Beer is the Reason: Adult Musicals are Awesome!

People say that musicals are old fashioned.  That it doesn't get with the times.   I disagree.  Some musicals are awesome.  Loved the production values and music of Sound of Music.  Mary Poppins was fun.  Moulin Rouge was great.  Rocky Horror...eh, doesn't appeal to me.

And then there's these two shows. I'll let them speak for themselves.

(Avenue Q.  Love this show.   Take one Muppets, add a side of sex, and dirty humor.)

Intro:

Internet is for Porn:

Evil Dead: The Musical.  WTFWT???

Houseware Employees:

Beer is the Reason: Why I caved and bought Heroes Season 2 on Bluray

Celebratory beer drinking has to be the reason why the writing for Heroes Season 2 took such a huge dive into the deep end.   

I'm a Heroes fan.  Been one since San Diego Comic Con 2006 when I went to the panel to originally oogle Ali Larter(Varsity Blues) and Hayden Panettiere(Malcolm in the Middle).   Came out as a fan of Greg Grunberg for his funny personality and respected Milo Ventimiglia for giving his "Grunberg is My Hero" shirt to a fan right off his back.

For those who haven't seen Heroes yet....what is wrong with you?  Season One was one of the best shows ever!  First ever obviously multi-racial cast since the original Star Trek,  good acting, nice over arcing main theme and a nasty ass Villain named Sylar all culminating in an explosive finally in New York city.  "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World".  Huge following, huge hit, grass roots movement.  Talk about Heroes, talk about Heroes talk about Heroes.   Obviously I bought Heroes Season One on Bluray(thanks for making me wait Universal/Kenny G.).

Well all this success went to the writers heads and they obviously started imbibing the celebratory beer prior, during, and post writing the episodes because most of it did not have the cohesiveness or the charm of season one.  In fact season two stories remind me of this commerical:

Now imagine the road means "awesome" and replace driving with writing and you have season two.  Didn't go to SDCC 2007 so didn't attend the Heroes panel then but the buzz phrase for that one was "Don't talk about it".  Gee prophetic anyone?  Stories weren't terribly engaging, pacing is off, no over arcing plot, "SuperMan Whiny" is back.  Tim Kring apologized for the season and HRG is still awesome HRG.  At least they got that right.   Despite all my complaints I still bought Heroes Season two on Bluray as well.  Jack Coleman(HRG) ruled Season One in "Company Man" and they really developed his character in Season two when he went to visit his mentor in Europe.  I'll raise a glass to the writers for that one.

Which brings us to Heroes Season three.

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TALK ABOUT IT.

Yup went to the SDCC 2008 panel, ever hopeful for something good and boy did I feel rewarded.  The magic I felt when watching the original SDCC 2006 pilot, which was never to be aired again but because of popular demand is now included in the DVD and Bluray S1 boxsets,  is back.  The shortened writers strike gave the producers the time they needed to get the writers into Alcoholics Anonymous long enough that they stopped drinking and started writing again.   Pilot for S3 showed their results.

Prepare to get your socks rocked on September 22 for the 3hr premier of Heroes Season 3.   Just be prepared for Season 4 to suck since the writers are obviously going to relapse into drinking after this season is over.

This blog has been brought to you by the writers drink of choice Slusho.  

Beer is the Reason: Olympic Boxing Judging is the way it is

There is no way that in almost all the Gold medal fights that the Chinese fighters all won or were kicking their opponents ass.  Watching the replay on NBC.

Case in point first match.  

China vs. Mongolia.   

round 1:  Barely any fighting maybe one or two exchanges.  Mongolia fighter doesn't even really throw a punch.  

round 2: Mongolia fighter coach throws in the towel.

You can see the disgust in the Mongolian fighters body english.  Official statement says he had an "injured shoulder", BS, was ordered by ring doctors to go to the local hospital but refused.  Not suspicious at all.

Match 2:  China vs Ireland

How in the hell did the Chinese fighter win?  Bribery or something close to it.  None of the clear blows that the Irish fighter was landing were being credited while obvious misses were being credited to the Chinese fighter.

Match 3:  China vs Italy

Well....I guess the only way to win is to clearly and decisively dominate the opponent so that the judges can't cheat.

I can't watch anymore of this.  I would have loved it if China won fair and square, and some of their boxers did come out to fight but to be determined by politics is bs.  If this keeps out I would agree that Amateur boxing should be ejected from the games.  This is disgraceful.  Those judges must be bribed or so intoxicated with beer that they can't score right.  That's it, it must be the beer.

It's 2am and this is hilarious

Canada Olympic Medal Haul: to-date 17

I love this little frenchie....and yes she could so kick my ass with both arms and one leg tied behind her back.   Look at her comment it's none of this "I'm happy to be here" crap it's "I'm going to come back and kick all your asses."  She's just awesome.

Sergerie fought her way to Canada's best-ever finish in taekwondo, winning her silver medal in the 67-kilogram event.

The 23-year-old from Ste-Cathérine, Que., lost a close gold-medal bout to the defending and reigning world champion, South Korea's Kyungseon Hwang.

"The gold medal was the dream for me. I'm happy that I have the silver and I hope my country is proud of me, but this silver just pushes me even harder to come back and win that gold medal," Sergerie told CBC.

Finally the medal drought end!

Now this is what I'm talking about!  Finally Team Canada medals and not with 2nd or 3rd but with Gold!   Now look at that smile, look at that pride.  Celebrate that medal because you just became the darling of Canada's Summer Olympic dreams of 2008.

And it didn't end there.  After 1 week of medal drought, Canada, who sent 300+ athletes to Beijing, in two days of competition is bringing back at least 7 medals.  Wrestling, a swimming pool medal(finally), and  rowing.  Lots of rowers.  8 men. 4 men. 2 women. 2 men.

Why are our rowers/paddlers so strong?  One of the commentaries on CBC's website made by Kelsey sums it up nicely.  

It can be argued that our National Team (men & women) have the WORST facilities of any national rowing program in the world - yet we still post these results. Why? Is it because the athletes currently in Beijing watched Derek, Darren, and Terry win Gold in '92 and thought "I can do that." Or maybe it was the story of Silken, or the raw desire-to-win of Marnie and Kathleen that gave them hope. 

Perhaps it is because the these particular athletes do NOT believe that just making the Olympics is a goal in itself... they believe that if you're going to go, you might as well aim for the highest and rarest prize in sport.

Go here for the complete comment.

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/story/2008/08/17/olympics-yourview-rowing.html#socialcomments

Finally these are soundbytes I wish I heard from all our athletes.  From the 8 men crew:

"We never stopped, we just kept on pushing, every stroke," said coxswain Brian Price.

The reigning world champions were seeking redemption for their crushing defeat in Athens in 2004, when they entered as medal favourites and finished fifth.

"In Athens, it was a very hard fought race. It was one where we were behind, and we had to fight back. Here we dominated, and that is such a testament to what a great crew this was," said Jake Wetzel.

I bet you each and every one of them are married to the prom king/queen.

Big Boom in the TDot.

Forget SF for the next blog. This footage is amazing....and so close to home. Well around 13km/8miles away. I slept through it all. Really. Work is near storage tanks too. Time to transfer.

Back from SDCC 2008 and San Francisco

So what can I say? Merchandise heavy, poorer, and fighting through panels. Exactly what I was expecting Comicon to be.

To start: Exhibition hall. BUSY.

Pros: Lots and lots of booths to go through. Distributors and sellers were out enforce to display their wares. It was great. Free swag everywhere!

Hot cosplay girls. :p

Cons:
This year they added a gaming section to the exhibit hall. As if it wasn't already crowded already with toy booths, comic booths, tv/movie promo booths the left side of the hall was dominated by the Street Fighter IV setup. I love SF and am looking forward to it but come on! Stupid booth took up a big chunk of the aisle.

Add in the fact Hasbro was doing a ticket lineup to get in the buy lineup was annoying as hell.

Stupid fat fans. Don't just stop and stare at something like a dumb deer. If you see something interesting move over to the side! Place is crowded enough as it is without your 300lb fat ass blocking the aisle.

Panels:

Pros: Pleasant surprise were the 24, BSG, Doll House and Avatar panel. Season 4 preview of 24 was so good I now want to watch the previous seasons to catch up. Damn you Comicon! BSG was funny with a large bunch of the cast there. Joss Whedon's Dollhouse was interesting. Avatar was nuts. Soooooo many Avatards. Chibi Momo was awesome. V should have been there. Also had a few panels I really wanted to go to such as the Venture Bros and Heroes.

Cons: Con organisers dropped the ball big time here. In 2006 there were so many interesting and varied panels that the problem people had were which panel to go to and which they would have to miss. This year the good panels were surrounded by SUCK panels so the lineup for the good panels were insane. Didn't get into the Venture Brothers panel since the lineup was huge. Heroes panel lineup started the PREVIOUS day at around 6pm for a 10:45am panel. So being a sucker I lined up at 4am the next morning to get in. As far as I'm concerned Season 3 Eps.1 is awesome. It's like the magic from the 2006 Heroes panel was back. Season 2 obviously sucked ass.

Swag:

Pros: Lots of swag to get. I got some. Royal and Ray got alot.
Super Pros: FREE SWAG. Lots and lots of free swag. Plus I got to see Tropic Thunder early! Awesome Awesome movie! Stiller is great, Black is great, Downey Jr is hilarious. Look for cameos. Alot of cameos. I didn't think that guy was Tom Cruise until he did that Tom Cruise-y type move at the end.

Talk about SF next post. Need food.