I Am A Camera

New video! "Opening Day, Wrigley Field, 2008 season"

2008-03-31T20:59:43Z

(Are you a YouTube person? Here's the link to the YouTube version of this video.)

Greetings, humans! Spring has officially begun here in Chicago, even if the weather hasn't caught up to it yet; it means that not only bicycling season will be starting again soon, but also the goofy little cellphone videos I regularly do during bicycling season, most of which act as supplements to the various bicycle maps I've created for use in both Google Maps and Google Earth. (I'm hoping to ramp up the amount of videos I do this year, in fact; hopefully by the time Labor Day rolls around this September, I will have shot and posted 10 to 15 of them.) Here, my first cellphone video of 2008, shot on opening day of the Chicago Cubs 2008 baseball season, which happens to be the 100th anniversary of the last time the Cubs won the World Series, a historically significant occasion that has already garnered a ton of national press, before the baseball season has even begun. Unfortunately it was a crappy, rainy day today, so I don't have a lot to share from the actual opening-day festivities; rest assured that I will be shooting another video around Wrigley Field later this summer (located, by the way, a mere four blocks from my apartment), giving a better tour of the neighborhood and showing what a more typical game day in the Wrigleyville neighborhood is like. For now, I hope you enjoy.

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Announcing the triumphant return of "The IT Crowd."

2007-08-28T17:25:21Z

IT-1

Good news for fans of smart comedy -- the best show currently on television, British nerd sitcom The IT Crowd (produced by the UK's Channel 4) just started its second season last week. I ended up downloading the season premiere this morning off BitTorrent, in fact, and just got done watching it; and I can happily say that so far, it looks like the second season might just turn out to be even funnier than the first.

For those who don't know, the show is about the three-person "Information Technology" staff at a boring stuffy corporation in England, and is absurdist in nature; in one infamous episode last year, for example, the staff discovers that a moody goth has actually been living in one of their back server rooms for years now, ala "Phantom of the Opera." The show is CONSTANTLY referencing geek subjects and working actual tech talk into the dialogue; the show has also gotten famous for displaying famous geek projects and causes (Boing Boing, the EFF, etc) via t-shirts and posters in the show's backgrounds. And by the way, it's fucking hilarious, and the American remake coming to NBC next year is going to be just as much a disaster as any other attempt over the years by American television networks to adapt a funny, smart British sitcom. (Do you remember, for example, CBS's disastrous attempt a number of years ago to do an American version of Absolutely Fabulous, called High Society and starring Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell? No, I didn't think you did!)

Anyway, just thought I'd let Americans know about the new season, for all you geeks who have been waiting patiently for it. Fire up them BitTorrent clients, ladies and gentlemen! Oh, and here are my favorite two lines from the season opener, by the way, which I can't stop saying out loud today and giggling:

"A gay musical called Gay. Well, that's a bit...gay."

And...

"You're Irish? Oh, I adore the Irish! They're all mad! They're all so mad!"

"Yes, yes, we're all insane."

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And thus ends the first season of "Heroes."

2007-05-22T02:38:20Z

Okay, I admit it -- I watched all 23 episodes of freshman NBC show Heroes this year, despite it being a pretty damn stupid show. How stupid?

Heroeshrg

"Hi. I'm evil. How can you tell? I wear horn-rimmed glasses!"

Heroeshotgirl

"Hi. I'm a hot woman who's also a serial killer. Because dudes love hot women who are also serial killers!"

Heroesjapanesedude

"Hi! I am non-threatening Asian stereotype! My voice high and squeaky to not upset American rednecks!"

Yeah, pretty fucking stupid a lot of the time, is what I'm trying to get at. That said, though, the show does have some things going for it, which is why I ended up watching the entire season...

--The pacing of the plot is amazing -- easily one of the fastest-moving action shows in the history of television.

--Not to mention, they were able to create enough plot to keep the show moving that fast in the first place, something that would probably give the producers of "Lost" an apoplectic attack.

--They hired actual well-known comic-book artists to create all the cartoony visuals associated with the show. Even better, they worked an interesting element into the plot that explains why several different artists were all painting the same scenes over the course of the season. (See, the cartoons are actually visual interpretations of futurist visions; and over the course of the season, three different characters ended up with the ability to foresee the future, each of whom made their own paintings of upcoming events that were slightly different than the others'.)

--They actually finished season 1's storyline by the end of the final episode, something else it wouldn't hurt the producers of "Lost" to pay attention to. And man, it's hard to beat that teaser for season 2 they added to the end of the finale, too.

So anyway, my congratulations to the cast and crew of "Heroes," for actually making it to the end of the season without getting canceled; if I've got my numbers correct, in fact, this makes the show the very first one to last an entire season, out of the 12 or so "We want a weirdo nerdy hit like 'Lost' too" shows that the American networks have put on the air over the last couple of years. Now, will you please hire some better fucking writers over the summer?!

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