Weekly Recap - September 11th, 2010

Intro/Random:
What does it say about me that I find Jack in the Box's egg rolls superior to most of the veggie-filled, bland egg rolls I've ever had at Chinese restaurants? Am I going to the wrong Chinese restaurants, or is my palette all messed up, or is Jack in the Box that good at egg rolls?

On Monday, a woman brought an entire box of Swedish fish to the store. Not trying to sell anything, just a promotion for Swedish fish. Odd. But delicious! Apparently they're making a big marketing push in Austin.

Don't ever look at Yelp! at around midnight. I was craving Best Wurst, Kebabalicious, Habana *and* Franklin BBQ and none of them were open on Monday night. So I decided to go to Franklin BBQ for lunch on Tuesday. Despite the downpour which flooded parts of the city, still decided to go, and... learned that it is not open on Tuesdays, even when it isn't raining. My buddy Jason and I went to Torchy's instead, which was good, but I'm still craving Franklin.

On Thursday, I had a blast doing Geeks Who Drink with friends at Nomad. We came in fifth, which I blame on sports, elephantitis and the Branch Davidian compound.

Watching Road Runner cartoons with my son... there are worse ways to spend a Saturday morning.

Comics I Read This Week:
Thanos Imperative #4 - The first half of this issue was sheer cosmic action joy, the second half more of that "they're screwed" sense that's pervaded the rest of the series. Loving it, as with all the Abnett/Lanning cosmic stuff, and I hope this isn't the end of it all. If it is, it's a great send-off.

Sixth Gun #4 - Very strong contender for best new title of 2010.

TV/Movies:
More TV Dudes! This time our giant two part Fall TV preview. Part 1 here, Part 2 here.

Watched The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard - This was a lot of fun... great cast. Craig Robinson almost steals the show as DJ Request.

Not quite as impressed with Daybreakers - 2 1/2 stars is probably generous, upon reflection. Not the best movie that could have been made from this premise, but also not the worst. Oh, and weird, weird ending... seems like they went "Hey, we still have a huge gore budget to burn!"

Loved Black Dynamite. Lots of folks do '70s exploitation parody, few do it this well. Hilarious and clever, with lots of great performances.

Sunshine Cleaning I'm a little more uncertain of. I'm not usually a big fan of quirky soul-searching indies, but I thought this was pretty good, if you are into that sort of thing. On reflection, though, I liked it a little less, although I still love Amy Adams.

Finished Castle Season 1. Bring on Season 2! Except that the DVD comes out the day *after* season 3 premieres. WTF kind of planning is that?

I seem to be in the minority amongst my friends, but I thought the pilot for Terriers was pretty frickin' great. Donal Logue was *perfect* for the lead role, the chemistry between him and co-star Raymond James is really strong and the whole thing has a vibe that's James Ellroy meets Elmore Leonard with a very recognizable streak of Ted Griffin's snappy patter and fun set-pieces from Ocean's 11. Highly, *highly* recommended viewing. Daniel Fienberg has a really good review.

Oddly, Alan's "I'm not interested, but it's well done" review has me more excited than I previously was for the new Nikita. Partially because I never watched the USA version, partially because I like the twist of Maggie Q's character (and Maggie Q) and partially because I am super-partial to shadowy spy action stories.

Here, Alan Sepinwall talks Rubicon and why you should be watching one of the best shows on TV. Even if we still don't really know what the conspiracy is about, 3/4 of the way through the season.

Other Links:
This looks very cool... if I was an artist, I'd totally do it.

Awesome mash-up of Matrix and Big Lebowski