iPoooooodddddd!!!!:
Read that in a sort of Star Trek II "Khaaaaannnn!" inflection. See, I sent my iPod Photo in for repair due to battery problems a little while back and got back (in rapid time) a new iPod Photo which seemed to be working perfectly. No sign of the previous problem. The previous problem being that for some reason, even when fully charged, when I disconnected the thing from the power adapter at work and brought it to my car, it would sometimes just conk out and refuse to reset or act like it was alive. After two days or so of dormancy (when it had drained most of its remaining power), it would respond to a reset and allow me to power it up, working a few days and then doing the same damn thing.

It just did it again today. And I'm remarkably frustrated with it. I can't decide if its superstition that the work connection has something to do with it or if the iPod mini cord is somehow different than the iPod Photo cord (despite looking identical) and I've now screwed up two iPods. Hoping that when the damn thing comes back on, I can do a software reboot and fix it. If anybody out there reading this has had the same problem or has any tech advice, I'm all ears.

Next Fall Season:
I love this time of year. See, I'm one of those weird folks who loves reading the Previews of what's coming up in comics, watches the movie trailers on the Apple site about once every couple of weeks and watches pilot season with interest. I want to know what's next, because even if everything is disappointing me now (as is often the case with comics and movies at the moment, although happily not TV), something great might be just around the corner.

TV networks had their "upfronts" this week, and given that this new season gave me two new shows I loved (Lost, Veronica Mars) and some shows that impressed me again or still (24, Arrested Development, The Shield), I'm excited to see what happens next. There was only one big schedule conflict (although it is a doozy), something I always worry about when networks are shuffling their schedules, and there are a few promising shows. Also, Veronica Mars, which is probably my third-favorite show (behind Arrested Development and The Shield), wasn't even on my radar until early in the season last year, so there could still be some surprises waiting. Here's what I'm looking at for next season (not counting midseason):

Sunday 8 PM
Family Guy (FOX) - If Fox can stop screwing with the timeslot, and thus my Tivo, so that I wind up getting the lackluster American Dad instead of this show. It's been on three times, I've seen it once.

Monday 7 PM
Fathom (CBS) - Intriguing alien invasion show (third of its kind on three networks), aliens are some kind of "new sea life," but the cast and producing crew don't stand out, and there's no way *anything* could compete with:

Arrested Development (FOX) - I'm so thrilled that this show got a third season renewal, and will be watching every week.

Monday 7:30 PM
Kitchen Confidential (FOX) - I like the cast on this one: Bradley Cooper from Alias, Nicholas Brendon from Buffy, etc. I also like the premise, about "bad boy" chef Anthony Bourdain, and I want to watch the show if only because it's lead-in is AD and I'll see what FOX is pairing with that. But if it's not good immediately, I'll probably switch over to:

How I Met Your Mother (CBS) - Premise sounds dull, typical relationship type stuff but with the twist of being narrated from the future by the successful couple. The cast, however, includes Alyson Hanigan and Neil Patrick Harris. I'd rather see both of these actors on drama, because I think they're stronger there, but I'll at least check this out.

Monday 8 PM
Emily's Reasons Why Not (ABC) - Heather Graham was really good in her Scrubs guest shot, so maybe this comedy about her as an advice columnist will be funny. But I'll probably watch:

Prison Break (FOX) - A season-long show about two brothers planning a prison break? Has 24 in its DNA, and sounds like good, pulp "guy soap opera" fun in that vein.

Tuesday 7 PM
Bones (FOX) - Premise sounds too CSI, and a little boring, but it's got David Boreanaz from Angel and there's nothing on opposite that I want to watch, so I'll at least catch a few early episodes.

Tuesday 8 PM
My Name is Earl (NBC) - Jason Lee as a low-rent crook who wins the lottery and then tries to right all the wrongs of his old life? Good casting (also has Jaime Pressly and Ethan Suplee), good premise, no timeslot competition, I'll be watching. But two of those three apply to Joey, and I gave that up, so it'll have to be good to earn its place on the Tivo.

Tuesday 8:30 PM
The Office (NBC) - I like this when I watch it, so I might watch more. Or I might not.

Wednesday 8 PM
Lost (ABC) - One of my favorite shows of this season. You can bet I'll be watching, although it might be on a friend's DVR because:

Veronica Mars (UPN) - MOTHER FUCKERS! They renewed the show and put it up against ABC's ratings juggernaut? Don't get me wrong, the only thing that could get me to choose against VM is Arrested Development, but I'm not most of America, and this could easily kill the show if they're hoping to see ratings improvement. Jesus, what are they thinking?

E-Ring (NBC) - Bruckheimer-produced drama about the Pentagon. Mildly interested, has Dennis Hopper (!), but up against these two other shows? I'll never see it.

Wednesday 9 PM
Invasion (ABC) - Another "alien invasion" show, this one probably has the best chance of success, since it's lead-in is Lost. Cast isn't instantly recognizable by name (although I know some of the faces), but the general approach sounds interesting, and again, no timeslot competition for me.

Thursday 7 PM
Alias (ABC) - Almost lost me early this season, still nowhere near as good as it was in seasons 1 and 2, but has regained my interest enough that I'll watch if nothing better is competing. And nothing is.

Thursday 8 PM
The Night Stalker (ABC) - No love for the original, my original interest in X-Files has turned to hatred, and yet... this sounds like Kolchak crossed with the Fugitive, and a good underlying central mystery can help a show. Curious to check it out, at least.

Friday 8 PM
Threshold (CBS) - The third alien invasion series, hampered severely by the involvement of Star Trek's Brannon Braga and Blade: Trinity's David Goyer, but boosted given that it features Carla Gugino, one of my favorite actresses, as well as some other notably good cast. I'll watch, although not if it's on opposite Battlestar Galactica.

And that's it. Mind you, some of my favorite shows aren't in this upfront, including all the intriguing looking midseason stuff like The Unit (Shawn Ryan and David Mamet) or The Inside (coming in June, really looking forward to this one) or the stuff on cable networks like Sci-Fi (Battlestar Galactica) and FX (The Shield), but that's what I'll probably check out come the Fall season.

Star Wars: Episode III:
I tried like hell not to get my expectations up above the "this is gonna suck" level that I had after Attack of the Clones, but I apparently didn't manage it, because I was still really disappointed in this movie. A few neat moments, but most of the emotional resonance comes from John Williams's score and the nostalgic ties it has to the actual good Star Wars movies, and all of Lucas's many directing and writing foibles are on display in this flick. It is the best of the prequels, but that still ranks it amongst some of the worst crap I've seen in a theatre.

Seriously, this thing is getting good reviews from the fanboy quarter on Ain't It Cool all the way to the critics in the mainstream press, and I'm left wondering what movie they saw that I didn't. I wanted it to be good, wanted the hype to be true, but man... it isn't. Episode III wasn't as boring as Episode II, but it's still miles away from good.

Life and Times of Juniper Lee:
And this is a reminder to set my Tivo for Judd Winick's new show on Cartoon Network, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, in May. Yes, I'm using my blog as a reminder system now. I can't help it, my memory is swiss cheese, and only getting worse as I age. :)

Mark Ricketts' Webcomic:
This is just a link to remind myself (and anyone else who might be reading this and like good comics) to check out Mark Ricketts and Jay Washer on BEATITUDE.

Is this thing on?
Well, let's see, I last updated in... huh. 2004.

Hey, I've been busy! No, not busy, what's that other word? Lazy. Actually, I have been busy, but mostly the reason I haven't updated the blog is that it just doesn't occur to me, and usually I'm spending time playing World of Warcraft, watching DVDs (either from Netflix or my copious post-Christmas/birthday stacks) or Tivo (I'm roughly a month behind on The Daily Show), writing reviews or, more likely, playing with Katy.

So it's another big update of what's been going on in my life, which are probably of no interest to anyone but myself, but it's the Internet blogger age, so I'll post my thoughts anyway.

Games: I love World of Warcraft. I bought the Collector's Edition from a friend of a friend just before Christmas, and have been playing it in fairly devoted fashion ever since. My character is Marrok, a level 47 Dwarf Warrior on the Gilneas server, who is an Armorsmith & Blacksmith (level 255), Cook (level 275) and Miner (level 260-something). Yeah, I can geek out about the game for a while. Anyway, it's really fun, much more repeat fun than City of Heroes, the first MMORPG that I played, and I paid up front for 6 months to get a cheaper rate and don't regret it at all. The upcoming D&D Online is tempting, and maybe by the time it comes out I'll be ready to depart World of Warcraft for a new game, but I'm not sure... it's a really great game. And has made it unnecessary for me to pick up any other games for PS/2, although I do want to give God of War a try at some point.

iPod: My last post indicated that I wanted an iPod Photo. I bought one after Christmas and for the most part haven't regretted it at all. I got to show off a slideshow of Katy pictures for family on a recent trip to Arkansas, and that was a lot of fun, and I love having all my music in one little box that plugs into my car stereo. I was a bit annoyed to find myself having battery problems about a month ago, but I sent it in for warranty service and got a new iPod back almost within a week, so I've got no complaints about Apple's service. I do wish I'd held out until the price dropped from $500 to $350, but then I would have gone many months without all my pictures and music in my pocket, so I'm not too terribly disappointed.

Movies: I haven't seen a ton of movies in recent months. I rented Garden State and really enjoyed that, but mostly Netflix has been occupied sending me TV DVDs. However, I did see Sin City, which was amazing, and just last night I went with some friends to see Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, which was equally amazing. Lots of fun, fight sequences that have all the visual innovation of the Matrix movie with better story and characters, so involving that I didn't really even notice the subtitles because I was so involved in it. Owen Gleiberman at EW described Chow's style as "Tex Avery meets Quentin Tarantino," and if you throw in a little bit of Bruce Lee, I think that's about right. My buddy Dave got me the soundtrack as a belated birthday present, and it's terrific too.

TV: I changed up my "current favorite" TV listings over on the sidebar. Alias is gone, because I'm still watching but increasingly skeptical about the new direction it's gone in, while 24 has returned, recovering nicely from the season three stumble for what has probably been its best season ever. The Shield is also having a great season so far... no surprise, as that show has really never even had a bad episode (aside from some misfires in the Mamet episode where I didn't think he "got" the show), but I've been taken aback at just how much I'm liking Glenn Close's character, and hoping that she'll stick around for more than one season. Also digging ABC's new spy/PI drama with comedic touches Eyes, although given the ratings, I'm not sure how long I'll be able to enjoy it. I was also shocked at how good the Sci Fi Battlestar Galactica was, and cannot wait for it to restart in July. Oh, and Arrested Development and Veronica Mars continue to be my favorite shows, coming in just below the Shield. Delighted that Mars is getting a season two, very hopeful that Arrested will get a season three. It's actually been as good or better in season two than it was in the brilliant first season, and cracks me up like no other show on TV.

Deadwood: I list favorite shows that I watch on Tivo, but I don't have HBO, so there are a lot of shows that I watch on DVD. Doesn't mean I love them any less, just means that I'm patient and don't mind the "wait for DVD" (akin to waiting for trade paperbacks) approach. Deadwood is a recent discovery, and I adore this show. I haven't watched the last disc (although I probably will as soon as I post this), but the first season is just great. It might be my favorite thing ever from HBO, and was almost enough to get me to sign up for the network if I didn't already have so many demands on my time and plenty to watch. Of course, I haven't watched The Wire yet, which everyone also tells me is really good, so I can't say Deadwood is the best thing on HBO, but I can say that it's my favorite thing so far, beating out Sopranos and probably even Band of Brothers, although that one's really close.

That's it. Everything else is either comics (which I cover ad nauseum over on Fourth Rail), boring day-to-day life stuff (like my sink being clogged up in the latest of seemingly neverending house expenses) or talking about how cute and smart and wonderful my two-year-old daughter Katy is.

Early November Update:
So let's see, a fair amount has happened since the last time I posted. I think there was some kind of election, but I've blocked it all out to keep from screaming and going mad.

So, what else? Well, I saw the Incredibles today with my lovely wife, and my take on it, some 10 hours later, is that it is probably my favorite Pixar movie and is certainly the best superhero film ever created. It's got its funny moments, as with all Pixar films, but it also has tremendous heart, fantastic action, a true understanding of superheroes from both a story and a visual side and a '60s Silver Age superhero/cool Bond espionage vibe that is unbeatable. Not that any of this is surprising, really. Pixar has never let me down, Brad Bird (writer/director of this and The Iron Giant) is awesome and Michael Giacchino (composer for this, Alias and Lost) is both exceptionally talented and perfect for the material. Great work by the voice cast as well, especially Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson and Brad Bird, all of whom just brought so much life to their characters.

TV season is rolling along surprisingly well, given that most of the new offerings this season looked awful. But while much of the TV landscape is a wasteland of reality shows and scripted TV so dumb it might violate the Geneva convention, the bright spots do shine all the more brightly. Veronica Mars has turned out to be great, a little overly cutesy and impressed with itself at times but just on the right side of quirky, with exceptional writing and some great casting. Lost hooked me after about three episodes, and though I'm still not prepared to say it's better than Alias, it might just be as good. Bravo, meanwhile, has a cool new show called Long Way Round about Ewan McGregor and his buddy Charley Boorman going from England to New York by way of Asia on BMW motorcycles, which I'm really enjoying so far. Arrested Development has started up again, which is great news for those of us who enjoy intelligent comedy. And Drawn Together on Comedy Central, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is crude in imaginative ways, not quite up to South Park's level of outrageous humor but definitely entertaining in an "I can't believe I'm watching this" kind of way.

My faith in mankind has been shaken a little this last month or so (don't worry, I'm still not going to talk about the election), and part of that is that somebody broke the passenger window of my car and stole my radio while I was parked in front of my house! $750 and a great deal of hassle later, the upside is that I have a new, cheaper car insurance policy with better coverage and a new, cool in-dash radio/CD player for the car. It has two features I've wanted for a while, the ability to play MP3 CDs (I now have over 800 songs across 5 CDs that comprises most of the music I want to listen to in the car) and an audio in-jack for my next big tech purchase, an iPod.

I'm waiting on Christmas money to see if I can afford one. My original plan was to buy the 40GB deal, maybe even spring the extra $50 for the cool black and red U2 limited edition, but then I went over to Apple's site and saw this. Now I can carry around all the baby pictures I want along with my music. I can't wait to pick this up, and very much hope finances allow me to do so in January.

Late September Update:
Yeah, I'm just not real good at the concept of blogging, which is meant to revolve around frequent updates. Most of my web effort goes into The Fourth Rail.

However, there have been a few things worth noting on this site. Most notable is that I took a weekend trip a few weeks back out to New Orleans for the N.O.D.I.Y. alternative media show. Put together by Leo McGovern, who runs the free magazine Antigravity in town (which happens to syndicate Snap Judgments as well), the show was unusual and a lot of fun. Music, a variety of things besides comics, a night-time show and a bar right there (the whole thing was held in a warehouse sized bar called Twiropa), I had a lot of fun. Probably would have had more if I hadn't been wiped out from the 10-hour drive, but the Saturday after, when we just bummed around New Orleans, was plenty of fun.

I was there with my buddies Chris Nicholas and Dave Lamplugh (creators of the minicomics You Chose Right The First Time) as well as Toby Craig (creator of the Engine minicomics and more), whom we had picked up in Houston. On Saturday, we all walked around, got plenty of pictures (and Toby and Dave got plenty of sketching done), had breakfast at Cafe Du Monde, lunch at Central Grocery (where we had their awesome Muffelettas) and dinner with Leo and his girlfriend Michelle at a place Leo picked out called Mandina's. We then hit a few of the coolest bars I've ever been to, thanks to Leo and Michelle, which were more local places and not as swamped as the Bourbon Street joints. I discovered my new favorite drink, Coke and Absolut Vanilla, and maybe had a *little* too much of it, but it was a good time.

That's the really exciting stuff that's gone on. Otherwise, I've been playing the hell out of Burnout 3, which I rented from Gamefly, and much as I enjoyed Burnout 2, this one is sooo much better. It looks better, and the addition of the ability to steer your car after you wreck is just genius. I also like the "Road Rage" events that consist of you trying to wreck as many opponents as possible. It's been getting rave reviews at the game sites, and I can see why. I desperately want to hold onto it, but will probably give it up soon so that I can rent Star Wars Battlefront and X-Men: Legends, both of which I'm also hearing good things about.

New Fall TV season has started, and is pretty much just as bad as I thought it was going to be. However, there are a couple bright spots. Joey is a guilty pleasure, just like Friends was for the last four or five years of its existence. Lost had an intriguing opener, not quite the throat-grabber that Alias was for me but certainly interesting. And the real winner of the Fall season so far for me is Veronica Mars, which had a very smartly-written pilot, plenty of charm mixed with a little darkness (not unlike Rob Thomas's previous show, Cupid) and a terrific cast, highlighted by the lead actress. Surprisingly enough, UPN might have my favorite show right now, although there is room for Lost to overtake it, and of course, it *will* be overtaken when The Shield, Alias or Arrested Development start up again. Still, well worth a look.

Other than that, I've also been lucky enough to find that Trio is running Spaced, the Britcom by Shaun of the Dead creators Simon Pegg and Edward Wright, and it is every bit as funny as the clip reel they put together in San Diego indicated. Happily, I'll have every episode of Spaced on my Tivo in just a few days, and this has spurred me to organize a trip to the Drafthouse to see Shaun of the Dead next weekend. Still bummed I missed Pegg and Wright when they were in town to premiere the film, but ah well.

Robert Rodriguez Scares Me:
I finally sat down to watch the DVD of Once Upon A Time in Mexico tonight. I'd already re-watched the movie, but I sat down to watch Rodriguez's commentary and the extras. Rodriguez's commentary is great, as he just talks constantly throughout, and it's both extremely technical and yet accessible to the casual viewer, funny and light without being stupid or lightweight. Then I watch the Ten Minute Film School, Ten Minute Cooking School and Inside Troublemaker Studios featurettes, and I realize that Rodriguez is talented in so many areas that he doesn't even realize how rare it is.

Rodriguez can compose scores (kickass ones, too, like the one for Kill Bill), direct and write movies, speak intelligently on sound mixing, editing and other movie technical shit that I barely understand, play guitar, cook, mess with CGI/digital effects... it's frightening. It also makes for a very entertaining DVD, and bodes well for the upcoming Sin City. I mean, I'm predisposed to like Rodriguez already because he's a comic book fan who resides in Austin (like me) and because he's made several movies I really love, but realizing just how far his talents range makes me all the more happy that he's the guy doing Sin City.

Meet the new game... same as the old game:
Well, since I had only played once in about three weeks, most of my superhero group had outlevelled me and several of my friends had quit, I decided to call it quits with City of Heroes. I enjoyed it when I played, but I wasn't feeling the addiction anymore, and couldn't justify $15 a month for something I was only playing for a few hours a month. Still, early May to mid-August is a pretty good run for a game, and I'll definitely be back on the game at some point... just not right now.

I'm also getting my superhero buzz from a new Mutants & Masterminds game I started with my regular gaming group. It's the first time I've played M&M, and I like it so far, although after having played pretty much Champions only for about 10 years, it's taking some adjusting. The superteam, as is typical for my gaming groups, is more than a little bit strange. There's a speedster social worker who got his powers from being caught up in an alien drug deal (Torque), the electrical blaster who was sort of the head of a gang in a bad area of town until reaching adulthood and becoming a superhero (Bolt, although originally he was Shock, and before that he had no official superhero name), the '60s vocalist for a third-rate band who got sucked into 1993 by a dimensional invasion and was granted a number of weird powers like transmuting objects into other objects, teleporting and animating objects (The Shifter) and, off a dare, a plant guy (Doc Nightshade). They chose The Outcasts for their team name, and it's looking pretty appropriate. First session was fun, though, and while I'm still getting the hang of the power levels/balance, I think M&M may wind up overtaking Champs as my favorite superhero RPG.

I've been playing SSX3 on the PS/2 a lot lately, and my love of console games got the better of me. With City of Heroes funding turned off, I decided I could once again justify my subscription to Gamefly, the Netflix-like service for videogames, and started that up again (Net savings from CoH to Gamefly: About a $1 a month. Nice one, Randy). At any rate, though, I currently have Spider-Man 2 out for rent, and while the plot and some of the dialogue is just hokey as hell, occasionally crossing the border into downright stupid, the webswinging through New York is really addictive and fun.

So there you have it. Three loooong paragraphs about my videogame habits and gaming. Good God, does anyone read this blog? If so, I'm deeply sorry that I don't have anything more interesting to say. My wife's got cute baby stories on her blog, maybe you should visit there. :)

F/X does it again:
OK, I finally realized that I'd had enough of guilty pleasure trash TV Nip/Tuck, especially since I barely have time to watch everything I want to anyway, but F/X has replaced that show in my personal Tivo lineup with Rescue Me, a great little drama with touches of comedy that reminds me in a lot of ways of what I like about The Shield without really using any of the elements of that show, save a pretty solid ensemble cast and sharp writing.

Dennis Leary, as it turns out, can act, the rest of the cast is highly entertaining and the show has made me laugh and tear up, especially in light of the shocker moment of the fourth episode that puts Leary's character into a whole new situation with his wife.

Justice League Unlimited:
I was not a huge fan of the previous Justice League series on Cartoon Network. Despite a few really good episodes, mostly I thought it was a pretty big comedown from the amazing Batman: Animated Series and the almost-as-good Superman: Animated Series. Not enough story, and the action, while good, wasn't good enough to keep up with it. The dialogue tended to be kind of "kiddy-fied" and so did the stories. Oh, I watched it, and I think I've actually seen every episode once (and the good ones a couple of times), but I kept thinking, "Damn... it could have been so much more."

If the first episode of Justice League Unlimited is any indication, it might be "so much more." A note perfect (well, his voice was too young for me, but that's quibbling) Green Arrow, some great chemistry with Captain Atom and Supergirl, Brimstone (from Suicide Squad, and that's major bonus points in my book), and a ton of DC heroes, both big and small, in the background? This is the DC Universe cartoon I wanted to see. Not to mention that they didn't lose the action, in fact Green Arrow in action was some of the coolest superhero stuff I've seen in animation.

Turns out maybe the hour-long two-parters were giving the creators too much room to move. With only half an hour, and a wider cast of characters, they seem to have tightened up the stories and the dialogue (I chuckled at several lines in the episode) while maintaining what worked about the previous series. Looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

Random TV Thoughts:
Thanks to my wife having started watching the show back when BBC America ran a marathon, I've checked out Coupling, and found it to be absolutely hilarious. It's currently in season four, which is where I started watching, but the episodes I've seen inspired me to rent the DVD of season one from Netflix, and it turns out the show has been laugh-out-loud funny from day one.

Which means that yet another TV show on my must watch list doesn't come from American network TV. The stuff that I always go for from the Tivo when I get a chance to watch TV these days is Coupling, Celebrity Poker Showdown (so pleased that they did basically *two* seasons this year, with another round starting right after the first championship match) and Dinner For Five.

Which is good, because I like watching TV, and the slate for next season is just bloody awful. The Lost is intriguing, but it's on ABC, and will probably be cancelled before its time, although given the leeway they've given Alias, maybe that means showrunner J.J. Abrams can save it from that fate. Beyond that? Nothing new really caught my eye, to be honest. I'm mildly interested in LAX because of the cast (love Blair Underwood) and because I've always had this weird idea that an airport would make a great setting for an ensemble comedy or drama story, and some of the midseason stuff sounds intriguing, but come September, I'm not really gonna care much that the new TV is starting.

Paul O'Brien Hits The Nail on the Head Again:
Article 10: Foursquare Panels - Paul's online reviews are probably my favorites on the web (yep, including mine), but I'm just as pleased by his biweekly forays into industry analysis on Ninth Art. This one in particular is a look at the controversy over Gary Trudea's latest Doonesbury strips.

I can't really add much, because Paul has a pretty cogent analysis here, but I will say that as much disgust as I have for our current administration, I have even more for the illogical zealots who pretend that any examination of it, even if it's only mildly critical or arguably apolitical, is anti-American. The crap on TV and in movies these days has me worried about the lowest common denominator already, but the level of discourse about politics is even worse. Maybe we should start instituting a basic IQ level for people to vote?

The End of Angel:
Fantastic. It should have been two hours, really, but then, it really should have been the finale at the end of *next* season, when Whedon and company had time to really explore all the interesting developments they had set up in the last few episodes. This show has, in my opinion, been stronger than the series that it spun off from, not just because the last two or three seasons of Buffy were soooo uneven but because aside from some very worrisome stuff with Conner around season three, Angel has been pretty consistently great. The darker tone meant that I had an easier time going along with the darker stuff that happens to our heroes, where on Buffy it just felt a bit wrong. And it's amazing that the show started with two of my least favorite characters in the Buffyverse (Cordelia and Angel), added another that I pretty much hated (Wesley) and by the end had made me like all of them and even put Wes, poor tragic Wes on my list as possibly the best Buffyverse character period. Aside from Xander, who became completely uninteresting and poorly written right around season four or five of Buffy and never completely recovered.

Hell, the fifth season of Angel even made me love Spike again, a character I had grown to hate ever since he went from villain to goofy anti-hero who dominated the Buffy show. And that ending... oh, that ending was perfect, the kind of thing that takes real guts to do (especially with a rabid, judgmental and already pissed-off fanbase) and even more skill to pull off.

Then the WB puts up this little trailer at the end thanking the fans and the show for five years? Like it's not entirely their fault that the show is ending now, like the creators and the cast and crew didn't want to do more? Complete and total BS, and while I don't think the ire of a bunch of genre fans screaming "boycott" is really going to affect their bottom line, I do think they'll have a helluva time launching any kind of genre programming in the future if they decide to try it again. Certainly I'm not watching anything on WB next season, although in fairness that has more to do with their schedule being total shit than any kind of boycott decision on my part.

City of Heroes:
How do I love this new MMORPG about superheroes? Let me count the ways:
City of Heroes

A Little Quick Math:
I've gotten to the point where I'm not so much surprised and angry at shows being cancelled as I am just kind of tired of it. Wonderfalls, a show I had quickly fallen in love with, got cancelled as of its fourth episode, and there won't be any more. Meanwhile, more and more reality shows that I wouldn't watch if you put a gun to my head continue to take the place of scripted programming. And networks bitch because their viewership overall is down. Maybe not everybody likes the reality shows and cheesy sitcoms? Maybe we want more than three or four flavors of CSI and a half-dozen Law & Orders? And I say this as someone who Tivos CSI and Friends, and who used to Tivo Law & Order! It's not that the formula drama and sitcoms are crimes against nature or anything, it's just that I'd like a little more originality and imagination in my TV as well.

Anyway, a little quick math from this season:

Number of new shows I liked (Wonderfalls, Arrested Development, Karen Sisco) = 3
(minus) Number of shows cancelled (Wonderfalls, Karen Sisco, Angel) = 3
(minus) Number of new shows likely to be cancelled (Arrested Development) = 1
(plus) Number of continuing shows I was enjoying (24, Alias, Angel, The Shield, West Wing, The Daily Show) = 6
(minus) Number of shows that went downhill (24, West Wing) = 2
(equals)
Me watching three shows next season: The Daily Show, Alias and The Shield. Only one of which is actually a network show. Unless the pilot season winds up much stronger than its looking (no Joss Whedon and no Aaron Sorkin), I'm going to be strictly on DVDs of HBO/Showtime shows and movies and reruns of shows when TV was better. Which is fine by me, I don't really need any more TV to watch, but I wonder how universal that experience is, and how much that has to do with the general decline of network TV viewership?

Seems like maybe the nets, if they want to build their viewership again, need to stop with the constant rollout of the new and maybe try and build a critical darling into a big hit, the way they used to do with shows like Cheers, Seinfeld, The X-Files, etc.

Vegas Baby!
Honestly, my week-long trip to Vegas has little to do with this site being so infrequently updated. I'm just busy and/or lazy. But yeah, last week I headed off to Las Vegas for the second time in six months, and just as it was last time, it was on the boss's dime for a work-related Con. This was my first trip to GAMA, the game industry trade show, and I'd been primed to expect something huge. What I got was indeed big, but when you've been to a half-dozen San Diego Comicons, you have a certain expectation for the phrase "Big Con" that GAMA didn't really meet.

Which is good, because had it been any bigger I'd be exhausted. The show was a lot of work, both in terms of the amount of walking and the amount of work involved. Some of it was a loss (the first day seminars were almost universally awful, saved only by Joe Field's engaging panels, and even those were aimed surprisingly at newer retailers, when you'd expect most of the folks at GAMA to be retail vets) but I got to see some cool new games (the Spycraft CCG is going to be great, the D&D Minis Titans of Legends are amazing looking and the Nocturnals book from Green Ronin looks terrific as well) and take in a bit of Vegas as well (love those Bellagio water shows).

In other news, right before Vegas, I discovered my favorite new show of the season: Wonderfalls. I'm not a fanatical follower of AICN (although I do read the @$$holes Talkback reviews religiously), but I do occasionally check in on Hercules' Coaxial side of the site, and it was his constant badgering about how good Wonderfalls was going to be (along with Firefly/Angel vet Tim Minear's name) that got me to check it out. I'm so glad I did, because the show is quirky, snarky and hilarious, with a great cast and smart writing. While it reminds me in tone of Dead Like Me and my late lamented Cupid (the one with Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall, not that reality shit), it is very original and unusual.

It is also probably doomed. But I continue to hope that Fox will realize they've got something special here and move it from the self-fulfilling prophecy Friday death slot into a better place. Not to mention marketing the thing more effectively. I don't watch a great deal of TV commercials these days, it's true (thank you Tivo!) but still... I didn't see a single ad for this new show.

Video (Games) Killed the Radio Star (And All My Free Time):
Been playing some video games lately. I got the Warcraft III expansion for X-Mas, and since my computer had crashed last year, I had to play through Warcraft III original flavor to get back to the point where I could play the expansion. I just finished it recently and have installed (but not played) much of the expansion yet.

And that's because I got a subscription to Gamefly, a Netflix-like service for PS2 (and XBox and GameCube, but I don't have those) games. Since then, I've been spending way too much of my not-too-copious free time playing these rented games. Loved SSX 3 and Need for Speed: Underground, had fun playing Burnout 2 and returned both R: Racing Evolution and NFL Street within minutes of opening them and playing them.

The really fun find, though, has been James Bond: Everything or Nothing. 3rd person James Bond game that feels like a modern Bond movie. Has its quirks, like a slightly off-kilter auto-targeting system that sometimes has me popping caps in a wall while some nameless mook shoots me in the back (not very suave, that), but is generally a blast to play. Such a blast, in fact, that I play too long, and since I've got the unfortunate physiological quirk of becoming nauseous when playing videogames (almost immediately with first-person, takes longer with 3rd), sometimes I wind up having to turn off the TV, etc. and lie there, wishing I had stopped playing the game about fifteen minutes earlier.

Given that I love videogames, I'm very annoyed by this particular physiological quirk. But not as annoyed as I am with myself every time I push the limits too far. But even knowing it might make me feel like vomiting, I love this game. How many reviews of a PS2 game are you gonna read with *that* qualifier?

Priorities? What are those?
McSupersizes to be phased out - Soldiers are still dying in two countries that we invaded, a shockingly large number of people in the country think gay marriage should be outlawed, the Catholic church is still fondling little boys like it's a national sport... and *this* is where the public pressure is?

I swear, these days I just want to throw my hands up about the American public, and maybe humanity in general. Perhaps we're all too stupid to live. C'mon... eating McDonald's every day is bad for your health? Are there actually people out there who don't know that, who need a documentary or a lawsuit to clue them in? If so, I think being fat is the least of their problems. Fat and stupid and skinny and stupid really isn't that far apart, in terms of quality of life.