Full release list.

My notables:

• Family Ties: Season One (4-disc set)

I’ve mentioned before my whole “I’m a Child of the 80s” thing, right? I mean, it’s a bit of a stretch, but I think it fits. And this is one of the cultural touchstones of my youth. It’s possibly my favorite sit-com from the 80s that I enjoyed at that age. You can’t go wrong with this one.

• Flushed Away (widescreen) (2006)

Yes, the world of CGI movies has gotten so low brow that we now get movies with titles like this.

• Gandhi: 25th Anniversary Edition (2-disc set) (1982)

Seriously, is GHANDI any good? It’s one of those movies you know you’re supposed to like because it’s big and important and stuff. But is it at all entertaining? I’ve never seen it; you tell me.

• Man of the Year (widescreen) (2006)

Robin Williams runs for President, so you already know what you’re going to get.  (Minus the RV.) Christopher Walken is in it, though.

• Open Water 2 (2006)

Please tell me this isn’t a sequel to the low budget yet excellent Based On True Events story of the Australian couple stranded at sea. PLEASE!

• The Prestige (2006)

Magic movie with a pretty decent cast: Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Andy Serkis, Scarlett Johannson, Christian Bale, and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. Wowzers.

• Walking Tall: The Payback

Did someone say “unnecessary sequel?” That’s what I thought.

• What’s New, Scooby-Doo?: Season One

Because every generation needs its own Scooby.

Coming up next week: I honestly don’t think there’s a single interesting thing worth talking about next week. Wish me luck.

The sun will soon be setting, but Jack Bauer can outrace the moonlight. Fear not. He is, after all, half vampire. (See right.)
And that was one cool tease at the end. It would be the biggest spoiler of them all, so I’m not going to specify it here, but I can’t wait to see what happens next.

It really is amazing how much stuff they can pack into an hour these days. The first season looks lethargic and lame by comparison.  And it’s nice that they’ve changed things up a bit this season by focusing a little more on Jack’s personal/family mission, rather than just the Big Overall Threat. Nice mix.

Discuss it all here, but don’t talk about the coming attractions at the end of the episode.

I think the thing that most surprised me about this week’s episode is that I recognized Jon Secada before he was introduced officially. I didn’t even know he moved on from his recording career to some Broadway work, including starring as Danny Zucco in the 90s revival of GREASE.

We learned that the judges only have their say as to who stays and who goes up to the semi-finals. I’m not sure on the exact wording of that, though. Does that mean only the last week? Or the last two weeks? My notes are a bit spotty. In any case, the judges are keeping their hands in the pie long enough to make sure the final contestants are all solid enough to take the roles should they win.  I can’t blame them for that.
This week was Duets Night. But first, the dreaded sing-off:

Jason and Kevin were the bottom two Dannies. Juliana and Kathleen were the bottom two Sandies. And that’s a damned shame — the judges have had it in for Juliana from the start. I think she’s their best singer, arguably. She’s so powerful and controlled, but the judges kept harping on her for other things, mostly acting. So she went home, and Kathleen stayed. Kathleen is good, too, but I think Juliana was better. Jason also went home, the victim of being in the Bottom Two two weeks in a row. Both of the judges’ choices were also the contestants who scored the lowest votes from the home viewers.

The singing started with Allie and Chad doing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” It was an energetic little number, and proved to me that Chad could play the part. He has the voice, the attitude, and the overacting chops to win a place on Broadway. At the end of the night, he was three of the four judges’ choice for best performer, so I’m not alone. The producer referred to the performance as “theatrical viagra,” thus guaranteeing this blog a flood of spam comments in the next 24 hours. It was only the first act of the night, though — most of the rest of them all had similar number-ending near-lip-locks, as it turned out.

Allie was good, too, but Chad really stood out for me.

Austin and Laura teamed up for “I Don’t Know Much.” The song was in the perfect key for Austin, who sounded strong and acted well. Plus, who knew he had that falsetto? Laura sounded more confident than Allie, and I thought did very well.

Max and Ashley’s “It Takes Two” felt very lightweight by comparison with the first two, but it had some nice choreography and a couple of strong performances. I just don’t think anyone will ever see Max as Danny. He’ll never be tough enough.  He can work on stage, but I just don’t see him as any kind of Danny Zucco, sadly.
Derek and my favorite, Kate, came together for a messy “From This Moment On.” Derek was the favorite up until this week, but really faltered with a few notes at the beginning and then wildly overcompensated back in the other direction. Plus, the harmonies never worked at all. It was two separate performances that happened to be going on at the same time. Not pretty. Kate’s voice got lost in the number, too. She’s so powerful that I have to wonder if her mic just wasn’t turned up high enough. And unlike Austin’s song, this one wasn’t a good key for Derek. It wasn’t quite a crash and burn, but I have to hope that Kate doesn’t suffer for her partner’s problems. I think they’ll both wind up in the bottom two, though.

Kevin and Kathleen, our two near-evictions, paired up for an underwhelming “Something To Talk About.” (Is that the right title? Darn you, Bonnie Raitt!) Kathleen’s voice was strong, but Kevin was bland. I wouldn’t be surprised to see either or both of these two in the bottom two next week. They got stuck with a bad song and didn’t do much with it.

But this does raise a curious question: All the contestants were paired up for duets and practiced as such all week. Did the show runners rig it so that the two people who were evicted were paired up? Or was this Kevin and Kathleen’s first time singing the song together?

The judges went for Austin (1 vote) and Chad (3) for their favorite Danny, with Ashley and Allie splitting the votes for favorite Sandy. I can’t disagree with that too much.

I think you’ll see Derek and Kevin in the bottom two next week, with Kevin going home. Kathleen and Kate will be in the bottom two, with Kathleen taking a hike.

Next week: Frankie Avalon sits in the Guest Judge’s chair.

Back in Season One, there was a small bit of an argument between Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson. It was the third week of performances in an attempt to let America narrow down the last 24 contestant to a top 10. It was done in an illogical way, which was corrected the following year: 10 contestants a week would sing, and America would put through three each time. It didn’t matter if there weren’t three good ones that week or if there were seven, only three went through. The tenth was a judges’ choice.

So in week three of this, Simon had had enough. After seeing poor performances by AJ Gil and Jim Verraros be rewarded with a vote through, Simon said he was fed up. He didn’t want to see sob stories get the votes instead of the strongest singers. But the fight truly began when Simon referred to the two “losers” who had made it through. Randy and Paula booth took objection to that, and it was Randy who famously stood up with a “You want a piece of this?” posture. This was pre-weight loss Randy, by the way.

When RJ Helton started off the third show, Simon used that chance to say, in effect, that American had gotten it wrong 33.33% of the time so far, and that they’d be wrong again if they put through RJ in, based on that performance.

And you know what? The big dirty truth of The Fight is that Simon was absolutely right. Jim and EJ made it through on pity votes, and RJ’s song stank. There were many better singers that week, let alone in the last two.  I don’t blame him for being frustrated.  There were a few singers that could have blown away most of the final Top Ten from Season One, but didn’t get enough of a spotlight to get the pity votes they needed.
And things haven’t changed much to this day.  Five seasons later, contestants are still wont to complain that they didn’t get enough camera time early on in the series to build a fan base.

Thankfully, they narrow down the Top 24 to the Top 10 in a better way now — to get a final total of 6 boys and 6 girls, two from each sex are eliminated each week with America’s votes.   The need to split the sexes perfectly in half is not proven, but it’s still a much better process.

I used to work for Novartis a few years back. This news makes me happy:

Biology Goes Open Source - Forbes.com

Novartis, the Basel, Switzerland, drug giant, has helped uncover which of the 20,000 genes identified by the Human Genome Project are likely to be associated with diabetes. But rather than hoard this information, as drug firms have traditionally done, it is making it available for free on the World Wide Web.

“It will take the entire world to interpret these data,” says Novartis research head Mark Fishman. “We figure we will benefit more by having a lot of companies look at these data than by holding it secret.”

Researchers at Novartis partnered with Switzerland’s Lund University and the Cambridge, Mass.-based Broad Institute, a joint venture between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard that is funded by billionaire Eli Broad. This international team compared the genomes of 1,500 people who had diabetes with 1,500 who were disease-free. All the patients were from Sweden. To do this quickly, the scientists used gene chips from biotech Affymetrix that allowed them to track 500,000 places in the genetic code where past experience has shown that there are likely to be differences.

The result: a library of genetic differences that are likely to increase a patient’s risk of diabetes.

This is a MacBook. It’s a fairly low end Mac computer, which means it’s only better than about 80 - 85% of all PC computers. ;-)

I’ve never used a laptop seriously before now. My work computer is a laptop, but it’s always plugged into a dock, and I use it at home infrequently.

So, Mac laptop owners: What do I need to know? What tools do I need to download and install?

Yes, I did buy Parallels with it, and do plan on installing Windows (and maybe even Ubuntu Linux) on it soon. . . This makes me giddy, from the pure geek side of things.

So far, the biggest adjustment has been the keyboard. My initial complaint with the standard Mac keyboard is that all the keys are crammed too tightly together. It’s just the opposite, ironically enough, with this laptop.  The keys do, however, make a satisfying click when you hit them.  I like that.

The touchpad is a little weird.  I’m not used to a touchpad where tapping it isn’t the same as clicking.  And the single button thing is ridiculous.  Thankfully, I have a Wacom Tablet attached to this machine when I’m sitting at the table to use it seriously.

On the web:

• Your web game of the day: DodgeGame. You control the blue circle. Touch the blue square with it. Avoid the red circles. My first score was 125. I know I can do better.
• Planes fly over Belgium, from Google Maps. Looks like the satellite pic was snapped during an air show of some sort, I’d imagine.
• Hilarious: How to become a web designer.

TV:

• Mark Evanier is telling the story of the genesis of Scrappy Doo. Check back on his blog for future installments of this long-awaited series.
• Ladies, start your engines: IDOL’s Bucky broke up with his wife. There’s gotta be a country song for a time like this. . .

Videos:

• If you want to sell your SEO services, don’t make a video like this guy’s. There’s so much wrong with his delivery here that it blows the mind. Jason Calacanis tears into the whole SEO thing with glee.
• How good is Vista’s voice recognition. Watch one Perl programmer put it to the test. Hilarious!
• Another insane Line Rider video.

TV Week

Within the next two weeks “American Idol” viewers will see “the biggest thing to happen to ‘Idol’ in five years,” according to Nigel Lythgoe, the show’s executive producer.

Let the speculation commence.

I was about ten feet away from the car when I realized I hadn’t locked it up, but I didn’t break stride. I reached into my pocket, pushed the button on the keyfob, heard the car’s horn honk once, and felt satisfied that the job was done.

It’s such a commonplace thing today that I don’t think of the car as being locked anymore until I’ve heard the horn honk. What was once a tactile sensation of pushing a button on the car door is now an auditory one.
And it’s like that all day, every day in parking lots across the nation. Remember when a honking horn caught your attention? It might have meant that a friend was coming over to pick you up. Nowadays, they call you on their ubiquitous cell phone when they’re a minute away and you know when to look for them with uncanny accuracy.

Idiots in traffic use their car horn all the time for the smallest of infractions. They busy their hands on the steering wheel’s center instead of concentrating on slamming the breaks or swerving around the idiot in front of them. But it’s the boy who cried wolf. So many horns blare so needlessly that nobody notices them anymore. When’s the last time a horn honked in traffic caused you to seriously look around at your mirrors to see where it was coming from and why?

It’s the little boy crying wolf. Due to its incessant noise making, nobody hears its anymore. People lock their car doors remotely with the sound of the car horn when they’re parking at a condo complex, ten feet in front of someone’s bedroom. At night. And they think nothing of it.

And don’t get me started on the “panic” button on so many keyfobs that’s so easy to hit that they are more easily ignored than a single beep. . .

The car horn is just one of life’s little annoyances in the modern age.

This week we’re back to new episodes of POKER AFTER DARK, and they’ve been a ton of fun so far. Six TV poker commentators are playing against each other, and the banter is flying fast and furious. Really, it’s almost more fun listening to them talk than it is watching them play, though they are good at that.

Anyone who’s watched any amount of poker on television in the last five years will recognize the names:

Mike Sexton - the fatherly type. He’s the co-host on the World Poker Tour, with his southern drawl and friendly demeanor. Does anyone hate this guy? I couldn’t imagine. And he’s a good poker player, having won the Tournament of Champions after last year’s WSOP. It was also cute to see his reunion with Shanna Hiatt, who came to POKER AFTER DARK from the WPT.

Michael Konik - Co-hosted the POKER SUPERSTARS INVITATIONAL for a couple of years with Chris Rose, and wrote a couple of books on poker. I’ve never much liked him. He comes off weird on TV. I can’t exactly explain it. It’s a little smarmy, a little Napoleonic. I don’t know. He’s also cut a CD or two, and looks even more ridiculous on those covers.

Phil Gordon - The ultra-tall Dot Com millionaire turned professional poker player and co-host of CELEBRITY POKER SHOWDOWN, where only the worst poker ever makes the air. His growing frustration with clueless celebrity players finally drove him out, but he’s got a fun style and a sharp wit. You want to root for this guy.

Howard Lederer - The goatee does him no good. He tries to look serious and professorial, but so often just comes across a bit haughty and holier-than-thou. I don’t think he means to be, but that’s how it looks. You can almost see him roll his eyes when someone says something he disagrees with — because They’re Wrong.

Chad Brown - I don’t like him at all. Never have. The first time I came across him was on some poker show I couldn’t take watching longer than five minutes because he and his co-host were so obnoxious.

Gabe Kaplan - Better known as “Mr. Kotter” from that John Travolta show of the 70s, Kaplan did poker commentary before poker commentary was cool. He’s an interesting addition to the table, in that he comes from a Hollywood background, and that gets discussions moving in that direction.

After two nights, the table is still full, though Konik is on a perpetual short stack, and Lederer has been on tilt most of the week, being forced to lay down big hands from later players with bigger bets.

You can catch all episodes from the series on the website, PokerAfterDark.com.

. . . and then there were 24.

But, first, I re-learned a valuable lesson. Never compose a long post on-line. You never know when your connection is going to be lost in the middle of a save, and you’ll lose the first 300 words or more of your post. ::sigh::

Let’s just hit some of the more memorable people from last night to see where we’re ending up:

Anna Kearns is best known as the woman Simon compared to a giraffe. She’s about as tall as I am (I’m nearly 6′4″) and she wears heels. She didn’t make it through, though. She was stunned by this news, despite the fact that, by her own admission, she’s not the best singer. She thought being unique was enough. She didn’t define “unique,” but she swore that didn’t mean tall. I’m as confused as Simon was by this last night.

Tammy, the pedicab driver with the lip ring, did not make it through. That only mildly surprised me.

Melinda Doolittle, the shy background singer, made it through, as did fellow background singer Brandon Rogers. It’s remarkable how many professional singers and singers with previous contracts are making it far on this show these days. Remember when this felt more like an amateur singing competition with well-meaning kids stuck in karaoke bars? No more. The only stipulation is that you’re not under contract now and you’re 28 or younger. There’s even rumors that they might up that to 30 next season. Wow.

Gina Glocksen finally made it through to the top 24. She’s been to Hollywood before, but this will now be her last year. Simon smiled when the news was delivered to her. That’s always an odd sight.

Haley Scarnado, I’m happy to say, made it through. Her last song choice was “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now.” Anyone who sings a Jim Steinman-penned song deserves to go through to the next week, unless they butcher it. That’s a standing policy here at VariousandSundry.com

Phil Stacy is getting scary looking, and just a tad freaky. He’s the guy who left his wife in labor to audition for the show. And now he’s made it all the way through to the Top 24.

It’s 2:30 p.m. on the day of taping at this point in the show, and they still have 28 contestants to weed through. Filming started that morning and they still haven’t gotten through half the contestants. Why does this take so long? I understand production schedules are slow things. But there’s no reason they can’t make it through 8 or 10 contestants an hour with breaks for lunch and technical gaffes here and there and NOT be done well before the 8:00 p.m. time they wound up finishing at, as I recall.

Imagine being one of those 40 kids sitting in the holding room literally all day. Torture.

Tangent: The boys got to go see THE SIMPSONS MOVIE at a special preview showing for them during Hell Week. I know it’s a product placement plug by FOX, but that’s still pretty darn cool. They also visited the studios, where we saw that much of the staff works on tablet computers.

Chris Sligh is getting my vote every week just for being funny. Again, I know it’s horribly unfair of me, but I’ll deal with it. He took the long walk from the elevator to the chair in front of the judges and promptly said, “I know you’re all wondering why I called this meeting today.” (Slight paraphrase, but you get the point.) The kid’s hilarious and he’s got a great voice. He’s through.

As is Blake Lewis, the beatbox boy. That surprised me. I can’t wait to see how long it takes before he breaks out the beats and Simon castigates him for it. I hope he makes it through to the top 12 so he can do the beats during one of the group numbers somewhere along the way. I wonder if he pops and locks, too? Maybe Nigel Lythgoe can put him on SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE this summer, of IDOL doesn’t work out for him. . .

Paul Kim is the Asian man who wants you to remember him as your AI Asian Singer, and not William Hung. I’m not a big fan of his singing, though. His final song choice in Hell Week was an awful series of runs and warbling and needless syllable additions. I could barely recognize the song. As an added bonus, he’s proud to let the world know that he plans on wearing the same underwear on every cut day because it’s been lucky for him. He also plans on being barefoot during all shows, as his little trademark thing. Oh, boy.

Tatiana McConnico did not make it through. That makes her 2 for 2, as she previously failed as a contestant on STAR SEARCH. A lot of people, though, had picked her as an early favorite and will be shocked at this one.

Leslie Hunt is a slight redhead with a very airy wispy voice that I can’t recall ever seeing before last night’s show. She’s through.

So is Nick Pedro, the guy who quit the show last year, only to return stronger this year.

Matthew Buckstein, one of the trio of cowboys from last season, did not make it through.

Lakisha Jones, the large single mother from NYC, made it, though. She has a powerful voice.

Nicole Tranquilo makes it through. She’s cute.

Sadly, Jersey Girl Antonella Barba made it through over the more talented Marisa Rhodes, in the decision that will baffle America for ages to come.

Ditto for Sundance Head — who famously sang through his nose — over Tommy Daniels.

Tommy took the decision much better than Marisa. Wait, no he didn’t. Marisa cried and didn’t understand. Tommy swore and flipped the bird.

Ah, well.

Next Tuesday: The 12 boys compete for your vote!

A) I just did my part to elect the next President of Iraq.

B) I was foiled in my bid to rob the local bank.

C) I’ve chosen to get in touch with my Belgian roots by emulating a Smurf.

D) Why? What do you see? It’s a giant Rorschach test on my thumb!

E) I was installing the Cyan ink cartridge in my new printer when ink starting flying everywhere.

Yup, I saved the truth for last. Thankfully, nothing was permanently damaged, and the stains on the nine of ten fingers I have should go away through slow depletion of skin cells. ::sigh::

Updated: More options:

F) It’s really cold in here.

G) I’m slowly turning to stone, and it’s a blue veined marble.

H) I’m a test subject for a new personal identification system for Homeland Security.

I) I’m making extra money on the side as an animal tester for the makeup industry.

J) I’m tattooing a map of the world on my hand.  This is my impressionistic view of North America.

K) I had an unfortunate encounter with The Blue Man Group in a dark alley.

Please, add your own in the comments section.

General Geekery:

• 15 Geek Movies To See Before You Die. I’ve seen 11 of them.
• Apple rumor du jour: Apple is set for late March release for new editions of OS X, iLife, and iWork.
• Lotsa pretty WordPress themes.
• NBA games live in 3D!
• How to earn six-figures as a blogger.

Game Geekery:

• Sony US’s president is offering a $1200 bounty if you find an unsold PS3. The guys at Penny Arcade are rich!
• Super Mario 3 theme for Firefox.

General:

• Radar image of planes leaving the SuperBowl. Crazy!
• A tribute to bygone sodas. Crystal Pepsi, Pepsi Blue, Coke II, etc.
• All about white balance on your digital camera.
• Braille’s back, and bigger than ever. Thought those screen readers on computers would kill the bumpy language? Not so.
• Ayla Brown remembers AI’s Hollywood Hell Week.
• Picture of the Day: The Kool Aid Man.

The girls, as it turned out, far outnumbered the boys who made it to Hollywood this season. Thus, there is a culling. Each girl gets thirty seconds to sing, and then the judges make cuts. The entire first line of contestants were cut. Can you imagine winning the Golden Ticket, flying out to Hollywood after months of anticipation, and being done five minutes into the first morning? Ouch. Shockingly, Canadian Jory Steinberg was amongst those cut in the first group. I thought she was the best of the line, but Simon didn’t find her memorable enough, I suppose. (She once had a multi-album contract, by the way.)

Perla made it through day one. She’s the obnoxiously overconfident — sorry, sassy — Shakira wannabe. She’s a little too bouncy for my tastes.

Rachel the Reservist whose husband is in Baghdad got cut. Bailey Brown edged through. Ashlyn Carr — the girl who got the second chance last week — got cut. Sara Burgess — the girl who went to “NYC” without telling her parents and then called Dad in front of the cameras with Ryan to tell him about her infraction — got cut.

All in all, 56 of the 114 girls got sent home in the first day.

The boys did a little better, but there were far fewer of them. 34 made it through, including the beatboxer and Nick, the kid who dropped out last season. Phil, the guy who missed the birth of his daughter to get a Golden Ticket made it through. As did the Castro/Jesus lookalike, and the guy named Sundance.

Since there were 172 contestants to start, that means 24 got cut out of 58. That’s a pretty significant blood-letting in both cases.

Then it was time for the groups, and all the usual drama over who does and doesn’t get along, who gets left out, and who parties all night.

Poor Bailey, for example, got stuck with the two Jersey Girls. And their group made the classic mistake of trying to work out routines and parts before ever learning the friggin’ words. It would come back to haunt one of them, at least.

Perla (nee Shakira) forgot her lyrics and went home. Bailey blanked completely and forgot every single lyric, then had a blow out with the two Jersey Girls who did make it through. They were obnoxious, unsurprisingly. On the bright side, Bailey is eligible to compete again next season. You’re not locked out until you make the final 24, I don’t believe. She’s young yet. She should come back, and next time learn her lyrics better.

Chris Sligh — the humorous afro-laden guy who Simon is high on — sailed on through with his group, which blew the roof off, complete with beatbox accompaniment. For more on Chris, check out his blog.

Which reminds me — If the contestants are smart, they’ll register domain names in their names NOW.

Sundance miraculously makes it through, despite forgetting lyrics. Simon thought Paula was too kind in that decision. We’ll see tonight. . .

Jesus/Castro goes home.

I believe the final tally was 56 contestants after this round, at which point each sings one bit of a song alone without judges comments before being grouped in three rooms and told their fates.

40 people make it through to tonight’s round, which will bring us to the final round of 24, who start singing for your votes next week.

One Jersey Girl made it through, but not the other. Sanjai made it through, but not his sister. (The judges always liked him more.)

Tonight at 9:00, the judges decide who to put in the Top 24. If I remember correctly, each will sing in front of the judges one more time before a dramatic walk to a judging chair decides their fate.

Sorry if this writeup is a bit scattershot. It’s tough keeping track of that many people, particularly when their names don’t flash up on screen that often. Remember the girl who recounted the story of her father’s failed murder/suicide? She got cut.

Hopefully, tonight will be a little easier to handle. . .

Full list.

My list:

Feb. 13, 2007

• Beauty and the Beast: Season One (6-disc set)

I imagine there will be some people very happy about this.

• The Departed: Special Edition (widescreen) (2-disc set) (2006)
• The Departed (widescreen) (2006)

The countdown to the Oscars continues. This is one that I really would like to see. Might have to rent it at some point.

• Grosse Pointe: The Complete Series (2-disc set)

Created by the guy who gave you SEX AND THE CITY. It was a WB series, I believe, around the same time as POPULAR was on the air, and drew comparisons. I hear POPULAR was really good — anyone here like that one? Or this?

• Hustle: Season Two (2-disc set)

I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t cracked open Season One yet. In fact, I’m just now finishing up the third season of MI-5. Right after that, though, I want to get to HUSTLE. Looks like a fantastic show from the same people.

• Picket Fences: Season One (6-disc set)

Here’s another one of those shows that a certain cultish following must be foaming at the mouth to see at Best Buy today.

Next week: The first season of FAMILY TIES! Plus, FLUSHED AWAY and the 25th Anniversary Edition of GANDHI.