Ice, Ice Baby To Go

• Random Pop Culture:
• Why did Oliver Stone make the movie W.? It's sort of boring because the history isn't old enough or that little known. Brolin is great, as usual, and Thandie Newton absolutely nails Condi Rice, but it's just kind of an "eh" movie.
• Getting way hooked on Battlestar Galactica. I read something interesting on the web about the new Ginger vs. Marianne being Number Six vs. Starbuck.
• Random Hatred And/Or Love:
• Here is some (bad) video of what happened at the end of the Duke-Va Tech game this afternoon. Up three, Duke in-bounded the ball with twenty-three seconds left. The Hokies trapped Jon Scheyer, who proceeded to take more steps than Gene Kelly. No call. The Blue Devils got a timeout, then got fouled and iced the game. We all know that the refs favor Duke (see: 2001 Final Four vs. Maryland), but rarely do we see such an obvious example.
• Monster Matchup: Crushed Ice vs. Ice Cube
• The Wikipedia article on the ice cube may say that "ice cubes are often preferred over crushed ice," but that's bogus. This one isn't even a contest. Crushed ice, specifically the tiny pellets (like those from the soda machines at Cosi), trounces ice cubes. They make the soda colder, they're easier to eat, and it's much easier to move the straw around to get the best drinking angles when the soda gets low. I actually get irrationally happy when I realize that a soda machine has the tiny pellet crushed ice.

Five Degrees of Hip-Hop Separation

Some music videos (I used the clean versions so they can be sort of lame -- I'm looking at you, Ludacris) for a Friday night. Ludacris to Nate Dogg to Snoop to Pharrell to Jay-Z to Jermaine Dupri and back to Ludacris.

A Frank But Loving Conversation With America

What's up, America? Come on over and sit down! Let me put my arm around you so we can have a heart-to-heart.

We've had a heck of a time these last three or four months, huh? We're going through some pretty tough times and maybe I'm not as affected as some of you, but I feel your pain. We got pretty tight after so many of us banded together to bring the new guy into the White House. I really feel like we've bonded a bit and we're a lot closer because of all that we've been through, so I have no doubt that you'll take what I'm about to say and go with it.

I was watching American Idol tonight, you know, the show we so love to watch together. You remember how fond we were of that Cook kid last year and how we laughed when Taylor won a couple of years ago. We've had some good times watching that show, you and me. I'm just a little worried that you're taking it a little too far.

It's fun to watch this stuff on TV and it's more or less harmless, but we have to keep it to that. See, I know we were all watching the recap show tonight to see if the producers could possible kick all twelve contestants from last night out. We know it's not the rules, but know how those sneaky producers like to bend the rules a little bit, huh? So we fast-forwarded through the horrible group performance and we begrudgingly accepted Allison and her hair that looks almost like the hair helmet that Brett made on Flight of the Conchords. Then, in the middle of the show, they brought out, as they are often wont to do, a past contestant to perform. That's when we found out that Brooke White has released a single.

This is where it stops being cute, America. This is where the laughter ends. We can watch whatever for free and I'm not even mad if you line AT&T's pockets with your text fees, but you aren't really going to download Brooke White's single, are you? It's just not okay to send your hard-earned recession money to some annoying chick who had to re-start a song on national TV. We have over seven percent unemployment right now, but at least one of you (and I'm afraid many more than that) out there is going to pay 99 cents. Hear me out, the world would be a better place if a dollar slipped out of your pocket and blew down a storm drain than if you bought that single. It would be for the best in the long run. You do realize that this is a slippery slope towards an Adam Lambert single, right? If you don't stop them now, they'll keep coming. You're just enabling and I thought that's what got us into this mess we're in as a country.

So... Please accept this hair-tousle in a totally non-patronizing way. I know you try as hard as you can, but I feel like we need to chat like this every so often to make sure that we're both on the same page. So, if you were thinking about buying it, go grab some Flo Rida or some Fall Out Boy instead. If you already bought it, promise not to do something like that again and you can apologize.

Apology accepted. This was a good talk. This was a good talk.

Dead Locke-d

• Idol Chatter: Week Two of the Semi-Finals.
• Jasmine Murray, singing Sara Bareilles' "Love Song": They had been selling this girl as the full package -- great voice, cute, marketable. It would help if she actually could sing. Her timing and pitch were not good. Really disappointing. Randy, with his George Burns glasses, agreed with me.
• Matt Giraud, singing Coldplay's "Viva la Vida": We love this kid. Going in, he was probably my second favorite to Danny. But, dude... Dawg... You pick a contemporary song like this and we're going to compare you directly to Chris Martin's voice and you easily lose. If he makes it through, I can't wait to hear which song he will sing entirely in vibrato next week.
• Jeanine Vailes, singing Maroon 5's "This Love": Next.
• Nick Mitchell, singing Jennifer Holiday's "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going": I don't know what to say... He might just win this whole thing on the wings of uncomfortable suckiness.
• Allison Iraheta, singing Heart's "Alone": Such a winning personality! You know the first four this week were really awful when they made her seem passable. (Aside: She was really awful, too.)
• Kris Allen, singing Michael's "Man in the Mirror": He came out looking like David Archuleta's older brother. He sounded like David Archuleta's less-talented, boring older brother. Not bad, just boring.
• Megan Corkrey, singing Corinne Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On": She was one of my favorites from the audition round. She was a bit robotic (read: white) and the big note was horrible, but I think she was pretty good. Good enough for tonight's crapfest.
• Matt Breitzke, singing Tonic's "If You Could Only See": I really like this guy's Everyman vibe. I have a problem with his slow dance during the heavier part of the song. He lost a lot of stage presence points there. You can't hate him, he's just not remarkable.
• Jesse Langseth, singing Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes": Best of the night up to this point. She was pretty tight on with the recording, cool presence. She doesn't jump out at you, but she was good. Again, I'll point out that "best of the night" is not necessarily saying so much. I kind of hate her exchange with the judges. It reminds me of Brooke White's from last year, which I grew to hate. Dude, you're not one of the judges. Shut up.
• Kai Kalama, singing Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted": This episode has gotten a lot more boring as it's going along, which is actually quite a compliment. This guy is seasoned (read: he kind of looks old) and he can sing. Not great. I guarantee nobody will be great tonight. But solid. Have to think, in spite of the judges, that he has a decent shot of going through.
• Mishavonna Henson, singing Train's "Drops of Jupiter": I missed her performance because I was typing her first name. No, she was fine, just like the last however many contestants. Okay, but boring. Her facial expressions reminded me of Melinda from a couple of years ago. Which would be great if "facial expressions" meant "voice", but not otherwise. Unless Nick Mitchell catches some Sanjaya/Vote For The Worst wind in his sails, ain't nobody from tonight winning the whole thing. Like can they replace whoever tonight's three people will be with people from another night?
• Adam Lambert, singing The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction": He took arguably the greatest rock and roll song ever (not even my favorite Stones song, I prefer "Brown Sugar") and overperformed the hell out of it! He's obviously going to get through (with, I think, Megan and Nick), but don't fool yourself. He sucked in an awesome way. Nobody likes the idea of Pete Wentz singing like Cher. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Adam Lambert.
• Lost Comments/Questions of the Week:
• Nice Obi-Wan Kenobi thing going on there with Locke at the beginning. And we also now know that the two other people in first class made it to the island. And that the plane seems to have landed, or crashed gently. We know where those canoes that Sawyer and company were in came from.
• But when are those other people? Did they crash back in the Dharma time like Jack, Kate, and Hurley? You'd think no, since Sawyer and company found the camp there with the canoes.
• Was Widmore the leader of the Others when Ben and Richard purged Dharma? And then Ben kicked him out? If so, why did Richard go to Ben behind Widmore's back? And who, then, started the Dharma Initiative?
• So if Matthew/Daniels told Locke to go to Australia and he "gets people where they need to go," then was he guiding Locke towards the island? Did someone know, because of Foccault's Pendulum, that Oceanic 815 was going to end up on the island?
• Helen Norwood died on 4-8. Nice.
• I was wondering how Daniels was on the show now that he's on that new crappy show on Fox. Guess he won't be on Lost any longer.
• There was the whole thing, when Michael went back to LA, about how he couldn't kill himself. And Locke didn't kill himself and was reincarnated when he got back to the island. Does that have something to do with why Ben had to kill him?

Would The Fake State Of The Union Address Be Called The "Commonwealth Of The Union Address"?

• Random Pop Culture:
• On a suggestion/whim, I decided to subject myself to the Nicolas Cage movie Gone in 60 Seconds, via Netflix Watch Instantly. Great movie. For me to poop on.
• I watched the Pittsburgh-Providence game tonight, as well, and I was ready to write something about how Pitt is the team you should be rooting for this year (assuming you're not a fan of Carolina, UConn, or Oklahoma). Then Pitt lost. I'll have to save that for later. Still, it was Senior Night at Providence; hard to believe we're at that point of the year already.
• If you were a fan of Conan back in the day, this news will make you very happy.
• Random Hatred And/Or Love:
• I hadn't watched a presidential speech to Congress in probably seven years, but not able to watch this one live, I even DVR-ed it. Apparently the legislators had to get to the chamber as early as 8AM if they wanted to be on the aisle to shake Obama's hand. So, as he walked down the aisle, we saw one side was all white men and the other was somewhat younger and extraordinarily diverse. I'm under no illusion that the left is not also full of old white men, but it's quite a different America nowadays, huh?
• Random Video:
• If you didn't see it, here's the best thing (even with the obvious edits regarding pot references) from the Oscar broadcast.

Forget It, Jake

• Random Pop Culture:
• Two days ago when I said what I had at home from Netflix, Steve commented that he had seen Changeling and loved it. I concur. Changeling is a GREAT movie. I don't know why I slept on it so much -- it is directed by Eastwood, after all -- but don't make the same mistake. Jolie puts forth a truly brilliant, Oscar-worthy performance. The best thing you can say about an actor's work is when you forget it's the actor and lose yourself in the character. That has to be especially hard for someone as remarkable and attention-grabbing as Jolie, but she pulls it off. Add in a nice supporting job by Malkovich and a large number of very competent character actors and you get a well-acted movie with an enthralling story.
• The LAPD must have been really f***ed up during the 1930s. How many movies have been made about its corruption? More on that below.
• Can we get a round of applause for Hakeem Kae-Kazim's work as Ike Dubaku on 24? Really good job of taking this evil maniac and adding a soft side when dealing with the girlfriend.
• Random Hatred And/Or Love:
• Grand humor in the household tonight as my dog let loose a cacophony of flatulence that could have drowned out the end of the 1812 Overture. While he was sleeping, no less.
• Monster Matchup: LAPD Movies vs. Chicago PD Movies
• As mentioned above, there a number of movies that deal with LAPD problems during the 1930s. Off-hand, other than Changeling, I can come up with great films such as Chinatown, The Maltese Falcon, Die Hard, and the obvious Chinatown spoof Who Framed Roger Rabbit? In addition, there have been some movies dealing with later time periods, such as L.A. Confidential, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Die Hard, and Crash. I'm sure there are some other ones as well. You also get some pretty good movies that deal with the Chicago police. Off the top of my head, you have The Untouchables, Chicago, The Fugitive, and North by Northwest. The star of this matchup is Dan Aykroyd, who appeared as an L.A. Cop in Dragnet after he had made Chicago police look like fools in The Blues Brothers. L.A. gets a bit of an advantage because Hollywood would find it easier to shoot locally. So you get some more good movies like Beverly Hills Cop I and II, but some awful ones as well like Beverly Hills Cop III and Demolition Man. I want to lean towards Chicago because The Untouchables is my favorite movie ever, but I think of Jake Gittes and Sam Spade and Axel Foley and it has to be a no-brainer -- the winner is LAPD movies!

Ohhhhhh, Good For Youuuuu!

Just finished watching the mutual ass-kissing crapfest known as the 2009 Oscars. What happened to a host who pokes fun at the nominees. You don't think that Chris Rock would have pointed out that Frank Langella played Skeletor in Masters of the Universe? I had too many jokes that wouldn't be funny now, like comparing Jerry Lewis to Jeff Conaway or Penelope Cruz to Duck Baby. Instead, I'll just go on record as saying that I believe I hate every single person in that room except for, in no particular order (for reasons that should be obvious if you watched the whole thing): Will Smith, Danny Boyle, Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, James Franco, the cinematographer who came out with Seth Rogen and James Franco, and Kate Winslet's dad.

Okay, there was one particular order -- Kate Winslet's dad was awesome.