Category Archives: Television

Opinions about certain television shows

Life in 2011

Posted on by

2011 was a lot of fun and I consumed a lot.  Food, drinks, music, movies and media in general.  Thanks to social things like Spotify, Goodreads, Foursquare and Google here is what I enjoyed the most this past year.

News

reeder

I read 58,776 articles via Reeder, twice the amount that I did the year before.  I can’t recommend the app Reeder enough for reading RSS feeds, it is available for Mac, iPad and iPhone and I wouldn’t be able to keep up with everything without it. Probably 90%+ of those 58,000 articles are just skimming headlines but Reeder’s interface makes consuming a fire hose of news easy.

I read WSJ on my iPad weekdays on the morning subway ride, The Economist rounds out the week when I usually take the magazine with me on the way to a bar Friday or Saturday night.  Saturday and Sunday mornings are spent with coffee, the NY Times and my couch. The best new blogs I’ve gotten in to this past year have been The Verge, which has replaced Engadget and Gizmodo for all my tech news and WSJ Metropolis for hyper-local New York news.

Music

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

This has been one of the best years for music in recent memory.  Pearl Jam had their 20-year anniversary which included re-releases of their first 3 albums and a festival-concert near where I grew up in Wisconsin.  Spotify and the launch of iTunes Match + iCloud even pushed music forward ahead from a consumption stand point.  A lot of albums that made my top 10 list were to be expected – M83, Jetpacks, Pearl Jam.  But St. Vincent and The Black Keys were my favorite new bands (well, new to me at least).  My top 10 albums for 2011 (click to listen in Spotify):

  1. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
  2. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
  3. Eddie Vedder – Ukulele Songs
  4. The Black Keys – El Camino – not available on Spotify :(
  5. We Were Promised Jetpacks – In the Pit of the Stomach
  6. The Naked and Famous – Passive Me, Aggressive You
  7. Holy Ghost! – Holy Ghost!
  8. Pearl Jam – Vitalogy Re-release
  9. Radiohead – King of Limbs
  10. Pearl Jam – Live on Ten Legs

Books

Jon Krakhauer - Into Thin Air

This was the year I finally got around to a few books I’ve been meaning to read for several years.  I finished Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer which was one of the most inspiring books I’ve read in a while.  My friend, Wipert, gave me a copy of The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant which was also life changing.  I’m probably much more unbearable to be around now that I know which philosophical beliefs I adhere to (Plato and Aristotle) but it made me appreciate philosophy in a whole new way.  Howard Zinn’s, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present was dense but taught me a lot I didn’t know and should be required teaching in public schools at some point.  While they don’t qualify as books, I spent a good amount of my reading time going back to read some of the all-time classic comic series such as Batman Knightfall and the X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga.

Food

The Meatball Shop

There is a lot of great food in New York but I can keep it short.  The Meatball Shop is the greatest place that has ever served food.  Period.  I had a whole long list of other places I was going to through but it really doesn’t matter when you can go to the Lower East Side and get 4 naked balls and spicy sauce for $7.

Movies / TV

Marathon Man

I didn’t see nearly as many movies as I wanted to in 2011 but I did very well on the TV front.  This year consisted of me watching and loving the TV shows:

  1. The Walking Dead
  2. Breaking Bad
  3. Party Down
  4. The Pacific
  5. Sports Night
  6. The Kennedy’s
  7. Californication
  8. Battlestar Galactica

And for older movies:

  1. Carlos
  2. Marathon Man
  3. Exit Through the Gift Shop
I’ll be putting together a separate new movie list leading up to the Oscar’s since I need a few more weeks to sort that one out.

 

2012 should be even a better year.  There’s a whole list of food I want to eat, movies I want to see and books to read.  Looking forward to having lots to do with great people. My first adventure will be Japan and Singapore in about a month.  Can’t wait.

Nip/Tuck New Season

Posted on by

We haven’t all caught up through Season 3 yet, we’re on disc 3, but I’m excited for a new season to start. That means that we have non-stop Nip/Tuck for the foreseeable future. The promo here for Season 4 makes good use of a Goldfrapp song, thanks to Chris for identifying it. It was “Strict Machine” though instead of “Oh la la”. Either way, both are downloaded now so I can feed the addiction I got from the song when seeing the promo that FX plays every 2 minutes. The last episode we watched in Season 3 was possibly the best episode I’ve seen (Christian gets accused of being the Carver). It’s up there with last seasons episode where you find out about Eva. The Star Tribune had a good article about how TV shows are becoming polarized with episodes that are completely plot-contained, i.e. CSI, Law & Order, and then others that are long running, ie 24, Lost, Nip/Tuck. Both sides think the other will fail either to lack of attention in the case of longer more complicated shows or too basic stories with self contained episodes. I think I fall in the longer more arcing stories since I’m utterly addicted to Lost, 24, and Nip/Tuck. In my defense I did read this article in the paper so at least I don’t get everything from the TV.

DirecTV

Posted on by

Last week I had Skypix, the satellite company that services my condo for DirecTV, out to install an HD box and finally get some substantial content to make the TV look pretty. The decision was between Time Warner or DirecTV but since the condo subsidizes part of the DirecTV packages through condo fees that I have to pay anyways, satellite was the choice. I have now discovered/become addicted to Discovery HD and ESPN HD (specifically Sports Center). I just hope the signal doesn’t get crummy in the winter during bad weather.

New Channels

I also get FX now which means Rescue Me and It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia. Both of which I caught parts of this weekend. Unfortunately I can’t record any of the FX stuff since our building doesn’t have enough wiring to support DirecTV DVR and my Media center only gets the old feed of 50 channels (which lacks HD and any of the new channels like FX). I may play around with IR blasters to get the media center to control the set top box and record the channels via a capture card. Or I may realize that I don’t care that much.

Harmony Remote

With the new set top box I have yet another remote for the arsenal of DVD, receiver, TV, and media center. The Mitsubishi TV’s have a pretty good remote system called Netcommand which you can program the TV remote with and then use IR blasters to send the signals to all the individual units. I used this to consolidate everything into 2 remotes: TV and media center. I would’ve liked to get the TV remote to do media center but it uses a different signal type. So the TV remote works well; you select DVD input on the TV and it switches the receiver over, turns the DVD player on, and ejects the tray for a disc. The problem is the remote is a little slow which has become more grueling when trying to navigate the program guide for the satellite. So with that I bought a Logitech Harmony 550 off of eBay which I’ve heard lots of great things about. I’m hoping this will solve the speed issue with the TV remote and get rid of the media center remote. I’m sure Bri will love to learn yet another remote but with buttons like “Watch TV” and “Watch a DVD” it shouldn’t be as bad as explaining input changing on the previous remotes.

The Minneapolis Lost Hour

The receiver also gets music channels courtesy of XM. Complete with a lag in the title/artist info after the music starts which means I can now become an official host of the Lost Hour. I’m going to start brushing up so Chris and Mark don’t slaughter me if we play.

New Furniture

Posted on by

New Furniture: view into the kitchenAfter waiting 4 months I finally received my last two pieces of furniture for the condo. I’ll disperse the pictures throughout the post for your viewing pleasure. Back in October I made the decision to hire an interior designer since I don’t know the first thing when it comes to funk-sway (I wish that was how it’s spelled). So Ammar with Dwelling Designs helped me out. I found out about Ammar through RiverWest since he did the layout of our lobby which I really liked. It worked out really well since we bartered my web services and media center installation skillz for a discount on furniture. Anyways, I ordered this furniture back in October and some of it came in a couple of weeks but the big pieces – the dining table and media cabinet had to be built in Italy and shipped over. They arrived at the beginning of December but they had some sort of damage or defects so they had to ship new ones. Those weren’t shipped out until the end of December and had the same 2 month lead time. I loved the dining table the first time I saw it so it was worth the wait. The legs are wrapped in leather and the glass is thick enough that I’ve considered jumping on it. The media cabinet was Ammar’s idea since all my open shelves of music/movies looked very ‘college-esque’ according to him. I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time, but now that it’s in there the whole place looks much nicer. I just need to get some stuff on top of the cabinet and on the wall. The bedroom is next but Bri is going to do that room since I want her to have some of her own taste in here.

New FurnitureYesterday afternoon I worked from home so I could be there for the furniture delivery. It amazes me that I can perform nearly all my work anywhere with my laptop. The only thing I really need to physically be in the building to do is connecting hardware in the labs or to attend meetings. When I came home yesterday I ran into Mark Wheat in the elevator. Add this to the list of weird run-ins I’ve had lately with people whom I haven’t talked to in a long time. For those of you who don’t know Mark, he was the DJ coach at Radio K before he left to be a fulltime DJ at 89.3 The Current. Turns out Mark bought a condo in my building. What a small world.

Nip/Tuck

New FurnitureBri and I watched the Season 1 finale of Nip/Tuck last night. The show is really good but I think I hyped up the finale to myself after Chris said it was the best thing on Television. Sean and his wife getting back together seemed out of the blue. She seemed pretty upset about his affair, and even after learning from Christian that he was trying to protect her when sneaking out at night to do heroine-implant surgeries…it just didn’t seem in character. I like that they aren’t holding Christian down to the whole family thing. They finally gave him some responsibility but not enough to stop whoring himself out hopefully.

Looking ahead…

New FurnitureThis weekend should be fun. Bri’s sister Tia is coming up tonight and her family is coming tomorrow night for a pre-Birthday dinner in the city. Bri’s birthday is March 1st so friends in Minneapolis are forewarned to keep that night open for some sort of dinner activity. And speaking of upcoming things, I also booked tickets to Seattle in April. I’m going out to meet up with my parents and Leah who is a longtime family friend from Germany. It will be cool to go back and see the first house I lived in. I’m also planning on doing my long-awaited Grunge tour of Seattle. Lots of things to look forward to.

Fuji Ya

Posted on by

The Wave Development SketchThis weekend was pretty low key. Friday night was spent watching the end of Arrested Development with Mark and Bri at my place. I nearly cried when they made the joke with Gob burning the bush. It’s sad to see such a good show go away since I feel that I never find out about good shows until they are either off the air or near to it. I’ll have fond memories of Paal laughing uncontrollably in Marcy Park when we first started watching it last year. Oh well, if Six Feet Under has taught me anything, Everything Ends.

The other big thing that happened this past week is that I found out more about the proposal to build a condo in front of mine. The developer still has a lot of work to go but they want to put up a 34 unit condo called “The Wave” (yes, that’s a really lame name) on the Fuji-Ya property that the Minneapolis Park board owns. They have a PDF of the design located here. The history behind this property is tragic. It was once a Japanese Sushi/Steak house that was family ran but the city took their land by imminent domain. At the time, the Park board wanted it as part of the Mill Ruins park renovation that they are doing all along the river. The city sat on the land for awhile and the historical society noticed that it had some Mill rung’s on it. Since it had these ruins, it was marked as historic and requires the Historical Preservation societies approval before anything can be built there. This ruined any plans the city had for revamping the whole property since the society would most likely want to incorporate those ruins into whatever goes up there. So fast forward to recently where the Heritage Development group proposes this condo project. The Minneapolis Park board first has to sell the land to Heritage before anything can happen. If they do decide to sell the land, the developer has to get the City, which includes the zoning and historic society, to approve the design.

At first I got really worried because I heard these new condos would be 11 stories tall. This would potentially block my awesome view of the river (that’s what the image at the top of this blog right now is). Turns out though that “The Wave” is actually shaped like…a wave. So in front of me it would only be 1 story since their is an attached 1 story restaurant. The actual condos start to the left of my unit at 3 stories or so and it slopes up to 11 at the intersection which isn’t directly in front of RiverWest. It has made me a little bit less concerned about it, but I’m sure the people to the left of me are going to be upset, as I would be.

So this all boils down to a public meeting that is being held this Wednesday (Feb 15th) by the Minneapolis Park board to decide if they should sell this land to the developer or not. I’m planning on going with the rest of RiverWest and we’ll be bringing our torches and pitchforks. I really do hope the land gets developed since it’s just a parking lot and abandoned restaurant right now. I think a 3-4 story retail/condo project would be really good for it. If nothing else the 11 stories on the far end is a bit much.

I also found out today that the furniture I ordered back in October has finally come in! It’s in North Carolina so it will take another week before I have it, but at least it got through customs. The pieces are a glass/leather dining table and a media cabinet to hold all my music/movies. I should be blogging pictures of it by next week if all goes well.

Yes 24, yes.

Posted on by

Holy mother was last night good. I’m not one to talk about TV shows very much (other than my deep love for Six Feet Under) but this Season is definitely back to form. Jack killing the assassin at the end really capped it off. I was surprised that they could show something that gruesome on non-cable television. Chris also pointed out that last season there was no secondary Presidential plot-line like the first 3 seasons had. The first-lady, as ridiculous as she is, really is saving the show by giving it the multi-plot line story that we expect. I’m predicting that the President will either get killed or revealed as one of the bad guys before the season is over.

Last night I managed to get a shard of glass lodged in my finger. If you were thinking about doing this, don’t. It hurts like hell. I wanted to get all the glass out of my air vents and I couldn’t fit a vacuum hose into the space, hence my stupidity. The worst part is I’m not completely sure if I got it out. I might be living with glass in me forever like that bad super villain in Unbreakable. Oh well.

Also, tonight marks the first weekly-bar-night. Why Tuesdays? Since the liquor should be cheap and no one usually has plans. I think we’re going to go to “The Local” which I’m told is a good place. Fear not, I’ll probably blog about it tomorrow.

Six Feet Under: 2000 – 2005

Posted on by

Haven’t been writing anything on here this week since things got busy at work. I went out to dinner with Bri, her sister Tia, and their friend Mark at the Old Spaghetti Factory for my Birthday on Tuesday which was fun. I forgot how much good cheap food you get there. It’s been a little bit warmer this week too so we’ve been able to walk around the city more. I might walk over to Noche for happy hour after work even.

So the most exciting thing that has happened this week (yes, more exciting than my Birthday) was watching the series finale of Six Feet Under. Mark rocks for downloading all of Season 5 while in Paris. The final 3-4 episodes are the best television that will ever be written. I don’t think I would have found them as great if I hadn’t watched everything before it though. I came to realize how attached I was to the characters which made the ending that much better. Most shows don’t get nearly as involved with the characters, especially on such an emotional level like dealing with death.

So I figured that Nate was going to die for sure. After the whole AVM thing in Season 2 it was easy to see it coming. I was a little let down in how he dealt with his situation with Brenda though. Their fighting didn’t seem to be as terrible as he implied and I was really hoping they would get back together for good. I guess it makes sense after the heavy burden he had by feeling a responsibility to stay with Lisa. Now that I think about it more, it’s really ironic that for the first time in his life when he finally chooses to do something for himself, he dies. Genius.

So, since everyone likes lists, here is my top 6 Six Feet Under moments:

  1. Nate buries Lisa in the desert: This was probably the most moving thing I’ve ever seen in television or movies. Nate steals Lisa’s body and illegally buries her in the mountains under a tree because that’s what she wants. Her family wants to bury her in a more traditional way but Nate feels he has to respect her wishes. He takes her body up into the mountains at night and starts digging. They come back to the sun rising over the plot and he has just finished putting the last shovel of dirt on it. He’s a total train wreck and just starts jumping on her grave and screaming.
  2. Nathanial talks to David: At the end of Season 4 after David goes through his whole hijacking thing he has trouble feeling safe and living his life normally. The episode ends with him standing on his porch watching it rain. His father appears and they start talking. David says he wishes he could just feel comfortable again and not be afraid. His dad says he needs to just live life since this is all he has. David replies “I wish it was that easy”. His dad leans in and whispers into his ear “what if it is?” Fade to white.
  3. Final Scene: I’ve read online that some people didn’t like the ending. I thought it was really well done. It is a show about death (and life) so it’s only appropriate that you see them die at the end. I thought they might try to kill them all at once in some funeral home explosion accident or something. What they did was really tasteful though. They even inter-twined it with happy events like Ted and Clair getting married and Keith and David getting married. Plus the song? “Sia – Breathe Me” – I downloaded it the morning after.
  4. Lisa’s brother kills himself: This was by far the most shocking scene of the series. You finally find out how Lisa died and then out of nowhere he puts a gun to his mouth and you watch him pull the trigger. This was up there with something 24 would do.
  5. Nate watches his own funeral: This happened in the season premiere of Season 3. It was when Nate dies but then comes back. When he’s dead for a couple minutes he has the chance to watch his own funeral. He acts all casual like his dad does when walking around and talking to his still-living family members. I can only hope that I will be able to watch my own funeral when I die.
  6. Nate’s Running: I’m sad he gave this up after his brain surgery. I’ll never forget when I was out in Tucson for work and I went running in the desert. I felt like Nate. Running is such a stress relief and I always enjoyed Nate’s revelations while running since I’ve had my own that way.