I completely forgot about the season premiere of NBC’s new show Heroes being on tonight, though luckily managed to catch it part way through while flicking through the channels.

Though I didn’t see it all, I’l fix that tomorrow when they re-air it at 9:00pm PST, from what I did see it looks like a very interesting a very promising show. I’ve been seeing the commercials for this one for a few months now and have been very interested in seeing it, so I’m glad I managed to catch at least part of it.

Monday night is a rather dead night for TV so I certainly know what I’ll be watching now. Heroes seems really interesting, has a lot of cool ideas and different characters, and even though I only caught the last half or so of the premiere, I can already tell how a lot of the characters are going to end up linking together in the end. This is going to be a good show, I can feel it.

Yay! Sadly enough there isn’t much OTHER than reality TV that I watch, so finding a regular TV show that looks promising is actually kind of exciting.

Show Info:

Heroes
NBC
Monday’s
9:00pm PST
Channel 16 in BC

TV Shows
NBC Heroes
Reality TV Recaps

I’ve always been a fan of former President Bill Clinton, the guy was one of the best Presidents in recent history for the US and he got booted for a little intern under the desk action. Personally, If I was a US citizen, I would rather have a president with an intern under his desk then one with Dick Cheney’s arm up his ass like a puppet.

Anyways, Bill Clinton was interviewed on the incredibly biased Fox News channel recently and caught the interviewer in his lies and trickery. Bill was super fiesty in this interview and by the time it ended he was red faced and breaking out in a sweat, I loved it. It’s certainly worth a watch, check it out:

Image Source: ThinkProgress.com

It never fails, mainstream media in the US is so incredibly biased sometimes it’s actually hard to believe.

This is a prime example. How is it that the cover of the most recent edition of Newsweek Magazine in Europe, Asia and Latin America features a front cover article on Losing Afghanistan, yet the US edition is surprisingly Afghanistan story free.

I guess a story about Annie Leibovitz is more important to the American people than what’s happening in Afghanistan? That must be it.

Well, it happens every time, when a new season of a reality TV show comes out, especially one as popular as Survivor Cook Islands, someone always manages to dig up some dirt on one of the contestants.

This seasons feature is the strapping young Aitutaki member Ozzy, who apparently is about as shy of walking around naked as Richard Hatch, winner of the first season of Survivor.

Ozzy, one of the current favorites to win Survivor Cook Islands, was featured on Playboy TV’s reality TV series “Foursome.” Foursome was a reality TV dating show that aired on Playboy TV that “captures every passionate moment on tape!”

I can’t wait to hear what other dirt will be dug up on this seasons contestants. This one will be pretty hard to top though, with the shear funny factor of it.

An Onur Air pilot said something you, as a passenger, never want to hear while sitting on a plane waiting to take off: “I’m resigning. This plane is not safe!”

Ding! I don’t know about you, but that’s sign enough for me to say, ‘the hell with this, I’d rather walk.’

After making the comment over the PA to all passenger, the pilot proceeded to walk off the plane and leave all 180 passengers sitting in their seats, no doubt freaking out.

The pilot apparently heard a strange noise coming from the engine of the aircraft and evidently didn’t trust the plane enought to fly it, saying “I am resigning from my job. Do not fly with this plane. It is not safe. Do not fly with Onur Air.”

It sounds to me like he heard the noise, was worried for the safety of his passengers and refused to take off and I’m guessing the folks behind Onur Air were pressuring him to take off anyways, why else would he resign right on the spot?

All of the passengers were forced to stay on the plane in 100F heat for a while before the company finally decided to pull everyone off the flight. Some had to wait an additional 2 hours before being able to get anyother flight, where as 20 flat out refused to fly. I have to admit, I’d probably be in the same boat as them in this case.

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Onur Air

Tonight’s episode of The Amazing Race 10 starts off as usual, with a brief recap of the last episode, and then we get into the meat of this episode.

All teams start off based on the time they finished the last leg of the race. That means the former models Tyler & James are the first time to head out at 9:04pm. The first leg of the trip sees all teams getting to a bus stop as quick as possible to throw their names on a list for either the 12:00am or 2:00am bus to the capital city of outer Mongolia, where all teams will take in a show at a local temple.

The first five teams to the bus depot get on the 12:00am bus and the second five are left sitting around waiting for the 2:00am bus.

As the teams are sitting around waiting for their bus’ the kentucky team of David & Mary pass the time by socializing with the asians and gays sice they aren’t used to being around or even seeing either. Hooray back-woods Kentucky team! Luckily they don’t seem to be racist or homophobic and actually like the asians and gays, yay!

Peter & Sarah decided to pass the time by trying to get money out of the locals who are infatuated with Sarah’s prostetic leg, alas, they fail miserably and get nothing for their efforts.

The first batch of teams arrive at the Temple, which offers shows every 10 mins. Each team must enter the temple, watch the show and then grab the next bit of info from one of the performers.

Continue Reading: (”Reality TV: Amazing Race 10 Recap”)

So last night was the first night in our movie night marathon. We only watched two movies since we started watching a little late and neither of us were up for a third since we finished the second at a bit after 1am this morning. So, the movies we watched last night were:

Death To Smoochy:
Rating: 3/5

Death to Smoochy featurer Edward Norton as a kiddy network mascot with the Smoochy show and Robin Williams as the psychotic kiddy show host Rainbow Randal. Smoochy starts off by playing gigs in methadone clinics until Rainbow Randal gets caught taking bribes and is booted off the air. In search of the next big kiddy show star the network hires the straight-arrow, goody-good Smoochy and the show becomes and instant success. From then on fowl play, assasination attempts, penis shaped cookies, nazi rallies, corrupt charity networks and the irish mafia riddle Smoochy’s life.

This is an older movie and I’ve seen it before, but it’s always good for a laugh, and it’s still entertaining. Even though I’d seen it before I still couldn’t stop laughing when Robin Williams spilt tea on his nuts and freaked out, one of the best bits of the movie. If you’ve never seen Death to Smoochy, it’s certainly worth checking out, just for the fun of it.

Napola (Before The Fall)
Rating: 4/5

Napola (Before The Fall) is a German made indy movie from 2004 staring Max Riemelt and Tom Schilling. The movie, much like Downfall (which is a MUST SEE MOVIE!), offers a lot of insight into the appeal of the Nazi party to German youth in the early 1940’s. Many of Germany’s youth were forced to drop out of school or not go on to college or univeristy because they and their families could not afford it, so they would instead go to work in factories for crap wages to survive. The Nazi Party used this to their advantage and make offers to strong young men that they could not refuse. Max Riemelt’s character Friedrich Weimer comes from a poor German family where his father expects him to go to work in the factory he works in. Friedrich, a strong and athletic boxer wants more and is draw in to an Elite Nazi training school known as Napola with the promise of better jobs, higher pay and an education. Napola shows what the students of these kinds of schools had to endure and tells a fantastic story of the prestige and recognition one receives by attending such a school.

Napola is a great movie that shines light on what it was like to be a young man in Nazi Germany. This movie is one of a few, like Downfall, that has come out in recent years showing WW2 Germany from a German perspective, not from the glorified ‘all 1930’s and 40’s era Germans were Nazi’s’ perspective as is so widely portrayed in US and British films on the same subject. Napola and Downfall are both very much worth watching to get insight into exactly what WW2 Germany was like for the Germans. I highly reccommend seeing both of these movies.

So, that was movie night #1. Movie night #2 will begin shortly after dinner and we’ll likely get through another 2 or 3 movies. Yay!

Der Untergang (Downfall)
Napola (Before The Fall)
Death to Smoochy

So Chrys and I decided to take a short little walk up to Arbutus and 11th to check out a pet store we noticed coming back from Petcetera one day, and I have to say, it rules!

No more will we be bussing it to Petcetera just to pick up a few odds and ends. Tisol is a lot closer, has much better prices and a way better selection. They have everything you can think of for Dogs, small critters and Cats. Unlike Petcetera, which has a ton of stuff for dogs and not a whole lot for cats, Tisol has everything you need for your kitty. Tisol has a better selection of cat food, litter, toys, cleaning products, just about everything really, and from what I noticed, it all seems to be cheaper as well.

A small bag of Nutro Max cat food is about $12 - $13 at Petcetera, where as it’s only $8 - $9 at Tisol. They also sell their wet kitty food for cheaper and have a much better selection of natural, organic and generally healthier cat food. Tisol even has some super cute cat food dishes and treat holders, they’re so cute! We picked up a new cat dish for Felix as we’ve just been using a small saucer for his wet food and he manages to push it all over the place and gets most of it all over his little mat.

Needless to say, we’ll no longer be going to Petcetera, Tisol is the cat supplies store of choice for us, for sure! If you need any animal supplies, I highly recommend looking into a Tisol near you, as they do have a few different locations in Burnaby, White Rock, Richmond and 2 in Vancouver.

Tisol
Petcetera
Felix the Cat

I think the wife and I have found our ways back into a movie watching mood again. Last weekend we rented V for Vendetta and The Wild.

The Wild is a cute kids flicks about animals from the zoo. The star attraction of the zoo is, of course, the king of the pride, a lion, who’s cub has some depression and anger management issues and is sick of living in his dads shadow. He decided to run away and ends up stuck in an animal transport container, shipped to a small tropical island where the containers are being filled with the local wild life in an effort to save them from the impending doom that is the islands Volcano. The big lion brags all the time in the zoo about being wild and it turns out, once he and the other animals land on the island, he’s just as scared as they are and has never been in the wild before. Then the movie continues to following the big lion and zoo animals as they try to rescue the lion cub.

Overall, The Wild was a cute movie. Madagascar was better and the best character by far was Nigel the Koala who’s voice was done by the hilarious british comedian Eddie Izzard.

2.5/5

V for Vendetta was an absolutely fantastic movie. The entire movie has a very Orwellian feeling to it and has similarities with Gattaca, Pi and A Clockwork Orange, only with more explosions. The movies main character, V, makes it his lifes goal to bring awareness and freedom back to the british people who have been without ever since a totalitarian regime took over. The government runs and controls everything, including the media, and they fabricate whatever they think is needed to keep the people scared enough to fear the government. The secret police take away anyone that isn’t religious or doesn’t fit in to the governments beliefs and they are never seen again. This movie is full of fantastic quotes from start to finish, has a great story line and a number of twists and turns along the way.

V for Vendetta is by far one of the best movies I have seen in the last few years. My only complaint is when a relatively un-needed, as far as I[m concerned, love interest comes up and seems to be drawn out for a little bit. All be it a very short segment, I don’t think it was needed. Overall thoug, fantastic. A must see movie if you haven’t seen it yet.

4.5/5

Tonight we went out and picked up a mixed bag of old and new movies to take for a run. The cinema for the next few nights will be featuring:

• An American Haunting - This is chrys’ pick and I don’t really know a whole heck of a lot about the movie.
• Napola (Before The Fall) - Napola is a German made indy movie about an athletic young boy with boxing talents and his life in a private school for the elite where future leaders of the Nazi Party are trained.
• The Closet - A French made indy film where a factory worker on the verge of losing his job “pretends” to be gay in order to make the factory foreman back off for fear of a discrimination lawsuit.
• Death To Smoochy - Robin Williams, Edward Norton and a big purple dinosaur costume. Need I say more?
• Dazed and Confused - The classic 70’s stoner flick. I don’t know what it is, but I have ALWAYS loved this movie, it’s just so goofy and fun. It’s one of those don’t need to think at all movies that are just really enjoyable. Not to mention it has an all star cast of actors about 10 years before any of them became super popular.

So, that’s that. The wife and I have a busy weekend of movie watching ahead of us. Better get started.

Allen Snyder of Morgantown, West Virginia got a bit of a surprise last spring when he notice one day that his 14inch tall red and white gnome had gone missing from his garden. More surprising still was the fact that he began receiving letters from the Gnome several months later.

In total, Snyder has received three letters from his hijacked gnome from various locations in the US. The most recent letter came with pictures and featured the gnome taking in a Pittsburgh Steelers game with his new owners.

One thing is for sure, the gnome isn’t upset about being kidnapped in the least, in fact he had this to say in his most recent letter:

“You never took me to any games,” and “Have to go now. Boarding a plane. Now, finally, broadening my travels.”

One of the earlier letters even included a request for bail money and pictures of the gnome and another kidnapped gnome sitting in the back of a cop car. This gnome sure gets around.

It seem that online travel company Travelocity, which features a traveling gnome as their mascot, has even contact the owner of the gnome with a few words on encouragement:

“While we know that your dear friend, Gnomey, can never be replaced, we’re sending the enclosed Roaming Gnome to keep you company in his absence,” wrote Michelle Peluso, CEO of Travelocity. “Hopefully your friend will find his way out of trouble and back to your front yard soon, although we can’t help but admire his sense of adventure and love of travel.”

That’s one lucky gnome.

Good luck Gnomey, and safe travels!

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