"24 DEATH CHART"

Haven't blogged in a week..busy...but here in time to update the ol' Death Chart. Well...there was only one death last night. Some poor schlub took three in the chest offscreen...but the funniet thing was when Jack caught up to Walt Cummings, the man who arranged the death of President Palmer and Michelle Dessler and helped terrorists steal nerve gas. You knew as soon as Jack saw him that there would be a beatdown like no other. It started with Jack giving him 5 or 6 RUGGED-assed blows to the chest ( The Jack Bauer Severely Incapacitaing Heart Punch was in full effect) and culminated in the threatening of both eyeballs with a particularly nasty looking serrated knife. I was rolling. My wife is so used to me laughing at 24 that she doesn't even ask anymore..lol... I was afraid I was gonna wake my son. Very funny. Jack chumped his ass and got the info he needed. That eye-threatening jazz is no joke. I told my friend Tony that if Jack were fighting a thousand eyed creature he would cut out each eye until the monster talked..lol...

EPISODE 12 P.M. TO 1 P.M. (Episode 6)

DEATH BY SHOOTING: 1 SEASON TOTAL: 19
BY JACK: 0 SEASON TOTAL: 4

Next week looks like the body count will pick up...Jack an his trusty nine will get those numbers up!

"24 DEATH CHART"

There were only two deaths last night( and one was offscreen) but the one we saw was hilarious. Jack was fighting this guy who was masquerading as a doctor to kill him...the guy had Jack down but Jack stabbed him the jugular with a pair of surgical scissors.....and then once he gets the guy on the floor he shoves them all the way into his neck! lol...I laughed my ass off...my man Jack....

EPISODE 11 A.M. TO 12 P.M. (Episode 5)

DEATH BY SHOOTING: 1(assumed) SEASON TOTAL: 18
BY JACK: 0 SEASON TOTAL: 4

DEATH BY STABBING: 1 SEASON TOTAL: 2
BY JACK: 1 SEASON TOTAL: 2

They got you to think that a suicide had taken place, too....they did a nice bit of misdirection, however....next week might be a little slow as well....Exposition doesn't usually have a lot of killing...lol

Had to re-post this George Lucas art....the older one had dark hair and George is really white and gray now....

Well, for years I have been saying that Microsoft was the most evil company in the country. Their bullying of computer manufacturers and their flagrant anti-trust machinations have always made them number one in my book. But recently I've had to re-evaluate the list. Here's the top three most evil U.S. companies starting with #3.

#3)-MICROSOFT

Just because I can't take them off the list just yet...lol...

#2)-WALMART

Yeah, they save us lots of money. I admit, we buy a lot of my son's stuff here. $6.82 for a sleep set? That's crazy...but these guys are evil. Their workers have the highest medical insurance payments of any company in the U.S. A California jury awarded $172 million to thousands of employees at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who claimed they were illegally denied lunch breaks.There was a sex discrimination lawsuit filed alleging denial of advancement and training, lower wages, sexually hostile work environment and retaliation. They bully manufacturers and a price that will practically negate any profit they may make because they are the kings of retail. You must dance to their tune. And honestly, the stores are ugly. Target is about a thousand times better looking. But, damn, they have cheap prices...I've been seduced by the dark side...lol... But even Walmart can't TOUCH the evil incarnate that is number one....

#1) Ford Motor Company

No one can come even remotely CLOSE to Ford. These guys have killed COPS, for God's sake. The Crown Victoria model has some kind of problem that, if hit correctly, will rupture the gas tank and explode. They KNEW about this problem but denied it....In the city of Dallas, 14 officers died in seperate incidents where their Crown Vics were struck and exploded into flames. The city decided to not use them anymore. A WHOLE CITY said nope, we're not putting our cops in these. Ford tried to keep that on the DL...a couple of weeks ago here in New York a Crown Vic cab was struck by a van and burst into flames...the driver was killed...
Then they had an issue that affects possibly EVERY Ford vehicle...A cable that runs past the fuel line and the coolant can overheat and cause the car to burst into flames, even if the car isn't running! Ford said that those were just separate, unconnected instances...even though cars and homes have been lost due to it. And don't even get me started on that whole bad tire rollover issue from a few years back. They tried to blame the tire maufacturer but they are just a culpable...and then this goody from the other day:

Ringwood residents suing Ford over toxic dumping


January 19, 2006

RINGWOOD, N.J. -- People in this rural northern New Jersey community have been living on one of the state's worst toxic waste dumps for years, and one of America's biggest car manufacturers is to blame, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 700 current and former residents.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday against Ford Motor Co. alleges Ford transported toxic waste, including paint sludge and heavy metals, from a car manufacturing plant in Mahwah to Ringwood and dumped it in landfills, open pits and abandoned mine shafts during the 1960s and '70s.
Lawyers for the residents said Ford intentionally concealed the extent of the dumping and its possible effects on area residents, and later told them it was cleaned, all the while knowing the area was a health hazard.
"Our clients have breathed it. They've touched it. They've ingested it," Vicki Gillam of The Cochran Law Firm said Thursday at a news conference near one of the contaminated sites. "They're innocent. They didn't know. But Ford did."

Wow. Ford, you are, and will be for the forseeable future, the most evil company in America. Congratulations.

Here it is Thursday already and I haven't written about last Friday's Battlestar Galactica. Wow. What a great episode. What I liked most about the episode is that they shifted the chronology of the episode. It started in the middle and then jumped back 48 hours, Now, I know a lot of shows do that but I think they did it because it went against the grain of how you would expect the episode to progress. We know a huge battle is coming and a lot of shows would have made a big deal of showing all this pre-battle stuff, when that really wasn't what it was about at all. Sure, it was a major offensive, but really the show boiled down to what Adama and Cain would do after the smoke cleared. Would they pull the trigger on their assassination plans? That scene with Starbuck and Colonel Fisk hanging on the orders of their commanding officer was as tense a scene as you will see....and their reactions were refreshingly human. Happy that it didn't come to it, and scared enough that it almost did. That scene was the point and it was a real nail-biter. So watching that and having us jump right into the battle made this an exceptionally well put together episode.
But I would be remiss if I did not mention the battle. On a purely sci-fi space battle geek level, this was top tier. Again Zoic goes off, rendering just a beautiful series of shots. The shots of the Galactica and the Pegasus laying waste to the Basestars while the Vipers are just annihilating the resurrection ship were some of the greatest space battle effects ever done. They were just unloading on the Cylons and there was a visceral thrill in watching the Colonial fleet get some payback. Zoic is THE BEST and they proved it once again. To do this on a weekly basis is just ridiculous....
Well, I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow. I have no idea how they will save Laura Roslin (this show makes you think that they just may not) but maybe her salvation lays in Sharon's hybrid baby. We'' see...I'll be watching, that's for sure.

"24 DEATH CHART"

Whew, airport violence! Last nights 24 was a really tense two hour affair. Man, it was tight. And it culminated in a big breach and shootout. Let's update the dead, shall we?

EPISODES 9 A.M. TO 10.A.M. AND 10.A.M. TO 11 A.M. (Episode 3-4)

DEATH BY SHOOTING: 12(approxiamate) SEASON TOTAL: 17
BY JACK: 2 SEASON TOTAL: 4

DEATH BY STABBING: 0 SEASON TOTAL: 1
BY JACK: 0 SEASON TOTAL: 1

DEATH BY EXLOSION:3 SEASON TOTAL: 4
CAUSED BY JACK: 2 SEASON TOTAL: 2

SUICIDES: 1 (EXPLOSION) SEASON TOTAL: 2

Jack is responsible for 24% of the shooting deaths...Jack's career shooting percentage (lol) is probably higher than that, maybe in the mid to high thirties...c'mon Jack, let's get that percentage up, we're counting on you!

"THE 24 DEATH CHART"

Well....we are off to an interesting start on 24. Not as much dying as in the case in season premieres of the past (airplanes blowing up and train wrecks and what have you) but some major, MAJOR deaths instead. President David Palmer and ex-CTU op Michelle Dessler, fan favorites, both went down in the first 10 minutes. They promised it and it happened. When they put "Special Guest Appearance by Dennis Haysbert" in the credits you know that character is short-lived. Not surprised but saddened. Two really great characters are gone.
Well, let's organize the chart. Before the show started I came up a bunch of categories, means of death parameters. By the time the two hour premiere ended I had to add two more to the list...lol....ok, now the tabulating:

EPISODES 7 A.M. TO 8.A.M. AND 8.A.M. TO 9 A.M.

DEATH BY SHOOTING: 5 SEASON TOTAL: 5
BY JACK: 2 SEASON TOTAL: 2

DEATH BY STABBING: 1 SEASON TOTAL: 1
BY JACK: 1 SEASON TOTAL: 1

DEATH BY EXLOSION:1 SEASON TOTAL: 1
BY JACK: 0 SEASON TOTAL: 1

SUICIDES: 1 (cyanide) SEASON TOTAL: 1

And on a sidenote, Jack punched 4 dudes...

Oh, the other categories I have are car crashes/hit by cars, falling, bludgeoning, stranglings, being crushed, and the ever-popular great administering of pain, because people DO get tortured.

Well, that's the beginning...let's see what tonights two hours will bring....

Last weeks Galactica was really good. It re-established all of the situations that the different characters are in and laid the groundwork for tonighst episode, which should be great. We should get a great space battle, some serious moral dilemmas, loyalties being strained, attempted assassinations and some tough decisions tonight. All in one hour. Can't top that...

24

Well, my man Jack Bauer is back on Sunday night....the most dangerous man on television returns to bust caps in bad guys. Ah, television violence at it's finest. I knew from the very first episode of 24 that Jack Bauer is going to be a different type of television hero. He shot some jackass who tried to kill him, but being far away from his CTU office he didn't know how to get info on the dead dude. So what does he do? He cuts the guys thumb off and when gets back to CTU he tosses it to some poor guy and tells him to fingerprint it. I sat back and said "O.K. That was unusual for T.V." Over the course of the last four seasons Jack Bauer has killed his boss on the orders of that seasons main bad guy ( he had no choice), shot an unarmed, injured women who was laid out flat on her back ( granted, she killed his wife), chopped off his partners hand because a soon-to-explode toxic bomb in a suitcase was handcuffed to it, instructed his daughter over the phone to shoot an unconscious man who posed a threat to her(twice!), shot a pedophile and chopped his head off to get in good with a militia-
style terrorist and prevented doctors at gunpoint from working on the injured, estranged husband of his girlfriend to save another man who had info he needed (the husband died on the operating table...a tad awkward). There's never been a character on television that has that kind of mayhem on their resumé. So this season I'm going to attempt something that I've wanted to do since the start. I will try to keep a running tab on the deaths on 24. The methods, the amount, all of that. And figure out just what Jack did, because you can always count on him to slay in a great variety of ways(although he usually counts on his trusty nine for the bulk of the dispatching). I'll call it the "24 Death Chart". It oughta be interesting...lol...
Dennis Haysbert, who plays ex-President David Palmer is gonna be in a new show on CBS and they've already promised major deaths in the first ten minutes of the season premiere so I'm guessin' he may go. Which is sad, because he's a great character and I'd hate to see him die....damn. But really, his role has kinda run it's course in a way.
Anyway, Monday morning I'll have the stats of the two hour premiere( two hours? That's twice the killling!). My man Jack is back on the case.

BATTLESTAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!

A little excited that Galactica is back.....couldn't tell, right? Gotta be in front of the set at 10:00 P.M., gotta see what transpires. Battlestar Galactica is truly one of the best shows on TV, I never thought it would be THIS good. I suspect there will be ten episodes of really off the wall events. Can't wait....

Last night I had the extreme pleasure of watching Spirited Away by the famed Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki on TCM. Wow. What a beautifully animated film. I've wanted to see his movies for a long time ( My Neighbor Totoro, in particular) but this is the first time I've gotten a chance to see one(Actually, that's not entirely true: I didn't know that he directed The Castle of Cagliostro, which is a great movie). I love movies like this...Movies that just do what they do. Let me explain: Spirited Away is a great title for this film because this movie just picks you up and drops you right in the middle of all of this craziness. You either sink or swim with it. It's unapologetic in it's straight-forwardness. We're not gonna take a lot of time to explain to you, we're not gonna give you all of this exposition. This is our world, watch it. The animation is astounding in this movie. And the storyline, though fairly simple is very thought-provoking. I was in the shower this morning thinking about it and a particular sequence, which just blows you away, suddenly made more sense to me ( but I'm pretty dumb anyway, so this is not saying much.) All this month TCM will have Thursday night dedicated to Mr. Miyazaki, showing his greatest films ( with introductions by John Lasseter of Pixar). I'll definitely try to catch 'em.

Happy New Year! Damn, 2005 went fast! Well, as sucky as it was, it's just as well....rough year for a lot of people. The Tsunami was right before Christmas last year and then we had Katrina and all kinds of floods and brushfires and all kinds of craziness...I'm just hoping that 2006 is better. It would be nice to get a majority of the troops home before summer at least, clear up that situation a bit. Just try to make this year a positive one, instead the downer that 2005 was....