An awesome short lived series that aired back in 2000. I picked up a copy with my most recent Amazon.com order. Unfortunately it is still not available in Australia.

The premise of the show is that it is the satirical view of the drama that goes on behind making a high school TV drama. Created by Darren Star who is responsible for a lot of the series it takes off (90210, Melrose Place, Sex in the City etc) and many of the story lines were based around going ons behind the scenes of those shows.

The show follows the going ons of the cast, (including the requisite 30 year old playing a high school student, the sweet innocent girl and the popular cheerleader who are completely opposite to their characters and the new cast member that is new to show business.) and the writer/producers that are stuck in the middle in having to placate the stars and keep the show going whilst deal with the network ever changing minds, “We love what you are doing with the new character on the show but we are also really nervous about it.” One the character highlights is Dave, one of the stars “stand ins” who has to deal with his best friend success and living in his shadow even though he is possibly a better actor. It also has a very nicely done “show with in the show” that shows part of the end product.

On a deeper level the show also looks at some of the hollywood conventions such as weight. When one of the actresses gains weight the producers talk with her: “Its not that we don’t want you to gain weight, its just that we don’t want your character too” as well as a funny episode about women being objectified on TV.

A few of the jokes are starting to get a bit dated: i.e. Felicity cutting off her hair, or the Monica Lewinsky scandal but the show is still none the less hilarious. A wide range of guest stars too including Jason Priestley and Joe E. Tata (Bevelerly Hills 90210), Kristin Davis (Sex and the City and Melrose Place), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Elizabeth Berkley (Saved by the Bell) appear adding to the fun of the show. One episode also guest stars a younger Lisa Edelstein from House M.D.

All in all great fun if only for a brief 17 episodes.

The week is already half over and I haven’t got around to posting what happened from last Friday onwards. It was a long time ago so I forget most of it, but Friday I ended up watching The Illusionist at friends place and eating Fasta Pasta that wasn’t that Fast….a. Diverting for a second, If I were to open a rival fast food pasta place I would call it Fastest Pasta…. Anyway. A new franchise opened up near by so we got some take away, only the person who took the order got it largely wrong. They got the name on the order wrong, forgot to make one of the meals and then after making us wait an additional 20 minutes whilst making it, they couldn’t find us to give to it us our order even though we had sat down right in front of them whilst they made it. When it was ready they took the bag of food outside looking for us, then brought it back inside, then waited 3 minutes before calling out to see if we were there. So the fast pasta took 40 minutes to make. Double the time that it was suppose to take.

Back to the The Illusionist. So now I will put in a page break because it has a couple of spoilers and it will annoy all you google reader folks.

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Network Ten has just started a show called Friday Night Download. The premise is they play clips from youtube/google while three “well known hosts” (from the Big Brother machine, specifically Friday night games) comment on what they thought of them, whether they are fake or not etc. Its good for Ten. Cheap to produce, no scripts, no writers, just have to pay the three hosts to watch the clips and talk. It also counts towards the number of hours of locally produced content that each station must have to keep their license. (I’d find a link but I’m lazy) A couple of thoughts on this though:

1. Don’t you think its ironic that Ten is advertising they are “streaming shows direct from the US” in a bid to stop people downloading television programs/content from the internet and want you to watch them on TV instead but yet this show made up entirely from downloaded content from the internet?

and

2. Does Ten pay royalties for the use of the clips? Do they share in advertising revenue like youtube is starting to? And what about copyright infringement? I notice this weeks promotion is a clip from a Japanese game show. Do they get permission from the original copyright holders? Surely the game show, produced by another television station in Japan holds the copyright to it? Or do they get around it by considering it “fair use.” I’m no lawyer, but I wonder what would happen if I tried to upload a clip to youtube of the hosts talking over a clip they downloaded from youtube.

Maybe I’ll email them to find out…

Been a couple of busy days at work and home. I finally stopped procrastinating this evening and got the ironing done tonight. I was out of shirts. I didn’t get it done on Sunday due to having sore hands and arms (thats my excuse anyway) and being out Monday and Tuesday night meant I hadn’t got to it.

Last night I went out and saw David Strassman. Before the show I went to dinner at Toscanis at South Bank with the group of friends that was going along. Food was good but the service was pretty slow, considering it was a Tuesday night. The place was half empty so I don’t think they were run off their feet. All this eating out isn’t good for the wallet or the waistline! (Had a catered lunch at on offsite meeting that day too!)

It was a great show. I really enjoyed it. It is the third time I have seen him perform live. The show went for two and half hours with a twenty minute interval. The usual bunch of characters were present, Teddy, Chuck Wood, Kevin and Grandpa and a couple of others I’m starting to get a bit of familiarity with his material. The jokes are new but the themes or larger pieces are similar. e.g. Chuck has to sit in the naughty chair. I did notice a couple of lines that connected a previous show to this one. Teddy blurted out that he was “not a turtle.” at one point during the show which seemed completely unrelated to what was going on. Teddy said it a lot in a segment from a previous show which was about David buying Chuck and Teddy some pet turtles. I cracked up laughing at that although not many people did because it was completely unrelated to what was happening. I am still impressed with him being able to have a four way conversation with himself and the characters. I guess after 20 years of performances he knows them backwards. He messed up a few lines but that only added to the show. Its fun to watch a performer get it wrong then crack up themselves. During one time Teddy remarked, “I can’t talk while you laughing, but I don’t know why.”

As always it was a great show and I would recommend seeing it, especially if you’ve never seen him perform before. For you Brisbane readers he is playing all this week at QPAC as part of his “Get Chucked” tour.

Yes, the title is just to sucker everyone in to wonder what I will be talking about.

I had a busy Saturday.Went to New Farm Park for a picnic with some work friends. The original plan was to go to the markets at the Brisbane Power House in the morning, buy some fresh tasty food and then have a picnic in the park next door. The plan was to meet up at 8am. Once I found out that plan I informed everyone that I would be joining them for the picnic part around 11am at a more reasonable hour of the day, but only I couldn’t guarantee I’d be up by then. So after breakfast I made my way down to the park. It was a small group but still fun. Chilled out with them for a couple of hours talking. I managed to get my knees sun burnt. Yes thats right, my knees. It was the only part of my legs that got sun burnt. There were some interesting theories about how only that part of my legs got burnt. (also some you don’t want to think about!) – You can see a picture of my Sunburnt Knee if you click on the link. Warning though, it is still a picture of my leg, which may not be what you really want to see! The truth of how they got burnt is pretty boring. I was sitting cross legged so my lower legs were tucked away and my shorts were covering them. They weren’t covering my knees. What added mystery to the story was the shorts I was wearing do cover my knees if I am standing up!

Left the picnic to finally see Ratatouille with some friends before it finished screening this week. Thats right, the Pixar movie about rats that cook or cooking rats. (and thats my link to the subject complete) I really enjoyed the movie. I was a little worried at first because it took me a bit to get into it, but after the first 10-15 minutes I really enjoyed it. The short before it is also excellent. I think this is the shortest “review” I have done if you could actually say me liking it is a review. – I liked it. Now that would be any even shorter review. Still haven’t seen Cars. Must get around to that one day, I haven’t gone out of my way to see it because I don’t think I’ll like it but I’m digressing.

Towards the end of the movie my knees were really beginning to sting. They had also gone the shade of pink as seen in the photo. Fortunately I was on my way to a friends place for dinner and an evening of games. The invite didn’t specify the type of games, but I was hoping it was mind games. (I was planning on playing some anyway) So on the way we had to stop to pick up some wine. Luckily there was a supermarket open near the bottle shop so I could pick up some moisturizing cream for the sun burn. Dinner was good, home made pizza and the game was poker. (Texas hold em) I played poorly and was the first one knocked out of the game. It was my own fault, too much bluffing at the start of the game so I lost a lot of chips in the first few hands. I don’t think bluffing works as well when there is no money being played for. People tend to call it more because there is less consequences then “hey, how much money is this going to cost me if I’m wrong?”. My poker average is getting worse. I’ve only played three times but the first time I was knocked out early, the second time I was winning (till I had to go home) and then now this time I was knocked out first. But it was a fun night and that was the end of my busy day.

Sunday was a boring day doing the usual weekend errands and chores. I finally got around to cleaning up the desk and setting up the monitor properly. Its the first time I’ve taken some effort to arrange the cables behind the desk so they don’t end up all tangled up. Since there was enough desk space I also finally unpacked and setup my new speakers as well. Its my first set of 5.1 speakers for a computer. I’m thinking of mounting the rear speakers on the wall if I can find hooks that will take their weight. It looks a little silly with all the speakers on the desk next to each other. But atleast the desk is clean enough that I can put them there! Behold how clean it is:

I predict it will last less then one week before it needs cleaning up again. Still some fine tuning of the monitors to do to get the contrast/brightness the same between the two of them. Hopefully it wont be too hard as the Dell is a Samsung anyway so it should be easier to match them. One thing I will say, they sure ship monitors with the brightness set way too high. Its almost hurts your eyes to look at a white background that close. Soo veryyy brighttt…

Just so you know, the alternative title for this post was going to be “Sunburnt Knees and Wallpaper” but I think I can stretch out wall papers to its own topic. Share your own theories how I got my legs sun burnt in the comments.