The girls have voices I like better than the guys, but the guys sing on key better.

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An interesting and unexpected episode involving Ben Linus, a study in contrasts.

Spoilers from tonight’s episode and more after the break.

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Ok, so this is mostly so I can brag, but also because I thought it would make an interesting conversation.

Last Friday I did my weekly run to the local Thrift Store and found the greatest treasure trove I have ever seen and perhaps ever will see. I walked down the aisle full of puzzles and boardgames (What did you expect? I’m the board game geek around here!) and found a neatly stacked row of old Avalon Hill games in pristine condition, just sitting there, all by themselves with no one to care for them. (Avalon Hill was the premiere game publisher for decades before the current renaissance instigated by the advent of the all powerful Internets) Being the cautious cheapskate that I am I quickly snapped a photo and sent it off to two of my gaming buddies. One of them promptly called me back and told me to grab them all quickly and without hesitation. I obeyed. Two games are missing some key components but otherwise they’re complete and in excellent shape.

Total price for 10 games–$30.

Total approximate value–$200-$250

Needless to say, I’ve been ecstatic even if a little unnerved that I have turned into my mother in a way I most hated as a child. However, what I want to know is what all of YOU think or have experienced with thrift shopping.

What’s your greatest find?

Is thrifting part of your lifestyle? Why or why not?

What’s the deal with our cultural obsession with finding a great deal?

Other thoughts?

A board game convention is a little different than most geek events. Usually there is a great focus on a lot of celebrity and spectacle. Although the larger venues have plenty of this (such as GenCon, Origins or the mother of them all in Essen, Germany) we at SaltCon are mostly just here to play games all day with old friends and total strangers who then become old friends.

Steve Poelzing, one of the main organizers (and a totally awesome guy) told me the goals they have for this event: (more…)

What’d you think?
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Sundown, you better take care.

Spoilers from tonight’s episode, along with a bunch of other stuff, below.

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1.  You really should be watching this.

2.  The nature of the show is such that each episode is not as self-contained as episodes of BSG.  I will do a more comprehensive post when the mid-season break hits in mid-March.

3.  This week episode was quite cyberpunky.  Until now, it had mostly been family drama, with no action.  But Admiral Adama has an all powerful Neo-esque sister avatar walking around Caprican cyberspace, kicking trash and taking names.  Makes for an interesting tonal shift in the episodes, but it works.

4.  The Adamas are “Tauron” which apparently means Jewish-Italian-Arab-Greek-Hispanic.

5.  The actor playing Daniel Greystone has gotten a lot better since the pilot.

6. No wonder the Cylons wanted to destroy humans.  The Zoe avatar inside the first Cylon was forced to watch her parents have sex.  And she was ordered to rip her own arm off.  The Zoe avatar is also quite selfish and too willing to manipulate the best friend of the real Zoe.

7.  The Soldiers of the one practice bi-sexual group marriage.  Interesting.

8.  Ron Moore wants to include more gay characters in his shows.  That is fine.  Now, if he could just stop making them of a certain type.  So far, we have: Cylon Saboteurs and mentally insane Admirals (see BSG: Razor), mutineers (Gaeta), cold-blooded Mafia-esque hitmen (here in Caprica, one of the Adama clan), and cold-blooded fanatical terrorists (Soldiers of the One in Caprica).

9  Either way, this is a lot better than expected.  Nothing as good as the first two seasons of BSG, but loads better than the last two seasons.

10.  So go watch the frakking show.

2010 is shaping up to be a great year for music. (more…)

Actually, this isn’t a true “trilogy.” It’s more like “Omnibus edition of the only three licensed books that were ever released.”

I needed a BSG fix, and someone got me this for my birthday, so I read through it. Interesting, but hardly essential. The three books in this omnibus edition are:
* The Cylons’ Secret, by Craig Shaw Gardner
* Sagittarius Is Bleeding, by Peter David
* Unity, by Steven Harper

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Meh.

Don’t get me wrong … this remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 flick of the same name (which I haven’t seen) is actually pretty good.  By which I mean, I enjoyed myself well enough while watching it.  No unforgiveably crappy dialogue, no egregious plot flaws, no interminable stretches of boredom, punctuated by zombie attacks.  And best of all, there is plenty of suspense, a good helping of crazed zombie attacks, and lots of genuine scares.  I actually put my hands to my eyes a couple times, which is embarrassing to admit, but usually a sign that the film is working as intended.  And there are some pretty memorable gore scenes — the attack at the carwash is decent, the pitchfork attack in the hospital is quite well-done, and I felt like I hadn’t seen these scenes 1,000 times before.  The film is gory at times, but it isn’t going to set any records, and I appreciated both of these facts.

That said, my problem with the film is that it seems entirely derivative of other zombie movies.  This was 28 Days Later in a lot of ways, with a hefty dose of Outbreak for good measure.  It wasn’t horribly dark like Evil Dead, nor was it rip-roaringly funny like Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland or Evil Dead II, but it does have its comedic moments.  With few exceptions, you won’t see anything new, and you’ll find yourself saying “This is like X, but not quite as memorable.”  Also, the zombies themselves aren’t that interesting.  But that’s OK.  The film still mostly works, as it does what it needs to do competently and effectively.

If you need a zombie fix this weekend, you won’t go wrong if you catch this flick.  But when your friends ask you next month what you thought of the movie, you won’t remember, and you’ll have to tell them that.  You’ll still be thinking about 28 Days Later, or Zombieland.

What’d everyone think of the top 12 girls? I haven’t quite watched them all, but from what I’ve seen, it looks like a pretty disappointing group.

Except for Chrystal Bowersox, who completely rules. She sounded like a combination of Linda Perry and Ani DiFranco last night. I don’t think she sounded like Alanis, do you?

Another week, another new episode of Lost. Jack is back.

Spoilers and more below the fold.
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This weekend is SaltCon and I’m gaming all day Saturday. There is an exclusive designers competition Friday that I can try to get some info on and tournaments Sunday, but the bulk of the convention is in the open gaming.

Door prizes will be handed out periodically throughout the day (I won one last year, hoping for more this year!),

Designers and publishers will be there demoing their latest games.

Local game stores will be there promoting and selling their wares.

A gaming library will be available full of games to check out for anyone to use.

Oh, and a LOT of impromptu gaming and friendship making will occur!

Last year at A Gathering of Strangers (the Con in the Summer) I had a fabulous time and even helped out at the registrar’s desk. But mostly I would walk up to old friends and total strangers alike and play a game with them. It’s a very friendly place. Everyone and anyone is invited to sit down and play whatever anybody brings as long as there is a space available. I encourage anyone in the Salt Lake area to attend if they can and see for themselves!

I’ll try to write a report sometime next week, but what I want to know here is what do YOU want to know about?

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1. Curling. If that’s a sport then so is shuffleboard.

2. Short Track Speedskating. WTF? That’s like the summer olympics having the same track events on two separate size tracks! What is short track for, munchkins? We have a different track for short people? I say get rid of short bus speedskating and make everyone skate on the big track, like grown-ups.

3. Luge. Come on, man, those lugers aren’t doing anything except laying on a cafeteria tray like meatloaf. They can’t even see where they’re going! And that goes double for doubles luge. Any event you can do laying on top of someone else in your sock feet must go.

4. Biathlon. Since when do guns have anything to do with winter sports? You can shoot guns at targets any time of the year, in combination with any aerobic activity. So why is cross country skiing so special? Get rid of the shooting and just ski.

As I noted last week, Kate episodes tend toward mediocrity. But Locke episodes tend to be awesome, and tonight’s was no exception (even if, technically, it was only half Locke-centric).

Spoilers from tonight’s episode and more after the jump.

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OK, I know a new Lost post will be up tonight. And this isn’t the ideal time to do this. (And yes I’ll be chiming in on BTD Greg’s always excellent summaries that seem to contain more information than I thought possible) That said Lost isn’t the only show in the universe, even if it is among the best. So here’s our irregular commentary on other shows going on. Feel free to chime in with comments on other shows I missed.

First up 24.

What? 24? Didn’t you stop watching that last year? Yes. Last season started with a bang with a purportedly more realistic style but by the time the Africans attacked the White House FROM THE RIVER the show was so stupid I didn’t think anything could save it. So I stopped watching. Then a couple of weeks ago I decided to rent the remaining episodes from Netflix. (Oddly it wasn’t on streaming) What a surprise. The second half of the season was actually quite good. It kind of lost it and got a tad silly the last two episodes, but overall I was pretty happy. Happy enough to start watching this season.
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I don’t know about you all, but I love a good crowd-pleasing rock anthem. I think a good rock anthem needs a chorus you can sing along with, lyrics that can be applied to just about anything, and a sense of uplift. These are songs that give you a bit of hope for the future.

Therefore, I posit that the prototype of anthems is Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run.

He makes a life spent running from your problems seem positively enticing. Turning sadsacks into symbols of the American Dream? That’s an anthem.

Alanis Mourrisette’s One Hand in My Pocket is obviously going for anthem status.

Hand In My Pocket

Alanis Morissette | MySpace Music Videos
I really like this song and think it comes close to actual anthem status (it described me in my twenties pretty well). But she’s clearly trying too hard; setting the video at a parade in a small town? This isn’t a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

Finally, there are those who aspire to anthem status, and who fail miserably. Guns and Roses knew how to write an anthem (see Paradise City), but once Axl was given free reign to pursue his demons you got schlock like November Rain (which I used to claim was deep). I don’t deny that the schlock is fun, but too much really is too much in pursuit of anthems.

Finally, since the genre is easily identified, there are those who choose to distort it. I hold that Jonathan Coulton’s song “Re: Your Brains” is an anthem in musical spirit, but it’s content removes it from widespread appeal. However, for a certain demographic (you know who you are), it must be hella fun to sing along with at top volume in the car.

So, care to dispute my takes on these epics? Or have favorite anthems to add? Or wanna comment on my ignorance of the music of the past 10 years (or in general)? Do it below.

This post is a shout out to my favorite saxophone player on the planet: Lenny Pickett. You might know him best as that shredding sax player who now runs the Saturday Night Live Band. But Lenny Pickett was somewhat of a legend in sax circles long before he landed that gig. At the tender age of 18 Pickett burst on the scene in 1971 as part of the great funk band Tower of Power. We get this from the Tower of Power wiki:

Lenny Pickett (b. Las Cruces, New Mexico, April 10, 1954) is an American saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, music director and teacher. He was a member of the Tower of Power Horns from 1972 until 1981, and since 1985 has been the tenor saxophone soloist with the Saturday Night Live band. He has served as the Saturday Night Live band’s musical director since 1995. He is known particularly for his skill in the altissimo register (executed by using a combination of embouchure control, air stream control, and alternate fingerings), which can be heard during the opening credits of each episode of Saturday Night Live.

Pickett grew up in Berkeley, California. He has no formal musical training, did not attend high school beyond the ninth grade and did not attend college. Except for a brief period of study with the jazz saxophonist Bert Wilson (another player known for his facility with the altissimo register) after dropping out of high school in Berkeley, he is completely self-taught in the saxophone.[4] While with the Tower of Power Horns, which he joined when he was 18 years old, he performed with Elton John and many other rhythm and blues and soul groups. He has also worked as a saxophonist and an arranger for artists including David Bowie, Talking Heads, and Laurie Anderson. As a composer, he has written for his group, the Borneo Horns, and has received a number of commissions to write works mixing classical and popular idioms for a variety of musical ensembles, including the New Century Saxophone Quartet, as well as music for theater and collaborations with dancers, poets and filmmakers.

He is a professor of jazz saxophone at New York University.

Here are a couple of Pickett clips for your enjoyment:

This is Tower of Power in a 1973 gig in Santa Monica. The band is busting out a version of the classic “Knock Yourself Out”. Not only is teen Lenny the featured soloist here but check out his killer dance moves as well. (The audio is not great but the clip is still really cool.)

Here is Lenny in 2008 along with alto player Eric Marienthal (who is no slouch himself) playing with some kind of high school all star jazz band from Utah. In this clip Lenny busts our the entire killer repetoire, including making some noises I heretofore had never even heard emit from a sax.

Just in case you were wondering, the SNL band led by Lenny Pickett is normally the best band of the night on SNL. The dude rocks.

What more can I say? (HT: Scalzi)

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Jack's Mannequin - The Resolution (HQ)
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It’s the rare rock band nowadays that rocks a baby grand as its primary weapon of choice, but Jack’s Mannequin is that band. (more…)

More Lost. That’s a good thing. Tonight’s episode wasn’t as exciting as the finale—the pace was considerably slower—but it wasn’t terrible, either.

Spoilers from last night’s episode after the jump.

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What is most likely to be the last episode of Heroes aired last night (recap available here). I didn’t watch it, and you probably didn’t either. Heroes represents in my mind the biggest waste of TV momentum ever. A very nice Season 1 led to a huge fanbase, enormous creative freedom and virtually zero budgetary constraints. But then the show got worse with each episode. Heroes was virtually unwatchable by the end of Season 2. And yet it carried on for two more full seasons, propelled by sheer momentum, throwing away the opportunity to make a science fiction show that was creative and smart. The end, by all accounts, was an enormous crapball, the capstone to a disastrous final season.

Rest in peace, Heroes.

Sorry to tear you hopeless geeks away from Lost, but it’s time for something manly!  No not the Oscars.  It’s Superbowl time!  Time to answer those age-old questions that speak to the essence of manhood:  Which team has better uniforms?  Whose tight end is better looking?  Which ETrade baby is more articulate?  What scandal will occur during the half-time show?  And of course, most importantly: Which commercial has the hottest babes?

Feel free to comment here before, during and after the big game on all things related to the cultural phenomenon that is The Superbowl.