Showing posts with label Bonus Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bonus Post. Show all posts
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Here's something that's not a song.
I watched this on DVD (remember those?) earlier this week and it somehow became one of the best movies I have ever seen. It seems like it should be the most pretentious thing ever and yet you can't look away from the screen. Give it a shot, and if you get bored try skipping to the second half, which somehow makes the real world look more fantastical than any CGI (especially, it out-TRONs TRON. TRON is a verb, right?).
Friday, May 14, 2010
Two videos in one day...
...how do I do it. I'm a machine. Honestly, someone should give me an award. (Those sentences work best if you read them aloud in a low, nasal monotone. I'm not sure how to type that out).
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Things that are green (A Playlist)
Green screen:
Green Day:
Green Onions:
Green River (do what I did and play both at the same time):
Also a Green River:
Greenland (green in name only):
Green, Bein':
Green Hill Zone:
Green, Village:
Owls (not green, just funny):
UPDATE: Retroactively it's a pun on "Al Green" (say it out loud).
GREEN MAN!:
Green Day:
Green Onions:
Green River (do what I did and play both at the same time):
Also a Green River:
Greenland (green in name only):
Green, Bein':Green Hill Zone:
Green, Village:
Owls (not green, just funny):
UPDATE: Retroactively it's a pun on "Al Green" (say it out loud).
GREEN MAN!:
Monday, March 8, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Also: A cup of coffee has 5 times as much as a Mountain Dew, and three times as much as Red Bull
What happens when you give spiders caffeine:
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
I'm back, bitches (again)
All right, now my other summer class (which didn't decide it would be a pain in the ass until I started trying to do stuff).
In the meantime, here's another thing, which I did whilst procrastinating:
I like this because who knew I could draw? I didn't. Maybe I can only draw when I'm supposed to be doing something else. See you tomorrow.
In the meantime, here's another thing, which I did whilst procrastinating:
I like this because who knew I could draw? I didn't. Maybe I can only draw when I'm supposed to be doing something else. See you tomorrow.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Double Song this Week...
[Song of the Week is a "weekly" feature which is supposed to update every Thursday Friday, but almost never does. In it, Drew records a song, or attempts to record a song, or gives up and writes another movie review.]
...But don't get your hopes up. No, just kidding, go ahead. Wait, don't. I don't know.
"One":
"One" gets it's name because it is played entirely with the right hand. This is a revolution. finally are we free from the tyranny of two-handed guitar-playing! Just think of all the things you can do with your left hand now! Now stop thinking such things, pervert. There's still a whole post to read.
Actually, I wrote a whole song this way. Ironically, it was my singing that was was the problem, and the whole thing was scrapped. Probably. Maybe. If that song ever happens, I never said any of this. Also if you want to hear part of it, it's buried far back in the mix here (named as track 6, 7, 8).
Also, the other thing here is, of course, the fuzz. There is no way to avoid the fuzz. I tried recording in a different place, I tried mixing it out, but the problem remains: my guitar isn't loud enough on its own and to record it at all I have to overcrank the mikes. Microphones and I have a long history of animosity.
"Testify (Acoustic)":
As promised. I actually had something much more ambitious planned, but if I had started it this morning, I'd probably still be working on it. Which wouldn't work, since I was asleep this morning. Plus I heard the original on the radio yesterday and it sort of reëntered* my brainstream.
This song is worth hearing for the first thirty seconds alone, but I'm worried maybe it goes on too long. There's a lot of noodling, which I would have cut, but on the other hand, I like to have things kind of loose and extemporized. I'm a big fan & supporter of improvisation, but I don't know, maybe I went too far here.
On to lighter things. I've been thinking about the subtext of this cover and it's twin (linked to above). When I first did "Sleep Now In the Fire", I wrote it off as a joke, a parody of the slow, "serious" acoustic covers we've all heard before. But while I was doing it, and after I finished, I got sort of soured on Rage Against the Machine for a while. It was almost like, without really meaning to**, I had sent out my attacked in both directions. For a while, I couldn't help but think of the whole thing as a bunch of posturing-- a lot of words but no meaning.
Eventually I stopped caring. Bad lyrics never killed any bands before, and "Testify" is a great song even if its actual politics are murky at best. Tom Morello*** is still pretty good at that whole guitar thing, and those guys no one can name in the rhythm section do what they do pretty good. And even if he can't write lyrics (and his side project sucked, you know it and I know it), Zach Hardtospelllastname can shout (it's not really rapping-- you know it and I know it) with the best of them. So no hard feelings.
So with all that on my mind****, I can't decide if this cover is more serious or less serious than that one. I wasn't thinking as hard about that one as this one, but I was trying not to overthink it as I did it, and just concentrate on the music and the emotion and all that other gay shit.
*Alt+137
**Maybe a little, but not all the way.
***And on a completely unrelated note, did anyone else know that Tom Morello is black? I just found that out a couple weeks ago.
****Kids, feel free to use that transition in your little homework papers about George Washington and mathematics and To Kill A Mockingbird.
[Man is this post long.]
DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: "One" is remixed for hopefully better quality. "Testify" is unchanged.
...But don't get your hopes up. No, just kidding, go ahead. Wait, don't. I don't know.
"One":
"One" gets it's name because it is played entirely with the right hand. This is a revolution. finally are we free from the tyranny of two-handed guitar-playing! Just think of all the things you can do with your left hand now! Now stop thinking such things, pervert. There's still a whole post to read.
Actually, I wrote a whole song this way. Ironically, it was my singing that was was the problem, and the whole thing was scrapped. Probably. Maybe. If that song ever happens, I never said any of this. Also if you want to hear part of it, it's buried far back in the mix here (named as track 6, 7, 8).
Also, the other thing here is, of course, the fuzz. There is no way to avoid the fuzz. I tried recording in a different place, I tried mixing it out, but the problem remains: my guitar isn't loud enough on its own and to record it at all I have to overcrank the mikes. Microphones and I have a long history of animosity.
"Testify (Acoustic)":
As promised. I actually had something much more ambitious planned, but if I had started it this morning, I'd probably still be working on it. Which wouldn't work, since I was asleep this morning. Plus I heard the original on the radio yesterday and it sort of reëntered* my brainstream.
This song is worth hearing for the first thirty seconds alone, but I'm worried maybe it goes on too long. There's a lot of noodling, which I would have cut, but on the other hand, I like to have things kind of loose and extemporized. I'm a big fan & supporter of improvisation, but I don't know, maybe I went too far here.
On to lighter things. I've been thinking about the subtext of this cover and it's twin (linked to above). When I first did "Sleep Now In the Fire", I wrote it off as a joke, a parody of the slow, "serious" acoustic covers we've all heard before. But while I was doing it, and after I finished, I got sort of soured on Rage Against the Machine for a while. It was almost like, without really meaning to**, I had sent out my attacked in both directions. For a while, I couldn't help but think of the whole thing as a bunch of posturing-- a lot of words but no meaning.
Eventually I stopped caring. Bad lyrics never killed any bands before, and "Testify" is a great song even if its actual politics are murky at best. Tom Morello*** is still pretty good at that whole guitar thing, and those guys no one can name in the rhythm section do what they do pretty good. And even if he can't write lyrics (and his side project sucked, you know it and I know it), Zach Hardtospelllastname can shout (it's not really rapping-- you know it and I know it) with the best of them. So no hard feelings.
So with all that on my mind****, I can't decide if this cover is more serious or less serious than that one. I wasn't thinking as hard about that one as this one, but I was trying not to overthink it as I did it, and just concentrate on the music and the emotion and all that other gay shit.
*Alt+137
**Maybe a little, but not all the way.
***And on a completely unrelated note, did anyone else know that Tom Morello is black? I just found that out a couple weeks ago.
****Kids, feel free to use that transition in your little homework papers about George Washington and mathematics and To Kill A Mockingbird.
[Man is this post long.]
DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: "One" is remixed for hopefully better quality. "Testify" is unchanged.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Two-Part Hundredth Postacular, Part Two (of Four)
See, I had all these Grand Plans, and now I just want all this anniversary crap to be over so I can get back to talking about Pokémon.
Actually, you know what, all the serious reflection I was going to do here? I'm making that the 150th post. Problem solved.
I still have some other retrospective stuff I was gonna do though. Here's the post that was going to be part three of four, promoted to part two of three. Nobody remembers part three anyway. Think about the third verse of "Amazing Grace", or "White Christmas", or any other song with at least three verses. You can't, because no one ever remembers the third part. Anyway, here's the thing.
When I came up with the basic design of this blag, there were two concepts I wanted to focus on, both of which play off the reason I picked the name: I see the Internet as a big, unending, mostly empty place. So I what wanted to do was create the illusion that you were kind of trapped or lost in an endless space. So there are a lot of ways to do that, but I decided to focus on two elements of that, 3-D and sort of "larger-than-life" (in quotes because they're not really that big). Since most fonts are viewed straight-on--note to self, design font that's viewed in profile-- the best way to show 3-D is with blur. I tried a lot of fonts and the one I decided on, oddly enough, is called Erthqake (not to be confused with the similarly-named Earthquake). Normally, it looks like this. I know. Sometimes it's the last thing you'd suspect.
To reinforce the "fog" idea, I always use grayscale colors with this one. Regular colors "pop" too much and kind of destroy the illusion of blurriness. For the same reason, this (and-
To make the letters look bigger without actually making them bigger, I made them taller, and farther apart. My goal was to make them kind of monolithic, as if they're looking down on you, but without overdoing it and looking silly.
Like a lot of the alternate logos, this one has only been used once, for a few weeks around Halloween, mainly because it doesn't make sense otherwise. This was the first alternate, so I was a bit conservative about it, sticking to grayscale (albeit reversed), blur, no edges and the same font. And honestly, it's probably my favorite out of all of them. I just like the skulls (if you do too, you can get a them here).
First of all, I really do love 'mrka, in a not-ironic way. Seriously, have you been to other countries? Most of them suck, especially the food. Plus everything there is really old for some reason, it's like, build some new stuff other countries! Anyway, I'm not completely satisfied with this design, which is probably the shortest-lived one (running only from Halloween to Election Day). It's bacause it has edges. I prefer logos that blend into their background, and there was just no way for that to work here. I do like the red-white-and-blue color scheme that accompanied it though.
The first of many logo parodies, undoubtedly. The hard thing here was getting the colors. The blue used for the real logo just looked wrong here, and I couldn't find quite the right shades of red and yellow to make it identical. In the end I just went with what looked good over strict accuracy. This one ran for about a week, I think, though it did lead to me coming up with the phrase "RSSMatron" (look to your right if you don't get it), which I guess is remains its legacy. Also the "flash" background directly led to the next one.
In case you hadn't noticed, this is also the current logo, though it originally went for about a week (November 2008: Month of the Four Logos. Actually five, I think I switched out the Halloween one a little late). But it's versatile enough to be reuseable. It also fits well with my aforementioned design elements, since the light helps place the words in space, and also has a somewhat alienating effect. Hopefully).
Here I wanted to use the same design ideas, but approach them in different ways. Just as with the last one, the letters are illumnitated with a light, but this time it comes from a (heavily doctored) photo. I like the bombasticness of this one-- it's infinite in its own way-- but ultimately it didn't fit.
This was my Thanksgiving one, in case you didn't guess. Like I said, Novemeber had a lot of logos, especially if you include whatever I switched to after Thanksgiving (probably the Basic one, I can't remember. Huh, I guess that actually makes six).
Pretty easy one to describe. Mostly I did this one because I liked this background picture. What I like here is that there's a moodiness and atmosphere to this that most of the other logos don't have-- it's very cold in the literal sense, but figuratively still warm and inviting. At least, that's what I see in it.
See, originally I'd planned to review Portal after I finished it, instead of over a month later, and I designed this based on the game's credit sequence.
Again, this approaches the "infinite" idea from a different direction. Instead of being infinite in direction or size, this one is (not literally) infinite in how many pieces it has. Sort of I did it betteron my second go-round:
This one combines the "many, many things" idea with the "3d" and "blur" ideas. It'd be my very most favoritest, but it's a little too complicated.
Here's what I did for St. Patrick's Day. My favorite thing about this: no green. I mean, green is a perfectly good color, but must we always go for the cliche? Instead I went with booze, clearly making a sign for "The Infinite Bar & Grill". At least I was kind of subtle.
Of course, my original idea was to do some kind of Celtic knot design, since those already symbolize infinity. But I couldn't figure out how.
OK, that's all of them so far. We can now resume our regularly scheduled blogtivities.
*Two other good names: Self-Titled Debut and ...A Good Name for a Rock Album, if only as meta-jokes.
UPDATE 4-3:
I built this animated one using gickr (not sure how that's pronounced). Consider it a bonus. Actually, my original plan was to do an animation, but I decided it would be too distracting. Plus I can't use this one, it's too small and jerky. And I'm not sure if it even works, literally. Seemed fine earlier.
Actually, you know what, all the serious reflection I was going to do here? I'm making that the 150th post. Problem solved.
I still have some other retrospective stuff I was gonna do though. Here's the post that was going to be part three of four, promoted to part two of three. Nobody remembers part three anyway. Think about the third verse of "Amazing Grace", or "White Christmas", or any other song with at least three verses. You can't, because no one ever remembers the third part. Anyway, here's the thing.
The Many Looks of The Infinite:
The Basic:
The Basic:
When I came up with the basic design of this blag, there were two concepts I wanted to focus on, both of which play off the reason I picked the name: I see the Internet as a big, unending, mostly empty place. So I what wanted to do was create the illusion that you were kind of trapped or lost in an endless space. So there are a lot of ways to do that, but I decided to focus on two elements of that, 3-D and sort of "larger-than-life" (in quotes because they're not really that big). Since most fonts are viewed straight-on--note to self, design font that's viewed in profile-- the best way to show 3-D is with blur. I tried a lot of fonts and the one I decided on, oddly enough, is called Erthqake (not to be confused with the similarly-named Earthquake). Normally, it looks like this. I know. Sometimes it's the last thing you'd suspect.To reinforce the "fog" idea, I always use grayscale colors with this one. Regular colors "pop" too much and kind of destroy the illusion of blurriness. For the same reason, this (and-
To make the letters look bigger without actually making them bigger, I made them taller, and farther apart. My goal was to make them kind of monolithic, as if they're looking down on you, but without overdoing it and looking silly.
The Speaking of Silly:
Like a lot of the alternate logos, this one has only been used once, for a few weeks around Halloween, mainly because it doesn't make sense otherwise. This was the first alternate, so I was a bit conservative about it, sticking to grayscale (albeit reversed), blur, no edges and the same font. And honestly, it's probably my favorite out of all of them. I just like the skulls (if you do too, you can get a them here).The Guess Which Presidential Election I Used This for:
First of all, I really do love 'mrka, in a not-ironic way. Seriously, have you been to other countries? Most of them suck, especially the food. Plus everything there is really old for some reason, it's like, build some new stuff other countries! Anyway, I'm not completely satisfied with this design, which is probably the shortest-lived one (running only from Halloween to Election Day). It's bacause it has edges. I prefer logos that blend into their background, and there was just no way for that to work here. I do like the red-white-and-blue color scheme that accompanied it though.And Then the Third Futurama Movie Came Out:
The first of many logo parodies, undoubtedly. The hard thing here was getting the colors. The blue used for the real logo just looked wrong here, and I couldn't find quite the right shades of red and yellow to make it identical. In the end I just went with what looked good over strict accuracy. This one ran for about a week, I think, though it did lead to me coming up with the phrase "RSSMatron" (look to your right if you don't get it), which I guess is remains its legacy. Also the "flash" background directly led to the next one.The Next One:
In case you hadn't noticed, this is also the current logo, though it originally went for about a week (November 2008: Month of the Four Logos. Actually five, I think I switched out the Halloween one a little late). But it's versatile enough to be reuseable. It also fits well with my aforementioned design elements, since the light helps place the words in space, and also has a somewhat alienating effect. Hopefully).The Shiny:
Here I wanted to use the same design ideas, but approach them in different ways. Just as with the last one, the letters are illumnitated with a light, but this time it comes from a (heavily doctored) photo. I like the bombasticness of this one-- it's infinite in its own way-- but ultimately it didn't fit.This was my Thanksgiving one, in case you didn't guess. Like I said, Novemeber had a lot of logos, especially if you include whatever I switched to after Thanksgiving (probably the Basic one, I can't remember. Huh, I guess that actually makes six).
"Oh, You Mean Xmas":
Pretty easy one to describe. Mostly I did this one because I liked this background picture. What I like here is that there's a moodiness and atmosphere to this that most of the other logos don't have-- it's very cold in the literal sense, but figuratively still warm and inviting. At least, that's what I see in it.Tribute to Portal One:
See, originally I'd planned to review Portal after I finished it, instead of over a month later, and I designed this based on the game's credit sequence.Again, this approaches the "infinite" idea from a different direction. Instead of being infinite in direction or size, this one is (not literally) infinite in how many pieces it has. Sort of I did it betteron my second go-round:
My Second Go-Round:
This one combines the "many, many things" idea with the "3d" and "blur" ideas. It'd be my very most favoritest, but it's a little too complicated.Valentimes is Special Times:
Here again we see the "many, many things" idea. This logo is actually a repurposing of something I had designed earlier, something I normally wouldn't do, but I thought it worked well.
I don't really celebrate Valentime's Day, religiously or socially, so I thought it would be funny to, in contrast to that, go all out with the blog design. The background was a maroon-red-purplish (I'd call it Dark Pink, but that's actually an oxymoron, and also a good name for a rock album*), the text actually had pink links, and this huge, intentionally garish logo dominated most of the screen. Luckily I got away with it because I don't think I had readers then. Actually, I have no idea if I have readers now. If you're a reader, please leave a comment so I can get a ballpark figure. Hell, leave two.
Here again we see the "many, many things" idea. This logo is actually a repurposing of something I had designed earlier, something I normally wouldn't do, but I thought it worked well.I don't really celebrate Valentime's Day, religiously or socially, so I thought it would be funny to, in contrast to that, go all out with the blog design. The background was a maroon-red-purplish (I'd call it Dark Pink, but that's actually an oxymoron, and also a good name for a rock album*), the text actually had pink links, and this huge, intentionally garish logo dominated most of the screen. Luckily I got away with it because I don't think I had readers then. Actually, I have no idea if I have readers now. If you're a reader, please leave a comment so I can get a ballpark figure. Hell, leave two.
Here's what I did for St. Patrick's Day. My favorite thing about this: no green. I mean, green is a perfectly good color, but must we always go for the cliche? Instead I went with booze, clearly making a sign for "The Infinite Bar & Grill". At least I was kind of subtle.Of course, my original idea was to do some kind of Celtic knot design, since those already symbolize infinity. But I couldn't figure out how.
OK, that's all of them so far. We can now resume our regularly scheduled blogtivities.
*Two other good names: Self-Titled Debut and ...A Good Name for a Rock Album, if only as meta-jokes.
UPDATE 4-3:
I built this animated one using gickr (not sure how that's pronounced). Consider it a bonus. Actually, my original plan was to do an animation, but I decided it would be too distracting. Plus I can't use this one, it's too small and jerky. And I'm not sure if it even works, literally. Seemed fine earlier.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Words that sound like words and look like words but they aren't words:
Pronounced exactly like they look:
I came up with these when I realized Kanye tried to pretend "on ya" is an acceptable rhyme for "stronger". Unacceptable. :
Yonger: v. sort of a combination of "yearn", "longer", and "long" (as in "want").
Bonger: n. hmmmmmmm, what could that mean?
Honger: n. like a hanger, but so much awesomer.
Fonger: n., abbv. fing-longer
Wonger: see "bonger"
These are typos I saw on the internet and fell in love with:
Sneds: v. sends, IN THE FUTURE!
Helicooter: n. I'm not sure.
New Yrok: n. place. inspired this post. Presumably alsoin the future IN THE FUTURE!
Oh, feel free to add your own. Um, or else.
I came up with these when I realized Kanye tried to pretend "on ya" is an acceptable rhyme for "stronger". Unacceptable. :
Yonger: v. sort of a combination of "yearn", "longer", and "long" (as in "want").
Bonger: n. hmmmmmmm, what could that mean?
Honger: n. like a hanger, but so much awesomer.
Fonger: n., abbv. fing-longer
Wonger: see "bonger"
These are typos I saw on the internet and fell in love with:
Sneds: v. sends, IN THE FUTURE!
Helicooter: n. I'm not sure.
New Yrok: n. place. inspired this post. Presumably also
Oh, feel free to add your own. Um, or else.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Since I must document everything I do...
...and apparently I only post on Thursdays now, here's a picture of my X-Mas haul:
...and of course...
(I couldn't figure out how to rotate it).
...and of course...
(I couldn't figure out how to rotate it).
Thursday, December 18, 2008
You know what's awesome about having a blog?
I can link to ridiculous shit like this.
[You know what's not so great? Gorram "k" key on my keyboard doesn't work in the title bar any more. I had to copy and paste it in for the title to make sense.]
[You know what's not so great? Gorram "k" key on my keyboard doesn't work in the title bar any more. I had to copy and paste it in for the title to make sense.]
Saturday, November 15, 2008
"Like any of that's enough to fight the Dark Master... bator.": In which I realize I can't stop writing about TV.
The Sarah Silverman Program, “Fetus Don’t Fail Me Now”:
"You ever feel like there’s just a whole bunch of water like kicking around in your stomach?"-Sarah
"They gave me a muffin basket...and that's a euphemism."-Sarah, again
Somehow I forgot this one during the earlier review, probably because I watched it really late Friday night. Weird, because this was probably my favorite of the whole season. About the only way it could have been better is if Sarah had been wearing the fat suit for half the season, like Peggy on Mad Men (retroactive spoiler alert), with no one saying anything. I don't like doing straight recaps, so I'll just note two nice touches: Sarah wants to name the MonsterpossibleJesusbaby "Seth," the same name Jay's turtle suggested a couple weeks ago; Sarah has a go-cart suit with her name on it.
Saturday Night Live, "Paul Rudd/ Beyonce":
"Step one: cut a hole in the turkey"-Something called Dustin Timbersnake, or something similar.
Is this bad? SNL added two new people and I didn't even notice. If I had a critic card, they'd have to take it away.
Other strangeness: why didn't they Let Paul Dance?
Other than that, pretty good. Kissing Family went on too long, Scared Straight was a repeat of an earlier sketch, Seth Meyers hasn't figured out how to do Update yet and Holy Shit Why is Justin Timberlake on This Show Whoa What is He Doing What's This About A Michael McDonald Impression Did He Just Jump On the Desk?
And that was that. All episodes of this show should be two minutes long.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Buffy vs. Dracula":
"I am Dracula"-Dracula
"Get out!"-Buffy
Who says I don't keep my promises (so long as those promises involve watching TV)? This episode confirmed my suspicion: that the awesome, hilarious, casually racist Dracula from the comics is only tangentially related to the one we first saw on the show. The TV Dracula is all Eurotrash hair and mumbo-jumbo about the darkness in Buffy's soul. The comics Dracula is more recognizably human, less a standin for philosophical musings and more an interesting charcter in his own right.
Of course, most Buffy episodes weren't about the villains; the most interesting parts of this episode was Dracula's effect on our main characters, especially Xander eating a spider for some reason (I get that he's under a spell, but why Spiders? Oh, right). Another highlight: Spike explaining that Dracula, the book, is what taught everyone about "the mirror thing", which I didn't catch the first time through. It wasn't a great episode, but it was still better than most of what I watched this week (and this week was a fairly good one).
Randomness: I forgot how bad CGI was in 2000 (ironic-- or perhaps just coincidental-- since Joss Whedon also wrote Toy Story). It's incredibly strange dropping into the middle of a story like this-- the last episode I watched was the end of season 3, and this was the season 5 opener, so it felt like I was skipping a whole year, even though I had already seen them all. Plus it's really really weird to see [spoiler] alive again, and to see [spoiler] before he [spoiler], but that's just par for the course.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest you start here:
"You ever feel like there’s just a whole bunch of water like kicking around in your stomach?"-Sarah
"They gave me a muffin basket...and that's a euphemism."-Sarah, again
Somehow I forgot this one during the earlier review, probably because I watched it really late Friday night. Weird, because this was probably my favorite of the whole season. About the only way it could have been better is if Sarah had been wearing the fat suit for half the season, like Peggy on Mad Men (retroactive spoiler alert), with no one saying anything. I don't like doing straight recaps, so I'll just note two nice touches: Sarah wants to name the MonsterpossibleJesusbaby "Seth," the same name Jay's turtle suggested a couple weeks ago; Sarah has a go-cart suit with her name on it.
Saturday Night Live, "Paul Rudd/ Beyonce":
"Step one: cut a hole in the turkey"-Something called Dustin Timbersnake, or something similar.
Is this bad? SNL added two new people and I didn't even notice. If I had a critic card, they'd have to take it away.
Other strangeness: why didn't they Let Paul Dance?
Other than that, pretty good. Kissing Family went on too long, Scared Straight was a repeat of an earlier sketch, Seth Meyers hasn't figured out how to do Update yet and Holy Shit Why is Justin Timberlake on This Show Whoa What is He Doing What's This About A Michael McDonald Impression Did He Just Jump On the Desk?
And that was that. All episodes of this show should be two minutes long.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Buffy vs. Dracula":
"I am Dracula"-Dracula
"Get out!"-Buffy
Who says I don't keep my promises (so long as those promises involve watching TV)? This episode confirmed my suspicion: that the awesome, hilarious, casually racist Dracula from the comics is only tangentially related to the one we first saw on the show. The TV Dracula is all Eurotrash hair and mumbo-jumbo about the darkness in Buffy's soul. The comics Dracula is more recognizably human, less a standin for philosophical musings and more an interesting charcter in his own right.
Of course, most Buffy episodes weren't about the villains; the most interesting parts of this episode was Dracula's effect on our main characters, especially Xander eating a spider for some reason (I get that he's under a spell, but why Spiders? Oh, right). Another highlight: Spike explaining that Dracula, the book, is what taught everyone about "the mirror thing", which I didn't catch the first time through. It wasn't a great episode, but it was still better than most of what I watched this week (and this week was a fairly good one).
Randomness: I forgot how bad CGI was in 2000 (ironic-- or perhaps just coincidental-- since Joss Whedon also wrote Toy Story). It's incredibly strange dropping into the middle of a story like this-- the last episode I watched was the end of season 3, and this was the season 5 opener, so it felt like I was skipping a whole year, even though I had already seen them all. Plus it's really really weird to see [spoiler] alive again, and to see [spoiler] before he [spoiler], but that's just par for the course.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest you start here:
Thursday, November 13, 2008
"You know, I really don't remember you being this racist..."
So, I just got this in the mail, but then I realized if I wrote a review, you guys would figure out what huge nerd I was. I flipped a coin (not really) and it came up yes, so, you know...
Wolves at the Gate is probably the best of the three, because there's actually something at stake (no pun intended). Part I spent a little too much time establishing everything, and Part 2 was kind of tangential to the main story; this, Part three, is where it starts to pick up. People die. We meet the Big Bad (though it still might be a bait-and-switch, as they've done before). Vampires are racist.
The "plot," involving a bunch of Magic Unkillable Japanese Vampires, was really just a flimsy excuse to bring back Dracula, who was so awesome here I wanted to rewatch his episode (I didn't, but I probably will later tonight). Seriously, I hope they get a chance to bring back Racist Dracula, since none of the other new characters are really sticking out yet-- most of the Slayers are pretty indistinguishable (the same problem Season 7 had, come to think of it).
Oh, and there was a giant robot Dawn, for some reason.
I give it a 64.378 out of 68.901 Racist Draculas, 1.5 out of 2 Lesbian Superheroes, and Zero out of Negative Four Vampire Panthers.
Wolves at the Gate is probably the best of the three, because there's actually something at stake (no pun intended). Part I spent a little too much time establishing everything, and Part 2 was kind of tangential to the main story; this, Part three, is where it starts to pick up. People die. We meet the Big Bad (though it still might be a bait-and-switch, as they've done before). Vampires are racist.
The "plot," involving a bunch of Magic Unkillable Japanese Vampires, was really just a flimsy excuse to bring back Dracula, who was so awesome here I wanted to rewatch his episode (I didn't, but I probably will later tonight). Seriously, I hope they get a chance to bring back Racist Dracula, since none of the other new characters are really sticking out yet-- most of the Slayers are pretty indistinguishable (the same problem Season 7 had, come to think of it).
Oh, and there was a giant robot Dawn, for some reason.
I give it a 64.378 out of 68.901 Racist Draculas, 1.5 out of 2 Lesbian Superheroes, and Zero out of Negative Four Vampire Panthers.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
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