12 is the Magic Number.
The Avs won the series 4-2 after scoring first in every game and only giving up a first period goal in one game. The Wild were often more aggressive--they pushed the play, the got shots on goal, they hit hard and often. But the Avs had better goaltending, made more of their scoring opportunities, blocked more shots, and never seemed to lose their composure--something that the Wild couldn’t say after racking up over 100 minutes of penalty time in game 4.

Great series. I hope the next one is just as exciting (and blessed with the same happy ending for Avs fans).

Congratulations to Danica.
It’s nice to see that she is both hot and talented. I’d been wondering a little about the talented part.

Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history Sunday, taking the Indy Japan 300 after the top contenders were forced to pit for fuel in the final laps.

Patrick finished 5.8594 seconds ahead of pole-sitter Helio Castroneves on the 1.5-mile Twin Ring Motegi oval after leader Scott Dixon pitted with five laps left and Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan came in a lap later.

MacUpdate Promo looks pretty good.
For Mac OS X users, the MacUpdate promo looks like a better bundle of applications than the current MacHeist Bundle. Of course, that’s assuming that they reach the target sales goal and actually release all of the applications to they buyers. There are a few useful applications in it that I’d been thinking about buying, so I’ll be ponying up for the bundle.

Oprah is a pusher.
I try to stay nice on the subject of Oprah since there is much to admire. Her charities have done real good in the world, she’s risen to become one of the most powerful people in American entertainment, and the girl likes her enough to subscribe to her magazine. For that matter, she’s got all the business savvy that Donald Trump wishes he had--and he has the bankruptcy filings to prove it.

Anyway, where my admiration stops is right at the edge of her social and political commentary--commentary that leans less on thinking and more on feeling. That is doubly so when she’s pushing a self-help title of the nature of The Secret. Her new business venture with Eckhart Tolle, though, makes her seem more like a huckster than a reputable businessperson.

Disappointing isn’t a big enough word.

I totally can’t be the first person to say that today.

I always knew that I liked Dawn Wells the best.

I was wondering where the competing beer ads were this year. Well, the Miller common sense guy delivers his own critique on the Super Bowl ads. And I don’t much disagree with him. Amazing work from Miller pulling off this ad in such a short amount of time.

Tip of the hat to the American Copywriter.

My friend Jerry forwarded on this link to the 10 Most Memorable Super Bowl Ads. Good list--although I would kill off the annoying GoDaddy ad and put in maybe the herding cats commercial or one of the Budweiser lizard ads. Leading of with the Apple 1984 ad is almost a cliche at this point, but it would be hard to deny the spot’s narrative power.

My personal favorite might be the Monster.com ad that comes right after Apple’s, though. I swear, I almost hurt myself laughing the first time I heard one of those kids say “I want to be forced into early retirement.” That put yesterday’s Careerbuilder.com ad--"follow your heart"--to absolute shame.

Anyway, check it out. For the younger folks out there, it might be the first time you’ve seen the Xerox ad from 1977. An inspired choice.

We’ll get back to politics later, but for now, it’s all about the Super Bowl.

And don’t forget that you’ll be able to watch the Super Bowl ads here on MySpace after the game is over.

1. Jordin Sparks, for all that she looked about to die of fright, did the anthem very well. She did herself proud.
2. Go Giants. I don’t know what your chances really look like, but I’m pulling for you. Even if I’m still pretty sure that the wrong Manning is playing. Er, just kidding.
3. It’s nice that they get the ball to start the game, too. Not terribly significant, I’d guess, but nice.
4. How smart is it of Fox to run House at the end of the game? Consider: if the game becomes a blow-out, I’m betting that lots of fans will stick around to watch it to the end simply to see a new episode of House. It’s a brilliant way to combat that second half drain that has probably plagued quite a few recent Super Bowls and a good way to show advertisers that Fox is committed to making sure that ad space in the second half still has value to advertisers.
5. Go House!
6. The new Ford F-150 centrifuge ad is pretty nifty. I’d love to have seen that happening live.
7. The Audi R8 ad, with the Rolls’ “head” in the bed, was cute. Nice way to grab my attention. Extremely pretty car, too, although I wouldn’t have thought that a Rolls would be its natural enemy.
8. The Giants are making a good go of their first drive, too. Grinding it out with Eli doing his part on third downs. The Giants are serving notice that they haven’t bought into the hype or the Vegas line.
9. Shame they couldn’t finish off the nearly 10 minute drive with a touchdown instead of a field goal.
10. Under Armour. Can you dig itttt?
11. The Bridgestone screaming animals commercial was hilarious--very nicely done--as was the NFL armored robot getting its butt kicked by the Terminator.
12. See, New England didn’t settle for no stinkin’ field goal. That first quarter went fast.
13. This was the first time I’ve seen an ad for Wanted. I want to do that.
14. GoDaddy irritates me, though. Their ads are entirely meaningless in relation to their products; neither are they particularly clever. Mostly they are just juvenile.
15. Dell’s (red) ad is weak. Weak. Thank goodness the FedEx carrier pigeon ad brings back my smile as does the Cars.com circle of death ad and the Silence the Stain ad (which is relevant and clever.
16. Beautiful catch by Amani Toomer on the sideline. I didn’t think he had his feat in bounds at first, but, with a little bit of pushing off, he made a huge grab.
17. That interception wasn’t Eil’s fault. Smith should have caught it, even though it was a little low.
18. Budweiser’s Rocky ad was cute. Not great, but very nicely done.
19. So, yeah, I’ll be watching Iron Man. Even though the ratio of good to bad comic book movies isn’t really in my favor, here, I remain optimistic.
20. Big ups to ferocious, face-eating badgers, Leatherheads, and Napoleon’s pony, too.
21. Does anyone else get the impression that there is going to be a big, nasty brawl between these two teams before the end of the game? They don’t seem to like each other much and there’s been a bunch of extracurricular hitting and shoving.
22. Careerbuilder.com’s “follow your heart” ad was more creepy than clever. The lizards dancing to “Thriller” was kinda cute, though. It would have been better without the dancing woman, though. Waste of space.
23. Okay, from a purely visual standpoint, I absolutely adored the Yukon Hybrid ad from GM. The hand-drawn look, the message of persistence in the face of difficulties, and the ultimate sense of quiet triumph. Gorgeous.
24. Oooo. Prince Caspian looks cool.
25. Charles Barkley has a great sense of humor about himself and, apparently, so does Justin Timberlake.
26. Darling girl insists that the Giants are just warming up. Well.
27. Tap this, Senator Clinton.
28. Er. Sorry.

Second half impressions are in the extended entry.

Read the Rest...

American Idol featured a woman who was a recovered meth addict. The show producers delved into her stories of woe, giving us a great hardship and triumph story worthy of John Edward’s mills and Huckabee’s substandard hotel reservations. Which is nice, I suppose? Who doesn’t love a story of triumph in the face of overwhelmingly bad odds.

But I just can’t connect on this one. I’m not trying to be cruel, nor am I saying that addictions aren’t scary bad things for some people. For that matter, I’m not saying that I’m stronger, smarter, tougher, or better than anyone else. I have my weaknesses, I know them well, and I combat them daily.

But I just can’t connect to this one.

During the happy-fun-bartending years, I tried pretty much any pharma-product that came my way. Whether it came in pill or powder, I was happy to give it a shot. The only thing that I never got around to was injecting myself simply because that seemed to be going a step too far. Poking extra holes in my skin to facilitate a drug felt a little desperate.

My drug of choice was coke, but I dabbled a few times with meth, and it wasn’t the terrifying destroyer of lives that I’ve heard other people describe. It was a brutal high, it lasted too long, it crashed too hard, and it made me feel twitchy. I didn’t like it and experimentation ended after a few very long nights (very long--both time lasting a few days of finding ways to fill my hours with even more mistakes than usual).

I never had that happy high that I had with coke--that booze, coke, and limo excursion with a big group of friends on the way to see U2 playing Mile High. I had a little wager going with one of my friends as to which of us could get more kisses from random passers by while we were stuck in ridiculous traffic. She managed a few smooches from some of the cars going by. Being on the other side of the limo, I got a little more action from girls walking toward the stadium. The best smooch came from one very pretty, very young woman with a very irritated boyfriend. Oddly, I had propositioned her friend, who looked to be flying solo, but I wasn’t disappointed by the trade. After a few blissful moments and a little bit of tongue, she asked if I was important and if she could come with us to the concert.

I felt bad for her boyfriend and realized that there was no way that she wasn’t going to be happy with the crappy, top level tickets that my little crew had. Luckily, the cars were finally moving and I just laughed as I rolled up the window. She probably ended up far less happy with that smooch than I did, poor thing.

Point being, I have some happy memories of my cocaine days and nothing much happy or clear about the meth days. And, like every substance that I abused, when I decided to stop, I stopped. It was easy.

I fully realize that it isn’t the same way for others. For some reason, some people like the harsh high from the meth and they have a hard time putting it down. I get it, I just don’t care.

So, meth girl was pretty and she had a not-unpleasant voice, but the back story left me cold. I hope she does well partially because of the “she’s pretty” part and partially because I like the idea of having someone that I can refer to as “meth girl” throughout the contest. It’s a fun nickname. But they are really overplaying the tragic backstory thing this year. It may make me a complete bastard, but I really don’t care--in fact, I’d probably be more likely to appreciate a good, current heroin addict with talent than all the sob-story former tragedarians that they trot out to try to get me to connect to the second-rate talents that they usually trot out.

Oh, and this shouldn’t be construed as a blanket approval of drug use. I’ve been clean for almost a decade (honestly). Drugs are dumb. They lead to all sorts of bad stuff happening in everyone’s lives but my own. Once you start, you just can’t stop. You’ll probably go to hell if you inhale. Other bad things, too. Probably. So don’t do it.

Okay, it really isn’t the most important issue of the day, but watching the daily news about the Writers Guild strike is almost as much fun as the video from an ill-advised Britney Spears music awards performance.

Just sayin’.

Anyway, Shawn captures what must be one of the funniest things spoken by a celebrity during the strike.

“Without Writers Guild members, we would have bad jokes, crap movies, and an endless output of reality television,” Tim Robbins, for example, expounded in a strangely clipped accent, begging the question: As opposed to what?

The funniest bit, though? This:

“But the people in WGA bleed to write the scripts,” Graham said, as a homeless-looking man a few feet away pounded away at invisible bongos. “The actors in SAG and AFTRA bleed to play their roles. The people who support this city every day bleed to make it the cultural capital that it is.”

Read the rest because, let’s be honest, there aren’t too many funny stories in the news today that go from the phenomenally cute Kristin Davis to a socialist selling copies of 1917: Journal of the International Bolshevik Tendency.

Full disclosure: hidden in the mix is a link to RSong. Thanks, Shawn!

I was going to leave this as a comment on Jeremy Lott’s site, but, sadly, comments aren’t allowed. Lott, author of the wonderful In Defense of Hypocrisy (a book with a cover I wish I had designed (sorry, graphics geek moment)), linked to my glib prayer of thanks for the writers strike.

Am I the only right-of-center type who isn’t wild about the Hollywood writers’ strike? I don’t even watch much television –three, four hours a week tops — and I have enough unwatched videos and DVDs stockpiled to wait out any longer work stoppage.

It’s not quite fair to say that I’m wild about the strike; I’m a little closer to indifferent. I lived without cable for a few years and got myself hooked up only because I wanted to be able to watch the Avalanche playoffs games. Most of my TV watching is sports related, I catch stuff on the History Channel regularly, and I try to catch House every week. Of course, my fascination with American Idol is widely mocked, so I don’t dare leave that out, too.

My feelings about the strike, though, have little to do with my watching habits.

I have little sympathy for the producers because, frankly, everything that I’ve ever heard about their accounting practices leads me to believe that they do their best to screw writers hard. The writers have only themselves to blame for some of the problems, though: they made a bad deal last time around and completely underestimated the kind of revenue that would be created from DVD sales. Oops.

Here’s the thing, though, I’m not sure how much sympathy I have for the writers, either. If this is right:

Starting TV writers earn about $70,000 per season for full-time work on a show. Veteran writers who move up to a story-editor position make at least a low six-figure salary, with a “written by” credit on an hourlong script paying an additional $30,000 plus residuals.

We’re not exactly talking about a poorly paid profession, are we? And for writers who aren’t staff writers or who write on spec, well that’s the risk, isn’t it? When I write a handful of articles for paid publication in any given year, I don’t complain that I’m not paid a living wage. I just make sure that I leave the focus on the job that actually pays my bills and realize that what I do on the side is, essentially, a hobby.

I wouldn’t presume to know what a writer deserves to be paid for, say, working on episodes of Cave Man, and I know that writing well--good dialogue, good plotting, believable characters with depth (things not in evidence in Cave Man)--is not a common skill. I hope that the strike is settled quickly and equitably.

But not only will I not much miss the grand majority of the tripe that the TV spews, I have absolutely no idea what equitable looks like and it just isn’t that important to me. I’ll leave the serious writing on the subject to those people who have a vested interest in the subject.

Read the rest of Lott’s comments.

Update: And now you can read Lott’s response to my response. Which makes this one of the longer blog-to-blog conversations that I’ve had in a while. Unfortunately, I don’t really have any further response. Turkey and carb overload seems to have robbed me of my capacity for thought.

I don’t like Bill Maher--in fact, I think he’s a bit of a prick. And his head doen’t fit his body particularly well. Which is weird.

Anyway, he’s far more rational than the truthers of the world. His response to a series of audience members disrupting his show was all sorts of good.

He’s still a jerk, but he’s the kind of jerk that I could have a conversation with. When I’ve run across the truthers in real life, my best response is walking away--which was also my response to one of my boss’s sons when he showed a peculiar pride in his own ignorance.

I like it that some others recognize that the best response to some accusations and arguments isn’t engagement; it’s far better to refuse to offer up any legitimacy to some folks.

Just sayin’.

I tried to give the new TV show Cavemen a fair shake. I tried to be fair. Seriously, I did.

I like the cavemen GEICO ads, so I thought that there was a chance that I could enjoy the TV show, a thing that I had imagined as sort of Friends with a much more hairy cast. Instead, the show just sucks. The script wasn’t funny, the cast wasn’t funny, the situations weren’t funny--in fact, I didn’t laugh once during the whole damned thing.

Cavemen should never have seen the light of day. It should have been hidden somewhere where it couldn’t damage careers or drive viewers into the arms of other stations. Its sole redeeming value was that it was on opposite Spelling Bee and Bones, one of which sucks on a fairly normal level and one of which sucks about as much as Cavemen. Which, okay, that’s stretching as far as “redeeming value” is concerned, but I try to find something nice to say in most of my posts. That’s all I could come up with.

No, this isn’t about Owen Wilson’s alleged (and, if true, wildly surprising) suicide attempt; this is about a second X Files flick.

In July, Duchovny told TV reporters that a second film was in the works and that co-star Gillian Anderson was on board as well. Duchovny played FBI special agent Fox Mulder opposite Anderson’s Dana Scully.

The X-Files’ creator, Chris Carter, and series executive producer Frank Spotnitz wrote the screenplay.
[...]
Spotnitz told SCI FI Wire last year that the sequel’s story would not rely on the show’s convoluted alien-invasion-conspiracy mythology, but rather would be more like one of the show’s stand-alone episodes.

I was ready to say that a sequel to the X-Files movie was a bad idea--that it’s time had past and that there probably wasn’t much interest in continuing down that path. That is because I was assuming that they were planning to do another in the mythology series. If, on the other hand, if it goes more along the lines of the old Night Stalker TV series, it should be loads of fun.

X-Files, at its best, was engrossing and, often, hilarious. While the franchise is pretty well off everyone’s cultural radar, it would do well to capture the spirit of episodes like “Bad Blood” with it’s he said/she said plot and Luke Wilson as a guest. The willingness to poke at the shows quirks, the great writing, and a cast with real chemistry made it one of my favorite episodes. If the new movie can capture that, then I’ll be seeing it a few times.

I just got home from seeing Hot Rod, an unevenly humorous waste of time with some absolutely hilarious pratfalls, to find that darling girl left the TV on. While I let the puppy out, I glanced over at the TV to see an ad for Quality Mitsubishi and MiracleLoans.net--and it was worse than the typical nighttime ad. For a bar set that low, it was amazing how easily this ad crawled its way under the typical dross, claiming an extra special trashiness all its own.

Now the worst late night ads are the ones that urge lonely folks to call in and meet either fake-breasted bad actresses or super-studly gay men who like the type of people whose social skills don’t extend far beyond their own couches. This car lot ad gave those a run for their money, though.

Not only did it have an irritating spokesman and a bad script, but midway through the ad the spokesman said something along these lines: “Don’t buy a piece of *bleep* just because you feel you don’t have a choice.” Who runs an ad that has a built in bleep? That’s a pathetic cry for attention on the order of calling one of those fake-breasted “yes girls” who are ready to party 24/7 with whomever ponies up the credit card for some naughty phone talk.

Heading over to the MiracleLoans.net site, it doesn’t get any better. Ugly site, designed for brute force conversion of people in search of someone who finances the un-financeable. It promises loans to absolutely everyone. Sort of.

The big banner at the top of the page loudly proclaims “100% Approval.* The little asterisk next to it refers to the catch. The catch is this: “Guaranteed financing for those who meet minimum requirements. W.A.C. & W.A.D.”

Guaranteed financing. 100% Approval. If you meet minimum requirements. If they approve your credit. If you have an acceptable down payment. More simply: 100% approval for everyone we approve (which won’t actually be everyone).

Don’t get me wrong: that’s just good sense. A financial institution wouldn’t make much money lending money to people who are really bad risks. Still, it’s a tad misleading and undeniably crass--which means the ad is perfectly suited to the site, I suppose. And, no, I don’t mean that in the nicest possible way.

I suppose that if you live in Denver, though, the absolute worst of the late night ads (without resorting to bleeped out language) has to be Frank Azar’s “Strong Arm” ads. Indeed, if you look through the Urban Dictionary, you’ll even find a couple references to him under “Ambulance Chaser.”

None of which changes the fact that Tiger Woods is amazing. Truly a phenomenal talent.

Does anyone else find it sort of sad that Fox--last seen canceling Drive--shows no sign of killing off The Loop, easily one of the worst shows on network TV? Filled completely with unlikable characters, bad dialog, idiotic writing, and predictable plots, The Loop is almost unwatchable. I don’t remember the last time a sitcom made me laugh so little.

Seriously, this might be the dumbest show on TV. And that includes the stuff starring Paris Hilton.

Fox: cancel The Loop and rid my cable box of its oh-so-contrived quirkiness. Bring back Drive--it may not be another Firefly, but it’s sure as hell better than this crap.

1. Ghostrider sucked. I mean, that comes as very little surprise to anyone, but, boy, did it suck. And what happened to Nicolas Cage? I used to like that guy…
2. Era Vulgaris from Queens of the Stone Age sucked. There are a few good songs, but it’s hardly an engaging album. Their first three albums were brilliant, but Lullabies to Paralyze and the new album are huge disappointments.
3. The 2012 Summer Olympics logo sucks. Without the sort of tacked on Olympic rings, you would have no idea that it was representing the event, and other than the just as tacked on “london”, you wouldn’t know that it had anything to do with the city. It looks mashed together, poorly considered, and hardly worth the money spent. Confrontational, yes, and definitely aggressive, but lacking anything resembling grace or beauty. The thing is ugly.
   
   Some supporters are right: it will reproduce well in printing, it is simple, it is certainly not boring. I like all of those things. That doesn’t save it from being ugly.
4. It definitely sucks that you haven’t yet RSVP’d for the Blogger Bash. What the hell is wrong with you?
5. Mike Nifong sucks. But you knew that already.
6. The fact that Stan Lee is developing a Paris Hilton-based animated series for MTV sucks. Stan? What the hell are you thinking?
7. The concept that a few mean words cut deeper than any knife not only sucks, but it isn’t even true. I’ve been on the receiving end of harsh words and various sharp and pointy objects, and, let me tell you, the pointy bits are the ones to look out for. If you ever have the option of either stabbing me with a sharp, pointy object or saying mean things to me, I’m hoping you’ll choose the latter.
   
   Advice: grow some skin and get over the mean stuff.
   
   When things are said that hurt you, here’s what you do: first, understand whether there is legitimacy to the complaint, second, if it is legitimate, let the critique change your behavior and, if it is not legitimate, ignore the idiots. Life is simpler when you can be honest about these things.
8. Apparently the new energy bill sucks. Which, maybe I should have been paying more attention.
9. Anyone who claims to be able to predict with any accuracy, the point of the world’s peak production of oil sucks. And is taking you for a sucker. Why? 1- Because no one knows how much oil is in the ground. 2- Because oil extraction technology improves, which means some of our measured, recoverable reserves increase not because of new finds but because of new methods of extraction. 3- Because higher oil costs mean development of other, more difficult resources (like oil sands) that often aren’t factored into peak oil projections. That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t diversify our energy sources for a number of other reasons, but that the people who project doom and gloom usually have an agenda to push. You know what I say to that? Beware of the penguins.
10. Knocked Up does not suck. You should go see it. Unless you have issues with pot smoking potty mouths and one quick moment of entirely ‘tuitous nudity.

Kindly linked by the Non-Sucky Kate.

Here’s the issue: how the hell do I talk about tonight’s episode of House without completely ruining the plot for anyone who didn’t see the thing?

This sucks…

Fox has killed Drive,--a flawed, but interesting, new show that I was enjoying. For fans of Firefly, the most interesting part of this has to be that this is the second time that Nathon Fillion has been on the wrong end of an early Fox cancelation.

Despite its decent reviews, Drive did not perform well in its highly competitive Monday night niche. After airing four episodes, FOX decided to cancel its road-racing themed series.

Admittedly, Drive wasn’t in the same league as the brilliant Firefly, but I wanted to see where it was going (and the darling girlfriend wanted Mal to win the race).

I am wildly disappointed.

I’m watching the Season 5 DVDs of 24 and I have one terribly important thought:

Never trust issues of national security to hobbits. It just doesn’t work out well.

Holy, damnit.

I pay over eighty bucks a month for all this crap on TV? I mean, I pay over eighty bucks a month to be this frustrated by the crap that’s on my hundreds of channels on TV?

Okay, so I’m happy that the Broncos and Avs games look good, I’m reasonably regularly happy with stuff that’s on the History Channel, and I still dig House (which I can’t watch while the freakin’ baseball playoffs continue to irritate me (because, see, I really don’t much care for baseball unless it’s me going to a day game in the middle of summer--which I’m not and it isn’t)).

But on any given night, while I’m sitting here working, I’ll be more likely to find something irritating than something worth watching.

Die, television. Die die die!

I’m sure someone, somewhere will come up with a real BlogTV to make stars out of bloggers, but until that happens The Colossus is bringing us The Dean Witch Project and Dorkafork is summing up 24 rather well.

With entertainment like this, why the hell am I watching Skating With Celebrities?

iTunes Music Store now offers more television shows than ever before. Of course, since it previously offered only four or five shows, this might not seem like such a big deal. In fact, though, they’ve expanded in a way that I would consider significant--and made my lust for the big hard-drive iPod grow deeper.

“What new shows?” you ask.

Monk, Lost, vintage Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries, The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Knight Rider, Law & Order, and more. The addition of the older content (still limited in scope) is intriguing. How long before I can download all the crappy TV shows I used to love from my youth?

The danger here isn’t that they’ll find an audience; the danger is that they are making it even easier for people to be passive slaves to their entertainment devices. I fear for our creative future.