If you were stranded on a desert island, which one person would you bring with you?

The answer that will get me in the least trouble: my wife.

But choosing one person to be stranded with is hard. You need a person who compliments your own skill sets to allow for greater chances of survival and rescue. Your choice should be someone who is physically fit and reasonably intelligent in a variety of subjects. Or you could just choose someone who would make your final days as pleasant as possible, making the sex with until neither of you have the energy or will to go again.

I can tell you, however, one person I would NOT want to be stranded on a desert island with: Roy Hinkley. You may not recognize that name, but you’d know him if I called him by his more common moniker, The Professor. Yes, that Professor. The man who could make a radio from coconuts but couldn’t fix a hole in a boat. I mean, one thing the island had an abundance of was trees, you’d think he’d at least make a raft or a canoe or something. Given the amount of time they were on the island, he could have made a yacht!

Of course, I can’t bag on the Prof too much. Who’d really want to leave an island that counted Ginger Grant and Mary Ann Summers among its inhabitants? I certainly hope he was tapping that. Both of that. I know I would. In fact, I’d probably engineer a few “accidents” to eliminate my competition in that department to improve my odds. Yeah…

Crap. The wife is going to read this and I’m going to be in trouble. So, uh.. my wife. If I was stranded on a desert island, the one person I would bring with me would be my wife.

Ask me anything

Terriers

Terriers
Terriers on FX

From the “Best TV Shows You Probably Aren’t Watching” file comes Terriers.

The show isn’t full of flashy action sequences.  It isn’t full of sex.  It’s about solving crimes, but it isn’t a procedural.  It has no teens, no supernatural elements, no super spies or super powers.  What it does have is excellent writing, great stories, and fantastic performances.  There is action, and sex, and crime solving, but the show is really about the characters.  In just six episodes I’ve gotten to know these characters better than some shows manage in entire seasons.  The style of the show is like an old noir detective film.  Scrappy underdog characters with huge character flaws.  And snappy dialog.

Terriers is about Hank Dolworth.  He’s an ex-cop and recovering alcoholic.  He flushed his career and his marriage down the toilet, and now with his best friend Britt Pollack, a reformed criminal, the two of them are making ends meet by running an unlicensed private investigation business.  Basically what you’ve got is an ex-cop who knows the law and where the edges are, and an ex-con who is good at breaking and entering and other less than lawful pursuits trying to do the right thing, even when they aren’t exactly sure what that is or how they should go about doing it.  It begins with an old drinking buddy of Hank’s asking for a favor.  This leads them into some dealings with corruption in local businesses and forms the story arc for the first five episodes.  One of the best parts about the show is that it doesn’t divide it’s focus.  Many shows like to have a case of the week for the episode and fill the background with character arcs.  Terriers manages to actually use the case of the week as part of the character arcs and overall story arc.  It all blends together instead of feeling like each scene is part of one or the other.

It’s just really good.

If you haven’t watched it yet, I’d recommend giving it a shot.  Full episodes are available on Hulu.  If you like it, tell a friend.

Movie Round-Up: September 17th, 2010

Easy Alpha Devil and the Omega Town AAlpha and Omega:

It’s a movie about a couple of lost wolves trying to get back to their families.  It’s a kid’s movie.  The trailer makes it look… typical.  I’m sure kids will enjoy it.

Devil:

To understand where M. Night’s career might be headed, go here and watch the video.  He’s on a downward trend.  But I like monster movies.  So from the trailer we see people trapped in an elevator and some sort of thing is stalking them, which sounds really ridiculous when I say it.  Stalked?  In an elevator?  Then again, maybe this will work, maybe it will be good.  I think I’m going to wait for Netflix unless it gets some seriously awesome reviews.

Easy A:

This movie looks to be hilarious and possibly still have a heart as well.  The story is about a girl who helps out her gay friend by pretending they have sex so that other guys at school will stop picking on him.  This turns into her helping a number of other outcast guys with similar problems, earning her a reputation as a slut even though she’s not actually having sex with anyone.  I’m sure it will all turn out okay, but it’s the ride (pardon the pun) that will make this worth watching.  If I can find time and a few extra dollars, I’ll be off to see this at the theater.

The Town:

The only movie opening this week that I’ve already seen, The Town is the latest effort from Ben Affleck.  I’ve always thought he was a decent actor (especially when given good material), and as director of Gone Baby Gone he did admirably.  So I was pretty excited to see The Town, and it didn’t disappoint.  It was well directed, well acted, and well written.  The heist scenes were exciting, and the whole thing worked.  The only drawback to the film at all is the similarity it holds to the 1995 movie Heat.  But it has been 15 years since the release of Heat, so I don’t mind so much that The Town plays out almost like a remake.  Anyway, this movie is totally worth seeing.  Your $10 won’t be wasted here.

Best TV/Web Cross Promotion Ever

Have you ever been watching a TV show and heard a song that you wanted to know what it was or who sang it? Even worse, it wasn’t on the CW so they didn’t tell you at the end and you had to go digging around the Internet hoping that someone else who watched the show knew the songs and put it out there somewhere that Google could find it?

Last week saw the premiere of Swingtown. Its set in the 70’s and is about a couple that moves a few blocks from a cozy middle class neighborhood to a more upscale rich neighborhood across the street from a couple who swings. If the use of ‘swing’ there confuses you, it means to have an open marriage, sleep with other people as well as engage in group sex. The show was okay… nothing really ground breaking, and I didn’t even find their allusions to sex all that graphic or shocking. I’ll probably keep watching it through the summer because there isn’t much else on.

However, the best thing during the broadcast was a little blurb saying “if you want to hear the music from Swingtown again, go to Last.FM” and they gave out this link.

Pure genius. Every single show that has music in it needs to hook up with Last.FM and do this. Simply awesome. I mean, I’ve used that site before, during dinner parties or regular parties or just while I’m working… normally, you pick a band you like and you get to hear them and other bands similar to them. But this, putting together a streaming soundtrack from a TV show… this is truly inspired use of the medium. No more guessing what the song was, just go to the show’s Last.FM page and hear it again.

I repeat… every single show that has music in it needs to hook up with Last.FM and do this.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The End of the World

That isn’t actually the title of the game, but if you read enough stories in the media surrounding the game’s release, you might think that it should be.

Myself, I’ve never played a GTA game.  No wait, that’s not entirely true.  I’m pretty sure that back in 1997 I pirated a copy of the original game off a BBS and played it for about an hour.  I was bored.  My brother also gave me his copy of GTA: Vice City for the PC, which I’ve been meaning to install and play for a couple years now, but haven’t.  All in all, I’m just not excited about the series.

I’m not worried about the violence or the sex… the reason I’m not excited is because I just don’t generally enjoy playing the “bad guy” in games, unless I know there is going to be redemption.  I play games to be the good guy, the hero, the one man who stands in the way of the complete annihilation of the human race, or something like that.  Being the villain just isn’t my bag, baby.

There is a video floating around, I’m not going to link to it, showing clips of a few of the sex encounters with hookers from GTA IV.  Its definitely something I wouldn’t want my children to see if I had kids, at least not until we’d had the “sex talk” and I was sure they understood the difference between games and reality.  Of course, the sex is actually the least of the reasons why I’d want to keep the game from my kid… the way your character treats the women actually sits above that, and then there is all the violence which is actually at the top of the list.  But then, the game is rated M, so my kids wouldn’t get to play it, unless I were sure they could handle it, which is something I would determine for my child on a child by child basis… that’s what I hear is called “parenting”.  I certainly wouldn’t need the media or the government to make that decision for me.

Wil Wheaton (yeah, the kid who was on Star Trek: The Next Generation) has posted was I think is an excellent summary of how I feel on the whole brouhaha over the game.  Thanks to Ryan at Nerfbat for the link.

Anyway… unless someone tells me that GTA IV allows you to play through the game without being a criminal, or that you can play such that your criminal actions are for the greater good, I’m going to continue my course of not playing the GTA games.  Do they make GTA style games for good guys?  That I might be interesting in playing…

Recommend Me Some Books

I am always on the look out for stuff to read, but browsing the bookstores sometimes just isn’t enough. So, I want you (yeah, all like five of you that read my blog) to recommend a book to me. There are some requirements and limitations, so if you want, read on:

A) The book needs to stand alone. Don’t recommend me anything other than part one of a series, and don’t recommend a book that starts a series but doesn’t itself contain a full story.

2) I like Sci-Fi, but not real dry science Sci-Fi, not hard Sci-Fi. I like Fantasy, but not real crazy out there Fantasy, I like it at least partly based in reality in the sense that it has humans or human like people and not everyone is slinging magic all around to solve everything. I like Horror, I prefer my vampires un-gay (Anne Rice, I hate you). I don’t like “sex” books, if the plot revolves around people having sex and contains repeated descriptions of engorged members and the like, it is just not a turn on to me. And while I like superhero books, don’t suggest them unless its really cool because, as you can see on my library, I have a few of those in my future reading stack already. I also like funny, but not really politics-funny.

D) I’d prefer books that aren’t new releases, if only because I plan to look for them at used book stores or in paperback. I don’t want to spend a fortune.

So, with that in mind, if you feel like it, reply with a book and the reason you liked it (don’t spoil it, of course).

Stuff on the Net II

The 25 year old woman who had sex with a 14 year old boy says that the worst thing is having put him through this. When asked for his opinion on the ordeal, the boy yelled, “Woohoo!” and ran around the room giving everyone high fives. Later he remarked that the experience would lead “much more tail in college” and “envy from the other guys.”

I’ve always thought the commercials with that old guy were creepy, but now there is another reason to avoid Match.com: You might get paired up with Joan Rivers.

One of those things where people edit their own movie preview to completely change the plot of the film: Must Love Jaws.

Spend a weekend with David Lynch. Of course, if you are just seeing this, its too late.

Ever wanted to run into famous people? The Gawker website used to feature sightings of celebrities, but now, thanks in part to Google, you can map the locations and get driving directions with the Gawker Stalker! Some publicists say this tool is evil, but frankly, the stalkers that celebs need to worry about don’t need this tool to find their targets because they already follow them around.

In high school, did you ever play “Killer” or some variation? Where you were given targets and had to “assassinate” them using water pistols, those plastic disc guns, or items designated to be knives and such? Well, now you can play it as an adult too.

Man with a bionic arm… ’nuff said.