Flip This House: Atlanta
For what can only be a life-size photo, check out Sam Leccima's portfolio/book site. I'll have to go back to for the exact quote, but I'm pretty sure he said the smell of urine and feces are signs of a good deal.

On the positive side, the cast is genuinely likeable but the final product was just so, so awful. So bad. I can't even begin to talk about the professional home 'stager'. If the home didn't suck so bad (did you see the sod? or the paint job? or the exterior paint? or the master bedroom's 'oasis'?) they wouldn't need some guy trucking in wall sconces.

I'll have to simmer on this and decipher the timeline somehow (Beard. No beard. Beard. No beard.) and I'll post a follow-up.

Until then, check out a great review at Simply Reprehensible.

Joe Biden must be busy since Tom Friedman is on Meet the Press this Sunday. His sixteen-year-old seminal work, From Beirut to Jerusalem, established Mr. Friedman's credibility as a regular guest on Sunday morning talk shows, regardless of the subject. The book was much like 'American Graffiti' was to George Lucas. Critics can make fun of the guy for costumed Wookies and alien house bands and whatever those furry things riding the floating motorcycles were called, but you can always point to the first notable work where there isn't much room to argue.

In any case, Russert starts out with reading an excerpt from Friedman's NYT column -- which he does without the wholesale substitution of random words, a happening in its own right. Here's a line: "Despite Hezbollah's bravado, Israel has hurt it and its supporters badly, in a way they will never forget. Point made... Whoever goes for a knockout blow will knock themselves out instead."

Tidbits:
Iran promoted this conflict to draw attention away from the SC resolution.
"I think it was Bob Shrum, talking about the Iraq war: 'It's all over but the killing.'"
"That's the best time for diplomancy."
"All the Arab satellite channels... they're the Musak of the Arab world."

I love Russert. Spoke to soon, I guess:
Actual text on the screen: "[Bush] is incapable of imagining or forging alternative strategies."
Russert, reading text: "[Bush] is incapable of imagining or foregoing alternative strategies."

Why SNL doesn't add this to their cariacture of him, I have no idea. (Probably because the writers are sleeping in.)

Friedman makes a good point about the Bush administration 'exporting ... fear not hope' and having 'stolen' the American optimism from the world. He also alludes to the 'dark nature' of the Cheneys, the Rices and the Bushes. "I would argue that that that's the animating factor behind the [eyebrow arch and emphasis] *animus* [smile] against the U.S."

At some point I lost track of where we were going since we switched to a car with Ahmenijhad (Not going to look it up.) and Nasrallah in the front seat and Syria in the back and... "They've got no brakes." Oh, Christ.

"Tim, do you ever ask yourself what the second-largest Muslim country in the world is?" "It's not Pakistan or Iran -- it's India." Hmm. I suppose that's like saying 'Who's the U.S. President? It's not Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan -- it's [in a self-assured tone] George W. Bush. [pause for emphasis]". Because many less-up-to-date population counts indicat that it's Pakistan. Or Bangladesh.

Senator John McCain's Son To Join The Marines

The youngest son of U.S. Senator John McCain will soon report for duty in the Marine Corps. Say what you will about the war, but this kid is spitting in the face of family tradition and foregoing service aboard an aircraft carrier or whatever and volunteering to be shot at.

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From Bookslut:

"it sucks that the publishing industry has given up on some great work from some great authors, while books like M is for Murder and N is for No, Seriously, Murder and O is for Oh My God Someone Just Got Murdered are readily available at every chain bookstore in the land. You might say that there's a good economic reason for this, to which I respond: I failed economics, bitches. So take that!"

Like all bloggers (which, I've learned, is a shorthand for "let-me-type-down-my-opinions-and-some-funny-things-that-happen") I want the entire world clamoring for some of that Ol' Virginey magic we have here at LiveBlogging TV. Therefore: Macs are better than PCs. Feel free to comment.

If you like Warren Cheswick or the Daily Show or commercials...

Also, Kirk was better than Picard.
And Marvel is better than DC Comics.
Uh, Adidas is better than Nike and Coke is better than Pepsi.
Also, the One True Church is the Catholic Church.

Edit: For a fun drinking game, take a shot everytime you see the phrase “macs are for jews and liberals” in the comments linked above. (Not below.) The picture is great, but take another drink for "why do stupid people hate macs?".

Play fan-made commentaries in sync with Sharecrow!

Steve Concotelli (Editor from "The Screen Savers") has hit the web with this nifty little program. It's a DVD player for PC that lets you play fan-made commentaries in sync with any DVD. It's "Mystery Science Theater" home edition!

Anyone think we should try this with 24? Or at least podcast The Lunch afterward?

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Prison Break - Season Two Preview

Beginning on Monday, August 21, FOX will bring "Prison Break" back for its second season. "We're going to get a glimpse of Bellick's home life in the second episode, and it ain't gonna be prety. The second episode will also mark the end of the road for a series regular."

I forgot that Scott is playing catch-up and I can't reveal the reason no one is going to watch this show. But soon. So, Cocktail-of-PCP-Morphine-and-Mescaline, watch your back.

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The actor that 'plays' Jack Bauer?

The Guardian: 'We've had five years of him saving a large thing; this one's much more about him saving his own ass. He'll go from being the one who hunts people down to the one who's being hunted, so that in itself turns the show around.'

Also: "Just days before their wedding, Roberts called it off and ran away to Europe with Sutherland's then best friend and Lost Boys co-star, Jason Patric." (How many wedding movies has she done? Let alone one called the 'Runaway Bride'? That is stone cold.)

You should also check out the '24 things you didn't know about 24'. Some excerpts:

1 Jack Bauer has killed 112 people over the five years of the show. Season 4, during which he dispatched 44 'hostiles', was his best ever; in the first season he managed a lacklustre 10.

2 Kiefer Sutherland heard that American college students use 24 as a drinking game, downing a shot every time Jack Bauer says 'damn it'. So he changed the script in one episode to have Jack say 'damn it' 14 times in one hour.

3 Another frat-house game is to monitor Jack's flouting of the Geneva Conventions. In season 2 he shot a key suspect under interrogation in the heart before beheading him. In season 3, he executed a colleague on the president's orders.

6 During season 4 an incoming call number was shown on a character's mobile phone. More than 50,000 fans dialled the number - only to find it was real and belonged to one of the crew.

7 More than 20 lead characters have died in seasons 1-5.

9 Executive Producer Evan Katz once said: 'We make a lot of it up as we go along.'

13 We've never seen Jack eating, sleeping or going to the toilet. As a joke for season 5 he was filmed exiting the bathroom, eating a sandwich and wearing his pyjamas. It didn't make the final cut.

20 Jack's daughter, Kim, has been held captive in one form or other eight times.

22 Glenn Morshower, Kiefer Sutherland, Carlos Bernard and Dennis Haysbert are the only actors to appear in all five seasons.



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ESPN fires Harold Reynolds

Word is Harold Reynolds is packing his smooth delivery and giant baseball brain for greener pastures away from ESPN where he's worked for eleven years. By greener, I mean any pasture that lets him in the building.

Sorry, Kruk and Timmy (Don't really know his name), Gammons and Reynolds were like the Crockett and Tubbs of freakish baseball knowledge. I'm hereby refusing to watch Baseball Tonight now. I just removed it from my Tivo schedule[1]. Unless he killed somebody. Or committed some sort of crime. Not just any crime, but at some point I'll need to hear the phrase "Harold Reynolds' legal problems continued today when a grand jury indicted him on four counts of arson in connection with the Great White club fire..." for me to be okay with this.

This would be easier to take if ESPN didn't have an ironclad monopoly on sports news and entertainment. Where's he going to go? If anyone mentions Joe Morgan, ever, in relation to this, I'll start the revolution right now but let's hope ESPN management (ex-baseball managers or just professional pencil pushers? I wonder.) apologizes. Like they thought it was Stuart Scott. (Boo-yah.)

Unless he killed a busload of kids. On their way to the Special Olympics. With a hand grenade. That he made himself. In his office. On company time. When he should have been at Marie-in-Accounting's birthday party.

(Note: I may have to retract, well, all of this at some point. Enjoy until then.)

[1] - Not really. I only catch it when it happens to be on.

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If you enjoy FtH:SA, take a look at what you can get with no budget. I like the colors, especially. And I take back what I said about the cabinets. They turned out pretty well if you like dark cabinets in a small kitchen.

I also plan on marrying a nurse shark who someday might become a tiger shark before evolving into a great white. Like Mother Teresa, "a shark in whale's clothing".

I really should stop.

The best source I could find on the switch to TLC.

Rumors and innuendo: Trademark "back on the air this January" with twenty-six episodes (Holy. Crap.) of fresh content. You know, I would really like to know about the other parts of the business...

In a further 'screw you' to the Photographers on the Phone, everyone in America should visit the work of the talented Daniel Torres and hire him for weddings, retirements, anniversaries, catalogs, etc. When you want to 'go beyond the normal, the ordinary, the typical, the average, go beyond the expected', choose Daniel W. Torres.

(Who, seriously, is quite good.)

Listening: Lauren Hoffman, Choreography, 'Solipsist'.

Armando is a shark.

Anyway, I noticed that I alluded to a Monster House review. I'll start by saying that Ebert & Roeper gave it an uncomfortably glowing review, so much so that I was encouraged to pay American cash money to see it. For those who go to the movies enough to catch the trailer or whatever, you'll recall that you see the names 'Zemeckis' (I'm not going to check) and 'Spielberg' a lot. Ignore that bit and you've got a pretty okay movie that will annoy the crap out of you. You'll also feel like you've seen this movie before. And you have. I'd like to come up with some funny comment about the Zemeckis-directed 'Ghostbusters', the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and how the annoying, spastic, cape-wearing chubby kid and other characters not-quite-at-their-target-height are portrayed, but I'm pretty well empty. The facial animation is quite good but if you're distracted by physics not being pulled off quite right (like basketballs bouncing or, uh, arms moving) you'll find yourself marvelling at when it is (such as the excellent movie 'Wimbledon' starring Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst).

In any case, if you want to see classic kid stereotypes interacting in a picture book storyline, this movie is fantastic. If the studio wants to use that on a poster or on the back of the DVD, they can use 'This movie is fantastic!' if they want. Otherwise, just go see 'Cars' again. Seriously.

Oh, and can the hack reviewers of M. Night Shyamalan movies stop referring to the ending, period. Yes, you expected it. Congratulations. No, it's not as dramatic as the Sixth Sense. Write a better story and make it into a movie.

I've found that if you view the new season of Flip This House as a completely different show, it seems a little less like stabbing Richard Davis and Ginger in the back. Anyway, I'll review FtH:Atlanta separately as well and more about FtH:SA when I can digest it. Until then...

San Antonio
Armando Montelongo
Victoria Montelongo
David Montelongo
Melina Montelongo

I'll start out by saying that the 'new format' or whatever was a complete surprise as of this weekend. Suddenly the show appeared on the TiVo 'To Do List' and I was really looking forward to the new season. Then I caught the new little promo that hinted at the change in the same way one would talk about the 'relocation centers' that started popping up during the Second World War. Needless to say, Google was called in for a ruling.

Keep in mind that the average viewer of the show was used to a certain amount of flexibility while trying to find this show and/or keep sane when the season restarted multiple times and, as I recall, showed the same episodes fifteen times in a row. As a small aside, I also like the show 'Airline' whose status as an actual show is also in question. If there's some definitive resource out there that maintains a list of A&E shows still in production, I'd like to see it.

There's also something to be said about the fact that Flip This House must have several Puerto Rican Day episodes. But you can buy less than half of the first season for $89.85 plus S&H.

I'm not going to do the full rundown of the episode, but they redid a house. With foundation problems, bees and questionable wallpaper in any era. The house was rather nice in the end. However, some things I'm going to start doing:

• Writing down numbers on a piece of paper and sliding it to people like a jackass.


• Writing redundant zeroes (with slashes) of different sizes... you know, for effect.


• Driving over to a job site with two kid-sized inflatable pools (one for my dog, chained to a tree), filling them up with water and running the fastest-growing whatever in Texas while sitting in a lawn chair submerged in six inches of water.


• Buying what seems like 47 different sunglasses each for my friends and family, all of which were previously owned by the Russian Mafia or were gifts to Tony Parker before being 'lost' at the after-party.


• Spending zero on website development. On a completely unrelated note, go find them online. I did enjoy the Underworld coven-inspired photo shoot, but what are the photographers who turned down the pro bono photo job thinking? "Why didn't she mention that she's sitting in front of a camera crew." would be a guess...


• For later: Participating in 'seminars' which reveal the secrets to untold riches. ("A certain tactic wasn't legal...Most experienced guys thought [the] tactics seemed fishy.")

Also, I'm sure this has been an actual conversation:
"Okay, let's take a vote. Who doesn't agree with me? One, two... three. Well, my vote counts four, so looks like we're going with my idea."

For those who watch it for the transformation, they tore out wallpaper, a wall and window blinds made shortly after the discovery of metal. They refinished the floors, dropped some remaindered granite on some not-so-attractive cabinets and violated the Geneva Convention on Bathroom Improvement. The usual, really. There was an obligatory 'trouble getting into the house' scene and 'trouble finding the contractor standing next to another camera crew' thrown in as a bonus. I found myself missing the 'ordering a soda from a drive-thru' scene and the 'need to talk to Richard' sequence.

Anyway, I'm still loyal to Trademark, although it's not as if these people are unlikable. The dynamic is just different.

If you're still on the hook, here's an excellent review with a slightly different take.

We haven't posted much recently. Before I die, I'd like to discuss the fact that Monster House is a movie, Flip this House is on a short leash during the second season with the new cast. (Although I'm definitely switching to TLC when the Trademark programming airs.)

I'll post a review of Flip this House Mark II after it airs. Maybe after seeing both the Atlanta and the Houston casts.

(Edit: Okay, San Antonio.)

Can't say enough about this image. I won't try.

In addition to giving Tom Cruise a means and motive to further his crusade for soiling expensive furniture, Paramount is an example of how awful large corporations can behave when dealing with the crazy computa-gizmos on the Interweb. See the best Movie Blog this side of the Rio Grande, specifically, this post which goes into the back story of a movie that sounded interesting but, being on the fence, I've since decided not to get too excited about. Also, King's Dominion isn't that fun.