Reality Me

"Murphy was an optimist!"

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Who Watches the Watchmen? June 30, 2009 1:23 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Announcements, Of Interest, TV / Movies , 4comments

I watch the Watchmen!

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Filed under, “Not good foreplay!” May 14, 2009 10:33 pm

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Seven pounds

(should have been named Two Tons of Bricks)

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Star Trek - JJ Abrams Hits a Homerun! May 7, 2009 11:27 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Of Interest, Star Trek, TV / Movies , 4comments

Spoiler free!

My wife had but one request for her birthday (this coming Tuesday–she’ll be 21!) and that was a date to see J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek on opening night. A little luck, a babysitter and some Fandango magic later and Cathy and I had a date tonight! Star Trek officially opens tomorrow, the 8th, which with any other movie means the first showing is at midnight. Apparently, Hollywood recognized us old guys have jobs and families and did pre-release showings as early as 7:00pm. We hit the 7:30pm and us old guys it was! At first there didn’t appear to be anyone under 30 in the theater. For that matter, our theater closely resembled a Star Trek convention. We had munchkins, a blind lady, an albino (whom I went to college with and haven’t seen for like 15 years), grandparents supervising the 30 year olds, and a couple of guys who sounded like regulars for voice overs of Star Trek convention spoof videos spouting off Trek trivia.

The actual movie

Cathy said it first but I agree: Fans of the original Star Trek are going to absolutely LOVE this movie! It is packed full of references to the original TV series including one character that I wanted to reach out to and scream, "But don’t you understand! You’re wearing a red shirt!" People not familiar with the Star Trek franchise will see a technically good movie and should enjoy it but will miss the subtle inside jokes and references except for when the audience cheers at a few trademark lines. Live long and prosper!

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Watchmen Review - No Spoiler March 6, 2009 9:42 am

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Of Interest, Sex, TV / Movies, Touchy Subjects , 2comments

Who Watches the Watchmen? Cathy and I were privileged to go see the midnight showing of Watchmen last night. (See Official Watchmen website) First a note to myself: if you are going to act like a college student and watch a 3 hour movie starting at midnight, set an alarm for the morning. I lay in bed this morning trying to convince myself it was Saturday; then Noah’s whisper, "Dad. It’s 7:15" startles me from bed. Fortunately, everyone made it to school on time…and with lunches!

My Thoughts

In short: Go see this movie! But leave the children at home.

Astounding! Lighting choices, sets, camera angles, use of slow motion and stop action made me not want to blink. They sucked me into the screen and I did not want to miss a millisecond. The vivid colors and contrasts brought enough comic book element without crossing the cheesy boundary. The sounds were crisp and took great advantage of the theater setting. This movie certainly deserves at least one viewing on a big screen. The musical soundtrack was perfect falling into the must purchase category. The story was well told. The movie ran three hours and I was glued to the screen for every second. I may even go back and watch Watchmen in the Imax theater!

Rating/Parent Warning

Watchmen is rated R for strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language. As you drop your children off at the theater to watch this movie based on a comic book, remember that comic books were not always written for children. This is an adult movie. Watchmen has graphic violence that may turn some heads from the screen. The sex in the movie is hot! And only outdone by the sex after the movie. [pseudo spoiler]You will see breasts, nipples, butts and penises. You will see blood.

History

Read wikipedia’s Watchmen article for a great description of how Watchmen came to exist. In short, Watchmen represented a stark change from how superheros were typically represented. Even the presentation of the comic book was different in style. In high school, I was a comic book collector and a huge D.C. fan. I visited monthly comic book conventions and had my own "pusher" who would advise me on the hot series. I was really into the miniseries. I found Crisis on Infinite Earths very exciting as the D.C. continuity problems were to finally be fixed but all the tie ins and crossover series burned me out on comic collecting. Unfortunately, I quit collecting comics in 1986 when Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns was released. My pusher insisted that was a story I shouldn’t miss and that it would instantly be valuable. He was right. I should own the first release of The Dark Knight ~~and I should have Watchmen. I remember Watchmen, but regretfully, I do not think I have a single issue downstairs.~~ Cool! Last night I dug out my old comic box and discovered I have the entire 12 issue Watchmen series in bagged in mint condition! I suppose I should say near mint; nothing is every truly mint. I even have 2 copies of issue 12. The desire to take them out and flip through their pages is almost worth more than the $250 the set appears to be going for on eBay. What I do have is the Punisher series but that movie was rotten. But I digress. Quit reading this and go watch the movie!

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LOST Catch February 25, 2009 8:27 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Lost, Of Interest, TV / Movies , 2comments

SPOILER Alert!

Jack’s grandfather says "one of these times I’m going to get away and no one is going to find me either." I think that’s the tell which says Jack’s grandfather has been to the island.

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Jumping into LOST January 30, 2009 6:49 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Lost, Of Interest, TV / Movies , add a comment

Seen on Forest of Illusions.

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LOST Twitter RPG January 21, 2009 10:30 am

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Lost, Of Interest, TV / Movies , 3comments

LOST returns tonight! I’m very excited. SpoilerTV decided to play a LOST RPG using Twitter (see LOST Characters Find Twitter). Some other people caught on and created their own LOST characters making it difficult to know who is playing the game and who is an imitator so I created a Yahoo Pipe to show only the feeds from the SpoilerTV game. I’ll try to improve the pipe over time.

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Another LOST character joins Twitter January 7, 2009 1:12 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Lost, Of Interest, TV / Movies , add a comment

Some characters from LOST are enjoying Twitter. Charles Widmore is the newest @CharlesWidmore.

Update: Vincent, the dog, has joined @VincentTheDog the LOST Twitterers.

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LOST Characters Find Twitter January 5, 2009 5:14 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : From the mouths of babes, Lost, MSM, Of Interest, Philosophy, TV / Movies , 5comments

Note: There’s been an onslaught of people copying the SpoilerTV concept resulting in many duplicate names. I’ll update this post later to reflect the originals versus the imitators.

If you are a LOST fan, you’ll love being able to interact with Jack Shephard, Kate Austen, Sayid Jarrah, Sun Kwon, and Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes. They are each on Twitter now!

Jack Shephard is @jshephard
Kate Austen is @kausten
Sayid Jarrah is @sayidjarrah
Sun Kwon is @SunKwon
Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes is @hugoreyes
Update 7 Jan 2009: Charles Widmore is @CharlesWidmore
Update 7 Jan 2009: Vincent, the dog, is @VincentTheDog
Update 7 Jan 2009: Desmond D Hume is @desmonddhume
Update 7 Jan 2009: Frank Lapidus is @Frank_Lapidus
Update 7 Jan 2009: mhawking @mhawking (doesn’t appear to be affiliated with the SpoilerTV group)
Update 7 Jan 2009: Benjamin Linus @blinus
Update 7 Jan 2009: Claire Littleton @ClaireLittleton
Update 7 Jan 2009: James Ford @JamesFord
Update 7 Jan 2009: John Locke @Jonathan_Locke
Update 7 Jan 2009: Miles Straume @Miles_Straume
Update 7 Jan 2009: Kate Austen (the second) @Kate_Austen
Update 7 Jan 2009: The Island @The_Island
Update 7 Jan 2009: Jack Shephard (the second) @Jack_Shephard_
Update 7 Jan 2009: Juliet Burke (looks like a second) @JulietBurke_
Update 7 Jan 2009: Sayid Jarrah (the second) @Sayid_Jarrah
Update 7 Jan 2009: Walt Lloyd @Walt_Lloyd

You may want to follow @abcinnercircle also. You can follow me on Twitter @djuggler.

Update: Apparently this post created some attention for Sayid. His response:

@djuggler Your link boosted my followers. A suspicious number of them, in fact. If I notice anything else… I might have to pay you a visit about 18 hours ago from twhirl in reply to djuggler

Update: In case anyone is curious, the LOST Twitters are part of a role playing game started on Spoiler TV.

Oceanic Six Twitter Project

Postby Gideon on Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:28 pm
All right guys, I know I’m new around here, but I had a pretty cool idea that I think some of you may want to participate in. Essentially, Twitter accounts will be created for the Oceanic Six (minus Aaron, obviously), and we’ll use them to follow the events off-island in this season as if we were those characters. Need for information? Keep reading!

What’s Twitter?
Twitter is a social network/micro-blogging service that is absolutely free to sign up for. You can see the example I’ve set up here. The amount of characters you can input for one "post" is limited to 160. This means sometimes you have to be smart to say all you want to say.

Who can participate?
Anyone can participate! Just post here with the character you’d like to post as, and I’ll help you set up an account if you need any help. I would like for you to make a commitment to this, however, and continue with your character at least until he or she makes it back to the island.

So what/when do I post?
Just post whatever happens to the character on the show! Act as if you are the character, not yourself commenting on the character. Think of it as role-playing. You can post whenever you like, whether on Wednesdays after the show or any time throughout the week, but please do not post more than once a day, simply because people will be "following" you and we don’t want to flood and annoy them. Also, please post at least once a week.

[Source, Spoiler TV, Oceanic Six Twitter Project]

Sayid is being played by Dreyesbo. Kate is being played by Jess. Sun is being played by Mellow. Hurley is being played by PenguinJosh. I’m not sure who claimed Jack but I am guessing Gideon. Charles Widmore is being played by DarkUFO. Vincent the dog is being played by bigsimpsin. Desmond is being played by RobinTWP. Frank_Lapidus is played by Anis Ben Amor. mhawking is being played by ???. Benjamin Linus is being played by ???. Claire Littleton is being played by ???. James Ford is being played by ???. John Locke is being played by ???. Miles Straume is being played by ???. The second Kate Austen is being played by ???. The Island is being played by ???. Jack Shephard (the second) is being played by ???. Juliet Burke is being played by ???. Sayid_Jarrah the second is being played by ???. Walt Lloyd is being played by ???.

See also. Here’s hoping ABC doesn’t make the Mad Men mistake.

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How to clear a room of children November 29, 2008 12:12 pm

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Of Interest, TV / Movies , add a comment

We know we can clear a room of teenagers with high frequencies but how do we get the single digits to go to another part of the house? Simple. Put Fantasia on the television.

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LOST connection? November 27, 2008 9:12 am

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Lost, Of Interest, TV / Movies , add a comment

The Black Rock, a slave ship, has been discovered wrecked off the Turks and Caicos Islands.

…in 1841, an accident that set free the ancestors of many current residents of those islands. …When the wreck was first discovered in 2004 it was named the Black Rock ship because the researchers were unsure of its identity. [Source, LiveScience, Remains of Slave Ship Found]

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