Kel Varnsen

I sort of had the same revelation with The Sopranos. I remember in the first few seasons I thought to myself, that with all the hype that show was getting there was no way it could be anywhere near as good as people were saying. Then one summer between semesters at school I didn't really have a job so I started renting the seasons on DVD, and I found out that for the most part it was that good and I was totally hooked. Same sort of thing happened with the show ALIAS for me. I remember how much hype the first two seasons got both on the internet and in magazines like EW, and I figured it can't be that good because the ratings aren't great, But then I remember before season 3 started I was home from work one day and Jennifer Garner was on Regis or something and they showed a clip where she blows up a car. I didn't have cable so my choices on what to watch were pretty limited. I stated watching, then I think for Christmas I got the season 1 DVD and watched the whole thing between christmas and new years.

I think tonight I saw quite possibly the dumbest and most irritating car commercial I have ever seen. It was for Mitsubishi and it went though a long list of things saying "this is our..." about their company and their cars. At one point they said "this is our history" and showed pictures of older Mitsubishi cars. Of course I immediately thought of this quote from Cotton Hill (from King of the Hill): "Mitsubishi? They made the planes that bombed Pearl Harbour". So really Mistubishi, do you want to remind people of your history? Then when they got further down on the list they said something like "this is our patent" and they showed a patent form, then they said something like "this is the safe we keep it in" and they showed a locked door with two armed guards. At which point I felt like saying, no you don't the patent is filed with the US Patent Office or the Canadian Intellectual Property office (or wherever the patent is filed), so that anyone who is interested can search it and so that people who are filing new patents can be sure that their inventions don't violate any existing patents. Having a patent be a secret would make no sense.

Not sure what the sentences would be for bank robbery, but it was armed robbery of 3 or 4 banks with hostages (as opposed to just handing someone a note and walking out with money). Plus someone died during the course of one of the robberies (her first boyfriend) so I could see her getting a pretty stiff sentence for that sort of thing.

I agree about Fig. If she ends up at Litchfield it would be totally contrived. Plus if it did happen I can't see her story playing out any way that wouldn't be totally obvious. Plus she was totally right, people in her situation usually get away with the recommendation on their way out not an arrest.

I really wonder how much of an extra cost/hassle that would be. I mean as long as it is not a teen show you would think a good director could set up scenes so that the kids were only really on camera for a small percentage of the time, especially with single camera shows. I was mentioning the same thing in the Veronica Mars area. The big reveal at the end of season 1 would have been a lot more shocking if Lily Kane was played by someone who actually looked like a 16 year old, not by sexy 19 year old Amanda Seyfried.

I get that moving back to 12:05 could be viewed as being punished for Leno's failure, but at the same time in the long run I wonder if taking that punishment would have been a better or worse choice than basically being banished to basic cable. And while most people probably have cable so some might thing it is not a big deal, I think the promo factor is a big deal, so if you are watching Law and Order SVU on NBC (or better yet the late local news) you can see promos for who will be on Leno/Conan/Fallon or whoever. You don't really get that with the number of people watching TBS. Plus there is the matter of people actually knowing what channel TBS is. As for Seinfeld's comment, I think it was just in response to Conan holding the whole concept of The Tonight Show in such regard. Jerry's response was more that no one watches the Tonight Show because it's "The Tonight Show". They watch it because they liked Carson or Leno or Conan or they like Jimmy Fallon.

I often wonder if Conan would have been better off if he had just accepted that Leno was coming back to late night for a half hour show and just moved his show back. My sense is he probably would have been. Plus after reading the Bill Carter book on the subject, I think Seinfeld was right, it is the host who makes the show not the other way around.

Looking back and reading your post I kind of wish they had cast someone different as Lily. I mean I have nothing against Amanda Seyfried, but I think the reveal that she was having sex with Aaron would have been a hell of a lot more creepy if they had cast someone who actually looked 16. I looked it up and Seyfried was 19 during season 1 but I think it would have been better if they tried to cast someone who looks younger. I mean I think part of the creepiness of Aaron is lost over the fact that the person he is sleeping with looks significantly older than any high school kid I have ever seen.

I like that they are moving into TV too, although I am not sure how well they expect the Peggy Carter series to do. I mean it seems like it would be a harder sell to a nework TV audience than Agents of SHIELD (mostly just because it is set in the past so it is not running concurrent with the MCU, meaning you won't be getting Sam Jackson showing up or Tony Stark's name dropped, plus the whole historical aspect might turn people off). I like that they are doing the netflix shows, since presumably they wouldn't need to gain as big an audience to be successful. And mini-series would be awesome. I would also love to see them expand the Marvel One-Shot series, maybe even make them theatrical shorts. I mean throw a marvel short in front of another Disney release and it would probably get a nice box office boost.

Cougar Town. I remember when it premiered my wife wanted to watch it because she was a Courtney Cox/Friends fan. To me it looked bad and really cheesy. Midway through the season I watched some of the eps with her because there was nothing else on and I kind of liked it. By season 2 it was my favourite show on tv.

Your two paragraphs reminded me of something regarding teens and sex that only happens on TV. When it comes to teens and sex, the next step after kissing is full on intercourse. There are no steps in between.

It would cool to see some more older comics show up. The Carl Reiner/Mel Brooks episode and the Rickles episodes were awesome. But are there that many old school comedians that are left (as they mentioned in the previous episode lots of those other guys (carson, Pryor, Carlin, Dangerfield) are dead)? Only well known ones I could think of would be Bill Cosby or Joan Rivers . She could be interesting, that documentary about her life was fascinating.

I think she talks about that either in the movie, or in the book. If she were to become an actual member of the bar it would severely limit how she could investigate cases. I mean lawyers have to follow a code of ethics so the first time she breaks into someone's house to gather evidence (like say in the movie) all it would take is one call to the bar society and she could be disciplined or disbarred all together.

I knew they were different games (I played a ton of the atari version as a kid), I was just wondering if there was any connection between the two games (like if the atari game was like a sequel to the text based one or something).

I liked Iron Man 3 also. I liked that for a big chunk of the movie Tony was pretty much on his own and had to use his brains to figure shit out rather than just using his suit to blow shit up (I mean he is one of the smartest guys in the MCU). So then when he did use the suits to blow things up it was a much better pay off. Plus that final battle on that oil rig thing with all the suits looked really awesome. Plus the best part of it was no Mickey Rourke. I mean seriously, who really thought casting that guy was a good idea?

I think you are right about them meeting in college. But at the same time if she was just looking for a guy who shared her interest in computers, if she was studying computers at Berkeley, she would have literally been surrounded by guys that shared the same interest. As we learn more about Gordon's personality, it makes me wonder what drew her to him. I can see how like you said, the failure of their earlier project changed him, hopefully if that is the case they go into that a bit more.

Wasn't there another Samaritan story where he is out on a date with the AC version of Wonder Woman and it sort of touches on how for him to take time and go out on a date, he basically has to ignore all of those people out there who need his help.

I really wish we could get some more back story on how Gordon and Donna got together. Because after this episode it makes even less sense. After last episode I mentioned I was surprised that the quiet nerdy guy would be able to get with the hot, confident and talented girl. But after this one he is the quiet nerdy guy with terrible and almost offensive social skills. Also did that adventure game the coders were playing have any relation to the Atari 2600 game of the same name? It was also this episode where I realized I am probably around the same age as Gordon and Donna's kids.

I think the Jane thing would have played a bit better if the whole romance was a bit more one way. I mean I can how for her, meeting someone from another universe would completely change almost every aspect of her world (especially with her field of study). And I get how that could translate into her totally falling for him. But I am not sure I can as easily buy Thor falling in love with her.

I like is stuff too. Back when I read comics regularly, Queen and Country was really fun. Plus for each story arc he gets a different artist so each story has a different look. Great characters though. I even have a little sketch somewhere in my house of Tara Chase and her boss from the artist who did the first run. Gotham Central was great too. It was basically Homicide:Life on the Street set in Gotham (they even had the murder victim board!). It kind of worked though, I especially liked seeing how some cops liked Batman but some hated him (makes them look bad and actually makes their job harder, since if you are arrested and on trial and the defense calls Batman to the stand how does that work?). Rounding out the Rucka recommendations, check out White Out. Murder mystery comic set at the south pole. If anyone has a chance read it somewhere very cold, and it will be almost creepy. I remember I got it for Christmas one year and that January I moved to Northern British Columbia. I had no TV so I read it in like a day, and even though I was inside and warm, the story plus the snow outside made me feel cold.

In The Wolverine, Hugh Jackman's love interest was Japanese.

The only think that makes the shit at the end of Requiem for a Dream less horrible for me is when I thought about it and realized that it didn't make a lot of sense. I mean seriously, New York City runs out of heroin?

Is that the one where he basically spends all his time rescuing people and basically has an alien computer do his daytime job because he feels guilty about not saving people? I loved that story, and I always thought it would be cool is the actual superman looked into that aspect of his life. I read most of the trades from the first run of the series (up to Tarnished Angel), would love to get back into it but it seems the trades for the Dark Ages Storyline (at least book 1) is out of print.

A better episode, although I really had to laugh when Donna confronted Joe about the switched back up disks. His whole argument was sort of, don't tell anyone please, it will ruin what we have built so far. All I could really think was that pretty much everyone already knows that Joe is an asshole, so I doubt this will be any shock to them. Like others I liked the added scenes with Donna. It helps too that she is super hot. Plus she looks a lot like Ellie Kemper from The Office. I would love to see some flashback scenes or some more back story to explain how hottie Donna got together with poindexter Gordon. Not that it wouldn't happen, he just doesn't seem like the type that would be good around women. It was the days before telecommuting, but it was also the days before schools had approved pick-up lists, and if pretty much anyone those kids recognized showed up and said that their mom Donna told him/her to pick them up, no one would have made any kind of big deal about it.

Speaking of Disney, I thought it was kind of crazy that Wreck it Ralph lost the best animated award to Brave back in 2012. I mean sure Brave was a good movie, but I think it was pretty much a standard princess/adventure store, where as Wreck it Ralph was something that I really hadn't seen before and the story was really strong. I think a big part of it was that the Oscars seems to love Pixar and I can totally picture that voters seeing a pixar movie on the ballot and just voting for it automatically even if perhaps they hadn't see it or the other nominees.