Sunday, August 31, 2008

Veritas - TV Review - Prison Break (FOX)

As per my recent post regarding season start information, I felt like I was forgetting something, and sure enough, I did. And likewise, what I said in that post about shows 'falling through the cracks', this one did. So my apologies to Prison Break.

Prison Break 2 hour premiere MONDAY SEPTEMBER 1, 2008: 8PM Fox

On that note... shame on you Fox. I was watching FX and saw ONE... 1... I repeat ONE, commercial for the Prison Break Premiere... tomorrow. However, every fucking commercial break had an ad for your stupid "Sons of Anarchy" show. FX... you hit paydirt with The Shield and Rescue Me and to a lesser extent Nip/Tuck... stop trying to play off these new shitty shows like they're the heirs... they're not. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy that you're trying. But still... it's obvious they suck.

Prison Break, on the other hand, in it's 4th season now, I believe, is a great show. It's a little predictable at some times, but still has some of the best writing and acting out there in all of the networks. If you haven't seen it before, go ahead and rent the first three seasons, they are definitely worth a watch. Each season is kind of it's own show. What I mean by that is think of other shows like 24... although a great show, every season is about how Jack Bauer saves the country. Each Prison Break season has it's own goal, which makes it fresh and exciting. The seasons aren't that dependent on each other, so you could start with 4 now if you wanted. If you're worried about season 4 spoiling the others, then don't. But I think it's kind of obvious that if they're in season 4, then chances are some things are already spoiled for you. But even if you are worried about it, there is more than enough plot turns in each season to keep you intrigued.

Whatever your choice, the new season starts TOMORROW
September 1 2008
8PM
2 hours
Fox

Happy watching!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Veritas - TV PREview

It hit me today that in EXACTLY ONE week begins the series finale of "The Shield" on FX. It is a happy, yet sad time. In my personal opinion, it is and was one of the best shows on television. What's been weird about maybe the past eight months or so, is that I haven't watched much television. Mostly because there was nothing good on, but also because the shows that are good were put on hiatus during the writer's strike (they were in the right so I don't blame them). Unfortunately, it not only messed up my nightly schedule, but I think it messed with my internal 'season' clock. You know what I'm talking about. "It's been a few months since I've seen Lost, so it must be starting a new season soon." THAT internal clock. It's been so long since I've seen an episode of The Shield that I almost feel like its already over... but alas it's not. But case in point, it's almost like I forgot about the show when the new season didn't come up when my internal clock thought it was supposed to. So here I am to remind you out there in TV Land of your favorite shows, and when you should expect their triumphant return...


Show; Season Premiere; Season; Genre; Network


***UPDATE***
PRISON BREAK; Mon September 1, 2008; 8pm; Drama; FOX
***UPDATE***


The Shield; Tues September 2, 2008 10pm EST; 7; Drama; FX


It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia; Thurs September 18, 2008 10pm EST; 4; Comedy; FX


The Office; Thurs September 25, 2008 9pm (Hour long); 5; Comedy; NBC


30 Rock; Thurs October 30, 2008 9:30pm EST; 3; Comedy; NBC


24 Season 7 Prologue- 24: Exile; November 23 2008; 6.5; Drama; FOX


Lost; Early 2009; 5; Drama; ABC


Rescue Me; March 2009; 5; Drama; FX



On a side note, Rescue Me is currently doing mini webisodes. They are airing on FX, but you can also catch them online. I've only watched one so far, and plan to watch a bunch of them all at once over on http://www.hulu.com/rescue-me. I'll review Hulu some other time. I don't know when these mini webisodes end, but I think they'll be up for a while.

I'll write reviews and stuff for these shows when their airdates get closer. I'll also post more specific information when I find it. For some reason it's really tough to find the season start dates. I spent a good 5 minutes looking on "The Office" website before finally finding it. It's as if they try to get you to not watch. They really should try putting it in A BIG FUCKING FONT SIZE so that people can find it easily... or maybe I'm just tired. I must have seen the link for the episode recap 15 times while scanning the page. Does anybody even read those? And don't get me started on FX's webpages. The Shield's page isn't too bad, but Sunny's is awful... it takes FOREVER to load, and I'm on a cable modem. NO site needs THAT much Flash. Dragging around the characters' heads is fun for about 3 seconds. Who thought that up?

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Veritas - The Olympics

Well, the Olympics ended today. It seems I get more interested in it every two years. Previous to 2006 I didn't really care. Although 1996 Atlanta I cared a bit... the torch ran through my town, which was pretty cool. And in 2006, of all things, I got addicted to curling. Yeah. Curling. Maybe the screaming reminded me of home. Or maybe it was the Sweedish Women's team. I don't know. But it turned out to be interesting.

This year, Michael Phelps' drive for 8 was the initial interest. Then there was the lovely Nastia Liukin (my future wife) winning gold in Women's Gymnastics All Around. Alicia Sacramone. Shawn Johnson winning the gold in Balance Beam (fuck you Collinsworth for pointing out she was short, she's probably self conscious about it and you point it out to the entire nation... way to go douchebag). The US volleyball teams were fantastic, Misty May (sorry I do have to point out it sounds like a porn star name) and Kerri Walsh , and those two guys... and the men's team won too right? And of course Usain Bolt's crazy world record breaking feats. And there was plenty more that was great to see.

And on top of all that, we Americans should be very proud of our athelets. Not only in the medals they won, but in the way they conducted themselves. They gave their all, in most cases it paid off, and furthermore, simply showed amazing sportsmanship (Dara Torres). It's a shame we didn't get the 2012 Olympics.

Speaking of which, does anyone else see the irony of London hosting the Olympics after Beijing? From one country that tramples human rights to one that has a worse record of such. And don't throw any of that "Magna Carta" bullshit in there either. England has suffocated human rights for a thousand years. Need I point out further irony that England ruled Hong Kong for centuries, only returning control to the Chinese fairly recently?

Well, on to the closing ceremony. I could give a shit about the opening ceremony, or even the closing, but I figured I'd watch. It wasn't that bad. I got the whole "the torch may be out but it burns on in us" thing. There wasn't the need for the "Memory Tower" to be that long a segment. One highlight... Jackie Chan... "Jackie! AIY-YEAAAHH! One more thing!"

But the British segment... wow... god awful. The London mayor? Did they vote on who looks the most British? Jesus. Now, I'm no gay fashion guru like Jay (I know all redundant), but the goofy actors waiting for the bus had an abundance of gray in their outfits. Were they all chimney sweeps? Jesus. How do you go from the colorful Beijing Olympics to say, "Hey look, we're going to be grayer than a morning Beijing smog!"...

... and back to the trampling of human rights... Leona Lewis' wailing to "Whole lotta love". Was anyone else praying she'd fall off that 20ft pedestal? How do you put "She was god awful" in harsher terms? She sounded like a retarted Mariah Carey.

Let's switch gears for a minute. Being the dork that I am, I was interested to see how medal totals matched up with country populations. In theory, the bigger the population, the more medals that country should win. In other words, it's the simple bell curve. A few countries with a large population, and more countries with smaller populations, and those few countries winning lots of medals, whereas the smaller countries winning less. And for the most part... that's true. Of course it's not going to be a perfect bell curve, since there are other factors. For example, Russia won a shitload of medals ranking third, but ranking ninth in population. The size of the upper and middle classes of a country is one factor. It's that population that really produces the atheletes that compete, reason being time and money. They have the money to spend to train, and the time it takes to train. Basically... expect China to run away with even more medals in future Olympics. With not only a massive population to produce capable and talented athelets (a la Bell Curve), but the ever growing upper and middle classes and federal health and fitness programs, they will be a force to be reckoned with. Below I compiled a list of countries ordered by population, with the rank they finished in the Olympics... yeah I'm a dork. But I'm not dorky enough to plot it on a graph... or maybe I am but I'm too tired to do it at the moment. And I probably should have noted the Total Number of Medals instead of Rank, but whatever.

China 2
India 51
United States 1
Indonesia 38
Brazil 17
Nigeria 44
Russia 3
Japan 11
Mexico 51
Vietnam 69
Germany 6
Ethiopia 27
Egypt 69
Turkey 25
Iran 57
France 7
Thailand 44
England 4
Italy 9
South Korea 8
South Africa 69
Spain 14
Ukraine 10
Colombia 57
Argentina 30

(keep in mind some numbers look bad, but if they're low (like >20), then that mean's they're TIED at that rank with other countries... Hence why total num of medals would have been a better choice)

Monday, August 11, 2008

Veritas - TV Review - Wipeout (ABC)

Sadly, I've watched a lot of tv in my time. I'll admit to that. But it at least makes me feel like I'm qualified enough to review shows and episodes. This first one goes out to ABC's Wipeout, only because it happens to be the first show on my list with a new episode coming up... Tuesday August 12th.

Let's do Pro's and Con's... Con's first...

CONS
  • The Commentary/ Commentators- This first because it is by far the WORST part of the show. The two hosts, John and... John... yes... you read that right... believe me, it was more painful to type than to read. The two hosts of the show are named John and John. Casting really failed on this one because had they picked at least one better host, then that host's name would have fallen in the set of all better hosts... which would include other "John's", but would have also included EVERYONE. Basically what I'm saying is that there is NO NEED to have the hosts named the same, especially when they both completely lack charisma, personality, and any skill for commentary. There have been times when I would be laughing at the show (like the contestants)... really laughing, hard... and I would be derailed by something one of these unworthy of tv-time idiots said. In the week 6 episode, I had to MUTE what they were saying just so that I wouldn't try to jam a single pen through one ear and out the other.
  • Sometimes the obstacles are LAME... there I said it. The qualifying obstacles are kind of cool, the "Sweeper", cool, the "Dreadmill"... sigh... is pretty bad. Even "The Wipeout Zone"... which is supposed to be the point to the show, is probably the worst... the "Spinner" - a giant platform that spins with padded columns on it - is the saving grace for the "Zone". It easily packs quite a hurt on the contestants. Basically anything that looks fun for the contestant is lame, but anything that hurts them is good :)
PROS
  • Jill Wagner - One word. Gorgeous. For those of you who don't know (I had to google it because she really looked familiar), she's the lovely girl from the Mercury car commercials... yeah :) By far, the best part of the show. Unfortunately, she's only doing the 'field reporting', i.e. talking to the contestants. She should be doing the commentary too, just fire John and John. What's also good is you get to see her openly laugh at the contestants as they fall and hurt themselves. I've always been of the mindset that you can judge a girl by what she finds funny. That being said, the lovely Ms. Wagner is perfect.
  • Watching the contestants get hurt. It never gets old.
  • Watching the fat people struggle with the course. It's just too funny.
In short, it's a good enough watch if you can stand annoying hosts, love watching people getting hurt and beautiful women. It's like Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC) + Beautiful girl - Guy LeDouche - Two funny hosts + Two awful hosts.

I feel it's worth a watch, and I will continue to watch it. If you are interested check it out on ABC Tuesdays at 8pm. It's an hour long show FYI. It is also available on ABC.com the day after with limited commercials in their online player, which isn't half bad, but that's another review for another time. I tend to watch online, but that's my personal preference.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Veritas - Web Review 1 - GoDaddy.com Blog

All the talk recently in the office got me thinking about resurrecting my desire to stand on my own soap box... hence what you're currently reading. However, this was not the first stop...

I tried the free blogging tool offered by godaddy.com, and needless to say, it did not meet my expectations. However, that does just make the old adage "You get what you pay for" that much more true. Long story short... it posted a blog entry automatically for me, then would not post the one I wanted. After refreshing a bunch of times, the page could no longer be found. It spent a day like that. Finally, out of frustration I surrendered my free blog credit and then tried applying it again, but it seems that only caused MORE problems, such as a "1" being added to my username, but only in some places and not in others [damn programmers :)]. Once I realized my dream of blogging would not be fulfilled with the free service, I surrendered my free credit for the second and last time.

Summary:
GoDaddy.com free blog tool: FAIL

Side Note: This is no reflection on the other features of GoDaddy.com. More reviews later.

Veritas - Mission Statement

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen...(well hello beautiful )

For many of you, you are reading me ramble, rave, and rant for the very first time. For the very few people who actually did read my blog on myspace, kudos, and why did you bother wasting your time like that?

Anyways, it's business time. I haven't really written a blog in a long time, but I feel like I can start it up again, and maybe someone will read. Maybe some of you may even find it entertaining, or perhaps even enlightening Those who are bold and daring enough should expect the following from Veritas:

  • Truth (more on that later)
  • Reviews of sorts (movies, tv, music, etc.)
  • Less ranting (than the myspace blog)
  • More well-thought out... thoughts
  • Return of "Line of the Day" and perhaps even some "What did I learn"
  • Social commentary and observations
  • Less use of the word "Anyways"
  • Some other really cool stuff I guess
Basically a continuation and overall replacement of the myspace blog is what you should expect here, plus the noted improvements above. But as such it still carries the same name, "Veritas". What started as a way for me to let my peeps know that the blog or bulletin posted was really from me instead of some hacker, I started every title with "Veritas", which of course means "Truth", this way it was guaranteed to be the real thing. But as I progressively entitled each one, I began to think of the blog itself as being named "Veritas", with the sole intention of speaking only the truth. That same spirit will continue here. I think for the most part I'll still be writing off the top of my head, so it won't be anywhere near perfect. But therein lies the beauty. I'm partially anxious to see the guaranteed evolution of Veritas. But I hope you readers actually take more from it than I will. Best case scenario, I hope you at least enjoy it. So let's have some fun...

Pappa Joe