Time to Get Lost

Lost is back! Starting tonight, according to the creators, Lost will slowly begin to fill in the blanks and start answering the questions we all have until it wrpas up all the mysteries and the show comes to an end. They say they have a specific plan in mind, as well as an outcome that they have been working toward the whole time. Let's hope they aren't full of it, and that the writer's strike doesn't derail anything.

How Do You Bake if You're High?

For the past several years, many products come with high altitude baking directions - usually it has you add more flour or cook for a little longer. What I have noticed, however is that these directions have the altitude listed for which they are applicable, and it is usually 3500-6500 ft. What I am wondering is, why the limit? What about people who live at higher elevations than 6500 ft? I for one live at 6700 ft, just out of range, so I figure I can get away with following directions for 6500, but what about the people in Leadville, CO which is over 10,000 ft? Are they supposed to figure it out by themselves? Or maybe, the high altitude directions are only for that particular range, and any higher or lower you can just use the regular directions. I doubt it. Basically, what I am saying is that the range is stupid - give us a lower limit for when the high altitude directions apply and leave the upper end open.
*By the way, in case you are in doubt of my intelligence, obviously all of these questions are sarcastic and meant to point out how the instructions are flawed. Of course, there are probably people out there who will need clarification for these types of things - you know, the ones who need safety warnings like "do not iron clothes while wearing" or "remove child before folding stroller." Here is a site that has more funny instructions.

Law and Slapstick

I watch a lot of the USA network, and they have recently started airing reruns of NCIS. This is not a show I have seen before, and I don't really plan to watch it, but it is in the vein of the other procedurals I like so I'm sure I would ejoy it if I gave it a chance. Anyway, what I want to focus on is the ads that ran for this show advertising its presence on USA. It was kind of a funny commercial - stating all the things NCIS has that other similar shows don't: more intials, more Mark Harmon, etc. But the one that struck me the most was: "the show with more slaps upside the head." This of course was accompanied by a montage of characters getting whacked upside their heads. Okay, now I get it, it is tv. And yes, the shows on tv do not have to be totally realistic or based in reality. But typically aren't procedurals supposed to be closer than other programs? I find it very unprofessional for those people - who are supposed to be in law enforcement, right? - to go around hitting each other like cartoon characters. Silly. This trait most likely does not affect the show in any way, and probably isn't all that obvious when not edited together, but I found the inclusion of "slaps upside the head" in the selling points to be very amusing and worth comment.

Read It Again, Sam

I don't understand why so many people think reading books over again is weird, or stupid. Every time it gets mentioned that I re-read my favorite books, I get looks like I am a crazy person and this just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, people watch their favorite movies over and over, why are books different? Entertainment is entertainment, in my mind; regardless of the format, if something is enjoyable I want to be able to continue to take pleasure from it on future occasions. It isn't all about finding out what happens - the whole experience should be fun. By the way, I like reruns of my favorite shows too!

Let's All Hum Along

In case you were wondering, the song in those Kate Walsh Cadillac commercials is "Stars" by the band Hum. This is of particular interest to me because the guitarist in the band is a friend of my husband's from high school. And he mentions the song everytime the commercial airs, which I guess is good since I wouldn't really notice it otherwise. And it provides a nice break from his mentions of every Electric Light Orchestra song in a commercial which can get a bit tedious(trust, me there are A LOT, apparently ELO can sell anything). Anyway, I thought you'd be interested too - and no, I wasn't suffering from writer's block today, I actually chose this topic out of literally one or two others.

additional note: we have it on fairly good authority that Cadillac didn't bother to secure the rights to the song before using it. Can you say "big fat settlement check?"

Sunshine

Last night I watched Sunshine, a movie that you probably haven’t heard of, starring people whose names you most likely don’t know but whose faces you do. I liked it. It is about a bunch of astronauts and scientists on a mission to try to “jump start” the sun, which is dying out and taking life on Earth with it. There was one large weakness with the so called enemy or bad guy, which is typical of movies like this, because while it is easy to create suspense from the unknown in dangerous situations (and what is more unknown and inherently dangerous than space?), it is difficult to do justice to that suspense once everything is known. So the movie failed in that respect. However, it almost doesn’t matter because while that particular story line was somewhat necessary to drive the plot in points, in most respects it seemed more like a subplot. The movie itself, while being a thriller, developed as more of a rumination on Heaven, sanity, sacrifice, and humanity than anything else. The loneliness and confinement of being on a ship for so long; the mental stress of literally and figuratively setting your sights on the sun, all served to put the main focus of this film on the emotional journey that the astronauts were taking, as well as their various coping strategies (or failures). This was definitely aided by the score, which was very contemplative in several key areas, turning significant scenes into introspective moments instead of explosive ones. If you see this film, just ignore the “bad guy” (he’s only there for a short time, but it would have improved the entire movie if he had been even less of a presence), and instead focus on the journey taken by the main characters, as they struggle to balance saving the world with saving themselves.

Emerald Nuts Are The Nuttiest

The people behind the Emerald Nut commercials have got to be smoking crack, and I mean that in the best way possible. Their commercials are so incredibly insane that there is no way the people coming up with the ideas are sober. The first round featured extremely odd characters performing even weirder activities and the announcer would explain what was going on and the words would all start with the letters of Emerald Nuts. You know, like: Even Magical Elves Running Around Lazy Donkeys Noisily Uttering Truthful Sayings love emerald nuts. Loony. Then they advanced to the now defunct Robert Goulet spot (RIP) where he comes to your office at 3pm when you are sleepy and ruins your keyboards and messes up your paper work. At face value this could be just another case of using a familiar face to sell a product, except for the coup de grace which shows Robert avoiding detection by someone savvy enough to use the nuts to keep the drowsies at bay by crawling away backwards. On the ceiling. Wacky. And now, the latest version features a woman whose husband refuses to employ said nutty remedy, and instead has the Swiss Family Robinson building tiny little tree forts all over his head while he sleeps in his easy chair. Say What? Seriously, if the brains behind these ads say that they were sober as judges and only inspired by the product they have got to be lying. But just in case I’m gonna get me some of them nuts.

Cloverfield

****SPOILER ALERT******* PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU CARE ABOUT NOT KNOWING THE ENDING OR WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS MOVIE BEFORE YOU SEE IT!!
I was very intrigued by the entire concept of the movie Cloverfield. First, I’m a big J.J. Abrams fan, Alias is one of my all time favorites, I thought his version of Mission Impossible was pretty good, and I’m stuck on the island with everyone on Lost as well. Basically I just think the guy is really creative and I’m interested in his projects. And of course the teaser trailers and extreme secrecy about the movie and the monster were more than enough to peak my interest. Hello, headless Statue of Liberty - how can you resist that? So I went to the movie this weekend, and I will say that J.J. Abrams has definitely made a monster movie unlike any other. I’m not going to say it’s the best monster movie because it has a lot of negative points (which will vary depending on people’s opinions), but it is definitely unique. The most obvious point is that it is all shot as if it were a personal video from someone living through this nightmare – the main characters are regular New Yorkers going about their lives and they take a video tape along with them on their attempts to escape to figure out what is happening or whatever to document the events as proof of everything. As might be expected of people in such a situation, they do a lot of running and falling and hiding and panicking, which leads to some very jumpy filmwork. I recommend seeing this movie on a big screen because of this(its probably even harder to see on a TV), but also sit as far back as you can since it made me a bit nauseated until I moved my seat. However, as sickening as some of the jumpy shots are, I felt that they really served to bring a sense of reality to the movie because I was fighting for every little glimpse of what was going on at the beginning, as were all of the characters. Another potential negative for the film is that there is no easy wrap up in the end. It is not explained what the monsters are or where they came from, and we don’t actually really every find out if they are defeated. We assume that they are because the military basically nukes the city, but we don’t know. The entire film is presented as recovered evidence from the scene, and all we get to see is what the camera saw. My husband found this very frustrating, as did many others I’m sure, but I liked it. Again, I felt it added a sense of reality to the whole movie. The whole film to me really felt like a type of allegory to the events of 9/11 and how it feels to go through the chaotic first hours before you know what is even happening, as well as commentary on how our world has changed. I remember the initial reaction to the first plane hitting the towers as being a mistake or accident of some sort – no one’s first thought jumped to terrorism until that second plane hit. In this movie, when the first shock wave rolls through the city people think that it was an earthquake, but there is also an immediate fear that it might be more attacks. Our assumption of innocence has changed. One of the most unforgettable pieces of footage I saw after 9/11 was where an amateur camera man in standing in the street watching a wave of dust roll towards him and he escapes into a store only to watch as the dust rolls across the windows and renders everything black. This scene is recreated perfectly in the movie, right down to someone’s comment about people still being outside, and it really brought back into focus what a horrifying moment that was. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have something so terrible happen that it completely eradicates the reality you have been living in. No one in the movie would have ever thought that a 200 ft tall monster (from sea/space/military experiment gone wrong?) would show up and lay waste to Manhattan, but no one thought the World Trade Center was coming down that day either. But don’t get me wrong – I was not sitting in the theater pining away for a more gentler world during this movie – I was enjoying the thrills and wondering just what the hell that thing was anyway. Which I’m sure was the movie makers’ intention – to make a thrilling, exciting movie that reinvigorated the monster genre and did it in a totally believable modern way, targeted at all those YouTubers out there. But it did make me think a little too. Let’s just all hope that we have the fortitude to fight the horrors we can imagine, and the luck to survive the ones we can’t. And that J.J. Abrams keeps making movies, cause that guy rocks.

Keep Your Eye on the Target

Apparently there is some controversy brewing (thanks for the heads up, Dad) about a Target ad in Times Square featuring a girl laying across the Target symbol in a snow angel-making position. Feminazis think this objectifies women because her "special area" is strategically located right on the bulls eye. Now I can't say I particularly think this is a great ad - my first reaction was "why is she on the target - should we shoot?", but I didn't especially notice where her genitalia was placed because let's face it - I hardly ever pay attention to that on people unless it happens to be somewhere it's not usually found or in immedite danger of jumping out at me. The people up in arms about this would no doubt be just as mad if it were some other 30 ft high ad featuring a girl - you're using women to sell objects - that's objectifying women! Duh, losers - pretty girls sell stuff to stop your whining - which I'm sure is just based in not looking like this yourselves and never getting picked in gym class or asked to the homecoming formal- and go back to filling your fat mouths with cheetos or ding dongs or all natural organic granola so we don't have to listen to you anymore. Here are some other people's views on the subject.

I want me a Sven

I like this new commercial for ATT smart phones where an extremely large Swedish man (seriously, is the guy 8 ft tall?) follows the whole family around reminding them of appointments and the weather and whatnot. Basically the message is that unless you have a Sven, you need a smartphone. Works for me since I am completely enamored of the Blackberry and totally want one - you know, to keep track of all of my kids appointments and play dates and such, even though they are currently both under 2 and don't have any of those things yet. But now maybe I'll hold out for a Sven - does anyone know if he cleans too?

Lock Your Doors and Plug Your Ears - American Idol is Back!

Listen up one and all, for American Idol has once again begun its fabulous, freaky cycle. I have often heard people wondering how long it can last – for how many years will people continue to line up to be ridiculed and mocked (and maybe handed a ‘golden ticket’) by Simon, Randy and Paula? And you can definitely see a difference in the people who audition now. The first several years you would see lots of people with decent voices who just weren’t quite good enough to make it all the way. Now, in the seventh season, there are fewer of these average Joes (or they just don’t make the show edits), and instead the hopefuls we see seems to be split into three categories: The people who can actually sing, the people who are trying to get on tv by being ridiculous (and seem to be weeded out pretty well by the producers, they mostly show up in the montages of auditions with the same song unless they have horrific costumes on), and the people who populate an alternative universe and have landed here by some terrible cosmic accident (a subset of this group being the ESL people who are so enthralled with America in general they missed the talent requirement for the contest). These are the ones I like to watch. Yeah, by the end I get sucked into the contest and am somewhat invested in the outcome (I voted for Carrie Underwood once), but mostly I like to see the auditions. Some of these characters (and they are characters) are so out of touch that it is really astonishing. I imagine that this is what Comic-Con looked like 10 years ago before it got hip, albeit with slightly fewer Star Trek costumes. Last year my husband and I actually vowed to avoid ever having to visit Seattle because of the freaks that auditioned in that city (for the record I’m sure it’s lovely, maybe just don’t drink the water). I can’t say I’ve really met too many crazies like this in my life, but man do they come out of the woodwork for a singing competition! Can you imagine what it must be like to wander into one of those stadiums with all of those loonies waiting around? As each year progresses I gain more and more respect for Ryan Seacrest’s ability to maintain a straight face (and seem interested) while speaking to them. Kudos, really. After the first night I have two hopes for the future: 1) that the weird glitter girl is never my veterinarian (good luck in “actressing” though), and 2) that I am never so deluded about my talents. For now, my money is on the kickboxing, horse trainer from Oregon.

Veggie Tales Movie

I have seen a preview for a new Veggie Tales movie - just what it sounds like: tomatoes and cucumbers walking and talking - entitled something like Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. Or maybe where nobody does anything, I don't remember. Anyway, I find this a strange title for a movie - what are they, Seinfeld buffs? I figure maybe it's a riff on the whole "veg out" phenomenon where you lie like broccoli, but it's a dumb title. Plus, before stating the title, the voice over says stuff that happens in the movie, such as rescuing a princess and some other events I also don't remember (I don't watch the kiddie channels too closely, ok?), which to me implies that these pirates do in fact do some things during the movie and therefore the title is false as well as stupid. Although I guess I shouldn't expect too much from vegetative buccaneers.

Life Lock Must Really Work

There is a new commercial on TV for a company called LifeLock. This company promises to protect you from identity theft, although they never realy specify how they do that. What is impressive about the commercials though, is that they feture a guy standing on the street next to a giant semi truck with his name and social security number on the side. He shows the truck driving all around the city and he even hands out flyers to people on the street with his personal information on it. I think this is a pretty impressive display of confidence in LifeLock's ability to prevent identity theft. I don't know if the company si really as good as they say, but I'm sure more inclined to think it might be after seeing this.

Whodunit?

I watch a lot of procedural shows: Law and Order (and all of its permutations: SVU, CI), CSI, etc., and while I certainly don't mind the differences between them, they make me wonder about the actual processes involved in investigating crimes and who actually does the work. On the original Law and Order, the detectives do the initial investigating and then once an arrest is made any further information seems to be gathered by the ADA's working the case. On CSI, the forensic people do all the investigating, and there is hardly a cop in sight. On Shark, there aren't any police characters - the lawyers do all of the investigating themselves. And Bones has the pathologist doing a lot of the investigating, along with an FBI agent partner. I doubt there are a lot of agent/coroner pairings in the FBI. I suspect that SVU and CI are the closest to reality, with detectives handling the tracking down of clues and interrogating suspects, forensic people dealing with crime scene details and pathology, and the lawyers handling the trial. I certainly understand the artistic license taken by these shows, and I don't even really care about the presence or lack of legal reality - I enjoy each show on its own merits. But I do think there might be some mighty confused people out there wondering whose job it actually is to track down criminals.

PS: I'll be interested to see how involved Jack McCoy is in the cases on L&O now since becoming District Attorney. Typically the district attorney is a pretty small role on the show, advising the ADA's but letting them handle the cases mainly on their own. But I can't imagine Sam Waterston wanted to take a salary hit - unless of course he's tired after 18 years on the show.

Why He Do It?

There is a new show I've seen advertised called "Howie Do It", featuring Howie Mandel playing pranks on people - like candid camera. There is nothing really intersting or unusal about this premise except for one thing: in the ads the prank they show has Howie disguised as a waiter and putting his fingers in everyone's food when he brings it to the table. This strikes me as kind of odd since he is one of the most famous Hollywood germaphobes. I'm surprised having his fingers in people's food doesn't freak him out more than the unwitting participants.