Good News

For those of you who have (or haven't) been following the story of CNET editor James Kim and his family who disappeared a week ago Saturday, his wife and children have been located in great condition considering they were sitting in a stuck car all this time. Hopefully the good news will continue.

12/7/2006 - Sadly Mr. Kim's body was recovered. My thoughts are with his family and friends.

A Little Rant About "Heroes"

List of Things That "I'm sorry" Can Fix
I'm late.
I forgot to do a small favor.
I forgot to put toilet paper on the roll.
I bumped into you accidentally.
I spilled something on you accidentally.
I accidentally cut in line.
I left something behind I was supposed to bring.

Nowhere on this list, or I'm guessing any other is "I'm sorry that my alter-ego shot at you with a long range rifle". For those of you did not watch "Heroes last night (or have not yet watched) this will not make much sense. I'm not saying that "Heroes" is a perfect show, but honestly that little plot jag last night would have required the entire bottle of wine had I been playing along with TWoP/Erin's suggested crappy writing drinking game. The show has a great concept and some really excellent characters. And I'm am admittedly out of patience with trying to figure out how having an alter-ego makes you 'super' instead of a candidate for therapy, but nonetheless. I don't care how crappy your life is, how much I love you, how messed up I know you to be, how many kids we have together, you shoot at me with a rifle trying to kill me and we are not talking for a while. It is not a scenario where you say, "I'm sorry" and I go, okay, let's get you some help. You and our child are not going to go anywhere together, not without at least bulletproof vests. It's not that I don't have sympathy for people with superpowers or dissociative identity disorder. But the reality is, in all of these scenarios you have to take responsibility for your actions. And I'm sorry is just the beginning.

(Yes, I do know these are fictional people. Really.)

On a Lighter Note

One of my favorite email forwards is the things to do when bored at work, which includes "page yourself, don't disguise your voice". On a similar vein I adore the Overheard in the Office blog in the isn't it nice to know we all work with idiots vein. (Disclaimer: My immediate co-workes are mostly awesome, other internal and external clients have been known to leave something to be desired.) But for whatever reason, this entry has me giggling still, days later.

Thoughts About "Day Break"

I had an interesting thought about "Day Break". I read a review somewhere that commented that the show started to get interesting as Hopper (Taye Diggs) figures out how to play with the day he gets to relive over and over, and I agree. But one of the things that seems to make it work, is that, unlike "24" in which a bunch of people have one really unbelievable day, Hopper's day is complex because, as with most of us there are tons of storylines playing out beside and around him and with each shot he's learning a little more about what happened. This is not to say that the danger that this one day is so freaking full of crap doesn't exist, but so far it's working. Hopper learns enough each go around to make it seem worthwhile, and in th emost recent episode one plotline seems to have been resolved such that he may not have to add it to his ever growing list. The other interesting thing that they did is each time Hopper relives the day he not only retains the information he learned - which sometimes screws him up because sometimes he forgets which day he called his sister back for example - but he also retains any injuries and such. I thought that was an unfair rule at first, but then realized that's so he can't take unreasonable risks, since assumedly it would mean if he dies in any of the verisons, he won't get to try and fix it the next day.

Trying to Find a Balance

1. Sigh. I just - sigh. It's not just the only Christians can appreciate Christmas conceit, but also the idea that Christians don't find Christmas and all its trappings stressful, or that all Christians even celebrate Christmas or - sigh.
2. Woo-hoo ! Maybe now they'll do a musical episode. Also, it's further proof that "How I Met Your Mother" has a rocking (and warbling) cast. (Link from ALOTT5MA)
3. While I love shout-outs, and the scene in "Bull Durham" where Kevin Costner tells Tim Robbins the five things you need to know to talk to reporters rocks, who knew it would turn out a bunch of folks would crib from the Beach Boys ?
4. Maybe I'll win this.
5. Kerfuffling in various places on the net about amateur book reviewers. Summarized/Linked up nicely here . Imagine untrained, unpaid people thinking they can talk about stuff. And of course the sad public who believe what they say, because surely they are not able to make good decisions either.
6. I watched "My Boys" and it was good. Props to the appropriate combination of actors and director, because the little motions made it all so realistic.
7. Trying not to read too much into the fact that all my good things in this list are about television.