This is a pointless post but here are my ratings on a 5-point scale rating with 5 being the best for the first episodes of these NBC shows after viewing their first episode this week.
Bionic Woman – 3/5
Chuck – 4/5
Heroes (2nd Season) – 3.5/5
Journeyman – 4/5
Life – 3.5/5
… and now for some senseless “Panda” video entertainment courtesy of Youtube. It’s mind boggling. Whoever came up with that animation must be perpetually high or on hallucinogens.
Personally thought this show was good. It’s a laid-back version of SVU IMO (in my opinion) but instead of focusing the attention on the killers/suspect/etc, the attention falls squarely on the main character – Charlie Crews – and his hot lawyer – Constance Griffiths – who never stops saying “Life was his sentence, and Life is what he got back.”
The main theme of this show is how this former-cop and now a detective is trying to find out who framed him and from the looks of it, the bad guys are the cops. Some of the cops in the higher-ups also are trying to have him taken off the department. As Charlie draws lines between cropped pictures of cops, inmates, and victims on a huge board, you can see that he’s getting one step closer to who framed him and it’s quite obvious that the whole LAPD are crooked and that’s he’s target. Well he did mention in the show that “I don’t like cops either” to an inmate.
It follows the OFFICE way of directing by having individual cast members getting interviewed as though they’re speaking up their minds to themselves. Interesting.
BUT, I don’t feel like writing anymore so without much ado, the Ninja gives out 2 thumbs up to you kind people out there so you know that you should watch LIFE.
PS: Good job NBC but PUHLEZZZ remove those annoying GMC/Pontiac/Chevrolet commercials. If you want to have them around, spread them out like ONLY ONE ad per hour. Playing the same dumbass ad every 5mins is a major turn-off.
“IF YOU WANT IT, HERE IT IS… COME AND GET IT, BUT YOU BETTER HURRY CUZ IT’S GOING FAST.”
Those stupid words keeping playing over and over again and again a gazillion times on NBC all. night. long. like a broken tape recorder. or even an mp3 player with 1 song and left on repeat.
At first I thought it was an “ok” ad just cuz it featured retro music, esp the Beatles stuff but there’s a thing known as OVERKILL and that’s what’s going on. Can’t these people see that playing the same goddamned ad everytime a show goes on break drives people nuts? What makes it even more obscene is the fact that those stupid words are repeating over and over again and again loud and full of high school yippy high-pitched vocals.
“IF YOU WANT IT, HERE IT IS… COME AND GET IT, BUT YOU BETTER HURRY CUZ IT’S GOING FAST.”
I’m ready to smash a CHEVY / GM / PONTIAC cuz of these stupid ads. The first ad has the same goddamned music but a Chevy spinning on the platform. Then when a show on NBC goes on it’s 2nd break, you see the same stupid ad but this time, it’s a … GM *surprise*. And then on the 3rd commercial break, the same ad plays again *surprise* … and this time, it’s a …. *drum roll* PONTIAC.
MOTHER FUCKING GENERAL MOTORS MARKETING DEPARTMENT! I will kick you on the nuts if I come across the genius who came up with those ads. “Hey guys. I just came up with a brilliant idea on how to save money on our ads. Let’s use the same ad but put in a Chevy for the CHEVY ad and a GMC truck for the GMC ad and a PONTIAC for the PONTIAC ad.”
The only good thing I can say about these ads is that it’s motivating me to hit the gym again. In the evenings. Just so I can skip those ads.
Maybe that’s the subliminal message that GM is throwing out to us. Go out and drive? Cuz I sure as hell am not looking to buy a GM product. A Ford maybe. Dodge maybe. GM? Fuck you!
Mon: 7pm Chuck / 8pm Heroes / 9pm Journeyman
Wed: 7pm Deal Or No Deal / 8pm Bionic Woman / 9pm Life
Thu: 7pm My Name Is Earl / 8pm Office / 8:30pm Scrubs
Fri: 7pm Deal Or No Deal
Sat: 10:30pm SNL
Just saw Bionic Woman (8pm-9pm). Not too bad. Jamie (forget her last name) gets in a hit-and-run. Her husband’s some top secret bionics surgeon and he rushes her to a “top-secret” location and bypasses security to have her modified. Right-eye and limbs all replaced with nanotech microbes or something. Then Jamie runs away with the help of her husband because the big boys taking care of the lab wanted her dead.
This whole time, Jamie’s getting flashbacks with random information (CHUCK deja-vu) and kept getting an image of some dead blonde chick. So she gets home and goes out to her regular bartending job and comes face-to-face with that chick she kept seeing in her mind. She gets all confused and the other chick tells her that she’s a “bionic woman” also and the first. Then the other chick disappears and Jamie follows her only to end up beating up a thug attempting to kill her.
Back at her apt, she meets her husband and he gets shot … by that blonde chick sniping from the roof of another building. Then they end up going hand-to-hand combat on the roof. Our bionic woman, Jamie, gets her ass handed to her by her blonde original bionic woman. The Feds show up in a helicopter and the blonde chick runs away. Jamie meets up with the big boys and they claim that they’re the good guys and were ready to train her. THE END. Well there were some other minor players running their own snooping in Bionic Woman but I guess we’ll have to watch the next show to find out more.
Not the greatest 1st episode to a new show but how much more could they cram? Next up was LIFE at 9pm. It’s about a detective who gets wrongly accused for a murder he didn’t commit. They later find out he’s innocent and let him. “Life was his sentence and life was what he got back” – some corny line laid out by a random character in this show. The main dude’s all cocky and smart-ass about everything. A detective that drives a Bentley Continental GT??? Holysmokes. That’s once fine ride and that was about what I got from it. Will post more about LIFE later after the show.
Despite making appearances all over the world in all sorts of race tracks, all of the pictures had a partially disguised Nissan GT-R. This year, you actually get to see Nissan’s flag-ship – the GT-R. Yes. It will still have all of it’s AWD (All Wheel Drive) techiness along with it’s G-Force LCD screen and the other electronic stuff in it. Only difference is, this time, they’re going to be looking a lot more refined. Bye bye boxy car, hello curves, goodbye hard earned cash!
The GT-R badge originally were used on the race-tuned Skyline models but as the years rolled by, different variants of the Skyline GT-R were made until one day, Nissan decided they had diluted the brand too far. So in 2000, a crack team worked out day and night until the Nissan GT-R Concept (below) was created and revealed at the 35th Tokyo Auto Show in 2001. The new look caused an uproar and people either loved it or hated it but there was no denying that whatever it would look like, it would continue in it’s tradition of extreme race-track handling capabilities with the ultimate performance.
Meanwhile, in Japan, a new Skyline V35 came out in the market. This iteration of the Skyline was brought over to the US as the Infinity G35 but was largely ignored as a Skyline because it just did not fit the mold of an awkward looking boxy car. The G35 Coupe was a beauty with all it’s curves and articulate lines, but it was simply not Skyline material and as though to confirm it, Nissan stated that the Skyline and the GT-R would be separate entities. That didn’t stop the tuner crowd from messing around with the Infiniti G35s (below) though.
After 7 years with minute changes in design, engines, exhausts, etc made, the overall look of the car remained. Slightly futuristic or alien looking, the GT-R is once again set to capture the hearts and minds of over a million fans worldwide. And unlike it’s predecessors which were not available for the North American continent, due to import rules on right-hand steering wheels and other safety concerns, the legend will be here finally. Below you can see a GT-R Prototype refueling …
Today, the GT-R Nissan website came up with a countdown timer. The GT-R Concept was unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Show and this VR38DETT twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V6 engine bearing monster will be unveiled as a finished product at this year. Output of around 550hp and the insane levels of expectations from fans and PS2 Gran Turismo gamers will result in a cosmic explosion late this October at the Tokyo Auto Show.
EDIT: Edmunds Inside Line caught the newest most revealing pics (made small below) of the GT-R. It’s changed from strangely ugly to DAYUMMM!
I waited months for these shows and finally got to see them yesterday on NBC. Here’s a brief down-low on my impressions of the 3 shows that aired on Monday. There might be some spoilers so if you didn’t see the episode, you might not want to read what I wrote here.
First of all, we have the 7pm Central show – CHUCK – about a bunch of Geek Squad Nerd Herd techs and one in particular working at Buy More, a parody of Minneapolis-based Best Buy. The basic background to the story is that a rogue CIA agent transferred super duper top secret government files to Chuck, the $11 wage earning Nerd Herd tech. Unknown to Chuck, the harmless looking puzzles etc he completed in the file sent by the agent embedded subliminal pieces of information and before you know it, everybody’s after him. A model-like CIA agent and a meat-head NSA agent team-up with Chuck to help defuse a bomb and that’s pretty much the show. Sounds boring but in reality, this show lived up to my high expectations all the humor in it.
8pm brought on the 2nd season of HEROES and it was good but confusing and mysterious as usual. Sylar’s enjoying life at some nondescript private beach with a bunch of chicks and Peter’s found in some smuggling container. Unfortunately he’s found by a smuggling gang members and that’s how the episode ends. The first episode of the second season of Heroes focuses on so many different stories – the relocation of Claire and her dad Noah (dude with the glasses) to California and how Matt got his job with the fuzz. Then Hiro’s lost somewhere in time with a bunch of Samurais and Matt’s adopted daughter’s drawing some creepy pictures reminiscent of the Hollywood remake of the Korean horror flick The RING. The dude who plays SULU in the original Star Trek series with Captain Kirk and Mister Spock dies. Yea that’s pretty much what happened but I skipped a few dets regarding Hiro.
And now to the show I wasn’t planning on watching but I did anyway – Journeyman. It was actually pretty good. Sorta confusing but I’m betting most of the questions that viewers might’ve had for the first episode will be answered. The iPhone totting main character accidentally gets warped in a time portal when he sees his long dead girlfriend walk by a store. Everything gets messed up but towards the end, it sorta fits about right. His dead girlfriend somehow cheated death by traveling through time and we don’t exactly know how but yea.
Well all I can say is that these are all good shows and the Ninja gives his ratings below.
Chuck – 4/5
Heroes – 3.5/5
Journeyman – 4/5
GM and Honda have recently started to barrage the media waves with song-heavy commercials for their products. GM prepping with a cover of the classic Beatles‘ Come and Get It while the Honda Accord commercial rolled out a peppier Hold on Tight by Electric Light Orchestra.
GM’s commercial had the GMC Yukon, Chevy Cobalt, and Corvette propped on a revolving platform stand with Paul McCartney lyrics ringing out “If you want it here it is come and get it… But you better hurry cause it’s going fast…” and kinda brought on the whole oldies loving feeling towards their cars. Too bad Honda’s retro song selection in my opinion was better suited for these kinda 30 second spots.
So far, the upcoming new 2008 Honda Accord’s gotten an endorsement from NBC networks and is expected to feature in all of their new shows – Chuck, Life (some guy gets outta prison and starts life as a cop), Bionic Woman, Journeyman, and an older one – My Name Is Earl. What does GM have? Wait. They have the new Cadillac ads but no retro music.
Honda Accord 2-Door Coupe / 4-Door CNG (Compressed Natual Gas) Sedan / 4-Door Sedan
The videos are listed in the order of the title.
Edit (Sep 24): There were no Honda Accords in Chuck or Journeyman. They did show one Honda Accord commercial in between the 2 shows but saw far too many Nissan Rogue ads which figured into today’s first episode of the 2nd season of Heroes.
EDIT (Sep 25): Youtube removed the previous clips. They’re updated now.
EDIT (May 22): Youtube videos renewed.
NBC has 3 new shows and 2 are airing today (September 24th – Monday)! Out here in Minnesota, we’ll be getting – Chuck at 7pm, Heroes (2nd Season) at 8pm, and Journeyman at 9. The final new tv show is Bionic Woman (26th – Wednesday @ 8pm) featuring a woman who gets into an accident right out in the beginning and ends up with bionic body parts. According to Google the internet, this is a remake. I could care less but they’re featuring the brand new Honda Accord and me thinks it’s the car the main chick’ll be driving when she gets into her life changing accident which makes this a must-see show.
Chuck’s about some Geek Squad supervisor getting a top secret government laptop to fix (by mistake) and ends up driving backwards down a flight of stairs in a debadged Toyota Yaris with a secret agent. Sounds like a great mantra for a good pilot.
Heroes is … You know what it is. This would be the 2nd season to remind us that the geeks are back in townnnn!
And Journeyman looks like it’s going to suck. Sorry but I’d like to see more shows tainted with humor over serious business in a bearish economy and the peeps who run this country. There’s enough serious stuff. Back in the booming ’90s, we jus had to much fun things to do and that coincided with the gloomy X-Files hit. So back to happy stuff guys!
EDIT: Sorry. Bionic Woman is on at 8PM and NOT 7PM as I have posted above.
I’m not going to break it out to you how it starts off but the Family Guy universe transforms into the Start Wars universe and follows a somewhat condensed story-line from the Episode IV – A New Hope (the original first Star Wars) movie. The ONE HOUR long episode was great but NOT quite right up there. You can tell that they did a lot of work to make this one and kudos to the FG show design team along with the artists and script-writers. Brilliant job. Super clear on my Fox HD channel. Too bad FG wasn’t in widescreen so it only showed up in the 4:3 rendering 1/5 of my HD television useless. FOX. MAKE MORE OF YOUR SHOWS WIDESCREEN as all High def tvs are now available only in widescreen.
Family Guy was on at 8PM (Central time) today on Sunday and it was preceded by the King of the Hill at 7:30PM and a brand new somewhat depressing “the Simpsons” episode (7PM) where Mr Burns gives Homer a lap of luxury by flying him in his personal jet to Chicago for a sports comedy show and back. Homer is unable to deal with his real life and opts for some change.
Back to Family Guy Star Wars. Yea it was funny with Quagmire and Cleveland playing the roles of C3p0 and R2D2 respectively, Brian the dog as the hairy Chewbacca (and his outfit was hilarious), Chris Griffin as Luke Skywalker, Lois as Princess Leia, and our very own Peter Griffin … the dashing Han Solo, and of course Stewie playing the evil Darth Vader and others.
In the end, it somehow felt incomplete just like George Lucas’ Episode IV movie so no biggee. The girlfriend didn’t quite like it which I guess shouldn’t matter but hope they’re planning on making the whole 6 episodic Star Wars movie mini-series cuz that would be kick ass.
People fork over thousands of bucks for the latest gadgets just for bragging rights. These gadgets whatever they may be … mp3 players, cellphones, television sets, LCD monitors, cameras, etc usually are priced for their functionality as well as their star appeal. But is being an early adopter of new products really worth it?
Here’s a quick look into some of the most popular stuff you have in the market.
Xbox 360 … lack of inventory. eBay and Craigslist scalping. The red-ring of death and a whole lot of quality control problems with all of the original stock. Then once the supply was figured out, huge price drops. Product quality issues continues to plague the 360 which is so unfortunate for Microsoft because they have a lot of good games for the system.
PS3 … fans first had to deal with a lack of games and expensive high def tv purchases over the already expensive price tag of $599. HDTVs weren’t cheap back then … esp not the 1080p HD sets. No rumble on the Sixaxis game-pads. In under 9 months since it’s release, a $100 price drop was announced. Although the PS3’s original price was a very good bargain for what it was, a $100 drop within a year is a painful blow to the fans who originally bought them.
Apple iPhone … highly popular like the 360 but problems came out of hiding soon. First users had to sign-on for TWO YEARS with the highly unpopular AT&T service provider who were fresh on a rebound to take the attention away from it’s secret government dealings. Then 300 pages of billing from Cingular/AT&T. Expensive bills for simply having the phone turned on overseas because of the calendar sync feature. Then an unexpected $200 price hammer was dealt within 3 months of it’s release to the masses. Now screen quality issues are cropping up.
… and now to Apple’s iPod line-up.
The 6th Generation iPod Classic – turned into an expensive aluminum block upon attempting to sync with the iTunes application on a PC. The issue has reportedly been fixed after a firm update hurried onto screaming fans and quite a few refunds.
The 3rd Generation iPod Nano – had screen orientation issues. The screens on the new Nanos were slightly tilted to the left (usually) and even after many replacements. Then there are more iPod Nano owners claiming the screens get scratched instantly upon removing the stock plastic protective film. Any surprise that Gizmodo reported stating that the Nano was the cheapest to make and also had the largest margin of profit per unit? These issues are still ongoing and Apple is claiming to be looking into the matter.
The brand new iPod Touch – screen quality issues where the blacks were showing up as negatives or appearing washed-out. I thought it was a screen contrast issue or the regular LCD screen viewing angle limitation but apparently not. Then lack of bluetooth and unable to add events/meetings on the calendar directly from the device. A poor 4 hours of video playback despite lacking a power-hungry hard disk drive. There are also certain audio output issues with the first batch of Touches.
…
So what’s it gonna be? What should you do? It all depends on what kind of person you are …
[Rich] [Attention-Seeking] [Lack financial restraint / shopaholic] [Rich Geek]
- BUY IT. USE IT. SELL IT AFTER YOU FIND A REPLACEMENT.
[The Average Person]
- Hold out for a minimum of 6-10 months until the majority of the kinks in the system are taken care of. Your reward is an older product but better in every way including a lowered price-tag.
[People living below the poverty line]
- Don’t waste money on useless gadgets. Your priority lies with ensuring you have money for good investments like education, health, or the family.
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