Cause honestly that’s all I’m capable of just now. Work is being bat-poop crazy right now and honestly I barely have time to make dinner let alone make a string of coherent words and sentences to post in this here space. So in the hopes of tiding y’all over a bit, here’s some links. Over here’s a pretty cool guy who talks about comics and cool TV shows and when you’re really lucky he’ll talk about what he’s up to in his Role playing game. (Old School pen and paper style, even!) oh, and movies! This guy seems to do EVERYTHING! I love that.

And if that’s not enough to slake your geek-chatter thirst, these guys over here have some interesting stuff to say about, um, all kinds of things. I particularly enjoy reading their reviews since they tend to be actual reviews and not just screaming fist waving rants. Ahhh, so nice to be spoken to like an adult, isn’t it?

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Greetings, Rock Lords!

Well, it’s officially fall.  You know, the season.  And with this change to cooler climes comes the one thing everyone anticipates when September rolls around.

No, it’s not Aunt Betty’s annual back wax.  That’s gross.  Go stand in the corner.

No, it’s the Fall TV Season, silly!!  That’s right – it’s the time of year when our favorite shows that didn’t get the axe return to save us from Cliffhangerus Nailbitus (that’s a real science term).  It’s also the time of year when writers, producers, and that hobo in the alley gets to push on you, the viewer, his or her brand new offering to the TV pantheon.

As I promised last week (damn gremlins, I tell you), the next couple of installments of “Office” will feature mini-reviews of a few of these choice morsels.  I won’t cover everything.  I mean jeez… you think all I have is time to sit on my lazy butt and watch TV for you all day?

Okay, I do, but that isn’t the point.  I simply don’t have the time to watch every show that is returning or debuting this season.  But what I can offer is some of my own, personal input and opinion on some of the shows that have caught my interest.  And being a geek, you can bet most of them have some sort of sci-fi theme.  And lucky for you, waiting a week has allowed me to offer you four volunteers for this installment.

Let’s get started, shall we?  Submitted for your viewing pleasure:

“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”

I’m starting off with this one because it’s the first premiere I got to see.  This series started off as a strong contender last season.  Of course, when all of Tinseltown is in the grip of a writer’s strike, there isn’t much in the way of competition.  This show was a mid-season replacement to give people an alternative to reality TV, or shooting themselves in the face because all that was on was reality TV.

It’s a easy premise to produce – it’s based on a popular sci-fi film series that kicks ass and features lots of cool action.  At least, it should have been easy.

I admit I kind of like the show last season.  But again, there wasn’t much to deter me from watching it.  I had already washed my hair a couple of times that night.  This show had and has potential.  So how do the writers continue to screw up what should be a simple formula for a great weekly series?

For starters, take what makes the movies great and throw that into the dumpster.  Make the mother of the leader of the future suddenly make nothing but stupid decisions.  Take out the element of being on the run – something that would add weekly excitement in the same vein as “The Fugitive” – and put a leash on it by having the characters settle down and put your savior of the world in school where he could be an easy target.  Then, take what should be your cash cow – a hot, female Terminator – and make her boring while she acts just like another character she used to play in another show that will be seeing this one real soon in TV Heaven.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  The worst part?  There’s still a few things worth watching in this show.  And I keep doing so.

“Fringe”

I’ve been able to watch the first three episodes since it premiered.  The first thing you may notice is that it resembles “The X-Files”.  Well, forget what you’ve heard, because the similarities end with “FBI agents investigate odd goings-on”.  This show is definitely its own individual.  The difference is pretty clear – where “The X-Files” was all about two agents trying to uncover government conspiracy and a supernatural element, “Fringe” goes in the other direction.  Everything they investigate is science-based.  There’s no skeptic/believer character match-up.  Everyone knows that this stuff is really happening.  The mystery part comes from the fact that everything happening so far has a so-called “pattern” to it.  It’s out protagonists’ job to find out what it is.  Add in a shady, multi-million dollar technology-making company who seems to have an interest in the investigations, and you have yourself a solid little show.

And I love it.  Each cold opening before the credits sets up the episode to follow (standard procedure), but damn does each one grip your nethers hard and threaten to teach them Esperanto.  The best part is the character development.  We have a great group of characters assembled to take on the task of crazy-chasing, and each one is portrayed beautifully by its respective actor/actress.  Even Joshua Jackson, who was a Mighty Duck swimming in a Dawson’s creek before this, impresses me.  And the crazy scientist guy makes me laugh.  He’s nuts.  I’m already looking forward to this show every week with high anticipation.

“Smallville”

This show surprised me upon its return.  I had pretty much given up on it after the end of last season.  The writing had gotten convoluted and sloppy, the characters had gotten boring, and the Lana/Clark drama had burned itself out a couple seasons before.  In short, the show was a mess.  I gave up on it after the finale last spring.

Well, after some thought I decided that I wanted to at least see the premiere so I could find out how the cliffhanger was resolved.  But that was it, I told myself (Yes I talk to myself.  Shaddap.).  After the premiere, I was done.

Yeah, I fell for it.  I got sucked back in.  But here’s the thing – the premiere actually wasn’t half bad.  Now that Millar and Gough (the original head writers) have left, the writing seems to have already improved.  Gone are the angsty, whiney characters of the past seven seasons.  They have been replaced with versions that seem to have finally found their direction and look to go into some creative and bold places.  Plus, the first episode was fun, something I haven’t had watching this show in a long time.  It also helps that Lana has left the show.  Alot.  I’ve even heard rumor that the original rule of “no flight, no tights” may get the old heave-ho.  Well, at least half of it.  With all of these improvements, I may just stick around a little while longer… until Lana guests stars in episode 6 (you think I’m joking).

“Supernatural”

I’ve pretty much loved this show from day one, even with its obvious flaws in the first season.  Now we’re up to season 4, and the show just continues to outdo itself.  The storylines are intense and engaging, and the characters are colorful and fun to watch.  This show is pretty much your standard, monster-of-the-week program.  But, it doesn’t let itself get pigeon-holed into being just that.  There’s an ongoing storyline that always builds up to a pretty explosive conclusion by season’s end.

And the two main cast members - Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki - have incredible chemistry as the Winchester brothers.  They cement the show together; solid performances from two actors who were both previously eye candy for lighter WB soap dramas.  The banter between the two is also what makes the show a lot of fun.  To sum up – this is an in-your-face program about monster hunting with two charismatic leads with writing that gets down and dirty without bogging itself down.  I just have too much fun with this show every week.  It’s one of the ones I look forward to.

That about does it for this week’s list of hopefuls.  Some good stuff comes out of the gate first despite the obvious dead weight.  Next week I offer part two to this series, covering “Heroes”, “Knight Rider”, and an animated show you probably didn’t even know existed.  You probably won’t want to after you read what I have to say about it.  Until then, shut the TV off and go to bed already.

The Don doesn’t touch that dial.  He just stares at it in confusion waiting for his food to be done.

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Today, a friend of mine asked me “Hey, is Tears to Tiara any good?  I saw one of the figures from that game and was curious.”  It was all I could do to hold back the flow of bile in my throat as I explained, as calmly as I could, that Tears to Tiara was a flaming piece of crap when it came out for the PC, and in its shiny new PS3 version, is a good-looking piece of crap.

I could spend hours talking about the many flaws of Tears to Tiara, but that would be ignoring the larger issue at hand here: using moe to push the merchandise of a crappy product on people.  Tears to Tiara is but the latest example of this. Shining Tears and Shining Wind have also lured friends of mine into playing execrable games with drool-inducing character designs and exquisitely crafted merchandise.  It’s a tale of woe often repeated in fan circles: “I started watching [X series] because [Y image] was really cute, but I might as well have stabbed myself in the eyes with a cattle prod and saved myself some pain.”

The phenomenon extends to music, too.  With the boom in seiyuu fan clubs these days, companies know they can make their money back if they attach a popular voice actor/actress to the project and pump out some halfway decent singles.  Mizuki Nana (a wonderful, wonderful lady whose voice can pierce the heavens) and Hirano Aya (who belches her way through songs and really needs to take a few years off so she can learn how to sing) exemplify the moe music industry, releasing hit single after hit single to the delight of everyone who rakes in the royalties.  Companies will use any excuse possible to try and attach these two ladies to their projects so they can write music and guarantee sales.

Amusingly enough, an upcoming anime called White Album, based on a 10-year-old visual novel from the same company that made Tears to Tiara, casts Mizuki and Hirano as the idol singing heroines.  It’s guaranteed to make oodles of cash from whatever CD singles are released, no matter how good or bad the show is.  The funny part is, it’s from the same company that produced Tears to Tiara.  Draw your own conclusions on remake milking.

So anyway, the point of this little Statement of the Obvious is: Be Careful.  The moe industry is ready and willing to sink its claws into your wallet through any avenue it can, and if you want to avoid wasting your time, you need to start being a smarter consumer.  Read reviews.  Ask your friends.  Use them as cat’s paws (God knows I use the tastefully named Richard Kim to gauge the relative quality of products often enough).

And above all, remember that you can enjoy the merchandise without feeling obligated to waste your time and money!   You can save yourself a lot of grief if you can learn to say “hey, that’s a nice toy” without attaching an “I wonder if the source material is any good” to it all the time.

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Greetings, carbon units!

I have failed you. My perfect streak of Office installments has been broken. Due to a ton of crap being hurled at me this week (not literally, because that’s gross), I am unable to give you a full Office of the Don today. Go ahead… flog me, set me on fire, tie me to a non-fuel efficient car and berate me while throwing little pickles at my toes. I deserve it.

But see, it’s not really my fault. It’s those damn gremlins. You’ve seen the movies. Both of them. Those suckers start off looking cute, then you throw a little water on them, give them some chicken about an hour after 11:30 at night, and BAM! - you’re sucking garbanzo beans through a Twizzler just to stay alive.

See what happens when a fan tries to mess with a sequel:

Yeah. It’s not pretty, is it? Even the gosh-darned Batman is put through his paces.

So, now you know what awful, terrible horrors I’ve had to deal with this week. I’m surprised I’m still alive.

Tune in next week when I get back into the nitty gritty and do mini-reviews of a couple of the new and returning shows that have started gracing our television screens this fall.

Meeting adjourned.

The Don has never seen a Gremlin in his life. He just got you good.

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You may have guessed, if you’ve read more than one of my posts, that I enjoy a few creative outlets. Knitting and spinning are, to me, incredibly enjoyable experiences that help me feel a connection to pretty much the whole of human history. I get wrapped up in letting my mind boggle that almost since mankind has been clothing himself he’s been doing the same thing that I do when I sit down to spin. Just dang. I find the act of creating the yarn (and subsequently knitting it up) assuages my creativity and my need to make something.

The trouble is that there have always been other things that I’ve wanted to do. I’ve been madly jealous of my brother’s artistic skills (and subsequently the artistic skills of several of my friends.) I once also dreamed of being a writer of fiction when I grew up. But, it was not to be. I can’t draw really, and I’ll spare you my fiction (for NOW!!!) so I just go on feeling like I ought to be doing something creative with my life. Instead, I get up in the morning and go to work, and I slog though the tedium of an office, and come home again and make dinner, and when I can I snatch some time at the spinning wheel while I watch today’s episode of Whatever’s On TV… you see where I’m going with this, don’t you? Maybe even sympathize?

Geeks are well known for their desire to add to the creative force that is human culture- producing everything from fan art to fanfics to movies that are an homage to some slice of geek life. But not all of us are so brave as to get out there and be creative in public, and while rolling around the ‘net I have found that more reasoned heads than mine have a few suggestions. The first tip on this list seems to me to be the most important step.

Name your vision.
If you’re in love with working in a particular medium, you’re heads above the crowd because you know what you love to do. And once you know what you love to do, you can create a vision of how you will express that in your life.

If you don’t know what you want to do, then it’s going to be very difficult to do it. There are several other fantastic ideas, such as taking 10 minutes to just do something towards furthering your work, and creating a morning ritual to get your creative brain off to a good start. The best advice I can think of is the same advice that I’ve seen everywhere that talks about this sort of thing: Just Start Doing It Already! Really. Of course, that’s easier said than done, but there are plenty of ways to force yourself into it- NaNoWriMo is the only thing coming to mind right now, but I’m sure there are more.

Is there something that get’s your creative juices flowing? Some other kick in the butt than forcing a novel from your fingers in one month? Comments on my madness?

*As an unrelated note, if any of you are trying to click those artistically fabulous links over there to the right, we know that the store is totally borked right now. We’re working on it, but it seems to have committed suicide in a rather spectacular manner, so it might take a few days to finish getting it all smoothed out and back up. Sorry ’bout that.

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Greetings, my excellent friends!

As one of our new Spwug colleagues pointed out yesterday, the European Organization for Nuclear Research just activated their Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.  In case you aren’t caught up to speed, the purpose of this Collider is to help physicists better figure out particle physics – including learning more about the Big Bang, black holes, antimatter, and dark matter.  There was even some debate over the safety of such an endeavor, as well as some attempts to stop the Collider from ever being fired up.  But, as of yesterday, the button was pressed, and first phase has begun.  That sucker is on like TRON!

And… so far so good, right?  I mean, we haven’t been invaded by inter-dimensional beings, had our souls devoured by one of The Old Ones, or been sucked into the never-ending void of nothing.

Although, I do have to wonder why my wife and I suddenly have a roommate with a weird eye-stalk coming out of his forehead, or why my walls are bleeding.  Eh, I’m sure everything’s fine.

Besides, I would rather spend this time paying homage to CERN’s first step into the history books by sharing with you a few of my favorite movie and TV moments where “pushing that button” or “flipping that switch” to further science really did screw things up.

 
“Quantum Leap”

I’m sure a lot of you remember this little gem from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s.  It was about a scientist named Sam Beckett who was pressured by his financial backers to prove his theories on time travel or lose funding.  So what did Sam do?  That’s right – he “pressed that button”, stepped into the accelerator… and vanished.  Then, for five seasons, he “leaped” around time, assuming other peoples’ identities from the past and trying to “change history for the better”.  And all he had for help was his best friend who could only appear as a hologram.  Meanwhile, his memory was all Swiss-cheesed and his friends and family back home had to struggle to keep the project together while trying to get him back.  Of course, if he hadn’t pushed that button, we wouldn’t have had five years of a great little show that could.  Unfortunately, pushing that button also meant we had to suffer a major blunder when NBC cancelled the show prematurely, forcing the writers to scramble together a crappy ending.  Sam never went home.  And we never forgave NBC.

 
Back to the Future

Ah, one of my favorite movies.  I’m kinda stretching my own set-up here, since technically Marty’s trip to 1955 was an accident.  But, I think it still qualifies because Doc Brown “flipped that switch” on the time circuits with the intention of using the DeLorean to travel through time to understand the universe better.  It’s just too bad he got shot by Libyans outside the Twin Lone Pines Mall and Marty ended up in the driver’s seat.  Still, the best of intentions led to a great adventure story that ended up with Marty changing his own future for the better and ultimately saving his friend from lead poisoning.  Unfortunately, it also led to two sequels that weren’t bad, but not nearly as good as the adventure that started it all.  Not to mention the fact that thanks to Marty, we had to suffer an “evil” 1985 for a bit.  Crazy drunk pedestrians.

 
“Sliders”

Okay, this one is in slightly the same vein as “Quantum Leap”, but I really loved this show (when it originally aired on FOX).  Here you have a teen-boy genius named Quinn who is developing a way to travel through dimensions.  After an alternate version of Quinn shows up to help Quinn Prime figure out one last equation, QP decides to “press that button” on his remote timer, sending himself, his professor, his pseudo-girlfriend, and a random entertainer into an alternate reality.  Oh, and surprise: the timer has been accidentally reset so that they have to keep traveling to random universes in order to find a way home.  Not only did this get them into a lot of trouble every week, but meeting a female version of oneself is kind of creepy.  So creepy, in fact, that your show gets stuck in a war over creative differences that ends with you getting handed over to the Sci-Fi Channel and most of your original cast leaves.  And we all know what the Sci-Fi Channel does with potentially good shows…

 
The Fly (1986)

David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly made the original look like a Disney adventure.  Cronenberg knows how to make with the gross-out, and he didn’t disappoint with this film.  In it, a scientist named Seth Brundle creates a set of telepods that allows teleportation.  For science!  After a couple of minor setbacks, Brundle is finally able to transport living tissue successfully.  So what does he do?  C’mon, have you been paying any attention?  Right – he “pushes the button(s)”, climbs into the telepod and prepares himself for molecular transport.  Unfortunately, a fly literally gets into the works.  And instead of head and arm swapping, we get to watch Jeff Goldblum (in all of his quirky-acting glory) slowly fall apart in what would become one of the best on-screen transformations into a giant, mutated monster.  Sadly, it didn’t end well.  No, Brundlefly did not become a superhero.  No.  He became Brundleflytelepod.  Then he became Brundleflytelepodshotgunheadsplodey.  And just to pour salt in the head wound, we got a lackluster sequel three years later with Princess Vespa and Rocky Dennis.

Well, that does it for this installment.  I wish I could have listed more, but due to space and time (HA!  See what I did there?  Collider!) I decided to limit this list to the first few “don’t push that button” moments that immediately sprang to mind based on my fondness for them.  There are definitely more examples out there.  You can find them in your public library!  Okay, no you can’t.  Okay, maybe.  Look, it doesn’t really matter.  What I’m getting at is this: take a moment to celebrate Collider Day (That’s what I’m dubbing it.  And I’m trade-marking it, too!  Gimme money!) by going out and finding a few titles that you enjoy involving scientists, weirdos, hobos, and general crazy people who “push that button” or “flip that switch” in the interest of science, pop them in your media player of choice, and enjoy!

Oh, and don’t mind that thing in the corner with the tentacles and moss growing on its head.  It only eats when the screaming stops.

The Don is afraid to dive into the plasma pool.  It hasn’t been a full hour since he last ate.

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Hah!  In celebration of the Large Hadron Collider destroying the Earth in a humongous implosion being switched on today, and the first atom smashing causing a massive strangelet chain reaction we’re going to zip ahead of time to look at a FINISHED comic and tear it to shreds to see how it works.  But also, I actually have my photos from SDCC (long overdue, I know but we were gonna bite it in a 100% accurate cataclysmic Big Bang recreation.  WHAT DO YOU THINK A COSMIC EVENT CALLED “THE BIG BANG” WAS LIKE, HUH?! PLEASANT!?)

So I’ll give you all a night to soak in all this pictorial might and then we’ll look in depth at this thing in full before time and space crumble like a cosmic fax cover sheet. 

Also, SDCC pics below.

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I look forward to seeing the results of scientists activating The Doomsday Machine. Big Bang Theory be damned, I just hope it opens up a wormhole to another dimension! Or kills planets. Or can be used to defeat the Borg. You know, whatever.

Obviously I like a lot of weird things, but today I want to be a huge dork and talk about an anime that I’m currently watching and absolutely love: Code Geass.

Season 2 is drawing to a close, while season 1 has been domestically released and is now airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block of shows. Or so I’ve read, because I don’t watch dubs.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion is a show that starts out about one thing, and then gets really wacky and becomes about betrayal, politics, war, and killing various family members.

This show has everything! Mechs, political intrigue, magic powers, really attractive noodle-people, and a dude so FAAAAAABULOUS he’s not even a whole number!

That last part will make sense if you watch the show, I swear.

Honestly, I hate feeling like I’m part of a bandwagon fandom. But I’ve come to realize that the reason a lot of these shows become so popular is because there is a lot to like about them! Just look at Gurren Lagann, the fandom has exploded (and is still exploding) and yet I am exploding right along with them because the show is fantastic. It’s the same thing with Code Geass, which I started watching on a whim several months ago and finished the first season within a few days.

I know it’s hard to believe, but I guess the reason stuff becomes popular is because it’s actually good.

But you know what’s NOT good? The show “Fringe.” Some new J.J. Abrams thing that premiered last night on Fox. Not only did it start out on a plane just like LOST, I swear it had the same soundtrack. Not to mention its shameless and blatant desire to be a modern version of one of my favorite shows of all time.

That’s right, J.J., I’ve already seen this show. It was called The X-Files.

I fear for the new Star Trek movie coming out next year, that J.J. Abrams is directing. Mr. Abrams was quoting as saying that he’s more of a Star Wars fan. My fandom weeps.

And then there was Cloverfield. That was two hours of my life I can never get back.

Damn, I wish I didn’t love LOST so much.

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So I was bored at work today and while I was doing a little wandering around the web I read something that gave me pause to think. You see, there are several skills that I have been trying for years now to learn, to somewhat less than stellar results. Learning Japanese is rather at the top of my list just now, and languages particularly seem to be difficult for me. Part of the problem is that convincing myself to sit down and actually STUDY anything is nearly impossible, since I hardly ever feel like I have learned something after an hour with a textbook or in a class, so I nearly always end up feeling like I CAN’T do something, mostly because the whole thing feels so damn daunting!

Here’s where the at-work web surfing came in. The blog I stumbled onto had an article in its archive about mastering new skills. The author takes a common statement (that it takes 10000 hours to master a skill) and breaks it down into less-scary sounding chunks, and honestly makes the whole process sound almost commonplace. This is what he said:

OK, we’ve got our skill. And, we’ve got our number: 10,000 hours. Let’s call that mastery. (Worst comes to worst, let’s say you practice 10,000 hours and you’re still not a master. I guarantee you’ll still be awesome.)

Let’s call Mastery “Level 5.” See, learning’s a gradual thing. It’s not like you’ll suck after 9,999 hours of building flat-pack furniture and then wham, one more hour of practice and you rock.

In fact, after 8,000 hours of practice you’re bound to be amazingly good. Good enough to be a pretty good teacher to others. Not black belt, maybe, but brown belt. Let’s call that Level 4, or “Adept” level.

Ok, I like that. Not only does it make sense, but it lends itself to a whole new idea… In fact, it’s mentioned a bit later, as the header of the next section:

Leveling Up

So let’s say you’ve been building flat-pack IKEA furniture for 1,998 hours. You sit down on a Sunday afternoon and assemble that gorgeous LEKSVIK bedside cabinet you bought. Adding 2 hours to your tally, you realize you’ve reached Novice level.

Time to party!

… Are you kidding? Leveling up?! Now THAT is something I can get behind. As soon as I read that I actually felt the light bulb go on over my head. When I’m studying, I’m not uselessly sitting there reading about Japanese grammar or drawing up flashcards- I’m grinding my Japanese skill. I GET it!! After I reach 2000 hours, I get to level up?! Damn straight!! I think that after I hit 6000 hours (thus hitting the ‘adept’ level according to this scale) I suspect a quest is triggered. Perhaps I have to travel to Japan to keep grinding my skill? What do you think?

…

Here’s another interesting (and sorta geeky) idea about learning languages specifically. I’m not quite sure how I feel about his technique, but I agree about his basic premise about grammar.

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yeah, so I’m running kinda late today. A real post will happen later, sorry to put it off again. I know I suck.

Here, I’m sure you’ve seen the video, but here’s a neat article about it, AND the video, too. Science is totally cool, yo. Word.

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