Review: Big Bang Theory (new TV show)

I watched a sneak-peak for “Big Bang Theory”. It broadcasts this week. The plot is that two über-nerds, physics PhD male students collide with a beautiful young girl who isn’t super smart. Sort of Revenge of The Nerds meets Beauty and the Beast.

The jokes were horrible stereotypes of geekiness. Trite, shallow: Geeks are celibate, can’t get laid but want to; beautiful women aren’t smart, are always romantic, and tease men without realizing it but otherwise don’t want sex. Ha ha ha. How original... NOT.

However, for some reason I absolutely loved the show!

I think it was because the dialog was so good. The nerds talk in analogies and references to über-geeky things. It’s obvious they have some real PhDs (or maybe grad-school drop-outs) on the writing staff. It’s excellent. Listening to them talk was like solving puzzle after puzzle... always trying to figure out the reference or scientific principle they’re analogizing in time for the next one. As a geek, it feels good to surf these mental challenges one after the next; sort of like the good feeling one gets by yelling out the correct response before the contestant on Jeopardy.

It might get old fast. Successful shows that started this way quickly reveal a much deeper show after a few episodes. Remember that Ally McBeal was promoted as a show with funny video effects, but after the first episode dug in and produced some compelling plots with minimal video effect gimmicks (and the ones that did stick around were key to the plot; rarely gratuitous)

(no subject)

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=975

Today's Geek Holiday

2007/09/22 Hobbit Day -- in honor of the shared birthday of both Frodo and Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books.

How is Howard Dean's "50-state strategy" going?

Often, even when hard-core Republicans answer their doors, they turn out to have issues on their mind that run right up the Democratic alley. “There’s so many people that really don’t realize the relationship between elections and whether or not they’re going to be able to get their drugs,” Tilson says, “or how expensive gas is.” While new canvassers often brace themselves for a barrage of questions about abortion and gay marriage, that’s not foremost on most folks’ minds. “They’re thinking about whether they’ll have heat this winter,” she says. “How they’re going to get themselves to the grocery store and work.”

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070813/moser

What did people call the 50-state strategy 2 years ago when it started?

Well, first the D.C. consultants and (anti-Dean) Clintonistas called it “The Howard Dean 50-State Strategy”. They wanted to frame it around him so that if it failed it would hurt Dean’s reputation.

They also called it “controversial”.

Wait. “Controversial?” That they should spend less than 10% of the DNC budget on old-fashion hard work and talking directly to voters? That’s controversial? Isn’t that like saying that counting calories is a “controversial” way of losing weight? Or that exercise is a “controversial” way of getting into shape?

I guess the controversial part was that it was a “long term” strategy.

a study of the fifty-state strategy’s impact on the 2006 midterm results by Elaine Kamarck. While the project had not been designed to win elections in the short run, Kamarck found that it had done just that, “increasing the Democratic vote share beyond the bounce of a national tide favoring Democrats.” Comparing Democratic results in ‘06 with those of the ‘02 midterms, she found that the average Democratic vote went up by nearly 5 percent in 2006. But in the thirty-five Congressional districts where fifty-state staffers had worked on the campaigns, Democratic votes had soared by an average of nearly 10 percent.

Yeah, “controversial”. Right. Check out this article about how well it is going.

Thank you, Internet!

When I was in highschool and going to see Rocky Horror twice a weekend at The Rockway Mall, the two trailers they’d play before the movie were always Richard Gere in Breathless which was hot and sexy, followed by the high-energy trailer for Streets of Fire.

We made up Rocky Horror-like “lines” that we’d yell at the screen at appropriate times and we’d act out the hand motions and such. As Richard Gere knocks over the magazine rack during a chase-scene, we’d yell, “I haaaaate magaziiiiiines!”. When the bully in SoF says, “I want Tom Cody!” all the women and gay/bi folks would yell, “So do we!”.

When that theater stopped showing RHPS on April 1st, 1987 we started going to a different theater that had different trailers. Since that time I’ve wanted copies of those trailers so I could relive the energy and the memories. I’ve tried to aquire them different ways. Well, thank you, Internet!, IMDB now has the trailer for Streets of Files.

Before you watch it... imagine it is midnight. You are 16 or 17 in a theater filled with hooligans, burnouts, preps, eurotrash-cloned teens, and people of every sexual orientation (before it was “ok” to come out... but we all knew). The lights go out. People start cheering. The then the trailers begin. Everyone is standing, dancing, singing along. And then finally the main attraction starts, with the big lips appearing on the screen and the the opening song of RHPS begins.

(And now I learn that Jim Steinman, who writes all the Meatloaf songs, wrote the song from Streets of Fire that I love so much. It figures... his style shows through even when a female vocalist is singing it.)

Feist's "1234" video

After seeing bits of her video in the iPod commercials I was intrigued and wanted to see it complete. I found it on youtube.com and I must have watched it a dozen times this morning between various other things.

Sometimes I would just watch it twice in a row to try to get ever detail out of it and figure out how they did it. I was throughly convinced it was doing with computer digital editing... but even some of the points were too complex for what I thought digital video compositing could do.

A few minutes ago it dawned on me to look for a “making of” video, which I found immediately.

You won’t believe it... there’s zero computer manipulation. Even the thing they do in the first 10-20 seconds with people coming out of nowhere.

Wow.

I have a whole new respect for modern dance.