A New Era Dawns...

A lot has happened for me over the last few months. A lot will hopefully be happening over the next few. And if you're reading this, I'll be sharing it with you from wherever I go! That's all I can say for now... Meanwhile, please enjoy this picture of my cat playing in our hamster aquarium. Yeah, I know...

New Endeavors, uh, Anew

Goodness gracious, it's been 2 weeks since I made a post!!?? Wowza. Well, I'm not sure if anyone is still checking in over here after my blatant neglect, but if you are, and you happen to watch the NBC show Heroes, then by all means come over and see the brand new site I started. See, I really wanted to torture myself with high amounts of pressure to commit to things I had no time for. So, I ask you, what would be more perfect for that than a whole website of my own? Exactly. The site is found here. It is part of the Quantym network that I mentioned previously. We also have a great site for you Fringe lovers. I thought I'd post the review I did of the premiere episode from last week, as I'm very excited for this weeks new episode.

And They're Off and Running

Episodes 3x01 and 3x02 kicked off with a three-hour Heroes-apalooza event on NBC. They started with a preview show where they did some catching up from last season. Some of us did need reminders of where exactly we left off. They also included some great bits from the Season 2 DVD extras that were a lot of fun to watch. The setting for the preview show was outside the Premiere party, and many of the most popular characters stood on the red carpet in front of a throng of screaming fans and introduced the clips. Some of the actors were a little wooden as they read their lines (yes, I’m looking at you, Ali Larter. I’ve seen carousel horses that were more emotive.) After an enthusiastic countdown to the top of the hour the episodes “The Second Coming” and “The Butterfly Effect” began.

What worked:

There were some great callbacks to Season 1. I felt it gave it a nice feeling of starting over, which, let's face it, we could use. Sylar had to (almost) start from scratch hunting down “evolved humans” after losing most of his abilities. Hiro is once again daydreaming about destiny and fiddling with the clocks. Claire is repeatedly throwing herself into harm’s way and filming it.

We saw the beginning of many compelling mysteries. Is Linderman alive but invisible, or is he dead and a hallucination? Or is he dead and come back Obi-Wan style? Is Tracy Niki or is she her own separate entity? How did Daphne know to be in Hiro’s office at that very second? How did the painting of the earth blowing up get in both Africa and New York? How many people are seeing this vision? Did Ando betray Hiro like Hiro says, or is Hiro wrong just as Ando says?

The special effects were stellar. How cool was that 3-dimensional trail of color frozen in time and space behind Daphne? The gore in Angela’s dream was spectacular! Claire’s decapitated remains were especially gruesome. You know, in a good way.

There was more of the Heroes special brand of humor. The scene where Sylar is stopped by two of the Companies finest, filmed through the dash-cam as they make the poor decision to taze him was downright hilarious. Hiro was fun to watch as he taunted Daphne in her Parisian apartment. “Here kitty, kitty.” The talking turtle, however, was by far my favorite scene. From the moment when Usutu asks Matt if he knows Brittney Spears, I had a new favorite character. Don’t hold me to that, though. I can be fickle.

What didn’t work:

I could really do without this new turn for Mohinder and Maya. Sure, his storyline was getting stale, and it’s a way to get another superpower without having to introduce yet another character, but I liked the old Mohinder. This new slimy “how you doin” cheeseball annoys me. Plus, I don’t like how suddenly the powers are based in the adrenal gland. For two seasons they have indicated that Dr. Chandra Suresh’s research and book were about the DNA of the superheroes. They have shown the powers to often be passed down along familial bloodlines. This passing out powers twist is cheap. I don’t like it and I think it’s cheating. And finally, was Mohinder going to destroy the syringe with the magic potion by incineration? Oh, no, he wants to throw it in the river. Because it’s so likely to just sink to the bottom and not affect the water or the critters living in there. I know the pollution in NYC is bad but I don’t think it can neutralize stuff that turns you into a fly. I wonder what it would do to an actual fly!?

I’m uncomfortable with Nathan becoming uber-religious as a storyline. Hopefully it is a result of the “near-death” experience and it eventually fades away. It’s not that I don’t believe in God or have a problem with religious based plotlines. Believe me, I loved Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel. I just think that this as a story could go horribly wrong. He’ll either be made to look like a fool by the other politicians just because he is religious, or they will deify the superhumans. If it’s the former it will be a distraction. If it’s the latter, it may just jump the shark.

My conclusion: I think it did more good than harm. I give it a 7.5 out of 10. It had lots of action, laughs and set up a great start for this next volume. Knowing we will have a complete season this time (knock wood) makes me look very much forward to how this act plays out.

Update Update

I have been so bad about posting that I have actually not even looked at this site due to the shame I feel in neglecting it. The past two weeks have been a blur of school preparedness. Add to that back pain that has made anything other than breathing and eating completely unappealing and you have, well, this: The lonely un-updated blog of yours truly.

I have been writing today, and you will shortly see a blog posting I wrote for a new website about the Fox show Fringe. The site looks great and I encourage all you fans of the show to stop in and check it out. If you are a fan of Sci-Fi in general, why not visit their sister site, Quantym?

Then, I will be updating The Daily Crutch, news on my boy's first week of school and other things that I am watching and hearing about.

A few more quick updates: I found lemon juice at Walmart the other day, and I saw it again at my supermarket today. Unfortunately I hear from Wisconsin that a friend of mine can't find any at her markets, so maybe we're just stealing it from the midwest. And going back to one of my earliests posts, I finally got around to listening to the Dork Forest podcast (I know, I'm slow. Did you not know I'm a dork myself? It explains a lot.) Anyway, I found it hard to listen to at first because the podcasters produce it by calling into a service and that "over-the-phone" sounding voice is a little distracting at first, but the show was funny enough that I really enjoyed the program and can't wait to download another one.

Hi There...

I realize I have been slow to post lately but my ankle has been feeling better and I have been taking advantage of that to enjoy some time with my Wii. I mean, uh, my family. I have plenty of posts planned and will be getting them up soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this humorously captioned photo.


more cat pictures

Here's How Much Of A Dork I Am

I posted a comment today on Jorge Garcia's blog. I'm practically beaming about it. I wanted to tell all my friends about it, as if I had had just had lunch with him instead of putting one of scores of posts by fans about a quick thought he put on his blog. But that's not the geeky part. I actually spent quite a bit of time thinking about what I was going to say, as if he would read the comment, think to himself, "hey, she seems like a cool chick, I should see if she has a blog." And then he goes to it, posts something to me and the next thing I know he and his girlfriend are joining me and my husband for yard sale-ing and sushi. Which is ridiculous. My husband doesn't even like sushi. It's just one more example that proves I need to stay away from celebrities. I can't handle it. The time I met "Weird Al" Yankovic I was a mess. We had gone to his show in a small venue near here and there we ran into a comedian friend, who, it turned out was friends with Weird Al's bass player, Stephen Jay. He got us backstage and said we could meet Al. That eventually became something like two hours later, because Al kept inviting in people waiting for autographs. That man does not like to disappoint his fans. Anyway, what we thought was going to be "hanging out with Al" turned out to be "when the line starts to taper off you can get in it after that bunch of ten year olds and get his autograph." When we got up there, Paul was cool and calm, shook his hand, told him how much he enjoyed his work and thanked him for the autograph. My few moments with him were like a blur. I think I tried to launch into a stammering story of how we had sung "Amish Paradise" at a karaoke bar a few weeks earlier then decided that was a stupid story so I tried to change gears in the middle of it and it came out something like, "Uh, Hi, Al, um, Weird Al, we love, I mean I love your songs, we did the Amish... thing, um, I love you, I mean your work and uh, thanks. For the autograph I mean. And the music. And um, also, uh, the music too. Thanks." I'll say it right here: "Weird Al" Yankovic has some serious patience. He just smiled at me with great understanding, and no sign of irritation, as I backed out of the room, tripping over ten year olds.

Someday I'll tell the stories of when I spent the day with A. Whitney Brown and spoke on the phone with Tucker Carlson.

Oh, Hey, I Almost Forgot...

Today is now this blogs birthday!!


more cat pictures

Coincidentally enough, tomorrow is also the birthday of two of my friends, Donna and Amy. Everybody say, "Happy Birthday, Donna and Amy!!"

I wonder how they feel about sharing their special day with a site like this...

Maybe I shouldn't tell them about it...

Breaking the Seal...

I have been wanting to start a blog here for some time but was waiting for I guess the perfect subject matter and/or joke to pop into my head to make it the awesomest blog post ever. Then I remember: I'm nowhere near talented enough for that. The best I can hope for is a slow steady stream of blogs that will hopefully get better as I go. It's like going to the bathroom at a party. You wait and wait, thinking about it but not feeling any great urge. But once you go, the trips get more frequent and much more necessary. Incidentally, I have a feeling the content here will be heavily influenced by alcohol as well.