October, Where Have Ye Gone?

Only two more days left. You were just here. Where did you go? Can we freeze time so it's October every day?

Summer is hot and sticky. People are generally irritable. Summer does have one thing that no other season has...females in scant clothing. Winter brings the depressing holidays and massive germ infections. Spring brings allergies and an obligation to clean something.

October, by all measures, is nearly perfect.

It happens every year: it goes by too fast. My birthday is smack dab in the middle of it. A lot of my major life events happened in October, both good and bad. I joined the Navy in October, got married the first time in October, and my grandma passed away in October. Well, those are all bad. I almost forgot: the divorce from my first marriage was in October, so there is something good.

October brings pumpkins, raking leaves in the yard, cinnamon cappucinos, cooking that first pot of chili of the season, and the winter beers starting to populate store shelves around town. No other time of year comes close. October is as good as it gets.

What other month has a 'fest and type of beer named after it?

In Missoula, there are some streets you can drive down and see nothing but sidewalks covered with leaves all the way to the edge of Mt. Sentinel.

It can't last forever, but at least there are 31 days.

October, won't you stay a little longer? I really don't like December.

2 Below is Back

I picked up a six pack of 2 Below Winter Ale the other night and it's even better than I remember it. Winter isn't all bad. I really wish New Belgium would keep this beer around all year. This is easily one of my top 5 favorite beers of all time.

Thin Line 'Tween Heaven and Here

Heaven and Here is breathing again, getting back to the old grind.

Every time I watch that scene with Bubbles I get chills.

Fires Make Air Quality Worse

And now for something from the No Shit Sherlock department: Sooty air puts some at risk

Air quality remained poor in the central San Bernardino Mountains and parts of the San Bernardino Valley, as well as swaths of Orange and Riverside counties. In San Diego County, where only two of five major fires were more than 50 percent contained, the air was especially dismal Friday.

Really? That's funny. I thought massive fires improved air quality. After the Cedar Fire of 2003 in San Diego, I had respiratory problems for at least a year. For the life of me, I can't figure out what caused it.

Dane Cook - Is His 15 Minutes Over Yet?

Typically I don't comment on banalities like Dane Cook, but this phenomenon (cringe!) is something else entirely.

I first learned of Cook sometime last year. I was browsing the iTunes comedy section and there was a name I'd never heard before that was listed as #1 in the top ten albums for that day. Who was this genius slipping under my radar? So I checked out the reviews -- nothing but zealous thumbs up. So I gave the previews a listen. Nothing funny there, but maybe it was because you can't really judge comedy by a 30 second preview. You need buildup, context, etc. So maybe that was the problem. No. 

There is nothing funny about this guy at all. I listened to both of his CDs and I giggled maybe 3 times. I almost feel sorry for him because of his unabashed enthusiasm and denial. It's like when you're at an open mic watching someone completely bomb so bad that your toes curl and you just want to lead them offstage before you start crying at how bad it is.

Alas, I don't feel sorry for him. He's actually quite the asshole. I can't remember the specifics of his chicaneries, but I recall a few times on his CDs when he was just a complete asshole to someone and then turned it into a mockery of that person. So, I don't feel bad for whatever happens to this guy who has seemingly overstayed his welcome. In fact, I don't think he was welcomed.

There are 2 things about the Dane Cook phenomenon that are mind-boggling. For me, his self-delusion and self-aggrandizement are so over the top, it's hard to imagine that a living, breathing human being is actually taking all of this seriously. He is so damned self-confident about everything, it just makes most people with any conscience cringe at his persona. 

The second part of the "Dane Train" is that he symbolizes everything I hate about America: the frat-boy/bro mentality, mediocrity, and getting something for nothing. Nothing Cook has done is funny, stand-up or otherwise, and yet he is insanely popular among the newer generation. Most comedians can't stand him. I can't help but think that he came about his popularity by sheer accident. 

He reminds me of a few people I've met in my life who were so motivated and so passionate about life, yet so incredibly devoid of any substance. Just read an interview with him...by the end of it you'll be ready to smash something. It's that bad. 

I could go on, but it's no use. I think his time in the spotlight is pretty much over. People have slowly realized that when there is no substance, there's just no substance. He can't sustain his stardom forever. 

Fortunately, it's so bad that there's become this anti-Cook backlash. Two funny tidbits: a funny skit (Mad TV I think) parody and a YTMND parody.

The Sum of its Parts

Not big enough for a post, but some news niblets.

Leopard drops on October 26th. I'm excited about it, but not so excited that I'll pre-order it. Perhaps I'll wait on a couple bug fixes and in-depth reviews.

Whither thee, Sherlock? It looks like it's gone to me. The search results lead to the new Leopard page, but alas, no mention of it in the 300+ new features.


I share a birthday with Dominic West of The Wire.

And now, time for a killer pumpkin.

Apparently Other People Feel the Same Way

Found this nice summary right after putting up my last post. It looks like that New Yorker article is kicking ass and taking names.

Steve Earle is covering "Way Down in the Hole" for season 5. Slap me, I must be dreaming. The timing of all this news is crazy...I just got into Steve Earle last week. Good things always happen right around my birthday.

Ok, I'll accept David Simon as a deity and a genius. Can we get this show an Emmy already?

Everything He Touches Turns to Art

David Simon, you're a goddamn genius.

I feel like the Internet gave me a free birthday gift today.

I've been chomping at the bit, wondering what was on his agenda after The Wire besides Generation Kill.

"The next series he hopes to produce for HBO is about musicians reconstituting their lives in New Orleans, he told The New Yorker for its issue hitting newsstands Monday."

I had a hunch that NOLA might be the next logical step for Simon, but the musician angle is brilliant. Somewhere, Louis Armstrong is smiling.

From the article:

'This show will be a way of making a visual argument that cities matter,' Simon said. ''The Wire' has never done that. I certainly never said or wanted to say that Baltimore is not worth saving, or that it can't be saved. But I think some people watching the show think, Why don't they just move away?'

A goal of the show will be to celebrate the glories of an American city, and 'why we need to accept ourselves as an urban people,' Simon said.

Here is the profile of David Simon in The New Yorker. This is one killer story.

Ironically, I just found another article about the current NOLA show called K-Ville. I hear NOLA residents find it laughably preposterous. Here's a fitting quote:

Make no mistake: K-Ville, a buddy-cop throwback set in present-day New Orleans, would be terrible no matter where it was set or when it aired. But to do the show now, to take the suffering of this great American city and turn it — not into art, as The Wire does for Baltimore — but into cheap pulp fiction, is to move beyond bad to wildly offensive.

You could argue that any attention is good attention, considering how desperately the city needs our aid. Still, it's hard to see what public good is served by turning New Orleans into some high-octane Deadwood on the Mississippi. Even to suggest that the networks might have some greater social responsibility beyond making money for their stockholders is to risk sounding quaint these days — but it is nevertheless true, and this show violates it.

And for what? A badly acted, clumsily constructed Starsky & Hutch/Miami Vice revival that imposes fictional clichés on top of harsh realities. No thanks.

David Simon will show these simpletons how it's done.

Sweet Muffins

Just to post something, here's a picture of one of the hottest chicks of Hollywood, Amelia Warner.

Henry Never Disappoints

Welcome to Dullsville

This is what you'd get if Paris Hilton made a blog about political campaigning: a pathetic blog chronicling the difficult life of John McCain's daughter on his presidential campaign. Just look at the pictures. What a tough life! Today she made a list of things she can't live without! What's next, young blue-blood? The anticipation is killing me!

I can't help but think that these well-heeled lasses don't have the first clue about the problems most Americans wake up to every day. Like, say, the humbling experience of working at a minimum wage job. Or working, period. They are perfect for politics. People like this make me wish America had a mandatory military service requirement.

Wonkette has a nice little blurb about it. While I'm on a political tangent, here's a cartoon to lighten the mood.

The Wire Season 5 Promo Teaser

This wait is fucking killing me. All in the game...



As season 4 was starting about this time last year, I had heard a lot about The Wire on the web, about how it's the best show on television. Someone mentioned that you could start watching season 4 without watching the previous seasons and it would be a great place to start in the middle of it all to get a taste of what it's like. So I did.

Here is the first scene I ever watched on The Wire: Season 4 Episode 1. I realized at that moment that this show was of a totally different caliber and I had to watch it from the beginning.

Another great scene from season 3: the Omar/Brother Mouzone confrontation.