Blogging Off

Well, it's time to officially proclaim what you probably already knew: This blog is dead. Kaput. Finito. It is no more. This is an ex-blog.

I gave myself a couple weeks to see if anything bloggable popped into my head, but it's just not happening, so I'm signing off for good and retiring from the Superblog.

"But Paul," you might ask, "why 'retire' from the blog? Even if you can't think of anything to post now, maybe you will sometime down the road. Why not keep your options open?"

That's an excellent question, hypothetical reader. But here's the thing: I don't want to pull a Mike and just abandon the blog for months with no explanation. You fine readers deserve more respect than that, I say. If I'm not going to post anymore-- and I'm not-- then I'm going to straight-out tell you so. Which I am. That way, you won't spend every waking hour wondering, "Is Paul going to post? Should I keep clicking Refresh? Oh, curses, I'm so very confused!!" (Because I'm sure that's how you spend every waking hour.) Well, consider the mystery solved.

Besides, I don't really like having this blog thing hanging over my head, to the point where I'm futilely attempting to keep it alive by half-assedly posting something every couple of weeks. At that point, it just feels like homework. Plain and simple, I've lost interest. Sorry.

When Mike pitched the idea of the blog, the idea was that he and I would push each other to keep it going, like a competition. It was a good idea in theory, but he forgot to account for our extreme lack of competitive spirit. And our overwhelming laziness. And that's how we end up where we are now: with the Superblog on its last legs. Alas. It was fun while it lasted.

So, that's it for me. I won't be posting here again, and I suspect Mike won't, either. I'd say goodbye, but...I mean, anyone who's actually reading this blog, I probably see you in person almost every weekend. So, um...see you then!

State of the Superblog

So, it turns out that this blogging thing is a lot harder than I thought it'd be. How do all those teenagers do it? With the MySpace and the FaceBook and the "LOLz" and the "whatevs" and all that young-person Internet lingo that a decrepit old man like myself doesn't understand. I mean, have you seen the average MySpace page? I've looked at a couple, and it's such a chaotic, jumbled mish-mash of colors and images that it makes me feel like my head's going to explode. It's an assault on the senses. Maybe I'll just never understand this whole Wide Wide World of Web thing. To me, it's just a series of tubes.

But anyway, I knew this day would come, only I didn't expect it to happen so early: I've completely run out of things to blog about. Seriously, I've got nothing. There isn't anything particularly noteworthy going on in my life, other than having just been sick, which isn't exactly a riveting topic of conversation. No world events have struck my fancy. Apparently there's some sort of presidential race going on, but I've already told you how I feel about politics. It's not baseball season, so that's out (and when it is baseball season, I'll be writing elsewhere). The writers' strike may be about to end, but even if it does, we won't be seeing new episodes of much of anything until April/May at best and next fall at worst. So there's not much TV to discuss right now.

All in all, this blog seems to be on life support right now. Maybe Mike will post something that inspires me to dive back into blogging, but as of now, I'm considering closing the curtain on my blogging career. I'll let you know what happens.

The Humans Are Dead

I'm back again for some more thoughts on the only subject I know: television. Two posts in the span of eight days! That's gotta be a new record here at Paul's Superblog. (Yes, Paul's Superblog. I defy you to find evidence that anyone else writes here.)

Let's discuss The Sarah Connor Chronicles, or The Sarah Connorcles for short. It's the new Fox show that premiered this week. Lucky them, having done all of their filming but none of their airing before the strike hit, leaving them with a bunch of new episodes to show while everyone else is in reruns. Anyway, this show is based on the Terminator movies, of which I've only seen one (I think it was T2?) but have a basic knowledge of.

So, the show is actually pretty good so far. Lots of Terminator battle scenes and explosions and so forth (I'm easy to entertain). And Sarah Connor is actually an interesting lead character, unlike that ultra-bland whatshername from that awful Bionic Woman show. Plus one of the three lead characters is a cyborg, so that should hopefully cut down on the sappy, melodramatic nonsense. You can't have any tear-filled, emotional scenes when you literally don't have a heart!

My main problem right now is with John Connor, who fits that typical "dumb kid" role who does the exact wrong thing at all times. For instance:

SARAH: "John, whatever you do, don't leave this house. If you leave the house, you will be killed by cyborgs."
JOHN: "Got it."
(5 minutes later)
JOHN: "Well, guess I'll leave the house."

Also, I don't like the kid who plays John Connor. He used to be on Heroes, as Claire's friend (the one who videotaped her jumping off the bridge). Then, the actor found out that his character was going to be revealed as gay, and he raised a huge stink about it and refused to participate, to the point that the entire plot was scrapped and the producer publicly called him out. Then I saw an interview with the kid recently where he said he felt like he didn't have a connection with a single person in the Heroes cast or crew. Well...no kidding, bro. You can't act like a homophobic diva and expect to be Mr. Popularity on the set. Just look what happened to Isaiah Washington-- he got canned from a hit show, then was hired by Bionic Woman. Honestly, I'm not sure which of those was more damaging to his career.

There are still a bunch of things I don't understand about the Terminator mythology. The basic premise is that, in the future, a race of evil robots has taken over the world and wiped out almost all humans.* But a band of rebel humans-- led by John Connor-- manages to fight back and destroy most of the robots.

(*That reminds me of this video.)

So, the robots-- as a last-ditch effort-- send a Terminator back in time (oh yes, they can time-travel) to kill a young Sarah Connor before she can give birth to John. When that doesn't work, they send another Terminator back to when John is a kid, hoping to kill him. That doesn't work either. My question is-- why stop there? Why don't the future-robots keep sending Terminators further and further back in time to wipe out anyone in the Connor gene pool? For instance, they could kill Sarah's parents before she's conceived.

Granted, the Connor family seems to be rather athletic and adept at eluding robots. But if the robots go back enough generations, they're bound to find the black sheep of the family, the ultra-lazy and/or dangerously obese ancestor that they can obliterate in a second. Like, Filbert "Stumblebum" Connor, a man so fat that he can barely leave his armchair even when a Terminator shows up to kill him. Bang. The robots finish him off, and they've forever altered (or wiped out) the Connor lineage, and John Connor will never exist to destroy them in the future.

Why is it that I've figured this out so easily when the robots couldn't? When robots do take over the world, I hope they'll consider hiring me as a policy adviser. I work cheap.

Strike Out

I guess if we're going to keep up this fruitless charade of having a blog, somebody should post something. Mike keeps saying he'll post-- something about a certain High School Musical star and her botched nose job-- but he never seems to get around to it. I'm not sure he enjoys writing. (Totally called that, by the way.) Now, granted, it's not like I've been Captain Frequent-Updates either. But at least I have an excuse: my near-total lack of knowledge or interest in the general goings-on of the world. So...yeah. Not my fault.

But I guess I'll chime in on this writer's strike. This thing just keeps going, doesn't it? It's as if the people involved are more concerned about their own well-being than the fact that I no longer have anything to do with my time. Asses. By now, most shows have completely used up their stock of new episodes, leaving us with an unappealing selection of reruns and poorly thought-out reality shows. (Celebrity Apprentice? What the hell, man? How is anyone learning about marketing and business if Gene Simmons can just call up some millionaire friend and say, "Buy a hot dog from me for $10,000. Okay, we win!")

At least Lost is coming back for a truncated 8-episode season. And Survivor is returning with a half-All Star season (by which I mean half the cast are All-Stars, not that the All-Stars have each been sliced in half. That would be messy). But pretty much every show that was on in the fall-- which Mike and I so helpfully previewed for you a few months ago-- is pretty much finished for the season, with their return date unknown. Heck, 24's entire season has been scrapped, which means we'll have to live with the sour taste of Season 6 in our mouths for another year.

Well, it's not a total loss. All the late-night shows have recently returned to the air, though most without their writers. I'm not sure that's going to work too well for, say, The Daily Show, which relies almost excusively on its writers (except the interview portions, which are usually the lamest part of the show). But actually, Conan O'Brien has been really good without writers. He's the most naturally funny of any of the late-night hosts, so he can carry a show by himself. Hell, I'm starting to think the writers have been dragging him down all these years with their terrible monologue jokes and such. Let's just see more footage of Conan crashing an NBC studio tour or interrupting his staff's game of Rock Band. Funny stuff.

Anyway, this strike can't last forever, but it sure is a pain in the ass. The other day, I almost resorted to reading a book. I kid you not! A book! It's a dark, dark world out there, friends.

RIP Combo Breakers

As Paul pointed out, we settled on the name Combo Breakers mainly because we couldn't think of anything else, and wanted to play the game after a half hour of debate, sitting on the text entry screen. The thing is, you're allowed to change your name at any time, and so I set the question out to you all: what should our band be called? Leave your suggestions in the comments, and we'll pick our favorite.

For Those About to Rock

OK, I'm starting to get family members mocking me for not updating the blog, so I'll post something. Sorry about the delay-- you'd think a two-person blog would be updated a little more frequently. But I rarely have anything to talk about. As for Mike, I think he goes through long stretches where he forgets the blog even exists. Look at his post history-- one post, then five weeks without any, then three in the span of five days, then another month of nada, then four in one week, then another three weeks of zippo. There's a clear pattern here. What it means, I'm not sure exactly. But it's there.

At some point, he and I were going to finish our TV "preview," although that seems like a pointless exercise now that most shows will be going off the air for several months. Damn writers' strike.*

So instead, I'll talk about Rock Band. What an outstanding game. It's never not fun. So many good songs, and only a few crappy ones (I'm looking at you, Vagiant). I'm definitely getting pretty decent at the drums, guitar, and bass (which we pronounce "bahss," like the fish. Ha-ha! We're so clever.). As for the vocals? Notsomuch my cup of tea, for two reasons. Firstly, my lack of singing ability. Secondly, in order to activate Overdrive (which, for the uninitiated, multiplies your point total by 2, 3, or 4 for a little while), you have to SHOUT. I'm not much of a shouter. More of a mumbler. Even if I were getting mugged on the street, I don't think I'd shout for help. I'd be like, "Hey. Quit it. Seriously, not cool, jerk." I think the last time I shouted was when I almost ran into a deer while driving home. It was something like "Gah!" Fortunately, the deer sprinted out of the road. I'm glad that deer had never heard the old cliche about getting frozen in the headlights. Instead, it decided, "Hey look, here are some headlights. Something is clearly coming towards me, so I will dodge." That's a heads-up move. Deer get a bad rap sometimes.

What was I talking about? Oh right-- Rock Band. Yeah, the singing is my weak point. When you think about it, the vocals are the only one of the four "instruments" in the game that actually requires some musical talent. When you're playing the plastic guitars, or the plastic drums, you just hit the buttons as they appear on the screen. You need some sense of rhythm, but you don't need to know what exact notes you're playing. But singing, you gotta be able to carry a tune.

Anyway, Mike and I and various combinations of friends have formed our Rock Band alter egos, the Combo Breakers. I'm not too keen on the band name. I don't even know what it's supposed to mean. In fact, it seems like it's holding us back. In order to rack up big points in the game, you have to hit a lot of notes consecutively. Combinations, you might say. So why would we be the Combo Breakers? Wouldn't that ruin our score? I went along with the name because we'd wasted half an hour debating and I just wanted to play the damn game already. At that point, I would've accepted whatever band name was suggested, even if it were something like, "Paul is a Dumb Butt-Smeller who Likes to Smell His Own Butt."**

I think our band name should've been something Simpsons-related, like "Thrillho" or "The Goggles Do Nothing." There are some funny band names on the online leaderboards. I think my favorite so far is "The Don't Tase Me Bros." Runner-up: "Fagerstrom." (An obscure reference to last year's Conan-O'Brien-Goes-to-Finland special.) But whatever our band is called, we're doing quite well. At last check, we ranked somewhere around #38 online, points-wise. We're #38 out of everyone in the world, people!***

That's all for now. Perhaps Mike will check in with his thoughts when he remembers he has a blog.


(*To be clear, I'm saying, "damn strike," not "damn writers." In fact, from what little I know of the situation, the writers seem to be clearly correct in this case, and the producers seem to be greedy a-holes.)

(**This is not a suggestion for a replacement band name.)

(***Or more accurately, #38 out of everyone in the world who owns Rock Band.)

ATTN: City of Baltimore

An open letter to the higher-ups that run this fair city of ours...

Dear Sirs or Madams,

The following things are not cool:

#1: Suddenly deciding, with no warning whatsoever, that certain parking spaces on a particular city street-- which were formerly fair game for parking-- are suddenly off limits during specific but unclearly denoted times of day.

#2: Attempting to convey this policy through a series of hastily built signs that give conflicting information, point in no particular direction, and, for all I know, might have been put up after I'd already parked my car on said street.

#3: Upon discovering a car in (unbeknownst) violation of this policy, deciding not to merely give the offender a ticket, but to TOW THE DAMN CAR AWAY.

#4: Repeatedly insisting, when called at the impound lot by a befuddled driver, that you have no record of the car being towed, only to change your story after the owner has reported the car as stolen, thus wasting our time and the police's. No really, guys, I'm sure the cops had nothing better to do. There's never any crime in Baltimore.

#5: Charging an exorbitant amount of money to retrieve said car from impound.

Sirs or Madams, your kind example has inspired me to concoct my own policy. I call it the "Pauls Only" rule. At any given moment during the day, as I'm strolling along, I will suddenly declare (by loudly shouting "Pauls Only!") that anyone in the vicinity not named Paul is prohibited from walking on that sidewalk. If they were already on the sidewalk-- too bad! They're in violation! And if they protest that they were given no fair warning, I'll say, "Ah, but look, see where I scrawled the letter 'P' in chalk right here in the corner? How could I have possibly made the rule any clearer?" I will then demand that each offender pay me $300 before they may continue walking. And I'll glare at 'em, like, Yeah, I bet you learned your lesson, didn't you?

Tough but fair. It's city living, folks. Deal with it.

TV: Thursday Edition (MK Style)

It seems like most networks have put their heavy hitters on Thursday as long as I can remember, for some reason. Why is that? Maybe because people are exhausted from a week of work, but it isn't Friday, when nobody who's anybody is at home watching TV. No, we're at home playing video games. There are a few shows on Thursday that I used to watch: Smallville (if it were about Superman anymore, I'd watch it, but it's a damn soap opera) and CSI (same show every week, only fun for about three years and at most one spinoff). But, what's left is great.

NBC Thursday night comedies (NBC, 8pm)

NBC's only got four comedies on the air, but they're all mashed together in the same two hour block... and they're all great. First, we've got My Name Is Earl, which was shut down for a while last year due to the star, Jason Lee, having chicken pox. Chicken pox is terrible when you're an adult, apparently, which is why many parents are having these "chicken pox parties" where they get lots of kids together with one kid who has the disease. Sounds good, except we have a vaccine, and chicken pox kills a few kids every year. Hey, parents... do your research before diseasing your kids.

Next up is 30 Rock, Tina Fey's Emmy winner. Tina Fey was the head writer for Saturday Night Live before she made this show, which ended up way funnier than SNL has been in the last ten years. Maybe doing all of your writing between midnight and 6AM in one day isn't the best way to go? The only bad thing about the show is that Tina Fey had a baby about a year before the show began. Raising a child while writing, producing, and starring in a show? I doubt I could keep a goldfish alive while doing that. But hey, we've all got our priorities.

At 9 we've got The Office, the American version of Ricky Gervais' British comedy. Some people believe the British version is better, but I have zero doubts that most of them have never seen a complete episode of the fantastic American version. The BBC America commercial even said, "The original is always the best," but that's just plain untrue. These are the same people who prefer Manhunter to Red Dragon. Manhunter was way worse, but it came first, so it must be better. Even Ricky Gervais himself says that ours is better. Period. Done.

Closing it all out is Scrubs, which used to be the funniest show on TV, but now that it's on right after 30 Rock and The Office, it can't really be called that anymore. It's a fantastic problem to have, since Scrubs was no better before the new guys came around, but there's just such a high concentration of funny, it gives it a little less impact. It's like this month, with video games. I'd normally be really excited about Trauma Center 2, but it's coming out within a week of Super Mario Galaxy, and the day after Rock Band. It's a good time to like video games and comedy.

Supernatural (9PM, CW)

The only show to legitimately scare me from time to time. The first season even had a message in the beginning asking you to turn out your lights, although I suppose that's gone because some kid has epilepsy and his parents are too busy to raise him, so they leave him in front of the TV, and then when the TV steers him wrong, they raise hell. It's even worse with video games. My guess is Tina Fey is involved somehow.

Also, Paul's complaint that it's too talky couldn't possibly be right. I don't think anything could be too talky for me. I'm all about the script. If it's poorly written, I'll go somewhere else, which is one of the reasons I'm recording this instead of CSI.

Big Shots (10PM, or 10:07 or something, ABC)

I believe I'm actually the only one who watches this, and I don't even give it my full attention. This is the type of show I watch while playing a game, like Picross or Puzzle Quest. Other such shows include The Apprentice and VH1's The Pickup Artist. You know, the kind that you don't really need to see to appreciate, and if you gave it all of your attention, you'd be wasting your time. I do that a lot. If I find two things that aren't entertaining separately, maybe they would be if I were to do them simultaneously? Like driving and talking on the phone with customer service, or eating and swimming.

---

And that takes care of the week proper. Join us next time for TV: Weekend Edition, because really, there's not too much spread out Friday through Sunday, especially now that I've cut Shark. Too much investigating, not enough Sharking.

Can we embed videos in this thing?

And if so, would it look like this?

TV: Wednesday Edition (Classic Flavor)

Wednesday's a pretty light day. I gave up on Bionic Woman ("We own your body!" "No you don't!" "Do this for us!" "Fine!"), and I don't really count Lost as a Wednesday show right now. That'll be featured in TV: Midseason Edition. Well, if it still shows up this year thanks to The Strike. Let's hope.

Pushing Daisies (8PM ABC)

Paul's right. This is a great show about a man given the power over life and death. But who was it given by? "No one in particular," the narrator tells us in the pilot, and atheists such as myself don huge smiles. I'm a big fan of atheists on television, and we need more of them. It turns out that atheists are the least trusted people in America. There's no group people would like their kids to marry less than atheists. The average American parents would rather their daughter end up with a homosexual than with me or Paul. Me, I can understand; I'm a douchebag. But Paul? Have you no heart?

Criminal Minds (9PM CBS)

And here's one where Paul and I disagree. I think this is a great show about figuring out how complete psychopaths think. It's the closest thing television has to Silence of the Lambs, each and every week. This season isn't as good as past ones, though, thanks to the abrupt departure of Mandy Patinkin. He quit Office Space style, meaning he just... didn't show up to work one day. Apparently, he did that before, on Chicago Hope. How he continued to get work after that, I have no idea, but now that he's proven it's a pattern? This guy's done. Him and Isaiah Washington. Wait, Isaiah Washington DID get another job? And it was on Bionic Woman? Well then, looks like we've come full circle.

Face/Off

I know you're all waiting for me to resume (the avoiding of) giving my opinions on fall television, but there's a more pressing matter at hand. Recently, I had my face taken apart. Also, I am indeed serious.

See, my nose had two problems. The first is that it never worked correctly. I've been breathing through both it and my mouth all my life, never getting quite enough air. I've also always had the worst sense of smell of anyone I know, but I always just assumed that was the tradeoff for my superhuman eyesight. Oh, and I never cared for food. My tongue works just fine (ladies), but since smell is so strongly linked to taste, I couldn't really tell the difference between cheap stuff and good stuff. As I've said before on several occasions, if I could charge myself like a battery, I'd skip food entirely.

I went to an ear, nose, and throat doctor with my concerns, and he took the long scope and checked me out. He then asked if I had injured it as a child or something, because MAN, it was bad in there. What should've looked like a straight line looked like a treble clef. Stuff was bent and coiled and there was even a cyst blocking one of my nostrils. He explained that what he'd have to do is basically take stuff out, straighten it, and put it back in. Hey, I'll be asleep; do what you must.

The second problem is a bit more obvious: the thing was huge. I mean, it wasn't what doctors refer to as a "clown nose" (and I do mean that - it's a term that I heard more than once), but it stuck out quite a bit. Dad called it "regal," because he's not very good at this. It's bothered me ever since I was in middle school, so I've been kicking around the idea of doing something about it for maybe ten years. Everyone knows I'm not the biggest fan of plastic surgery, but I'm very comfortable with the fact that I'm not doing this to hide my age or chase an impossible standard of beauty or look like the people on the tee-vee. It was very prominent, noticeable, and totally not what I wanted. After brushing my teeth, when I spit the water out, it'd hit the tip of my nose straight on. Think about that. And I had to drink canned soda sideways.

The ENT doctor referred me to a plastic surgeon for those needs, which is great, because they knew each other and did tag-team surgeries together. I made an appointment to see him, which was very different from your traditional doctor's visits. It was a 4:30 appointment, and when I showed up, I was sent to the exam room immediately. About two minutes later, seriously, he was in there. There's no waiting when you're doing something elective; you get SERVICE. Rhinoplasties usually just make the nose look smaller, but he explained that we'd actually make mine smaller, because, damn.

So, the big day arrived on November 1, and I was at Howard County General at 7:50am. My aunt Sarah is a nurse there, so she hooked me up with a good anesthesiologist. One of the great things about Kelehans is that we've got people everywhere, nurses in particular. So, I go under, they open me up, and hey, it's even worse than they thought in there. I was under the knife for five hours. I've played Trauma Center, and it's taught me that surgeries usually last about three minutes, so this was SERIOUS. I don't know if you've ever been under general anesthesia, but the cool thing about it is you totally lose that time. I was up on the operating table, they started the IV, and I immediately wake up 6 hours later and see Aunt Sarah.

Recovery took a few days, and wasn't fantastic. First, I threw up all over the living room floor. I warned mom by saying, "Vomit vomit vomit vomit!," but she couldn't get a receptacle to me in time for the first wave. Ironically, it looked like all I threw up was the anti-nausea stuff, so I guess that worked. My nose was full of packing and tubes, which wasn't very comfortable, and it was pretty hard to breathe. It didn't help that my left nostril was entirely scabbed shut, and my right was on its way. But the worst part was that I couldn't lie down, because if I did, I'd bleed into my head and die Elephant-Man-style. Since I had to breathe entirely through my mouth and I couldn't lie down, I was in a cycle of two hours awake followed by one hour asleep for the first couple days. By the time I felt well enough to actually watch a movie, I had to split them into as much as three parts. And guess what? Apocalypto still isn't great even with painkillers.

The surgery was on a Thursday, so that following Monday I got the stuff out of my nose. Very painful procedure (the numbing agent can only be applied AFTER everything is pulled out), but once it was out, things were way better. I was back at work (at the secondary office job) the very next day. Within a couple days, my splint was off, I was breathing, and I could actually smell and taste things for the first time. Why don't you guys eat apple pie all the time? It's awesome. I still looked like I got in a fight, and performed poorly in said fight, but that's been getting better every day, until now when I'm almost completely healed.

At the next followup appointment, the ENT doctor was very impressed by how fast I'm healing. He says that the never smoking or drinking does wonders for the body. I should add that it makes painkillers much more effective. Also, there's no god. See, studies have been done that people who are prayed for, and know about it, heal SLOWER than those who are prayed for and don't know about it and control groups. When you accept responsibility for your body, well, things just work out better.

Okay, so how's she look? Good, I say. It's shorter. Done and done. It's not a huge, dramatic change. It's not something you'd even notice from the front if I didn't mention it. And that's the whole point. You used to notice. Now you don't. It goes with the rest of me quite nicely. When someone first meets me, their impression is no longer, "Mike's got a big nose, and he's a douchebag," but it also won't be, "Mike's got a great nose, but he's a douchebag." Now, it's just, "That Mike's a real douchebag," and that's exactly what I want.

Well, not exactly, but you see my point.

TV: Thursday Edition

Mike just got Guitar Hero 3, which rocks, both literally and figuratively. So, I imagine he's too tangled up in that game to post anything here (last I saw, he was battling Lucifer himself in a rousing version of Devil Went Down to Georgia). That means the posting duties again fall on me. Let's continue the TV preview, which is technically no longer a "preview" since most of these shows have been on for a month now. Anyway, here are Thursday's must-watch shows.

Survivor: That's right, Survivor. Chortle if you must, but it remains the gold standard of the reality genre and one of the best all-around shows on TV. People who complain that it's only about losers making fools of themselves or eating rats or whatever are sorely mistaken. Nay, folks-- Survivor is the ultimate social experiment, and one of the most strategically minded game shows ever created. After a particularly good episode, such as last week's, you could have an elaborate, in-depth discussion just analyzing the various players' strategies.

For instance, in a recent episode, the two tribes switched two players each, at which point Tribe A decided to purposely lose the immunity challenge and head to tribal council so they could vote off one of the new arrivals from Tribe B. Their plan was to then throw the next immunity challenge as well and vote off the other newcomer, then head to the tribal merge and re-connect with their two former tribemates. Meanwhile, Tribe B caught wind of the plan and cooked up a counter-scheme. After winning a reward challenge that allowed them to briefly "kidnap" a member of Tribe A, Tribe B brought their former tribemate back for a day and gave him a secret immunity idol that they'd found at their camp. They instructed him to return to Tribe A, lose the immunity challenge, go to tribal council, and use the idol to deflect the votes and eliminate a power player from Tribe A. But at the same time, Tribe A abandoned its challenge-throwing plan and later ended up winning the challenge, sending a shocked Tribe B to an unexpected tribal council and foiling their carefully hatched plan.

Now try to tell me that nothing happens on Survivor.

Not only that, but the challenges always make for quality TV. In a recent season, one challenge required the tribes to have all eight members stand on an extremely tiny platform that could barely hold two people. Needless to say, it was fun to watch everybody try to squeeze themselves in without hilariously toppling over the whole pile. Classic.

Supernatural: Another of my personal top five shows, this one might be in danger of losing its spot after a sluggish start to this season. The first two seasons of Supernatural were supremely awesome. It was simply about two brothers traveling all across the country, slaying supernatural beasts like vampires and werewolves and wendigos and killer clowns, snarking with each other and rescuing hot babes at every turn. It was like the world's coolest road trip. This season, though, the show has gotten too caught up in emotional crap, and now instead of killing evil creatures in snazzy ways, they're having long, boring conversations with demons and stuff. Less talky, more killy, I say. Also, it seems every other episode is about demons, whereas there used to be a different creature every week. There needs to be more variety in monsters. (In my everyday life, it's rare that I get to use the sentence "There needs to be more variety in monsters.")

NBC's Thursday-night comedies: It's hard to find even one good comedy on TV anymore, so it's pretty much amazing that here you can find four of them at once, all on the same network on the same night. This is the best quartet of comedy shows in decades. Of the four, I'd rank The Office and 30 Rock as the best two, with Scrubs slightly behind them, and My Name is Earl slightly behind that. In any case, they're all well worth watching. 30 Rock has been pure gold this year-- seriously, I don't know why more people aren't watching-- and The Office is always reliably funny. Don't bother with Grey's Anatomy or any of that crap-- just keep the channel on NBC. At least until ER starts; then feel free to turn it off.

TV: Wednesday Edition

I've been waiting for Mike to continue his TV preview. But since he's been idle for a while, and you faithful blog readers deserve an update, I'm going to totally beat him to the punch and pick up where he left off, with Wednesday TV...

Lost: OK, I'm not sure if this show is still on Wednesdays-- it might've been moved to a new night and I forgot. In any case, it won't be on at all until 2008. Whatever the case, I can't wait. Lost has been the best show on TV since it debuted three seasons ago. Great characters, inventive storytelling, a unique setting, and a very cool mystery that continues to unfold in each episode. The first season of Lost was the single best season of any TV show I've ever seen, ever, and although it hasn't matched that level since, it's still excellent. During the second and third seasons, some former fans stopped watching the show, saying they were frustrated because the show wasn't giving them enough answers. Those people? Are idiots. Just enjoy the ride and trust that the writers know where they're going with the story.

Pushing Daisies: Speaking of shows that go above and beyond, this is easily the best new show of the season. There's just nothing like it. The premise: there's a guy who has the power to bring dead people back to life just by touching them, with two caveats: 1) if he touches them again, they're dead forever. 2) if he keeps them alive for more than a minute, someone else in the vicinity will die instead. Hijinks ensue. Great cast, sharp writing, and the whole show has such a brightly colored fairy-tale vibe that you'd think it was directed by Tim Burton on crystal meth. And the narrator is the guy who voiced the Harry Potter audio books! Each episode is like a mini-movie. It's good, I'm telling you.

Bionic Woman: Now, this show? Painfully mediocre. Apparently, early in production, the show was completely revamped and there were all sorts of cast changes and scrapped scenes and re-edits and such. That's been very obvious in the first handful of episodes, which often jump from one scene to next in nonsensical fashion and drop storylines like a sack of bricks. Still, the show at least has potential. The first episode was pretty lousy, but then they (POSSIBLE SPOILER!) killed off the bionic woman's douchebag boyfriend and tried to lighten the overbearing mood somewhat. This show will never be Alias, but maybe it can eventually evolve into a halfway decent option as a mindless action show.

Seeking a definition of "spoiler"

Spoiler, my foot! I didn't give away any upcoming, yet-to-be-aired plotlines. My post came several days after that Prison Break episode aired, so it's fair game for discussion. Unless there's some mythical "buffer zone" of which I'm not aware, in which no TV story lines may be discussed until X number of days have passed. Let's be honest here-- if I can't discuss what's happening on television, my contributions to this blog will be severely limited.

But if it'll stop Mike's complaints, I'll add some sort of cautionary sentence next time, like "WARNING: THIS POST DISCUSSES A STORYLINE/SITUATION/EVENT THAT OCCURRED AT SOME POINT IN THE RECENT PAST, WHICH I THOUGHT YOU WOULD'VE SEEN BY NOW, BUT APPARENTLY NOT." Or something a bit less wordy.

As for the Tuesday shows...

Reaper: I'm sticking with the show, but I'll agree that it's already getting a little stale. After three episodes, the show has seemingly fallen into a repetitive lull. The basic formula for every episode is as follows: Sam gets tasked by the Devil to find an escaped soul, Sam complains for half the episode that he won't/can't/doesn't want to do it, Sam is given an unusual "vessel" to trap the escaped soul (such as a toaster or toy car), said vessel ends up getting destroyed by his hapless Work Bench colleagues, the guys end up trapping the escaped soul through blundery in the last act, the Devil stops by to give Sam some devilish real-world advice. There's enough fun stuff to keep me watching, but I think this show would be better served if it were only half an hour long instead of a full hour. Tighten things up a bit, vary the formula, and we'll be set.

House: I've always thought of House as a very enjoyable show, but not quite on the level of "excellent." My mind may be changing on that, because the first three episodes of this season have been absolutely fantastic. Easily the best start of any show on TV this season. And yes, Mike, the Survivor parody plays into that a little bit, but mostly it's because this season has seen less of Cameron, Chase, and Foreman-- who have sort of outlived their usefulness-- and has put most of the spotlight on House himself, who is awesome, and played awesomely by Hugh Laurie. The show has shaken up the usual formula in a big way, and that's a plus.

Boston Legal: OK. I like this show; it's harmless fun, and it often provides many laugh-out-loud moments, more so than most purported "sitcoms." But even I was dumbfounded when it was nominated for Best Drama at the Emmys. First of all, because it's not a drama (not usually). But secondly, the show's good, but it's not that good. It basically boils down to James Spader and William Shatner sexually harassing every female in the Boston area, while a revolving door of various other cast members tries desperately to stay relevant. And there's usually some sort of trial, at the end of which Spader launches into a long and angry closing argument/soapbox speech that best addresses David E. Kelley's real-world political agenda for the week. Again, the show's good, but it's not great. Not that the Emmy nominations ever make sense anyway, but did Boston Legal really deserve to be nominated over, say, Lost? I think not.

TV: Tuesday Edition

After the massive attack of shows on Monday, Tuesday is a great deal lighter. This works out for me, because I've got all those shows from Monday recorded that I still need to get through. Plus, it's even lighter now that I removed Reaper from the list (humor misses too often, and there's too little of a very cool premise). Let's discuss the remaining shows, while carefully avoiding GIANT SPOILERS like the one that Paul decided to shout out for Prison Break...

House (9PM Fox)

British comedy legend Hugh Laurie plays a doctor with a perfect American accent. Usually when actors are forced to hide their native accents, it's a disaster (I'm looking at you, Eddie Izzard). Are we not at the point where the American viewership can accept that some people talk differently? The thing is, Hugh does such an amazing job, you wouldn't know he was British unless I just told you. He really ruins it for everyone else. Remember the Pythons doing American accents in various sketches of Meaning of Life? No? Of course not, because they were so bad.

The fact that this isn't in Paul's top five and goddamn Survivor is could only be called a travesty. This season's use of teams and tribal councils seems to be specifically designed to change Paul's mind.

Boston Legal (10PM ABC)

Another of the best shows on TV, and it's a spinoff of The Practice, which sucked. How often are spinoffs better than the original? Well, there's Star Trek: The Next Generation (and its own spinoff, Deep Space Nine, which may have been better still), and... what? Frasier lasted longer than Cheers, but I don't know if you could call it more successful, and it certainly wasn't better. The Colbert Report is often funnier than the preceding Daily Show, but I don't know if that's really a spinoff in the purest sense, and that's the only sense that counts. And even though in the last few seasons of Friends Joey was the only one who was still allowed to be funny, when you take everyone else out, you're not left with much.

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And that's all for Tuesday. Not a whole lot, but the shows that are there are great, and it gives me a day to clear my DVR for Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday.

TV? That's where I'm a viking!

Whoa! Look who's suddenly post-happy all of a sudden. Mike goes more than a month with nothing to say, and now he's trying to commandeer the blog. Not on my watch, sir!

He thought we were in the "pre-posting" phase. What's that all about? There's no such thing. Once a blog is online, it's meant to be posted in. You're not supposed to wait for someone else to tell you when to post. What would you do with your "pre-posting" time, anyway? Gather your thoughts? That defeats the entire purpose! Blogs are for writing whatever you want without giving it the slightest bit of thought. Just look at all the shmucks who have popular blogs. That's what the wonderful world of the internets is all about.

Yes, the story about my meeting the Orioles' manager is true. We had a nice chat in the Orioles' dugout, just the two of us, a few hours before a game a couple months ago. We shot the breeze about the O's for 45 minutes, and I expressed my opinion about why the team was so unrelentingly horrible. (And this was before they gave up 30 runs in one game!) I'd explain more, but I'm fairly sure that none of the readers of this blog (all three of you) are baseball fans, and thus would not enjoy the story on nearly as many levels as I do.

I suppose I should chime in on Mike's TV discussion, as it is one of the precious few subjects I can speak knowledgeably about.

Torchwood/Californication: I dunno. Never seen 'em. (Like I said-- totally knowledgeable about TV.)

How I Met Your Mother: It's a good show, but you know what would make it better? Dumping all the cast members not named Neil Patrick Harris. Seriously. That guy is legen --wait for it-- dary. The other characters I can take or leave, but if it were just 30 minutes of Barney's exploits, it'd be the best show on TV. Someone needs to get cracking on this.

Chuck: The lowdown: A bungling loser, through unfortunate happenstance, finds himself embroiled in a series of high-stakes, life-or-death situations. As opposed to the new CW show Reaper, in which a bungling loser, through unfortunate happenstance, finds himself embroiled in a series of high-stakes, life-or-death situations. Glad I clear up the confusion. The thing is, these are two of the best of an otherwise weak crop of new shows. Also, it's official: every show on TV now has a character named Chuck. Or Jack. Or, in some cases, both.

Heroes: Here's the thing about Heroes. It could be so awesome, all the time, and yet it...holds back, a bit. Like, last season, it took forever to get to the point (the first 8-9 episodes were extremely slow moving), but once it got there, it was some of the best TV you'll ever see. Every episode features many moments of awesomeness (cool fights or special effects or whathaveyou) interspersed with a couple lame or boring storylines (usually anything involving Niki). It's definitely worth watching, though, and it even cracked Paul's Personal Top Five Shows last year. That's a distinguished honor, shared by (as of the end of last season) The Office, Lost, Survivor, and Supernatural. The list is constantly changing, though, so stay tuned.

Prison Break: Mike's extremely correct when he says it's not the same show every week. Every episode introduces a brand-new, completely ludicrous, plot-hole-ridden storyline. Oh sure, it's fun to watch it all play out, but man-- shut off your brain if you're planning to watch this show. It simply makes no sense. This show sure does have a vindictive group of writers, though-- "Oh, so you're just going to quit our show, flaky actress? Well then, I guess you won't mind if we put your character's severed head in a box!" Yikes.

Journeyman: I really wanted to like this show, because I'm usually into the whole time-travel stuff (I was one of the two people who watched Day Break to its conclusion). But I'm just not feeling Journeyman. For one thing, the characters are boring, and for some reason, they hired a Scottish guy to play the lead character but force him to do an American accent. Why not let him cut loose with the Scottish brogue? It'd be so much more entertaining, like having Groundskeeper Willie as the star. ("Ya used me, Skinner! Ya used me!") But the main problem is that the time-traveling aspect just isn't interesting. He can't control when or where he travels, and when he does, all he does is complete some lame task like making sure some no-name receives a bone marrow transplant. Bo-ring! He ought to travel back 20 years and tell people that the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks are currently playing in the National League Championship Series, and watch people be all perplexed because those teams don't yet exist in their time. Oops! Now I'm talking baseball again, so I'll sign off for now...

TV: Monday edition

The fall TV season has started, and I've spent a good deal of my time sampling everything so you don't have to. There's a huge amount of programming out there, so rather than cramming it all into one post, I figure the easiest thing to do is divide it up into days. So, let us begin with Monday. There's a lot on Monday, so don't feel like you need to read all of this in one sitting.

Torchwood (7PM, HDNet)

A British show from the makers of the new Doctor Who (never seen it) that has a similar concept to Men in Black, but a totally different feel. In the US, it airs on both BBC America and HDNet, so I don't need to tell you where I watch it. Amanda once said to me, "Why is British TV so much better than American TV?" I've sampled a lot of British TV, and some of it's great. Jonathan Creek is one of my favorite shows, and it's never had an American version. But, can even the best British TV, or any foreign TV for that matter, compete with Lost? Boston Legal? House? Hell, even our version of The Office is loads better than their original, and even Ricky Gervais agrees. Still, while the best stuff is coming out of this country, others still have good stuff, and Torchwood is a decent enough example.

Prison Break (8PM, Fox)

I stopped watching shows like CSI and Without a Trace not because they're bad shows, but because they're the same week to week, year to year. That's totally not a problem with Prison Break (or P-Break, as I call it silently to myself). Even shows like 24, which necessarily changes its plot entirely every season, feel similar year to year. With 24, it was especially bad last year. After a great start, it was such a slog to the end. You watched it because you felt you had to, not because you wanted to. And the villain's name was Chang? What, did they just open the yellow pages for Chinese take-out, throw their finger down at random, and say, "That's our main villain, right there?" But now I'm in a position where I have the first five seasons on DVD, and have no desire to get the sixth. What if the seventh is great? My DVD collection will be 1 2 3 4 5 7. That's not great. The stupid box art doesn't help either. Can you believe Barack Obama got a little flak for saying he stopped wearing a flag pin after September 11 because too many people were using it instead of patriotism rather than because of it? I totally agree, and now Fox is trying to guilt us into buying 24 season six by plastering a flag on Jack's face. Asshats. But Prison Break doesn't have those problems.


How I Met Your Mother (8pm, CBS)

When I was in elementary and middle school, I watched a ton of multi-camera studio-audience sitcoms. Full House, Home Improvement, Seinfeld, everything on the TGIF, you name it. As I got older, I watched these less and less, until now, when we've only got one holdout: How I Met Your Mother, now also in its third season. Is it because I'm getting older? Or maybe it's because society is changing? I think it's the latter. 30 years ago, the powers that be insisted on including a laugh track in MASH, even though it obviously had no audience. If you want to go even further back and more obvious, Hanna Barbera cartoons like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and worst cartoon of all time Jabberjaw had laugh tracks, and I think even the youngest of children understood that no studio audience would have the patience to sit through the 6 month animation process. Later, shows like Malcolm in the Middle showed us the radical concept that people can choose when to laugh on their own, and maybe they could be filmed like movies instead of like plays. That being said, there is something nice about having live voices laughing with you. If it's fake and canned, it's insulting, but if it's actually filmed in front of people, like they used to verbally tell you at the front of the Cosby Show, it's not so bad.

Also, it's a good show. There's even a website set up counting down to when one character will slap another. Hard.

Chuck (8PM, NBC)

Spy action comedy. I'll take one. But more importantly, this is the third show that's on Mondays at 8 that I watch. This is why the internet is great. I really don't have moral objections to downloading television; if I watched it over the DVR, I'd just be skipping commercials anyway. Is it stealing if it's normally free? I don't think so, really. And there are plenty of shows that I wouldn't have ever gotten into if it weren't for downloading. I caught up with Alias when I was sick during the second season, and ended up watching every episode on ABC after. If you miss an episode of 24 or Lost, you're screwed entirely, but I can download that episode and I'll be fine. And that doesn't even include foreign TV, like Regenesis and the aforementioned Jonathan Creek, or HDTV versions of shows like Stargate and The 4400. I love the internet.

Heroes (9PM, NBC)

Take the plot of X-Men, don't change it at all... and you've got Heroes. Heroes tries to be a little more real-world, which might be why it moves so damn slowly. I really like serialized shows, but only if they spend most of their time on one really interesting story, and keep it moving along. Like Alias kept seeming like it would be with Rambaldi, but never really was. Rambaldi was originally a MacGuffin, which is something that really doesn't matter but advances the plot, and it ended up being the most interesting thing about the show. This should, of course, not be confused with a MacGruber, which makes life-saving inventions out of household materials.

Journeyman (10PM, NBC)

Take Quantum Leap, remove the body snatching aspect, and here you go. What I like about this one is how, in the pilot, he buried a newspaper in order to prove to his wife that he's travelling through time, and so for the whole series she knows exactly what's happening. I really, really hate it when other characters just don't believe the main character, or he spends half his time keeping the show's premise a secret from other characters. Remember the 100th episode of Smallville, where Clark told Lana his secret, we all thought the show would be better for it, and then he went back in time and un-told her? I wanted to wring the neck of every writer on the show. Soon after, I stopped watching it entirely, like Without a Trace (same show every week) and Numbers (it's not about the numbers anymore, and if you replace an E with a 3 when spelling your show, you're an idiot).

Californication (10:30PM, Showtime)

On right after Weeds, which doesn't do anything for me, this unfortunately named show (that fortunately has nothing to do with the Red Hot Chili Peppers) is easily my favorite of the new season. Of course, since it's on cable, and they start shows whenever they feel like it, should it technically be called part of the fall season? I'll say yes, if only because without it, there's no new show that I really love this season. Every season's got at least one. One you call your show. Last season it was Justice, which apparently was only watched by the writers of this Superblog. God, that was fantastic. Somebody in the show had her head knocked off while riding a rollercoaster, and that still goes through our heads whenever we ride one.

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And that takes care of Monday. Don't worry; future days won't be quite so long. Monday is just a really heavy day for television for some reason. It's actually a big problem for those of us whose DVRs are teetering on the edge of full all the time. It's not MY fault there's more on TV that I want to watch than free time I have.

What? Is this thing on?

Okay, so, I thought we were still in the pre-posting phase of this thing, but Paul went ahead and posted a few things without telling me, and then started yelling at me for not posting anything. Viciously. I mean, you wouldn't think he had it in him.

So, right now, it looks like this is all about Paul. All Paul, all the time. It certainly won't be for long, now that we're up and running... but as long as it is, let's talk about Paul for a minute. First:

http://www.billsaddiction.com/archive/index.php/t-3221.html

You'll notice that Mr. JoeyO11, at 11:51 AM, refers to him as "The Great Paul Folkemer." I've never been called the great anything, except perhaps "douchebag." Further searching revealed this:

http://www.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50795

See, the Orioles aren't doing well at all. It's embarassing. When people ask where I grew up, I say Dickeyville rather than Baltimore, because it's less embarassing. So the manager of the Orioles actually calls Paul up to his office and says, "Look, we're clear out of ideas. We've worked our way down the chain, and we've come to you. How should we run this team?"

This actually happened.

In Soviet Russia, Orioles are fans of you.

A decent waste of time

If you're at your computer and don't have a myriad of video-game systems in front of you, here's a game to pass the time: Gimme Friction Baby. The basic idea: you shoot a bubble toward the top of the screen. It'll stop somewhere and expand. If you hit that bubble three more times (with other bubbles), it'll explode and you get a point. If you shoot a bubble that bounces to the bottom of the screen, you lose. My top score is 28.

That game has whittled away the time for me as I sit, bored out of my skull, in the Oriole Park press box.

In related news, why am I wasting my time still going to O's games when I could be at home watching any number of quality TV shows? Bleh. At least there's only a week left in baseball season.

Another year closer to death

Hey hey, it's my birthday! Though of course, nobody is yet aware that this blog even exists, so by the time you read it-- if ever-- it'll be old news. You'll be like, "Hey Paul, happy birthday," and I'll be all, "What? Who? Birth-whatzit? Put down the crack pipe, Sir Drugsalot."

Twenty-five. The big 2-5. I'm as old as five five-year-olds, but far less annoying. I've gotten a heck of a present today-- the Orioles aren't playing. I couldn't ask for anything more.

So far, 25 feels an awful lot like 24. But I get the feeling that big changes are in store this year. Oh yes, big changes. I mean, look at me-- I'm posting in a blog. That's new! Next stop, world domination.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention that. You may now commence with your normal lives, nonexistent readers.

What's all this, then?

When Mike suggested that he and I collaborate on a blog, I thought it was a terrible idea. "The two of us wouldn't fit in to blog world," I said. "You never write anything, and I don't have opinions." So Mike replied: "Maybe that's true, but..." And then, actually, I forget the rest of what he said.

Great story, huh?

Still, it doesn't hurt to give this thing a shot. So, in the unlikely event that this blog lasts for more than a week, what can you expect to read here? Heck if I know. But I can tell you what you won't be reading about: politics. Every blog in the universe is about politics. It's dumb. I couldn't possibly care less about politics. I don't follow it. I don't have opinions about it. It's just boring. I don't care who's running for what or which boring subjects they hold boring debates about.

"But Paul," you say. "How can you be so willfully ignorant about the most important things going on in our society?" Well, it's surprisingly easy! I spend my time following baseball, and TV, and anything else that I find interesting, and I ignore the snore-inducing stuff like politics. The only time I ever hear about what's going on in the political world is when I watch the Daily Show, and even then, I've forgotten all about whatever the issues were by the time the show is over (and if Jon Stewart is interviewing a political guest, I fast-forward through it). Such ignorance is very refreshing. You never have to whine about some political type doing something stupid. You never get into heated political debates that shatter friendships and make everyone hate you. You never have to be angry about anything...other than the Orioles, of course.

So you won't be seeing any politics in this blog, at least not from me. Anything else is fair game. (Ever been punched in the face by a random stranger? Remind to tell that story sometime.) And so begins Paul and Mike's Superblog.

The Grand Experiment

Hello, everyone, and welcome. It's been a while.

Back in college, I started my own weblog, even before the term "blog" reached critical mass. Indeed, I still don't like the term "blog;" it sounds like someone vomiting. Have you ever seen the new Showtime show Californication? I love that show. In the first episode, someone said "blog," and wiped his hand over his mouth as he said it. Try it now.

I kept up the weblog for some time, but updates were intermittent. Some weeks would have a dozen posts, and other times I'd go for months without an update. I decided, quite recently, that something should be done about that. Then, at a party, I saw people crowding around a computer with Paul's writeup of the Oriole's crusing 30-3 loss against the Texas Rangers, totally enamored with his writing. Even people like me, who have no interest in baseball whatsoever, seemed to enjoy it. People liked my writing, and people like Paul's writing, but neither of us have the drive to maintain a weblog with any sort of regularity. And thus began the great experiment... the Superblog.

The idea is, we'll each push each other to keep it up. I can't let Paul be the star here any more than he would let me. We'll see how it goes.