You Bastards, You Killed Firefly

It has become brutally apparent now (like it hadn’t before, right?) that network television, along with its bastard cousin – cable, is run by the most incompetent scatter, nay, lame brained people in all of the Universe and beyond. And I shall prove it in the coming weeks.

For my first tirade, I begin with the now officially defunct (god willing only for a short leave of absence) Firefly. If you’ve never seen it, shame on you; but I guess I can forgive you, since it was put on at the worst possible time – Friday nights. Classically, this time slot spells instant doom for any non-established (and even some of the time tested) show that is put there. This alone is enough to prove my case that FOX never intended for the show to succeed, but wait there’s more.

Firefly first aired back around the beginning of September, the date escapes me at the moment, but that’s not really important. What is important is the season the premiere took place: Baseball Season. More to the point – PLAY OFFS AND WORLD SERIES. What does this mean? Well, one week I’m watching Firefly, the next week I’m not. Inconsistency my friends, sheer inconsistency!

It’s the sort of inconsistency that leads to clicking of remotes. How are people supposed to become attuned to tuning into a show at eight o’clock Fridays if the second episode is shown 2-3 weeks after the first? Isn’t this what happened to The Lone Gunmen? I seem to remember that premiering around playoffs, and died soon after.

And don’t go thinking that that second episode was actually the second episode; ’cause it wasn’t. Third reason I believe FOX never intended the show to last – the pilot never aired till tonight (i.e. Friday, December 12, 2002). Wow, the first episode is now the last episode. Damn FOX and their cruel irony!

You know, the pilot of a series can be a useful tool. It sets up characters, setting and plot; all the things a viewer should know about a show! It would have been nice to know how thing actually came about, instead of inferring them from the second episode which ran as the first! That kinda thing turns off the average to sub-slug demographic; which seems to be what FOX likes to cater to… Need I remind you of Celebrity Boxing, When Animals Attack parts here to eternity and Fast Lane (the L.A. version of Miami Vice, but sucks ass, and is the replacement of Firefly)?

I’m starting to loose it now as I write… When I regain composure I shall add to what I have here and use it to start my diatribes against the networks.

In the meanwhile, why don’t we have a grand ole discussion about it, eh?

Quick Robin! To the forum!

The Age Of Rifles

One of the greatest things in life is a hand bilk pack of new CD-Rs. The other thing of course would be games that don’t have incription on them to prevent bootleggers from… borrowing the information on one CD and placing it on another. Not saying that I, your humble, wholesome reviewer, cartoonist, extraordinaire would ever do something like that… just that that’s what I’ve been told. But let’s skip the legal schmutz and get to the game, a game of strategy and wit.

Every (if not most) major battle from 1845 up to 1905 can be played on The Age of Rifles from SSI. You can play a scenario, such as “203 Meter Hill” from the Russo-Japanese War with you friend or against the computer (here’s a hint: go with Japan). Or play a campaign, such as “The Soldier Queen” and expand the British Empire to its limits starting with the Sepoy Revolution (or lose it all and never get anywhere, depending on how good or bad your strategy is). It runs on DOS, but has been know to jam up if the computer runs too fast. I personally have been running it on MS-DOS without any problems, other than I can’t seem to get the sound to work.

What time is it? That right kiddies! It’s time for me to Drag out the NWOt’s Rating Scale’O'Rama, and take it down another peg. Because the sound doesn’t work and the graphics could be better: I bring forth to you the rating of: 4 Sepoy Revolutionaries routed by and ever advancing British offensive line.

The Scooby Doo Movie

Or rather that title should read, “I can’t believe I’m giving a good review to Scooby-Doo the Movie,” because I am, and I can’t. For what I thought was going to be your typical cornball “Family-fun” (uuuugggghhh- I shudder at the mere thought) movie, it sure surprised me. Plenty of innuendos on who’s gay; who’s a pothead; who’s helpless; and who’s “a ragging little egomaniac.”

On the downside, I had the movie figured out by the middle, as I’m sure you will too. And let’s face facts, in a movie like this, the plot’s about as deep as the sun is cold (i.e. not very). It even takes a nice little pot shot at everybody’s favorite poster child for erasers: Scrappy-Doo.

I will say this for it though, whomever they got to play Shaggy, was damn well cast. He both looked and sounded like him. Obviously someone who works very hard to achieve that certain aesthetic look.

The big plus though, was that Velma/Thelma, however you say it, was hot man! I mean damn hot. I mean puts the cartoon to shame, had to nerd her up good just to try to be convincing hot.

Anyway moving on, time for ratings: I’d ordinarily give it a 3 maybe a 2, but since all the girls were damn hot, I’ll go’er a whole 4… and I’m hinking melons on this, 4 ripe melons…

A Bully Father: Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children

To begin with, the term ‘bully’ in this sense does not equate itself with the schoolyard bully and his band of thugs and cretins who always leaned on you for your milk money. Rather, the term as Roosevelt used it, was reminiscent of such terms as ‘good’, ‘great’, and/or ‘wonderful.’ And indeed, that is what he was: a great president, a great family man, and truly the kind of person you want running your empire.

A Bully Father spends about eighty-three pages giving you all sorts of interesting information about TR, such as the time he shot a hole in the roof of his Long Island house to show his son the new rifle he bought him was real and not just a toy. It also gives some of the rather darker sides to TR’s life, such as his first born, his daughter Alice lived with his sister for a good three years before she was collected and TR decided to settle down from his western adventures and marry again.

At around page ninety-two the letters begin and end on pages two-hundred forty-six. The first one is a letter to home from the Cuban front during the Spanish American War; the last two involve his great safari in 1911 after having lost the election running on his own Bull Moose ticket. The last few pages of the book merely chronicle the demise of each of the Roosevelts, starting with Teddy himself.

On the whole the book made for interesting reading and was pretty informative. Thus, on our worn and shattered Official New World Otter Rating Scale I give it a 6…. 6 what you ask? Why, soulless penguins of course. Get it. Read it. Enjoy.

Motorhead’s Hammered Tour May 2002

We headed out for New Jersey around seven or seven thirty at night. I had been home from the crap factory I called college for a couple of hours. I had my shiny new ticket I purchased on-line from ticket-master all ready to go. It had been relatively smooth sailing for what was maybe an hour trip, until we saw the sign for the club, which would be our destination. We went straight, but should have made a turn. We made a turn but it was too late. We zigzagged all about the place. Only thing to do was turn around and start from scratch.

The Birch Hill Height Club, scenically located between Route 9 and a few auxiliary road inhabited by hillbillies, was site number twelve on Motörhead’s new tour. The noise didn’t start till around 10pm, so we did as the other well-rounded demented freaks did, drink in the parking lot. To make a disappointing story short we didn’t bring enough. Later, we found out that’s all the booze there was going to be; the club didn’t have a liquor license. The line to go in was a long and slow one, and soon I found out why. They were padding people down at the doorway, and judging by the amount of people hopping on and off line, it wasn’t an ill-founded estimation on their part of how many came carrying more then just a few years of emotional baggage coupled with a little dementia. Even my partner in this had to go and secure a few ‘items of interest’ in the car.

Once inside, I stood shoulder to shoulder with all of society’s finest: skinheads, punk rockers, red necks, eight-foot-tall bikers, the Mexicans, and even a Rastafarian – - the usual angry disturbed individuals. They stood around drinking, popping and smoking every conceivable chemical in abundance, and quite possibly a few that weren’t. Perhaps the most sarcastic highlight of the evening were the words which adorned security’s shirts: “Peacekeeper”- – -cynicism at its finest. The opener was Morbid Angel, a death metal group. They weren’t a bad act insofar as they sucked, but despite that they had a pretty descent following in the mosh. Morbid Angel plays their last song and heads out, and everything seems to shut down. People go outside for a quick hit on the bong or slug of booze. Others (myself included) crowd in the mosh area and slowly, out of the crammed up pit of disturbed creeps, the demand for Motörhead is echoed across the club. Security is understandably displeased with this.

Motörhead arrives and all hell breaks loose. I forget the first song, namely because at that time there were more important thing for me to pay attention to, such as various human carcasses flying around in all directions into everything, one of which, happened to be mine. I recovered to the relative safety of the outer perimeter of the violent and over heated human mass by the third or fourth song, which just happened to be every punker’s favorite song from ‘Limey Old’ England, a cover of “God Save the Queen.” A song or two later they played one off their new album Hammered. The song was dubbed “Brave New World,” I can’t comment on the lyrics however, since, by that time my hearing had safely faded into the relative obscurity of nonexistence, then again what do you expect from a band with an album named ‘Everything Louder Than Everyone Else’? As far as I was concerned it was as good as any of their classics which they played, such as “Iron Fist” or the aptly named “Born to Raise Hell,” which everyone did. Amongst the other songs they played was a tribute to the late Joey Ramon another oldie R.A.M.O.N.E.S., Sacrifice, and of course everybody’s favorite Ace of Spades.

The show ended unimpressively early at 1am eastern standard. Not being tired, able to hear well, and with no live show, somewhat bored, we drove around a bit. We ended at a 24-hour drive through fast food joint. After eating in their parking lot we headed home. My hearing had slowly, but steadily returned and I found myself slugging through the through the last few month before I received my Bachelor’s Degree. Here I sit, ever present, waiting for the next road trip.

Big Momma’s House

I’m not sure which is a slower death – cancer or watching this movie, but I will tell you I’m going to begin a nice healthy chain smoking habit ASAP. I’m also not sure what in the name of God’s Green Earth my mother was thinking when she taped this, despite her insisted claim that she thought it was another movie. This was the filler of the lull of my Thanksgiving this year. We finished dinner and were waiting at my grandparents for coffee and dessert when out popped this catastrophe of filmmaking.

The plot’s fairly easy to grasp: bad guy breaks out of jail looking for all the cash he stole from a bank. His old girl friend turned him in and may possibly have the dough (I say ‘may possibly,’ since I never saw the ending. My tolerance for pain was exceeded and I tapped out when the other guests arrived). He’s on a rampage to find her and she took off from the People’s Soviet Republik Kali to suburban Georgia to hide out with her relative Big Momma, who conveniently goes out of town.

Martian Lawrence and some nasally white guy are FBI agents set to cover that base. Lawrence ends up having to disguise himself as Big Momma to get to the truth, whatever the hell that might be.

Perhaps I’ll get called racist or something because of my opinion that such tripe as this could be better used lining the cage of an aged parrot with poor bladder control and a bad case of diarrhea. But regardless of color, race, occupation or zip code I’m truly at a loss as to how any human being could find this movie the least bit entertaining. It rates right up there with something another great Einstein of comedy, Fran Dresher, would come up with. And yes, I did happen to see the Beautician-and-the-Autocratic-Rip-Off-of-Cinderella, I mean Beautician and the Beast. It’s lucky to even rate an obscure reference here, and that not because I only saw it once in high school.

To conclude (something this movie didn’t do fast enough) due to the utter badity of this steaming pile, it doesn’t even make the minimum cut for the use of our rating scale. For, in order to actually rate a zero, it would have to stand on a latter on top of the Himalayas with 10" heels on. In other words kiddies, I label it:

HIGHLY TOXIC VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK.