geekent's Buy Nothing Year

I'm not a huge fan of the television. Oh, I love TV shows (as witnessed by my voluminous TV on DVD collection), but I'm not a lover of TV schedules and commercials. Commercial breaks are inefficient and time-wasting for the man who likes to consume as much story, information and entertainment as possible, as quickly as possible. Why watch a tv show in 1 hour at the rigidly scheduled period of 9 PM on Tuesdays when I can record it and watch it at my leisure, skipping past the commercials, in under 45 minutes (I miss TiVo), or, better yet, watching entire seasons in 5 days, like Aden and I just did with Heroes thanks to DVD.

But, at the same time, with my 1-year moratorium on new DVD purchases, I'm going to be a bit stuck for fresh entertainment, so I'll have to consume only what I have available to me. And even though the BNY doesn't start until January 1, 2008, I have to prepare for it now and invest in some programs, or else just watch nothing at all.

Aden and I devoured season one of Heroes quickly so that we might catch the second season premiere, which airs tonight. This of course will tear us away from any sort of movie (theatre) watching which I've been awfully neglectful of (we were planning on one of the nu-Western flicks).

Journeyman also starts tonight, and thanks to it's genre trappings, I'll give it a shot (it's a time-travel show, because, thanks to Heroes the big thing this fall is paranormal and/or super-powers). I don't think Aden will be into it (she doesn't like time travel or sci-fi much) but who knows. I'm not expecting much.

There's Carpoolers (October 2, ABC @ 8:30), from Kids in the Hall alum Bruce McCulloch, and a couple of Arrested Development producers. The previews I've seen are generally cute and or amusing, but not necessarily funny. McCulloch's post-Kids output (mainly sub-par Hollywood studio comedies) has been abysmal, and I can't say I expect much out of this either. Here's hoping. In general, network sit-coms aren't worth any sort of investment. Even The Office and My Name Is Earl find themselves played out after only their second seasons, and once smart comedies like Scrubs start to become routine, their humour expected. America loves Two and A Half Men, and I feel ill (previews for the new nerd comedy from the 21/2Men creators looks stomach churningly awful... I'm sure it'll be a hit). Carpoolers, if it's any good, should be a good occasional show, since I don't really feel like dedicating myself to a sitcom.

The Bionic Woman (Wed. Sept. 26 @ 9:00 on NBC) looks like it could be really good or yet more by-the-numbers "running-man" sci-fi. From the resurrectors of Battlestar Galactica, I'll give it a shot, since they did good things there, but, again, not expecting much.

Pushing Daisies (Wed Oct. 3 @ 8:00 on ABC) sounds intriguing but whether it has any legs or not, we'll find out after the first half dozen episodes. The conceit is a man discovers he can bring the dead back to life with one touch, but one touch again and their dead. A Private Investigator discovers his abilities and coaxes him to help him on his cases. On one case he discovers and resurrects his childhood sweetheart, they find themselves enchanted once again, only if they touch he'll lose her forever. It looks sweet and charming but I don't see a lot of potential for storylines. It's shows like this that make me wish the US made programming more like the BBC, shorter seasons with better quality episodes... and with creators who know when to quit and move on.

Battlestar Galactica and Lost don't begin again until January (sigh), which should fit into my schedule nicely, and by that point some of the above should be tanked, meaning my schedule should be freed up to actually do something productive for a change.

As it stands the start of the week is pretty top-heavy for me, with Mondays and Wednesdays being fairly busy days (and if Lost is back on Wednesdays at 10:00, that's three hours of TV plunkerdome to fill in the hole that having no New Comic Book Day will leave behind).

Sat down last night to the season premiere of Heroes and Journeyman and I have to say I'm already hating this weekly structured TV format.

Heroes, to start, is already proving difficult to watch (oh, the season premiere isn't nearly as rough as the pilot episode, thankfully) mainly because I watched the first season in such a concentrated dose. I realized while watching the season one DVDs that each episode doesn't often give enough to each character's storyline, but when watching them in quick succession it's not as noticeable. This first episode of season two was basically a 40 minute teaser, and it seemed to be over before it even began.

Claire has found herself a new "hero" (what the show calls anyone with superpowers, regardless of how they use them) at school (who I suspect is an alien). Bennett is large an in charge in his situation. We're getting some background on the senior "heroes" (Mrs. Petrelli, Hiro's dad...they say there are 9 left, meaning after Mr. Petrelli, Simone's dad and Linderman, there were 12 to start) as one of their ranks (looking an awful lot like Sylar early in season one) is killing off the others, taking Mr. Nakamoura off the top of the roof. Hiro is in feudal Japan, meeting his hero and being disappointed, unaware that his dad is dead (kind of puts a damper on his lighthearted counterpoint story). The wonder twins (a South American brother and sister duo, one with murderous power she can't control) are trying to find their way out of their homeland to Suresh, who himself is working with Bennett to try and infiltrate the remains of the Organization. Matt, now divorced (his pregnant wife = dead weight apparently) has adopted the "tracking system", but the "more sinister than Sylar" guy is peering into her mind. In the most unfortunate part of the storyline, Nathan Petrelli has, somehow, survived his brother's explosion, grown a beard, and taken on very Tony Stark-esque habits (maybe Micah could build him a suit of armor?). His wife and kids have left him and he wont give Claire the time of day. There's a strange scene where he looks in the mirror and sees a hideously burn-scarred reflection, which I thought meant that Peter, having come into contact with Candice (the illusionist) last season, was pretending to be Nathan, and having some split personality disorder in the same vein as Niki/Jessica. Unfortunately Peter pops up at the end, found shackled inside a cargo container by the lads from Fight Club.

Was it good? Not really. Interesting, sure. Frustrating, definitely. It seems to be much more of a TV show this year, as opposed to the comic-book affair it was last year. There was no sign of Niki, DL and Micah, which is unfortunate, cause I think DL rocks. Of all of them, he seems the most human... fragile, uncertain, but also not without strength. Anyway...

Following immediately after was Journeyman which I was afraid by the commercials I had seen that it was going to be a chick-flick version of science fiction, where the time travelling protagonist encounters his dead ex-fiancee in the past and tussles with the decision of saving her (or having an affair with her) or protecting his marriage. Thankfully it wasn't (totally) like that, as Dan intriguingly finds himself thrust back and forth in time between the now and various pasts (where he goes missing for lengths of time in the now, causing his wife and coworkers much distress, going so far as to think he's doing drugs). Dan, and investigative journalist, seems to observe the chance encounters with the same man as a sign as to what he's supposed to be doing and settles into his whole "time travel" thing with relative ease. When a more mature version of his ex-fiancee appears, throwing him for a loop, at guiding him on his journey, it became clear to me that this is just Quantum Leap revisited. It's decent, and the acting is fine (although the lead, Scottish actor Kevin McKidd, sounds unusually like Ray Romano, which throws me off), but it's not very unique. It'll make for perfect serialized television, but beyond this pilot, I'm not really engaged to watch more.

So, that's one hour of television I can wipe off the slate (phew). I really need to learn how to bit torrent... and then I'll need a computer that can burn DVDs... so that I can have my own TV watching schedule as opposed to what the networks decide.

Caught the premiere of the Bionic Womanyesterday and, holy cow, it was not good, not good at all. First impressions, especially where TV shows are involved, count for a lot, and sometimes if a show has a weak start it takes much cajoling to get me back on board. It happened with both Battlestar Galactica and Heroes, and given that Battlestar eventually wound up being one of the best shows on TV for a year and a half and this show (again a 70's genre remake) is brought to you by one of Battlestar's champions, it's the only reason I'm going to give it another shot.

But it pains me. It pains me so. We meet Jamie Sommers, a hyper-intelligent bartender dating a college professor and caring for her troubled teenaged sister who was abandoned by their father. Jamie and her boyfriend, Will deal with some impromptu relationship issues such as him moving to France and wanting her to come along ("but I have a job" she says) and Jamie telling him she's pregnant in turn. It's an overwrought and thankfully brief ten minute lull before Jamie and Will are pinballed around between a transport truck and a telephone pole. Will survives with cuts and bruises, Jamie loses an eye, an arm, and both legs (from the severity of the stunt crash they show, they should both really be dead). Of course Will isn't what he seems, working for an underground organization (presumably governmental) where he's developed nano-technology that regrows Jamie's eye, legs and arm, but imbuing her with speed and strength and bionic sight and hearing, and oh yes, digital rewiring of her brain so that she's combat-ready.

There's drama and intrigue, as Jamie, having escaped, must face her new condition by going back to her bartending job, oh and having sex with Will despite being really unsure of who he really is and what his motivations are. Then there's Sarah Corvus, the mentally unstable, emotionally needy first Bionic Woman, who is on a mission to kill Will and to either befriend Jamie or kill her (she was also, coincidentally, driving the transport that kick started the show). And that's a large part of the problem with this show is there's no understanding the characters or their motivations as they all seem to turn on a dime. Jamie and her sister are at each other's throats one moment, and best friends the next. Will's superiors in the organization all act like hard-asses but never seem to go the distance. Everyone in the show bandies between nefarious and amiable so there's no being sure, aside from Jamie, who's really good or bad or what they're really after.

The scenes where Jamie discovers her bionic powers steal quite liberally from the first Superman and Spiderman films, and Jamie's reaction to having speed and strength is borderline apathetic. Her first fight scene, so cheesily staged, finds her squaring off against a thug with a knife in a back alley, when suddenly she kicks his ass. And her shaky-cam fight with Sarah Corvis is equally difficult to embrace, especially as it first seems Sarah's toying with her, and by no logic other than she's the protagonist does Jamie get the upper hand. After the fight she agrees to work for the organization, but on her own terms, of course.

There's no plot threads that cry out for more explanation (some side plots introduced just seem out of place in this pilot) and the show is perhaps too tightly wound in its own circular logic to escape into something more interesting down the road. The cast is decent but left with a horrendous script to try and emote. Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck on Battlestar) seems to relish her role as the rather insane anti-Bionic Woman, but teeters the ham-fisted line. Star Michelle Ryan does better than I thought she would, but the drastic shifts the script demands of her character - between demure and confident, meek and hyper-intelligent - just make her come off looking uneven. As for the rest, they're all dispensable. Get rid of them and few will even notice their absence.

Pushing Daisies airs before Bionic Woman next Wednesday and so I'll give this show at least one more shot before giving up on it (but if Pushing Daisies turns up to be a loser as well, Wednesday nights will prove dead to me until Lost gets going).

Let's talk about Heroes for a minute:

I didn't like Heroes when it first started. The first episode was awful, and I didn't really stick with it after that. I caught the next three episode weeks later in one lump sum when NBC aired them back to back one night. I could see the series improving, and I ventured to watch it weekly after that and only lasted another two episodes before life decided to actually do something with itself. The buzz hit and the hype followed, and soon Heroes was the it show. That made me want to watch it even less, and I told myself (and the wife) that I'd wait for DVD. Even then, when the DVD hit, I had it pre-ordered on Amazon, only to cancel it before it shipped. I just didn't want it. Aden got a copy of the first season for a birthday present and reluctantly we both watched it, enjoying it enough to consume it in five days, ending the day before the second season began.

But this second season, well, it's not very good. It's not that it's horrible (although, featured on the cover of Soap Opera Digest, I understand it owes as much to it's afternoon television counterparts as it does to its monthly periodical inspiration), but it's also not engaging me like the first season did. And I realize why that is.

Heroes is an ensemble show, with about one to two dozen feature characters, each vying for screen time but only a few getting it every episode. When watching three or four episodes in one sitting, one gets a greater sense of each character's story arc, and a more fulfilling viewing experience, even if nothing is really resolved (like monthly comic books).

People like to compare it to Lost, mainly because they're both genre shows, with a large international cast, but Lost manages to engage the viewer differently, primarily as a result of structure. Each episode of Lost spotlights one or two characters via flashback, while the "mythology" of the show is carried forth by the "meanwhile, on the island" scenarios. The flashbacks provide a complete story for that episode, even if it is just another small part of the big picture, and there's something rewarding about that. Of course, almost each episode of Lost also contains a cliffhanger ending that implores you to return. Heroes on the other hand operates on the ongoing soap-operatic principal of continuing story. While there are cliffhangers of sorts, they're more dangling plot threads that are picked up and let go from week to week, only fully visible when watched in a cluster.

So I think I'm going to give up watching Heroes weekly, even though I won't be able to purchase Season 2 on DVD myself until 2009, I'm willing to wait, afterall, I'm as invested in it as I ever was, which is to say not very much. I suspect there are others like me, only without the time to ruminate on it like I have, and will instead just drop the show altogether. I see Heroes' ratings dropping this year and by mid-season 3, the show being cancelled or told to wrap it up.

That leaves Monday pretty much free now

Which is almost too bad, because the second episode of Journeyman has me quite liking the show now. Okay, the same thing with the second episode bothered me about the first episode, in that the lead character adjusts way too easily to his time jumping, and the "random encounters" with the people whose lives he's tracking are accepted way too easily. To be honest, I could do without even knowing what he's doing when he's time travelling. What's more interesting is what he's left behind, as his wife has to deal with sudden disappearances and his career is in jeopardy and his life, overall, is just weirdly affected (is this the plot of "The Time Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger? Journeyman might be seriously impeding on the success of the upcoming Eric Bana/Rachel McAdams adaptation, currently shooting in Toronto). That's much more interesting than these cute little "saving people"/Quantum Leap-light stories.

Let's talk about Tuesday

Kids In The Hall alum Bruce McCulloch debuted his new show, Carpoolers last night. The show is a strange mix of typical sit-com, smarter sit-com, and mid-level Hollywood comedy. The first 15 minutes of the first episode felt not too dissimilar to the opening of Office Space in many respects, the visual feel somewhat cinematic and the overall sensibility that we were in for a longer-than-1/2-hour-sitcom ride.

Via the new guy Doug (Tim Peper), the four "carpoolers", Aubrey (Jerry Minor), Laird (Jerry O'Connell) and Gracen (Fred Goss) are introduced, mainly via distinguishing characteristics. Aubrey is nebbish, Gracen is neurotic, Laird the morally misaligned one, and Doug, well he's the new guy. The show is availed the possibility of exploring both the professional and personal lives of each of these characters (Gracen takes the focus here as he begins to worry that his "house flipping" wife is now making more money than him, just as his dim, Napoleon Dynamite-esque son - aptly named Marmaduke - gets a higher paying job), while also having the surprisingly rarely-mined comedy of commuting to punch up the show with.

The sit-com elements stand out awkwardly, in some respects a parody of sit-com like That's My Bush or Get A Life, and other times falling into sit-com tropes. The more bizarre touch, like the nemesis carpoolers they face off against for parking spots or the general characterization of the leads, are the strength of the show, and if they can exploit that a bit more to create a vibe similar to The Office or Curb Your Enthusiasm then it'll be a solid TV comedy.

As a long-time Kids In The Hall fan, I can see tangibly the hand of Bruce McCulloch in the comedy and the characters. The two Jerry's playing Aubrey and Laird are each playing key McCulloch characters. O'Connell has obviously been taking a lot of direction from McCulloch in his performance of Laird as he's so similar in mannerisms and delivery to many of Bruce's confident, borderline egotistical butchest of butch sketch-com figures. Minor's Aubrey is the flip-side of that coin, playing the fragile and peculiar types of McCulloch's stock... Gavin all grown up, or a variation of the "my pen" guy. These two, with their McCulloch impersonations into, amuse me in ways completely unintended I'm sure.

I'm not likely going to watch this every week, but I'll definitely catch it when it's on. It's not freshly inventive but it's not regurgitating other shows either.

I've officially stopped caring about Heroes. It's silly, annoying soap operata has worn thin after only three episodes, and it's obvious the creative staff put all their energies into making a tightly woven first season and were left with essentially brainstorm remnants for this second season. The stagnation the show is already showing is awful. Two storylines (Peter's and Hiro's) have already come to an end, in a sense, and yet, unsure of really what to do, they've left them where they are (Ireland and fuedal Japan), instead of bringing them home to contend with new challenges. Not to mention my favourite character, D.L., is dead, so that's also annoying me, but the show's ripping off (we'd call it an "homage" if it were done well) of storylines from popular coics ("Legacy Virus", "Days of Future Past", Watchmen, amongst others) is lazy writing. Then there's the fact that the writers aren't nearly as clever as they think they are and the surprises they have planned are so immediately evident (the same happened with the first season as well).

So, to update my feeling from the last post, I'm not even going to wait until DVD. I'm just ignoring the show now.

Pushing Daisies

The first episode appeared on ABC last week, and had me enthralled. Directed by Hollywood director/cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld (Men In Black), the first episode was extremely cinematic, beautifully visualized, and overall it played out like a 45 minute movie, a complete story with a beginning, middle and end with the ending left open for further adventures.

Pushing Daisies is created Brian Fuller, known for his quirky comedy dramas Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, and this certainly falls in step, if not moves to the head of the pack. The pilot, relying on the surprisingly engaging exposition, tells the tale of Ned who discovers at a young age his ability to bring the dead back to life with a single touch. Unfortunately, one more touch and their dead again, and if the resurrected still lives, another in proximity will die in their stead. This creates a distantness and wariness of others, refusing any kind of close contact.

The first, and last, girl Ned loved, was Chuck, who at 9-years-old, lost her father and had to go live with her two Aunts. Years later, Ned has become a pie-maker and, through coincidence, become the accomplice of a private detective, Emerson Cod, who discovered Ned's ability and is using it to solve crimes for quick reward. When Chuck turns up dead, Emerson and Ned "investigate" as they do, reviving Chuck, but Ned can't let her go and keeps her permanent status a secret while trying to bring her murderer to justice.

Watching the Pilot for Pushing Daisies I felt giddy, like I was a child sitting down for storytime, the Narrator (British thespian Jim Dale) reading to me the morbidly amusing tale of Ned, Chuck and Emerson while the colourful visuals widened my eye. An overwhelmingly pleasurable experience, laughing out loud often, and just as much wowed by the whole experience. There's a certain magic to Pushing Daisies that I fear (and know) will not be sustainable long-term. This effect of this near-perfect little pilot, sucking in the twisted fairy tale sensibilities of Tim Burton films like Edward Scissorhands and the sweetness of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie, will only be diluted by it's episodic nature, the need for weekly programming reducing the quality of the production and exhausting its exceptionally unique storytelling possibilities.

I only caught the last 15 minutes of last night's episode and I could tell it still had the charm (Dale's narration the key), and it's design sensibility left unwavered, but it also felt like an episode of a TV show as opposed to a chapter in the story of the character's lives. If this were, say, a BBC programme, with a season being six episodes of the best of everything the creators could come up with and providing a story arc for Ned and Chuck's blossoming-but-complicated romance, well, it would likely be a brilliant series, but as an open-ended TV program, I see diminishing returns on its entertainment, which is too bad.

Drop zone and Pick-up lines

I intentionally ignored Bionic Woman last night, because it's not worth the effort.

I was wanting to watch the Jon Dore Television Show last night, having enjoyed his stand up at the Rivoli a few times, but it doesn't start until next week.

The Sarah Silverman Programme airs its first episode in Canada tonight, which I'll definitely be giving a shot, because I've had a little crush on this racy, foul-mouthed Jew comedienne for years. She's so totally got to be high maintenance, but I guess only Jimmy Kimmell really knows for sure.

(in researching these two shows, I discovered that Comedy Network has the previous night's episode of Daily Show and Colbert Report on-line...awesome!)

I believed I mentioned that Aden and I had applied to be a participant on a reality televisual programme that deals with debt and financial management, and if I didn't mention it, well then I meant to, and yes, that's what we did.

The show is called Maxed Out, hosted by author and financial management wizard Alison Griffiths. Aden and I have watched it (as well as it's rival show, 'Til Debt Do Us Part) a handful of times, and found the ideas and practices that were presented on the show to be both insightful and inspirational. I've made no secret that I've dug myself into the hole with a lot of consumption, and it's taken a long time for me to find myself in a position where I'm both mature enough to deal with it and in a situation where it encourages me to do so.

I've already established some strangleholds on my spending, I've got a plan in place and I've started budgeting my pay, so I think I've got it under control. If this is the case, then why would I apply to a TV show, where there's regularly no one but out of control people with spending habits that eclipse my own dozens of times over? I dunno, to be honest. I mean, there are reasons, but at its core, I really don't know what reasons really stuck out.

I mean, we pitched them as a debt-in-control couple with aspirations of buying a house in an expensive market (Toronto) and also striving to plan for the future (RRSPs, RESP). We're atypical for the show, and we stressed that, but those types of "how to" things (how do we pay down debt, save for a house down payment and save for our family's future all at once with what we have?) I've never seen on these programs and think it would be not only useful to us, but to any viewer in a similar situation. I'm all for educational TV.

So, the advantages we see are, first, that they give you a stipend for being on the show, and extra money is never a bad thing. Secondly, the resources the show can present to us are probably better than what we'd find on our own. Third, I'm a publicity hound (okay, not really). Fourth, shits and giggles. Fifth, to get educated and to understand the proper way to fiscally live one's life (and enjoy it). That's really what we want to get out of the show.

We've met with an associate producer who loved our application and mentioned that our objectives, from a couple of our status, is something they've been wanting to explore for some time. We sat down for a 1 hour interview which went exceptionally well, and just served to confirm with them that we're what they've been looking for. Our "story" has gone to the "pitch" stage (the production needs the network's approval before they can go ahead) and if it gets approved we will begin lensing shortly.

My perceptions of some of the barriers to us getting on the show include: not enough drama; not enough debt; not enough threat; and the fact we're not allowing Aden's little one to participate. There's also the possibility that we might have to back out, as I'm trying to wrap my head around the agreement we have to sign (it's with one of my legal team now for interpretation) and how much we have to give up in order to appear on television.

We're excited to go on the show if my objections about the agreement turn out to be unfounded or can be overcome, and our experience so far has been a positive one (their excitement over us is quite flattering). I don't know how much I can discuss about the process when it's happening (or even after) so if I'm somewhat silent on the matter, please forgive me.

The paperwork has been handed over (both the release forms and our financial data) to the producer, the shooting schedule has been proposed, and now we're officially participants on Maxed Out.

We met with producer Karen last night to hammer out the details, and I finally came to the realization that we're going on a TV program that, in a sense, is beyond our control, rather than shooting "The Aden and Graig Kent Show". It's going to be helpful for us, and for others, of that much I'm sure. The reason we came to the show, and the direction the production staff is taking it are pretty much in sync, which is pretty cool, I'd say. We're not in a debilitating amount of debt, so our angle is different from most who would approach the show, and we're quite happy that they're willing and excited to do that.

I'm sure everyone knows that reality TV is only real to a point, and there's nothing different with this show. Our daily life will be distilled down to something broadcastable in a 22-25 minute time frame, as well as working within the context of the show's format. For sure there will be some magic of television going on (like if they shoot us getting up in the morning, I'm going to be wearing, well, more than my usual nothing, that's for sure), but it's all for the purpose of getting the sense of what we do and how we spend our money. It's not like they're going to follow us around for months on end to get certain shots, but in the end, everything that will wind up on television will be a representation of our life in some respect or another. I'm quite looking forward to it.

The logistics are a bit more of a hassle. We're shooting around Christmas (schedule-wise, yes, but also for the sake of keeping the show timeless, in a sense, they might try to avoid any prominent examples of Christmas in the background), and also some busy times of the year at work, which is making the logistics of it all challenging, but not something we can't overcome, and they're being incredibly flexible in doing so.

The people from the show we've met so far have been great - their excitement and interest has been a real boon to making us both feel more comfortable about doing the show, as has their reassurance of what the focus is. We hope we're an entertaining couple to watch, but we also hope our story is educational to people in similar situations.

In the end, what will we get out of it? Hopefully the advice we were seeking when we approached the show, and they seem quite committed to providing us with a lot of that. If nothing else, it's going to be a fun experience which Aden and I will be able to smile about for years to come. And you never know... I might be awesome on camera and get my own show about comic books (ha!).

Part of "the plan" as handed down to us by the show was to take inventory of our various collections and figure out their value as well as determining where we can sell them. The host of the show implied that we should look to getting rid of our quite sizeable (specifically comic) collection in total, but I assured her that it would never happen. Comics, you see, are a part of my life. Were it a choice between movies, music, comics, tv, or any kind of recreational entertainment, it would be comics all the way. There was mention about "letting go of the past" but comics aren't my past, they're very much my present and quite likely my future. I love comics, they're not just a hobby, but a passion (that both my wife and I share, which actually brought us together to begin with). I love the art form, I love the medium and I love it's potential. I think what she was responding to is that tired stigma that comics are kids material, but that's, quite frankly, ignorance. There's still a juvenile sensibility to comics (primarily superheroes), and comic fans (primarily superhero comic fans), but there's not a lot wrong with that, provided its not the only meaningful thing in your life. People want to demean fantasy and sci fi just as much, but there's a literate side to any genre, no matter the format. But I'm starting to rant, and I shall digress.

So I mentioned that I'm looking to sell some of my collection anyway, and after a bit of back and forth about all versus some, I stated that sure the bulk of it could go but there would be about 10 - 20% that I'd just not part with. Like a DVD hound and his favourite movies or a bookworm and her favourite books, there's just some things that I'm going to keep revisiting because, well, I like them dagnabbit. Anyway, there's a lot of crap in my collection that I'd gladly part with, but the other point Aden and I made was the market for back-issues is incredibly limp right now. There's a smaller audience than ever and a glut of material, plus some of this crap (especially from the 1990's) sold in the millions, and it's so terrible that nobody really wants it. It'd likely be more valuable per-volume at a recycling plant than trying to sell on-line or at a store. I won't go into detail about the '90's speculator market, except to say that it made a lot of suckers out of gullible teenagers like me. To finish my thought though, the point I want to make is that I'm cataloging our collection, with an eye towards what we want to sell, with the realization that we're not going to want to sell some stuff, not going to be able to sell other stuff and really not make much money back off the stuff we do sell.

So anyway, down to brass tacks, I spent a large chunk of yesterday cataloging the collection (about 8 hours and I got up to "Flash"). It's a tedious procedure as I've basically created a spreadsheet, with columns for the title, the issue numbers we have of that title, the condition of the book (from mint down to poor), the US cover price (or price range), the total US cover value of the run of that title, the price guide value(s) (when we get a price guide), and the status of the book (whether we're going to keep, sell, or revisit then decide). It's a lot of information to extract quickly and thoroughly and it bends my brain to get the math straight especially on 50-issue runs of books where the price changes four or five times (when it changes from 1.95 to 1.99, that's most frustrating).

I know there are programs to buy out there that help index your books better, but the spreadsheet is simplistic enough to meet our basic needs as well as thorough enough for our end purposes. It's just a time consuming process cultivating the information. Using the sum function I added up all the totals, and mid-way through the F's the wife and I have about $3300 worth of comics. That's only about 1/4 of our collection that I've counted so far and that doesn't include the 6000 or so books I still have up in Thunder Bay. I basically figure that by the time I'm done counting the books we have here we'll have about 15K worth, based only on US cover price. The sad thing is, we mostly paid Canadian cover price, which during our heaviest spending years, was about 40% higher than us cover price. But then again, a lot of the books I bought for 25cents or 50cents in bins, or in collected bundles for less than $1 each, as well, we've both had discounts and trade at times, so who knows what the real output was for all this stuff? We sure don't.

In the end, even if our collection is 15-20K, if you amortize that over our 15 to 20 years of collecting, and divide it in half for each of us, it's only about $500 a year (actually, it should probably be broken out mor 70/30 in my favour, and that's not including trade paperbacks... not yet anyway) and that's not really all that bad for something we enjoy so much... just don't ask us to count how much we've spent on peripherals, like action figures and statues and paraphernalia and the like, because it's so more than we'd likely care to admit.

I was helping out at the Snail today with their inventory, and, well, quite frankly, after that mind-splitting task, our measly collection is nothing comparatively.

Another full-day shoot today for the show today, and though a long day, I was a little less... anxious about it, I guess, this being our fourth taping, and also more comfortable with the process at this point. We get a mic placed on our person, a quick run through on what they want us to talk about, and then movement. Camera rolls, we speak and do our thing, then we do it again, and again, and sometimes again and again. I think five takes was our max (no pun intended) today, and that's 'cause I was getting a little goofy.

We were set up with a consultation with Scotiabank today, for one of those "second opinions" they talk about on tele. It's true, we haven't been very smart in our investments and it's true that we need help and actually meeting with Lucy at the bank and having an in-depth discussion with her, well, we understand a lot better now. Of course we don't know everything now, and we still can't do it all on our own (not very well, anyway), but we have a much better idea of what we should be doing. We have our goals, which have been clearly defined at this point: 1. get out of debt; 2. buy house; 3. Education fund for the wee lad; 4. Retirement. The first goal will be handled in full throughout this year (maybe sooner), the second will happen much easier than we thought possible, and the third and fourth aren't exactly going to be challenging. Lucy was rather insistant that is was all doable, if we're committed to doing it. So yeah, we came out of that feeling pretty optomistic and feeling better about that whole end of things. We're armed with knowledge we never had, such as the fact that short term goals and long term goals financially need to be handled differently... on short term you want your investments secure, long term, you can afford more risk, which also nets higher-interest. As well we learned that we can each transfer up to $20,000 from our RRSPs to our first home buy and after year two (for the next 15 years) we have to pay that back in. Even Lucy explaining bank accounts and credit cards as "products" was just gave us a new way to think about things (when we asked if there was any negative impact to cancelling a credit card, she just said "no, you're just telling them you don't want their product anymore").

Returning home we met with the host, and she, having read the blog (this entry in particular) and needed to clarify that she wasn't at all making a judgement call on adrienne and I, or our hobby, but instead reinforcing the fact that our collection is an asset, and if we liquidate that asset we move towards our goal that much sooner. So it's our choice on what we want to do with it, but really the more we sell and the sooner we do it, the faster we get to where we want to be. Am I so attached to my comics? Well, yeah. All of them? No. Half of them? Not even. But how much we talkin'? And how much can we get for them? And how soon? I dunno. It's all, quite frankly, a lot of work. It's work we're committed to doing, but it's for certain not all going to happen at once. First thing I want to do is finish the inventory (timeframe... erm, this coming week), and after the inventory is done, it's sorting time (as in two categories, keep and sell), and after that it's figuring out where to sell them. On top of that, 40% of my books are still at my parent's place in Thunder Bay.

The other thing about our third meeting with Alison was clarifying and reinforcing the plan she'd given us for debt repayment (if you recall, all of my net income was put towards debt rempayment, while Adrienne is left to cover all the other expenses). But the fact is, the more aggressively we pay off the debt, the less amount of time we have to deal with it and the more time we have to gather our down payment.

But of course, we need to be comfortable with the amount of money we're putting on debt and in other places, and if enacting the plan leaves us a little too strapped or a little to tense, then we'll need to pare back. But what would be have to lose to try it out?

Exactly.

We have work to do.

(btw: if you're looking at the show's episode guide, our story isn't this one (we're not listed yet).

Media: Television

Original Air Date(s): January 13 and 14th.

Network: Fox

Episode(s): 001, 002



I am by no means a fan of the Terminator films, not quite the antithesis either, but just not an admirer. Terminator 3 was a travesty of filmmaking (it was on television this past weekend and I can still concur that the last 4 or 5 minutes is the only interesting part of the film). Terminator 2 was cool.. in 1992. Arnold has become pretty much a joke since then and so has Robert Patrick's funky stiff-robo run (didn't say it wasn't iconic, but it's been mocked into submission over the years), and Linda Hamilton was never a favourite actress of mine. The first movie? Well, I've only watched it once, twice at most, and apparently I liked it (review from July 22, 1998) but that was before I realized how much I don't like most of James Cameron's films.

So, what would possess me to watch a TV show based on a series of films I don't enjoy? Well, boredom, quite frankly. Oh, and being a geek. It's the same thing that compelled me to buy Dark Horse Terminator comics (including the way-cool Robocop vs. Terminator, which is more enjoyable than any of the six movies its derived from).

Two episodes in (aired one evening after the other) and I'm surprised to say that I actually quite like The Sarah Conner Chronicles. I'm not well versed in the lore of the Terminator but it's a show that works just as well (likely better, in fact) for the casual film viewer as it does for the hardcore devo-T.

I don't like watching a lot of tv, but I'm kind of addicted to the flipping game. Since moving in with Aden, I've spent more than a few nights plunked down in front of the tele watching, really, nothing in particular, flipping the channels, or dividing my attention between two, three, or sometimes four reality television shows at the same time. There's Survivorman, Holmes on Homes, Mythbusters, Maxed Out, At The End of My Leash, What Not To Wear, Project: Runway, 'Til Debt Do Us Part, and America's Next Top Model (oh, and Showcase's rather blue Friday line-up of behind-the-scenes in the porn industry, which isn't nearly as titillating as it sounds. It's in fact rather depressing, for the most part). We don't religiously watch most of these shows, but it seems to be mostly what we watch. I've gotten out of the habit of watching TV on DVD, mainly because we're spending too much time flip-flip-flippin' around.

I have some TV on DVD I really want to revisit, and we have some TV on DVD we've yet to completely finish watching and some box sets we got for Christmas that we're eager to watch. Amongst these are the BBC documentary series Blue Planet and Planet Earth. Both are, essentially, nature documentaries of exquisite visual detail and production standards. While I love well produced nature documentaries, in general I'm not too fond of nature documentaries. There's often something just... off about them, something that doesn't seem right (the niggling side of the brain saying "how could they possibly have gotten that shot?"). Even the old Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Marlon Perkins, while engaging, seemed, even at 7 or 8 years old, staged, and perhaps a little cruel.

Now I know why. Through flipping around, we came across The Fifth Estate's documentary, Cruel Camera (which you can watch on-line). It's a follow-up to their original Cruel Camera from 1982(also watchable on-line), both of which show the true nature of how animals are treated in the entertainment industry. While times have definitely changed between 2002 and 2007, there are now established money-making institutions that benefit from being animal watchdogs, and as well maybe finding their palms greased or kowtowing to industry pressure to not do as as good a job in ensuring animals are safe and protected.

Like the majority of us, I don't like feeling manipulated or deceived, or feeling like an accomplice or supporter of the bad things that happen on this earth, and animal cruelty for the sake of entertainment has been one of the big ones for centuries: from dog and cock fights, bull fighting and gladiators against lions to flinging lemmings off cliffs, cutting heads off snakes or horses getting trampled to death. Some still happen, some don't, but even with a modern and sophisticated attitudes, animal cruelty for the sake of our entertainment still happens despite watchdog organizations or perhaps due to entrenched attitudes about how entertainment animals are trained.

My guilt over my past enjoyment of "trained" chimps was so incredible while watching this report that I literally welled up with tears. If you can't watch it (it airs again on CBC Newsworld tonight), here's the gist of what happens... baby chimps, about 1 year old, are torn away from their mothers and pushed into servitude through forceful, if not abusive means. Young chimps can be kept under this kind of dominant control for around 4 to 6 years before they grow too big or too strong to physically control, at which point they need to be retired. Now, that's not a euphemism for put down, these days, but it's almost a fate worse than death as they're scuttled off to roadside zoos or to laboratories, the lucky ones making it to sanctuaries to live out the remaining 50 to 70 years of their life!. It's really abhorrent what is done and for something completely not worth the damage inflicted.

I realize, at the same time I'm getting upset, that the Cruel Camera investigation is, like any documentary, trying to make a point or a statement and may be equally manipulative in its editing or its presentation, but just knowing that "acting" chimps are only children, it seriously doesn't seem right, for what's usually a cheap joke. I'm feeling very reactionary about it now, and I'll need to do some more research, but for now, I'm boycotting the purchase or viewing of movies with monkeys in it, because I can no longer enjoy them.

Aden and I finished our last shoot for the show yesterday, and on the one hand we're glad to have it done with... not that it wasn't a good experience, nor that the people we worked with weren't great, but it's just something off our plate.

Let me tell you something about our plate, it's basically looks like my dad's plate at Thanksgiving. You know, start with a solid foundation of mashed potatoes in the center, flank on either side with green beans, cooked carrots, broccoli and maybe peas. Blanket with white meat from the turkey breast, drop a leg on top, whoops forgot the stuffing, so fit that on there somewhere, with some cranberry sauce and pour the gravy on top. Yeah, that's our plate right now. So with the show done, we've just polished off that turkey leg and now it's time to dig out some potato, but first that broccoli.

I'm getting lost in my metaphor here, but I think the veggies represent our taxes, which I tackled this past weekend. No, I'm not some keener go-getter when it comes to tax time, quite the opposite. Back taxes. Oops. Aden and I are both quite bad and doing that stuff, and when I screw up the numbers and scare myself into thinking I owe $2500, well, there's a reason I don't like doing it (turns out its only about $500 - stupid health tax -, but still bleh... thankfully, having a kid is great for tax deductions, so Aden's getting some healthy sums back to even it out) Well, we're all caught up now and ready for this years', which will be our first joint filing, so I'm feeling a little intimidated, but have another month before our paperworks are ready for filing.

It's interesting what you learn when you have a better understanding of your finances when you do your taxes. Suddenly various entries on the tax form begin to make sense when they didn't before, and you start to see the benefit to living lighter, putting more money away on RRSPs and paying for monthy transit passes (tax deductable... hrm... so despite the fact that we'd spend about fifty dollars more per month buying passes as opposed to tokens, we'd get to write hundreds of dollars off of our taxes for doing so. Sounds like a good idea frankly. Hadn't thought of it that way before.)

Anyway, back to the beginning, as part of the show we agreed to do a little house hunting, even though we're still a year and a half to two years away from that (it's actually looking like we can fast track a little though, which may have seemed unbelievable at one time, but now is filling us with delight) and at first we questioned why we would want to, but now I get it... getting comfortable with the process of looking at houses, talking with real estate people and in general establishing familiarity with the whole ordeal. Despite the fact that we aren't yet looking, I think the more we look and the more we're at ease with the idea of looking the better we'll be able to handle it when we actually get out there in the market. We talked casually with a great guy, Max, who, even just in conversation, educated us both on some of the aspects of property purchasing procedure and the follies and foibles of first-time buyers, not to mention some of the less attractive side of real estate shopping.

It's quite amazing the little things we've wound up taking out of this experience that will obviously have some lasting value, alongside the big things that were intended to have an impact on our lives. The process of shooting for television can be an arduous or tedious one at times, but honestly, the show has provided us even more than we thought we'd initially get out of it. Much of it is thanks to the process, but equally it's been on Aden and myself to run with it and carry it forward. There's no easy answers and we need to invest our time and energy (and money) into making the solutions work, but through close monitoring, open conversation and a lot of mutual support, we're going to make it out of debt quickly, build our down payment for a house and support ourselves in the future.

Our coming days will be filled with banking, birthday parties, good-byes, and our typical busywork (as well as much atypical busy work). We're organizing and planning some sales of comics and DVDs which should hopefully give me a helping hand in debt repayment and move us that much more quickly to the end result. Yes our plate is full, but soon our bellies will be too.

I have no idea what that means.

**ITEM**
We're selling comics, dvds and cds soon, Aden and I are. I will have a spreadsheet available of all items and prices (o.b.o), and Graig'slist will be hitting Craigslist and GeeBay around the same time... maybe... if I figure this whole internets resale thing out.

**ITEM**
I had a hamburger and fries and a vodka-laced beverage last night...and it was good. Breaking my own self-imposed rules makes me such the rebel, no?

**ITEM**
Apparently my RSS feed is a bit tankered, as the new installation of Moveable Type with all it's weird Java interfacedness isn't working up to snuff. It's causing headaches as comments and trackbacks are locked out, pinging's right off, and yup, the "convert line breaks" doesn't work properly. So previous posts you're probably seeing as one grand Kerouac-ian lump-o-text, but now, with this very post and the power of html encoding, you should see paragraphs (oh, the novelty of it all).

**ITEM**
Now that I'm not buying new music, I'm still able to get my fix of sounds-I've-never-heard thanks to CBC Radio 3 live streams and podcasts, and Vancouver's newest DJ GAK (mp3s available on-site or you can tune in live Mondays 10:30 - Midnight eastern or 7:30 - 9 pacific on CITR).

**ITEM**
The Ricky Gervais-fuelled, HBO/BBC produced Extras is airing from square one on the Comedy Network, starting last night (yeah, I know it's been on DVD for ages). Rating: Uncomfortably hilarious. Because Extras is a full half hour show, it runs longer with commercials added in the mix. As such Comedy Network has to fill in about 20 minutes of time and has turned to Adult Swim's 12-minute monstrosity Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!. Rating: Bewildering. The show is not conventionally funny, but instead so beyond irreverent that you just have to stare in awe. Aden was stunned after a few minutes, unable to formulate words to describe it. The creators of the already peculiar Tom Goes To The Mayor un-cartoon have topped themselves, with the help once again of Mr. Show's Bob Odenkirk, and Walk Hard's John C. Reilly ("I'm not ready...").

**ITEM**
Aden received Battle of the Planets DVDs on loan from a co-worker, but they shall not be reviewed, because, quite frankly, there's no way in hell we're going to make it through watching all 16 episodes without either being drunk or wedging the corner edge of a table into our foreheads. The basic idea behind the show is it's a Japanese cartoon (or "anime" as all the kids call it) that was transported to America in the late 1970's, only Japan's cultural take on cartoons in that era were much different than the ol' USA's, and what was teenaged entertainment was made kid-friendly. Each episode was butchered to remove any real violence, any suggestion of death, or, quite frankly, logical storytelling. I wonder if any of the episodes retain even the basic plot of their Japanese counterpart? Instead, a little robot creature, 7-Zark-7 has been inserted into the cartoon, mainly through a voice over to either explain what's happening or to clarify to the kids that all the bad guys evacuated their exploded ship safely, were collected and are now behind bars. The Japanese Gatchaman tamed into Battle of the Planets by the same crew from the Superfriends (shared voice actors and similar musical accompaniment) is a bizarre experience; there's a curious similarity to how Space Ghost: Coast To Coast or Sealab: 2021 would re-use old animation for twisted new purposes, but here it's lacking creativity and moreover diminishing the original animation. Wikipedia details some of the big differences between the original and butchered remakes.

**ITEM**
All out of items for today.

It's official:

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 - 8:00 PM/11 PM (EST)
S3, Episode #042 Financial Quest
Graig and Adrienne are focused on the future or at least they want to be. Graig’s consumer debt and past bad habits are keeping these newlyweds from taking the next step - home ownership. Can Alison put them on a plan to manage Graig's debt and save for their house?

The show is Maxed Out, the network is W.
Our 15 minutes of fame has been transitioned into 30 minutes of reality TV infamy (nonfamy?).

As you will see on Maxed Out on Tuesday (8pm & 11pm EST, W Network, repeated again 11:30pm Sunday the 24th), I have some debt. By the show's account, around $23,000 worth of debt. Well, that was a few months ago, and with host Alison's help Adrienne and I have been very disciplined in how we deal with our money.

I don't know, having not yet seen the final product, how much information will get out there, but here's an approximate breakdown of where my money was owing:

• Credit Card #1: 5600
• Credit Card #2: 3300
• Line of Credit: 14,000
• Back Taxes (recently discovered): 600

Where this debt came from? Spending, and almost all of it non-essential spending over 7 years. I spent it on trips in other countries, my entertainment habit netting me hundreds of dvds and cds and comics and toys, eating out and drinking out, car rentals, furniture, my car (since departed), cinema, live theatre (although not often that), and, on vary rare occasions, covering rent and groceries. I'm sure there are others, but I'm sure if you went over my years of buying, 98% would be on the above. It's foolish, self-indulgent debt and it's been a thorn in my side for almost as long as I've had it.

Oh sure, I've been comfortable with my massive debt load for a long time, but now being married and trying to figure out this whole "future" thing, I've realized that it's just a big wall in the way of establishing some security for myself and my family. Damn, the sounds of growing up is abrasively pleasant, like Aphex Twin.

Well, thanks to a lot of work on the part of my wife, myself, the staff of the show and our bank adviser, Adrienne and I are now in the black. Oh, I still have debt, but our assets now officially outweigh our debts. What's more, Credit Card #2 debt: gone. Credit Card #1 debt: will be gone completely at the end of the month. Back Taxes: gone. Line of credit remaining owing: 13,000.

We've had the good fortune of receiving a few bonuses and Aden has 2 years of tax refunds due so our advanced schedule of debt repayment has been fast tracked well beyond our imagination. That 13K on Line of Credit, I've projected, will be completely gone by the end of July. From my initial forecast of 1 year (December - December) to the show's forecast of 9-months (January - September) to now what looks like 7-months, we're so far ahead of schedule, I'm elated. To have 0 balances on my credit cards almost brings me to tears, it makes me that happy.

What this allows me to do is look ahead, and for the first time I'm actually able to plan ahead like this. As of July, all the money Aden and I bring in will be ours, with no creditor stake hold. It's brilliant. I've already got ideas on how my money is going to be distributed with the primary goals of a) buying a house and b) saving for retirement looking rosy already. In fact, by the looks of it, Aden and I are going to be able to start house hunting in April 2009, which is about half a year ahead of when we originally had predicted, and by the looks of it we'll be in an immeasurably stronger position to buy that house than we were before. It's exciting, a little scary, and also a little intense, knowing that we have a lot of thinking to do about where we want to buy before we get there.

Life, if not great, is pretty damn good.

Our episode of Maxed Out aired yesterday at 8:00 and 11:00 (if you missed it, you can watch it after the Oscars at 11:30 on Sunday) and, ego centrists we are, we watched them both. Adrienne had been fretting about the show, primarily because she worried about being non-photogenic, but she looked beautiful. Don't know what was up with my hair though, and is my smile really that askew?

The show, for the many hours we put into it, moved along at a tremendously fast clip. I guess when you have days of memories, distilling it down to a 22-minute retrospective leaves a lot (in some cases thankfully) lost in that mix, like the kerfuffle between myself and Alison over selling the comics collection in full was pared back to Alison stating, "It's all about making choices" and me responding "Exactly."

I'm a little busy right now, leaving notsomuch time for das blogging, in the meantime kids, learn the "Doo Dah Doo Doo" dance.

If you don't get it, don't worry, you're not supposed to.
(From Tim & Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!, on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in the US, Comedy Network in Canada... the latter now broadcasting on broadband for the televisionless/cableless. )

With Buy Nothing Year in full swing and my enthusiasm for re-reviewing as of late (obviously) waning, I thought I'd take a look at the goodly bits of television programming that I've been imbibing to keep me stocked in freshtertainment:

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (concluded) - I reviewed this earlier and stated that I quite liked it, and I continued to like it even though by episode four the show began to stagnate in the action department (having likely blown most of their budget early on to try and hook viewers) and a number of incongruities between the movies' "rules" (of time travel or how the Terminators operate) and the show's surfaced. Surprisingly the addition of 90210 Brian Austin Green as John Connor's uncle actually didn't turn out that bad, and Firefly's Summer Glau turned out to be the second best Terminator next to Robert Patrick's T-1000. The acting and production values were all above average, even if the show did sag in the middle from time to time, weighed down with its unfortunate need to establish its own supporting cast of characters. The show underperformed in the ratings (even with a writer's strike leaving not much else new to watch) and thus isn't likely to come back for another season, and who knows whether it will at all be tied into the upcoming movie(s) in production. The series' final 2 episodes were unfortunately aired without much fanfare and many people, myself included, missed the first of the 2-part finale. The cliffhanger ending was pretty awesome and the varying story threads finally collided in an interesting fashion (something that really should have happened earlier). An entertaining series which, were it to continue running, I would definitely keep watching... alas...

Lost Season 4 (Thursdays at 9, ABC) - The wait for the latest season became rather unbearable over the 8 or 9 months since the end of the third, and I utterly devoured this season's ready-made order (they had to stop mid-way through their 16-episode production this year due to the writer's strike, meaning one more new episode this Thursday and a 3-4 week break before the final 7 episodes air). I would even watch the repeated episodes from the week prior with "pop-up trivia", that's how devoted I am. This season has been pretty cool, with the writer's playing with the whole "flashback" thing almost every episode (sometimes it's a flash-forward, or multiple flashbacks, or a time-displacement thing, or even a combo of flashback-flashforward). The last two episodes (the Sun spotlight and the return of ...well, you know) have been the weakest so far, but still really intriguing leaving so many frustrating unanswered questions. As usual the writers can dump as many answers on us as we like and there's still so many new questions raised joining those left over. If there's anything to be said about Lost's popularity, it's that it's forcing people to pay attention and juggle a lot of information, with more constantly being added every episode. The end of season six is still a long way off (32 episodes away), but the show is actually starting to feel like it's working towards that finish without feeling like it's just wrapping things up. Obsession inducing and gloriously maddening.

Extras Season 1 (Tuesdays at 10, Comedy) - Ricky Gervais' big follow-up to The Office is somewhat reserved, being exceptionally character-focussed rather than gag-centric or formulaic (although the first two or three episodes seemed to follow a pattern that it did break out of). Gervais' 40-something, trying-to-make-it Andy is differently charming, getting himself into uncomfortably funny situations either by his own honesty, the interventions of Maggie (Ashley Jensen) or his tremendously inept agent Stephen Merchant. Later episodes find Andy gaining a modicum of success, but definitely not on his own terms and its a wonderful portrayal of the struggle between spiritual and monetary rewards, as well as the effects of celebrity on the unsuspecting. Creating and starring in a TV show that spins into something resembling lowest-common-denominator television, Andy hates what he's become and yet needs the reassurance of a fanbase or recognition from strangers to satisfy that what he's doing isn't a complete waste. The show is stocked with celebrities that usually get knee deep in discomfort, mostly British actors (Patrick Stewart, Orlando Bloom) but some American stars (Ben Stiller, Sam Jackson) as well. From race, to sexuality to gender to stature to class, Extras never avoids taboo, but rather thrives on smartly addressing it.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (Tuesdays at 10:35ish, Comedy) - The Adult Swim anti-cartoon is sketch comedy at its most oblique, just completely irreverent and often nonsensical. It's easy to tell that the titular Tim and Eric create a show based on what makes them laugh and not any sense of what any audience might have expectations for. Enrolling a host of friends to assist (David Cross, Weird Al, John C. Reilly) the show is, bluntly put, a trippy, often disturbing festival of laughs and tears. Utilizing production effects that were last seen in the 1980's, the show has an extremely low-budget feel which entirely works for it. There is no way to effectively describe the show, and either you're going to be receptive to it or it'll put you right off. It's not that it's (very) crass, like South Park (for instance) but it's just so bizarre that it will likely hurt your brain. Every week after Extras, I ask my wife "Are you ready?" (she says no and lays her head down on my lap, curled in a semi-fetal position in preparation) as I force her to stay and watch it, which I think might be some kind of spousal abuse frankly.

The Jon Dore Show (Thursdays at 10:30 and various, Comedy) - Jon Dore, for many, is best known as that funny guy from Canadian Idol. Being any sort of actor or comedian in Canada is tough work, so you can't blame the guy for taking the gig, no matter how soul sucking it may have been for him. I've seen Dore on stage at the Rivoli a number of times and he is an ingenious comedian with a great sense of timing and word play, and capable of executing conceptual jokes like few others can. His self-aware, juvenile, self-deprecating and wry sense of humour translates completely into The Jon Dore Show, quickly becoming one of the best Canadian comedy shows ever, certainly the smartest on TV today. Each episode follows Jon examining a particular neuroses, such as his fear of bats or his suspicion he might have an STD. Though he does a lot of bawdy and bodily humour, it's rarely crass, more presented with a Zucker Brothers-style whimsy which blunts any edges it may have. Dore interviews real psychologists, doctors, weightlifters and other non-actors, often frustrating or shocking them, an aspects of the show that borrows from what the Daily Show has been doing for years, but Dore puts them together with produced bridges in such a fashion as to make a hilarious and unifying half hour. Not for the young or uptight.

"Reality TV" (various times, various channels) - Mythbusters, Survivorman, At The End Of Our Leash, 'Til Debt Do Us Part, Maxed Out, Supernanny, America's Next Top Model, Dirty Jobs, What Not To Wear and others cross our television screen from time to time, but none are religiously watched at any specific date or time on a weekly basis. Rarely intentionally anyway.

(airdated - April 4, 2008)
Spoilers aplenty

I think my time as a fan of Battlestar Galactica is up. What once was a taut, intelligent, captivating series has turned into something self-indulgent, repetitive and tedious. The show has been a flexible one from the beginning, dealing heavily in politics, religion, war, and matters both philosophical and psychological. A central theme surrounds what it means to be human, what it is to have free will, and that theme started to overwhelm all others midway through the previous season, culminating in the big reveal of four of the five remaining humanoid Cylon models. The first episode of this season, in part, finds those characters, now aware of their hideous true nature, struggling to come to terms with it... just like Boomer had to do three seasons ago. We've been there, we've done that, why are we rehashing it again?

The religious element of the show, the faith and spirituality of President Roslin which has been guiding the wagon train, much to the suspicious eye of Commander Adama, was bolstered in the third season by prophecies and visions. It was fine that Roslin was a solitary member on cast on the good book crusade, but once Baltar and the Cylons started getting in on the game it became a larger part of the show and genuinely less interesting. As soon as Starbuck started having visions it seemed just an overwhelming and unpalatable addition to her character. The focus on faith has let the writers have any number of deus ex machinas for getting the characters out of jams or to move them forward to more convenient story positions, and maybe it's my agnostic mind as a viewer but it's not a welcome replacement for the social/political/ethical dialogue that the show had proved so capable of exploring.

The third season ended with the tedious Trial of Dr. Baltar, proving that not every sub-genre of dramatic storytelling can translate well into the show, and now that Baltar is, effectively, Jesus to the few who have become loyal to his devious teachings, his character is in a dramatic, and unfavourable transition. This season's first episode presents Baltar as conflicted between his usual ways (derision of others, superiority complex, self-preservation) and a sense of spirituality, which by the end he truly seems to embrace, and not as a self-serving poseur. For his steadfastness as the show's irredeemable character, this is by far the most illogical of all of the shows progressions (and to my vague memories, in least fitting with the conclusion of the third series).

It seems that now even the show is running out of time that it is not in a race to get to the end. They seem to be meandering through their storylines (the preview for the second episode looks chock full of utter predictability), and the shows writers have lost the capability of handling their characters, in large part because they've already done so much to them that doing anything more seems completely over the top -- when Tigh shoots Adama early in the episode, it's a complete snore, knowing that Adama's already been shot by a Cylon masquerading as a crew member. There's really nothing left that you can do to this shrinking band of characters that has much believability to it (as believable as you can get for a science-fiction show anyways). Surviving blown up shuttles, or crash landings on planets, or cancer, or getting shot, or imprisonment, or stripped of rank and on and on really means nothing since it's all happened already. Adding more characters to the show would be a really cheap way of keeping it fresh, so the show just needs to step ahead in its chronology and get to a point where we can believe that whatever is happening affects almost everyone and not just the few.

I'm giving the show another two episodes to try and hook me before I call it quits and just wait for the DVDs, so I can fast forward through all the triteness and get to the meat that the producers seem to be avoiding.

Hotflash - on the food moratorium since last report, I've been, well, in the not-so-good. I've eaten a few french fries and I've eaten Swiss Chalet (coincidentally both of those were at the same time, although the french fries were mistakenly brought instead of my potatoes, which were later brought at no charge but... you know... temptation + weak will = fatty). I even had a burger, but it was free, so does that count? I've been drinking a lot... well, not a lot, but a lot for me. About two drinks a week. Those drinks, often, have been rye and ginger ale, meaning I've been drinking pop, but only ginger ale, so that's kind of okay right? Maybe not. I blame my sister who left us with a dearth of alcohol before she moved out to BC. I've nipped into some salad dressing about three times, and the occasional bit of mayonnaise (well, it's Miracle Whip Light, which is only marginally less worse). Potato chips have gotten the better of me and enter my diet once every two weeks or so, but I've found Old Dutch's low-salt Rip-L-Chips which have half the sodium content of regular chips, which is, you know, almost better. I have, though, discovered that cheesies (almost all types) have trans fats so they're off the list. Trans fats only enter my system unawares, so I'll say yes, I've partaken but not intentionally so. Also having trans fats: Ice Cream. I did not know that, but there you go. Avoided! There was an incident with macaroni and cheese that has officially put me off it (thank you). Otherwise, I'm getting healthier, eating more fruits and veg than ever before, although I can unequivocally say that my red meat intake is pretty high right now and that I should really, really watch that.

Hotflash! - I missed all but the last 10 minutes of the second episode of this season's Battlestar Galactica... and you know, I didn't really care much. Didn't look like I missed anything important. We'll see how episode 3 goes.

Hotflash!! - To tell the truth, I missed BSG because of playoffs hockey. I've discovered the joy of having two games running on two different channels concurrently. Every time there's a stop in play on one, I just flip to the other... unless TSN happens to delay their broadcast because of golf (golf? Yeah, it's the Masters, but come on, man, this is playoffs hockey!). I'm a monster. That said, I get burnt out on hockey after about 5 hours so most Western division games I don't finish watching.

Hotflash!!! - Since my predictions last week here are how things are shaping up:
1) Caps v. Flyers -- tied 1 game a piece. Still looking pretty splotchy, but I now think the Flyers are looking more cohesive and team-like than the Caps.
2) Red Wings v. Preds -- Detroit leads 2 games to 1, but the Preds are giving them a show. Still looks like Wings in 5 or 6 games.
3) Pens v. Sens -- Pittsburgh up 3 games to nil. Expect the sweep to conclude tomorrow as predicted. And yes, I've been screaming "The Gonch!" a lot.
4) Flames v. Sharks -- Calgary surprised everyone with a crawl-from-behind victory in game 3 to lead the series 2 - 1, but the Sharks aren't going belly up any time soon. We may actually see a Calgary upset, but It's looking more and more like a 7 game series.
5) Canadiens v. Bruins -- though down 2 games to 1, the Bruins are showing signs of life. I still expect it to end in 5 games though. And that hit on Chara from game 1: hilarious

6) Rangers v. Devils -- Okay, I lied. I'm way into this series. Not that I want to see the Rangers (currently up 2 games to 1) win, but more that I want to see the Devil lose. There are some great rivalries in the NHL, from Gretzky and Lemieux to Crosby and Ovechkin, but I think Brodeur and Avery is easily the biggest freakshow.

7) Avs v. Wild -- I've chosen on the side of Colorado, but Minnesota is up 2 - 1 in the series, and despite the Avs pluck, I still don't think they're going to make it past 6. 8) Stars v. Ducks -- Another match-up I didn't really think I'd give a damn about, but it's been sheer joy watching Dallas trounce the (ugh) defending Cup champions 2 games to nil. Surprising, Stars, keep it up.

HOTFLASH!!!! -- starting next week, I'm going to try a little schedule with BNY. Mondays will be TV/TVonDVD day, Tuesdays will be Music day, Thursdays will be Movies day, and Friday will be comics day. Wednesday, Saturday and Sundays will be free days to post whatever or not post at all. I'll try this out but don't look for it to stick.

HOTFLESH -- I've caved and I've Booked myself in the Face. I hope you're happy. I'm already regretting it, and I'm just not sure I understand it yet, nor that I have/want to devote much time to it... but good to see some-y'all.

PotFlush! -- Aden and I learned on Sunday that, tragically, my Review of Dexter season 1 was incomplete. We were renting the DVDs from the local franchise video outlet, and each of the first two discs contained four episodes, while the third only had three. The fourth disc was labelled "Special Features" so we figured episode 11's ending to be the cliffhanger. We were wrong... the 12th and final episode was on disc four. Moops. Shit. Season 2 lies in wait.

MOBRUSH!! -- I mentioned before that I was running my first RPG campaign this month, and that did actually happen this past Sunday. It's the first part of a highly adventurous 8-part story that required a hell of a lot of planning. It took a good three weeks to get the structure of it all together, plotting out each chapter, devising the player component and their opposition, and creating a timeline for the overarching story structure. I spent some time training in my GM role and helping our newest player to get comfortable with what we do. I've really put a lot of thought into this (at least ten pages worth of notes to start), but I found myself quite unprepared on Saturday for the next-day's event, scrambling to review the Player Characters, notify the players of any changes needing to be made, and then revise the Non-Player Characters to make them formidable opponents. Then the scripting chores for the first issue were undertaken and with about an hour to spare, I was ready. Nervous as hell, but ready.

The game took a while to get started but once I got into the groove of it, I found it pretty easy. I had some assistance in helping the players to figure out their powers and everyone around the table was having fun with their characters, the concept and each other. Lots of suggestions going on, lots of teamwork and no attitude to speak of. The player's actions threw off my planning but good, yet I managed to fudge the structure just enough that it worked just as well, if not better than planned. It was over rather quickly for one of our games (about 3 hours long, 90 minutes shorter than common) but it felt like a full event, and everyone seemed pretty satisfied, including myself.

With one part of the 8-segment story out of the way, I'm feeling a bit of relief, in my GM performance, the players' reactions, and the story itself. It's come off pretty smoothly, all things considered. I have part 2 in two weeks to plan for, and I'm pretty jazzed to get there.

POTLATCHES -- for my birthday I forced Aden to buy me Kids in the Hall tickets at Massey Hall (June 5th). I'm happy, dammit! Onion AV Club interviews the lads (and, I noticed, the guys from Mythbusters too), cooldown