Review Spew

Mantracker TV show Review

2010-03-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a sucker for quasi-nature reality TV shows. While flipping channels, I'll always stop when I see Man Vs. Wild, Survivorman, Deadliest Catch, or Shark Week. If there is some sort of danger occurring in nature (regardless of how manufactured it may be) I am definitely interested.
In fact, the title alone will get me to stop for at least 15 minutes on the channel. While not real TV nature reality shows, any of the following titles would catch my attention enough to stop and watch.

Burned to death at Yellowstone
Paraplegic White-water rafting
Humans: Crocodile appetizers
Deadly insect attacks
Lost at sea: Cannibalism on the Pacific

This is why I was glued to the Science channel this past weekend watching a Mantracker marathon.

Mantracker is exactly what its title purports it to be...a tracker hunts down his prey (2 people) in a wild outdoors location. I was severely disappointed that there are no guns involved in the show. Not even poison darts or rock salt in a shotgun.

The "Mantracker" is Terry Grant who is from Canada. He is a professional human tracker, having served in search and rescue units for years. Terry is a man of few words, but has a dashing salt and pepper beard, and could step seamlessly into any Clint Eastwood western.

The premise of the show has 2 "prey" who have to reach the finish line somewhere between 30-40 km away within 36 hours. They lose if the Mantracker gets close enough to them to consider them "caught." They have a map and compass to guide them to the finish line.
They can also bring any other items to help them on their way. I've seen things like camel backs, dry bags, and even walkie talkies.
The Mantracker is on a horse, and always has a local guide along with him who is familiar with the territory.

The "hunt" starts with a flare gun shot, and the "prey" usually have a small mile or two head start. From here, the Mantracker heads to the flare site, and starts looking for tracks left by the "prey." In all honesty, the Mantracker is very good at finding tracks, and choosing the direction of the "prey" from these tracks. He's usually right on their heels the entire time. If he does lose the trail, he can generally find it again within hours.

This Mantracker marathon I watched must have been "Mantrackers greatest hits" as nobody eluded him in any show. In reality, about 30% of the time, someone makes it to the finish line.

To be honest, this is not television writing at its greatest, but it is entertaining. I somewhat enjoy human suffering, and there is usually no shortage of it from the "prey" in their journey.

I give the Mantracker a solid 3-star rating. It's a solid addition to manufactured danger reality nature television programming. I almost bumped it up to 4 stars as I learned that the Mantracker has 16 children. Perhaps if he starts a new show, he can call it Viagratracker as he seems to be a busy man.

Shutter Island review

2010-03-01T20:55:00.007-07:00

All right so I'm still doing job training. One more week to go. Hallelujah. And because I'm so busy with homework I'm getting my lazy on and bringing back the guest review. It is from a blogger named "Just Some Guy" and his blog is theomniscientthey. I saw this movie this past weekend and I couldn't agree with this guy more. So enjoy, and I promise I will do a review soon, whether you want me to or not.

This isn’t the first time Martin Scorsese has dealt with mental illness. Next to gangster flicks I’d say it’s his favorite topic. This time around instead of the loner vigilante Travis Bickle or the mad genius that was Howard Hughes we are introduced to the elusive Andrew Laeddis. That’s all I’m saying about Laeddis since half the fun of this thriller is figuring the complexity that is Andrew Laeddis.

With Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese has crafted a trippy, haunting, disturbing, painful, and even beautiful film that hangs with you long after the lights come on and you step out into the real world. The thing you’ve got to love with a director of Scorsese’s caliber is that you know everything is going to be top notch from the music; which is not Scorsese’s usual compilation of the best in classic rock and blues (somehow “Gimme Shelter” just wouldn’t quite fit into this flick); to the acting, and to the cinematography.

The movie begins with two federal marshals; Teddy Daniels, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Chuck Aule played by a likeable Mark Ruffalo approaching the enigmatic Shutter Island which is home to an institution for the criminally insane. Teddy and Chuck are there to investigate the mysterious disappearance of one of the institution’s more dangerous inmates. DiCaprio’s Daniels comes to Shutter Island haunted by demons of his own as he is tormented by nightmares of his deceased wife, Dolores played by the beautiful Michelle Williams. The scenes with Teddy and Delores are the most affecting and visually stunning. There is so much pain between the two former lovers as they are engulfed in the tortured dreams of Teddy Daniels. The dream sequences are some of the best since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The acting and chemistry is so great between these two in their few scenes that it stirred up the ghosts of this reviewer’s ex loves, which is quite an accomplishment since this story is about as far from a love story as you can get.

As the film continues with Teddy becomes suspicious and frustrated that all of the employees on the island seem to know more than they are willing to tell as they continually refuse to cooperate in his investigation. The music is unsettling throughout building tension and creating anxiety as the movie works its complicated path to conclusion.

Of course there are no perfect films and this one does have its weak points, mostly in the plot. There are too many clues dropped throughout the film that prevents the film’s twists from having that Sixth Sense effect on the viewer. However it is a very strong and I should say deeply disturbing film. This one is not for the kiddies, grandma, or the faint of heart. It’s for all those who can handle their art being both brutal and stunning. For a follow up to The Departed it’s another great addition to Scorsese’s legendary body of work.

Home Theater Review

2010-02-23T05:00:00.003-07:00

Two years ago we decided to upgrade from our 24” Sony Wega TV to a Plasma Screen TV. After an exhaustive search of the internet and reading literally hundreds of reviews we decided that Panasonic was the brand to get. Our budget was such that we could get a 50” screen but only a 720P. The decision was made and the day had come and I was all set to buy it at Costco when a good friend of mine rushed over to my desk and said, “Have you bought that TV yet?” I replied that I hadn’t. He then told me to go to Frys.com.

There on the homepage of Frys.com was the exact same TV I was going to buy for the exact same price except it was the 1080P version. Same price, and free shipping. Let me tell you I was 100% satisfied with my entire shopping experience with Frys.com. From the communication from them to the quick and free delivery I was very impressed. They get 5 Stars

I ended up getting the Panasonic TH-50PZ77U 50” 1080P Plasma HDTV. It cost $1,599.00 Being two years old it’s probably pointless to review the TV except to say we have been impressed with the quality of it. Both the sound and picture are fantastic and there are plenty of connections on the back to add whatever your heart desires and an easy to use remote control. It weighs about 5,000 pounds, but so do all Plasma Screen TV’s. It’s also very slim, sticking out from the wall only 6 inches. It does loose a star because in less than a year one of the HDMI inputs went out on it. That did not present a problem for me personally but does speak of the overall reliability of the system. It gets 4 Stars.

Knowing the violent tendencies of my kids I knew that although the TV came with a very stout base to sit on, it would be best to mount it to the wall. For this we chose the Peerless ST660 Tilt Wall Mount. Please go to their website and choose carefully as they have a bagillion different models depending on what TV you have. The price was more than decent at $81.57. It was extremely easy to mount to the wall and to the TV and has been really easy to use since. It has a decent range of tilt allowing you to access the connections on the TV, and it didn’t add very much to the total thickness of the TV. After two years, I’ve never had a problem with it. It gets 5 Stars

Being a radically different TV setup required a different type of entertainment system. I actually started out by drawing a rough sketch of what would be the ideal entertainment system for what I was planning to hook to the Plasma Screen TV and then set out to find it online. I found the perfect one at Officefurniture.com. They have a huge selection of merchandise with great prices and great customer service. I definitely would buy from them again. They get 4 Stars.

I ended up with an Entertainment Center built by Sauder. Like all Sauder furniture it required assembly. I have assembled several things from Sauder in my adult life, and have been extremely impressed with the cleverness of their engineering, clearness of their instructions and quality of their products. This baby was no exception. It has stood the test of time and the violence inflicted upon it by my children. It still looks great, works great and is just awesome. I give Sauder 5 Stars.

Of course we’re still using rabbit ears and at the time the network TV digital conversion was looming so we bought a digital antenna. The first was the Philips PHDTV1 Silver Sensor UHF/HDTV Digital Indoor Antenna which cost $22.99 (Attenna on the left below). Easy as any set of rabbit ears to install but would not pick up our local Fox station. Completely frazzled with everything else that went into setting the whole Home Theater up, I was content to not have Fox, but I did miss the entire 7th season of 24. Because of that little factoid right there, I give this antenna a Big Fat Zero.

The Digital transition occurred and American Idol was coming up so my wife insisted a rectify this problem so I went through a two week ordeal whereby I would stop at Walmart on my way to work, buy an antenna, come home after work, hook it up, try every conceivable angle and position only to have the exact same problem, so I would box it up and return it to Walmart on my way to work the next morning and buy a different one. I think I went through 4 antennas this way. Walmart rocks, they get 5 Stars.
I finally ended up getting a Philips MANT940 UHF Digital and Analog Indoor/Outdoor Antenna for $21.51.(Attenna on the right above). It has great reception, was easy to install, and was actually one of the cheapest antennas I tried. It does mount to the outside of the house, but has a very slim profile and is hardly noticeable. I give it 4 stars.

I’ve probably owned 6 or 7 different DVD players from Philips. I buy them because a) they are normally the cheapest ones at Walmart and b) they play any format of movie, song or image (DivX, MP3, WMA and JPEG digital camera photos, CD, (S)VCD, DVD, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW). This helps if you have lots and lots of “non-tradition” movie formats, which I won’t go into here. The problem is almost every single one I’ve bought over the years breaks down within a year (that’s why I have bought so many). The last two would freeze up whenever I was playing a DivX formatted movie on a DVD-R. Really the only reason you would buy this system is for this purpose and since it doesn’t work, all of Philips DVD players get a Big Fat Zero.

Tired of complaining that it “Hurts when I do this” I decided to stop doing it, and bought a PC that I could connect to my TV and could play my movies directly from it rather than copying them over to DVD-Rs. I ended up with a Dell Studio 540s Slim Tower with Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q8300 (4MB L2, 2.5GHz, 1333FSB). Not sure what any of the crap means except that it’s totally awesome. I bought it from Dell’s Outlet store online which rocks. The whole systems sells at their regular site for about $1,000, and I got it for $550. That includes a Blu-Ray drive as well. At first the HDMI out did not work on it, but after 30 minutes with Dell’s on-line Chat Tech Support it was working like a champ and I haven’t had a problem since. Very impressed with Dell’s website, their tech support and their PC. They loose 1 star because they use a super-bright white LED to light up their power button on the front. It’s like having a laser beam pointing into your eye the whole time you’re watching TV. Dell gets 4 Stars.

In addition to the DVD player and the PC, we also have an X-Box, a Playstation 2 and a Wii hooked up to the TV. No point in reviewing those except to say they’re awesome. But I mention those to mention the fact that I have about a thousand miles of cable running through my wall to and from my TV. That stuff doesn’t come cheap, but I did find a site where you definitely want to go for all your cable needs. MonoPrice.com. I couldn’t believe how awesome their prices were even compared to Walmart and other discount stores. And this is not cheaply made stuff either; all very high quality cables. I give them 5 Stars.

Of course now that I have a PC hooked up to the TV I need a wireless mouse and keyboard that will allow me to use it from the comfort of my couch. My first attempt at this was the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000. I picked this one because it claimed to have a good long range on the wireless aspects of it. This is not true. It lost signal after only 8-10 feet. The other problem I had with it is its ginormous. The keyboard is bigger than one of those clicky IBM keyboards from the 80’s. It takes up so much room and is just an eye-sore in our front room. The mouse is also large. It’s unlike any mouse I’ve ever seen. It’s bulbous. It took me 3 months to figure out why I couldn’t let go of it yet felt uncomfortable holding it around my children. It feels like a boob; a well-endowed female boob. I mean C-cup at least if not D-cup. It’s weird. It also lost it’s connection within 8-10 feet and wouldn’t work on any ol’ surface. It wanted a tradition mouse pad. Anything that feels like a boob gets at least 1 star, but since it sucked in all other respects I can only give this wireless duo 1 Star.

This leads to the final thing I’m going to review which is the Logitech diNovo Mini. This thing is wicked cool. It’s small and easy to use. I’ve walked into other rooms and it doesn’t loose connection. It looks awesome and has a good design. It’s the perfect solution if you have a PC hooked to your TV. It is a little pricey at $120 but well worth it. It runs off of a rechargeable battery that they claim lasts up to 1 month, but that’s a damn dirty lie. The longest we’ve gotten is 7 days, but that is still very impressive and it just requires you plug it in before going to bed 1 night a week. No big deal. Since we’ve got it I’ve notice it used in TV programs. Starbuck uses it in this season of 24, as does that super hot babe in Chuck, so it must be good. I give it 5 Stars.

Better than Sex Cake Review

2010-02-19T05:00:00.002-07:00

After my wife bought all her own presents for her birthday, I needed to score a passing grade on this special day, and decided to make her birthday cake. I'm fairly adept in the kitchen. I've been known to rustle up some mean scrambled eggs, a hearty totino's pizza, and some delicious toaster strudels. (I freaking love toaster strudels)
I looked in the pantry, and found a yellow cake mix.

Just what my wife wanted--a yellow cake with store-bought frosting. FAIL.

I knew I had to step it up. I needed to pull out the big guns. That's when it hit me--I could show her what a real man could do in the bedroom later that evening, and she'd forget about the yellow cake. FAIL.

She didn't want sex. She wanted something better than sex. I rattled through my mind of all the things she'd like better than sex for a good idea.
I could clean the bathrooms, empty the dishwasher, put the kids to bed, leave her alone for at least 2 hours, or...I could make my special Better than Sex Cake!

This is a delicious concoction of chocolate, caramel, whip cream, and sugar overdose. I mean this is really delicious.

Here's the basics if you want to make it. (really easy)
Cook a regular devil's food cake in a 9X13 pan.
When cooked, poke a bunch of small holes into the cake almost down to the pan.
While the cake is still warm, pour about 10-14 oz's of sweetened condensed milk over the cake.
Follow this with about 6-8 oz of caramel ice cream topping.
These should ooze down into the holes in the cake, and make a nice layer of sugar for all future diabetics.
Let cake cool completely.
Top with a thin layer of whip cream, and then crumble a couple Heath candy bars on top.

This cake is delicious, but very sweet. A few pieces of this will add a hearty layer of fleshy goodness around your waist. Enjoy!
The cake was a hit for her birthday, and it even better as leftovers the next few days.

I do have a complaint about the title of this cake. I mean---really?? Better than SEX cake?? Obviously a woman named this. Any man who chooses cake over sex has serious issues. The proper thing to do is think about cake WHILE having sex.

Is the cake VERY good? Yes!
Is it better than sex? No!

I think the male version of this cake would be more aptly named one of the following:
Better than sex with yourself cake.
Better than paying for sex cake.
Better than Cinemax sex cake.
Almost better than the sex scene in Top Gun cake. (Some things witnessed by a 10 year old can never be washed away)
Better than Sex in the City cake.

I give the cake a sweet 4-star rating. The name alone docks it a star.

Out of State Work Training review

2010-02-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

My last review was about working at a bank that was getting shut down by the Federal Reserve. That leaves me unemployed. That makes my wife angry and she calls me names. That makes me cry. So I needed a job...fast! So here I am, now employed by an unnamed sales company who doesn't have any clue that I have no experience in sales.

Not to worry about inexperience though, because before I ever start the job they send us to Seattle for job training. They put us up in a pretty good hotel, have given us a good per diem, they even gave me a free backpack. Sounds good so far right? It would be...if I didn't have to be here for a month. Yes, 31 days! That might not sound so bad, except I'm worried that I'll get back to a 9 month old daughter who doesn't recognize me from Adam (you know, from the Bible).

I spend the majority of my days here in class. It goes from 8 to 5. It is basically the longest day of school 5 days a week. I hate to admit this but I think I have done more homework here than I ever did in a semester of college. The trainer is actually pretty lively, which makes a huge difference because when the HR director comes in to talk to us about our benefits I have to put sugar in my eyes to stay awake. Let's not forget about the local union rep with the monotone lecture about the "benefits" of paying dues to a union. (Is it just me or is it a requirement to be a lesbian vegan to be a union rep?)

I sit on the back row next to a southern black woman, and a 50 year old bald man (skinhead) on the other side. I don't know how it happened but I have become a sounding board for the two of them. On my left I get a barrage of "Oh Lord. Oh Lord. This class is so boring, how am I gonna make it through the day. Oh Lord Jesus." Then to my right the skinhead keeps whispering dirty jokes and stares at me until I suffer from forced fits of laughter. I can set my watch to it. Every 5 minutes he will lean over and whisper a dirty joke that I won't be able to hear. I ask "what was that?" Then for some reason he lowers the volume of his voice and repeats the same inaudible joke. Because I hate asking "what?" more than once, I have to give the courtesy laugh, nod my head, and say "Ha, there ya go!" This training might actually be good to teach me selling skills if I didn't have to put up with a habitual prayer on my left and a joke about a nun not getting to heaven on my right.

As a side note, every trainee was given a squishy ball (a.k.a. stress ball) to squeeze when the information was getting to be too much. I used mine for the first two days but was surprised to find that the woman to my left had taken my ball and was rotating two stress balls in one hand. Let me repeat. She was handling two balls in her hand. I was immediately uncomfortable and even more so when she was performing her stress act and telling me that she needed two to really calm her down. She then put my ball back on my desk. Listen lady, you can keep it. Around every hour she repeats her rotating of the balls.

The hotel is pretty nice and the group I'm training with is half-decent. I'm in the small minority of non-drinkers in the group and I honestly can't believe how much drinkers talk about getting drunk. No matter what conversation I have with them turns into one about drinking. For example -

Me: Are we all going to do Karaoke tonight?
Louse: Only if I get wasted first!

Me: How do you think you did on the quiz?
Alky: No matter what, I'm gonna need a beer.

You get the picture. I could go on but I will spare you. Let me just say that being away from family and actual friends sucks. Being in class all day is the worst. I would give work training out of state zero stars but the per diem my company gives me is over 70 bucks a day! This month has been redeemed by spending cash.

The New Domino's Pizza Review

2010-02-12T05:00:00.004-07:00

I like Little Caesar’s Pizza. I love Totino’s Party Pizzas. I even enjoy those pizza Lunchables where you have a round cracker and you spread that ketchupy sauce on it then a pepperoni or two and then some cold shredded cheese. So when I say that Domino’s Pizza tasted like something a billy goat would throw up, re-eat and throw up again, then you know it must be bad.

I was then surprised by the recent “Ya, we really did suck but now we don’t” ad campaign that Domino’s Pizza has going on. How refreshing it is to see some honesty in advertising. The whole campaign is a stroke of genius. Admit your epic failures and then ask people to give you another chance. If the pizza is indeed good, as they claim, then they should do very well.

I was still unwilling to touch it with a 10 foot pole. No way, no way, no way. I then found myself at a church pot-luck all-you-can-eat soup social (I couldn’t possibly make something like that up – it really happened), and despite 40 different varieties of stew, gruel and slop I just couldn’t bring myself to try any. I then found myself in the church parking lot at 8:30 at night, starving to death and staring across the street at the Domino’s Pizza which was advertising Large Ready-to-go Pepperoni pizzas for only $4.99. OK, I’ll give it a go.

I was instantly disappointed to discover that the pizza was square. I can’t stand square pizzas. It just seems unnatural. Kind of like that time in college, with your roommate (Matt you know what I mean), but I digress. What should be round is square and for that Domino’s loses a star. Oh, they have round pizzas too, but the $4.99 special is square.

It smelled good all the way home. It looked good. It felt good to the touch. It sounded good too in that it didn’t make any noise. The only thing worse than square pizza is noisy pizza so it gets one star for that. This leaves just one last sense; taste. My first bite tasted really, really good. I was instantly surprised and pleased. Such flavor I didn’t think possible from Domino’s. I devoured my first square slice, then a second. Still good, but I started to notice something. That flavor seemed to have a cumulative effect and midway through slice number three it was starting to not be all that great. Midway through slice four, I had finally had enough. I wasn’t full, I just couldn’t eat any more of it.

If Domino’s flavor had a mental disease it definitely would be Bi-polar disorder. First it was completely depressed and deprived of all taste, now it’s bouncing off the walls giddy with an overabundance of spices, seasonings, and what not. It’s called Lithium. Domino’s, maybe you should look into it. Extremes make me nervous and I don’t like food that makes me nervous so they lose a star for that.

All and all, Domino’s has moved up a level in the world of fast food pizza. It’s now on par with Little Caesars. I would still prefer Totino’s Party Pizzas any day of the week. I will eat at Domino’s again if made convenient enough. I suppose they deserve a star for that. If my math skills are still what they once were that means I give Domino’s New and Improved Pizza three stars, and as a side note I have to admit I really don’t like those Pizza Lunchables. I’m not 6 for heaven’s sake.

After receiving this comment:

"Hi, Phil from Domino's social media here. Wanted to let you know that while our square pizza is relatively new to some stores, our New and Inspired pizza you've been hearing about is something different and only comes when you order our original, round hand tossed pizza. Cheers. "

I feel I have no choice but to remove a star for the sheer creepiness of Domino's to stalk the internet like this. They must have people whose only job is to Google Search "Domino's Pizza and Bi-Polar Disorder". They lose another star because of this whole bait and switch thing. Although I've never had their square pizza and it is heaps better than their original round pizza, it was not the new and improved pizza I was mislead into believing I was getting. Shame on you Domino's. Shame. You get 1 star, and 1 star only. I think I'm going to go buy myself some Pizza Lunchables rather than dine at your place again.

Brutal Legend Video Game Review

2010-02-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am not a huge video game guy. In actuality, I haven’t spent more than a couple hours per week playing any video game in the last 15 years. So for you avid gamers, keep that in mind when reading this review. I just recently picked up an Xbox 360 with a bushel of games from a buddy and have been getting used to the platform. Now that I have a current game system, my options have opened up and I have had the opportunity to get in on some of the more graphic intensive games that most of you have been playing for years now. One of the first on my list of must play games was Brutal Legend. This is Jack Black’s first attempt at a video game. The recipe: guitar thrashing music, high voltage rock, and medieval love of violence and Hellish creatures.

I didn’t know much about the game except the Jack Black element, and that was enough to pull it off the shelf. Jack Black is my hero, and Tenacious D speaks to my soul. Therefore, I am happy to say that if you are a fan of his type of rude humor particularly as it pertains to his music, then this video game will not disappoint. Jack is a Roady that gets transported to a mythological satanic kingdom where he electrifies Hellspawn with blazing guitar solos and dashes them to goreish pieces with an enormous battle axe. What more could you want? Cameo’s by rock legends like Ozzy and Lemmy Kilmeister? Check. Face melting guitar solos? Check. Gut Busting drums? Check. Off color humor and tongue-in-cheek mockery of an age of Rock that pays homage to an era of kick-ass music that has sadly been replaced by pop chants that wouldn’t know guitar distortion if it fell out of the sky, landed on their faces, and started to wiggle? Whew that was a mouthful….anyhow, yeah there is plenty. Finally, and most importantly, no Dave Mathews, at all, ever.

Game play is fun and although I’ve only had it a week or so, it is what I would expect from Jack. The Headbanger and Groupie characters are hilarious and I thoroughly enjoy the various kick-ass rides that get you from one side of Hell-world to the other. Visually, I think the cartoonish comic book style well suites the story, so no complaints there. Also, as I am a slow player, I don’t know how long the actual game is as I have not yet finished, so there could be issues with longevity. I can say however, that so far, it has been a blast and my wife has even enjoyed the story and watching me play.

This is definitely a mature title but as a side note, you can turn off the foul language if you want. I don’t recommend doing that however, if you want to stay true to Jack. It just seems funnier it it’s raw form, but then again, nothing really offends me. Ultimately, I guess I am saying that this probably won’t win game of the year, but it is better than most games. I think it is definitely worth a rental, and probably the full purchase price. So go grab your axe and let’s “melt some faces”!

The Worst cooks in America TV show on Food Network Review

2010-02-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

It was late at night. The kids were asleep, and the wife was busy on the computer. I was all alone watching TV. Instantly, the deepest of my carnal desires rose to the surface. "She'll be busy for quite some time," I tell myself, flipping the channels on the remote...getting closer to my release.
I reach the channel...turn the volume down for privacy, and sink into the most decadent form of entertainment known to man---Food Network.

So what? I watch Food Network all the time. I'm a portly fellow, and watching drizzling peanut sauce next to a piece of swordfish excites me beyond belief. Some men waste time on skinemax, or countless minutes in front of the computer. My heart lies elsewhere. Yeah---my ultimate dream is to be a food critic.

As I settled in for an enjoyable time, hoping to see fried chicken or Reuben sandwiches, I was disappointed as the channel was currently showing "Worst cooks in America." I almost quickly turned it to skinemax, but the show intrigued me.
They had a bunch of the worst cooks I've ever witnessed. To be completely honest, they were horrible. I didn't realize some people had no idea how to cook fish sticks.

Let me give a brief background on the show.

Terrible cooks were nominated by family/friends to join the show, which were to be mentored through the process by 2 proffesional chefs. Chef Anne and Chef Beau. Chef Anne looks like Zsa Zsa Gabor touching a live electrical source, and Beau spells him name like a douche.
Over 10 days, there were 2 teams led by each chef, and the terrible cooks were to complete cooking challenges. Each episode, a person from each team was kicked off by the chefs.
By the end of the show, only 2 losers remained to cook a 3-course meal for professional food critics.

I'm sure this sounds just like any stupid reality show. In fact...it is. Tears when kicked off. Annoying speaking montages throughout the show. Cut to commercials right before anything interesting happens.
But---it's actually quite interesting to see the progress these losers make. Oh yeah...did I mention Rachel?
Scoring a quality 10 on the unintentional creepy scale is Rachel. She is one of the creepy/most annoying/scary people I've ever seen in my life. Every time I saw her, I flashed back to something in my past that I can't quite put my finger on---but damn is she scary. Check her out below. She's a perfect mix of Molly Shannon playing "Superstar", Thelma from Scooby Doo, and one of those scary sisters on "The Shining." She's like a car crash...you can't help but look. She may be the anti-Christ.

I'm going to drop a spoiler here, but I figure that nobody really watched this show, so who cares. Creepy Rachel and goth-Jenny competed in the finale for the $25,000 prize. I don't want to spell out exactly who won, but let's just say that the anti-Christ grows more powerful every day.

This show was a guilty pleasure, and I'm ashamed of giving it a delicious 3-star rating.

Post-Apocalyptic Movie Review

2010-02-02T21:30:00.009-07:00

I was in the mood the other day for a scary movie that I could watch with my teenagers and wife. I watched the trailer for Carriers and thought “That’ll do the trick”. There were some good jumps and scares here and there but all and all the movie was more depressing than scary. The trailer gives you the impression it’s a zombie movie. It is not. This movie is also cursed with what I call the 90210-factor. From the cover of the DVD you can see the main characters all wearing masks that they’ve drawn faces on. Why would they draw faces on them you may ask yourself. It’s simple. They’re teenagers and they’re hip and they’re cool and that’s what teenagers do. However, there is no room for teenage angst in the post-apocalyptic world. Megalomaniacal ex-copier repair men? Yes. Teenagers with a chip on their shoulder? No. Poor acting by most of the cast, a ponderous script and predictable ending and yes, those goofy faces they drew on their face mask forces me to give this movie 2 Stars. One noticeable exception to the all of the above is the solid performance by Law and Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni. I hope we see him in more movies. I only hope they’re better than this one.

The next leg of my journey through the post-apocalyptic ruins is The Book Of Eli starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman. This is from the same ilk of movies as The Road Warrior. You remember The Road Warrior don’t you? Post-apocalyptic thugs going around in cars and motorcycles in a desperate search for gas. What about Waterworld? Post-apocalyptic thugs going around on jet skis in a desperate search for land. I suppose you can be forgiven for not remembering The Postman which was post-apocalyptic thugs going around on horseback in a desperate search for mail or something like that, I never quite figured it out. Well now we have post-apocalyptic thugs going around in cars, on motorcycles (hell I even think there was a row boat in there somewhere) in a desperate search for a book. A smarter person would say something about how this movie explores the duality of the purpose of religion to be used for good or evil based on the designs of those in charge of said religion. My real opinion is this movie really didn’t bring anything new to the genre. I don’t know about you but I’m also very tired of seeing Gary Oldman playing a bad guy. There was some stylistic action scenes but nothing special. All and all I give the movie 3 Stars.

To round out this review I thought The Road would be a logical choice. The problem was I hadn’t seen the movie and based on what I saw in the preview I didn’t want to see it either. I read the book that the movie is based on and I loved it. In the book it was heavily implied that a nuclear war caused the end of the world. The best I could tell from the preview they had decided to make a liberal propaganda film out of it and say it was global warming that caused the end of the world. I was fully prepared to review the film without having seen it and give it a big fat zero. However, here at Review-Spew.com ethics, integrity and honesty are more than mere words; they are the hallmark of all the work we do to bring you, our readers, the very best possible reviews. With that in mind, I downloaded an illegal copy of The Road and watched it. I was completely wrong about a lot of things. They stuck to the nuclear war back-story. In fact they stuck to the book very closely. This was an amazing movie. It was not an action movie nor was it even very entertaining, but I still really, really liked it. Look for a small role from Robert Duvall. It’s probably his best performance. If you decide to watch it, ask yourself whether it’s immoral to behave immorally if you do it to protect what could very well be the last innocent thing in the world. Or I suppose you could ask yourself whether it was really necessary to show Viggo Mortensen’s junk swinging around like some grotesque fleshy pendulum. I don’t know the answer to the first question but the answer to the second is a resounding “Hell No” Since they felt the need to do it anyway, the movie loses 1 star earning itself a total of 4 stars.

Getting Shut Down by the Federal Reserve review

2010-01-29T09:00:00.001-07:00

Aside from being a professional unpaid blogger, I actually do have a day job. I work at a bank. Shamefully I use up a fair amount of my day job by blogging and reviewing. Efficiency at its core. I have worked at a community bank for the past several years and have all the diseases from touching money to prove it.

A few months back we got word that the bank I work for wasn't doing so hot. We lost half of our capital and had a ton of foreclosed homes to get rid of. The management at the bank kept assuring us that "everything will be just fine." I never gave the security of my job a second thought because I had recently graduated from college (finally) and was looking to escape my job and find a career. Many news reports went out about my bank possibly going under and customers would panic and ask if their money was OK. By ruling of my superiors we were told to tell customers that "everything will be just fine."

Blame was flying left and right. Some blamed the bad economy for the bank's situation. Others blamed the bank general manager. Democrats still blamed Bush. (let it go people) I was still looking for another job.

So two weeks ago on Friday I went to work like it was any other day. The day progressed and I argued with a lady who wanted Guam quarters(has anybody ever been to Guam? No.), cashed in some coin for a guy who carried it in a old church sock, and checked my facebook. Just a typical day at work. All of a sudden, ten minutes before closing time, two guys in suits walk straight into my branch manager's office. We feared the worst, but didn't quite expect it. We heard rumors that another bank was going to buy us out, or that an investor was going to bring millions in capital to the bank to save us.

At 6:00 that night we found out that the Fed was shutting us down. No one was willing to buy us and the Fed wasn't willing to let the bank be saved. Within an hour the bank was swarming with goons from the FDIC who informed us that we had a job for 30 more days and that would be it. The bank would only be open so we could close everyone's accounts.

We all understand how important our money is, but just imagine a senile old man who already believes the government is wiretapping his phones, coming into the bank in a panic thinking that he's not gonna get his money. This is what we deal with even when there isn't a crisis.

So for the last two weeks our branch has been swarming with FDIC lackies who are cataloging everything so we don't steal a space heater. Not to get ornery but it's funny that people from the FDIC are there to answer people's questions about anything but when they are asked they just refer them to a FDIC hotline. Typical government.

What makes me the most angry about this whole situation is that I never got to quit the bank and leave in a blaze of glory. For every long standing job I like to walk away and flip the bird the my former place of employment. Now, I'll never get that chance, it flipped me the bird. I'll share with you my analogy for my experience the past few months. It's like I was dating this girl for a very long time. But for the past few months I wanted to dump her because I didn't care for her anymore. I never got the chance but I always planned on it. Then one day...........she DIES! I go to the funeral and everyone apologizes to me and says how sad they are. But I feel like I don't have closure because I will forever be the widower, but secretly planned to break up with her. No closure, it sucks.

When a bank is closed down after 120 years it is definitely a downer. Losing my job in this economy is even worse. Now where am I going to blog?

Mt. Dew Throwback Review

2010-01-27T05:00:00.009-07:00

Mt. Dew Throwback is what I’m reviewing today. In case you don’t know, about 20 years ago or so, the soda manufacturers switched from using sugar as a sweetener in their products to High Fructose Corn Syrup. I don’t know why, but I’m willing to bet it was because it was cheaper. Well guess what? The Pepsi bottling company in Mexico never switched and is still using sugar today and glass bottles if you want to believe that. What they’ve found is that people travel from all over the USA to get it made with sugar the way God intended.

With all this in mind, Pepsi went ahead last April and released Mt. Dew Throwback and also Pepsi Throwback, which was their regular formula but sweetened with sugar. They didn’t market it very well and the packaging made it almost impossible to see that it was something new or different and it didn’t do very well. However, by popular demand (by those who had discovered it last April), it is back for another limited run. From December 29 until February 22 you can buy it. Better still they changed the packaging to what it was back in the 70’s and 80’s for both Mt. Dew and Pepsi.

My two favorite sodas are Pepsi and Diet Mt. Dew so I went on the search for Pepsi Throwback but so far have only found Mt. Dew Throwback. Admittedly, I haven’t looked very hard. I don’t really like Mt. Dew, but I don’t think they’ll be making Diet Mt. Dew Throwback (“Now with Real Saccharine”) any time soon, so I went ahead and bought a 12-pack of 12-ounce cans of Mt. Dew Throwback.
I have to give one star for the packaging. I’m a sucker for retro stuff and being a teenager of the 80’s (yes I have lots and lots of Thompson Twins on my iPod and yes I had a hair-tail in 1986, but I digress), I was very excited to see the old mountain man on the cover of the box. The Pepsi Throwback is similarly retro.

I have to give one star for just the balls of the whole thing. In a world where the fast food industry is being blamed for people dying of obesity-related diseases and the government trying to add an extra tax to sugared sodas and outlawing Trans-fat, God bless Pepsi for saying “Well I do believe all you whiney little cry babies can go to hell, we’re going to make this with real frick’n sugar”. The way things were heading you would have thought they would have tried to sweeten it with carrot juice or something, but no. Sugar. A substance that most agree if discovered today would not be approved by the FDA, is making a comeback.

They miss out on a star because I would have liked to see it in a glass bottle. I mean why not? Well, ok, fine, don’t put it in a bottle because cans are fine, but why not the old fashioned pull-off tabs on top of the can. Remember those? That would have been awesome, but they didn’t do either so no star there.

They miss out on a star because it’s for a limited time only. Why? Put it out there and if it sells it sells and if it doesn’t it doesn’t. Warning us that this is for a limited time only makes me use my entire house payment so I can stock up on it. That is if it’s any good.

This leads to the last possible star. Is it any good? I got the 12-pack home and put it in the fridge, placing two cans into the freezer. 20 minutes later I cracked open a now very chilled can of Mt. Dew Throwback and took a swig. I didn’t like it. Well, I mean it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. I finished the can and within a few minutes had really bad heartburn. I drank a second can just to see, but didn’t like it either. Today I cracked opened a third can and guess what? It was so frick’n good. It was so good that I remembered the Garlic Sauce pizza I had the night before which was probably the real source of the heartburn. I guess I just wasn’t in the mood last night for it, but wow. It was good. It had no aftertaste. It went down smooth. It was hands down the best soda I’ve ever had. So for that they get a star.

What is that one, two, three. OK. I give Mt. Dew Throwback three stars. I highly recommend you go out and try it since it’s going away. I hope maybe a throwback generation 3 comes out where it’s in 16-ounce glass bottles, pull-tab cans and not for a limited time. That would be cool.

I’m going to try the Pepsi Throwback just as soon as I can find some and I’ll let you know how that stacks up. I guess Coke could do the ultimate Retro Coke and sweeten it with Cocaine again. That would really be stick’n it to the man.

Beyonce's "Single Ladies" Video Review

2010-01-25T05:00:00.001-07:00

I, like most of you, was disgusted with Kanye West when he stormed the stage during the VMA’s to tell Taylor Swift that Beyonce’s video should have won and was “the best video of all time“. Watching the speechless Taylor get cut off during her acceptance speech evoked powerful emotions of sympathy for this poor young girl…. who also happens to make more money in a week than I make in 10 years, even after 7 years of Engineering College. She also has experienced more fame and notoriety for her accomplishments than, statistically speaking, everyone else in the entire world. My point is, it was a little uncomfortable, and ridiculously rude on Kanye’s part, but we all went a little overboard on an event that gave her tons of press and public support. I bet if they would have scanned the crowd for her manager, he would have been grinning ear to ear throughout the entire ordeal. But I digress, the real crux of this is the fact that at the time of this great injustice, I asked my wife what video Kanye was even talking about, and after 2 seconds of searching on Youtube.com, I found it.

Now the tough part, Kanye kind of had a point. I haven’t quite put my finger on what the exact element of interest is, but “Single Ladies” by Beyonce may be the most intriguing music video I’ve ever seen. I have no previous “mad love” for Beyonce, but I can’t seem to quit watching this video. Basically, it is 3 attractive ladies dancing together in a grayscale video. But the dance moves are uncharacteristic of what I have seen before, and I watch both “Dancing with the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance”. Ummm…I mean, my wife watches them and I see bits and pieces between MMA fights and College Football. The moves are all jerky and bouncy and all kinds of lovely. That would be my technical description anyhow.

It isn’t just a sex thing either. Oh, Beyonce is beyond hot and her gyrations do make me tingle, but that is nothing I haven’t seen before. The unique quality of the background flashing from black to white, the attitude, and that infectious “Shoulda put a ring on it” line have penetrated my soul….and that little grin she does 2 sec before the video ends, yeah buddy! Now that I have adequately revealed the level of my freakiness, it is all the worse if you consider the fact that I am true mountain trash at my core and rarely listen to anything other than hair bands of the 80’s intermixed with Metallica. Until now, that is.

My infatuation with this video has almost gotten me into marital trouble. I am pretty sure if my wife catches me watching this video again, she will block my access to YouTube. I have officially gone to underground viewing. I can’t put my finger on it, but put this one right up there with the lobster scene from the movie “Flashdance” fellas, it‘s fandamntastic. A got your back on this one Kanye, rude bastard that you are, this video is one of the best of all time. The YouTube spoofs aren’t bad either.

Here is the link: "Single Ladies", enjoy….and if you don’t “feel me” on your first viewing, watch it again….you’ll see.

McDonald's Mac Snack Wrap Review

2010-01-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Throughout the ages, man has tried to mix different things together to come up with something better. I call it fusion. Human resource managers call it synergy.

Thinking back, I can recall many successes.
Orange + Peach + Mango Dole juice = Delicious.
Neil Diamond + Christmas Music = Heartwarming.
Wendy's Fries + Dip in Frosty = Astounding.
Tinkers + Evers + Chance = Historic.
Peanut Butter + Celery = The only way humanly possible to eat celery.

Unfortunately, there has also been utter failures throughout history. I list just a few.
Garth Brooks + Alternative music = Chris Gaines.
Michael Jordan + Baseball = Fail.
Spencer Pratt + Heidi Montag = Okay..they both suck, but when put together, the suckitude increases 100 fold.
Kenny Rogers + Plastic Surgery = Michael Myers from Halloween.
Work parties + alcohol = Lifelong regrets and terrible dancing.
Sweet pickles + tuna fish = My Grandma's horrible sandwiches.

Most of the products throughout time are not bad on their own. But when mixed with something else, chaos can ensue.

This is the case of the McDonald's Mac Snack Wrap.

I like Big Mac's. They take me back to my youth, when I would ride my bike with friends to McDonald's, get a Big Mac meal, and enjoy the secret saucey goodness.
I'm just yanking your chain. As a kid, my family was poor, and I never had any money.
In fact, most of my Big Mac ingestion moments come in a time of depression when I need some comfort food. I then look at myself in the mirror, and curse the day my chubby body was born.

Snack Wraps are good too. Who doesn't like a good sandwich ported over to a wrap? It's like you're eating healthier, but not really as they still pump the same amount of mayo on the wrap.

So McDonalds decides to take the Big Mac, and throw it into a wrap. I'm just going to get this out of the way---it's terrible.
They take 1 patty from the sandwich, throw in some pickles and lettuce, and then top it with the Bic Mac secret sauce. Did I mention that it is terrible?
It's not even what you'd expect it to taste like. It's like a curveball of wrappy nastiness.

One positive--It's only $1.49. So, you won't have to spend $4 on a baconator to get sick. Just pick this bad boy up.

I truly was dissappointed. It reminded me of my youth when I stopped by a taco-maker for a snack. I was really craving an apple empanada. It's like a crispy buritto, stuffed with semi-real reconstituted apples, fried, and then covered in cinnamon.
I paid my money, drove away, and pulled out the apple goodness. The first bite drove me into something that can only be described as a Vietnam flashback. In the place of the apples, there was bean burrito filling. It was one of the cruelest jokes of my life.

McDonald's also plays a joke by mixing the Big Mac with the Wrap concept. Stay away.

The Mac Snack Wrap gets a 1-star rating only because I still giggle every time I hear the word "secret sauce."

Cryotherapy Removal of Skin Tags Review

2010-01-20T05:00:00.007-07:00

Although not a deliberate attempt to make you throw up in your mouth, this review is gross and for that I’m somewhat sorry. My main goal was to spare you the experience I had and for that you should thank me.

I’m one of those people that, through no fault of their own, grow skin tags on their body. If you don’t know what a skin tag it is just a nub of skin that hangs off your body. If you don’t know what one looks like go do a Google search. I would personally rather spare you the image of a skin tag. They are harmless but they do tend to just keep growing. Fortunately, while some poor buggers get skin tags in their nether regions (the mommy and daddy parts) mine are limited to my neck and little niches here and there on my torso.

Here's a cute bunny rabbit to calm your nerves before you continue:

In my adult life I have been to the doctor 3 times to have skin tags removed. The first two times I went in, they looked at them and said, “Why don’t we just cut these suckers off” and that is exactly what they did. The bigger ones required a small injection of local anesthesia which was a quick, almost painless pinprick. The smaller ones they just lopped off which was also a quick and almost painless pinprick. Some bled, most didn’t. Bottom line, you went in, they cut off the biggest 20-30 of them and a week later you would never know they ever existed.

I’ve put off going for about 2 years now, but in recent months, a cluster of 3 tags right in the center of the back of my neck were causing me considerable discomfort. They were right where my t-shirt collar rubbed and it was pretty darn annoying. So I finally went in to get them removed. The doctor looked at them and said, “Let’s get these suckers frozen off.” Huh? Frozen? What?

Apparently this is the new fad in skin tag removal. It’s called Cryotherapy. The doctor filled a Styrofoam cup up with liquid nitrogen, had me take my shirt off and took a pair of plastic tweezers in hand and started. He would dip the tweezers into the cup where it would boil and gurgle for a while. When that noise would calm down he would remove the tweezers from the cup and pinch a skin tag with the frozen tips of the tweezers. He would hold it within its sub-zero grasp until the skin tag turned completely white and then would move on to the next one. Every few minutes he would re-dip the tweezers into the cup.

While doing this he was regaling me with the benefits of Cryotherapy removal of skin tags. Saying that it was much less painful, a doctor could do a larger number of them in one visit and they wouldn’t bleed. Some of this was surprising to me, especially the bit about being less painful. Perhaps I have a low threshold for pain but each and every one of these hurt like the dickens while he was pinching them with frozen tweezers. Let me jump ahead in the story and say that the only benefit he claimed this procedure had that ended up being true is he was able to take care of over 100 of them (far more than I even knew I had) but as you will soon see, that ended up not being a particularly good thing either.

Back to my visit to the doctor…after about ½ an hour he said, “OK, that should do it. Now these are going to blister, turn bright red, then black and then should just fall off within a week or two.” My brain could barely comprehend the words that had just come out of his mouth. In fact, a week later, I’m still struggling with the whole concept. I had no clue what he meant by “blister up” but I was soon to find out. Before putting my shirt back on I went and looked in the mirror. Every single one of them were now 3 times bigger than they were when I walked in. Also, instead of being flesh-colored and therefore somewhat hidden and discrete they were now all bright flaming red. In short I felt completely lit up like some grotesque Christmas tree from hell.

Here's are some pretty flowers to make up for that last paragraph:

When I went in to the doctor, two of my skin tags were quite large (about the size of a pea). One was on my neck, the other on my back. The one on my neck was now the size of a grape. I put my shirt on, walked out to my car, and when I sat down in my car, I instantly felt the back of my shirt get wet. Moments later I was hit with this smell that can only be described as moldy crotch-cheese. This, was undoubtedly the skin tag on my back. See when the doctor said blister, I was confused because I failed to conjure up the image of a sunburn blister, but that is exactly what they did. The skin around them filled up with yellowish fluid and expanded to make each tag appear to be 3 times their previous size. If you’ve ever had a sunburn blister and had it pop you also know that the smell is something akin to moldy crotch-cheese.

Not only did it hurt when he was freezing them, for the next 24 hours or so it felt like there were 100 needles being pressed into my neck, and oh ya, they all ended up popping and smelling. Try to remember that the reason I went into get them removed is because those 3 were rubbing and were uncomfortable. Now all 100 of them are rubbing and are uncomfortable. A week later they are still rubbing and are uncomfortable. Another reason I wanted them removed was they are gross looking and embarrassing, but at least they were skin colored. Now they are to the dark red stage and are very visible to the whole world. It’s as though they know they are going away (at least I hope to hell they will go away soon) and they want to get 2-3 years worth of embarrassment packed into 2-3 weeks time.

Again, sorry. Here's a nice rainbow to try counter the effects of the mental images I'm no doubt creating:

Today is one week since the procedure and I woke up with blood on the collar of my undershirt where some of the smaller ones are bleeding. So much for that benefit. Also the large one on my neck seems to have a small amount of puss oozing from it. I will end at this point, even though I am not done with them, but because this is where if the doctor had used the “Why don’t we just cut these suckers off” method, there would not be any sign that they ever existed. Undoubtedly they will turn black and fall off and that will be kind of fun having black pieces of dead flesh falling off of me. I’m kidding. No that is one of the most horrifying aspects of this whole thing.

Needless to say I give this method of skin tag removal a great big zero. If your doctor is opposed to using the “Why don’t we just cut these suckers off” method, then find one who isn’t. Cryotherapy is not the way to go.

NBC's Tonight Show debacle review

2010-01-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Seventeen years ago, Johnny Carson was retiring as the most successful host of The Tonight Show. He was such an icon of late night that NBC was in a scramble to fill the void. David Letterman, the host of Late Night was the obvious choice (and Carson's choice) to take the mantle, but NBC decided they would give the gig to a stand up comic, who did doritos commercials, Jay Leno.

I guess time has shown that the Jay Leno choice was smarter. Personally I have never been a fan. His monologues were full of sexual innuendos and his interviewing skills are lacking. You can't beat Headlines and Jaywalking but that's about it. Whereas, David Letterman just rambles and repeats lines like "got any gum?" or sputters lines and waits for Paul Schaffer to laugh. Though I do miss the days of Mujibur and Sarajul.

When Leno announced he was leaving the Tonight Show in 2009 and Conan O'Brien was taking over, I was thrilled. Conan does not seem like your typical late show host but his brand of comedy is clever, and even when it's not clever (i.e. Masturbating Bear, Pimpbot, etc.) it's still very funny. Jay Leno had the opportunity to retire at the peak of his career. His show enjoyed great ratings and it was time to pass the torch. Then NBC announced that Jay would have his own show during prime time. I guess neither Leno nor NBC could let go.

Now, Leno has suffered in the ratings because no one wants to watch mediocre comedy when they could be watching CSI: Wichita. So the brains at NBC refuse to let Leno be cancelled and admit their mistake so they have given him his old time slot, right after the local news.

The proposed new schedule will be Leno show for a half hour at 11:35 Eastern, followed by the Tonight Show, Then Jimmy Fallon, Then Carson "no one watches me" Daly. Give me a break NBC! Cancel Leno and let Conan bloom on the Tonight Show. His ratings will go up when people start realizing that Letterman isn't funny.

The thing that really chaps my hide (who says that?) is that NBC has given Conan an "out" to his contract if he wants it. Messed up. Conan has worked for years to reach his present position and 100% deserves it. He shouldn't be tossed around for some moronic banter between "big chin" and Kevin, the guitar player/courtesy laugher.

The person I'm most disappointed in is Jay Leno. Yes, he probably loves the spotlight but he should have retired at the top of his game. Now he'll just be known as the man who destroyed the Tonight Show. It would be a sad day if Conan went to another network and we witnessed the resurrection of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. No Thanks.

If anyone wants to get Conan's take on the matter you can find it at http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43607. You better believe this situation is far from over.

I will now begin my boycott of GE-owned NBC, now that Heroes sucks, the Office is boring, and I don't like 19 editions of The Biggest Loser. Both Jay Leno and NBC get big fat zeros from me.

Dexter Season 4 Review

2010-01-10T17:28:00.002-07:00

I know I am a little late with this review, but after the finale of Season 4, I needed a little time to recover. I won’t give anything away, but to say that the writers are courageous would be an understatement.

If you are unfamiliar with the basics of Dexter, here is a quick synopsis. Dexter is a cold-blooded damn killer that puts on the persona of a charismatic, forensic blood specialist for the police department. He limits his murdering to the evil-doers and satisfies his serial tendencies by dispatching of the scum of the earth. As a borderline genius, forensic specialist, he evades his co-workers who only see him as a lovable shy-guy. He is the only serial killer you will likely ever root for. Yeah, he is the hero of the story, believe it or not. Showtime doesn’t pull any punches, so if you are not a fan of the “potty talk”, get over it. You still need to watch this series, although Debra’s mouth will likely have you choking up a little bile. Nudity, yes. Gore, you betcha. Thank you again Showtime.

The major change to this season was the addition of one of my heroes, Jonathan Lithgow. “Pulling a Lithgow” has been part of my vocabulary ever since watching “ The Twilight Zone - The Movie” back in the 80’s. He plays the guy on the plane that freaks out after seeing a gremlin on the wing. (You remember, Shatner played the same character 20 years earlier in black and white; “Therrrre’s some….thing on the wing.”) Hence, when somebody freaks out they are, “Pulling a Lithgow”. I think after season 4, this colloquialism has changed dramatically. “Pulling a Lithgow” now means so much more and probably requires a Heafty bag and a shop vac to clean up. He is also a family favorite for his Marsupial Sue kiddies series of books and songs. Those too now have a sinister creepiness after watching the latest season of Dex. I guess that is a testament to his acting. He can pull off the goofy dad on 3rd Rock from the Sun, the anti-dance preacher in footloose, and the most demented of serial killers as “Trinity” in Dex, and it is all quite believable. I’m hoping he gets an Emmy, Grammy, Pulitzer, Nobel…or whatever the “prize” is for best kick-ass killer in a Showtime series.

Trinity or the trinity killer, like Dexter, carries on every day life like a normal shmo, and has done so for 30+ years, killing the whole time. This intrigues Dex so he entangles his life with Trinity as a interloping protégé. Soon enough, Dex finds that this guy is nothing like him, and I can say that the series of events that follow make for an amazing season. I respect the series too much to give more spoilers, so I will just leave it at that.

One of the other great things about Dexter is that although every season bleeds into the next, you actually have closure on the main storyline for each season. You may not like what happens, but you don’t have to wait for another year to find out the culmination of the finale. You could almost watch each season independently and follow an entire sub-story line and not really be lost, although I would never recommend such a thing. You should start out with Dexter in the beginning and follow every minute of “The Dark Passenger’s” journey.

To be fair I have to tell you that I have loved all of the Dexter seasons. I actually order Showtime for the sole purpose of watching Dexter. That being said, wow was season 4 worth the money. Jonathan Lithgow is a god and complements Michael C. Hall very well. The writing is fantastic and I can’t wait for season 5. Well done guys, I can’t think of anything that could have made this season better.

The Utah Jazz 2009-2010 Early Season Review

2010-01-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time watching sports. In fact, I think my sports viewing time is increasing exponentially in relation to my age. You'd think that for the millions of hours I dedicate to my teams, that I would pick a winner to watch. Sadly this is not the case.

I've watched/listened to the Utah Jazz for over 25 years, and every season ends with disappointment. Not once have the Jazz ever been able to hoist the championship trophy while I stand in front of the TV with tears in my eyes. What kind of masochistic person am I? It's perpetual disappointment..much like watching Heroes, or the look in my wife's eyes after a roll in the hay.

I must be a glutton for punishment....I am certainly a glutton.

3 years ago, the Jazz with a young roster rocketed to the Western Conference finals in the playoffs. It was to be the start of something big. We had the elite point guard, the top tier power forward, and a good young nucleus around these two.

And then the next year, we under-achieved...and the next. In fact, we've gotten progressively worse since the playoff run. Oh, the team blamed it on injuries, chemistry, and to be patient.
This year (2009-2010) was supposed to be the return to glory. All players were healthy. The team had far exceeded the luxury tax cap in player's salaries. This was the year......

18-16. This the record of the Jazz. Losers of 3 in a row. 2 of the 16 losses were to Minnesota who only technically qualifies as an NBA team. We just recently lost to Denver at home, who were without Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups. That's like playing Mike Tyson's punch-out, and you can win the game without fighting Big Mike...cakewalk.

They tease me....As I have a TV package which includes every Jazz game, I tune in often. I'll turn to the game...and it will be close. I'll get sucked into the game, only to be dissappointed and mad at the end. (also...like my wife after a roll in the hay)

Well, this is it. I am officially downgrading my TV package to remove all Jazz games. No longer will you tempt me into your snare of repeated punishment and despair. You're 40% into the season, and wouldn't make the playoffs if they started today.

Can you win me back? Can my affection be yours again? Yes.....if you make a few trades that will shake things up. I don't even care who we get...just do something. Anyone not named Deron Williams should be available.
I would also tune in if Jerry Sloan bitch-slapped a player on TV. That would be enough.
I would also tune in if you brought back the short John Stockton shorts for all white players.
I would also tune in if you got Morgan Freeman to call the games, and used the term "Get busy living, or get busy dying" at least once per half.

The Utah Jazz have been sucking my sports soul for too long, and get a 1-star rating only for being over .500.

Top Ten Films of 2009

2009-12-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

It's time again for my top ten list. I saw a ton of movies this year due to my podcast but sadly 75% of them were absolute tripe. Even though I support bad movies, don't think that I'm putting G.I. Joe, Transformers, or Wolverine on my list. I don't think my list is entirely revolutionary, except with the omission of "Up." I really disliked that movie. Talking dogs? Never seen that before... So let us begin.

10. Avatar
What an incredible looking movie. The world of Pandora is beautiful and watching this movie makes you want to run through the tree-tops of its lush environment. This is probably the most realistic pixar movie I have ever seen. Though the movie is basically Dances with Wolves, nothing new in terms of story. Also, it's blatantly political. I was able to brush it aside and enjoy the ride, but it got a little annoying. This will be a new standard for geeks around the world. I can see the naked blue na'vi posters now...on my wall.

9. I Love You, Man
Better than The Hangover? Yes actually. Many will disagree, but I would rather see a good bro-mance for the ages than see Zach Galifanakis' junk. Paul Rudd plays "awkward guy" perfectly. It is an R rated comedy but has much less gross-out moments than Hangover. Plus, it has nearly as many memorable lines as Wedding Crashers.

8. Star Trek
When the year started this was the movie I was most looking forward to. J.J. Abrams has done a great job reinventing Star Trek to actually make it exciting. I always saw Star Trek as the boring man's Star Wars. But now I'm pumped for its sequels. All the actors were fantastic in their roles. This would rank higher but the story was extremely weak.

7. Zombieland
Where did this movie come from? Zombie heaven. It is no Shaun of the Dead, but it still pretty fantastic. Woody Harrelson is in the defining Bad-A$$ role of his career. The best parts consist of showing the rules of surviving a zombie infestation. I'll never forget to double tap again.

6. Watchmen
The riskiest movie of the year. It had to convince advanced geeks that it was staying true to the graphic novel, while getting general audiences in the seats. It almost stayed too true to the source material for everyone to enjoy. But being a fan of the graphic novel, I was hooked. There were few characters in film this year cooler than Rorschach. Correct that. none.

5. The Brothers Bloom
An indie film starring Mark Ruffalo and Adrian Brody as brothers who live to pull off cons. This movie came out of nowhere. It is not your typical con movie. Every character is perfect in their role. Especially Rachel Weiss, who is freakin' adorable.

4. District 9
The best sci fi movie in years. This is one that nerds will remember for a long time. I fook'n enjoyed this movie. No other sci fi flick has made me feel that there was a racial conflict going on, till this one. When the aliens are called the derogatory term "prawns," I actually feel bad for them. That's effective film-making. I just hope they don't ruin it with a sequel.

3. Inglourious Basterds
I was not expecting to like this one. Tarantino movies are either love or hate, no middle ground. I love Kill Bill, but was not excited to see Brad Pitt try to act. I was happily surprised with this movie. In my mind, there is not a dull moment. If you are looking for real suspense, check this out. Hans Landa is such a fantastic villain and brings incredible tension to simple conversations.

2. (500) Days of Summer
If you have ever suffered through a break up and heartache that lasted more than a few months, you will relate to this movie. It sounds elitist to compare this movie to Annie Hall but I'm going there. It's not a drama, comedy, romance, musical. It's every single one. My favorite part was when half the screen showed expectations and the other half, reality. classic. This would be my favorite movie of the year if it weren't for...

1. Drag Me To Hell
The most fun I have ever had sitting down. I have realized that my favorite genre is Horror Comedies. I could not have asked for more from Sam Raimi(director of The Evil Dead and Spiderman trilogies). This movie has it all: Over the top laughs, scares, and a little animal sacrificing in between. Never again will a cross a gypsy. And if I do, I will definitely give her a loan. The ending of this movie and Inglorious Basterds are the best of the year. Not what the audience expects, but very satisfying. I will now watch this film before every Halloween. My only regret about this movie is that I did not see any Bruce Campbell.

That's it till next year. Have a Merry Christmas!

Stephen King's Under The Dome Review

2009-12-21T05:00:00.011-07:00

When I first saw Stephen King’s new novel, Under The Dome I thought to myself, “didn’t this guy retire?” That was quickly followed by “Not another Stephen King snoozer.” I am a huge Stephen King fan. I’ve read almost all of his books. My favorite book of all time is The Stand. He is very likely the greatest American author of the late 20th century, so says I. I was even recently excited to learn that the high school my children go to teaches an advanced English class called “The Writings of Stephen King and Edgar Alan Poe”. Having said all of this though I couldn’t help but wonder if I should read his new one or not. For one it’s over a thousand pages long, for two it weighs about 30 pounds and last but not least, his last few books have sucked big time.

Great and favored authors of mine churning out nothing but schlock later in their careers is nothing new in my experience. John Grisham and Tom Clancy being classic examples of this phenomena. I didn’t think it could happen to Stephen King though, but sadly, it has. The majority of his novels written since 2000 have been subpar rehashes of his previous work. The Talisman was one of his best works; its sequel, Black House, not so good. Christine was one of the most awesome books ever, From a Buick 8 almost laughable it was so bad. The trifecta of Cell, Duma Key and Lisey’s Story turned me off from King forever.

But then I found myself staring at this behemoth of a book at Walmart (Under the Dome is about 4 inches thick) and something about its sheer size brought back the thrilling memory of reading The Stand, IT and other superb King novels that were also ginormous in size. As if I was under some sort of spell I found myself minutes later coughing up over $20 for it.

This is a great book and an absolute must read for anyone who enjoys Stephen King novels. If you’ve never read one, then this is a good one to start with. The story is extremely compelling, the characters engaging, the action non-stop and brutal, the plot amazing. One could safely say that King has found the Path of the Beam once again (if you don’t understand that comment pick up the 7-book Dark Tower series by King – you won’t regret it). Endings have always been a shortcoming of Kings but this one wraps up extremely well.

I’ve read two reviews that panned the idea that small-town politics would be so cutthroat if not evil. Those people have never been to a city council meeting in a town with less than 3,000 people in it. I have and it’s amazing how overly serious and dramatic they take themselves. Short men buy big trucks, the less endowed buy sports cars and small towns politic in a way that would make the New York City Council uncomfortable and nervous because there’s so much conflict. King shows this less known tid-bit of small town life with gruesome precision.

There is some bad to it. King has definitely got his liberal on in this book. The main bad guy is a Republican, a Jesus-freak and drives a Hummer. He admires an autographed picture of himself shaking hands with Sarah Palin and an autographed picture of himself shaking hands with Tiger Woods who he remembers fondly as a pretty decent guy “for a negro”. King would defend this by saying one of the main heroes of the book is a Republican also. However, the few insights into this person’s political views shows her as being about as conservative as Nancy Pelosi.

King also showcases the more recent “truths” liberals take to be self-evident. Water boarding is the worse torture ever, and is ineffective and shouldn’t be used. All prisoner’s being held by the US Army in Iraq are being tortured and brutalized and political talk radio is nothing but dangerous propaganda the likes of which has not been heard since the days of Goebbels under the Nazi Regime.

Despite these flaws the book is pretty good. There is no doubt that King is past his prime but he’s managed to pull off another winner. I give Stephen King’s Under the Dome 4 stars. Buy it and read it today before Sarah Palin becomes President and has every copy of it burned. As if.

Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2 review

2009-12-17T12:14:00.005-07:00

I must be a glutton for punishment. I don't know why, but I continue to watch FOX shows. It's not that I don't enjoy them, it's that I enjoy them too much only to have them be expectedly cancelled by FOX just when it gets good. I don't think I would support FOX if they didn't have 24. I love me some Jack Bauer... In a non-sexual wish-he-was-my-bodyguard sort of way.

Last year Meatwad and I did a joint...review of the first season of this series and I gave it a healthy three stars. I liked it ok, but wasn't absorbed by the show. Season two has made definite improvements on the formula. I was tired of the concept: John gets noticed, the terminator kills a few people and chases the family, the good terminator stops the bad one so they can live to get caught another day. Instead this season has Sarah, John and the gang not running for their lives every episode, but instead actively seeking to destroy Skynet before they start up. Skynet, for the uninformed is the company that nukes the world and starts Judgment Day. (insert intense music).

This season is all about John Connor distancing himself from his mother. He meets some strung-out chick at school and starts to rebel. Cameron, the good terminator, has suffered a lot of damage and is malfunctioning. Derek (Brian Austin Green) has rekindled a romance with his girlfriend from the future. Sarah Connor is on a one-woman mission to destroy all things robot.

A new addition to the cast this season is Shirley Manson, the lead singer of Garbage. She is the head of a large tech company, but is also...wait for it....a liquid terminator like in T2. At first I thought she was going to be pretty cliche, but her character threw me for a loop. Not that I'm gonna ruin anything for you guys. But really she is so incredibly pasty, who knew that the next model of T-1000's look like Conan O'Brien's little sister.

There are several pro's to this season. First off is Sarah, she comes off as certified Bad-A. She's no Jack Bauer, but I wouldn't mind her interrogations. (Wow, sexual entendres. Very clever.) Also Summer Glau as Cameron the Terminator looks like she is having a better time in this role. Her malfunctioning has given her more of a chance to act. Believe it or not, I actually bought Brian Austin Green as an actor. I thought he did a pretty good job and was sad when he ----item deleted----. Like I said, I'm not giving away anything, only alluding to his death. I like that this season John frequently asks himself how he can be the savior of the future. That is one thing I would have liked to see addressed in Terminator Salvation.

Among the con's are the two new additions to the cast. The two girls who play John's and Derek's girlfriends are drains to the show. They suck any emotion out of their scenes. I was happy when they ----item deleted----. Also, John Connor came off as very whiny this season. Maybe that's how he loses his voice when he becomes Christian Bale Connor in the future.

I was very sad that this show was cancelled because it ended perfectly. It left the mythology open for further stories but gives a satisfaction about Sarah's famous quote "No fate but what we make."

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles of Narnia and Riddick receives 4 stars. Can you believe it, not one lame quote from the Terminator series in this entire review. Till next time, "I'll be back" with my top ten movies of the year.

The Prisoner Mini-series on AMC Review

2009-12-16T08:00:00.001-07:00

My Father used to tell a joke to all my friends when I was a teenager. He was quite proud of this joke, and when a friend hadn't heard it, he made a large production leading up to it.
He called it the "Shaggy Dog" joke. In a nutshell, there is a peasant who has a large shaggy dog. A neighbor notices how shaggy the dog is, and proceeds to rave about its shagginess. He suggests that the peasant bring the dog to the king. The peasant decides this is a good idea, and makes his way to the castle. On the way, the peasant is stopped by numerous people who can't believe how shaggy the dog is. My Dad would have the peasant stop with about any early Medieval title he could conjure up. Archer, Viscount, Duke, Starbucks Barista, etc. The joke was usually 10-15 minutes in length, and would pinnacle with the peasant showing the dog to the king. Upon seeing the dog, the king would always say, "I don't think it is that shaggy." And then my Dad would pause...waiting for the imminent storm out the room, or perhaps the double-flipoff. He thought this was hilarious. (I think there is a golf-ball joke that is similar)

The Prisoner on AMC is the TV equivalent of the Shaggy Dog joke...only on LSD.

I saw a few commercials leading up to this mini-series, and it looked quite interesting. I knew it was a re-make of a show in the 60's, but I had never seen the original Unfortunately, AMC used the term "mini-series," which conjures up images of The Langoliers, The Andromeda Strain, and The Storm. In fact, isn't the term "Good mini-series" an oxymoron? (Band of Brothers and Battlestar Galactica are exceptions you psycho mini-series freaks already typing your hate mail)

I am going to attempt to lay out the basic plot of this mini-series without confusing you:
Jim Caviezel plays a man who wakes up in a strange town called "The Village." The end. After this, there isn't a plot-line.
Ian McKellen is the other star of this show, but don't expect a "Lord of the Rings" type acting job here. I understood roughly 34% of what Ian says in this show.
Did I mention that there isn't a coherent plot-line until there is only 30 minutes left in the show? This is after 6 HOURS OF FILM. (I suppose it's only 4 after commercials)

If you enjoyed the Lost Highway, What dreams may come, or any other movie that would incite boredom, confusion, or a mixture of both, then The Prisoner is for you.

I'm not sure why I kept watching. It's like I was daring the writers/producers to come up with an ending that would take this hailstorm of confusion, and make it real. Did they? Sure...was it worth it? No.

Think back to when you were in college, and your buddy swore that there was a party off-campus where he guaranteed you'd score?
You follow him to the party which ends up with a dude/chick ratio of 7.5. Your buddy dissappears, and you have no ride home. By the end of the 4 hour "party," you end up with puke on your shoes, a nicotine contact high, and eventually end up with a 27 year old masters student name Tina with terrible acne. Do you just end up walking home? No...you make out with Tina as you don't want the night to be a total waste of time.

Looking back, you wish none of it had ever happened. Not Tina...not the party....none of it. This is how I feel about The Prisoner.

The Prisoner ends up with a 1-star rating, ONLY because there was some sort of explanation at the end of the show...as weak as it was. In truth, it's titled the Prisoner as that's what you become after 6 intense hours of boredom.

The LightKeeper Pro Review

2009-12-14T05:00:00.007-07:00

Have you ever noticed the kids playing ball at the park, and off to the side there's this lone fat kid looking through the chain-link fence with sorrowful longing? Each day the kids show up and start playing ball and each day the fat kid asks if he can play and each day they tell him no. Then one day they decide to say yes, if for no other reason than to shut him up. But then the kid sucks so bad at ball that he kind of ruins the whole game. This continues until the cool kids decide that they would rather not play at all than to play with the fat kid. So the fat kid shows up to the park one day and finds it empty. I'm the fat kid here at Review-spew.com and another week has gone by and apparently the other, cooler kids have decided to just let me play with myself rather than write a review of their own. But the jokes on them. I'm the master of playing with myself.

Anyway, this weeks review is about the Lightkeeper Pro. I am a huge fan of Christmas lights and every year I put on a pretty good spread of lights both on the outside and the inside of my house. I, like all of you, have felt the frustration when a section of lights, or the whole string of lights, will not light up. When you consider that I put up about 10,000 lights each year, my frustration is probably 5 to 10 times as much as yours. It got so bad last year that I actually started throwing away whole sets of lights because I just couldn't get them to work.

As this Christmas season approached it occurred to me that there must be something out there that would help with this issue. So I scoured the internet and performed minutes of exhausting research until I found the LightKeeper Pro. I read the information about it, I watched the info-mercial on youtube, I read fifty or so reviews about it and realized that I absolutely, positively had to have it.

Nobody sells it. That was my first impression. I noticed that Walmart has some cheaply packaged fake one, but that wasn't going to do. I wanted the real thing. I then discovered at the official website for The LightKeeper Pro that Ace Hardware sales them. I called the three Ace Hardware stores in my area. The first one didn't even know what I was talking about. The second one knew what I was talking about but wouldn't have any until January 4th. What? Are you kidding me? The third had several. It was even reasonably priced at just $20.99.

I bought it, brought it home and with all the enthusiasm I could muster, started bringing out my Christmas decorations. It was almost disappointing when my first set of lights worked without a hitch. The second set, to my complete delight, did not...light. Wow, that was very Austin Powers of me, but I digress. I immediately pulled a bulb out of the section that was not lit, plugged it into the LightKeeper Pro and squeezed the trigger. Voila, they lit up. I unplugged it from the LightKeeper Pro, put the bulb back in and the set was fixed. Just as easy as that.

Not since the invention of the manger has something so fundamentally changed Christmas. This thing is totally awesome. I had one set that not a single bulb would light up. Plug-plug, click-click and it was fixed. I highly recommend this. I even noticed that the cheaply packaged fake one at Walmart is actually a LightKeeper Pro (it's molded right in the handle) so they must have some agreement with Walmart to sell it under a no-name brand for them. So there's no excuse, you can all get one and you should.

My one complaint about it is there is a notch on it that is suppose to help pull bulbs out. It completely sucks. It doesn't work at all and it seems that those that were so ingenious as to come up with this thing could have developed something better to pull the bulbs out. Do not let this dissuade you in any way though. This thing rocks. I give it 4-stars as it has made my Christmas season just a little bit brighter. N-yuck, n-yuck, n-yuck.

Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol Review

2009-12-07T05:00:00.002-07:00

I finished reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown late, late, late last night. This was the third late night in a row. Needless to say I really liked this book, but be warned; do not start reading it unless you have several days to commit to it because once started you really will not want to put it down.

I’ve now read all of Dan Brown’s books. There are a couple of other’s besides The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. There is a problem with all of them in that they seem to follow the same formula.

There is always some brilliant scientist or professor or, heaven help us, Symbologist as the main character.

There is always some brilliant, yet vulnerable woman who must be saved while at the same time seems to have the key to solving the mystery.

There is always some sort of new science or techno-wonder that becomes a side character of its own.

There is always some obsessive agent of the law in hot pursuit dogging the heroes every move.

Almost always there’s some freak-show carnie reject that is going around doing all the bad stuff

There is almost always some mastermind behind the whole thing that isn’t revealed until the end.

This book diverts from this formula slightly but in enough ways to make it a most enjoyable and exciting read.

A few problems though. I kept waiting for the funny guy from National Treasure to show up. What I mean by that is, this plot has already been done. Who didn’t love National Treasure? It was a great flick with lots of action, arcane tidbits about American History, codes, symbols and keys, car chases, mad men, government agents, shoot-outs, etc, etc. Of course, I was also a big fan of Iron Eagle, Deep Impact, Rob Roy and Antz. All movies that ripped off other movies but came out before the other movie it was ripping off had come out (Top Gun, Armageddon, Braveheart, A Bug’s Life).

The other problem is this book suffers from the John McClain syndrome. Die Hard was great, but the sequel instantly begged the question: “How can the same sh*t happen to the same guy so often?” This is the third massive adventure for famed Harvard Professor and Symbologist Robert Langdon. First of all, is there really such a thing as a Symbologist? Microsoft Word doesn’t think so as it thinks I’m misspelling it and has no alternative. And if Symbologists do exist how exciting can their life be? If you took all the truly exciting things that all the Symbologist in all the world from the beginning of time had ever done and attributed them to a single character, it probably wouldn’t fill a single page of paper. Yet, this Robert Langdon chap falls knee deep into one dangerous and exciting adventure after another; three whole novels worth now. I think it’s time for him to go back to teaching and never, ever leave the Harvard campus again.

Short chapters with a cliff-hanger at the end of almost every single one makes for fast reading. Like I said it’s difficult to put down. I’m sure it’s controversial and offensive to some people. The Freemasons are the target of this particular book, but Brown shows a great respect and sympathy for them and their order and since I don’t know a dang thing about them, I don’t have much to add here on that topic. If they’re ticked, so be it and if they’re not, who cares. If you read any work of fiction and find yourself offended perhaps you should stop reading the book or at least gently remind yourself that IT’S A WORK OF FICTION FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE!!!!

OK, bottom line, I recommend this book. I give it 4 stars not because it was really great literature but because it was fun, and exciting and kept me riveted unlike any other book I’ve read in the last year or two. Give it a read and be quick about it as I’m sure the movie will be out next summer with Tom Hanks sporting that goofy hairdo so popular among the more notable Symbologist.

Scrubs Season 9 Early Review

2009-12-04T06:00:00.001-07:00

Who the Hell are these people?

Did it bother you when a new Darin was cast in the place of the old one on Bewitched...and the producers tried to act like nothing had happened? How about when Aunt Vivian was changed on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. (Oh yes...it's true and I know this unashamedly)
Sometimes your favorite TV show changes characters or course, and completely ruins them for you.

Oh I know, MASH was just as good or even better when Potter replaced Henry Blake, or when Honeycutt replaced Trapper, but that was the exception..not the rule.

I've long followed the tumultuous ride that is Scrubs on television. I have seen at least 95% of the episodes going back 8 years. I honestly can only say this with a couple other TV series including Married with Children and Little House on the Prairie.
Scrubs started on NBC many years ago, and received ratings that would qualify it as a hit. And man was it funny. Unfortunately, NBC kept moving the show around to different nights and different times. The ratings continued to drop, and NBC finally sold the show to ABC.

ABC tried for a couple years to "redo" the image of Scrubs, but to be honest...the show was just not as funny. The most recent season (8) there were multiple episodes where main characters were not seen at all. The quirky "dream sequences" were sparse, and you could tell the show was on its farewell tour.
It ended quite nice with JD quitting Sacred Heart, and all was well.

All was well.....until ABC decided they wanted to bring Scrubs back for another year.
The problem was that JD, Carla, and Lawrence (the creator) were all quitting the show.

Because of these people quitting, ABC decided to turn the train on tracks that only go straight...I smell a something derailing, and a bloody mess.

SPOILERS
The new season of Scrubs takes place a year or so after the "finale." There is a new Sacred Heart Hospital, where Turk, Dr. Cox, and JD are all teachers at a Medical School. They have brought in a whole new crop of med school students who spend time learning in the class and the hospital.
Scenes with the "old-time" regulars are still funny, but the ones with the new students are....lacking. It's like the show is trying to hard to keep its funny groove on.
Even further, JD is only slated to be in 6 episodes, while Dr. Reed will only be in limited episodes. The only regulars slated to remain are Dr. Turk and Dr. Cox. That is like eating a Big Mac without the secret sauce. Like watching the Fast and the Furious without Vin Diesel. (oh wait...that happened) Like going to Disneyland when half the rides are closed.

To be fair, the season is only 2 episodes old. Perhaps it will be much funnier, or the new main characters will "grow" on me.
Unfortunately, right now it feels like I hadn't seen my good friend for a couple years, and then run across him at the mall. He reluctantly tells of his short prison stint and 4 illegitamate kids scattered across the country. He then asks for money He's still your friend, just...different.

2 chuckle-worthy stars out of 5. I border on 3 stars, but the lack of good janitor/JD scenes was disappointing. This show is not worthy of the title Scrubs...and should be renamed.

Bumbo review

2009-12-02T09:00:00.001-07:00

Do you have a baby and nowhere to put it? Are you looking for neon baby furniture? Do you absolutely hate holding children? Well if you answered yes to any of these questions then look no further than the Bumbo. What is the Bumbo you ask? Not only is it a fun word to say but it's also a throne for babies! And don't babies deserved to be treated like royalty...

So a few days ago I bought a bright blue bumbo. (say that 10 times fast) My first question when I saw the seat was "How did they form the perfect bottom?" and "How did they get a baby to sit there while they mold the styrofoam around it?"

I was a little worried at first to put my 5 month old girl in it, thinking that it couldn't support her enormous weight capacity. (17 lbs and proud of it) But when I sat her in it, magic happened! It fit like a glove, a bum glove! My little girl is a wiggler, but the bumbo takes care of that. It keeps her compact. If it wasn't so soft I would say that it's a baby prison. Once a kid gets in it, there is no getting out without assistance. I'm surprised these things aren't selling like hot cakes in the South. (I'm stereotyping and assuming they don't take proper care of their children there) Though I am a guilty party, I was cooking dinner and realized how easy it is to put the baby in the bumbo and turn on baby einstein. (Baby Capitalism at its best.) I might never need a babysitter.

Bumbo's website states "This revolutionary infant chair is uniquely designed according to the baby’s posture." I wouldn't say that they uniquely designed the chair to your baby's posture. It's one size fits all folks. Any baby will fit in the bumbo, unless they have a severe case of elephantitis.

The only thing I would improve about the Bumbo is that I would put wheels on it and maybe a cord for pulling it, then I wouldn't have to bend over so much to save my girl from the postpartum prison.

The Bumbo is not only a fun word to say, but it is a 4 star product. It lacks perfection because of the cool 35 bucks it will set you back, and mostly because I want a bumbo made for adults.