And I am back...

Warning: This is a super long post, do not feel obligated to hang on to my every word (though I would if I were you.)

TheMain Rant:
The Desire of the Real

I think that part of what makes posting online so interesting to some people is how easy it is to reinvent yourself. I think it is what makes it so hard for me to post sometimes. It’s like I only want to post on a given site, forum, or whatever if I match up to the persona that I have invented for myself on that particular site. Sometimes, I just try to be overly deep and when I am not feeling that way I cannot post. Or I feel on a site where nobody really knows my love of football that I cannot talk about it there. When I moved over to a blog from a live journal, it was so that I could be more serious in my communications with the outside world. However, there are decidedly goofy, ironic, and facetious parts of my personality that I felt obligated to hide. I mean it seems really odd but that is how I felt, which made me feel reluctant to post here. So I would post on forums to talk about certain things, add movie and TV reviews to other sites when I wanted to do that, drop comments onto ESPN when it was about football (or recently the Rockies.)

Then I started realizing that I really was not conveying the whole of my personality to anyone out there. There was sports me, philosophical me, techie me, movie junkie me, etc. I think a lot of people do this though, they get to hop online and become someone else for a little while, and sometimes that can be a good thing. Most of the time it can be a bad thing though, I have encountered (and been) more volatile and hostile people on the internet than anywhere else. I think it is because it is too easy to pretend that there are not people on the other end of your online conversations, or you just think that they are being someone else too, so you can say whatever you want to them and still be ok because it will not actually hurt their feelings or anything. But there are actual people on the other end that need things like friends, hope, love, faith and a million other things that people (including myself) seem to be unable to communicate over the internet because we feel as if we do not need to be real here. It is my challenge to me to be more real here and everywhere else that I interact on the internet. The stakes are two high not too. The beauty of the internet is that we can use to communicate to so many people that we would normally never be able to reach, why would we waste this opportunity being anything less than the people that we are and God intended us to be?
*steps off soapbox*

Other things on my mind…

Sports:
I have never been a huge baseball fan. That being said I feel incredibly lucky to be living in Colorado right now and be watching the history making run of the Rockies up to and through the playoffs. It is amazing to see and entire team come together and just dominate at a sport the way the Rockies have lately. If you have watched any game the Rockies have been in in the last month you know that you are watching something special. Any given game there is a different set of players getting to play “hero.” So even though I am normally against fair-weather and bandwagon fans, Go Rockies!

Speaking of historical feats, The Patriots this year are just amazing to watch. I mean I have never seen such well executed football in my life. It is almost like watching someone play a madden game where they have used every cheat card they possibly can. There just seems to be no stopping them. Randy Moss has definitely proven to all his naysayers that he has not lost a step. Brady has evolved far beyond the quarterback he was in his first Super Bowl runs, it is just incredible. There defense is just a thing of beauty, people are just where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be and making the plays. The coaching is just superb (even with the cheating scandal this season, which most people seem not to be thinking about anymore and maybe they shouldn’t, the punishments have been handed out, the tapes seized, let just move on.) I do not even know what else to say except for the fact that I cannot wait to see them play the Colts in a just a few short weeks.

And in other football notes, my beloved Bronco’s continue to struggle with their defensive line, and by struggle I mean that it is basically a sieve. Here’s to hoping that the bye week is enough to let them reset and maybe, you know, give up less than 200 yards a game rushing. Other than that, I think we have a shot. Our running game is a thing of beauty (even with a guy that who has 9 children with as many different women and is accused of smoking pot and might get suspended. *sigh*) And it has depth with Selvin Young, who has all the speed and strength that makes a premier back. Jay Cutler has the potential to be one of the greats, his arm is like a cannon and most the time he has very good touch on the ball, now if he could cut down on the picks a little bit things would be great. Brandon Marshall is just a beast, I do not think I have seen him tackled by less than two guys yet, and the catches he is making are just incredible. Javon Walker (who has missed two games due to injury) is the real deal. Once he is back up and running I think that we can still make a run for the playoffs… I hope.

Movies:
I have seen more bad movies than I care to admit lately. Let me just say right now, if you have not seen Good Luck Chuck or The Heartbreak Kid consider yourself lucky. Both are absolutely awful. As far as Chuck goes, the movie resorted to only dirty jokes that are not funny, whether it was the clichéd shallow, ugly, loser best friend who is obsessed with boobs or the references to bestiality, there was just nothing funny. It also left tons of things hanging in the air and while you do not go to a comedy expecting an in depth plot or wildly original ideas, a little bit of resolution would be nice. For The Heartbreak Kid, well its biggest misstep was vilifying the protagonist and building sympathy for the wife, who the first half of the movie and in all the previews was portrayed as the villain. By the end of the move all you wanted to see was Ben Stiller’s character end up alone with all the women featured in the movie finding someone decent to end up with. The claim was made that it was “Finally, an R-rated comedy made for adults.” But it was wrong, it is just a juvenile as all of the other R-rated comedies out there.

The Gameplan was a very entertaining movie. The acting is not great (though I have seen much worse.) The plot line is not going to shock you with its twists (one part did catch me a little off guard.) But if you need something light and to give you the “warm fuzzies” I cannot recommend a better movie. Plus, it is always good to see a movie where the father actually steps up and tires to be the dad, not just the jerk who runs off and leaves his family.

Also Hot Fuzz is surprisingly good. Much more intelligent satire of the cop movie and much less slapstick than I anticipated. Totally worth the price of picking it up off of the Blockbuster shelves.

Highly anticipating the new J.J. Abrams movie. Maybe I am a sucker for viral marketing, but I cannot wait to find out what it is. Google Cloverfield if you have not heard about it yet.

TV: (may contain spoilers, if you are still catching up on a show, skip that section.)

Heroes is back on again, and still going strong. At times it seems like there might be too many characters, but they have done a good job of brining groups together to help stream line the story in the last couple of episodes. Maya and Alejandro maybe be the most boring of the new characters. And I swear if I have to see the whole sequence of her losing it, crying black tears, killing people, and him absorbing it all while holding her hands and telling her to clam down, I am going to scream. I understand she has a hard time controlling her powers, I get the point, please don’t make me watch that five minute sequence again.

Hiro remains the most interesting character on the show, with Peter a close second. Peter semi embrace of his darker side, along with the reclamation of his memories has been great, though I wonder how much longer they are going to drag out his eventual return to New York. Mohinder, Molly, and Matt’s story line has probably been the biggest surprise for me this season. Between the “nightmare man” and the revelation of his identity, Mohinder’s infiltration of The Company, the meshing of the two men with completely different strategies on how to handle things, and Molly trapped inside her own mind it is very entertaining.

With the revelation of Parkman’s father being one of the original twelve in the company, only Nikki and DL are left of the original hero set that have “unpowered” parents. However we have yet to meet Nikki’s mother or DL’s father. Also, Parkman is the first person with a power that is related to his parent’s power (with the possible exception of Peter and his father.)

Grey’s Anatomy has started off with a big disappointment this season. With the loss of Dr. Burke (Isaiah Washington) from the cast, Christina Yang (Sandrah Oh) has become the most boring and superficial character on the show. It is kind of sad to see her character go from being plot centric to peripheral. The loss of Addison Shepherd (Kate Walsh) has also been noticeable, though she was a far too strong and beloved of a character not to have her own show.

I am fully convinced that Grey’s melts your brain. I cannot stop watching that show. I avoided it the first three seasons, but I had purchased my fiancé the whole show on DVD. She finally convinced me to watch the pilot episode and I was hooked. I tore through all three seasons (by myself) in about two weeks. It was obscene. Here is the weird part though. I can only think of four or five characters on the show that I actually like, that is less than half the cast (Granted two of the characters I really like left the show recently.) Oh, and none of those characters is the one that the show is named after. In fact, I think Meredith Grey is one of the most selfish, whiny characters to exist in the history of television. I think it is the plot lines that keep me going. That and the self assured, bragging sense of humor of Dr. Derek Shepherd (not to be confused with Jack Shepherd of Lost fame), the verbal smack downs of Dr. Bailey, Or the cocky exteriors with the nice guy underneath of Drs. Sloan and Karev. See what this show has done to me? Final note: The affair between Izzy Stevens (Katharine Heigel) and George O’Mally (T.R. Knight) is the most preposterous thing on TV right now (including the stuff on the SciFi channel.) Note to all the screen writers out there, if you are going to start an affair between two characters on a TV show, make sure that the sexual orientations and personal relationships of all the actors involved are not being dragged across the screens on a regular basis, it makes it really hard to suspend disbelief.

House continues to be the best show on television. If you have not started watching it yet, I just have one question for you, What are you waiting for? Get out there and pick it up. Catch up and watch the 4th season, or just jump in on Tuesdays. Solid writing, amazing acting, humor, drama, this show will seriously make you laugh out loud and cry. Get out there and get on it. Besides his team is still in the episodes, it’s just not his team any more, and you know what? I think it made the show better. Hugh Laurie's acting is perfect, the easiest character on TV to suspend disbelief with, and the supporting cast they built around him only enhances his awe inspiring performance. I have never enjoed a single character centric show as much as I have enjoyed House. Start watching. I cannot say enough about this show, so I wont even try. Seriously though, go watch it.

Life and Pushing Daises seem like the two most promising new shows this season. Life is a cop drama with a main character a lot like House (well without the vicodin addiction or the meanness.) He is quirky, he’s fun, and he’s a genius. Good times for all. You also have a serialized case every week as well as an overarching mystery/ conspiracy theory about how he got incarcerated all those years ago. Its intelligent, entertaining, deep, suspenseful, check it out. Pushing Daises, well I am a little late in this but as a friend of mine pointed out, it’s like a mix between CSI and a fairy tale. Plus, it probably has the best cinematography on TV. Highly recommended.

Moonlight has been holding my interest too, a good vampire/ PI show. Like Angel but a little less brooding and less interference from uber powerful beings. Great examination of what it is life to be lonely in life and the need for human contact and interaction.

Finally, there is Friday Night Lights. I watched the season premier where it quickly turned itself into the OC when one of the characters committed a murder and then tried to cover it up. I have not turned it on since. If someone out there watches it and it improves let me know. Other wise I will assume that it jumped the shark and has now gone off the deep end to try and boost ratings. It just makes me sad that a show that was based in so much solid family drama, good (albiet sometimes unrealistic) football scences, and well acted, realistic characters is content to make itself another "teen" drama. Hopefully they pull it together soon and go back to their roots. I will hold out hope.

Future posts with hopefull be shorter and more often. Until next time, catch you in cyberspace.