Chuck

I Said Lady, Step Inside My Hyundai

Land at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank and groove to the hot hits of the 80s played constantly on the PA system. What’s that playing at the rental car booth? “Who Can It Be Now?” by Men at Work? Oh yeah, gonna get my groove on while I slide up to spend some time with My Lady. She knows how I like it; she always makes me wait, take it nice and slow before she asks me for my driver’s license and credit card. Lady knows how to treat a man, insisting on a second phone number even though I don’t got one; I’ve learned to just make one up, give her what she wants. She gives me a mini-van and won’t hear no back-talk from me. That’s all she’s got. And she knows I gotta drive.

Pick up the key and there it is at the far end of the lot — my Dodge Caravan. Oh yeah, that’s my ride. Got a lady on the side in the security booth. She asks me every time what I do for Disney, and gives me that same look every time when I tell her “programmer” instead of “casting agent.”

Tearin’ up the 5 past the In-n-Out, watchin’ the ladies watchin’ me in my sweet ride. Pulling all up into that ABC parking lot. Putting in my time with The Mouse, then heading back to The BUR for a night on the town. Fine dining selections await, such as the Baja Fresh. But there are cultural options as well, such as Borders and the AMC 12.

So yeah, that wasn’t really going anywhere so I’ll stop now. I got off work a little early tonight and didn’t feel like spending 2 hours stuck in LA traffic to get to Anaheim, so I just came back to the hotel. Maybe I’d be better with spontaneous entertainment if I were in downtown LA (I’m skeptical), but with Burbank there’s just no chance. At least the hotel room has an internet connection and I can smoke indoors.

I thought I would be kind of daring and look at what the titles of the adult movies were, but they’re all pretty generic and dull. Bi Bi American Pie was the closest to what you’d expect from an adult film title, although Real Japanese proudly boasts “No Pixilation,” and they relish diversity, what with Running Wild as the “Gay Alternative.” Considering the hotel, I was hoping that One Night in Paris would be available, but no such luck.

But they don’t have the Cartoon Network or Food Network for some reason, so I’ve been forced to spend hours channel-surfing and browsing the web. And being exposed to broadcast television for the first time in months has really made me realize how little I’ve been missing. In between watching the same episode of “The Daily Show” twice and an Anderson Cooper show about James Frey and his whole book scandal, I watched a whole lot of sitcoms. I keep hearing about “My Name is Earl” and “The Office,” but I just don’t get the appeal.

One that was surprisingly interesting, although I’m not convinced I’d call it “good,” was “Crumbs.” It’s the one with Fred Savage and Jane Curtin. It went overboard with the laugh track and the maudlin moments, but from the pilot it was kind of like Schrödinger’s Sitcom: it had the potential to be either really awful or pretty good (not brilliant, but okay). One thing I liked about it is that they didn’t do exactly what I’m about to do: they didn’t make a big deal about Fred Savage’s character being gay. It wasn’t a total non-issue, but it wasn’t A Very Special Topic, either. I had heard or read about the show before (probably from Entertainment Weekly), but all I took away from it was that it was about a dysfunctional family. So I was surprised when they’re in the middle of the show and all of a sudden (I’d missed the beginning), a friend starts asking him about his boyfriend.

I did a Google search on the show, and I was surprised again. Considering what a ridiculous sham the whole Brokeback Mountain phenomenon has gotten to be, I expected there to be all kinds of attention on it. There are dozens of sites that use the same stock interview, and none of them mention it until a few paragraphs down, when Savage says they talk about his character’s orientation but “that’s not what the show’s about.” Well, none of them except for, of course, The Advocate, which uses the same interview but changes the headline and spins the whole article to make the show sound “Will & Grace” meets “Six Feet Under.” Everybody else just seemed to treat it like it was no big deal. Are people finally starting to realize that it’s not really all that interesting? Whether the show turns out to be any good, I dunno. But I thought it had some potential.

Who’s Peeking Out From Under a Stairway?

And Wendy has stormy eyes. When we went to Disneyland last year, Rain played a CD where every track was a person’s name, from A to Z. The entry for W was “Windy” by The Association. And so began my two-month-long nightmare.

I’ve always been susceptible to getting songs stuck in my head, but this one is the worst since “Tom’s Diner.” I hear it before I go to sleep, I hear it just as I wake up, I hear it when I’m tripping down the streets of the city, smiling at everybody I see. When I had my La Tortura episode in the Sony store, I could hear it in the background. “Make Your Own Kind of Music” from “Lost” wasn’t able to drive it out. “We Used to Be Friends” from “Veronica Mars” didn’t work either.

I finally just gave up and bought the album, hoping I could listen to it enough to get sick of it. It almost worked, but that album also has “Cherish”, which is of course the song that was the worst at getting stuck in my head when I was little, before I’d ever even heard of Suzanne Vega. So now they’re both running together constantly, like some infernal medley. (“Infernal Medley” would be a decent band name, now that I think of it.)

Speaking of Disneyland, they’re keeping up with this whole closing-at-8 bullshit. What’s the point of spending three days in LA if you can’t at least go to D-town? I’m starting to think buying an annual pass wasn’t such a great idea.

So Much For My Pulitzer

Yesterday’s post on SFist was about the MacWorld Expo. I only got to see it one day, because I’m in LA for business the rest of the week, but I think one day was plenty.

I actually got up early enough yesterday to make the morning keynote address, but I’d assumed that my exhibits-only pass wouldn’t give me access. I didn’t bother verifying that the thing was open to all attendees until yesterday morning around 8, and by that time, it was already too late. When I got to the Moscone Center, there were hundreds if not thousands of people lined up outside the building trying to get in for the keynote. (According to reports on the web, I didn’t miss much. It’s all on video from Apple’s site anyway, but I would’ve liked to see the crowd reaction to having Their Lord And Master in the same room as them).

So instead I had breakfast at Mel’s and then dicked around at the Metreon until the exhibit hall opened. I was very tempted to get Guitar Hero for the PS2, but some unseen calming force convinced me that it would be an even bigger waste of money than what I’m used to. Instead I just hung out at the Sony Style store and watched the video to La Tortura by Shakira and Alejandro Sanz that they had running on a constant loop. I watched it about five times and let me just say: daaaaaammmn. They’re both astoundingly hot. (And I like the song, too).

Anyway, the show was okay but kind of a disappointment. Not just because the new Apple stuff wasn’t all that spectacular, but because like I said in the article, I was hoping to see more of the Apple Thuggee Cult. The people were kind of clap-happy, but not to a particularly embarrassing degree; I’m guessing (and hoping) that most of that went on during Jobs’ presentation. The new iMac and not-Powerbook-anymore are impressive, sure, but there’s not the same kind of holy-shit-I-have-to-buy-that-right-now compulsion to them like there is with the new iPods.

But I admit I did buy the new iLife as soon as I got home. It was pretty standard stuff, there Apple goes again charging almost 100 bucks for a point upgrade, until they got to the iWeb demo. It does exactly the kind of stuff I’ve wished a million times over the year that somebody had already written. I’m sure that there are going to be all kinds of limitations with it that are only going to become apparent after I’ve played with it a while, but it made a great first impression.

Of course, GarageBand made a great first impression as well, and I used it for about a week and then never touched it again. But that was before I could make a podcast! Actually, I’ve got to say that the podcasting stuff in GB was the next most impressive part of the demo. I’m about as un-interested in podcasting as anybody (at least anybody self-absorbed enough to have an internet blog), but the support they have in there is pretty neat. For instance: if you set up a vocal track and a background music track, it automatically fades out the background music as soon as the voice starts, all NPR style.

A Street of Wonder

Maybe this is common for people who live closer to Golden Gate Park, but it’s still a novelty to me: just now a family of racoons (I assumed they were a family; I didn’t do any blood tests, but then again, isn’t family about more than just blood?) came trotting down the street in front of my apartment. Like the last stragglers of a parade. Albeit a very quiet parade, that concentrated on trash cans and reeled back in horror if they noticed any onlookers. So maybe a parade in support of abuse victims.

Seeing as how it’s 2am and I’m paying the same every month for this website whether I have something interesting to say or not, I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to make a list. A list of Things I Have Seen On Or Around My Front Steps:

Racoons (x3)
Sandwich with two bites taken out, in ziploc bag (x2)
Single-serving pudding container, half full
Man in underwear, wielding baseball bat
Dog poo
Dog (?) urine
Klingon (drunk)
Obese lesbian with scalp tattoo smoking and talking on cell phone (regular appearances)
Desk lamp (broken)
Shoes (various)
Teddy bear
Dot matrix printer
Man playing digeridoo
Woman playing digeridoo
Man with ten-foot long piece of molding, hitting every post, tree, and sign with it as he walks by, saying, “What up, G?” when he saw me
Two children, one of whom asked me “How’s it goin’, bitch?” and the other one running back to apologize profusely to me
Old woman walking her very old chow dog (both wear matching yellow raincoats when it rains)
Restaurant delivery menus (various)
Half-eaten rack of ribs (presumably pork)

The most mysterious thing is that none of the stuff stays there for more than an hour. (Except for the obese lesbian*, and possibly the pudding container. Coincidence?!?) I’m actually less curious about who’s leaving the stuff there than who’s taking it away. Note to self: inquire city services about C.H.U.D.s.

*Before anyone takes offense that I’m being too hard on someone for being either overweight or homosexual or a woman or whatever, I should probably point out that she leaves her cigarette butts all over the steps and when I try to walk around her to get up to my apartment, she acts all offended like I’m putting her out.

Dude, where’s my puppet?

I finally broke through the blockage in my Netflix queue and watched the two movies that I’ve had for over a month now: Dude, Where’s My Car? and Team America: World Police. Considering the Netflix fees and how long I had them out, I figure they cost me about $12 each.

Which makes me a lot less charitable of them than I probably would be normally. Both were in the “no really, they’re better than they look” category, based on what I’d heard from reviewers and friends. So I had low expectations but was willing to be pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t.

Dude, Where’s My Car? I moved up in the queue because it has Jennifer Garner in it, but she’s no reason to see it, even if you’re not already bored with “Alias.” I’m fine with stoner movies; in fact, I liked Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and I actually bought Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. But I thought the whole point of stoner movies was to make something that you react to basically like you would to a stoner person — they’re harmless and mildly entertaining normally, and really hilarious if you’re high. Considering that this one wasn’t harmless and mildly entertaining when I saw it, I’m not all that inclined to try it again the second way. I’d been expecting it to be gleefully absurd and dumb, but it was just dumb and kind of sad.

And I say we all start a fund, where we each contribute $1 a month, and all the money goes to Andy Dick. The stipulation is that he can never work again.

Team America was just bullshit. It seems like they’re just not aware they’ve obsoleted themselves. They’re stuck in the same thing that was subversive back when they did the first “South Park” short, even though the rest of us have all moved on. (And we moved on partly because “South Park” is so ubiquitous).

Violently cutting up puppets and making them have sex and make dick jokes just isn’t at all subversive anymore. And Parker and Stone just aren’t all that subversive anymore — they make the big joke about pretentious Hollywood needing to be put in its place, without seeming to realize that they’re pretentious Hollywood now. Yeah, there are plenty of pompous blowhards who have no business sticking their noses and money into politics, but at least they’re saying something. It’s easy just to say nothing more than “you’re stupid!”

The only reason I didn’t completely dismiss it is the same reason I can’t completely dismiss “South Park.” When they drop the BS about being adolescent and edgy and just let themselves get absurd, they’re actually funny. There were occasional bits in Team America that are funny just for the sake of being funny, because the characters are puppets. Like the panther attack that’s actually just a couple of house cats with sound effects. And the special emergency signal Gary has to make when he’s undercover. And any of the fist-fight scenes where it’s just two puppets flailing at each other.

They should just learn to drop the pretense of how they’re not pretentious, and just make something funny. Every once in a while, “South Park” manages to actually have a message that makes sense, and while those aren’t the episodes that sell T-shirts and catch phrases, those are the ones that actually work.

A Burbank Vignette

GET IT? A couple months ago I had to spend a week in Burbank for work. I was neither sleeping nor eating right, and I was preoccupied with work and stressed out about the whole NaNoWriMo thing (that was back when I still thought I’d be able to finish it). So I found myself outside the hotel at 6:30 AM simultaneously trying to find a place to eat breakfast and come up with a good story idea.

All I could think about was if Galactus, the planet-devouring villain from Marvel Comics, came to Earth and stayed in a hotel and ordered the Continental Breakfast.

Anyone who still thinks they want to read my “novel” should keep in mind that that was one of my better ideas.

Not at CES

That last post turned out to be all about “Arrested Development,” so I guess this is the one that’s posting just for the sake of posting.

I made a post at SFist yesterday about all the rumors around a Google PC. The story itself is kind of lame — even the rumor sites were saying that it was unlikely, and by the time I got home to write the post, the rumor had already been officially denied.

But what was more interesting to me was the whole “meta-story,” how the thing got so wide-spread so quickly, even though there was really nothing to it. As far as tech rumors go, it was actually kind of approaching compelling. It was a wacky idea (not only a line of cheap PCs, but they’d be writing their own operating system!) that had a little bit of validity because it was printed in the LA Times. And it had the whole “black fiber” angle that I still don’t quite understand but puts an X-Files spin on the whole thing. It’s just amazing to me what a phenomenon the company’s become; Google is building a public perception kind of like NASA’s during the space race. Or seeing as how it’s trading at over $400 a share these days, maybe it’s more like the Tyrell Corporation or SKYNet or Arvin Sloane’s OmniFam.

So I keep hearing stuff coming out of CES, but none of it’s really sticking as particularly interesting. I’m curious to see how Windows Vista looks; I keep seeing articles mentioning that MS is demoing it at the show, but nothing with real details. This eBook reader mentioned on Gizmodo looks pretty cool, and I’ve always liked the idea but don’t think I’d want to be an early adopter of the technology unless it gets a lot cheaper; both for the device itself and the content. Especially since the thing doesn’t have a backlight; what’s the point of an electronic book that you can’t read in bed?

Next week I’m going to be at the MacWorld Expo for at least one day. Maybe that’ll get me all geared up to be Geek Republican again, spending way too much money on disposable electronics and consumerism. At the moment, I’m worried that something’s wrong with me — I’ve got gift certificates for the Best Buy but when I went to the store Tuesday there was nothing I wanted!

Bob Loblaw Lobs Law Bomb

This is what we in the blogosphere like to call “posting just for the sake of posting.” Not sure how that’s distinguishable from everything else on here, but still thought it’d be a good idea to acknowledge that.

Because the “Arrested Development” fans don’t hate me enough: I’ve got to say I didn’t like Monday’s episode. I think I got it, what with the references to Oscar-winning actresses as stunt-casting and having it be mostly about Andy Richter who also had a critically-acclaimed show cancelled, but it just crossed some line for me. It just seemed more desperate and blatant than funny, even though they did come right out and say they were being desperate and blatant.

I did like Michael’s line about “we’ve been given plenty of chances, maybe we’re just not worth saving,” and the frequent mentions of the characters not being “relatable.” Not even because I agree, but because it was a sign that they’re aware of what went on with the show and how it’s perceived, and aren’t just doing the predictable response of saying “corporate entertainment sux!” and “Middle America is stupid!” and “we’re too smart for all these stunts!” A lot of that is true, but it was good that they acknowledged some accountability. They’ve shown that they can make a pointed comment and retain some subtlety at the same time; I wish they’d done more of that instead of going for the obvious “Not HBO, but show time” stuff.

I think that the thing that bugged me the most about it: “Arrested Development” is now going to join “Firefly” and “Andy Richter Controls the Universe” as a show that’s remembered more for being cancelled than it is for being good. And that’s a shame, because there’s more to it than just “a genius show that most people are too dumb to understand.”

And the gags I did like: the newspaper headline from the title, when Tobias calls it “the OC Disorder” and Michael responds with his usual “don’t call it that,” and George Michael’s response when Michael says he expresses himself just fine: “Yeah. Fine. What? Whatever, I don’t care. It’s dumb.” I still say Michael Cera’s the best actor on the show.

What Chuck Did

Part 3 of 6 Today I got caught up on the remaining “Lost” episodes. It left me feeling sad, intrigued, and wary.

Sad because you-know-what happened to you-know-who, because I was just starting to like her. I realize that was the point, because even though it’d already been spoiled for me, I could tell as soon as they started making her sympathetic that bad things were on the horizon. It just seemed inevitable.

Intrigued because like it or not, these guys do know how to handle cliff-hangers and doling out information. Like I said about “Alias,” they’re pretty good about giving you a pay-off when they set something up. If they show you a piece of film, they’re going to show you what’s on the piece of film, instead of making you wait a month or longer. And intrigued about how much speculation on the internets is going on, including the teaser sites complete with Disney terms of use. And the total geekitude that reveals stuff I never would’ve figured out, like that the numbers in the code all add up to 108, which is the number of minutes on the countdown timer.

Wary because I don’t know how they’re going to get a whole nother season out of it without running out of big revelations. I don’t know about the rest of the fans, but I’m getting a little tired of the flashbacks. They’ve been building up to Kate’s backstory since early on, and it just struck me as kind of “meh.” The only really engaging part of all that was trying to place where I’d seen her mom before (she was one of the aunts on “Sabrina the Teenage Witch”). The only thing left for a flashback to reveal, as far as I’m concerned, is what happened to Jack’s wife, and I can’t say I’m all that interested.

Before I sound too critical, though, I should say that I’m still impressed with how the show manages to maintain a tone instead of just getting mired in its own gimmicks and plot twists. It’s consistently about morality and fate, which makes me hopeful that they’ll manage to pull it all together into a meaningful story instead of just a series of cliff-hangers and internet mysteries. (And which makes the whole “They’re in Purgatory!” theory more convincing and makes me wonder why people were so quick to dismiss it).

Whatever the case, I’m now in the same boat as everyone else, and I have to wait until January 11th for the next reveal just like the commoners. Episodic television was not designed for people with my attention span.

Two Thousand Six

Only five more years until VH-1’s “I Love the 00’s”! I can’t wait to hear what wacky things the irrepressible Hal Sparks and Michael Ian Black have to say about iPods!

I spent New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas! For a couple of hours, on a layover from my flight. But that’s still cool! And my luggage is still enjoying Vegas, because it didn’t make it to San Francisco! Totally awesome! Damn I’ll be happy when I never have to fly again!

Other than that, New Year’s was fairly low-key but fun. Mac and I were playing Trivial Pursuit with a bunch of his friends, and we were of course failing to get any of the answers in the sports and games questions. Until the crucial moment when we needed the final Sports category piece, and the question was to identify a 20-sided die. If that’s not an omen of good luck in the coming year, I don’t know what is.

I made out pretty good with the Christmas loot, too: a Wallace and Gromit art book, a MST3K DVD collection (times two), Serenity, “The Clone Wars” on DVD, a book and CD on how to play the banjo, and gift certificates to iTunes and Best Buy. I also got some martini glasses from Club 33, and a Voice-Activated R2-D2 robot to fight it out against the Roomba. And when my luggage finally gets delivered, and my repaired hard drive comes back in the mail, it’ll be like Christmas all over again!

I think I’m supposed to put New Year’s Resolutions here or something, but I’ve already smoked half a pack of cigarettes, ate about a pound of brownies, and slept in until 2pm on January 1st, so they’re pretty much all broken.

Teen Girl Squad

Just once I’d like to get in on something from the beginning, instead of a year and a half after everyone else. I’d also like it to be aimed roughly around my age range. Until then, here is my book report on “Veronica Mars.”

“Veronica Mars” is a show about a high school student in her mid 20s who solves crimes for her dad’s detective agency while investigating her best friend’s death and the disappearance of her mom. She used to be popular but now she is not after her dad accused her ex-boyfriend’s father of killing his daughter, who was her best friend and her ex-boyfriend’s sister. She has a pet pit bull and a friend who is black and another friend who is Latino. The biggest mystery is how the UPN managed to land a series this good.

Seriously, it’s just solid. It’s got a lot of buzz around it on the internets and in Entertainment Weekly, and you can kind of see how solid it is by the trouble its supporters have in describing it. I’ve seen it compared to Nancy Drew, Twin Peaks, Peyton Place, The Outsiders, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Philip Marlowe, the OC, Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson’s Creek, Colombo, and Star Trek. I made up the last one, just because it seems like it needs more of a “hook,” when it really should just be able to stand on being a very well-written and well-acted show. With a lead actress who’s really just perfect with the part and is also pretty hot. Which I don’t feel any guilt pointing out, because I’m just not buying her as a 17 year old for one second. And I’m the guy who didn’t believe that the kids on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” were around my age.

Like every other series these days, it does the self-contained episodes thing with a bigger storyline going on in the background. Unlike other series, it actually handles both well. And the thing that really surprises me is that it almost never panders. The dialogue isn’t affected, the mysteries are neither too convoluted nor too obvious, the plots aren’t predictable, and both the humor and the drama genuinely work 99% of the time. I thought I had a major series plot point telegraphed, and when they revealed that I was right, they pointed out how everyone was foolish for not realizing it before and put an interesting spin on it in the next episode.

I’m genuinely impressed. Not blown away by it, but you don’t really need to be. It just does its thing and does it very well. And now I’m intrigued to know how the first season ends.

Celebrity Sudoku

Unlock the magic. I’m going to have to stop watching extra features on DVDs and the like, because I keep running into situations where I see somebody whose work I like a lot, but get the feeling that if I met them in person I’d just never stop wanting to smack them around.

I already bitched about David Cross earlier, but left it kind of vague. Mac and I were watching a little bit of his “stand-up” routine, only enough to see the bit where he said he was pro gay marriage and got a huge round of applause from the crowd. That’s what crystallized what it is that bugs me — it’s not that he’s Varney, it’s that he’s so earnest. I’ve already said I’m getting tired of the whole spirals of irony thing, and appreciate it when people aren’t afraid to just come out and say what they mean.

But if you’re a comedian, don’t you have to keep it funny? I haven’t seen his entire stand-up routine, but I have seen a lot of the stuff he’s done, and I just keep seeing predictable parody in order to Make A Statement. Bob Odenkirk’s stuff is pretty shallow, but at least on “Mr. Show” you got the sense that he was enough of a counterbalance to let things get absurd when they were in danger of getting too much into obvious social commentary.

The image thing would work better if I could say that Jim Varney was always too cross, but I don’t think that was true.

I was watching the special features on the Serenity DVD, and there was Joss Whedon talking about the fans and why they were important and his philosophy of the show and the movie and what they meant to him. And the dude is just fey. I realize that shouldn’t annoy me, but it just made me want to yell at the screen for him to shut the hell up. Serenity is an amazing movie, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is one of the best TV series ever made, I even read the second trade paperback of his Astonishing X-Men series and thought it did everything exactly right. But every time I hear him talk, he just strikes me as a more subduded, more self-aggrandizing, nerdier version of Charles Nelson Reilly. Maybe it’s just me.

And again, the image thing doesn’t really say anything about Tina Fey. The whole concept needs a little bit more work, I think.

I looked around online and it turns out there already are versions of “Celebrity Sudoku,” but they’re just versions of the real Sudoku that use pictures instead of numbers. I think I didn’t understand the rules of real Sudoku, either; apparently the numbers don’t add up to anything, you just have to list all 9 digits. I still think it’d be cool to have a game where you have to put actors into a 3×3 square, with the rule that all 3 of the people in each row or column have to have been in a movie or TV show together. Maybe that would be a fun rainy day project.