Category Archives: Chuck

“That because Awesome is awesome and Grimes is a moron.”

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Tonight’s Chuck was great. Expect no spoilers other than that from me (although I will say that Jeffster songs get stuck in my head).

The irony of all-out Nerf warfare on the show did not escape my sense of timeliness.

Okay, so maybe some spoilers from me, but Nerf is not integral to the plot.

Or is it?

Thanks to everyone who listened to my beautiful wife on the radio. I’m proud. And for those that may wonder if celebrity has caused her to ignore the little people, she still helps us out:
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This is how my wife clamped down the lining for my orthopedic insert for the glue to dry.

Video game news: If you haven’t gone to Gamestop yet to get your free demo disc of Monster Hunter 3, you need to. I initially set out to play a Final Fantasy-esque protagonist with a giant sword:

but the camera angle (which doesn’t rotate with you…unless it’s an unseen option) couldn’t keep up with the hunt.

I’m not too proud to admit that I switched to the hunter with the shotgun. Those poor herbivores never saw it coming.

On the topic of Final Fantasy, FFIV (or II if you were like me and bought the original cartridge back at Babbage’s) released on the Virtual Console today. Airships and dragoons are always fun additions to the party. I didn’t pick it up (since I still have the original cartridge) but I’m holding out for the actual FFII and III for the Virtual Console. Is it sad that I’m more excited for those than the big release of Final Fantasy XIII this week? (And yes, Dad, I know that since there’s 13 of them, Final is not an appropriate adjective. Don’t get me started on the Crystal Chronicles spin-off.)

Bloggh predictions for 2010

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I don’t claim to be able to predict the future (especially since my VCR is not working up to its full potential), but here are some guesses of things to come:

  1. A software developer will release a compilation of party mini-games for the Wii.
  2. The PS3 will welcome a game that has excessive amounts of entrails and nudity, garnering a Mature rating. I will still question the ESRB as to why sociopaths are not valued as the paragon of maturity for our society.
  3. The XBOX360 will add a game to its library where the hero has a machine gun and the entire game’s perspective is from behind that gun. It will be hailed as the most innovative game of the year.
  4. A country with nuclear (or even nuculear) weapons will threaten the US. Our population will not be able to identify the country on an unmarked map (unless the country was featured in an XBOX game).
  5. In the light of my disappointment at space stations in the year 2001, I’m guessing that the manned mission to Saturn to find the Star Child will probably be postponed until some time after 2010.
  6. Universal Health Care will not be as universal as advertised. The Star Child’s mother will still be paying towards a huge deductible from the Star Hospital, due to an error in a DRG code.
  7. A celebrity will die and the news will run the person’s picture for a week. Thousands will die from hunger-related complications each day, receiving minimal media coverage. Money from the celebrity’s funeral could have fed a significant amount of those people. (Oh, am I ranting on the bloggh? That’s never happened before.)(Here’s one of the scariest Excel spreadsheets ever.)
  8. A sports player will get arrested.
  9. One local professional team will do well while the rest sit in mediocrity.
  10. Erin Hunter will publish five books about a cat civil war. I, on the other hand, will be thankful to publish one book (not necessarily about a cat civil war).
  11. I will lobby for nutmeg to be the main ingredient for every family meal.
  12. Disney will release another Buddies movie. (We’re watching one of the four-pack that my mom got my daughters. Gee. Thanks, Mom.)
  13. Chuck will rock.
  14. We all thought Apple was releasing a tablet. Nope. Mind-control device.
  15. We’ll start bracing for teenage adolescence. The next decade makes me nervous.
  16. I will replace my torn-ligament foot with a giant metal claw.
  17. I will update something called a “bloggh” from time to time.

Ten years ago I was a Resident Assistant in a Freshman dorm, hung out with this hot girl who bought me donuts, and played Final Fantasy VIII in Mike’s room until insane hours of the morning.

Things have progressed, as I now have my own assistant in my library, I married the hot girl with the donuts, and I play Star Wars in Mike’s living room until insane hours of the morning.

Ten years from now I will have a famous book about a toilet in an elevator (old RA joke), my hot wife will be baking health-smart donuts (I’ll be 40, after all), and I will probably be obsessing over some nerd entertainment in Mike’s holodeck. (It will be something akin to when Picard thought he was Robin Hood, but we will find some way to turn Riker to the Dark Side. Consider the beard.)

Did you know that ten years ago I had been asked if I could grow a goatee? The rest, as they say, is history.

Know your female fanatics.

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Make sure you check out Devin’s great news about Chuck.

It makes me want to scream like a Twilight girl at Comic-Con:

Or was that “Oprah Free Stuff”?

I wonder how the tears will look when they realize she’s only going 25 seasons, 2011 being her last year for the show. Then she’ll be able to invest more into her network, OWN. (Yeah, that’s really Oprah’s cable network. She’s buying up the signal for Discovery Health and changing the name.)

To Devin, for your intrepid reporting and endurance of the New Moon “pack”, I salute you.

Good news for Chuck fans

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As those of you who watch The Office this evening may already know, there was some very exciting news announced: Chuck is coming back in January. As an added bonus, NBC did increase their order to 19 episodes.

Any word yet on if we’ll get more Scott Bakula?

To help fill four minutes of that wait until January, here’s a preview for next season.

Spoilers for last season, and a nice thanks from Zachary Levi, included.

Marketing Gleenius

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Think back to the start of shows like Chuck and LOST (and, to some extent, The Office). For shows like that, with more of a semi-word of mouth following, many viewers tune in towards the middle-to-end of the season. (People like my mom come to mind.)

LOST has become a marketing mega-house and has thrown in some tropes to let the general viewing audience know “hey! Even though you think this show is weird, it’s the same story that other shows have.” I think what’s fun with Chuck is that it advertises this blatantly with no apologies.

It was smart marketing for Glee to put the pilot up at the end of the school year, when we’re just coming out of our fall viewing habits.

And then they didn’t stop there. How were people able to catch up with Chuck? Thank you, Hulu! The target audience has now had all summer to invest 47 minutes into the pilot for Glee.

A small tear runs down my cheek considering the chance that Captain Mal could have had.

So enjoy tomorrow night’s premiere. While Wash and Book are confined to DVDs (and our hearts), I now shall cheer for Will Schuester.

Growing the Beard

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I heartily endorse this trope. (My youngest thinks this looks like me.)

You may know of “jumping the shark”, named after Fonzie risking his life on water skis because Happy Days had run longer than it should have.

“Growing the beard” is when a series matures and gains in quality as the seasons go on. This is tough to do. I have trouble thinking of many shows that do this. I hear that Dollhouse is one, but I haven’t got there yet. We just started watching Sliders on Hulu.

I do agree that Next Generation did this. To some extent The Simpsons were there but I feel are regressing.

Ah! Chuck. Chuck definitely got better as they got closer to being canceled. Heroes, why can’t you be like your younger brother? We’ll see if Chuck can keep it up with the programmed kung fu and the goofy forearm computer.

Lost is growing the beard, as well, but I think that’s because the writers finally outlined the story.

Make a Will Save vs. (TVTropes + Toto)

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I’m assuming you’ve seen TV Tropes. This has replaced wii.ign.com as my “type it into the browser immediately”. Should make it easier to save money and I might even have some fun playing with this for the next novel. It’s pretty funny that the next book I’ve been thinking about is to make fun of fantasy cliches (Eragon, anyone?) and then this site walks into my life.

The trouble is I may not be able to tear myself away from the reference joke geek tractor beam that it is.

You may recall my obsession with Toto’s Africa after the Jeffster episode of Chuck. This has now been exploded by a combination of my friend Lauren and my Howard Shore/Vangelis Pandora station.

I present to you an a capella group singing Africa (mixed with an elementary school rain-finger-snaps-thing):

This video should tide you over until Glee this fall:

“Well you can tell by the way I use my walk…”

I read the rumor mill that Heroes has a new villain. A guy named Simon with a British accent. Really? Should we expect tight black T-shirts? He’s said to be very manipulative.

Accent + Manipulative = Linderman
Sorry, writers. You have exhausted your own trope.

Best Songs in which to Stage a Fight Scene

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  1. Mr. Roboto – I would like to say that I always knew that this song would be involved in a wedding shootout, but that would just be ridiculous. We knew Jeffster would be back, but we didn’t know that they would make such a…bang. I would love to #savechuck, but if they’re done, what a way to go.

  2. The Rocky Road to Dublin – Imagine all peaceful on a nice path and then highwaymen show up – swords/dueling daggers are drawn and whiskey jugs are tossed as people go madly spinning.

    Also of note – best use of the word shillelagh in a song.

  3. In the Hall of the Mountain King – This one has always beat out “O, Fortuna” and “Night on Bald Mountain” for me, especially when performed by a German hair band string ensemble:
  4. Duel of the Fates/Battle of the Heroes – Every time I hear “Duel of the Fates” I have to scream “No!!!” at the killing of Rob Roy and every time I hear “Battle of the Heroes”, I tear up a little. (I do that when Obi-Wan dies and tells Luke to run, but that’s more of a death scene than a fight scene.)
  5. Into the Trap – Every time I think of space combat, this enters my brain. To be honest, every time I pull the Scion out of the driveway, this enters my brain. And when I merge in traffic, and when I…
  6. That Lobby Fight Song from the Matrix – as much as the Matrix has been over-hyped (we’ll forget that there were any sequels) I have to admit that when we saw this in college, we immediately jumped around the theater while leaving like we were in bullet time.

    Although in Bollywood, the hero doesn’t need anyone else’s help:

    Were my wife and I the only ones to watch Kung Pow!: The Movie?

I know that I’ve left some off – with all of the big summer blockbusters in May and beyond, I’m sure you can think of some more.

Worthy of mention is Chief Wiggum’s Sunshine and Lollipops, but I classify that as more of a chase scene.

Riches Far More Than You Can Imagine

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Have you seen these? I could have sworn that I’ve seen them on software boxes. They’re uber-barcodes, which is pretty funny for a librarian. In one fell swoop one family upgraded my geek status to “more geeky than before”, which is pretty impressive. “Impressive” Hmmm…what geek quote can I put there?

Ah, yes.

No matter where you go, there you are.

These QR uber-barcodes are increasingly popular with mobile phone crowds, like in Switzerland, Japan, and Australia. Augmented Reality through QR Codes, I guess. You point your phone at the box, phone program converts the box, funny message (or usually advertisement) comes across. I tried running a couple of barcode programs on my phone, but they wanted me to have data access. I don’t have data on my phone; if you want to read what my shirt says, try putting the image URL into this site.

Chuck was awesome tonight. I loved the drive-in movie theater from Back to the Future III.

One thing about Heroes that my wife noticed that some might not – Baby Matt Parkman was facing his car seat backwards last time, now he’s facing forward. That’s a big change for a baby.

I worked on setting up barcode readers on my phone while I semi-watched Heroes. I think I still got the gist – this Sylar guy has issues and kills people.

Here are some quick photos from the birthday extravaganza:
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I received two shirts. One is the QR code, the other shall make its world premiere on Saturday for La Noche de la Guerra de las Estrellas. World premiere? Cine Capri for the win. Gambit and Sabretooth will be hanging out in Scottsdale on the red carpet.

Some quick news blurbs:
Twitter now works for Charles Xavier’s Exceptionally Gifted students:

Seriously. Tweeting with your brain. That would be a first for Twitter, in all connotations.


3D camera for the semi-consumer market.

Have you seen the “similar images” search in Google? It looks useful if you want a different resolution of the same photo or if you want clip art that’s a little bit different from the previous images. It’s not like iPhoto’s new trick, where it can recognize facial colors and contours. Similar Images uses the metadata attached to image search results.

If you want Google image results to improve, you can check out the game that they set up so that you’ll whitewash their fences for them.

All of the Fallout fans with Blackberrys (berries?) can turn their phone into a working Pip Boy. Nuclear residue with style.

The gifts didn’t end with donuts and geek shirts. More photos to come throughout the week.

Here’s a shirt that made me laugh, even though I don’t have it. Wash would be proud:


And what post isn’t improved with a samurai?

Chuckles?

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Ohm, you ask for my thoughts:
Having the giant web of intersect research on the back of the Tron poster was cool. Did his dad really give him the poster?

Better yet: Will Orion end up being his dad? Is that why Chuck’s brain works well with the intersect?

I just want to see Agent Bond-wannabe take off. I am glad that they made fun of themselves when he pulled the “Bond, James Bond” thing during torture. He has a fun theme, and he does add the John Woo double pistol combat, but he’s another Bryce Larkin plotline in my mind.