Posts Tagged ‘QYDJ’

Utter randomness

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

Nothing mind blowing today. This is pretty much going to be a stream of conciousness post. We’ll see if it’s even vaguely interesting by the time it’s over.

Just found Grooveshark. Loving it. On their About Us page, this was a quote one of their employees used:

“If it weren’t for physics and law enforcement, I would be unstoppable.” — Bukowski

For now, that’s my favorite quote.

The reason I found Grooveshark? Lee, over at Quit Your Day Job, has been doing a series of posts called “music to draw robots by” and has been posting the music from Grooveshark. The latest was “Carry on My Wayward Son” by Kansas, which I love. I also like the drawing. (Head over to QYDJ for more).

Grooveshark also has a WordPress plugin, so I thought I’d try it out here with a little more Kansas goodness.


Grooveshark Plugin Widget

“Kansas,” as some of you may know, is not just the name of a rock group. It’s also the name of a state in the United States. I know it’s hard to believe, but apparently there is no copyright problem there.

I don’t live in Kansas, nor have I ever been there. I do live in Pennsylvania, where I just saw local cable coverage of the PA Farm Show’s “Tractor Square Dancing” last night. As odd as this sounds, I was impressed with the drivers’ ability to actually do some interesting “dances.” Yes, I did actually watch it for almost 5 minutes. I’m still not sure why. I think I was hoping for an accident or something. In the end, it reminded me of simpler times when entertainment wasn’t in-your-face action/drama, but simple, fun, and personal.

Then I changed channels.

And I caught Backdraft, one of my favorite movies. If there’s a better “cheek actor” than Kurt Russell out there, I’ve yet to find him. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, GO WATCH THE MOVIE! Seriously, it’s really good. It also has one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. Apparently a lot of other people like it too, because it shows up as the theme for unrelated trailers periodically as well as commercials. It’s also in a toy fire truck we got for my daughter one Christmas, made almost 2 decades after the movie.

um …

… uh

So I actually had more to say here, but I just got interrupted for about 4 hours, and completely lost my train of thought. I remember having a lot of ideas. Suffice it to say that there would have been something witty integrated about cows, to riff off the use of “utter” in the title. Okay “witty” may be overstating it. There was going to be something about TV and a few things that have happened recently, but hey… that’s what happens with stream of consciousness: you lose your thought and the stream becomes a trickle and dries up. So…. maybe it’ll come to me later. And then there will be another post.

Until then… as the song says, carry on.

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Stargate Universe, week 3, Darkness

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

There are some out there who would call this “weak 3″ of the show. This is definitely the slowest pacing of a Stargate series yet. The premiere was good, but mostly consisted of people freaking out (understandably) about the situation they were in. By the end of the premiere they at least had a plan to survive for a little while longer, with the help of the ship’s guidance and Rush’s ability to interpret what the ship is doing. Week 2 had them following up on the ship’s help by walking around a desert planet looking for better sand (to use in the air filter), while having some character moments. Now in week 3, we get to the exhaustion of the power reserves (the second huge survival issue introduced in the pilot), along with more character moments.

Let’s face it, at this point, almost any single episode of SG-1 or SGA had more action than these last three weeks combined.

This kind of slow pacing is a risk. A huge risk, I think. They can get away with it for maybe another week or two before the audience expecting the zat guns and space battles give up, but only because they’re into the franchise already and are hoping it starts to remind them of the SG-1 and SGA shows.

On the other hand, they’re setting up a starting point with a couple of basic premises:

  1. They’re alone. The universe is a big place and they can’t just stop at the local Qwiki-Mart for some roadside assistance. This is alluded to in the the other SGs, but it’s more palpable here.
  2. They’re in over their heads. Even the smartest guy in the room doesn’t get to miraculously intuit the solution to every problem. There is no Rodney/Sam super-smart quick-fix in the last 10 minutes.

I actually like that they’re setting the mood this way, and there really aren’t any shortcuts for this. They have to feel like they are really out of control and not a single one of them, even the brainiac, can do anything about it, and no one is going to swoop in to save them.

(FYI – minor spoilers ahead)

That said, they’re not doing quite enough character work in this “down time” – or maybe more accurately, they’re not doing it the way I’d like to see it.  Take Young, for example. It was mildly interesting that he went back to his wife and they tried to touch on how his (and her) choices have ruined his marriage, but unless they’re really going to use that in the future, that time should have been spent on other characters or on more characters working the problem (and continuing to come up empty).

And that points out the biggest plot hole in this show thus far: the communication stones. Unlike some comments I’ve read, I really like that the communication stones give us some connection back to Earth and more dramatic potential. The problem is that during this moment of crisis, they’re using it for nothing more than reporting back and crying. Why are they not switching in some experts? Why not bring in a Sam, or a Rodney, or a team of smart people, and have them try to help? You could still have the crying parts where the regulars continue to go say goodbye to their friends on Earth while the useful people do some work on the ship. It’s just an extension of what Young says when he berates the engineers on the ship… they’ve just given up, leaving only Rush and Eli to “work the problem.”

After the pilot, I made some predictions. One of them came true this week (faster than I expected):

Somebody will use a Keno to spy on someone else in the shower or some other compromising location.

There you go. The most obvious childish situation. Glad we got it out of the way.

The other stupid thing? The group that wants to use Eli as a mole. Give me a break. Just get over yourselves and ask questions in the meetings.

Some people really have a problem with Rush. While he is annoying, I actually think he’s a really well written and acted character. He’s the guy who always knows the answer, and has prepared for this, but is STILL out of his depth. He’s scared and feels the responsibility to keep everyone safe, but knows he can’t – and he also can’t admit it, even to himself. Still, that leaves him as an annoying jerk, which can be grating to watch for an extended period. They’ll have to soften him up a bit over time.

The one who bothers me is Greer. Can’t stand that guy, or the way the actor is portraying him.

Now, my prediction for next week. And if nothing else was spoilerish enough for you, this gives away the ending to the Darkness episode, so be warned.

The ship is low on power, yes. It has skimmed a planet to slingshot it into the heart of the solar system, yes. Everyone thinks the ship has done that to give them some way to help themselves, and that the plan has failed because they ship screwed up the slingshot and it heading directly into the sun. So they’re all going to die… NO! The ship’s not that stupid. It’s deliberately heading directly for the sun because that’s how it recharges itself! The entire episode will consist of everyone freaking out and figuring out how to abandon ship, and in the end it’ll be impossible and they’ll be crying and screaming again – but then the ship will head right through the sun and be recharged, and everyone will be safe, thus proving that the puny humans know nothing. They are there as tools for the ship, not the other way around.

After they fix these first basic survival issues, they’ll begin to start encountering aliens with bodies (as opposed to the whirlwind alien they don’t realize they met last week). By the end of the season, the pace will have increased, and it will feel more important and dramatic because they’ve started at such a slow speed. I can’t say that Darkness stands out to me as a great episode, but I do think it contributes well to the series, which I still think will pay off in the end.

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What are we going to do today, Brain?

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

The same thing we do every day, Pinky. Try to take over the world!

Yeah, okay, this blog is read by people in at least 17 different countries (though really 5 or 6 are the primaries). So I’ve at least been read internationally. But is that enough? Does that make me known? Does it give me the power I need?

I say no.

Pinky and The Brain

Pinky and The Brain

But now, in glorious monophonic sound, you can hear my voice, on demand, in your very own ears. Why would I provide such a service to you? It’s simple. I need more people stopping me on the street and saying “how can I serve you?” on my next trip to England or The Netherlands (yes, “first” also qualifies as “next”).

So I decided the best way to do that is to contribute to a podcast. No, I’m not hosting my own podcast. That would require effort. A far better method is to contribute to someone else’s podcast. And remember, it’s got to be internationally hosted so I seem to be a man-of-the-world.

Enter Quit Your Day Job. Hosted in Australia, it’s almost as far from me as physically possible. Pop-culture and sci-fi are the orders of the day (usually) over there, and Lee has started doing weekly podcasts now. He takes contributions. I saw my shot. I started slowly, writing in my contributions. Now he and his listeners are used to that so I’ve moved to the next stage of my plan: submitting audio contributions.

Once people start craving my voice on that podcast, my segments will get longer and longer until finally I take over the entire podcast. Then I will repeat that process with other podcasts until eventually I am the most well known person on the planet. Everyone will listen to me and do what I say and I will be the ruler of the world!!!

So let’s get the movement started. Head over to QYDJ and listen to his latest podcast on the Robocop films. You’ll hear the longest bashing of Robocop 3 on record, and the first ever comparison of the Robocop franchise to Wagnerian opera. But more importantly, you’ll hear me.

Viva la revolution!

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