. . .

• Holla! Bengals resign my favorite player, the awesomely stupid WR Chris Henry, and all the whitebread moralists predictably blow a fuse. The best headline was this: "Bengals take Henry back...all it cost was their souls". "Souls"...what a fucking joke. If they (or any American professional sports team) had a soul, they wouldn't have raped a dying city out of a $400 million stadium that's used 15 times a year and is a blight on the skyline.¹
  
• The McRib is back.
  
• Stephen and I had two man-dates, seeing The Dark Knight and Pineapple Express. Loved them both!
  
• I hate superheroes. Superman bores the shit out of me; rooting for him is like rooting for a hurricane. Spiderman is a complete douche. Iron Man is only good because Robert Downey, Jr. is so great. The X-Men are okay, because at least they have flaws. Batman, though...he just seems realer. Well, this version of Batman, anyway. The whole thing is just perfect, the right director, the right Batman, the right supporting cast.²
• Okay, it's probably not surprising that I loved Pineapple Express. The math is simple: The Judd Apatow crew + weed jokes + '80s action movies + David Gordon Green = TG likes the movie.
  
• You're probably not watching Generation Kill³, and if you aren't, don't wait for the DVDs to come out, get on BitTorrent and download it now. I'm serious about this. It's the best thing on TV this year. As opposed to every other bullshit Iraq movie⁴, it doesn't talk down to you and the only real stance it takes is anti-war and pro-troops (which is basically where I'm at). The guys who did The Wire⁵, David Simon and Ed Burns, are doing this, and it's just as good. Oh, go to your local library and get the book it was based on, too.
  
• Since my social life is virtually nil, I've been reading a lot. And since I'm a giant nerd, I keep track of what I read here.
  
• I've finally been beaten down by Ryan and Andy into watching How I Met Your Mother. It's a good show, and I'm glad I started watching it. Points:
• I am shocked -- repeat, shocked -- that Neil Patrick Harris is as funny as he is. Who would have ever thought (pre-Harold and Kumar, of course) that Doogie Howser, MD could be this awesome? He single-handedly carries this show.
  
• As always, I am impressed with attention to continuity.⁶ Second to NPH, this is the show's biggest positive.
• Robin's character is pretty great too. Besides being hot, she's also a clever gender-reversal, not giving a shit about relationships or getting married, but not turning into a slut caricature.
  
• That doesn't mean it's all good...⁷

1. This one kind of turned into a negative, didn't it?
2. Speaking of Christian Bale, go rent Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn. Oh, and the documentary it was based on, Little Dieter Needs to Fly.
3. Actually, you probably are, since the only person who reads this terrible blog is me, and I'm obviously watching.
4. Probably starring John Cusack. What a douche he turned into. Hey asshole, leave your irritating political viewpoints to yourself and make another funny movie. But what can we expect from a fucking Cubs fan?
5. Which, despite what Andy may believe, is the greatest show of all time.
   
6. Lack of attention to continuity is one of my biggest TV pet peeves. More on this in the negative post.
7. This is where you go to the negative post. I'm not done with it yet, and I'm not really done with this one yet. I may add to it, but I have to get ready for work now. (Quit complaining, this shit is free. Oh, and terrible.)
   

Labels: Bengals, movies, random, TV