Quartz City

I have zero opinion on Courtney Cox and the show Dirt, but if FX promotion is going to plaster that poster all over my city then I’m going to pound on this.

Please, please, please come up with a better logo that doesn’t use that idiotic upside-down letter “i.” Yes I know the “i” is doing double-duty as an exclamation point, but it looks awkward - even more when it’s inside that box offset. A simple “dirt!” would fit in well with the poster’s Nagel-Lichtenstein pop art riff. Honesly I kinda like the art. It’s certainly a vast improvement on the hideous goth metal album cover poster for the show’s first season, but that logo is design kryptonite.

Attention FX: next time go directly to the Pander Brothers for this sort of thing. k thx bye.

R.I.P. A sad day for Botany 500 and game show fans like me. Also, credit is due for inspiring one of the greatest one page comics ever…

Mildmannered Top Gear presenter James May is challenged in a culinary manliness test by blowhard chef Gordon Ramsay. Hilarity ensues.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKEPPw5Jd2M[/youtube]

1. When in Iceland, stay away (preferably several rooms away) from the Hákarl.

2. Go Captain Slow!

(Sorry Erwin.)

A mobster is a Jersey diner at night with his family and a plate of onion rings. Also in the diner are potentially one or more Enemies. Over the course of dinner the mobster may recognize an Enemy, but with equal probability he may not recognize an Enemy or no Enemy may be present at all.

If the state of the mobster may not be determined from outside the diner without interfering with mobster/Enemy system then is the mobster in a superstate where he is both alive and dead?

It could explain why that cat was hanging around Satriale’s.

Thinking about the ending on the way to work today, I remembered John Sayles’ film Limbo and it’s very similar and jarring non-ending ending. The film just stops without any apparent conclusion until you suss out that the plot of the movie wasn’t necessarily the story. Family relationships are the story and once those relationships reach some kind of resolution there’s no reason to keep going. The series really ends when Tony visits A.J.’s therapist and revealed that he was still the same whiner he was seven years ago - blaming his mother for everything and taking responsibility for nothing despite all the subsequent death and horrible things he’s done. The family (both of them really) isn’t much better off, each acting as enablers for the others. The scenes that followed were just epilogue. Holsten’s isn’t too terribly different from the small-L limbo Tony encountered as Kevin Finnerty at the beginning of the season only he’s still afraid, paranoid, and waiting for something to happen.

Whaddya gonna do?

Countdown to when Paulie/LOLcat mashups appear in 5… 4… 3…

R.I.P.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=u6lkxmn-dsQ[/youtube]

Fave Match Game episode out of many: Reilly frustrates Gene Rayburn so much that Rayburn sits down and make Reilly host the show.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=eCM-58J_3Ig[/youtube]

I was in the UK in 1973 and when I wasn’t running around the elevators in the old Regent Palace (hey, I was eight years old! pushing all the buttons in the elevator is required behavior) I was fascinated by British kids television and distinctly remember seeing an episode of Camberwick Green and some of the associated merchandise over at Hamleys. I can’t place precisely why I remember it well. Maybe it was the apparent mash up of Richard Scarry and Mister Rogers, both of whom were must-see CKB TV back then.

I hadn’t thought about Camberwick Green in thirty-four years. Just one of those odd I-remember-seeing-that-somewhere pieces of memory that rattle around until something jars it loose. Fast-forward to one of the most jaw-droppingly hilarious mental core dumps ever at the beginning of the most recent episode of Life On Mars:

[youtube]Ixsc9POvY7E[/youtube]

R.I.P. Calvert DeForest.

Two things I didn’t know. 1. His great uncle was inventor Lee De Forest. 2. He was still alive. I somehow thought that he had passed away awhile back.

Some obligatory YouTube clips:

Passing out hot towels at the Port Authority bus station

[youtube]fQ7PMG8c2gI[/youtube]

Run-D.M.C.’s “King Of Rock”

[youtube]fumgOJLFSHw[/youtube]

1. NBC Mystery Movie

[youtube]irzPpu9IbNI[/youtube]

2. I Spy

[youtube]Mmyk3taZmFM[/youtube]

3. Project U.F.O.

[youtube]yVVADz0Afss[/youtube]

4. Department S

[youtube]BENjyyiP8tk[/youtube]

5. U.F.O.

[youtube]IY_yNbJFP2c[/youtube]

See Main Title Heaven for more.

Kevin Mitnick and Steve Wozniak are hosting TechTV’s The Screen Savers tomorrow, September 27th. Set your TiVos…

Finally, a top 50 list I can agree with! Matt of Scrubbles declares that the theme to Space: 1999 is number one on his Top 50 TV Theme list. I’d probably put U.F.O. in my #1, but either way Barry Gray is most definitely the Man for groovy themes.