In case it has been pointed out enough already

I ain't got the time and if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He's tried to make me go to rehab but I won't go go go

vs.

However, Winehouse's father said a boycott would do little good.

Patronising Headline Insults Readers' Intelligence

From today's Guardian: Lord of the Rings author's home to be demolished.

Because 'Tolkein's Home to be Demolished" would be just too difficult to comprehend?

Pilot Lights

As is becoming a summer tradition, various pilot episodes of new shows have started showing up on tinternet, and is also becoming a tradition, I have looked over a few of them. Well, actually, I did this a few weeks ago, and was just too lazy to write up the comments until now. So I've forgotten most of the details and will leave you with only a few vague impressions. Which is probably fine. Given that last year I poo-poohed Heroes, and pinned my colours to the ill-fated mast of Studio60, I wouldn't place too much faith in my ratings.

First up, Reaper: a kid whose life is going nowhere working at a big box retail store finds out on his 21st birthday that his soul have been sold to the devil by his parents and that he has to track down evil souls who have escaped from hell and return them via a DMV office. So, another comedy/sci-fi/drama that ticks all the boxes (comedy poor-man's Jack Black sidekick; charming but unobtainable girl-next-door; etc.). It was all right, I suppose, although, I'm having a hard time in my mind distinguishing it from...

Chuck: a kid whose life is going nowhere working at a big box retail store finds out on his 21st birthday that his roommate was a spy and has downloaded all of the top sekrit information in the world into his head, and he has to use this information to track down evil spies who have escaped from Guantanamo Bay. Or something like that. It's all a little camp and arch: the electronics store he works at is called something like Better Buy and employs a team to repair computers called the "Nerd Herd" (a swipe at Best Buy and their "Geek Squad"). There are some snide little background jokes: in a Wal-Mart parody store, he walks past a giant box labeled "Astro Diapers". Because of this I predict the show will fail: Americans don't like any comedy that they think is smarter than they are, and this is destined to show on one of the major TV channels, something like ABC, so I think it'll last three episodes, then start getting postponed, have another half dozen episodes dribbled out and then be ignominiously slaughtered.

Pushing Daisies is more of the same, only different: it's the story of a young man who discovers that if he touches dead things he can bring them back to life, but if he touches them again, who makes a living solving crimes by bringing victims of Murder back to life, asking them who did it, and then sending them to their eternal sleep. It gets weirder than this, involving the character of an undead Anna Friel, a rather intrusive narrative voice over, and a very stylised look. From this, it's impossible to see how things will develop into a series, which rather reminds of the show "Dead Like Me". In the case of "Dead Like Me", it really didn't develop into a series, but sort of meandered around the place for a while without ever troubling too much with plot or meaning. So expect the same here. Expect it to draw critical raves, a healthy audience for the first episode or two, but then a gradual trailing off up until Christmas, and no second season.

Similarly, I saw Californication, a "premium cable" show which features David Duchovny, for the ladies, and Ladies' Top Parts, for the gents. The first episode played out like a latter day Woody Allen movie, i.e. one of the movies that's ostensibly a comedy, but doesn't really have any jokes, just some slightly unexpected situations and the protagonist desperately trying not to break the forth wall and gurn at the audience. The show will continue, and will probably be more of the same, but I rather quite like just taking the single first episode as if it were a short film in its entirety. On those terms, I think it's moderately successful, but to watch any further episodes would only spoil it.

"Reimagining" is a fancy way of describing the practice of remaking cheesy sci-fi shows from the seventies and making them less camp. Adding to the trend of Battlestar Galactica, and Dr Who is The Bionic Woman, which stars a woman who I am reliably told is off of EastEnders who hangs out with a pressured academic who seems to be getting some extra funding from a rather dubious DARPA-style agency just long enough for their unlikely romance to seem almost plausible, when a nasty car accident turns her into -- the Bionic Woman (the clue is in the title), she has a fight with Starbuck off of BG in the rain for a bit, and she decides to help the sekrit government project by solving mysteries, tracking down evil spies and souls that have escape from Hell etc, etc. Thankfully, the show is entirely forgettable, and for all its expensive production values and top talent imported from EastEnders, well, Bionic Woman is no Kyle XY.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel is Slacker Cats, which I only watched because it was created by Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley, who also made some great little UK comedies like Hyperdrive, as well as the less laudable "Bunny Suicides". Regrettably, Slacker Cats is very much in the latter category: a 'modern' cartoon based around the lives of a pair of cats who get into all kinds of unamusing scrapes. It tries to veer into Family Guy/South Park territory by including a variety of weakly outrageous scenarios which are both crude and pathetically unshocking -- look! A cat has bitten off another cat's ear! A cat has urinated on a table! Oh noes! -- but entirely lacking in any sympathetic characters that would make such activities remotely meaningful. It also suffers from a casual lack of any attempt at internal logic, and Emo Philips playing, um, a cat who is Emo Philips. No paws out of ten.

So, none of these new shows have really stood out so far. Which ones will I try to watch? I'll probably catch Chuck and maybe also Reaper if I've got nothing better to do (clue: usually I don't), but only on the understanding I fully expect these shows to be cancelled before they hit their stride, and leaving their plots in the middle of the explanation of some irritating cliff-hanger.

What should you be watching: this summer has actually seen a lot of good shows that it would otherwise be easy to miss. Psych has returned to the USA network, and has replaced Monk as my favorite USA detective show (Monk is getting too old and tedious; I can still usually solve the impossible mystery in the first five minutes most of the time). Kyle XY is managing to do the impossible, and sustain a second series even after a first series which seemed to wrap things up sufficiently. It's silly sci-fi nonsense, but as usual in such things, the accidental inclusion of teen drama storylines keep it alive. And Burn Notice is another cable-only show which I almost missed; however, since it starred Gabrielle Anwar, and I have a rule to try watching any show that features a Press Gang alumnus or alumna, I gave it a try. It's a load of fun: an ex-spy is confined to Miami, and has to scrape together a living solving mysteries, capturing evil spies etc. But this show does it in a highly entertaining way, as each week he overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds aided only by Bruce Campbell (of Evil Dead fame) and Anwar as his ex-IRA girlfriend. Yes, only in America could the IRA represent the "good" terrorists, but maybe thanks to President Blair we can just all forgive and forget. Anyway, forget that, and Anwar's rather spurious Oirish accent, and just enjoy this silly little action packed show.

I thought about it...

I first complained about my doorbell about two years ago, so I feel that it's about typical for me that it's only now that I have got around to fixing it. Admittedly, it took a couple of attempts, since first I replaced the switch, which had rotted away, but this did not fix it. After a lot of rooting around with a voltmeter (quite a handy thing to have around), I managed to figure out that the bell was also malfunctioning, and so I found a replacement bell for $8 in my local Home Despot, and switched it in. Now it does seem to ring OK, although it you hold the button it doesn't keep ringing, so you have to listen out for it. Could be the transformer is faulty, since it only seems to be producing about 10V when I think the standard is 16V. But I can worry about that another day. Now my bathroom fluroescent light has gone on the fritz, so I need to work out what needs to be replaced there.

Whatever happened to...

A long time ago... a loooong time ago... almost half a lifetime ago... I wrote a little humour piece about the lives of the "Famous Five" as they entered middle age, and there bitterness and misery at their subsequent lives and portrayal in the media. Now, fifteen years later, it seems that there are plans afoot for a television series with a similar idea. I imagine this version would not be quite so dark or cynical, but I look forward with some interest to seeing how this plays out.

Tired of...

Every time I head "I was tired of January, I was tired of June", I wonder what the world would be like if it was "I was tired of Terry, I was tired of June" instead.

Weak British sitcoms of the 1970's, doncha just love 'em?

Bobby DeNiro

Saw 'Stardust' yesterday -- probably the only film you'll see all year starring Julian Rhind-Tutt, Mark Heap, David Walliams and Adam Buxton playing ghosts. Which means -- awesomely -- that we now have Adam Buxton and Robert DeNiro together at last! (no sign of Bob Hoskins, though).

Good and bad

Americans! Here are two linguistic constructions that really irritate me when you use them in a formal context!

Bad is an adjective, not a noun. Stop saying 'bad' when you mean 'mistake'. This is fine in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but comes across as childish and insincere when used in an apology from a multi-billion-dollar company.

Good is an adjective, not an adverb. Correct: "The performance of the code was good". Incorrect: "The program did good". Unless, of course, you mean that the code performed some moral and improving acts for humanity.

Mark Ronson

Was listening to the inflight entertainment, and the recorded DJ commented that Mark Ronson had recently collaborated with Jimmy Fallon. Was this, I wondered, some bizarre mishearing of Lily Allen? No, it turns out that they really have worked together. Still, Jimmy Fallon and Lily Allen - together at last?

Do you know the way?

Finally recovering from my jaunt to San Jose, the main repuercussion of which is to have a certain Bacharach and David composition resounding through my head for a whole week (not good). The climate there is simply unbearable -- constant sunshine and pleasant temperatures year-round -- which makes one wonder how it was possible civilisation developed there at all, given the quite workable alternative of just sitting around all the time. An unexpected upgrade on the flight out, coupled with an unceremonial return to coach class for the return red-eye is pushing me to the conclusion that flight is only bearable under the standards of first class. Although domestic first class on a 737 -- with shared TVs, limit reclining and so on -- is nothing to write home about, despite the fact that I seem to be doing exactly that.

Communications between San Jose and San Francisco are surprisingly convenient given my prejudices about public transport in the Golden State, although a crowded train and the need to change were a slight disappointment. No significant sights to be seen either, unless you count the picturesque Berkeley campus which the designer erroneously decided to place on a severe incline, a basic mistake which even I could have pointed out to them. Here, apparently "jay-walking" is a serious crime and punished by a large fine. I'm not sure that I could tolerate to tarry long in a place where crossing the road is a criminal act, but this just goes to show that these Americans are crazy.

Signs of Aging

Just tuned into British radio to hear a song I had never heard before, and then to have the DJ back announce it as "the current UK number one". I don't remember that happening before (I'm rarely aware what is top of the pops, but when I am, it's usually a song I have heard before). Is this a sign of advancing years, or indicative of our increasingly fractured iPod generation?

On other matters UKadian, I sought out the New York Times "London Food Company" in Montclair yesterday, and was rather disappointed by the contents. Its shelves were stacked with foods such as custard, baked beans, and cadbury's chocolate, all of which are available in plentiful supply in most mainstream supermarkets here if you know where to look (usually in the quaintly named "Ethnic foods -- Irish" section). Likewise, all varieties of tea in abundance, which is no problem to find generally. They had Walkers crisps, but in the red, green and blue of ready salted, salt and vinegar, and cheese and onion -- all of which flavours are approximated tolerably well by Lays over here. They were distinctly lacking in the real rarities of UK snackdom: where were the frazzles, the nik naks and the like? I left disappointed and empty-handed.

Bananas

A helpful advert in the newspaper that I am a participant in a class action lawsuit because, at some point in the last decade, I have bought, hired, consumed or otherwise engaged with bananas. More info here (although watch out for the nutty neo-con bias).

Pocket Watches

19th Century: the pocket watch. In order to tell the time, you have to take it from your pocket and press a button to reveal the time.
1970s: The digital LED wrist watch. Now the watch fits on your wrist, but you still need to press a button to reveal the time.
1980s: The digital LCD wrist watch. No more buttons!
1990s: People start using their mobile telephones instead of a watch to tell the time. So you need to pull it out your pocket in order to see the time on the LCD display.
2000s: I get a new mobile phone which has a color display. But because the display uses up the battery, it switches off the display. So in order to tell the time, I have to take it from my pocket, and press a button to reveal the time.

Is it me, or has all this technology advancement set us back to how things were a few hundred years ago? I'm now tempted to get an ornate gold chain to attach my phone to my jacket pocket. Except that I don't wear a jacket.

Semper Fi

Spent an unnecessary amount of time trying to work out which of the interchangeable Coldplay/Athlete/Keane/Muse/Starsailor/Snow Patrol melange that I heard on a mix CD recently. It had the very distinctive refrain "Oh Semper Fi", so I thought I would easily find it.

Of course, it turns out to be "Somewhere only we know" by Keane, and according to the Internet, the actual words are "Oh simple thing", which of course is not as good as my version.

It occurs to me that I don't actually seem to mind rejection as much as other people; but rather I do mind not knowing what the outcome is. I suppose I just strive for certainty above other ends.

Hang up your hats

Rather ignominiously, the saga of the Hat Bandit seems to be over (see postings past); a perp was nabbed a few weeks back, although he denies it. Check local and national press for details.

Also see this handy info graphic which shows where the bandit has struck in his months of terror.

More UC Fun

Was watching the new series of University Challenge, when this little repartee from SOAS seemed to catch Jezza off-guard. Does he really not know what they are referring to, or is he just a little slow of the mark on this one? Judge for yourself:



Direct Youchoob link

If it's still not clear, see this old post and in particular, this youchoob vid for context.

Economic Theory in Practice

BA receives huge fine, VA escapes punishment by collaborating -- prisoner's dilemma writ large?