"Don't Trust Me" by 3OH!3, featuring these winner lyrics. At the risk of sounding like an out-of-touch-with-today's-youth kinduva guy (you know, someone who might shout "Get off my lawn!" to neighborhood kids), I must voice my hatred of this godawful song.

I was standing around at a Fourth of July party with some friends a couple weeks ago, and this song came on the radio. When I mentioned how much I hated it, a friend said, "Yeah, this is like the douchebag theme song." Talk about hitting the nail on the head. Yes. That's it exactly. I wish I'd thought of the phrasing myself. (Read more...)

You can file this under stray thoughts and observations: Why is it that many producers don't give the pilots of their television shows titles? Every episode of a TV show has a title. Some shows, like for example the Star Trek series, would even put the title of the episode on-screen at the beginning during the credits — although that's a practice that's not much seen. Usually you have to look at the info box on your on-screen display or TV guide (or on your DVD set) to actually see the title of a TV episode.

But why is it that the first episode of a series often gets no title? They inevitably end up on a DVD set with the prosaic title of "Pilot." I recently started watching all of Lost on DVD, and the two hours for the pilot were named "Pilot, Part 1" and "Pilot, Part 2." (Read more...)

Complaining about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen after you've actually paid to go see it is kind of like complaining after commanding someone to punch you in the face. They might not have done it the way you wanted them to do it, but you sort of knew what you were getting yourself into. It's kind of your own fault.

Michael Bay in a nutshell: Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf run away from one of many, many explosions in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Such is the case with the latest behemoth from Michael friggin' Bay. It's overblown to the point of absurdity, and yet I feel like an a-hole for complaining that it's overblown, because, well, of course it's overblown. I saw the trailer, didn't I? I knew that going in. And I read other reviews that said the movie was bad. What was I expecting?

I sort of liked the first Transformers. On the guilty-pleasure scale I gave it a three-star rating, simply because, again, I knew what I was getting into, and the movie delivered on its silly level. And it made me laugh. And the voice of Optimus Prime was ... the real voice of Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen. Which was awesome. Overall, it was sort of a more-frenetic, less-classy Independence Day. (Read more...)

The Discovery channel will air a special one-hour documentary tonight about famous pitchman Billy Mays, who died unexpectedly June 28 of apparent heart failure. Several companies have also announced that they will begin airing Billy Mays commercials again, after having pulled them off the air immediately after his death.

"BILLY MAYS HERE..."

I make mention of the fact because, gosh darnit, I kinda liked Billy Mays and his goofy commercials, which generally began with "BILLY MAYS HERE..." and continued to tell me why his product was great.

Usually when someone is yelling at me about a product, I get annoyed. But with Mays, there was a likable charm to it. When he was yelling, he wasn't really "yelling" but simply talking at a very high volume. And his pitches always had such an earnest, good-natured quality to them.

Pitches by various versions of the "But wait, there's more!" TV announcer — inevitably ending in a blue screen and a 1-800 number in Helvetica typeface — usually might as well say "Hurry up and get ripped off!" But Billy Mays was different. He was the pitch guy who you wanted to trust. He had the voice, the volume, and the velocity. But high-energy never seemed high-pressure.

We'll miss you, Billy. Now excuse me while I go buy some OxiClean. I'm not sure what it does or if I need it. In Billy I trust.

So as of Tuesday, Sci Fi — formerly long ago known as the Sci-Fi Channel — is now officially called Syfy, in a rebranding effort that aims to ... well, I'm not sure. In a word: Dumb. In another word: Why? I'll let the corporate exec explain:

"Without abandoning our legacy or our core audience, we needed to cultivate a distinct point of view with a name that we could own that invites more people in and recognizes our broader range of programming with literally something for everyone. Syfy allows us to build on our 16-year heritage of success with a new brand built on the power that fuels our genre: the imagination. Syfy ushers in a new era of unlimited imagination, exceptional experiences and greater entertainment that paves the way for us to truly become a global lifestyle brand."

– Sci Fi Syfy President Dave Howe (Source: scifiwire.com)

Please. Sound like a bunch of corporate mumbo-jumbo? Sure does to me. If you're going to change the name of your brand, then, well, actually change it. How does changing "Sci Fi" to "Syfy" tell anybody that you're different, broader, or offering "literally something for everyone"?

I read elsewhere that the main reason for this was that the company wanted to be able to copyright/trademark a term, and "Sci Fi" was too generic. By changing it to "Syfy," they have a more specific identity allowing better marketing potential. I wish they'd just said that, without a big line of BS about trying to be something for everybody and representing no boundary for imagination. To me, "Syfy" doesn't say "something for everybody" or "imagine greater"; it says, "out-of-touch corporate people trying to appear cool." Because, after all, spelling stuff wrong is the most awesome way to appear cool. I mean, kewl.

I understand that Michael Jackson was huge and the passing of a pop icon is a big deal, blah, blah, etc. But the coverage of this event in the news has become nothing short of sickening. It's a media feeding frenzy, and it's ridiculous.

I don't care what you thought of the guy as an artist or about the controversies and his strangeness later in life, or the where-there's-smoke-there's-fire allegations of his conduct with children. I don't want to get into all that. I frankly don't care. (Read more...)