Review: Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol

Man, it's another The Polar Express and Monster House with those creepy zombie eyed people with the CG mouths that are close but just not quite past the uncanny valley. Plus, aw hell, it's got Jim Carrey in it. This is going to be awful. It's in 3D too? Yeah, it's going to be horrible. I still haven't forgiven Zemeckis for Contact.

These are all the things we said going into the theater. I was cautiously optimistic. The trailers looked promising, but I really hated The Polar Express and I was worried this was going to be another single actor ham fest with unsettlingly real yet not real animation. But it was a free screening at IMAX and it was 3D so why not, right? Halloween is officially over, I can see a Christmas movie.

I'll cut right to it. While I was not blown away, I was really impressed. A Christmas Carol is as charming, spooky, funny, scary, and emotionally charged as I've ever seen it. Up until now my favorite renditions were Patrick Stewart's one man theatrical performance and Scrooged starring Bill Murray. This would rank among my favorite versions of Dickens' classic tale.

The film is done in what's called "performance capture." I've never heard the term until today, but I know what it entails. Unlike movies that create the characters with the computer, performance capture sets a skin over the recorded movements of real actors. It's modern day rotoscoping and while it produces very believable movement in what is obviously a computer animated world, it also creates some barriers.

The first barrier being what I already mentioned, the uncanny valley. The hypothesis of this is basically that the closer robots look and act to humans they reach a point where our emotional response becomes negative and they begin to scare and revolt us. Nothing in robotics is quite human enough to over come this, though some people say there are puppets that can be made to act near human without being creepy. (To me "puppet" and "creepy" can be synonymous.) This carries over into the digital actor world when the technology to capture lifelike movements and reactions and emotions begin to dip way down into this valley and start to unnerve the viewers. Regardless of how lifelike the animation is, people will (so far) be adverse to it. The Polar Express (a Zemeckis movie) was one of these. The people moved like people, but the eyes were wrong, the mouths were off. They seemed like dolls or zombies. There wasn't a spark behind the stares and the smiles were heinous grimaces doing not much more than baring oddly gapped teeth.

Carol is able to get past that for the most part. I won't lie and say it's perfect, but the main characters are without the vacant quality Express had. The side characters and street people still showed signs of this and likely only because they didn't have the man hours at the computer to bring them to as much life as Scrooge, Cratchit and the spirits.

The second barrier is one that may not be avoidable with this type of animation. The designers and directors work so hard on making Victorian London believable and real that they designed themselves right out of some of the more fantastical abilities inherent to computer animation. There's not much in the way of lightsabers or heavy blasters or ancient goddesses in A Christmas Carol but there is a whimsical aspect to the spirits and the times they show Ebenezer. In one part of his past, a dance is held and his old boss, Mr. Fezziwig, and his wife cavort and careen around the makeshift dance hall in odd, jerky movements. Their jumps linger, purposefully, too long and at one point Mrs. Fezziwig pirouettes herself into the air like a helicopter. Now, it's one thing when the candle-head spirit of Christmas Past takes Scrooge on a hair raising flight through snow covered fields, but when real people suddenly move like fairies, it can make you suddenly feel again like you're watching something that's not quite right.

However, all in all the animation is top quality and the design altogether was remarkable. We walk through Ebenezer's home in the evening and true to form in late 1800's London, there's no electricity or central heating. His large house is cold and dark and at times the only light is his small candle and the only sound is his breathing and the creek of stairs. The character's breath seen in the cold is just the right visibility. The clothing drapes and moves realistically and without the stretching skin quality seen in early and dodgy CG attempts.

The spirits (all voiced by Carrey) were true to the original story and completely brought to life. Everyone who went to the showing came away with a favorite and each specter (including the last) had qualities than made them enjoyable to watch on screen but also of which to be afraid. They were frightful in the way they were intended to be, not because of an emotional attachment to their animation. They were well executed if not, at times, a little gratuitous.

And finally Jim Carrey's performance was quality. This was like watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or even Ace Ventura: Pet Detective again. It was nice remembering that despite some of the crap work Carrey has done (and let's face it, most actors do crap work from time to time) his Scrooge was a wholly enjoyable and well put together performance. Despite some of the trademarks of performance capture (that animates the characters to look like the actors) Scrooge was superb and almost never did I think "That's Jim Carrey doing that." Later in the film as Scrooge becomes more light-hearted, you can see Carrey's face in Scrooge and it does pull you out a little. Up until then the hawk nose and plow chin Scrooge was his own man and not one driven by a comedic actor.

The other actors were obvious and for the most part it did not hurt the story to have them so any more than if it were a live action telling, which in the end is the highest praise a movie like this can earn.

If you have little ones, this is not the movie for you. Rent the Muppet version and be done with it. Zemeckis's version is every bit as creepy and at some points down right frightening as the original could be.

God bless us, every one.

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic

A facebook contact joked, "How awful it must be to be blind and dyslexic at the same time."

So, without giving up my day job and completely divesting what little time into auditions, workshops and low paying entry gigs into the world of voice acting, I've instead decided to volunteer to read for the blind.

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic is a non profit, nation wide organization dedicated to making written material available to the visually impaired and cognitively challenged. It started over sixty years ago when a woman named Anne T. Macdonald began reading to veterans of WWII who had returned without their sight, having lost it do to injury or illness while in the service. It eventually became more than the New York Library's Women's Auxiliary could do alone and soon it became a nation wide organization.

I drive by the school of the blind often enough to see the sign for the studios (there's also a state run organization) and I hear about volunteer opportunities on the local NPR affiliate KUT quite a bit. I decided to go.

This is going to be rad.

Coming from a theater background, I have a bit of an ego-centrism issue; I like hearing the sound of my own voice. It's probably more than just wanting to talk, I actually like reading aloud. For a while I'd read to Ms. A so she could go to sleep. I'm sure it was a combination of someone's voice and the science fiction or science material that put her out, but I enjoyed it and would read till I went hoarse. I love reading to the kids and if I didn't have this, I might have tried to get in on the story time events book stores do (except those are always on a Wednesday at like 9am.)

The added benefit is the material I'd be reading is all educational. There are requests for fiction, but for the most part the RFBD focuses on text books. It's their mission to provide educational materials, so there will be a lot of reading of history, chemistry, sociology and a lot of foreign language. Sitting in with a couple people last night, I listened to a recap of most of the political events of the late 1960's.

The studio on 45th and Burnet is quite nice too. It's small and cozy with 7 or so recording booths, some offices and a lot of reference and training material. I've only gone in twice, but the staff is very friendly and the two volunteers I worked with last night were equally as amicable.

I'm really excited.

This is also the time where I say that if you're looking to volunteer, RFBD is always looking for more volunteers. If you can't but know someone who might like it, tell them about it.

Carry on.

Houston

Weee!
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

Last weekend we visited my cousin in Houston. The trip was timed with my mom and aunt's visit so we could all spend the weekend. Technically I wanted to leave early Friday but a problem at work kept me there till late which means we got to Houston (or the Cy-Fair area of North West Houston) by 9pm.

Also, it was a short trip because we had originally planned to go to the TXRD championship bout on Saturday night, but we ended up not being able to get tickets in time and the prevalent thinking is that the kids don't do well at bouts so we skipped it. Tiger Lilly came along and got to meet a small fraction of my family.

By the way, Ms. A is officially a Texas Roller Derby skater. Her skate name is Fishnet Stalker. She'd gone through a few names but ended up choosing this one because it more accurately reflected her propensity to stalk people online and off. I warned her people might call her Fishy but she was ok with that.

School is going ok for the kids. They missed a chunk with the flu but LMA's grades are all A's thus far this semester. As far as we've heard, she hasn't beaten anyone down recently. Maybe derby brats is teaching her something or just giving her an outlet. She still a few weeks left of this season and I can perfectly envision her picking it up again. She genuinely seems to enjoy it despite the requirement that you have to practice.

I've been trying to do more drawing and actually do something with all those interlocking piece of plastic hanging around my room, but work has been really busy and lately when I'm home I'm either working more, doing some chores or sleeping. I've got four shows to write for at TVZ and half the time I don't have time to watch them.

I was able to record and watch the the Discovery Channel's "Discovering Ardi" which was terribly exciting. If you don't know anything about evolution or human paleontology, you may at least know about Lucy. Lucy was the, up until about 1992, the oldest known skeleton (or partial skeleton) scientists have discovered. Australopithecus afarensis, a 3.2 million year old species, Lucy was thought to have been somewhat of a missing link back in the 1970's. It was an upright walking ape, but was more human than monkey. Ardi (Ardipithecus ramidus) predates Lucy by more than a million years, to roughly 4.2 million years ago. Ardi was another hominid but with some striking features. Foremost was that of a grasping foot.

Whatever your beliefs are, you have to admit that finding a hominid skeleton that walked upright but had a grasping foot is pretty cool. There's really no comparison in the animal world. The find makes Lucy look positively Cro-Magnon. Scientists were able to determine that not only was A. ramidus bipedal, but also that they were changing in terms of social and sexual traits as well. They were still instinctual, but the instincts were becoming refined.

Anyway, Tiger Lilly and I watched the show on Sunday, absolutely fascinated. We're nerdy like that. Miss LA continues to be sick but was able get someone to fill in for her at work and get some much needed rest. Ms. A is still going to class though she missed a few days when she and the kids were sick. Life still rolls on here.

Carry on.

H1N1

H1N1
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

Aside from the threat of pandemic, this weekend was quite lovely.

First thing's first: Yes, little G-man got sick on Saturday. My dad came to visit the grandkids for the weekend but all outdoor festivities and external or traveling plans were squashed by a combination of rain and illness. But it wasn't all gloom and iron-lungs at the BGF. We still had plenty of fun.

Lil' Miss Austin has been religiously attending her Derby Brats practices and this coming week is her big bout. It's more a scrimmage with the other girls, but it'll be a lot of fun regardless. Her speed skating practice is at Playland Skate in N. Austin and we usually stay after and skate for a couple hours. Grandpa was there to hang out with G-man (who doesn't like skating much) which left me and LMA and Grace (who will be nicknamed Tiger Lily for this blog) to skate for a while. LMA is becoming a really skilled skater and more often than not she was outpacing me.

And speaking of skating (which is what we all do lately) Ms. Austin's final practice for TXRD was Saturday. We don't know if she's been picked to be on one of the five teams, but she felt she nailed the evaluation practice. She'll likely find out today or tomorrow; I'll keep you posted.

So we watched movies and TV a lot. G-man had a fever most of the weekend but when I took him to the clinic on Friday, the doctor said that because he had an appetite, no coughing or congestion and just a fever and headache, it was likely not the media darling H1N1 (aka Swine Flu.) By the way, we call it the Heinie Flu because of the spelling. Which actually sounds just as bad as Swine Flu.

So G-man and I roll up into the clinic and are met by a line of 20 people just to check in. There area lot of kids. I pull G closer to me as though I emit a force field that protects him from contracting even more germs. Yes, my logic is sound. We check in and go to the waiting room where I kid you not there was no where to sit except the floor. There were easily 25 families in there, some with two or three kids. About half the people in there were wearing masks.

Madagascar's ports were all closed.

But the doctor didn't do a swab test. The presenting symptoms were not indicative of flu, just a common virus, so he sent us on our way. Which is fine because frankly I don't have $300 to spend on Tamaflu anyway. Rest and fluids for you kiddo. G spend most of Saturday and Sunday sleeping on the couch, being adorable and just a little warmer than normal. Today he woke up with me as I was leaving for work and was bright eyed and bushy tailed.

LMA is having attention pains. It's hard to say if she's actually not feeling well, but she is a little warm. Her friend and skate partner was actually diagnosed with H1N1 and that's where we think it all started. Which is really sad. The girl's mom and Ms. A are New Girls in Derby and she's a really rad lady but is having a rough time currently and now a sick kid. We want to be the good people and make sure they're both ok but it's hard to want to take care of sick people knowing you'd be compromising your own family.

For Sunday I was able to talk Miss LA to make some gumbo. My dad said he's never had it, so it was a treat for everyone. Miss LA makes some mean gumbo and it's always nice to have a house full of people and good smells from the kitchen. You know it's fall around our house when there's gumbo, wassail, football and Rock Band. Her sister helped her, a couple friends came by to watch the Cowboys and Broncos game and we all drank beer.

As I type this, though, I have a sore throat and a headache. I'm congested, which isn't saying much considering how much it's been raining, and I'm a bit worn out. I don't want to get sick, but I think considering how much time I spent around G man, it's inevitable. I'm hoping it's allergies and lack of decent sleep.

Still, it was a good weekend. How was yours?

(PS, I have four reviews to write, but my weekend was a bit tied up. They will be up soon.)

Review: FlashForward 1.1 - "No More Good Days"

These reviews are done for Television Zombies, please visit for discussion, news, commentary on science fiction, fantasy and cult television.

I think it's the announcer. Yeah, I'm pretty sure ABC needs to replace their promotional voice talent because everything I see on ABC that isn't Extreme Dancing with the Makeover Wives, sounds like Lost. It always sounds like everything depends on if I watch this show. Even the sitcoms seem as though something catastrophic is going to happen.

Why is that important? Because it colors the programming. If your introductory hype makes your show sound like something it's not, it unfairly skews your perception of that show. When that guy's voice pimps any ABC show, it always sounds to me like Lost. Plus, Penny Widmore is in it.

Okay, okay. Unfairly, I'm comparing this to another show so let's boil it down to what it really is.

Flashforward is a novel by Robert J. Sawyer. ABC's show is loosely based on this science fiction story in which scientists at CERN run an experiment having the side effect of everyone on Earth going unconscious for two minutes and seeing a future 21 years from now.

FlashFoward starts our fairly regularly and instead of scientists, it's regular people in Los Angeles. We're inserted very deftly into the lives of the Benford family. Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) is an FBI Agent (again? really? ya really) whose wife Olivia (Sonya Walger) is a surgeon (yes really.) They have a little girl named Charlie who is watched during the day by the nanny. Mark's partner is Demetri Noh (John Cho) and Mark's AA sponsor is Aaron Stark. Aaron is an electrician whose daughter was killed in Afghanistan. One of Olivia's residents is a guy named Bryce, Mark's boss is Stan Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance, from Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and the nanny has a boyfriend.

Mark and Demetri are trailing some suspects when their whole world goes awry. Olivia is in the middle of surgery, Bryce is committing suicide on a pier, the nanny and her boyfriend are about to have sex and Aaron is climbing a pole to reach a power line. The entire world blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. But the time doesn't go by uneventfully. Mark has a vision of himself drinking in his office in front of a big case planning board with numerous photos, strings, notes and other pieces of paper. He loads his gun and off in the distance, men with laser sites on rifles approach. He comes to and he's upside-down in his wrecked car. LA is a mess and we find out it happened everywhere at the exact same time for the exact amount of time. We also find out, everyone had a vision. These visions are also corroborated with others to give a precise date, six months into the future. Everyone had them except for Demetri, he had no vision, which he thinks means he'll be dead by then. Olivia has one that she's with another man. Aaron has one in which his daughter is alive. Little Charlie Benford says she had a dream in which there were no more good days.

Mark, Demetri and another agent, Janis Hawk, are given the task to coordinate the effort to find out what happened, what people's visions are and if it could happen again. They call the project MOSAIC and start with the same board Mark had in his vision. Already we see the small threads of the envisioned future start to tie together. Mark talks of drinking again, which is the only reason Olivia would leave him. The other man Olivia envisioned is the father of a boy she saved the day of the blackout. Demetri is planning a wedding with his girlfriend but is always thinking of why he had no vision. Aaron is now hopeful about his daughter, but angry that he's hopeful.

And the world went into chaos. Just stop and think for a minute of what would happen if nearly 7 billion people just passed out for two minutes, what would happen. Would would happen in traffic, airports, people on stairs, people in surgery, athletes, people in baths or hot tubs or pools or lakes. I'm not sure the death toll will ever be mentioned, but it wouldn't be surprising to think of something in the hundreds of millions. Granted, most of Asia would have been asleep at the time and would they even notice? So far the show is very good at throwing questions at you.

But where do we go from here? FlashForward was well put together and at least decently written and acted. It follows the same formula as another show I'll try not to mention in that we start with a huge event and then spend the rest of the time digging for answers. Will it be sustainable? Will the answers sate the viewers? Is it a big enough mystery to overcome any story telling problems?

I enjoyed watching the pilot, but I felt more than a couple times that it was trying to be overly dramatic, overly serious. A meeting the FBI agents had with their boss took place in a lobby and they were standing in a circle, I kid you not, 15 feet apart. The only reason you do that is to get nice camera angels. I want to know what happens to the world I live in when we all fall asleep for 137 seconds, not what happens in Michael Bay's world. Give us some realism and some believable human interaction and the show will do well. Give us short scenes in which people lie or withhold information to push the story along and you'll end up looking pedantic.

At the end, Agent Hawk finds something that will keep the show going for at least two more episodes. During a curious (morbid?) viewing of security footage from around the US in which people are dropping like well coordinated flies, she sees a man in a baseball stadium who is not out. While the entire crowd and both teams are unconscious, this man in black trenchcoat and knit cap walks around very secretly like. He's not panicked, he looks like he's trying to avoid something.

Maybe he's trying to run from low ratings.

It's not a bad outing actually. It's one of the more entertaining pilots I've seen. I may be thinking too far ahead to give it much of a sustainable chance. John Cho and Sonya Walger are very pleasing to watch, as well as much of the supporting cast. That voice over guy, though...have him do just Lost please?

Three and a half broken clocks.

Review: Fringe 2.2 - "Night of Desirable Objects"

These reviews are done for Television Zombies, please visit for discussion, news, commentary on science fiction, fantasy and cult television.

First off, we have a new intro. It's Nina Sharp recapping who works in the Fringe Division and what their emerging purpose is.

Pennsylvania. There's a construction/road work team wrapping up for the day. On one man's truck radio, the local news continues the story of the six local missing persons. One man forgets something and goes back to get it. He senses something odd in a cornfield near a scarecrow and goes to investigate. He sees something on the ground, it looks like a blue hand. As he digs it out, the hand grabs him and pulls him into the ground.

Opening Credits.

New York. Agent Olivia Dunham is being released and Peter is there to help her. She had a fractured hip and so is walking with a cane. As they reach Peter's car, we see Agent Charlie Francis in a car watching them. Peter senses something and looks around, sees Charlie's car, but Charlie is hidden. Back in PA, the man underground ignites a lighter and looks at his wounded leg, then around the cavern he's in. There are body parts everywhere; some human, some animal. He sees a tunnel and crawls toward it when he sees a creature emerge from the tunnel. It's just a silhouette but we sense that it's almost human, the same shape and sound as Gollum from Lord of the Rings. The creature attacks.

(sea horse, light lower left)

Peter meets with Broyles, asks about the requests Walter has. Broyles says it should be no problem, but the C-130 might be hard to get. They talk about the mispers in PA and that it'd be a good thing to look into proactively. At the lab, Walter and Astrid are recreating Olivia's accident using a toy car and a frog (1.21 Gigawatts?!) to see if he can make the frog disappear. Olivia was missing for over an hour. Walter tries to explain his multiverse theory with branching time lines, but then stops realizing he's done it before, then gets very sorry for what Olivia went through. Then he talks about the consequences of visiting an alternate reality, then drops it. (We'll see later, I'll let you know.)

Peter, Olivia and Walter go to PA and talk to Sheriff Golightly (Charles Martin Smith) about the mispers and the Sheriff quibbles with the crew about rules of evidence, but they're finally allowed to investigate. Back at the Sheriff's office they again butt heads about this being a local investigation. Olivia starts getting angry but then stops when she hears a fly quite clear and loud, cleaning its legs. Peter jumps in and deflects the tension by talking to the Sheriff about this great lure he has in his office.

Olivia calls Charlie and asks for some help getting some information run through. He agrees to help after he's done running an errand. Charlie goes into the typewriter shop, gets the key from the becrutched proprietor and goes into the backroom. He types, Target Trusts Me Completely. Believes I'm Her Partner. Awaiting Instructions.

(flower, light upper left)

Olivia and Peter pore over the extensive but almost useless information the Sheriff's office has collection on the missing persons. Walter discovers the blue liquid found at the scene is a paralytic, interacting with human DNA or containing it; a possible mutation.

There's a light in the darkness coming towards us. As it gets closer, we see the dead body of the road worker. Then we see a shovel and someone says, "Oh no." We pass up through the ground and come to light in view of a mailbox marked 'Hughes.' Olivia and Peter are on the porch knocking when a grizzled man with a shovel appears behind them. He his Mr. Hughes and as he lets them in, he indicates he's been digging wells. Olivia's super hearing kicks in and she asks if someone else lives there. Mr. Hughes says no, but Olivia goes to investigate. A fairly tense few minutes of her limping along hearing a heartbeat and breathing, she finds a lab of sorts upstairs. When she opens a closet and finds nothing in it, Peter appears in the door behind her and she whirls around and shoots at him, just missing his head.

(frog, light lower right)

Mr. Hughes is in an FBI room behind questions by Agent Dunham. He says he visited the families of the mispers to try and comfort them. He had lost his wife and child, his son died after five minutes. Olivia asks for a blood sample and Mr. Hughes refuses. Broyles asks Peter about Dunham's gun and he says it was a misfire. Olivia is getting a check up on her injuries. She's getting dressed and we see a lot of bruising. Nina Sharp comes in and talks to her about a man who helped her after her cancer. She gives Olivia a note with the name Sam Weiss.

The FBI is going through the Hughes house. Agent Jessup finds an area with a few crosses and a Bible. In the bible is a news clipping of the death of Mr. Hughes wife and child as well as an inscription from a Pastor Lisburn saying it wasn't his fault and they are with God now. Peter tells Walter that Jessup thinks they may have been killed and an exhumation order is requested. The crew digs up the caskets and opens the wife's first, nothing obvious. Back to Hughes in the holding room, he has taken the wire casing off the lights and is bending it and chewing at it, shaping into something. The crew digs up the baby's coffin but there's nothing in it, but a hole has been chewed, clawed, blasted out of it and they see under the coffin is a tunnel leading into the ground. They go back to question Hughes but he has hung himself with the wire.

(frog, light lower right)

Agent Dunham finds Mr. Hughes hanging from the light. Back at the lab, Walter, Peter and Astrid discuss the findings on Mrs. Hughes. She had lupus, there was no way she could have kids, but still she had a baby. We flash back and forth to the Sheriff putting stakes in the ground wrapped in crime scene tape and the ground swelling behind him. Olivia talking with Broyles and her super hearing kicks on again for a second. Walter tells Peter the Hughes boy wasn't all human and likely had scorpion and mole rat DNA to combat his mother's lupus. Olivia arrives and they determine the boy must be under the house.

The Sheriff sees burrowing come toward him when the ground explodes and he his pulled under.

(butterfly, light lower left)

Agent Dunham and Peter revisit the Hughes house and search it. Peter finds a door that's been wallpapered over and behind the door is a nursery. They also find a store room/shed/lab with a large canine tooth on the floor and a cinder block wall. They move away some bricks and a rotting dog head before Peter goes to get a shovel. Olivia sees bones and corpses and looks back for Peter when a thing springs from the darkness and drags her into the tunnel. She and Peter fight it off. It's a nasty looking teenage boy sized creature with an elongated head ending in a gruesome muzzle of teeth. Its skin is pale and covered in blood and dirt. Peter is able to stick the thing with a broken shaft of wood and the creature begins digging away. Unfortunately it digs under the Sheriff's car which comes crashing down on top of it.

Olivia rides back with Charlie and recaps, talking about all the holes Hughes dug in the ground. She says she may not want to remember. He says it may be important and whatever it is, they'll deal with it together. Peter tells Walter he's going fishing, tells the story of a boy who bought his dad a special lure but the dad didn't go. Walter doesn't gather that he's the dad or the one Peter wants to go fishing with, but asks if he can go with him. Peter and Astrid exchange knowing glances. The lure he gives him is called Night of Desirable Objects.

Olivia is in the bath tub when she starts hearing bubbles, a fly, voices, sirens, seemingly the whole city. She goes to a bowling alley and asks for Sam Weiss. He originally says Sam moved away but then chides Olivia for giving up easily. He says Nina told him she'd be coming and asks if the headaches have started yet.

Charlie Francis is in the typewriter room, he types: Target Visted Other Side, But Remembers No Details, Please Advise. Response: Unacceptable. If She Can't Remember On Her Own, Then Do Something To Help Her.

(frog, light lower right)

The glyphs spell MIRRLR, which is a disappointing oversight. We want it to say mirror, and the glyph for L is close to the one for O. Is it really an oversight or a way for the producers to see who's paying attention?

Monster of the week with an inordinately long denouement. The monster was captured with 7 minutes left to go, meaning Fringe is really trying to get the bigger story more air time. I think they realize that they can't do Peter's new Proactive Fringe Division AND keep fighting mutated humans, but the transition will happen slowly. After a full week debating on whether or not I like the Charlie Francis mole, I think it's a good move. It builds tension that only the viewer and that character can see. The rest of the Fringe Division crew and the FBI have no idea, and that makes it juicy.

The problem the show will run into is trying to mix too many monsters with the larger Olivia, Massive Dynamic story. They are at times completely separate, as is the case this week, and may only cause each episode to feel short. Olivia Dunham and crew were able to help the families of the missing persons by solving their disappearances, but they learned almost nothing about the Hughes family, which seems more important to the overall story. Nothing tied Andre Hughes to Massive Dynamic or William Bell or Walter Bishop and if they get more stories like this we'll have to have two teams. One to follow the Bishops, one to follow Olivia.

This was a little repetitive and reminded me too much of "Unleashed" or "The Transformation." Yes this is part of the show to have mutated people, but at least give us a link to the bigger story.

Three out of five randomly chosen glyphs.

Review: Fringe 2.1 - "A New Day in the Old Town"

The fall TV season is yet again upon us. No doubt most of you have already picked the shows you are going to watch and have decided to give some new shows a chance. I was not as prepared this year as I was last year and I know I'm missing Glee and Vampire Diaries but I am going to try and pick up Modern Family, V, and Flash Forward.

I'll also still be reviewing Fringe, Dollhouse, and Clone Wars for TVZ, as well as a couple others possibly. The fall season took most of us by surprise as we'd all be watching summer shows with much enthusiasm and I think the new shows didn't see that spectacular. I know we've all been surprised a little and I hope V and Flash Forward continue that.

Fringe premiered last week and I have a review pending at TVZ, so make sure you stop by and check it out when it posts. Also, ABC posted the first 15 minutes of Flash Forward and I know it's probably too early to say anything, but I think I'll like this one. Give it a watch, let me know what you think.

Meanwhile, here's the review of the latest episode of Fringe.

...and we're back. A quick recap of the season finale is in order. Thought not a cliffhanger, there are some parts that are integral to the story line in the premiere.

The season one bad guy, David Robert Jones, is dead. He was trying to use equipment powered by a power cell from Nina Sharp's robot arm to open a gateway into another universe. (If I had a nickel...) Peter stopped him by using a "patch" that Walter found in an old beach house. We also find that this universe's Peter may have been pulled from the another when his other version died. Walter mourned him at a grave that indicated he died when he was seven. The Observer intervened, helping Walter find this patch device. Olivia, still bubbling with uncertainty about her cortexifan induced powers, visited William Bell at the top of the World Trade Center.

That's all you need to know for now.

A man wakes up with a cut forehead in a car that's been in an accident. We're in Manhattan. He flees the scene, gains entrance to an apartment building, jumps a guy in the laundry room and drags his body back to his apartment. Once there the man crushes his own face like Playdough. He then takes a tool that looks like a large RF switch with two wires coming out of it, each ending in a three-pronged attachment. He jams one of these into the soft palette of the dead man, the other into his own mouth, hits a switch and begins grunting and shaking. The TV is playing the X-Files movie and we see now that the car wreck man now has the face of the dead man. The FBI and police are investigating the crash and when the agent asks who was driving the vehicle, another agent hands her a print out of Olivia Dunham.

Boston. Walter and Peter are in a grocery store shopping for custard ingredients. They banter, Peter's birthday is coming up, Walter makes a few unintended dirty comments about custard, when Peter's phone rings. They arrive at the scene of the accident and meet agent Amy Jessup (Meghan Markle) who begins grilling Peter as to what Fringe Division does for the FBI. Peter tells her it's all classified and asks where Charlie Francis is. Walter is checking out the car. Peter asks where Olivia is, and Agent Jessup says there was another vehicle out of which a man exited and left. No one was in the SUV licensed to Olivia Dunham. Walter, inside the car, hears static as the electronics all kick on. He gets out, the car revs its engine, the alarm goes off and suddenly Olivia Dunham crashes through the windshield onto the pavement.

Opening credits.

**A quick note here. Shortly after the season finale last spring, Kirk Acevado posted on his Facebook page a note that he'd been fired from the show. In shifting the production company to Vancouver, it seemed like a cost saving move to not pick up the options of secondary characters. Some saw it as a publicity stunt, some marked it up to reportedly common outbursts by Acevado as experienced on other shows, but no one knew if it was true. The production company and Fox said he wasn't fired, but the summer news was somewhat quiet about the matter.**

Dunham is wheeled into the ER at New York General with quite a few injuries. Broyles intercepts Agent Jessup with the "report" of the accident that says nothing was out of the ordinary, and makes her sign it. A doctor comes out and tells Peter and Walter that Olivia sustained too severe an injury to the brain and will likely not regain consciousness. Walter goes to see her, and apologizes, calling her Olive.

At a nearby bar, Broyles joins Peter for a few drinks. He tells Peter he's going to Washington; Fringe Division is being shut down. Peter questions what they were doing anyway, saying they were always too late. Too late to save Olivia. Back at the Federal building, Agent Jessup gains access to Fringe Division's files via a scrap of paper with a number on it. Where she got the paper we don't know yet. Peter runs into Rachel at the hospital who tells him Olivia had a living will saying not to put her on life support and in the morning they were going to unplug her. He goes in to see her, wrestles with emotions, leans in to kiss her and say goodbye when her eyes snap open and she speaks a phrase in a foreign language and then screams and sits up.

Olivia says she went somewhere, but someone is trying to stop her, but she doesn't remember anything. She begins freaking out and asks Peter to go get her gun. He goes to the Federal building in Boston where he finds out his credentials have been revoked. When an agent tries to escort him out, he throws a nifty release move, surprising the agent. Amy Jessup says she'll escort him. She already has the file he was requesting about the accident. The tire marks indicate the other car was speeding up, not stopping. And surveillance cameras got a picture of man they're en route to question. When she asks what Fringe does, he says, "Nothing." They find the body of a man matching the photo, but he's been dead a while. Jessup allows Walter to take to body to his lab. She asks if Walter's crazy, Peter says he is.

The man from the apartment enters a typewriter shop asking for a specific model that's never been made. The shop keep says as much but when the man persists, he says "Oh, you're one of them." It's been six years and he's not waiting around forever. The man takes a key and goes to a back room with a desk, a type writer, paper and mirror. He puts in paper and types, Mission Accomplished, Target Eliminated, In Fatal Car Crash, Meeting Prevented, Request Extraction. Then from the mirror, the reflection begins typing in an odd reverse sound. The message is, Negative, Mission Failure, Meeting Occurred, Target Still Alive. The man types, Request New Orders and the response is, Interrogate Target, Then Kill Her.

Peter takes Amy Jessup to the lab and gives her a little back story. They introduce everyone, Walter asks for custard ingredients and autopsy tools. Amy sees Jean the cow.

Charlie Francis visits Olivia in the hospital, she says she's fine. Charlie recaps a story about a domestic disturbance that went really wrong, in which his partner died and he was shot. He kept telling people he was fine but he wasn't. He was shaken and like him, she probably has a gun under her pillow. She cracks a little, says she's so scared she can't even load it. At the lab, Peter gets Walter to focus on the dead body instead of the custard (which Astrid is making) and they see in the mouth the three holes and it makes Walter remember something. A video tape of an experiment Walter and Bell did with a subject and a lot of drugs. The 30 year old taped subject talks about three nails in the mouth and a soldier from somewhere else that can look like any of us. Peter and Astrid put in a law enforcement alert for bodies matching that description. Olivia frantically tries to load her gun.

(right hand, light on the right)

Washington. A committee says Fringe Division is basically taking too much money and not providing any results. Broyles reminds them he's a colonel and they should thank God they don't see what's being stopped by Fringe Division. Another senator says that without some kind of proof, they have no choice. Nina meets Broyles on the steps and says it's important that the division stay operational. She and Broyles then kiss and she tells him to save the day like he always did.

Peter and Agent Jessup find another body with three holes in its mouth. Jessup reminds Peter that if this shape shifting person is a soldier, they do one thing; stay on mission, that being to kill Olivia. The soldier arrives at the hospital, surprising a nurse on a break. The same nurse shows up in Olivia's room and asks about her memory. She can remember going to meet someone but that's it. She feels like she went somewhere, talked to someone, then came back to the accident. (If you remember episode 1.20, right before she met with Bell, she was almost in an accident that I commented on seemed to have no purpose.) But she doesn't remember who she was meeting. The nurse prods her but she can't remember what she was supposed to do or what this person said. Something's hidden, but she doesn't know where. The nurse jumps on her and starts strangling her. Charlie, Peter and Agent Jessup arrive and put a couple bullets in the nurse who jumps out a window about 60 feet down and flees into the lower levels. The three pursue. The nurse jumps Charlie and he fires a few shots. The other two catch up to see Charlie standing over the nurse. The electronic changing box is on the ground nearby.

Peter brings Olivia flowers and they recap a bit about the soldier and what she asked Olivia. Peter repeats the phrase she uttered when she woke up. She doesn't remember, but asks if it's Latin. Peter says it's Greek and his mother used to say it to him every night before he went to bed. It means, "Be a better man than your father" and was a code between them meaning keep your people close. They smile at each other. As he leaves she asks if they're shutting Fringe down, he says no.

In front of the capital, Peter stops Agent Broyles and gives him the shape-shifting box. Walter had said the technology is not from here and it's proof. The Feds can have it, use it to make an army to look like anyone, but they are not shutting Fringe down. Peter says they're done reacting, they're not going to be too late any more, they're calling the shots. Agent Jessup is cataloging Fringe cases and ties them to Bible books, chapters and verse, ie 7546B-FD - The Beast, R19:19. Peter returns to the lab where Astrid, Walter and the cow surprise him with birthday custard. Olivia loads her gun with a smile.

In the hospital basement, Charlie Francis wheels a laundry basket to the incinerator. He removes a bag of laundry and we see the body of...Agent Charlie Francis. The shape shifter dumps Charlie's body into the incinerator.

(Commercial glyphs spell TOWER)

Was Kirk Acevado partially right? Was he "fired?" His character certainly was. I think, however, his option on Fringe was not picked up but they felt the need to wrap up his character. And wrap it up they must. The Soldier now is without its shape shifting technology, which means it has to be Charlie for a while. It interrogated Olivia but didn't kill her. It also didn't discover anything as her memory was scrabbled via windshield and asphalt. He now has to be close enough to her to find the information he needs without causing her suspicion enough to withhold it. However, how long can this soldier remain Charlie? Does this transfer via the little box change just the physical appearance or does some of Charlie Francis go with it, enabling this soldier to act as Charlie? The length of this character's run is uncertain.

The tone of the show changed at the very end. Peter says they're going to stop just reacting but what that means exactly for their group will have to be seen in weekly installments. We will have to see if Olivia regains her memory of what she and William Bell discussed. We will have to see if the shape shifting Charlie continues to be the killing soldier or if he becomes something more intricate and sustainable.

And what of Agent Amy Jessup? She was brought in rather quickly as though Charlie's departure was a foregone conclusion. Given the Acevado news and her early debate with Peter, you could see the cast list shifting from space. But what will she bring if not another eye-rolling skeptical attitude, playing by the Federal book and only willing to get involved if it moves the plot along. Her itemizing the Fringe cases by scripture was unique to this show. The area of spirituality has yet to be explored by Fringe and my guess is Agent Jessup will become the Christian foil to the group's emerging war on other plains of existence. I'm also wondering where she got that paper with the access code needed to get into Fringe Division's files. Is she a mole? Is someone using her?

I'm disappointed we got roughly 20 seconds with William Bell and now he's a nearly forgotten memory. I'm also a bit disappointed that Nina Sharp and Agent Broyles had to kiss. It immediately reminded me of season two of Heroes and the Petrelli matriarch, and frankly the less I'm reminded of Heroes the better.

I'm looking forward to season two and this episode picked up right where we left off. I liked the nod to X-Files and I'm excited to see more.

Three and a half randomly chosen glyphs.

Word Usage - Corporate Speak

Corporate meeting speak is a bane on most wordies' existences. When middle to upper management convenes to go over plans for the year or catch up on everyone's progress, we understand that time is a factor. You may have only a short time in which to get important information across and dwelling on minutia eats up precious seconds and it bores the crap out of those not intimately involved. So you dumb it down and shorten it up, but the words are still smart sounding so as not to reveal the true nature of the actions. You don't want people to think you're ineffectual either, and being to curt can impact your ability to manage your people.

However, there are some words and phrases that are meaninglessly long or overblown and what they are replacing may not need replacing.

The following are examples of words or phrases that should be retired from our vocabulary and not because they are wrong, but because they border on double speak or redundancy.

Spend (or other verbs) as a noun, ie "...our third quarter spend." That "ing" was really tripping people up.

Take it off line. To a tech, that means shut something down. To a manufacturer, it means to remove a worker. To cube dwellers, it means to talk outside of the meeting. You can't say, "We'll talk later?"

Skill set. You're adding an 'e' and 't' to say the same thing. More words doesn't mean better meaning. "This doesn't fit my skills." That works for me.

Going forward - (quoting my friend Dstew) "Indicates I am an executive; I'm keeping this intentionally vague." This can be said for most things said during quarterly meetings.

Higher level - Another friend (Mer) suggested this one as a way of indicating that nothing will be accomplished at the meeting. "Those decisions will have to be made at a higher level."

30,000 ft. view - I don't know why this one bothers me. It's to indicate a broad, macro view of a project or business goal. Rather than get mired in minutia and micromanaging, a group will step back and assess things as a whole.

Big pole in the tent - Again, don't know why this gets to me; probably because it's over used. To indicate the biggest problem/project a group or company is currently addressing. It makes me feel like if it's not accomplished, the whole thing falls apart, which I guess is the point. I just hate the idea of getting paid by a circus.

If you have more, please add them to the comments.

Word Usage - Misuses

Listening to NPR this morning, an interviewee used the word decimate. It was used incorrectly. It wasn't the man's fault, we all use words incorrectly. Either through lack of knowledge, high levels of laziness or a zealous adherence to tradition, we all use words and phrases as they were not meant to be used.

We use words and phrases to describe things, as humans are want to do. Our language separates us from other animals. We represent objects and ideas as symbols written into a medium to be read later by other humans. Over time these symbols change, grow, evolve and in a few hundred, or even a few dozen years can mean something completely different or lose their meaning altogether.

Phrases are zeitgeist and will drop out of use once the need for them has passed, but some linger and become indelible points in the lexicon. We move passed the use of certain transportation, we no longer adhere to archaic laws, we've modernized many agricultural or pre-industrial methods. The phrases and words used to tell other humans about these things passes in time as well.

The problem is that some don't. Some linger but without the original context they tend to be used incorrectly. Take decimate. The word, as agreed to by a selection of usage experts, can mean to destroy but not completely. Its original meaning is to take one tenth; it's in the word itself. Decimatus or decimare in Latin; to kill (or have killed) one tenth. My Latin/Roman research is weak at best but I've heard tell it was a punishment from the ruler of the time to upstart villages that a Roman legion would go in and kill every tenth male. Hence the term.

Now we use the term to mean 'near total destruction.' It could be 'destroy 9/10ths of something' leaving only a small portion. It's generally accepted that a large number of people killed is okay for this usage, but livestock and crops it's not. The hilarity was the phrase "literally decimated."

But that's not the only word that's being misused in our 21st century vocabulary. Without going the obvious route of trying to wrap a single blog post around the use of 'irony,' I've asked some folks what their pet peeves are with English words and uses. Feel free to add yours to the comments.

Literally - Literally has become a punctuation. When you want to express how large an impact an event had or how truly awe inspiring someone's actions were, you include literally to indicate to the listener that was happened really happened. "He literally jumped out of his skin." No, he didn't. Literally has become what super and mega and ultra have been in past decades. It's not enough something has to be good, it has to be best, then super, then mega, etc. etc. Someone can't almost jump out of their skin, or virtually, or nearly, or seem like, they have to literally do it. Let's use literally with actually more often, please.

Fall Down - Redundant. The definition of "fall" is to descend or drop or be lowered or lose status. The converse being the phrase rise up as though you could rise any other direction.

Similarly, Flush Out. I've never seen anyone flush in anything. Also, it does not mean the same thing as flesh out. (I'm looking at you, corporate consultants.)

For all INTENTS and PURPOSES - It's not for all intensive purposes. Though you could technically use the later phrase for a product that you use in emergencies, for all your intensive purposes.

In lieu of - means "instead of." It doesn't mean "in view of" or "in light of." Incorrectly used: In lieu of recent events, the offices will be closed. Correctly used: Please contribute to the fund in lieu of flowers.

A whole nother - I'm extraordinarily guilty of this one. Derived from another whole or a whole other, this surprisingly dates back to the early 1900's, something I thought was rather odd. It always felt like a newish phrase.

There are other words that are just plain misspoken. You could spend days with people, listening to their idiosyncratic turns of phrase; an 'x' here, a dropped 'g' there. After a time, I begin to wonder if the language is evolving again to suit the needs of lazy tongues.

Supposively or supposibly or supposenly - For all concerned, say it with me suh-pose-ED-lee. This sort of relates to 'supposed to' not 'suppose to.' Yes that d-t combo is hard to get your mouth around, but let's give it a shot.

Sufficide to say - Sufficide, from Pfizer. Treats swollen tongue and hurty brain. It's suffice it to say.

Strenth - When sports broadcasters use this, it makes me throw up a little in my mouth. Then I realize they are broadcasters because they were likely athletes, not English majors. Gimme a G!

Then there are those that just plain don't make sense.

Head over heels. Understandably. We are normally walking around with our heads over our heels. Originally said as heels over head to indicate someone doing a cartwheel or somersault.

Next - Corporate lingo.

9

What stars Elijah Wood and contains a hero's journey fighting against all odds against a red-eyed monster and where his party numbers up to nine?

But wait, some of his party die. There's a couple of old stage and screen actors lending their talents. There's a fight on a bridge, there's winged beasts and a talisman that rules all nine souls.

If you guessed 9 then you're right. If you guess something else...well, you're right as well but let's stay current, shall we? The similarities between Lord of the Rings and 9 are mainly Elijah Wood's fault. His voice - at times pleading, at others resolved - is so ingrained into our film going subconscious that it's hard to picture him doing anything but his Frodo role. At times during 9 I was actually waiting for him to mutter something from The Fellowship. Wood is sadly one of those actors whose careers will be ever tied to the one ring. It will take an Herculean effort and so many films over such a length of time to remind us that he's able to do other things.

But first, he has to do other things. If he continues to be the wide-eyed manchild who sets upon a nigh impossible mission to save Middle Earth or Post Machine Earth or even Penguin Earth, he's going to always be remembered as Frodo, just with different outfits.

9, then, ends up being a very short, action packed reminder of what Wood did in Fellowship and the rest. 9 in and off itself is charming and fun and entertaining. It is not thought provoking or ground breaking. Its thickly veiled messages are a spoof meant to eliminate themselves from the story entirely. This leaves you with the feeling that you've possibly watched a 79 minute commercial for a unique line of toys.

The movie's attention to detail was stunning. All the doll characters sprang to life and each was gifted with their own stunning personalities that had only a little to do with the voice acting. The screenplay and direction was really incredible. The pace and tension the movie builds and releases was enough to keep me riveted and a little sad when it was over so soon. But in the end, its length and Wood's ubiquitous voice reminded me only too well that there wasn't much of a story to be told.

It's a definite theater viewing movie, just make sure you go some place that has good food or go to a matinee. Otherwise you might feel cheated. Also, the role of the scientist in charge of building the big thing the military wants to use as a weapon? The actor's name is Oppenheimer.

Avatars and Aliases

D&D Dwarf Figure
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

Lil Miss Austin asked me the other day why people on the computer call me "xadrian." I didn't have a good answer for her right away.

I spun in circles. At first I was taken aback that she would utter that name. She has an email address and I've sent her some links to Flickr sites with neat Lego builds, so she may have seen my name somehow that way. But that name to me is not something my family or my friends in Austin and surrounding areas use. If you asked my old friends from high school or college who I was, they wouldn't say xadrian.

It's a name I picked up, or made up, a long time ago. I was writing a fantasy story in which the villain's name was Xadrian. When I started becoming more and more involved in the Internet community back in 1996-97, I started out with names like Chimaera and Muad'dib but ended up using xadrian when I registered for an AIM handle. Since then I used it for all my forum names until most people online knew me only as xadrian (or Ex Adrian.)

One guy's kid even thought it was pronounced X Ray Dan, which became a back up handle used at DeviantArt (which doesn't matter because I don't use that site any more.) But it is pronounced with a Z, zay dree un. It's funny, people don't say Ex Avier.

So LMA posed this question to me and I didn't want to give her the whole back story, but I wanted to make sure she understood. I told her that she and her brother call me daddy. The people I live with and go to parties with and play basketball with call me Ben. The people with which my interaction is just on the computer call me xadrian. I said it's just a name, but that doesn't mean I'm a different person.

And as soon as I said that I knew it was wrong.

Daddy, Ben, xadrian are all different people. Daddy doesn't complain about work or ask if they talked about the UK taking over Turks & Caicos at kindergarten. Ben doesn't talk about the latest episode of Phineas and Ferb while out for happy hour. xadrian doesn't talk about his rent or car troubles. They are different people. They are based on different interactions. They are forged in different environments and respond differently to stimuli.

They're all based on the same person, but that person has interchangeable masks to meet different situations. Normally you just go through life like this; everyone has a drawer full of masks. I've just named mine.

I don't think she wants her own mask for the Internet yet. She wants a bank account instead.

Carry on.

TV Without TV

The BGF has been throwing around the idea of nixing the cable for some time. It's costly, no one watches it that much, and what we do want to watch we can get online. It'd better if we didn't have it.

Would it?

If I were to break down our TV viewing patterns, it wouldn't be consistent. It's not about summer viewership being low either. There are plenty of year round shows or seasonal shows or documentaries that don't live or die by sweeps week ratings. But let's take a look by person. I won't include time slots because most of the time we DVR everything. It's rare I habitually watch a show as it airs unless I'm just too excited to watch it, or it's a news/commentary program.

Mr. Austin - In no particular order, these are the shows I watch or will be watching in the next year. The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Rachel Maddow, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Lost, Doctor Who, Fringe, Dollhouse, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, hockey games with the Avalanche, football games with UT, Air Force or the Denver Broncos, Futurama, V, The 2010 Winter Olympics, the 2010 Tour de France, the 2010 World Cup in S. Africa, possibly Day One and Flash Forward. This doesn't include random "hey what's on" episodes of The Cosby Show, M*A*S*H, Discovery Channel/History Channel/Science Channel shows or movies.

Ms. A and Miss LA - In no particular order and since they watch TV together, it makes it easy to group them together. I have no idea what they plan on watching or even if they care about what shows are coming out soon. I also may have these wrong. The Closer, The Office, 30 Rock, Entourage, Hung, In Treatment, Big Love, Raising the Bar, and Grey's Anatomy. They also watch Fraiser, Golden Girls and Will & Grace. They don't watch as much news as I do, and unless LSU is playing UT, they don't want sports either. If there's a documentary about marching band, Ms. A is all over it.

The kids. The kids watch what they want, but early in the summer, Ms. A put parental controls on the upstairs TV so on G and Y shows were allowed. Even Spongebob was off the list at Y7. This left most of LMA's tween shows out of the mix. However, they can be found watching: Phineas and Ferb, Handy Manny, Imagination Movers, Electric Company, The Mighty B, Spongebob, Wizards of Waverly Place, Ni-Hao Kai Lan, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. They like watching science shows with me; Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs are among their favorites.

So that's a few shows. Roughly 30 regular broadcasts plus more event type things that only last a few weeks. The networks are all different as well. The ladies watch TNT and HBO almost exclusively. I watch Sci-Fi (screw you I'm not calling it SyFy), Comedy Central, MSNBC and the docu-science channels. The kids watch Noggin, PBS, Nick and Nick Jr.

But here's the question. Can you get any or all these shows without cable? How much can you get with just over the air broadcasts or watching online?

Most broadcast channels offer the option to view the latest episode of most of their shows the next day. Comedy Central and MSNBC will do the same. Sci-Fi Rewind offers some of their line up, mostly about a week after and after that it's only a handful of the latest episodes. It's good if you missed it the first time around, and that's what most stations are going for. If you don't have a DVR but have access to the internet, you can catch up on a show you missed recently. No one has backlogs of MacGyver or Falcon Crest, but new and popular network shows you should be able to see.

But can you ditch cable and still watch the latest and greatest shows?

Yes and no. It's obvious you can, by the next day, watch anything from the big four. You can watch recaps or full episodes from CW, Comedy Central, and a few shows from SyFy. Even if you wanted to watch Project: Runway on Lifetime, you can catch the first episode online. Most big time sporting events have a live feed and even offer more options if they're covered by a worldwide market. Versus offered a live streaming video of the Tour de France, but you could get that from French sites as well. The World Cup will likely have multiple outlets covering it. NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB are all available in some capacity online and live. (Not sure about Nascar.) Kids channels constantly play episodes of their cartoons online. Discovery and History and Science Channel have enough content that'll keep you busy and raise your IQ without worrying about it being a new episode or a rerun. You can even watch Cosmos online.

Add YouTube and Google Video and Hulu to the mix and you'll start making a case for never having to order cable again. But, if you like having everything show up on your TV, you'll have to find a way to connect your laptop or PC/Mac to your television and that you have decent internet connection that'll allow the kind of streaming you'd want.

Also, no HD. As much as the BGF hates when I grumble about dpi quality and aspect ratio, I love HD for Discovery Channel and sports. They want TNT HD for The Closer and NBC HD for the Office so I know it's being used.

But, if you just wanted to watch the show, yes. I believe you could get away with watching many of the shows you watch now without having cable.

Don't tell Ms. A I said that, she'll cancel it today.

End of Summer

In Awe
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

Thus ends the summer.

The last couple weekends have just been packed. Between shopping and derby practice and house reorganization, the BGF at Four Pines was just crazy. The adults had parties and work and practices and meet ups with friends. The kids go to see the circus and finally got their own rooms.

School starts this week.

And it starts for Ms. A too. She starts at Austin Community College today. I don't know what her classes are, but I know she's going in for a social and psychology area of study. After graduation she wants to get a teaching degree as well and go into social services.

Lil G-man starts kindergarten tomorrow as well! I got a call last week from a phone number I know I recognized but didn't know why. It was their school and my first thought when his teacher introduced herself was that one of the kids was in trouble. Then I realized they weren't in school yet.

So we get to take supplies to their room today and meet the teachers. There was an orientation last week but we missed it, scheduling issues. But that's the beauty of having a 3rd grader already in the school: We already know what to expect.

G-man is going to have either the time of his life or the worst few days ever. He's completely wrapped up in his home and his sister and his mom. Aside from the few weeks in day care and the summer he spent at the Montessori school (which seemed a lifetime ago) this will be a long time away for him. My hope is he makes a lot of new friends and is so distracted by the experience he won't have time to miss anyone.

Everyone always says, "Well, plus his sister will be there." Yes, she'll be in the building, but it's not like they go to a small school where all the kids are in the same room. She'll be in a different area of the school, have lunch and recess at a different time and likely won't see him till after school. We'll be taking him to his class by way of her class so he feels better knowing where she is, but that's probably as far as that interaction will go. I don't remember seeing my brother at school outside of the walks we took to and from each day and even then, as we got older, we went with our friends.

But G-man is a bit of a loonatic. He's hyper and moody and likes to talk in sound effects. In other words, he's a five year old boy. As much as Ms. A tried, he hasn't pick up much reading yet. He knows what the letters are and what sounds they make, but he's just now getting to the point where he knows that words are made up of letters and being able to tie them together. I hope he doesn't get frustrated in school.

I hope they don't try to make him take a nap.

Carry on.

Review: District 9 (spoilers)

The only name you'll recognize in the credits for this movie going in is that of Peter Jackson.

The name you will remember for a while long after seeing District 9 is Sharlto Copley.

The ads for District 9 oddly give away little about the major plot of the movie and that in itself was masterful. The commercials give the impression there are aliens living on Earth against their will and an all out war is taking place. We're trying to keep them here but for what reason? An interrogated alien in a dark room says in its rumble and click language that they just want to go home.

That's really all the ad says that's true. That dark questioning room isn't even in the movie.

The story starts with news recaps of the aliens and their arrival above Johannesburg, South Africa. Notably, the commentators find it odd that this hovering, city sized craft did not arrive over New York or Chicago or Tokyo or London or any other typical point of fictional alien contact. But as we later find out, there's a parallel reason to having them being plotted to arrive over a country known for apartheid.

We quickly catch up and find that the aliens are stranded, their giant mother ship inoperable (but apparently operable enough to remain about 1500ft above the city) and they have some technology we can use but not a lot of intelligence. They are called "prawns" in a derogatory manor; they resemble crustaceans and they feed and live off of human trash. They eat cat food. They are put in a shack community called District 9, but the conditions there are horrible and the neighboring denizens want them gone. MultiNational United (MNU) a fictional South African based conglomerate, organizes a move for the million and some prawns to a new tent settlement called District 10, 200 miles outside of Johannesburg. They've lived in District 9 for 20 years. Some MNU people such as Van De Merwe can understand them and they can understand us.

That's where the story picks up. We meet Wikus Van De Merwe (Copley), a middle management nerd who has been promoted to head up the great eviction of District 9. We see footage of friends, family and coworkers talking about him but you get the sense they are talking about him as if he were dead. You begin to think something horrible is about to happen, and that tension lingers throughout the movie.

The film is shot in a mix of traditional action camera work, CCTV angles, documentary footage and news clips. It chronicles Van De Merwe as he and an MNU force storm through D9 in order to serve each prawn (who likely can't read) an eviction notice. Along the way they find illegal weapons and activities and Van De Merwe's actions become callous and almost excitedly unfeeling. In a scene were he clinically but enthusiastically aborts a whole nest of fetal prawns, we begin to get the stomach churning idea of how humans really feel about these creatures. We want their weapons but can't use them. We want them gone but are unwilling to help. Our best effort seems to be segregating and forgetting about them instead of communicating with them to reach some kind of peaceable coexistence or help them go back home.

There is more to the story, but I'll let you see it for yourself. It's a lot I did not expect and will let it unfold for you as it did me, hopefully pleased by the experience. This was a hard movie to watch in that there were social implications and scenes of violence and brutality that were very visceral but undeniably human. The morality play was obvious and writer/director Neill Blomkamp pulls no punches but does not try to preach about the way human beings deal with what we fear and what we see as different. It would seem no matter what race, religion or even what planet you're from, human beings will want to segregate you and only an insane amount of conflict will change our minds. It wasn't told from a holier than thou standpoint, as though Blomkamp thought his tale was better than its viewers, but rather it was used as a backdrop to tell the story of one man coming to grips with his humanity.

Copley's performance is stunning. He came out of nowhere, apparently getting this role because he was a friend of the screenwriter. But I bet you he'll be an international star very soon. His transformation is really quite impressive and the absolute pivot for the entire film.

Don't go in expecting anything. The closest thing I can relate this to is Enemy Mine but you'll just have to see it.

My criticisms are of the nerd variety. We don't know what the aliens are really called. We don't know where they are from. The movie ends much like a typical Earth regional conflict in that it doesn't end. It was a single event in a larger conflict. We don't know why the aliens are here and we don't know if they'll ever leave.

This was one of the better movies I've seen in long time. It's a definite diamond.

Happy Birthday Cheryl

Roller Girl
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

Ms. Austin turns 'leventy thfour today.

She's battered, bruised, loved, and lingered. She's played flute, done pushups on asphalt in the summer and paid someone to put ink on her back. She's owned a business, raised two kids, put up with a geek husband and found herself and a new love.

She's gonna be a roller girl. She's jumped out of an airplane. She has AP credentials. She took family wedding photos with Karl Rove. She's going back to school.

She has a head like a rotten peach and if you bump it, she sees fireworks and speaks Farsi. She both drinks too much and not enough. She quit smoking.

She's a fearless flirt, a compassionate caretaker and a stubborn sexpot. What she doesn't know, she'll learn. What she can't learn she fakes. What she can't fake, she delegates. She's quick witted, sly, clever and loves laughing really loudly.

She's loyal, supportive and giving, provided you don't give her reason not to be. She keeps her friends close and her enemies closer. She keeps her skeletons away from the closets. She's a party animal in PJs. She likes home cooked meals at outdoor festivals. She likes beer with lime. She doesn't like bagels.

She's pretty cool.

Please wish her a happy birthday.

Wishes

Kind of a filler post, but this is something I always think about. Plus, Twitter is down so I have to do something.

Have you ever thought about what you'd do with Three Wishes? Let's say there really is a lamp with a genie, or let's say the most powerful organization in the world offers you hush wishes for your knowledge of how Zelda is a mind control test gone wrong. Regardless, you have three chances to ask for something; something wonderful and extravagant and fulfilling.

What do you wish for?

Ever since the movie Bedazzled came out, my thoughts on this subject have changed. More often then not, the story of the genie is always one of knowing what you have now and appreciating it or realizing that acquiring things can only lead to suffering and heartache. The genie or devil or wildly wealthy benefactor always seems to twist your words and you end up with literally what you asked for, but not in the way you'd imagined it. You want a million dollars, so you get a winning lottery ticket. The problem is, it's all taxed and you end up with 500,000 dollars, plus undue family and friend attention, and all that goes with the windfall award. You wish to be famous and suddenly you've been turned into a serial killer who's murdered 20 nuns on a 14 state spree. You wish to be in movies and you are now an unpaid intern for an independent film company.

Knowing things can be interpreted differently the broader the scope, I started thinking of ways to get these elaborate things without confusion and I ended up running mental circles and keeping track of long statements laying out exactly it was that I wanted. I didn't want there to be any misunderstanding, any room for interpretation. The wish was to be as concise and as simple as possible.

This meant wishing for simple things.

There's just too many ways you can become rich. You could be a drug lord, or running a human traffic ring or just a regular gang member. They are technically well off because they avoid paying taxes and don't generally deal with a payroll department. The point being you could be any number of salacious individuals whose power and status have made them well off. But would you want to live like that? Would a wish like this need to be more well defined or simpler?

Think about what you'd really like. Do you want to be rich or do you want to be well off? Do you want to be fabulously wealthy or comfortable? Are you willing to trade your life for another just to be able to accommodate the trappings of a large bank account?

To me the answer is sadly pedestrian. I know that money doesn't solve everything and it doesn't bring happiness. But I'm practical enough to know that when people in my house get paid, everyone relaxes for a day. The stack of bills doesn't seem as big because some get taken care of. Our gas tanks are filled, our fridge is stocked and we even some times have enough to take a night out to forget that we have to work for the next 60 years. Or we buy our selves something we've needed put have constantly put off, like an oil change or a pair of shoes or a toy for the kids.

I like my job. It affords me time off when needed, the people are nice, the company is respectable and for the most part is less susceptible to market conditions. It's not drawing or writing for a living, but it's good work. What I'd wish for is a 10% raise on my salary without changing jobs. I'm not going to live outside my means, but knowing you can leave below your means makes it even sweeter when suddenly you don't have to. All I want is to be able to take my lady out on dates, take my kids to movies, make sure people have birthday parties with presents, gas in my well tended to car, chewing gum in my dashboard when I need it and the ability to buy a breakfast sandwich once in a while. I'd like to take my family out to eat once a week. I'd like to take a weekend road trip and not worry if I can swing a hotel room.

There's a song by Ingrid Michaelson that has a line which says, "Let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France - Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance." It's a wonderful notion and yes it's a song that requires fanciful and lyric twining of words, but the idea of being comfortable and friendly and giving with your wealth is especially endearing to me. But it again shows how careful you'd have to be wishing to be rich.

But wait, I have three wishes.

I think the easiest thing to do is to wish for something that would make you happy for a little while, but is not able to be twisted. Being rich and powerful and famous leaves the door wide open. Being happy or not worrying in general can be something twisted into a blissed-out drug induced existence. Even something like world peace can be taken wrong. An Earth without humans is a world at peace, right?

The Bhagavad Gita (among others) teaches us that material possession is unseemly and should be avoided in favor of spiritual awareness, but does allow for gradations or levels of enlightenment. Buddhism talks of moderation in all things, we can only assume that means materialism. Some schools of philosophy teach us that things don't make the self, the world does not make the self, sometimes the self doesn't even make the self. But there is, in all these cases, something to be said for creature comforts.

That said, I love Lego. I love Star Wars Lego and I'd love to wish for every set Lego put out, but that would mean I'd have no room in my house to put them up. I'd also have to be careful how to wish for it. I don't want EVERY SINGLE Star Wars Lego set because I'd be receiving every single one, removing them from other people AND ensuring I'd need a warehouse to hold them all. I'd have to say something specific, "I wish for one of each set of Star Wars LEGO." Actually, I'd probably wish for two of each so I could trade with other people for different types of sets and parts. Then for storage or display I'd figure it out on my own. I'm sure eventually I'll have enough room to have a Lego room where I can build and store, but for now having the sets would be great.

It's an exercise, a game. I'm not as greedy and materialistic as all this may seem. It's fun to think about, but you know practically that you make your own way in life and what you do along the way and how many people you can impact positively is more important that how much you have when you die. We all want what's best for our family and friends and given the opportunity, I know most of us would wish for their health and happiness.

Wait, three wishes?

Finally I'd wish for a Snickers ice cream bar because those things are delicious.

Carry on.

Experiments

Experiments
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

I was told by my contacts numbering in the low single digits that I have not LIVED until I've had a Shandy or another concoction of sparkling citrus or fruit juice combined with beer.

To me the two are stand alone refreshments and frankly I'd pick a fruit juice over a beer any day. I love orange juice like most people love chocolate. It makes my knees weak and every time I drink it I finish with one of those post coital sighs.

So the thought of mixing my nectar of the gods with the hoppy nectar of man was not pleasant at all. I'd instantly imagined a worst-case-scenario in which the taste would be something akin to three day old warm OJ + a beer you left out from a party last weekend. The mental image alone triggered my gag reflex.

But, being the open minded idiot that I am, and realizing I'd been putting lime juice in beers for a while, I thought I'd give it a go.

My first experiment was straight OJ + Modello. It was just half and half over about 4 cubes of ice. It wasn't bad. I can see the draw as it was refreshing at least. I've tasted worse and were I to mix in a shot of amaretto, it might work out. There was just nothing special about it and I found myself wishing I had just drank the beer or the OJ instead.

Next came what you see in this photo. Bass plus Jarritos Mango Soda and Stone IPA Ruination plus Jones Berry Lemonade.

The Bass and Jarritos was nice and I found the more soda you put in the better. It started to taste like a hard cider (of which I am a huge fan) and less like a soda beer hybrid. I didn't have enough left to try the other way of more beer and less soda, but I can safely say that a third of Bass and two thirds of Jarritos Mango was actually tasty.

This does not hold for the other combination. I would go as far as to say the other mix was the foulest mix of liquids never before seen on this Earth. Given this back snapping gag of a drink, it was decided to try them individually; maybe the choices of mix were poor. Turns out the Jones soda was fine. It was a Jones soda that tasted a little like a citrus cotton candy - possibly a little too sweet.

However, the IPA was the most horrendous thing I've voluntarily drank. It was liquid mothballs. Put some insulation, butane and a Coors in a blender and then drink it. The label actually says it's there to ruin your palette and they are not lying. Avoid this beer at all costs.

That's STONE RUINATION IPA (Indian Pale Ale.) I don't care what your hipster friends say, it's fucking disgusting.

Which meant the experiment was 1 for 2. The Jones with the Bass wasn't too bad, but that Jones soda was a little sugary and not enough fruit taste. I hope to do some more of these, but as with this test, I always follow up with a known good quantity of Hardcore or Woodchuck.

Cheers!

Summer Round Up

Ben & Grace
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

Holy crap it's been three weeks. You'd think something big would have happened.

Well, yes a few things have. For one, the cat's out of the bag about who I've been seeing since Christmas. Miss LA's sister Grace. Facts are, she's much younger than me, it's Ms. A's girlfriend's sister, yes it's weird. It's been weird for a while, but I think without weird, this house would fall apart.

Grace is a Geek, like me. We enjoy all the same things, have a lot of the same beliefs, taste in music and love of science, literature and the online life. A good date night for us is Italian take out, watching Empire Strikes Back and sorting Lego. She knows more about video games and Harry Potter than I do and is probably the only one who could beat me at Star Wars trivia. I care for her a great deal and I'm really glad we found each other. I'm happy.

There was a time when we fretted over who knew about it, but her parents and mine have been told so now we don't have any reason to be secretive other than what would be considered respectful to friends and family. Hence, I probably won't talk about us a lot. Unless of course something bad happens and then I'm milking the angst.

So that's what's been keeping me occupied for the last half year. Along with the regular BGF goodness, it's always an adventure 'round these parts.

Ms. A is doing well with roller derby. She's getting beat to shit with every practice, but her chances of making a team in October are better than average based not just on logistics and available skaters, but also her skating ability and can-do attitude. She may only last one season before suffering a gruesome injury, but she'll be making her little girl want to be like her mommy and that's important.

Both kids start school in about a month. They have as many small adventures each day as Ms. A can find. Sometimes I'll go with them, some times Miss LA will go, but it's always something. Even if it's an unusual craft or baking opportunity at home, she's making their summer memorable. We've been trying to limit their TV and video game time and have completely - and sadly for me - weened G-man off Lego Star Wars (which was his life's blood for a long time.) LMA has her own email now which she uses to ask friends to go to the pool or talk to her old teacher about what she's doing over the break.

Next she'll be writing a thesis paper and I'll wonder why my knees hurt so bad.

Speaking of hurts, I'm all good now. Recently I had that chest pain thing that turned out to be a chest wall injury. It sounds like a hypochondriac diagnosis, but I was told my paternal grandmother had this happen at one point and she also thought it was a heart attack. Weird.

I've watched a little TV, but no reviews for the summer shows. I'll be back to covering regular seasons of Fringe and Dollhouse when they pick back up. If you haven't watched Torchwood and you missed the mini-series, you missed a really well done show. I'll be on Television Zombies, I believe episode 93, which should be next week so stay tuned.

Robot Portrait requests have died off. The 100 Artists Project is dead. I don't even know what to do with the sketchbook that's out there. I'm sure it could be worth something to someone, but I'm tired of pushing that dead horse around. I'm still drawing when I can, writing even less, as evidenced by the gap on this site.

And as for this blog, it really doesn't have a focus, and I apologize; to myself and anyone reading it. It's more a journal, a diary. I never wanted it to be something I'd update every 3 hours with news or political updates or anything. It was supposed to be when I felt like it, or when something happened in my life. I'm just not sure I'm writing for the right reasons. It was for the family, but I always thought it could be more and when that fails to pan out time and again, I get maudlin over the purpose and reason.

Speaking of writing, I've got a little time killer with Grace on Twitter. We made fake IDs for John Adams and his wife Abigail. If you don't know, the two are relatively famous for the letters they exchanged. Considering the number of text messages we've sent to each other, it seemed like it might be fun to read how they did roughly the same thing in late 1700s. So, if you're on Twitter, come find john_adams_jr and Abigail_S_Adams. Their letters are sweet and endearing, and frankly written a little oddly.

And as usual, spread the word about Robot Portraits, the watercolors are working out great. Better get one while I still remotely enjoy doing them.

That's all for now. Carry on.

Pain

Good Stuff
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

Ms. A is a roller derby girl.

Apparently this has been a dream of hers for a while. Whether I knew it or not, it's something she's always wanted to do. Kind of like me wanting to do cartoon voice overs or flying a fighter jet; if you get the chance, you take it.

So she took it and is now going to practices and schleping equipment for bouts. Her first practice went well and they invited her back. She goes through more practices, then some evaluations and by some time in October, the league will determine if she's up for selection and then teams will pick.

It's very exciting.

The other day I went skating with her. We've been a few times since a friend of Lil Miss Austin had a birthday party at a local rink and we were reminded how much fun it is. I'm not a great skater. I used to be, but now I wobble a lot. I rarely fall, have to figure out cross over stepping and how to stop without running into the railing. But I'm not horrible.

But everyone falls.

Tuesday I was cruising along and something stopped me, or more precisely stopped my wheel. I was thusly catapulted into the air and landed jarringly on my left hand and wrist, jamming my elbow into my ribs. At first it was just my wrist that hurt; a mild sprain, no bruising. I spent the evening icing it and wore a bandage the next day. The pain began to lessen and by Thursday I was able to play a little basketball.

Last night I was laying down and I stretched with my arms above my head and something pinched and twinged from just above my left nipple all the way down to below the side of my ribs. I thought I was having a heart attack. The paint wasn't enormous, but once it happened, it didn't go away like a cramp. And any pain you get in the left side of your chest is worrisome. After a bit of deliberation about going to the hospital, I went to the after hours clinic where the doctor assured me it was a chest wall injury, probably from my fall. Here's some pain medicine, relax and don't lift stuff.

I called Ms. A to give her the news that it wasn't cardio related and she teasingly hazed me about having owies. Apparently, I have a habit of blowing small pains out of proportion. Though a sharp unrelenting pain in your chest I hardly think is crying wolf.

But it got me thinking about pain. I usually keep my mouth shut about the small pains I get. My ears ache a lot and I get the odd sharp, knee-wobbling pain in my head. I don't say anything usually because I don't feel my pain is worth it. It's an odd description, but one a friend echoed when talking about similar pains. You don't think it's worth taking medicine, going to the doctor, even telling your friends and family about. You don't want to be a bother.

Which makes comparing pain quite difficult. Ms. A's going to be a roller girl and she's given birth twice. Unless I impale myself on my own compound fracture, she's going to give me grief over my little owies. It's out of love and fun that she does so, she's not being mean, but how do you compare pain? Some pains are different, some are events you can cope with, others are just merciless. But what makes my pain less or more than yours or his or hers?

We're built differently. Even if you've had a painful experience, it doesn't make each new one something you can relate to. I've had someone kick me in the face, breaking my jaw. That, to my memory, wasn't really painful, any more than running into someone while playing a sport. However I've also had hangnails that make me want to cry like a girl. How to explain that?

While I work on that and try to find books on neuropsychology and pain, I'll go back to taking my drugs for my non-heart-attack chest pain and wait for the next almost-broken-finger and nearly-stroke-like-pain-in-my-head.

Carry on.

Back To School

Comix
Originally uploaded by Cheryl Rollman.

Previously on Life In Austin:

Ms. A registered for and received federal aid to go to school. She's going for a sociology/psychology and teaching degree and become a social worker.

Last week she helped me register as well and as of this fall I will be a registered student at Austin Community College.

ACC is one of those schools that offer either a short associate degree program or a path that leads you to a transfer to a larger university where you can study for a bachelors degree. I picked Art because that's the university path. The other choice in town was Austin Institute of Art, but I've put off going to meet them because a) I don't think a degree from there would be any better than from another university, 2) because I don't think I'll be able to get as much financial aid and finally) because I don't think my college credits from 91-96 would transfer.

So Ms. A has been helping me run through the online applications for both the school and financial aid. I have to turn in some paperwork today, but I should be ok to start at least with some core classes this fall. I don't have many classes left to take I don't believe, but I won't be able to load up; one MAYBE two a semester.

I was in the advising office on Monday finding out how much of my credit would transfer (I have 94 credit hours from a state college in Denver) and what I'd need to take next. The guy was really nice and asked what type of student I was; a transfer or if I was coming out of high school. I laughed, almost loudly. Told him he was really kind to say that. It felt like getting carded for cigarettes.

I don't know what I'd do with a degree in art. I don't know yet where I'll go after ACC. AIA had the type of courses I'm interested in, but that's not a guarantee I'd be working in that field. I'd rather be more broadly studied and find a field I'd fit into than be pigeonholed into a specific career based on a limited education. Miss Louisiana has a degree in photography from SCAD but she's so educated, she's smarter than her chosen field will allow. Thus she's not working in photography. And I'm worried about that.

But, I have to get through English 1301 first. By the way, according to my transcript, I got a D in Basic Drawing 1. Isn't that awesome?

Carry on.