All We Wanna Do Is Eat Your Brains

I hope Eli washed that bowl beforehand.

Heroes season 3 premiered this week. I don’t even know where to begin. Season 1 showed so much promise. Season 2 swerved directly into oncoming traffic, collided with a bus full of legless orphaned nuns, each holding a kitten and exploded into a fireball of fail that could be seen from space. Despite that I was hopeful. I blamed the mediocrity on the writer’s strike. Now I’m convinced the writers were striking to PREVENT future episodes of Heroes.

I said before that most elements of Heroes are directly lifted from the X-Men franchise, and that creator Tim Kring exists only to make soft cuddly puppies cheat on their spouses, but the heights of plagerism reached in the first two episodes of Heroes season 3 were nearly immeasurable.

Within the first 2 min the plot becomes “Days of Future Past” (thanks BB), right down to the assasination attempt on a senator, the future traveler that must stop the apocalypse, hell I think Wolverine was in this episode
One of the new villains basically has Bishop’s power
One of the new villains IS MAGNETO! A guy that controls magnetism called “The German“? Are you just fucking with us now? Is there a guy that shoots lasers out of his eyes called “Pussy Scott”?
And, despite this not being an X-Men ripoff, Mohinder starred in what was basically a condensed shot for shot remake of Jeff Goldblum’s “The Fly.” God, I could break it down into further analysis but what’s the point. Go rent “The Fly” and then watch that sequence with “Mohinder-Fly.” Do they think scifi fans are going to be impressed that they just lift ideas from movies and TV we already know?

And the writing. Sweet shit in a bisquit was it terrible. Josh has been telling me this since season 2, but I didn’t listen. He’s almost always wrong about everything! How am I supposed to gauge when he’s right? regardless I’m going to keep watching… because it’s my job. There, I said it.

It’s All In The Editing

While the new Microsoft ads make more sense than the “Bill and Jerry” ads, in that they do appear to be advertising something other than confusion, I don’t see how they are supposed to be selling me on Vista. The campaign is a clear rebuttal to Apple’s “Macs are cool slackers and PC’s are John Hodgman” adverts, but they seem to be off target. Yes, most people in the world use PC hardware (technically so do I). There is no questions about that. After Service Pack 2 was released, most of those PC users were pretty content with Windows XP, and thus pretty content with their over all computing experience. “I’m a (proud) PC“ doesn’t even address the operating system, which I assume is Vista. I know they aren’t spending 300 million to convince me to stick with XP.

I understand that Microsoft are in “repare the brand” mode and I don’t fault them for that. Apple are certainly playing dirty, and have dealt a pretty significant blow to how the general public perceives PC’s. The thing I don’t understand about the concept of “I’m a PC” is that Microsoft doesn’t control the “PC experience.” They make an operating system and suite of software that runs on PC architecture, and they certainly popularized the format in the 80’s but they don’t have final control over how a user intereacts with their PC.

What I’m getting at is if you are comparing Microsoft to Apple you are comparing a software company with a lifestyle company. Apple makes the only Mac hardware, they make the OS, they license the peripherals and keep close tabs on the software developed for their platform. Microsoft could never hope to acquire that control over the end user experience. How many non-tech people do you know that think “my computer sucks” because their email is slow? Or maybe they think they need a new computer because it’s always crashing, when all they need is new RAM. I’ve seen dozens of acquaintances and family members throw out their old machines because they loaded it down with so much spyware that it became unusable. THIS is their user experience and MS really doesn’t have anything to do with any of that.

I’m not saying Microsoft aren’t as good as Apple. I’m saying they probably shouldn’t even be compared other than in the areas in which they directly compete (operating systems).

Regardless, does anyone find it strange that Cordelia Chase [apparantly it’s Eva Longoria] is in those Microsoft ads (or that they were made on a Mac)?

Clarkanthropy

Afterward I wake up naked in a field, covered in deer blood.

Smallville Season 8 premiered last night. I watched it. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I watched the 7 seasons preceding this one. Smallville is the most schizophrenic show on television. Entire characters, plot points and integral story arcs are swept under the rug from episode to episode and forgotten about by all involved. Plot holes big enough to drive a moon through are standard. Completely ignoring or rewriting a character’s personality to serve the week’s semi-plot is a more than common occurance. Remember when Lana was a fucking reincarnated witch? Smallville is a day time soap masquerading as Geek-TV.

Please, for the love of Zod, cancel this bastard asshole of a TV show so I can get on with my life. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will watch it until its end, so my only hope is that fate intervene and render it assunder. SET ME FREE OF THIS EPISODIC COCK-KNOCKERY!

A Phenomenon Known As “J.J. Vu”

Even though I’ve never seen A.L.I.A.S., Josh tells me it had the same undertones. Maybe Felicity did too. It was, after all, about time travel. Maybe J.J. Abrams only has the one idea. Regardless I am going to stick around for Fringe and see where it goes. The pilot got me interested and the follow up episode that aired last night, while not stellar, managed to keep me interested. I am still “take it or leave it” at this point.

Check out HE Podcast # 28 (around 02:09:30) to hear our complete opinions on the pilot, the show’s concept, its chances for survival and why Josh hates it so much.

You can also voice your own opinion on Fringe in this Fancy Bastard Forum thread. If you haven’t already joined the FBF, feel free to do so NOW! Only a couple of rules: 1) Don’t be a jerk to anyone ever 2) Don’t be hateful to anyone ever 3) Debate but do not argue or attack 4) Have geeky fun

Spore DRaMa

Turns out gamers don’t like it when games, like Spore, give their computers digital herpes. I know a big part of the overwhelmingly negative reviews on Amazon are driven by “metooism” amoung young gamers that just want something to bitch about, but haven’t publishers already learned their lesson about DRM? The inevitable negative feedback will certainly harm sales more than piracy. At one point Amazon deleted all the reviews, then restored them. Undaunted, EA plans to continue their “we hate our customers” strategy well into the future.

If you are new to HijiNKS Ensue, you might not know about the HE Podcast. Check it out. In the most recent episode (Episode 28 which is probably not uploaded as of this writing but will be shortly) you can learn Josh’s thoughts on Spore’s DRM, find out what the HE crew thought of “Fringe,” learn exactly how hard Eli’s parents party and oh so very VERY much more.

If you are subscribed to the Podcast RSS feed or the Main RSS feed, please update your RSS readers. I moved them over to the Google side of Feedburner to give me more control over them. The updated links are in the sidebar.