Tomkat- Splitsville?

Ok so I am one of the old school folks that still has my AOL email account from high school back when AOL was really the only game in town. Anyway I read this on the main page at aol.com today and the first thing that I thought of was this blog post that I wrote way back when combining two names into a single hybrid name was still fresh. It's a little creepy that I predicted, to the month, when Tom and Katie would break up but there you have it. Call me Timstrodamus.

In all seriousness divorce sucks. Don't do it.

Save Suri.

Fox announces "Last Call" for Reality TV

April 20, 2014

In the nearly two years it has been since the last reality or contest television show aired on TV, executives at Fox have been trying to debunk the theory that every American had appeared on a reality TV show already. It turns out Fox was right, which means the network will be airing Last Call this summer, a reality TV show for the 12 Americans who have yet to be on TV.

So who are these 12 people and how did Fox find them? The two Fox executives behind the development of Prisoners Raise My Baby and Death Quiz were driving to Bonanza Idaho, hoping to find TV fans there, assuming the town derived it's name from the popular TV western of the 1960's. Instead of finding people dressed as Hoss and Little Joe, they found a Ghost Town. The 12 people who work in the souvenir shop/visitor's center called The Bonanza Saloon apparently do not own a TV, and therefore missed out on all the open auditions for the previous 4,376 reality TV shows. Perhaps most surprising, they were completely unaware of Real World: Bonanza and 2007's Kid Nation which reportedly took place in the very same Ghost Town.

After making contact with these faithful Bonanza employees (and purchasing a bag full of fake turqouise rocks from them) the two Fox executives contacted Sony and were able to negotiate a sponsorship in which the winner of Last Call will be awarded a 120" HD squared, ultra-Plasma, Sony "more real than real" Television along with one million dollars (which isn't worth what it used to be back when this whole reality TV thing started, thanks to inflation).

Details about the nature of the show are still being hammered out but you can count on zany challenges, conflicting personalities, an annoying out of work B-list host, and the ability to determine who gets kicked off each week by using your ThinkCom, or traditional text message for those who are still stuck in the aughts. Either way be sure to tune in this Summer as Fox unveils reality TV's Last Call.

ThinkCom is a registered trademark of Sony.

Movie Recommendation

I highly recommend the documentary called The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters. It is the story of Steve Wiebe, a 35 year-old family man from Washington who gets laid off from Boeing and takes solace in a Donkey Kong arcade machine he has placed in his garage. Steve attempts to break the 20 year old high score record on the game, owned by Billy Mitchell a Floridian hot sauce mogul who is the Michael Jordan of competitive classic gaming.

The movie is now out on DVD so do what you can to rent it because the story of this underdog outsider trying to take on the established nerd gaming empire (I say that lovingly) is so compelling that I would have to say this movie might be my favorite documentary of all time. Hollywood couldn't write a more intriguing story than this, and they certainly couldn't create the characters that appear in the various arcades that this story unfolds in.


This is the official site for the film, Billy vs. Steve but I would wait to go to the site until you have seen the movie because the front page has an update from Steve Wiebe on the status of the world record which would fall into the spoiler category. If you are having trouble finding the film, there is always Amazon!

We have a gun problem in this country

I am sick of hearing/reading about school shootings. This is unacceptable. The worst part is, as the article points out, that this is the fourth shooting at a US school in the last week. FOUR! Four times in the last week someone opened fire at a school in this country. Just let that sink in for a second. I don't say this to make light of the situation, but remember the good old days when an awful event like this only happened once or twice a year?

Tragic. Absolutely tragic.

The gun lobby needs to be held accountable. The people who sell these guns need to be held accountable.

The Virginia Tech shooting that happened last April really shook me up and I had hoped it would be a long time before something like that happened again. I tried to calm down after reading about this by reading through some of my old posts on this here blog. It is painfully obvious that I rarely update this thing (it's been about 4 months since my last post, the new 'Clef was good but not great) but I don't see it as a site that needs my attention. It is an e-journal of sorts for my own purposes and the two or three people who happen upon it get to peer inside my frustrations with school shootings or the TV show 24.

By the way some quick updates (just to lighten the mood and catch up on the last four months)...

I am a Dad in waiting! That is the term I have found I like best. I'm a big "sanctity of life" guy so even in talking about being a dad, I like to say that I am already a dad even as I wait for my child to begin the portion of it's life that takes place outside of the womb. You can read more about all that here at Mariah's baby blog.

I no longer work at New Life as of last May and have been to church twice since then. I decided to submit a post at Letters From Leavers to share some of my thoughts since leaving the church. I would love it if you read it and shared any thoughts you had.

I went to a couple cool shows in the last few months as well. Mariah and I saw the Cold War Kids at the Wiltern on Nov 26th and it was pretty dang sweet although I found myself increasingly annoyed at the people around us. I can tell that I am becoming a grumpy old man when I go to shows and complain about having to stand the whole time and all of the annoying high school kids who jump up and down during the show. During my walk down My Creative Apathy Memory lane I came across this post in which I predicted a big 07 for the Cold War Kids. If you check out their travel logesque web site you will see that I was right. Mariah and I and some friends also took in David Bazan of Pedro the Lion fame about a week or two after the Cold War Kids show at Spaceland. And then a few weeks back Bobby and I took in Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Key Club. Great venue and a great band. They are quickly working their way into my top five favorite bands.

What a weird post this has turned out to be.

New 'Clef

Let me start by saying I am a huge Wyclef Jean fan. I would put his album the Carnival in my top 10 favorite of all time and when it came out back when I was in high school it changed my musical world. I was perusing Youtube today and came across an interview/performance that Wyclef did on the Google campus to bring awareness to the issues in his native Haiti as well as perform music and promote his new album. Here is chapter 4 of what I think is 9 chapters



Anyway as a fan I was very excited to hear that Wyclef was releasing a new album (I'm still waiting on that Fugees reunion album that was supposed to come out a few years back now). Apparently some of the music has leaked, as often happens, even though the album doesn't come out until December 4th. Below is a track that perfectly demonstrates the brilliance of Wyclef, a song in which he collaborates with Paul Simon!



This is a musician who has collaborated with people as diverse as Whitney Houston and Kenny Rogers and has the social awareness of Bono and Bob Marley. And the best part of this new album is that it is titled Carnival 2!

We have a Wii

My bride got me a Wii for our 2 year anniversary, which was at the beginning of this month, but thanks to the incompetency of Game Stop and UPS it just arrived on Friday. It was worth the wait (and the incessant checking of the tracking process that I had been doing every 30 minutes or so for the last few weeks). The Wii has been out for awhile now but they are still very hard to get a hold of. Mariah looked for months and at every store she checked in they were sold out. Then she finally found a package deal online that came with some extra controllers and games and we ended up buying it.

We absolutely love it. It is so different than any other video game system because of it's unique motion-sensitive wireless controllers. Most of the games you have to play while standing up and moving around. With Xbox (the other video game system I own) I could just sit and waste away a few hours while unwinding after coming home from work but with the Wii it is really tiring to play. I am sore after playing it all weekend.

It comes with a disc called Wii Sports which has Golf, Baseball, Boxing, Tennis, and Bowling on it and I could play the Golf and Bowling games forever. They are both fairly realistic. My bowling score on the game matches my average in real life.

If you can find it I definitely recommend getting a Wii. We have already had a few people over this weekend to play including people that don't normally like video games, but it is a system designed to involve everyone. It's great for parties or when you have a few people over and it's relatively inexpensive when you compare it to the Xbox 360 ($400) and the Playstation 3 ($500+).

One word of caution...be careful once you get it. It can be dangerous.

Hip-Hop is...

I have been so stinkin' busy with school and with trying to find a new job that I have not posted on here in quite some time. Well since I have a post that is school related I thought I could make the time.

I started a project for a class I am in at Fuller called Theology and Hip-Hop Culture and I want to ask you to participate. The project is called "Hip-Hop is..." and I am inviting people to finish the sentence.

How would you finish that sentence? What does hip-hop mean to you? What do you see as both the positive and negative of hip-hop culture?

You can put your answer here as a reply but really what I would like you to do for the project is to make a video of your answer and post it to YouTube. I made a little video explaining the project and then finishing the sentence myself. You can watch it here or below. Also be sure to check out intheremix.com which is a group blog designed to engage hip-hop culture that Jason created (same classmate that made Letters From Leavers).

Thanks for your help.

The video

My Obsession

10 reasons I won't watch 24 season 2

So I bought 24 season 1 at Target about a week ago because they had it on sale for 17.99. Not bad! This show came on the air during a time in which I wasn't watching much TV at all so I had only seen 2 or 3 episodes but I had heard a lot of great things about it, and Mariah and I have been watching some more TV as of late so I figured, why not give it a whirl? I bought LOST season 1 for Mariah for Valentine's Day last year without ever having seen one episode, completely on a whim, and it has been the best 40 something bucks I have ever spent, and I mean that in all seriousness. We devoured the entire season in a weekend and then proceeded to buy the 14 episodes that had already aired in season 2 from iTunes and watched them in another 48 hours so we could catch up with the show.

In those few frantic days of watching LOST my hope for TV was restored.

I figured it was worth it to take another shot with 24.

I want my 18 bucks back.

It was good, really good for the first 12 or so episodes but things started to go south really fast. We have been watching it over the last few days and my frustrations are still swimming around in my head so I thought it might be helpful to make a list of the top 10 reasons why I won't be watching season 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6) of 24, starting with 10 and working our way up. Yes, it probably would be more clever to do 24 reasons why I won't be watching season 2 of 24, and God knows I wouldn't have any trouble filling out the list, but I have already wasted enough time with this show. Ten is enough.

10. The whole "events in real time" thing is cool but make sure that you factor in the time you are gone for commercials. If you are doing an activity that takes 45 seconds, you shouldn't still be doing that activity when the show comes back from a commercial 3 1/2 minutes later. One example comes to mind...Ricky is in the water tower, after having been shot in the arm, Jack asks him if he has any loose clothing so he can tie up Ricky's arm to stop the bleeding, Jacks starts to tie up the arm...tick tock tick tock...commercial...return from commercial....tick tock tick tock...Jack still tying up the arm. Jack doesn't seem to be the type with that generous a bedside manner.

9. Speaking of time...time of day seems to be an issue that needs some work. 6 am to 7 am episode, filmed in broad, middle of the day, high noon daylight, with some fuzzy crappy light filter on it to make it look like it was dawn...end of 6 pm to 7pm episode finishes in broad, middle of the day, high noon daylight, 7 pm to 8 pm starts off black as midnight. The sun went down in an instant? Wow!

8. The show is set in LA and I have yet to see anyone caught in traffic. I have lived here my whole life. You may be able to pull this kind of crap with your viewers in the midwest, but I demand accuracy. (On a side note related to accuracy, even though this one probably deserves it's own spot in the countdown...I am a cell phone owner and I know that if you use it that much the battery will run out and there will be several spots in which you don't get service and underground in a top-secret prison is one of them.)

7. The whole "kill Sen. Palmer and Jack Bauer and his family" plot is so freaking complicated and intricate, no wonder "the Drazens" can't pull it off. I have no training whatsoever in being a bad guy but I am sure I could come up with a simpler way of killing someone than a plot that involves recruiting two teen age boys to kidnap two girls, having someone pretend to be the father of one of those girls, doing plastic surgery on another guy to make him look like a photographer, breaking some other dude (more on him later) out of a non-existent prison in Saugus of all places, seducing a staffer for the senator, bribing someone who works for the electric company, paying off turncoat employees at CTU, setting up surveillance cameras to watch Jack Bauer's every move, and countless other things that I can't remember because I just don't care to. The board game Mouse Trap thinks this is too complicated.

6. The Sen. Palmer storyline got old after about 5 episodes and yet it just wouldn't go away. The writers just forced things into that storyline to keep it going ("accidental fires" that kill the sons Psychologist). This family is a train wreck and yet I am suppossed to accept that America is dumb enough to vote for him for Presid...wait a minute. Moving on.

5. The only reason Jack Bauer seems so great is because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE else on the show is a complete moron. He is surrounded by jerks, buffoons, and all around unlikeable characters. Seriously, name another character besides Jack that is likeable. After 17 episodes I want them all to die, every single one of them. And there is no way I can accept a hero who has frosted tips. Nobody in CTU gives him crap about that?

4. The two worst characters? The awful wives, Sherry Palmer and Terry Bauer. Every second that they are on the screen I want to claw my eyes out.

3. The worst plot device? Terry Bauer's amnesia. I was literally yelling at the TV I was so mad. TV audiences deserve better than this.

2. Dennis Hopper? Nice Accent. I have heard better Eastern European accents on Rocky and Bullwinkle. How do you produce a TV show in which this awful performance gets through to the air? Did you at least have him audition and do a reading or did you hire him on the spot based on his resume? "Wow! You played King Koopa in Super Mario Bros. the movie! You're hired!" Now I know why this guy can't get any work outside of Ameriprise Commercials. I have 3 episodes to watch in season one and I don't want to go on because his accent makes me sick to my stomach...physically ill.

And the number one reason I won't watch anymore 24 is...drumroll...tick tock tick tock....

1. Jack Bauer spells his last name wrong. It's B-O-W-E-R dummy.

Someone get Maury Povich on the phone

Is it just me or is the Anna Nicole Smith paternity situation just begging to be an episode of Maury Povich? No high priced lawyers or overhyped media coverage needed, just bring the circus on the set of Maury and he will straighten the whole thing out.

"You ARE the father!"

Favorite/Least favorite commercials of the moment- 2/28/07

Favorite



Absolutely hilarious! I could watch this over and over.


Least Favorite



Wasn't President's day like two weeks ago? Then why the crap do I still see this commercial 50 times a day?

And there are certain songs that you don't try to make "hip-hop", and Hail to the Chief is certainly one of them. I would also put The Star Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful in that category. And while we are at it, we better add every song written prior to the 20th century. Somehow they just don't translate that well.

Creative Apathy Awards

So here are my three favorite films from last year.

Stranger Than Fiction, Children of Men, and Thank You for Smoking.

And the award goes to...(drumroll)...Children of Men.

Seeing how none of my 3 favorite movies were nominated for best picture, I decided not to watch the Academy Awards last night. In fact ever since Titanic won best picture in '97 over Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential, As Good As It Gets, and The Full Monty, I sort of wrote off the Oscars as a waste of time. You mean to tell me that Titanic is the best of those five movies? It's the worst.

I would go with L.A. Confidential.

Britney has it bad

I was planning on shaving my head tonight but I thought twice about it because apparently it is earth shattering news if someone shaves their head these days. So I changed my mind because I don't need the hassle of seeing myself on The Insider, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, Extra and all of the other amazing TV shows and media outlets that will inevitably pick up the story if I shave my head.

Note to self- avoid fame at all costs

Favorite/Least favorite commercials of the moment-2/18/07

Favorite-
Not sure what the commercial is for but it uses this video of a kid, who doesn't even look old enough to talk, recognizing and naming the US presidents.



Great video!

Least Favorite-I will keep this post positive so no least favorite for now.

Which LOST character are you?

Beliefnet.com has a quiz that supposedly determines which character from LOST that you are most like. Considering tonight marks the return of the best show on TV I thought I would link to the quiz which can be taken here.

The excitement starts tonight with a special about the show with the producers at 9pm and the first of 16 brand new episodes in a row at 10pm on ABC.

My score was 20 which makes me a Sun, by the way. Pretty interesting assessment.

Favorite/Least favorite commercials of the moment- Super Bowl edition

Favorite



Simply brilliant. Dave is hilarious.

Honorable mention



Least Favorite

Anything affiliated with Budweiser. Their commercials were awful this year and their beer still tastes like urine.

Less than a week away!

I get the chills just thinking about it. No not the Super Bowl, or the Super Bowl commercials (which will undoubtedly be better than the game as they are every year).

I am excited about the return of LOST. The best show on TV is back on February 7th and I can't wait!!!



What will Juliet do in response to Jack's bold move in the surgery room? Will Ben Linus aka Henry Gale die? Will Kate and Sawyer leave Jack? Will the rest of the Losties, now led by Locke, reunite with Kate, Sawyer and Jack? What is going on with Desmond? Who will be the next to die?

Many people have begun bashing this show lately because they feel that they never answer any of the questions or mysteries that the shows story creates. These complainers typify the negative effects of our "instant gratification" society. TV writers can't even craft a well developed show in which there are deeply interesting characters with intersecting back-stories and well developed mythologies because viewers don't have the patience to follow the story. I for one don't care if they answer any questions because the mystery for me is enough.

LOST returns Wednesday February 7th at 10pm. If you need to catch up I believe there will be a special that airs at 9pm that will recap the first 6 episodes of this season.

Cold War Kids

There is a lot to like about this band. They are going to have a big year in 07.

First of all their band name is awesome. I can't get the song "Hang Me Up To Dry" out of my head. The music video is brilliant. They are somehow connected to my friend Dave Beeman who I worked with at New Life a few summers back and who also used to be the drummer for this band called John Wilkes Kissing Booth (another great band name) because I have seen pictures of him hanging out with the band on their website. Also a friend of mine, Jeff Bartsch, edited one of their music videos.

Anyway I thought I would share the music video for the song "Hang Me Up To Dry" by the Cold War Kids

Super Poll

One of my most frequented web stops is espn.com. I am a huge sports fan and their website gives me everything I need to stay up to speed on all my favorite teams.

On their main page they have poll questions that change every couple days. Currently the question is "Should Super Bowl Sunday be a national holiday?" If you vote, then a color-coded map of the nation pops up showing you the poll-results state by state. I voted "no" and thought for sure that I would be in the majority. I was wrong.

At the time of this post, 23,652 people had submitted their response and 59% of the people who responded thought that Super Bowl Sunday should be a national holiday. Are you kidding me?

Arkansas was the only "red" state, having 52% of their 104 responses saying that it shouldn't be a national holiday. Minnesotas 624 respondents were split 50-50 making it a gray state (although doesn't blue and red make purple?).

This baffles me. I think the Super Bowl is one of the most overrated events in pop culture. It is bloated and vacuous and overhyped, just like Prince. Hey, maybe Prince should play halfti...wait...nevermind.

Favorite/Least favorite commercials of the moment-1/18/07

Since the Beatles Song of the week has kind of fizzled out perhaps we can replace it with another semi regular contribution...Favorite/Least Favorite commercials of the moment.

Favorite


Least Favorite

And my least favorite I am having trouble finding online (probably because it is so bad) but it is another cell phone commercial (for verizon I think) where two guys download "Rock the Casbah" to their phone and then listen to it together wondering what the singer is saying. The title of the song is "Rock the Casbah", that is what he is saying. If you download a song and it the title is on the display of your phone, how do you not know what the singer is saying when he says "Rock the Casbah"? I can't even watch it anymore.