FYI- That chimp thing

Chimpanzees are apes, not monkeys.

Profane Conversion tables

Ever wonder what your roommate means when he says he has an assload of homework? Wonder no more. Here are the conversion tables for profane units of measurement.

1 fuckton = 5 shittons

1 shitton = 226 assloads

1 assload = 4 buttloads

1 buttload = approximately 16.3 pounds

Note: the above measurements are all in imperial units. A metric fuckton is approximately 1.1 fucktons.

Maybe they should call the show Antiheroes

Oh Heroes, you just don't know what you're doing anymore do you?

I see that you've decided to switch the format from five plots that go nowhere per episode to one plot that goes nowhere per episodes. I suppose that's an improvement, maybe.

You're still pretty hung up on this whole "paint the future" thing. So much so that you've given that power to SIX CHARACTERS across three seasons. The artist who draws all the pictures must have one hell of a contract.

I think it's telling that the protagonists are such colossal fuckups that they need to check the future once a year to see how their current actions are going to destroy the world. I mean, really, each season has featured at least one catastrophic power-related disaster that our heroes need to STOP THEMSELVES FROM CAUSING. It's gotten to the point where you've even run out of apocalypses, such that they're using season one's over again. A picture of Washington blowing up right where the picture of New York blowing up used to be. Was that supposed to come off as extremely lazy? Did you even bother to draw a new picture or did you just photoshop the old one?

While we're there, why is it that the government bugs Bennet's storage locker, a place only he knew existed up until a month ago yet doesn't bother to watch Isaac Mendes' loft, a place that practically every character in the series has visited and a site used as a lab by both Pinehearst and the Company? Maybe the government figures that two such utter failures as Matt and Peter are just going to screw up and get caught anyway that it's not worth chasing them. Those two are so incompetant that they'll probably kill themselves trying to fix a toaster.

Fun with geneology

My many times Great Grandfather, Sir Henry Wallop, was Royal Surgeon to Queen Elizabeth. For his service he received a coat of arms featuring three unicorns.

Great Historical Deaths

King Charles VIII of France 1470-1498

Notable life events- King of France for 15 years. Launched successful invasion of Naples. Conquered Florence. Expelled from Italy by Venetian coalition.

Cause of Death- Low door frame.

Thoughts from the Oscars, cause I'm original

Apparently the way to save the Oscars is to turn it into a low-budget version of the Tonys. And the funny thing is it works.

I think the industry that's going to pull us out of the recession is the making fun of the recession industry.

Steve! Open it! Way to go Steve. You ruined the Oscars.

A tribute to past Best Supporting Actress winners? Um, what?

I think the Best Supporting Actresses are a secret society. Or maybe a cult.

Okay, this new method of introducing the nominees is weirding me out. On the one hand it's sort of sweet to give everyone genuine complements but it reminds me of the last couple episodes of an American Idol season. What was wrong with showing clips from the films

Penelope Cruz is looking like a Young Angela Patrelli.

Wow, someone put some serious thought into this. The Best Screenplay presentation was both clever and appropriate.

I like that the first person to throw out some politics was a writer.

Pixar burn!

Senseless barrage of animation! We're back to form.

If you didn't know WALL-E was going to win you may be clinically retarded.

They're really going over the top for the set on the Art Decoration award. See my previous comments re: the Tonys only minus the low budget thing.

I think its funny that Dark Knight was nominated for the Makeup award and it featured a guy wearing actual makeup.

Ah technical awards. Nothing like forcing people used to being behind the camera to give speeches in front of a room full of actors.

Slumdog Millionaire draws first blood against Benjamin Button.

The entire Oscars should be done by two stoners on a couch.

DP stands for Director of Photography. You have a dirty mind.

Random musical number. The hell?

Robert Downey Jr. as Shaft. I would watch that.

Letting Heath's family accept his award was a classy move. I just wish they could have had a less Joker picture of him to have in the background.

This may be a little tactless to say right now, but the Ledger family has one hell of a gene pool.

Philippe Petit just balanced an Oscar on his chin. Hell yes.

2008 was a big year for car stunts.

I like how the technical awards are presented in the order they happen in the production of the film. Were they always done that way?

Boom goes the dynamite.

I like that Slumdog actually got an Indian guy on stage. That guy made a sound mixing award seem like it was a much bigger award. Good for him.

Do they make sure the people who vote for the technical awards actually know something about sound editing and visual effects? Or is it like a selectman election where you just check a box at random?

I didn't realize that "Down to Earth" was an African spiritual.

Song duel! East versus west! That's how they should settle it.

Hey, what's this new show that Nathan Filion's doing? Why haven't I heard about it before?

Goddamnit, stop the pretentious camera work on the people we've lost montage. I can only read half their names.

So did they leave Heath Ledger out of the montage because he won the best supporting Oscar?

It must be interesting to be the guy whose job it is to film shots of the director working to use for the best director montage.

Danny Boyle thanked Tigger. Not enough Winnie the Pooh characters get thanked in award shows.

So the Jai Ho dance was choreographed by the man who pierced the side of Christ with the Spear of Destiny? That man has range.

Way to sneak in self congratulating into someone else's Oscar nomination, Halle Berry.

Sophia Loren scares me.

Kate Winslet's dad has an impressive whistle.

I just saw Edward Cullen sitting behind Mickey Roarke and it creeped me the fuck out.

The Academy gets over its homophobia. Brokeback Mountain is avenged.

Slumdog for the win. It is written.

Every film that wins Best Picture should have the whole cast rush the stage.

Dollhouse- Actual Review

So, that in depth discussion of Dollhouse just turned into speculation about what the myth arc of the show will be about. I neglected one key detail: Is the show actually any good? So here are some actual thoughts on the quality of the show rather than the plot hooks. Bear in mind that all statements and assertions made here should be read with a "thus far" immediately following, as there have only been two episodes, so yeah.

Is it good?

Short answer: Yes

Long Answer: Yes if it was written by anyone other than Joss Whedon. Whedon has set the bar for himself pretty high and over the past couple years managing to deliver sequentially more with less (Buffy ran for 7 seasons, Angel for 5, Firefly for 1/2, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog for 42 minutes of pure awesome). So from anyone else this would be phenomenal, from Whedon it's a little below par. So far.

Pros:
Eliza Duskhu- Eliza Duskhu is always great, and giving her a show she can essentially use as a massive demo real can only be a good thing. Her ability to create substantially different personas for each set of implanted memories

The ensemble- For the most part the ensemble is pretty solid, with a few welcome familiar faces (Look it's Helo! Look it's Fred!). Harry Lennix as Echo's handler, Boyd Langdon, is the moral center of the show, and combines fatherly affection for Echo with trepidation at the actions of the Dollhouse. Reed Diamond's head of security, Laurence Dominic, was mildly irritating in the first episode but by episode two I began to sympathize with the guy whose job it is to deal with rogue actives and cases gone wrong. The only false notes are Fran Kranz' smarmy lab tech and Olivia Williams' Dollhouse CEO. The former is annoying, and the latter... I'm not sure what it is exactly, but the character doesn't feel all there yet.

Cons:
Sketch- The premise of the show kinda sketches me out. I mean sure the Dollhouse creates hostage negotiators and assassins and, I dunno, Pilates instructors, but a lot of what they do is essentially prostitution. And that's a little creepy. I find myself wondering if, in addition to wiping the Actives' memories after mission, they also check them for STDs.

Humor- Or rather, lack thereof. All of Joss Whedon's works to date have been awesomely funny, even (especially?) at their darkest. Dollhouse is not especially funny. There is a distinct lack of the idiosyncratic dialogue Whedon is known for. Perhaps part of the problem is that a lot of the "funny" lines come from Topher, the sketchy lab tech, and he's just annoying.

Jury's Still Out:

Universe- All of Whedon's previous works have had exceptionally well realized universes. So far we haven't gotten much of a glimpse at the Dollverse or whatever term fans are calling it. The technology exists to extract and implant memories, so what also exists? The terms haven't been defined yet so we don't know what to expect. So there's a little super science, but how much? Is Active creation the one divergence from reality or will we later run into robots and ray guns?

Overall:

It's neat. Certainly worth watching. Give it time and it may become something truly awesome. Place your betts on how Fox will screw it over.

Dollhouse

So yeah, Dollhouse. Thoughts.

I just finished watching the second episode. As far as I noticed, people held off on reviewing the series after the pilot, which was a good call. The pilot basically said "Hello, I am the premise! Goodbye!" It was interesting, but left you waiting for the other shoe to drop. In essence, the pilot set up a fairly formulaic adventure of the week series. Echo gets a new personality each week to deal with some new problem. Agent Ballard slowly gets closer but never quite finds the Dollhouse. You could milk two or three seasons out of that, and it wouldn't be that bad. Take a look at Burn Notice for a show that gets a lot of mileage out of a solid cast and a good formula.

But the thing is, this is a Joss Whedon show, so we expect more. Joss Whedon's shows have over arching plots, and season or series long adversaries. That's where episode two comes in. It says to us "Hello, I am the Meta-plot! My friend premise is here too, but I think you and I can be great friends!" And we all breathe a sigh of relief because that's what we were waiting for.

Rather than discuss the plot of either episode I'm just going to talk about possiblities for meta-plot. There may be spoilers though. So far the plot hooks established:

An escaped Active, Alpha, with a composite personality and a tendency to cut people up. (Note: Something about being called Alpha leads to weirdness. Alpha was a rogue agent in the MiB cartoon and the master AI in RvB: Reconstruction.) He spared Echo's life during his killing spree.

A myserious naked guy who knows Echo's past. Odds that it's Alpha- 2:1

Mark Sheppard, world's greatest character actor (Badger-Firefly, Romo Lamkin-Battlestar Galactica, Whatever the villain's name was-Bionic Woman, Awesome bank robber-Burn Notice, I watch too much tv), plays his least sketchy role ever. Odds he's actually sketchy- 3:2

Dollhouse has mysterious backers. Odds they're evil- 1:1

Echo is retaining some memories, at least subconsciously. Not giving odds as I'm pretty sure that her developing her own personality is the main plot of the series.

Odds that at least one character we've already met is secretly an Active- 5:1

Some mysterious agency orchestrated a massive plot to hire Echo for a round of "Most Dangerous Game," involving hiring a psycho outdoorsman, hiring a mercenary disguised as a cop, falsifying a complete background, and killing two people. During the chase she drank a canteen of drugged water that made her start to see past incarnations of herself. Odds that the whole plot was a Xanatos Roulette to get her to do that- 3:1

Alpha killed the aforementioned mercenary. Odds are split even whether he was doing it to protect Echo or cover his own tracks.

At one point the Actives' base programing was Ninja. They flipped out and killed each other. Odds that that is awesome- Chainsaw:Bacon

Voice Actor Recognition

Is it just me or is Jim from the Office the narrator on those Blackberry Storm commercials?

Goddamn it, I have a blog

The fact that I am giving in a creating a blog strikes me a some gross personal failure. Blogs have always seemed to me equivalent to annoying yappy dogs: they achieve little and are all their owners can talk about. (I suppose the comparison can also be made that if you don't feed them for a couple days they die)

As a result I have steadfastly avoided one of my own. (That is excepting a brief period in 04 when I had a live journal dedicated to nothing but sensational lies about myself. However that floundered when I lost interest.) Then why, you (and indeed I) may ask, are you now creating one of these tiresome creatures? I guess I'm just that bored lately and slightly wasting the time of some dozen or so people I would otherwise have to speak to on Instant Messenger gives me something with which to occupy my time. Bully.

So then, what to speak, ugh blog, about on this little slice of nowhere? I have named the page "Wonderful Starfish" in hopes that I may connect it in someway with my video projects, authored under the same name. Theater of course, both things I participate in and things I see. Movies, should I ever go to another one or actually watch my goddamn Netflix. Television, as I watch far too much of it these days (though very little of it on tv). Literature perhaps, for given values of "literature." Politics, should something iratate me enough to warrant a return to political editorials. Gaming perhaps, as it's one of the few things I do any more outside the theater. Food maybe, as I find myself cooking more and more these days.

Okay, wooo! Blog. Goddamn it.