Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume 7

Jesus Christ. If Family Guy was tough to sit through, Aqua Teen Hunger Force was unbearable. Once again, I know full well what kind of show I'm getting when I watch ATHF, but this season - sorry, volume (once again... why?) - was absolutely and utterly stupid. Irrevocable absurdity isn't a bad thing. It's what made the first season of this show so enjoyable and memorable. But back then, at least the surreal silliness was done for the sake of comedy. The last few seasons, on the other hand, have been absolutely chaotic in their ridiculousness. While ATHF was never about concrete story-telling or by-the-book humor, episodes at least used to almost make sense. There were quotable characters, often voiced by well-known actors and comedians. There was definitive conflict. Now? Episodes are more wild and haphazard than ever, but the humor is totally absent. Some urban legend even says that the creators are intentionally trying to make the show terrible these days in hopes of getting cancelled. That doesn't even sound improbable. To be perfectly honest, there were times when I'd see the credits rolling on the screen after eleven minutes of an episode and be unable, already, to recite even a few "plot points" that had occurred. Sometimes I get tempted to watch this show on TV when new episodes air, but whenever I actually see said new episodes I'm thankful I've kept my distance. So why do I even keep trying? As with Family Guy, all I'm looking to do is maintain the completeness of my television anthologies. I'd be a richer (and smarter) man if I could just drop that habit, but at this point what do I have to lose? Aqua Teen can't last much longer. It just can't. Right?

Family Guy: Volume 8

Oh, Family Guy. Where to begin? I suppose at this point, I know exactly what I'm getting with this show - not as much a coherent sitcom as an animated sketch-comedy show - but it can still be a rather trying ordeal to sit through multiple episodes at once. Yet that's exactly what I did this morning, finishing off the second half of this "volume." Quick aside: why not just release DVD sets every season? I watched like three episodes of the most recent season of Family Guy and was looking forward to watching this three-disc set; it might not be a great show, but at least the mediocrity would be fresh and new. Alas, no! It was stale and previously seen. The reason being that instead of the episodes from Fall '09 through Spring '10, I was watching a set of episodes from Spring '09 to Fall '09. Gah! No big deal, I suppose; I'm buying all the DVD sets anyway for some reason (read as: completion-based collecting). Now, onto the substance, or lack thereof. Again, I know what I'm getting with Family Guy and I'm not too thick-headed to just accept that and watch the show on its own terms. The problem is, those terms are more or less dictating that episodes be judged chiefly by the ratio of good non-sequitur gags to bad ones. Let me reiterate: Family Guy is just animated sketch comedy. There's nothing wrong with that, but it means that the show lives or dies by the strength of its jokes. And frankly, they're just not always funny. Poop is over-referenced, even for an animated FOX show. The same goes for homosexuality and, well, sexuality in general. It just seems like there are more attempts to be shocking or perverse than there are to make good jokes. Oh, and references - toilet humor, shock humor, and references to pop culture tidbits from 30 years ago. I'm not trying to be an elitist here, but so much of Family Guy just isn't funny. Another problem arises from the fact that the show very much seems to view itself as a legitimate pop culture icon that can do no wrong. As the smugness piles on in a rather unapologetic fashion - Peter breaks the fourth wall and discusses the show with the audience in, I kid you not, six of the first seven episodes on this DVD set - I find myself wondering why I watch at all. But then something silly makes me laugh or some reference makes me nod and smile and suddenly I'm reminded that this show is the furthest thing from serious, and thus, not at all worth getting upset about. I'll just run with the good gags and roll with the bad ones and let other people with TV blogs worry about bashing or praising the show.

Mad Men: Season One

Okay, so technically I didn't watch any DVDs for this posting, and since the first season of AMC's Mad Men was available for free On Demand, I sort of cheated. But whatever. At the rate we're going the Back-Blog needs all the posts it can get, and I never review t.v. shows anyway so here I am doing just that. Mad Men is a show that I know Stan is a fan of and has told me to watch before, but it was my brother who got me into it in the first place by tossing it on one weekend morning. It's a period piece about an advertising firm, Sterling Cooper, in the sixties. It's a blast to watch the employees drink themselves retarded at work and make hilariously inappropriate comments about women while at the same time proving their worth by coming up with brilliant ad campaigns. The show focuses on the firm's best employee, Don Draper, a man who is suave and sophisticated in all the ways you aren't. He always seems to know the right ad campaign for the job, is respected by his coworkers, and has a loving (and very attractive) wife, but he's been hiding a pretty big secret for most of his life and it's just now coming back to bite him in the ass. Unfortunately I watched the episodes somewhat out of order, so I found out the secret much earlier than I should have, but that hardly detracted from my enjoyment- in watching previous episodes I liked all the foreshadowing of what was to come. It's an entertaining, stylish, and surprisingly funny look at ad-men in the sixties, and well worth a watch even if you're not that interested in the subject matter- I know I wasn't, but here I am ready to watch season 2. Good stuff.

Super Mario Galaxy

Wow. I've had Super Mario Galaxy hyped up to me for a while, mostly by Stan. I'm pretty sure he's claimed that it is the best game on the Wii, although it's debatable how great a claim that really is (hey-ooh). I suppose my favorite Wii game has been Resident Evil 4, but since that's a port it doesn't count. I can at least say that this is the best original game for the Wii. Galaxy is just awesome. The story is pretty bare-bones- the princess has been captured again, and it's up to Mario to save the day by finding a number of stars scattered throughout different galaxies. Each galaxy has its own theme of course, and while some were better than others, every level felt like the work of a genius. The level designs blew my mind over and over again, mostly with the way they played with gravity. Jumping from planet to planet was a blast and was perfectly suited for good platforming. Seriously, this game felt like Mario 64 on acid. Every level was fun and it can't be recommended enough. I think everyone on the Back-Blog has played it already though, so I guess this recommendation is a bit unnecessary, but whatever. Hopefully the next game I play is this good.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet

This was the third book published in the Time Quartet but the fourth book chronologically. Whatever. Do you guys care about what happened in this book? Because I'll be honest - I don't really care what happened in this book. Suffice it to say, there was time travel and nuclear war was averted and totally bizarre shit happened along the way. I really wish I enjoyed this tetralogy more than I have so far. I'll give this book that it was better than the last one, but only because it was slightly less absurd. Actually, maybe that made it worse. You know what? Let's just call this post done. I'm sorry for wasting your time.

The Producers (2005)

In 1968, Mel Brooks penned and directed a movie called The Producers about a theatrical performance designed to flop. In 2001, the film was turned into a Broadway musical. Then, in 2005, that Broadway musical was adapted back into a film. This is that film. I found it zany and silly, very much like everything Mel Brooks does. I knew what I'd get from Nathan Lane going in, but the true surprise in my eyes was Matthew Broderick. We know him today as a graying asshole who cheated on his ugly wife, and we knew him long ago as the cool and collected slacker Ferris Bueller. Here, he's actually quite vulnerable, likable, and easy to empathize with. Plus, he could really act and sing. Uma Thurman was also a treat as an over-the-top aspiring Swedish actress. Even Will Ferrell found a role he was perfectly suited for - the Nazi enthusiast responsible for writing "Springtime for Hitler," the very show that the leads produce with every intention of it bombing. This two-hour musical was silly and enjoyable. In fact, I didn't mind the running time at all and it felt much shorter and quicker than its runtime would suggest. This film-turned-musical-turned-film definitely gets my seal of approval.

Fearful Symmetry

After a very lengthy absence from the science game, I decided it was high time I read another nonfiction book. This one's all about modern physics. I'm sure you know about the electron and have heard of things called quarks. That was more or less the extent of my subatomic physics knowledge as well, prior to reading Fearful Symmetry. (Well, that's a bit of a fib, but bear with me.) Now, I'm practically an expert on fermions and bosons, the search for (and problems with) a "grand unification theory," and five-dimensional spacetime. Or was it ten-dimensional space? Alright, clearly, I'm still pretty lost about a number of things I just read about. But this was honestly a pretty enjoyable and interesting book. Zee spends a very small amount of time going over some basic physics before launching into two-hundred or so pages detailing the history of physics in the twentieth century. My biggest issue with the book was that it was written in 1984, and as such, pays no attention to the last twenty-five years of groundbreaking discoveries and theories. String theory, most notably, is largely absent. One aspect of the book I enjoyed was Zee's constant reference to a "Grand Creator." Zee always referred to this "Being" with capitalization - even on pronouns such as "He." (Or "She" when he was talking about "Nature" - also capitalized.) In the afterword, Zee pointed out that his belief in a creator was not so much a theistic one but more out of faith to his own field of study: physics. Anyway, there were a number of very cool passages, anecdotes, theories, and facts that I took away from the book. Did you know, for example, that no one has yet found a way to prove that time "flows" in one direction? I'll end this recap where I probably should have started it: with an explanation of the title. Well, at least the "symmetry" part. You see, symmetry is a guiding principle of modern physics and the search for new particles and explanations about how particles interact. An electron, for example, has a certain mass, spin, charge, and many other quantities. Why then should there not be another particle with the same mass and spin but a different (opposite) charge? Or one with the same mass and charge but an equal and opposite spin? It was this kind of thinking that led scientists to predict (and then later on verify) the existence of a number of quarks that hitherto had been completely unknown and totally unobserved. To me, that's pretty cool. Such a simple idea - symmetry - proving to be so fruitful in the realm of subnuclear particles. I could never be a theoretical physicist because of all the utterly complex and abstract mathematical theory that goes on, but I certainly respect the field and the sheer creativity that never gets associated with it amongst the masses.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season 2

I just finished up the final season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I can definitely say that I am of the opinion that its cancellation was premature and a shame. The second season - and thus, the series - ended on such a cliffhanger that I still can't even fully comprehend how awesome a third season could have been. This show had the potential to be the be-all end-all continuation of the Terminator franchise; Salvation sucked so bad they might not even make a fifth movie. Alas, because the show was canceled after just 31 episodes, I'll now never know what happens to John Connor in the alternate-timeline future. Now, because the series deals with time traveling in a manner that allows for people to change the past, there are like three or four separate timelines in the franchise now. The only common story they all seem to share divides into a multitude of paths after The Terminator and Terminator 2. I won't even attempt to delve into the complexity behind it all, but time travel confusion aside, this was a great show with fantastic writing and acting. That said, I honestly wouldn't recommend that you go out and watch all 31 episodes. Things start off a bit slow and even though the payoff is worth it, you'll ultimately have spent 22 hours on a story that stops abruptly just as its getting to the best part. Save yourself the frustration and avoid this series altogether. Sadly, that's the best advice I can give. Unless a movie set in this series' timeline occurs. In that case, jump aboard and enjoy the ride.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion

Starting the operation! So I got this game, along with Super Paper Mario and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, when I purchased my Wii bundle back in 2007. That makes it my oldest Wii game in the backlog. Well, at least it was until this afternoon when I beat its ass. The game is an upgraded port of a DS game called Trauma Center: Under the Knife. The original game featured 5 worlds and one bonus world; this Wii version has a sixth world and seventh bonus world. Whatever. I considered the game finished when I had beaten the main (DS) story. Now, the whole point of the game is that you are a doctor who must treat patients in a careful and timely manner. Set broken bones. Remove broken glass and stitch up wounds. A story kind of evolves in which some new man-made disease called GUILT (I don't think it stands for anything, unlike AIDS) is running rampant and infecting people. Let me get my big gripe out of the way first: the controls. As this game is on the Wii, and the Wii remote just lacks the very precision it claims to offer, you simply cannot be as careful a doctor as you'd like to be when it comes to sutures and scalpel work. And your score suffers for it. Fortunately, it's no huge deal. All the levels were still very beatable and none were exceptionally frustrating due to sloppy controls. Still, I imagine the game is a far superior experience on the Nintendo DS, where your stylus is as steady as your hand. I have to say, I wasn't looking forward to returning this game for backlog removal purposes, but I really did genuinely enjoy each and every mission. It was definitely one of those pleasant surprises that backlog-busting is all about. Some of the most memorable missions were the inspired ones. Save a guy on a plane - but watch out for the turbulence! Save a car crash victim on site - with a flashlight, because it's dark out! Help a guy research some GUILT strains - by solving jigsaw puzzles! My favorite? Disarm a bomb! (Yes, using your medical equipment.) All in all, it was a fun game and I'm glad I took the time - and it really wasn't that much time at all - to finish it off today. Totally worth it. But I'd recommend the DS version.

Final Fantasy IV

It has been over a month since my last beaten game, which has to be a record for me not only since the inception of the Back-Blog, but since my discovery of Backloggery itself. But there is a perfectly good reason for this long delay! Mainly, I've been playing the longest game I have left- Final Fantasy IV. This one clocked in at nearly 39 hours, rivaling Okami for the longest game I've ever played. Maybe that's because I've never played a Final Fantasy game before- the series is notable for its lengthy games, and its most recent incarnation is said to exceed 100 hours in length. Anyway throw that length into the mix with a full time job and all the preparations for my sister's recent wedding, and it's easy to see that this game was not going to be quick. But enough about that. The game exceeded my expectations. It was no Chrono Trigger, but certainly a great point to enter into the series- apparently this was the first plot-heavy game in the franchise. The whole time I played it, I got pretty engrossed in the entire series, looking up other Final Fantasy games and trying to figure out how I would be able to play through them all- apparently I should be able to play all but FF10 and FF12 (no PS2). That's also not counting FF11, the online-only version that seems to be completely unnecessary to play. But they'll have to wait, and probably a while- I just bought a PS3, and thus have a number of new games added to my backlog. Alright, I guess I've barely talked about FF4 itself, but I'm sure you all know what you're going to get when you play one of these games. All I can say is that it was definitely worth my time, so much so that it has me wanting to play the rest of the series. Bring it on, Final Fantasy.