#178 - dollhouse

good job to brandi and joseph for bringing up one of my favorite subjects... tv shows i like. haha. and when talking about tv shows i like, you really only have to mention one name: joss whedon. i think i like just about anything and everything the guy did (except for the comic books, i stopped reading those and haven't looked back). everything from roseanne to buffy to angel to firefly (did you know he even co-wrote for toy story and aliens 4?). unfortunately, a lot of his ideas have been smashed by network production... well, i'm sure that's true for a lot of writers out there trying to balance making a living and sharing their vision. but, for example, the original buffy movie (with kristy swanson and luke perry) was completely messed with so that the end product was so far off what joss whedon wanted that he decided to create buffy the tv show (so i guess that was a good thing huh?). for another example, producers at the fox network switched around all the episodes of firefly and made such a total mess of that show that only 11 of the 14 episodes actually aired and the aired the pilot as the last episode on tv ever (which spurred joss whedon to create the movie serenity so i guess that a good thing too!).

so here's hoping they don't do the same thing to this new tv show "dollhouse." everything i can find on it says that it's gonna be about some people (including eliza dushku... hotness!) who have their memories and personalities stripped so that they can implanted with new memories and personalities and are then rented out to carry out various missions and such.

after the debacle of firefly, joss whedon swore he would never work with fox network again, but now he's saying that there are a whole new group of network executives and so they're ensuring him that they won't have that problem again... cross your fingers. anyway, the episodes are set to air in january (so long lost, i need to make room on my dvr), and here's an extra surprise... just found out that another alum from the buffy/angel universe is joining the cast... amy acker from angel (she played fred and illyria... marvelously if i may say so). i also love how joss whedon spreads these actors around, it's nice to see some familiar faces... plus she is also hot, haha.

woo hoo. so here's what joss whedon had to say about his new cast,

"All in all, pound for pound, soup to nuts, man vs beast, it's a pretty amazing ensemble. I'm not sure how I landed this troupe, but rest assured I'm gonna write bestest good word for talkacting to them yes! They're in good hands."

isn't that great? what i like best about his writing is that it's realistic. people don't speak perfectly all day. they make mistakes and use colloquialisms and are dumb sometimes. hey, i think THAT'S actually what i like about his writing so much, he allows people to be dumb. not everything is cut perfectly and people in real life say smart things and say some pretty dumb things too. not like those law & order shows where everyone talks at break-neck speed and everyone's pinpoint accurate with their choice of words, that's so contrived. so i'm hoping that "dollhouse" brings that lighter side to it as well... but i guess we'll have to wait and see...

#177 - get out & stay in

saturday i voted. that's not the important thing, the important thing is that i walked to my polling station. doesn't sound like a lot, but the fact is that i COULD actually walk somewhere in this town and not have to drive. of course, if i didn't have a car then i technically could walk to work and back, but that would be a trek. i'm probably spoiled by nice sidewalks and green things but if i had to walk to work it would be all sun, sweating, and traffic along the way. so it was really great to be able to walk somewhere, feasibly, and with good reason to. like the thing that i love about big cities is that you really can walk places and it's even a preferred mode of transportation. over here you can't get anywhere without a car and that's kinda sad. that means i go from office to home to store to everywhere indoors and rarely get any outdoors time. i was reading a research article the other day that said the more outdoors time people get the better their general mood. makes sense right? sun, chemicals, hormones. so they said that people who just walk for even 30 minutes outside have much better moods that people who sit around the house all day (even if it's all comfy and a/c'ed inside the house). so being able to legitmately go outside and walk somewhere purposefully was a pretty great thing.

plus then after that i went surfing and that was great. sun, beach, ocean, and pretty decent waves at ali'i, super crowded but fun anyway.

that being said however, this week is national stay-at-home week. haha. i guess they said that because all the new shows are (FINALLY!) back on television for the new season. well, terminator was already on a couple weeks ago (as well as mythbusters, man vs. wild, bones) but this week there's the office, 30 rock, and heroes. can't say that i'm really excited about heroes, since last season was a total bust and now that i remember, i didn't think the first season was all that spectacular either. but that's okay because it's on mondays, with terminator, and i LOVE terminator. it's great that they're both on the same night because they're two great examples of what can go right and wrong about a sci-fi tv show:

1. realism - this is the biggest thing, how do you make a show about robots from the future or superheroes real? terminator succeeds, heroes does not. why? writing. i've always been big on writing (as an amateur wannabe tv show critic), probably because i was so spoiled by joss whedon (buffy, angel, firefly, even wrote for rosanne and did the office once too), he was so good at mixing dialogue and situations so that you can't call his shows "comedy" or "horror" or "drama." it's like that with terminator, even though it's mostly action, there's great comedy and everything else in there. heroes tries, but all it's got for humor are those japanese guys, which they use in absolutely predictable situations of "comedic insert." in heroes, the characters play out the plot (not their fault, it was written like a comic book) and even though they try to input political satire, etc. to make it seem contemporary, it's very obviously a storyline. events occur as the episodes dictate. can't really blame them, they're still a tv show, but it's predictable (also, they need to grow an original idea of their own and stop taking powers from the x-men, i admit, i'm an ex-marvel comic geek and they're stealing every single power from the x-men, lame... or at least be less obvious about it). in terminator, each week kinda seems like a mini-movie, events unfold just as they do, the villain doesn't wait for the perfect moment to strike, the terminator acts when it knows what to do, not a second later (of course, it really doesn't because it's a story, but the important thing is that you don't realize that it's a story because of the good writing).

2. writing - gotta say it again because it's important, but y'know those cringe-worthy lines that absolutely give away the fact that you're watching a network tv show? they're all over heroes. terminator gets a leg-up already because there's little dialogue, but the lines they do drop do not derail the storyline, that's what's important. also, all this "coincidental" crap on heroes is retarded. besides, the storyline in heroes is so enormously convoluted. i mean, c'mon, terminator's got robots traveling back in time, humans traveling forward and they manage to keep everything under control. heroes flips time and location and characters and now every new "twist" just shows the writers have gotten too caught up in their own make-believe (kinda like lost, don't y'think?). now i really don't care what happens next on heroes (or lost) because it doesn't matter, you've got to keep the integrity of the storyline and of the characters so that when dramatic events DO happen they're worth happening and viewers actually care about it.

3. characters - do you really actually like any of the characters on heroes? i sure don't, they can all die for all i care. they're either bratty, worthless, skeezy (re: enourmously creepy with milk-curddling british accents), and pretty much all of them are fantastically over-dramatic (kind of like lost, again, haha). but on terminator you get character out the robots for goodness sake. vulnerability and good acting amidst explosions and cyborgs. maybe just that kristen bell girl on heroes, she's pretty. but the rest of them can bite me.

all that being said, i'm still gonna watch heroes... but i will be feverently watching terminator, woo hoo!

#176 - screw apple

just when i had finally accepted itunes, gave in a bought an ipod nano just a little while ago, apple gives me another reason to hate itself.

i bought my ipod on july 21st... an 8GB ipod nano for $200.

today, sept. 9th, apple sends me an email telling me they're selling a new ipod nano... a 16GB for $200.

bastards.

#175 - magnets are cool

i like magnets. always have. always will, probably. y'know when you're a kid magnets are like the coolest thing ever, anything magnetic you can get your hands on you gotta have right? i was always looking for stronger and stronger magnets. i even made a hoverboard (remember? from "back to the future") with one of those little finger skateboard toys that you can take the wheels off of. i wanted to find one of those "earth magnets," the natural ones that are super strong that they use on mythbusters, but those are actually dangerous so i couldn't get one of those.

anyway, so i read this thing in the paper today that said scientists have found that cows will align themselves to magnetic north-south while grazing, they took aerial shots of cows in pastures and found that they'd all line up on along the north-south magnetic line, leading some to believe that cows could sense the earth's magnetic field. this sounded so cool because i think it's really neat when news of these kinds of extra-sensory senses start to emerge (like how elephants can detect super low-frequency sound through their feet). but, after reading through the article (thanks to my grad school days i now have a habit of dissecting research articles for possible flaws before i really buy into it), it looks like just a mass of speculation on a coincindence in some pictures. i mean, you could make lots of assumptions about this, like maybe they align that way because they detect heat from rivers of lava flowing under them or maybe the metal in their collars pull them towards the south pole or maybe cows just like to stand side by side a lot. anyway, not a super scientific breakthrough, but who knows, maybe with more poking around into it we'd find out more. and that's the MORE exciting part of finding out things like this, not that cows have internal magnets, but that maybe living organisms have more perception than we think, that maybe there are parts of our brains that sense things we just can't name yet. i mean, before anyone knew about the inner ear and the semi-circular canals, how did people think we sensed balance? what if we could find these extra senses? well, then we'd all be superheros right? then that would be super cool.

by the way, y'know what is NOT super cool? losing. UH had plenty of that this weekend. haha, although not horrible loses because 1) they were playing teams that were way out of their league anyway, and 2) because even if they lost it's the beginning of the season and i'm just happy that the sports are back. well, the football was pretty depressing... it was exciting for exactly one quarter, then it was just kinda sick to watch. not that i expected them to win, or even be close at all, but that was just sad. volleyball, on the other hand, had a lot of good in the two losses this weekend. of course penn state was just lights out spectacular, and the wahine stayed with them (until penn state decided to turn it on and win already), then the ucla game was another depressing one, but maybe because i really thought they might pull off that upset. anyway, that was still a real exciting game, especially the end, but still depressing. well, i think it'll be a good season though, for both sports... but for now, back to the US Open... i'm picking serena and federer...

#174 - can't knock 'em

say what you will about peyton and eli manning as quarterbacks... but they're fricken' hilarious making fun of themselves. i think peyton manning on SNL was one of the funniest sports hosts i've seen, and now both of them are on commericals for, like, everything... everywhere.



and since it's the US Open, here's another one... it's on like donkey kong (love that theme song at the end):


and c'mon, i mean, hungry hungry hippos? that's my kind of commerical:

#173 - back

olympics is over and i now feel like i'm back. well, it wasn't just because of the olympics, but it seems like all of the big events of the past... whatever, world stuff, family stuff, life stuff... have wound down and i feel like i'm back to myself again. one thing that helps is sleep. i've been seriously sleep deprived from watching all the olympics coverage, which was great, but towards the end i kinda had to skip a lot of it to get through each day and try to sleep some also. still, i got to the best of everything and i think it was a pretty great olympics. i like how they do the pass the torch thing to the next olympic city at the closing ceremonies. i'm excited about london 2012 already (and even more excited about vancouver 2010), especially because the tennis will be played at wimbledon, woo hoo! but anyway, how 'bout them chinese huh? well, don't you think that it's fitting that they dominate the medal count? i mean, they've got the hugest population in the world, boast high technology and allow their children to leave home when they're 2-years-old to train single-mindedly for a single "sport" their entire life (not that it's necessarily a bad thing, it's a different culture sure, but they lead pretty fulfilling lives, trading home life for ambition and possible fame, sure people argue that it's "wrong" because they don't have a choice, but eventually they get old enough to have a choice, and who really HAS a choice when they start out at life anyway?). so good for them they did good (although i have issue with some of the sneakiness during the games, e.g., judging during like gymnastics or whatever, but that doesn't matter because it's not a sport anyway so tough luck for them they need to submit to that). who says asian people can't be athletes? well, i guess just not runners, like all the track & field people were black or russian or whatever. all the asian people can do is gymnastics (because they're short and thin and have huge legs) and diving (because they're straight up and down and go in the water like a pencil). but hey, check out kei nishikori, a japanese guy playing tennis and winning! how about that? well, upset the #29 seed at the US open at least. of course, he's not a short, small japanese guy, he's one of those freaky tall japanese guys that seem to popping up everywhere (what happened to the good-ole traditional tiny japanese guys that i have to compare myself to?). still, someone to root for? he's kind of american too because he trains at the bolleteri academy (where maria sharapova came from). and on that note... olympics is over, US open is here!

well, maria sharapova (after winning it in 2006 and having an injury-plagued year last year and losing 3rd round) is out this year with another shoulder injury. too bad, but that brings up a whole slew of new favorites now that i don't have maria to root for.

1. ana ivanovic - not my pick to win the whole thing, but i would like to see her do good as the number 1 seed. i definately believe she's got the game to win the open, but maybe this year is not her year yet... still, she's my next favorite after maria.

2. jelena jankovic - she's the no.2 seed but i don't give her much of a chance, i just don't think she's got that game for it. still, she's a likable person, i would be happy to see her do well.

3. the russians - svetlana kuznestova, elena dementieva, dinara safina, a whole ton of other ones, but i give the edge to either dementieva or safina. dementieva got the gold in beijing, but i don't think she has the chops to go through another 128 player tournament and come out on top. my pick is safina, who's looked just spectacular this summer, the biggest serious threat for the title in my opinion.

4. the williams - well, i just want to see both of the at the top again. i don't think they've spent enough time up there. i don't think they should dominate like federer (because their games are too erratic, it's inevitable that they'll have an off day and are prone to upsets, which i'm fine with), but i'd like to see both of them at #1 and 2 again.

for the men, i don't have anyone anywhere close to winning the title except for federer, nadal, and djokovic... and i really hope federer "salvages" his year and wins this one. that's all i'm gonna say about that.

so that's what i'll be watching the next two weeks. i love it when my weekly ups and downs can be organized by sports and what's on tv, add to that wahine volleyball, UH football, and my favorite shows coming back on air with new episodes, and we're back in the groove, yeah!

during the olympics they were re-running all episodes of terminator from the first season (great idea, nbc, good on you) so i dvr-ed all of them and am watching them as we speak. very rarely can i watch tv shows more than once and really enjoy them (i can only do that when shows have really great writing, like buffy, angel, firefly, the office, fraiser, futurama) and this one is on the verge... the good is that it's got a great storyline, pretty good humor and action enough to satisfy. plus, i think summer glau is hot. and that's a great reason to keep watching alone.

heroes is coming back on, then the office, and 30 rock, plus a new one, bones. except i've got nothing to watch on tuesdays now that american idol and even i survived a japanese gameshow (aka MAJIDE!) is gone. speaking of american idol... did you guys hear that they hired a FOURTH judge? some record producer lady, you know what that means... pack your bags paula, you're on your way out! haha, don't you think? continuing to speak of american idol... david archuleta released his first single. well. he's like 17 right? so this is supposed to be like a hannah montana/jonas brothers song? well, it's called "crush" and it pretty much sounds like how you'd expect. oh well, the young girls and boys will be happy at least. i absolutely think he was right on in his choice to go the direction of chris brown type songs though, i even think his voice actually sounds a lot like chris brown's. but, we'll see what happens eventually.

lastly, on a very unrelated note... i found this article online that was kinda funny. i don't watch a lot of these shows (because they're mostly about high school and, y'know, barf right?) but i thought that "worst schools for life expectancy" was pretty funny (except that they gave a tie between the schools on buffy and on smallville when they should have given it to buffy outright, espeically with the quote "If we can focus, keep discipline, and not have quite as many mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is going to rule!") and it reminded me that mtv show "daria." that was a great show. i miss that show. it was one of those, "yeah, i can relate" kind of shows.

wow, look how much i had to write about tonight since i have no olympics to watch, huh? plus i even went to the gym and am right now watching terminator and still i have time to write all this. it's like i have life again. watch, tonight i'm going to actually sleep too! wow. okay, but next i have to go online searching for my halloween costume this year, i need a real one because of sammy's birthday party (i was already warned, haha). i like 80stees.com for those "back in the days" ideas (now that i'm getting older and things in my childhood are actually part of the past), but i'm thinking this year will be something old school nintendo, maybe some ryu from street fighter... shoryuken!

#172 - race walking

this is the most ridiculous thing i've seen... possibly ever. i had to post a video of it because there's no way a still photo could capture the ridiculous-ness. still, even this video of one person race walking cannot compare to a whole field of walkers doing this... in high definition... for over an hour... all of it televised... *shudder*...

this is what i know about race walking:

1. one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times - i guess that's what makes it "walking" and not running (it's called "lifting" if both your feet come off the ground). BUT... they show the slo-motion of all the walkers and ALL of them are in the air, dude. so the rules were clarified to say that as long as it looks like one foot is always on the ground to the naked eye, it's okay. wtf. have some intergrity people. sigh.

2. the front leg must be fully extended for each step - how frustrating is to try and race, but have all these restrictions on your range of motion? especially when running is so much easier and simpler than "race walking" and more natural. it must take tremendous restraint to have to keep your body in check when everything just wants to go forward and faster. plus what if you're in the back? you gotta be thinking, just let me run like five strides and i could be in the front please, so frustrating.

3. if you violate these rules three times (you get a yellow "paddle" for a violation), you are disqualified - how sad is that to have to admit that you were disqualified from race-walking?

4. the camera loves the head-on angle - all i see are hips! side to side! eeww!!! y'know those old ladies who speed-walk down the street? they look exactly the same as olympic race-walkers... does that mean that those ladies are super cool or the athletes are very, very sad? the latter, definately. but pretty much all of them wear sunglasses, hats, and little, little bicycle shorts, with their arms swinging wildly and their hips... oh... the humanity.

5. the track is a long flat oval with mist-ers and the race takes about an hour - mist-ers? c'mon, i thought they were olympic athletes? that's like in f-zero when you go through that "beam me up some energy" section to recharge your life. this is not the waiting line at universal studios.

6. still, the race is very hazardous - as the walkers grab water bottles, they seriously throw them down angrily when their done drinking. as i was watching, one person stepped on one of the tons of water bottles on the ground and sprained his ankle. also, they walk in packs and talk smack throughout. okay, the smack talk might be the one cool aspect about race walking.

okay so absolutely ridiculous right? and even if you win the gold medal in race walking, what, you can say that you're the fastest walker? what does that matter when your fastest walking is still slower than some average couch potato's jog? i mean, c'mon, really... just run. it's not worth it. it doesn't look cool. it's not fast. it looks more painful than anything else. just not worth it at all.

but the funniest part about it is that while i was watching this, nicole called me, she was watching the same thing and thought that i'd get a kick out of it, haha, we were both cracking up on the phone.

#171 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDI!

time out from olympics posts to wish brandi a happy birthday! so what's the plans for the big day? hopefully it involves lots of fun and friends. sorry i'm not there to help you celebrate, one of these days i'm gonna have to come up and visit...

anyway, it's a very good thing that you had your birthday today because i was looking for an excuse to get out of posting about the olympics, it was just getting too much. i can't keep up anymore, i'm losing sleep. but today i just found out that roger federer lost! i'm so sad. he's had a pretty tough year (by federer standards) and i think maybe he just needs to take a break, take the pressure off and relax for a bit to recharge for next year. of course, he's still got his US open championship to defend so maybe he can't let up just yet. but i was so sure that he was gonna redeem his year by winning this olympics... he was upset by james blake (who, although he's an american, i don't care for that much).still, even though federer is kinda fading this year, it's an exciting opportunity for novak djokovic, who is my second favorite, to take the lead. plus, he's the one with probably the best chance of taking down nadal, who i still just can't get myself to like enough to root for, even though he's one some incredible winning streak and looks like a solid favorite not only for the gold, but also for the US open and whatever other tournaments come up before the season's over. seriously, take a shower. put on a real shirt.

but the real problem with this olympics is that djokovic and nadal are on the same side of the draw, which means they meet in the semifinals, which means only one of them can win the gold or silver medal and the other will have to settle for bronze at best. this is wrong. with the single-elimination tournament bracket set up like they have, the silver does not necessarily go to the second best player. i would like to see them reform the tournament into a round robin thing, like the kind of pool play they have for volleyball, then you can have single-elimination quarters and semis because they would have earned their placements in those brackets. while we're at it, i think they should have team tennis at the olympics instead of just the individual bracket. that would be so much better.

oh i just found out that serena and venus lost too. sigh. so sad. well, i'm rooting for lindsey davenport in doubles, she's still going, wow.

#170 - olympics day #5

wow, it's hard to keep up... i need more sleep.

gymnastics - this was exciting too, because it was kinda close. i feel bad for that US girl (the one with no neck)... because she fell twice. i mean, it probably didn't make that much of a difference because those chinese girls are like two-feet tall, they'll never fall down, and that's all they do all their lives is do gymnastics because they're all abandoned by their parents because they're girls and not boys. oh well, silver is pretty great, i always liked silver better than gold.

swimming - i think michael phelps is gonna go 8 for 8 this olympics. he's a monster. did you see that team relay? they were like half-a-pool ahead of everyone else. also, why does everyone keep breaking world records? i'm a firm believer in tradition and record keeping, but doesn't it seem like it's all just seeded this year? how can almost every single world record be broken each race? and not only one person, like even second and third place finishers are breaking the original world records. the suits? the pool? i dunno... but it's kinda fishy to me.

#169 - olympics day #4

today was kind of a dull day for olympics, lots of non-medal tv... so i went home and played on my parent's piano for a little bit. it was luxurious. haha, that's the best word i can think of for playing on a nice, heavy, black, baby grand piano after having to play on my crappy electric piano at home. i absolutely need to buy an acoustic piano soon, i don't even like playing on my electric one because it makes the songs sound so junk. but shopping for pianos is HARD! there aren't a lot of places to go, first of all, plus how do you go about choosing one? plus in order to know what it sounds like you have to play it in the showroom and that's embarrassing. plus i don't know whether i should buy a new one or if it would be better to wait for those events when universities or schools sell off their old concert pianos (that happens every once in awhile, and then i think, they're old, but that also means they were selected for quality, i dunno). my goal is to find one before christmas at least... but it's a big purchase and i want to get it right.

anyway, on to the olympics:
beach volleyball - misty may and kerri walsh are amazing. they've won 103 straight matches (and before their last loss they had won 89 straight matches, so if it wasn't for that ONE loss, they would've won 192 straight matches). wow.
whitewater - this event is kinda neat, except the water is nasty brown and it looks kinda like they're paddling down some sewer ditch. it's kinda of amazing just that they can create an artificial river like that... but i just wish they could have it in a real one somewhere.

gymnastics - this was pretty exciting actually, with the US actually in a pretty tight race for medals. although those chinese people are way too crazy good. still, they're all so fake looking, like brandi said, it's all so contrived. they look like robots with sticks up their asses. they look so retarded, it's sad because they do some cool things, but it's not cool because they're such meatheads. too bad.
synchronized diving - this event is pretty amazing to me, i have no idea how you would even practice that. it's so cool to watch though, but i spent the whole time trying to imagine what their training sessions would be like... you can't get a 10 meter high mirror next to them, and how can they see each other when their falling and twisting like that? weird.

tonight, more gymnastics creepiness, plus phelps (that guy is a beast man, i mean, like a freakish prometheus monster), i don't think anyone's gonna beat him ever.