GRAGHRRAGH!

In its infinite wisdom, The CW has seen fit not to include Veronica Mars on its fall schedule, which basically means it's cancelled.

May the network perish in a fiery inferno that burns with the brightness of justice satisfied.

Apathy (or, an open letter to Dennis)

An inquiring mind once wrote in the comments section:

Dude, it's like May. I'm ignorant as of the current state of Jack Bauer statistics and your opinion of Spiderman 3!

Well, Dennis, if you must know, I'm holding off on compiling 24 statistics until the season's done because I've grown immensely bored with it. Not the statistics, the show. Plus, I couldn't really come up with anything funny to say every week. Perhaps I'll be better able to amuse you after these last five episodes coalesce into a giant ball of death, ridiculousness and TV-14 swears. So you'll hear about this shortly after the two-hour finale on the 21st.

Spider-Man 3 was just very much not good. I want to preface this by saying that I almost always come away with, at the very least, a neutral opinion of movies that I see. I rarely feel that a movie has been bad enough that having seen it was a waste of time. Spider-Man 3, however, came close.

I think Sam Raimi fell asleep with his face on the Overbearing Schmaltz key. You know, the one right next to Scroll Lock. Multiple times we're looking dead-on at Peter Parker crying all-out my-dog-just-died double-chin-grimace style. There's no little-kid crying in Spider-Man! For some reason, every single little bit of the everyday life stuff (the stuff that makes Spider-Man different than, say, X-Men) was unbearably dull.

I don't think the big problem was that there were too many villains, but rather that nothing was really done with any of them. Sandman was cool, but, like Dennis said, he probably could have had his own movie. He was pretty much wasted in this. Venom looked cool, but was mostly pointless. Uh... in fact, Dennis already said all of this. Goblin was okay, but probably mostly because James Franco brings back warm fuzzy Freaks and Geeks memories.

Don't even get me started on the horrible, horrible, final-act Exposition Butler. Oh, this was unforgivable. Here's a hint to movie-makers from someone who will consume nearly every piece of cinema you put out there: when you are using a previously unseen butler to steer your plot in a different direction, you need to throw away your script and start over. Do it.

Two more thoughts:

1) How in the world did Bryce Dallas Howard come from this guy? And have this guy as an uncle? HOW?

2) Dennis, you better watch yourself. I hear if you make fun of Bruce Campell, or any scene he's in, his chin comes and kills you while you're asleep.

It should also amuse you to know that I'm so lazy and apathetic that I started this post 5 days ago and am just now finishing it.

Jack Bauer wants to blow himself up (episode 19)

Sorry it took so long. I'm sure you were waiting with bated breath. Bated!

Jack slew two villians this week at a botched hostage/Russian military chip swap which, if "successful", would have meant Jack blowing himself up, along with uncountable Chinese dudes. Whew. (Would he get credit for killing himself?) You know, it seems like when Jack's suicide/hostage swap plot is foiled, the very least I should expect is one "DAMMIT!" This is getting disappointing. We did, however, have one "DAMMIT!" back at CTU.

This brings our season totals up to:
Total Jack Bauer-caused fatalities: 24 (!!!!)
Total utterances of "DAMMIT!": 23
Total Jack Bauer-uttered "DAMMIT!"s: 11

Which leaves us with these season averages:
JBKpH (Jack Bauer Kills per Hour): 1.263
DpH ("DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 1.211
JBDpH (Jack Bauer "DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 0.579

My buddies Seth and Chrissy realized 24 was on about 10 minutes into it, asked each other if they wanted to watch, and both said, "meh." I'm starting to feel that way too. I just can't muster the enthusiasm for this after 5.79 seasons of this. There's always statistics, though.

Jack Bauer takes the night off (episode 18)

Jack Bauer decided not to accrue any statistics tonight, and when Jack Bauer decides not to accrue statistics, you let him.

One "DAMMIT!" from Chloe. Guess that's it.

This brings our season totals up to:
Total Jack Bauer-caused fatalities: 22
Total utterances of "DAMMIT!": 22
Total Jack Bauer-uttered "DAMMIT!"s: 11

Which leaves us with these season averages:
JBKpH (Jack Bauer Kills per Hour): 1.222
DpH ("DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 1.222
JBDpH (Jack Bauer "DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 0.611

Yep.

Jack Bauer Kills Everyone (episode 17)

Sweet sassy molassey, Jack's been busy. He said the coveted "DAMMIT!" twice. In addition to "killing" two guys in an elaborate ruse, Jack killed six actual people last night. He was like some sort of truck-transmitted terrorist epidemic, taking suckers out with one shot while they sprayed their ineffectual AKs all over the place. Four evil bad guys were taken out with the pistol, while he snapped another dude's neck and strangled the main Skeletor-looking bad guy with a winch chain.

Says Jack to emaciated terrorist Fayed: "Say hello to your brother."

I wanted so badly for him to add "...IN HELL."

This brings our season totals up to:
Total Jack Bauer-caused fatalities: 22
Total utterances of "DAMMIT!": 21
Total Jack Bauer-uttered "DAMMIT!"s: 11

Which leaves us with these season averages:

JBKpH (Jack Bauer Kills per Hour): 1.294
DpH ("DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 1.235
JBDpH (Jack Bauer "DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 0.647

The show is ridiculous, but that's why we love it.

The Jack Attack Stat Pack (episode 16)

Two kills, no "DAMMIT!"s.

This brings our season totals up to:
Total Jack Bauer-caused fatalities: 16
Total utterances of "DAMMIT!": 19
Total Jack Bauer-uttered "DAMMIT!"s: 9

Which leaves us with these season averages:

JBKpH (Jack Bauer Kills per Hour): 1.0
DpH ("DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 1.188
JBDpH (Jack Bauer "DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 0.563

Sigh. Even for 24, this episode was pretty ridiculous. You get the President out of his coma to prevent the evil Vice President from nuking a Middle-Eastern country, which he does, at first, only to have him reverse policy and decide to go ahead and do it anyway, just because. Since when do you show terrorists a lesson by nuking a country? What the heck?

Oh, and the political-correctness-motivated non-identification of the terrorists' home country is so very absurd. It's been bizarre to watch the writers try to work around naming a country to avoid offending people. It's just a silly TV show. Offend someone already.

UPDATE:
Chrissy beat me to the punch on the bewilderment. Just giving credit where credit is due.

The Jack Bauer Rundown, episode 15

Now we're talking!

Jack was personally responsible for two deaths in this episode: the critically wounded guy from last time ("he didn't make it.") and another unnamed Russian terrorist. In addition, Jack was the source of two of the episode's three "DAMMIT!"s. Very productive!

This brings our season totals up to:
Total Jack Bauer-caused fatalities: 14
Total utterances of "DAMMIT!": 19
Total Jack Bauer-uttered "DAMMIT!"s: 9

Which leaves us with these season averages:

JBKpH (Jack Bauer Kills per Hour): 0.933
DpH ("DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 1.267
JBDpH (Jack Bauer "DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 0.6

Increases in all categories! Jack used a developmentally disabled guy to trap a terrorist in this episode. I'm not sure if this is completely consistent with his style, or a new low.

Either way, until next time: doot - deet - doot - deet - doot - deet

The Jack Bauer Rundown, episode 14

Exciting stuff!

It should please you to know that Jack Bauer killed 2 people in this episode (with one more left critically wounded) and 1 "DAMMIT!" was spewed forth, though not by the quieter-than-normal Jack.

This brings our season totals up to:
Total Jack Bauer-caused fatalities: 12
Total utterances of "DAMMIT!": 16
Total Jack Bauer-uttered "DAMMIT!"s: 7

Which leaves us with these season averages:

JBKpH (Jack Bauer Kills per Hour): 0.857
DpH ("DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 1.143
JBDpH (Jack Bauer "DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 0.5

Things are moving along briskly. Jack still needs to pick up his "DAMMIT!" production to be up to snuff, but he's increased fatalities by 14% on the season in just one episode. It should also be noted that Jack saved San Francisco from a nuclear weapon by flying a remote control plane!

Awesome.

Grumpsville, Population: Me

Veronica Mars looks to be either cancelled or undergoing a revamping which would be set in her freshman year at the FBI Academy (source - of shoddy repute to be sure). Seriously; if people wouldn't watch the fantastic thing that the show is now, why would they tune into a CSI Junior?

Woe is me.

The Jack Bauer Rundown

Since the beginning of the 6th season of 24, I've been keeping track of some key statistics. We're already 13 episodes in, so I'm a little behind the times, but we'll get everything up to date here and then there'll be weekly updates.

24 can pretty much be boiled down to two major components:
1) Jack Bauer laying waste to mortal men
2) Someone (usually Jack) saying (usually screaming) "DAMMIT!"

Because these two factors are so important, these have been my statistics. I've been keeping track of Jack's kills and instances of "DAMMIT!" Additionally, there will be season averages presented: JBKpH - Jack Bauer Kills per Hour, DpH - "DAMMIT!"s per Hour and JBDpH - Jack Bauer "DAMMIT!"s per Hour. It was difficult deciding whether extra kills should be awarded in extremely awesome situations; say, for instance, Jack tears a man's throat out with his mouth (first episode, baby!). I decided to say a kill is a kill and keep it simple.

Without further ado, here are the statistics so far:

Total Jack Bauer-caused fatalities: 10
Total utterances of "DAMMIT!": 15
Total Jack Bauer-uttered "DAMMIT!"s: 7

Which leaves us with these season averages:

JBKpH (Jack Bauer Kills per Hour): 0.769
DpH ("DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 1.154
JBDpH (Jack Bauer "DAMMIT!"s per Hour): 0.538

With Jack accounting for less than half of the "DAMMIT!"s, I'm left a little astounded. We'll see what happens. Other than that, I have no idea what to make of these numbers.

Nuts.

Well, my boy Sean Michel didn't make it through tonight's American Idol cuts. He made it through the first series, but got axed during the group sing thing. Didn't even get to see him sing. Nuts. Anyway, here's a link to his band's myspace page. I guess that's almost as good.

There's a first time for everything

I may have to watch more than just the first auditions on American Idol this year, if only to see how this guy does:



(updated 3/4 for youtube's video sabotage)

So cool.

A Mystery Explained!

I've always wondered why I can hear a TV when it's on, whether there's any volume or not--there's this high-frequency noise they emit that very few people I've talked to can hear, and it drives me nuts. So I was reading the comments for a Slashdot article and discovered this:

It's the flyback transformer in your set making that noise - a very loud 15.75 KHz tone. I'm almost 40 years old and haven't taken real good care of my hearing, and it still bugs the hell out of me. One solution to the noise problem is to get a non-CRT television set (plasma, LCD, DLP, etc.).

Interesting stuff. I have no idea what a flyback transformer is, but I guess this is just another reason to justify the eventual purchase of a ridiculous television. (yay)

Craaaaap.

There goes the neighborhood.

[Lost] series cocreators hint at a movie and that season three will feature more sex.

I don't even know what to say. This is bizarre.

I'm all a-twitter!

Anybody watch The Office?

YEEEEESSSSSS!