Ramblings of a 20-Something
Archive for February, 2009
American Idol Has Nothing on Echo [Dollhouse]
Feb 28th
Another week, another episode of Dollhouse. I’ve been seeing some mixed reviews about this series, but I don’t see what the problem is. I’m digging what’s been laid out for us so far and this episode wasn’t bad either. I don’t think I liked it as much as the previous one, but “Stage Fright” still delivered.
So this time we’ve got Echo as a double personality. She’s a backup singer for pop sensation Raina, but she also wants to protect her from crazed super-fans. Cue the dance numbers. While Echo is doing this, Agent Ballard is stumbling along following the breadcrumbs that the higher-ups at the Dollhouse have left for him to find. More on that momentarily. More >
A Dork By Any Other Name
Feb 23rd
So it’s not secret that I’m a huge dork. I’m into most of the basics in dork culture ranging from comic books and video games to action figures and yes, even Anime. I’m about to reveal something that will plunge me somewhat further down the ladder in the Dork Hierarchy chart though. Years ago, when the Anime series Dragonball Z was really picking up steam on the American airwaves thanks to Cartoon Network, I, along with a few friends, ran a text-based online RPG based on the series. I’ll wait while you laugh. It’s OK. You can get it out. I’m not ashamed.
Each of us had tried out a couple of these online RPGs and were disappointed with the results. The creators of the games cheated quite a deal and it was next to impossible to level up or have any sort of chance against the people that ran the site or their friends. So we got to thinking and ended up making our own rules that were not only fair, but were in range with the way the show actually worked. It was around that time that I ended up ordering a shit load of bootleg VHS tapes off of ebay just before the boom of DVDs in my life. My friends and I set up this site online for the RPG and started recruiting from the other crappy games. Thus the game began. More >
Dollhouse AKA: Holy Shit That’s a Lot of Information
Feb 23rd
I’ve read that Joss Whedon is purposefully avoiding an overlying arc for the beginning of Dollhouse and is instead focusing on 7 stand-alone episodes to start off the season. If that’s the case, then what the hell did we see on Friday night? Yes, the “engagement” was a stand-alone mission, but we got so much more. Seriously, by 9:57, I was thinking to myself “Wow, there’s a lot of information in this one episode.” That’s really surprising. Not that I’m thinking while watching TV, but that we’re bombarded with enough back-story to make the writers of Lost blush and so early on. And yet, there’s still a lot of mystery to the show, as well as many unanswered questions. Let’s take a closer look.
So at the end of the first episode, we were given a very brief glimpse of Alpha, the mysterious male active that went rogue. No other information was given aside from the fact that he seemed to like to cut people. This episode gave him a bunch of info on his background and how he went AWOL. It seems that throughout the time that Alpha was being imprinted with various personalities, he started to gather bits and pieces of each one and developed a composite of them all. The result was an unstoppable killing machine that hacked up a bunch of guards and several actives, but Echo was left untouched. Another “luckier” victim was Dr. Claire Saunders (Amy Acker) who had her face cut up and scarred beyond repair. We saw Saunders’ slashed face in the previous episode and I [incorrectly] theorized that she was a former active who received those injuries on the job. It seems that even though Saunders is a relatively minor character in the Dollhouse, she has a lot going on behind those scars. More >
My Evening With Kevin Smith (And a Bunch of Other Fans)
Feb 22nd
I’ve been a big Kevin Smith fan for years. It’s no secret. I own all of his movies (except the recently released on DVD Zack and Miri Make a Porno
So, as a birthday present to myself, I got a couple tickets to see a Q&A on Saturday, February 21st at the Bergen PAC in Englewood, NJ. I snagged two of the last seats available in the house in the very back row, but I didn’t care. I was going to see Kevin Smith live! Monica and I got there early and waited…and waited…and waited. I had thought the show started at 7, but it turns out it was 8. No big deal though. I was excited. More >
The Attack of the Cancer Woman
Feb 22nd
Monica and I went to the local T.G.I. Friday’s last night to grab a quick bite to eat before the evening’s festivities. We were a bit unfortunate that we got the Cancer Woman as our waitress. We’ve seen Cancer Woman before, but she’s never served us.
Let me explain to you who Cancer Woman is. She’s clearly the oldest person that works there by a longshot, so it’s actually a little sad that she’s walking around as a waitress with a shit load of flair on her shirt. That’s now why she’s the Cancer Woman though. That name comes from her voice. It’s terrifying. It’s like a female version of Christian Bale’s Batman voice. I was so scared that when she took our drink order she would also suck out my soul along with it. More >
Media Round Up – Week of 2/15/2009
Feb 22nd
So what have I been watching / reading or otherwise looking at this past week? Let’s take a look at what I’ve been pointing my eyeballs at.
Film
-Margot at the Wedding
Rating: 
-The Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow
Rating:
-Clerks
Rating:
Television
-Lost
Rating:
-The X-Files
Rating:
-Stephen King’s The Stand
Rating:
No new episodes of The Office or 30 Rock this week, much to my dismay.
Books
The Stand
Rating:
Watchmen
Rating:
Audio
-SModcast – Also for the Q&A, I listened to a couple of SModcasts that I’ve been falling behind on. I’ve got at least 10 that I haven’t listened to yet because I just don’t have the time to do so. They’re great stuff though and each one is like a mini-Q&A because Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier just talk about random shit and the results are hilarious.
5 Squared
Feb 22nd
So I’m 25 years old today. I’ve been bouncing around this planet for a quarter of a century. If I was to have three clones of myself or if I was one of a group of quadruplets, we could team up and call ourselves the Centurions, but not like the Jack Kirby TV show or anything. We’d just be a super hero team that has to do with the number 100…for a year. Then we’d have to change our name.
Anyway, I guess I feel a little older. It sort of struck me the other day that I’m turning 25. I think that quarter-life crisis is starting to set in. What have I accomplished so far? Yes, I’m a college graduate and I have a job in the field that I went to school for, and I’ve got a great fiancee, but I still feel like I’m missing a little something. I want to accomplish something on a personal level. I’ve been inspired by the likes of Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith (whom I just saw last night at an awesome Q&A, more on that later) to do some sort of film stuff. I’m not expecting to make some elaborate multi-million dollar blockbuster or anything like that. I just want to make a few videos that I can put on the Internet to make people laugh. And I think I can do that. More >
So That’s What a Car Accident is Like
Feb 19th
Every day before I leave the office, my boss Alan says “Drive Safe.” It was just something that he started saying one day and he’s said it every day when I’m on my way out. It’s not like I’ve ever been in an accident before or had any trouble. It’s just something he says. He said it last night as I was putting on my coat and walking out the door and I didn’t think anything of it.
Then I got into a car accident.
Let me explain this here. Yesterday there was a weird sort of snow storm in these parts. It snowed for a little while and then it was raining and sort of snowing. As I left work, I took a look at the roads and they seemed OK. I passed the Palisades Parkway, which is my go-to way home when the roads are really bad, but things were fine. I continued on my usual route along the back roads that would take me right to the Tappan Zee Bridge. These back roads take me up and around a mountain or something (the road’s name has the word “Mountain” in it). Anyway, this road was fine. I’ve driven on it once before when it was in a much worse condition, so I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. Then I get to a certain point towards the top of this mountain and it’s clear that the plows haven’t come through here yet. The road is slushy and I take it slow, as does the car in front of me. More >
James Knows…DVDs: The Stand (1994)
Feb 19th
Having recently finished the book of the same name
But how can this fail though? The Stand is a fantastic book, but it’s pretty much the definition of the word “epic.” There’s a lot in there and King does a great job in crafting the story. It’s tough to do the book justice in film, even if it’s a 6 hour mini-series. Even though King wrote this adaptation himself, it just doesn’t hold a candle to the written word. Too much is condensed and the story doesn’t flow as well. There’s a lot of jumps in the story which resulted in the introduction of numerous characters in a short amount of time. I don’t care about Dayna Jurgens or The Judge in the mini-series because I had only seem them in maybe one other scene before they did their stuff. While I understand that some liberties need to be taken when adapting any story to film, these just added up to too much and it really hurt the overall story. More >
The Adventure of the Garbage Buildings
Feb 18th
I live in an apartment complex that consists of several different buildings all linked together with a little courtyard type thing in the middle. Although, I wouldn’t really call it a courtyard exactly. It’s more of a mudpit with occasional pieces of grass. There’s no place for water to drain out really so it just sort of hangs out. Anyway, this isn’t about the courtyard. It’s about garbage. See, in each little corner (as far as I can tell) is an entrance to the basement and that’s where the garbage is deposited. There are four of these and these four buildings are the only way to get rid of garbage. The building I live in is not one of those garbage buildings and I’m very happy about it. Especially after last night.
I stopped by one of these garbage buildings to get rid of some cardboard boxes (deposited into a separate dumpster to be recycled, natch) last night. Upon my entrance, I was immediately hit with a horrible smell. I just figured that some of the bad garbage smell had made it’s way upstairs. That makes sense right? Only after I went downstairs and dropped off the cardboard, I noticed that the smell wasn’t down there. This bad smell only existed OUTSIDE of the garbage room! More >
