Mathnet is funny

This was far and away my favorite show when I was 6. Sure, the episodes were only 10 minutes long, but they came on every weekday at the end of Square One, and my little sister and I never missed if we could help it.

Watching it now, it's fun catching the little inside jokes I completely missed as a kid. "Angelenos know what's important, and are willing to wait for it." HA!

Now that my oldest is 5 and in kindergarten, I think maybe it's time to introduce him to the Mathnet. It's where I learned the Fibonacci sequence, after all.

January thoughts

- BYU's 2012 football season felt like a failure. To have an excellent defense (Oregon State and Notre Dame notwithstanding) and a terrible offense was very frustrating. It often seemed the team was a decent quarterback and a mediocre offensive line away from 10 wins, but when James Lark is probably your best quarterback and the O-line is dealt six season-ending injuries, reality sets in. Here's hoping the big boys up front can put together a good year in 2013, and Taysom Hill develops his arm. I think Hill can be a lesser version of Colin Kaepernick or Johnny Manizel when all is said and done.

Oh, and Kyle Van Noy is ridiculous.

-Speaking of those guys, holy cow are they the best running quarterbacks I've ever seen. Amazing speed and quickness, but their ability to complete long passes is really what makes defenses throw up their hands in  frustration.



-BYU basketball is simply not great this year. Good, not great. Brandon Davies is a disappointment, frankly, as his weaknesses in strength and speed have not improved much at all over last season. And Tyler Haws, while able to drop 40, has consistency issues to the point that he went 0-9 against Gonzaga earlier this week. When these two are your best players, fans really shouldn't make any plans for the Final Four. Or Final 64.

-The gun control debate rages on. I believe gun ownership is like car ownership. Both are tools which can be used for good purposes or destructive, murderous ones. But as long as someone isn't mentally imbalanced and passes a few tests, they can drive a car. The same should go for using a gun.

-The Jazz need to trade Al Jefferson as an expiring contract. His defense is soft and his offense is not dominant, as against great teams he folds quickly. Shooting 5-14 last night against the Lakers, when 90% of his shots are within 10 feet of the hoop is embarrassing. He doesn't rebound and he's a black hole on offense. The Jazz are better without him. If they can turn him into a piece they need before losing him for nothing this summer, I'll be ecstatic.

And if they re-sign him this offseason? I'll be speechless.

-On that note, Coach Corbin needs to play Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter a lot more. They show flashes, and Kanter, especially seems to be improving. But this team is not great. Let's allow the kids to figure out how to play against real competition. This will either speed up their progress and make them focal points of the team, or eventually reveal they are busts and not worthy of their original draft status. Either outcome is fine with me. This limbo, however, is not.

-I'm watching the final season of Fringe, which is the only show I've ever followed live, from the pilot to the finale. Everything else I've ever started watching two or three or six seasons in, or lost interest after following it from the start. The weird thing is that Fringe isn't even super amazing. It has some good characters and interesting storytelling, but it definitely has some big weaknesses, as well. Go figure.

-I'm currently waiting on the remaining parts for a new computer I'm building to be delivered. It's my first build in eight years, so I'm pretty excited. I went middle of the road on parts; an i5 instead of an i7, a 1 terabtye hard drive instead of 2 or more, etc. Still will be a major upgrade over the $350 Compaq I bought in 2009. Woohoo!

-I attended Mandi's latest opera production last night with my sister Amy. It is Florencia en el Amazonas, a relatively new production that premiered in Houston in 1996. Modern opera has a reputation for being weird, and Florencia did not disappoint. The performances were mostly impressive, and the main storyline was interesting enough, but I felt like most of the characters were shallow and certain plot elements were lazily constructed. Overall, it is always good to get some culture, and the Utah Opera is a good place to get it.

-I have no idea who will win the Super Bowl. I've picked against the Ravens for their last two playoff games, but they manage to pull off wins despite having what I think are an overrated defense and quarterback. That said, Joe Flacco has shown he has the guts and ability to throw deep, and in today's NFL, that's something of a rarity. On the other end, the aforementioned Kaepernick is a marvel, but he's a second-year player and this is his first rodeo. I expect the aging, sneaky Ravens defense to account for his running and do enough to confuse him in the passing game to slow the 49er offense down. Baltimore 24, San Francisco 21.

Wednesday thoughts

1. I forgot to mention that as part of the Internet-TV-is-the-only-TV plan, I downloaded a free app from the Android marketplace called myRemote that allows me to control my computer from my phone over wifi. I generally use it to control the mouse for Netflix or Hulu videos, and it works really well. Easy to set up, and did I mention it's free?

2. The wife sent me this chat a earlier this morning: "OK, we are getting a flat panel tv and installing it high on the wall ASAP." There was a bit of an incident where the toddler almost pulled our 19-inch tube TV on top of himself, but an epic roll kept him from being harmed. May be researching HDTV's here in a couple weeks. Recent trips to Walmart have informed me prices keep falling, which is nice.

3. There are severe rumblings that BYU is planning to go independent, like Notre Dame. Andy Katz over on ESPN.com posted a big article on it earlier.

BYU is moving closer to leaving the Mountain West Conference, becoming a football independent and re-joining the Western Athletic Conference in all other sports by a Sept. 1 deadline to withdraw from the MWC for the 2011 season, multiple sources said Wednesday.

"I'm not sure how it could stop now unless BYU gets nervous," said one source with knowledge of the situation.

The Cougars have been exploring the possibility since in-state rival Utah left the Mountain West for the Pac-10 earlier this summer.

Well. I'm not sure how to feel about this, and a lot depends on how the details shake out. This article also says BYU will be playing four to six WAC teams per season as part of the deal, which is extremely underwhelming. I thought playing SDSU and UNLV every year was bad... to downgrade to Idaho and San Jose State would just be depressing.

However, independence also means BYU would keep all the money it gets from bowl games, and might allow for a TV deal involving a new BYU sports TV station.

Reports are there will be a press conference tomorrow, where a lot of details will be revealed.

More then.

So far, so good

Last night I installed the new video card. This took way longer than it should have, as the people who design cases for Compaq are morons.

Then, after putting everything back together, I installed the drivers and whatever so the new card would work. That was pretty easy. I then ran the S-video cable from the desktop to the computer, and nothing happened. I fiddled around with the settings on my new video card (which, again, is new, and therefore entirely unfamiliar to me) and after about 20 minutes, got the image on my computer screen to show on the TV screen, as well. Hooray!

Tested it by watching a few minutes of Burn Notice on Hulu, and it looks fine. Not great, but fine. Today I signed up for a 2-week trial of Netflix (technically our second free trial in about three years) and since we have a Wii, we will be able to stream some high-quality stuff that way.

I've been searching for ways to watch college football and NBA games on the internetz for free. I have had some success, but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has experience in this area.

Tonight we may actually cancel the cable, though now that I think about it, we're not caught up on our shows that are on the DVR, and that may take a few days.

Making the leap

It's time.

Mandi and I are going 100% internet television. Assuming this works, we're canceling the cable and using our desktop computer to stream our shows to our 19-inch tube television (great wedding gift; thanks, Julie, Brooke, Eric, Amy, and everyone else I'm forgetting!)



I bought this card off Amazon, as it comes with a 7-pin S-Video output port (and it can also run some of my games a bit better than the stock card that came with the desktop).

And then I bought this cable to connect from the card to the TV. While the TV has an S-Video port, I figured going RCA on that end should be fine.

With the great improvement in internet TV, from Hulu to ABC.com, I think this can work. Sports obviously will be a problem, but for BYU and Jazz games I can go to my in-laws' across town.

I'll be setting it up tonight, and will post updates.

Wish us luck.

Academy Award-winning movie trailer

This wins the internet.

Lost explained by people who have never watched Lost

For those who don't watch.

For those who do, check out Things We Learned From Lost Last Night.

The Matrix: a silent film

Also it is Russian.

Fringe is The X-Files

I came to a realization tonight while watching the newest episode of Fringe.

This is The X-Files. Follow along:

FBI agents. Check.

Large, over-arcing plot that deals with supernatural themes. The whole thing is fuzzy enough that it keeps you interested, but never so concrete that it makes complete sense. Check.

A character with dubious motives (the smoking man) that helps the FBI agents at times. The observer. Check.

"Freak of the week" episodes that have absolutely nothing to do with the show's over-arcing theme. Little to no plot or character development in these episodes. Check.

Slight sexual/romantic tension between the male and female leads is hinted at from time to time. It never really goes anywhere. Check.

And that's it. All the ingredients are there. It's a rip-off of a show that's not even a decade old.

I'm a little disappointed in Abrams and company. I know everything is derivative of something else, but this is a little too close to be okay, in my book.

Not to mention the fact that Fringe is sloppy. The writers are either dumb or they write dumb FBI agents from time to time, and that bugs me.

In addition, the science in the show is bad. Now, I know it's fringe science, but I'd like them to at least attempt explanations for everything and then remain internally consistent. But instead, they do whatever they want without explaining it over half the time, and then don't bother to be consistent within their own universe.

It's lazy writing. I'd be done with this show except for Walter and the aforementioned over-arcing show theme.

We'll see.

Public Service Announcements

Most spoiler-iffic trailer ever

Warning: if you are interested in the upcoming TV miniseries (TV show? Made-for-TV movie?) V on ABC, then you probably shouldn't watch this. I realize it's a remake from a 1983 two-part miniseries on NBC, but I was an infant then, and I had no knowledge of it before today. 

However, if you don't care about being spoiled, then watch away, and then read below.

I've never seen a more spoiler-iffic trailer in my life. Earthquake happens! Juliet (don't know the actress' name nor her character's name here, so she's Juliet) freaks out, calls her son, says she'll come get him. Meantime, it's revealed the earthquake is due to a big ol' Independence Day ship hovering over NYC and there are more over every major city on Earth. Scene of Juliet trying to get to her son, says she's an FBI agent, drama! Will she get to her kid! Then the drama is entirely removed as she finds her son no problem ten seconds later. 

See the pattern here?

Aliens appear to be friendly (and hot), but there's this movement among some humans to resist their involvement on Earth. There's a big science vs. faith motif. Juliet's son gets involved with the aliens. Turns out the aliens aren't really hot, they're just wearing hot costumes and are actually slimy and gross. 

End of trailer, and now you know everything about this thing except for how it ends. Does Earth triumph against the alien invaders, or not? 

It's the polar opposite of how Abrams handles thing. There is no mystery box here. 

So yeah. What could have been an interesting show for me is now entirely ruined because whoever is producing/directing this thing has no problems revealing the entire story in a two-minute trailer. And maybe they don't care. Maybe they know they're just remaking a 1983 miniseries and assume most people know what will happen already. 

It just bugs me. 

J.J. Abrams owns me

J.J. Abrams owns me. I'm a devoted fan of Lost and Fringe, I liked Cloverfield a lot and Star Trek, which I saw yesterday, blew me away. Okay, so I never watched Alias, but I suspect I wouldn't like it much, anyway. 

Abrams' ability to excel at every aspect of film and television is remarkable. Technical excellence in special effects as well as outstanding performances from (usually) unknown actors and a good story... to achieve all of this consistently indicates 1.) he works his tail off, 2.) he surrounds himself with good people and 3.) he's gifted. 

I think he's working his way to becoming a name that will be known for a long time to come.

I was linked to this Youtube video on a comment for a movie review of Star Trek. I don't think I'd ever seen Abrams speak before... anything from Lost usually comes from Damon Lindelof or Carlton Cruse, the show's producers. 

So here's the presentation. If you're an Abrams fan, I think you'll find it interesting.

Thoughts on television

The other day I was chatting with a friend of mine and she mentioned she loved Chuck. Now, I've seen about three minutes total of this show, outside of commercials, and my initial reaction to the show is negative.

When my friend asked me why this was, I had to think about it for a bit, and eventually I came up with a principle when it comes to what I like from television.

I like television shows that are one thing. My sister Amy loves Psych, but I don't really like it because the writers try to make it a comedy and a cop show. As a result, the cop show side suffers badly in that the cases are oversimplified, there is little attention paid to detail, and the "danger" scenes come off as hokey and embarrassing, in my opinion.

And that's exactly what I perceived during my three-minute stint with Chuck. It's a spy show that is also a comedy. Doesn't work for me.

Now, some shows may appear to be two things but are really just one. Scrubs is not trying to be a comedy and a medical drama, it is a comedy set in a hospital. Inversely, House is a medical drama that is funny; it is not trying to be a comedy and a medical drama.

The more I think about it, the more I believe this is limited to comedy attempting to find equal footing with another genre, but I can't think of any other examples where this is the case.

Hmm. More research is required.

Life on Mars and viewer betrayal

Before we get started, I need to make clear that I am talking about the U.S. edition of Life on Mars, not the U.K. one.

Also: Spoilers ahoy!

Okay, so the wife and I saw the commercials for Mars when they started airing last September. Interesting enough premise: cop named Sam Tyler gets hit by a car in 2008, wakes up as a cop named Sam Tyler in 1973. People use typewriters and there are no cell phones, women are disrespected, hijinks ensue, etc. etc.

Oh, and Tyler wants to get back to 2008, because he was engaged or something. He is not cool with 1973.

Time travel interests me, so I figured I'd give the show a shot. Along the way, it grew on me. Sure, the writers relied way too heavily on Tyler forgetting he was in 1973 and referencing stuff like the internets and DNA evidence, but overall I liked the characters and the storylines were fairly entertaining.

It was fairly clear from the beginning that this was all in Tyler's head, and that he's in a coma in 2008. Then, towards the end of the series (only 17 episodes, similar to the British version's 16) the writers started taking an intriguing direction, where it seemed like everyone in Tyler's world represented a different part of his psyche... or something. The ambiguity kept me coming back. I like TV shows that make me think. See: LOST.

So Mandi and I were having a fun time trying to unravel the whole thing when the show announced the series finale would be April 1. I was impressed that the producers/network had decided to play the BBC card and create an entirely encapsulated story with a beginning and an end instead of following the footsteps of every other U.S. TV show and running it for as long as it got good ratings. This usually pushes shows far beyond the point that they are any good. See: Jump the shark. Smallville comes to mind.

We tuned in to watch the finale on Wednesday night and everything seemed to be going swimmingly. Tyler resolved some daddy issues that had existed for the entire season, he develops a relationship with the girl cop, Annie, and things are good.

At this point, there are a few different directions the show could have taken and not been totally lame.

Instead, the producers inexplicably chose the totally lame option.

In short, Tyler is actually an astronaut on a manned mission to Mars. He's in stasis, and the ship's onboard computer has been creating a reality for his brain to handle the two-year sleep on the way to Mars. And he's not alone. No, the rest of his crew is made up of his fellow cops from his 1973 reality.

Turns out the astronauts were allowed to choose what reality they wanted during their long voyage, and Tyler chose to be a cop in 2008. The ship went through a meteor shower (or something?) which threw a glitch into the computer programming, throwing Tyler's fake reality back into 1973, and inserting things from his real reality into the new fake reality.

Bottom line, nothing on the entire show was real. Nothing.

Now look, outside the hokeyness of the final scene (and really, it was bad), what ticks me off most of all is that the producers and writers betrayed their viewers. TV is all about buying into realities. You are presented with a scenario, a character, a location, and you're asked to suspend your disbelief and go with it, because it'll be fun.

That's what I did with Life on Mars. Sure, the reality the show portrayed every episode was more than likely fake, but I was rooting for Tyler to get back to his real reality. And when it turns out that this real reality is also fake, it's no fun.

The TV show Dallas was a popular prime-time soap opera that ran from 1978-1991. I've never seen a single episode of it, but it's worked it's way into my consciousness by what it did with its 1985 season.

The writers killed off one of the show's main (and more popular characters) as the actor portraying him wanted to leave the show. Fair enough, things like this happen all the time.

Then in 1986, the actor wanted back in, and the show was more than happy to take him back. Oh, but wait, his character is dead, and this isn't the type of show that allows cloning or resurrection.

Solution? Pass off the entire 1985 season as a dream had by one of the other characters.

Let me run that by you again: The writers passed off an entire season of their show as a dream.

That's just crazy. And it's exactly what Life on Mars did on Wednesday. The show's viewers were told that the reality they'd invested time and energy into was fake.

Call me crazy, but something about that rubs me the wrong way. Imagine if the LOST writers did this. Or even a show as trivial as My Name is Earl. Not a good feeling, right?

As I mentioned earlier, the Mars writers had a few directions to take, and in my opinion, they took one of the easier ways out. Ugh.

Oh well. As Mandi said last night, "At least you hadn't been watching the show for six or seven seasons."

But who knows? Maybe one day that will happen. Expect the crazy from writers and you won't be let down, right?

24... ugh

So until recently, I'd never watched a season of 24. A few friends and acquaintances had testified that it was good stuff, so finally I caved and started watching this season. I watched the first few episodes online, then started DVR'ing the live ones. 

Overall, my impression was that 24 is a pretty good show.  The acting is decent, not excellent, the storyline is fairly compelling, I liked a couple of the characters, etc. 

Then I watched Monday's episode. 

SPOILERS AHOY!

One of the major "reveals" in this episode is that FBI analyst Sean Hillinger is a Bad Dude, working for the Terrorist of the Month. 

Now, I don't claim to be smarter than the average person. So let's be honest, we all saw this coming from the very first time Hillinger was introduced. The guy has been involved in about 30 traitor shots so far... he is shifty-eyed about 3000% more often than he's shown acting innocent. And to top it off, the writers gave him a solid kick-the-dog moment (his office affair with Blondie). There was no question the dude was dirty, right?

Well, I actually held out hope that the writers had set him up as a red herring... an over-the-top ridiculous red herring, sure, but a decoy nonetheless. The show could redeem itself and I could move on.

But no. Hillinger is the guy, and the show lost me. How dumb do they think we are? 

So I think I'm done. I'll probably read a season recap when it's over just to see if all the loose ends tied up like I predict they will. But nothing in the show is great enough to compel me to stay. 

LOST, it is, from now on. 

New place for LOST rantings

I've gotten into the habit of discussing each LOST episode with my sister and some friends the day after it airs, so I figured, why not make a blog so everyone can collaborate?

I named it Things We Learned From LOST Last Night.

If you're a LOST addict, head on over and check it out. I think it will be a lot of fun.

LOST-centric Facebook statuses for today

... is looking forward to LOST tonight.

... wants to know where the island is.

... is 4 8 15 16 23 42.

... is about to get LOST.

... is at work, antcipating a slow day of watching CSI and Poirot... and waiting for LOST!!!!!

...is Losting it up. Less than 24 hours to go.

LOST videos

First off, a recap of Seasons 1-4.

Next, we have a video from 2008's Comic Con.

And finally, here are three sneak peaks at tonight's season premiere.

Jack and Ben.

Kate and Aaron.

Sayid and Hurley.

Can't wait.

LOST reviewed

As long as my LOST readers are here, Facebook linked me to this admirable summary of seasons 1-4.

While there is an option to get the code to embed the movie, apparently the HTML given is busted all to hades. I tried seeing if I could fix it, but my HTML coding skills are terrible to non-existent.

So you have to click a link. I apologize.  

EDIT: NOW! With embedded video thanks to my English-American friend Dave!

(Sorry that the size is so weird.)

LOST in five days!

Apologies to those who don't watch the show, but here's a link to an AP article about where exactly we left off when LOST season four concluded last spring. 

And here's the thing: these questions represent about .01% of those the show has opened and not answered. For example, here are questions posed from the two-part pilot episode, 83 episodes ago. 

What is the smoke monster?

Why did he kill the pilot of Oceanic Flight 815?

Why was Jack laying in the jungle instead of the beach like everyone else who survived?

Where is the polar bear from? What was it used for? 

Every episode has a minumum of two or three unanswered questions like these, and frankly, it worries me. I worry the writers have fallen in love with being clever and posing all of these mysteries. I worry they won't be able to tie up all the loose ends they've unraveled so far.

And if they can't, boy will I be upset. I've invested waaaaay too much time in this show for it to crash and burn.

But on the other hand, if they can tie it all up in a satisfying and logical way, best. show. ever. 

That last part is a concern, too. LOST is flirting with, if not openly courting, time travel. And time travel is a very, very tricky concept to deal with in fiction. For those of you who have read the Harry Potter books, notice that after the concept of the time turner was introduced in Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling got rid of them entirely in Half-Blood Prince without really using them in books four or five. 

I believe this is because she fully realized the problems inherent in using time travel in her books. If time turners exist, why not go back and stop Voldemort before he became powerful? What rules govern their use? Do villains have them? 

And in general, what about paradoxes? Can an individual kill their own grandfather? What happens if they try? And if you go back in time to stop something bad from happening, then the bad thing never occurred, and you have no impetus to go back in time in the first place.

It's ridiculously complicated and very easy to make a mistake. The other problem is that it's tempting to just give up and say, "Aliens! It was all aliens!" That's where illogical comes into play. The writers and producers pride themselves on having a smart show, one based in actual science and literature. So far, while vague, the principles the show has introduced make sense (if you do enough research). 

So I need you to be on your A-games, LOST writers. Don't crash and burn. Make me proud.