No Name Blog

I will watch the second episodes of the new shows before making a final decision of either watching them or ditching them. As previously mentioned Chuck from NBC is a keeper.

Reaper is an enjoyable show on the CW. Sam’s parents sold his soul to the devil and on his 21^st birthday the devil comes to collect. Now Sam has to find and send back hell’s escapees. I like it. It’s not for the rocket scientists out there but it will keep you entertained for an hour.

Next up Cane, Tuesdays on CBS, stars Jimmy Smits. The story of a Cuban American family that make rum. It is quite a good show but not for me , it is to soapy for me. Watch it if you enjoy soap opera, if you don’t, stay away.

Dirty Sexy Money is amazing. A show that I knew after just one viewing I’d be watching this season. It has that tongue and cheek view of soap operas that I like. Watch it you’ll enjoy. I watched the first two episodes and I liked both episodes.

I’ve watched three episodes of Back to You back to back, as sitcoms go I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worst. Kelsey Grammer was great as Fraser both in Cheers and Fraser. He was good as Side Show Bob in The Simpsons. In Back To You he is alright so is the rest of the cast.

Bionic Woman is better the second time around. It is sort of like Alias but it is not the same. It is now on my to watch list. What can I say, she runs fast, she can see for miles, no earing aids for her, she has a kung foo grip and she’s good looking to boot.

Life, as I said before has potential but with this episode the did not reach it. I’ll have to watch it another time before I decide to either can it or not. I want to keep watching this show along with Journeyman but if they don’t smarten up I will jump ship faster than you can say unconstitutionally.

Other news, today I started reading Robert Ludlum’s Bourne Identity I’ve already read it several years ago and from what I recall I did not like it but after seeing Bourne Ultimatum I decided to read it again and maybe I was wrong the first time around. I hope I enjoy it. Two more days before I can download Radiohead’s In Rainbows I can’t wait. I am sure I’ll enjoy this album and I hope it is in a format I can put in my iPod.

There won’t be any new reviews on premiering shows today. I was so put off by Cavemen that I have taken a break from watching television for a little while. I think that I’ll watch a bit over the long weekend (Thanksgiving here in Canada). I’ll continue the reviews next week.

If you remember a few weeks back I mentioned that I had lost everything on my iPod, well I can now say that I have more on the ‘Pod than before. So one more project finished.

OK I’ll come clean, I lied at the beginning of this post I watched two television shows: The Unit and Damages. If you have read my previous entries, you know that I think that The Unit is not a great show, I believe that I even called it bad. Well let me tell you that this weeks show did not seem to be as bad, since I am still having flashbacks of Cavemen. Damages, what can I say about Damages? I still think that right now it is the best show on television. The ending of this week show was amazing, all I can say is watch it now, dammit!

As you can see I have lost some ground in my television watching it is Saturday morning and I’m only up to Tuesday in my televiewing. I’ll try to catch up this weekend so that when I see new shows the reviews will be fairly close to the original broadcast.

Time is up I have to get ready for work.

p.s. I haven’t changed my Now Listening link for the last two posts since I was not listening to music when I was writing.

In this installment of my short reviews of premiering television show we will talk about three ABC shows. Without any further need of an introduction here we go.

First off Carpoolers is unfunny and I am really disappointed since Bruce McCullough is the producer. Bruce McCullough used to be in The Kids In The Hall and that was the best Canadian show ever. Oh how the mighty has fallen.

Cavemen, the ABC executive that OKed this show should be brought out back behind the barn and shot. The one thing this show has going for it…. wait a minute it has nothing good going for it. I think that Gieco might lose business because of this show. Cavemen is simply the worst show on television. Can you tell that I don’t like Cavemen.

I like Pushing Daisies on ABC and I’m sure that the executive that gave the go ahead to this show is not the same as the one that OKed the dreadful Cavemen. If it was the same exec that approved both,  it would go to show that drugs will alter you mind and sense of judgment.

With these three we now know what ABC stands for Awful (Cavemen), Boring (Carpoolers), Cool (Pushing Daisies). I know which of the three I be watching again. Hopefully Cavemen will be canceled soon.

That is it for now. I’ll be back.

p.s. ABC could also stand for Abysmally Bad Cavemen

p.p.s. Please God Cancel Cavemen now.

Dexter is back and as dark as ever. I invite you to watch it it is a great show. Brotherhood is also back and it is another great show from Showtime. I never mentionned Tell Me You Love Me on HBO, this another good show from them. Tell Me You Love Me is a bit risqué it is not for the younger crowd.  I watched the second episode of Journeyman.  I am still undecided on this show I’ll have to watch another show.  Chuck is a keeper.  Californication was great monday evening, if you haven’t seen it yet get Showtime and watch it, you’ll enjoy.  Heroes was not bad this week.

I ordered Radiohead’s In Rainbows download yesterday.  I’ll review it when I have downloaded and listened to it.  I can’t wait. I have to cut this post short I have to go for my nightly walk.

For those of you wondering about the picture in the header of this blog it is a martini. I consider the martini the greatest drink ever to be concocted. The best martinis are dirty martinis. What is a dirty martini? Just imagine the most refreshing and thirst quenching libation there is, and it’ll get you drunk to boot.

I first tried vodka martinis, shaken not stirred. I enjoyed them because I didn’t know better at the time and all my preferred drinks were made with vodka. I later tried a real martini made with gin, I did not like this as much. I found the taste to harsh. I continued with the vodka martini until Paul, a coworker, told me that Tanqueray gin was the best as far a gin was concerned. Being the adventurous type I decide to try the martini made with Tanqueray and am I glad I did. What a difference good gin can make.

As I said earlier I prefer dirty martinis. My recipe for a dirty martini is 2 oz Tanqueray gin, ½ oz dry vermouth, 1 to 4 olives and a few drops of olive brine. Pour the Tanqueray gin in a shaker containing ice, then add the vermouth. Stir gently, do not shake (damn that 007), shaking will bruise the gin and who likes their gin bruised? Pour, while straining, in a martini glass. Add the olive(s) and a few drops of olive brine. Voila the perfect drink is made, all there is to do is drink.

This must be my favorite drink with alcohol. My favorite non alcoholic drink is a good glass of Pinot noir wine, well there is not that much alcohol in it! Okay, Okay, my favorite non alcoholic drink is an espresso coffee. Their is almost nothing better than a good cup, or demi tasse, of strong coffee. None of this weak ass dish water that some people call coffee. A cup of coffee must be robust and it must be able to wake up a dead horse to be good. It has to be freshly made strong not strong because it was in the coffee maker for more than two hours.

Just remember a martini is for evening and night time and a coffee is best enjoyed in the morning, although coffee can be savored at any time of day. If you catch yourself drinking a martini in the morning you might have a problem, please consider going to Alcoholics Anonymous, The twelve steps might be for you.

A few words of caution about the martini, if you intend to drink a few of them leave your car at home or if you are at home stay there because they will creep up on you very slowly and they you’ll be so shit faced and you won’t know what hit you. Find a designated driver if you are the designated drunk. Drink responsively.

I guess I’ll end it here for today or I’ll be late for my AA meeting and I promised them that I’d be buying the rounds tonight.

p.s. I have taken a break from my short reviews of television show premiers. I promise you that I will continue them in later posts.

Yesterday the band Radiohead have anounced that their new album, In Rainbows, will be available for downloading from their site and you decide what you pay. That is right you read that correctly you pay what you think is fair. I am a Radiohead fan so after reading this I started thinking what was a fair amount to pay for the album. At first I thought that ten dollars would be fair since that is what I would pay if I downloaded it from iTunes. Then I started thinking what is Apples’ cut on that $10, or even the record companies percentage. So I searched the Internet with Google to find what artists receive in royalties for CDs. I found this site: here. I’ll use the highest figure of 9.1 cent per song downloaded. There is 10 songs on In Rainbows so Radiohead would get $0.91 from iTunes if I were to download it from there. I think that this is too low, even for a cheap bastard like myself. Radiohead has to pay for the servers and bandwidth for these uploads, so let’s say that I give them what Apple get for every song downloaded, 29 cents. Two dollars and 90 cents plus the 91 cents in royalties gives us $3.81 to download In Rainbows. I think it is a fair price and I think it will be in mp3 format (we just don’t know) and early next year they will release a CD version of it and I will have to own a physical copy of it and I’ll dish out another 14 dollars for it then, unless it is crap which I doubt it will be.

All of this has made me think that if they only offered the song through iTunes I would not feel guilty from downloading it from a peer to peer site. Why you may ask, well for us that us a GNU/Linux operating system (I use Ubuntu and Kubuntu) iTunes does not work on our fine OSs, so the only way for us to get it is either we reformat our computers to Windows, or we use an unenlightened friends that still uses Windows and download it on their computer or we download it from a torrent tracker/limewire/emule. I think the latest stats are that GNU/Linux users number less than 2% of all computers so they are willing to lose our business.

Let’s move on to another subject; I’ll continue my short review of television premieres, here are my latest ones. My Name Is Earl staring Jason Lee is still very funny. Some of you may not like this humour but lots of us do. Las Vegas is very pretty to look at with all the beautiful people but damn the show is stupid. They take themselves way too seriously. Numb3rs is always the same. They are trying to show us that nerds are cool too, maybe they should have hired a nerd to write it, it would be better and cooler. American dad not bad but not as good or entertaining as The Family Guy, don’t get me wrong it’s good but not excellent.

Some of you might wonder why I keep watching shows like CSI (all of them), The Unit & Las Vegas and the like even thought I consider them sub par. It’s because at one point I enjoyed these shows and I am hoping that I might enjoy them again. Another reason is because there is potential and I wish that they reach that potential. Some shows are guilty pleasures, like Survivor or Big Brother. Maybe at one point I’ll loose interest and drop them like I decided to do with Prison Break.

Well that is it for now. I still have a few more shows to watch so I’ll post my short reviews in upcoming posts. See you then.

I think that we should have a holiday on the first of every month and call it rent day. We could celebrate it by giving money to our landlords. If we don’t have the money to give then we can celebrate it by moving to another location. Wouldn’t that be fun? Happy first of October. I have to pay rent today, Yeeeeeeea!

Since last week I’ve been thinking of renaming The No Name Blog. I have a few names in mind but I am not convinced that I should rename it. How will you the constant reader find it? I am undecided with what to do. I’ll let you know what’s going on in a future post.

I have watched a few other premieres from last week and here is what I think. Bionic Woman is not as bad as I taught it would be, that means I’ll be watching at least another show. CSI: New York is as always. In my opinion it is the best of the CSI franchises but that is not saying much. I used to really like Criminal Minds but I think their formula is getting old. Life, from NBC, has potential, hopefully they won’t screw it up. On Sunday I watched Shark. James Woods is a great actor, Shark is a below average show. I watched the entire first season will I do the same for this season? It all depends if they improve it or not. CSI was good for the first one of this season. This reminds me of why I started watching it in the first place. I hope they keep it up. The Office is hilarious as always. I know that my “reviews” of television shows are very short, they are straight to the point. Nobody wants to read a review that give out the ending or is longer to read than actually watching the show, do they?  For more short reviews of television shows go to this link:  here.

I still have quite a few shows to watch but I don’t have a lot of time as you know. This weekend I went to my mothers to spend some time with the family. I did not get in trouble for writing Birthday Gift? last week.  It’s because my brother is in no shape to retaliate.

Well time is up.  I have to go to work so that I can celebrate rent day.