Okay. After last week’s horrible ending on TAR8, where we bade farewell to the awesome Gaghan family and were stuck with the not-very-appealing and socially backward Weaver family in next-to-last place, I realized I Officially Just Don’t Care Who Wins. I’ll watch until the bitter end, but I won’t care very much (or scream encouragement and imprecations very much). Tonight, for your reading pleasure, I am under way with two (2) glasses of Pinot Grigio safely stowed away, and may get into the Merlot if absolutely necessary (the Merlot was bought more for deglazing purposes than for actual drinkability). I…
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Okay, this is only going to be funny to fans of Stargate, but there’s this asteroid out there that has a very small chance of striking the Earth in about 30 years. What’s it called? Apophis. Fans of the show will be imagining the asteroid decked out in gold lame’ and eyeliner. I have to wonder at whoever is naming small objects in the solar system; that’s the second possible cheezy-SF reference in as many weeks. The other one was the new planet or moon or whatever that was just named “Xena.”
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The recaplet by the wonderful Miss Alli is up for the most recent episode of TAR8: Television Without Pity | Season 8 Episode 5 The race heads out of New Orleans to Panama, where for the entire first half of the episode, absolutely nothing occurs to affect anyone’s placement that is the result of anything other than pure luck. Finally, after several bunches and unbunches that have nothing to do with anyone’s performance, there is one significant decision in the form of both the Paolos (in first place) and the Gaghans (in last place) deciding it is most advantageous to…
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False alarm. That doesn’t mean this issue won’t bust out again later. In a manner of speaking, that is. We haven’t heard the last of this.
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Britain is all a-twitter with news of the parrot that died of the avian flu – there are a lot of unanswered questions, such as “was it infected before it entered the British quarantine facility, or did it pick up the virus there?” I was considering doing the obvious “dead parrot sketch” comparison, but the staff writer for MedPage Today, an otherwise serious health-news site, has done it for me. Thanks, Michael Smith! Just as a correction, though, the “shifty pet shop owner” is played by John Cleese, and the timid but plucky erstwhile parrot purchaser is played by Michael…
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The Sunday Philosophy Club : An Isabel Dalhousie MysteryBy: Alexander McCall Smith Finished this one a few days ago. I had really loved the “Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency” novels by the same author, and I hope to encounter a new favorite series with this one. That wasn’t the case, but I did enjoy meeting Isabel Dalhousie and seeing a bit of her world. She’s a very deep person who spends a lot of time thinking about things philosophical, romantic, and mysterious. Ultimately it’s an unsatisfactory read, because philosophy gets in the way of logic. In the real world, a…
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You may disagree, but the current storyline at PVP sure looks like a classic shark-jumper. In a nutshell, Brent is dreaming about a possible future, because Jade thinks she might be pregnant. I’m hoping it’ll turn out to be a false alarm, with some plotty goodness that makes it all just a scary side-issue. But it may well be the next direction for this strip, because quite often strips follow a kind of life of their own that may more or less mirror their creators’ lives. Which means that the classic dictum “write what you know” works just as well…
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If you were thinking about sending a picture of your open refrigerator to Alton Brown, don’t bother: Thursday, October 20, 2005 Some of you may have noticed that the “contact†button is gone from my web site and that my rant calling for refrigerator pics is gone. Here’s why: although many of you sent in some really nice pics and insightful, fun emails some of you decided to send vulgar, nasty, frightening messages and images. I always knew there was ugliness and meanness out there but you know what, I don’t have to give you a place to put it.…
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The current season of TAR continues to eerily predict impending disasters, like Katrina or the cancellation of a once-great show. This week, teams wandered around the Southeast avoiding Hurricane Dennis while finding random bits of giant furniture and spending the night in a trailer park. Wow, love the cultural immersion they’re undergoing! Not. There was one awesome shot of a curtain of rain and stormcloud behind the Paolos, who at least stopped for a second to look at it. Before the episode, there was a disclaimer about how the episode was filmed before Katrina and Rita laid waste to the…