This ain't KFC, baby

tv

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:54:12 GMT

Television lately

Well.

Mad Men turned out excellently, to lead with the good. In the end, though I like the high points of Friday Night Lights (first season) better, Mad Men has hardly any (= "I can't think of any") low points, while FNL had three or four. Arguably the best show of the year, then. Definitely one I'll be buying.

Desperate Housewives continues the night-time-soap tradition of rewriting characters to suit plot needs, but there's no J.R. Ewing in this Dallas, no Erica Kane, no unchanging center -- as much as they act like Susan is that center, she's been inconsistent since last season. Maybe Bree is the closest. In any case, the Dana Delaney plot is already more interesting than anything in last season, even if it does appear to maintain the pattern of "parents have deep dark secret about child, which turns out to be a sacrifice they made for the child's own good."

Pushing Daisies shot way up in my estimation with the third episode, the first one not directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (barred from directing any more because he kept going way over budget with the special effects and those damn sets). It's the first episode to make the characters seem like people, though I'm not sure they're people I like.

Now the bad ...

Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, and The Office have all lost a significant portion of my interest, though I'm expecting The Office to improve when they leave the supersized episodes behind.

Reaper, after the second-strongest pilot of the season (trailing Sarah Connor), became an unfortunately boring show with a couple engaging performances.

Friday Night Lights disappoints me every week, the moreso because every episode has excellent moments in it. It's not just the Tyra-Landry plot. It's the black-and-white characterization of the replacement coach (played by Hank from Twin Peaks, someone ideally suited to shades of grey), and the way that seems to make Taylor's return inevitable. It's the fact that everyone seems a little off except Buddy, Tami, and maybe Eric -- and even then, I'm not sure Buddy is reacting as strongly to Newcoach as he ought to be, given the shit he gave Eric last year over very minor slights.

Bill Simmons -- another FNL fan disappointed with the new season -- says once your team wins the championship, you have five years in which you can't complain about anything they do. First season of Friday Night Lights was unquestionably a World Series win, but in the world of television, what does five years scale down to? Half a season? A full season?

top ten horror

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 13:46:17 GMT

The top ten horror movies

There is a single criterion here: these are the movies that scared me the most, or creeped me out, or unsettled me, or otherwise made it difficult to sleep, and did so intentionally (which leaves out Sleeping Beauty). Young Frankenstein, though it uses the genre and is one of my favorite movies, is not on this list. I'm not worried about what the finest movies are that happen to be horror movies; I am rating only the creep factor.

Poltergeist. Despite my disclaimer, this is not only one of the movies that has scared me the most, it is one of -- maybe THE -- best-made movies of the genre. I've talked about it at length, the way Tobe Hooper's chaotic and inherently unfair world haunts an otherwise Spielbergian family, in just the same way that the Indian burial ground haunts the housing development. This is that rare thing: a brilliant horror movie in which the intelligence adds to the scariness instead of apologizing for it. As long as I don't watch it more than a couple times a year, I always find something in it that I hadn't thought of before, or that I can think of in a new light. Even the sequels are a little more compelling than most churned-out horror sequels, if for no other reason than that they remind you of the first.

Ju-On: The Grudge. Third movie in the original Ju-On series, but the first two were made for TV. I still don't know why the remake -- directed by the original creator! remade faithfully! -- is so much less interesting, but I maintain my theory that the original attracts me the way it does because it's subtitled and the scary things so frequently happen in the background or the edges of the screen -- and keeping my visual focus in one place enhances that. This is the ultimate movie for instilling "oh my God I'm going down the basement steps in the dark, did I just see something out of the corner of my eye?" paranoia.

Paperhouse. You'll notice a trend here, movies that make my list because of a line or two, or that I sum up that way. Ben Cross's anguished, angry "I'm BLIND!" when he's just a distant but approaching silhouette, that is essentially why I rented this movie six or seven times as a kid. Plus, a hammer is a scary weapon.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. One of the only movies on this list to be included simply because it is so relentless -- and is the only one of that subset to be so stark as well. Chainsaw played a lot of tricks you can only play once, and the moody dimly lit remake seems to miss the point that there is something fucking scary about a teenage girl running across sunlit rural Texas lawns being pursued by a freak with a chainsaw.

Candyman. Introduced -- or at least put a name to -- "urban legends" for a whole lot of people my age, and the use of mirrors, naming, and repetition is especially compelling in a way that Clive Barker has a flair for. Having grown up hearing several well-known "and then he killed her" urban legends that I accepted at face value, this was a pretty powerful movie for me to see at age ... what, 13 or something, right at the age where you are very receptive to the idea that you have been lied to.

Saw. Like Chainsaw, this is a movie that makes the list for making me wince. I wish I had seen it in the theater, but alas. In any case, it has a lot of the same claustrophobic appeal as a movie like Cube, combined with a new application of horror's penchant for black and white contrasts (instead of the good/evil of virgin-vs-Jason, it's the sacrifice-vs-murder choices of Jigsaw's puzzles) and of the "the killer kills those who deserve it" trope. It's a fairly ingenious ode to horror, without patting itself on the back too much the way Scream does (I love Scream too, mind you).

Cabin Fever. The serial killer is a flesh-eating virus! Everything else plays out very like a maniac-vs-campers movie, which is what's so smart and playful about this gory, shiver-inducing, and sometimes stomach-churning movie.

Nightmare on Elm Street. I was, what, nine when this came out? The idea that there was a bad guy who could only get you when you were sleeping, and who was so frightening that people would cut their eyelids off to stay awake (I think that's from one of the sequels? but whatever) was immensely compelling, and made Freddy Krueger a much more unsettling villain that Jason, Michael Myers, Stepfather, the Children of the Corn, and the other bad guys of the 80s.

Lost Highway. I don't know why, but Patricia Arquette's "you'll never have me" in response to "I want you" has always given me chills. Still does. And it is, really, a movie about loss and being lost. Maybe Lynch's most unsettling movie, despite (or because of) lacking the over-the-top villainy of Dennis Hopper or the sensory assault of Wild At Heart.

Alien. Arguably the only monster movie on the list, as well as the only science fiction horror (though I think the insistence on explanation in many ghost stories and haunted house movies, the obsession with causality, is as much a part of science fiction as space ships are). Alien was the first movie I was not allowed to go see. Everyone who knows me has heard me complain about the time my older cousin went to see a Red Sox game while I was stuck with my less-older cousin seeing The Black Stallion (silver lining: first time having Dr Pepper), but around that same time I was also barred from going to see Alien, which after all was rated R, and I was like 5. Oh, how I shook my fist.

As a teenager, renting this and Aliens, I liked the sequel more -- and was dumbfounded at what a disappointment Alien3 was, the first one we were old enough to see in the theater. But Alien is the creepy one. Claustrophobic, moody, the first movie I'd seen -- and still one of the few -- to remind us that being out in space would be eerie, at least as much as being in a big creepy house. The sequels follow much the same course as those to Friday the 13th and the other slashers -- the focus becomes the fascination with how kewl these bad guys are, and all the kewl stuff they can do and how you totally can't kill them because like they totally activated their anti-killing force field way before you even thought about trying to kill them -- but the original is solid, and even Aliens is a good action movie.

#

Notable no-shows on the list: Hitchcock (love him, but he doesn't scare me), serial killer movies (I think only Silence of the Lambs would even qualify for an honorable mention -- I used to have the Hannibal Lecter stand-up from the video store in my bedroom, but we moved shortly thereafter and it disappeared in storage), zombie movies (I just couldn't think of one that stood out as something that'd scared me, especially once I realized there was a good chance the first one I saw was Savini's Night remake), werewolves and vampires, body horror, out-and-out cinema of anxiety (Paperhouse and Lost Highway are very close, though).

tv

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:24:37 GMT

Tod Browning's Freaks is on Turner Classic Movies tonight -- if you're gearing up for Halloween by watching creepy movies, that's one to make an appointment for.

wiwt

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:05:36 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: Friday Night Lights. If you saw the second season premiere, then like me you may have some trepidation about this season -- which is putting it very mildly for some people, I know, but I'm not going to let one potential plot misfire overshadow everything else. ... even if it's the kind of thing that by definition might come to overshadow everything else. First season began with shaking up a status quo we simply hadn't seen a season of, after all, with Jason Street's injury.

Last night:

Earl was all right, The Office dragged on waaaaay too long, but 30 Rock had some great moments. Practicology, the religion founded by the alien king living inside Stan Lee! Please let's have some callbacks to that in future episodes.

Mad Men was the TV highlight of the night, though. For the most part I would have said that the show -- created by a Sopranos writer -- uses 1960 the way The Sopranos used New Jersey: it's deeply informed by and tied to that setting, but doesn't devote any episodes to being "about" the setting. This is no Wonder Years or even China Beach -- this show has no idea it's in the past. I was curious whether an episode titled after the Nixon-Kennedy election would change that, but nope, it's still the same feel -- no knowing winks at all.

And the resolution to Pete finding out Don Draper's secret was just right.

wiwt

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:30:21 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: NBC comedies and the penultimate episode of Mad Men

Last night:

Boy, Pushing Daisies comes on strong! Jesus. I think if it were a movie, it'd be one thing, but knowing it's a series, it's a lot to take, from the Willy Wonka sets to the theatricality of the acting to the very precious and detail-concerned narration to the abrupt musical number. Too much to take, for me. I hope the show does well, but I hope it takes it back a notch, too.

Dirty Sexy Money is well acted but not especially interesting. I like Peter Krause, and I like the twins a lot more than the rest of the family -- the angry priest is too over the top to make me do anything but wince -- but the show can't seem to match a tone to a plot, so I'm still not sure what it's "about" in any meaningful, beyond-the-TV-Guide sort of way.

wiwt

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:19:56 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: Reaper, but it really needs to get its ass in gear or I'm going to regret my recommendation.

Last night --

How I Met Your Mother is doing a good job, conceptually, of mining "single Ted." Much less so with single Robin, who is just a sitcom cliche (but other than in her scenes with Barney, have we ever seen Robin except in relation to Ted?) And at any rate, quality of concept aside, the follow-through wasn't so hot last night, with the strongest members of the cast literally on the sidelines (at the expense of Barney's characterization, I think).

I want to like Aliens in America despite the oddness of Scott Patterson, but -- though I don't know anything about Pakistani culture and could be wrong -- they seem to be using Raja as a "generic outsider," little more than a less goofy Mork. His Pakistaniness isn't as important as his outsiderness, and while it makes sense for other characters to see him that way, I would like to see some kind of ... culturality to him. That is not really a word, but you know, whatever. At least he isn't from Mypos or Finland.

No Reservations was a rerun of a recent episode, and the baseball game was ridiculously slow, so I watched Journeyman ... and you know, it's not appointment television or anything, but this is a pretty good show. It's lightly dramatic rather than being lightly comic like Quantum Leap was, and just as QL benefited from Scott Bakula's natural likeability, Journeyman benefits from Kevin McKidd's natural screen presence, and that odd "my ear can't point it out, but I'm sure it's there" gravitas you get from some British actors (Hugh Laurie, Damien Lewis) playing Americans on television (House, Life/Band of Brothers).

Plus, it's not going the metaplot route, but it did learn from Quantum Leap and introduce a wrinkle to the show's "the protagonist is randomly thrown around time and has to fix things, but isn't sure why" conceit, in establishing that this happens to other people too. I really don't care about the explanation, and I hope we never meet some Grand Tribunal of Fixitupism; as long as the show stays what it is, I'll tune in from time to time when it's ten o'clock and I feel like watching something.

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 18:24:55 GMT

This Netflix Watch It Now thing is kind of the ideal solution for "well, I sent back a movie on Friday, which means it won't be received earlier than Monday, so the soonest I could possibly have the replacement is Tuesday." I've added a lot of things to my queue purely because they're available to watch online, so I can just go to the "from your queue" section of Watch It Now rather than go through all the options again.

(They should do it with more TV shows, so you can decide if you really want to rent.)

wiwt

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 11:51:48 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: The premiere of Friday Night Lights, though I watched it at Yahoo ... and wasn't crazy about the ending. We'll see how things go next week, though.

Last night:

It's the second of four hour-long Office episodes in a row, and it already feels stretched. Those 40-minute episodes were one thing because of the big cast, but an hour means more plot, and I'm not sure that's really a good thing with this show. I do like Boss Ryan, even if I'm not quite sure why a kid fresh out of school was qualified to replace Jan.

30 Rock was good, Mad Men was good, though neither was better than usual.

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:15:59 GMT

Netflix --

Returned in today's mail: Visitor Q
Arrived: Wiseguy d1, Popeye d1
Turnaround: I'll check later

Obviously I've decided to stick with Netflix, but I want to keep the log going for a full month, so that if at some point I feel like things have slowed down, I can refer back. I'm on cold medicine right now, though, and haven't got the presence of mind to actually go back and see what the turnaround time here was. It was fine, though.

wiwt

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:06:09 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: Baseball

Last night:

Man, Reaper was a real step down. It felt either like the show has a really strong formula it's going to follow -- right down to "Sam has doubts about his ability to do the job" and "the guys dress up funny in protective gear from Home Depot" -- or like this was a second pilot of sorts, because there's a lot that didn't connect well with the pilot, and maybe they were establishing a new status quo ... I don't know. I really don't know what to make of it.

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:04:45 GMT

Boy, ABC really likes advertising Pushing Daisies, doesn't it?

It premieres tomorrow, and I am so spacey on cold medicine that who knows what I'll remember when, so to remind you of the upshot: though I said it has no hope in hell of staying on the air, I do like it. As with Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, the weird near-asexuality of the lead rubs me the wrong way for some reason -- it's context-driven in this case instead of just an "ew cooties" reaction by the character, which is good because as hard as that is to accept from an adolescent female lead, from an adult male lead audiences would just reject it -- and I don't find the premise as interesting as either of those shows. But, hell, there need to be more shows like Wonderfalls on the air, and I'll take something not-quite-it and maybe-not-as-good over Carpoolers.

(To be fair, although I think Carpoolers isn't very good, Til Death set such a standard for terrible sitcoms that everything this season looks like All in the Fucking Family in comparison.)

I forget what I was talking about. Yes, Pushing Daisies. Don't take my prediction of its failure as a warning not to watch and get attached -- first off, ABC clearly wants it to succeed and will probably keep it on longer than it would otherwise, second I could totally be wrong (I don't know a critic who doesn't like it), third you can bank on the fact that a full-series DVD release will come out no matter how many episodes air.

My "not as good as Wonderfalls" take could also be in part because Lee Pace was so good as the brother on that show, and in the Pushing Daisies pilot he's playing the lead with far less teeth. But hey, it's just the first episode. Who knows.

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:25:23 GMT

Two weeks with Netflix, and they've already sent out two discs that were on Very Long Wait. I don't think that even happened the first time I joined, so I wonder if they're classifying as VLW some discs that used to be Long Wait. It threw me off, I was expecting to have them send the Paul Lynde Halloween special today, but it's disc 1 of Popeye instead.

wiwt

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:12:42 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: Reaper

Last night:

Kind of a disappointing episode of How I Met Your Mother -- the first episode that felt like a spec script, regardless of whether it was and whether there have been others. It felt like any other sitcom, and like there would have been minimal changes if you'd cast the characters of some other show; three plotlines that, if they haven't been done exactly that way on other shows, have at least been done -- which I think made everyone feel a little out of character. (And worse, the Robin plot felt like it was just wrapping up loose ends from the premiere.)

Bigger disappointment on Aliens in America, where the recasting was ... a bad choice. I really don't think it's just that I'm used to seeing Scott Patterson play Luke; he gave virtually the exact same line readings as the original actor (and I'm only saying "virtually" because it's been a few months since I've seen the original pilot and am allowing for memory error), and trying to do a thin reedy voice doesn't work for him, and kind of makes him sound like Luke mocking someone. What the hell? I can't have been the only viewer distracted by it. It's not like Gilmore Girls was an obscure show, especially since he's still on the same network.

Heroes was eh. Again, no strong feelings one way or the other.

wiwt

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:37:26 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: How I Met Your Mother, Aliens in America, Heroes, No Reservations. The premiere of AiA on the CW fills in the gap I complained about last week. I haven't seen the new pilot, with Luke from Gilmore Girls replacing the nerdy father of the original pilot because the CW's contract with him requires them to cast him in one of their shows. The recasting concerns me a bit, but just because I've never seen him play a character like that doesn't mean he can't do it.

All in all, AiA isn't a show to go out of your way to see, but I was impressed with the pilot, given that the concept -- awkward kid's parents get exchange student in order to help him make friends at school, exchange student turns out to be Middle Eastern Muslim -- invites so much bad writing. None of that bad writing is yet in evidence.

Weekend:

Didn't see SNL after all. Was kind of vaguely bored by Desperate Housewives except for the angle with Dana Delany's kid, and Eva Longoria remains my least favorite thing about the show -- but the premiere was still more interesting than most of last season. It would be nice if they could stop casting Lynette as the plucky but wornout victim of everything, but I think it's too late for that.

Archer Farms Guacamole Potato Chips

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:39:56 GMT

Archer Farms Guacamole Potato Chips

Okay, Doctorpop -- you're wondering -- what's wrong with Target's guacamole chips?

Buttermilk.

Again, they're relying on standard flavoring mixes, and in this case that means a buttermilk/sour cream/lactic acid blend like the one that provides the backbone of Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream or Sour Cream and Onion chips. Imagine those chips with slightly tangy avocado in place of the cheese or onion, and there you go.

Now, I can't stop you from putting sour cream in your guacamole, but buttermilk is another matter.

Still, it's not terrible at all, and better than the Lemon Pepper -- I just wish there was more signal and less noise.

nf

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 15:10:50 GMT

Netflix --

Sent back (in tomorrow's mail): Woody Woodpecker disc 1

If it isn't obvious, I'm actually very happy with Netflix this time around. I'm keeping Woody Woodpecker on my wishlist, because it's comprehensive enough that I'd like to own it eventually, but otherwise these rentals are saving me a bundle: the Courageous Cat cartoon that I really wanted to see just to fill in my memory/knowledge of stuff, but that's pretty low-grade TV animation? That would have cost me $72 from Amazon, which means either I would have splurged and been disappointed, or I would have put it off forever. And because hardly anyone remembers Courageous Cat, I doubt it's in stock at Blockbuster.

(I could be wrong; but I also don't live near a Blockbuster, and the Movie Gallery near me is one of the many locations they're about to close.)

So really, the biggest benefit to me this time around is the selection and relative savings.

wiwt

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:13:25 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: Probably the season premiere of SNL, with Lebron and Kanye.

Last night: didn't watch anything. Feel free to react to Moonlight here, it doesn't sound like I'm gonna watch it.

Woody Woodpecker

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:37:52 GMT

Woody Woodpecker and Friends

Sidenote first: I'm not going to review The Man Who Planted Trees, the first disc of which I got from Netflix at the same time, except to say: the thirty-minute cartoon for which the release is named is pleasant and very attractive (it appears to be drawn and shaded in pencil, though I have no idea if that's how it was really animated or if it was done on the computer) ... but it's an expensive four-disc set the distributor apparently threw together to capitalize on the popularity of that award-winning cartoon, and the remaining material in the set is (judging from disc 1 and the reviews of the set as a whole) lackluster at best. Imagine wanting to pick up The Snowman and only being able to get it along with three other discs of juvenalia, or Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" only being available in a remastered boxed set of mostly demos and alternate takes.

That's exactly why I got Netflix -- because there are a number of things I want to see that are either only sold in expensive sets or that I only want to see once but can't find at Blockbuster.

Anyway -- I worried the same might be true of this set, so that's not a completely irrelevant tangent. I was actually never a fan of Woody Woodpecker as a kid -- it was just something I'd watch because nothing else was on. The early Woody, the thin-beaked maniacal Woody, is downright creepy, even aside from the grating laugh. Probably the wildest of the screwball characters of the theatrical cartoon era, he was never tamed the way Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny were, though he underwent the same physical redesign as Bugs, becoming stouter and "cuter" without the crazy, demented eyes. Right through the 70s (Lantz was the last studio except for Disney to stop producing theatrical shorts), he remained essentially an antagonist, except maybe in comparison to his adversary Buzz Buzzard. He never becomes the Everyman that Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny became -- a niche that didn't just make those two characters relatable and sympathetic, but also made them available for virtually any script, whereas a Woody Woodpecker short really has to be written for him.

This three-disc set collects 45 Woody cartoons (I haven't watched discs 2 and 3 yet, but I believe there are at most only one or two from the television era, and none from the recent revival) and 30 other cartoons from Walter Lantz Productions, the smallest of the "Big Five" of the color theatrical era (with Disney, WB, MGM, and UPA, which segued into television by turning its theatrical character Mr Magoo into a TV star).

If you're at least close to my age or older, you probably remember the other major Lantz characters: Woody is actually introduced in an Andy Panda cartoon, and the studio also produced Chilly Willy, the "Swing Symphonies" series, and the generic series Cartune Classics. Interestingly, Lantz also took over Oswald the Lucky Rabbit after Disney and Iwerks left Universal to start their own studio -- and there are five Oswald shorts here, which means after decades of obscurity, there are two Oswald DVD releases this year. It's like those days when for no reason at all, two different people drop She's the Sheriff references into casual conversation.

It's interesting not only watching Woody's development -- I'm telling you, he still creeps me out a bit, and more than a bit in the early shorts -- but noticing the tropes common to so many 1940s cartoons: references to the Barber of Seville, to scalping, the anthropomorphization of things like Death and Starvation (a trope borrowed from the precursors to what we would now call editorial cartoons), starving characters pondering cannibalism (my favorite Woody cartoon is, despite what I just said, the third one produced: "Pantry Panic," during the brief period when Mel Blanc was still doing the voice, is the one where Woody doesn't migrate for the winter because he wants to hang out at the swimming hole, which then freezes over just before a snow storm steals all his food; it's moody, it's creepy, and although it's manic at times, it's pretty far from screwball).

All in all: even without watching discs 2 or 3 yet (and I've seen most of what's on them), this is definitely a good set. Maybe a huge Woody fan would prefer a set that wasn't 40% other characters, I don't know. Me, I prefer it as a sort of Lantz overview.

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:46:00 GMT

Nevermind what I said about Jolt Cola -- it's got taurine and ginseng in it now, too! Fuckers!

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:43:49 GMT

Netflix --

Returned: Courageous Cat disc 1
Received: The Man Who Planted Trees, Woody Woodpecker disc 1
Turnaround: 4 days

wiwt

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:48:07 GMT

What I'm watching tonight: I don't have high hopes for CBS's vampire detective series Moonlight, even though they do. I've already prejudged it a bit -- I'm picturing it as something that'll be cancelled by Christmas or be one of those shows like The Pretender that never becomes a mainstream hit or a Buffy-like phenomenon but attracts a loyal audience, except I'm not positive how well this second possibility can thrive on today's television.

Doctor Who is the penultimate episode, if I remember right.

Last night:

That was a nice night of television. Good episodes of two of my favorite comedies, followed by Mad Men. A good way to end the day.

The rerun of the Earl finale last week was nicely timed, because it really showed why Jaime Pressley deserved the Emmy -- the balance she brings to this character, her sense of comic timing, and her chemistry with both Crab Man and Jason Lee, are all way more than you could hope for when putting a show like this together (and the kinds of things that would have failed badly -- would still fail badly -- if they had tried to build the show around her). ("I feel like I'm playing Frogger" was a perfect line, in last night's episode.)

I do wish we'd had more Giovanni Ribisi, though!

I thought that last season was uneven compared to the first, because of their move away from "the list" as a source of structure -- I think the prison arc is their way to seek structure out again.

Office-wise, I never have much to say one way or the other. Like the show. Creed always provides laughs. I do still think that they sometimes make Michael too tragic a figure, but it's become hard to compare him to David Brent because there are just so many more American episodes than British ones.

And Mad Men, damn. So much good. If anything hampered it, it's that I've never warmed up to Rachel -- but then, come to think of it, Don Draper and I clearly have drastically different taste in women.

nf

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:41:22 GMT

Netflix --

Received yesterday: Courageous Cat disc 1
Turnaround: 2 days

Sent back today: Popular s2d1

Boylan's Cane Cola

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:35:47 GMT

Boylan's Cane Cola

Made with real sugar, etc etc.

This tastes almost exactly like Mexi-Cola, a soda I was hooked on for the two weeks I stayed in Denver in the summer of 1993, which burst in the mail when I tried to mail more of it to myself, and which I've never found mention of anywhere -- google keeps giving me mixed drink recipes.

Like most non-Coca-Cola colas, Mexi-Cola was a lot like Pepsi or Royal Crown ... but with cinnamon added. I mean, yeah, the basic cola flavor blend includes cinnamon, but this was prominent cinnamon. That was the "Mexi" part, see -- it was cinnamon-flavored just like Mexican chocolate.

And so is Boylan's cola!

I mean, as a straight-up cola formulation, it's a really odd choice, but there it is, wham, both up front and in the aftertaste, and especially in the smell. It smells exactly like Mexican chocolate if an evil wizard turned your chocolate into Pepsi.

Jolt Orange Blast

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:55:05 GMT

Jolt Orange Blast

Okay, this is not the orange soda Jolt used to make, clearly. It hadn't fully hit me that their shift to the weird cans meant turning most of their products into energy drinks; this contains taurine and guarana and really tastes like it.

Ugh. Stop fucking with my Jolt!

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 03:25:27 GMT

Let me know if I should download Dirty Sexy Money or just skip the pilot and watch it next week -- I don't have as much time as I used to to just arbitrarily download and watch everything.