Intergalactic Walrus

All of the stuff I have read or seen in 2009.

( The List )

This is what I thought of the shows I watched this past TV season. No spoilers, I promise!

Battlestar Galactica Season 4: 3/5 - It wasn't the worst season, but as a final season I found it a bit disappointing. So many of the plot points they started in earlier seasons just weren't finished adequately or sensibly. There was one really great arc (if you watched it you know which one I'm talking about) but most of the rest was just sort of adequate and occasionally annoying. We also discovered that James Edward Olmos is a terrible director! I mean, really, the episodes he directed were just bad. It gives me little hope for The Plan--that and the fact that James Callis won't be in it. Not to knock this season too much. It was okay, but I'm a little sad it's all we'll ever get (unless there is another re-imagining twenty-five years from now, which would be okay with me, really.)

Dollhouse Season 1: 2.5/5 - I'm still on the fence about this show. Eliza Dushku and a few of the other supporting actors are just bad. After a pretty lame start, it finally got interesting at episode 6 and had a few good episodes and some mediocre ones after that. I wouldn't have been too sad if this show was canceled, but it has been renewed for a second 12-episode season (with a drastically reduced budget.) I'm pretty sure I will continue to watch it, although I have a feeling that season 2 will be the last season. Hopefully Whedon will be happy enough that he got to do two seasons and then move on to making a better show.

Lost Season 5: 4/5 - This has been the best season since season two. I didn't care a lot for the first couple of episodes, but after that they did some pretty brave and innovative things that really paid off. I was really glad that they had the guts to do some of the things they did--it gave them an awesome way to explore the mythology of the show in a new way and to start to answer some of the show's central questions. I am pretty hopeful that the sixth season coming up will be satisfying--even if I have no idea what show is going to fill that void in my TV schedule when it finally goes off the air a year from now.

The Office Season 5: 3.5/5 - This show tried several innovative things this season to keep the story interesting and they all worked, more or less--it was just always disappointing when they abandoned their new arrangements to go back to the old format. They were brave enough to try mixing things up, but not brave enough to run with their good ideas. There were a good number of funny episodes, but there were also some that were just sort of okay. As always, I suppose. I'll watch season six, but I'm not sure the show needs a season seven.

30 Rock Season 3: 4.5/5 - This was overall a third excellent season for this show. There were many wonderful episodes--lots of them some of the best of the series--even if there were a few that were just okay. The characters continue to be wonderful and they keep thinking of great situations to throw them into. My only complaint is how they've really shoved the supporting cast members (besides Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, and Jack McBrayer) to the side. I tended to enjoy hearing more about Pete, Toofer, and Josh, etc. like we did in season one. At least they did a Frank episode, which was nice. I'm fine with the obvious hint Alec Baldwin gave at the end of this season about TGS having "two more years tops." Two more years sounds good to me.

Parks and Recreation Season 1: 3/5 - Six episodes is really too few to get an adequate impression about what a show is going to be like. I can say that I didn't like the first three episodes but that I enjoyed the last three episodes. The show is full of great actors, but I think only one or two of them have really figured out their characters so far. I think the show has the potential to go places, but it's really too hard to tell at this point. I'll be watching season two, which is where we'll likely find out if the show will be good or not. For now, though, I am willing to give this season a pass. I'd feel mean if I didn't. I mean, the cast members are just so likable.

Kings Season 1 thus far: I tried watching this show because I thought the premise was cool (the internal politics of an absolute monarch's court as he rules over a modern, America-like state) but it's just not any good. The acting isn't good, the writing isn't good, and the situations are silly. I will not be watching it when it returns later this summer.

Fringe Season 1 pilot: I watched this and it just did not interest me so I never bothered to watch the rest of the season. Reviews have seemed to indicate that it's not very well written and sort of silly and I can totally believe them. Come on, J.J. Abrams, you only have until 2011 to come up with an adequate replacement for Lost to keep me happy.

I think one of my favorite things in life is getting an extra chicken finger.

I finished the empirical component of my capstone project and am so relieved/exhausted.

This is my new favorite thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Q32xIyoeo

I figured all of you could appreciate this:

http://www.cmedancethemovie.com/

"C Me Dance is a heart-warming drama about a young dancer filled with hopes and dreams, who gets sick and the amazing impact her life has for Christ. The movie includes scenes of spiritual warfare — the battle between good and evil, which makes this a very suspenseful movie as well. Go see it and take your friends or church group! We recommend C Me Dance for those thirteen and up. (Intense content makes this inappropriate for children 12 and under)."
-- American Family Association

Slumdog Millionaire must be stopped!

This is mainly for everybody that watched that clip on objectum sexuality with me over Winter Break, but I guess for anyone else who is interested. This is the whole video:

Married to the Eiffel Tower, Part 1
Married to the Eiffel Tower, Part 2

Evidently it's from show British show called Strangelove. I tried to watch another episode about men who have sexual relationships with cars, but I didn't like the tone of the narrator so I gave up on it. The whole episode on objectum sexuality it worth watching, though. At least if you found that clip of we it we saw interesting (it comes from about the middle of the episode.) I think it may be a documentary made independently of the show that they aired as an episode... I'm not sure. Still, it's pretty interesting.

Have y'all seen this? If not, you absolutely must watch it now. It's a musical that Joss Whedon made when he was bored during the writer's trike. Neil Patrick Harris is a lovable mad scientist and Nathan Fillion is a cheesy super hero. Really, that should be enough to make you watch it.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

... Also Madison just sent me a text message to let me know that today is the anniversary of the day that Gandalf came back from the dead or whatever, so I though you might like to know. Just in case it comes up in conversation.

In early December in Charleston--when it's still 70 degrees outside--people wear jackets and coats, in defiance of the weather.

(And now for some LOST ranting, spoilers included.)

Sometimes when I am watching LOST I will ask myself, "Hey, if there's forty or so people on the island, how come they only ever talk about ten of them? What do the other thirty people do all day?" I think everyone that watches LOST asks themselves that at some point. This past Wednesday, LOST decided to answer that question. Here's the thing, though, LOST: The question was fucking rhetorical! We didn't really want to know the answer.

Nikki and Paulo are shit characters. LOST does not need more criminals and con artists! Trying to make us believe that Nikki and Paulo were there all along is a stupid trick akin to editing in a bunch of CGI into the original Star Wars trilogy. Basically, I'm glad they got buried alive and I hope they're dead. I just worry that John Locke saying something like, "Nothing stays buried on this island" two episode ago and then two characters getting buried alive in the next isn't an overlooked coincidence. NIKKI AND PAULO PLEASE STAY DEAD.

Zombies are awesome... But not Nikki and Paulo zombies! P.S. - Bring back Rose and Bernard.

So I'm really pretty angry that Britney Spears shaved her head. Because this is just going to make people associate girls who shave their heads with lame trailer trash pop stars.

Britney Spears, you have ruined my life.

(Spoilers for Studio 60, mild spoilers for LOST.)

Oh Studio 60, what are you doing? I had such hopes for you. Even when everyone else was saying you weren't really that great of a show, I clung on! But now you have disappointed me. The last few episodes (especially the last one, The Harriet Dinner, Part 2) weren't that great. It's like because Aaron Sorkin can't talk about politics or sports all the time he has to throw all of his characters into romantic relationships that don't make any sense. I mean, Tom/Lucy? Wtf? What is all that about? Where did it come from? Wasn't Tom dating that chick that's Matt's assistant anyway? Or am I just making that up entirely? I can't remember.

And don't get me started on Jordan/Danny! There was so little development to that outside of of them being shown together in a scene every other episode or so. Just because they're both kind of fucked up doesn't mean that they should date each other. I really hope this doesn't cast a shadow over how well Sorkin handled the whole Josh/Donna relationship in The West Wing.

I guess the Matt/Harriet thing is being handled well. I just don't see how they could be a good couple (maybe that's the point?) They're both opposites and would probably be happier elsewhere. Really, Studio 60 kind of makes me feel like I'm reading slash. I feel like I'm writing about slash when I write about it. Come on, Aaron Sorkin! You can do better. Studio 60 just can't compare to Sorkin-era The West Wing or even Sports Night.

Anyway, I'm pleased to say that the latest episode of LOST was AMAZING. Everything they did wrong in the first six episodes of season three, they did right in episode seven. They finally realized that that jumping back and forth between Jack-Kate-Sawyer-The Others, flashbacks, and the main island was constricting their story arcs. Just concentrating on the little island made it so much better. The last episode was a great blend of suspense, action, and crazy conspiracy theories. They tied a lot of things together. I was impressed and I'm really hoping that they'll keep going like this for the rest of season three.

Heroes is consistently pretty good, if cheesy and more of a guilty pleasure than LOST. I think Heroes can maintain its consistency because it has a series of graphic novels to draw from (although I don't know anything about them.) I just wonder what will happen when Heroes runs out of graphic novels to base stuff from and the studio wants to keep making it. Although I don't know how dependent on the source material it is to be gin with. We'll see, I suppose. I'm sure we have a while before that happens.

Really, it needs to be summer so I can start up Netflix again and order more episodes of Rome and Six Feet Under. Rome is a lot of fun and Six Feet Under is pretty much the greatest show in the history of television. Period. No arguments!

Fuck the karma karma karma karma karma police.

Yes. Narwhals. That is all.

So I'm pretty bummed that Pluto is no longer a planet. At least there are some brave scientists out there who are fighting back. Still, Pluto not being a planet anymore makes me really sad! It feels like an old friend that I've known since childhood is going somewhere far away. So in order to commemorate Pluto's exit from the planetary stage (and indeed the stage of my heart!) I've collected some old photographs of me and Pluto hanging out when we were younger. It's so sad to think about... But this is really cathartic for me. Sometimes it's just really nice to look back on old times and remember the ways things used to be.


Good-bye, Pluto. I'll always miss you and I'll never forget the great times we had.

Earlier I was walking around Charleston and this guy with coupons was yelling, "free yogurt!" So I took one. I mean, that's awesome, right? Someone giving out free yogurt? That totally made my day. But imagine by complete and total dismay when I looked at the coupon and found out what the dude had actually been saying: "free yoga." Wtf? Laaame.

yogurt > yoga

Anyway. I've now been to all of my classes once. They seem a lot more fun/interesting than my classes last year. Plus I am DONE with class every day before eleven... how crazy is that? Most days I'm not even awake by then. I really didn't want to go back to college, but it's been at least tolerable so far. I'm going to try to go more places outside of Charleston than I did last year, since I discovered that taking trips while you're in college is a lot of fun. Might as well use up as much of my money as possible, since I didn't work this past summer and I'm going to be broke by the end of the year anyway!

It feels like nap time. Maybe. We'll see.

Normally I don't make posts about my dreams, but I'm bored so I'm going to now. I've just been having strange dreams lately. I had one where me and some people went on a quest to find the physical location of the IMDb and it happened to be in a deli in a small town in Tennessee. What the hell? I also had one where I was in a concert in a school auditorium, then left because I had to save the town I was in because its water was poisoned. Evidently saving it involved me completing an obstacle course in a near-abandoned Sears. I had to like... jump from pillows to refrigerators to beds to get to the end of the store. But then this large black woman started chasing me telling me that she loved me. I tried to run away, but eventually she caught me and made me have dinner with her over at my grandmother's house.

Last night I had an even weirder dream. It involved events from the movie Apollo 13, me trying to help Ludacris win a drag race, and a pair of spunky lesbians (there was no erotic content involved!) Basically I was at this race track trying to help Ludacris win, but his car messed up because his parachute came out too early. So I had to like... help him beat it down and let him get back into the race. There were jokes about "Gin and Juice" aplenty. Then I went to this place where my old Boy Scout troop used to meet sometimes where the family members of the racers were waiting. The race, btw, had turned into a space race involving events from the film Apollo 13. So basically, Kathleen Quinlan tried to sex me up (can you say ew?) but I escaped. She was being all weird and worrying her husband would not get back to earth. Then the next morning, in the dream, these two random lesbians discovered that Kathleen Quinlan had been transformed into a hot 25 year old but she couldn't talk because there were chopsticks stuck in her teeth. After that, I woke up.

On another note, I'm really liking Netflix, but they've frustrated me over the past couple of days. I've been watching the first season of Six Feet Under (which is a really fun show) but when the sent me the last disc of the first season, it was cracked so I couldn't watch it. I sent it back to get a replacement, but the replacement they sent me was also cracked! I'm not sure if I should just download the last three episodes or tell them that they sent me another cracked discs. I don't want to look suspicious. Like I'm insane and maliciously crack the fourth disc of any TV series.

And if you like zombies and cheesy post-apocalyptic scenarios, you should come play Urban Dead with me. It's a text-based browser game that takes like 5-10 minutes a day, but it's a lot of fun.

I also signed up for Last.fm, which is helping me keep up with all the new indie music I couldn't hear while at school.

So yeah, being at home is pretty boring. At least it is better than college!

Step 1: Put your iPod, Winamp or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly.
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING! (NO CHEATING)

( I think most of these are not too hard...? )

Hey god Inbox

Adam
to god
Apr 26 (3 days ago)

"Will you please make the rain stop coming through my door?

Thank you."

Reply Forward

Mail Delivery Subsystem
<mailer-daemon@googlemail.com> to me
More options Apr 27 (2 days ago)
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.

Delivery to the following recipient has been delayed:

god@god.com

Message will be retried for 2 more day(s)

Technical details of temporary failure:
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This is a conspiracy theory post about the band Tool.

For those of you who don't know, Tool recently released a really shitty single off of their new album 10,000 Days, which is supposed to come out on May 2nd. The album leaked a few days ago and the consensus seems to be that it's not very good at all, either.

After listening to Vicarious many times (ugh) and reading the buzz on the internet, I've come up with the following possibilities:
1) Tool has leaked a fake album with a decoy single to show that people will listen to any shit as long as they're told it's by Tool, but the album that hits stores May 2nd will be the real album. 2) The album will actually contain two discs, one of which is the sucky leak album and one of which is something else. 3) The leak album will be released on the Volcano label May 2nd with no accompanying disc, but on May 16th Tool will release the fake leak album and the real album together on their new record label. 4) Tool has just lost it and is going to put out a monstrously shitty, shallow album. I don't really buy this one, though. 5) Tool will intentionally release a bad album to show that people will listen to anything, no immediate follow-up. Doubt this one, too.

So I don't seem too much like a crazy conspiracy theorist who can't accept reality, I have compiled a list of evidence:

a) The officially released album art and the name of the CD. Take a look. It's obviously just leftovers from Lateralus, a piece by Alex Grey. Now take a good look at the new band logo. Doesn't the word "Tool" look awfully like the word "fool" to you? Also take note of the eyes which just so happen to look like CDs. That seems to imply two CDs. Also, the album name. 10,000 Days? Come on. Every single one of Tool's previous albums have had single-word titles (Opiate, Undertow, Aenima, Salival, Lateralus.) Also, evidently Disturbed recently released an album called Ten Thousand Fists. Surely this is just Tool's way of poking fun at bad rock music.

b) The names of the songs, the lyrical content, and the way the songs sound. You can look at the lyrics here. The songs are out of order, but that doesn't really matter. Don't the names of the songs just seem like something Tool would make up as a fake leak? The Pot? Rosetta Stoned? Wings for Marie? Come on. The lyrical content hardly needs to be mentioned. If you take a look, you'll realize that they just aren't any good at all. They're nothing compared to past Tool songs. They have to be jokes. Now, unfortunately can't comment on the way the songs sound with any authority. I haven't heard the leak, just Vicarious (which is shit.) But there seems to be a pretty good consensus running around that they sound like rehashes of stuff from old albums: b-sides, bits and pieces of songs they never did, and joke songs, all thrown together and recently re-recorded. Doesn't sound something they needed five years to make.

c) Comments left by Kabir at toolshed.down.net and comments left by BMB over at toolband.com/news. Kabir (who is close to the band) gives an early review of an album after hearing it at a listening party. He says this: "And so, it was time for 'Viginti Tres' [the last song on what is supposed to be the album.] But my host was running late for dinner, and I was as well. It's another segue, I was told. I'll hear it soon, I said." A segue? It's weird that he would call the last track on the album a segue, implying that the song was a transition into something else. He ends with this: "You will want to buy this the day it comes out. Trust me. It may not be exactly what you are expecting, but it is exactly what you are waiting for." Curious. BMB over at the official Tool site also said this in response to people emailing him about the album art: "It seems that a few of you are also anticipating ‘the bigger picture’ – that which you’ve become accustomed to over the years when it comes to Tool’s art direction. Well, to you, I will only say that you will not be disappointed… and that the key is right there before your very eyes." I think that implies that there's something more.

d) While there would be legal and technical difficulties with doing something like this, it's not impossible. The leak that's out now was leaked awful early for a CD that doesn't come out until May 2nd. There's always the possibility that there might be a real leak (of the real album sometime before May 2nd. Also, look on any site that sells CDs. You can find two copies of 10,000 Days, each with a different price and release date. One is cheap--cheaper than any recent Tool CD has been--and is released May 2nd on Volcano, a record label that Tool has had problems with and is leaving after this album. The other is labeled as an import, costs much more, and is being released two weeks later on the new record label that Tool has created. It seems like something is going on there for sure.

e) Tool is infamous for their April Fools jokes. They love them. Remember when the band died in a fiery bus accident in Australia? Or when Maynard said that he had found Jesus and that Tool was going to have to take a backseat to his new faith? Tool loves to ridicule people for following anyone or anything blindly. They want people to think for themselves. Besides, they haven't pulled off an April Fools joke this year. They always reveal them at an off date. Who says they're not just waiting to pull the biggest joke ever?

If Tool is doing this as some kind of joke, then they will have successfully pulled off the greatest prank in the history of music. If they're just gone downhill and happen to be putting out a really crappy album, I'm going to be pissed off. No matter, what, though, we'll all know for certain what's going on by May 2nd (maybe earlier if there is another leak closer to the release date.)

P.S. - If the album doesn't suck and they play in SC/NC/GA, does anyone want to go see them?

Maybe it's just me being weird, but I think indie music is one of the most important advances in musical history. People always lament the fact that indie music doesn't have a poster-child. They think it won't ever gain much popularity because there's no one band monopolizing the genre. I really disagree with that idea, though. Indie music's strength is the fact that it's democratic instead of authoritarian. I think one of the reasons that I like it so much is because it really speaks to my socialist sensibilities. There's no Led Zeppelin vs. The Who feud that divides high-schoolers along class lines. There's no Nirvana worship that leads to thousands of exaggerated and painfully bad elaborations on one band's work. Indie music is communal. People often decry the fact that indie bands steal ideas and sounds from one another just as often as mainstream bands do. This may be true, but indie music is a group effort. It's an exploration of sometimes similar, sometimes very different sounds and ideas that are more or less community property. Mainstream music tends to just be bands and artists who are following a chain that goes far back that they're copying a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

I read an article in Newsweek several years ago about the Flaming Lips and indie music. It was basically talking about how they needed to stand up and take the lead in directing indie music. And I remember thinking, "Wow, that's exactly what needs not to happen." Not because I have anything against the Flaming Lips--they're fun, I really enjoy them--but because indie music doesn't need a leader. It's doing very fine on its own, thank you very much. I'll admit that it was something that worried for it would happen. That some behemoth would step in and kill the movement while pretending to champion it, kind of like the way Lenin fucked up the Russian Revolution ("What? Democracy? You guys don't need that, you have a worker's state! Come on, it'll be fun.") But now I don't think that'd be possible. Indie music is just such a communal thing that no one band would be able to harness it.

Indie music is a grassroots revolution. That may sound like a drastic statement about a genre that's generally mellow (well, indie rock is, but indie hip-hop is a different story,) but I think it's definitely right. Indie bands and artists are pissed off at the corporate stranglehold on popular music. They're tired of this bizarre 90's faux angst-music revival that's being spearheaded by an 80's "cater to the suburbs and houses with white picket fences" mentality in music industry board rooms. They're tired of it and rocking out against it in their own way. For the most part it's not Rage Against the Machine sledgehammer music and vitriolic lyricism, but songs about girls and the lives of twenty-somethings. Maybe it's not new material. But that isn't what matters. It's a sonic collaboration, a group exploration. Sure, record execs will attempt to gain a hold of it. They'll try to colonize it, kill the inhabitants, pave over culture with strip malls. They'll snare a few bands, I'm sure. But they could never get all of them. Not even most of them. That's why I'm sure that if there's any movement that will be able to topple this current gentrification of post-'94 rock and hip-hop, it'll be indie.

Indie bands of the world, unite!