Prison Break - series 2

The second season has now closed in the States with a WTF?? moment. Possibly the biggest of all time.

From the beginning of the season things have failed to reach the exciting heights generated by the first. Michael and Lincoln bounce from here to there for illogical and unclear reasons. Everywhere they go they're followed like a puppy by William Fichtner's oh-so-clever FBI agent, Alex Mahone and it just gets tiresome. Mr Kim, the face of the evil 'Company' gets more like a Paontomine Dame with every episode; to his credit he doesn't cackle. He does have the most smug face in the world though.

And the ending seems to have been written purely with a third season in mind. And is frankly, shite.

US TV Networks - keepers of ineptitude

121 pints

I know some of you are hoping I'm going to be talking about lager but no.

A channel 4 program, Human Footprint, has listed the cost to the planet of a human life and one statistic stands out for me (of those I saw in the advert anyway - there's no way I'm actually going to watch). Apparently, in the course of your life, not mine cuz I'm a double hard bastard (DHB), you will shed 121 pints of tears. No, really.

Glossing over how this could possibly be measured and massive differences between people eg the aforementioned DHB and hormonal pregnant women, who the hell could cry that much? That's about two pints a year! Poke me in the eye continuously and I wouldn't be able to do it. It might be just about possible with a particularly toxic nerve gas. Tear gas, maybe.

And so, a list of things to make your eyes water:

The Goodies on their three-way bike, stopping all of a sudden and landing balls first on the crossbar.
Extreme hayfever. (Should be a sport - throw a bit more pollen on me ya bastards!).
Wind from the north-west. On a Thursday. In Dorset.

And that's it. Suggestions appreciated.


Earthquake in Kent kills sperm

On Stupidity

Jeez. Some people just don't know they've been booted out of their mother's crotch. They think life will always be cosy and warm, little realising reality is gonna come and bite them on the scrotum. Of course, some people, like Pete Docherty, openly invite it by being a twunt. Others, think that however foolish they act, whatever obscenity they perform, they'll always be number one. And it is about these people that I shall be speaking about today. Or rather, one of them.

His name is Keven Federline. Coming from nowhere, K-Fed, as he is now stupidly known, met and married Britney Spears during her thin and gorgeous phase, having two children (let's not forget that for this he must have seen her naked and possibly had her sitting on his face) and money thrown at him left, right, centre and up the behind. All he had to do to continue sitting pretty, was keep her happy. But no. K-Fed got drunk, saw strippers and slept around. I pause at this moment to scream 'allegedly'. He must have been off his tits on drugs. The evidence? Go read this paragraph again. Someone commit the eejit to an asylum for the criminally twuntish.

Surely it can't have been hard to have fun with Britters? Great body, obviously up for fun, not at all tight with her money...no, let's go get some 'ho. Tit.



Don't forget Dylan's canine credentials

On Blog Dither

Not relevant to what follows but my nipples are hurting as I type this.

Reading other peoples blogs you get a sense that there aren't half some (self) worthy people in the world. See Big News, write Serious Discussion Piece (no joking at the back). I've been wondering if I should adopt a similar tone now and again. Rather than the bollox I write at the minute that is. (I came up with a great joke earlier about that but it's gone...).

I just can't help writing my stream of consciousness. For instance, I just have to mention I'm hungry and am dying for some chocolate (someone help me beat down my craving - It's entirely possible 'm pregant looking at the size of my belly) and on it goes.

So I'll leave the weighy stuff to others; I'm quite happy here on the Islands of made up Bollox. (That's the one on the left I'm on; the one on the right is slightly higher up.)

Blog of the moment

Sheryl Crow is the talk of most blogs at the moment. I won't be jumping on this bandwagon as I think she's full of crap.

The Quest - an update

My quest for blog domination continues unabated and unabandoned. Mr Chipen Dale has agreed to swap links (definitely no bodily fluid though). Get in.

The American Middle Class

I was watching Slither tonight (Nathan Fillon's vehicle to stardom - not gonna happen, dude) and it occured to me that America has two kinds of people - the super-rich and the immensely poor. Let's look at the evidence.

On the one hand you have a family depicted by their trailer, their disgustingly tacky decor and their redneck attitudes.

On the other, an open plan living room with the kitchen of my dreams set in grounds.

There is nowhere in between. Land of the free? My arse.

Is Lost losing it's credentials?

Many things are allowed to change. Some blend and yet more mutate into monstrosities or into swans. One thing that isn't and certainly shouldn't, is genre programming. This is my domain goddammnit and it should not be sullied by namby pamby normal things happening.

When Lost started it had questions galore, all of which it was implied had supernatural explanations: the plane crash, how the Island came into being, the others, the monster, even the frickin' button. There were theories of time travel, magnetic anomalies, of quantum flux and many more. None were denied by JJ Abrams or Damon Lindelof, the shows creators. In fact, people were encouraged to believe.

Most of the questions have now been answered and there's a perfect rationale for it all! OK there're some bizarre happenings (which I won't go into for those not near the end of series three) but, and I feel stronlgy about this, although it's still a great program, I feel I was dragged into addiction on false pretences. This wouldn't happen in the other direction. Pauline Fowler wouldn't take off her skin to reveal her family crash landed twenty years ago from planet Suifge. No right minded SF fan would suddenly start watching. In fact, it would lose viewers.

I demand we all stop watching until they bring back the SF trappings! So say we all.

My mentalist dog is a tree.

Third post of the day...

to say I've had an email from Dave Bradley of SFX. As a result of having a letter in the next magazine, I've won another book! I truly am blessed.

Readers

My ratings are gradually increasing. Hurrah.

If you like my blog, you may wish to send me money. Please feel free. At the very least you could link to my blog and in return get linked back (which is obviously a highly sought after commodity).

I am a Sci Fi Orphan

Things are equal in the battle of the sexes. The Neanderthal men have gone back to their caves dragging their Barbie by the ankle (swinging might be a better image...or perhaps not). Women are now equal in so many things I can't think of a single one. Maybe you could leave a comment to suggest one (go on. Please.) Women however don't go quite the same way. They believe us men should equal. As long as we're separate. Aah, good memories of apartheid.

My wife is a fan of all kinds of crap TV. Soaps, docudramas, Little Biddy Animals Being Rescued, almost anything to do with babies and well, shite. Amazingly not all of it is on ITV. Like a Lord of all she surveys (not that she could actually survey anything per se having the intelligence of [insert your own item here]) she has her TV Land schedule mapped out from dawn to dusk, Monday to Sunday. IN fact, what's on TV is pretty much the way and why we keep track of what day it is, each blending into the next to make a big gelatinous lump of beige days.

The perceptive among you will be asking the question "But Jamie, when do you watch your programming?". Thanks for asking. I watch my genre and 'special' programming in the small hours of my wife's bedtime and in the time when she isn't on MSN with her sister and I've finished my scrubbing for the day (which she does check on). I look forward to the days that she's ill and has to spend time in bed or go there early.

This is normally a 'good and fruitful' plan. Thursday was a bad day for it to fall on though. This is the day of Chaos at the Castle and Sea of Souls. So I wasted this valuable extra time watching the same TV as the wife. I can't help feeling she planned it that way.

My Life's Aim

LIving with my wife gives a unique perspective.

She has a 'shortened lifespan'. Like a lot of things it's akin to The Iron Man. How long will she live? Nobody knows. How will she die? Nobody knows. Will it be vastly unpleasant? Almost certainly.

For most of the forthcoming years, she'll spend a large proportion in some sort of discomfort. Hold your breath for twenty seconds, breathe for five and hold it again. Repeat ad nauseum. This is her day-to-day existence. Being her carer allows me to see first hand what a shitty stick we're all handed. Which begs the question why most people are happy to sit (or stand) doing a job that has the consequence of making other people money. Think about it: that woman in Tesco behind the check-out - she might make six quid an hour. Lord of Tesco probably makes that in less than a minute. But still she slaves away every day struggling to make enough to feed her kids, not forgetting copious amounts of nicotine obviously. She's gotta have some pleasures after all. (Hear me scoffing? Anyway...).

So, when my missus packs her bags, to pass over the coil that is mortal, I in theory should have to find a job. Which I am not going to want to do. Over and above the fact I spend my days doing a bit of DIY, sitting drinking tea and eating biscuits, reading, watching TV and generally being a lazy arsed shit (in between bits of care for the wife) do you really think I'm going to get up early, slave away 9-5, miss the great sunshine (which I'm missing by the way to type this, you ungrateful twunts) and make money for someone else? Am I arse.

My plan is thus, and forgive me if this sounds callous but it's always been my dream so get stuffed:

Grieve.
Buy a tent.
Buy a push bike.
Sell house and worldly possessions (at current reckoning about £90,000 based on profit from my house, minus mortgage, car, savings and other bits).
Travel.

When I travelled in 2000 I spent about 12k a year, and most of that was on hostels. I reckon I could get by on 8k a year or about £21 a day. A bit less if did any attractions.

My question to you is this: which direction?

North: Scotland? Always wanted to see it but once there where do you go?
East: France, Europe, the Far East: nicely varied but full of foreign speaking oiks.
West: Ireland and then a ferry to the US and Canada, trailing down to South America. This is my current favourite choice.

Make your case.

Bald Britney with Lyndsay Lohan getting a mohican. On a rope.

Do you smell like wee?

Is it you I sit next to on the bus?

With the face made of pus?

Is it you in the street?

With the honkin' size 12 feet?

WELL HAVE A FRICKIN' WASH!

God I hate having to smell other people. Having someone smoke in the same atmosphere as me is bad enough but to invade my personal air space with their dirty genital smells is, frankly, disgusting. Have these people heard of toilet paper? If you smell of wee do you, by default, smell of pooh? After all, if you don't wipe one way why wipe the other?

Obviously the general stereotype is for this to afflict the older generation. Fair enough, if your arthritis affects you so much you can't hold a really very lightweight piece of paper between your decrepit fingers but for the majority of the population it's really not too hard. I assume. I may be unique in that I'm the only person capable of wiping my knob on the curtains, for there must be endless opportunities for self-cleansing.

Ever been on a train when someone whiffy gets on? It's bad enough on a bus and that's for relatively short distances. A train can take you to the other side of the country, all the time next Micturating Mike. Excuse me Mike but are you wearing a frickin' nappy? Ever heard of femfresh?

I'd like all readers to do the following (and perhaps even leave a comment telling me how you got on - this shall be an amnesty and all charges shall be cancelled forthwith):

If you've been stinking for awhile you may not even notice the smell anymore. So ask someone. Pluck up the courage and ask a complete stranger to smell you. Not the wife, the husband or the mother (God bless 'er). They'll never see you again. Don't ask this guy though:

A Blog's life

What? Half hour later? 260 words! Piece of micturation juice this. Time for a break. KIT KAT!

See Compo, will enter

I've decided to enter, or at least try to enter, SFX's Pulp Idol competition.

I started last year with some guff about a wandering space family but ran out of steam at about 600 words. This year I have a killer idea and should easily get a thousand words; my concept is easily split up into little chunks which in total should get me there. Here's dreaming.

I'd love a writing career - I have high opinions on my use of that there grammar. My downfall though is written speech. I might be able to do it but it's such a ball ache. So and so said that, he replied sarcastcally...blah. My 'great idea' (patent here I come) is to not have any. My story will be written entirely in the second person and my character shall talk to no-one. Which is actually integral to the story. This will be The Greatest Story Ever Told. Which is a hint.

I'm a winner!

Today isn't quite so awful as ususal - I've been picked by SFX Magazine to win a full set of the Runelords series! No information has been released as to how I've been picked (echoes of Richard and Judy if you ask me) but I have been leaving lots of mesages of lurve for Ian Berriman, Deputy Editor and chief picker on the mag. I've entered loads of these things and to suddenly win like this can't be entirely coincidental.

I was always arguing with HBK on the SFX forum and elsewhere about, well, many things, but relevantly about my sycophantic naturedness where free stuff was concerned. Hell, now I know it works I'll be IB's bitch media whore. Give it to me Ian. Give it to me good. Any remote control Daleks lying around?


|Corned beef and pickle

On my unknown celebrity status

6th July 2002. That was the date of my nuptials. The day my freedom ended and my life as a eunuch-with-a-penis IE a husband started. 'Twas a great day, with not one bit of vomit and even my sister-in-law only threw a single strop (over her hair). I'd go so far as to say the cliched happiest day of my life. We went to Mexico on honeymoon. Aaah. Hot and sweaty it was. So was the weather. Fnarr, Fnarr.

When we got back a parcel was waiting for us - the wedding video. God, I thought, I'm gonna have to watch this a hundred times as we go around the relatives. If I knew what it contained I'd have burned it with petrol.

Picture the scene: my mother-in-laws living room - many people jammed in front of the TV waiting for the forthcoming feature. It starts. And there standing nee bouncing is Mr Bean. Alas, no. It is I. I'd previously been unaware of the similarity but the evidence was conclusive. OK I'd always been quite good at putting on silly voices and acting a twat but was a joke; I hadn't realised that was normality compared to my normal self. It now gets mentioned ad nauseam at every opportunity. I'm just glad we haven't had kids; every year on it's birthday I'd have had to check for the symptoms (presuming these things are genetic): silly walk? Check. Silly voice? Not yet thank god. Bad style? Just like me.

The Quest - an update

Back when I first got the Internet (seems so long ago...what did we do all day??) I spent most of time and bandwidth downloading programs to make my downloading faster. Kinda pointless really.

Now I'm doing this blog thing properly I seem to be spending most of online time just promoting this site, trying to get bloody readers - you shall read me goddamnit!

On a trawl of other blogs yesterday I noticed Smeg_Head has linked to me - he never said! It came as quite a shock to be honest as I thought he couldn't stand me (let's face it - few people can), him being a regular on the SFX forum. Maybe it's the teacher in him. How anyone finds his blog I don't know; if you look up Smeg Head on Google you just find information on Red Dwarf.

It also came as a shock to find the link as I did a Google back link search and it said not a single link was out there to be found. Which is blatantly rubbish. I now feel the need to publicise Smeg_Head too...

A Rose that is a Rose is still a Pain

Shakespeare apparently said many wise things but none more stupid than 'A rose is but a Rose' *. See, if your name's Smith it's probable that you don't get asked about it's origin, you don't get bombarded with comments along the lines of 'Do you own the well known newsagents?'

I used to work in a call centre selling advertising for the local paper; it was a good job. I liked it. Apart from the telephone work. There I'd be in my preamble, trying to get the bloke on the other end of the phone to actually talk to me (No! No, thanks! I'm dead! etc etc) and the moment would come when I'd mention my name - "Starbuck? Like the coffee?" Yes, like the bloody coffee. No, I don't have shares. No, it's not a relation. No, I don't actually like coffee. No, it's named after a character from Moby Dick.

Or the other famous connotaton - "Starbuck? The cylons didn't get you then?" Oh, watch me chortle.

You might think it's not that bad but I get it everywhere I go: petrol stations, shops, National Rail Enquiries, Insurance firms, hospitals. I could have three conversations a day that follow the exact same pattern. How I yearn to sometimes be a 'Smith'.

* May not actually be correct.

Spasm is a five letter word

Inventions that need to be invented #1

Forget about flying cars, forget about Star Wars type Speeders, forget even about those anti-gravity barge type things in Star Trek: TNG. The perfect use for this technology is a floating washing basket.

How many times have you done for your back when pegging out clothes? Up, down, up, down, getting some potentially very heavy towels. I'd buy one of these tomorrow if I could. If anyone is on the verge of production and is looking for an investor my email address is over there ---->

The problem with BSG

This is a great article on where BSG is currently going wrong. It's not often I don't find something to disgaree with...

Carnivale

I finally got around to finishing watching Carnivale recently - the full and interrupted two seasons. It was cancelled at the end of season two; such a travesty has never been committed. Especially if you ignore memories of Dark Skies, American Gothic and Invasion.

It centred on a young man called Ben Hawkins, played with sublime subtlety by Nick Stahl, he of Terminator 3 infamy. Ben became an orphan in the first episode and was picked up by a travelling fair, the 'Carnivale', that came with a rag-tag bunch of misfits, charlatans and, for want of a better word, freaks. It was set during the thirties in the US of A and pretty much every frame emphasised just how dirty everything was. From the people to the towns, muck was endemic in every day life (if this show's accurate it's a tale of Lazarus proportions how they got to the shiny, spangly, gaudy situation they're in today).

They travelled the 'circuit' up and down the 'States trying to make a quick buck before people got bored of their wares or as in one spectacular case, died, leading to a highly graphic tar and feathering. Can you spell 'ouch'?

Intermittently cut in were scenes of a preacher, Brother Justin, and his sister Iris. It soon becomes clear that BJ (as he shall henceforth be humorously known) wasn't all he seemed. Thus started the show proper. For BJ and Ben were Ying to each others Yang, it not being conclusively clear on which side they lay. They developed supernatural abilities (sounds corny, it's not) during the first season; Ben could use his to heal people and BJ could...do pretty much what he wanted. They'd dream of each other, of some bloke called Hank/Hack Scudder, of WWII and a tree of all things. Entwined in all this were the secondary characters of which there were an army (rumour suggests the cost of keeping them all on was the primary reason for the shows cancellation - have the US networks not heard of art for arts sake?? - instead we get Tracey Emin and a dirty bed. Nice trade.) all under the eye of 'Management' a shadowy figure confined to a trailer in the Carnivale ranks.

As season 2 wore on the tables were being set for an almighty confrontation between BJ and Ben and there were revelations galore, Management seemingly being way more involved than even the viewer could have guessed. People died, some even died and then lived again. The series ended on such a shocking moment, a revelation in all senses of the word that to never have a resolution is a crime.

It made for one of the best-looking series ever made, by which I mean the production values not the state of the cast for some of them were outright fugly. Not one of them would have been in a beauty pageant, which is why they're probably character actors and boy do they have character. Not one aspect of the show was poor; it was uniformly excellent: the acting, the direction, the scripts, the music. You must see this show.

To Dog or Not to Dog

Man's best friend....Dog? Don't think so! That'd be cash. Cash for the wife, cash for the kids cash for the new technogadgetry. Hmm. Cash.

But dogs're alright too. I'd always thought that if I won the lottery I'd buy a BIG house and then I'd also have time for dog walking (which has got nothing to do with having a house of any size but there you go). So I'd buy a dog. Which is a problem. See, I've always wanted a St Bernard (pronounced to rhyme with 'would' not 'hard' for my American readers (see my ambition? - American readers)) as they look like a dog you could literally fight with and it a) wouldn't give a toss and b) wouldn't fight back. But then my neighbour has a Weimerauner and they're gorgeous and such good fun so I'd have to have one. And have you ever had the pleasure to be in the company of a Cocker Spaniel? Such a stupid dog but you can watch one all day without getting bored. Alsatian? Always wanted one of those. Pyrennese Mountain Dog? Ever since I saw a children's TV program....And the list goes on.

So how could you choose between them? Is it greedy or selfish to have them all? I ask because I have Saturdays winning ticket. I had one last week too but they pulled out the wrong numbers...

My cat is feline fine

Dangerous Substances

Hmm. Drugs. There are many that are dangerous that aren't on the wicked list (that's wicked bad not wicked 'mint'), many that aren't dangerous but are and others that have never been considered. You often come in to contact with them in day to day life. I did earlier in fact (as if you hadn't guessed).

We went to Tesco earlier in the week, part of the wife's health drive (not that it's helping her lower end problems). Wahey we went on the 'fresh' fruit and veg section. (See the ''''? That's cuz 'fresh' is a complete fuckin' misnomer especially if you shop at Asda. It's off by the time you get to the car, let alone three days later.) Bit a this, bit a that, hmm feel those melons. I even bought a Pineapple for the first time in my life; that was fun I can't tell you. We intended on making smoothies of strawberry and bananananan and raspberries. We got at least half way through before my blender broke. I estimate we threw away about fifteen pounds worth of fruit that otherwise isn't edible and you can double that when you factor in how much of the stuff we did manage to make hasn't been touched by the wife.

Amongst the more 'obscure' items we bought were some chillies. I'm a bit of a gastro-amateur when it comes to food which translates as: pick a meat, throw it in a pan and throw other stuff in at random. And so this was my technique tonight. Except I planned on pasta instead of meat. Tin of tomatoes, red pepper, garlic, red onion and one of my chillies. Let the pain commence.

There I am chopping away thinking to myself of all the stories of the useless twunts that have chopped chillies and rubbed their eyes. Ho ho ho I very nearly verbalised. Then I got distracted. I hadn't done the wife's baked beans! Ooh, my eye is itching, scratch OMFG fuck fuckity dwarf on a barge someone has inserted a blow torch in my eye akin to the oriental bird in Hostel.

It hurt. A lot. I don't have a pain threshold. I have a pain switch. At the 'off' position all is tranquil. At 'on' it's like Jack Bauer is inserted in my mutha lovin' brain.

I literally fell up the stairs to the bathroom ( I was stood three feet from the kitchen sink but my instincts led me stumbling up the frickin' stairs) and eventually managed to dab it with a tea towel. Didn't work. The wife suggested cotton pads. Didn't work. All this time I was worried about my culinary creation which may have been burning. Eventually I got in the shower and stood with my eye under the shower. Fifteen minutes later the blow torch had been replaced with a single solitary match. And a football had been inserted under my eye (a euphemism for swelling). I can now see again but I may have to change my name to John Merrick for the foreseeable future.

My pasta was lovely by the way.

Pigs are happy when flagellating

Serenity Sheep

SFX have been running a poll to find the 'greatest SF film ever', including such alumni as Blade Runner, Aliens and The Terminator and little known fan film Serenity.

The latter film for those that don't know is based on the series Firefly, created by Joss 'In Search of a Success' Whedon. It's about the criminal crew of a rundown spaceship (the Firefly) and their adventures throughout known space (apparently one system wide but with an amazing array of survivable habitats). It's not a bad series as such and some characters are better than others, Jayne being the male stand-out from the crowd. He has the best, funniest, lines and is lower on the IQ chart than a piece of crotch crust. River is at the opposite end of the likability scale. She's nutso when you first meet her and doesn't contribute to the show except to how how crazy she is. The only exception being Objects in Space, where it appears she is absorbed by the ship. This would have been one of the great SF twists. As it is she was just on another ship. Meh.

It had the potential to be one of the better show of recent years; not up there with Babylon 5 but certainly on a par with the 4400. It lasted thirteen episodes before being cancelled. 13. One and three. Joss Whedon's fans, and if you like one of his shows you're pretty much likely to obsess about them all for some unknown except to bum fluff reason, come up with plenty of reasons for it being cancelled, all of them irrelevant and fatuous. Quite how a film was ever made I'll never know.

As soon as the poll appeared on the main SFX site, threads appeared on the Buffy and Firefly websites enrolling people to vote for Serenity. They do this every time one of their number appears somewhere on the net or on a vote-me-up somewhere. I'm getting to the point now and the point is this: get a life. Not in a William Shatner tongue in cheek type way but really, get a life. The show was cancelled quite a long time ago now. OK you must find a way to fill your after school time but go ride your bike, buy some binoculars and perve on the old lady across the street (I do - she's lush) or even help your Gran in the garden (the grass gets right in her Petunia when Grandad wants to do some trimming of her hedge).

It's not even as if Joss Whedon has had a single successful project since Buffy and even that is considered to be shite after series 4 (I personally never saw the 'brilliance' in that show either). Off the top of my head (cuz that makes a) my pop culture knowledge seem wizzo and b) there's nothing better for Blog kudos credibility) let's have a rundown of Jw's work and chart his successeseseses:

Toy Story - according to modern myth he wrote, created, starred and directed. In fact he co-wrote a few lines.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - seven series TV show that limped a bit after the fourth.

Angel - Below average BTVS spinoff that got cancelled after the third season.

Firefly - Thirteen episodes! Count them and come back in...less than 10!

Serenity - Film based on Firefly that is struggling two years later to recoup it's cost.

Wonder Woman - a new film he was developing. Until he got chucked off.

I await the next announcement in SFX of his 'latest exciting project'.

Light Dawns on Marble Head

I like to think I'm pretty tech savvy. I like to think I'm fairly well endowed in the intelligence department. And I also like to think that I'm not the doofus I actually appear to be.

I converted to the new blogger, ooh, ages ago. Regular readers will know what a chore-bore that was, it being a nightmare of Homeric proportion. I was just glad to get it finished. Well apparently I never did. I was flicking around this morning and realised I hadn't installed the code for my Page Counter - DOH! No wonder I've been registering as having no readers these past few...ages. Rest assured your efforts shall not go unheeded anymore.




Lindsay Lohan sitting in a tree