House

Over the Christmas break last year I picked up the first season of House on DVD, and a couple late night marathon viewing sessions later, I decided that it had been an excellent buy. I'll probably pick up the second and third seasons some time soon and get back to more viewing excellence.

There are two definite phases of house, first team and second team. While I like the characters from the second team alright, and Thirteen is definitely hot, I still tend to lean to the first team more. It seems to me that if you take Foreman out of the equation because he is still there in the second team, Chase and Cameron are more interesting than Kutner, Taub and Thirteen are. It seems that even though there are more story lines about Taub and Thirteen than there were about Chase and Cameron, that doesn't translate into more character development. And Kutner is just kinda boring.

Of course the story is all about diagnosing the mystery illness, and it's done in a way that even though you don't know anything about medicine, it's still interesting. Most of the time House or one of his staff figures out what's happening near the end of the episode, and the patient recovers. In a few episodes, the correct diagnosis isn't a good thing, and the patient dies from some uncurable malady. What I haven't seen yet, and maybe I've just missed it, is where either some test or treatment that House is wrong about kills the patient, or where they get the right diagnosis, but not in time. I guess you could say that the episode where they gave two babies with the same disease two different treatments and one of them died might fit into that, but House had decided that one of the babies had to die anyway to save several other ones, so House wasn't wrong.

House is just one of those newer prime time dramas that I am kinda into. I don't know if it is just because some of the dramas of the past sucked, or that I just am getting older and more mature that I like more of these shows than I used to. I guess it also shows a break from the science fiction I like so much too, but oh well, I don't still do all the things I used to do either.

Bones

I'm going to get a little out of character with this post. Normally I tend to focus on the female cast for reasons I just can't figure out, but not this time. I'm going to go on record right now and say that Emily Deschanel has a major case of five-head going on, and she's just no where near as attractive as her sister Zooey. Also, I really find much of her acting to be wooden and that's saying a lot for a person who is playing a character that is emotionally stunted.

Bones as a show seems to me to work because of the interplay between the two main characters, and I do have to say that most of the character development is very good in this series. However, the main reason that I think this show shines is because of David Boreanaz. He is one of my favorite actors, and I'm always amazed that he is able to portray a character so well.

The character Booth is what makes Bones great. He's a man that just understands man stuff so well without being a jerk. Just an observation, but the way that Brennan is written so that she doesn't understand Booth's motivations is totally spot on for me and a good example of real life. However you put it though, David Boreanaz's Booth is what makes this show.

I know that so many TV shows now are following the scientific crime solving story that it has almost become a genre in itself. CSI, all of them, Bones, Numb3rs, Fringe, 11th Hour, NCIS, and so many other shows all follow some version of this pattern. Bones fits into this science-based crime solving genre quite well, and in some ways that is almost a bad thing, but in this case it's the character development that stands out. I have to say that for the most part, other than the original CSI, it's hard to be interested in the characters of any of the above programs even though I know that the characters are written to be interesting and likable. I just don't think that many of the other shows that are out there really do their character development right. Case in point, when Booth was shot at the end of the last season, I couldn't wait to find out what happened to him, even though I know that without him, there's no show. CSI had this kind of draw with many of their characters.

Now, I will say one thing. Many of the episodes of Bones seem to be cookie-cutter right out of the box story lines, and they are kinda lacking, especially since the Gormagon story arc closed up. This show really needs a season long story arc that can't be wrapped up in in just a few episodes. Still, even after saying that, it's one of the better shows of its genre out there, and it doesn't have to extend itself into pseudo-horrific paranormal exploits to stay entertaining. I don't expect to watch a science/crime story and see all sci-fi just because they both have the word science in them.

Also, I think Sweets is a pretty good character. Just thought I'd add that.

Genealogy

Genealogy is actually something of a sticky subject. There are several ways to investigate genealogy, but accuracy is always questionable. To have any kind of accuracy when researching your genealogy, you have to have primary evidence. Things like first hand accounts of your ancestors that your living relative have met and known, copies of birth, marriage or death certificates, obituaries, or sometimes grave markers. However, getting your hands on this kind of evidence is time consuming and potentially expensive.

Besides first hand accounts there is also the potential for second hand evidence. This could be from biographies that list a primary source, or maybe research that someone else has done that overlaps your own. Second hand evidence can really help flesh out your family tree. You will probably have to gather the first few generations of research yourself, unless you are lucky enough to have a close relative who also has the genealogy bug, but for every generation you go back, you are more likely to find someone who has already done some of the research for you. Because of the near geometric growth of descendants, each generation back potentially increases the number of living descendants for any specific ancestor, increasing the chance that someone out there has already done some of your work for you. God bless those few genealogists out there who actually document their work who you can double check on, but even with a hint of accuracy, it's so much easier to do your own research.

There's actually a genealogical theory that if a person's lineage continues long enough, that person will eventually be the common ancestor of every person alive. Now I know that there are always isolated communities, and that you can't apply a generality to every individual case, but as a generality this theory works really well. What it means for genealogical research is that the farther back you go in your own family tree, if there's information to research, the chances that someone's already done it skyrocket. This theory also means that if you have kids, and your kids have kids, and they have kids that have kids that you will eventually be the progenitor of every human alive.

Best Western

I'm not sure why, but for as long as I can remember, I've always just associated hotels with Best Western. I've had so many bad experiences with hotels in my life that I hardly want to go anywhere anymore. However, I've still never had an issue at a Best Western.

I know that the first hotel I remember staying at as a kid was the Best Western in Pigeon Forge, TN when we visited the Smokey Mountains. Maybe Best Western has some kind of subliminal conditioning for any of it's visitors, or maybe they just run a tight ship, but either way, I know that I've associated good hotels with Best Western as long as I can remember. Oh well, maybe I'm weird.

Girls in Jeans

Maybe I'm being a little too raw or base with this post, but I've decided to post this anyway. I just really like the way girls look in jeans.

There's a couple of reasons for this. First of all jeans are kinda the "in" fashion. They are very comfortable, and I can't really think of any other particular article of clothing that is more patently American. They've been around since the late 19th century and unlike many of the fad fashions that have been all the rage for a few minutes, jeans have lasting appeal.

Second, when it comes to fashion I tend to like simplicity. I've seen some fashion shows on TV, and it seems to me that the more garish an outfit is, the more fashionable it is. Most of what walks down the runway is more humorous than glamorous.

Thirdly, I do like the female form. Maybe it's just me getting old, or maybe more artsy, I don't know, but one of the things I've done over the last few years is try to find a deeper appreciation for art. Art as a whole can be looked as man's attempt to answer the question "why?". There's a depth in art that you are not likely to find many other places, and since the expression of art is so fluid, there are a variety of forms it can take. The ancient sculptors captured something mysterious in their statues, and the object of sculpting was almost invariably the human form. The male form reflects strength and power while the female form embodies grace and elegance. Sure, some of my attraction to the female form is because I'm male, but at the same time I'm also growing into an appreciation that isn't hormone driven as I get older. In an effort to do this, I'm studying Rodin, and so far my favorite pieces are "She Who Used to be the Beautiful Heaulmiere" and "Caryatid Who Has Fallen under Her Stone." These pieces convey a story about a beauty that has been corrupted, but is still there.

Am I saying that a girl wearing a pair of jeans is Rodin material? In a way yes, at least more so than the abominations of the catwalk. When you add the simplicity of jeans to the elegance of the female form, you get a walking breathing form of art where the true beauty isn't on the surface where just anyone can see. Instead there's a hidden mysterious elegance that can only be perceived by someone who is willing to invest a little bit of themselves and dig deeper and see through the story of conformity to the feminine grace that isn't apparent, but nevertheless is still there, lying unseen.

Plus, girls in sweatpants just look frumpy to me.

Calizza

Alright, when you look at this, you might be thinking to yourself, he's blogging about tomato sauce? In all truth, yes I am, but there is a reason, and this is not just any sauce either. I used to work at a Pizza Hut for a couple of years, and it was one of the jobs I really enjoyed. I worked with a great staff, yes even you Monica, and the management were good to work with too. It helps that I eventually became a manager there, and suggested all of my friends who were hired and worked with me. I think I had five of my friends working there with me, which was awesome. However, this post isn't about Pizza Hut, at least not directly.

During the time I worked there, there were four different sauces. I guess normally you don't think about that, but it's true. There was the regular sauce, white sauce, zesty sauce and calizza sauce. Most of what people think about as sauce is just the regular sauce. We used white sauce for an alfredo like pizza that didn't last all that long. That sauce was good, but I think it was so expensive it was eating into the profit margin. Then there is zesty sauce. The Hut uses this on their stuffed crust pizzas; I guess it helps set them apart. But of all the sauces that Pizza Hut used while I worked there, the king was Calizza.

Now the word Calizza is nowhere on the menu. It's only mentioned as Calizza in two places. One is the plackard on the sauce pump in the kitchen, and the other is on the label that comes on the box it is shipped in. If you know Calizza, that means you probably worked at the Hut. The rest of the world knows Calizza sauce as breadstick sauce. You might have assumed that the breadstick sauce was just pizza sauce, but it's not.

When I worked there, one of the perks was a limited amount of free food. During your shift, you could make yourself either a personal pizza, an order of breadsticks, or a dozen wings. I was always more of a wing man, no pun intended, and I'd make wings, or for the occasional bit of variety, I'd cook up a pizza. It was months before I actually got myself an order of breadsticks, though that was what most of the people who worked there ate. When I tried it, I found out why everyone in the joint seemed to be addicted to the breadsticks. It's isn't for the dry breadsticks, it's for the sauce. It's for that wonderful pipping hot spiced sauce.

Now I tried what every person who has ever worked at the Hut for a while has probably also tried. I pumped the hot sauce into a personal pizza and cooked it up. It didn't cook right. Something about the sauce being so hot already screwed up the crust. I learned what to do though. You have to pump the sauce into a cup and let it completely cool, then you can use it to make a really good pizza. It has more water in it than the normal sauce, so you can't use as much of it either, but what a difference it makes.

So are you going to be able to try this yourself? Probably not. The best you can do is probably order some breadsticks and imagine what it would be like.

Maburaho

I've already stated I like anime, and harem anime (named that for the disproportionate number of girls to guys) is one of my favorite types of Seisen. The point of harem anime is to put the characters into humorous situations based on an abnormal competition for the attention of the guy. In this type of anime, the female characters often behave in ways that are normally out of character because of their competition.

Alright, enought of the analysis, here's probably the best complement I can give this series. I actually laughed out loud at this series several times. The humor in this series is actually really funny. I cracked up several times. I'm not going to say I was rolling in the floor, but this series really is funny. Mostly it is from the situational humor, but there are some jokes that are thrown in just for laughs.

The series is centered around Aoi Academy, a school for elite magicians. The main character is Kazuki, who is a powerful magician, but he can only use his magic eight times or he will turn to ash. Because he is so powerful Yuna, Kuriko and Rin are all interested in his genes because he might father the most powerful magician in the world. Even though each of the girls have some major character faults and they chase him unmercifully, he still treats the girls really well, and uses his sparce magic to help or protect the girls.

I don't really want to give away much more than this, but along with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Great Teacher Onizuka, I think Maburaho is one of the best anime's out there.

Burma!

Sorry I panicked. And if you just happen to be one of the 6 people in the world who actually who actually get's that joke, the penguin on top of your television will now explode.

Bubblegum Crisis

Maybe this is just me getting all nostalgic again, but who cares. I remember watching Bubblegum Crisis back in high school with the only other friend I had that was into anime in high school, Roy. Roy lived about a mile away from me, and when you add getting my first car to Roy joining an anime club, we
really hit the anime hard for a little while. I remember the first anime I watched was Record of Lodoss War, but this one, Dirty Pair, Project A-Ko and Robotech weren't long behind. I also watched a few others, but I can't really remember many of their titles, and anyway it was before any subs or dubs, so it was either learn Japanese, or read along in a translation guide. It was a pain, but still cool.

Then about two years ago, I started collecting some anime again, on DVD this time, and when I was at my local Gamestop looking through the DVD's for some good used movies, I ran across this three DVD set sitting there for $18. I figured, what the heck, and ended up getting them for under $12 after a discount.

Anime style has changed a bit over the last 20 years, and Bubblegum Crisis is definitely old school. The only other anime I can think of that has a similar nostalgia feeling is Dirty Pair. Both series were dominated by female heroes, which is of course more for the fan service than for any feminism, but hey if you want to look at this as a triumph for women, I'm good with that.

As far as I remember, the main characters were Priss and Nene were my favorite, and I guess Sylia and Linna were good too, but I liked Nene the best. She was maybe one of the first examples of the moé clutsy girl type. Maybe it's the pink hair, but I think it's a good characterization of a couple of girls I have known in the past.

The episodes are 45+ minutes each, so longer than the normal anime episode and in fact long enough to almost seem feature length. The cyberpunk genre was really taking a foothold in the late 80's when virtual reality was going to be the next great thing. Bubblegum crisis definitely fits into the cyberpunk genre, and since the emergence of the internet, the genre has suffered, so you have to go back a while to get something good to watch.

The story is good, though in my opinion there was never enough background or aftermath. It almost feels like you are watching episode 3-10 of a 13 episode miniseries. I understand that there were some problems with the production studio, so there may have been more episodes planned, but I'm not sure. One way or another, it's worth the watch, at least if you've aren't a total anime newb.

Firefly

This post has been a long time coming because there is sadness mixed with the joy this series brings me. I guess I could say I am ambivalent about this series, but so is just about anyone else who likes it. The series is just so good, and the characters are just so great. What causes me a heavy heart about this whole series is the abrupt end it came to because Fox canceled it. The show showed so much promise for either a 3 or 5 year run without having to reinvent itself just to make a story.

Firefly is about Earth's first interstellar wave of colonization to a star system with a lot of habitable planets and moons, or at least planets that will be habitable after they are terraformed. The population of this system, called the Verse, is spread across these different planets, and the culture is primarily a American and Chinese derivative.

The story revolves around River Tam, or at least the first season did, but I really think there was more that was envisioned for the whole series, and the River Story arc was a lead into something larger, possibly dealing with the mystery surrounding Shepherd Book. I might be wrong about this, but the ending provided by the Serenity movie couldn't have been the ending that was meant to be.

The series ended after only fourteen episodes, and was followed by a good movie that didn't really make much sense if you hadn't watched the series before you saw it. The production quality is up from the series, and it has some awesome camera work, but it just doesn't do it as an alternative to six more seasons. I'm not saying it's bad, but compared to what could have been, it's no more than a booby prize.

Before I go, here's a little fan service. I give you Jewel Staite as Kaylee Frye.

The Real Big Three

There are three giants in the field of science fiction writing: Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein. Each of these men wrote sci-fi stories when sci-fi was a totally new genre, and just tons of of stories have been based off of their foundational (no pun intended) work. In Clarke's case, his idea for a geosynchronous orbiting satellite has profoundly affected the real world.

Isaac Asimov began writing in the 1940's and although he began writing science fiction, he was much more prolific in his non-fiction with a lot of textbooks as well as books about a wide range of topics ranging from science to religion. Still, I think he is best loved and known for his science fiction than anything else.

Asimov's writing has a conversational tone that is very pleasing, comparable to listening to a good storyteller. His stories progress through dialog which is really a nice alternative to other authors who progress their stories through tech, or action, or even detail. Some of his stories do seem to be over before they've begun, but since they are about concepts, the pacing is just about right.

Clarke has a different approach to his novels. His stories seem to be more tech driven. Whether it's about a unique type of spaceship, or a space elevator, a theory for interstellar travel, or planetary colonization, his stories tend to be centered around technology. The Rama series centers around cylindrical mini-worlds created by aliens. The 2001 series revolves around alien built monoliths.

Clarke's character development is a little bit lacking, but that was also helped by some of the collaborators he's written with, like Gentry Lee. All of a sudden, his stories become about character development, and technology become a tool to drive that, not the story itself. It's an interesting progression.

I've read fewer Heinlein books than Asimov or Clarke, but I've still got a good bead on his work, which is kinda interesting. Heinlein attempts to predict what people will be like in the future. Sure his stories are all pure sci-fi, but with a sociological slant. The social morays have changed in all of his stories, and it can throw you a bit, because you aren't expecting something to be normal that is. He introduces interesting concepts that make you ask yourself what is normal anyway. He screws with your head.

A good example of what I'm talking about is in the book, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". A central premise is a computer that has become sentient, but the story isn't about how cool that computer is, but more so how people react to it, and how it interacts with people. It's very much about social interaction.

One travesty about these three great authors is that you don't see much of their work in print anymore at your local bookstore. Sci-Fi is already kinda already the ugly step-daughter bookstores and publishing companies don't want to draw much attention to, but it's just truly sad that the last time I walked into a local bookstore, there were 4 Asimov books, 5 Clarke books, and no Heinlein books on the shelf. It's a shame is what it is, and I don't like it.