Empty Bookshelf Reviews

Author: Dan

  • The First Annual Shenzhen Film Festival

    First off, let me thank the Fruit Stand/DVD and CD Store that helped subsidize this festival. Without their 10RMB (that’s ~$1.25) rate for DVDs, none of this would have been possible. Obviously, they’re taking a monetary loss for the free advertising I promised them in exchange for being the exclusive supplier.

    Most film festivals have some sort of theme, sometimes something “cinematical” such as “new wave directors,” sometimes geographical. Given the current circumstances, let’s say the theme was geographical, as in movies made by the US. (To be honest, the second choice was funded by European money, but it’s an American franchise as far as I’m concerned, even if the movie took place in London and had only one American star.

    Film Festival
    It was a lot like this… except it was summer, in a hotel room, and instead of the crowd it was just me.

    American Psycho opened the film festival, a movie I had not seen since its theatrical run in 2000. At the risk of this mini-review being too mini, I’ll say that the slasher elements of the second half of the movie are considerably less interesting than the earlier sections, establishing the main character as more of a “ridiculous” crazy than “crazy” crazy. It’s a bit of a cop-out, but it’s safe to say that the movie is polarizing, and those that would like it have probably already seen it and those that would not like it won’t have their minds changed, nor ever watch it, especially because of this mini-review. I won’t waste my time convincing people to see the movie by describing it, so I’ll leave with how I’m glad that the setting for the movie (and the book on which it was based) was the 1980’s. Placing it in 2000 would have dated it too much, not allowing such wonderfully absurd setpieces as the Huey Lewis monologue. It only works because of how we remember Huey Lewis (and later, Genesis); had it been placed in 2000, the movie would not have aged well as it did not have the benefit of hindsight in picking songs that could serve as a “soundtrack of the era.” Very good movie. If you haven’t seen it for a while, let me recommend a repeat viewing.

    Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction. I’ll make the title its own sentence, if only to draw attention to itself. Yep, it’s that bad. In simplest terms, if I fall asleep during an “erotic thriller,” it’s neither very erotic or thrilling. Out like a light, and this was in the mid-afternoon. “Twists and turns”, blah blah blah, and I just didn’t care about how it ended. It’s odd to see a movie seem so right with making London look as non-American and modern as it supposedly is, and showing off enough contemporary modern design to serve as a timecapsule for the mid-2000’s, but have absolutely nothing going for it beyond that. Bad writing, all but unrecognizable actors in the non Sharon Stone roles, and, again, the power to put me to sleep. And I don’t fall asleep during movies. No good.

    I’ve never seen all of a Spike Lee movie before, and at this point, not all of his movies are about racial issues or whatever is stereotypically thought of as being his “topics.” The final movie, Inside Man, was very much a a “robbery movie” where the details of the “heist” are more interesting than what is being robbed and the grisly cop (Denzel Washington) and the too cool for the room robber (Clive Owen) share a manly man moment of bonding, realizing they have something in common but are on opposite sides of the law. I guess putting it in those terms sort of cheapens it, and that’s not fair. Movies like this are always this close to leaving the audience feeling manipulated instead of surprised by the (again) “twists and turns,” but everything in the movie seems plausible enough as its happening, though it’s probably not the best movie to think about after the fact. It’s pure hype to call the movie “unlike any heist movie you’ve ever seen!” being that that quote references the fact that an important plot point is that the robbers seemingly aren’t stealing anything, but instead have some other goal in mind. The quote makes it sound like it’s something new and different, but it’s been done (not to take anything away from the movie, though). I mentioned the part about Spike Lee, and I guess that makes it so I had some unfair preconceived expectations, but when the little kid has a moment with the head robber and the robber is disgusted at the Grand Theft Auto look-alike he’s playing, it’s not exactly subtle social commentary. Similarly, the very obvious moment of a Sikh employee of the bank getting hustled by the police for being an Arab isn’t left at that; a line is later delivered about how ‘Sikh’s aren’t Arabs’, in case anyone had missed the direct scene minutes earlier. Likewise, and I say this more as a joke than anything, but I couldn’t help but notice that the true bad guy in the movie was an aristocratic white guy… Anyway, consider this movie highly recommended. A word of warning though: I’m not one to really care much about movie soundtracks or “scores,” but the one in this movie was just plain awful, drawing attention to itself at all the inopportune moments.

    ***½

    The First Annual Shenzhen Film Festival receives three-and-a-half stars, as the opening movie was a “safe” choice, being that I had seen it before and the middle pick managed to put me to sleep. Of course, the final selection brought everything back together and left the audience wondering when the next Shenzhen Film Festival would be held. Also, minus some points because I’ve realized I don’t really like writing movie reviews, no matter how brief.

    IWRY

  • My Frequent Stabs at Highway Planning

    I’m no Civil Engineer, but I’d like to think of myself as a Monday Morning Traffic Planner. Some people have football; I have traffic jams. I don’t think of myself as an impatient person; it’s just that I hate indirect routes, especially within cities. I also think highways should be endless straight lines with no changes in altitude or direction. In fact, I think roads in cities should all be highways, too. You say, how would this work? I say, it would all cater to me.

    traffic
    Bring. It. On.

    It’s be very simple. Roads would be paved to connect points to which I frequently travel. I don’t need a highway to get to Wawa or the supermarket, but for anything over 3/4 of a mile, it’s the highway or the, uh, no-way. Longer trips simple involve longer new highways.

    Well, there isn’t much more to it than that. When sitting in the car on a yet another long trip to a familiar destination, I’ve come up with some more details.

    • Obviously, there’d be no speed limits. Well, none for me at least. Imagine going 100mph with nothing to worry about because the road is perfectly straight and perfectly flat. It’s top speed cruising the whole time.
    • I’ve realized that other people might find use for the roads, even if the exits are only at my frequent destinations at one end and my house at the other. Everyone can use the roads, but I have to approve them first. They also have to pay a toll. To me.
    • All the roads would be named after me.

      • Among many others there would be:

    • The Dan Fuller East-Side / South-Side Expressway
    • The Fuller Cross-Country Thoroughfare (stopping in Evanston, IL)
    • The Dan Fuller Media to Concordville Extension
    • The Allentown to Bear Creek Highway
    • The DF (a highway connecting Media and Allentown)
    • The Dan Fuller Honorarium Bao-An to Industrial Zone 7 Overpass
    • and on and on…

    Obviously, a very good idea.

    ****

    My Frequent Stabs at Highway Planning receive four hopeful stars because of how much more useful the highway system would be when it would cater exactly (and only) to my needs. Unfortunately, part of my “frequent stabs” involves thinking about how much money it would take to enact such a plan, but unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a number that big, and I’m stuck with yet another half-invented idea.

  • The Last 200 Years of Human Creative Output

    I hope that I’ll be able to post with some more frequency in the next coming while. Look for some smaller reviews in the next couple days.

    Humanity, I’m calling you out.

    I was doing some thinking the other day about what we’d do if aliens showed up. Obviously, the first course of action would probably be to make sure they’re not going to kill us and eat the delicious delicacy between our ears, but all things considered, these aliens had the means to make the trip from their home planet one (or two) bazillion miles away to Earth, so I’m not sure we’d be able to do too much to stop whatever their plan for us would be, evil or friendly. So, assuming their first step of their visit isn’t “killing them humans good”, they’d probably want to see the pinnacle of what we’ve accomplished as a planet during our shared, human history.

    voyager
    If part of your skimming of our reviews involves looking at the picture and reading the caption, hoping it will be funny, you’re all out of luck this time.

    They wouldn’t be impressed with our technology, so anything we’d mention about that would go as such:
    Us: And here’s a bridge that spans a whole mile!
    Them: A bridge… as in it spans, uh, water?
    Us: Yeah, isn’t it a great testament to our ingenuity?
    Them: Oh yeah, that’s really great. We just flew millions of light years to get here, and you’re trying to impress us with something that’s designed to keep your ground-based transportation from getting wet.

    As an aside, I could see Apple running a TV ad where aliens are given the tour and they’re not impressed by anything, then they use an Apple and are transfixed. The Apple logo is shown, then we see the aliens replacing the computers on their spaceship (running Windows, of course) with Apples. You heard it here first.

    With our comparatively puny technology, we’d be left to show them our artistic achievements. We sort of did this already on a much more limited scale with the golden records sent on the Voyager probes, but odds are, those aliens probably aren’t going to figure out how to make them work. Not because they’re not smart enough, but for the same reason that if cave men would have thought to leave a message for the future, we’d struggle decoding it. I hesitate to sound unnecessarily profound, but there’s something to be said about technological context. In 200 years, the concept of an optical disc will be foreign to us; imagine 2,000 years or 200,000 years. Now imagine that we’re aliens whose definition of “visible light” might be completely different than ours.

    Anyway, we’re giving a tour of humanity to these apparently friendly aliens. Technology’s out, human history has just become insignificant (and not just because the aliens won’t care), as from the moment the ship is seen for the first time, everything will be measured as being either “before” or “after” that moment. This all means that the only thing left for us to show off and be proud of would be our art. First things first, we’ll investigate what we’ll consider “art.”

    • Paintings? – Sure. Let’s just remember how easy it is to create absolutely awful paintings though…
    • Music? – That, too
    • Sculpture? – Eh, paintings do the same in a more portable medium. Sorry.
    • Architecture? – Hmm. Tough call. I’ll take the easy way out and say that it’s more of an engineering discipline than anything else, that it doesn’t count. Besides, aliens would have different ergonomic needs than we do. If the aliens rolling on the ground and slept hovering in mid-air, our architecture wouldn’t do too much for them.
    • Photography – Too new of an artform, and most successful “photos as art” are more “neat” than transcendent unless they’re pictures of landscapes. Hmm… maybe we’ll use those photos to convince the aliens not to raze our planet and turn it into some sort of intergalactic parking lot. The biggest thing against photography is the fact that its most affecting imagery is usually more journalistic than artistic.
    • Literature – Sorry, you’re cut: aliens don’t know Earth languages, and reading requires too much of a time commitment
    • Movies/TV/Video – eh, too much context in those media (discussed later)
    • Food/Culinary? – Nope. Aliens wouldn’t appreciate the same tastes. Heck, our food might even kill them.
    • Video Games? – HA!
    • “Performance Art” – Hey aliens, I’ve heard they have delicious brains!

    So that leaves painting and music. Thinking on both of those forms, what would we include? For music, we have any one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (among countless other things of his that could be included – one of the Brandenburg Concertos was included on the Voyager records, so let’s consider it the example for Bach), we have a selections of “Beethovens”: Fur Elise, the Moonlight Sonata, and excerpts from the 5th, 9th, and even 7th symphonies to choose from. Handel has Music for the Royal Fireworks, but after that, the remaining selections get a bit thin. The 1812 Overture is quite an achievement, but remembering what I had said before about context and how aliens wouldn’t care about history, it’s not detached from its context (the Napoleonic wars — As Americans we don’t care about them, and aliens would care even less); when someone listens to it, they invariably say it sounds like fighting music. So it (and most any other event/history-inspired piece of music-think Finlandia, The Ring Cycle, etc.) is out of contention because it doesn’t transcend its context. The Brandenburg Concerto has the name of a place in it, yet as music, it’s completely detached from its namesake. Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks also has a very context-heavy title, but what in it evokes a fireworks display without talking in artsy-fartsy “painting with music” terms or even explicitly calls out the “royal” aspect of it?

    I’ve just looked into baroque, classical, and romantic music, and anything made before those three was made primitive by Bach’s baroque – and for music of the 20th century, well, let’s take a look. Aaron Copland wrote some nice music, unfortunately, it’s not alien-worthy. There’s some sort of experimental or even reactionary sense to it, purposefully having instruments out of tune for effect and having some intangible “American” sound, sometimes taking existing folk songs and incorporating them into some larger work. That’s great and all, but aliens don’t deserve experimental music in any capacity. We should be proud of what we’ve figured out, not the steps it took to get there.

    Looking at less academic music, there’s jazz, blues, swing, etc., etc. of the pre-Rock times, and all of those are out — if the music has little significance today, it’ll have even less in the future. Now, the Beatles are probably the most significant popular music artifact of the 20th century, but as Nate implicitly said, the music didn’t get very interesting until they started with the drugs. Nothing against the Beatles, but I’m not sure drug users make the best musical ambassadors. (Yeah, Bach, etc. probably used snuff or whatever was popular, but no one says, “Wow, he must’ve been high when he wrote this.” John Lennon, I’m looking through at you.) Also, the Beatles music has words, and as much as I’d like English to be Earth’s language there are two issues: 1) I don’t want the Queen‘s English to be the official one and probably more importantly 2) aliens don’t know English, the Queen’s or otherwise, much less any Earth language.

    The other musical heavy hitters of the 20th century? Led Zeppelin – drugs; Pink Floyd – more drugs; Michael Jackson – yeah, that’d be a good idea; (I hate to admit it) Garth Brooks – I don’t even need to provide a reason. Yanni’s quite popular in his own weird way, and he has the language thing taken care of, but his music is too generic for representing human-kind. Yeah, there’s the non-Western World’s music, but let’s be honest: they’re all wishing that they were us by enjoying our pop music scraps we give to them years after their popularity here. It’s the Western way or the highway.

    Conclusion: Nothing musical that’s alien-worthy after Beethoven. He died in 1827. Way to go humanity.

    On to artwork: Well, the most well-regarded of today’s artists (by art-critics/snobs) is Matthew Barney. Take a look around at that link, and you’ll see that not only is his “work” not alien-worthy, it’s barely human-worthy. Like music, a lot of the more notable recent-ish artists had drug problems (Picasso) which directly influenced their art, “great” or not. Van Gogh wasn’t the most stable (cutting his ear off and all), and Dali – well, his stuff is interesting only because we view it as humans and react to it because of what we expect or don’t expect of what we consider “art.” Aliens have no reason to react in that same way. Also, implicit pictures of male genitalia might not be the best thing to be showcasing to otherworldly visitors. I certainly don’t want the aliens to know where the sensitive bits are when they begin their mass exterminations.

    There have been some other relatively recent and notable artists, but they suffer from that same time/place/context issue as detailed in the music section. Mary Cassatt did the whole impressionism thing in an American way, and Georgia O’Keefe did for “innies” what Dali did for “outies.” In all actuality, though it may be hanging on so many dorm room walls, The Starry Night would make the 200 year cut, but again, the latent (and not so latent) craziness of Van Gogh precludes its inclusion.

    Just like with the music, we end up looking back to the “masters:” Rembrandt, the Ninja Turtles (whose work doesn’t really need introduction – except for maybe Donatello, that underachieving I-talian), Vermeer, the locally contentious Bosch and so on. Needless to say, all a long time ago.

    Again, I’ve only mentioned Western art, but like I said before, it’s the Western Way or the highway.

    *

    The Last 200 Years of Human Creative Output is given one disappointing star due to its absolute lack of providing anything we’d give to alien ambassadors as the pinnacle of human achievement. Beyond that, because there have undoubtedly been enjoyable snippets since then, we, as fans and humans, can only be distressed once we realize that it/they can’t hold a candle to the previous work. Now, let me prefend (come on people, it means defending yourself before someone has put you in a defensive position) myself here: I am a loud opponent of the “it was first, so it’s absolutely significant and ‘good’” mentality. Beowulf, The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Elvis, Sputnik, The Wright Flyer, and on and on – all overrated in any sense other than “first ~.” None of my picks were real “firsts” (except for Bosch and Bach – and Bach only sort of – but he was not the only game in town for that time of music when he was around), so I’m good to go, principles intact. Please, leave suggestions for the alien art and music presentation below.

  • The Current TV Landscape (The Office, Scrubs, and the Ghost of Arrested Development) – Part 3

    Part 3 – Scrubs

    Keeping the TV theme: a long time ago, I predicted that the Taylor guy would get super far on American Idol, but “America” would never vote for him when he’d be against a pretty girl….well, I haven’t watched since then, but I have it on in the background, and they haven’t announced a winner yet tonight (it’s 9:44 at the moment)…..let’s see if I was right.Uhh..I never said that.

    MEGA-REVIEW! (forewarning, it looks like our corner of the internet will be TV-centric for the next while. For those that skim our reviews so that they can say “of course I still read the website,” you’ve got a whole bunch of skimming coming up…)

    I’ve realized that I haven’t really discussed “the current TV landscape” in the first two reviews in this series; instead, I’ve just looked through a microscope at individual shows. So, let’s talk a bit about the “current TV landscape.” First and foremost, the fact that I call out only three shows while referring to that “landscape” doesn’t mean there aren’t necessarily other notable shows to be included. Of course I greatly enjoy the three shows listed in the title, but there are some (I’d hesitate to say “plenty”) of shows that I catch either sporadically (House ” probably the best pure “formula show” on TV ” I’m not judging, the show practically addresses the fact that it’s all formula) or never (Scrubs ” before I started watching it ” I guess that doesn’t count). A most notable absentee from this list is LOST (their caps, not mine). I’ll let Nate defend it, then belittle both it and him in the comments.

    The three shows I’ve focused on are all critical favorites, but suffer a bit (or a lot) in terms of popular appeal. Arrested Development was canceled/not renewed because of low viewership, The Office gets around 8 million viewers each week (American Idol gets in the mid 20 million), and Scrubs hovers at that same 7-8 million mark, low enough for the show to have been considered “on the bubble” until just a few weeks before the networks announced their 2006-2007 lineups last week. You can’t draw the most profound conclusions from the viewership numbers alone, but in the most general of terms (“single camera,” no laugh-track sitcoms), there’s probably sizable overlap among the viewer groups. (Arrested Development sort of attracted the “martyr fan” ” fans that secretly wanted the network to cancel it so they could say how stupid everyone in America is. The Office gets the hipsters ” notice all the iPod commercials. And Scrubs probably gets the most women of the three, what with the “emotional moment” on/off switch that gets flipped around minute 25 of each broadcast ” not necessarily a bad thing; more about that later). I guess this should’ve been included in The Office review, but The Office won’t last more than four or so seasons; Steve Carell is a movie-caliber star, and considering the ratings the show gets, he won’t be able to get a Seinfeldian movie-caliber paycheck for his work on the show, and just as importantly, being attached to a 22 episode TV show for ¾ of the year doesn’t leave much time for movies. I doubt his leaving (and the end of the show’s run) would end up being an ugly sort of situation considering the ratings and also considering that they ended the second season by moving the ever-present conflict between Jim and Pam (well, it’s not a conflict, per se) in the direction of conclusion.

    scrubs
    Old Man teeth scare me.

    The significance of the three shows is that they don’t exist in that same world in which other TV shows exist. Supposedly the Simpsons was the first show to do it, and like the Simpsons, these three shows exist somewhere between the real world and the “TV world.” Stay with me here. In the most obvious sense, around season 6 or 7, The Simpsons started to make jokes that existed only because it was a TV show, making fun of stereotypical TV camera moves, TV archetypes, and so on (ahh, metahumor). Heck, part of the dynamic of The Office is that the characters know they’re on a show. Arrested Development avoided the cheeky, “it’s funny because we’re on TV” types of jokes which are currently ruining Family Guy (and to be fair, The Office doesn’t point it out more than necessary, and Scrubs walks the razor thin line between self-awareness and self-consciousness quite well.

    On the three shows I’ve written up, characters watch TV, and talk about things that “real people” would talk about: last night’s episode of such-and-such, a CD, etc”.in other words, pop culture without it being just product placement. The Simpsons did it first (supposedly”I think Seinfeld probably pushed the concept farther), Family Guy now exists solely because of it, and these shows use it to be better. The characters on The OC namedrop “indie” (the genre) bands, and I do know the creator is a fan of the music, but it’s not the way people talk about it. (Zach Braff ” as positive as my impression of Garden State is, Natalie Portman’s characters “thing” with The Shins is presented like it would be on The OC.) And it’s not just what they’re talking about, but how they’re talking about it. Like real people. Now, for Scrubs, one might say “but that’s too wacky, this that and the other thing,” but considering that I’ve encouraged someone who was in front of a crowd to show off “the bullets” because the people needed to know what “the guns” shot, it’s not really all that out there. Other popular shows have “TV” dialog. People on The West Wing and Gilmore Girls speak entirely too perfectly, the characters on Will & Grace were too “fast” with thinking of jokes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s characters spoke like comic book characters (no, that’s not and will never be a good thing), the only impression I get from Hugh Laurie on House is that I really need a writer, and even successful traditional sitcoms showcase characters (not actors””I’m talking about the world within the show) who seemingly wakeup with outlines of what will happen in their day and what potential setup lines will be tossed up to them in conversation. I don’t hold that against those shows (sort of ” with Arrested Development, I realized shows didn’t need to exist in “TV world”). Is this because I want to relate to the characters, a concept I derided in the first of this series? I don’t know; I guess I’d just rather not have my media completely detached from reality (and yet I watch professional wrestling”regularly). Free Ride attempted to take the “talk like real people” to an extreme, featuring almost wholly improvised dialog, but the only thing that it got was canceled and decidedly unreal (hold on tight as I invent yet another word) “improvspeak,” where the actors (not the characters) forget that there are actual pauses in conversation, and just babble like crazy, each line louder than the previous as they try to “play” off of each other. I hate to allude to wrestling, and as much as he’s one of my favorites because of his legendary microphone work, but The Rock suffers from acute improvspeak when he makes his random appearances at WWE broadcasts, saying nothing, but taking a whole lot of time to say it.

    You’ll notice I’m completely glossing over the Laws & Orderseses, CSI’s, and other crime shows as well as ER, Grey’s Anatomy, and their accompanying medical-related programs (I’m not sure I’d include Scrubs in there). I’ll act like I’m not lumping all those shows into one giant “current TV landscape” category, but I just did. These shows are all practically interchangeable. Writers make medical or crime shows because plots are Easy with a capitol E. Doctors and people in the field of justice (ha!) potentially lead interesting lives just because of their jobs. Interesting things will happen to them before the writers even decide which one will be the divorced loner, the bright-eyed, naïve beginner, the jaded veteran, and the sex-crazed comic relief. People get out of jail and go after the cop that put them in there, doctors are exposed to unknown pathogens, you name it. The plots are Easy. It’s just about this simple: men like watching bad guys get their butts kicked by police officers, women like watching good, but sick people get cured by attractive doctors. What makes the show compelling (or not) is how well the writers handle the 20% of the story that doesn’t have to do with the characters’ occupations. Grey’s Anatomy is a medical show because the writers needed somewhere to place a female-centric love mess, and suburbia had already been taken. House stays pretty close to the medical-centric thing, but most fans’ favorite episodes involve big revelations about the main character. These shows are all fine, but as complicated as the plots might be, there’s really not much to them at the end of the day. They’re doctors, nurses, police officers, prosecutors, and that’s about it. The better shows, NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street, the first seasons of ER raised the bar, and there are still “better” examples of this genre (the hospital/crime genre) on the air, but in the end, it’s all about how successfully the writers twist the formula. Look at Nip/Tuck: it combines the “helping people” of the hospital shows with the “hurting people” of the crime shows; that math would make it practically perfect. In fact, come to think of it, I guess one could consider CSI and its children and imitators to mix crime-solving with medical know-how. Darn you Jerry Bruckheimer, ripping off my half-invented idea!

    All this, and I still haven’t talked about Scrubs. Well, I warned you at the beginning there’d be a sidetrack.

    I fell into Scrubs similarly to how I fell into The Office. No less than three people had recommended the show to me since its debut in 2001 because it seemed like the “wacky” sort of thing I’d like (well, the USA Today critic didn’t tell me personally that it’d be the type of show I like, but close enough), and each time, I watched the show (I even watched it twice for one of them), I just didn’t get anything out of it. It was a bit too “out there,” and I didn’t like the ambitious emotional montage with navel-gazing that seemingly ended each episode. The most recent of recommenders was friend of the Bookshelf and noted ginger ale enthusiast Josh Calloway. I include that if only because he likes to see his name in print”spelled incorrectly. We happened to be in a social setting and a group of us watched it the next time it was on, but I still wasn’t “getting” the appeal. I saw why and how other people would like it, but it didn’t sit well with me. Fast-forward about two weeks and I happened to be flipping on a Tuesday night and I landed on Scrubs and decided to give it another try. It was pure awesome. I wish I remember which episode it was, but suddenly it all just fit together and became “appointment TV.” Needless to say, bittorrent and a lot of free time later, I’ve seen all of them.

    It’s really like a live action version of Family Guy. Of course fans from both camps would probably be offended by that comparison, but they both are very close to pop culture and showcase usually successful throw-away gags. Of course, Family Guy relies on them to the point of failure while Scrubs merely uses them to embellish the existing, coherent story (and yes, I believed this before South Park went after Family Guy under almost that exact same reasoning).

    The casting is perfect; I feel bad for all of the actors as, even including previous work, they are the characters as far as I’m concerned. I saw an ad for a movie (Hoot, maybe) featuring Janitor (who cares what the actor’s name is), and all I could think was: Man, I hope he gives JD a hard time in that movie. Really, for the younger actors, it’s probably all downhill after Scrubs is done, and for the older actors, this is the “sweet role” that you’ve worked for all those years in low profile “projects.”

    At the risk of gushing, let me get the negative out of the way: Scrubs really isn’t the be and end all of TV comedy. There aren’t many TV comedies left, and “internet” fans of Scrubs love to point out that it’s because the sitcom was/is dead and viewers are looking for something else. I’m not sure people are moving from comedy to drama, but that the sitcom crop is particularly weak at the moment. Case in point: one of “internet” Scrubs fans’ favorite episodes is from season 4, entitled “My Life in Four Cameras.” At one point, the ever-present narrator reacts to a messy situation saying something like “wouldn’t it be cool if real-life were like a sitcom.” Suddenly, the lighting, camera angles, and style of writing changes (as well as the characters costumes and the introduction of a laugh track) as the Scrubs world becomes a sitcom. They hit all of the stereotypes, including an audience reaction for the janitor’s entrance that would rival any of Al Bundy’s or Kramer’s during the darker days of Seinfeld. Of course this is all “with” funny; we’re laughing with the writers as they go right after what’s wrong with most sitcoms by pretending to be one. Fans will talk about how the episode completely trashed sitcoms, and how Scrubs is so much better than any show like that (even the successful, good ones: Friends, etc.) but when Zach Braff’s character says, “but we don’t live in a sitcom; there are no quick solutions or easy answers…” and the show returns to its normal style of presentation as an “indierock” song fades in and the figurative montage button behind-the-scenes is pressed, it shows how Scrubs owes everything to “the sitcom.” It’s all formula, but that’s not a bad thing. There’s some sort of predictably ambiguous conflict, Dr. Cox comes in (calling JD a girl’s name), rants about something, the janitor harasses JD, conflict gets mostly resolved, and ends with JD narrating over a montage and appropriately moody music. But I’m not complaining. The show is consistently hilarious, inventive in its approach to “the sitcom,” and has created likable, interesting characters out of normal TV archetypes. It’s not above its genre; it’s just at the top of it. All that, and that wasn’t even a “negative.”

    I’ll nitpick: as much as Dr. Cox is the typical “frazzled veteran,” he’s one of the most entertaining characters on a show filled with them. After the first two seasons established him as 90% evil, 10% heart of gold, he was presented as someone who just plain old wouldn’t have any friends. Then, wham, in season 3, they show him and Carla having “friend moments.” Being that they established that he had a thing for her in the past, that’s completely ignored; she just laughs at what he says, and not in a flirty way either. I guess the writers got tired of all the teenaged girls writing angry letters because “Dr. Cox harasses JD in every episode! Gawd!” and needed a different wall for the character to talk at. In light of the “it’s still a sitcom at the end of the day” argument, Turk and Carla’s relationship, being the most lasting and normal-ish of the relationships on the show is leaned on to create most of the typical sitcom stories. The writers can’t base a normal story on Cox and Jordan; it’s just not believable that they’d have relatable “couple-problems.” They’ve relied on every stage of Turk and Carla’s relationship for plots, if not longer reaching story-lines (in this order): flirting problems, dating problems, long-term relationship problems, engagement problems, engaged problems, wedding problems, marriage problems, conception problems, pregnancy problems and soon, baby problems.

    Ahh, well, I think that’s the negative off my chest. It’s frustrating to like something so much but find it so much easier to complain about. Considering that the section of this review that actually deals with the show is taken up more by these complaints, I feel like I’m giving it the short end of the stick by having a rather brief “overwhelmingly positive” section. So here goes.

    Scrubs is significant not because it has great moments, but because it has perfect moments. Times when you watch and just say “wow.” Watch the episode, “My Screw Up” from season 3, and realize how perfect the moment where Dr. Cox admits his brother-in-law is dead on the way to his funeral and wonder how poorly almost any other show would handle it. I don’t mean to turn it this into a bulleted list of those moments, but I’d be doing future viewers a disservice to not mention how JD’s break-up with Kylie was edited together, every scene with Tara Reid, most anything with Todd, “are you sure you don’t have a dead cat in there?,” Turk’s dancing, Elliot’s (a girl) latent bi-curiousness, Dr. Acula, Janitor and Dr. Cox bonding over a shared hatred of JD, most of Michael J. Fox’s two episodes, Dr. Cox’s illogical hatred of Hugh Jackman and on and on.

    Guest-casting, some sitcoms’ downfall, is used perfectly on Scrubs because the producers don’t focus on getting a “name” on the show, but getting actors that will create a (here’s that word again) perfect character. The most notable example of this is Tom Cavanaugh as Dan, JD’s (Zach Braff) brother. JD is all about quirks: conversational, physical, you name it. If this were a lesser show, someone like David Duchovny (nothing against the DD thank you very much) would simply mimic Zach Braff, “Hey, they’re brothers. I’ll just copy him.” But Tom Cavanaugh puts his own spin on it, simultaneously creating someone who’s obviously related to JD, but also an entirely different character. I’ll include a note here that John Ritter was equally amazing as JD’s down-on-his-luck, sort-of-estranged father, and for my own selfish reasons, I’ll say that it’s a real shame he died before appearing in more than just that one episode in the first season.

    ****½

    Scrubs receives four-and-a-half stars due to the sheer quality of each and every episode. Casting, guest casting, all of the minor roles, most all of the writing, the attention to detail: it’s all perfect. The show has absolutely perfect moments, as I incompletely detailed above. But that’s why it also gets docked half a star; the show has those perfect moments, but there aren’t perfect episodes. Where Arrested Development had multiple perfect episodes, Scrubs has had five seasons and hasn’t done it yet. They will one day, but it will probably the last episode. There aren’t many seasons left for the show; aside from the fact that its ratings aren’t the best, January 2007 will mark the beginning of the sixth season. Seven or eight years is about the maximum for any TV show; the viewers have matured into a different age bracket, the writers “aren’t where they were” when they started, and actors begin to get antsy. Friends lasted to ten seasons, though 8 and 9 were considered the weakest seasons and pure cash is what kept the cast from leaving. And The Simpsons…well, let’s not even look at that one (but let’s remember that season 9 is the first one where the bad episodes outnumber the good). The next season of Scrubs will be a pretty “busy” one, with JD having decided he was looking to settle down (and probably becoming a father-to-be), Jordan is pregnant (again), and Turk and Carla are about to add “baby problems” to that list I made above. I’ll predict that Jordan and Dr. Cox’s pregnancy will end in a miscarriage, if only because they haven’t done that yet on the show, and the writers aren’t afraid to pull emotional punches (does everyone remember when they had JD and Elliot [that’s a girl] “finally” get together, only to have him universally decide it wouldn’t work not even two episodes later). With Arrested Development gone, that leaves The Office and Scrubs to stand for “the current TV landscape.” Steve Carell’s “brink-of-superstardom” position makes it so The Office will probably last two more seasons at most. In fact, assuming Scrubs gets to seven seasons, that brings it to a close at about the same time. But this is all negative stuff; these are the best shows on TV. TV shows are a lot like dogs; you get attached to them, and when everything’s good you forget that you’ll be around a lot longer than they will. It’s always sad to think of the end when everything’s still good.

  • The Current TV Landscape (The Office, Scrubs, and the Ghost of Arrested Development) – Part 2

    Just in time for the second season’s final. Also, look for part 3 of this series of reviews “soon.” It will look into Scrubs and address the actual “current TV landscape.”

    Part 2

    As I alluded to in the previous entry, the length of time between Arrested Development’s last regular airing and its finale of four episodes in two hours opened a door in my TV watching schedule. Not a door in terms of having that time to watch new shows, but looking for other shows to watch now that whatever my subconscious limit for TV was unmet. I had “heard” the “buzz” about the British version of The Office, tracked down an episode online, and was thoroughly unimpressed. It wasn’t that I had an issue with the writing, the casting, the presentation style, etc., but just that I couldn’t understand what those crazy British people were saying. With respect to the mass of people proclaiming how great it was, when the American version first aired, I set aside time to watch it. And I didn’t like it. I really didn’t like it.
    The Office

    I still hate the internet.

    I couldn’t (and can’t) put my finger on exactly why I didn’t like the pilot, but I never gave the next week’s episode a chance. TV shows generally get one chance with me. Of course, The Office and (as you’ll learn later) Scrubs are the reason I now include the “generally” in that statement. A random Thursday night of flipping almost a year later landed me at NBC once again. (Actually, I think it might not’ve been the most random flipping. If I remember correctly, friend of the Bookshelf and all-around-good-guy Josh CallOway insisted on putting it on. This time it was HI-larious. I later learned from an …can’t think of a condescending adjective man that the pilot of the American series was identical to the British pilot, and in both cases, the show picked up and was no longer teh suck.

    Arrested Development wasn’t the first mockumentary-type TV show (or was it? I don’t know, and I’m too lazy to look it up on Wikipedia). It also wasn’t the first comedy to not have a laugh track, but on both of those counts, I’ll say that it was one of the highest profile examples in terms of TV critics pointing it out. That’s related to The Office because its presentation emphasizes the documentary part, with snippets of the characters talking to an unseen interviewer laced between the filmed action. Arrested Development’s characters never acknowledged the cameramen, but on The Office, the characters make faces “for” the cameras, knowing they’ll be seen. The only aspect other than “shaky-camera” and a breaking of the traditional TV sitcom and drama grammar that pulled viewers into “I’m sort of watching a documentary” was that the camera people sometimes made their presence known (being kicked out of the courtroom, a most notable example). (See, I like Arrested Development so much that I even talk about it when I’m specifically reviewing something else).

    Simply, The Office offers much of what Arrested Development didn’t. There’s something more there. Every character (except for Dwight, maybe) has shown vulnerability, and for the ladies (and lady-men), there is a complicated and disturbingly accurate sort of love story between two of the more likable characters, and for the jackasses, there’s an accurately disturbing romance between the two least likable characters. The show is really awkwardness on the screen for 22 minutes at a time. It’s like watching George Michael Bluth for an entire episode. Every character is either awkward or are so out of touch that the other characters are forced to be awkward around them. There’s nuance in the show that, my limited TV watching habits aside, is lacking in most shows (except Six Feet Under, of course — no, I’ve never seen it, but I’m working on being more pretentious).

    Case in point: watch the second season’s Halloween episode. Michael (Steve Carell), who is normally presented as a completely out-of-touch doof, tries to play tough guy all day about having to fire someone for budgetary reasons (well, he actually tries passing off the responsibility to someone else), but is completely torn apart at having to fire someone he considers a friend. (The genius of the show is that none of the workers want him as a friend (except Dwight, and ironically, Michael thinks he’s too cool to be Dwight’s friend).) At the end of the work day, Michael quietly removes the pumpkin the fire-ee smashed on his windshield and drives home, trying to keep up the tough guy persona. As established earlier in the episode, Halloween is Michael’s favorite holiday, but as the episode ends we see Michael sitting in his condo just starting at the floor, still affected by the firing. The doorbell rings, he walks to the front door, and is greeted by trick-or-treaters. In a very real way, you can see just how this is exactly the thing that whatever the character’s “real” self (meaning not the “cool boss” that he thinks he is in the office) needed to get himself out of drowning in the feelings of having to fire someone. It’s all a very “real” moment. The type of emotional moment that Arrested Development would make an inside joke about, then reference two seasons later. To top it all off, the whole sequence was obviously filmed with heavy zoom, giving the impression that the “documentary crew” isn’t allowed inside his house, so they’re filming from across the street. It’s attention to detail that makes the show “work.” There are rarely any huge, obvious punchlines (critics said the same of Arrested Development), and Steve Carell’s schtick would get old if that’s all it had going for it. Which reminds me… the Emmy’s have this habit of giving Best Actor/Actress awards to actors that play completely off-the-wall characters. I’m thinking how John Lithgow won three (3!) of them for bouncing around like a moron on 3rd Rock from the Sun (no, it doesn’t deserve a link). Steve Carell won 2006’s for six episodes of The Office. He won the award before I had seen any episodes, and I figured it was more of the same: actor plays completely unrealistic, “zany” character and whoever gives out the Emmy’s awards him annually, and this was year one for Carell. But if Jason Bateman hadn’t been nominated , Carell deserved it. And he deserves it next year, too.

    ****½

    The Office receives four-and-a-half stars due to its receiving of the mantle of “awesome TV” from Arrested Development and completely trashing its British forebears. It loses half a star due to how it sometimes relies on sitcom norms to keep the viewers interested: the intern claiming his “voicemail’s been spotty” after his non-mutual sort of girlfriend says he never returns his calls – comic gold, feeling sorry for alcoholics instead of laughing at them – sounds like something I’d see on Frasier…if I had watched it (I’m serious about that whole pretentious thing). But hey, I can’t complain too much about a show where one of the characters considers it a real honor to be sworn in as a member of the office building’s previously one-bored-man security team, and really believes that there is an oath required to take the made-up job.

    iwry

  • The Current TV Landscape (The Office, Scrubs, and the Ghost of Arrested Development) – Part 1

    Part 1 of 3

    With the all-but cancellation of my second loudest talking point three months ago, my TV habits have unexpectedly and ambitiously changed. For many years, the only section of calendar showing “appointment TV” was Fox’s Sunday night from 8-10. Initially anchored by The Simpsons and The X-Files, over the years I’ve regularly watched Malcolm in the Middle, King of the Hill, That 70’s Show, Family Guy, Futurama, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Arrested Development, and most recently Free Ride. I never watched most of those shows again after either a move to a different night (That 70’s Show, Malcolm in the Middle) or before 8 on Sundays (King of the Hill, Futurama, Malcolm in the Middle [again]). The Simpsons’ decline too many years ago makes/made the 8:00 slot more of a sentimental appointment with some memory from my past (maybe), but it’s rare that I don’t catch at least some of the Sunday night shows. (Most recently, I’ve watched Family Guy and Free Ride.)

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    I hate the Internet. (click the image for full-size)

    Arrested Development, originally airing at 9:30 was the best show to come out of the Fox Sunday night, even better than when The Simpsons was what we remember it being like “when it was good.” Generally I’ve found that of the people to whom I recommended the show, it’s pretty easy to pick who will like it and who won’t. Plenty of people are on the record extolling it as the best show ever, and while I’d agree, I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t been covered ad nauseam by that community. Oddly enough, Arrested Development has very much become similar to one of those things that I don’t really have a problem with, but the fans are just so obnoxious that I think even more negatively about the item/object/concept than I normally would or should. In the case of Arrested Development, I’m so positive about the show, that the fandom merely tarnishes whatever memory I might have of it, not the actual show itself, if that makes sense. I don’t think that it “revolutionized” the sitcom (it was sort of on for only three seasons) as some claim, it was just the shining example of a different way of presenting 30 minutes of comedy.

    For the three seasons it aired, my routine was watch it when it aired, download the widescreen rip on bittorrent, then watch the bejesus out of it until buying the DVDs the day they were released. The airing of the last four episodes (all shown in a two hour block one Friday night in February) after more than a month of knowing those would most likely be the last episodes of the show hit some note with me in that even though I downloaded the episodes, I have yet to watch them a second time. Considering that I’ve watched every other episode of the show between three and too many times each, I realized it was odd I had/have no desire to watch the last four again, especially considering that they were some of the best episodes of one of the best shows in the history couch-potato-ery. I’m not sure it takes too much effort to correctly read into it; similarly, I own all of the Calvin and Hobbes books, but I’ve never read the last one though I’ve owned it long enough to have read it many times.

    For a solid two months, there were continual rumors about where Arrested Development might end up after that Fox made it obvious it wasn’t wanted by shortening the season to 13 episodes. “The Internet” held out hope, but “the internet” ignored the fact that any channel picking up an expensive-to-produce, bottom-of-the-ratings-heap show must not enjoy making money. It was a sad time for many, with (literally) the best show in the history of ever wrapping up. Fox showed the last four episodes in a two hour block directly against the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, almost two months after the most recent airing of the show. In other words, lots of time to “discover” something new.

    As great as it was, Arrested Development was not “perfect” in terms of 30 minute television. As widely reported, practically none of the characters were likeable (Michael Bluth was dysfunctional in his own, realistic sort of way, and heck, even Annyong was a jerk to Buster). That’s not what I look for in a show, but there are plenty of lady-folk who need to empathize with characters and figuratively “hug it out” with their TV icons. I don’t know if it was searching-for-ratings-related, but the first episodes of the show established that Michael Bluth had relatively recently become a widower, and the show touched on the challenges of that situation in terms of how it affects teenaged children and the dating process for said widower. Of course, the show still packed in the zaniness, but there was something more there that from the second season and on was ignored. One could tell the writers avoided detailing the how and why of Michael’s wife’s death (she was said to have cancer some time in season 2 or 3), leaving the issue wide open for future episodes, but it was left unaddressed as the show moved toward (admittedly HI-larious) wackiness, zaniness, creative wordplay, and, uh, whimsy. Again, I didn’t need that “emotional resonance” from the show (or any show for that matter), but lesser men consider it a requirement for their TV intake.

    Some fault the show for its reliance on jokes that only dedicated (meaning, weekly) viewers would get. That’s not a fault; that’s putting faith in your audience. Of course, it makes a niche show even more niche by creating both a high learning curve and too many inside jokes, but that’s more of a problem with what I’ll say is the “concept of the show” instead of the show itself. Returning to its problematic fans, they’re super-quick to say, “you don’t ‘get’ it, so you’re stupid” completely ignoring the fact that much of the humor depends on earlier episodes and the fact that some people just don’t get much out of the site of a grown man in a mole suit destroying a model train village in front of a group of “Japanese investors” in an homage to Godzilla. The fact that someone might not think something like that is funny doesn’t affect that I still think it’s the best show ever; the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but many of the fans use their opinion of the show (of it being the best) as a reason why everyone should think that jokes like that are funny.

    *****
    The Ghost of Arrested Development receives five big stars. Sure, the body’s still warm, but with Mitchell Hurwitz, the creator, saying he wouldn’t want to be involved even if it picked up by a (fiscally irresponsible) network, it’s gone for good. And I’m ok with that. The time before the last four episodes were aired provided an opportunity to sample other channels’ wares (which we’ll look into later in the week). The series finale was just about perfect, and as I watched it end (into the sunset, of course), as much as I complained that it was no longer going to be on the air, I didn’t want there to be any more episodes. It was that good. It was Arrested Development.

  • Sort of “Getting” the Appeal of Celebrity Gossip Magazines

    I actively subscribe to one magazine, Car & Driver. Generally, I’d stand behind it compared to the other of the “big four” car magazines (Road & Track, Motor Trend, and Automobile). It gets a bit silly sometimes, and the fact that their staff is made up mostly of former engineers is a bit too evident in some of their testing methodologies, but all things considered, that’s neither here nor there; simply enough, it’s a well-written magazine with lots of personality, which is an accomplishment considering they cover a usually slow-moving industry with potentially soul-less products. Similar to most any magazine between the letters to the editor and the feature-length stories, is a section devoted to sort of random, short news items devoted to the topic at hand, in this case, automobilia.
    naomiwatts.jpg

    I wonder what kind of car she drives! See, Brokeback Mountain humor is already no longer topical.

    As a sidetrack, the whole celebrity gossip business bothers me. Similarly to how stars’ lives don’t affect the lives of the readers, the celebrity gossip business equally affects my corner of the world to that same degree (not at all, in other words). I’m not sure if that makes me somewhat of a hypocrite or not, but as usual, that won’t keep me from judging. The problems with it are obvious, and of course, they’re all compounded by the fact that people somehow get something out of knowing the “news,” gossip, rumors, etc. Of course, I know that “Hollywood” uses the celebrity press as much as possible and any publicity is good publicity (to an extent). I really don’t care the gender of whoever’s not-yet-born baby, and I don’t really “get” why other people care so much, but again, I’m not the first person taking this stance.

    But how are these two sort of random snippets related? In the above-mentioned “short news items” section of May’s Car & Driver, there was a five sentence or so write-up of Joaquin Phoenix’s overturning of his Ford Escape Hybrid in California. I initially didn’t think twice about its inclusion; they had a picture of the wreck, a picture of the crowd (with the back of Mr. Phoenix’s head circled), and a slightly humorous superimposed image of Kermit the Frog over one of the accident-scene photos.

    I didn’t realize that it was odd that pictures existed of the accident until I made the conclusion that they were probably taken by a paparazzi who had good luck that day. Yuck. Principles right out of the window. Had Joaquin Phoenix not been in the accident, of course it wouldn’t have been in the magazine, and had they written up some other random accident involving that same car, I wouldn’t have been remotely interested. I guess I finally “got” the appeal of celebrity gossip magazines.

    In the end it’s weird. I’ll watch MTV Cribs, basically waiting for the part where they show the person’s garage/car collection and not think that I’m contributing to “celebrity culture,” though in this hindsight, I know that I very much am contributing. Likewise, about that wanting to know the gender of some pair of celebrities’ baby, I think I don’t care just because I’m not interested in that sort of thing (babies, in other words); I don’t care if such and such’s kid fell off of a jungle gym and broke his four-year-old hand. I have no interest in that parental, traditionally domestic sort of stuff. But I am interested in cars. The Bugatti 16.4 Veyron is currently the fastest, most expensive, most etc., production car. I’m interested in it, if only for those reasons. Unfortunately, in thinking about that little inclusion about Mr. Phoenix’s crash, I realized that I also know that David Beckham owns one. Is my life enhanced knowing details about the car? I’d say that as a car enthusiast, to some degree, yes it is. Is my life enhanced knowing that David Beckham owns one? Not in the slightest. But why would I subconsciously decide that that snippet is worth retaining? I don’t know. Why would I also know/remember that Bill Gates and Ralph Lauren both own the not-legal-to-drive-in-the-US-before-1999 Porsche 959? I guess cars replace relationship/baby/etc. gossip for me.

    ***

    Sort of “Getting” the Appeal of Celebrity Gossip Magazines receives three stars due to the fact that I had thought I’d never understand it. It’s weird to think that celebrity culture really permeates everything, but in the same way that I’m still not interested in the whole celebrity babies/relationships/etc. stuff, I’m just as interested in the celebrity car/home theater/etc. “news.” I’m not sure what the solution is; I can’t say that my life is any better in that I know Jerry Seinfeld’s favorite car is the Porsche 911, but I can’t help but be interested in knowing which of the countless models Porsche has made over the years he owns. I can’t help but want to know if his favorite is the same as mine.

    iwry

  • Outsourcing Phone Support to India

    This topic has been beaten to death by the old and curmudgeonly (namely my dad and others social commentators similar to him), so it’s under no pretenses of originality that I submit this review…

    Today, I learned that my name is Dan Suller. I must’ve been underneath a rock the last however many years thinking my last name was Fuller. Beyond that, I apparently live at 281 Linden Street.

    Because the price was right, I signed up for Vonage phone service. It’s a bit less than half as much as comparable traditional phone service with the bonus feature that there’s a chance that when you call 911 as you’re being brutally murdered or your house is burning down, 911 won’t be able to pull your address from their phone system and see it on their screen. A win-win proposition. Oh yeah, also if the power goes out while your being murdered or burning alive inside your house-sized oven, Vonage is of no use.

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    She may be pretty but her phone service sure isn’t.

    I had some questions about the phone service, so I decided to call to order instead of placing it online. Actually, the ordering process went fine, it took longer than the online signup would have, but online has the benefit of a keyboard and it being your own darn fault if you mis-enter your billing, etc. information. After going through the whole spelling words out with my own personal phonetic alphabet, “D – as in, uh, … Dan; A as in, hmm, ‘a bird’” and so on (needless to say, the fact that my last name begins with “F-U” makes phonetic spelling quite the undertaking. “F as in, uh….hmm….hold on…[silence on my end]… umm….fox!” Thank god there are no “P’s” in my name. Anyway, we (the customer service person and I) plowed through the “data entry” part, and I was good to go.

    Well, not so much. Ten days after that order (which was 8 days after it showed up on my credit card statement), the “starter kit” never came. I realized I had specified a Vonage.com user name for checking my account, paying bills, upgrading, etc. so I thought I could dig up the tracking number for the package through there. I had used my Gmail account to set up the Vonage service, so I used “dancfuller” as my user name but it wouldn’t go through. There was a default password set, but it naturally didn’t work. I tried the “e-mail me my password,” and that’s when I learned that there was no account with the username “dancfuller,” the one that I had definitely signed up with and had been definitely billed for.

    I called customer service, was on hold for only a minute or so and talked to a woman who kept asking if I was having “MAC address” issues (a computer network-related problem) to which I kept saying, “No, I have not and still have not received the startup kit from Vonage.” She tried pulling up my account, but again, no username “dancfuller” and no user “Dan (Or Daniel) Fuller” but a very real entry on my credit card statement. She realized it was out of her control and passed me on to “level two” tech support, probably some guy hiding behind a curtain. More likely, a guy that you’ll end up waiting on hold for 45 minutes then deciding against it and figuring you’ll just go through the painful process of exchanging one e-mail a day with their e-mail service department until it’s finally taken care of. During these 45 minutes, I was looking online and of course, found lots of people with horror stories about Vonage’s support, and going in, I knew it was supposed to be spotty, I just figured that as long as the whole phone over the internet thing got going, I could hopefully troubleshoot anything that’d come up without relying on Vonage’s “representatives,” but being that the “getting it going” part had been duffed by someone at Vonage, I had had enough of sort of being their customer. 45 minutes was too long, so I hung up the phone. Realizing that probably wasn’t going to get any help from their e-mail service (I somehow didn’t technically have an account with them and the first step in the customer service process is verifying that they’re spending their time on an actual customer, I’d be in a bad position. Of course I couldn’t cancel online (and I’m sure that it wouldn’t have worked if I could have), but they do make it look like you can (look through the support tree). That number goes to general Vonage technical support (in India) and once you get through the menus in that system trying to find the “cancel service” option, you’ll be on hold for a short time (a couple minutes), explain you want to cancel, then they’ll say you need to call a different number. That number is 1-800-681-4094. To make sure it shows up well in search results, here it is very obviously. The direct number to cancel Vonage is 1-800-681-4094. You’ll be on hold for a while (mine was 20ish minutes), but that’s the only way.

    I talked to someone decidedly in the United States (not that someone in India couldn’t help me….oh wait) and of course he couldn’t access my account either, but he could look up my account via my credit card number. Let’s all note that this means that Vonage doesn’t do any name check against the credit card (I’m not sure this is standard procedure for online orders elsewhere or not). To a computer “Dan Suller” is just as much not equal to the name on my credit card as “Willem Smythe” would be.

    So, that’s how I found out that my last name was Suller. Which means that the username associated with my account was dancsuller, and the e-mail address associated with it was “dancsuller@gmail.com.” (that explains why I never received a confirmation e-mail) So that’s three birds with one stone. But wait! There’s more! I needed the kit shipped to a different address than the billing address, but of course those were inverted and the billing address was just plain old wrong. There’s nothing like a phone company having problems with the audio clarity during the ordering process. Quality product, no doubt.

    The person I talked to cancelled my account, and pre-refunded the various equipment return and cancellation fees (hey, Vonage doesn’t have contracts, they just charge you a fee if you cancel before an arbitrary amount time has passed….an arbitrary amount of time such as one year) that will show up on my credit card . I’m not sure what the solution is, but Vonage isn’t it. I guess it’s (finally) time I get my cell phone converted to a local number, as I never considered land line (or sort of land line, such as Vonage) phone service all that necessary. The guy’s recommendation was that I just sign up for all of it online to avoid the hearing/clarity/accent issues inherent with having the call center in India.

    *

    Outsourcing Phone Support to India receives 1 star due to problems with phone infrastructure, accents, and cheap American companies. Global Economy schlobal economy. I have nothing against people from India, the problems I had weren’t related to them “as a people,” but with Vonage’s reliance on it/them because the labor rate is so low. The accent issue isn’t really too bad, but the phone service (ironic in this case) at the call center is awful. I’d guess that someone decided to save money and limit the call bandwidth to a notch below “nominal” for the entire facility. I’ve had similar issues with Dell’s call center audio, and it’s like talking to someone in a third world country (hmm…). Dell’s was especially bad because the system is all about referencing “service tags” and easily muddled strings of letters and numbers. I’m not sure what the solution is. There are some industries where foreign workers can do just as good a job (or better) work than Americans and save the companies lots of money because of the insanely low labor rates, but being that the phone system (at a phone company) was so shoddy, in general American companies are probably more accurately “cheap” than “thrifty.” If the work involved speaking/conversation, I’d hope that companies think twice before committing to inevitable “accent issues.” They spent so little on the phone system that when the initial order representative phonetically spelled my name, it sounded fine to me. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that she messed up the “bill to:/ship to:” section of the order. I’m sure that they could’ve found more technically proficient people in India to staff their support/ordering center. I’d make some sort of comment here about how in any case, Indian people are good at making bathrooms smell like a wolverine that has been dead for three weeks after an acute case of garlic poisoning, but that’d be culturally insensitive and not that funny. Really though, at college I shared a bathroom with a wolverine. It was awful.

  • Half-Inventing Stuff

    It’s beyond uncreative these days to see some sort of newish product and say, “I thought of that years ago! If only I would have [insert outlandish first step of an unresearched business model]…” So, I’m not here to say I thought of whatever items first (though I do stand by my prior invention of a number of words, though to be honest, I haven’t included some of them in reviews because I’m afraid that if I search for them in Google, I’ll see countless (now documented) examples of other people already using what I thought was my word). I’m here to say that I’ve half-invented some pretty wacky stuff. Of course “half-inventing” is sort of a synonym to “not inventing;” for example, I can say that I’ve been busy the last 12 years half-inventing masking tape that’s always easy to get off of the roll, but I could just as easily say that I’ve been devoting as much energy to not-inventing masking tape that doesn’t stick to itself and is easy to get off of the roll.

    led
    Way to go, Tiger

    All that aside, I’ve spent the last seven years or so busy half-inventing an automobile accessory that until recently was nowhere to be found in any shape or form in any automobile accessorizer’s catalog. Last week, I came across a rather, well, interesting product for aftermarket car customizing: LEDs that go on your wheels (I guess they’re called “rims” by the target market), and as they spin, an image (still or motion) is seen as the lights flash on and off. There’s some computerized trickery, but the trick has been done before with gimmicky clocks for those with too much disposable income. Also, for the true ladykillers out there, you can even find a tutorial to make your bike wheels display messages with only one trip to Radio Shack and too much disposable free time.

    All in all, it’s a pretty complicated concept in some regard, but dirt simple in others. But that wasn’t my idea.

    See, I’ve never been a fan of the horn honk. Because so many of “those people” [aggressive drivers, etc.] use it obnoxiously for driving purposes or otherwise, you can’t honk to try to draw someone’s attention to their still-on turn signal or the temporary absent-mindedness that is usually responsible for time spent in the passing lane at or below the speed others want to go in the left lane. Likewise, how else are you supposed to get ladies’ attention. They say honking objectifies them, but what better conversation starter exists for that situation? There’s just none. And with the whole road rage thing, it’s best to avoid that personal contact. You might normally roll down the window to let the other guy know that he had indeed purchased his license from Pep Boys, but that’s a good opportunity for him to throw acid at you, and that’s just not healthy. There’s a wise saying, “The man who doesn’t get out of his car after a road rage incident doesn’t get his teeth knocked out with a tire iron.” Remember that.

    So my half-invention is a voice-activated device that displays a message on the front bumper, windshield, door, rear window, or maybe rear bumper (like I said, I’ve only half-invented it, the details are still sketchy). The driver (or passenger) tells the device to start listening, then someone says something like, “They’re called turn signals for a reason.” Very shortly thereafter, that same message is scrolling across a surface on your car, potentially even displayed so that it looks correct in the mirror of the other person’s car if they’re in front of you.

    Let’s take that “honking at honeys” example” with this half-invented device, you could skip the whole “objectifying” part and let your intentions be known, perhaps by having the device display something like this time-tested gem as you drive by a honey, “How ’bout a porch for that swing!” How “’bout a porch, indeed. You could even throw in your phone number for even more impact.

    The whole half-invented part sort of throws a bone in the works in that I’ve not exactly definitively decided whether or not it’s a road-safe accessory, though I’m sure that the in-car DVD player market is only superficially concerned about mounting a screen intended for the driver so that they don’t get sued. The hands-free nature of the setting of the text takes most of the unsafe for the driver part out of the equation.

    Believe it or not, I actually half-invented a related product line: if you’ve seen the first Batman movie, you’ll remember how as Batman sped Vickie Vale to the Batcave it looked like they were going to run into a solid rock wall, but no, it was just a hologram (or something like that). Wouldn’t that system do a much better job for one-way streets and closed roads? (Eh, that’s rhetorical, as the answer is an obvious “No.”) Instead of some old lady driving the wrong way down the street, she says, “Golly Gee, I don’t want to drive into that rock face. Now how about a porch for that swing?!” Ahh, half-inventions (and I didn’t even really think of that one).

    One more automobile-related half-invention: this one was actually thought of by a 17 or 18 year old Dave Cadugan (I’ll be honest, I think these things might have been thought of by lots of people, but they decided it’d be in their best interest not to say anything out loud. Also, Dave was 17 or 18, so let’s not judge too harshly) Anyway, Dave’s invention. As you drive by an attractive girl who’s walking, he complained that he didn’t get a long enough time to look at them and once he had to check them out in his mirrors, they got too small to “see the good parts.” I guess his half-invention was best served for guys who are referred to as “insert body part here guys.” (as most know, I’m not a particular body part sort of guy, so I’m not sure if I’d get much out of his half-invention) Dave’s invention would be mirrors on cars automatically zoomed in on the “important” areas after you’d drive by. I’m not sure what the control method was, but let’s just assume it was somehow connected to the brain. Now for all of you offended girls out there, let’s remember that no girl is offended when a reasonable guy appreciates how they look, and Dave was 17 or so, so if any girls out there didn’t have any generally ludicrous ideas at that age, feel free to comment and judge accordingly.

    ****

    Half-Inventing stuff receives four stars due to its being much easier than actually inventing things, and you’re not limited by such things as common sense. Of course, a “real” inventor would tell you that “nothing should limit your ideas!’ and all of that nonsense, but of course real inventors have yet to make car mirrors that automatically zoom in on “the good parts” or scroll potentially obscene messages at other cars on the highway. And, as uncreative as it is, you can still claim that “they sort of stole my idea!”
    34CaJaA

  • The Apple iPod Nano

    I’m no Apple fanboy. I appreciate the industrial design that goes into their products and the whole “look and feel” aspect of their physical products. In terms of their software, I’ve not used their operating system enough to have a complete opinion of it, though I don’t lust after it as some people who don’t own Apple computers do as Windows works fine for me. I don’t appreciate how Apple makes it difficult to download Quicktime without iTunes, and I also don’t like how iTunes (like pretty much every other commercial media player) steals my file associations when I install it. I wouldn’t agree that Apple is a superior “multimedia platform,” having done boatloads of work on my PC for print, photo, audio, and especially DVD and video without having any problems that could be traced back to the fact that I was running Windows (or Windows-specific software). BUT, to be honest, like so many things, it’s not really the “product” that bothers me, but the people in love with that “product.” Apple is particularly egregious because their TV commercials cater to that market of fanboys (and fangirls) instead of telling them to get a damn haircut. I’d include all of this if only because most people would probably give me a weird look if I were on the record recommending an Apple product.

    Nano
    Whitey’s always putting himself first.

    In terms of the MP3 player market, Apple’s obviously a huge success. For some idea of where I’m “coming from” with all of this, I’ve had a Rio Karma mp3 player for the last 2+ years and have no intention of getting an Apple player, but only because I wouldn’t find a player in the ~1-4GB range a good fit for me being that my Karma’s 20GB is all but entirely used. I’d universally recommend the Karma, but unfortunately, Rio went out of business/was bought out and no longer manufactures them. They can still be found online, but it’s tough to get warranty support from a company that no longer exists and an “extended warranty” from a Best Buy-type store won’t be of much help for a product that’s no longer made unless you want to replace it with another company’s similarly priced model. Needless to say, I’m a huge fan of the Rio Karma, but that’s sort of a moot point in this discussion.

    Anyway, for people whose music collections consist of tracks (as opposed to whole albums), the 1-5GB range is a nice size for an MP3 player as it’s rare for someone to have more than 5GB of single, random tracks. Most players in this range have a miniature hard drive, but with the introduction of the iPod Nano, Apple replaced the hard drive with flash memory. Normally flash memory was considered too expensive to make an economical MP3 player with that much storage, but Apple has arranged discounts with flash memory makers to all-but price other manufacturers out of the 2+GB market. Flash memory uses less power (meaning longer battery life or equivalent battery life with a smaller, lighter, cheaper battery) and just as importantly has no moving parts. Many people use their MP3 players while running (whether inside or out) and though all reasonable players are engineered to withstand the jarring motion of exercise, it’s easy to see how storing data on chips instead of spinning on sensitive metal platters with a magnetic read mechanism resting impossibly close to the platter might be a better idea.

    MP3 players usually have two “problem” areas: the hard drive and the rechargeable battery. For example, my Rio Karma’s hard drive occasionally “sticks” and needs a good quality whack to “unstick” it, AND the battery life is only about 70% of the 13 hours it had when it was new. Apple’s swap of hard drive for “chip memory” erases the hard drive problems (flash memory has a finite number of erase/write cycles…usually somewhere in the thousands, so much less of a concern than premature hard drive failure). The battery life issue will seemingly always be a problem with rechargeable batteries (at leas the kind that Apple uses in the iPods), but unlike companies that no longer exist, Apple offers battery replacement as part of their standard repair/service procedures. Supposedly it’s $59 and for any iPod model, so considering Apple’s financial solvency, you’ll be all set for when the battery goes the way of the buffalo.

    Having mentioned Apple’s “industrial design” earlier, I’ll touch on the player itself. Simply, it’s impossibly small in every dimension, with its “thinness” being the most noticeable. It can fit in the pocket of even tight-ish “girl pants” without much of a trace even being seen, while the regular iPods leave the increasingly common “iBulge.” There used to be easy to find pictures that compared the thickness of the Karma to the original iPod, but needless to say, the Karma is thick enough to bulge even in “man pants.” Worth noting is the easy on the eyes and fingers surface finish of the iPod Nano, though I tracked down a picture that shows what the surface looks like after it’s received the inevitable scratches from regular use. Most anything will look like you’ve used it after you’ve, well, used it, so that’s not too major of a concern unless you fall in love with how it looks when you first get it.

    Truth be told, I’ve never liked the iPod interface and found the Rio interface much more user friendly, but the iPod, like any other electronic device, is quite learnable. The iPod Nano comes with a color screen and the capability to store/view photos, so for those of you who enjoy showing pictures to friends or even looking through them on your own to kill time, that capability is quite useful. The screen is quite small but perfectly functional for close viewing.

    Due to the success of the iPod, many companies offer any variety of (usually over-priced) accessories that are simply not available for other brands due to Apple’s marketshare.

    ****

    The Apple iPod Nano receives four stars due to its more-or-less solving of the issues found in the 1-5GB range of MP3 players. There’s no hard drive to fail, there’s a documented battery replacement method (though that’s not an ideal solution), and it’s a more convenient size than even some players offering one-tenth the storage capacity. It’s not necessarily the cheapest player in its class at $140 for 1GB, $190 for 2GB, and $240 for 4GB, but it offers something most other players in that range don’t. Simply, if I were to be looking for a new MP3 player in that class whether due to battery issues, storage life, a solid company behind it, or many other reasons, the iPod Nano would be my first stop even if it might be made by a company who panders to yuppies (or “stuppies“).
    11x5iHT