popplers

Dang!

I can't believe that I missed the Guild of Calamitous Intent t-shirts. I gotta read Jackson Publick's blog more often. (This week's shirt is Sergeant Hatred.)

SciFi Channel is a harsh mistress

One of the good things about the gym is that I'm typically alone, and have complete control over the TV remote. Sometimes this works to my advantage, as it did on Friday (back-to-back episodes of Firefly: Jaynestown and Out of Gas— yes!)

But sometimes the SciFi Channel decides to serve up The Incredible Hulk all day. All day. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Every day this week. No, I'm not joking. Yes, the TV show with Bill Bixby and the sad walking-away music at the end.

I watched a two-part episode from the show's second season, starring Emmy-award winner Mariette Hartley. I did this so that now you don't have to. "Married" is apparently one of the best. episodes. evar. according to Hulk fans who post comments on Amazon. It is also a terrifying depiction of life in 1978. Mariette plays Dr. Caroline Fields, a renowned psychiatrist and hypnotherapist who is helping Bruce (actually David Bruce on the TV show) work through his many issues. She also has a tragic, unnamed, terminal illness that causes Bruce to fall in love with her. When she learns that she has mere weeks to live, she leaves her beautiful home (in Hawai'i) and drives down the road to local unfortunately-named singles bar, "The Swinger". She orders a double mai tai and is promptly picked up by Brad, a swingin' dude sporting flowing chest hair and a regrettable pornstache. It only gets sillier from here.

Meanwhile, Bruce arrives at Caroline's home; he finds the phone off the hook and medical papers strewn on the floor. He calls her doctor, who, in a startling breach of doctor-patient confidentiality, discusses the specifics of her case with a random man on the phone. (I could tell it was fiction because he called and reached a doctor on the first try. Although I guess they didn't have HMOs and interactive voice response systems back then.) Bruce drives off to search for Caroline and eventually arrives at Brad's totally awesome bachelor pad, where Brad and male friend are having a weird 70s-style double-date with Caroline and a nameless brunette. (Her only line, delivered several different ways, is "Far out!") As you may have suspected, they make Bruce angry; they don't like him when he's angry. Caroline is rescued. Brad is emasculated. The brunette is forgotten. And Bruce and Caroline are married, but only after delivering this dialogue to the hapless viewer:

Bruce: I once heard a story about a man being chased by a tiger. He came to a cliff. He fell, but he grabbed a branch, and he just hung there, just out of reach of the tiger. And he looked down. You know what he saw? Another Tiger. Waiting for him to drop. And then he felt that the branch he was clinging to was coming out of the cliff by the roots. Now while all this was happening, he noticed something: he noticed, growing in a cleft bedside him, a single wild strawberry. And with his free hand he reached out and picked it. And he ate it. And he tought to himself: what a wonderful strawberry.
Caroline: Oh God. I love you David.
Bruce: I love you, Caroline.

Join us tomorrow, when I will review The Nanny or quite possibly smother myself with a yoga mat.

Vast wasteland

6:15 a.m., at the gym. Four silent TV sets, each tuned to a different station. Closed captioning scrolls across each screen.

• Screen 1. MyFoxPhilly: how cell phones may cause infertility in men, due to "thermo Jenn I can" (thermogenic?) effects. This spot includes a medical model of a man's torso, with cell phone and pager strapped to the hip. The "doctor" switches to a more detailed plastic model of the reproductive organs, and seems to take great pleasure in repeatedly saying "testicles". I now know why Elvis shot his TV. Lacking a gun, and with another 30 minutes left on the treadmill, I turn my attention to…
  
• Screen 2. CNN: how acupuncture can be used to treat infertility in women. First she should make sure that he isn't carrying around his cell phone, PDA, pager, and Playstation 3 in his boxers. Next.
  
• Screen 3. ESPN: hockey fights, steroid use, cockfighting (WTF?), NASCAR, more steroids, bored now.
  
• Screen 4. Channel 6 (local ABC affiliate): Philadelphia airport Terminal A temporarily shut down by airport screeners due to a laptop with a "suspicious-looking wire". Have a nice day from the TSA..

Mercifully, my time is up & I can stagger back to my room to take a shower. I can't wait to get home— I need A Daily Show, stat!

Hidden Cities

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the (hopefully!) soon-to-be host of Discovery Channel's Hidden Cities: Mr. Iwan Axt.

Hidden Cities Demo from Iwan Axt on Vimeo.

The city, like you've never seen it. We will assemble a highly experienced team of adventurers who will use a combination of their extraordinary skills and unparalleled knowledge to give our audience a view of city life they have never seen. Via their unconventional exploration and hosting techniques HIDDEN CITIES will reveal the inner workings of the most essential elements of urban life through the structures and infrastructures that make the city work, whilst awe-inspiringly uncovering the history behind them. We'll examine such essential elements of urban life as water, power and transportation, among others.

A damn fine cup of coffee.

Do you like your coffee "black as midnight on a moonless night"? Today is the release date for the new Twin Peaks DVD box set, the so-called Definitive Gold Box Edition. Unlike the previously released DVD sets, this one has the pilot (and the European version of the pilot), new interviews, re-mastered episodes, yada yada.

More guilty pleasures

So, we've watched the first two episodes of SciFi's Who Wants to Be a Superhero? I like it enough that I'm going to watch a few more, even though it's very cheesy. My thoughts on the second episode:

First 15 minutes: I really dislike the anonymous bitchy Q&A. This kind of crap is why I don't like "reality" shows.

The first "challenge" rocks— little old lady locked out of her house/ go 'round the back and let her in/ oops, she has vicious attack dogs.

:16 min - Excellent showing from Ty'veculus. Good strategy & speed from the firefighter-- he hits the target in just :16.
:17 min - Creature goes down in :12. Granted, she weighs less than the 2 dogs. Bzzt.
:18 min - The dogs really seemed to lay into Iron Enforcer (perhaps they know shit when they smell it?) That said, I expected him to make it to the door easily, and was really surprised that he freaked when he lost his footing & gave up so close to the goal. Bzzt.
:19 min - Feedback going for distance, but not going for speed. Success in :33.
:20 min - Fat Momma proves that well-trained dogs will not go for the donut when there's human flesh to be had. Kudos for trying, though. Bzzt.
:21 min - I love Major Victory. Perhaps it's because I was raised on 1960s Adam West Batman, but I think MV embodies the perfect combination of superhero bravado, self-deprecating humor, and camp that I have come to expect in a costumed do-gooder. "I salute you, you ferocious animals. I love you guys, you guys are sexy… Feel the love, baby!" Victory in :17 and his hair looks fabulous.
:22 min - Lemuria is a tasty biscuit. :19 in, the safety helmet starts to pop off, and she's toast. Bzzt.
:23 min - Cell Phone Girl. No signal after :04 seconds. Can you hear me now?
:27 min - Monkey Woman totally pwns Iron Enforcer's ass. Tenacity is an important character trait in a superhero, and I have tremendous respect for anyone (especially a 100 lb. chick) who can tire out 2 German shepherds and hit the damn target. 9:42. Awesome.

The Reckoning, Part I: Cell Phone Girl ("I had a headache"), Iron Enforcer ("No, really, I have a spiritual side"), and Creature ("Laughing doesn't mean I'm not taking it seriously") are called forward. By all rights, the steroid-using Iron Enforcer should have been the one eliminated, but instead Cell Phone Girl gets disconnected. Buh-bye.

:37 min - Fabulous costume makeovers for everyone! (Mystery Men did it better, and you had The Sphinx offering pearls of wisdom to boot.) On to the costume changes:

1. Lemuria gets some jazzier gold lame. B+
2. I liked Ty'veculus's original costume better. D- (Fortunately, they let him keep his own threads)
3. Major Victory - "Yes! Mr. Shiny Pants!" LOL A+
4. Fat Momma - She's like a hot pink American Maid— big improvement over her original outfit. A
5. Feedback - Better construction & materials, but the old costume had a certain je ne sais quoi. B-
6. Creature - thumbs up on the crazy mop-hairstyle, but her makeup makes her look like an understudy for Barb Wire. C
7. Monkey Woman - Not a lot different— I liked the fake fur on her old bikini, though. B
8. Iron Enforcer - gets a bigger BFG9000. BFWhoop. C

The Reckoning, Part II: Ty'veculus, Iron Enforcer, Feedback. Ty'veculus gets called on the carpet for initially lying & saying that he liked his new costume. Feedback gets smacked for making snarky fun of Ty'veculus's makeover. Iron Enforcer gets a dressing down for basically everything about him: un-superly behavior, packing heat, being a jerk, and just not looking the part. Commercial break, then the stunning conclusion: the bouncer gets bounced— sayonara, Iron Enforcer! And good riddance, sez I.

Ooh— twist ending. I didn't see it coming, but I have to agree that IE will make a far better supervillain than superhero. The lab-coated assistants whisk him off into the van and turn him into Baron Von Underbheit The Dark Enforcer. If the supervillain gig goes south, he can always tour Europe in a death-metal band.

And that's it for this week's installment of Who Wants to Be a Superhero?… I'm entertained enough that I'll keep watching it.

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

I am overjoyed to note that the original animated series, The Tick, will finally be released on DVD in August! The Tick vs. Season One is supposed to contain 12 of the first 13 episodes (The Tick vs. The Mole Men is missing due to "creative considerations"). I would prefer to see a nice boxed set containing the entire run, but at this point I'll take whatever crumbs Disney is willing to throw to us. Sigh.

Forthwith, some of my favorite Tick-isms:

"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit."

"I don't know the meaning of the word "surrender". I mean, I know it, I'm not dumb… just not in this context."

"I'm sure millions of viewers out there are just wondering what it's like to wear the tights of justice. Well, it's tingly and it's uncomfortable, but it gets the job done and, oh, the job of it."

"So once again, we find that evil of the past seeps into the present like salad dressing through cheap wax paper, mixing memory and desire."

"Well, once again, my friend, we find that science is a two-headed beast. One head is nice, it gives us aspirin and other modern conveniences… But the other head of science is bad. Oh, beware the other head of science, Arthur. It bites."

Fun with YouTube

The picture quality is really poor, but I was happy to find these episodes of The State on YouTube:

• Hormones!
  
• Superfriends
  
• Muppet Hunter

TiVo geekery

Well, we've just watched the entire Season 1 Venture Bros. DVD, from the pilot episode (The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay) to the final cliffhanger, Return to Spider-Skull Island. (Bonus: you can download a free mp3 of the boys' theme, Nick DeMayo's Look Away, from venturebros.com.)

Because teh intarweb is truly the summary of humankind's vast knowledge, we submit forthwith the following trivia: the canonical list of internyms used by Kimson Albert.

• Dia de Los Dangerous! - Kimson "Don Alberto"
  
• Careers in Science - Kimson "Peligro" Albert
  
• Mid-Life Chrysalis - Kimson "all out of condom" Albert
  
• Eeney, Meeney, Miney… Magic! - Kimson "in twain" Albert
  
• The Incredible Mr. Brisby - Kimson "Companda" Albert
  
• Tag Sale—You're It! - Kimson "Little Water Baby" Albert
  
• Home Insecurity - Kimson "Shaved Bigfoot" Albert
  
• Ghosts of the Sargasso - Kimson "Re-bort" Albert
  
• Ice Station—Impossible! - Kimson "Ba-Hey!" Albert
  
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean. - Kimson "Dreaded Candiru" Albert
  
• Past Tense - Kimson "25 Charisma Points" Albert
  
• The Trial of the Monarch - Kimson "Mecha-Shiva" Albert
  
• Return to Spider-Skull Island - Kimson "King Gorilla" Albert

Go Team Venture!

Woot! The Venture Bros. DVD is (finally) out today! Our copy should be arriving at our doorstep later this week. In the meantime, go check out Mike Russell's review of The Venture Bros.: Season One over at The DVD Journal.

Imagine if Hanna-Barbera made "Jonny Quest: The Next Generation" — only it starred Jonny as a bitter, pill-popping, fortysomething single dad who lived in the shadow of his dead superscientist father. Imagine if Jonny had two idiot teenage sons (one of them looking suspiciously like Race Bannon) whom he dragged around the world on hilariously pale imitations of his father's exploits. The names have all been changed, but that sort of begins to sum up the Cartoon Network's brilliant Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros. — a relentlessly inventive, laugh-out-loud funny sendup of Hanna-Barbera's "exotica" adventure cartoons of the 1960s and '70s. […]

Go Team Venture!

I love Robot Chicken, but I really can't wait for the Venture Brothers DVD to be released (a little over a month to go). Jackson Publick posted a pic from the interior packaging for the DVD: an awesome painting of Brock by none other than Bill Sienkewicz [Stray Toasters, Big Numbers, Elektra: Assassin].

If the latest posting on Publick Nuisance is correct, we should be seeing new episodes on Adult Swim in the not-too-distant future. This, plus the fact that I am finally done with my taxes, makes me very, very happy.

Thursday, April 13th, 2006
1:08 am

Finally, after months and months of this silliness, we have us some results. In the weeks since I last posted we've finished three episodes and shipped them off to the network. Post-production has thusfar been a surprisingly satisfying experience. Not only are the episodes looking much better than last season, they actually sound better, too. I don't know what MixMaster Dave Paterson is doing differently this time around but everything sounds just a bit richer, more sophisticated and epic. And of course, J.G. Thirlwell's mesmerizing scores continue to dazzle and delight. If you have a great sound system hooked up to your TV, these shows will really be a treat. Those of you with crappy TV's will enjoy it, too, I'm sure, just not as much. […]

I wonder if she hated the "Hometown Howdy" as much as I did

I missed it, but apparently another (former) Maynard resident recently won on Jeopardy! Congrats to Patricia DiMaggio!

Imagine this: You have five minutes to change your clothes before appearing on stage in front of millions of people and the zipper on your suitcase will not open.

Freudian nightmare? Maybe, but it was also Patricia DiMaggio's reality last winter. The Maynard resident had just banked $14,001 as Jeopardy champion and the vagaries of syndicated television demanded she return to defend her crown less than five minutes after winning. […]

The 70s will find you naked, too.

It's… recently re-discovered Monty Python footage from a 1975 public television interview.

And now for something completely different

Airing on PBS, starting on February 22^nd: Monty Python's Personal Best, a 6-episode special wherein each member of the troupe picked out his favorite sketches. (Cleese, Gilliam, Idle, Jones, and Palin collaborated on the episode for Graham Chapman.) Eric Idle's Personal Best airs Wednesday at 9 p.m., followed immediately by Graham Chapman's. Thanks, WGBH!

John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones share their favorite memories of Chapman, who died on October 4, 1989, at the age of 48. A licensed doctor, Chapman traded in his stethoscope to pursue a career in comedy. His funniest sketches usually showed him playing straitlaced characters or daft middle-aged women. He may be best remembered as the uptight Colonel. Other sketches included are the solo wrestler, the accountant who decides he wants to be a lion tamer and the middle-aged couple who invite John Cleese into their living room to make a documentary about the sex lives of mollusks. Chapman also appears in such memorable Monty Python sketches as the bury-the-cat skit, the dead parrot, Spam Restaurant and the pantomime horse as a secret agent. The Ministry of Silly Walks is classic Python. Though Chapman is gone, he will be remembered for his brilliant contributions to this legendary comedy troupe.

Poetry in motion

After reading the A.V. Club's TiVo This Now! feature, we recorded an episode of Peep and the Big Wide World, a show that endeavours to teach science to preschoolers. It stars a spherical yellow chick (Peep), a round red robin (Chirp), and a duck that resembles an eggplant (Quack). I love the simple animation style, and it's narrated by Joan Cusack, with a theme song by Taj Mahal. Never before has science been so cute.

Crazy Mummenschanz man

This was a Christmas present from Sean, and we've been burning through the episodes. We got the 4-DVD set a week ago, and we're watching the last episode (with special guest: The Mummenschanz) right now. The Muppet Show rocks!

Take a moment and watch this classic bit from the first episode of the first season: the infectious Mahna Mahna.

Mahna Mahna

Du doo du doo du

Very funny, but I still haven't forgiven you for what you did to Book

Joss Whedon on the Future of TV:

[…] Obviously, we'll see advances in technology. TiVo, iPods, streaming video — the way we watch TV is changing dramatically. It's on our phones, in our cars — even projected on specialized eyeglasses. But don't listen to the talk about having shows beamed directly into your brain. That's science-fiction nonsense. Shows will be stored in the pancreas and will enter the brain through the bloodstream after being downloaded into your iHole. […]

Posted by rv at 10:10 PM | Comments (3)

They're dwarves, Hank…

Last year and again this year, in what has become an annual Christmas tradition in our household, we watched the Venture Brothers special, A Very Venture Christmas. It hadn't occurred to me that the Krampus actually was Germanic in origin, and that Dr. Orpheus' retelling of the story (and the cartoon depiction of the Krampus itself) was pretty much spot on:

[…] The tradition is primarily an Austrian thing, although it spread erratically around Europe. There are two takes on Krampus, one being a secular humanist approach and the other being a magic tradition angle. If you put any two Austrians in a room, they'll soon get into an fistfight about which interpretation is correct. […]

Goin' down to South Park, gonna have myself a time

Short CNN Q&A with Matt Stone and Trey Parker:

Q: Cartman once described independent movies as "gay cowboys eating pudding." Now we have "Brokeback Mountain," an upcoming movie by Ang Lee about gay cowboys.

MATT STONE: If they have pudding in that movie, I'm going to lose my mind.

TREY PARKER: No, if there's pudding eating in there, we're going to sue.

I'll take Nostalgia for $200, Alex

Alert reader Bonnie points us toward this CNN article: My 'Jeopardy!' experience. This AP writer's bid for fame and fortune sounds pretty similar to my own.

Jared Diamond and Bombay Sapphire

48 minutes in and I'm completely hammered. Guns, Germs, and Steel: the drinking game. Every time you hear the phrase "Fertile Crescent," drink.

All kidding aside, the show is quite interesting. I haven't read the book yet, but we just ordered it through inter-library loan.

"Your culinary crime wave has just crashed against the shores of justice!"

The Tick (animated series) is currently being shown on ABC Family on Sundays at 11 a.m. ET. (It's also being shown weekdays at 1 a.m. on Toon Disney, but we don't get that channel.) According to New England Comics:

"If ratings are good (and why wouldn't they be we know you ALL will be watching) it may spark The Tick cartoon show FINALLY being released on DVD. So show your support and please watch watch watch!"

Set yer TiVos/ VCRs/ alarm clocks. If you need some Tickisms to tide you over 'til next week, go here or maybe here.

Win Ken Jennings's Money

Apparently they started looking for contestants already. I sent an email, but the run-thru dates are already half over.

This is Jeopardy!

Ken Jennings: still the man.

Where no fan has gone before…

I just read this today, in the Globe: 'Star Trek' nears its final frontier as UPN cancels 'Enterprise'. My first thought was, Wow, it's still on?

Friday quickies

• Not The Onion, but still funny: Microsoft's AntiSpyware Tool Removes Internet Explorer.

• David Letterman must have been a repeat on Wednesday night, because I heard this Top 10 list while driving to work the next morning: Top Ten Ways To Irritate Alex Trebek, presented by Jeopardy! Champion Ken Jennings.

• Finally, Jeopardy! announces its Ultimate Tournament of Champions— past masters will compete for a chance to play against Ken Jennings. Yikes!

Teen Titans, Go!

Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi debuts tonight at 7:30 on Cartoon Network. I'll probably tune in, even though these musical analogies from the review are ridiculous (and reminiscent of the equally-ludicrous movie pitches in Altman's The Player):

[…] The retro-adorable style of animation is also driven by the band's catchy pop music, which can be described as Joan Jett on a steady diet of helium and lollipops, or a tougher, heavily caffeinated Go-Go's, or even a female Cheap Trick as produced by ELO. […]

200th Entry!

It's been over a year since Poz set up Movable Type for me, and this is the 200th popplers entry on Foam Totem. Inspired by the Boston Globe's Ken Jennings timeline, I'm taking a look back at the previous 12 months or so:

October 2003: I have lunch with Cheryl et al. and first submit my résumé at PharmaCo. Chris interviews at Bluefin Robotics. Movies: The Two Towers (a little late), Kill Bill, Bubba Ho-tep.

November 2003: My episodes of Jeopardy! air. The Massachusetts State Supreme Court rules that same-sex couples have the right to marry. Opus returns to the Sunday comics. Movies: Freaks, Lost in Translation, Alien: The Director's Cut.

December 2003: We go to Florida to see the family. I'm a contestant on Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me's Bluff the Listener. Movies: Return of the King.

January 2004: Year of the Monkey! K. goes to Ireland. SF conventions: Arisia 2004. Movies: School of Rock, Peter Pan.

February 2004: Wardrobe malfunction. More interviews: Tribiosys, DAFCA, PharmaCo, Vertex. Culture: Threepenny Opera, Peabody Essex Museum. Fun: Mardi Gras! Movies: Space Station 3D, Matrix 3, Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Big Fish, Triplets of Belleville.

March 2004: Jeopardy! check arrives! City of Heroes beta-testing consumes my life. Still more interviews: EMC. SF conventions: Lunacon, I-CON. Our first ever pilgrimage to Krispy Kreme. Movies: The Station Agent, Mullholland Drive, The Sting.

April 2004: City of Heroes beta ends; real play begins. Bjo and John visit from CA. I start doing some part-time work with a local non-profit. SF conventions: Anime Boston. Movies: Hellboy, Kill Bill, Vol. 2.

May 2004: More interviews: PharmaCo (again), DeepBridge. We get a Roomba. I start my new job at DeepBridge and visit NYC, Baltimore, and London in 3 weeks time.

June 2004: Ken Jennings's first appearance on Jeopardy! We start watching again, dedicatedly. I finally go wireless and start working from home— pretty cool, except for the never-ending conference calls and note-taking.

July 2004: Twin Trees retreat. My grandfather's 90th birthday. First time volunteering at Falconridge Folk Festival. We head to Florida for Chris's parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Movies: Spider-Man 2.

August 2004: Jury duty: many are called, but few are chosen. Au revoir, Julia Child. Laid off by DeepBridge (no work for me to do). More travels to Long Island and NYC for Devo and Jen's fabulous wedding.

September 2004: SF conventions: Noreascon 4. More interviews: PharmaCo (for the 3rd time), Octagon. House projects. TALCAR road rally with Sean. Movies: Shaun of the Dead.

October 2004: K's birthday. Learned how to make Italian goodies: pickled peppers and pickled eggplant. More house projects. Amy's bachelorette party. I start my new job at PharmaCo. New S2000. The Sox win the pennant! (The Series is the cherry on top of the sundae.)

November 2004: Hello Kitty! turns 30; Sean turns 38. Post-Election Stress Disorder. Skunk attack! Chris gets hired by TechniCorp. Hot water heater rings down curtain, joins choir eternal. Movies: The Incredibles.

Cult of Ken Jennings

I meant to mention this on Thursday night, but it slipped my mind. Ken Jennings 0wnz0red his 2 opponents, hit $2,197,000 in winnings, and surpassed the previous record for most money won on a game show!

Ken "Can o' Whoopass" Jennings won $45,099 by coming up with the correct question in the Final JEOPARDY! Category of "Royalty":

ANSWER: This King was the Great-Grandfather of France's King Louis XV.

CORRECT QUESTION: Who is Louis XIV?

Still The Man

Ken Jennings rocks tha house: $2,125,301 as of Friday. I've lost count of how many times he's won (and Johnny Gilbert doesn't even bother announcing it at the start of each show anymore). Woot!

Julia retrospective

Julia! America's Favorite Chef airs tonight at 8:00 p.m. on WGBH. And today's Boston Globe Food section has lots of reminiscences, stories, and recipes from the lady herself. I can't wait to try out this amazing Reine de Saba cake.

In case you haven't been watching

So, we caught up with the Jeopardy episodes on the TiVo. Ken Jennings won for the 38th time— $75,000 (a record-breaking one-day total). He's up to $1,321,660 so far. And now Jeopardy is on hiatus for 6 weeks, so we have to wait until September to see how long he'll be able to keep this up. Go, Ken, go— you da man!

What is a juggernaut?

Ken Jennings continues to amaze me. He won again yesterday, and he's now beaten the all-time record for money won by a Jeopardy contestant. And he's just so gee-whiz about it all. (What else to expect from a self-professed nerd who collects comic books?) Keep going, dude-- we're rooting for you 'til the end!

The Houston Chronicle offers this Jeopardy-style trivia on the man and his hobbies.

Also, don't miss kottke.org's hysterical entry on the cult of Ken Jennings.

Still more Jeopardy

Woot! Over a million bucks and free ice cream for a year!

More Jeopardy

Well, it sure seems like Ken Jennings is an unstoppable juggernaut. Thirteen wins in a row is danged impressive, and he's still going! Doh.

This Salt Lake Tribune article is from last week, so the totals are all out-of-date, but there are some comments from co-workers and game show buffs, and a little about the history of the show and the lifting of the 5-appearances-only rule.

For example, Jennings correctly answered a "Daily Double" question that had this answer: "The only Central American country whose national anthem is sung in English."

At the last possible moment, Jennings buzzed in and blurted out: "What is Belize?"

(chrism found this: Amusingly, if you check out Jennings's hometown howdy, you can tell that he disliked taping it as much as I did.)

You go, girl!

Software developer wins 11 in a row on Jeopardy-- woot!

p.s. I finally feel like I've joined the 21st century. Finally got a replacement battery for the work laptop, and Sean loaned me a wireless card. I'm writing this from the couch, and I'm not tethered by any power cords or network cables at all!

Obey me!

Via Room With a Moose: Invader Zim action figure prototypes! Woot!

Zim!

roomwithamoose.com has posted the DVD cover artwork. I can't wait. I'm gonna sing the doom song!

Invader Zim!

What a great week for Zim-loving Earthanoids! The DVD comes out on May 11, and I just read that there will be action figures! Palisades Toys sez:

We will show painted prototypes of all the Series 1 characters at Toy Fair, but for now we can let you know what the Series 1 line-up is going to be. Series 1 (of DOOM!) includes Zim in Alien Form, Gir in Robot Form, Dib, Ms. Bitters and Almighty Tallest Red. Expect a few faceial expression variants of Zim in Series one, along with a Military Mode Gir! If the line takes off we have a lot of other cool stuff planned for it.

The Toy Fair will take place Sunday, February 15 - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 in New York City at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Woot!

"Wardrobe malfunction"? Right…

Now I almost feel bad that I fast-forwarded through the freaking half-time show. Almost.

The baring of one of Jackson's breasts at the end of her duet with Justin Timberlake, which caused a flood of outraged phone calls to CBS, was replayed a record number of times by TiVo users, a company representative said Monday.

"The audience measurement guys have never seen anything like it," said a TiVo representative. "The audience reaction charts looked like an electrocardiogram."

Plate of Shrimp

It's not exactly a holiday classic, but it is a classic nonetheless. A friend loaned us a copy of Repo Man because Chris hadn't ever seen it. It's been years since I've watched it (long enough that I forgot much of the "plot"), but it rapidly started coming back to me. My favorite quote: "It happens sometimes. People just explode. Natural causes."

Great soundtrack, too: Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag, Burning Sensations... scary memories of high school. <shudder>

Is it just me?

Now, I realize that we've been watching a lot of the Food Network lately (and quite a few episodes of Good Eats in particular)... But why do I keep getting Winter Wonderland stuck in my head, with these lyrics:

In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Alton Brown...

Seussian pentameter

Watched The Grinch Who Stole Christmas last night. (Did not play the drinking game.) I love Chuck Jones... Max is the best. From this week's Backfence, Lileks's take on Seuss:

Yes, it's a classic. But I was mildly exasperated by the scene in which the Grinch enumerates the Whoville Christmas, with all its elaborate musical devices. It demonstrated Seuss Rule No. 1: it's easy to make the rhyme and meter work when you're making up all the words. Let me try:

"They come with their foofles and fimtingletanglers / Their boombuls and brambels and buzztidlymanglers/ Their kramamaramzas and krovas and groodies/ And then they sit down for a feast of Who foodies! / With rumikin cupcakes and hot spumco krumkakes"

Simpsons did it! Simpsons did it!

Alert channel-surfer chrism pointed out (weeks ago) that Ian McKellen is going to be on The Simpsons, along with J.K. Rowling. The episode, titled "The Regina Monologues" airs this Sunday at 8 p.m. Woo-hoo!

Anime Action

We've been getting our anime fix lately. Between Cartoon Network and Encore Action, we've been able to catch a bunch of cool stuff. Encore Action recently aired Hellsing (very cool) and Vampire Hunter D (meh). Cartoon Network's Adult Swim just started showing InuYasha and FLCL (only watched one episode of each). Chris swapped the old hard drive into the TiVo, so we're back to having only 30 hours of space. But on the bright side, this may mean that we can pull some of the info off of the other drive before it gives up the ghost.

Jeopardy, Part 2

My second episode aired tonight. For those of you who couldn't watch, I'll just let you know that you don't need to bother setting the VCR for Monday.

Sean, Chris, and I went up to Tyngsborough and caught a matinee (Alien: The Director's Cut). Went out for sushi afterward. Came home to 8 more messages on the answering machine from well-wishers who were watching tonight's episode. I think 4 of them were from K., who called at every commercial break to update me with her thoughts on how the game was going—too funny.

I loved Elke's comment (via email) about last night's show:
Although after his zipping through all that presidential information, your opponent had me a little nervous (and no wonder, since he was apparently old enough to remember all of them personally). But as soon as Alex announced the Science History category, I was certain you were going to emerge victorious.