S of A in April of '08, I was able to catch a few eps of reruns and then I was able to catch a few more on Hulu. I finally got around to renting Season 1 on DVD just today and watched all 4 eps on the first disc in one glorious Chuck-filled go. I admit, it had a shaky start. It was very unbelievable and I wasn't invested into the show yet to allow it to slide. But of course, from the eps I had seen and from all of Season 2 that I've faithfully watched, I knew it would improve. And improve it did! While the first ep had only a few fun moments, the second was chuck (heehee) full of them!
For the uninitiated, here's a synopsis of Chuck:
Chuck Bartowski is your everyday slacker. He lives with his sister and her fiancee, who are both doctors, and spends his nights playing video games with his childhood best friend, Morgan, and his days working at the Buy More (like a Best Buy) fixing computers. He hasn't dated since his college girlfriend dumped him for his roommate, and this was 5 years ago. He got kicked out of Stanford b/c said roommate also turned him in for cheating, even though he wasn't. So he's been at the short end of the stick for years, but isn't a bitter asshole about it. He's just a nice, albeit nerdy, guy with no real goals.
Enter Bryce Larkin. Bryce is currently a CIA agent and is also that same college roomie of Chuck's. Bryce has gone rogue and has stolen the "Intersect". This Intersect is actual a computer program that's a huge pot of information from the CIA and the NSA. ALL the information. Every file, every image, every secret operation, it's all on this Intersect. Bryce downloads the Intersect onto his handy dandy (I watch too much Blue's Clues) Blackberry, blows the original computer to shreds, emails the file to Chuck and then is shot and killed by John Casey (Adam Baldwin). Chuck opens the email and all that data is downloaded into his brain. (Now here is a sticky part for me. Would you really remain standing for 12 hours while being bombarded with images and information? And how would you be able to retain all that info? Hell, I can't even remember the name of my 1st Grade teacher. But this is what I'm talking about when I say you gotta just suspend your disbelief and go with it.) After the download, his computer is fried and Chuck wakes up on the floor. (C'mon, who hasn't had that happen before?) Now, whenever he sees anything that was on any of those files, he "flashes" on that file, and it basically opens in his brain and he knows everything about it. At first, there's some confusion, but then a hot blond comes into the store and everything melts away. Until he finds out that she's a CIA agent trying to protect him from being killed by the NSA. It ends with the CIA and NSA deciding to join forces to protect Chuck, aka The Intersect, in the beautiful forms of Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and John Casey (Adam Baldwin), respectively.
This show works on multiple levels. First and foremost, there's the great humor! Chuck is so lost in this world of spies and espionage and Casey is, well, he's a dick, but he's funny at it. Much like his Jayne character on Firefly. Sarah is sweet and lethal. She has such a crush on Chuck, as he does on her, yet they can't really be together b/c her job is to protect him, not date him. Secondly, this show has some great action scenes. Be it blowing up the random car here and there, having Sarah get into a raging fight with Casey, or even the pratfalls that Morgan has to do when getting mercilessly shoved aside by a tunnel visioned Casey, it all works and it's never cheesy or overly CGI, nor does it rely too heavily on stunt doubles (which seriously pissed me off on the early seasons of Buffy before SMG got her tae kwon do on).
I love this little show and it's rare to have a show that I can actually Laugh Out Loud at during every episode.
For some escapist fun (don't think too hard, just go with it), I recommend Chuck.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Mr Brooks
Mr Brooks is a movie starring Kevin Costner and (loosely) starring Dane Cook. Costner is a good actor, always has been. Loved him in The Untouchables and Field of Dreams and yes, god help me, Robin Hood. He's faltered these past few (10) years b/c he started to believe the hype around him. That he was this great, amazing Actor. I kinda want to compare him to Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo, god love him, was a great child actor and went on to star in Titanic. Which, he has said over and over, that he wishes he had never done. He became this huge Star, not as an actor, but as a teen heartthrob, and really, outside of Johnny Depp, who really has overcome that moniker? But Leo kept getting these accolades as being the best Actor who's ever breathed and he started to believe the hype but he put the smack down upon himself. He brought himself back down to planet Earth and realized that hey, this is just a job. I do my job, I get paid. I am NOT god, nor am I A god. I'm just a guy. Costner realized this too, only it took him a considerably longer amount of time to do it. In Mr Brooks, Costner tries to shed his good guy image (an act he tried to accomplish with A Perfect World) and you know, it's believable. He does an amazing portrayal of someone neck deep in addiction (albeit an addiction to murder) and he's trying to overcome it, only to be dragged back in via blackmail. This is where Dane Cook comes into play. I'm not saying Dane is a good actor, nor I am saying he's necessarily a bad actor. He's just Dane Cook. Luckily, his role isn't huge and his lines aren't long. I wouldn't even call him the protagnist, as that role is encompassed by a great William Hurt, who isn't even a real person, just the Devil on Costner's shoulder. This movie is long. Really long. If they would've editted out everything about the Meek's subplot with Demi Moore, I think I would've enjoyed it all that much more. As it stands, I give it a 2.5 out of 4. It would even be elevated to a solid 3 had they ended the movie 5 minutes early. And if you've seen it, you know what I mean.
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