Is this season just ridiculously predictable?

Rob, you said you had a theory -- did it turn out correct? I suspected Tim for the last crime, but during this whole episode it was ridiculously obvious that if there was going to be any twist it would have to involve him -- there just weren't any other suspects. What happened to the insanity & unpredictability of season 2?

Okay, so that's more than one question of the week, but since that's probably the last new episode for a few weeks, it'll tide us over. Might we be getting a third mystery that leaves us at the cliffhanging final episode of the season? methinks yes.

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Not alot of info about the resurrection of the greatest TV show to feature Zoidberg has been available. But there has been considerable confusion about what form the show is taking on its return. Initial reports indicated 4 DVDs, each with feature-length films. Then reports came out of 13 episodes. Then reports came out that both were happening and that the episodes would appear on Cartoon Network or Comedy Central.

Then nothing.

And now, this:

Futurama News posts segment from RottenTomatoes that quotes Matt Groening:

"I was frustrated when it got cancelled, but Fox, 20th Television is the one who came back and said, 'Would you like to do a DVD movie?'" Groening recalled. We said, 'Let's do two' and they said, 'Well, why not three?' and we said, 'Well, why not four?' and they said, 'Okay, four' and then that's it."

After this, Comedy Central won a bid to air the films as new "Futurama" episodes. "We're writing them as movies and then we're going to chop them up, reconfigure them, write new material and try to make them work as separate episodes. Chopped up is an indelicate way of putting it but we are doing them as movies and then we are reconfiguring them and writing new material and narration and this that and the other so that they'll stand on their own as episodes."

RottenTomatoes does not state whether they got a direct interview with Groening or found the quotes somewhere else. But if true it confirms our understanding of the future of Futurama: 4 DVD Movies made into several episodes for TV.

So. apparently this is going to be a disaster. unless they release the movies and then recut them as episodes. otherwise, what's the fucking point of doing the movies?

Posted by vegetable at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a post that is long overdue.

I've been faithfully listening to Beck's new album The Information for the past few months, even though I wrote a trashy review of it here on Pop5. And I mean trashy like britney spears / lindsey lohan trashy. Oh well, it's the not the first or last time I'll eat my own words. At least my words are meat-free. Anyway. Sorry Beck.

I still think the last quarter lags, but the first 3/4 has really solidified in my mind as great great stuff. "Dark Star" finally clicked for me (and actually relates to my post about 'no one writing songs about the war.') In fact, i think a lot of this album is about the war, just disguised by Beck's "what the hell does that mean" lyrical style. And that last song about the spaceship still seems too Scientology-ish, but i'm over that. i'd make a horrible reviewer because it takes me months to like certain things. and months to hate other things.

on that note: I bought the new Menomena album and i hate it. Tune in 4 months from now when I pronounce it brilliant!!

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This is a pretty basic song, and yet it helps to hear it rather than just read the lyrics. but whatever.

"Road to Peace"

Young Abdel Mahdi (Shahmay) was only 18 years old,
He was the youngest of nine children, never spent a night away from home.
And his mother held his photograph, opening the New York Times
To see the killing has intensified along the road to peace

There was a tall, thin boy with a whispy moustache disguised as an orthodox Jew
On a crowded bus in Jerusalem, some had survived World War Two
And the thunderous explosion blew out windows 200 yards away
With more retribution and seventeen dead along the road to peace

Now at King George Ave and Jaffa Road passengers boarded bus 14a
In the aisle next to the driver Abdel Mahdi (Shahmay)
And the last thing that he said on earth is "God is great and God is good"
And he blew them all to kingdom come upon the road to peace

Now in response to this another kiss of death was visited upon
Yasser Taha, Israel says is an Hamas senior militant
And Israel sent four choppers in, flames engulfed, tears wide open
And it killed his wife and his three year old child leaving only blackened skeletons

It's found his toddlers bottle and a pair of small shoes and they waved them in front of the cameras
But Israel says they did not know that his wife and child were in the car
There are roadblocks everywhere and only suffering on TV
Neither side will ever give up their smallest right along the road to peace

Israel launched it's latest campaign against Hamas on Tuesday
Two days later Hamas shot back and killed five Israeli soldiers
So thousands dead and wounded on both sides most of them middle eastern civilians
They fill the children full of hate to fight an old man's war and die upon the road to peace

"And this is our land we will fight with all our force" say the Palastinians and the Jews
Each side will cut off the hand of anyone who tries to stop the resistance
If the right eye offends thee then you must pluck it out
And Mahmoud Abbas said Sharon had been lost out along the road to peace

Once Kissinger said "we have no friends, America only has interests"
Now our president wants to be seen as a hero and he's hungry for re-election
But Bush is reluctant to risk his future in the fear of his political failures
So he plays chess at his desk and poses for the press 10,000 miles from the road to peace

In the video that they found at the home of Abdel Mahdi (Shahmay)
He held a Kalashnikov rifle and he spoke with a voice like a boy
He was an excellent student, he studied so hard, it was as if he had a future
He told his mother that he had a test that day out along the road to peace

The fundamentalist killing on both sides is standing in the path of peace
But tell me why are we arming the Israeli army with guns and tanks and bullets?
And if God is great and God is good why can't he change the hearts of men?
Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
Maybe God himself is lost and needs help
He's out upon the road to peace

Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
And he's lost upon the road to peace
And he's lost upon the road to peace
Out upon the road to peace.

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Seriously. I'd admire his rigidness if he wasn't so spineless. Fuck him. Fuck his return to Bush's good graces after what Rove & co. did in 2000. He recently said he couldn't hold a grudge. This from the same man who said he gets nervous around Asians because of his time as a POW. Granted, Bush and Rove didn't clip a car battery to his testicles and tell a lot of "your mama's so fat jokes" -- but seriously. fuck him and anyone who votes for him.

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Okay, so I'm a little late in posting about Randy Newman's 2-3 years-too-late song about how the current administration sucks. So sue me. The only reason I even looked it up was because the song, "A Few Words in Defense of our Country," is being sold on iTunes. How fitting. I thought at first the song would be like one of those crazy Neil Young "i love america, you haters better leave" freak outs that he goes through every other decade. Instead, it's an anti-war song. In 2007. After the war has been going on since I was born, if not sooner. (I jest). But I'm disturbed that Randy Newman's anti-war music is posted in the NYT and that it took me 20 minutes to come up with the list of bands I know of that have bashed the president and/or the war:
Neil Young
System of a Down
Bruce Springsteen
Radiohead
eminem
Green Day (sorta)
Tom Waits (sorta)
Beck (sorta)
Tupac (from the grave! just kidding.)

Part of the issue is that I'm just not as hip as I like to think. there are probably a ton of under-the-radar bands that Rob can point out that have written entire CDs about Bush and how he sucks.

But I want to know -- where are the so-called political bands? Is it that U2 really does suck this much? I mean, is How to Drop an Atomic Bomb anything more than a metaphor about how love can save us all? (Seriously, does U2 suck my ass, or what.) Is REM really that irrelevant after all? Leaving New York's never easy? Fuck new york! Exhuming McCarthy, you bastards! EXHUMING FUCKING MCCARTHY!

I don't even know why I'm outraged. perhaps I just expected that at this point more bands would blatantly denounce shit. And we wouldn't have randy newman to thank for pointing out that
'"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid
It’s patriotic in fact and color coded'

Gee, isn't mocking the color-coded fear factor, like, 2 years too late???? ugh. Someone help me out here. I think I'm suffering from outrage fatigue -- but i'm outraged that there's very little anti-war music written by people who are under 30 (eminem? is he our Dylan?). I thought people were supposed to start liberal and get conservative? Rob? Buddy? Mike? Vicki? (I'm leaving out Rama since he doesn't listen to anything after 1980, and even when he does it's usually just on karaoke night). Someone help me out here. Give me a reason to believe!

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country

By Randy Newman

I’d like to say a few words
In defense of our country
Whose people aren’t bad nor are they mean
Now the leaders we have
While they’re the worst that we’ve had
Are hardly the worst this poor world has seen

Let’s turn history’s pages, shall we?

Take the Caesars for example
Why within the first few of them
They had split Gaul into three parts
Fed the Christians to the lions
And burned down the City
And one of ’em
Appointed his own horse Consul of the Empire
That’s like vice president or something
That’s not a very good example, is it?
But wait, here’s one, the Spanish Inquisition
They put people in a terrible position

I don’t even like to think about it
Well, sometimes I like to think about it

Just a few words in defense of our country
Whose time at the top
Could be coming to an end
Now we don’t want their love
And respect at this point is pretty much out of the question
But in times like these
We sure could use a friend

Hitler. Stalin.
Men who need no introduction
King Leopold of Belgium. That’s right.
Everyone thinks he’s so great
Well he owned The Congo
He tore it up too
He took the diamonds, he took the gold
He took the silver
Know what he left them with?
Malaria

A president once said,
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid
It’s patriotic in fact and color coded
And what are we supposed to be afraid of?
Why, of being afraid
That’s what terror means, doesn’t it?
That’s what it used to mean

The end of an empire is messy at best
And this empire is ending
Like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada adrift on the sea
We’re adrift in the land of the brave
And the home of the free
Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Posted by vegetable at 3:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't know if this article is real or fake (you can check, Evan, if you want to) but i found this and thought it was funny.

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OK, so the wife and I are getting fed up. We have a nice new HDTV with HD rabbit-ears. Unfortunately, when our TV loses the signal for a HD channel, it forgets that the HD channel exists so we have to re-program the TV after adjusting the rabbit ears just to get the channel back (which takes 5 minutes each time). Since we only watch about an hour of TV a night (and not even every night) this is not a major issue. But the past week has been bad for reception and it cut into our viewing of My Name is Earl & The Office tonight.

So, even though we hate cable, we thought it would be less annoying to pay a monthly fee than fuck with the rabbit ears. That and the external antennas are $100 and may not work (though at the rate we're going, I may be up on a ladder). Plus, i remembered my old tenants saying you could get basic cable that was just local channels (and ESPN and a few others) for $10/month.

Here's where it all goes wrong. Despite the fact that this statement appears in a number of places:

"HDTV broadcast feeds (ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, FOX, WB and UPN) are included in limited basic service and may not be available in all areas."

I have been told that i need to subscribe to the $50/month ENHANCED service to get LOCAL channels in HD. Sure it says "may not be available in all areas" but Comcast didn't know where I was when I asked. They just said, outright, "No."

I just composed a long email quoting the various places on their website where, even in the FINE FUCKING PRINT, it states that local HD channels can be received with subscription to basic cable and the purchase of an HD converter ($10). And yet, I'm still told it ain't happening.

Despite the fact that I am infuriated by their obtuseness, I have emailed them and will call them until one of two things happens: they change their website or I get HD local channels for $10/month. Or I go on a massive toilet papering of the Comcast factory -- where nightmares are created.

Let the games begin.... [UPDATE]

UPDATE:
So, I'm not insane. And fortunately, the 30 minutes of research and composition paid off. My email not only got a response, but it got the response I wanted!

Dear Evan,

Thank you for your message.

You can receive high definition with Limited Basic cable (local channels). You would need to subscribe to LTD basic service, priced at $10.50 per month, and High Definition service w/o digital cable, priced at $9.90 per month.

If you need further assistance, please feel free to respond directly to this email. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Comcast.

Sincerely,

John
Comcast Customer Care Specialist

Posted by vegetable at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One of my students clearly has too much free time. But it seems to be time well spent!

http://sincerelyinsane.com/index.htm

Now, some of you may remember some other dude publishing a book called Letters from a Nut back in 1994-5. I remember it, because it was my first year at Borders (Bridgewater, not stinky Marlton where the only good thing that happened was I met some of you). The premise -- Jerry Seinfeld was at a party where he 'found' these letters that just happened to be lying around. The letters were 'written by a nut' and sent to various companies with outrageous claims/requests. My student may not be aware of this, but since he wrote over 200 letters last year, I don't want to destroy him by saying "Dude, it's been done." Plus, he's funnier than I remember that other nut being.

Anyway. Enjoy!

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http://feministing.com/archives/006486.html

Last night's episode was a classic return to Veronica Mars scandalous hilarity! Right up there with getting raped in a drugged stupor by your boyfriend and some kid named Beaver who has the clap is a storyline about a forced abortion. And it was right out of the gate! Was it funny? yes. Did it have a nice twist where the TV-preacher actually was a nice guy who loved his daughter? Absolutely. Did it fail to pass the Feminist-science test? Nope.

Look -- shows have a responsibility to be entertaining, not to get medical information right. If anyone takes medical advice from a show, than that person deserves whatever disease they end up with. Especially if it's clamydia.

But what's more interesting is that this site -- which I keep thinking is FeminineFisting.com -- tries to claim that Veronica Mars should be more responsible in its reporting. Says the blog: "I realize it's just a crappy TV show. But this is the sort of propaganda the antis love to spread about abortion providers -- that they are so careless in their provision of abortion that any woman can waltz into a clinic, simply tell them she's pregnant, and walk out with RU486 in her pocket."

So, if anti-abortionists start using VM as a source, why would we be upset? It's just like this article about 24 I recently read, where right-wingers were using 24 as an example of what happens when we cut funding to fight terrorism.

It's called fiction. it's entertaining. sometimes it seems real, but it's not.

Posted by vegetable at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/n1c2c8/sets/72157594516670929/

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I started this post under the assumption that I had heard something. But I heard it slightly wrong. I'm not as annoyed as I was, but I still find all the Jesus stuff irksome.

Here's what I was writing before I double-checked the quote in question:
***
Okay, I know this is gonna make me sound like some kind of hateful, atheist bastard. But I really don't want it to come across as that. I really don't care if people are religious (unless they're scientologists, and then I have no respect for them).

Tonight Tony Dungy (the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, you sports hating bastards) said something during his trophy acceptance speech that irked me. When he was asked about how it felt to be the first African American coach to win the Super Bowl he said some of the same stuff he's said all week about how it feels -- nice stuff about he's not the first who could've won it. But then he said this: ""But again, more than anything, Lovie Smith and I are not only African-American but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord's way. We're more proud of that."
***
Hrmph. I could have sworn that when he said this, he said you can only do it the Lord's way. So, maybe I'm just a hater. But still, who the fuck cares? Is it really Jesus that made Addai and Rhodes unstoppable today? Is it really Jesus who made Rex Grossman have his regularly scheduled bad game? Did Jesus make it rain, causing 4 fumbles? Did Jesus get Hester to run back the opening kickoff -- the first time that's ever happened in a Super Bowl? Did Jesus decide that was to be the highlight of the Bears' night? Did Jesus make the MVP voters vote for Manning when he was not the MVP? Did Jesus make Vinetari shank that field goal?

Screw all this Jesus stuff. Maybe Jesus helped Dungy and Lovie Smith become nice, good people. But that's not what won and lost the game. Everyone knows it was the Miami hookers that infected the Bears defense with an STD that makes it burn when they pee. Combine that with the fact they were on the field for about 45 minutes in the first half (which is only 30 minutes long) and you can see that Jesus had nothing to do with it.

Posted by vegetable at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just hear the news of the next Harry Potter book's release date. (it 7/7/07 by the way) Funny thing a year ago I wouldn't have given a shit about this and more likely bitch about all the idiots making a big deal over this stupid book ,but after Vickie and Mike recommended the Harry Potter book. saying the books series were a pretty good read, I finally broke down and read the HP Series. Now I find myself hooked. I was actually felt like a kid again at hearing the new of the next Potter book. Well mind you I well not be camping out at border with the other Potterfile(or what ever there called) in costume I'll just order off the amazon.com like a normal person, while wear a costume.

Posted by Buddy at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)