Tonight's the Night!

Tonight brings us the last new episode of LOST until January - as long as the Screen Actors Guild doesn't go on strike!

This season has been excellent in my opinion. It's certainly been my favorite. I can't wait to see what the big cliffhanger is this year. Hopefully, the big twist ending will continue to improve as it has over the past three seasons.

I'll be in lockdown mode tonight, so if someone could just call or email me tomorrow and see if I'm OK, that would be great!

The more I think about it...

...the less I like the new Indiana Jones movie :(

Weekend Update

I was pretty freakin' lazy this past weekend. Friday night I met up with some friends at The Boathouse to hear some live music. Unfortunately, the live music was absolutely terrible, so I left early and was on my couch by 10:30. So I curled up with a laptop and got reacquainted with the Bluth Family.

Arrested Development is easily in my top five comedies of all time. It is "smart comedy", although while it aired I felt that the writers/producers of the show were going after the "idiot demographic." While it's true that a pet monkey could watch the show and find humor, I think the funniest moments were the subtle smacks at FOX, other shows in its time slot, etc. For instance, Season Two was shortened from 22 episodes to 18. So, in one particular episode, Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is seen on the phone with a client complaining about an order of 22 homes being cut down to 18. There was also an episode in which the narrator (Ron Howard) talks about "shoddy narrating", a subtle middle finger to another narration-driven show Desperate Housewives, which aired in the same time slot on another network. At the end of that episode, the narrator says, "...and that's how you narrate a show."

But perhaps one of my favorite lines of narration came in Season One. Jessie, the short-lived Bluth Family P.R. specialist, calls George-Michael "Opie", to which the narrator (Ron Howard) replies, "Jessie was pushing her luck, and she'd better watch herself." I thought this was brilliant!

So in short, I wound up watching two seasons of Arrested Development from Friday to Monday. After that, I went to visit my folks and grilled some hot dogs and brats. And I shouldn't fail to mention that my folks started Season One of LOST and they're already halfway through it! I'll keep you posted on their progress, but they seem to be knocking out the DVDs right and left. I'm so proud of them...

Congratulations David Cook

David Cook won American Idol last night - by 12 MILLION VOTES! I was shocked, not that he won, but that he won by such a huge margin. I never watched American Idol before this season, but the week Mr. Cook sang Chris Cornell's version of Billie Jean made me a fan.

I just hope he doesn't get pigeon-holed into making an album the record company wants him to make. I hope he has the opportunity to make a real rock album, 'cause this guy is a rocker! I'm going on record right now - he'll be bigger than Chris Daughtry if they leave him alone and let him do his thing.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I caught the new Indiana Jones movie today. In short, it was a lot of fun. It wasn't the best movie of the franchise (in fact, I would rank it third behind The Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark) but it was a great film nonetheless. Harrison Ford definitely showed his age, but while the original trilogy was set in the 1930's, this one is set in 1957, so his age worked in the film. The entire cast did a wonderful job.

I went into to the movie with an open mind and a lot of hope - hope that I would even LIKE the movie. But I left the theater LOVING the movie. It was well worth the two hours spent watching it. It was like seeing old friends again for the first time in years. A reunion of sorts. While the 21st century CG elements were present in the film, they didn't distract me from the story. There were a few moments that were a bit hokey, but c'mon, it's an Indiana Jones movie! It's escapism! It's fun!

Two thumbs up from me with a promise to see it again before it leaves theaters.

Are You Kidding Me?

I found this story on the 'net today:

U2 Scrap Work And Start Again

Rockers U2 are scrapping all the tracks they have written for their next album to start all over again - ditching a year's worth of work. The band has been working on the follow up to 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb for the past 12 months, but they're far from happy with the results. Guitarist The Edge reveals band members have mostly messed around in the studio - and they have now decided to get stuck in and finish the record. He tells CMUMusic.com, "We went into this project allowing ourselves the indulgence of making music without thinking about where it was going to end up. We're starting to get serious now".

Go Vote!

Tomorrow is election day in Kentucky. If you are over the age of 18 and you are registered to do so, go vote! Contrary to popular opinion, voting is not your right - it is your PRIVILEGE. You want to make a difference in this world? Go vote! It's free! It won't cost you a thing except a few minutes of your time. No matter what your political stance is, no matter how fed up you are with the political system, no matter how hard it might be to choose a candidate - GO VOTE! Many brave men and women have given their lives to give you the opportunity to live in a free country, to speak your mind, to voice your support of or dissatisfaction with those currently in office, to research the issues that are important to you, and to support and elect a candidate of your choosing.

The polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. Go vote! Even if your candidate doesn't win, it's a lot of fun to complain about the one who did! But if you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain, so GO VOTE!

30 Days and Counting

More Metallica Behind The Scenes

Here is another behind-the-scenes video of the band in the studio. I like this one because it features Master Music Guru Rick Rubin in action. We also get to hear that signature James Hetfield guitar tone that many guitarist have spent years trying to dial in. Ask any guitarist... tone is a never-ending journey full of failure!

This clip is rated R due to some adult language. Viewer Beware!

Metallica!!!!

Anyone who reads this blog knows that LOST is without a doubt my all-time favorite show on TV - ever. I'm sure that if you've been reading the blog since its inception back in January of this year, you have probably noticed that I have a deep love of music, as well. I love all kinds of music. Everything from Mozart to Metallica, in fact. I've never been able to pick just one favorite band of all time, though. My moods change too often to pick just one, so I play it safe and say that Metallica, Pearl Jam, U2 and Dave Matthews Band are my top four and if I have to round it off to a solid top five, I'd probably have to throw Pink Floyd in the mix.

Today, Metallica's record label launched a new site over at www.missionmetallica.com. This site promises to give the fans a behind-the-scenes look at the recording process as they put the finishing touches on their new album, tentatively due out in September. Here is a preview video with snippets of new 'Tallica tunes. The boys are back and sounding quite strong for a bunch of old timers in their mid-forties!!

Dreams

I'm not a big believer that dreams actually mean anything, but I had the strangest dream last night so I'll get your take on it:

I dreamed I was decorating a Christmas tree with one of my ex-girlfriends, but we were using Pop-Tarts for ornaments!

Let the analysis begin...

New Indiana Jones Movie - Hit or Miss?

I'm proud to say that I know absolutely nothing about the new Indiana Jones movie except for the title and who's in it. I have been waiting a long time for a new Indy adventure, and I've made it this far virtually spoiler free. However, I am a little worried by some of the headlines I've been seeing, like: Indy 4 - The Movie You've Been Dreading. Still, other headines are really positive and even compare the new film to The Wrath of Khan in terms of movie greatness. I don't know. I guess we'll all find out next week... Until then, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. As long as it's not as bad as The Temple of Doom with whiney, screechy Kate Capshaw I think I'll be happy.

...And Some Heroes News While We're At It

NBC recently released a promo for Heroes Season 3. I know I use up a lot of blog space talking about LOST, but Heroes is my second favorite show on television. The cool thing about this promo - it looks like we're gonna get a three hour premiere this fall!! Sweet!!

Enjoy the clip...

LOST News

While surfing the 'net I came upon some pretty cool LOST news. Don't get scared, there are no spoilers here. In fact, I will NEVER post spoilers on my blog.

The following comes from Ain't It Cool News:

“Lost” lost two hours of its fourth season thanks to the writers’ strike, but will get those two hours back over the show’s 5th and 6th seasons, according to producers.

The original plan was to have “Lost’s” 4th, 5th and 6th seasons run 16 hours each. The plan now:

Season Four: 14 hours.

Season Five: 17 hours.

Season Six: 17 hours.

Season six will continue to be the series’ last.

You knew I couldn't make my return to blogdom without talking about LOST...

It's Been A While

Yeah I know what I said... I need to update the blog more regularly. I do have a good excuse, though.

You see, I am a financial analyst/credit analyst for a bank here in Lexington (in fact, I am the ONLY analyst). That has its pro's and con's. The pro's - I work for myself, basically. I really don't have a boss except for the owner of the bank, so I run my "department" as I see fit. Very few people really understand what I do and the ones who do understand it don't want to do it, so I have a pretty high level of job security. The con's - I'm the only one who knows what I do and wants to do it, so when we have our yearly external audits (which we're currently smack dab in the middle of), I can't really get out of dealing with it. So I have to answer all the stupid questions and make sure our loan files are up to date before "the man" comes to town. That makes for very long days (and nights).

In addition to all the current happenings, my bank also bought another bank in a neighboring community. So, I have to examine all that bank's large loans before we buy them and merge them into our corporation. Luckily, this bank doesn't have that many large loans, so I don't expect I will have to deal with many headaches from this.

HOWEVER, I had a trip to Destin, FL planned for Memorial Day weekend that I had to back out on because of all this work stuff I'm dealing with. It's frustrating.

I know I've probably bored you to tears by now so I'll shut up. Just wanted to let you know why I haven't been posting as much lately. I promise I'll try to do better.

You can now go about your business...