mewelke's Journal

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Vegas! (Obligatory Fear and Loathing reference goes here)
Just about to catch the bus to the airport to head out to Vegas for my annual Bowl Game bonanza.

This morning I hacked off much of my beard to look less like a derelict to the TSAs. Try as I might to clean the bathroom afterwards, the place still looks like I murdered a Muppet in there, and I'm convinced that even as I type this CSI Sesame Street is currently scanning the bathroom tile for additional clues.

Listened to Mojo Nixon's brilliant "Pleasurelegiance" this morning, which I can't find anywhere online otherwise I'd link to it here. Instead I'll just say that I'm following it today, "visiting the Holy City at least once a year"... "Let the drinking begin!"

Anyway, anyone I won't actually see to say this to in person, have wonderful and inebriated holidays.

Thanksgiving Football quite possibly just part 1
There may be more to this depending on what time during the afternoon game I get picked up for tonight's festivities.

For now, I know this isn't the first time I asked this and probably won't be the last, but can someone explain the Detroit Lions to me. They've got two wins. They can't mathematically make the playoffs, the only thing a win can get them is a worse draft position. So if they're playing for pride, why is the obviously injured Calvin Johnson playing? You'd think that their priority for him would be to recuperate the knee, and be fully healthy for next season.

On the same topic of the Lions, why does Matt Millen have a job? NBC hired him as a football analyst, and I can't think of anyone on the planet less qualified. You could pick up anyone off the street, insane, mute, even dead, and the fact that they didn't engineer the NFL's only 0-16 season makes them better qualified to analyze the game than Matt Millen. The thing I don't get about Millen is he was a linebacker. I would think that a former linebacker would understand the importance of defense. I would also think that a linebacker would understand the importance of the O Line, but no. During Millen's reign of terror, all the Lions would draft would be receivers and quarterbacks.

Not to say that the Packers seem well coached thus far this game. The Lions are dead last in pass defense, so the Packers keep running it. Finally they throw deep to Driver, which I don't understand why they don't do something similar every down until the Lions show they can stop it. Ah well, back to my area of expertise, beer.

Percent Alcohol
How is it that 43% whiskey is so much more significant and damaging than the normal 40%? I remember one night, partially, I think possibly after a Joe Don's day drinking a cask strength Maccallan with some friends, notably Fred. At some point, I hope after everyone had left, I had to crawl on hands and knees to the bathroom to be sick. Mind you it was worth it from the level of fun that was had first, but still... I drink normal whiskey quite often, and it never does that to me.

Just now, partially as a means to stopping writing for the day, I poured a glass of Old Grand-Dad bourbon. (Usually of course I drink Irish, but lately I've been branching out into Rye and Bourbon). Anyway this is 43%, and at the first sip I was dancing around like an eejit. How is that even possible? Normally on a night of drinking I find that ten is the number to not surpass. I can still potentially do ok past that number, but usually ten gets me drunk without causing next day troubles. Right now I'm looking at the remainder of this first glass with genuine fear. Will that extra three percent somehow knock me to blackout drunk on only one drink? If the first sip is any indication, it just might.

chaos versus concentration
Crunch time on the game is finally at an end. It is still recent enough and oogly boogly scary that I find myself looking nervously over my shoulder as I type that first sentence, as though it could still pounce on me, clasp its jaws firmly around my neck, and drain me of all my free time, happiness, and will to live.

The lack of any free time has meant the lack of any work on my writing. Also it's meant very few journal posts, since most of these posts are the result of a need to deal with the part of my brain that's processing the fiction but either failing to put it on the page or in need of talking down: calm, relax, you've just had a heavy dose of metaphor... etc.

So with the return of free time I want to jump back in to making progress on my own stuff. The problem is, where to start? I have idea lists. In the best of circumstances though, these are dangerous to look at. Even if I were made of free time, I have more ideas than I could possibly write. Even after culling ideas that I think aren't worth writing the idea down, the lists sprawl. And after a month or more of not writing, but still jotting down whatever ideas came to my zombie mind during crunch, those lists bulge and make that horrible sound from the Evil Dead movies and I hear Ash saying "something trying to force its way into our world".

This is another problem. My brain is a scary place. And not having put the scary thoughts onto a page in awhile, they're all piled up like monsters in a closet that's been packed too tight. I want to let one out now, but I'm not sure I can do that without them all spilling out and burying me in a cartoon like moment... I stick my head back out before something very heavy, the last item left in the closet, rolls off the top shelf and knocks me cold.

I think I really just need to pick one idea and work on it awhile. Accept that it might not even make the best story, just that it's the practice to get me back into swing of things. I feel like a footballer that's been away with injury too long. I'm ok to play, but not to start, and surely won't be going anywhere near the 90 minutes.

If the idea lists weren't scary enough, my flat is saturated with notebooks full of started, completed or merely outlined stories. Looking through these with the intention of picking one to work on reminds me of Morgan Freeman in Seven looking at the shelves and shelves of journals after finding Kevin Spacey's apartment.

Ah well. Sip the lukewarm tea, and dive into something... maybe just the closest notebook.

football then movies
I'm watching this Iowa game with a sense of dread. Earlier this week my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw that Iowa are ranked #4 in the BCS. That puts them ahead of USC amongst others. Iowa are undefeated, but a) they haven't beat a single good team, and b) they very nearly lost at home to Northeren Iowa, needing a late blocked field goal to save them. So I'd been thinking: I hope they somehow remain undefeated for the regular season. Because such absurdities are what enormous winnings on bowl game mismatches are made of.

But I switched this game on at the half and Iowa were getting killed at home by Indiana. Well there goes my bowl game win by Iowa getting prison sexed by whatever SEC, Big 12, or Pac 10 team they have the misfortune of being fed to. Or perhaps not. Because much like the incredibly fortunate blocked field goal, Iowa have now received a stupid video review that overturned an Indiana touchdown and also with Indiana in the red zone, the QB through a pass that bounced off four guys before being caught by an Iowa defender and returned for a touchdown. Now I'm starting to think they might win afterall, but I'm not sure I want to bet against a team with this level of bullshit luck.

Holy fuck. Iowa's QB has now thrown five interceptions. Five. Their receivers are in black, the Indiana defenders are in white, and yet he keeps throwing the ball at them. And yet they're still in the game because of these continual improbable bounces and moments of sheer insanity. If this team goes to the Rose Bowl, the chances that the "Big One" hits just in time to create a fissure to swallow the opposing Pac 10 defense seems alarmingly high.

Tonight I'll be recording the SC Oregon game, because I've got the stack of movies I'm planning on watching, and it likely goes past midnight. I'm thinking of starting, shortly after the end of this stupid ass game, with some tv Halloween specials: the Buffy episode "Fear Itself", then maybe "Hush" because it's scary. Then maybe the first ep of Supernatural since that one was also scary. Then it's on to:

28 Days Later
Cemetery Man
Feast
Slither
The Shining
The Thing
The Exorcist

I also have Dagon, Call of Cthulu, Near Dark, and a handful of others in reserve, but I've added up the running times and if I started now I'd have to watch them straight through till late tomorrow night.

the Pig War
Amy and I went to San Juan island this weekend. We saw both the English and American camps there. The Americans refer to the events that happened there as "the Pig war", the British refer to it as "Border Negotiations". Typical. The Brits are classier but boring. Mostly though I was disappointed to learn there was a pig war but that the pigs weren't made to wear uniforms. If I'm ever in charge during a pig war, you can bet those pigs will be in uniform.

From the English camp we hiked up to the cemetery where the Brits buried their dead. None of these died as the result of action of course, since the only casualty of the negotiations was one dead pig. Most of the British dead accidentally drowned. Not strong swimmers I guess. I felt really bad for anyone in that camp though. Imagine: you're stationed half way round the world, the Empire is certainly not expanding any, then one of your mates dies and you have to carry his corpse two miles up a hill to where the cemetery is. Did the Brit military have some sort of rule that cemeteries had to be far away enough from the camp that after burying the body the liter bearers would have to be interred as well? I know I'm not in the best of shape, but god damn that was a hell of a walk.

It was a fun weekend, but really wish I had another couple of days to just lay about. Too much crunch and stress the past couple weeks. Need a stay at home weekend stat.

never a good sign
I can always tell just how on edge I am by the temptation to just get off the bus at random stops. I pass a restaurant that looks interesting maybe, or just can't take the ride anymore, need to scream and don't want to subject everyone to it. I've theorized that this is how many of the homeless get started: one day they just get off the bus at the wrong stop or pull their car over and just get out and walk. They actually have a place somewhere, that's now abandoned, along with an equally abandoned job, they just couldn't hack it anymore.

Had a good time this morning. There was a fire drill at work, so I skipped out on it with a friend at work and wandered down to the liquor store. Got there before it opened (this being Washington there's harsher laws on when you're allowed to buy liquor and I think this contributes to a greater per capita number of alcoholics.) Anyway it was kind of fun waiting for it to open with my fellow lowlifes. Of course I was getting a nice bottle of whiskey for later, whereas most of these folks were buying pints of liquor for drinking on their way... not judging, or if I am its in admiration, I just can't drink hard liquor at 10 am... not straight anyway or not routinely. Like I say though, it was fun. Something refreshing about no pretensions about the booze (apart from my need for a better bottle of course). I loved the store proprietor asking me "so what's for breakfast" as I reached for the whiskey. And then the discussion of the importance of hair of the dog. I suspect that in California this conversation would never have taken place. First of all we wouldn't have been outside waiting for the place to open, because we could have bought the booze at any grocery store open well before even the most degenerate of us would have been awake. And then I think the assumption would be "oh must be picking this up for after work" not "needed for a hangover" or "to make it through the day".

Probably working this Saturday, before the Pogues show, so yes I was buying the bottle for later.

my sister's art
Already posted this on the Facebooks, but I realized there are some people on the LJs that are not on the Facebooks.

My sister has a website up for selling prints of her art and hopefully eventually for selling other artwork and crafts. If you know anyone that might be interested, or are fans of True Blood, please send them the link.

http://www.nicolejoyart.com/

I need to find more time
There really isn't enough time in the day for how much hating of NCIS LA I need to do.

The opening theme and credits look a lot like they're shooting a parody of the procedural shows, speaking of which, if someone can get me in with a TV exec, it's time we had a modern day Police Squad. And speaking of the opening credits, I noticed that Shane Brennan has a "created by" credit. Can you really have a "created by" credit for a spin off? I mean maybe if the spin off is wildly different from the original, but lack of competency in the writing aside, this is just the same thing in a different locale. Does the no talent ass clown that "created" CSI Miami have a distinct credit for that? I'd watch the credits to that myself to find out, but all my time is being consumed by my loathing of this particular crap heap.

One of the many annoying things about this steaming pile of dung, is its usage of technological gizmos to try and look cool. It's like Los Angeles in this universe is at least five years ahead of the DC office in tech, and it's all scifi in a way that allows the actors to move about and dance rather than sit at a keyboard. One may get carpal tunnel from using a real keyboard, but keyboards are at least somewhat ergonomic and allow the arms to rest while they're used. And if that's not annoying enough, the California surfer douchebag that runs their meetings... oh goddess... I think that's the type they've replaced Abby with... he has some sort of tricorder handheld future PDA especially designed for his use in this office.

Nevermind the pitching a procedural Police Squad idea. This show is already it. All it needs is Leslie Nielsen. In every scene the dialogue is so cliched it's impossible for the actors not to be aware that they're speaking lines in front of a camera. Maybe these actors could be capable of delivering better dialogue convincingly, but these lines...if you were to cut up the scripts of other cop shows, throw them up in the air, and piece together a script at random it would almost have the same effect. Better yet: comb through the scripts of previous cheesy cop shows, set aside every cliche and every cheap short cut, and piece together the script entirely from the lazy mistakes, you'd have an NCIS LA script.

This exchange just took place:

"Why would somebody swim?"

"Because they could."

I'd like to pretend that the context that they're investigating a Seal team actually makes a difference, but really, no it's still full of fail.

"That sounds like retreat, and Seals don't retreat." Huh. Guess Seals don't have a full set of tactical options then.

Now it has gone weird in a way that I lack the words for, or I've cracked and am delusional. That second thing has a certain ring to it. I love and respect Linda Hunt, but so help me she's the team's Yoda. Plus she apparently has nothing to do but listen to music and only offers her wise Muppet advice when disturbed by the machismo of the other characters. Ow. Ow. Ow.

I'm game for a show not being about collecting bullet fragments and DNA samples, but the writers here seem to have forgotten these things exist. For instance how is it the one cop shot the other but no one bothered to check the ballistics of the bullet?

Ok. All is forgiven. LL Cool J coming out of the Golf Course water trap in his Seal gear to shoot the bad guy is the best laugh I've had in a month. This has got to be parody, right?

EDIT: Great Zombie Jesus. 17.4 million people watched this hunk of shit this week. This show gets good ratings. Drink. Now.

the main reasons that I hate NCIS Los Angeles
NCIS is a guilty pleasure. It's completely unrealistic, suffers from the TV murder mystery problems of having crimes that the viewer can figure out well ahead of the agents, and is formulaic and often shallow. The cast of characters though is very interesting. And the interaction between those characters makes even the worst episodes enjoyable. They have also I will admit, on occasion, had some quality plots to go with enjoying the ensemble play.

So I watched last year as an episode with a group of characters from LA caused me to exclaim "Oh crap, they're setting up a spin off with these crappy characters as the group." Sure enough. Last night I watched (recorded from Tuesday) the first episode of this crappy crappy new show. If NCIS is a guilty pleasure, then the LA show is just guilt. I kept thinking of all the other things I could be doing rather than watching it.

First of all the main character is named "G". I'm not kidding. They explain that he was an orphan and he was never told what the letter stands for. It's 7 am as I write this, and just reading that previous sentence, makes me want to skip work and go straight to a dive bar. Now if it isn't stupid enough that he's named a fucking letter, it's that god damned letter. So LL Cool J who plays his partner, gets to call him by that name, "what's up, G".

Anyway, the last time we saw G, he was getting repeatedly shot in an episode of the regular show at the end of last season. So this episode opens with his return to work. They're working out of an old mission in LA that was "condemned after the Northridge quake". Amy and I had the same reaction to that. "Uh, that quake was more than a decade ago." Things might move slowly in LA, but over a decade and the building still stands? And it's not like that building's in Watts or somewhere that LA would just let deteriorate out of the public eye neither. Ok. I'm going to forgive them that one, because it's not nearly as astounding as the next thing which caused my brain to try and leap through my eye sockets to pounce onto the remote. LL Cool J tells G "we've been here four months and the neighbors don't even know we're here" and then shows him into an office with a hundred god damned people working there. I could bring up a million reasons why that line is impossible, but the rest all pale before the massive "where do these fucking people park that the neighbors don't notice one hundred fucking cars?"

The plot was amongst the dumbest I've seen on an NCIS show. A Navy Intelligence officer had apparently sold sattelite time to a drug lord because the drug lord had his niece. The worst moment for this was before the agents realized the girl was kidnapped, they were in the kitchen of the girl's mother talking to the mother, and I'm saying "where's the girl? shouldn't you ask where the girl is?" And they don't, not until they realize later "she wasn't there!" Glad these are the highly trained agents protecting us. Nothing will slip past them. Not to mention that they interviewed the mother with their psychologist and didn't realize anything was wrong. Did I mention one of the characters is a psychologist? That's right: the potential for douchebaggery from this man-Troi is off the fucking scale.

The interaction between the characters is badly contrived. Most of it seems to be G and LL Cool J accusing one another of being gay like two 12 year olds, and for some reason no one's there to just tell them to get a room already.

So to sum up: the plots are still poor, the characters aren't likable, and there's watching the interaction between the characters is like substitute teaching at a middle school. Admittedly the original show got better after time, but its starting point was no where near as eye stabbingly painful as this.

Mac vs PC
The other day at work complaining about the PC lead to complaints about the Mac, and we eventually realized that life with the computer is a lot like being in an a bad relationship.

With the Mac nearly every day is smooth sailing. You have enough similar interests that you get along well, and you're nearly always happy... Right up until that day when there actually is a problem and then there's a near cataclysmic row. Maybe you were a little stupid, maybe you weren't, but the one clear thing is that your partner reacts in a batshit loonball way which might lead to separation, the ER, or prison or the morgue, but probably will lead in time back to the happy days of everything being great again.

Whereas with the PC every day is full of loathing and drudgery. You can't figure out why you don't just fucking leave. The only good side is that you're both so used to the pain and failure of the relationship, that you're fighting is continuous and lighter and almost never leads to a great big snapping of the psyche, more just the gradual erosion.

The big problem with the Mac really stems from the fact that things go wrong so seldom, that it just doesn't know how to cope with this. I've seen the same thing in the IPOD. And it's one of the reasons I probably won't ever own an IPHONE. Apple just really needs to open a testing facility somewhere that's not in their technological utopia their in California... perhaps they should try the arctic or the Sudan... somewhere where it's still possible to have a loss of electricity or at the very least a not perfect internet connection.

The PC on the other hand evolves from its shittiness. XP was the pinnacle of achievement for this. Now sadly they're trying desperately to be like the Mac is the most cosmetic ways of hiding files from the user, but the point they're missing is that the Mac has stability to build on, whereas as the PC is hiding the workarounds from a platform that desperately needs them.

Of course the Mac is also significantly more expensive. In fact oozing away from the relationship analogy, the two platforms are like two very different women in a bar. The Mac is a bit classier, though not without some baggage that you can see the scars of beneath the makeup. She's perhaps a bit older, maybe not wiser, but drinking a martini and not with the well liquor. She might be a cougar, in fact they do keep naming these OS's after large cats. The PC on the other hand is cheap, tawdry, and likely leaves you with an embarrassing disease. Sure the first date cost less, but do you really want to get involved with the PBR drinker that's now huffing paint from a sweat sock on the corner of a bed that's covered in filth?

Ah well. I have to switch off the Mac now, so I can go to work on a Vista system. Drew Carey once said "so you hate your job? Yeah there's a support group for that. Everyone's in it, and we meet in the bar." I think the alcohol producers really owe Vista a portion of their yearly bonuses.

the Watchmen
First. I wish the rest of the movie were as good as the opening credits. The credits were fantastic. They told a story beautifully and succinctly. In fact, the credits essentially quickly deliver the exposition that the movie needlessly replays later on.

Second complaint, we'll call it the "Graduate" rule: no using "the Sounds of Silence" in your movie. It's a pretty song, and it works well on the soundtrack to make a scene seem more meaningful. The problem is, that having seen a movie where this same song made a college grad's malaise seem deeper, it detracts from the funeral scene and the weight of the world issues here. I'm not saying that a song can't be used in more than one film, just that this particular song is so iconic in that film.

A problem that is no fault of there's, is that they have a Kissinger character, which being a Venture Bros. fan... All I can think of is Dr Henry Killinger.

Admittedly I did approve of the use of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as backround to the slow motion and relatively graphic sex scene. Non subtle, sure, but hey.

I like the movie overall. I think in order to watch it you really need to separate it from the graphic novel, because while it's a similar plot, it might seem as though the movie missed the point. But I think that whereas the graphic novel is essentially a theme with a plot to keep people interested, the movie is a plot to keep people interested with just enough theme to relate somewhat to the book. And of course the book's political issues would differ from the movie's, as today's problems differ from those in the 80's. I loved the line where the captains of industry accuse Veidt of being a socialist for offering unlimited resources.

Zach Snyder also has this way of seeing to the clever details. Veidt is watching many tv screens as the apocalypse starts: Mad Max, and 1984 are among the shows.

I by no means think it's a great movie, but it is interesting in what it achieved. It's heavy handed, too long, but I think it's just about as good as a telling of this story could be in a motion picture.

Reno
So I at least did better than the 1 and 4 of last week. In fact if I'd stayed away from the parlay bets, which I know better than to make, I'd have been well ahead. Of course one such parlay bet did a fine job of tempting me to continue the mad practice of betting the bloody things: I hit 6 of 7 on Sunday, and that seventh was a mistake made due to weather.com either messing up or me drunkenly thinking the Saturday forecast was for Sunday.

Army losing Saturday blew a number of bets, and then USC not covering was bad. Good thing I'd gotten off to a good start Friday night, doubling up on a bet on the over on Colorado essentially because I was drunk, but hey it worked. Also Saturday I picked the moneyline on Michigan to beat Notre Dame, which I figured I was mad to do, but again it worked. Though it didn't pay off nearly as well as the moneyline on San Francisco versus Arizona, which I should have bet more on... I mean this was quite possibly the dumbest thing of the weekend: a) NFC Champion curse, b) Ancient QB, c) a team that everyone forgot for some reason went 9-7 in the regular season and got blown out by the Pats.

Speaking of Sunday in a bizarre switcharoo of normality, I did much better on the pros than on college, and very nearly broke even despite my moronic addiction to filling in the circles on the parlay cards. If the Patriots hadn't decided that wearing the throwback uniforms meant that they had to play like the old Patriots, I would've actually paid for most the trip, instead I finished about $50 down on the gambling, not too bad although usually I'm happily able to pay for a portion of the trip with winnings, so not being ahead made for a bit of an expensive weekend. Ah well, it was a blast.

Important lessons
In college football, there is a rule prohibiting more than 20 hours a week of practice. I knew this because of the uproar in Michigan where players were complaining that this rule is being violated. What I didn't know, and probably wouldn't have mattered in my imaginary betting on the LSU UW game anyway, is that the rule does not apply if classes have not started. So UW's QB was thrilled to say that they've been running an NFL style training camp, whereas LSU has been in class for the past two weeks. Of course like I say I doubt this would have stopped me were I in Vegas. Because another thing that didn't occur to me, was with LSU in class, the team didn't fly out until a day before the game, which along with the 7:30 pst kickoff time, seemed to be a big factor in the second half drowsiness they seemed to have. Ah well, at least they did win the game.

I was 1 and 4 in my picks Saturday. Hopefully I'll do better this weekend when there's actual money on the line.

New schedule
We'll see how long it lasts, but today's effort of waking up at 5 worked pretty well.

I had this dilemma of not enough hours in the day to work, write, and obey the doctor and exercise. Amy observed that I was overwhelmed by this and had taken to pissing the mornings away by staring blankly at the floor, so I made the decision to wake up earlier, exercise, have a block of time to write (not as long as I'd like obviously as I'm having to switch to LJ to force myself out of what I was working on), and still catch the bus.

We'll see how long I keep this up. It's a rough week to start since I'm also most likely working late every night this week.

And now for the bus.

Football Season Approaching
No lines yet for the start of the pro season, and only stupid early lines for the start of the college season.

Apparently UW's early line versus LSU was LSU -14. (I will now probably doom LSU with this rant, since all obvious picks I make are bound to fail.) I want to know who it was at the University of Washington that thought scheduling LSU, and week 1 at that, was a good idea. The Huskies went 0-12 last year, and LSU are pretty much a given top 10 in the nation team. The average UW player is a in good shape, but not overly muscular white guy, that looks forward to the party after the game and looks as though he's out of a period piece movie about 50's. The average LSU player is ripped, angry, and looks forward to pounding the UW players, who are the only thing they see standing between themselves and a multimillion dollar signing bonus in the NFL, into a fine red mist. -14? 14 should be the over under on Huskies sent to the ER or morgue. If I were UW's coach, I would rest my starters for this game, and then have my starters available to play week 2 versus Idaho, a team that UW should actually beat. That may sound cowardly, but let me explain. It's not that UW should beat Idaho, were the tables reversed with Idaho I'd still play my starters. It's that UW are so far not only from competing in a football game with LSU, it's that I truly believe there will be severe injuries. This is really a terrible idea that someone really ought to put a stop to. It would be like me forming a football team of doughy computer games professionals and for our first game choosing to take the field against a maximum security prison team.

Speaking of the SEC, the conference has apparently issued a twitter ban at SEC games. The reason given was that twitter would compete with traditional broadcast. Now I don't have a lot of faith in the traditional broadcasters, but does the SEC really believe that they can't compete with SEC fans on twitter? So SEC, you're saying your paid professional broadcasters are incapable of out commentating a four hundred pound redneck with a one hundred thirty character limit?

Week 2 of the college season, which is also week 1 of the pros, I will be in Reno. Looking forward to many of the matchups, but one that really intrigues me is Mississippi State versus Auburn (my heads sort of stuck in the SEC for some reason, guess I better find me a Waffle House...) Anyway these schools are the ones that played the barn burner of a game last season, with Auburn winning by a point...3-2. I wonder if there will even be an over under set on this game.

I can't wait. Reno Sportsbooks, here I come!

Old News, Alias
I've been watching Alias through Netflix with Amy, it's hit or miss, mostly miss for me, but I did watch a great episode last night, but first all the wrong:

The main problem is that apart from her father, these are the worst spies in the history of fictional spy services. Most of this derives from the fact that her father apparently used up the world's supply of competence. Part of it is that every character, with the exception again of her father, is a great big weenie and needs to whine incessantly about their issues, which they have with everything. So they almost never kill their enemies, because they have to sort through their feelings about it first, and then they have a wicked case of A-Team Arm to boot, so they can't actually hit the target when they do finally get over themselves to pull the trigger. No one on this show can keep a secret, which is bad because this is trait one might expect in a spy. This is partially because the CIA is apparently employing the same HR as in 24 or for British Spy agencies from the 60s and there are more moles than actual spies, but it is mostly because they're all overly emotional and have to tell people what they're thinking at all times. Sydney in particular clearly missed the "Keeping Secrets" class in spy school.

It has an interesting sense of geography. They made a big deal about their use of buildings in LA and photoshop to create establishing shots for foreign locations. Well it's really pretty obvious that all foreign locations are really in LA as the travel times could only either work if all places are really Los Angeles, or the show is really set in an alternate universe with orbital travel or supersonic speeds standard on all passenger flights.

I won't complain about the fact that apparently the only reason this show was on the air in the first place, was as a giant exercise in cosplay. Now in the 4th season, they've essentially admitted it with a giant cosplay montage for the opening credits.

Sydney's father Jack is really the best character. His competence and relative ruthlessness are all the more marked by the fact that all the other characters lack these traits.

So the best episode thus far, "Tuesday", is the one Amy felt was a bit like the brilliant Buffy episode "the Zeppo". The main contingent of their group gets locked in and the techie guy needs to save the day doing all the spying, while the non technical folks need to do the technical things. The role reversal works really well.

Overall though, I guess I'm hooked enough that I need to see what happens. I just hope for more episodes like "Tuesday" and fewer episodes like the vast majority of the shows. And maybe just maybe some significant moments of Agent Vaughn being punched in the face.

Ten Songs That Make Me Smile
Stealing another list idea from Steve.

No More Tears Andrew Jackson Jihad
2 Days Smug and Sober Carolyn Mark
Drink Till I Die Poxy Boggards
Bastards Real Mckenzies
Piss Up A Rope Ween
Glosoli Sigur Ros
Streams of Whiskey Pogues
A Lap dance is so much better when the stripper is crying The Bloodhound Gang
Tie My Pecker to my Leg Mojo Nixon
Nummy Muffin Cocoa Butter TV's Frank

Ian Welke, fictional attorney at law
I was reading Steve's

stevenhoward latest top five list when it reminded me of a few things I've noticed watching cop shows in general: namely that in the fictional world of cop shows, I could be the world's greatest attorney at law.

As your attorney I advise you to Shut the Fuck Up. Remember that right to silence? Use it, shit for brains.

When questioned by the police, the only words out of your mouth should be "I want my lawyer." The reason you want the lawyer (me) is that I will come and advise you to do what you've hopefully been doing: shutting the fuck up.

You may be motivated to speak because you believe you can throw them off onto some patsy. You are wrong, and when they see through your half assed bullshit, they'll realize you're guilty. They didn't know shit before you made this mistake of not shutting the fuck up, you see. They just dragged you in on the thought that maybe you were involved, and stupid enough to not shut the fuck up.

The Police will say that not talking makes you look guilty, and they're right. But it turns out asking for a lawyer isn't an admission of guilt. Not shutting the fuck up on the other hand will lead to an admission of guilt, most likely in a last minute of the show full confession to bail the lazy cunt of a writer out of the hole they've dug themselves by not writing a proper mystery in the first place.

You may want to talk because you believe the police are your friends. This will be particularly tempting on a British show, Prime Suspect for example, where the British police will be the nicest people you will ever meet on the whole of the planet, and will give you the kindest treatment you could ever wish for. Hell, maybe you've seen other episodes of that show and the whole reason you've committed the crime was you were looking for that sort of coddling... it's like a spa. Well if you've seen other episodes of that show you should know that the police don't know what you've done, and that they only solve crimes through sheer accident and the fact that your dumb ass is likely to forget to shut the fuck up.

Partners in crime complicate this issue to be sure, because the cops will inevitably try to get one of you to rat on the other. They'll even tell you that the other one has ratted you out even if he hasn't. Before bothering to commit any crime together, it's important that you both realize this, and realize that if you both shut the fuck up, they probably won't even send you to trial.

It's possible the police aren't lying. Perhaps they have sciencey evidence against you. This doesn't excuse you to cease shutting the fuck up. Remember that they need to explain this evidence to a jury. A jury of your peers. If you're on one these shows, it's a pretty sure bet you're a fucking idiot. Now imagine 12 of you. You think those 12 morons are going to follow anything remotely science oriented? They won't. They will however not have a problem reading your signed confession, or at least having someone read it to them.

There is of course one exception to this rule: and thank the gods that show has ended, because the one exception is the Shield. If asked a question by Vic Mackey, I advise that you answer quickly, correctly, and politely. Do not ask to see me, he will hit you with a telephone book. Do not think you're safe if I get you off the hook, you'll just disappear. Do not presume that you'll be safe in jail, one of those other prisoners has a knife as large as a medium sized dog and owes him a favor. Now if someone else on the Shield asks you a question, the words are "I want my shut the fuck up lawyer".

Torchwood: Children of Earth
Aarrr, spoilers there may be below...

I want to say I liked this. Certainly I think it's well intentioned. 5/5 for effort, 2.5/5 for execution perhaps.

For those that haven't seen it, the plot is roughly:

There is an alien menace that has visited Britain before. The last time they demanded twelve children or they'd unleash a plague. They were appeased and didn't come back for forty years. Now that they're back they demand one percent of the children of Earth. The British government both tries to appease them and also to cover up their prior involvement.

It raises some interesting questions: how many is too many to sacrifice for the greater good? Even with the massive number asked for the evil acquiescing government types do raise fair points regarding overpopulation, and the evil obviously Tory cabinet minister that recommends taking the schools of the most impoverished is probably correct that statistically those students will be the most likely to end up in prison or on the welfare roles: it's not that they're born worse it's just that it truly is difficult to "pull one's self up by the bootstraps". I'm not saying their solution isn't wrong, just that it was interesting to see it said aloud even in fiction.

They do a fine job of producing a moving story. The sight of soldiers going into people's homes to take their children is not subtle, but it achieves the desired effect. I also really enjoyed that they played on the well placed British paranoia of the huge number of security cams.

My main fault was that there were questions that seemed obvious, that weren't being answered. Even the most callous official is likely to want some guarantee that once appeased the aliens won't be back again asking for more. Also while the aliens did demonstrate some impressive feats, it didn't seem like there was enough to show that defeat was a foregone conclusion in fighting them. That may have been a point, and a good one, that the government put more energy into covering up their schemes than into actually solving the problem, but it would have been better if they arrived at that point after making some effort to fight back.

Also getting the soldiers to do your bidding, when you're taking the poorest children. I'm not sure about Britain, but in the US I'm pretty certain it's still the case that the people most likely to enlist come from those poorest neighborhoods. Also, that bit where the soldiers go into the bad neighborhood in Wales and take kids? That kind of thing can't happen in a day. I've read about enough civil unrest in Britain where fights to retake tenements last weeks, not a day.

I did like that the most evil of the Cabinet Ministers ends up gaining and is essentially in charge of the country at the end. Dark. Nice.

I also liked that the high Torchwood mortality rate continued apace, although I was dissapointed that pregnant Gwen wasn't shot through the stomach. Ok I admit it, I'm a horrible grumpy bastard. I do hope that while it's been uneven that there's another series. I want to see more characters to kill off.