....All good things (really this time)

All Good Things...part I

L O S T
Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse can suck my dick. Damn you for what you've done. Lost was, key word was, a good show. Season 5 went off the rails, and Season 6 was 15 pounds of shit in a 10 pound bag. There are not enough words to describe the truckload of fail dumped on the air in the last two seasons.

"You'll find all truths we cling to are dependent on a certain point of view." Remember the whole "this isn't purgatory" statements? Technically those are true, because the island wasn't purgatory, the flash sideways was.

There are a couple of tenets to storytelling which are considered universal. One of these is you don't introduce key characters in the third act of a story. Yeah, they skipped that one.

All the mysteries that were going to be answered? Yeah, about that. Not gonna happen. Apparently there is an additional 30 minutes to the finale on the upcoming BluRay release that contains some of the answers. I’m sorry, that’s bullshit. With all of the meandering plots that the show had, they could have spent that 30 minutes on their dime and not mine.

Answers were given…and many of them don’t fit, don’t make sense, or outright contradict previously established information.

You know the old statement about bridge builders? Build bridges your entire life, do they call you a bridge builder? LOST was, key word was, a terrific show. The unevenness of the last two seasons, and the laughable religious ending (not that the show didn’t have religious allegories through-out, but the end game was almost out of bible camp) lessened what the show was. I could go into intricate detail about the problems that they couldn’t paint themselves out of, but I won’t. It’s over, and no more LOST bridges will be built.

All Good Things...part II

The Amazing Race 16

You can tell a lot about a person with how they act when the stakes are high. Anyone can be the nice guy when you’re safe where you’re at. When the stress level is raised and the stakes are high many times a “nice” person will show a not so nice side.

That’s one of the things I’ve never understood about different reality show contestants. They are “nice” until they realize that the game is on, which is at the end (usually), but they still refer to how nice they were earlier as a defense for being a dick later. In my mind the game begins well before Phil says, “The world is waiting”, Jeff says, “Welcome to Survivor X” or the houseguests enter the house. The game begins when you decide to put in that application. If you’re nice on day one, but cut-throat on day 35, guess what? You’re cut-throat. End of story.

That brings me to the brothers. They ran a different, but decent race. One of the things they mentioned many times was how they were nice. Don’t get me wrong, you can be nice on these shows, but outside of the context of the game. Get to know the people you’re going to knife in the back. Nothing wrong with that. However, elevating your status as a person because you were sweet and cuddly on the first day but didn’t hesitate to throw someone under the bus on the final leg is bull-shit. Man up about the fact that you’re there to win, and you’ll win dirty if you have to.

I had no qualms with the brothers winning. They seemed to legitimately be having fun, and to have made the most out of the experience. They were a little prissy for my taste, but nothing against them that would make me upset if they won. The cowboys were the obvious favorites, and I would have had an issue if Map Girl and Tool Boy had won.

All that being said I was disappointed with the final leg. The Star Wars task was cool and I would have loved to have been a part of it, but the entire final leg was structured so that the team that took the lead early was going to win barring catastrophic failure. The final memory task was quite possibly the easiest final task ever.

Finally, what wins between the irrestable focrce and the immovable object? We’ll never know, but we did get a glance at the unbearably stupid vs. the eternally hateful. The la-la-la-la-lesbians got in their parting shot at the finish line. Map Girl held her own, but the way I view it is this: being stupid is something you just are, she can’t help it. Being mean, angry, and spiteful is something that though it may be an inherent characteristic, you can control it.

The Amazing Race 17 is in the can, and as with the past 16 installments I am not involved. I will watch with baited breath, hoping for the good guys, and wishing ill will on those I don't like.

All Good Things...part III

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains

Son, I am disappoint. It’s my own fault. It really is. On two fronts. Like Hitler and Napoleon before me, I learn that a two front war is not winnable. Actually that comparison completely falls apart, but I thought I was being clever, so I’m going to leave it. Bite me if you don’t like it.

First problem: I knew the results long before it got down to the wire. If I know something is out there I can’t not read it. I’m a consumption whore. This kind of spoiled the fun of actually watching the drama unfold. However, there was an upside. Knowing the complete boot order and who won it made the way it turned out much more palatable and much less frustrating.

Second Problem: I expected more from returning players. Especially from players that were in their third go round. I expected them to see the game as a game and recognize the skills (no matter how underhanded they may be) needed to win the game. Considering the fact that these were all veterans, they need to play underhanded was increased. These weren’t new kids on the block (or n”sync for that matter), so they wouldn’t fall for the banana in the tail pipe, you had to up your game.

In a previous breakdown I stated that Sandra didn’t deserve to be on this show and was the least deserving winner of 19 prior seasons. She now holds the top two slots for that particular designation. Congrats Sandra!

Russell/Parv: Either them could have won and it would have been justifiable. Both of them had legit claims to the prize. I would have voted for Russell, but I wasn’t there. If this was a new season of Survivor, Sandra winning would have almost been understandable, but not with vets.

At the Reunion show Rob said he would love to kick Russell’s ass all over the island again. Rob did really good. He was dominating challenges, but he got beat. He did not in any way, shape, or form kick Russell’s ass all over anything. Actually, if you remove All-Stars. Rob is not very successful on Survivor. He’s the only person ever to play the game three times and never make the jury. He was out before the jury twice, and was a finalist once. Actually Russell and Rob have played an equal number of days (Rob 21 in Marquesas, 39 All-Stars, and 18 on HvV for a total of 78. Russell has the same 78 as a two-time finalist.)

I’m looking forward to getting back to new blood in the next go round, but Big Brother is up next, and it will pain me to watch it.

All Good Things…and the iPad review (long-form)

As I sit here on Wednesday night I think about things. I think about chances missed, opportunities wasted, shots that missed the mark. Which leads me to the iPad.

Apple is the main thing that is wrong with the iPad.


I’ve owned several iterations of iPods. I hate myself a little bit for it, but I acknowledge that I am part of the problem that has caused the resurgence of Apple. With every Apple product I’ve owned I’ve noticed the same problems. Apple is so good at some things, but misses the mark on some obvious things. The iPad brings this to the forefront more than anything has in the past.

I played with an iPad in Best Buy when it first came out. It is, without a doubt, a cool little piece of technology. It is also, despite the people who say it’s not, a giant iPod Touch. Here is the short version of my review:


That’s not really fair, because it is not a POS, it is just frustratingly limited (on purpose), and could be so much more if it wasn’t for Apple. The worst thing about the device is that it’s tied to iTunes. iTunes is a piece of shit. I don’t care what you say, it is. It’s bloatware, it makes non-mac (so pretty much all) machines run like shit. It’s a resource hog. It’s proprietary, and it is limited.

The fact that the device requires iTunes leads directly to the second problem, it doesn’t mount as a hard-drive for drag and drop of files, etc. There is no excuse for this, other than Apple wanting to maintain control (doesn’t that sound like something Microsoft would do?)

No standard usb connection (either incoming or outgoing). There is a standards committee that Apple is a part of, yet they will not abandon the shitty and over-priced (for cables) iPod connector. If you are at work (no matter where you work) it is likely that you can find a usb to micro usb connection cable. If youdon’t, you can pick one up for a buck or two. The lack of a standard usb port also means that you can’t connect cameras, external hard-drives, etc. to it. But of course you can buy the camera connection kit for an extra lot of sheckles and get some of this functionality.

Why couldn’t they have put an SD slot on it? Because that would once again sacrifice some of their control. Once again an additional purchase makes a crippled version of this functionality possible. Fuck Apple.

Lack of a camera. This is where Apple is openly being dicks to their customers. If you look at any of the disassembly breakdowns of the iPad online you will see that there is actually a notch on the inside where a camera can/will go in the future. This is just Apple purposely excluding something that will be added in V2 of the device. Once again, fuck Apple.

Apple lies (kind of). When discussing the apps that are available for the iPad, they include all iPod/iPhone apps in the count. While true that these apps do work on the iPad, they look awful when doubled to fit half the screen, and just plain look ridiculous when used at their original size. Speaking of iPad apps, it is ridiculous how expensive they are. If I was the sort of person that thought it was okay to do so, I might jailbreak my iPad (but that would be wrong, so I won’t.)

Fingerprints. This thing attracts fingerprints like Paris Hilton attracts VD. That's not really fair. It doesn't attract fingerprints that much, but after using it for a day it looks like someone sneezed on it (I had a much better example, but it was a little too low-brow even for me).

Codecs. Most video files I have will not play natively on it. Sure I can convert them, but why should I have to? It's an Apple product, so it should just work. I can dump files from my Tivo to a PC, convert them, then play them on the iPad, but it shouldn't take five steps. In an ideal world I could hook a flash drive to the usb port and watch at will, but of course that is not possible.

Lastly, Flash. The iPad is touted by Apple as bringing you the entire web. However, how much of the web is dependent on flash? Games, movies, etc. Much of it runs on flash. I know new standards are being pushed, but guess what? They aren’t here yet.

What does it do well?

A lot, actually. Pictures look incredible on it. The built-in mail functionality is good. The multi-touch zooming, etc. works incredibly well for both pictures and the web.

Apps. There are lots of apps that are really good and take advantage of the platform. I don't think you can give Apple credit for that, though. You don't credit Microsoft because Ubisoft made a cool game that runs on Windows, do you?

The web. Safari sucks, and apparently is very insecure on the iPad, but the iPad works very well for passive browsing. Passive browsing being browsing that doesn't require any kind of typing. The on-screen keyboard works much better than I expected it to, but still is a piece of shit, and on some pages Safari don't allow nested scrolling which is necessary to participate in a forum.

What's next?

The onslaught of possible Android based tablets should make the fall and early next year interesting. Apple jumped on the mp3 bandwagon and made it their own. Many people think that Apple is responsible for the mp3 player and its existence. Of course many people are mildly retarded. When the Android slates start appearing the Apple fanboys will gnash their teeth about how they are just copying the ideas of the mighty Apple and their frail demigod Job(s). It actually will be funny to watch, because for once Apple is on the front end of a trend and the devices that come out later will likely address many of the issues I've stated.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used 32GB iPad?