Friday Night Lights Wraps It Up

The saddest thing about Friday Night Lights will always be the millions of people who didn't tune in to FNL. and missed one of the last great hour-long dramas on network television.  And, of course, there were the many folks who quizzically pondered why they should care about a show about high school football.

Was Friday Night Lights about football?  Oh, most absolutely.  But for some reason that seems to be an issue where watching shows about cops and lawyers and doctors (folks none of us really want to deal with), are prime-time gold.  Maybe its telling that Glee cannot be stopped no matter how been at a dead sprint to reach far past mediocre since its initial brilliant pilot.

Heather Havrilesky writes about it better than I ever will over at the NYT. 

At Dillon High, no student ever had a single zit (well, maybe Landry)

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  Friday Night Lights had the single best pilot of a TV show I can think of.  It was also one of the best acted shows on TV for 4 of its 5 seasons (that second season they actually veered towards becoming a standard-issue prime-time soap, and it made the show mostly unwatchable).  I was in high school drama, not football*, but FNL always felt more like high school than anything I saw elsewhere.  And the characters- high schoolers, teachers, coaches and parents - always felt grounded and real enough, and not the absent parents of teen-shows, the cartoonish teachers of most high-school shows, etc...  When you guys were recommending me a thousand different shows, this was the one I was psychically recommending to you, but I figured if you weren't watching now, you weren't going to start.

Titano says its okay if I don't have a post today

Did you know Superman has a problem-ape named Titano that is several stories tall, superstrong and who shoots kryptonite beams out of his eyes? Well, he does. Ladies and Germs, Titano.

The Silver Age, people. Its where its at.

And, how much do you have to admire Mort Weisinger for going ahead and naming King Kong and then stating how their character differs RIGHT THERE ON THE COVER?  Mort, you were a weird dude, but you had MOXIE.

Also, no post for Tuesday.

Dark Knight Rises Poster is out!

Yup. That sure looks like a Chris Nolan movie poster.

Is it too early to say I'm excited?

Mondo Posters from Alamo Drafthouse to be added to the archives at The Academy

Wow! This is pretty amazing. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has taken notice of Austin's own Mondo posters and is going to begin officially adding them to their archives. Very cool!

Also, Mondo announced they'll be selling this limited edition Frankenstein poster, and when they do, it will be mine. Oh yes, it will.

So, I agreed that I would rewatch all of the Harry Potter Movies before "The Deathly Hallows 2 - Assignment: Miami Beach" is Released

I'm not much of a Harry Potter fan.  I read the first book, then saw the first movie and decided "eh, the movies are good enough".  I get the Harry Potter fandom to an extent.  Trying to turn Quidditch into a playable sport, I maybe get less.  But, you know, whatever gets the kids to put down their X-Box controllers for ten minutes, I suppose.

Again, all comments are about the movie and not about the books.

Some things just never click with you, and for me, its Harry Potter.  I sort of enjoyed the wish-fulfillment inherent in the first book, but after that, I just never found a character in the series I actually liked.  And I particularly do not like Hagrid.  Why JK Rowling wrote a seven cycle series about why its cool to hang out with the weird maintenance guy at your school everybody else steers clear of, I will never know.  (rule of school #1, kids:  do not ever go alone into the maintenance shack behind the school with that dude.  That's never gone well for anybody.)

Signal Watch Reads: Superboy 9

Superboy #9
Rise of the Hollow Men, Part Two:  In the Underworld
Written by:  Jeff Lemire
Artist:  Pier Gallo
Colorist:  Jamie Grant & Dom Regan
Letterer:  Carlos M. Mangual
Cover Artist:  Karl Kerschl
Editors:  Wil Moss and Matt Idleson

I realized I'd been doing a terrible job of covering Jeff Lemire's Superboy in my reviews (because you people care), and I know I missed issues 7 and 8, so I'll just say - we're reaching the third act of the storyline that Lemire began establishing in issue #1, and plot threads are coming together. Simon Valentine's future is exposed, we learn a lot more about Psionic Lad, Laurie Luthor gets involved, and we find out what's been going on in the "broken silo".

But I'm not so sure about all this.

Signal Watch Watches: Aliens (1986) at the Paramount!

The first time I saw the film Aliens, I was in a middle-school academic writing competition.

Somebody anticipated that a bunch of bored kids were going to destroy the school unless properly amused between events, and so they set up a bunch of chairs in a tiered music room, and a few big TV's all playing the same movie.  And some genius put in Jim Cameron's Aliens and then turned off the lights.

Now, Aliens is an R-Rated movie, which used to kind of mean something, especially to a herd of middle school students, and I believe we silently agreed, as kids do, that we all wanted to watch this movie and the only way to do that was if absolutely nobody said one word to the adults and teachers running the event that we all knew perfectly well we weren't supposed to see this movie.

New "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" trailer

There's a new trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes that echoes quite a bit from the turn taken in the 3rd Apes film of the original series where we came to understand how and why the Apes rose and that man wasn't exactly innocent in the scenario. Sure, they've drastically changed the continuity of the films, but this still looks interesting.

Trying Not To Be Dead: Thanks for the support, team!

I wanted to add a quick post and say thanks for all the positive feedback/ reinforcement on my post about Trying Not to Be Dead.

I am pretty sure I'm, like, five weeks away from achieving Ferrigno-ness

Bob, I'm not sure I'm quite ready for a triathlon, but you will be the first to know when I am.

As per the calendar thing - its a terrific idea!  I think I know where I'll put it, and everything.  However, I will likely wait until August when the 16 month calendars debut.  Who knows?  They might be out now.

And, I already eat some cottage cheese.  Its a delicious treat.  But... how about a Wagon Wheel?

Mostly, I swapped out my other snack foods for carrot sticks.  That seems to have helped.  Jason knows I will power through a bag of apples, but they're not always in season (especially Red Delicious), etc...  And I get really grossed out by oranges that are out of season.  Also: trying not to eat chips at Tex-Mex places (or skipping Tex-Mex).  Stuff like that.  And I've been trying to avoid guacamole, which I think is pretty much awesome, so that hurts.

But just not having junk around the house is helpful.  Of course, after our 4th of July party SOMEBODY (and I'm not naming names) left some delicious fudge at our house that calls to me in the wee hours.

Oh, and diet soda.  The problem is:  diet soda is like carbonated environmental catastrophe, and studies keep coming out saying that its going to make you fat, anyway (which, honestly I totally do not comprehend) so I try to drink those canned, carbonated waters from HEB (ie: generic La Croix).  Secret hint:  of everything at my 4th of July fiesta, that stuff went fastest.  Who knew?

Things I need to do better in the short-term:

• If I know I'll be out in the evening, work out in the morning.  That's how I wind up missing days.
• Get that calendar system going.
• Try not to abuse the "you get to eat whatever you feel like 1 day per week" rule.  
• Probably put down the computer now and go work out.

This Moment in History: The Final Space Shuttle Mission

The Atlantis lifts off for the final time

My heart breaks a little knowing that its the end of the Space Shuttle era. I'd be simply nostalgic if it meant that in 2012 the X-39 or a similar program were geared up to take the place of the Shuttle Program. But, instead, for the foreseeable future we'll be taking rides on Russian rockets to visit our own space station, and remaining earthbound after a half-century of touching the cosmos, even if it was only ever a glancing touch.

We looked into the face of limitless possibility as a nation, and we blinked.

In the years to come, they'll say it was a fool's errand, and a waste of resources. I'll be an old man, and the highest aspiration for kids will have long ago quit being being "Astronaut", which will sound antiquated and sad, almost how we smirk knowingly when you imagine being referred to as a "First Mate" on a ship.

And when we're old enough, or when we're gone, they'll say it never happened (just you wait). They'll say they never had the technology, that the will of a nation to spend the resources and capitol necessary just a few decades after the Wright Brothers flew their first place and the first rockets criss-crossed the skies... it was impossible. It'll be called illogical, fantastic and a hoax, written off like the sun-chariots in carvings in Egypt. And when that's said often enough, it'll be true.

Perhaps we went to fast, too soon.  Perhaps the kids I grew up with who squirmed their way through math and science took it for granted when we got to start making the rules, and maybe we were just a little disillusioned that they'd never asked us to suit up and go.  Like everything else, maybe we thought it would always be there.

As always, all we can do is hope that the tide will turn, and one day (perhaps when we're more deserving) we'll be ready, honestly and for real this time.

Until then, I thank the scientists, engineers, visionaries, and brave women and men who suited up and saw the Earth for us, and who went as close to the stars and further and faster than any of us.



The New York Times
AP Story at The Austin American Statesman