IDWID: It do what it do

Last weekend, my girlfriend Kathy and I made Oreo balls. Saying that sounds slightly wrong, and I can’t help but be reminded of that classic SNL sketch where Alec Baldwin touts his famously delicious Schwetty balls. Read the rest of this entry »

Warning: Spoilers through the finale of season six of “24″ follow.

So, “24″ wrapped up with its finale on Monday. It was a by-the-numbers finale to a thoroughly disappointing season — easily this series’ weakest. Given what they’d set up, there was virtually no other way this season could’ve ended. After the finales of seasons four and five, another shocker like the ones that sent Jack off into self-imposed exile or Chinese prison would’ve felt superfluous and false for the sake of needlessly cliffhangering us. It was time for a more dialed-down ending. We got that, at least — not that I liked the outcome. Read the rest of this entry »

Am I the only person who thinks that ABC’s willingness to venture out on a limb and pick up the half-hour sitcom pilot “Cavemen” is one of the stupidest moves by a major television network this year? Greenlighting “Cavemen” is about as bright as greenlighting … well, I’m at a loss to think of something comparable. Read the rest of this entry »

I remember how, when I first started paying attention to the Internet my freshman year of college — way back a long time ago in 1994 — the Usenet newsgroups where I first started posting my Trek reviews were filled with threads devoted to “versus” scenarios between various aspects of sci-fi. Read the rest of this entry »

All right. Enough is enough. HDTVs are coming down in price, SDTVs are turning into dinosaurs that are barely advertised in the Best Buy and Circuit City flyers, and content providers (that is, your cable or satellite service and your DVD player) offer the content you need to take advantage of the newer screen formats. Very soon the HDTV format will become the standard format. It’s time to get with the program and stop being lame: If you own a 16:9 television, you need to get yourself some 16:9 content before I’m forced to drive over there and kick your ass. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, my friend and coworker Mike and I went out to a gun range and shot a box of ammo at a paper target.

A hobby that Mike acquired a year or two ago is clay target shooting with a shotgun. He had explained to me the complexity and sportsmanship of shooting on a clay target range. From what he described, it sounds pretty hard. He finds it relaxing. Me — I don’t know if I’m up for another hobby. Between reviews and this blog, it’s not like I need a new recreational time-filler to tackle. Read the rest of this entry »

Is everyone so wrapped up in their personal crusades that they can’t see anything from the standpoint of basic logic? Read the rest of this entry »

This is surely not new to a lot of people (I first saw it probably a year or so ago), but I still have to post it nonetheless, because it’s an example of something that made me laugh for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps one of those reasons is having empathy for someone drowning in a very public way. Or perhaps it’s cruelly laughing because, hey, it’s not me drowning, it’s you. Read the rest of this entry »

There are some controversial issues that I find I have no strong feelings about either way, until finally I find myself picking a side in the interests of whatever will fastest end the controversy, because I want the damn thing resolved already. Read the rest of this entry »

For a long time now — I’m not sure exactly how long — I’ve obsessed over the length of the daylight. All year long, my internal way of marking the passage of the year (aside from obvious things like, you know, calendars) is observing how long the days are. I’ve noticed the length of the days for as long as I can remember, but I’m not sure when I really started obsessing over it. Read the rest of this entry »