the definition of trouble [Liam]

and just like that, it's on...
(stay tuned for coverage)

Fantasy NBA [Lester]

Just about the only fantasy sport I'm in except for Michelle Wie.

the following things [Liam]

have occurred to me for no particular reason:
if i came into a truly large sum of money, i always figured i'd want to spend it on something socially flauntable like a place in a particularly metropolitan area or perhaps a house in the hills. but i really think a mountain fortress would be the shit. i totally mean it. like, with all kinds of rocks and nature and billy goats n stuff... yeah.
in addition to liking mountain fortresses, i like the smell of non-threatening hill fires and also the aesthetic of old-fashioned rounded sidewalks. deciduous trees are still extremely dope but i find that easy to overlook at times.

what if my destiny isn't here because it's totally cheating on me with some other dude. i'd be like "well i'm glad i had this character building experience" and take it back anyway. i have no backbone.

in other news, on the way back from work today i rolled down the windows and pretended the wind on the freeway was water and my car was a fish and the traffic was my school. seriously, i totally did that.

this post has been brought to you by insufficient sleep and the letter L

oh, also i made a couple changes to the blog. it'll get better.

wednesday morning yeah! [Liam]

gimme an L!
gimme a B!
gimme an O!
what's that spell?
PRODUCTIVITY!

good wednesday morning, or whenever you read this.
it's begun to concern me exactly how much I look forward to "Lost" night on TV.
I never used to consider myself a television person, but I've basically stopped watching dvd movies altogether. I'll probably get carded next time I go to hollywood video. I know I already talked about Smallville at some length, but going into the third season I've had another realization-- that show is to young malebait actors what SNL is to comedians and comedian-like substitutes.

In the seasons I've seen, Smallville has guest-starred:
-The middle son from Home Improvement (Johnathan Taylor Thomas)
He's listed as "himself" for Wrestlemania XI?!? I hope he was fighting. I would become a wrestling fan on that shit alone. I maintain that JTT will go down in history as our generation's white Gary Coleman.

-The OLDER SON from Home Improvement (Zachery Ty Brian)
Ok, Taylor Thomas may be the next Gary Coleman, but this dude here is the one hitting up CASH CALL loans in 20 years.

-Iceman from X-Men/X2 (Shawn Ashmore)
He gets superhero roles. I guess there's talk of him getting an X-Men movie franchise at some point in the future? Whatever. Superman could beat that ass all week.

-Seth from the OC (Adam Brody)
Plays the same basic character he does on The OC, but with evil kryptonite powers. It's funny how much use the phrase "but with evil kryptonite powers" gets when describing that show (everyone to this point on the list in fact rocks the EKPs).

-The gardener who does Eva Longoria a lot on Desperate Housewives (Jesse Metcalfe)
According to IMDB, he's gonna play "John Tucker" in a movie called "John Tucker Must Die." With Ashanti. This after already being rubbed out by the JTT midget guy in Smallville. What the dues, mayng. Dues be HARSH. I bet he gets to be Demi Moore's 4th husband after all this.

-Boone from Lost (Ian Somerhalder)
It's too early in his career to be typecast, but I'm calling it anyway. From here on out, ANYTIME you see him onscreen he's gonna be evil, for the rest of his career. Boy next door? Evil. Trusty sidekick? Evil. Fictionalized DeVry College testimonial? Hella evil.


latelatelatelatelate

superfluous content season is upon us! [Liam]

beverage consumption
When I find myself the recipient of an empty fountain-drink cup after ordering any sort of lunch combo at a fast food place, I usually mix 3 parts unsweetened iced tea with one part sprite. I find soda is mostly just too sweet for me now, and it's begun to amaze me exactly how strong of a default it's been in my lunchtime diet. My dad (hi dad) prefers diet Coke with a top-off of non-diet rootbeer. From the right hand side soda fountain at Union City In-N-Out Burger. Extra syrup if you stutter-press the lever. Shoulda taken Quantus.

It's crazy how hard it is to avoid soda sometimes... If you want easy evidence of ways in which companies with lots of money can make you their bitch at a whim, look no further than the prevalence of sugar-packed soda as the default beverage anywhere it's cheap to eat (or on every middle and highschool campus).

When I re-do the site, which I am almost done with (tangent: by show of hands who has the flash plugin for their browser? i assume everyone but i'll probably have a flash/non-flash option regardless), I'm gonna have a link to a cafepress account i started, which anyone is welcome to add crap to... they have already suspended one of my images for possible copyright infringement:



...perfectly innocuous if you ask me.

It should be noted that Lester's smoked ribs are the bomb.

o\-< o|-= o/-< o|-= o\-< [Liam]

my tastes as a media consumer, part 1

I've been watching a lot of Smallville lately.
It's nothing as groundbreaking as Lost: Season 1, but in many ways I think I'm actually enjoying this show more. The title is appropriate in that while Clark Kent is the main character, it's not really focused on being a show about Superman as it is about the circumstances that produced Superman. Some of the supporting characters are pretty good, especially young Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) , early journalism mentor/classmate Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack), and Jonathan Kent (John Schneider). Young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) himself is portrayed a bit woodenly, but it's convincing nonetheless because save for some obligatory teen angst he usually plays straight man to his more animated supporting cast, and besides that Supes himself is a fairly straightforward guy in DC lore. Also acted more conservatively is the character of Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk, whose obvious hapa features are never explained with so much as an asian mailman, something that constantly threatens to disrupt the believability of the show when i'm watching) who if nothing else works well in the context of the show.
The first season drags a bit, largely adhering to a cookie-cutter formula in which a new character gains kryptonite-based superpowers from meteor rocks scattered around the town and becomes an evil version of some highschool stereotype. Typically Clark and friends investigate, and then Clark finds a way to covertly use his powers to confront the threat, in the process unintentionally disappointing Lana or Chloe's romantic intentions for him. Part of the show's strength, though, comes from this adherence to formula; it's like the Saturday morning fare our generation was raised on, complete with the "Smallville Torch" newspaper office acting as a clubhouse for the gang to compare notes. As the show progresses and we get a better feel for where everyone stands the plot gets more imaginitive, and in the second season they basically drop the formula altogether for the majority of the episodes. The single-episode conflicts still drive the story, but in terms of screen time they give more and more ground to the season-long plotlines developing between the main characters.
Here's the thing with this show; the most consistently engaging piece of lore for the vast majority of superheroes is the origin story. Smallville is, at its core, possibly the most in-depth superhero origin story ever produced. The Superman franchise (one of the most recognizable but easily-taken-for-granted icons in American popular culture) contains a wealth of material to introduce or re-examine through the vehicle of this show-- notable themes include the concept of nurture versus nature in Lex and Clarks' upbringing, the idea that Clark's Kryptonian parents intended for him to conquer Earth, and the evolution of a functional "secret identity" as employed by Clark/Superman later in life.

I rike.

the reason a weekend lasts 48 hours is b/c it takes extra time to import monday over from hell. [Liam]

apparently there's no character limit on titles in blogger.

Anyway, I just figured I'd say hello, I don't really have any sort of comedic theme for this post.

I've been listening to the new Death Cab for Cutie album "Plans" a lot, I'd say right now it's pretty much my favorite CD in the universe. I'm making a point of buying it the next opportunity I get.

I was just talking to Lester and I described a really bad cK shirt I have sitting around as "stretching like $10 on pho and a vietnamese haircut." How true and/or amusing you find this can be used directly as a gauge for how Union City you are.

that's it for now. progress continues on my portfolio in the ongoing war on underemployment. i'll probably have a working sample version lately (that's what i've been doing instead of posting). oh also I was debating whether or not to mirror the old, bitter brog1.0 in some kind of archive here... maybe i'll get on that in a minute.