You Never Forget Your First Pair

The original Air Jordan sneakers were released just before I turned five years old. I was just nine when "Do The Right Thing" launched the Jordan 4s into the spotlight. And I'd just hit middle school when MJ and Bugs Bunny forever made the Jordan 7s the "Hare Jordans".

I didn't have any of those sneakers. Being at the age where I was growing, and my shoe size was frequently changing, it didn't make much sense for my parents to spend upwards of $100 on shoes I'd probably only be able to wear for, at most, six months. By the time I'd entered high school, I hadn't worn a pair of Nikes in about eight years, and had never had the Jumpman grace my feet.

That continued until late into my junior year. By that point I'd finally stopped growing, which meant my parents were a little less reluctant to spend more than $20 on sneakers for me -- that limited budget meant going through most of middle and high school wearing off-brand sneakers, including the Hakeem Olajuwon Spaldings from Walmart. They still weren't enamored with the idea of spending over $100 on them, which meant Jordans were still out of the question. Or so I thought.



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It took a bit of serendipity for me to finally end up with a pair of Air Jordans. I'd been working at Marshalls for almost a year, when I started looking around for other jobs. One day I decided to apply at The Sports Authority; I figured my retail experience and my love of sports would make for a natural fit. My mother drove me over there, I dropped off my application, and then I decided to look around the store a little bit.

By this point in the year there had been multiple colorways of the Jordan 12 released, and on the court Michael was wearing the black and red numbers that would become synonymous with the flu game. Those, along with the black and white "Playoffs" edition, were the ones everyone wanted. The early colorways were ending up on clearance racks... which is exactly where I spotted mine.

They didn't have a box, and I was fairly certain they'd been a customer return, but there they were in all their glory: a pair of red and white Air Jordan 12s, with a price tag of just $80. That was still way more than my mother was accustomed to paying for my sneakers, but I had to have them. Getting a pair of Jordans for less than retail price was a steal, and I used the old "but you're saving SO much that it'd be crazy NOT to buy them" Jedi mind trick to help my case.

I never got the job at Sports Authority, but the sneakers I got that day meant so much more to me than a forgettable retail job would have.



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Prior to getting the 12s, I'd usually have two pairs of sneakers at a time, so I could rotate through them. That ended that day. I wore those shoes every single day for nearly a year. I heard all sorts of snarky comments, especially since the red of my hair nearly matched the red of the sneakers, but it didn't matter. I wore them with jeans, slacks, shorts, in the snow, in the rain... I finally had a pair of Jordans, and I didn't want to take them off.

That pair of Jordans is long gone. My parents threw them out when I was in college, understandably so, since they were pretty much destroyed by that point. My senior year, I added a pair of white/black 13s to alternate with, but when I got my white/red 14s my freshman year of college, the 12s pretty much went away.

With Jordan's retirement in 1998, my love affair with Air Jordans briefly went away. Between 1998 and 2008, the only pair of true "Air Jordans" I bought was the XXIs (which I should mention I loved, and also beat the crap out of). It wasn't until the Jordan 60+ came out in 2009 that my love for Jordans was rekindled. I tracked down a pair of Concord 11s through the secondary market shortly after getting the 60+s, then came the 7s, the 14s, the 10s... but it wasn't until last week that I finally replaced those 12s.

I missed out on the white/red retro in 2009, which would've been the ideal replacement for my originals, but the Playoff 12s are probably more coveted, and definitely go better with more clothing (that red on the originals is REALLY bright). I slipped on the 12s today, for the first time in close to 14 years, and it was just like wearing them for the first time. Seeing that "TWO 3" down the tongue, the metallic eyelets at the top, the Jumpman tag on the back, it all brought back so many memories.

I now have more than two dozen pairs of sneakers that I rotate through regularly. I don't get attached to sneakers quite the way I used to, which has its positives, since I don't beat them up quite as badly as I used to. But when I opened the box with the 12s in it -- the first time I'd gotten to do so, since my original 12s didn't come with a box -- it brought a smile to my face. You never forget your first pair.

Community "Virtual Systems Analysis" Reaction

I don't even know where to start with last night's episode of "Community". The Abed-centric, Dreamatorium-focused episode, "Virtual Systems Analysis", was probably the least accessible episode the show has ever run, especially for new viewers. It went inside the mind of the show's most un-relatable character, even deeper than it did in "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", and presented the show's characters and world at large as he saw it, in the form of a simulation inside a bedroom converted into an imagination space. And it was awesome.

If you've never seen "Community", then this would probably be the worst episode on which to start watching the series. It requires so much knowledge, not just of the events that have happened, but the characters and how they interact with each other, and mostly how Abed sees them. It was the distant cousin of Abed's story in "Debate 109" (where he made films about the group that predicted how they'd respond in various situations) and it was the culmination of the Abed arc that's been building since the show returned from its hiatus.

The episode also built heavily on last season's "Critical Film Studies", in that Abed knows he's "different", and he knows he has trouble relating to people -- to the point that Annie literally has to force empathy upon him via the Dreamatorium's "engine" (a series of taped-together cardboard boxes and tubes) -- and we see in this episode that he fears that it will eventually lead to his total isolation. But Annie manages to bring him back from the brink, with some well-timed acceptance of Abed's weird world.

While the Abed character development was the backbone of the episode, the comedy came in the form of the Dreamatorium's simulated world. Abed-as-Jeff hitting on Annie was awesome, both as a callback (to both the Season 1 finale and the Season 2 finale) and as a chance to see Alison Brie shine. She took it to another level when she played against herself, with Abed-as-Annie and Annie morphing into Annie-as-Abed. When Annie started spitting Abed's pop culture references (then Chang and Pierce showed up), I almost lost it.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Dean's outfit, which even he acknowledged may have gone too far. It was... holy crap...

This certainly wasn't the funniest episode of "Community", and I don't think it was the best (that honor still goes to "Remedial Chaos Theory" in my opinion), but it was the peak since the return, and hopefully a sign of even better things to come.

Storify: @RingerWriters Finale Live Tweet

New Apple iPhone Ads Upset Uninformed Fans

Apple recently debuted two new ads for the iPhone 4S, both of which center on Siri, the voice control feature that seems amazing in ads but never really works as well in real life.







Now, I have my reasons for not liking these ads, mostly because I think Siri is a touch overrated right now (note: it's also still a beta product, technically, and I'm not sure how I feel about the iPhone being marketed around a beta feature) and I'd be perfectly happy if Zooey Deschanel went away forever. But there's a growing contingent of Apple fans that dislikes the ads simply for the fact that they use celebrities.

These fans, and you can find plenty of them around the Internet (check out this MacRumors thread for examples) are saying these ads, and their use of celebrity endorsers, are just the latest in a long line of ways Apple has lost its way in the post-Steve Jobs era.

"Steve never used celebrities in his ads. He would've hated these!" they yell (or type, as it were on the Internet).

Putting aside the insanity of people who didn't actually know Steve Jobs saying what he would or wouldn't have liked, these people are wrong for one very important reason: Apple, and particularly the Steve Jobs "second coming" era Apple from 1998 to 2010, actually has a long history of using celebrities in ads.

Castle "Headhunters" Reaction

OK, let's get this acknowledgement out of the way: yes, it was awesome for "Firefly" fans to see Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin reunited on this week's episode of "Castle". The scene where Fillion punched Baldwin made me giddy, and then sad that we got only one season of "Firefly" and one movie of "Serenity".

But aside from that bit of fan-service, this wasn't a particularly good episode of "Castle".

The case of the week was even less important than usual, because it was really just used as a vehicle to contrast Baldwin's corrupt, mildly insane cop "Slaughter" (subtle naming there, writers) with Beckett's style of police work, which itself was just a way to show Castle all the many ways he prefers Beckett.

I enjoy "Castle" more than typical procedural because of the cast of characters and how they mesh with each other, and this episode really minimized the impact of that. Sure, there were some solid moments -- Ryan, in particular, had a couple good one-liners -- but so much time was spent with Slaughter, who was really one-dimensional.

Mostly, though, my biggest complaint with the episode was with the Alexis story. Now, in the past, "Castle" has often used the home life of Richard Castle to serve as a metaphor or guide for what's going on at the station, but never has it been more hammered home than it was on Monday. The final scene, with Alexis unsure how she felt about being accepted by Stanford after she'd been rejected, may as well have had a big flashing "THIS IS A METAPHOR FOR CASTLE'S FEELINGS ABOUT BECKETT" sign on it. It was embarrassingly simplistic for a show that usually gives its audience a little more credit.

Happy Birthday Sarah Michelle Gellar!

Hey, it's Sarah Michelle Gellar's birthday! While you can currently see her on The CW's "Ringer" (at least for another week), she'll always be best remembered for her years as Buffy Summers on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

But to reduce Gellar to a single role, even a career-defining one like Buffy, isn't really indicative of the depth of her resume. According to IMDB, she's been credited as an actress (either live action or voice) in 42 roles since her debut in 1983, and that doesn't even include her famed Burger King commercial, for which she was banned from McDonald's.

So instead of focusing on Buffy -- which I do plenty of on this site already -- instead I'll pick my five favorite NON-Buffy SMG roles, with apologies to "All My Children", her pre-Buffy career-defining role that I never watched.

5. Siobhan Martin/Bridget Kelly - "Ringer"

So many Sarahs! This show hasn't drawn in ratings like I'd hoped it would, meaning it's likely done after next week's season finale, but getting a double-dose of Sarah Michelle Gellar every week for a full TV season has been pretty awesome.

4. Karen - "The Grudge"

Even though I didn't watch "Buffy" until it was off the air, I didn't watch "The Grudge" until after I'd seen "Buffy". By that point, I totally saw SMG as Buffy, which meant this movie was weird for me, because I kept waiting for her to go into Buffy mode and just kick ass. It's not that kind of movie, obviously.

3. Veronika Deklava - "Veronika Decides to Die"

This movie never got a proper U.S. release, so very few people have seen it, which is a shame, because it's amazing. Sadly, it's not even available on Netflix, but you can buy it on Amazon (as an import from Sweden), which I highly recommend if you're an SMG fan.

2. Helen Shivers - "I Know What You Did Last Summer"

Between Gellar and Jennifer Love Hewitt, this movie is on hottie overload. This was actually the first DVD I ever owned, even before I had a DVD player (due to a shipping quirk), and I've probably seen the movie 20 times since it came out in 1997.

1. Kathryn Merteuil - "Cruel Intentions"

I was working at my college newspaper when this came out in 1999, and we got a bunch of promotional material from the studio to give away, including the official poster: this one. That poster was a staple of my dorm room for the next three years. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere in my basement. Hell, I might try and find it later today. After watching "Cruel Intentions" of course.

The Marvel Superheroes Basketball Team

For awhile Wednesday afternoon, the NBA Twitterverse was lit up, discussing various superheroes and how their abilities would translate to the basketball court.

It was largely thanks to this YouTube video, showing a modded version of NBA 2K12 staging a game between the Justice League and the Avengers. And it got me thinking...

Now, my knowledge of the DC universe is relatively limited, so I'm going to stick to my wheelhouse here and put together a team of 12 Marvel characters that I think would be pretty amazing (and incredible and fantastic and uncanny, etc., etc.). The game would still be played under the normal rules of basketball, with normal basketball uniforms, so Tony Stark couldn't use his Iron Man armor, Thor couldn't use his hammer, Cap couldn't use his shield and so on. So here's my roster.

NEW YORK MARVELS

Owner: Tony Stark
GM: Nick Fury
Head Coach: Charles Xavier

Starters

Point Guard: Peter Parker/Spider-Man
Even without his web-shooters, Spidey would be a force at the point. Offensively, his speed, strength and spidey-sense would allow him to distribute the ball like Rajon Rondo, and his leaping ability makes him a threat to dunk from anywhere on the court.

Shooting Guard: Steve Rodgers/Captain America
You'd have to imagine that his accuracy with throwing his shield would translate well to shooting, and his superhuman ability makes him like Tony Allen on steroids on D.

Small Forward: Jean Grey
An unconventional choice to be sure, but think of her as like the Shane Battier of this team (before Battier joined the Heat and turned to crap). Her telekinetic abilities make every perimeter shot she takes pretty much guaranteed to find its home at the bottom of the net, and defensively she knows what the other team is going to do before they do. Plus, if she makes a few shots in a row and that Phoenix Force kicks in, you can literally say, "she's on FIRE!"

Power Forward: Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk
Unlike his green counterpart, Red Hulk is tactically intelligent, which makes him less of a wild card. Plus, he can augment his own power by absorbing energy, which makes him the perfect player to bang in the post.

Center: Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
This seemed like the only logical choice, considering he did just win a title at Kentucky.

Oh, that was Anthony Davis? Sure... you keep believing that.

Bench

Point Guard: Kaine Parker/Scarlet Spider
He's literally a clone of starting point guard Spider-Man. How much would the Bulls love to have a Derrick Rose clone sitting on their bench right now?

Shooting Guard: Clint Barton/Hawkeye
The most accurate sharpshooter in the world? Yeah, that's the guy I want taking my last-second threes (assuming Ray Allen is stuck on the Celtics).

Combo Guard: Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler
It's still undetermined whether he'd be allowed to pass it to himself via teleportation (I'd lean toward that being traveling), but even so, he's basically a one-man rotation recovery on defense.

Small Forward: Anna Marie/Rogue
Another unconventional choice, but tell me this: how do you guard someone you can't touch? On the flip side, would every foul she commits be considered flagrant?

Power Forward: Bruce Banner/Hulk
Given the nature of Banner's condition, he's better suited to coming off the bench and playing in short spurts. You have to let him get angry to get him in proper playing mode, and he'll likely be spent after a long TV timeout.

Forward/Center: Piotr Rasputin/Colossus
He gives this team a nice foreign component, he's got size and strength inside, and we've seen from his fastball special that he's a great outlet passer.

Center: Hank Pym/Giant Man
It's true what they say: you can't teach size. You especially can't teach the kind of size that comes from mental manipulation of Pym Particles.

Review: Buffy Season 9, #8 - Apart (of me), Pt. 1

FROM THE PUBLISHER

There is something seriously wrong with Buffy! She and Spike discover that the one person who can help her is actually...Andrew? Buffy's situation becomes even more dire as she discovers that Simone, the Slayer with an enormous grudge, has been targeting her.

140-WORD RECAP Breezing through the issue, so you don't have to

RoboBuffy and Spike show up uninvited and angry at Andrew’s place. He covers all the bases on how a robot tested positive for pregnancy, missed her period and was “barfy”. Buffy wants to know why she’s a robot. Andrew says Spike roofied her at the party and he used tech stolen from Warren’s lair to do the switch. He did it to protect Buffy, whose real body is in suburbia. Dowling confirms his partner’s death at the morgue, then shows up to talk to Xander and Dawn about it. While he does, she rises. Andrew, RoboBuffy, Spike and the bugs all take the ship to suburbia to recover Famous Original Buffy Body, but an alarm at the house is triggered before they can get there. It’s rogue slayer Simone (from the cover, duh) there to kidnap the Betty Crocker-ized slayer.

140-CHARACTER REVIEW Twitter-friendly summary of my thoughts
"Issue 8 gives us a lot of answers about the hows of Buffy's transformation into a robot, but the whys are left unsaid. Ends w/ a cliffhanger."

REVIEW COUNTDOWN

FOUR: Things I liked

How I Met Your Mother "Trilogy Time" Reaction

I've been down on this season of "How I Met Your Mother", as it has been rambling on, seemingly content to fill the time until it finally reaches its big reveal. And most of that filler has been depressing, particularly for a show that was once pretty damn silly (and I say that as a compliment).

So this week's episode, "Trilogy Time", came as a much-needed relief. It was cheesy (again, in a good way), mostly funny, light on the darker moments AND managed to establish a defined timeline for the central conceit of the series.

Let's start with that last point first. At the end of the episode, we saw a flashforward to the year 2015. Unlike the rest of the episode's "flashforwards" (which were actually flashback fake flashforwards), this was presented as reality by Future Ted. And in that scene we saw Ted with HIS baby girl. Now, it's hard to tell exactly how old the baby was, but even if we assume she's a newborn in April of 2015, that puts her conception sometime in the summer of 2014. Which means Ted would have to be married by then, given that he's never indicated on the series that the daughter was born out of wedlock or that her conception was the thing that necessitated a wedding.

So if Ted's married in 2014, that probably means he meets the mother a while before then (he's probably not going from meeting to marriage to pregnancy in a month). If that's the case, then we're probably finally going to meet the mother sometime... next season.

Sure, that was the likely case even before Monday's episode, but putting the baby in the 2015 scene forces the writers into a corner. The show's already been renewed for next season, but if it goes on longer than that, it'll have to be with the mother already revealed. The show can no longer hit Season 10 without a mother, unless it wants to contridict something already shown (which I wouldn't put past them at this point, but I prefer to be optimistic for the time being).

Now, as for the rest of the episode, I thought it was one of the funniest of the season. The fake flashforwards in the flashbacks -- it's less confusing if you actually see them -- were hilarious. Barney being unchanged in any of them until the present was a nice touch. Even Ted's depressing vision of 2015 was depressingly funny, a stark contrast to the soul-crushing depression that this show has peddled this season.

From a continuity perspective, it totally makes sense that Ted, Marshall and Barney had a "Star Wars" trilogy tradition. Obviously Barney's had the stormtrooper armor in his apartment for the run of the show, and Ted and Marshall previously put Stella through the "Star Wars" test to see if she was a viable wife. The show's always been good with things like that, and this was a particularly funny example.

There are four episodes left in this season, and whether or not we finally meet the mother (my guess: not), I can only hope they provide as many laughs as this episode did.

Jersey Monday: New York Mets

What's old is new again. In the case of the Mets, that applies to their record (3-0, surprisingly un-terrible) and their jerseys. This year, the Mets ditched the black drop shadow that had been part of their color scheme for more than a decade, going back to a more traditional look on their jerseys.

However, that doesn't mean that this jersey, from the late '90s, is suddenly accurate again.

The Mets pinstriped home jerseys are still a cream color, as they've been for a couple years now, rather than the traditional white. They do also have the standard white jerseys, but those are pinstripe-less. Still, it's nice to see the jerseys go back to the classic blue-and-orange color pallette, even if the black is still around as an alternate (for now).

This specific jersey doesn't have a name or number on the back, leaving it as one of the few generics in my collection. You also can't really tell from this picture, but it's autographed on the back by a handful of players, something I got done at Spring Training in 2000. Honestly, I can't even remember off the top of my head everyone who signed it, but I know Mookie Wilson -- who was with the team as a coach that spring -- is probably the biggest name.

Jersey Monday will continue every Monday until I run out of jerseys to spotlight. And since I’ve got more than 190 of them, that could be awhile (assuming I remember to blog regularly again).

Review: Angel & Faith #8, "Daddy Issues, Pt. 3"

I know this review is coming super late, to the point that I almost skipped it. But I skipped "Angel & Faith" last month, so I felt obligated to get back to it this month. Plus, it gives me a chance to introduce my new streamlined review format, which should get to the point way faster. Well, aside from this pointless intro.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Faith faces off against a troubled Slayer and the Irish mob, which is no easy task with a visitor from her past clouding her thoughts! Even with support from Angel, will Faith be able to maintain her sanity and follow her new righteous path or will she take the easy route and fall back on her old, murderous tendencies?"

150-WORD RECAP

Faith breaks up a fight between Nadira and other slayers. Faith and Nadira fight. Nadira's pissed that nobody’s found Pearl and Nash yet. Faith offers her a way to take the pain away. Nadira rejects that. Back at Giles's place, Faith's dad is in deep with the mob and wants Faith to kill the guy. Faith says she doesn't do that and tells dad to get lost. But Jimmy, the mob boss shows up and a fight breaks out. Angel gets shot. Faith chops off some arms. Angel tells the mob guys to get lost. They do. Back inside, Faith and dad fight again. Faith blames him for what she is, nearly choking him to death in the process. Angel kicks him out, but while he does, a tearful Faith sneaks away to Drusilla, and asks her to have the Lorophage demon take the pain away, as Angel looks on.

COUNTDOWN REVIEW

FOUR: Things I Liked

- Rebekah Isaacs really knows how to bring out the emotion in a scene, and she's at her best at the end of the Faith/Nadira fight. In particular, I adored the shadowing on Nadira as she walked away.
- There's a small scene with some slayers and some "zompires" that nicely ties the continuity of "Buffy Season 9" and "Angel and Faith" together.
- Faith's dad had a really twisted logic to pretty much everything he did in this issue, and it totally makes sense with everything we knew -- or more accurately didn't know -- about Faith prior to her showing up in Sunnydale in Season 3.
- The Drew Bledsoe jersey reference. It's a tiny thing, but it's something that Christos Gage, as a Patriots fan, gets just right. It totally meshes with the timeframe too, with a likely pre-teen Faith in the early '90s.

THREE: Things I Didn't Like

- Between "Buffy" and "Angel & Faith", there's been a lot of limb severing lately. It's not quite "superpower" territory, but it's starting to veer back in that direction of "things we can do in comics that we couldn't do on the show." Then again, they actually did it on "Angel".
- Nadira's starting to feel a little one-note. Faith even mentions it in a bit of a meta moment, saying "Every time I see you, you're kicking someone's ass who doesn't deserve it."
- Taken at face value, Faith's decision at the end of the book seems very out of character, even given all she's just experienced. I hope there's a twist coming, because I've never seen Faith as the quitting type.

TWO: Covers

- The action-based Isaacs cover is my favorite of the two this month, though the Morris cover (pictured above) is compelling in its creepiness.

ONE: Overall Score

- 4 out of 5.

Television and the Completionist's Dilemma

A couple years back, Topless Robot published a list of "The 20 Nerd Commandments", some of which I agreed with and some of which I didn't. I did love the contest winner, though, which was "Thou must obey the Law of the Golden Mean." Hit the link for the full explanation of "the golden mean", but it basically has to do with collections and completing them.

I don't think I've ever consciously followed the law of the golden mean on a mathematical basis, but that's because in most aspects of life, I'm a completionist. When I start collecting a series of action figures, statues, movies, comics or whatever, I generally complete that set. I don't even consider it that weird, and it's clear from the Topless Robot post that most of my nerdy brethren don't either.

Where it does become weird, for me, is with my slavish devotion to TV shows. Once I start watching a show, if I make it through an entire season, I generally keep going with that show until it's canceled or ends its run... even if the show no longer holds my interest at all.

I bring this up now because "Bones" returned to the airwaves this week, a fact that I somehow didn't realize until I checked my DVR last night and saw that it was recording "Bones". I've seen every episode since it first aired, but when I watch the show now, it feels more like an obligation than a diversion.

I started watching "Bones" when it premiered solely because of David Boreanaz and his "Buffy"/"Angel" connections. I kept watching because I liked the show and its characters, even though procedurals generally don't appeal to me. But somewhere along the line -- probably about the time they wrote Zack off the show -- I found myself caring less and less about the show's ongoing stories. Combine that with the fact that the procedural aspects of the show never really appealed to em and I wasn't really enjoying it... but I kept watching... EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.

I've been doing this for probably two-plus seasons now, during which time plenty of "big" character moments have happened, the latest being the birth of Booth and Brennan's daughter this week. But where do we go from here? Hodgins and Angela are married and have a kid. Booth and Brennan have a kid, aren't married but are "together". With a lot of shows I stick with past their expiration date, I'm doing so to see "how it ends", but I'm not sure that really applies here. However the show "ends", it's already concluded so many of its character arcs.

I don't intend this as a post to pick on "Bones". It's not a bad show by any means, and I know there are plenty of people that enjoy it weekly. I just don't. So why do I continue to watch it? In the past, I watched so few weekly shows that sticking with one until it ended wasn't a big deal. But at this point watching "Bones" every week -- and "Desperate Housewives" and "Grimm", for those looking for other examples of shows I feel this way about -- is stopping me from watching other shows that have come highly recommended.

In the case of "Desperate Housewives", the show is almost over anyway, so there's no point in dumping it now. And "Grimm" is still in its first season, and I'm loath to quit on a show this early on. But I think after this season I'm done with "Bones" on a weekly basis. And, honestly, this summer I'm going to take a serious look at the other shows on my schedule ("Glee", I'm looking in your direction) and make sure they still appeal to me before I just blindly plow forward into the fall. Because while the law of the golden mean applies to a lot of things, it shouldn't come in to play when deciding what to watch every night.