Highly Advanced Cheese

When I was in college, nothing seemed more perfect and natural then to come home from a long day of classes and working at the newspaper and just to write everything about my life in my Livejournal. When I graduated from college, it seemed like it was time to move to a more serious set up, so I got this Wordpress blog you see here.

I don’t know what has happened since then, but now I rarely post, and most of the time I do, it’s because I’m apologizing for not posting.

I have a few theories on the matter. I think a lot of the words that in college ended up in my Livejournal now end up in my Twitter/Facebook status updates. Also, I’m not in the dorm environment of college, so maybe I feel a little less safe broadcasting my entire life to the world.

Or maybe I’m just losing interest in writing for personal purposes, now that it’s such a big part of my job. I hope that’s not the case. Writing has been an integral part of my life since I was twelve.

Also, when I post now I tend to make these weird rambling posts that have no purpose and then just end awkwardly …

…

(7:47:16 PM) captainhogan65: A drunk guy came into the coffee shop I was in earlier and started harassing customers
(7:47:26 PM) Dio Brando: did you kill him
(7:47:30 PM) captainhogan65: No
(7:47:36 PM) captainhogan65: When he got up to leave, he was so drunk, he couldn’t even put his coat on, and almost fell over
(7:47:46 PM) captainhogan65: I called the cops and sat with him until they got there.
(7:47:56 PM) Dio Brando: then you killed him
(7:47:59 PM) captainhogan65: No
(7:48:27 PM) captainhogan65: While we were sitting there, he grabbed my hand and yanked me in close
(7:48:32 PM) captainhogan65: He looked me square in the eye and said to me, “If you send me to jail, I’ll send you to hell.”
(7:48:48 PM) captainhogan65: Then he said some stuff in Navajo
(7:48:53 PM) captainhogan65: And then the cops came and took him away
(7:48:56 PM) captainhogan65: Stair
(7:48:58 PM) captainhogan65: Am I cursed?
(7:49:11 PM) Dio Brando: YES
(7:49:23 PM) captainhogan65: I was afraid of this

It might should help if I included the real link: http://www.fourcornersfood.com

If anyone is interested, I’ve started a side project on local restaurants called Four Corners Food Project.

UPDATE: FIxed the link. Now it is real

Some quick reviews of TV shows I watch on a regular basis. I’m basing this on my Hulu subscribed queue, as well as memory, so I very well may be forgetting some things.

TOP GEAR – My English friends have been telling me about this show for ages, but I always shrugged it off as a car show, and that I wasn’t interested. Having been watching it steadily since the spring now, I would easily place Messrs. May, Hammond and Clarkson among some of the funniest people in TV. The specials are both hilariously funny and interesting to watch. Why can’t an American show like this? A non-fiction show with a live studio audience and entertaining hosts? I know NBC bought a pilot that did not take off, but I don’t think the Top Gear mode neccesarily even needs to apply to cars. I think with the right personalities, a show on any enthusiast subject could succeed on the Top Gear model.

TOP CHEF – I started buying the past seasons on iTunes during the summer after seeing my sisters watch an episode at home. I hate to say it, but this is the first reality game show I have ever watched. I’m sorry. I just like food too much.

STARGATE: UNIVERSE – Seeing as I have apparently blogged about nothing but this in the last three months, I think we can move on.

30 ROCK – I honestly don’t think I watch any comedies that aren’t on NBC these days.

THE OFFICE – See above

BLEACH – One of two anime series I watch for no other reason than I want to see where it’s going. Oh God! Why? This show is terrible! The interesting premise evaporated while the show was still in its teens when they traveled to the Soul Society. Wherein a gigantic cast of unlikeable characters was added to the already-large group, pushing actually interesting characters to the background. A quick look at Wikipedia tells me I probably would be better off just reading the synopses and taking this out of my Hulu subscriptions. Honestly, that’s what I should do, but since the filler arc just ended, I guess I’ll stick around a little longer.

NARUTO – The other one. Shut up. Don’t judge me.

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD – The only anime series I still watch because I actually think that it is good. Because it’s not just good, it is very good. I was hesitant to watch at first, as I really liked the original TV series. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing its entire continuity invalidated in favor of the manga’s. I’m glad I tuned in though. After a slow and boring start that retread much we knew already, the show really is coming into its own. And like the original show, it scraps stupid speeches for intelligent dialogue that I can actually imagine a real person too. Plus, it really understands how to create a dramatic moment. There’s a recent scene in particular that gave me chills, no spoilers here though. Suffice it to say, it is very good, and I wish America could produce television fantasy this good.

SCRUBS – Enough anime, damn it. The only non-NBC comedy I watch, Scrubs is on probation. The current season was very lackluster up until the most recent episode, when Zach Braff finally left for good. I’m glad. After the “finale” of the previous season, we had already said goodbye to J.D. Having him around still was pointless and weighed us down from becoming interested in the new characters. Not to mention that he was just a caricature of J.D. from the previous seasons, all the silly effeminate quirks and nothing heavy or substantial. The first episode without him is the one I’ve enjoyed the most so far. This show could survive if the new cast comes into its own and John C. McGinley keeps doing that thing he does.

THE VENTURE BROTHERS – Do I really need to tell you why The Venture Brothers is awesome? No, I didn’t think so.

LAW AND ORDER – My interest in the show has been waning ever since they added Lupo. I really liked the old openings, wherein the murder suspect was discovered by a random passerby. The new openings, which just show a scene from the murder suspect’s day before they died seems like an overused technique, and one that isn’t in line with Law and Order’s cinema verite feel. I don’t mind the Lieutenant Van Buren cancer plot because it lets us see S. Epatha Merkerson more, and also gave us that awesome scene where Curtis came back to bury his wife, which was a real cool surprise. I will of course follow Law and Order until the day it days, but It’s miffing me more and more often.

I think those are all the shows I am currently watching.

I may or may not be horrible at this(HINT: I AM HORRIBLE AT THIS). I’m hoping an app that lets me update from my spiffy Android phone will help alleviate that.

I do have some side-projects in the works. And I hope to talk more about TV I’ve been watching, games I’ve been playing and sharp objects I’ve been stepping on.  I do it all for you (HINT: I DO IT ALL FOR ME, THAT’S WHY I’M TERRIBLE AT THIS).

Once again, this just isn’t working. I wish I could say that I don’t care if it doesn’t work, but I really do need it to. It would be nice to know why, but I don’t. So I’m going to change some things up again, and we’ll see what happens.

Also, this WP theme has got to go. What was I thinking. This is horrible.

Apparently I’m only allowed to post on Stargate Universe these days. Well, so far it’s been okay. As per my advice, they’ve laid back a bit on the communication stones. Yes, I am taking credit for that. What of it? I think it’s a better show as a result.

The main problem I think it has now is it is very military-centric. As in most of the military characters are presented as the bright shining lights that illuminate our universe while the civilian characters tend to be portrayed as weasely whiners who seem to have problems with anything.

Actually, it’s nowhere near as bad as that, but I can easily see it moving in that direction. It doesn’t help that most of the military characters are people whose names we know, and there are a lot of nameless civilians running around for the writers to pluck antagonists from.

Another big issue is that they need to do a little better with the continuity. I thought having Rush have a breakdown from caffeine and nictotine withdrawal was a masterful move. But let me tell you he went cold turkey better than any smoker or coffee drinker I’ve ever seen from one episode to the next.

Also, this is kind of a broad nitpick, but I feel as though Destiny isn’t quite alien enough. I forget the moment when the writers decided that the ship had bedrooms, but I don’t like it. There were lots of cool shots in the pilot of extras just strewn about and lieing in hallways because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. I think that the show really needs to ratchet the uncomfort levels of the characters up even more. The show is obviously taking a lot from the remake of Battlestar Galactica stylisticly. If there’s one thing the show should take away from BSG it’s that you should never stop screwing with the characters. Never let them get comfortable for even a second because the second they get comfortable, (SPOILER) they’ll suddenly realize that they are angels or that they want to abandon technology or something.

You know, it ocurred to me that this is probably the first new science fiction TV show I’ve started watching since I first started watching Battlestar Galactica. That is because TV scifi tends to be either aimed at mainstream TV watchers, or aimed at franchise sci-fi fans (which is why I was so skeptical about SGU in the first place). If you need a good example, go watch Flash Forward. Because, of course, the FBI has databases on every time a crow has died ever.

I never watched the Stargate SG-1 series, or its spinoff, Stargate: Atlantis. Can’t really say why. Around the time the show switched from Showtime to Scifi Channel, I was kind of in the midst of my reaction against how horrible Star Trek: Voyager was turning out. I wanted to tune into another military science fiction show like I wanted an Intrepid class starship, bio-neural circuitry and a seemingly inexhaustible slupply of photon torpedoes and shuttle craft.

At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll ever really watch Stargate SG-1. It will probably go in my file of coulda/woulda/shoulda scifi shows like The X-Files or Farscape that always intrigued me, but I never tapped in to. I never even considered Atlantis seeing how it seemed to be a pretty closely tied spinoff of SG-1, and if I wasn’t going to watch the original, and when I heard about Stargate:Universe, my interest again was not really piqued.

Then I saw the trailer during the final days of Battlestar Galactica, and was quite impressed. I really liked the dark style and the air of panic and urgency it gave off. So I said that when the show came on, I would give it the ol’ college try.

I just finished the first three-parter and my attitude so far is cautiously optimistic.

The first third was a knockout. I love that they’re going with steadicams. Yeah, it’s a popular technique, but the reason it’s popular is I like it…or rather, people in general like it, although I prefer to think they are catering to me specifically. Honestly, the only thing I disliked about the show early on was the frame story. The more details you include of the earlier show, the more trouble you’ll get in with viewers like me who didn’t watch SG-1. I think most people get the idea that the Stargate acts like a portable wormhole of some sort. You started the show off great with the panicked, injured people coming out of the Stargate onto a strange and weird ship. Why flash back at all? Give us some credit here.

Anyway, my enjoyment lessened as it went on, and here’s why.

• Everyone instantly seemed too familiar and comfortable on this ship. I want it to be like they just unpacked a stereo and all the instructions are Japanese. The way it is right now, it’s more like German. A lot of it is meaningless, but you can string together some meaning through the cognates.
• The ancient communication stones are trouble. Lose ‘em. Make it something like the only way they con communicate with earth is through morse code. Or better yet, semaphore.
• No more cameos from the previous series. Especially not Richard Dean Anderson. I should’ve mentioned it earlier, but he’s another reason I never watched SG-1. He’s too smug. He looks like someone who just bought a Prius, but all the time.
• Dear God, don’t let Rush make anymore speeches about his backstory. Next time you want him to get in a fight with a character, have him just let off a string of Scottish expletives, not explain how his father worked on the docks and he got a scholarship to Oxford while working two jobs and walking a thousand miles in the snow. I didn’t like the character he was pontificating too until that moment.
• Also, no more desert planets. What is it with science fiction and desert planets. There’s never any plains planet that are just endless fields of grass. Try that. It’l be like driving through Iowa.
• Give guest actors strict instructions against chewing the scenery. Specifically the senator’s wife and the guy who inhabited the body of the colonel.
• When you do the communication stones, don’t switch out the actors. Let us see how jarring it is for everyone. Of course, this shouldn’t matter because we’re not going to see the communication stones anymore. Right?  RIGHT?
• Let SOMEONE be disturbed about abandoning two of the crew members on some mystery planet without any explanation as to what happenned to them.

Anyway, it has problems, but I’ll keep watching and evaluating on an episode by episode basis.

Oh yeah. I will never EVER call it Syfy. Deal with it.

Since the last time I’ve posted I’ve gone to Seattle, Kansas City, started the process of applying to grad school and made a little papier mache robot man.

I suck at this blogging thing.