At first I thought I was going to completely hate this show. You can only take so much of the same incessant marketing of something. That George Michael song was pretty soon going to make me take a carrot scraper to my eardrums.  It was getting so bad I was beginning to think that it was the George Michael Show. 

However, in the context of the show, it works. Eli is a likeable character. We really don't get to see what a prick he was before the show started. In the end, he does the right thing. It does kind of seem like it's full of refugees from other cancelled shows. It still doesn't help the fact that Johnny Lee Miller will always be Crash Overide to me.

My favorite character is the Chinese acupuncturist. I guess I'm partly saying that because I'm Asian. But the character is genuinely interesting. I like how he's introduced as being utterly stereotypical and then we learn he's just faking it because the stereotype makes his clients comfortable.

You could see some of the digital effects. The values in the lighting with the mountains int the background were pretty convincing, but the way the ashes flew out of the coffee can was like a Particle Illusion effect that wasn't used on Star Trek:Voyager.

I'm not going to get too involved with this show as it might get cancelled at any time. The difference between this show and shows like Journeyman or Lost or Heroes, is that we know what's going on. We know he's not crazy. We know there is a scientific explanation for his visions, and it all boils down to how creative the writers can get with burying symbolism in Top 40 hits.

I'll watch a few more episodes before I admit to enjoying this show.

Sadly this blog is rapidly turning into just me documenting what I eat. There are many more things I want to talk about, but I'm never near a computer when I think about it. By the time I get home, the seed of the idea has already dried out.

I ate at Arby's today. I hadn't eaten there in a while. I used to like ordering the Montana, which was their largest sandwich. When I went in today, the Montana is gone. I thought it was a dumb name for a sandwich. If they wanted to name a sandwich for being big it would have made more sense to call it the Texas. It would make even more sense to call it the Alaska, but I doubt most Americans are aware that Alaska is larger than Texas. There was that one lady on Millionaire who thought that an elephant was larger than the moon. So now they have a naming convention for their sandwiches which makes sense. The name isn't sexy but the people understand the size relationships better.

I would be updating more, but my primary machine is still down. I'm doing all my freelance work on a combination of my old backup machine(2 upgrades ago) and my laptop. I've really grown to hate Windows and reinstalling on my main box is something that I'm not looking forward to.

So anyway, I got my meal and it was pretty much what I expected. Arby's is fairly reliable to be consistent. My only complaint about this sandwich is that it could have used more cheese.

This whole weight loss thing isn't going as well as I had intended. I'm still stuck at 256. Hopefully basketball on Wed. will change things up. I think with basketball, I'm going to be forced to be more mobile whereas in tennis I don't have to chase balls that are out.

In terms of comparison, I'd say Arby's was about as good as Jack in the Box. The fries taste like they're from the same supplier. It would be nice to have a fast food restaurant that made the fries fresh rather than frozen out of a bag.

{mosgoogle left}Psychologically, I console myself with the notion that the meat content of this sandwich formerly known as the Montana, gives me a solid amount of protein, along the lines of what the Atkins diet recommends. But I can feel the grease in the fries weighing me down.

The only bad thing about the sandwich is that the seams in the bun tend to separate if you innundate the meat with extra sauce, like Arby's sauce. Then it kind of falls apart in your hand and you're pressing your fingers against the meat. I can't tell if the lady was chintzy or didn't hear me when I requested more ranch dressing. That ranch packaging tends to become too shallow to really dip well with it.

I don't know if this change in sandwich names is helping or hurting Arby's. If there was one closer to my house, I'd eat there more often.

Kevin and I have a ritual. After we play our two hours of tennis we go eat somplace for a late breakfast. Lately we've been eating at Coco's on Eastern. Prior to that we were eating at IHOP where the waitress told us everything that was wrong with the restaurant and Blueberry Hill where they placed us at the homosexual table in the the back. Actually, when I go eat with guy friends, the hostess always assumes we're gay and place us where we can't be seen. When I go eat with my wife we get placed at the 'interacial table' where the other customers can't see us. Usually that section is filled with other interacial couples and homosexuals.

In any case, yesterday I ate at Olive Garden with my wife. I was debating on the dinner vs. lunch portion of the seafood alfredo. I got talked into the lunch portion as the waitress said it wasn't worth it for the dinner portion. There were like 5 tiny shrimp and 5 tiny scallops for $12.95. If I would have gotten probably 7 or 8 of each for $15.95. Plus you're paying for all that ambiance. The main reason we've been going there is because the Zupa Toscana seems to be one of the few things the wife can hold down.

So this morning after tennis, Kevin and I went to Coco's and I ordered the Shrimp and Lobster omlette. Here is what it looked like.

It was only $9.99 and the shrimp inside it were massive. Granted Coco's is the domain of the retired and they're less than a few hundred feet from a Denny's, but I was impressed with the better quality of food and better bargain for my meal. I've gotten good service and good food everytime I've been to Coco's outside of our tennis ritual and it still continues to be a good deal.

The only bad thing I can say about Coco's is that their men's room stalls are ridiculously small. They're small enough for Larry Craig to kick your foot and not have it mean anything.

I'm going to cut back on Olive Garden. Or at least limit myself to their bottomless soups.

We'll still eat at Coco's, but next week we're playing basketball.

Last night, me, the wife and the baby were sitting on the couch watching TV. We had just finished eating and it was around 8:00pm. I was flipping channels and noticed we had a free preview again this weekend. I landed on one of the Cinemax channels and had this brightly lit shot of a guy going down on some woman.

Now, I'm not a prude and I have nothing against cunnilingus. However, I think 8 pm is way too early to be seing it. I realize that being on Dish Network means that what we're seeing is the East Coast feeds so in actuallity, this show was intended to be on at 11pm.

But it was really quite jarring. Anyway, the wife wasn't feeling well so she went to be early. The baby conked out shortly thereafter. So I began to peruse the softcore porn that had invaded my happy home.

For the most part, there wasn't anything spectacular on. There was one girl who was hot enough that I was curious as to what her name was so i went on IMDB to look her up. Other than that, it was mostly crap. It wasn't even remotely tittilating. Oddly, this was the advertising that came up with the page.

What I thought was exceptionally shitty was a show on the Suicide Girls.

I just sat through the crappiest show on HBO. Normally I don't get HBO, but this weekend seems to be a free preview. I had heard some buzz about the show so I thought I would give it a chance. It seems to be centered around three women who are all seeing the same therapist.

In summation, you have the compulsive slut, the soccer mom who doesn't think she's pretty anymore, and the woman who needs a baby to define who she is. And they're all fucked up to varying degrees. And the men in each of these women's lives are portrayed as stereotypical insensitive pricks. Then at the end of the show they have 'testimonials' from real life couples about how good the show is.

For the episode that I watched, the sex scene was shot in a voyueristic, Battlestar Galactica-shaky camera style. I dont' think it moved the story forward. It confirmed that the slut character was indeed a slut. But we already knew that, so it wasn't giving us anything new.

I am so glad I didn't buy this thing. Apparently the newest firmware update has jacked up the phone completely. I was giving it some consideration, but overall, it would mean having to go back to AT&T. If I have switch carriers and change my number it isn't worth it. In addition, it doesn't have stereo bluetooth.

All I really want is a phone or some other device that has a decent browser than can do WiFi on it. I think I will hold out for the next Walkman phone from Sony. Or if the PSP slim has an Opera browser on it, I may get that. Otherwise, there's too much crap on the market that does only a fraction of what you need. In addition to these devices not being interoperable there's too much hacking required to make all of this stuff work together properly.

For example, you can only play WMV's on Xbox 360 IF you are able to get the media extender working. And the media extender isn't compatible with 64 bit operating systems. Media extender will only work with Vista, but you must uninstall Norton and use LiveCare.

What the hell! I swear to God, all this madness is driving me to Linux. I'm tired of all this proprietary crap. Sony is just as guilty as everyone else if not more so (beta, blu-ray, memory stick, etc.)

I would like to see one company come out with a product that worked FLAWLESSLY with everything else.

The way Microsoft, Sony and Apple behave, it makes you feel like one of many passengers on a bike with no way to get off.

I watched the premiere, kind of off and on tonight. I wasn't expecting much as I had seen the prerelease version that snuck out onto the web.

I really don't think that it accidentally made it out into the open. I think it was a way of audience testing. The heads of the NBC or whatever production company that put this thing together probably quietly released it so they could get feedback before it aired.

What suprised me was the recasting of the sister. The girl that made it to the air was much cuter, but equally inconsequential. The girl in the prerelease was hearing impaired. I would venture to guess that the hearing impaired girl didn't connect with audiences, hence forcing a reshoot. The sister's handicap was probably too big an obstacle for the writers to have to deal with in the episode where the sister gets kidnapped by the badguys. Don't know when that one will air, but I would guess it to be sooner rather than later.

But is it really discrimination? If an audience doesn't connect with a character, because of her handicap, and the girl gets fired, who is to blame?

Today, I'm going to have lunch with my buddy Chris at Makino's on Eastern, just north of Silverado Ranch. I'm looking forward to it as I fucking love sushi.

Oddly enough, the whole time I lived in Japan, I never ate it. It wasn't until I moved to Guam that I discovered my love for California Rolls, which are best describeds as 'gateway' sushi as you start on those and then move into the more sophisticated and intense sushis.

I'm not a sushi conniseur. I'm just a guy who likes my fish meat raw just as much as I like it cooked. I do enjoy raw meat, or very rare steaks. In Guam, I developed a taste for Kelaguen and finadene. I haven't had any kelaguen since 1997 when my old neighbor made some.

As I understand it Kelaguen, is made in such a way that the meat marinates in lemon juice and hot red chilies, among other things. The acids in the marinade, 'cook' the raw meat rather than with heat. It's served cold or at room temperature and is tasty as hell.

I've eaten at the other Makino's in town and they've all been fairly good. I still think that Blue Wave was a little better in that it offered more variety in the same way that Todai does, however, I think that Makino's is trying to stay pure to their Japanese heritage. For me the test of how good a sushi place is is based upon how good their eel is. I've had some half-ass eel around here in town and I've had some spectacular eel. Eel is simply my personal yardstick and I've gotten my wife to love it as well.

I must say that although the food will probably be awesome, the Makino's website sucks ass. It looks like it was made by a high school student in one sitting using Microsoft Frontpage. I bet some manager's kid did it to save them money. It looks like other people who have reviewed the have restaurant have better photography. There are no photos of the food, the restaurant, or maps to get to the place. It's completely useless beyond the phone number to apply for a job.

The sushi was very good and the eel was solid. The shrimp tempura had a bit too much breading, which I suspect was to hide the skinny shrip. The sushi was good overall and the price reasonable. When I went, it was $14.95 for lunch. We were too early for happy hour which would drop the price to $11.95.

I did notice a lack of tiramisu among the desserts, but they did have a chocolate waterfall and a selection of fruits you could put on a yakitori for a dip. The chocolate was good overall, maybe a little to granular for my tastes, but considering that chocolate has to have certain properties to melt and flow, this was probably a minor concern.

I was proud of myself in that I didn't eat an obscene amount of food. I could have eaten a lot more, but as I am trying to lose weight and I didn't want to be all farty and uncomfortable for my faculty meeting, they made it easy to show some restraint. In lesser all-you-can-eat sushi places, if the sushi is subpar, you want to stuff yourself more to feel like you got your money's worth. For me, this place had a high enough quality to the food, you didn't feel like you were being gyped if you ate less than you were physically capable of consuming.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this place an 8.7. I will definitely go back another day, hopefully during happy hour.

I was pleasantly impressed by this show. My first reaction was that it's expensive to produce. The main reason being is that they use a lot of music to denote changes in time. There is a lot of subtlety in the storytelling which is cool in that they don't bash you over the head with clues. I like that the producers/writers are giving a little credit to the intelligence of the viewers. Or perhaps they know that the people still watching from Heroes are smarter than the average bear.

I like the scene where a pregnant woman who's going to have an abortion decides to not light up a cigarette. It tells us that she's changed her mind. But it's little clues like this which give us a lot of information in a very simple and subtle way. Exposition is done very skillfully.

I wasn't at first impressed with the actor chosen to play the protagonist as this being a time travel show, they actor looks painfully similar to Anthony Michael Hall of the Dead Zone. However he has a bit of an accent and his travels back in time differ in that he's an active participant rather than an observer.

The other nice thing about Journeyman is that all you understand is that the show is about time travel. There is little or no explanation as to why it's happening. I think this is helpful as it keeps us trying to figure out what's going on as the main character is going through the same thing.

Unfortunately, my wife was feeling tired so she went to bed. I'm going to have to play it back for her. Another nice thing is that it gives you breadcrumbs, but not the whole sandwich. I would say that it's similar to LOST in that regard.

My first reaction was this is an expensive show to produce. I like the fact they shelled out the money for licensing songs as well as shooting in San Francisco. This would not have worked as well if the setting was generic. I'm so sick of seeing Vancouver pass for the United States. I don't know where CSI is shot, but it's definitely not in Vegas because I live in Vegas. The folliage and building construction is all wrong for CSI.

On a note about promoting other shows, seing the mini-interstitials at the bottom of the screen promoting Bionic Woman, is really distracting. I predict that Bionic Woman won't last long. The pilot that got released to the net wasn't that impressive. Hopefully they've improved it before it hits the air.