A tiny, vicious-looking miniature helicopter would go nicely with my trebuchet, don't you think? I could send out sorties into the rest of the office, lure enemies back to my desk with the promise of RC helicopterin' fun, and then hit them with a fusillade of trebuchet-flung hellfire. But I don't trust ThinkGeek any more, not since the Venus Flytrap incident of 2006, which was admittedly my own fault for thinking that the climate in Toronto was somehow equivalent to that of Buenos Aires, but I blame ThinkGeek nevertheless. Because I'm a dork.

• Plush zombie with mix-and-match zombie parts ooooh!
• No reason not to have the headpiece to the Staff of Ra on one's keychain.

Sarafina and I took a lap around the Spaced block last night, with delicious foods to go along with, and she's also working her way through the first season of Lost rather ravenously, which has made me want to go back and watch the whole thing all over again, or at least get to December quickly so I can watch Season 4 when it comes out on the DVD. The dino-natives are restless.

Television programs I apparently no longer watch:

• House
• The Simpsons
• Pushing Daisies

Television programs I continue to watch in spite of myself:

• Sookie Stackhouse or whatever the fuck it's called

Thus returning us to my long-held, little-believed assertion that I don't watch TV any more.

Posted by tederick at 9:46 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house & dr. jones & miscellaneous crap & simps & tv & zombies
Permalink | Comments (0)

Strikewatch: day! It's over. Kinda. Whatever. You know, this whole thing really was like that Simpsons episode where TV went away and everyone went outside. I watched a couple of episodes of House back to back last night which was, aside from the two new episodes of Lost, the first time I've watched network TV since November. It felt strange and unusual, and I began to get a glimmer of the feeling of what it would be like to not watch television at all. Not so bad. If those episodes of House (and Lost) weren't so darned scintillating, I'd say to hell with the whole thing.

Now let's gripe about Indy IV. When I found out that Shia LaBeouff's character's name was Mutt, I started to feel like really, we all oughta just not go see this movie at all. I mean, I know we will. But think about what we're putting on the line here: I genuinely love all three of the flicks, albeit in completely different ways apiece. How much would it suck to just have to deal with the fact that the fourth one was jive, with characters named Mutt in it? All right, it's the most obvious point to make. But it was really drilling into me over the past few days. My jacket's in the UK, the Sideshow announcement is coming soon, I've got Last Crusade spinning in my DVD player right now. I love me the Indy. I don't want change.

Had a terrific day which involved, in no particular order, watching the last great Tim Burton movie (cuz fuck Tim Burton!), welcoming D-Coc and B-Gold back from G-ny, eating cold chicken, and lolling around in bed for like a near-criminal quantity of hours. If all days were like this, I'd need no other sustenance.

Posted by tederick at 12:11 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house & dr. jones & tv
Permalink | Comments (0)

I have GOT to get those socks.

I'm becoming quite interested in socks, actually. OK, admittedly, it started with pirate socks. But then my mommy got me some striped socks and I started wearing them to meetings. And then I realized I was into socks but was being intimidated by my brother's formidable sock collection. But then I flipped over and said "WHY NOT ME?" and now my socks are on par with Adam's and in many cases, kick Adam's socks' asses. So there: another hill conquered.

It finally happend, people; a big Thanksgiving weekend markdown made me finally go starkers and order the complete Buffies and complete Angels on DVDs for no other reason than to save space on my shelves. Between the sales and the dollar, I'm getting both for under two hundred, and I can sell my old DVDs for something in that ballpark. It feels like a no-brainer, but then so many things do.

Can I just say for the billionth time how much I'm enjoying the scripted reality TV show that is House this season? I mean I guess I knew that Cameron and Chase and Foreman were always pretty extraneous, but I had no idea how much so till the new ducklings showed up. Fuck, were the originals even in last week's episode? I don't remember. Hey I hope Kumar wins. I love that guy.

Posted by tederick at 7:06 PM in batman! & dr. house & shinydisks & socks
Permalink | Comments (3)

Pencils down means pencils down, sayeth the showrunners.

Shows you can expect to be not seeing, circa Monday's near-inevitable strike:

30 Rock (Tina Fey)
Battlestar (my old amigo Ron Moore)
Family Guy (McFarlane)
House (David Shore)
Private Practice (only mentioning it because it's Marti)
The Sarah Silverman Program (Dan Sterling)
The Simpsons (Brooks, Jean, n' Groening)
True Blood (ain't even seen it yet, and Alan Ball's taking it away from me!)

and, of course, and most painfully,
Lost. (Those cunning rat bastards Lindelof and Cuse.)

It is what it is, team. I'm with the WGA on this one, and I'm old enough to remember the strike in '88. Time to get this shit sorted out, Hollywood. You're in enough trouble already. The last thing you want is people like me throwing even more time at the Wii.

Posted by tederick at 2:46 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house & tv
Permalink | Comments (0)

I like Piper Perabo a whole lot. I think she's a good actress in a supermodel's body and she's therefore underappreciated. I hope she sticks around on House. I find the idea of House having his first stable relationship in the history of the show with a 26-year-old vegan nutritionist phenomenally entertaining.

Meanwhile, I do not find Benry entertaining at all. I am fucking sick of that guy. So much lying. So last night's ep was pretty much just an hour in la-la-land because I'm not inclined to even believe that his flashbacks are true. Benry is a useless character, narratively irrelevant, even more so now that he has been shown to be nothing more than yet another opportunistic gadfly on the back of the greater mystery of the island. Is Locke dead? Very possible (Terry O'Quinn just sold his house in Hawaii), but somehow continue to doubt it. What's Jacob's deal? Something new. Whatever else is going on on that island, I don't feel like the Phantom Menace is not a manifestation of something we've seen before. He might, however, be the center cog. We've been seeing a lot of caves lately. Three years later we're nearing the end of the setup.

This is interesting.

I woke up at 4:30 or so when the thunderstorm was really getting going last night... and also because there was a car horn ringing out over the neighbourhood in one long, uninterrupted blare. Based on what the movies have told me I can only assume someone either flipped their car over, or was assassinated in their driver's seat by a double tap to the head. Horn went on for a solid half hour or more. But I fell back asleep and slept deep - it's always an entirely different level of narcosis when there's a thunderstorm happening outside. Like being back in the womb or something. I woke up late and the world was shiny.

The inevitable Spider-Mamo is posted here. Mamo!

Posted by tederick at 11:23 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house & podcastery
Permalink

Stayed late at work and ended up beating the storm out the door by about five minutes. Came home, made myself a gigantically satisfying bacon and egg sandwich and watched a thoroughly enjoyable episode of House. I mean, I loved that shit. Everything was just so, even the predictable House clichés that everyone else finds annoying. For me, it was Houseified ambrosia. I had just been rather unusually fucked up by this week's episode of Studio 60 - something a bit too on the nose about the reality/dream confusion, and the drug use, and the end-of-relationship/beginning-of-relationship interplay - so balmy ambrosia was in order. If they'd cast Mika Boorem as Claire on Heroes instead of Puffy McBuffsalot I might still be watching that show. (Well, if they'd also cast other people as everyone else on the show, and also if Tim Kring was nothing more than a figment of Jeph Loeb's imagination.) The ep also clarified for me the fact that I will enjoy any medical mystery where the solution is "worm." I think I've seen that gag maybe three or four times over the years and every single time, I seem to respond saying "yep, the worm is clearly the answer, I am thoroughly satisfied by the relevance of this worm as the answer to this mystery." Next time something goes wrong with me, I'm going to ask the doctor if it could be some kind of worm. How many worms could be causing mysterious medical ailments in me, right now? It's something to think on.

Look! Bored bears!

Posted by tederick at 10:53 PM in dr. house & j-o-b & tv
Permalink | Comments (0)

• One of the "minority" tribes on Survivor: Racism go completely feral, kidnap Jeff Probst during a tribal council, paint him up Jack Sparrow-styles and serve him toes for dinner
• Dr. Cameron, naked. Please.
• Phil Keoghan refuse, on camera, to describe what a Roadblock is
• Kate and Jack have sweaty, gnarly full-contact sex in the wreckage of the hatch, shortly before Jack strips off his shirt, grabs a torch, and climbs to the top of the mountain where he does battle with the feral tribe from Survivor: Racism
• Heroes not suck

Posted by tederick at 8:15 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house & tv
Permalink | Comments (0)

Rapid blogging facilitated by irritating, Bendis-like "ITEM!" bullets:

ITEM!: I've been hired full-time at my job. This means I am no longer contract. This also means, as they usedtacould say, I am well taken care of. This also means that 2006 is now officially a lost year. This also means that I have no idea what I'm doing next or even if I'm still technically "me." This also means angst, but well-taken-care-of angst. So really, I don't know what to feel.

ITEM!: Development art for Tederick.com's new cartoon, Erin is Really Really Tall. Not sure if it will be an ongoing series or just a one-off:

ITEM!: This new, gimp-less Dr. House has "jump the shark" written all over it. I dunno, the premiere was pretty good, but they had better have a damn good idea of where they're going with this or the show will be dead by season's end.

ITEM!: Someone called me at my desk today and tried to poach me out of my job, not 24 hours after I'd signed my offer letter. So clearly, the word is out on me.

ITEM!: Over the weekend I put some time into character development for the comic book that Chad and I are working on. The working title for the book is Terra, though evidently there's another comic with that name so that might change to Sweaty Ballsack. Or something else. Anyways like I said I did some character development, and fell ass over teakettle in love with two of our lead characters... one of whom is sort of the obvious "Gee Matt's in love with that character? Stunning" and the other one not so much. So that was fun. It's a different writing approach for me, given that I'm actually planning before drafting, etc. Oh and also there's this Chad guy. Working with a partner? Doesn't suck.

ITEM!: Standoff rough cut is done. Lots of work to do but the movie has a shape. And it's only missing two key transitions this time, instead of my usual eight or nine. Yay storyboards.

Posted by tederick at 8:37 PM in dr. house & j-o-b & miscellaneous crap & tederick films & the process
Permalink | Comments (0)

And then I got hit.

Seem like a non-sequiter to you? It sure did to me. I'm not sure what happened before it, or even after it really, but I know I got hit. I think I was trying to block a guy who I later nicknamed The Thing. I think his knee got under my shin guard on my left leg and hit my bone. And I think I now have a bump on my leg so big that it actually looks like I have a second kneecap. I can at least be comforted by the fact that when this gigantic, throbbing mass breaks open, the spiders inside will rule the world with an iron fist. Because they're my spiders.

It's interesting, though; remember that episode of House last year where he had to go off the meds for a week and he got through by breaking his hand to trick his mind's "gating mechanism" for pain? That shit's very real. I was not back on the field two minutes (after 25 minutes of pulling a Peter Griffin on the sidelines), when The Thing stomped on my foot, damn near breaking my toe. And within moments, I could no longer feel the pain in my leg at all. It was really quite extraordinary. Then I took a ball to the exact fucking spot of the bump. The world flashed white and I very nearly passed out. And then I decided I was gonna stop getting in The Thing's way.

Anyways, home now. Knew this thing would make walking difficult, but I'm surprised to find typing so challenging. Regardless, behold behemoth:

I may continue to document My Son here, because I expect he'll be nifty colours by morning.

Posted by tederick at 10:43 PM in dr. house & sockey
Permalink | Comments (2)

It turns out that the television season is over. Boy, that one rocketed by. It seems only yesterday I was power-loading episodes of Season One of Lost at 6 or 7 a day to get over a bad breakup (hmmm... it was Deep Space Nine last time), and now the whole second year has come and gone in what seems like the blink of an eye. Traditionally at this point I'd do my top five shows for the year. But you know what? I only have two.

House won last year over Lost, but this year I'd call it a tie. I don't think either show was quite as good on the whole this year as they were last year, but they both also had better single episodes this year than they had last year, so call it a draw. I really can't pick between them; I can only say that they're the only two shows I genuinely give a fuck about on a weekly basis. As I've said many times before, and contrary to popular opinion, I don't watch much TV.

The Simpsons could hardly be put on any "top" list; overall it was a pretty crappy season, although there were three or four episodes that I'd rate absolutely outstanding. I also fell off the Amazing Race wagon this year; neither of the last two installments captured my imagination, and I'm beginning to get that icky, post-Survivor hangover feeling again, so this might be it for me. Family Guy was solid overall, but in its reincarnated state feels less like broadcast television and more like preexisting internet content. So for some reason it doesn't count.

The only new show I picked up was How I Met Your Mother, which is utter trash in every conceivable sense... yet I can't look away. It gives me dirty feelings inside, because like the Jedi once said, I know I'm better than this. And yet. Not with the looking away.

The PVR is empty, the DVD shelf is full, and life would be perfect if they'd just figured a way to put the second season of Lost on DVD in June, instead of October.

Posted by tederick at 9:34 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house & simps & tv
Permalink | Comments (3)

Earlier tonight over sushi Kate and I were saying that it would be ideal if they did an episode of House featuring my particular medical ailment, so we'd finally know what the hell is going on. (This vastly improves upon the usual advice of "you should consult Dr. House," because Dr. House is, in point of fact, fictional.) Well suck me sideways, because this very evening's episode of House was eerily all about me. Or it was for the first few minutes. A girl had an attack of arrhythmia for no apparent reason. Wolff Parkinson White was ruled out early in the first act. They did a cool-ass procedure where they mapped the electrical pathways of her heart. But then she started getting hallucinations about gross stuff like House's face melting like Toht's in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which hasn't happened to me yet. And later it turned out to be because she was a Katrina victim, which I am not. So I don't know what to think. At the very least I've got a lot to talk about with my cardiologist. He's gonna love me. "Dr. House said..."

Now all we gotta do is get them to do an episode about Bex's weird phantom numbness disease, and we'll be off to trot.

Posted by tederick at 12:07 AM in dr. house
Permalink | Comments (0)

Is it weird that when Dawn was lying limply on a hospital gurney wearing nothing but an ill-fitting hospital smock, pale as a sheet with gigantic junkie bags under her bright blue eyes and skin so translucent you could clearly see her veins, while Dr. House performed an unapproved tick-check on her recently-devirginized giney... that that was the first time in my life I seriously fantasized about boning her?

....Wait, actually I don't need the answer to that question.

Posted by tederick at 10:14 PM in dr. house
Permalink | Comments (0)

Thank you Dr. House.

But let me tell you something: that guy Robert Sean Leonard should get more respect. He's the lynch pin of that whole show. If he can't sell his weird panicked cheating Jewish caring doctor pot-rolling best friend vibe, any given episode is gonna fall apart. And read that string of adjectives again - that is a hard vibe. Cuddy's got the sass, Cameron's got the perky, Chase with the slime and Benton - oh, sorry, Foreman - with the ethnic jokes, but you take out Wilson, and the whole house (no pun intended) of cards goes flying away in the wind. And all the guest turns by freaky Dakota Fanning's freaky little sister, or Stacey's ex-husband Jon Voighting himself up the stairs, ain't gonna help diddly squat. You lose Bobby Seanny Lenny, you lose the show.

Posted by tederick at 11:00 PM in dr. house
Permalink | Comments (0)

Today at work I was sent two CSR (that's Customer Service Request) tickets within ten minutes of each other, both proclaiming the same error which (with our resident Java expert out of town) I was not entirely certain how to solve - I had two possible solutions, but had tested neither. So I sent one solution to one guy and the other solution to the other guy and it was only after I finished doing this that I realized I'd pulled a Dr. House, and merrily sat back waiting for the next hour or so to see which patient recovered, and which died of a splenic rupture. After that I limped around the office chewing codeine like it was Tic Tacs and told each and every female employee what I thought of her blouse. But I was going to do that anyway.

I voted on the way home. I think I exist in an omnipresent panic state about the democratic process. I've moved a few times since the last election and my driver's license doesn't match up with my current mailing address, and I was so convinced that this was going to eat a gigantic portion of my evening to get it sorted out. And, well, nuh-uh. In and out in five minutes. I realized as my form was being processed that this paranoia has existed since the day I started voting. For some reason, I seem to have some deep-seated psychological belief that voting is going to be hard for me, which must have somehow grown out of a deep-seated psychological fear that I'm going to be bureaucratically prevented from exercising my voice, which itself must spring from a deep-seated psychological understanding that I am in strong jeopardy of having my opinion ignored like the passive little nerdy loser I am. Which I blame entirely on being given glasses when I was in the third grade. So there.

Posted by tederick at 6:03 PM in dr. house & goddamn politics & j-o-b
Permalink | Comments (1)

HOLY HANNAH HOUSE ALMOST GOT HUMPED AND THEN HE DIDN'T!!!!

Posted by tederick at 7:55 PM in dr. house
Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that was some House, my friends. Some damn solid House. Except that he should have gotten fired at the end. But otherwise, nifty. And it might just be because I've been watching the crappy non-anamorphic Season One DVDs all week, but I thought that episode looked spectacular, from the gently falling snow to the harsh stubble on Dr. Foreman's head. And Dr. Cameron... man howdy, I could make a silk purse out of her.

With three really solid episodes back to back, I'm hoping that whatever strange malaise overtook the series for its first six episodes this season has drifted away. Maybe the whole Sela Ward thing was just a mistake, or maybe they all came back from hiatus totally freaked out by the success of Season One and got a bit too self-conscious about things; everyone seemed to be doing an impersonation of themselves (House particularly, half in the writing, half in the performance), which was first of all impossible, and second of all really strange. Now, finally, it's starting to click forward again. This is good. It's easily my favourite thing on the air right now.

Posted by tederick at 10:11 PM in dr. house
Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm very disappointed to have to acknowledge it, but it really is feeling like House jumped the shark. Oddly, he may have jumped the shark in mid-hiatus, because everything was fine when we last saw him in the spring, and when he was back on duty in the fall things had changed completely. He bears all the marks of a writing staff that's become terrifically freaked out by the success of the show, and is now trying to write the character the way they think people want him, rather than write him the way they did before and let people get from it what they may. The result? A quippy (almost chipper), over-sentamentalized "troubled hero" Dr. House. Which stands in such direct contradiction to the way the character was used in Season One (I'm watching the DVDs right now) that it's almost painful. There are ten-second non-dialogue scenes between House and tasty little Dr. Cameron in Season One that say more about that character than 40 pages of dialogue could say this year. I can only hope that this is all building to some great personal tragedy and disappointment that will turn him into even more of an asshole than he was last year, or ol' limpy might be making his last rounds.

Thank goodness we've got Lost coming back tonight to kill characters and take names, or TV might have become boring. Given that I can't even remember the last time I saw Charlie or Sayid, it is definitely time to start thinning the massive, 15-person principal cast by at least a third. Perhaps another plane crash? Right on top of a group of people? That would be good.

Posted by tederick at 9:18 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & dr. house
Permalink | Comments (0)