Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged tv
Latest Goings On
Dec 2nd
I figured I’d split this post out from the desk post as the desk one was more focused and this is going to be a rather random, general overview of what’s going on.
So lets see here. School…I spent some time over my vacation working on my final project for Digital Typography. I got it most of the way done, but I need to do some more tweaking and proofreading to make sure everything is all set. I also have 2 images I need to add that I somehow forgot to spec out when I was doing all the measuring stuff. I’ll probably get around to doing that tonight.
Speaking of school, I can’t remember if I mentioned registering for next semester’s courses, but I’m going to be taking a photoshop class which has the potential to be really, really boring. At least the first bit is, considering I generally know the basics of Photoshop so it’s not exactly going to be anything ground breaking to start. Could get interesting towards the end though.
After that I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing. There’s a digital photography course that tends to run when I can take it but, as I mentioned earlier all of the core graphic design courses (the one’s I’m really interested in) only run during the day, when I’m at work. And I’m not in a position where I can really reduce my hours or quit my job or whatever to go after that realistically. So I’m not really sure what to do from this point onward…
On the brighter side of things, Wassy mentioned last night about having an idea for a new piece of Frost artwork (a christmas-y themed piece, which would fit the character perfectly) once she gets some time which I’m quite excited about. She’s really improved her abilities over the course of this semester, so I’m looking forward to seeing what she can do with the character now. Added to the fact that I love getting new gift arts and it’s a definite “win” situation.
I’m also simultaneously looking forward to and saddened by the return of the TV show Dollhouse this week. Happy to see it come back because I enjoy it (and Summer Glau is joining the cast) but saddened because it’s being canceled. It’s not a great show, and not up to the standards of , say, Firefly…but it was solid and had so much potential which seemed to be tossed away. I blame the network for imposing a bunch of 1 off stand alone episodes when the series screamed for a story arc and the creators of the show for continuing that line of thinking into season 2. Hopefully it ends well, considering they were given enough notice to wrap things up nicely. And hopefully some of the actors (especially the guy that played Victor) get work elsewhere. Because there was a lot of really great talent there.
[Plinky] Take my TV
Sep 24th
Which piece of technology would you rather go without for a month? Your Television, Cell Phone or Computer
I’d be able to manage without television pretty easily. I’m not a huge must have TV watcher and the stuff that I do watch is on Hulu so I can catch it later if I have to. The only reason I watch as much TV as I do now is because it tends to be on all the time in the living room.
Before I moved in with my roommates, the TV was mostly just a device for displaying my console games. I could go back to that pretty easily. I don’t really *need* cable or anything.
I need my cell phone since it’s my only phone. I don’t have a land line and the only way for people to contact me would be calling up my cell phone. And you can pry my computer out of my cold dead hands.
Resting
Aug 21st
The last couple days haven’t been terribly eventful. I’ve basically been taking it easy so my foot can work on getting healed up, hopefully in time to do some walking around the state fair on Friday. It’s going to be cutting it close, but…we’ll see. It’s about the same as it has been. Not painful unless I’m walking on it. I’m also able to move my toes much more than when I had initially injured it, so that’s some progress. Not related to the fracture, I would imagine…probably some of the other damage that’s been healing up.
I also have an update on Fish. After I changed his water he seems to be happier. He’s spending more time swimming around and being happy and less sulking at the bottom. I’m trying to keep an eye on him though, just in case he’s really sick.
Lets see here…what else is going on… My roommates bought season 3 of Dexter, the Showtime series about everybody’s favorite serial killer. If you haven’t had a chance to see this show I would highly recommend giving it a try. Seasons 1 and 2 are availible on Netflix Instant Watch if you have that option.
And finally, it’s less than a week until I start school again. It still doesn’t feel like it’s something I’m really going to be doing. It feels like it’s much further away than next week.
Dollhouse
Feb 24th
I finally got around to watching the first episode of Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse last night via Hulu. In fact it was a Hulu commercial on during House that reminded me of the fact I needed to watch it.
If you have not seen it the basic premise, as far as I understand it, is that there's a group of young women called "Dolls" who have had their personalities wiped for the purposes of being able to be implanted with various other personalities. These Dolls are hired out to do various jobs with support from their ever changing abilities and personalities. After they're done, they get wiped back into a clean state and await the next job. All of this is, of course, highly illegal. The show focuses on one of these Dolls, named Echo.
The first episode was…intriguing. There's a lot of potential for good stuff happening and there's enough mystery where they can really uncover some interesting plot twists along the way. I haven't watched the second episode yet, but people have mentioned that it's even better than the first one is.
However, this show being on FOX, who has an itchy trigger finger when it comes to show cancelation has me worried. Especially since it's Joss Whedon show…but the ratings seem decent. I just hope they let the show grow a bit before they think about canning it (RIP Firefly…RIP…)
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Heroes: You Are Officially On Notice
Oct 21st
Pretty much the only broadcast TV show that I make sure to watch these days is NBCs Heroes. After an awesome first season (which I saw in a very, very compressed chunk), the second season was kinda directionless and wandering but they managed to regain some focus by the end.
This third season though…It's not holding my interest as much as the first two. It's become quite obvious that the writers really have no overall story plan for this show, and that it's success season 1 caught them a little off guard. I have a couple of main beefs with the show this time around, which I will outlay in an official looking bulleted list format.
- Too many people with powers. The first season of the show was about ordinary people who suddenly discovered they had powers and were thrust into a situation that was bigger than they were in an attempt to save the world. This season they're acting more like comic super hero types, They're old vets of all this saving the world stuff. And everybody and their brother has a power. Which leads me to beef two…
- The show isn't focused. There's too many main characters. When they choose to show a couple of them, by the time their plotline starts gaining steam and you start getting interested…poof, we're off to another group of people. Nothing seems to be connected and nobody seems to be doing anything really important.
- They forget people have powers when convenient. The writers are trying to juggle so many people with powers right now that it's impossible for them to remember what everbody can do. And situations that should never happen with people that have certain powers happen anyway. Like somebody with super hearing not being able to hear a whispered conversation happening not 20 feet from them…
- They're acting out of character. Sylar especially. How, exactly, did he become a good guy? I know it's an attractive idea, but I don't buy the execution. It's just coming off as lame.
As of right now, I don't think I'm going to be expending an extra effort to watch this show in primetime anymore. I'll still watch it via hulu.com but I don't think it has enough of my resepct to plan my life around catching it. I hope that they can pull themselves out of this nosedive, but I think this is just another case of burnout after an awesome first season…
Dexter Season 2
Aug 30th
![Dexter: Season 2 [Blu-ray]](http://derango.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/6a00c2252137ea8fdb00fa96963e670003.jpg?w=205 "Dexter: Season 2 [Blu-ray]")
I don't watch much TV. Heck, I think I may still be the only person on the planet that doesn't have cable. But I do enjoy a couple shows…mostly Heroes these days. I much prefer watching on DVD to on TV because showing up at a set time every week seems too much like work to me.
However, Wassy recently introduced me to Dexter, a really interesting show from the perspective of a serial killer who's trying to take out other bad people. I never thought that I would identify so much with a serial killer, but…here we are. The writing and acting is just top notch.
So Wassy purchased season 2 on DVD last weekend and watched the whole thing in pretty much 2 days. Then I borrowed it from her and did pretty much the same thing. I NEVER do that. I usually get bored after one or two episodes of sitting there and watching, but that wasn't the case here at all. I even stayed up later than I had expected to because I just hit a critical part in the show and couldn't go to sleep.
Now I need to wait a year for the next DVD to come out :-/
If you've never watched Dexter, I highly, highly recommend going and checking out the DVDs. It's a very excellent show.
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QotD: My 15 Minutes
Aug 2nd
What would you consider to be your 15 minutes of fame so far in life?
Well, you can see me in the audience at the end of Mike Portnoy's newest instructional DVD, In Constant Motion. I'm wearing an orange shirt and clapping. That should narrow things down!
I guess that really doesn't count though. Ok, how about this one…When I was in middle school a project we were doing for the National History Day competition showed up on the local news. I believe this was about the Stanley Theater, which is a local landmark around these parts. Or maybe it was about Trenton Falls. Anyway, we were shooting a video documentary for a contest.
The local news heard about it and decided to come down to the school and do a story about it. I show up in some B roll footage showing somebody something on the computer. I was the camera/video/computer guy and did a lot of the video editing, video taping and scanning of stuff. Anyway, my name actually appeared in the final piece during the early nightly news…but attached to another one of my groupmates. They made a mistake (as this local news channel does) and put the wrong name up. It was corrected before they ran it at 11 though.
14…Hours!
May 20th
Yesterday was spend doing one thing and one thing only. Sci-Fi had on a 21 hour marathon of the NBC show Heroes that I've wanted to watch for a very long time. I couldn't due to my Monday classes getting in the way.
So…I went over to my friends place (they have cable) at 9am and watched Heroes for 14…hours. I'm now entirely caught up with the series and I think it's awesome. Of course I can't watch the season ending episode tomorrow due to my summer classes starting up. Drat! I'll catch it online or something.
THAT was an awfully long time just sitting there and watching TV. 14. Hours.
Grey's Anatomy? Hardly…
May 4th
I feel like I've been scammed somehow. Rant time!
I went over to my parents to watch the 2 hour Grey's Anatomy "event" last night (I'd watch it at my place, but…they have the HDTV…sooo….) and I feel ripped off. Instead of making it an actually interesting story, they took the opportunity to basically intercut the show with footage from the new spinoff pilot they're trying to get picked up.
The spinoff parts were horrible! There was nothing in there that was even remotely like what I enjoy so much about Grey's Anatomy (The quirky humor, the solid evolving storyline, etc). What was there were a ton of jokes about sex and a 5 minute (at least it seemed like 5 minutes) shot of the office receptionist turned surfer boy waxing his surfboard without wearing a shirt.
Yeah, I think I'll pass on the spinoff if it gets picked up, which may actually not happen still, considering most of the comments I've read around the internet this morning have been very, very negative about it. Anyway, even if it was good, I wouldn't watch it on principle. It's not right that they basically hijacked a show, promoted a 2 hour event and gave us a show that was 3/4ths NOT the show they told us we were going to be getting.
Bah. I want that 2 hours of my life back.
Assorted Happening
Oct 12th
So far today is going a lot smoother than yesterday was. I’m being left largely alone, which is fine by me.
My Aunt came back from her vacation in the Pennsylvania Amish country and brought me back some cookies. Woohoo! Didn’t expect that when I came into work this morning (She works at the same company I do).
I found out last night that my headphones that I use regularly, a pair of Sennheiser HD-555‘s, are starting to show some cracks in the plastic around where the earpieces connect to the headband. The headband is also starting to seperate into two halves (the bottom part is starting to come off. I’m not sure what happened, but I’m now starting to eye something to replace them with. I’m almost settled on a pair of Sennheiser HD-595‘s. I really like how Sennheiser headphones sound. I’ve been using them exclusively for 5-6 years now. I even have a pair of PX 100‘s for use at work with my iPod. I take my sound quality seriously.
I’m also thinking about getting a headphone amp this time around, possibly a Go-Vibe v5 or a Headroom Total Airhead. I hear the 595′s are ok without an amp though, so I think I’ll pick up the headphones and then go for an amp later.
Once I have the cash for it anyway. They’re not exactly cheap.
Also last night, I finished watching the DVDs of Season 3 of Buffy the Vampire slayer being lent to me long distance from a friend in California. Awesome series, I can’t believe I haven’t watched it before now. I’m getting back into the swing of excercising nightly (I ride a stationary bike as often as I can generally) and I watch TV shows on DVD while I do it to pass the time, so I’ve been watching Buffy starting from season 1.
Anyway, I should get back to figuring out how e-mail attachments work.
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