The Economy Does What Good Taste Couldn't

Today was an historic day in South Florida. The scourge of taste buds and stomachs alike has finally been defeated. R.J. Gator's has closed its doors. Sure, the novelty of eating gator meat makes for a nice change of culinary pace but not the way R.J. Gator's does it. I ate there once. Quite a horrible experience. All the food, including the non-gator items, was drenched in grease. My stomach was not happy that I subjected it to that greasy mess. It complained about it, quite loudly, for the rest of the night. My stomach and the gators of South Florida sleep a little more soundly tonight.

This blog post is sponsored by Goliath National Bank.

The Pain and Suffering of our Outer Space Soldiers

Once again, not the most topical post. In fact, this post is so late to the party, we missed the funeral of the deceased's grandkids. But it is what tickles my fancy at the moment. I while back, some clever fellows figured out how to use the multi-player aspect of the smash video game Halo to stage and film their own sci-fi soap opera. Full of absurdist fun, the series, Red vs. Blue has actually run its entire course. Consisting of 5 "seasons" and a couple of special episodes, Red vs. Blue tells the story of ragtag group of mentally retarded astro-GI's fighting a battle of undetermined expectations and goals. Now you have the opportunity to watch the entire story unfold from beginning to end. No waiting for the release of the next episode. Just like I mentioned in my post about the show Day Break, this is an attractive feature for a fellow suffering with ADHD and constantly tortured by wait between doses of Lost. Plus, with the ongoing writers strike, Red vs. Blue is a much better option than the next episode of Super Nanny. All of season 5 can be downloaded from the official site. The rest can be had here. Presented for your enjoyment, Episode 1.....

Speaking of Lost, here is a fun summery of everything that has happened on the show up to this point. Can't wait til it comes back.

Day Break

I am in the process watching the concluding episode of Day Break. This was a short lived series that ABC put on during Lost's midseason hiatus. It was meant to save the viewing public from the horror of Lost reruns. But Lost reruns, Lifetime movies of the week, and a test of the national broadcasting system all seemed more popular choice for viewers time than Day Break and it was quickly canceled. Yet that was not the end of the show. ABC kindly put every episode of the show that was produced on their website for free viewing. All 12 of them. Here is the neat thing though. What is available is unlike most quickly canceled serials. It is a complete story. Beginning, middle, and end. There is a real conclusion to the drama. All of the main plot lines are resolved by the last episode. With every episode available for viewing one after the other, Day Break becomes one 13 hour miniseries. A decent one at that.

The actual content of Day Break isn't half bad. It is easy to see why ABC thought Lost fans might like this show. It has a large cast of intersecting and overlapping characters, a vast and mysterious conspiracy, and central sci-fi twist. The main character of has show has to repeat the same day over and over again until he accomplishes some undefined goal. The one feature of the repeating day gimmick that I most appreciated was the choose-your-own-adventure nature of how the days played out. Just like the old Scholastic Readers, different decisions were available at each major plot points. Sometimes the decision chosen landed you on page 89 and a spot in a prison cell. Sometimes a decision would you past the point that landed you in jail but two more decisions later and you are back on page 89. You get to keep trying again and again until you figure out how to avoid dreaded page 89 or some other dead end. Besides the joy of seeing a childhood book come to life, it can not be understated the satisfaction it brings to actually get a honest to goodness satisfying conclusion to one of these mythology-laden mystery serials. Something we can't say for sure that we will ever see with Lost.

Day Break will certainly disappear from ABC's free viewer soon and will only be available (maybe) on DVD but, for now, makes for a very pleasant distraction. Especially during summer reruns.