Hey, so this show Ugly Betty is picking up a lot of steam.  the lead actress, America Ferrera, won a golden globe for best actress in a comedy and the show also picked up a golden globe for best comedy.  plus, TJFKAK likes it, and even my parents watch it.  I had seen part of an episode over xmas break, but it’s hard to really assess the show based on a middle of the season episode - you don’t really get the show’s direction, y’know?

anyway, so i’ve been watching on abc online, which is not bad.  it’s free, and there’s minimal commercials, which is great.  this model works particularly well for shows i’m not familiar enough with to tivo, but are not hyped enough to torrent.   the downside is the video is finicky, and you get some choppiness and ‘loading’ delays.  but, you can just watch them during lunch, so its very convenient.

in any case, i’ve seen episodes 1-3 so far.  I would say the show reminds me of a cross between the devil wears prada, and she’s all that.  obviously there are lots of parallels to ADWP, since the girl works for a fashion magazine, is not particularly trendy, and is overall out of her element.  Although so far, she hasn’t fit in like the girl in ADWP did.  It’s also a bit like SAT, in the sense that everyone rips on her for being ugly - to the extent that they think of really mean ways to manipulate her or humiliate her, or take advantage of her.

the show works for me, for several reasons.  most notably, you have the underdog dynamic - people underestimate her because of her looks, and therefore you want her to succeed.  the underdog dynamic is tightly intertwined with pity, because not only do people underestimate her, they are usually very mean to her.  So, you really want her to do well because you start feeling really sorry for her.  on top of both of these, you have the ‘inside that counts’ moral that really weighs pretty heavily on each episode. 

additionally, you have your standard good vs. evil theme.  that is, you have betty, who is good and honorable, going against people who aren’t.  more importantly i guess, betty’s good traits slowly start to rub off on others - like her boss - which is satisfying - gay family TV satisfying - but satisfying nonetheless.  the show actually uses the good vs. evil angle well and although, given the shows context, it may seem a bit trivial it still works.

There are also a lot of subplots and mystery built into the first few episodes, and that is kind of interesting, but has not really panned out very much in the episodes that i have seen.  like, you have people in dark rooms whispering to each other blah blah blah.  we’ll see how that turns out.  i mean, it’s a good contrast to the daily comedy scenes, and it will drive the plot going forward.

with that said, however, some of these themes start to get old very fast.  i mean, it’s not so much the betty is consciously taking an ideological stance to be herself and not fit in.  she really just does not fit in, despite her efforts.  like, on her first day of work she tried to dress all nice, but her idea of fitting in was wearing a cowboy poncho.  that is by itself a small point, but part of the show is illustrating how betty works hard and uses her mind to be successful in the foreign world of fashion.  but if she wanted to work so hard, why not just pick up a magazine, study fashion for a bit, and realize that wearing a cowboy poncho is not trendy?

i mean, i guess the point the show is trying to make is that betty is what she is, and she’s proud of it.  but that doesn’t really work for me, because betty isn’t above changing her looks, she’s just too naive to know what she should change her looks to.  she knows she doesn’t look good, but she doesn’t take the the time to figure out what looking good means.

realistically, if betty was going to really do the ‘inside is what counts’ thing, she would be a dirty hippy working at the magazine.  if not, she would be like that girl in ADWP and do a good job of fitting in.  instead, the show has her just in the middle - not really making any progress - which got played out after the first episode, let alone the first 3 episodes.

i imagine that the show is also trying to draw a parallel between betty and her boss daniel.  i mean, daniel is a playboy trying to settle down and run a magazine, so he’s out of his element in a somewhat similar manner as betty.  also, people want him to fail like they want betty to fail, but he succeeds both as an editor and as a person, due to betty’s help.  gay.

so far the show has gotten into the habit of setting up betty and/or daniel in situations where their morality, drive and resilience is tested - and ultimately they prevail.  that is getting boring also, especially since these scenarios are often very contrived (the neighbor breaking in and stealing ‘the book’).  plus, the show really overdoes the ‘evil’ side with vanessa williams plotting against daniel and trying to take over his position, with of course, little success.  i mean, the show seems to always end on a nice happy note where betty succeeds and the evil plot is thwarted.

in any case, the show isn’t bad.  a bit girly i would say - especially the themes.  i mean, it’s hard to watch jack bauer nearly kill himself in order to save the world, and still care about betty because she still hasn’t figured out that her eyebrows should be thinner than her lips.  the snow also gets preachy, which can be annoying, especially since it happens every episode.  i would love to see betty get a real makeover, show up in a miniskirt, snort a small moutain of coke and f daniel..just once.  beauty on the inside has it’s limits, afterall.

as a side note, when america farrera, the girl who plays betty, won her award, she was really down to earth and humble.  much like her character.  i guess that was kind of refreshing and it fit perfectly with the show.  i mean, in real life she isn’t as bad as betty in terms of looks, but she would never have made it as a desperate housewife or a kid on the OC…

this weekend i took a trip down to LA to catch the cavs at the clippers.  we landed some pretty good seats off of stubhub for only around $130 or so each - not bad considering it was a saturday game featuring lebron.

anyway, the staples center is awesome.  the funny thing tho, is that a third of the center is dedicated to boxes, that are strictly separated from the rest of the of the fans.  who knows what goes down in that section, but it looked sweet - all nice and carpeted with bars everywhere.

but we were in the lower section, which was not bad at all.  our seats also gave us access to the ‘royal room,’ which is a purple velvet hole in the wall wanna be club slash sports bar.  very LA i think.  the royal room was alright, although the service was poor for someplace seemingly so exclusive, and there was waaay too much purple velvet.  it was like, they wanted to have the pimped out look, but took it far beyond classy.

oh, by the way, the clippers are pretty bad.  i mean, i don’t know how to explain it.  Im not a big basketball fan, and i don’t know all of these players or anything, but looking at them play - they were totally phoning it in.  I guess their season is pretty much down in the dumps - so it makes sense that they would be a little downtrodden, but man, it was really something pathetic to watch.  the worst part was in the fourth quarter when they were down by like 20, and everyone started to leave, and the few remaining fans were cheering wholeheartedly after any basket or slightly decent play. 

and even the celebrities were pathetic.  i mean, keep in mind that this is downtown LA, and at any lakers game you will see the likes of jack nicholson or stephen spielberg.  so who was at the clippers game?  Michael Clarke Duncan, from ‘the Green mile.’  I had no idea who this guy even was, until TJFKAK told me - and he didn’t even really look like that guy.   but they made a big deal about him, letting him speak on the intercom during the game, and he was trying to motivate the crowd and keep their spirits up - it was pathetic.  I mean, TJFKAK seemed to think that this guy was a big celebrity, but i don’t really think so.  I mean, a b-lister at best,right? 

anyway, lebron was really pretty good.  I mean, at times he seemed to be way better than anyone else on the court.  Like, he would move so fast and everyone else would be kind of just standing there.  He had a few nice fade-away jumpers too, and a really nice fast break dunk that got everyone in the building excited.

You could really tell that the attention was on lebron too.  I mean, a bunch of fans were there in lebron jerseys, and it seemed like there weren’t really very many hecklers for lebron.  in fact, people would give him props and stuff when he made some of his shots.  overall very impressive.

it was also kind of interesting to see how the players act while the play is not going on.  like, sometimes they will talk to the fans and stuff, which is super cool.  a lot of times they are just kind of talking to each other as well, even if they’re on different teams.  i mean, it was just kind of cool to see them interact like normal people - stuff you don’t normally see when they’re on TV.

at the end of the day tho, the game lacked excitement because the clip are so horrible.  It was over pretty much by the end of the third quarter.  it really helps when the game is a bit more exciting, because then I think the players try harder.  by the end of the game, everyone was kind of just jogging around and playing half assed.

final stats, lebron scored 28, and the cavs won 104 for 92, but it was way less close than the score indicated.  our seats were sweet tho, but it was behind the basket so we really had a good view of only one team at a time.  but that also meant that we had a super sweet view of teams at one end of the court, and for half of the game that was the cavs.

I’ve been an off and on 24 watcher.  I don’t like watching on regular TV because it’s a pain to wait for every week, and I always forget stuff between one week and the next, plus is gets all convoluted with the other shows i watch.

So, I’ve been just torrenting them, and watching them straight through as much as possible.  I have to say, Seasons 1 and 2 went really quickly.  I mean the pace is great, and the storylines were full of twists and turns and what not.

But over Christmas break I started season 3, and I have to say it has been somewhat of a disappointment.  Let’s look at where season 2 left off - the president being attacked by a virus laden handshake, then collapsing.  Pretty great plot, right?  but season 3 picks up 3 years later.  That was kind of a bummer.

And guess who the terrorists are?  al qaeda?  iran?  syria?  maybe some terrorist training facility in afghanistan?  or even nukes from kim jong il?  no, the threat comes from…wait for it…mexico.  that’s right, mexico.

so what is the plot?  is jack bauer scrambling to stop a nation wide plot to steal stereos from ‘98 saturns?  how about the clear and present danger to our nation’s health care system overrun by non-tax paying immigrants?  or a bus boy revolution that grinds the nation’s restaurants to a halt?  no, the threat is bioterrorism.

so, they kind of lost me there.  i mean, my guess is that they turn it into a broader threat from a more scary terrorist organization, but so far the threat is primarily focused on a snarly mexican that wears a cowboy hat (right, no cowboy hat in this picture).

and another thing, can CTU start doing background checks on it’s workers?  I mean, it is the counter terrorism unit, right?  how come all the terrorists end up working there.  watching them, i get the same feeling as when i go through security at the airport and the metal detector is operated by some turbin wearing arab guy.  every f’ing year a terrorist is working there.

and why does jack bauer’s daughter always f things up?  i mean, this girl is two tequila shots away from being a permanent fixture on girls gone wild, but every year she ends up playing a major role in a extensive terrorist plot to kill millions of people.  and in season 3 she’s actually working in CTU!  what are her credentials?  isn’t she like, right out of high school or something?  in season 1 wasn’t she breaking into furniture warehouses to drink beer?

ok, i was just looking this up on wikipedia, but apparently the gap between season 2 and season 3 is filled by 24:  the game, a video game for the ps2.  that’s bs.  they took a good cliff hanger and put in into a video game?  that seems very jump the sharky.

anyway, another common theme is that there is one major initial focus for CTU, then that turns out to be fake, and then they focus on the real one.  in season 3, this had to do with the kyle kid who imported the coke, but this shit happens all the time.  not to mention the theme of kids acting irresponsibly leading to the possible death of millions of innocent people is very disconcerting.

in any case, im less than half way through the season, so we’ll see what happens.  they tend to get much more engaging as the season goes on, so we’ll see.  but i mean really, there are so many common elements from previous seasons you can’t help but be at least a little disappointed.

so, it’s 2007.  just got back from HI last nite.

one thing about HI, the airport there has so many checkpoints you spend at least an hour waiting in lines.  first your check-ins need to be scanned for agriculture, then you check in and have to drop them off for normal x-raying.  then you have normal security, which, if you’re going out of state on Hawaiian airlines or aloha, is followed by another agriculture screening.

the biggest pain in the ass is agriculture.  i don’t get it either, because like most airport security screenings they are easily circumvented.  for example, you have access to your check in bags after agriculture screening, so if you wanted you could cram a pueo into your bags after the agriculture screening right before you check them in.  for the carry-on agriculture, for some reason they only scan hawaiian and aloha customers as they pass through the interisland to international/domestic terminal, so you can just walk outside to avoid this line.

i mean, airport security is such a mess already, and hawaii makes it worse with the combination of two extra agriculture screening areas, local staff who want to talk story before you pass through any checkpoint, and local baggage handlers who scan your bags themselves for any valuables.

the biggest problem i have with all this security stuff is that it targets EVERYONE, from card carrying members of al qaeda to 2 year olds that can barely talk.  and although this system is probably 99% fullproof, the 1% of error that the system does have, i.e. forging boarding passes, taping liquids to you instead of running them through the xray machine, etc., are the loopholes that will be used by terrorists.  I mean, clearly the security screening system works for the moms, pops and kids that can’t figure out that they need to take off their belts to make it through the metal detector, but my guess is that they international terrorist organization will be the ones to exploit the few loopholes that exist.

the end result is hours and hours of waiting, with little efficacy.  you could argue that there hasn’t been an attack on planes since 9/11, but this is due more to a lack of attackers, rather than stringent security.  i mean, shoe bomber happened after 9/11.  that guy found the 1% loophole and exploited it.

i would say when flying hawaiian or aloha domestic, the best idea is to print out your ticket ahead of time, and not bring any check ins.  the check ins are the worst, for the aforementioned security screenings, but also because when you get to your destination local carriers have almost no presence and it takes FOREVER to get your bags.  next time, i swear to god i’m only carrying on bags and i’ll mail the rest of my crap if necessary.  another good tip at the HI airport is to go through security at the international terminal where you have like air new zealand and stuff that are never busy.  the security people there will let you through even if you have a Hawaiian air ticket because they often reroute traffic to that section of the airport anyway.

another thing, if you’re flying on a busy day, or a holiday where transportation will be spotty - get a car.  i used one last nite and it’s the best thing ever.  the guy waits for you with a sign, then takes your bags while you wait for your check-ins.  and since it’s a car you don’t have to wait in line for a taxi or worry about extra charges or anything.  second choice would be a shuttle, but man, these things can be real sketchy, and can take hours if they’re full.  trust me, spend the extra $10 on a car - it’s way worth it.

anyway, that was what my new years was like.  such a waste of time, all this airport bs.  can’t we make a pact with terrorists, to say, give up israel for a cease fire?  i mean, i’ve never been to israel, and i don’t see why it’s such a big sticking point.  but, it makes all these terrorists mad and that makes my check in times way longer.