Bask in TV's warm glowing, warming glow. Until it fades and leaves you frozen out in a hedge maze.

All the good shows on TV seem to get canceled. I know why, of course. It's not a whiskey induced sense of grandeur. It's your fault. Well, not you specifically, because if you are reading this your IQ is probably above room temperature. But "you," as the general TV viewing public, are morons. It's a sad state, for sure, but I think it's getting better.

Good TV is better than any movie could ever be, but bad TV is worse than Ben Affleck in...well, anything.

I fancy myself a man of decent intelligence, even though I misspelled that word (whiskey's fault, I swear) and spell-check saved my ass, and I appreciate a good TV show.

I think The Sopranos changed a good deal of viewer perception of television serieseses. It was a drama, a serious character piece that showed multiple flawed characters in their true states and then moved them forward, into different shapes of themselves or the bottom of a body of water.

Unfortunately, The Sopranos didn't come out soon enough to save one of my favorite shows; Sports Night. They overlapped but I don't think HBO had enough influence in series programming at the time to save my show.

Sports Night was a comedramy, comedy-drama, or what-have-you. It was clever and that, I believe, was it's main downfall. That and ABC didn't promote the award winning series at all. But I can't say I don't understand the problem. How do you promote a show that is serious and funny to people that watch Jerry Springer? You can't because those people are worthless sacks that sit on their couches and lower the overall rating of human beings in the eyes of the aliens that watch us for entertainment.

Arrested Development is another show cut down because dumb people didn't watch it and the dumb network didn't advertise it. In all honesty, I didn't watch the show while it was on the air, because I didn't know about it. It's a show that requires memory and intelligence; two things most viewers do not possess. Shows like Life According to Jim and Friends don't have much for continuity that fans most pay attention to. Plus it is one of the most quotable shows of all time. But quoting it usually only makes a few people laugh. Arrested Development had so many long running jokes that almost every episode either referenced a previous or set up a future one, often both.

I think that required devotion is what kills some of these shows, if I like a show if I miss an episode I don't want to watch a new one, until I'm caught up. But until recently there were no options for this. Now the internet and On Demand make it possible for me to watch a show, usually before the next episodes comes on. Some channels are TERRIBLE at posting their shows though. FX is pretty slow. I'm get so interested in the worlds and characters of these shows that I will scour the internets to find somewhere to catch up. So FYI networks, put your crap up on the internet and you will likely get more viewers hook if they can actually watch your show.

But what also happens is just as bad is a show that runs WAY too long, like The Simpsons. The first ten seasons of The Simpsons are some of the best works of comedy in television history. The problem is it has run 10 years long than it should have. Originality left that show quite a long time ago, I gave up watching it several years ago when every show had a celebrity guest that played themselves and the family went somewhere like China or New York.

Good television shows should end when the story arch naturally runs itself out. FX is a good channel to watch, because they take chances but they also trust the creativity of their shows. The Shield ran for seven seasons and ended when Shawn Ryan wanted it to end. FX supported the show when most would have canceled it and allowed it to finish when most would have made it drag out until people just stopped watching.

Okay, now that my post is running over in length I will cut it with a proper ending, like good shows do.

Here's a list of others shows I like that aren't on TV anymore...I like cop shows, so there are a few of them, but I didn't mention most of them previously.

Touching Evil - A noir-ish detective show starring Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice). Very gritty and original...for a rip-off of a British show. The cinematography was very nice and the stories were good. NOT ON DVD, which is lame.

Firefly - a space-western that, despite being by the creator of Buffy was really good. On DVD with a movie that prequels and sequels the show.

Life - A cop show staring Damien Lewis (Band of Brothers) that was one of the more interesting cop shows. 2 seasons on DVD.

Life on Mars - Also a cop show that was a rip-off of a British show but it had a very unique premise that was done very well. On DVD

Ed - Was a pretty clever show. It starred Tom Cavanagh, who is a clever actor, that was not viewed by clever people. Not on DVD.

Dead Like Me - Funny/serious/gruesome show about a girl who becomes a grim reaper. Very well done. 2 seasons on DVD and a movie that isn't nearly as good as the show.

Jekyll - A BBC drama about a modern day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Don't actually know if it was canceled or just wrapped up (as the Brits like to do) but it was damn clever and I wanted more of it. PLUS, you get to see Zach from Saved by the Bell get decapitated! Worth the price of admission.On DVD.

Over There - An Iraq war drama on FX that ran one season as was capital "A" Awesome. Good characters and serious drama that contained multiple story arcs at the same time. On DVD

Briscoe County Jr. - A western starring Bruce Fucking Campbell. Nuff said! On DVD.

The Critic - A cartoon starring Jon Lovitz. Clever...thus canceled. On DVD.

Baseball fun

Shooting Chippewa Hills baseball today I was wandering around the field, after being told to leave the field by the softball ump (for no other reason than he doesn't know what he's doing) I left (Sorry Chip Hills girls, no photos of you for Wednesday) and focused on baseball.

Got this shot in a moment of comeback for the team. The color went really wonky, but I like it because of that, otherwise, normal high five.

GAMES: I Spy with my little eye, a bunch of dead guards. Splinter Cell: Conviction

The Splinter Cell games have always gripped me. Then used their elbows to cave in the soft spot at the back of my skull, rendering me a sack of worthless flesh laying on the ground.

Honestly, I didn't spend much time with Double Agent because when it came out I couldn't rent it and when I finally got it my situation just didn't allow for a lot of free time, so I had to abandon the game like a poor war buddy who was blown in half during a fire fight. I love you Billy, but I gotta get this freaking homework done!

When I played the demo for Conviction my inner Sam Fisher woke up, in a frenzied blood-lust; wanting vengeance against pitiless henchmen and innocent light bulbs. Damn you, light bulbs!

Conviction is different but the same, better but worse than other Splinter Cell games.

The text on the walls is a clever tutorial mechanic that rolls into the higher gameplay, telling you what to do. Tim Buckley of CtrlAltDelete poked fun at it here. The memory videos projected onto walls are also interesting, but easily overlooked, which isn't always a bad thing.

Weapon and gadget upgrades in Conviction is a nice addition. Sam doesn't start with the biggest and best anymore, being outside of Third Echelon, he has to earn scopes and higher damage grenades by getting achievements, mainly from killing henchmen in various, creative ways.

They fine tuned the story and presentation in this release and I'm itching to snap some more necks, like right now if I didn't have to work and even that is barely enough to restrain my urge.

My want is always much more important than my need.

Fisher as a super-badass, super spy was fun but pushing it through several games without any real evolution would have led to continual stale rehashing.

Conviction shows Sam out of the spy game, for about 3 seconds, until he is pulled back in with information about his daughter.

As always the missions leave you to decided how to approach and deal with various guards and bosses. One new trick Fisher has this time is an "Execution" mode. Cued up by taking someone out in hand to hand combat you can mark multiple baddies in Fisher's vision and then "Execute." Sam pulls his pistol and plants a head shot on all the marked targets, hopefully clearing a bottleneck situation.

This is emphasized in co-op play. Teammates can tag baddies and use each others Execute or position themselves and perform a synchronized Dual Execute.

One complaint I have, as apparently most other reviewers do, is you no longer have the ability to move bodies. Now, I've never been an actual spy or hitman. But I've played enough games to know that when you are stealthily dropping goombahs you don't want to leave a trail of them for someone to find. In old Splinter Cell the elbow to the head and the carry were part of the same swift stealth Splinter Sam smotion. Sorry, wanted to keep the alliteration going.

It seems like a simple game mechanic, why leave it out?

Multiplayer is quite entertaining, if only for the missions where it is better to NOT knock out every guard because it turns into a "who is going to cave and punch one of them" contest. But in this contest everyone loses, because you have to start the mission again. Yeah, Shawn! Leave him alone!

Strategizing and communication are key aspects of multiplayer gameplay for me. You take the two up top, I'll grab this guy down here then we'll tea bag everyone else. Communication is essential in tea bagging scenarios people!

Sometimes your duo has no choice but to forcefully take a door and it leaves the super spies completely exposed. But only a silly spy breaks a door down without peaking under or using a sonic detector or the Force to figure out how many henchmen are standing on the other side. Silly spies, they never learn.

Chaos Theory had some fun multiplayer actions where one spy would launch the other over a wall to access something. That doesn't seem to be in Conviction, which is a bummer. Double Agent might have had it, don't know. I should go back to that one.

Anyway, so far so good. May amend this upon further play time, but I'm under a similar time constrained situation as with Double Agent. So I might leave you with this.

Splinter Cell: Conviction
Still in possession. Very likely to re-rent.

3.75 out of 5 as a sequel
4 out of 5 if you haven't played previous versions

Don't Dew Me

For some reason at times I like to practice self deprivation. Being American, most of the time I enjoy over indulgence to a sickening extent and I don't really feel guilty about that, but I like to try to "go without," as it were.

A few months ago I decided, in a dual attempt to see if my random upset stomach attacks were dietary, I gave up alcohol. It took me 24 years to even get into alcohol, so I wasn't too attached to it.

Though I do love scotch. mmmmmmm

So a few weeks of that, there was no real progress either in depriving myself or with the stomach. So I stared down the big bear. The one thing I have ever been addicted to; caffeine.

That's a tough one to give up, my dad drinks more Mountain Dew in a day than the whole of the Mid Michigan area and on certain days I have put quite a few down myself.

It's ingrained in Evon DNA, I'm sure, to imbibe carbonated, caffeinated liquid goodness until there is nothing left at the bottom of that green bottle and then look longingly into said bottle like it just shot your puppy.

"How could you do it Dew? We had such a good time together and now you are gone! Oh, here's another bottle. I love you, Dew."

I wasn't a take-anything-I-could-get, sell-myself-on-the-street kind of addict. I was more of a cocaine connoisseur who only takes blow made from the best coca the Upper Huallaga Valley in Peru has to offer. (HonestyCheck: I Wiki'd that. I don't know jack crap about real drugs, now back to my fun)

I only dabbled in the off brands in my youth, when cares were free and money was scarce; Kick, Faygo's Moon Mist and Mountain Lightning were cheaper choices than the almighty Dew.

In my teens however my taste buds matured and grew to quite large size and couldn't even drink Dew that was a few days over it's expiration or had been shaken too much. (Which has also hindered me in my scotch enjoyment. Blended scotch? What is this, the Great Depression?)

Single malt is Dew. Blended scotch is Coke's random attempts to copy Dew. Mellow Yellow had not only a unappealing name, but tasted like a Dew left open in the basement for 12 years. Surge...terrible. Vault, meh. Entertaining commercials don't a good product make.

But now I have stopped. I had a Dew yesterday, actually, and it was quite the sad addict moment. In the office, things were stressed and I needed one. I could just feel it in my bones that everything would be better if I could have one; I just gotta get my fix and none of this will matter.

So about once a week now, I'll have something with caffeine, more often some carbonated, decaf trickery to fool myself. Squirt, Root beer, Sprit. Decaf Coke. I saw a 12 pack of Caffeine free Mountain Dew, once. That was several years ago. It did taste different, doesn't seem like it should; Coke does but only a tiny bit.

But I'm recovering. Don't know if it was the caffeine or just all the sugar, but I feel...lighter, in mind and body. Minus the crippling head aches the first couple days, it has gone smoothly.

How long I keep clean, we'll see. One day at a time.

That's a moron in your mirror

Yesterday on my way home I saw something that I have seen before, but every time I do I feel like it is the first time. It is something so stupid that my brain puts on a coat on and leaves for a week.

A woman driving in front of me had her rear view mirror turned so she could look at herself. Plus she was on her damn phone!

That's unsafe and stupid as hell. That mirror is there so you can see other motorists or a crazed axe murderer in your backseat, NOT YOURSELF!

If you are doing your makeup that is worse. It's one thing if you are a vain harpy and can't stand not seeing yourself every five minutes, but looking in the mirror long enough to do your makeup is completely careless.

If I were the king of the world people like that would have their license taken away and likely be sterilized. That way their overwhelming stupidity could never spread.

GAMES: Viva Revolucion, or the Asian equivalent - JUST CAUSE 2 for XBox360

The original Just Cause is one of my favorite open world games. The sheer fun of the game cannot be explained by the simple words of man, but I'll give it a shot.

Excitaxplosion parasailgrappletastic.

Had to make that crap up. I rented it when it came out and played it for several skipped classes and wasted homework hours. Now, I'm an adult and I can play video games whenever I want! Except I have dishes to do, a load in the dryer and bills to pay. But video games are fun and I like fun more than real life. HA! Take that stupid responsibilities!

The problem is that Just Cause 2 doesn't demand my attention as much as the first one. It is essentially the same game. Yes it is newer, has better graphics, new features and a beautiful large map. The key difference is the Chaos factor. In order to progress through the main story line you have to blow stuff up!

But JC2, the game...not Jesus Jr., is like Just Cause's little brother, yeah it's newer and can do some different stuff, but it's just not as cool. Sure it has a varsity jacket and a red mustang, but they are hand-me-downs.

In fact, there are some uncool parts. Taking over towns is a bit harder now, you have to blow up all the little pieces of government equipment. Some times that is kind of tough, flying over a facility in a helicopter cursing the pixels of the world below because you are 15% away from clearing the town.

The first game had compounds to storm and bosses to take out. Not the most story oriented, but simple fun.

The strongholds now are towns or military and everyone you must escort a team of dudes so one can hack some terminal. After the fifth time it gets a little old.

The voice acting is god awful. "I'm Bolo Santosi and I'm the leader of the some southeast Asian gang but I sound Jamacian. Mista."

It does something new with the grapple, being able to hook two things together. When you have the chance there is nothing like hooking one end to an enemy and the other to a propane tank that rockets into the sky. Good fun.

I want to like JC2 and I'm trying, but for some reason it doesn't have the drawing power the first one. Maybe I've evolved. But that is unlikely, I don't have much room for growth and most of it is currently taken by giving up caffeine.

Still, it's fun. Definitely worth a rent.


Just Cause 2
Returned after 1 rent, possibly re-rent later.

3 out of 5 as a sequel
4 out of 5 if you haven't played the original

Old > Young: addendum

I was considering posting a dissenting opinion to my own post with the point that old people are bad drivers. Indeed some of them are, BUT so are young people.

There are some bad and some good in both groups.

So it's a draw.

Old People > Young People

Disclaimer: I'm not going to say "elderly" or "progressively aged" or "age enhanced." I'm going to say old people. Hope it doesn't bother you, if it does...it shouldn't.

On a whole, I like old people much more than people my age.

There are many reasons for this, some of them are random and confusing to people that don't master a brain quite as unique as mine. Other reasons are easy to understand.

An easy reason that some might not think about, especially young jerks, is respect.

"Respect your elders" is an ideal I do not believe. I don't respect someone because they have been alive longer than I have. That doesn't warrant respect. What does is the strength and character that most young people don't have, and I'd bet my money they'll never have. But if you went back 30 to 50 years good old people now would be good young people then.

An odd reason I like old people are their words. I hope when I get old I say "warsh" instead of "wash" and "progrum" instead of "program." Why? Well, the weird brain probably, but still...can't wait.

Old people have character, Bill Burden has been alive for over 101 years, so it is obvious the man has stories.

He sure does, but he also has character. Talk to him, or anyone else with true character, for more than a few minutes and it can't help but radiate from their skin like the warm light of a candle.

Old men have strong handshakes, if they don't now I'd bet they damn sure did when they were young. So many young people give you their hand and it goes limp like a dead fish. It's disturbing. Sack up, you nancies!

Toughness was apparently given out by the barrel full in previous generations.

My grandma is a tough lady, but I'm not calling her old, because she could probably kick my butt.

I think my generation and the generation before shared one barrel, because most whine and complain about everything with no gumption to get the job done. Gumption, that's an old people word and I love it. Even if you don't like what you are doing you get it done and you do it well.

There are more reasons but the point is old people > young people.

"Heavy Rain" will soak you to the core

Heavy Rain has been described among posts on the wide webs of inter-networked computation machines as one of the most story oriented video games to date. “Interactive movie” was one phrase tossed around a few times. So I tried to avoid exposure to spoiler monkeys, as I do in regard to movies… and jungles.

If you haven’t played it yet then stop reading now and go play, I’ll wait for you.

If you are uninterested in video games or wouldn’t be able to understand how a game could invoke real emotion then leave, I won’t wait for you.

I am not going to give away the ending but I will discuss points of the story that are best played as surprises.

The story line in Heavy Rain is a four playable character revolution around the hunt for the Origami Killer, a serial killer who kidnaps young boys and then drowns them after a few days.

Penny Arcade’s Tycho posted that the game experience is heightened if you are actually a father. I borrowed a PS3 to play the game and should have tried to borrow a child, I suppose, but if I were going to do that I would have liked to just get them both from the same guy; unfortunately his wife isn’t done making their first child yet, so I had to go without.

Luckily I have a niece and nephew, each easily transposed in the chambers of my heart as my own child.

Ethan Mars, the tormented father character, lost one son at the beginning of the game and has his remaining son kidnapped by the previously mentioned killer. Unknown to others in the game Mars is given tests to discover the location of his son, who is trapped in a cage filling with rain water.

In one quite sadistic test Mars is told to cut off one of his fingers at the first knuckle in front of a web cam to get his next clue.

At this point I was deep in what I will call “game drunk.” It had my complete attention and I shuddered at the thought of losing part of my pinkie. But for real life nephew or niece I’d chop away, so off it went.

Through use of date and time, inches of rainfall, music and heartbeat vibration in the controller the game has a sense of urgency. This is especially true in heightened situations like fights or escaping from danger where precise button combos mean succeeding or failing.

This is where Heavy Rain stands alone with one of the best features of the game. “Old” games, ones released before and after Heavy Rain, no matter how open had a linear story line. Complete A to get to B, if not try A over and over and over.

Heavy Rain works more like life; try A if you can’t get it then you’ll have to find a different way to B. The story adapts to your screw ups, even when you die. The game will continue if one of the four characters falls into an industrial chipper.

It took me a little while to get used to the idea that failing didn’t mean Game Over.

The controls can be a little like wrestling a bear sometimes, even when just trying to walk in a house, and I had issues with audio glitches holding up game play, but those two things aside Heavy Rain is the new gold standard for story oriented games.

Yes, the graphics are amazing, the interface is very unique and the presentation is done well. But the story is gripping and intense. That even feels like an understatement, glue is gripping, this story has claws that will dig into your face and hold on until you finish.

Sure, it’s just a game, but it is just like a good movie or book, you are immersed. Heavy Rain might not be a long swim, but the water is deep and after you get out you feel soaked and cold for sometime.