I wrote the following over four years ago. Amazing how little things change. And by this, I mean my opinions. I’m just jaded I guess.

The Dennis Miller Show

A severe blow to the head? A right wing conspiracy? The finally perfected Republican mind control device? I’m looking for an explanation here. Friends told me that Miller was now an administration apologist, but I figured they were exaggerating. Some people have it in for Dennis, but hey, I’ve always liked him. To me he was even funny and clever when he did stand-up drunk.

It was painful to watch this show. I kept waiting for the evisceration, the probing question to rob composure. Instead I got softball after softball. And many of his guest were near fascists. One woman was suggesting that since we didn’t nuke the middle east, that everything else we do there is showing restraint. Yeah. That’s probably pretty much her opinion of gay marriage too.

I felt bad for Kevin Kline the sole voice of reason in a sea of madness. Is that the smell of bridges burning I smell? What is Miller going to do for friends once his last paycheck is cashed?

When Bill Maher starts up his show, saying Bush is the bomb, then I’ll go with the mind control device. Until then I am sticking with a blow to the head.

I haven’t stopped beating up on Miller since this about face. Don’t get me wrong, I love strongly held convictions (even if they are wrong), and I could respect Miller if I thought he was being genuine. But he comes off like he did back when he was sports casting the NFL. He just don’t belong. Fish out of water and all that, and he’s not as funny on that side of the fence. I think it’s a paycheck, and that I can’t respect.

Here’s a link to a letter I sent him: Dear Dennis Miller.

I won’t get all gushy or start saying the world needs more dead stars, but I really thought my zero dollars were well spent on this one. It’s not going down as the best movie ever, and even a store clerk I talked to beforehand said he thought the first was better (which scared me, since I wasn’t so excited about the first). Sadly, I think he was correct. I got bored in parts. But I’d been looking forward to “The Dark Knight” for months. I like Bale and I like the director. And Ledger’s never done anything to piss me off other than die, so my expectations were high.

I went in expecting the greatest movie ever, and was super excited I’d paid nothing for it.

Ok, so maybe not zero dollars were spent, but I bought Batman Begins at Wal-Mart yesterday (if you care, I wrote them jackass letters: letter 1, letter 2). Anyway, the DVD came with “movie dollars,” which I figured were a scam. But after jumping on the internet and finding out the internet says my local movie theater takes “movie dollars” I was reassured, since there are no scams on the internet. It’s like believing everything on TV (I’m told this is fine). For the purchase of a $6 DVD I got a free $5 matinee ticket (would have been worth $7.50 if I’d gone at night).

So $1 for the flick, $4 for a large soda pop. $5 (even I can do that math)! So nearly zero dollars.

I got there early, but the place was packed. I paced up one side, down the other, back up the first side, saw three in a row unoccupied. I asked the man of the couple sitting on the end politely if I could take one of the seats. I slid past them, sat in the middle of these three open seats, a little annoyed they made me squeeze past them, when it would have been easier to just stand up and let me in. But hey, whatever works.

After the movie was over, I turn to the guy two seats over, asked, “You know if there’s more after the credits?” He says, “You’ve bothered us enough. Don’t talk to me.” He was genuinely pissed. Wow. So I said, “Sorry,” and before I could ask how, he says, “Texting though the whole damn movie!”

Ok, fair enough. I repeated I was sorry, and once outside I checked the logs. I had txted bunches during the previews, and twittered a few times, but during the movie I’d only sent one text (no tweets). But like I said, I did get bored, so I was checking my Black Berry a lot. I wanted the movie to be over so I could go home. I do feel bad if this was disturbing the guy, but, honestly, I never pulled it out of my pocket more than needed to see the time and calculate how much longer I had to sit there. And I don’t think it was more that 4 or 5 times.

I did have to piss during the movie, asked him and his date to let me out, so I guess that can count against me as well. Maybe they were pissed I gave them the ass as I left and again when I came back.

I did genuinely feel bad I’d contributed to this guy not enjoying himself until I got outside and realized I’d only sent one whole text during the actual movie. I hate when people are talking during films, or make lots of noise with their food, or lack the ability to whisper, or whatever. So I was all ready to hate myself for being a jerk. But if only there had been a way for this guy sitting 2 chairs away (with no one between us) to saying I was impacting his enjoyment. If only he could have maybe nudged me or something or whispered, “The light from that is bothering me.” Guess what, I would have not checked it again, no matter how boring the flick got.

The irony here is they waited until the credits to say anything. They were sitting through them, not getting up. I was just wanting to leave, but figured if they were blocking me in it was for a reason. Guess he was just waiting around, to give me what for. Once again, if he hadn’t been so lazy as to refuse to stand at the end of the movie, and let people out, I would have been gone. Once he’d had his say, he left to. Big of him (that’s an inside joke you see, since he was fat).

Next time, when I squeeze past him and his fat date, I’m giving them both the cock.

But I am sorry if I ruined your movie, jackass.

A coworker said it would be a challenge to find 5 shows currently on TV worth watching. He was right. It took me a while, but I did come up with 5. But more on that later.

I don’t watch that much TV. Not on a daily basis anyway. I tend to go weeks without spending any real time in front of one. I don’t have cable and I don’t have a TV set up in my house. I tend to watch shows that are complete or canceled. This way I don’t have to wonder what I am getting into. I ripped through Buffy the Vampire Slayer in an embarrassingly short amount time. I’d sort of watched it the first time around on broadcast, but the night and channel it was on kept moving, and for most of a season is wasn’t even available to my market, and then there was the occasional missed episode where I had something more exciting going on in my life (this happened once or twice at least!). Recently, I succumbed to a desire to see it sequentially and in it’s entirety. There was probably about a third of never-before-seen shows for me. I then punished myself with Angel (all 5 seasons). Sadly, I think I’d already seen almost all of these. In both cases though I’d managed to miss the finales, so it was kind of cool to find out how they ended.

After these two shows though I was in a vacuum. I had no idea what to watch. So I sought out Carnivàle using Netflix, and loved it, but I found out it was canceled sometime around when I was watching the season one finale, and I went online only to find out it was never going to be completed. It would have been a thing of beauty, I was the ideal target audience, but I decided to not disappoint myself by slamming up against that stony wall of cancellation, so I never finished season two. Maybe someday. Deadwood was next, but this time I went in knowing it only had three seasons. I was amazed at this show and do hope they come in and wrap up the story lines, but they would probably just fuck it up at this point. A neatly packaged package would probably end up being boring. Then came Rome. It was about here that I realized this was the way to watch TV! There’s no forgetting between episodes, no missing an episode, no commercials, you can pause when you like, and there’s nothing keeping you from watching just one more before bed (even if the sun is coming up). I watched both seasons in as many months.

Don’t get me wrong. I still give other shows a chance. I watched Damages and Burn Notice. I gave the Sarah Connor Chronicles a chance (got bored with everything other than Summer Glou). And I discovered Dexter and wondered how it slipped past me (no cable is how). Hell, I even tried Bionic Woman and wanted those hours back (Ok, that hour, since I barely made it through the first episode). What were they thinking? At least I was smart enough to stay clear of the Knight Rider remakes.

Anyway, without further ado, since I think I’ve adid enough, my list of five TV shows that done suck:

1. Battlestar Gallactica
2. The Shield
3. Dexter
4. The Tudors
5. House, M.D.

The saddest part of this list is that for sure two of these shows are going away after the upcoming or current season. And none of these are network TV shows. It’s nearly a desert out there, folks, and I think it’s getting worse.

Damages didn’t make the list, since it’s too early to tell. It is quite good, I just have no idea if they can keep my interest. Burn Notice didn’t make it because I really wasn’t that impressed with the content or plot. I just like the actors.

Some other cool shows of note:

1. Firefly
2. Six Feet Under
3. The Wire
4. The Sopranos

The other day I set out to rent “No Country for Old Men.” I fired up iTunes, since this seemed like the perfect movie to try out their rentals with. I figured save my ass a drive to the store, and since it would only be a bit more than at the local store, I’d actually rent a digital copy. Nope, they only sell it. Well, la de fricken da, so does Amazon for one whole dollar more. For a buck, I’ll take the physical media, thank you very much! (Either way I don’t have to get dressed or get out of bed.) Then I can lend it to friends, play it on any DVD player I like, and sell it used to recoup some of my expense if I don’t like it. An Apple movie I can only watch on iTuneses that are authorized by my account. That’s no fun. Nope, no fun at all.

So I swung by my local rental store, they had like 100 copies, but all or them were out. I guess this movie is popular or something. Anyway, I figured, “Screw it. I’ll just wait until it’s on ABC Family,” but then, while doing my grocery shopping, I have it pointed out to me by someone (she knows who she is. Happy Birthday!), that there’s this Redbox thingie, it might have it. Yep, it does. But after looking it over, I’m thinking there’s got to be a catch.

Nope, not really. I rented my first movie, returned it to a different location the next day, and it all went swimmingly. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! By the time I got home I had a receipt in my inbox and my card was charged one whole dollar the next morning, so take that, no-movie-having-Hastings, take that DRM-no-physical-copy-Apple, take that can’t-watch-it-for-three-days-Amazon.

I’ll be hitting this thing a lot more. Oh, and in full disclosure, I guess there are two catches. No porn, and they have a bit more limited selection than any of the above, but they are primarily new releases, so I’m guessing I’ll most often be able to find something to watch. So easy, so legal, someone finally came up to an answer to torrenting. I’ll be happy until they raise their prices.

At some point I may get around to writing about the movie, but really, what can I say that hasn’t been said 1,000 times already?