Zito's World

My New Favorite Show!

I am in the middle of the first episode of The Pickup Artist as I write this and I am already hooked. It took me a while to jump on the reality TV bandwagon, but now I'm leading the charge. It never ceases to amaze me what nonsense can be thought up as a pretense for one of these shows. This particular show includes about ten hopelessly nerdy guys who repel women and three "Master Pickup Artists" who will try to teach them how to bag chicks. The three "artists" all have rediculous nicknames - Mystery, Matador, and J-Dog - which remind me of the scene in Dodge Ball when Ben Stiller is introducing his team in the bar. I can't wait to see what will happen throughout this show. I am ecstatic. Whatever funk I was in yesterday has been totally remedied over the past twenty minutes.

-T

Back In The Swing of Things

I've spent the last two days catching up on a week's worth of being out of touch with everything that happened in our country outside of the Embassy Suites in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I'm extremely happy about a couple of developments. First, Rock of Love looks poised to continue the tradition of D-list celebs looking for love on TV while simultaneously presiding over an astonishing train wreck of humiliation and degradation. That alone has me giddy. I'm not sure how to put this delicately, but hypothetically, if I had ever accidentally viewed any adult material on the internet, there would have been a chance that I would have seen one of the girls from the show doing some very naughty things. Hypothetically. Scott Baio Is 45 and Single looks like it has considerably less potential, mostly because Baio is such a schmuk, but I'll give it a week or two to grow on me.

The Michael Vick and Tim Donaghy scandals have the makings of great theatre in the sports world. I only hope we get to the good stuff before I develop a steroids scadal-Barbaro-755 like fatigue from the constant headlines.

Flight of the Conchords continues to impress. I have paid for the HBO addition to the cable package for my new townhome specifically to watch this show. 13 dollars for four shows a month. I am a savvy investor. For anyone that watched last night, this morning my girlfriend payed me the "your beard is good" compliment from last night's show, for which she earned several points.

My friend Jeff has posted this video on his blog once again. It's an oldie, but it's one of the greats so it is well worth a second look if you have already seen it. If not, enjoy. "He'll save children, but not the British children" is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You'll see what I mean.

This link is a page of Steven Wright one-liners. Very Funny.

And a random bit of entertainment I encountered this morning was watching the commercial for Yaz birth control. At the end of all medical ads there is that guy who talks really fast and goes through all of the disclaimers and warnings associated with the product. Well, in this commercial they try to work this into the conversation the women are having with one another. It's rediculous and it makes me laugh, though I might well be the only one. I was amazed just now to find the commercial on Youtube, though it has undergone a bit of creative editing with regards to the on screen messages.

Hmmm, that's all I have to say right now. I'm desperate for something of substance to write about. But between not working, the crappy summer TV lineup, and no sports that I like being in season I'm really spinning my wheels. Maybe my life should be larger than sports and TV........nahhh. Five weeks until college football season!

T

My Name Is Earl

I recently finished watching the first season of My Name Is Earl and I was very impressed. It's got a great, original premise and is well casted and acted. I've always liked Jason Lee for some reason, but I've never quite understood why he is so successful, he's just a bad actor. He doesn't need to be great to pull off Earl, though, looking the part is half the battle, which he does. Jaime Pressly and Ethan Suplee are both phenomenal. They are both instant classic sit-com characters. I wonder why Jaime Pressly seems so perfect and so natural playing white trash? She is also perhaps the hottest woman on the planet. I'm thinking about asking her out. Anyways, I'm looking forward to season two coming out later this month. Check it out.

-T

The Marathon Marathon Continues

Over the past month I have completed two more TV show marathons along the way toward completing my summer goal of watching every episode of every television show ever made. My most recent conquests are Scrubs and The 4400, but before I get to those I want to mention a small but important event in my life that took place today at Blockbuster. Let me preface this story by saying that I look young. Once this year I was buying some M&Ms at the bookstore at the school at which I teach (that is a world record for most prepositional phrases strung together that start with the word 'at'. Hooray me.), and the checkout lady spent five minutes looking for my name in the student registry before she realized I was a teacher. And her daughter was in my class. And I wear a beard. Anyways, I'm in that awkward stage of adulthood in which I frequently need to remind people that I am, in fact, an adult.

Tonight at Blockbuster I reached a turning point. I walked in to rent the Reno: 911 movie, which by the way was freaking hilarious, wearing a UTD t-shirt. Anytime I wear this shirt or any other article of clothing with the name of any of the 12 colleges I went to on it I have someone ask me if I go there. Not went there...go there. So you can imagine my surprise when the man behind the counter looked at the UTD logo and asked me if I teach there. I was so proud. I wonder if my beard affects how people assess my age or level of adultness. The beard varies from a two day growth to a forty seven day growth depending on how lazy I've been, and I think there's a delicate balance to pulling off the grown up look. Too short and you just look sloppy, like you're too lazy to shave (which I am), and too long and you look like you're in that college phase where you either consciously or subconsciously realize time is running out to look like a moron and you don't shave for weeks (which I never was...I dyed my hair and pierced myself instead). This could be next summer's research project.

But enough of that nonsense and on to a few quick reviews. First, Scrubs. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this show. Most "normal" sitcoms, ones that simply revolve around the daily lives of a group of friends or a family, are horrid. This one isn't. I thoroughly enjoyed it from the beginning and I never got too tired of it even while marathoning five seasons. I will say, though, that the characters become charicatures of themselves sometime around season three.

On to The 4400. Click the link if you want a summary of the plot because I don't want to summarize, but I enjoyed this show as well. It's pretty campy since it's on USA (I think), but writing, acting, and production value aside it was very entertaining. I think that from an unintentional comedy standpoint the lead actor, Joel Gretsch, is the absolute essence of what a C-list leading actor should be. I'm not sure what I mean by that, but it makes sense in my head.

I have finished a few more books as well. Click on the link if they seem interesting, but they are all recommended. There is the James Rollins thriller Ice Hunt, Holocaust memoir Eyewitness Auschwitz (what Night would have been had Elie Wiesel lived and worked in the gas chambers themselves), and Black Like Me (a "this is so crazy it just might work" approach to investigative reporting on race relations in the South in 1951). I'm now starting one of those books that I sometimes buy from the bargain rack that seem fun, quirky, and enlightening at the time, but later just seem rediculous. This one's called The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History. Actually reading this book is my punishment for being foolish enought to buy it in the first place. I can't wait.

And in closing I would like to remind everyone that there's only six more weeks until college football season, which is so great because the last sport I care about ended in late March, so I'm desperate.

And though the post prior to this blog entry is dated June 25, there is actually only a 2 day gap between the two because I'm on summer time, which means I squeeze everything I would do in a normal day into about two weeks. Kind of like how I crammed four years of college into six and a half. I rock.

-T

Random Brain Farts From the Past Week....and Some Links

I love to find DVD's of my favorite bands. Sometimes they are letdowns, just incoherent snippets of concert footage, interviews, and biographical information. Other times they are brilliant and make me fall in love with the band all over again. I'm still working my way through my latest batch, but here are some favorites from my collection...

Blind Melon - Letters From a Porcupine

Rage Against the Machine - The Battle of Mexico City

Screamers - Live in San Francisco, September 2nd, 1978 - this one's only for fans of the late 70s LA punk movement. If you haven't heard of the band, there's a strong possibility you will not like this. It might be my favorite.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live at Slane Castle and Funky Monks

Woodstock - Woodstock: Three Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut)

Smashing Pumpkins - Smashing Pumpkins: Greatest Hits Video Collection - this is a bit disappointing overall, but some of the individual videos are so great that I had to include it.

On another note, I have finished season three of my "Scrubs" marathon. "The Sopranos" is my white whale of DVD marathons, and I'm really beginning to grasp just how daunting a task that would be. Each episode is two and a half times longer than an episode of "Scrubs", so if five seasons of "Scrubs" will take me nearly two months.....forget it, there's no way. I'm thinking about "My Name is Earl" next.

Ron Washington called Robinson Tejeda's performance last night against the Athletics "gutless". He wouldn't have been surprised by this had he read my meticulously researched post about the gutlessness of Dallas sports teams in general, which focused in part on the Rangers ineptitude against A.L. West opponents. (This is the first time in the history of this young blog that I've ever had anything I've written look smart in hindsight, so I couldn't resist the urge to gloat. Forgive me.)

I will not watch the NBA finals this year. As an NBA fan, I need some sort of story line to hook me into the games, I can't just watch for the sake of the game itself. Unless LeBron and the Cavs can find a way to beat the Pistons, not likely, this could be the most boring finals in history. It's a shame when you think about it, because it seems like watching the two teams square off who have owned their respective conferences for the past five plus years would be fun. Oh, well. Wake me for the draft.

This SNL commercial, which I first saw on my friend Jeff's blog, is absolutely hilarious. I like Peyton Manning a lot more now.

I have a feeling this link is pretty widely circulated at this point, but I have to post it for those of you who have not yet seen it. It's Carl Lewis' music video from the mid-eighties. I haven't been this disturbed since my high school football coach made us watch "Faces of Death" on a bus ride to a game in Tulsa.

Check out The White Stripes' video for their new single "Icky Thump". I am in total awe of this band, and more specifically of Jack White. In today's music culture, bands have to conform to the mold of easily digestible, three and a half minute pop rock songs that all sound alike in order to get played. They all sing the same, play the same, act the same, and write the same. They all have to chase after what the record companies want to hear rather than spending their time and effort creating something original and worthwhile. Somehow, Jack White has reversed this. He is such a creative genius that he is in the position where he can manifest whatever his twisted mind has thought up and people can't get enough of it, no matter how wierd it is. In fact, sometimes it seems the wierder the better. Okay, now I'm rambling...just watch the damn video.

I found this post while floating through cyberspace and I liked it a lot. So read it, dammit.

Oh, and I almost didn't include this link because it is entirely inappropriate, but it was too funny to resist. Get over the title and enjoy the video. And just to clarify, because this question will be asked, I found this video after using the search term "American Gladiators". I swear.

That is all.

-T

The Magic of TV Show DVD Marathons

Recently, I have discovered the joy of marathoning an entire season of a TV show. Until a few months ago, I was aware that seasons could be purchased and watched on DVD, but somehow it never crossed my mind to actually do so. That all changed a week or so prior to the start of the third season of Lost. Like many people who had not been watching from the start, I had grown tired of being out of the loop. So somewhere between the endless promos, all of my friends' and coworkers' obsession with the show, and the fact that nobody would hang out with me on Wednesdays anymore, I decided to join the cult. One week and 48 episodes later, I was a member. I was also on my way to becoming a marathon addict.

The great thing about marathons is that they are a combination of the best aspects of books and movies. You get the fully developed, richly detailed plotlined of a great book combined with the fun of watching a movie. One point of unending frustration for many moviegoers is the inability of Hollywood to successfully adapt almost any good book to the movie screen. Two to three hours just isn't enough time to tell the story well. Too much is altered, too much is left out, and the audience almost always leaves unsatisfied. TV shows, while not generally adapted from books, don't have this limitation. The makers of shows like Lost, Prison Break, Heroes, Jericho and others have realized that, and have created series in which the plot moves along toward a predetermined conclusion, just as in a movie, but without having to sacrafice any of the story due to time constraints.

The only problem with marathoning is that it tends to become addictive. I no longer can watch any of my favorite plot driven shows weekly. I have to wait until the seasons come out on DVD to watch them all at once. In addition to the frustration of having a year to wait between seasons, it's difficult to avoid spoilers in the meantime. In the end, though, it's worth it. Here are some marathons to try, some to avoid, and some I'm looking forward to. Enjoy...

Try - Prison Break, House, Lost, Scrubs, The Wire (it didn't take with me, but I've heard to many rave reviews not to recommend it), The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Arrested Devolopment, Curb Your Enthusiasm

Avoid - Grey's Anatomy, Big Love, any CSI or Law and Order

Looking forward to - Alias, The Soprano's (daunting task), The Dead Zone, Jericho, Twin Peaks (I'm skeptical because David Lynch makes me want to punch myself repeatedly in the head, but a friend says it's worth it).

-T