A bit more respectable

For the record, while I cannot turn my eyes away from that Journey video, I'm far more inspired by this and this when it comes to music videos. There's a bunch of DVDs out there that feature these innovative videos, usually involving the Beastie Boys, the White Stripes or directed by Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. Funny, that.

Aren't the MTV Video Music Awards on tonight? Glancing at the list of Best Video nominees, I wasn't too impressed by any of them. I think the only one I watched straight through was the Shakira one because, well, Shakira was in it. I'm not proud.

Wednesday's Best

My old friend Erin peaked my interest with her list of favorite television characters that's the new viral trend.

A couple of notes about this list. First off, you'll notice a lot of my choices are from shows that are currently airing. Simply put, I never watched a lot of TV before recent years, but there's a lot of quality programming on right now. Secondly, I take a look at my choices and notice a lot of guys on there. There's probably a few reasons for this 1) I don't watch a lot of shows with a strong female perspective and 2) shockingly, I relate to the guys better. This is especially true of the shows Julie really likes, like SEX AND THE CITY, GOLDEN GIRLS and GREY'S ANATOMY. I find all the characters really well written and developed, but whenever there's a female/male conflict, I often find myself knee-jerkingly agreeing with the guys. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot with that one, so I should stop.

Honorable mentions go to Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) on LOST, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) in STAR TREK, Sister Peter Marie Reimondo (Rita Moreno) on OZ, Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) in THE OFFICE and ... gosh, just about the whole cast of SPORTS NIGHT. One of these days I'll make the time to watch WEST WING reruns or DVDs. I'd also like to mention the character of Stephen Colbert on THE COLBERT REPORT, if that counts.

10. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) HOUSE – It's been said by smarter people than me that the cranky genius doctor who hates everybody is one of the best characters on TV right now, so I won't go into it. I normally don't get worked up by award show nonsense, but when the Emmys nominated the show instead of Laurie for his performance, I thought they were insane because LAURIE IS THE SHOW.

9. Al Swearington (Ian McShane) DEADWOOD – The overall premise of this profane, Shakenspearean show is brilliant, and Swearington is in the middle of all of it. Really, if he was just giving poetic soliloquies while talking to severed Indian heads, or getting head himself, he'd still make it on this list. Hamlet would be proud of this puppetmaster.

8. George Costanza (Jason Alexander) SEINFELD – The man is a total loser but makes it work for him. He lies, he cheats, he steals. Not unlike Wily E. Coyote, we love watching him get into these situations, because we know it will end badly but we want to see how funny it is when he does screw it up. Of course, the alternate answer here is Larry David, whom George is based on, but essentially the same character to further heights on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, but rather than deal with all that, I'm with Alexander's brilliant character.

7. Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) THE SOPRANOS – I didn't see her pop up on a lot of lists, but I'm utterly fascinated by the mob boss wife that is clearly aware of the ugly truths involved in the family business, and hates herself for it. Yet, she certainly enjoys the standard of living she's accustomed to, and at times, remains willingly naive on certain subjects that happen right before her face. She's such a contradiction. Don't worry, Carm, I'm sure Adrinna really did run away.

6. George Michael Bluth (Michael Cera) ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT – Of all the marvelous characters on this show, the best is George Michael, as I can't recall any other series that captured as well as AD the comedic pathos of being a teenage boy, who may or may not be in love with his cousin (See what I did there?). It's a credit to both the writing and the performance of Cera that really sells this. What a fun, sexy time for all of us, indeed.

5. Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) THE WIRE – Stringer Bell is not your ordinary drug gang leader. He's smart, caculating and ambitious, detemined to not let his emotions trip him up on the way to something bigger, unlike other drug kingpins. But when his best friend and boss is one of those kingpins, Bell has to not only dance a thin wire with his ambitions, but avoid leaving incriminating evidence for the cops to catch him. He deals with street level pushers and top politicans. He goes to business school. He's a man that was raised in one social class that's looking to move to another, and the first three seasons of THE WIRE detail his rise and fall.

4. Veronica Mars (Kristin Bell) VERONICA MARS – We're only halfway through the first season (thanks DVD sale Target!), but I'm hooked. A high-school girl recovering from being popular as well as the "unsolved" murder of her best friend, Veronica uses her charm, wit and intelligence to fend off her detractors and solve mysteries. She's sort of early seasons Buffy without the superpowers.

3. Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) 24 – The biggest action hero of our age. Bauer's the kind of guy that will do anything and everything to protect the country, and no matter what your political views, you can't help but enjoy the ride along the way. Oh, he tries to do the normal, family life thing on occasion, but when trouble starts or there's some witness stonewalling interregators, you see that sly smirk on his face because you know he's about to go on the job. Whether he's singlehandly taking down a terrorist compound or getting people to talk by any means necessary, the man loves what he does ... and what he does is FUCK PEOPLE UP. If you see Jack Bauer coming down the street, you've got two choices: Do everything he says, or get the hell out of the way, because there's no other option.

2. Number Six (Patrick McGoohan) THE PRISONER – The best non-conformist, anti-authority character on the small screen, bar none. We don't know who he is or why he resigned, but his superiors want to know very badly, and they'll let him go if he just tells them. But when Number Six thinks something is none of your business, he really means it. As he says it: "I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own." If you haven't seen this old British show, you should really do yourself a favor and check it out.

1. Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) TWIN PEAKS – Before Fox Mulder made strange but genius G-Men acceptable, "Coop" was putting it out there for all to see as he searched for the killer of Laura Palmer. There is a Zen-like quality to Cooper that allows he to balance reasonable deduction with spiritual enlightment that's fascinated me all my life. In Cooper's world, there is an underlying order to the universe, even if we can't see it. "Fate and coincidence figure largely into our lives," he tells us. He's also a genuinely good man, morally strong enough to resist the temptation of a naked Sherilyn Fenn lying in his hotel bed (YIKES!), but also confident enough to walk into hell itself to save the ones he loves and face down his inner demons. And this is a David Lynch series, so you know I'm not speaking about this metaphorically.

None More Rock

If somebody were to ever ask me, “What video defines the 80s?,” I know what I would pick. Some would say Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Others would be partial to Madonna’s “Material Girl.”

But really, for me, it comes down to a simple checklist of 80s clichés.

A NON-DESCRIPT WAREHOUSE LOCATION? Check.

WOMAN WALKING AROUND IN HIGH HEELS? Check.

MULLETS? Check.

ROCKING OUT TO THE AIR GUITAR? Check (BONUS-Entire band playing air instruments).

TIGHT JEANS? Check.

LEATHER SKIRTS? Check.

MUSICANS TURNING DRAMATICALLY TO CAMERA MULTIPLE TIMES? Check.



If anybody doubts that this is simply one of the greatest things MTV has ever aired, wait until you get to the guy playing the keyboard nailed to the wall about a minute-thirty in and try to keep a straight face.

You got to give it up for Steve Perry … he sells the shit out of this thing. I don’t think I’ll ever be not amused by this video. This was mainstream rock in the Reagan era.

Du U H8 Texting?

So I was reading the paper the other day, and there was this big front page cover story about how the kids these days are just texting and IMing each other. And I thought to myself, "Well, further proof that abstinence-only education programs just don't work." But then I read further and I realized I was thinking of something completely different.

Anyhoo, in this story, all the kids were saying that it's just so much more convenient to text their friend than e-mailing them. E-mailing, to them apparently, is a dead technology. And here I am, at 30, experiencing the second time I've ever felt old. The first time was when I found out my young teenage cousin was being taught by a guy I graduated high school with who had already been married and divorced. But that's neither here nor there.

So kids these days text each other to save time. To save time? Is it just me, or does anybody else lose patience with texting another person really quick? Even just typing "Hi" means you have to find wherever the h is on the phone and then press it twice ... because h is not even the first freaking letter on that button. It's g. And I've got no time for a g thing baby. So you have to press this button twice to get h. And here's the thing ... after h in "hi" is i, right? But you have to wait for the phone to recognize that you're absolutely sure you want that h, so you wait. And then when your phone decides, "Yes, this person really wants to use h here," then it moves to the next space so you can input an i. Because you can't input it beforehand, because then it will screw up your h, and then you have to start all over. You know why? Because the h and the i are on the same fucking button! That sounds like a lot to go through, doesn't it? That's just "hi," only the first word in 80 percent of conversations people have everyday. And it's two letters! Can you imagine trying to work out complete sentences on this thing?

It's especially problematic for people who like to think of themselves as, you know, intelligent. You feel a desperate need to write out the whole damn sentence and make sure it's spelled correctly and it's grammatically correct. And it's a bitch, because cellphones don'’t come with spell check yet. I know I'm not the only person in the room who uses that crutch.

But the kids, they have their own language. Instead of typing out "you," they put in a U. Instead of typing out "are," they put in an R. Instead of typing out "hate," they put in an H and an 8. I never understood that one. Is "Do" DU? They make up all kinds of abbreviations because they can't be bothered to type out they are laughing out loud. But you can almost see the logic here, because I'd imagine typing out sentences with single letters saves you a lot of time if you were writing to the illiterate.

But here's the thing that burns me the most. Obviously, as you can tell, I'm not a big fan of texting, so I don't do it. But some of my friends continue to text me. But when I want to do something that would save me time in a conversation (otherwise known as "call them right the fuck back"), they don't even answer the phone. Bastards.

Random aside of the day

I'd give you a demonstration, but you can't spell "demonstration" without "demons," and demons are simply against my religion.

Baby, you can't drive my car

So yesterday I was listening to Rush Limbaugh, who I like to think of as our dark lord and savior, and “America's Anchorman” opened my eyes to the media manipulation that's going on right in front of us. While the drive-by media like to talk about how many people are dying in Iraq on a daily basis, their “liberal bias” fails to mention another amazing statistic that has absolutely nothing to do with the Iraqi war, but it is a death count that far outpaces what's going on in the Middle East. I'm talking about highway deaths.

“Now, the number of highway deaths in this country, 43,443 in 2005, is 40 to 50 times our troop losses in Iraq and Afghanistan combined (editor-about 3,100). Well, ten or 20 times at least.”

Yes, now we're getting somewhere. There's a few thousand dead soldiers in Iraq. But there are tens of thousands dead on our nation's highways! It's pretty much the same thing! But one death count is a lot higher! But do you hear that on CNN? Hell, no, you don't! If this were an African country, those liberal commie pinkos would be marching on GWB's vacation ranch!

Wait a minute. Thousands dead … a subjective term to define a conflict of which there can be no conclusive winner … Folks, I think we should declare War on Driving. Those murdering weapons of mass destruction have had their free ride long enough. There should even be a color coded chart to help us out, letting us know when is a good time to be on or off the streets.



So remember America, while our liberal media shows their obvious bias by reporting on things like “Dozens dead in Iraqi bombings today” or “vice president shoots man in face,” remember who's doing the real killing.

Do you have to use so many cuss words?

NWS, as the kids say these days ...

The hands of time

So the other day, the wife went into the store to get new batteries for a number of watches. A day later, she’s wearing one of the watches when she asks me what time is it? She thinks it’s 1:30. I tell her it’s actually 3. Clearly, her watch has stopped again, and she moved it up to the correct time.

She then proceeds to tell me that her mother never wears watches because they stop all the time. It’s not a battery problem, it’s not a winding problem, they just stop. It doesn’t matter what watch she wears, it will stop. That’s crazy … like X-Files crazy.

Is it science? Is it biology? Is it a crooked watch dealer? A brief search of Google and Wikipedia has brought me no answers (Oh, Internet, you have failed me for the last time!). Is this an actual phenomenon? Or is this simply a random occurrence that has somehow turned to legend, like my father’s stories of managing Rick James?

Perhaps she has an electromagnetic pulse.

Frozen mold

For those of you single guys out there, did you know there's a wedding tradition where you save the top layer of your cake, stick it in a freezer and then eat it on your first anniversary? No? Well, then, consider this your due warning, so you can prepare yourself when the cake people and fiance give you menacing looks for obviously thinking this is the stupidest fucking idea in the history of ideas.

Think about it for a second. You are putting a baked dessert into the fridge for a year. Can anybody else see the line forming so you can get some of that? Girls, when you wonder why guys never heard of this story, or make an awful face when they hear of it, it's because we've never thought, "Man, this steak is really, really good. I'm going to save the rest, stick it in the freezer and see how it holds up! It will be awesome!" No, it sounds disgusting. There's shit in my fridge right now that's probably over a year old, but that's only because I'm the bastard who's too lazy to throw it out, not because I'm saving it for some arbitrary date, chosen only because the fire hall was open for that date.