Mac Commercial — PC Gets Upgraded — What they DON’T Show You
April 30th, 2007
MAC: “Actually, PC, you don’t have it so bad. If I want to upgrade my operating system, I need to be thrown away and replaced with a new Mac.”
PC: “God, Mac sucks!”
MAC: “Yeah. I think I’ll go and kill myself now.”
PC: “Don’t bother. You’ll probably die on your own in a few minutes anyway.”
Dawn of the Dead
April 30th, 2007
I watched Dawn of the Dead on DVD over the weekend. I gotta admit, it was pretty good. Although, I’m not sure I would call this a ‘remake’, since the only things the two really had in common were zombies and a mall. The zombies in the remake were really fast — almost TOO fast. They could run, sprint, jump, and fling themselves like olympic acrobats. Not that fast zombies are necessarily a bad thing. There are a couple of very fast zombies in my novel. But the point is: the zombies in the original were slow and stupid. Many a time do I fall asleep at night whilst thinking of the zombie (in the original) that carried a rifle around the mall and peered in zombie-like fashion down the barrel of the gun. I — as well as many other fans — were just aching for that sucker to pull the trigger and blow his head clean off. But, nay.
I’m a big fan of Jake Weber, who is one of the stars of the movie. He’s the guy who plays Joe Dubois in the hit television show Medium, which is also one of my favorites. He did an excellent job in Dawn of the Dead, as he always does, even though his character in DotD did eventually [SPOILER ALERT]. Speaking of the end, it’s the only part of the movie I didn’t really like. I won’t spoil it for you here, but I thought the ending of the original was much better. [ ENDING SPOILER]
Finally
April 19th, 2007
Sajaya = Loser
American Idol Still Going
April 17th, 2007
I haven’t written in a while. That’s because I’ve been considering throwing my television off a bridge. Honestly. American Idol is OK this year, but overall, a bore. Just give the title to Melinda Doolittle and get on with something exciting, like Hell’s Kitchen.
But since it’s still going, and I was so excited to write about it before, I guess I’ll chime in on AI.
Sanjaya sucks. Who cares about the hair? OK, little girls do. And they are voting in big numbers. That, and the “Howard Stern” conspiracy, among others, keep him in the running. Honestly, last week was the only week he’s even done fair, and I only saw the recap. Has he been in the bottom three only once?
Indeed, I had a power outage last Tuesday and was unable to see AI or House. Talk about depressing. For the lack of House, that is.
Blake Lewis is popular, and a decent singer. But he’s still nowhere near the caliber of Melinda or LaKisha. Gina got booted for god-knows-what reason this early in the finals, yet Sajaya is still there.
Chris Richardson — nothing special there. You can’t turn on your local neutered-rock radio station without hearing someone who sounds just like him.
I’m already bored talking about these contestants. Just give the trophy to Melinda and call it a season.
American Idol off to a Start
February 3rd, 2007
Yup, it’s American Idol season again! I love the “train wreck” portion of the show, which we’re still in. I don’t know, it’s not as amusing as it was last year. There aren’t very many humorous skits that show the worst of the worst as kind of a collage. That, to me, is the best part of the train wreck portion of the show. I’ve only seen a couple of people that I thought were noteworthy to watch for in the finals. One was the poofy-haired guy that looked like the Ozbourne boy. He had a great sense of humor and a decent singing voice.
And, honestly, who cares about all the controversy with Paula’s strange behavior on the show? Yeah, she’s a little weird, but we can’t all sit around the warm glow of our television just listening to Simon tear people apart, although that is quite fun. Randy doesn’t seem to know how he should act, and Paula is just weird. Welcome to American Idol!
The Big House Letdown
February 3rd, 2007
Alright. I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. I just got over the episode of House where he finally ’sticks’ it to the detective. And what a let down. Ugh. I received some messages stating that Detective Tritter should come down with some kind of illness that only House can cure. Yeah, that would have been quite predictable though. Instead, all the happened was this: House went into court, Cuddy lied to the judge and said that she had the medications switched with placebo that House illegally procured from the pharmacy. since the court couldn’t prove or disprove this fact, House was let free, basically on a technicality. Then the judge semi-sternly told Tritter that he was over-zealous in his pursuit of criminals. End of story. Come on! What a let down. Did I mention that it was a let down?
House Cuts Back
November 29th, 2006
Tritter is cutting off everyone’s ability to access their bank accounts. House’s people are starting to feel the pressure. Will they flip on House? Chase is the most likely, and therefore the easiest to manipulate. Detective Tritter takes him into the lunchroom and makes everyone else think that he and Chase are getting along great. Then he tells Chase that he’s going to free everyone’s bank account, and everyone else will suspect it was him that flipped.
Meanwhile, House is faced with a six-year-old girl who keeps getting rashes on her body. Nobody can figure out why. At first, it appears that whenever they do a test on a certain part of her body, she then breaks out there. So it’s only fair to assume that the staff is giving her some kind of infection. But then she gets a rash on her left arm — a place where nobody has touched yet. House is going mad because Dr. Cuddy has personally taken over his dosage on his pain meds, and it isn’t enough for him. So House is getting pissed. Normally he just lashes out at people and insults them in some way, but now he’s throwing out personal jabs that really take a toll on his employees.
I don’t understand how he can be worse in this episode than he was when he went completely off the meds in a previous season. It would seem that this time wouldn’t be as bad, but apparently it’s worse.
I can’t stand that Tritter. I hope House gets back at him good. You know something is building, and House is way too smart to be brought down by some punk cop. And I still don’t understand why they don’t just tell him to talk their lawyer. They’re doctors! Come on!
The little girl’s rash has now infected her left arm and left leg. House decides to amputate. Cuddy has been given temporary custody of the girl because her parents won’t stop arguing about her treatment. It’s time to go under the knife.
While the girl is being prepped for surgery, Chase figures out (all on his own, can you believe it?) that the girl’s symptoms only appear on her body when it was exposed to bright light. Chase chases (har!) House down and confronts him about the surgery. They end up in a squabble and House punches Chase right in the kisser. Chase falls, then explains his theory. House buys it and calls the O.R., stopping the surgeon seconds before the first incision is made. Can you believe it? Whew!
In the end, Wilson decides he’s going to flip on House. He goes into Tritter’s office (somehow Tritter now has an office in the hospital) and says, “I’m going to need 30 pieces of silver.” According to my research department, which is composed entirely of my wife, that is some kind of biblical term that means Wilson is about to give up House for Lent, or something. Either way, it means House is going to be ratted out by his best friend.
I can’t wait until the next episode! But, apparently, I’m going to have to.
House Teaches Suicide
November 16th, 2006
This was one of the best episodes of House so far. John Larroquette plays a man who has been in a vegetative state for ten years. House, being fond of lunching with comatose patients, happens to be snacking with the man when his son enters the room. House notices some strange traits in the boy. Thinking the boy may be subject to seizures, House flips the lights on and off, on and off. The boy (22 years old) looks very confused. House throws a bag of chips at him, and he fails to even see it coming for him. House tells him that he has intermittent seizures that makes it so the boy can’t see things that move. Then the boy falls to the ground and begins to have a flailing seizure. House looks at Wilson and says, “God I love this family!”
Detective Tritter is now interviewing the other doctors, asking them how many pills House takes a day, and if they’ve ever prescribed medication to him. Chase, of course, tells him what he wants to know; the other doctors lie and say that House only takes 6-10 pills a day. Yeah, maybe during his lunch break! I’ve also wondered why rich doctors don’t just tell the detective to take a hike and give them the name of their lawyers.
House has no way of getting a medical history on the boy who is unconscious and slipping into a coma, so he decides to wake up the father. Using techniques (or drugs, that is) as seen in the movie Awakenings, House injects the father with a medical concoction, who wakes up in only a few minutes. The father immediately asks for a steak. House begins to ask the man questions about his son, but the man is more interested in the steak than his dying son. House agrees to take him for a steak, and maybe a hoagie, to bribe the man to answer family medical history questions. The caveat: just as in the move Awakenings, the man will only be awake for a day or two. After that he will slip back into a coma, possibly until he dies of old age.
House takes Wilson’s car, but Wilson insists on tagging along. They drive to Atlantic City and search for the deli that serves the man’s favorite sandwich. In the meantime, the man agrees to answer House’s questions only if House answers questions for him. So the game begins. We learn a lot about House during these sequences, including the reason why he became a doctor in the first place (personally, I think he was making the whole thing up). We learn that the father has the same affliction as the son. But the son has an added affliction: alcoholism. By the time they figure out what’s wrong with the son, it’s already too late. The son’s liver and kidney are failing, and so is his heart. Without a transplant ASAP, the son won’t live. But there’s an additional problem, the son is ineligible for a transplant because he’s an alcoholic.
Dad to the rescue. The father offers to give his heart to the boy. He’s going to slip back into the coma anyway, and it’s not like he’ll be doing anything with the heart. House calls Dr. Cuddy to see if she would approve of such a thing (yeah, right!). She, of course, turns him down. He can’t just kill the man and take out his heart, no matter how bad his future looks.
House sends Wilson out of the room, then confirms with the man that he really would be willing to give his life for his son. The father agrees. House instructs him on how to commit suicide in his hotel room without damaging the heart. “Strangulation would be best,” says House.
In the mean time, Wilson is downstairs in the casino hitting on women in a blatant attempt to make sure he has an alibi for the soon-to-be-dead father in the room upstairs. He even calls out Dr. House’s name to man he hired to look like Dr. House. Is there anything Wilson won’t do for Dr. House? Come on!
Wilson goes back upstairs and find House waiting outside the man’s room. We hear a “THUMP” through the door.
Back to the hospital, House and Wilson are back. House is immediately pounced on by Dr. Cuddy, who is suspicious that House put the man up to suicide. Duh.
House VS The Detective
November 8th, 2006
David Morse plays Detective Michael Tritter in the most recent episodes of House. And, man, is he a jerk. Granted, House is also a jerk, and probably deserves a lot of what he gets from this detective, but House didn’t expect the man to go to such lengths to get “revenge” on House.
Basically, this detective goes to House because he thinks he may have an STD. House barely even looks at him, then says that it’s ‘nothing’. Mr. detective doesn’t believe him and demands an STD test. House refuses and begins to walk out of the exam room. Detective Tritter kicks House’s cane, tripping him. House then decides to give the man the test, then turns him around and gives him a tempure reading rectally. Then House just walks out and goes home, with the thermometer still lodged in the detective. Funny stuff.
Later on in the show, the detective pulls House over for a bogus traffic violation, finds his pills on his person, and arrests him, tacking on resisting arrest as one of the charges.
House gets out of jail in the next episode, only to find that the detective got a search warrant for his apartment. In the search, the police found House’s stash of prescription drugs and confiscates them. House claims that he has a prescription for all of them, which he does. But we all know that he had previously forged Dr. Wilson’s signature to get one of his latest rounds of pain killers. This doesn’t come out until the end of the last episdoe, where Det. Tritter confronts Wilson with the forged signatures. Wilson looks as surprised as anyone when he sees the signatures, but defiantly insists that he signed them for House. Ugh.
I can’t wait for the next episodes with this detective. As was the case with Ed Vogler in a previous season, we know that this cop is going to drag House through the mud, only to be bested in the end. At least, we hope so. If House isn’t picked up for season four, it is possible that the cop could win here.
Let’s keep watching, so House doesn’t fall from this one, shall we?
Rich List Premier
November 2nd, 2006
I like watching game shows with my wife. It gives us a chance to see how smart and/or lucky we are. It’s fun to play along. The Rich List premiered tonight. And I must say that I wasn’t disappointed. There are a lot of shows out there now that offer at least a million bucks for a grand prize. According to the Rich List, there is no limit to how much a person can win.
It all started with Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Then along came Greed. Now we have Deal or No Deal and One Versus One Hundred. All are good shows with interesting rules. But, even after a single episode, the Rich List has the potential of being my favorite. Why? Because of the way it’s played. For example, in Deal or No Deal, a player must choose a single briefcase out of a possible twenty-six that may or may not contain a million bucks. The player shouts out numbers to open the other briefcases, eventually finding out if his contained the million. In the meantime, a banker is offering the player money to give up on the game an go home. It’s fairly exciting, but it’s all luck.
In contrast, One Versus One Hundred is a game show that relies entirely on player knowledge. A question is asked and three possible answers are given. The player chooses one and, if she gets it right, gains a certain amount of money for each of the hundred others that answered wrong. The counter-players on the panel that get it wrong are bounced out of the game for the remainder of the current contestant’s run. It’s a pretty fun show to watch and play along with.
But the Rich List is something different. Again, it’s based more on knowledge than luck, but it has an added spin: you don’t need to know a particular answer in a certain order. It’s simply a matter of recalling entries that appear on a list, in no particular order. First, two teams of two people each — having never met each other before — are given a category such as Best Picture Oscar Winning Movies. Then the two teams bid back and forth to let the other team know how many they should be able to think of. As soon as one of the teams “gives in” and says, “go ahead”, it’s up to the high bidding team to come up with the list. If the team gets as many as they say they can, they win a game. If they give even a single answer that’s not on the list, the other team wins. Beast of three wins sends a team to challenge the Rich List. Then they get to go against the main board to give as many answers as they can muster. For instance, one of the categories was Disney Animated Movies. All the players (a duo team) needed to do was tell the host which Disney movies were released theatrically. It didn’t matter what order the players recalled them, as long as they were on the list. The players were awarded a certain amount of money for every three entries on the list they got right, with a maximum of $250,000 for a particular list. This makes for an exciting show to watch, because you find yourself trying to come up with a list yourself.
“Aladdin, Lion King, Cars!” My wife and I were shouting out answers as fast as we could think of them. We got about 12 (good for a cool $150,000) before we had to consult the video shelves.
I like this show, and I hope it’s around a long time. The only problem is, what’s gonna happen when a trivia buff comes along and breaks the bank? Sure, it seems that there’s a $250K max on each of the Rich Lists (I could be wrong; maybe there’s more) but some of the categories seem like they could be easy to a trivia geek.
We shall watch. And we shall see.
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