YouTube Thursday: Han Solo, PI

Seriously, this needs no introduction. Han Solo as Magnum PI.



And now the comparison to original.

You Tube Thursday: Jon Stewart takes on Dick Cheney... again

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney has been more vocal in recent months than at any point he was locked in his underground bunker feasting on the souls of the innocent (I might have made that last part of up).

Jon Stewart has always had a bit of an issue with Cheney. Here's one more example.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Dick (Uncut)
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Economic Crisis

YouTube Thursday: V (2009)

I loved the original V miniseries when I was a kid. Watched the TV show. Read the novels.



I hope this reimagining doesn't come across as cheesy as that looks now... 25 years later.

YouTube Thursday: Daily Show Goes After Pelosi

Typically the Daily Show is thought of as a liberal comedy show. So why didn't the universe implode back on itself when the show went after Nancy Pelosi and why she didn't speak out against torture when she knew about it?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Waffle House
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

YouTube Thursday: Scrubs Finale

I've extolled my love for Scrubs many times here. And dangit all if I didn't forget to record the finale last night.

So in my web browsing today, I found this, the final moments from last night's finale of Scrubs.

And yes, I got teary, because it's perfect. A perfect ending to this show.



Addendum: Why doctors call Scrubs the most accurate TV Show about the medical profession

YouTube Thursday: Mythbusters Compact a Car

I love Mythbusters. It combines my love of science (not always the best science, but hey, it's TV) and exploding things (usually). Last week was the season premiere of Mythbusters, focusing on car myths. And one that they tested was if a compact car would be fused between two head-on semis. It wasn't.

So they decided to amp it up to another level and they... well, I'll let them explain it. It might be the best thing they've done... maybe ever.

YouTube Thursday: Always Be My Baby - David Cook

TiVo is the greatest way to watch American Idol. You can skip the inane intros, and the inane judge, and listen to the songs and what matters from the judges. This year, I'm pretty much thinking Adam Lambert has it locked up.

Last year though, it was pretty obvious that it was going to come down to David Cook and David Archuleta. I was always a supporter of Cook because I liked his harder edge to the songs he chose and performed (and that Archuleta looked dead behind his eyes). At any rate, I knew for certain that David Cook was going to win after the Mariah Carey week where he turned a lightweight fun pop song into a really solid rock ballad with "Always Be My Baby."

YouTube Thursday: Scrubs Safety Dance

I've stated before my love for the show Scrubs (especially the first 3-4 seasons), as you can see evidenced here.

This video takes one of my favorite snippets and adds many if not all of Turk's dances to it. Completely hysterical.

25 Random Things About Myself

There's a thing going around Facebook where you list 25 things about yourself. So I'm double posting it here.

1) I have lived my entire life in Nashville. I was born in the old Saint Thomas hospital and have lived my entire life in the southern and eastern part of Nashville. I love this city, the size, the general feel of the people here, just about everything about it. And as a result I've never really wanted to move. I think I could live in a big city and were I younger, I might give New York City a shot, but as it is, I love living here.

2) I have attended Otter Creek Church of Christ for 31 of my 37 years of life. Except for 6 years where I either didn't attend church or attended Belmont Church, I've gone to Otter Creek the entire time. One of the things that I really love about it is the sense of tradition that I have from going there. My great-grandfather was the first preacher in the Granny White building and my grandparents went there, as well as my parents for a time. I love how we honor tradition while still pushing the envelopes of what it means to be Church of Christ and a Christian.

3) I taught high school English for 6 years at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School for the Health Sciences and Engineering. I loved this job. I got to teach some of the best kids in one of the best schools in the city. We talked about literature, of course, but talking about that led us into discussions of race and life and politics and religion and all that other stuff you're not supposed to talk to your students about, but that's what they want to talk about. I had a great time doing it (except for grading papers) and miss it on occasion.

4) I'm married to my best friend. I know that sounds cliched but the honest truth is that Sheryl is the person that I want to spend most of my time with/person with whom I want to spend most of my time. When something good or bad happens, she's the first one I want to talk with about it. We were friends before we dated and that blossomed into the love we share today. I don't find myself missing the fluttery feelings of first love because as important as those are at the beginning of a relationship, they fade. And if that's what we lock into as love, then we're just fooling ourselves. So I love being married to my best friend.

5) I have a bad temper. When I was a teenager and adolescent, I used to lose my temper all the time. Got into fights, argued, all that stuff. As I got older, that fuse became longer and longer, but I find that it gotten shorter with my kids as I have pretty high expectations for them and their behavior. I'm working on controlling it as much as I can, but some days it's very, very hard.

6) My parents are divorced. When I was 11, my parents got divorced and 6 months later, my mom remarried. Now, my mom and dad's relationship had been over a long time before the divorce was finalized, but that was obviously a difficult time. As a result, my mom was also disfellowshipped from Otter Creek, because the divorce was not Scriptural (because of marital infidelity on my dad's part).

7) After leaving teaching, I was a technical writer. What that really means is that I helped write frequently asked questions for websites, as well as help files and such. It was a great way to get into the business world and honestly it was a place where my experience as a teacher gave me a great amount of credibility. It was also something I didn't like a lot, because it was very formalized in the writing and grammar, things that I really didn't like even when I was teaching.

8) My technical writing led to my work now as a usability engineer/user interface designer. One of the things you do as a technical writer is look for problems that people might have with software and anticipate the problems they'll have with it and write solutions around it. What I do now is design the software to not have those problems in the first place. It's a great job that feeds both my creative side and geeky side. Plus, I'm pretty good at it and enjoy it, both of which are nice bonuses.

9) I've been out of the US 3 times. Once to Canada on a brief business trip, and twice to Great Britain. The first time was in 2000 when Sheryl and I decided that we were going to do a trip like this before we had kids and just had a blast doing it. We spent 2 weeks going from London to Dover/Canterbury to Oxford to Edinburgh (Scotland) to Aberdeen (Scotland) to Inverness (Scotland) and back to London. It is literally in the top 5 memories of my entire life, behind our wedding and the births of our kids. The 2nd time to England was on a mission trip to Loughborough in 2004. We took Kinsey with us to go work with a church there, and Connor came along too, but he was in utero. This was also good, but very different in feel obviously. Through it, we came to know many people that are very close friends with us today and who are in our Life group/small group.

10) I love Jesus. Again, I know that's a cliche kind of thing to say, but I really do. Not just because of the salvation aspects in which I firmly believe, but also the example of his life. Too often it's easy for us to focus on the sacrificial atoning nature of his death and resurrection and the cute "golden fleece diapers" aspect of his birth, and forgetting that there was a life of 33 years in between those two where Jesus said some really important things. I love how Jesus tweaked the noses of the established authority while still loving people and still getting frustrated as all heck with them.

11) My favorite Old Testament verse is 1 Samuel 6:7 "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." I had this one read at my baptism and it was a theme verse for me. I had horrible self-esteem as a child, and so it gave me comfort that God didn't look at my unattractive outside, but what was inside.

12) My favorite New Testament verses are Philippians 2:5-11: 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:

6 Who, being in very nature [a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature [b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

13) Sheryl and I have lived in the same house for the last 12 years. We moved in just before our first anniversary and rented from my parents for the first year, then bought. Several times, I've really wanted to move and get something with just a bit more space, particularly in the master bedroom and master bath area, but it's not too bad right now.

14) I can quote about 90% of the original Star Wars movie and probably 75% of the Princess Bride. My movie-going childhood was defined by Star Wars and the original trilogy. I also had an LP called the Story of Star Wars that had most of the dialogue, music, and sound effects and I listened to that over and over. My quotability of the Princess Bride comes just from loving that movie and loving the complete over the top cheesiness of it being done with complete seriousness. "Let me esplain.... No, there is too much, let me sum up."

15) My ability to hold vast amounts of useless knowledge in my brain makes me very annoying at trivia games. I don't have a photographic memory, but I can hold weird bits of knowledge in my head for a long time. Like, I can remember that John McTiernan was the director of Die Hard 1 & 3 and the directory of Predator, while Renny Harlin directed Die Hard 2, the Long Kiss Goodnight, and Cutthroat Island, the latter two starred his wife Geena Davis with Samuel Jackson and Matthew Modine (respectively). I don't know why I know that. But I do and when I play trivia games, it can be annoying, but my competitive drive makes me want to win every time. Hence, I don't play trivia games that often.

16) I'm a gadget/electronics nut. I love grown up toys. I love the cool iPhones and big screen TVs and the whiz bag things that we can do with gadgets now that would have seemed like science fiction 20 years ago. I like those things, but that can also get expensive so I try not to indulge that often, but on occasion I'm weak and give in.

17) I love snowboarding. For the last several years, I've gone out to Colorado with my parents and Kinsey to go skiing, but 2 years ago, I was introduced to snowboarding and I don't see myself returning to skiing anytime soon. For one the boots are much more comfortable. Secondly, it's an amazing amount of fun. I was never a skateboarder, but snowboarding is an incredible amount of fun. I never had to take formal lessons. My mom and dad showed me how to heel and toe turns, but beyond that, it's just been really natural for me. And I'm looking forward to going back soon.

18) I've always wanted to write fiction. Blogging and design work feeds a certain part of my creativity, but from a very early age I wanted to write fiction. The problem again goes back to my self-esteem about what I can do. A lot of the fiction that I've written has felt trite and pedestrian and so I haven't really devoted much time or effort to it. It's a confidence issue, as well as pushing past the crap that I would have to write before I get to something that might be decent.

19) I do tech/audio-visual work at Otter Creek and occasionally for the Zoe Group. About 6 and a half years ago, I started to doing tech work for Otter Creek as a part time job. It's something that I mostly enjoy, but I get a little tired of it sometimes. It can be a little more stressful than I would like it to be, but that's because I hold myself to such a high standard when it comes to mistakes. I coordinate and run both the sound board and the MediaShout (visual) work for Otter Creek. Honestly, while I'm good at both, I enjoy running MediaShout more than sound. Running sound can still occasionally feel like I'm in someone else's shoes, while I feel right at home running MediaShout, behind a computer doing visuals.

20) I've run sound at the Ryman Auditorium. A few years back, the Zoe Group partnered with the Temple Church praise team to do a Thanksgiving service at the Ryman Auditorium and because Brandon Scott Thomas felt comfortable with me, I ended up running the sound for the night. It was a very scary, but really cool experience.

21) My favorite literature writer is William Faulkner. I discovered Faulkner in 10th grade English when we read As I Lay Dying which I didn't understand at all. Stream of consciousness... point of view... perspective... My mother is a fish... None of it made sense. Then we read The Unvanquished in 11th grade and I got him quite a bit more. Then in 12th grade, I read Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom, as well as many of his short stories, and I discovered someone who finally didn't make me feel like an idiot for claiming to be a Southern. He was honest about the racism, and unflinching in his depiction, while also not condone it, but recognized it as a part of the Southern Heritage, never to be re-enacted. As a result, I had my students read him too.

22) I love video games, particularly shooters and driving games, and most especially, music games. When I got my Xbox, I made a pact that I wouldn't play while the kids were awake. I've gotten a little bit away from that and I'll play some driving games with them, and especially Rock Band where Kinsey and Sheryl will play drums and bass as well. It's incredibly fun. Plus we play it when our Life group comes over, after we get done with the Bible study and prayer time.

23) I do the laundry in our household. When Sheryl and I got married, we divided up the household chores. I took the outside of the house (excluding the garden) and she took the inside (excluding the laundry). Now you might think, "Why the laundry, Phil?" Because I can sit on my butt and watch TV while I fold clothes. It was a pretty easy decision. Now, that of course is not to say that I don't help out with cleaning the house, or Sheryl doesn't help with the laundry, but that's where the responsibilities tend to lay.

24) I would like to preach one sermon at Otter Creek. It sounds dumb, but I almost feel this "genetic" imperative to preach a sermon at Otter Creek, because of my great-grandfather preaching there. Now, I of course would like to be asked to speak on my own merits and not as a "pity" preacher, so it's not likely to happen, but I think it would be really neat to do that.

25) I don't know for certain what the afterlife will bring. I'm placing my faith that what Jesus said is true and that my desire to be as much like him as I can will put me in a place to be with him in eternity, saved by his grace. I don't know what that means for everyone else in the world, past, present, and future. But I feel like my calling is to show love to others and allow myself to be loved by them and by God. If I can somehow pull that off here on earth, perhaps God can show a little bit through me to them.

So that's 25 things. If you've lasted this long, I'd buy you a drink (non-alcoholic) but with the economy the way it is... well, you'll just have to be happy with a hearty congratulations.

YouTube Thursday: Battlestar Galactica - The Final Episodes

For the last three years, I've been extolling the virtues of Battlestar Galactica. I won't go through all those reasons; you can click the link to read those.

The final episodes of Battlestar Galactica are starting up tomorrow. And it will be the end of one of the most literary, well-written shows, not just sci-fi of this decade. There is a great place for pop sci fi, like Lost and Heroes, but I'm also glad there's been a place for sci-fi like Battlestar Galactica as well, especially this re-imagining. Here is a preview of the upcoming season, continuing from last season where they landed on Earth, but it wasn't quite what they expected.

MSNBC is the new FoxNews, The Daily Show, and Objective Journalism

We have a new Democratic president and apparently the cool thing to do is have a network in your corner.

"Thankfully," MSNBC has accepted this mantle. Witness Chris Matthews say that it's his job as a journalist to make Obama's presidency successful.



And truly thankfully, The Daily Show has taken their role as court jester seriously and is pointing out the hypocrisy.



Which they also did last night in pointing out some of the things that Obama and Hillary Clinton said about each other during the campaign. (Warning: some adult humor, if that kind of thing offends you...)



So, I'm curious. Is it possible for a news organization to be completely objective or is this a case of people recognizing biases and making them work for them? Do we need a completely objective media or is it just that all sides get presented equally?

YouTube Thursday: Loretta, Daphne, Carol, Carol, Carol, Carol

With all the political heaviness going around, I thought it might be fun to have a clip the girls' names Dr. Cox has called J.D. on Scrubs (Seasons 4-5). Enjoy.



And here's Seasons 1-3

Heroes Wednesday: Ummmm.... episode 3

In order to keep liking Heroes, I think I'm going to have to stop reviewing it. The main reason is that if I think too much about it, I'll stop enjoying it. I can't think about the idea that Bennett would willing work with Sylar, even for a short time, after what he did to Claire. That he wouldn't shoot Sylar (or the screaming guy) through the glass to prevent Sylar from taking his power.

We had no Mohinder so we don't get to continue to see how stupid he is. I think Nathan Petrelli's arc is interesting, especially with the religious twist they're putting on it.

At any rate, I still really like the show, but it doesn't stand up to deep analysis. As one critic said after last week's episode... "people have argued the point with me, but my feeling is that the show wasn't even that good in season 1, outside of a handful of episodes ("Five Years Later," "Company Man"), but the novelty of it, the cliffhangers, and our misguided belief that this was all going somewhere fooled us into thinking "Heroes" was better than it actually was. Once we got the season one finale, and especially once we got season two, the blinders came off and we realized the emperor has no clothes, and probably never did." I think I agree with him, but it doesn't stop me from liking the show.

Disappointment

"I was convinced an Obama/McCain campaign would be measurably different on almost all standards. And to watch it become Bush/Kerry, Bush/Gore, has been one of the most dissatisfying experiences. " - Jon Stewart

Entertainment Weekly Interview with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert

Heroes Wednesday: Premiere

Look, the 2nd season of Heroes wasn't good. It just wasn't. There were good things about it, but they got really locked into the same pattern as the first season with new characters, when we'd all grown attached to the characters from the first season and didn't really care much about the new ones.

The premiere Monday was... Ok, here one thing that I've learned about watching Heroes is that I really have to turn my brain into its lower gear. I can't nitpick as much because then I realize how ultimately dumb the show is. And it's ok to like a dumb show. I can't do things like think about how people should use their powers. For instance, when Claire locked herself in the closet to hide from Sylar, was this his thought process? "I'm evil. I have magnificent telekinetic powers. The thing that I've been pursuing for a long time is on the other side of a wooden slats door chained with a thin chain. I think I'll wait her out, instead of using my powers or say... my foot." See, I can't think too deeply about it. It's almost the opposite of Lost where they want you to OVER-think it.

At any rate, on a purely dumb show level, Monday night was great. I thought they did a great job setting up the arcs for the season and coming up with tolerable solutions to the last season. I really think that where they're going with stuff is going to be fun and as long as I don't think about why FuturePeter didn't just teleport away from FutureDarkClaire and the like, I'll be just fine with it.

Villains?

So while my wife was watching America's Got (Stupid) Talent, I happened to see it when there was a Heroes promo on, with Season 3 subtitled Villains.

Now, for one thing, because of the strike and no episodes in the spring, I'd kind of forgotten about the show. Part of that is out of sight, out of mind; part of it is because, well, let's just admit it, Season 2 kind of sucked. The whole Maya/Aleja.....zzzzzz, sorry, must've used an old joke there. But that plotline was just kind of bad. Hiro in Japan at least had a payoff, but it lasted too long.

My hope for this season is fewer new characters (although the title of Villains [plural] makes me think that there will be several new characters, unless some of our favorites go bad) and more action. The psychological aspects of what all the Heroes are going through is interesting on a few levels, but it's time to plow new ground on a lot of that as well.

I know I'm going to watch it, but definitely without as much initial enthusiasm as I did for the beginning of Season 2.

YouTube Thursday: Anne Lamott on the Colbert Report

On Tuesday night, Anne Lamott was on the Colbert Report. He talked about her book, Grace (Eventually) that the Otter Creek Wednesday night book club read last summer. I like Anne Lamott a lot, but don't agree with her on everything, much like I don't agree with just about anyone on everything.

One other thing: If you've never watched Colbert before, realize that he's satirizing people like Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews and the pundit shows on cable news. Sometimes he's TOO good at it, but in this case, I think he likes Lamott a lot and let's her get her points across.

Gaius Baltar is Not Jesus

NOTE: If you haven't watched the first four episodes of Battlestar Galactica and don't want to be spoiled, please read no further.

I had a comment on my previous BSG post (if you could call it a full post) from Kat Coble about my thoughts on what the show is doing with the religious aspect. Kat herself has posted some thoughts which I think are well worth reading.

A couple of years ago, I pointed out that the current iteration of BSG has added religion as a facet of the show, where the Colonials (good guys) are polytheists, modeled after (or modeling, depending on if you think the show is in our past or our future) the Greek pantheon and the Cylons (bad guys) are monotheists. In the show's current season (the fourth and final) traitor Gaius Baltar has become a primary evangelist for monotheism, gathering to himself followers, many of them nubile young women who like the chance to "experience" the love that is Gaius Baltar. At any rate, in the last episode, Baltar was beaten bloody as he preached a message of God's love and acceptance for people and that because God loves them, they are all perfect.

Do I think that the producers and writers of BSG are trying to accurately represent Christianity. No, not any more than they are trying to accurately represent the worship of the Greek pantheon. I think to most of them, the two are equal, quaint superstitions. It's just that one is still active. I think the parallels are interesting and it can certainly make it difficult to not sympathize with some of the Cylon's motives, even if I can't with their actions to support those motives. To me, the religion aspect of the entire show as been a great addition to the overall "mythology" of the show. Do I think some aspects of the Cylons' attempts to spread "God's love" are similar to some of what Christianity has done historically? Perhaps, but what I also hope is that people will watch and recognize the differences between fact and fiction. For myself, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what they do with this in the future episodes.

Advice for Parents, re: Miley Cyrus

I was listening to NPR this morning about how Miley Cyrus is the latest in a line of role models for girls who have disappointed them: Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lynn Spears,Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical fame, etc. Of course there is the usual discussion about the oversexualization of children and the cult of celebrity in our society, but the real issue is that young girls look to these (mostly) young ladies as role models and hence are getting disappointed by them.

So here's my advice for parents... help your children realize that no matter how much someone is on TV or movies, that doesn't mean you should emulate them. I mean seriously, help your young girls get better role models. I love the fact that Kinsey doesn't usually try to emulate people she sees on TV. She likes being like and around our friends that we have around us. Are they perfect? No, but I would much rather my little girl want to emulate the teachers and lawyers that we know, than someone who sounds good with a mic in her hand or because she looks good in a wig. And that's not to say that the others might not disappoint as well, because they very well could. But I would rather it be that than some celebutante.

YouTube Thursday: The EdWord

Thanks to everyone for the kind thoughts about my grandmother, whether left here or sent through other methods. Sheryl and I both greatly appreciate it. And I will also say that I appreciate your thoughts on my writing as well. For a while, I fancied myself as something of a writer and worked on it. I haven't done so outside this blog for a while and so it's nice to get compliments on that.

Anyway, on a completely different note, I offer this video from last week's on-location-from-Philadelphia Colbert Report, where former Presidential candidate John Edwards pokes fun at the process, at himself, and still manages to slip in some talking points. He's also the funniest I've ever seen him. Enjoy.