Catching Up Again (Ugh)

Sorry, folks. Been busy yet again the last few weeks. I have some interesting writing projects coming up, so please stay tuned. Hopefully it won't me another f'ng month to update this blog again:

World Wrestling Insanity columns:
The Ultimate Video Game MovieIron Shiek Claims CNN Misquoted Him
Canadian Bulldog's Real-time Raw Coverage (not bad if I say so myself for a first "real-time" Raw attempt)

Club WWI: As though you didn't have enough reasons to become a club member.... this month I interviewed the one, the only HULLLLLLLLLK HOGAN!!! Well, kinda. Also I reviewed XPW: Season One, one of the most confusing wrestling DVD's out there.

DVD's: I recently bought TNA's Year One DVD. Although it's one of their slicker ones to date, it's still a biased, and at times confusing piece of documentary. Let's put it this way: if you've been following the TNA story since 2002, you're not going to learn anything new. If you haven't, you're not getting the full story by watching this. WWE releases have some bias, absolutely, but they don't really ignore key parts of their history (well, unless you count Chris Benoit, I suppose). So very little reference to their NWA roots, not to mention Jerry Jarrett. I mean, Double J Senior did kind of start the company - just saying....

I've also seen XPW (and reviewed it on Club WWI) and The Triumph and Tragedy of World Class, which will be reviewed on World Wrestling Insanity fairly soon. I'm not in any great rush to see the Mysterio, Cena and Michaels ones, so maybe I'm learning to pick and choose what I buy in my old age...

FitnessBlog: 16 workouts during November, and all of them lengthy ones, as opposed to my previous 20-minute jaunts. Feeling a lot better, physically and have lost almost 10 pounds since mid-summer. So, not bad.

Raw's 15th Anniversary: What's not to love? Was easily the best wrestling show (pay-per-view or otherwise) I've seen all year. Not sure if that's more the general state of the game right now or what, but a pretty damn great show from start to finish.

Review: No Country For Old Men: Actually, I'm not going to bother reviewing it. Just don't see it -- trust me on this one, folks. It's not worth it. Yeah, I know - Cohn Brothers and all that. But Fargo this ain't. Just trust me. Lamest. Ending. Ever.

The Office Line Of The Night: Oh, wait, that's right -- no new episodes in the last month because of the fucking writers' strike. Damnit!



Okay, back at ya soon -- or most likely, mid-January. So, uh, happy holidays?

Whatever Happened To....

I've been meaning to complain about this for some time now, but just keep forgetting about it. There's this show I watch here in Canada (usually every morning at the gym, but it's on virtually 24 hours a day) called "Whatever Happened To..." that is not unlike the VH1-style "Remember The 80's"-type shows.

The premise is simple (and interesting): the show looks at three celebrities of yesteryear, sometimes has interviews or previously-recorded clips of them and talks about their fall from grace. No big deal, right? But then they have these three or four revolving panelists that seriously annoy the hell out of me.

Let's say they're doing "Whatever happened to Larry from Three's Company" as a subject. The panelists (who are comedians, gossip columnists, that kind of thing; no one of note) say things like "Richard Kline moved to his family's farm in Wyoming in 1993 and he's really happy there" as if THESE JERKS HAVE ANY FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE OF THIS WHATSOEVER!!!

I mean, come on, they are SO reading this off of Wikipedia, or some fan club, or something, and making it sound like they have the real scoop on Jonathan from Who's The Boss, or some lady who was in a Certs commercial 25 years ago.

I cannot TELL YOU how frustrating this is!!!

The Office Line Of The Night

"It's like eating a hot circle of garbage."

First of all... I am LOVING the hour-long episodes. This has been three in a row!

There were a ton of great moments here. The pizza delivery kid and his subsequent kidnapping were GOLD. Kevin insistent that they order from the right Alfredo's; Michael's mistaking a chatroom for a club, and of course, the website IM'ing Dwight (the classic pranks never die). Ryan is filling his role as the asshole unrespected boss quite nicely, too.

Things I'm less crazy about: the Angela-Dwight-Andy love triangle (only because I don't see Andy in that role) and Jim and Pam getting TOO lovey-dovey, just because you know this is all going badly (and probably soon).

But still, the best episode of the three so far this season.

Catching Up With Canadian Bulldog

Sorry for the longer-than-normal delay in updates... just been hella busy lately with real life. So where do we start?

September FitnessBlog: I worked out a total of 18 times last month, which seems to be pretty much the average these days. But here's something cool -- my gym has recently changed ownership, and as part of the changes (read: an eventual grab for higher fees) they have a kind of "cycle" program where you cycle through 9 different machines as part of some proven system to help you lose weight, age better, feel better, etc. I've only done the whole loop twice so far, but I think I'm going to stick with it for a while...

Latest "Breaking News": Vince McMahon Chosen As Next James Bond

Latest Audio: Up on Club WWI right now, James Guttman and I talked for almost an HOUR about all things wrestling, including John Cena, who will take his place this weekend at No Mercy, why WWE is having trouble getting new fans, Hornswoggle, save_us.222, Damien Demento, Bubby Bulldog, the Canadian Target Hockey Stores and MUCH more!

Misc. television: If you haven't already, do yourself a favor and watch this week's Rick Mercer Report. I'm not a regular viewer, but I may very well become one, based solely on his comedy bit with embattled media baron Conrad Black.

And just to add a bit of hype, next week's True Wrestling Story is guaranteed to shock and surprise you! Tune in next Tuesday.... if, uh, I get enough time this weekend to work on it.

The Office Line Of The Night

Ryan: Did this happen on company property?

Michael: It was on company property, with company property. So, double jeopardy. We're fine.

Ryan: I don't think-- I don't think you understand how jeopardy works.

Michael: Oh, I'm sorry. What is, 'we're fine.'




SO nice to get my Dundler-Mifflin fix last night! Not sure if its because of the new roles/relationships, or just because I've been watching my Season 3 DVD religiously, but it just seems like they've tweaked the formula a little. Not to say this necessarily a bad thing -- but I'm reserving judgment for a few more episodes at least. Additional thoughts:

Who knew that Pam and Jim finally hooking up would be so anti-climactic? Then again, was there a better way to pull this off after three seasons of teasing it (that's what she said)?

Other than the nipple tape incident (which, believe it or not, I had heard about in my classes during a short-lived fling with running earlier this year -- it apparently happens quite frequently), there was a disturbing shortage of Andy.

I'd like to see where they go with Dwight and Angela -- interesting twist. LOVE how the cat clawed through packages of frozen french fries.

SWEET bit of continuity bringing back the stripper from Bob Vance's bachelor party as the nurse, and Michael's comment "so you went back and got your degree?" was awesome.

And the brought back the IT guy! Wonder if he's going to be a more permanent part of the cast now?

Michael describing Toby as Satan? Classic.

Family Guy Star Wars Episode

I'm not generally a huge Family Guy fan... I mean, I'll watch it if it's on, but won't go out of my way to see it or anything, as I might with The Simpsons. But this episode was hands down my favorite.

Not only was it amazing from a visual standpoint, but they were quite faithful to "A New Hope" at the same time, sneaking in some SWEET references to Airplane, Asteroid, Doctor Who, Vacation, etc. Everyone played their characters well (I wasn't convinced beforehand that Peter and Chris shouldn't have reversed their roles) and even the cameo appearances (Greedo, the Death Star Trash Bin Monster) were just awesome.

The Simpsons season premiere on the other hand.... big f'ng meh. I was hopeful after the movie that maybe this would give the writers a renewed interest, but doesn't look like that's the case if this episode was any indication. That said, I did enjoy the post-movie introduction at the starting... a nice little bit of continuity there.

In other TV news... only 3 more days til The Office!!!

I just don't understand this.....

How is it that, no matter what the hour or day, I can always find the show "Reba" on Country Music Television? I'm not just talking about it being on once or twice a day -- it's constant!

Am I missing something? I mean, I'm sure it's not a TERRIBLE show or anything (all I see is little bits here and there, but have never watched a full episode), but how many episodes could they have possibly produced for it to be every waking hour?

Saturday Night's Main Event SPOILERS

Read all about right here (thanks mystery guest contributor!!!)

The Office Line Of The Night

(Okay, so this was probably the first one of the season, but I hadn't seen it yet).

It's either:

"I wish you would estimate me, Jan."

or

"I hope it's urine."

Not the best of episodes, but still some solid moments...

(And yet ANOTHER Office cross-over tonight. Was watching a rerun of Curb Your Enthusiasm on Showcase, and the orderly was Darryl. Awesome...)

The Office Line Of The Night

"Your advice was good, hers was bigger."

What an AWESOME season finale! Between Creed's blog, Schrute bucks (and of course Stanley nickels), Pam as Secret Assistant to the Regional Manager, Angela's silent support of the new boss, Jan's wild mood swings and the way that the CFO handled the interviews, this may have been the best episode this season.

Unfortunately, I have this funny feeling that Jim and Pam having a "date" will mean something else come the beginning of the new season. Maybe that they're just friends again, which would blow. I guess I was wrong on my prediction of Karen moving to NYC, but the eventual pick was a nice little surprise....

The Office Line Of The Night

"Angela, I would really just like to buy you a fresh new pair of underwear."


SO many uncomfortable moments, especially with Dwight on perv patrol the entire show. Some more awesome Creed moments, especially his need to use the women's washroom, and how all the guys hung out there was.... odd as well.

I may have missed it because I was distracted, but how did the flasher's picture end up being Dwight with a moustache? Was that when Pam drew the sketch?


Unrelated: Caught "Curb Your Enthusiasm" for the first time in ages on Showcase (A Canadian channel that shows Curb, Entourage and a few other HBO-ish programs). This was the episode -- probably a really old one -- where Some Guy From The Daily Show (forget his name)played a sexual predator who was invited over to the Passover seder. Between Larry's rationale for having him over and the plot to get the doctor to admit he was stealing Larry's newspaper, I miss this show so much and wish it was on here more regularly.....

Office Awesomeness

The Office Line Of The Night

"Today, I saved a man's life. My own. Am I hero?............ I can't say, but yes."

Not a stellar episode, but between the safety sketch, the side-bets going on around Dunder-Mifflin and Stanley's priceless reaction to his car being water-meloned, this had more than enough enjoyable stuff. Not sure how I feel about the return of Andy/Drew, although Dwight's "unshun/reshun" bit was cute.

Yet ANOTHER awesome Office cross-over

Watching season 2 of Entourage tonight, and I had no idea that fucking DWIGHT SCHRUTE (okay, fine - Rainn Wilson) was on an episode as an online journalist! Incredible!

The Office Line Of The Night

(Again, from the only episode *I* hadn't seen yet of the bunch on NBC tonight):

"My company has made it my responsibility to put an end to 100,000 year of people being weirded out by gays."

With honorable mention going to: "It's not cool to call retards retarded. You call your friends who are acting retarded 'retards'." Also the kiss, Creed's "It's possible a man slipped in", and Pam trying to share a laugh with Ryan.

The Office Line Of The Night

"Do you really expect us to believe you're two different people?" -- A line from ANGELA, of all people.

I can't believe I missed so much of this season before I got hooked, some really good stuff with the merger of the two offices (they showed two tonight). Andy's banjo solo and Dwight/Andy trying to out-asskiss each other were classic. But the highlights had to be the orientation video and Prison Mike. Just hilarious stuff....

Oh, and I'm not sure what this new Andy Richter show is about debuting next week, but if Buster's on it, I'M THERE!

The Office line of the night

"We did it! WE DID IT!!! What did we do, exactly?"

Okay, this wasn't a NEW episode, per se, but new to me. Would have liked to see more on the faxes to Future Dwight -- that had so much comedy potential. Knowing how much extra stuff they packed onto the Season 2 DVD's, I'll bet they filmed some other scenes for that as well. And you have to like Ryan's excuse for dumping Kelly (it almost worked).

The Office Line Of The Night

Michael: I love you, Jan.
Jan: Okay.
Dwight (from backseat): You guys shouldn't break up.

Between Dwight inspecting the CFO's house, Michael and Jan throughout the cocktail party, and Roy and his brother tearing up the bar in a rage, that was one of the more awkward episodes. But not even awkward in a bad way... just a lot of uncomfortable humor.

Runner up goes to Creed and his fake ID business. He's slowly growing on me, just because of how unpredictable he is.

The Office line of the night

"And you realize, this isn't a graduation?"

Certainly not the best episode, but not without its charm. Jim as the vampire had a lot more potential, though the whole bat storyline (especially the ending with Meredith/Mary Beth) produced some great moments. Michael as a guest lecturer practically wrote itself and the chocolate bar analogy ("Is that a candy bar in your pocket?") was fantastic. Still, Pam's art exhibition kind of fell flat, and again, I just say they fast-forward past the Roy/Karen stuff and get Pam and Jim together already. Yes, I know it won't happen until the season finale (at the earliest), but still..... If the show ever needs a nice ratings boost, THAT'S the rabbit they should pull from their hat.

The Office Line Of The Night

"Phyllis and Bob, if you two were a celebrity couple, you'd be known as Phlob."

This was BY FAR the best Season 3 episode I've seen (mind you, I still haven't seen a bunch). Between Dwight as the bouncer, the return of Scrantonicity and of course Michael as the "Employer of the Bride", this was just classic.

One thing that I've noticed: The longer Pam and Jim stay apart, the more it actually, physically bothers me. WHY? I have no idea. I used to be a massive Cheers fan back in the day, yet I really didn't care what happened with Sam and Diane. Ross and Rachel getting together? Meh. It was just a TV show, you know? But this storyline just seems so much more... important.

Does admitting that make me gay? Yes.