Category: Entertainment

What are you watching?

William 7 Comments

The new TV season is about a month old. What shows are you guys watching? I watched a bunch of the new show initially, but the only ones I enjoyed and continue to watch are Life on Mars and Fringe. Life on Mars is a remake of a Britsh show of the same title that I really enjoyed. It is about a current day police detective who is hit by a car and wakes up in 1973. It is unclear if the lead character is dreaming while in a coma, in purgatory or actually traveled through time. Each episode usually features a crime of the week that is somehow linked to his life in 2008… I think the British verison was a better. Fringe is being hailed as the new X-files. It is about a FBI agent who works with a mentaly unstable, discredited scientist and his genuis son to investigate a series of mysteriously linked crimes that also seem to be connected to the doctor’s old research. Unlike the simarly themed British remake Eleventh hour, where a man with a Ph.D. in apparently every field known to man yells things like “No amount of money in the world will stop the virus that is raging a was inside of you” to infected bad guys, Fringe knows that it is not exactly based in reality. Returning shows that I’ve been watching include the Tina Fey’s 30 rock, offbeat crime serial Life and spy comedy Chuck. Of course my two favorite shows, 24 and Battlestar Galatica haven’t started yet.

Stars

William 4 Comments

I spent the weekend with Kyllan in Dallas. We are always looking for something new to do, so Kyllan got tickets to a Dallas Stars‘ game on Saturday. The plan was to stay for a while and then head to the State Fair of Texas, but something strange happened when we got to the arena… we enjoyed our selves. Apparently Kyllan and I are hockey fans. Who knew? The Stars lost, to the Colorado Avalanche coincidentally, but it was a really good game. We had to look up some of the rules in the program guide, but it didn’t take us too long to figure out what was going on. This was Kyllan’s first hockey game, I attended a game as part of my recruitment trip to Cornell, and the first time either of us had been to the American Airlines Center. We did eventually make it to the fair, but we didn’t stay too long. Kyllan also took advantage of my time in Dallas to show off her Wii fit skills.

Olympics so far

William Leave a comment

Don’t worry, no spoilers until after the fold…

I have been really enjoying the Olympics so far. If the gasp from Kyllan on the other end of the phone are any indication, she is enjoying the games too. The opening ceremony was amazing, even if there was a little controversy. Personally I think NBC has done a horrible job with communicating what sports will be on air at what time. Kyllan is getting “Live” broadcast an hour earlier than I am. It’s great that they are offering live events online, but they should have at least added an audio feed so there would be some commentary with the video. Below are so of my thoughts on the events I’ve been able to catch (click more). Consider any comments to be spoiler rich. (more…)

2008 Summer Olympic Games

William 6 Comments

The Games of the XXIX Olympiad are upon us. Will you be watching the games this year or are you planning to boycott all broadcast in protest of an oppressive government and human rights violations in China? (Oh great, now the blog is going to be blocked by the Great Firewall.) Though I have personally encountered Chinese researchers my age and older who have no idea that there were ever any protest in Tienanmen Square, I plan to watch the games as usual. While I am also not sure that Beijing was the best selection for host city, I don’t know that political opinions should interfere with sport and believe that the Chinese people may benefit from the eyes of the world focusing on their government… It doesn’t look promising though. (That last link is to an article about the Chinese government restricting public displays of faith, and enforcing these laws on athletes at the games. I thought it was really interesting.)

Here is the broadcast schedule. Hopefully the time difference won’t prevent me from catching some events live.

… I don’t know how Kyllan missed this; Her Alma mater, Wake Forest, is ranked #23 in the preseason choaches’ football poll! Is that the first top 25 preseason ranking for Wake?

Mile High Fun

Kyllan Leave a comment

William and I had a great time in Denver this past weekend. Typically we are simply excited to be in each others presence, so we don’t really take time to “plan” anything for our visits. However, this time William planned some “touristy” things for us to do. We have previously been to the Capitol Building, Mile High Stadium, and other sites in and around downtown, but we crossed a few more sites off our list.

After breakfast on Saturday at what has quickly become one of our favorite breakfast places, The Delectable Egg, we began our tour of the Denver Art Museum. With two buildings with several levels of exhibits, we became very overwhelmed at the amount of art on display, but did not really find anything that made us extremely fascinated. I guess we have not fully developed our appreciation for art. After the museum, we spent some time exploring the 16th Street Mall. We had several lunch options on the mall, but somehow managed to wander several blocks off the mall to a cute little pizza joint. After the long walk to get there, we were wondering if it would be worth it, but we both enjoyed our selection of the “Brooklyn”, which we quickly devoured. After making the walk back to the mall, which of course seemed much shorter this time, we treated ourselves to gelato (Italian ice cream). Yes, we broke our “healthy eating” rule, but hey… the gelato has less calories and less fat than regular ice cream 🙂 We concluded the day with William’s favorite combo…dinner and a movie. William was surprised to learn that I was interested in seeing Get Smart, and I think we were both surprised that we both enjoyed the movie and laughed throughout the film despite the lukewarm reviews.

To conclude the weekend, we enjoyed Sunday brunch at Dazzle. I thought the brunch was very good and the live jazz band was a nice touch. Please do not ask William how the brownie covered in fudge that I brought to the table for us to share became Kyllan’s dessert. It had chocolate chips in it! Brownie without nuts, fudge topping, chocoloate chips….enough said.

William took pictures, of course, so I am sure he will post those soon.

Oh… and I have to report that after multiple visits to the Apple store only to come out empty handed and disgruntled, William is now the very proud owner of an iPhone, which he loves. I am sure he will post about that later this week.

Dark Knight

William 8 Comments

This past Friday I invited the lab and some of the graduate students in the department over to my apartment to watch Batman Begins. On Saturday we all met up and went to see Dark Knight (the IMAX: Experience.) Apparently a lot of other people did too. I thougt it was great! Probably the best super hero movie I’ve seen, other than Iron Man. Heath Ledger was just flat out creepy as the Joker. The film was long, it was dark, but it was also very entertaining. I highly recommend to anyone that hasn’t already seen it. (My parents also saw the movie this weekend, but did not enjoy it as much as I did. It may have been a little too dark for them.)

The Drive to Work

Kyllan 4 Comments

I have a 20 mile, 30 minute drive to work each morning, so I tend to listen to the radio.  One of the best things about my new car is XM satellite radio.  My favorite morning show is Gayle King’s (Oprah’s best friend) show on XM 156, the Oprah and Friends network.  She generally starts out talking about current events or her plane trips from NYC to LA or how she “love love loves” Barack Obama, the color yellow, talking with people, her favorite son Will, and her favorite daughter Kirby.  The second half hour consists of interviews with different people of interest (recording artists, actors, authors, entrepreneurs, chefs, etc).  I enjoy her interviews and her show in general.  I also enjoy when they play the theme music to the once popular show “Charles in Charge” when her lawyer (Charles the lawyer) comes on the air.   Her show keeps me laughing and smiling on my drive.  Rodney Pete and Holly Robinson Pete also have a show on XM 156, but it comes on at noon my time, so unless I am in the car going to a lunch meeting, I usually miss hearing it.  Occasionally I hear the “Rabbi Shmuley’s Show also”.  Yes… he really is a rabbi and his show is about parenting, but often brings up some good points or things to consider.

Anyway… that’s my plug for XM Radio.  There are a lot of good stations, but I tend to listen to just a few, actually yesterday I listen to a finance podcast and it was so interesting, they mention the pay stubs maker for payments and it would work perfect for my business.  When I am not listening to the Oprah and Friends Network, I listen to “Suite 62”.  Suite 62 is also what I listen to while cleaning the house (we have DirecTV, so we can get the XM stations on the television also).  I love it!

Movies and Television

William 1 Comment

Just in case some of you were looking for movie suggestions, I thought I would share my opinions of the movies Kyllan and I saw last weekend. Iron Man was great. It was the rare comic book movie done well. I had been concerned that it was going to be a little too sci-fi for Kyllan and was shocked to see how much she enjoyed it. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an excuse to go to the theater, even if you don’t consider yourself a fan of the sci-fi/ comic book genre. Forgetting Sarah Marshall was laugh out loud funny. Probably the best comedy I’ve seen all year.  It is from the same guys who made 40 year old virgin, Knocked up and Superbad. If you liked those movies, I think you would like this one too. ( I don’t think I wouldn’t recommend it to my parents.) Baby Mama was very funny, but I would still suggest the other two over it.

Finally, I was also  able to convince Kyllan to watch the (re-imagined) Battlestar Galactica mini-series with me. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she enjoyed it. At some point I will get her to watch the regular television series. She just might be on the verge of becoming a sci-fi fan. I think I am going to try and get her to watch the Firefly pilot next. (She is not ready for Star Wars or Star Trek yet. She tunes out whenever aliens appear.)

Along with Kyllan and Kim, the Cody Report also had a birthday. Two years old. Kyllan didn’t even know what a blog was when I first bought up the idea.

Oh, and just for comparison with the previous post…