Fave Five of 2009 - Personal Experiences

As the final hours of 2009 wind down, I realize that I got to experience more in this year than most people get to experience in an entire decade. And I got to experience more this decade than most people experience in a lifetime. The lesson? My life doesn't suck.

There were so many cool things I did this year that could have made this list, but I had to narrow it to five. So here it is, my Fave 5 experiences of 2009 -- the highlights of my year.

5. Nov. 6, 2009 - Cavaliers at Knicks
LeBron at MSG. Need I say more? I probably don't, but since it's my blog, I will. There's nothing quite like seeing a basketball game at the World's Most Famous Arena, but getting to see LeBron James there made it sublime. I've seen LeBron play in person a few times now, but this one had a completely different energy to it. Jay-Z was in the house, the world champion Yankees were in the house, and the sold out New York crowd was completely riveted by the Cavaliers star. It's almost enough to sooth the concerns about 2010.

4. Sept. 4-6, 2009 - Vermont Trip
Had this just been about a concert or a friend's wedding, it might not have made the list. But somehow in the same weekend, I got to see an outdoor Kelly Clarkson concert (sitting in about the 15th row, center stage) and see my oldest friend get married. Also, I'm amazed I can remember anything about the weekend, since at the cocktail hour, reception and after-party of the wedding, I'm pretty sure I consumed enough alcohol to kill a large horse (mostly tequila and vodka -- yes, I'd blame it on the Goose and the 'torn, and I'm now horrified that I referenced that song… it's time to move on).

3. Sept. 27, 2009 - Britney Spears in Las Vegas
VEGAS! Oh, so many things were awesome about this trip. The travel itself, which resulted in getting about four hours of sleep in a 48-hour period. The afternoon at the sportsbook, which left me holding a ticket for the Cavaliers to win the NBA title (oh, I can't wait to cash that baby in June). The retarded flight back, which at the time was horrifying, but now I actually can look back at it and laugh. The best part was obviously the concert -- oh, and don't think this is the last you're hearing about a Britney Spears concert in this entry -- but it was made so much better by spending the day with the incredibly cool Jen Friel. Seriously, check out her blog when you get a chance. It'll rock your world.

2. 2009 NBA Finals
How bitter am I that the Cavs didn't make the Finals? So bitter that I almost considered dropping this from the list entirely. But, while the actual basketball was disappointing (from my perspective), this trip was about so much more than hoops for me. I love hanging out in L.A. The absurdity of Hollywood Boulevard is just so much fun -- from the costumed characters during the day to the real celebrity encounters at night -- and there's no experience quite like driving up the PCH to Malibu then walking through the sand. Even Orlando didn't completely suck, thanks to Disney World, and the once-in-a-lifetime experience of being right outside the Lakers locker room right after they won the title. Only one experience in my life has ever been more surreal that having Sasha Vujacic see me take a picture of him, then call me over to hang out with him and his family for a few minutes.

1. Aug. 24-25, 2009 - Britney Spears in New York
A two-day Britney-filled extravaganza was by far the coolest thing I did this year (and for some perspective on that, look back at No. 3 and No. 2 and check how cool that shit was). The day I arrived in New York, Britney had her "I Seek Britney" concert, which ended with some madness at M&Ms World in Times Square. Then at the concert that night, I happened to be sitting next to an incredibly cool group of girls who were seeing Britney Spears live for the first time. That day itself would have made for a Top 5 experience, but the next night I was ringside for Britney's concert. I can't even begin to express in words the joy I felt standing right next to the stage, being able to reach out and almost touch Britney.

How good was this year? My attendance at the 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame induction and my amazing weekend at Baltimore Comic-Con didn’t even make the cut. So if 2010 is even half as good as 2009, I’m in for an amazing year.

Fave Five of 2009 - Sporting Events

I watched more sporting events than I can even remember in the past year. I went to a bunch of NBA games, some baseball games and even some college football games. However, none of the games I attended came close to cracking this list, of my favorite games of 2009.

Just to be clear, when I say "games", I mean "games", not "events" or "races" or "matches". And yes, I'm aware there's a significant basketball bias on my list -- that's why it's MY list.

5. Eastern Conference Finals Game 2 - Cavaliers 96, Magic 95
I almost considered leaving this game off my list because of my hatred for this series, but LeBron James's dramatic three-pointer at the buzzer was just too great to ignore. I did multiple laps around my living room when LeBron hit that shot (to be fair, I have a small living room).

4. Twins 6, Tigers 5 (12 innings)
The last game of the 2009 MLB regular season was full of twists and turns (and awful announcing, but we’ll ignore that). The Twins fell behind 3-0 in the third, then took a lead before giving up a run in the 8th. The 10th inning featured both teams scoring a single run, and might have been one of the most amazing innings I've ever seen. In the 12th, the Twins got out of a bases-loaded jam, then scored in the bottom of the inning to advance to the postseason.

3. Eastern Conference First Round Game 6 - Bulls 128, Celtics 127 (3 OT)
There's really no way to sum up this game in just a few words. It was incredibly impressive even if, like me, you disliked both teams. Ray Allen scored 51 points for the Celtics, and sent the game into a third overtime with a three-pointer near the end of double-OT. Derrick Rose had 28 points in what was his coming out party and blocked a potential game-winner by Rajon Rondo with seven seconds left. It even had Joakim Noah throwing down on Paul Pierce. Just a great game in a great series.

2. Big East Quarterfinals - Syracuse 127, UConn 117 (6 OT)
How long was this game? I didn't even turn it on until the end of regulation and I got to watch 30 minutes of basketball (that took about 90 minutes to play). I still have no idea how Syracuse was able to play a game the next day, much less win it. Jonny Flynn played 67 minutes -- or basically double the average for a normal college basketball starter. Amazingly, it all looked like it had ended in regulation, but Eric Devendorf's potential game-winner was just after the buzzer. My favorite stat from the game? Syracuse never led at any point in overtimes 1-5, but ended up winning the game.

1. Super Bowl XLIII - Steelers 27, Cardinals 23
Let's see. 100-yard interception return touchdown to end the first half? Check. Double-digit comeback from unlikely Super Bowl team, putting them in striking distance of their first title? Check. Another 350-yard passing day by Kurt Warner, who seems to do this all the time in the Super Bowl? Check. A last-minute drive by the Steelers featuring an absurd 40-yard play on 3rd down? Check. One of the best touchdown catches in Super Bowl history, with Santonio Holmes barely keeping his feet in bounds? Yeah, that's your game of the year.

A DVD Blast from the Past

As some of you may know, PooZ and I lived together for a year about five years ago, before we went our separate, home-owning ways. My DVD collection wasn't nearly as massive back then, but it was still pretty fucking huge. Yet somehow, the one DVD we kept playing over and over again was "SNL: The Best of Will Ferrell, Vol. 2". That is, until the day it disappeared.

One day, we went to watch it, and the case was empty. We checked all of our DVD players, computers and PlayStation 2s (which took way longer than it should have, because we had way too much technology in that place), and couldn't find it. It was believed to be lost forever.

Then, today, that disc magically reappeared.

I've been going through my entire DVD library, converting all the movies to a digital format, and today when I opened up one of the cases, there was an extra disc floating around in there. I flipped it over, and lo-and-behold, there was Will Ferrell! I've been pretty convinced for the better part of five years that the disc was long gone -- especially since I moved away from that apartment in July of 2005 -- but it's been here this whole time. The lesson? I have too many damn movies, if there's one that hasn't been opened for more than four years (and trust me, that's not the only one).

Fave Five of 2009 - Songs

When I put together my "best of the year" lists last week, I considering doing a Fave 5 albums. But this is the age of iTunes, where you shuffle seamlessly between thousands of songs with no regards to album structure whatsoever. Strangely, I actually started to break from this habit later in the year, but I'm still very much a singles-driven person, so instead of naming my Fave 5 albums of the year, I'm going to reduce it to my Fave 5 songs.

When compiling my list, I decided to lean heavily on the raw stats, rather than just my memory alone. In my iTunes Library, I've got 480 songs that were released in 2009. Only 27 of them (or about 6%) have been played at least 10 times.

With that in mind, here's my Fave 5.

5. Starstruck - Lady GaGa f/ Flo Rida
The first time I heard this song was actually in the iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge, because I never got the special edition of "The Fame" that came out this year. I fell in love with the song right away, and it's been played 15 times since being added to my iTunes Library in Oct.

4. Medicine Ball - Eminem
This is only my second-most played song off "Relapse", behind "We Made You", but the latter had a head start by being an advance single. Also, "Medicine Ball" is just a better song, with it's absurd Christopher Reeve verse.

3. Right Round - Flo Rida
I feel horrible. How the hell is Flo Rida on my list twice? I don't even like the guy. But this song -- featured in the closing credits of "The Hangover" -- is just too much fun to hate on. This was my soundtrack during my drives on the PCH during the NBA Finals.

2. All I Ever Wanted - Kelly Clarkson
Of my top 20 most played songs from 2009, 12 of them are from this album. The title track has quickly become one of my most-played songs period, cracking my top 5% overall (one of 7 songs from this year that can make that claim).

1. Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z f/ Alicia Keys
I cannot get enough of this song. When I went to New York in November, I must have listened to it a dozen times on the train ride. I made a LeBron James highlight video with this as the soundtrack. Even the Yankees turning it into their World Series anthem couldn't ruin it for me. Easily my song of the year.

Honorable mentions:

"Day N Nite" by Kid Cudi (I went back and forth with this as #5, but in the end, I felt Lady GaGa needed to be represented, and technically this track was released on iTunes in 2008), "3" by Britney Spears (I like a bunch of tracks off 2008's "Circus" album better), "Whatever You Like (Single Version)" by Anya Marina (I disqualified it, as a cover of a 2008 song, otherwise it'd probably be #4).

Fave Five of 2009 - Movies

Today on AdamReisinger.com, we're starting a full week of 2009 Year in Review articles. Yes, it's also the end of the decade, but we already did our Decade in Review topics in the latest episode of the AdamNPooZ.com Podcast.

So, to get things started -- using the familiar Fave 5 format that's now seen every once in awhile on Fridays here -- here are the AdamReisinger.com Top 5 movies of 2009. Just so you know, I haven't seen any movie released in the last two weeks, so this is really my five favorite movies of the first 50 weeks of 2009. But they are my five favorites -- not necessarily the five I think should be best picture nominees.

5. Zombieland
It's easy to dismiss this movie as mindless fun -- and for the most part that's exactly what it is -- but somewhere along the journey in the movie, the characters actually developed beyond "surviving the zombie apocalypse" and I liked them better for it. Plus, I'm pretty sure Emma Stone is awesome, and she makes everything she's in better.

4. Star Trek
I had some trepidation about this movie, particularly when I found out the plot prominently featured time travel and alternate timelines. But somehow it all worked. Sure, it's got too much lens flare, but otherwise it's a pretty kick-ass reboot of the Star Trek series.

3. District 9
This movie came in kind of under the radar -- though I saw guerilla marking for it all over Hollywood when I was out there this summer -- and really blew me away. It proved you can combine a smart, message movie with sweet action and not lose anything in either department.

2. The Hangover
Easily the funniest movie I've seen in the last five years, possibly longer. I just watched it again the other day on Blu ray, and it's no less funny than the first time I saw it. It's also quickly becoming one of the most quotable movies of the decade. I'm particularly partial to "you are literally too stupid to insult."

1. Up
Pixar rules. They seriously have never made a bad movie (though, let's be honest, "Cars" wasn't great). I never thought I'd be crying 10 minutes into a movie, much less an animated movie about a 78-year-old man who ties a bunch of balloons to his house, but it happened. And I don't even care if that's embarrassing (btw, it's not -- every single adult human being I know who's seen this movie has done the same thing). This is, as far as I'm concerned, the best movie of the year.

Who needs Exposé?

Sometimes I have a little too much happening on my computer. Right now is one of those times. Sure, I could use Exposé to seamlessly switch between apps, but why do that when I've perfectly proportioned everything I'm actively using.

I don't always have my desktop like this, but I'm actually liking it. It's really nice to just be able to see everything that's going on all at once. And in case you're wondering, my dock is hidden to the left of the screen, and my desktop wallpaper (completely useless in this setup) is Jo Chen's "Buffy" cover art from Issue #1.

This Week in Buffy History: December 27-January 2

December 29

1970 - Kevin Weisman born (played Dreg in Season 5)

December 30

1980 - Eliza Dushku born (played Faith)

December 31

1965 - Geoff Meed born (played Andrew Vorba in Episode 1.05 “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date”

1973 - Kristen Winnicki born (played Gwen Ditchik in Season 2)

Friday Five - Non-Traditional Christmas Movies

I don’t celebrate Christmas. I’m not alone in this. There are literally billions of people around the world for whom today is just “Friday” (or whatever they call “Friday” in their local language). So while everyone is enjoying “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “A Christmas Story” or “Christmas Vacation” for the millionth time, I’ll stick to these movies, in which the Christmas season is merely the setting, not the entire focus.

1 - Die Hard
This movie is so awesome that it’s easy to forget that it’s taking place around Christmas. There’s no room for Santa or Elves in a movie where John McClane coined the phrase “yippee ki-yay, motherfucker”.

2 - Rocky IV
On Christmas Day 1985, Rocky Balboa ended the Cold War. Sure, this movie isn’t as good as “Rocky” and Drago isn’t as memorable a villain as Clubber Lang (Mr. T) in “Rocky III”, but this might be the most re-watchable of the Rocky movies.

3 - Lethal Weapon
As “How I Met Your Mother” reminded me last season, Murtaugh was “getting too old for this shit” from the very first movie. This doesn’t really turn into a Christmas-related movie until the final scene, but whatever, there’s a Christmas scene and the movie is awesome.

4 - Gremlins
For the longest time, I wanted my own Gizmo. Not a stuffed version, but the actual creature. I’m pretty sure I could have stuck by the rules. We’d be fine, right?

5 - Ghostbusters II
Who ya gonna call? Santa? Hell no. Also, I’m aware that this is more of a New Year’s Eve/New Year’s movie, but it starts right around Christmas-time in New York, so it qualifies.

"Spider-Man 4" to kill off MJ?

According to Star Magazine (not the most trust-worthy source of news, but still...) there is the possiblity that Kirsten Dunst will be removed from the "Spider-Man" movie series in "Spider-Man 4". Now, I know this will make PooZ happy. And while I'm a Dunst fan, I can understand why they might want to replace her. But the rumor isn't just that they're replacing Kirsten Dunst, but that they're replacing Mary Jane Watson -- by killing her off!

"The plan is for her character to be written out, probably by dying. Anne will take over as Peter Parker's new love interest for this project and for Spider-Man 5 and 6 which are being written now. Anne's in L.A. doing a lot of meetings on the movie, because filming is right around the corner."

Dear Sony: this is bullshit! You CAN'T kill MJ. If you want to replace Dunst with another, more competent (read: hotter) actress, I'll accept that. But killing one of the most iconic comic book love interests of all-time? That's just insane.

Even when Joe Quesada decided to be a douche and end Peter and MJ's marriage in the comics, he knew he couldn't KILL MJ. So if you do that in the movies, you're officially dumber than Joe Quesada. Hey, how's that feel, Sam Raimi? Not so good, huh.

So if I catch wind that this is actually happening, I will boycott "Spider-Man 4". I put up with some stupid shit in "Spider-Man 3", but this would officially be the "Bat-nipples" style dealbreaker for me.

OK, enough ranting... let's enjoy the good times:

(via io9.com)

ESPN Classic Games of the Decade

Hey, did you know the decade is ending? Of course you did, because you listen to the AdamNPooZ.com Podcast!

OK, so maybe you knew that without listening to PooZ and I give out meaningless awards, but the end of the decade is time for reflection. And ESPN Classic is reflecting in the best way they know how -- by showing a marathon of the best games/matches/fights/events/etc of the 2000s.

The network is showing 192 hours of action over the course of eight days, starting Dec. 26. Some of these events will be cool to watch again, but which ones are the “must watches”, the ones that earn “save until I delete” status on the DVR?

I decided to limit it to 10 events. This was incredibly hard, because there are so many good games on here. Also, these aren't necessarily the 10 best games/events of the decade -- some of those aren't even being shown during the marathon -- but the 11 that I think you'll be able to enjoy again and again and again (I tried to cut it to 10, but I just couldn't, OK).

December 26

8am - 11am - 2001 GMAC Bowl, Marshall vs East Carolina

I know you're thinking "what the hell", but this game was AMAZING. Marshall was down 38-8 before putting up one of the best second halves of all time. Byron Leftwich finished the game with 576 yards passing and Marshall won 64-61 in double-OT, on a "walk-off" touchdown.

December 27

9pm - 11pm - 2003 ALCS Game 7, Yankees vs Red Sox

I know PooZ won't be watching this one. The Yanks and Sox go to extras in New York, and Aaron Boone earns the middle name "bleepin''" for the rest of his life.

December 28

(note: just plop your ass on the couch for most of this day, which, in addition to the games listed below, features the Syracuse-Kansas national championship game, Randy Johnson’s perfect game and the 2005 Castillo-Corrales fight)

1pm - 3pm - 2005 NCAA Regional Final, Arizona vs Illinois

The Illini were down by 15 with four minutes to play, and people had probable already written "Arizona" into the Final Four spot on their brackets. Then Deron Williams went bananas and Illinois came back to win 90-89 in overtime.

3pm - 5pm - 2006 NCAA Regional Final, George Mason vs Connecticut

I'm still not sure how George Mason made it to the Final Four, considering they barely made the tournament as an at-large selection. Relive the horrible "By George, the dream is alive" call and the great game that preceded it.

5pm - 7pm - 2004 ALCS Game 4, Yankees vs Red Sox

Hey Sox fans, if you're pissed from watching 2003's Game 7 the day before, then enjoy the moment when the 2004 ALCS turned. Roberts's steal, Ortiz's walk-off, it's all here!

9pm - midnight - 2006 Rose Bowl, Texas vs USC

The 2005 USC Trojans were allegedly the greatest college football team of all time. Vince Young disagreed.

December 29

5pm - 8pm - 2007 Fiesta Bowl, Boise State vs Oklahoma

Because of the BCS's TV deal, this game is very rarely re-aired. So check it out, from Boise building a big lead, to Oklahoma's comeback, to the most insane series of trick plays ever seen outside of Hollywood. When a game is amazing, people often say that if it were a Hollywood script, it'd be rejected for being too absurd. I think this might be the only game ever for which that actually applies. I mean, the star player who scored the winning points proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend on the sidelines! They wouldn't even try that shit on "Friday Night Lights".

December 30

11am - 1pm - Lakers vs Raptors

Two players in NBA history have scored at least 80 points in a game. Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 in a half-empty gym in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Kobe Bryant scored 81 in this game in January of '06. It wasn't on national TV, so if you only saw the highlights, you have to see this unfold.

1pm - 4pm - 2007 Eastern Conference Finals, Game 5, Cavaliers vs Pistons

LeBron James scores 25 consecutive points, and 29 of 30, for the Cavaliers, as they take control of the series. I've seen this game dozens of times. I'll still be watching this again (oh, and it's LeBron's birthday too!).

December 31

9am - 11am - 2008 NCAA Championship, Kansas vs Memphis

The NCAA's official records show that Memphis didn't play in this game. So make sure you DVR it now, before video technology improves to the point that they can digitally remove the Tigers completely.

January 1

5pm - 9pm - 2009 Big East Quarterfinals, Syracuse vs UConn

Officially, this game ended after six overtimes, with Syracuse winning. I think they're actually still playing at MSG, and this is actually going to be live coverage.

Just Missed the Cut

- 2003 Fiesta Bowl (Dec. 27, 6pm-9pm)

A great game ruined by Terry Porter's three-second-late pass interference call. I don't need to see that bullshit again (the rest of the game is amazing).

- Appalachian State vs Michigan (Dec. 30, 6am-8am)

A huge upset at the time, but the luster is off a bit due to the fall-off of the Michigan program. It's hard to keep this on the DVR while the Wolverines suck.

- Celtics-Bulls Game 4, 2009 Playoffs (Dec. 30, 6pm-9pm)

Game 6 is the triple-overtime game, and the one I'd rather see.

- 2008 Wimbledon Final (Dec. 31, 11am-4pm)

A great match, but I actually liked the 2009 final better, and I'm not sure I want to spend five hours on New Year's Eve Day watching tennis.

- Baylor vs Texas A&M 5 OT Game (Jan. 1, 7am-10am)

Almost no one saw this game when it happened, so it'd be cool to see now, but that's not "save until I delete" worthy.

Maybe Our Team of the Decade Choice Wasn't So Wrong...

Of all the "decade" awards we gave out on the latest edition of the AdamNPooZ.com podcast, the one I was most unsure about was Team of the Decade. PooZ and I eventually came to a consensus on the Los Angeles Lakers, but I don't think either of us was entirely convinced.

Well, today Sports Illustrated released their big End of the Decade package on SI.com and they also picked the Lakers as the Team of the Decade. I'd like to think that PooZ and I managed to convince them it was the right choice.

More Retales of Truth

Including the rest of today, there are four shopping days left before Christmas, days which are sure to be even more of a clusterfuck due to the storm that hit the East Coast this weekend (we actually didn’t get hit too bad up here in Central Connecticut, but I can pretty much guarantee there was no shopping going on in New York, Philly, Baltimore, D.C., etc.).

Despite the rare weekend respite -- some of my friends who work in retail report that their stores, if open at all, were completely dead yesterday -- we have officially entered the stretch run of Christmas shopping. Back when I worked in retail, we called these last few days “WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE LAST MONTH?! YOU COULD HAVE DONE ALL THIS WEEKS AGO! I HATE YOU!” or something along those lines.

I know I shouldn’t be too critical, since I once waited until Dec. 24 to do all my Christmas shopping. But, unlike most people, I knew I had to be at the mall on Christmas Eve Day (ya know, cause of that whole retail job and everything). But for the large percentage of Americans who aren’t working at a mall, why are you waiting until the last minute?

Now, understand, I’m not talking to you, guy who realized he forgot one person on his Christmas list. Nor am I talking to you, girl who just started dating a guy and feels the obligation to get him a gift (even though you’ll probably break up with him in two weeks). I’m talking to the series of fucktards who stroll into the mall on Dec. 23 with a two-page list, and then lose their fucking shit when they find out that the hottest gift of the holiday season -- the one they were planning on getting for seven different people -- is sold out everywhere.

People, it’s 2009. Internet shopping is not some fad, and it’s not going to result in someone stealing your identity and replacing it with that of a crack-addicted prostitute to destroy you (note: actual plot of “The Net”, the most dated movie ever). This year, I bought 90% of my holiday gifts online. In one case, I didn’t want to pay shipping, so I used the helpful in-store pickup option at Best Buy. My local Best Buy has special parking spaces reserved for this, and an area of the store blocked off for pickups. The entire process took five minutes. Meanwhile, just a few feet away, some douche was screaming at an employee because he couldn’t find a copy of “Harry Potter” on Blu-ray. This was almost two weeks ago. If Cpt. Douche had just ordered his movie from Amazon.com, he would have had it by now (and probably awhile ago) with considerably less stress.

If for some reason, you do have to go to a mall in the next few days, treat the employees with some level of respect. It’s not their fault that you waited until now to do your Christmas shopping, and it’s not their fault that everyone else on the planet wanted a fucking Hamster Zhu Zhu just like your whiny kids do (seriously, why are those stupid things popular?). And if they seem a little stressed, it’s because they’ve been dealing with people Cpt. Douche for the better part of a month, and they can almost see the end of the tunnel.

One More Outtake from the Decade Awards

You know how in most awards shows, they have that part where they list off all the awards that were handed out earlier in the day/week, before the televised portion of the show? Well, on the AdamNPooZ.com podcast, we had one of those too. Listen below for our choice for Podcast of the Decade.

DELETED SCENE - We hand out the award for Best Podcast of the Decade (0:42)

Nobody Beats the Biz

It's been 20 years since Biz Markie has been relevant (10 if you went to Towson University and saw him co-headline TigerFest '99 in the case of a joke taken way too far), but he's all over the place these days.

This Radio Shack commercial seems to be playing on every network these days (except NFL Red Zone Network -- my favorite TV channel of all time -- where "we don't do commercials")

And if you need more of a Biz fix, there's this Heineken commercial that's a little older but seems to be re-emerging.

I'm all for old school rap throwbacks, but how did Biz Markie become the go-to one-hit wonder of choice for marketers?

This Week in Buffy History: December 20-26

December 26
UNKNOWN YEAR - Justin Gorence born (played Orlando in Season 5)

The Newest Object of My Affection...

Yesterday I received my latest shipment from Sideshow Collectibles, the Emma Frost Premium Format statue.

A few weeks ago, Sideshow sent me a processing notification and also let me know they were upgrading me to the exclusive version of the statue at no additional cost, which was pretty cool of them. When the statue arrived, I was incredibly impressed by it.

One thing I always forget about the Premium Format statues (despite the fact that I now have six of them) is the size. They’re 1/4 scale, rather than the 1/6 scale of most of the standard Sideshow statues, so the average one is about 18-inches tall. This version of Emma Frost completely dwarfs the Adam Hughes comiquette, also by Sideshow.

When comparing the two Emma Frosts, I think I prefer the facial sculpt on the AH! version, and I know I prefer the classic White Queen costume to the modern Emma costume. That said, this statue is really impressive, particularly the pose, which is much better than the AH! statue.

I’m now up to 18 statues in my living room -- including 3 Emma Frosts -- and I’m fast running out of room. I’ve already moved all my non-Premium Format Buffy statues to my home-office, and I’ve got a bunch of stuff boxed up in my basement. What it comes down to is that I just need a bigger house for all my stuff.

Outtakes from AdamNPooZ.com Podcast Episode 2.15

When you try to review an entire decade, there are obviously going to be some things you have to cut for time. Such was the case with the latest edition of the AdamNPooZ.com podcast. So I've picked out some of the best moments that ended up getting the GarageBand trim treatment and I'm sharing them with you.

Enjoy.

DELETED SCENE - Adam and PooZ debate what we should call this decade (0:32)


BLOOPER - Audio feedback or PooZ committing murder? You decide (0:28)


DELETED SCENE - Remember Y2K? That totally went down like everyone expected, right? (0:33)

DELETED SCENE - Tiger Woods definitely did not "cheat up" (0:37)

"Dollhouse" and Football... When Worlds Collide

I'm watching last night's episodes of "Dollhouse" right now and so far, they're amazing. But the moment that grabbed my attention came in the second episode, when Topher was describing trying to put Ballard's brain back together, using a football analogy (and an out-dated reference to Mike Vick, which actually made sense for the character). Then Topher's assistant made a reference to the Wildcat formation, which she had to explain (and did so accurately).

Given the target market of "Dollhouse", I bet the joke went over most viewers' heads (or "under my head" as Topher put it, since he's such a freakin' genius). But for the handful of Whedon-loving football fanatics out there, it was a moment of pure geek heaven. Hot chick talking advanced football strategy always equals awesome.

Iron Man 2 Trailer Makes Late Push for 2009 “Best Thing Ever”

2009 has been a pretty good year for me, and I’ve got plenty of candidates for this year’s edition of “Best Thing Ever”, but I’m fairly certain none of them have blown me away like the “Iron Man 2” trailer did last night.

I already posted about this on AdamNPooZ.com, but this trailer is so awesome that it deserves an extra post. I’m not going to go into all my thoughts on it (I’m saving those for a future guest appearance on the Negative Cutters podcast), but let me just say the final scene in the trailer is the coolest thing I’ve seen on screen this year.

Iron Man 2 Trailer is Online

Consider this just the first of many, MANY posts PooZ and I will have about Iron Man 2... the trailer is now available online, in full 1080p glory (or, embedded below in slightly less glory)

I want to go to there...

(get the 1080p version at apple.com)

Coming Soon: AdamNPooZ.com Decade Awards

Sometime in the very near future, PooZ and I will be recording our "Decade in Review" Podcast. Some of the categories we're going to discuss include:

• Athlete of the Decade
• Team of the Decade
• Album of the Decade
• Best Movie of the Decade
• Worst Movie of the Decade
  
• TV Show of the Decade
• Dumbest Comic Book Decision of the Decade

Of course, our choices are flexible. Feel free to suggest your winners in the above categories, or even suggest other categories entirely. We're open to pretty much anything.

The Nerdiest Thing I Own...

Over the past few years, there’s been this trend developing that’s made it somewhat cool to be a “nerd”. Of course, it’s easier if you’re a hot nerd, or a rich nerd, but it’s no longer completely socially unacceptable to be a nerd.

So, of course, in that context, I can have conversations at work in which the question comes up “what’s the nerdiest thing you own.” Now, let me fill you in on the context of the question. Two of the people I work with know I’m a big Kelly Clarkson fan (mostly because I request days off to go to Kelly Clarkson concerts), and at one point, they had a bet over whether I owned the movie “From Justin to Kelly” (for the record, I don’t).

That subject somehow came up again today, and when I reminded them that I don’t own it, one of them asked “so what is the nerdiest thing you own?”

I wasn’t going to answer the question, mostly because I’m not sure I could narrow it down, but then she admitted that she had New Kids on the Block’s “Hangin’ Tough Live” on VHS. That’s pretty bad. So I started mentally going through my DVD library, and aside from the massive Britney Spears collection, I wasn’t really coming up with anything on the NKOTB scale of nerdiness.

Now, given where I work, anything sports related wasn’t going to qualify, and I don’t really own any truly nerdy sports memorabilia. Yes, I do have a sizable collection of McFarlane SportsPicks figures on my desk, and a large collection of sports cards in my basement, but amazingly the company I keep at work doesn’t qualify this as “nerdy”. Quite the contrary. So we’ll skip all of that.

In considering the single nerdiest thing I own, I also had to eliminate general collections. Yes, on the whole, my “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” action figure collection is incredibly nerdy, but its hard to say any individual figure is MORE nerdy than any other one (though I did give plenty of thought to “Fiesta Giles”, which is both a dorky-looking figure and the one that eluded me for the longest time).

The same problem applied to comic books -- it’d be hard to pick the nerdiest individual comic I own. Sure, some of the old Amazing Spider-Man back issues from the ‘60s and ‘70s are nerdy, but they’re also classics, so I’m not going with them. I’ve also got an impressive set of nerdy collectibles, including the batarang from the collector’s edition of “Batman: Arkham Asylum”, a matching set of Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy statues and, again, more “Buffy” stuff than I’d care to recount here (but you can see all of it on my Buffy collection page -- which is actually kind of out of date, but I’ll fix that eventually). Still, none of it rose to “nerdiest” status.

I almost settled on a piece of “Veronica Mars” merchandise that I actually really enjoy but everyone I know makes fun of me for owning. I have the Season 1 set of “Veronica Mars” trading cards in the official Inkworks binder, and the binder itself is signed by Kristen Bell. Making this even nerdier was the fact that I had it shipped to work when I got it, and opened it in front of a bunch of co-workers. They still make fun of me for it. I don’t care (a fact that should be pretty obvious, since I’m writing about this on a public-facing blog).

But no, that is not the nerdiest thing I own. That honor (or dishonor) goes to my life-sized Britney Spears Pepsi advertising stand-up. This thing (pictured above) has been a part of my life for the better part of this decade, and has moved with me from college, back home, to an apartment and now to my condo. Amazingly, I still have the eBay e-mail from when I bought this -- on Feb. 5, 2002. It hasn’t been part of my regular decor since 2005, but it’s still in one piece, in my basement, waiting for the day when I’m no longer embarrassed by my ownership of it (note: despite the fact that I just bought a 29-disc Britney Spears box set, that day will probably never come).

OK, that’s enough nerdiness for one day. I promise a sports-related post again sometime in the near future (of course, if you want sports, you could always just visit LeBron2010.info).

Redskins Win! Bears Lose!

I may not have a chance to do this again this season -- or ever -- so let me revel in the fact that the Redskins won yesterday while the Bears lost. In fact, let me share this picture with you, that pretty much sums up the Jay Cutler era in Chicago:


Awww... poor half-deflated bear.

This Week in Buffy History: December 13-19

December 14

1999 - Episode 4.10 “Hush” airs on The WB

1999 - Angel Episode 1.10 “Parting Gifts” airs on The WB

December 15

1998 - Episode 3.10 “Amends” airs on The WB

December 17

2002 - Episode 7.10 “Bring on the Night” airs on UPN

December 18

1953 - Jeff Kober born (played Kralik and Rack)

December 19

2000 - Episode 5.10 “Into the Woods” airs on The WB

Series of Tubes: “Dollhouse” Saving the Best for Last

During each of the past four episodes of “Dollhouse” (which have aired on the past two Fridays), I’ve had a moment when I asked myself, “where was this awesomeness when the show was teetering on the brink of cancellation?”

But on some level, we couldn’t have had these episodes of “Dollhouse” while the fate of the show was still undecided. Not only did cancellation remove any remaining creative shackles, but it also forced the powers behind the show to move forward at a breakneck speed.

Last night’s two episodes -- which, unlike last week, were actually for the most part two distinct episodes -- were again amazing, and again give us glimpses of how this show ends up at the future we saw in “Epitaph One”. Also, we finally got to see what Eliza Dushku is capable of in the role of “Echo”, and she didn’t disappoint. In these recent episodes, Echo is becoming her own defined character, and not just a series of individual imprints. It’s actually giving us the “character to root for” that so many people complained was lacking in the early episodes.

Rather than re-hash the plot of the two episodes, let me just say that these are the kind of episodes the show should have been doing from the beginning, but couldn’t do because of the re-vamped pilot. By going engagement-focused early on (something Whedon has admitted was as much his choice as the network’s), they had to do a slow build to what we’re getting now, otherwise stuff like Echo’s growth, the evil-ness of Rossum and the Alpha/Ballard rivalry wouldn’t have made sense. But that didn’t need to be the case.

Go back and watch the original pilot, the one that’s only available on the DVD/Blu-ray. Imagine if they had progressed quickly from that (which itself was practically a condensed version of the first 6-7 episodes of Season 1) to the Alpha/Echo stuff at the end of last season, then condensed the first four episodes of this season into two, then gotten into the stuff they’re doing now (where there’s so much more going on than the slow-developing stories of Season 1). That show would have been so much more enjoyable to watch than the show Dollhouse ended up being.

BUT (and here’s the big but)... that show could have only been sustainable for a single season. They would have burned out the creative arc somewhere between 17-22 episodes, including Epitaph One (the unaired season 1 finale) and Epitaph Two (this year’s series finale). Maybe, on some level, Dollhouse would have worked better as a single-season series or even a jumbo-sized mini-series, but no network on the planet would have made that commitment.

As it is, I feel like the episodes we’ve seen the last two weeks get us closer to what will be a somewhat satisfying conclusion to this series, something that was seriously in doubt just a month ago.

Jason Bay to the Mets? On Second Thought...

Apparently the Mets have made a contract offer to free agent outfielder Jason Bay, a four-year deal somewhere in the range of $60 and $65 million. PooZ is less than enthused about this, since Bay was kind of important for the Red Sox over the last two years, and of course, he doesn't want to see Bay go to my team.

But the more I think about it, the more I don't want Bay to go to my team either.

Let me clarify: would I like Jason Bay on the Mets? Sure. I've got no problem with that. He'd definitely be an upgrade over the crap the Mets threw out into left field last year (ooh, it's a Sheffield/Tatis/Evans/Sullivan/Pagan platoon!). I've got a problem with paying Jason Bay like he's one of the best outfielders in baseball.

Yesterday, I started swapping e-mails with my buddy DJ, a Pirates fan, who informed me that he couldn't remember ever seeing Jason Bay drive in a run in a clutch situation. I figured this had to be an exaggeration, but then I looked at some numbers. Among the 109 active players with at least 450 at-bats in "late-inning pressure situations", Bay ranks 100th in batting average. 100th?! That's awful. His OPS is around 50th. While that's significantly better, it's still not $15M/yr worthy. In his time with the Pirates, Bay had 311 LIPS at-bats, and drove in 33 runs. For a guy who is considered a "run-producer" (which is, itself, a bullshit baseball title that gets applied to anyone who bats in the middle of the order), that's appalling.

Beyond the statistical stuff, I just cringe as a Mets fan any time the team is offering big money to a former Pirate. Let's take a look at the history:

Bobby Bonilla - with the Pirates, he was a four-time All-Star. He signed a 5-year/$29M contract with the Mets (which, in '92 was a HUGE deal) and proceeded to fall off in production while pissing off everyone in New York. Amazingly, he had a second stint with the Mets (after some productive years with the Orioles), in which he hit .160. In related news, Bobby Bonilla is one of the people I blame for ruining my childhood.

Kris Benson - The former No. 1 overall pick was acquired at the trade deadline in 2004 (in the less disastrous of the trades made that year -- seriously, Victor Zambrano for Scott Kazmir?! WTF?!). He went 4-4 with a 4.50 ERA down the stretch, which somehow earned him a 3-yr/$22.5M deal. That's almost $8M a year, for a pitcher who, to that point, was 6 games below .500 with an ERA over 4.00 for his career. Benson pitched one more mediocre season for the Mets before being shipped to Baltimore (hmmm... I'm sensing a trend here). Also, his wife once threatened to sleep with everyone on the team.

Oliver Perez - Like Benson, Perez was acquired via trade. He was AWFUL down the stretch in '06 for the Mets, which wasn't surprising, considering he'd been awful for the Pirates in '06 too. The Mets signed him to a cheap deal in '07, and he had a career year. He won his arbitration case, and got a little worse in '08, but somehow tricked New York into giving him a 3-year/$36M deal that seemed stupid at the time. Then in '09 -- the FIRST year of the deal -- he proceeded to spend most of the year on the DL with knee problems. When he was healthy, he pitched like he had in '06, which is to say Pirate-like. He has yet to be traded to the Orioles, but that'll probably happen sometime in the near future.

So, upon further review, I hope Jason Bay re-signs with the Red Sox, where he can enjoy a productive career as an overpaid .275-hitting, 80-RBI, No. 6 hitter.

The LeBron Phenomenon

When I went to Cleveland in February of 2008 to see two Cavaliers games, I happened to purchase a LeBron James jacket -- styled like a jersey, the kind of thing you can only really purchase in a team’s home city. If I’d known that jacket -- and really any LeBron merchandise in general -- had magic powers, I might have bought more than one of them.

What are these magic powers you ask? Well, whenever I wear this jacket, people are amazingly nice to me, thinking I have the answer to the question “where is LeBron going to play next season?”

Now, given that I run a LeBron James blog and I work in sports for a living, I get this question a lot anyway. But these random people that ask me this on a daily basis have no idea of that connection. The latest instance came today when I was picking up something from Best Buy. As the security guy was confirming my purchase with my receipt, he said, “So, you think LeBron’s gonna sign with the Knicks next year?” For some perspective, remember that I live in Connecticut. Not Cleveland. Not New York. I live somewhere that has no vested interest in where LeBron plays.

However, location hasn’t played much of a role in this phenomenon. I’ve been approached by random people and asked about LeBron’s future in Los Angeles, Orlando, Las Vegas, Baltimore -- just about anywhere I’ve been in the last year. I’ve been asked by everyone ranging from professional athletes to the homeless. I’ve been asked morning, noon and night. And the amazing thing is, these people actually expect me to have some answer beyond “I have no idea” -- remember, these aren’t people I work with, or people who have any idea that I run a LeBron blog. They’re just random people, asking another random person what he thinks about the intention of a third person.

If you listen to the AdamNPooZ.com podcast, you may already know the most impressive example of this phenomenon. Back in May, PooZ and I went to New York, so I could buy the LeBron MVP sneakers. I was wearing a LeBron jersey -- it was WAY too warm for the jacket -- and nearly everyone we encountered asked me something about LeBron. PooZ was befuddled by this, particularly since New Yorkers have a reputation (well-deserved, by the way) of hating everyone. When it got to the point that the doorman at Tiffany’s was asking me about LeBron, PooZ nearly lost it laughing.

The amazing thing is that this only happens with LeBron. I have nearly 200 jerseys, and I rotate through them regularly (though now a large portion of those are boxed up in my basement). There is no other jersey that I wear that gets this kind of reaction. When I wear an Adrian Peterson jersey, no one asks me if I think the Vikings will reach the Super Bowl. When I wear a Kevin Youkilis jersey, no one asks me if I think he should be the MVP. But if I wear anything LeBron, I’m pretty much guaranteed that someone I don’t know will ask me about LeBron’s future at some point that day.

Unfortunately, unlike LeBron, I can’t hold a press conference to announce that I’m done talking about 2010 (and I wouldn’t anyway, since that would pretty much close down the LeBron2010.info blog). So I guess I’ll just keep answering politely when people ask me about LeBron. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I told the guy at Best Buy that there was no chance LeBron would sign with the Knicks next summer. He seemed pretty disappointed.

Podcast Follow-Up: Hating on "I Gotta Feeling"

Since some of you have asked, no I don't have any specific reason why I hate "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas so much. It's just a stupid song that sucks and was completely overplayed this summer, including a "live" performance at the NFL kickoff concert, thus forcing me to actually turn off NBC until the game started.

While I can't really put into words why I hate this song, I can share this video from cracked.com, which sums it up pretty well:

Black Eyed Peas Have Officially Written The Worst Song Ever -- powered by Cracked.com

AdamNPooZ.com Podcast Outtakes from Episode 2.14

As was the case with the last episode, and pretty much every episode we've ever recorded, we once again ended up with too much material to be contained in the AdamNPooZ.com podcast. So I've picked out some of the best moments that ended up on the virtual cutting room floor (in reality, a track in GarageBand I titled "random shit") and I'm sharing them with you.

Enjoy.

DELETED SCENE/BLOOPER - PooZ rants about how his wife keeps calling him old -- and given that he didn't know the date of the Super Bowl, she may have a point (1:53)


BLOOPER - PooZ offers his rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" (seriously, this is a MUST listen) (0:30)


DELETED SCENE - Adam is sick of the Kanye West "imma let you finish" meme (0:26)

BLOOPER - PooZ is in "da club" all the time (0:19)

BLOOPER - And, once again, Adam really struggles to set up transitions to new segments (0:52)

This Week in Buffy History: December 6-12

December 6

1969 - Alan Heitz born (played Slook in Season 5)

1978 - K.D. Aubert born (played Nikki Wood in Season 7)

December 8

1946 - John Rubinstein born (played Linwood Murrow on “Angel”)

1997 - Episode 2.11 “Ted” airs on The WB

1998 - Episode 3.09 “The Wish” airs on The WB

December 10

2001 - Angel Episode 3.10 “Dad” airs on The WB

December 12

1967 - Carey Cannon born (played female oracle in Season 1 of Angel)

Series of Tubes: “Dollhouse” 2-Part Reaction

First up, I have to confess something: as excited as I was for the return of “Dollhouse”, I didn’t watch the episodes live on Friday, because they conflicted with a Cavaliers game (check out LeBron2010.info for my thoughts on that).

Then, after I did watch the episodes yesterday, I really wanted to share my thoughts on them, but instead I got completely caught up watching a ridiculously exciting day of college football, so I had to save my thoughts for today. In that time, io9.com posted a recap that pretty much echoed my unpublished thoughts (no pun intended). 

Still, I want to say some things about the two-part episode that was easily the highlight of the aired run of “Dollhouse” so far (again, I’m excluding “Epitaph One” from any comparisons).

I loved these episodes (and for all the crap we’ve given Fox about its mistreatment of the show, airing these together on one night was a great choice, even if that wasn’t the network’s motivation for doubling up on “Dollhouse). I have to admit that I did not see the twist that Sen. Perrin was actually a doll, and it was so inspired that I didn’t mind that yet another seemingly real person turned out to be a doll (a technique that was over-used in Season 1, when Victor, November and Whiskey were all presented to us as real people before being revealed as dolls).

Also, it helped that Perrin wasn’t a complete fabrication as a doll. The D.C. Dollhouse had taken the real person -- a partying washout who came from a storied political family -- and imprinted a modified personality on him. This seems to be yet another step toward the future we saw in “Epitaph One”. Previously on “Dollhouse”, we were always led to believe that you couldn’t imprint an existing mind, but obviously that’s no longer the case. Additionally, Topher created a device that can disable a doll remotely -- a handheld version of the technique he used in the serial killer episode earlier this season -- again showing how this tech that was once confined to these houses is now spreading.

What I found most interesting though is that the L.A. Dollhouse is being set up by the creators of the show as a rogue element within Rossum, finally establishing a group to root for in the show aside from the constantly changing dolls. The io9 article touches on this, but had this been the setup from the get-go (or, more realistically, the set-up that developed halfway through season 1), this show might have worked better. Remember, Joss Whedon’s “heroes” aren’t always the good guys. Angel was a vampire who was once the most murderous creature on the planet. “Firefly” centered around a band of thieves (well-meaning thieves, but thieves nonetheless). “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog” actually cast the villain as the antagonist. Really, the only Whedon creation that had true “white hats” as heroes was Buffy, so it’s clear he’s willing to work in murky waters. Adelle, Topher and Boyd have become worth rooting for this season, because it’s becoming clear that despite their compromised morals, they’re not quite as evil as their bosses (or, to quote Echo, when referring to the D.C. Dollhouse, “I think her bad guys are badder than my bad guys.”).

While Adelle and Topher have done their own set of horrible things over the first season and a half, it was clear in Friday’s episodes that they’re not on the level of their D.C. counterparts. As the head of the D.C. house, Ray Wise actually seemed to revel in his evil (not a stretch, considering his last role was as the Devil, in “Reaper”, another show cancelled before its time), and Summer Glau’s Bennett went completely off board with her own evil plot -- a nice contrast to when Topher disobeyed Dollhouse orders with positive intent.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the AMAZING job done by Enver Gjokaj (Victor), who was imprinted with Topher and did a spot-on impression of Fran Kranz throughout the episode. He doesn’t get much screen time, but whenever he does, he tends to steal the show. When you see an episode that has Eliza Dushku essentially being Faith from “Buffy”, and Wise and Glau playing characters incredibly similar to the most recent characters they played, Gjokaj stands out for his versatility.

Still, it’s tough to watch episodes like this and not feel bittersweet. Sure, they’re great, and they even show how great the show could be on a whole, but we know that’s never going to happen, since there’s only seven episodes left.

The Britney Spears Singles Collection Unboxing

I fully intended to do this post yesterday, on Britney Spears’s birthday, but I mis-timed my Amazon.com order, and my Britney Spears singles collection box set didn’t arrive until today.

Still, I’m very pleased with this set, and you can check out my photo gallery for all the sweet unboxing photos (yes, I know “unboxings” are generally reserved for new tech, but this was too awesome to pass up).

My first impression of the set was just the sheer volume of it. Sure, I knew it was 29 discs (30 if you count the DVD), but you don’t really get a sense of just how many damn CDs that is until you start taking each one out individually. And considering there are only two tracks per disc (again, discounting the DVD), this is probably the most awesomely wasteful box set in music history.

Britney’s label did do some recycling on this set -- specifically in the individual disc packaging. While the discs themselves have a design unique to this set, the sleeves mimic the design of the original single releases. Notably, they don’t actually “reuse” the old sleeves, since they all have updated copyright dates and box-set specific numbers on them. But the cover art is the same -- right down to the “in theaters” dates on “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” and “Boys (Co-Ed Remix)”.

A couple other interesting notes, before I just throw a bunch of pictures in here:

-The sleeve for “3” lists three tracks, but the disc itself only has two (notably, the actual track listing on the face of the disc is right - just the sleeve is wrong). The missing track is the Donni Hotwheel Megamix.
-Also missing is the video for “3”, though that was previously announced. Otherwise, the DVD is a complete set of Britney’s music videos.
-I still think my favorite cover is the one for “Everytime”. My least favorite is probably the trio of covers from her singles off “Blackout” (they all came from the same set of promo photos, which is just lame).
-Also, in case anyone’s wondering (and you’re probably not, but I don’t care), of the 29 b-sides, 17 are remixes, 11 are “rarities” and one is an album track. In that case, the “Boys (Co-Ed Remix)” is the actual single, while the album version of “Boys” is the b-side.

OK, picture time.

Britney Spears Singles Collection Unboxing

Tuesday Countdown: T-Minus 72 Hours to the return of “Dollhouse”

We’re just three days away from the return of “Dollhouse”, but its kind of a bittersweet feeling. It’s sweet, because I love this show, and we’re actually getting double episodes for the next three weeks. It’s bitter, because this is the beginning of the end.

There are exactly nine episodes of the Joss Whedon-helmed series left to go, which will give the series a run of 26 episodes (including the unaired “Epitaph One”) -- or 11 more than Whedon’s last series, “Firefly”, got to make (and the aired episode count will be 25-12 in favor of “Dollhouse”). Still, there are a lot of bad feelings in the “Dollhouse” fan community, which is basically the Whedon fan community, since the show failed to resonate on a wider level.

On some level, I really wish “Dollhouse” hadn’t been cancelled, but I understand that running a TV network is a business and “Dollhouse” wasn’t a successful venture for FOX. Part of the fan outrage over the cancellation is lingering disappointment over FOX’s quick pulling of the plug on “Firefly”, but that was seven years ago. I’m not saying it’s time to move on, but you have to separate the two events. Also, just because “Firefly” was unfairly cancelled, it doesn’t mean “Dollhouse” was. On the scale of Whedon series, “Dollhouse” definitely brings up the rear.

But come Friday, it’ll be time to put all of those discussions aside and we’ll be able to just watch the remaining episodes. The people involved with the show keep promising that these last episodes are going to be amazing, and I certainly hope they live up to the hype (or at least the potential we saw in “Epitaph One”). For now, I’m just happy that this show is back, and I’m going to enjoy it while I can.

Fred McGriff - Endorsement Hall-of-Famer

The 2010 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting is underway, and one of the new names on the ballot this year is Fred McGriff. Now, I don't know if Fred McGriff is a baseball hall-of-famer, but he definitely belongs in the endorsement hall of fame:


I mean, how can you argue with back-to-back-to-back AAU national championships?!

Penny Arcade’s Retales of Truth

Last week, Penny Arcade ran a series of comics on the holiday season and working in retail, which couldn’t have been more true. Having worked in retail for seven full years, I can tell you it’s a frightening existence, particularly for the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

First off, if you’re a retail employee at this time of year, you don’t even get treated like a human being by the average customer. Most holiday shoppers see the retail employee as an inconvenience at best and a hinderance at worst. For some reason, rational people convince themselves that retail employees are doing everything in their power to prevent the customer from purchasing the items they need.

Seriously people, what kind of insane logic leads you to conclude this. We want nothing more than to sell you everything under the sun. For those of us that are on commission (which I never was), our livelihoods are at stake. For the rest of us, holiday bonuses are usually linked to sales figures. So it’s of no benefit to us to lie to you and say an item is out of stock when it’s not.

Somehow, though, as Penny Arcade so skillfully pointed out, people think there’s some magical place called “the back” where all the best holiday gifts are stocked to the ceiling, hidden away from the buying public. This is bullshit. I can tell you from experience that the only stuff in “the back” is more of the same crap that’s on the sales floor that you don’t want to buy anyway. “The back” is filled with shitty Transformers action figures, iPod socks, red and green sweaters and every fucking useless USB device you’ve ever seen on Gizmodo. There are no more Wiis or $500 52-inch LCD TVs or Motorola Droids in the mystical “back”. If we had those items, we’d be pushing them out to the front as quickly as possible, to sell more of them.

Because of my experiences in retail, I still hate this season of the year. “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men”. That goes out the window when someone wants a pink iPod mini two days before Christmas. I heard profanities that I’m pretty sure were made up on the spot. I’ve had things thrown at me. I even once had a guy threaten to punch me. His exact words were “I’m going to fight you.” When I responded “OK”, he seemed kind of shocked that I didn’t cower in fear, and backed off. The lesson? Don’t fuck with a retail employee during holiday season.