Posts categorized “TV”

Link of the Month:
Dinerwood
A review blog for all of the Los Angeles area’s best and worst diners, breakfast joints and coffee shops. Established May 2007. Written by my pal Mike T., this blog is frequently funny and always honest. Mike has a real love of good diners and good coffee, and this is always an entertaining (and informative if you’re ever in the outskirts of L.A.) blog to read.

Album of the Month:
Three Ninjas is Smarter Than a Lettuce
The 2nd full-length album from nerdcore maestro Three Ninjas shows remarkable technical mastery. Three Ninjas’s sampledelica style is very original and unexpected, as is his vocal style which hovers between spoken-word (Red Underwears) and rhythmically-dynamic hip-hop (Five Finger Discount). There are some problems with inconsistent mixing—the vocals in some songs are mixed too low to be easily deciphered, which is a shame when the nerdcore lyrics are so good, and the overall volume changes from song to song making it so that you have to manually adjust it to keep them all at the same level—making it seem more like a song collection than a coherent album. But the songs cover a huge range, from intensely personal hip-hop songs to fully-sung love songs to incredibly fun and silly songs (hello, Some Li’l Dude). Highly recommended.

DVD of the Month:
Farscape: The Complete Series
This was an easy choice for my DVD of the month considering that it has consumed basically ALL OF MY FREE TIME since I got the DVD set for my birfday. I devoured all 88 episodes in less than a month. This late, great Sci-Fi series about a test pilot/scientist who gets shot through a wormhole to a distant part of the galaxy succeeds, like most great shows, on the strength of its core characters. It is not without its problems—there were far too many episodes about some something-or-other damaging the ship and threatening to kill them all (especially in the final season, where they seemed really out of place)—but it is an incredibly compelling, dramatic, and wrlyly funny TV show. Don’t forget to watch the movie that serves as the series finale!

Link of the Month:
Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty
An absolutely charming blog. Here’s the premise: Illustrator/Cartoonist Aaron Zenz has several children, and he encourages them to draw. A lot. They even participate in Illustration Friday and all that. For the past three years Aaron has posted over 400 drawings that his children have made. It’s fantastic to see the progression of skills and imagination. He recently had an open invitation wherein other illustrators could re-create some of his kids’ drawings, and the results are fantastic.

Album of the Month:
tangentbot: Cyclops’ Lament
Hey, I know this guy! This is actually a re-mastered re-release of his album of several years ago, but with a couple of changes. These newly-mixed versions are delightfully more crisp and deep, and there’s a very good remix of “8-bit Misfit.” Hey guys: listen up. This is good IDM. Good. Okay? Okay. Take a wissen with this handy MP3 player here:

DVD of the Month:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
I never watched this show when it was on because the commercials made it look like a lame rip-off of Dragon Ball Z and/or One Piece. But I was mistaken. Unlike those shows, this one is actually good. One thing I greatly appreciated was its sense of deadline: pretty early on in the series the characters learn that they have to accomplish the series goal by a set date that is rather disturbingly soon. It really gives the series a sense of urgency as well as the feeling that it is actually building towards a real ending. And, indeed, the show lasted for three seasons (or “books” as the show calls them) and told one full story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending that happened when it was supposed to happen, not because they ran out of stories or the show got canceled. Also, the characters grow and change slowly but surely, and there is never a single mention of “power levels” or “powering up.”
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 1 Collection
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 2 Collection
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 3 Collection

Link of the Month:
My First Dictionary
A deliciously warped and wholly-inappropriate series of dictionary definitions for children. For example: “Get: Ray will get carrots from his garden. He will take the carrots and bring them home. Maybe Father will notice him then.” They’re all accompanied by hilariously appropriate retro illustrations.

Album of the Month:
Brent Spiner & Maude Maggart: Dreamland
This is like a 1940s Broadway musical on fast-forward. A story and characters are woven in and out of dozens of lushly-produced songs from the Great American Songbook to produce a really fascinating and unique listening experience. It’s like an audio movie or an old-skool radio play, but one that zips headlong from plot point to plot point at a furious pace so that it never gets at all boring or bogged down. And, yes, Brent Spiner played Commander Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

DVD of the Month:
Andy Richter Controls the Universe: The Complete Series
In Andy Richter’s first failed sitcom, Andy Richter stars as Andy Richter, an office worker and writer whose imagination we get to see on the screen with hilarious results. The show is at its best when “dealing” with serious subjects like racism, like in my favorite episode about the “Black Irish.” The show has an unusual rhythm, which may be why it never found a larger audience, but once you get into that rhythm it really hooks you.

Yesterday (Monday) was the 10th Anniversary of the Powerpuff girls. Did you know that? I didn’t know that until I happened to be flipping through channels and saw that there were several episodes on in a row.

“Hmm,” I thought. “I haven’t seen that show on television for years. I wonder what episodes they’re playing”

Turned out they were playing Craig McCracken’s favorite episodes, so they were all pretty good. I watched a handful and then at the end of the marathon they played a brand-new episode.

Holy crap it was funny.

There were many surprising things that happened in it, such as Mojo Jojo singing a Tears for Fears song. Look!

There was also a very pleasing Mario Kart reference, some very wacky reaction animations, and they actually showed Ms. Bellum’s face for one frame. Click here if you wanna see it! Don’t click there if you don’t wanna.

But far more important than all of that stuff was the fact that the timing of the episode was impeccable. Just spot-on. It was fast, it was funny, but most importantly it had what we at Fools Play call “heightened telling.” It just served to illustrate exactly how excremental most of the cartoons on TV are right now.

So good job, girls. We miss you. And—hey! Put your movie out in widescreen format for pity’s sake!

(or “Snowpocalypse Stormageddon” if you prefer)

I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t somehow write a blog entry on this rather unusual bout of snow that we’ve gotten here in the Pacific Northwest over the past week. Therefore this blog entry is what you might call “obligatory.”

Yes: it snowed here much, much more than it usually snows, and it has stayed much, much longer than it usually stays. And therefore much of the Pacific Northwest has gone into a panic the likes of which must seem hilarious to the upper Midwest and Northeast parts of the country, where long-lasting snow is a common happening.

The fact is that Seattleites, Tacomans, and to a lesser extent Olympians have possibly the worst weather memory in the entire country. You see, it rains well over 100 days out of the year here, so you’d think we’d all be accustomed to driving whenever it rained, right? Well, just imagine that there are more than five consecutive days without rain. For some reason it seems like the entire population suddenly forgets how to drive in the rain when it starts pouring again! I’ve lived here my whole life and this phenomenon never ceases to amaze me.

So you can imagine what it must be like if it happens to snow, which it does very infrequently. Maybe two or three times a year, tops, and it generally sticks around less than two days if indeed it does last at all. Here’s an example of the hilarity: one day last week many Tacoma schools were canceled because it was snowing… even though it was much too warm to stick to the ground. Yes, Tacoma schools were canceled because there was snow in the air. There wasn’t even any ice on the roads!

So you can imagine how the whole area basically shut down when a couple of days later the snow really did begin to accumulate on the ground.

Carrie & I have a tradition of night-walking through the snow on the first evening that it accumulates. So late that evening after Carrie got home from work we decided to take Suki with us. We also live within easy walking distance of Alice and Rufus, two Boston Terrier friends of Suki’s (and their owners, who are friends of our). We thought it’d be fun to all go for a walk, which it was. But it was also rather embarrassing, because Suki got so extremely excited by the snow and the presence of the Bostons that she kept on spontaneously barking for joy. Loudly. At 11:00 at night outside people’s houses.

Another evening a bunch of us who live close by all trudged to the nearby Engine House 9 (“E-9″ as it’s called around here) for a nommy din-dins.

On Saturday Laura came over and she, Carrie, and I all went down to the Parkway Tavern to meet with Steph, Jamie, and law-school Katie for lunch, ’cause we were excited she was back in town. Well, right before we arrived a group of about 20 overly-well-dressed professionals had spontaneously shown up demanding food and drink. And only two people were working that afternoon: one bartender and one cook. So we had to wait quite a while for our foodstuffs, but it was okay because there was good company and copious amounts of pear cider. That night Fools Play was canceled due to a rather large burst of afternoon/evening snow (the owner of Mud Bay Coffee couldn’t find anyone who was willing to keep the place open late enough for us). Instead we all played Animal Crossing and we baked cookies and stayed in. Laura even ended up crashing on our couch.

Carrie had to work all day Sunday. Laura & I walked down to Starbucks and had breakfast sammitches for breakfast. The snow was like crème brûlée: a thin, hard crust over a lot of soft stuff. It was crazy to walk through it. But for lunch we walked again, this time to Wild Orchid to meet with Carrie, Christine, & Lawrence. Here’s a tip: if you eat at Wild Orchid, try the Rama Noodles. Very tasty.

We were so inspired by Wild Orchid that we decided to make our own Thai chicken soup for dinner, so Laura, Lawrence & I stopped by the Neighborhood Market on the way back to the house and bought coconut milk and an onion while everyone else went back to work. Lawrence continued on to his house, and Laura decided to drive back to hers before it got dark. Carrie made the soup when she got off of work, and Christine, Lawrence, and the Bostons all came over and ate it (well, the Bostons didn’t eat it) while watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the animated version, not that live-action crap).

Let me just say: onion, chicken, garlic, curry paste, coconut milk, chicken stock, cilantro, basil, salt & pepper (in that order) FTW.

By Monday morning the snow had pretty much stopped falling, but it was still very much there. I managed to get my car out of it and got to work with little incident.

I think my car is under there somewhere

And that’s about it. There are still about six to nine inches of snow around here. According to weather people the snow is supposed to stick around for the rest of the week, so there might be some form of white Christmas (which would be an absolute shock to the people of the Pacific Northwest; I only recall one white Christmas here in my entire 31 years of existence). I would also just like to say that it is very nice to live within easy walking distance of so many good restaurants and bars.

I hope you have a safe and festive holiday season. Until next time… adiós.

And to all a good night.

Link of the Month:
Star Pirates
This is just a really fun text-based MMORPG. It’s easy to log on, play for a couple of minutes, then log off. Or if you want, you can log on and play for hours. Plus its absolutely free! It has a great sense of community with fleet building and fleet wars. But it’s also a game in which everyone is a pirate, so there is a lot of player-killing and theft, so you gotta think strategically and watch your back. If you want you can use real-world money to purchase advantages in the game (such as regenerating fuel and energy at a must faster rate), but I’ve been playing for a couple of weeks now without spending a dime, so I know first-hand that it’s a great game even if you’re dirt-poor. Like me!

DVD of the Month:
My Boys: The Complete 1st Season
I would never have thought that I’d like this show. It’s about sports writers in Chicago. It’s 100% baseball metaphors. But I just think it’s hilarious. I knew that it was one of my favorite shows on television when they actually had a “douchebag intervention” when one of their friend started acting too “douchy.” These characters are really funny, and actually seem like they’ve known each other for years. Hugs, not drugs.

Album of the Month:
Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head: Glistening Pleasure
This album from a great Seattle-based indy group hasn’t even come out yet, and I’m making it my Album of the Month. I feel justifiably confident that it’s going to kick ass because I’ve heard it. Several songs are available on their MySpace page, and beyond that I’ve seen them live and the show was an absolute hoot. Hoot, I tell you! They’re like a brilliant parody of 1980s, high-energy, synth-rock. With songs like “Beard Lust” and “Me Plus Yr Daughter,” Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head is just awexome. And the band named after it is pretty awexome, too. Be like me and pre-order Glistening Pleasure! Support your local awexome!

So this new(ish) website Hulu is offering a whole bunch of TV shows and movies that you can watch online for free (some have limited commercial breaks). There are some really interesting choices, such as Andy Richter’s cancelled Andy Barker, P.I. show!

It also has all of the original Battlestar Galactica episodes (plus the last five or six from season 3 of the new version), The Time Tunnel, Buck Rogers, Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, the live-action The Tick, and the controversial Exo Squad cartoon!