The Cowabunga Bay Water Park recently sprouted up near my house. It is on a frontage road in Draper, UT, just north of 123rd South. It looked like a lot of fun, with a giant maze of a tower and multicolored sliders sprouting in all directions:
Unfortunately it isn’t nearly as fun as it looks.
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A couple in each category.
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I haven’t written anything about Lost since the season finale. Frankly, I’m still digesting it and trying to figure out if I like the latest game-changer. I’m still undecided. Part of that depends on how the final season kicks off. Which brings us to the Lost panel at this year’s Comic-Con.
(Actual spoilers and potential ones below. If you don’t want to know anything about how season six ended or anything revealed at Comic-Con, don’t join us after the jump.)
OK, normally I hate Mia as a judge. But she was really helpful tonight. I don’t have a lot of time, so chime in with your thoughts.
For those of you who don’t follow this kind of stuff, a few weeks back there was a controversy about some confiscated video coverage from a pickup game at Lebron James’ basketball camp. Some college kid reportedly dunked on Lebron. That is pretty cool and all but no biggie. But what made the story big is that the Nike folks (who sponsored the camp) went around and confiscated the video of the dunk. So rather than giving a few people a chuckle the dunk took on epic and scandalous proportions with the conspiracy theorists whispering that Lebron had told his cronies to destroy the evidence.
Anyhow the footage finally surfaced today and as it turns out it was a nice little dunk but not much to get super excited about.
I mean it was clearly no Vince Carter hurdling a seven foot French guy in international play. Now that was a dunk for the ages. Check it out below — for some reason it is all the more awesome with the French announcers reacting to it:
Anyhow, the moral of the story is release the tapes early before the event takes on mythic proportions.
It seems cake making has developed into a pop-culture trend. At least, that’s what I learned channel surfing of the Food Network. When not hosting celebrity chefs, reality shows, or travel programs featuring massive amounts of heart-unhealthy restaurant fare, the subject de jour seems to be cakes (see, e.g., Ace of Cakes). And the whole internet seems to enjoy looking at Cake Wrecks.
But really, this post is just using an excuse to show off a cake that Allison (erstwhile Kulturblogger and commenter) and I created for our three-year-old son. Behold, the robot cake:
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STORY
- The 3rd season was essentially two mini half-seasons, the first of which was terrible and the second of which was brilliant. It was also during the second half of this season that the creators determined the series would go six seasons, thus rediscovering their focus. (more…)
OK, I’ve not really read comics much since I was about 13 during what I consider the “Golden Age” of Marvel Comics. (The Byrne era of X-Men and the Fantastic Four) I’ve checked out the occasional comic since then. So yes, I’ve read Watchmen and a few others like The Killing Joke. But while I enjoy some superhero movies I can’t really be called a comic book fan. My problem was always that comic book authors’ idea of making them “adult” consisted of making them “dark” and adding in lurid and nasty crimes. But overall they didn’t make them more believable or logical. Which means they really aren’t any more “adult.” Contrast this with some of the movies, especially the recent Batman films. (Although there were some campy unbelievable plot points even in Nolan’s films)
Anyway, I’ve decided to start up a semi-regular series asking people who do read comic books to explain points to me that make zero sense.
Note: once again (sigh!), Supergenius was not able to personally attend this screening, so Friends of Supergenius agreed to review.
“(500) Days of Summer” is easily the romantic, feel good movie of the year with definite indie undercurrents. I can sum up my reaction to the movie with my recommendation to “Go see it”. While I could go on and critique the various artistic merits of this film, the fact of the matter is that seeing (500) Days Of Summer is a thoroughly enjoyable experience and probably the best movie decision you will make all year. It’s the classic tale of young love with all the spontaneous romance and heartache that comes with being a “y generation” young professional. It is laced with an amazing soundtrack that includes The Smiths, Temper Trap and Kings of Leon, and which will have you looking for the it immediately on iTunes. (more…)
Wow. An other great night. The difference between the top tier and the bottom tier was really apparent tonight.
First off, lots of us said the worst possible scenario was Evan pairing with Kayla. And what do they start off with? I actually thought Evan did quite well despite not getting some key aspects of the dance. However the other dances tonight were so strong that had Evan not had such a strong solo I’d think he’d be in trouble. I also think we saw that Evan brings out things in a partner others don’t. Clearly he was a great partner for Randi (who flailed when paired with Kupono). But I also thought he brought out some real charisma in Kayla for the first time.
I’ll keep this short, since I seriously doubt anyone is going to decide whether or not to see this movie based on my review. It’s good. Very good. Probably the best installment yet of a very consistently strong franchise.
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Steve twittered a link to a blog arguing that the Battlestar Galactica Finale is the worst finale ever.
Is it?
Here are my votes for worst and best. And of course to be the worst it kind of has to be the conclusion to a fairly good show otherwise who really cares? I mean if you expect it to be bad it’s hard to feel betrayed by it.
Cultures, according to something I once learned in a college anthropology class, place a lot of importance in transitional periods. Birth, death, bar mitzvah, quinceañera, wedding, confirmation, graduation, retirement, etc., celebrate what anthropologists call “liminality,” or the passing from one life stage into another, often accompanied by ritual and ceremony. The ritual and ceremony, it has been theorized, is to ease the person in transition through the ambiguity and uncertainty that accompanies the liminal state, give structure to what otherwise might seem impossibly traumatic or difficult.
The appropriately titled song “Ceremony” arose, in a sense, out of liminality: Joy Division’s Ian Curtis wrote it just days before hanging himself on the eve of the band’s first U.S. tour, then Bernard Sumner resurrected the song for New Order, the band that followed. It was the last song Joy Division ever recorded and the first single New Order released. (And, in my opinion, it’s the best thing either band ever did.) The song straddles the cusp between post-punk and new wave and remains surprisingly relevant and vibrant now, almost thirty years since it was first recorded. (more…)
Once again, I was prevented from attending a screening, but Friends of Supergenius attended on my behalf. Below is their report.
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It’s undoubtedly difficult for me to admit that Brüno had me nearly doubled over in deep, choking laughter. Racy and absurd, this is likely to be the funniest film of the year, although not without its faults. Brüno, for those not in the know, is based on Sacha Baron Cohen’s homebrewed persona (his third to become a feature film): a flamboyantly gay, Austrian fashion and TV personality, who, thanks to an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction involving a suit made entirely of Velcro, becomes jobless and embarks on a worldly quest to become “the most famous Austrian since Hitler”. (more…)
Sorry I’m late posting about this, I didn’t get a chance to see the show until last night. And I haven’t seen the results show yet, although I just saw who got eliminated when looking up the details for the performances.
Who did you like this week?
The reason advertisers work so hard to get the 18-35 age demographic is because early brand loyalists are (likely) lifetime loyalists. I am in the middle of this cycle of determining which brands I prefer and which ones I am still deciding upon, but the truth is that I’m loyal to only a few brands. The following is a short list of products for which I’m no longer open to alternatives (unless there is a revolution in their industry): (more…)
A lot of really solid dancing tonight. I think who goes home is going to end up being tied to charisma and consistency.
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Michael Mann is a director who gets things right a lot of the time. He gets police tactics. He gets criminals. He understands the night, and films it better than anyone else alive. He is a stickler for visual detail, and his films (Heat, The Insider, Collateral, etc.) reflect an obsession with showing things how they are, and letting the story emerge from the scene. Public Enemies carries on in this vein; it is visually arresting, historically fascinating, and seems utterly real. Unfortunately that doesn’t quite make it a masterpiece. (more…)