Kel Varnsen

I really liked that show. An hour long comedy with music that actually didn't suck. I wish TBS had give it a bit more of a push since I thought it was really something creative.

That is kind of the thing that always bugged me about Tara. I mean it is not like the first time he asked her to do something illegal was when they already had kids and were an established as a family. Back in season 1 she is illegally doing medical treatment on people. Wasn't it around season 2 that she helped jax steal some drugs from a medical clinic. Then in season 3 her and gemma murdered gemma's dad's nurse and it just kept going from there.

That's what always bugs me about Jax, he is super selfish. I mean he always talks about wanting to leave SAMCRO, but when it comes down to it he doesn't want to because he thinks he is so great that the club can't go on without him (because it does so well with him) and the big one is he can't handle the idea that his wife would be the one supporting the family.

I think there was a law and order SVU from last season where a guy died in the same way (sex on a rooftop near the edge with a woman). The whole SVU case was trying to figure out if it was an accident/self defense/ or premeditated murder, because the woman had accused the guy of stalking her.

I don't know I would wait and see before writing it off, they couldn't do any worse than some of the crap that was season 7 (or the season 8 comic). For that matter who would have ever thought that the guy who wrote the script for that terrible Alien Resurrection movie could make the Buffy character interesting.

I remember when that news came out about rebooting Buffy and my unpopular opinion at the time was that I thought a fresh reboot of the character had potential to be interesting. I mean the final season of Whedon's show was a let down and not very impressive. I read the first storyline of the Season 8 comic book and it was pretty terrible too. I mean there is no real reason to think that Whedon's version of the character is the only one that could be good, the same way there is no reason to think that only one version of Sherlock Holmes can be good. I am ok with not seeing everything that people do on TV either. I mean at the very best we see about 15 hours of a TV character's life over a whole year, even less for characters on sitcoms or on cable shows. That is about 0.2% of their whole lives. So based on that I am totally ok with not wasting time seeing people on the toilet. I mean if you filmed a random 0.2% of my life over a year it is possible you might not see me in the bathroom either.

I have mixed feelings on Lost. Sometimes I think it is kind of awesome how the writers basically said the Island and all of its secrets were basically a giant MacGuffin that didn't matter and all that really mattered were the characters and their relationships. Other times I think that was more like a giant cop-out and they really couldn't come up with a satisfying way to explain things. I mean why bother having an episode that tried to explain the backstory of Jacob and the smoke monster (especially one that just made things more confusing), if none of that stuff really mattered?

I always thought that the self-censoring was more to keep the advertisers happy. Although I often wonder, that with the demographic that say Spike tv is going after, allowing some more swearing and nudity might bring in the kind of ratings that they want.

I was wondering if they could have done some sort of process of elimination thing. Like on their first try you just tell the guy which one is cheddar, then give 9 fake or made up cheese names. That way you know you have one right and which one it is. It might take a little longer (although the Ryan and Rob did it for 20+ times) but you would have to spend less time thinking and you would know which ones were right.

Exactly what I was trying to get at. The internet is not your house. At best if you save something on a server somewhere (icloud, google drive or whatever) it is the equivalent of keeping your stuff in a house of a person you don't really know, who has cheap locks and lives in a part of town with a lot of crime. If you do that and you get robbed then it is still the robbers fault and you are still the victim of a crime, but it doesn't mean you didn't make a mistake. I still kind of disagree but I will leave it at this. If the victim's behavior has nothing to do with it then people wouldn't need to have locks on their doors. If my house or car got broken into the first thing I expect the cops to ask me is if they were locked. It is unfortunate but it is pretty much the world we live in, and it is not really different than those police campaigns telling people not to keep valuables in their car.

I obviously don't have enough information to be convinced one way or the other either. That said it wouldn't be surprised if either was true. To me the biggest issue with the whole thing is that yes it is a crime, but it also shows how big an issue online security is. And if you are storing stuff on a cloud, you are basically storing it on someone else's computer and leaving the security up to them. So really it is more like someone breaking into someone else's poorly secured house and stealing your stuff. Either way it is still a crime and the criminals should still be arrested, but it doesn't mean that people shouldn't take care with respect to their belongings or their information. It is not about asking for it or slut-shaming or crap like that. It would be the same issue if someone stole Jennifer Lawrence's tax returns because she had them stored online. The fact that it is naked pictures sort of makes the issue a bit more weird when it comes to the media.

I never said anyone was secretly happy about this. That said I can totally picture a situation where a hollywood agent (for some reason I am picturing an older lady with a raspy voice and a ashtray full of cigarettes) telling their client that its not a bad idea to store these types of pictures in a place where they may be easily accessed. That way if they do get taken you get a career bump or people will start to look at you in a different light. I mean yes Jenifer Lawrence is a house hold name, but one of the other names attached to this scandal was Kirsten Dunst, who could probably use a career boost these days. I agree that it is a crime, that said it would also be a crime if I parked my car unlocked in a bad neighborhood with a rolex in the glove box, and said rolex was stolen.

My unpopular opinion about this is that I think some actresses (not all) probably are less upset about this kind of thing than they might let on. I mean in hollywood, there is pretty much no such thing as bad publicity. Having pictures leaked gets you the same kind of publicity as doing a nude scene in a movie or appearing naked in a magazine would, with less stigma since you are a victim of a crime. It obviously doesn't hurt anyone's career, I mean look at Scarlett Johansson.

I am not so sure about that. My understanding is that for the most part the people who set up the challenges are a completely different team then the people who cast the racers. Plus at least for the US race when the seasons where Margie and Luke were on there was at least one challenge I can remember where you needed to be able to hear to do the challenge. If he was colourblind and it was known, I think at the very least they would have just put a note that Michel's brother would have to do the challenge. As for your example, I am not sure the producers would have to change anything. They could if they wanted to, or they could just say anyone who couldn't complete the challenge would be forced to take the penalty, or they just wouldn't cast someone with stomach issues.

What's crazy is that if the brothers had just walked up to it, skipped it and taken the 4 hour penalty, they probably wouldn't have come in last. Which is why I am not so sure it is an issue of being colourblind.

Game of Thrones has the advntage of being the most critically acclaimed (and possibly the best, don't know, don;t watch it) show on HBO right now. Back in the day Deadwood was always played second fiddle to the Sopranos. Except the half season thing confuses me. It seems the number of episodes offered was either as low as 4 or as high as 10 depending on who is telling the story. I think there is enough blame for everyone to go around, although I do think Milch probably checked out at least to some degree. Otherwise he would be pushing for those movies that were offered. I mean even if they weren't in good faith he could still be pushing for them.

Maybe, although I remember David Simon himself stating the reason that the show didn't get more attention from the media and from the awards shows was the fact that the TV industry was pretty much based in LA, with some of it in NY, and they were pretty much doing their own thing all alone in Baltimore.

I never really watched happy days, is that actually what happened? Was it really good before Fonzie strapped on the water skis, then terrible afterwards?

I totally agree. While it would be nice to see other teams finish first, that is sort of the fault of the other teams for not being as good. To me the fact that they are excelling on the challenges that have nothing to do with hockey, and aren't really even all that athletic tells me everything I need to know. I mean they kicked ass at challenges like on the mentos challenge, the gambling challenge in Macau, and the Bayeux Tapestry challenge. The fact that they rocked those shows that they are just a really competent team, not that being elite athletes is the only thing allowing them to win (or any huge advantage). The fact that they totally choked at the hockey challenge confirmed that to me.

Except the biggest winners in the drama category over the past several years have been Breaking Bad, Homeland and Mad Men. Both Breaking Bad and Mad Men have essentially no nudity and very little in the way of swearing. Homeland has some but even then it is the kind of thing that could easily be worked around in the hands of good writers. Plus the fact that it is those shows winning and not say True Blood tells me it is about the quality of the writing that matters, not just the shock value that cable allows. Not only that but I really think that the television academy is kind of an insiders club. The members vote for their friends and other people/shows they know or are familiar with. The Wire was a fairly low rated show that as noted got very low amount of media attention. Plus it was shot in Baltimore with a lot of local and/or east cost actors. So even if someone pulled of an amazing performance, and you are a voter, odds are it isn't the guy you are friendly with at the golf club, or the guy you see all the time at your agents office.

I don't believe that at all. I mean if there were any shows on network TV that were equal to the quality of say The West Wing, or the early seasons of LOST or ER I think for sure those shows would be up for emmys. Hell Homeland probably could have run on network tv with only minor changes. I really don't think there is that much stopping networks from making better shows other than their own fear of risk. If they didn't have to compete with cable for awards, there would be less motivation to take any risk. Also i finally finished the show tonight, and why the hell did they now show the writing for a comedy variety show award? That always the best part of the emmys where they would list the writers for Colbert, or Letterman or the Daily Show and it would be a series of mug shots or farm animals or mimes or something.

Plus for her to have been in a position to offer them 10 million dollars, they would have had to disclose a ton of information about the company, especially on the Giant itself, how it works and what their goals with the finished product would be.

I would say that is true, except for the fact that they seem to be kicking ass on stuff that isn't hockey related or even really all that athletic. I mean they rocked that mentos challenge.

Which sort of goes in line with what Rick says in his book about how once a certain product becomes recognized as a collectible it almost becomes impossible to strike it rich on it. Because once something type of product does become a collectible, everyone goes into collector mode. So for something like comics or stamps or cards or coins, back in the day no one thought they would be worth money so almost no one saved them (which reduced the supply). Now every comic book collected saves every copy of every single comic that comes out as if it is the next Action #1 so even 50 years from now there will be an abundant supply of any current comic anyone could ever want.

I found the Ireland thing long, but just as long, and even more boring and pointless was Gemma hiding out with her dad.