Well, Saturday it decided to put about 6 million inches of rain down, so I went to sidereel and caught a few season premieres and normal episodes of a few shows. I watched the season opener for Medium, I always liked this show, it centered more around the very real seeming family relationships and what Alison's abilities and job did to there family life. The season opener from last season's cliff hanger was okay, not really anything special, but then they had to resolve the cliff hanger. I did like the ending, though.
I caught another episode of Monk. That show has gotten a bit old, but this is the last season. I liked wings, and his taxi driver character was great there. I liked his neurotic detective bit, but really, how long can they go on with it? And I didn't catch the series until Trayler Howard had joined, and I like her, so when I see an old episode with Sharona I find it inferior to the Natalie episodes.
The opener for the Mentalist was on. I almost missed this, unusual job/skill set makes a guy a super detective, cop show last season. It is okay, sort of falls into the Medium, Monk, Psych, Castle, Numbers catagory of show. Last season they spent most of it setting up the main character. He was a fake psychic who upset a serial killer enough the guy off the mentalist's wife and kid. Now he hunts the killer acting as a consultant for the CBI, a fake state investigative agency. The killer taunts him whenever the series needs a boost. The first season gave this backstory and established that this guy basically can really read and manipulate people because he was a big time con man. The only problem I have is with this episode. For someone so smart and good with people, he did a really bad job dealing with the law enforcement officers. I guess they needed it to create tension and conflict and plot points for this season's overriding story arc, but really, if your main character works because of certain things, don't have him behaving like a sulky third grader and making mistakes a low grade moron would make trying to get his way.
The Simpsons is a show I quit watching on a regular basis. I can't believe it is still on. It is well past it's prime and is pretty much repeating itself, but still manages to pull a few laughs and have more fun than about half the shows on the air. I also watched Family Guy, despite the fact that it is now more embarrassing than it is funny.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
New Television
I am an old-timer. I can remember when summer tv was nothing but reruns of the previous fall and winter shows. Then came reality tv and the relatively cheap to produce shows and soon that dominated summer tv, spilling over into the new tv land. That actually made me watch less as I hate 99.9995 of reality tv as it 1) bears no resemblence to any form or reality, and 2) seems to focus on and cater to the worst qualities of humanity. I also find it boring. Anyway, eventually cable channels sort of came to our rescue although a and e, bravo, tlc, and discovery all seem to be going to the all reality crap programming, slowly. Hopefully the history channel and biography won't follow suit. Anyway, I have become addicted to some of the alternative programming out there. Eureka is a show I have come to love. The acting is good, full of goofy characters, it is primarily a comedy but with a bit of sci-fi and some action. The special effects are generally cheesy, but that never stopped Dr. Who. There is about 4 seasons of reruns you can find on the net if you are willing to prowl, check it out. Warehouse 13 is also worth hunting down, although only 1 season so far. It's a sort of modern steam-punk, scifi show with a good cast. Merlin is a britsh made program. I watched the first season when I had little else to watch, I did watch the first episode of this season, but the reimagining of the Arthur legend as teen drama is quickly reminding me why I stopped watching Smallville. Sanctuary wasn't really summer programming and it was often cheese in the extra sharp variety, but since it started as a net show, I watched it through and rather liked it. I am hoping it will have a season 2.
Now so far this season I watched House's premiere. Pretty good, but could you expect less from House. Bones was okay for the first 2 episodes. Bones character is getting to be a bit old to not have evolved a bit more. How could such a smart person not learn over time. Angela is still super sexy and the most appealing of the ladies. I still like Booth and Hodges and their interactions. Sweets and came are just there. The lady DA is only a recurring role, but she by far steals any scene they let her in, even if she is only a turbo-charged sassy black lady.
Criminal Minds season premiere was meh. It ended, as usual, on a cliff hanger that was sort of resolved, although to my mind not in a satisfactory way. It also started what, I would guess, is to be a season (or half season) long subplot.
NCIS had a pretty decent season opener. I like this series, it's a procedural that doesn't take itself too seriously, has predictible, but likable characters, and makes for good forget the world for an hour, television. It doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. NCIS LA, the new spin off was on and it was watchable enough that I will get it a few more viewings to see if the characters come out. It looks like the team leader, former seal (LL Cool J), and Chris O'Donnell are going to be the show focus with everyone else filling the support roles. Instead of Ducky, we have a crabby, short accountant, unfortunately although she is made in the quirky stock character factory, so far she is the only one on the show with a personality.
I currently watch only 2 half hour non-animated sitcoms. Better off Ted and the new Modern Family.
Better off Ted was a summer filler that will probably come in mid-season. It has a good cast, is a very excellent parody of a big, completely evil business filled with quirky clueless characters. It's hilarious and well worth the time.
Modern Family is a new show, but based on the pilot, I plan to make it a regular show. It is done in fake documentary format. It follows 3 groups of people around. The first seems like a normal family, father (who thinks who is "cool"), mother, and 3 kids (stock teenage girl growing up fast, younger smarty, nerdy little sis, and bratty brother). Incidently the 15 year old girl is played by a 19 year old actress according to imdb, so those nasty fantasy's you may be having are legal. Second group is an older guy (Al Bundy or Popeye Doyle) who marries a much younger, hotter and more latin woman who has a pudgy 11 year old boy child from a previous marriage. Group three is a gay couple both of whom can be stereo typed, but neither is so over-the-top as to put you off, and there newly adopted vietnamese baby girl. At first I thought these people would all turn out to be neighbors which would tie them together, then I though maybe it was just that they were all part of a the same documentary. Then when the show tied them together in another way beyond the documentary it was a nice little twist. I love that Ed O'Neil is back on tv and the pilot was very funny and very well-made. It mixed all the elements up so I could identify will most of the characters and like them even while laughing at them. If the show holds up to the pilot, the sitcom may be coming back. Ed's hot latino wife is another reason to watch the show guys.
Supernatural has so far had 2 episodes this season and both have been strong if you watch the show, and both have been somewhat tied to the overall arc rather than a monster or the week episode. It's actually the only WB show I currently watch.
The Guild webshow is running again, so I plan to catch up on that when I get home. I am 2 epidoses behing, that's about 14 minutes.
Now so far this season I watched House's premiere. Pretty good, but could you expect less from House. Bones was okay for the first 2 episodes. Bones character is getting to be a bit old to not have evolved a bit more. How could such a smart person not learn over time. Angela is still super sexy and the most appealing of the ladies. I still like Booth and Hodges and their interactions. Sweets and came are just there. The lady DA is only a recurring role, but she by far steals any scene they let her in, even if she is only a turbo-charged sassy black lady.
Criminal Minds season premiere was meh. It ended, as usual, on a cliff hanger that was sort of resolved, although to my mind not in a satisfactory way. It also started what, I would guess, is to be a season (or half season) long subplot.
NCIS had a pretty decent season opener. I like this series, it's a procedural that doesn't take itself too seriously, has predictible, but likable characters, and makes for good forget the world for an hour, television. It doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. NCIS LA, the new spin off was on and it was watchable enough that I will get it a few more viewings to see if the characters come out. It looks like the team leader, former seal (LL Cool J), and Chris O'Donnell are going to be the show focus with everyone else filling the support roles. Instead of Ducky, we have a crabby, short accountant, unfortunately although she is made in the quirky stock character factory, so far she is the only one on the show with a personality.
I currently watch only 2 half hour non-animated sitcoms. Better off Ted and the new Modern Family.
Better off Ted was a summer filler that will probably come in mid-season. It has a good cast, is a very excellent parody of a big, completely evil business filled with quirky clueless characters. It's hilarious and well worth the time.
Modern Family is a new show, but based on the pilot, I plan to make it a regular show. It is done in fake documentary format. It follows 3 groups of people around. The first seems like a normal family, father (who thinks who is "cool"), mother, and 3 kids (stock teenage girl growing up fast, younger smarty, nerdy little sis, and bratty brother). Incidently the 15 year old girl is played by a 19 year old actress according to imdb, so those nasty fantasy's you may be having are legal. Second group is an older guy (Al Bundy or Popeye Doyle) who marries a much younger, hotter and more latin woman who has a pudgy 11 year old boy child from a previous marriage. Group three is a gay couple both of whom can be stereo typed, but neither is so over-the-top as to put you off, and there newly adopted vietnamese baby girl. At first I thought these people would all turn out to be neighbors which would tie them together, then I though maybe it was just that they were all part of a the same documentary. Then when the show tied them together in another way beyond the documentary it was a nice little twist. I love that Ed O'Neil is back on tv and the pilot was very funny and very well-made. It mixed all the elements up so I could identify will most of the characters and like them even while laughing at them. If the show holds up to the pilot, the sitcom may be coming back. Ed's hot latino wife is another reason to watch the show guys.
Supernatural has so far had 2 episodes this season and both have been strong if you watch the show, and both have been somewhat tied to the overall arc rather than a monster or the week episode. It's actually the only WB show I currently watch.
The Guild webshow is running again, so I plan to catch up on that when I get home. I am 2 epidoses behing, that's about 14 minutes.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
WTH Is Going On With Toolbars
Wtf is it with tool bars for web browsers. At first it seemed like everyone and their grandmother had one and wanted you to install it but it was easy to say no. Now you can't install any kind of software without it wanting to install somebody's freaking toolbar and most of the time it comes right in the middle of installing the software when you are basically hitting the next button continuously, so it can sneak right by you. Everybody has a toolbar: Mapquest, Yahoo, Ask, Google, Big Dick McGee's BBQ Mud Wrestling and Sex Toy Emporium; and they all want on your browser. I don't get it either, if the toolbar offers a special service, I had one that verified the ip address and domain name of all sites for awhile when the phishing and redirecting first became a mini internet scam industry and I had a near fatality when I answered an email supposedly from ebay while a little too sleepy, I can understand, but when mostly what it does is internet search....WTF?
I use mapquest's toolbar at work. I have to do a lot of driving, mostly local. Realistically all it does is save me from going to the mapquest website. I hit the direction button and put in my start and first destination and it opens the webpage with that information all ready loaded and I just plug in the rest of my stops. I also use a specialized toolbar at home that has 2 or 3 features I like. Originally I made the mistake of installing the new Windows search, which didn't work anywhere near as well as the older more traditional search, at least for me, and which also caused the my documents folder the crash explorer pretty much everytime I opened it. While trying to figure out the issue, at first I thought it was a problem with a codec, I installed a third party file explorer, xplorer lite 2, I believe, a very nice little program, and it installed a toolbar on two of my three browsers. It got internet explorer and firefox but missed safari. It had a neat internet radio function so I left it on until I finally figured out it was slowing my browsers down. I then hunted up another toolbar just for the radio feature though.
In both of these cases, I am using a toolbar I found a need for and hunted down. Most of the functions of all of the toolbars though seem to be searching. The radio toolbar looks for music, mostly on torrent sites. Other that directions and maps, mapquest is mostly specialized search engines for gas priced, yellow pages, ect, with one basic websearch. This is what I don't get.
First off, when I first started surfing the net back in the stone ages, we had 2 ways to do an internet search. First you just go to your favorite search engine or web portal and search. Second, you just type the thing you were looking for into your browser address bar and it would automatically look it up for you. Neither of those things were really that difficult. Now things are even simpler, every browser I can think of in it's last couple of incarnations has had a separate little space where you could type in what you were looking for and it would search for it. If you don't find what you like, you can change the search engine you use right there. So why do we need all these extra toolbars? I see some convienence, but mostly unless they offer something that works better or offers a new feature, like the radio, or the it guys at work swear the google toolbars pop up blocker works better than firefox or ie's, why bother with them. And why are these companies so anxious to stick them on our browser that they bundle them with every piece of software they can.
I am sure it has to do with advertising, the more people use ask or yahoo or google, the more they can charge the advertisers on those sites, and the more they can charge to get top placement. And I would guess they gamble that most people aren't going to change the default search, for instance making ask the default on google's search bar. But still it seems awfully silly to me. The more junk on the top of the browser, the less room to see the actual material.
I use mapquest's toolbar at work. I have to do a lot of driving, mostly local. Realistically all it does is save me from going to the mapquest website. I hit the direction button and put in my start and first destination and it opens the webpage with that information all ready loaded and I just plug in the rest of my stops. I also use a specialized toolbar at home that has 2 or 3 features I like. Originally I made the mistake of installing the new Windows search, which didn't work anywhere near as well as the older more traditional search, at least for me, and which also caused the my documents folder the crash explorer pretty much everytime I opened it. While trying to figure out the issue, at first I thought it was a problem with a codec, I installed a third party file explorer, xplorer lite 2, I believe, a very nice little program, and it installed a toolbar on two of my three browsers. It got internet explorer and firefox but missed safari. It had a neat internet radio function so I left it on until I finally figured out it was slowing my browsers down. I then hunted up another toolbar just for the radio feature though.
In both of these cases, I am using a toolbar I found a need for and hunted down. Most of the functions of all of the toolbars though seem to be searching. The radio toolbar looks for music, mostly on torrent sites. Other that directions and maps, mapquest is mostly specialized search engines for gas priced, yellow pages, ect, with one basic websearch. This is what I don't get.
First off, when I first started surfing the net back in the stone ages, we had 2 ways to do an internet search. First you just go to your favorite search engine or web portal and search. Second, you just type the thing you were looking for into your browser address bar and it would automatically look it up for you. Neither of those things were really that difficult. Now things are even simpler, every browser I can think of in it's last couple of incarnations has had a separate little space where you could type in what you were looking for and it would search for it. If you don't find what you like, you can change the search engine you use right there. So why do we need all these extra toolbars? I see some convienence, but mostly unless they offer something that works better or offers a new feature, like the radio, or the it guys at work swear the google toolbars pop up blocker works better than firefox or ie's, why bother with them. And why are these companies so anxious to stick them on our browser that they bundle them with every piece of software they can.
I am sure it has to do with advertising, the more people use ask or yahoo or google, the more they can charge the advertisers on those sites, and the more they can charge to get top placement. And I would guess they gamble that most people aren't going to change the default search, for instance making ask the default on google's search bar. But still it seems awfully silly to me. The more junk on the top of the browser, the less room to see the actual material.
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