- Crap. If you’re like me, you’ve grown uber-tired of the omnipresent commercials from one network after another, one famous face after another, reminding you that on February 17, 2009, television will make the transition to digital-only broadcasts and you need to be ready. By now, we can all recite line-for-line how you’re okay if you have digital, satellite or cable TV but if you’re one of the five people in America with rabbit ears perched on top of your 17” black-and-white TV in the kitchen/dining room of your trailer on a hill in the middle of nowhere, you’ll need a digital converter box, which you can get a coupon to help you pay for. Those damn commercials have been everywhere for what seems like a year now, but in a stroke of good fortune that I can only liken to being run over by a bulldozer and then eaten alive by wild, rabid wolverines, we may get four more freaking months of them! Yes, Congress is considering an emergency measure to delay until June the death of rabbit-ear television. Apparently senators are terrified of the static they'll see when the plug is pulled on analog television broadcasts in the United States, so they unanimously approved the bill Monday. It was rushed to the House floor for a vote and thankfully, the House didn’t give the bill the two-thirds majority it needed to pass, but another vote could be taken soon. Why the issues so late in the game? Well, a study by the Nielsen Co. reveals that some 6.5 million tools out there still haven’t bought the newer digital TVs or converters for their old sets. Here’s a thought for Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, the bill’s sponsor: if these knobs haven’t gotten the message yet, screw ‘em. I’ve seen the commercials no less than 200 times and so has everyone else. These people are either a) lazy and stupid, thus not deserving a break, b) financially unable to swing the converter box or cable and unlikely to suddenly become financially solvent between now and June, or c) dead. As such, there’s no need to allow stations to keep their old transmitters turned on until June 12. So rest assured, commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein of the Federal Communications Commission, that if this bill passes, your letter to Rockefeller and Sen. Henry Waxman this month "to express our deep concern" that the country is "nowhere near" ready for the signal switch hasn’t flown under my radar. I know you ass hats are part of the reason I may have to endure four more months of those damn commercials about the impending switch and I won't forget it. Your names are on my sh*t list and I’m coming for you. Maybe I’ll tie you both up and force you to watch those f’ing commercials at high volume on an endless loop for weeks on end…..seems like a fair recourse. After all, so far the federal government has spent least $200 million to explain to TV viewers how they need to prepare, so it’s time to stop the warnings and move this train on down the tracks……
- I’m tempted to call last night’s Smallville the show’s best episode ever, even though I’m pretty sure it’s not. Why? Point blank, any episode that contains so much screen time for the lovely, uber-hot Kristin Kreuk is stellar in my book. Even when she was a full-time cast member, I can’t remember KK getting so much face time in a single episode. This one alternated between past and present, telling the story of what really happened to Lana at the end of last season after snapping out of her BRAINIAC-induced coma and disappearing. Jump-starting that narrative was the news that Lana had gone missing in the present, with Clark learning about her disappearance after Chloe visited the Kent farm, found out about the Clark-Lana kiss at the Talon the night before and urged him to go to her apartment and talk to Miss Lang. Arriving there, CK finds Lana gone, the apartment a mess and Tess Mercer, of all people, there. Tess kicks off the tale of what really happened to Lana, revealing that the video she made and left for Clark about needing to disappear so she wouldn’t hold him back and keep him from his destiny wasn’t made of her own free will. She was being held at gunpoint by LuthorCorp henchmen, at Tess’s direction. That group then drugged her, put her in a van and was driving her out of town to points unknown when she attacked the two hired thugs, hijacked the van and escaped. After that, she showed up in Edge City and solicited the help of a mysterious man who had made a career of teaching toughness and mental discipline to Navy Seals. Lana learned from him and then headed off to Metropolis, where she began digging into secret LuthorCorp projects, looking to stop Lex Luthor once and for all. The man who taught her in Edge City kept in touch and tried to talk her out of her plan, but when she wouldn’t budge, he joined her plan and got a job as a consultant with Tess and LuthorCorp so he could spy for Lana and also keep an eye on her. While in Metropolis, Lana also was in touch with Chloe through a chance meeting at the Isis Foundation offices. Lana was there to hide a hard drive in a secret safe, but she also let Chloe in on the two LuthorCorp projects she was researching: Aries (now dead) and Prometheus. Lana also made Chloe promise not to tell Clark about what she was up to. That filled in the past, but the future was also pretty interesting. Seems Lana wasn’t kidnapped, but rather had set up a secret lab in Metropolis and hired away the scientist who had been working on the Prometheus project for Lex to work for her. She volunteered to be the guinea pig for the project, which involved removing the outer layer of skin through extreme dermal abrasion and replacing it with a “suit” made of DNA from aliens (garnered from Lex’s extensive past research with all things meteor freak and Kryptonian). The suit bestows Clark Kent-like powers on the person wearing it, so Lana wanted it to a) keep Lex from using it, and b) so she could be a force for good in the world like Clark and be invincible while doing so. The process worked, making Lana invincible and just in time, as Tess did some digging of her own, found the lab and was trying to shut Prometheus down for good. Instead, Lana got away and broke into the Luthor Mansion, ripping open a safe there and destroying all of Tess’s Prometheus research. Lana went on to tell Tess to stop allowing Lex to dominate her life and to move past him. With that advice dispensed, Lana zipped to the roof of the Daily Planet and asked Clark to meet her there. When he arrived, she explained what she had done, why she didn’t tell him (he would have tried to stop her because it was so dangerous) and what she hoped to do now. She told him that they could be together, changing the world. Clark was hesitant because he didn’t know how the Prometheus suit would affect her long-term, but was able to overlook it (for now, anyhow) and get in on another Clark-Lana lip lock, the second episode in a row to end that way. Judging by the previews, next week may not end so well and we many finally get a glimpse of the face of Lex Luthor, which has yet to happen this season. But he’ll be back with another of his diabolical plots, ready to make life miserable for Clark and Lana, just like old times. So until then…….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Even a great, raging riot can’t last forever, it’s true. The island of Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa, was been engulfed in violence for two straight days, Monday and Tuesday, but by mid-week the riots had subsided. I do regret the loss of 34 lives in the madness, no doubt about that. The Red Cross is reporting that number, which may change once the dust settles and people are accounted for. The positive to take from this is that hundreds of angry anti-government protesters gathered in a central square and raised hell to make their point, and that is always cool. Cooler still is that these bitchin’ protestors took it next level and set fire to the state-run media complex, leading to some nice visual images and even more bitter clashes with The Man. Whether it’s Athens, Mexico or Madagascar, storming state-run media institutions and seizing control of them is very in vogue on the riot circuit nowadays. Whether your merry band of angry social dissidents is looking to hijack a broadcast to get your message on the air or simply seeking to burn that mo’fo down, it’s a solid play. These particular protesters stormed the government's radio and television station in the capital, Antananrivo, n response to President Marc Ravalomanana shutting down opposition leader Andry Rajoelina's radio station. Again, fair is fair. The president shut down their voice unfairly, so they’re shutting down his. Can't really have a debate and discourse on the issues if only one side has the power to speak out, right? Plus, Ravalomanana has been pulling crap like this for some time now, with the move to close down Rajoelina's radio station coming just weeks after closing Rajoelina's television station after airing an interview with ousted ex-President Didier Ratsiraka. Opposition radio, Viva Radio, was actually back on air Tuesday, allowing protesters to shift their focus from restoring freedom of speech to targeting other government infrastructure. They’ve moved on to food distribution centers, as well as looting private electronic shops and grocery stores that sat alongside government buildings. Sadly, the United States is pushing for peace and looking to calm things down. Those of us in the know realize, however, that you can’t keep good rioters down……
- Personally, I don’t care if Joaquin Phoenix just perpetrating a big hoax about quitting acting and becoming a wrapper; I’m getting a good laugh out of his act either way. Watching entertainment magazines and TV shows cover the story and falling all over themselves trying to figure out what this guy is up to has been pure comedy, even if his terrible three-song debut as a rapper at a Las Vegas nightclub on Jan. 16 was nothing more than a sham of a performance assisted by friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck, who's ostensibly shooting a documentary about his career transition. Sources close to Phoenix say it was all a show, just a ploy and a project to amuse Phoenix and to mock arrogant actors and the uber-reactive media that covers their every move like it actually matters. So if he’s just been playing everyone by announcing that he was abandoning his career in movies to try to make it as a rap artist, I say keep it up, don’t break character now. That show you put on at the club in Vegas - a rambling, Britney Spears-awful performance that concluded with Phoenix falling off the stage - was hilarious. Maybe my man J. Phoenix is channeling his inner Andy Kaufman, maybe he’s lost his mind or perhaps it’s a combination of the two. With that Sasquatch-ean beard dude is sporting, the last of those three options seems most reasonable. He might actually be hiding the WMD’s in that shaggy, hirsute monster. For what it’s worth, he is noted for having a genuine interest in music (including his as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line as well as directing several music videos), so faking a music career to spoof the entertainment media wouldn’t be that implausible for him to pull off. Bottom line here is that whatever this is, Phoenix should keep it up because plenty of people out here are laughing right along with him…..
- Boy, that David Beckham experiment sure did revolutionize soccer in America, didn’t it? Becks coming to play Major League Soccer was going to change the way we viewed soccer, according to soccer honks who wanted to believe that a past-his-prime Euro in a tertiary sport would register as even a blip on the radar screen of the average American sports fan. Yeah, either that or Beckham would come, play an uneventful seasons for the Los Angeles Galaxy and leave the country to return to Europe just over a year later. Going to play for AC Milan was supposed to be an off-season gig for Beckham, whom the Galaxy “loaned” to the European club while the MLS was between seasons. Now, it appears the move could be permanent. For his part, Becks doesn’t exactly seem torn by the decision. He labeled the chance to play for AC Milan a "dream,” then referencing his contractual obligations to the Galaxy in less-than-glowing terms. Could it be because in California, he’s a nobody in a sport no one cares about, but in Italy, he’s a huge hit and actually matters? "To play here is the dream of any player," said Beckham in an interview. "But deciding is not easy; it's a situation that requires time. I am under contract and I have a lot of respect for Galaxy. But the possibility to play at Milan is something special. I knew I would have fun but I didn't expect to have so much fun.” Allow me to translate: I can make more money here, people in this part of the world give a damn about the sport I play and my ego can’t take being a nobody in America and wasting any good years left in my soccer career by toiling in anonymity. Heck, even Becks admits his time in the U.S. had been tough. "I have to admit that, having played in Europe, at times it has been frustrating to take part in certain games (in America)," he said. "But once in a while, going from state to state, I have also had fun." Yeah, it sound like you were having a blast. But who could have known this was coming, other than Stevie Wonder with ear plugs on? To hear soccer honks after Becks’ first game with the Galaxy, he was going to vault soccer to the elite level of American sports. As it turns out, he played for a team that lingered in last place most of the season and will be sold off to an Italian team before playing out even half of his MLS contract. Pro soccer in the United States, it’s fannnnnn-tastic…………
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