Wall-E on the Brain

I guess it was from watching the Oscars the other night, but now I am on a big Wall-E kick (I have always been a big fan of Disney and especially Pixar movies, but this is far and above my usual obsession). I have watched the movie 3 times this week and downloaded most of the songs used in the movie. In honor of this I changed some my dock icons around, as you can see above.

- Wall-E's lunchbox is my Finder

- EVE is Adium aka AIM (its animated so it looks really cool when I sign on and such)

- Wall-E is TweetDeck

- GO-4 is Activity Monitor

- VAQ-M is AppCleaner

- M.O. is Trash (his light goes up and gets angry eyes when the trash is full and I even changed the sound effects so when I empty the Trash I hear M.O. going "whoa, whoa, whoa")

why you ask did I do this? again I will refer you to the title of my blog and there is the answer

Improving Upon The Best

I wrote a couple days ago about the NBA All-Star Dunk Contest and it got me thinking, how can the whole weekend be improved?  I enjoy the NBA All-Star event above all other sports All-Star events.  Hockey: no one cares about the sport in general, Football: the Pro Bowl is a let down after the excitement of the Super Bowl, Baseball:  is the definite number 2 (as a kid I liked the MLB game more, but inter-league play kind of ruined the mystique).    Even though the NBA is the best I want it to be even better.  

[Before I go any further I have to give credit to the Sports Guy on ESPN for the basis of my ideas.]  

First, H-O-R-S-E was great, but Simmons is right they need better contestants.  Guys who talk smack the whole time would be epic.  From videos I've seen LeBron during practice never stops running his mouth, he should be in.  Also, Steve Nash or Manu  Ginobli would add some soccer moves that could make the game really fun.  H-O-R-S-E

should be moved inside too.  It should be part of the Saturday Night Prime Time event.

Second,  I think the events are better when bigger stars are involved.  In order to entice the players to participate create King of All-Star Weekend award.  All the events during the weekend go towards the prize.  You could either include the All-Star MVP or keep it separate.  Like this year it probably would have been Kevin Durant.  He won the Rookie Challenge MVP and H-O-R-S-E.  Having this award would open the door for more competitive events.  It could be the dawn of a new All-Star Weekend era. 

They're Back!

Some thoughts on last nights episode of LOST "316".  Contains spoilers... beware

LOST caught me off guard from the first second last night.  I figured the Oceanic 6 would go back, mostly because I saw a suited Jack jumping into the lagoon in the preview (which reminds me whoever makes the "Next Wee k on LOST" promos does a great job, because they always get you interested but almost all the scenes they reveal happen in the first 5 min so they do not ruin anything).  Not only were they back but that opening scene was a blatant remake of the opening in the very first episode.  I love this show.  Moving on from that initial shock there was a lot of hints at CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia in this episode.  I have not read the books, only seen the movies so the comparisons were pretty obvious.  Charlotte has been tied to the famed author, her full name is Charlotte Staples Lewis.  It seems rather fitting that the episode after she dies the show takes a turn toward her namesake.  The Dharma station Ms. Hawking showed off was named the Lamp Post.  A Lamp Post in Narnia was a land mark that showed the cross between the real world on Narnia when the children first visited.  There was also a Prince Caspian vibe when the O6 returned.  In the book the kids return to Narnia but find it much different than they left it.  I would not have been surprised to hear Jin to repeat the lines from one of the characters from the movie "the Island is not the same as when you last here."  A lot has happened since the O6 left and most of it we do not even know yet.  I do not have the knowledge of the CS Lewis masterpieces to make anymore comparisons, but I know Doc Jensen will write more about it.

Almost more exiting than this weeks episode was the preview for next week's.  It is titled "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham."  It showed some pretty obvious Christian references.  The one that got me was Locke holding up his arms (Christ like) as Ben knelt before him, while a noose hung around Locke's neck.  Recently there has been numerous references of the Christ story:  Ben's van has an anagram for Reincarnation, the O6 had to return in 3 days, Ben talked to Jack about St. Thomas.  I guess this is another similarity to CS Lewis.. Aslan , the Lion, in the first book was portrayed as a Christ like figure just like Locke is now.

other random thoughts:

-Executive Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse said before this episode that they switched the episodes.  Meaning this weeks episode "316" is #7 and next week's episode is #6.  Why did they do this?

-Did Ben go and try to kill Penny?  Was that why he was all beat up? Did Desmond kick his ass?

-What happened with Aaron?  I think it is something significant.

-Speaking of Aaron, Sun just left her daughter behind.  I hope Jin is upset.

-I want Walt back!  I'm thinking we might see him in the Locke story next week, but he should have come back to the Island too.

-My theory for next week is that Locke, after leaving the Island, is still traveling through time.  While traveling through time he will be influencing himself in the past.  (I'm going out on a limb and stating that Locke caused the car crash that sent his mother into the hospital while she was pregnant with him.) Maybe we will even see Matthew Abaddon.

Getting Ready for Jimmy... Really?

When I heard that Jimmy Fallon was taking the Late Night spot from Conan O'Brien, I was deflated.  I watch Conan all the time because he is hilarious and that is usually the time I am about to go to sleep.  I was hoping that Conan's replacement would someone I would want to watch, unlike Fallon.  I, like many people I know found Fallon annoying.  He was in Taxi with Queen Latifah, which you could not pay me to see, and I was  never a fan of his on SNL.  The I heard that The Roots would be his house band.  I am a big fan of The Roots so I was kind of excited.  Slowly I began blamed Fallon again for taking the group away from the studio and making new music.  Then Jimmy Fallon was a guest on Diggnation.  I almost did not watch because I thought I could not stand the man.  He was taking the place of my fav late night host, took my fav group out of the studio and now was infecting my fav Internet show.  For some reason though I left it on and kept watching.    I was surprised, his guest appearance was one of the funniest episodes I had seen of Diggnation.  Jimmy was actually funny, not annoying at all.  He was on Diggnation so he had to be at least little bit of a geek and he is a Mac fan boy.   I starting following him on Twitter (twitter.com/jimmyfallon).  After about a month, now I think he pretty cool and probably someone I would hangout with (you know if I am ever cool enough to warrant having famous friends).  And he has good taste in music, The Roots are his house band after all.  So now I am excited for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to begin.  Who would have thought?

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon starts March 2, check out latenightwithjimmyfallon.com  Jimmy posts pics and videos almost daily

Superman Lost... The Dunk Contest

Saturday night Superman engaged in an epic battle versus his one weakness: Kryptonite... and lost.  The battle took place not in Metropolis or even in a comic book, it was on the basketball court in Phoenix.  Ok, it was not really Superman it Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson in 2009 NBA All-Star Dunk Contest.  The theatrics were great (full disclosure: I am a Superman comic book fan, so combining The Man of Steel and Hoops is always a win for me) .  

First, Howard jumped into a phone booth and transformed into his alter ego Superman (which was weird because he was in there for a whole minute and did not put the cape on until after he came out, what was he doing in there?).  He made dunking on a 12 ft. hoop look like the easiest thing in the world.  Then, Nate Robinson returned from the locker room sporting an all green Knicks uniform complete with Kryptonite shoes and ball.  The little guy finished Howard off by dunking over him and in the process gave him the ultimate disrespect; the Tea bag (go play Halo if you do not understand). 

Looking back on it now though, the dunks were not impressive.  I felt that the two best dunks, skill wise, were Dwight Howard's bounce off the side of the backboard and Rudy Fernandez with the behind the backboard bounce pass from Gasol.  Strangely, they were the first dunks by both contestants.  Shouldn't the dunks get better as the contest goes on?  And Nate Robinson's signature dunk over Howard was the same thing he did two years ago; jumping over Spud Webb.  Howard probably could have won if he made the dunk on the 12 ft. hoop look harder.  It looked totally unimpressive, discounting the fact that he had jump two feet higher.   So I was impressed with the competition, but at the same time disappointed with the skill set.  

However, anticipation for next year could not be higher.  LeBron says he will finally participate.  I stay awake at night dreaming of the craziness that King James will bring.  But it will only be better if  some other big name guys will join him.  Of course Robinson comes back to defend his title, even though I don't really like him.  Howard needs to come back, because he brought back the excitement for the contest.  I think Dwayne Wade is the other guy who should participate.  And really they should expand the participants from 4 to 6.  More dunks are never a bad thing.  But the only thing we can do is wait.  The countdown has begun to what could be the best Dunk Contest of all-time, woohoo!!