Well the draw for next summer's World Cup in South Africa has been made and the main group of interest is Group C: ENGLAND, USA, Algeria, Slovenia.
Yes we have been drawn against our friends from across the pond and not only that but it'll be both teams first game of the tournament! I know football isn't the US' main sport but I would've thought that match up will bring about some interest.
Other groups of interest include the so-called "Group of Death" (the name given to the group with theoretically the best teams in it despite the seeding system) which has Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal. On paper North Korea are the weak link there but you never know. After cheating their way to the finals France have arguably the easiest group alongside South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay. South Africa are only top seed due to them hosting the tournament and therefore are theoretically the weakest of the top teams.
I'd link the full draw but it'll be everywhere so if you're interested it won't be hard to find! So instead here's a nice picture of the draw featuring FIFA Secretary Jerome Valcke (who looks worryingly like England manager Cappello) alongside the lovely Charlize Theron who did her best to feign interest while presenting and David Beckham in the background.
In other news season 9 of Scrubs started this week (or season 1 of Scrubs: Med School depending on your opinion)! And slightly surprisingly it was really good. Have a look at what I made of the episode here if you're interested. Despite loosing most of the main cast for this year (although every ex main character except Carla was in the premiere) it still feels like the great show it always was. Time will tell if the new characters can fill the void when JD finally moves on, but for now it's still a great watch.
As well as new main characters the background cast has been expanded a bit, the most noticeable inclusion is a stunning Australian girl who's character name I can't actually remember (I wonder if she's happy with the group the Aussies got in the World Cup?). She's of interest not only because she's super-hot but because she was on Aussie soap Neighbours a couple of years ago which is a fairly big show over here in the UK. And for proof that Australia produces the most gorgeous women here's nice picture of her.
In other news Scotland's really, really cold! Ok it always has been but you kind of forget over the summer/autumn. Still if the cold weather means it's almost Christmas I'm happy with it! Shame we haven't had any snow here yet though.
Well thanks for reading and hope you all have a great weekend!
::: waving happily :::
Just wondering who is still out there.
I miss you guys!!!!!!!
I'm sorry to those who were expecting weekly reviews of Lost this season, but things have just been busy (I can blame this on the recession, right?) So to make up for it I'll be doing a four part Lost marathon. Rather than post all 16 reviews I missed in one hunk, I'm going to split it up in four with the various arcs I recognized. That way you get a lot, but not too much. It'll be broken up like this:
Part 1: "Let's Get Started" – Covering "The Lie" to "This Place is Death"
Part 2: "We're Back" – Covering "316" to "LeFleur"
Part 3: "Fun Times With Dharma" – Covering "Namaste" to "Some Like It Hoth"
Part 4: "We Are the Variables" – Covering "The Variable" to "The Incident"
"The Incident" may be part 5. My finale reviews tend to be huge, so if it takes a long time I'll put up the other two episode reviews first. Maybe if things work out I can finish up my season one reviews before season six starts in January. Well it's best to do it one review at a time. Sorry for not putting up anything, even a notice that these would still be done. Hope this makes up for it.
Until Next Time, The Remote Is Yours,
Matt
The last week of May was a very interesting one in Aussie TV. TV network giants Seven & Nine, who are always dominant of the industry, were given a little bit of a wake up call by the other, much smaller networks, Ten, SBS & ABC. It's also become very apparent this year that local Aussie shows are winning the ratings over the US mega-hits for the first time ever.
Seven won the week in ratings again with a 27.5% share. Followed by Nine (25.7%), Ten (24.2%), ABC (17.5%) & SBS (5.2%).
Top Shows This Week:
1. Seven News Sunday - Seven
2. Masterchef Challenge - Ten
3. Nine News - Nine
4. Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation - Ten
5. Seven News - Seven
6. Spicks & Specks - ABC
7. NCIS - Ten
8. The Chasers War on Everything - ABC
9. Thank God You're Here - Seven
10. Merlin - Ten
If you compare this week with week 22 in the TV calendar 3 years ago in 2006, 6 out of the top 10 shows of the week were international, including Lost, Desperate Housewives, Greys Anatomy, CSI & House. In 2009, its rare to have more than 1 international show making the list! Anyone have an idea as to why the change over the years?
- Former AFL Footy Show host Eddie McGuire has been asked by the nine network to return, claming it would boost ever-falling ratings.
- 24 star Kiefer Sutherland insists that he does not think that he is 'the real Jack Bauer' after a head-butting incident on the Jimmy Fallon Show.
- The Steven Spielberg / Tom Hanks upcoming mini-seires The Pacific is due to air in 2010 & big international markets in countries like the UK, Germany, Canada & France have already bought the rights to air i. The Pacific is a follow up of the sucessfull mini-series Band of Brothers and will follow the stories of the allies battle's in the Pacific theatre of WWII.
- The Australian Communications & Media Authority announced that Channel Nine has topped the commerical free-to-air broadcasters in delivering locally-produced adverts in 2008. Aussie networks are required to screen locally-made ads for at least 80% of their ads that show between 6am & midnight.
- CANCELLED: My Name is Earl.
- ABC has bought an assortment of content from BBC including the third series of Robin Hood as well as Life, Yellowstone, Nature's Great Events, Human Journey, Later...with Jools Holland & Being Erica.
Am a bit annoyed that vampires have gone mainstream, used to be a time when they're a sole cult favorite. Now, they're freaking everywhere.
Anyhoo, just for kicks, here's my top 5 favorite vampires:
1. Lestat de Lioncourt (from Anne Rice's novels The Vampire Chronicles)
Anne Rice has the best vampire mythology around, as far as am concerned. The Chronicles are rich in historical detail and filled with interesting personas. Lestat himself is quite a character: narcissistic, depressive and outrageous. Too bad the movie versions failed to capture his personality; Queen of the Damned in particular sucks. It's a shame that we'll likely never see Lestat again (the character was based on Anne Rice's husband Stan who passed away; Anne Rice has stated she wants to end that character's journey. The book Blood Canticle was a Lestat send-off.)
2. Nicholas Knight (from the Canadian TV show Forever Knight)
I hate Moonlight. (No offense to all Moonlight fans out there.) I honestly feel that Moonlight is a Forever Knight rip-off and nothing can beat the original. Geraint Wyn-Davies played his part of vampire-wanna-be-human detective to perfection, and supporting characters Lacroix and Shannette were adorably campy! Too bad this series jumped the shark in Season 3.
3. Sita/ Alisa Perne (from Christopher Pike's novels The Last Vampire Series)
Probably the first vampire novel I've ever read! Christopher Pike is the reason why I love the horror/ sci-fi genre; his books were a large part of me growing up. Like Anne Rice's novels, excellent mythology, and one so atypical as it takes you to ancient Sumer and makes use of Hindu mythology. This books are probably more appropriate to a younger audience but still, a classic.
4. Selene (from the Underworld movies)
All my friends hate the Underworld movies--- but I love it! Bill Nighy in particular is brilliant as Viktor. Okay, so the love story is cheesy, but the idea of three ancient vampires taking turns ruling the world is an interesting political system. That plus vamps vs werewolves battles? Awesome.
5. Wrath, Zsadist, Rhage, Thorment, Vishous and Phury (from J.R. Ward's The Black Dagger Brotherhood)
Okay, these books suffer from Ward's Mary Sue-ing and annoying habit of finding ways to make his mortal characters immortal, but you can't deny she made quite interesting characters. I love the idea of bulky, leather-clad 'gentlemen' warriors who listens to rap music. Overall, it's still worth reading this series for the fast-paced action and really snarky dialogue.
Those are my 5!
New vampires are now growing on me. In particular, Stephen Moyer's Bill Compton in HBO's True Blood/ Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries is fast becoming a fav ( I like him better than Eric Northman).
There are quite a few more vampire movies I've watched and vampire books I've read, but I didn't take to them.
Didn't watch Twilight. I feel I'm too old for it, although who knows I might take a gander at it when I'm bored. Never gave Buffy and Angel a chance (irrational I know, sorry!) because the idea of vampire slayers annoy me.
Do you have any recommendations of other vamps I should check out?
I've been through a lot this year. If I had to split my giant story into selective sections, 90%Z of which had song title parodies, it'd have to be something like this:
Season 1: Amnesiac
He's a maniac, amnesiac, that's for sure! Part 1!
I'm Stuck In The Desert Without a Horse or a Name! Part 2!
What's My Age Again? What's My Name Again? Part 3!
Goodbye my Bruthah! Goodbye my Friend! Part 4!
I Don't Remember, just what makes it so hard to... remember! Part 5!
We are Family! Brother, Sister, we cannot be! Part 6!
All the Small Men! Part 7!
Somewhere Over the Rainbow! Part 8!
Old Hard Witch! Part 9!
Blast to the Past! Part 10!
How to Save a Wife! Part 11!
Her Story! Part 12!
Point of No Return! Part 13!
Mac and me maybe are no longer mammals! Part 14!
A little story about Mac and Ryan! Part 15!
His Story! Part 16!
Hey Micky, you're so screwed, You're so screwed it blows my mind! Part 17!
Prisoner of the Society! Part 18!
Nowhere Over the Rainbow! Part 19!
Knock, Knock, Knockin' On Kevin's Door! Part 20!
This is a Story, about a man named Stikky! Part 21!
Her Story 2! Part 22!
And I will try to Pix you! Part 23!
And I'm waiting for the real strife to begin! Part 24!
Destination Unknown! Part 25!
Search for the Holy Pail! Part 26!
Only the Good Die Young! Part 27!
Everybody's got a Hold on Rope, It's the last thing that's holding me! Part 0.1!
My Dog's name is what? My dad's name is who? Part 0.2!
As Long As I Can See the Lyght! Part 0.3!
I'm Not Crazy, I'm just a Little Insane! Part 0.4!
Oh, we're halfway there! Oh, four more flashes to bear! Part 0.5!
This is Why! I Don't Like Mondays! Part 0.6!
It's Been a Mad Day, Please Don't Take My Picture! Part 0.7!
House of the Rising Sun! Part 0.8!
What's it like when you die? Part 0.9!
One Night, and One More time, Thanks for the Memories! Part 28! Season Finale!
Let's See How Far We've Come! Recap!
It's The End Of The World As I Barely Knew It! Part 29!
Here I am, Losing my Election! Part 30!
What's Dove Got to Do With It? Part 31!
Say it Aint Joe! I Will Not Go! Part 32!
Alive With The Glory of Dove! Part 33!
I See A Bad Doom Arising! Part 34!
Doctor, Doctor! I'm Not With the News! Part 35!
SEX! Now that I've got your attention here's the next Micky Instalment! Part 36!
You're so vain! You probably think this blog is about you! Part 37!
Hey Micky, Look What You're Doing to Me! Part 38!
Dove is in the Air! Part 39!
His Story 2! Part 40!
Tell Me That I'll Open My Eyes! Part 41!
I Wanna Know! Have You Ever Seen The Brain? Part 42!
Enemy and Irony! Part 43!
I Ain't Sayin' he a Gravedigger! Part 44!
Prisoner of Society (Redux)! Part 45!
Their Story! Part 46!
The Witch is Back! Part 47!
The Roof is on Fire! Part 48!
I'm Dreaming of an Alright Christmas! Part 49!
Don't Waste Your Time on Me, You're Already the Vision Inside my Head! Part 50!
Dove Shack! Baby, Dove Shack! Part 51!
Just Don't Bite it! Don't Bite it! If You Don't Know What it is! Part 52!
Her Story 3! Part 53!
When Darkness Turns to Light, It Ends Tonight! Part 54!
They've been Struck by some Smooth Criminals! Part 55!
You have a boyfriend that looks like a girlfriend that I had last year! Part 56!
And I Will Always Dove You! Part 57!
Where is the Dove? Part 58!
And the Shadow of the Day will erase the world in grey! Part 59!
Trust in my self righteous suicide! Part 60! Series Finale!
But I had no time to even think about that. At the start of the year, I was a regular bloke. One day while working at the weapon store, I was shot in the arm by a gun I'd never seen before. The bullet was removed but somehow I started having visions, and having weird impulses to stop them from happening.
Things only got weirder when my visions took me to Sweden, where I met my new sidekick, Kemp, and together we unravelled a conspiracy that all of my visions were linked to the evil doings of a secret Society bent on destroying the world. Then things got way too absurd when trying to escape the clutches of some evil henchmen, I turned into a hawk and found out that I was an umption, which is an odd word for shapeshifter.
Then the pivotal thing happened. I was tracked down by a new Society member named Newbie and shot point blank in the head. Fortunately, he didn't realise this gun didn't fire bullets. Unfortunately, it wiped out my memory.
When I awoke in an odd place with no memory at all, of who I was, where I was from or what I had for breakfast the day before, I was confused to say the least. Being an amnesiac for an entire season (Spring) was odd, but I still managed to get sucked into inadvertently get sucked into fighting the Society. I met leprechauns, witches, and umptions (when I didn't realise I myself was one too), and me, my sister Alana, who I may or may not have bedded with when I didn't know who she was, and Kemp found out that the Society's main goal was to find the Holy Pail, which had powers beyond reason or logic. So we figured we may as well get to it first. This was easier said than done when Mac, a witch and a lover, was being held captive by Stikky, who turned out to be not only the leader of the Society, but also my father, and Mac's ex-husband and Society supervisor, Alex was tracking down the pail with help from martial arts specialist and umption, Brain. We all found the giant Pail at about the same time and ended up at a Mexican standoff in Sweden. We all battled, and there were a few casualties, including Mac, who accidentally faked her death. More importantly, the Pail revived my memory, and I remembered all about me, that I was Micky Clarke, and my plans.
Unfortunately, when I snapped out of it, I learned that the Society had succeeded in getting the Pail, so we formed a Rebellion to fight the Society, only to learn of a greater threat - I had an evil twin named Jimbo that wants to destroy the world. Naturally this was a downer, so we trained at the House of the Rising Sun until it was destroyed, and then we found a new base at the Rebellion doctor, Olive Cox (or Doc's) apartment, until it was destroyed, and then we settled for an abandoned warehouse until three of our comrades' heads were delivered, which was when we moved the base to the Dove Shack, which was a shoddy cubby house from my childhood. Speaking of the Dove, our inventor, who has passed on since, created the Dove, a silver device that you shove in your neck to become super strong and beat people up.
When Jimbo kidnapped Alana, I vowed to get my sister back, and when I had a vision that showed the end of the world, I figured Jimbo was behind it. So at the end of this disastrous, stressful year, on New Year's Eve at 11:59pm, I was stuck in a room with Jimbo, who had just killed Stikky (which honestly is one less thing I have to worry about), but he and the Society had killed all of our team members, except Doc, Mac and Kemp, who had a dagger with which to stab Jimbo. When I found out that the Holy Pail was going to destroy the world, and in a few seconds at that, I put in the Dove, threw Jimbo against the wall, and at the last second charged into the Pail with so much force that I was either going to blow up (which would have happened if I'd stayed in the room anyway) or that I had prevented the explosion and saved the world.
Now that 2008 is finally over, hopefully 2009 will be a little better. Unfortunately, I'm still in the middle of crashing through the Pail at light speed so I dunno what's going to happen.
***
"Huh?" I opened my eyes and found myself in a weird enclosure.
"He's awake!" Kemp cheered, and Doc, Mac and Alana gathered around me.
"Dude, you were awesome" Mac said. "You destroyed the Pail and caused it to implode on itself. It's crazy you weren't hurt"
"I saved the world too" Kemp bragged. "I stabbed Jimbo a dozen times while he was unconscious. He won't be bothering us anymore.
"And I burned down the Society mansion for funsies" Doc shrugged.
"I did my part" Mac said. "I found Alana, and got her memory back with a spell that I wrote myself"
"How did it end up working then?" Alana grinned.
"So the Society's completely diminished, Jimbo's gone and the world is finally safe" Kemp recapped. "How are you feeling, Micky?"
"Who's Micky?" I asked. "Who the hell are you guys, and why are you wearing nametags?"
"Oh, not again" Alana groaned.
"And that's what's called a full circle" Mac rolled her eyes.
"Huh?" I repeated. I had no memory of who I was or what my history was, and why all these crazy people were talking about being vigilantes like it was cool. This was going to be a confusing year.
And thus ends the Micky saga. We laughed, we cried, we cut off sentences in the middle of a concluding rant about the longest blog series in the
I started re-reading my new CompTIA A+ book, and it's amazing how much a person can forget in such little time.
I've always heard that old saying of "the more you know, the less you know" of which it's really making sense nowadays. I have been studying front-end coding and back-end programming for the last couple of years lately. Which left little to no time to keep up with system architectures or hardware updates lately.
After visiting newegg so that i could build myself a new system, I was bombarded with okay which processor do you want of which I found that had no clue the differences between the AMD processors nowadays.
This led me to have to do some re-research again on new busses and clock speeds which to tell the truth left me a bit hazy on what exactly the chipsets controlled nowadays. Therefore, i had to pick up the new CompTIA book. Once i started reading the book i was amazed at how much i had forgotten as far as technical terms for each area inside a system.
However, ever the optimistic i'm happy because it's a great refresh-of-course and got me thinking again that i can't just zone in on one topic otherwise ya hurt yourself in other areas of technology.
So if you can pray for me cause i'm now re-learning things i should have never forgotten - lol
Okay. First of all, a great big bear hug to those of you who took the time to read my first blog on this topic (which was my last blog entry) and listened to all my ranting and raving. Your emails, advice and comments were greatly appreciated and very helpful. Love you guys. However, it's not over till the fat lady sings, as they say. And folks, she's not even stepped up to the microphone yet. See, new developments have arisen regarding Toby's sitch with TJ at work. So sit back, relax, put your thinkin' hat on, because this is gonna be another long one.
Well, picking up where I left off last, I gave all of your advice to Toby and he kept it in mind. However, he hasn't used any of it yet because he said he really hasn't had to. Since it's been a while since the events of my previous blog, according to Toby TJ hasn't really been getting "in touch" with him. But lately Toby says that TJ has started trying to talk to him. Now I said "trying to" because, also according to Toby, that whenever TJ tries to talk to Toby, Toby just flat out ignores him and cuts him off rudely. He says he doesn't even look at TJ and/or acknowledge TJ's presence in front of other people. Well, apparently this got TJ's attention as Toby says that he has gotten word that TJ has been going around telling people things regarding Toby's attitude toward him like "I don't know what I did to p-ss him off" and "I don't know why he doesn't like me" and "He might not hate me, but I know he sure doesn't like me". However, when Toby received word of this he still didn't confront TJ. I asked why, and Toby says he thinks that if TJ really cared about Toby's attitude toward him that he would confront Toby himself. But so far TJ hasn't said a word to Toby. In fact, Toby says TJ still tries talking to him and Toby keeps ignoring him. But nothing is said but TJ's remarks to OTHER people about Toby disliking him and treating him badly, not understanding why. And Toby tells me he heard from someone at work that TJ seems to be getting quite aggitated about it. But all the same, TJ still doesn't confront Toby about it. This has been going on for weeks now.
Now, as the dutiful wife I support whatever my husband does - most of the time. But I'm kinda at a stalemate here. On one hand I feel Toby is handling the sitch right by not confronting TJ since TJ seems not very concerned about Toby's ignoring him hence he won't simply go up to Toby and ask "What the deal, yo?" To me, that shows one of 2 things: that TJ really doesn't care too much but enough to gripe to others about it; and the second is the possibility that TJ may not have the stones to confront Toby himself because he could possibly be afraid to hear something he doesn't want to or maybe simply because he doesn't want any trouble.
On the other hand, a part of me feels that Toby should just go right up to TJ on his own and say "Yo, here's the dealio", you know? Because if this behavior of Toby ignoring TJ keeps up it may lead to worse problems down the road and I would hate for my husband to risk his job over something that, quite frankly, if you think about it, is pretty trivial and petty. Yes, I even told Toby he was being almost as immature about the whole thing as TJ was. But this seems to be a very bothersome important thing and Toby rarely gets this upset about ANYthing. I said in my last blog that I don't know who TJ was, never met him personally and that I didn't want to. But now I would like to see what kind of person my hubby is dealing with. Of course I never would get in the middle of it - Toby would NEVER allow that - but if there was even a fraction of a chance that I could help, I would. But I respect that this is Toby's problem to deal with on his own. But I will give him advice and concern when he asks me for it, certainly.
I did ask Toby why he doesn't just once - only once - listen to TJ when he tries to talk to him, just to find out what he has to say, but Toby will NOT hear of that! He claims that by not letting TJ "in", that by ignoring him, he gains the upper hand of control as this allows him to cut off the chances of TJ saying things to him that hurt him when Toby first started working there [see previous blog for refresher on this]. Toby states that he simply can't let TJ talk to him anymore because letting him talk to him would be like letting him get away with his past "crimes", for lack of a better term. But he wants TJ to come to him and confront him instead of him (Toby) being the perpetrator and going to confront TJ. So, he says the only way to keep TJ at bay and not having to confront TJ directly is to keep ignoring him whenever he tries to speak to him. And that it's TJ's choice whether or not he wants to know what's up with Toby's 'tude toward him.
So basically, we have what you might call an impasse. Toby willing to just keep ignoring TJ instead of confronting him directly because he wants TJ to come to him, and TJ unwilling to confront Toby over his attitude for whatever reason yet continues to complain to others about Toby's mistreatment of him. So, my question, my dear peeps, is....what to do? Help? Pretty please??
In very general terms, I am maintaining the three-tier system: high priority, middle priority, low priority:
High Priority
Battlestar Galactica (Monday)
Lost (Thursday)
Supernatural (Friday)
This designation means that these reviews are the absolute minimum. Even if things get crazy, I intend to keep things going at Critical Myth for those shows, releasing reviews on the days of the week provided above.
Middle Priority
Prison Break (Tue/Wed)
Ghost Hunters (Thu/Fri)
Ghost Hunters International (Thu/Fri)
Smallville (Fri/Sat)
Moonlight (Sat/Sun/Mon)
Stargate: Atlantis (Sat/Sun/Mon)
This designation means that these reviews should come out within 1-3 days of first run for new episodes. Assuming my schedule remains open enough to keep these on the schedule, then these reviews get written as time allows after the High Priority reviews are completed. Obviously, the days given above are just guidelines.
Low Priority
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Tues?)
New Amsterdam (Wed?)
This should be obvious. I get to these as I get to them, and a lot is going to depend on popularity and success. Strong shows will move into the Middle Priority column quickly.
If my schedule remains relatively open, I suspect the reviews will come out as per the following weekly routine (in order of my priority):
Mondays:
Battlestar Galactica, Moonlight, Stargate: Atlantis
Tuesdays:
Prison Break, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Wednesdays:
New Amsterdam
Thursdays:
Lost, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International
Fridays:
Supernatural, Smallville
Obviously, many of these shows will not overlap, so it looks a lot more substantial than it is. The loss of "24" and a half a season of "Lost" is a big part of that.
In addition, I will be watching other shows that will not be reviewed: Jericho, Torchwood, Psych, Kyle XY, Paranormal State, The Amazing Race, and a ton of shows and films on Netflix!
