Sure Happy It's Thursday

• What I'm Watching/Listening To/Reading:
• Lots of stuff to get to on a TV-busy Thursday night.
• One of the funniest episodes of "Earl" this season. DILF? "Is that what daddies do when mommies are away?"
• Have to spend more time on "Survivor" than anything else. It's hard to believe that the season was boring three weeks ago. It is absolutely fantastic at this point.
• Parvati is playing one of the best games I've ever seen anyone play. The social aspect of her game may be the best. The other greats (Richard, Tom, Boston Rob on "All-Stars") were all dominant through pure power.
• I certainly didn't think I'd be rooting for Amanda and Parvati at any point, but sure enough I was doing just that tonight. That tribal council -- and their performance specifically -- was so awesome on so many levels.
• And James walking in with an IV? He reached a whole new level of bad-assedness.
• "Grey's Anatomy": Not a big fan of Ava coming in with the whole pregnant thing. Unnecessarily soap opera-y. The overdramatic HIV thing was a little much, too. They crammed a hell of a lot into this one. Still a ton of better moments than almost any episode last season.
• Random Thoughts/Links:
• Take a break from the TV stuff for a second for a couple of sobering things today. Today was the commemoration (moved for a religious reason) of Yom HaShoah, the Israeli holiday in memory of those who were killed in the Holocaust. It's also observed in the United States, with a ceremony at the Capitol today.
• Holy cow. I don't know what else to say. Shocking, shocking news.
• Today is also the fifth anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" banner. Man, I miss "Arrested Development"...
• On a lighter note, I saved myself much ridicule while watching "Grey's". When the HIV-positive mother told Izzy that she immediately wanted an abortion, I argued, "But we learned on 'Idol Gives Back' that there are drugs that significantly decrease the risk of passing the virus to the baby!" My wife started to go off on me because of how much I had ranted about the charity extravaganza. Luckily, I realized that we actually learned it on "Survivor: Africa", which we watched recently. Whew.
• "Lost" Comments/Questions of the Week:
• My wife squealed happily when Jack kissed Kate at the beginning. She also pointed out that if Jack and Kate were together, Jack was actually taking care of his nephew.
• So Rousseau is actually dead? I never really believed it.
• On a related note, the whispers must then be the sounds of ghosts. I don't think that's a huge revelation, but it was up in the air.
• If the island heals people (Ben aside, of course), why did Jack get sick? (I want to note that I wrote this before Rose asked the exact same question on the show.)
• "Where do you suppose the power comes from?" "Add that one to the list, Dan." I liked that.
• Now the game is all about how long into the future the flash-forwards are.
• Our good friend Christian is back. I'm thinking we'll be seeing a lot more of him, what with Locke and Ben searching for Jacob.

Idol Chit-Chat

Another thirteen-hour day and I'm too tired to write a ton, plus I only watched "Idol" tonight after I got home. So here are a few observations:

• I'm a little bitter that I didn't make the joke I was going to make last night about Brooke and the polygamist ranch. It was a mix of the shirt she wore last night and her general vibe. Unfortunately, Mr. Tony's news guy made the joke this morning on the radio.
• When they brought Jason Castro out first, I groaned out loud. It was obvious he'd be safe. I really hate him.
• Nice move to narrow it down to two at 27 minutes into the show. That didn't make it too much easier for me to just fast-forward through everything until the very end.
• Gotta love those Ford commercials. Apparently the Idol contestants can save the world by going green. Is the next joke that Jason Castro has been going green for years or that he immediately smoked all of those trees?
• Paula's first comment was a little weak, but she really redeemed herself with the second one. No, I'm just kidding. I skip past any time she opens her mouth.
• Natasha Bedingfield kissed David Archuleta on his cheek. At the next commercial, he ran crying to the dressing room where he scrubbed his face violently. After all, girls are sent by the devil to take away his God-given singing ability.
• Which is more genuine: Neil Diamond's hair or David Archuleta?
• They showed Kristy Lee Cook right as they cut Brooke. Was this to remind us that Brooke wasn't as bad as other contestants or was it to remind us that maybe the talent this year hasn't quite been as good overall as we thought it would be? Or maybe Roger Clemens is sleeping with her.
• Will Brooke White ever shut the f*** up? No matter how I felt about her singing in the past, her constant backtalk was very annoying. Also, nice job with the last song.

Turn On Your Heart Light

• What I'm Watching/Listening To/Reading:
• Why have I been looking forward to Neil Diamond week? It may be because Neil Diamond's parents used to live in the upstairs apartment that was part of my aunt and uncle's house. Why, after he became a big star, were his parents living in a small apartment in Brooklyn? These are the questions poised on the spears of time. What are the answers? We'll never know.
• Could Howard Dean have been any more wishy-washy on "Meet The Press" this past weekend? Yuck.
• And I was watching "Idol" as I'm writing this. Paula is seriously high. There's no other explanation for her not realizing that they had only sung one song. That was the biggest "WTF?" moment of the night. (Though not of the season -- that would still be the whole putting David Archuleta's head on the rearview mirror thing.)
• Random Thoughts/Links:
• This is no joke. This was actually on a network yesterday morning. I'm speechless.
• Seriously, is that the absolute dumbest thing you've ever seen from a "news" show?
• This is very cool, although he did turn the ball over. Hard to imagine the other candidates being able to do something like it, though I hear McCain plays a mean game of Canasta.
• Ranking The "Idol" Performers:
• 5. Jason Castro -- I'm not sure that he's seemed comfortable with any kind of music that they've had to sing this year. Unfortunately for him, tonight's show came about nine days too late. Although, I suppose, it's probably always April 20th for him. The second performance was abyssmal.
• 4. Brooke White -- Okay, she's horrible. I guess I've finally come around. That "I'm A Believer" was one of the worst performances this season. The only thing keeping her from being #5 was a better second song and that other doofus.
• 3. Syesha Mercado -- She was about as close to the pitch on that first song as I'd be to a Jake Peavy fastball. The second was much better.
• 2. David Archuleta -- It's really just the two Davids and everyone else. I thought "Sweet Caroline" was by far one of his best performances in a long time.
• 1. David Cook -- I knew this week would play well into his style. Diamond's songs are easily adaptable into heavier rock-ish pop.

These Pipes Are Clean

• What I'm Watching/Listening To/Reading:
• The long-awaited return of "House" tonight. Only four episodes, but it's well worth even the little taste.
• Watched The Darjeeling Limited last night. Much like the new Harold & Kumar, it got mixed reviews, but it was much better than I thought it would be. Wes Anderson has great comic timing and knows how to ride a running joke just long enough.
• Random Thoughts/Links:
• 12-hour day at work. Unfortunately, it wasn't the last one of this week.
• My dog went to the groomer and came back poofy and with a bandana around his neck. I'm very glad that he's not self-conscious at all, because he looked like a fancy lad.
• I bet you never thought you'd ever hear another Cabin Boy reference. I bet you have no idea what Cabin Boy even is.
• Daily Rant:
• I don't know what it was about the weather today. I'm normally not super affected by gloomy days, but I was just bumming all day. There was no reason, because this morning was the meeting each year where I get the most props in front of the entire staff, plus via meetings and various other means, I managed to do an amazingly small amount of actual work during the regular 9-5 hours. Maybe it's because I knew I had a long day; maybe it's because the weather has been so perfect over the last week or so and it was nasty today. Regardless, Monday is not the best day to be miserable, with four more days left to go.

Week In Review

Random bests from the past seven days:

• Movie of the Week: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. The reviews were lukewarm at best, but I enjoyed it. It's not as funny as the first, but it has its moments. If you know a movie isn't going to be Anchorman-level, all you can hope for is some great lines to remember, some surprise jokes, and a little surprise insight. You definitely get more than the bare minimum of all of that. So f*** you, donuts are good.
• Athlete of the Week: Chase Utley. He's the athlete of the month at this point.
• Activity of the Week: Eating matzah. The holiday is blessedly over.
• TV Show of the Week: "Lost". It's back and any Ben flashback/forward is a good one.
• Event of the Week: Rice being rationed by Sam's Club and Costco. That's some scary stuff when you really think about it.
• Person of the Week: Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's refreshing when someone on "Idol" is actually honest.
• Villain of the Week: Ira Katz. Really, just disgusting.
• Coming Attractions for Next Week: Work, work, and work. A mini-bachelor party on Friday.

Just People

Note: This is chock full of spoilers, but since the movie is 35 years old, deal with it.

It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of
people.

Most people have heard this line in one context or another. It's one of the final lines from the 1973 movie Soylent Green, screamed by the great over-actor Charlton Heston. It's famous because his screaming is funny, because the whole idea is amusing. 35 years later, one begins to wonder whether the movie could be strangely prophetic.

Soylent Green is a futuristic thriller about the year 2022, but some of the themes in it sound familiar. Earth is overcrowded (check). People are living longer (check). The amount of people have caused shortages in basic foods (check). These foods have greatly risen in cost because of this (check).

The crux of the plot comes in at this point. It seems that old people have begun disappearing. What is happening is that the government is taking the old people into a room where they are shown pleasant movies about nature and then gassing them. The dead people are turned into the new, cheaper food called soylent green.

So we live in a world where the population does not look to be levelling off. Wholesalers have begun to ration rice, a basic food staple, for the first time that I can remember. The environment, with which Soylent Green doesn't deal, could even lead to worse crops. It's hard to imagine how these problems are going to quickly get better. At the retirement community I visited yesterday, the area where Alzheimer's and other very sick patients go for the remainder of their lives is even called "Renaissance Gardens". Nice name for a not so nice place.

Look, I know it's an impossibly large step to go from where we are to cannibalism. I know that the world has done enough with cloning and synthetic foods that there are other options. However, 35 years ago most of the plot points in this movie were unbelievable works of science fiction. And now, most of the plot points are happening. 14 years earlier than the movie had them happening. It looks Orwell wasn't the only person who thought up a hellish future and came up with our very real present.

Friday Notes

Okay, so it's actually happened three times that three different teammates have won the MVP award in consecutive seasons:

• 1938-1940 Cincinnati Reds (Ernie Lombardi, Bucky Walters, Frank McCormick)
• 1941-1943 New York Yankees (Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, Spud Chandler)
• And I was partly right -- 1961-1963 New York Yankees (Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Elston Howard) -- I guessed it would be Berra as the third. Note that Maris also won the award in 1960 as well (with the Yanks; he was traded from the Kansas City Athletics after the 1959 season)

There have been a number of times where two teammates have won in consecutive years, the last being Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds for the Giants in 2000 and 2001. Of course, Bonds won the next three after that.

I really should put up a favorite sites thing on the left. This info came from baseball-reference.com. It's my sports IMDB.

If you didn't see this story, you should. Between the fiasco at Walter Reed, all of the homelessness, and now this disgusting cover-up, one has to question if the government really cares about our troops.

Otherwise, it's late. So one other note: if you never expected to see a show end with a catatonic Walter Koenig (Chekov from "Star Trek") staring out from behind bars, you need to see tonight's "Soup".