Praised Be He Who Brought Us Up From the Dung-Hill

Happy Passover - the holiday of choice for those on the Atkins Diet.

I had quite an interesting seder experience - basically I was a guest at the household of the extremely nice Grodsky family in Burbank ... the Grodsky family who I had never met before last night. Responding to some inquiries made by my parents, the Grodskys were nice enough to invite me to their family seder. So yeah, it was a bit weird and awkward spending Passover with a completely random family that I had never met before. But hey, it turned out to be very nice, and it is probably the most food I'll have on any given night over the course of the next eight days. So again, chag sameach to all those celebrating Passover.

Meanwhile, the NBA playoffs are now in full swing. The unexpected highlight so far was today's huge upset in the Denver-San Antonio game. I can't believe the Pacers got demolished by the Celtics like they did. Man, the C's could be a force in the postseason if they keep firing on all cylinders as they did yesterday. Oh, and thank the lord today's games were mostly on TNT. They have, by far, the two best play by play men in the business - the legendary Marv Albert and his spiritual succesor, Kevin Harlan. Meanwhile ABC and ESPN, for the most part, offer up extremely lame commentary teams and in-studio personalities. The grizzled and always informative Hubie Brown is the highlight of ABC's coverage, but otherwise, they leave a lot to be desired and make one long for the classic days (and themesong) of the NBA on NBC. On TNT you can always count on the Inside the NBA team to bring the entertainment, while ABC and ESPN lack any kind of humor (well, except for Bill Walton's classic exaggerations). In general the playoffs seem to be off to a little bit of a slow start, with few games that really had that big-time feel, as of yet. Still, I think business will pick up soon as some of the series go on.

Hey, Mr. Monkey - thanks for the comments on my previous post. Nice to hear comments from an award-winning blogger like yourself.

So they finally released pictures of Brandon Routh as Superman. Okay, whaaaaaat? He looks like a nerd. Way too skinny, costume is kinda dumb looking as well. The "S" is way too small, the additional S symbol on the belt looks dorky, and I don't know why they are using that Spiderman-esque woven fiber material for the costume. Superman should be big, bold, iconic, larger than life. Come on, Bryan Singer (if your name IS really spelled with a Y ...), give us a kick-ass Superman, not metrosexual Supermodelman. If you need help, see the short film "Grayson" for what Superman should look like.

Oh yeah, my car was finally fixed. New front bumper, baby. Gotta love that $500 deductible, means I only have to pay ... $500 dollars. Uh, nice.

Man, the Passover food selection is pretty lacking here in Burbank. I got some Matzoh, Crispy-O's cereal (pretty much THE essential food item), potato chips, and macaroons ... but come on, hook me up with the good stuff - I'm talkin' kosher for passover Passover ice cream, now can you dig? Well, the Danny B special - Matzoh-Pizza - is going to be a-plentiful this week.

Tommorow: working at Ellen, expecting the usual craziness. Oh, this time though I am OFFICER IN CHARGE of Ellen. I'm moving on up.

RANDOM STUFF:

Malcolm in the Middle: What other show on today would be random and offbeat enough to do a story about one of its characters befriending a pack of dogs, becoming progressively more canine-like? FOX Sunday Night mostly took the night off tonight, but Malcolm came through with a pretty over the top episode (Dewey "cheating" on his mom with another mom, Hal becoming an accidental motivational speaker, the aforementioned dog plotline) that was nonethless crazy-funny in a way only Malcolm can be. My grade: B+

Next week FOX brings us "Animation Domination." Yay (sarcasm).

But, it will be nice to have Family Guy back (though seriously, this show has become so overrated lately by its fans. Yes, it is at times very, very funny, but what's with people acting like it's the greatest thing ever? Well, all you have to do to see that creator Seth McFarlane doesn't turn everything he touches into gold, see American Dad ...).

I also caught last week's ep of The Office (American version). Probably the best one yet, but it's funny, it seemed that while the plot was much different from what you'd have found on the British series, many of the actors, notably Steve Carell, were clearly trying to emulate their British counterparts more so than they had been. Note Carell's use of one-word exclamations for example. I'd give the ep a B -. Decent, but still nothing amazing.

Oh yeah, the OC kinda sucked this week. Again, all the forced romantic-tension storylines are getting REALLY annoying. Wait, Summer is mad at Seth persuing his dreams because ... why, exactly? And could the Kirsten possibly tempted to cheat on her husband story get any more contrived? Oh look, we're stuck in a hotel together ... didn't see THAT one coming. On the plus side, the Julie Cooper stuff has been good, as has the slow build in the Ryan's brother-Marissa subplot. Overall though, I hate to say it, but don't jump, cuz a shark is swimming just below. My grade: C

COMICS REVIEW SPECIAL: SURPRISINGLY GOOD VS. DISAPPOINTINGLY CRAPPY

SURPRISINGLY GOOD:
MANHUNTER, by Mark Andreyko and Jesus Saiz:
- This one is a surprise because it's a modern revamp of a classic but underused character. Basically, back in the 40's Paul Kirk was a big game hunter who became an adventurer and hunted the world's most dangerous prey ... man! Pretty sweet, right? Well the character disappeared for a while, but was brought back in the 70's in a now-classic series by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson (you can buy the collected version in your local bookstore). Since then, there have been a few different versions of Manhunter, but none have been all that exciting since the Goodman-Simonson collaberation, which is one of my all-time favorite comic stories. So this new update was likely to suck, right? Turns out it is actually pretty damn good. This ongoing series from DC sees a divorced, stressed-out mom, Kate Spencer, grow frustrated with her career as a criminal attorney in the DC Universe. She prosecutes the supervillains, but they keep getting out and killing again, you know, the classic hero vs. villain conundrum. So Kate, who is also a single mom, steals a bunch of old superhero equipment and weapons from an evidence storage room, and takes matters into her own hands, crossing the line and actually KILLING the murderous villain Copperhead, and giving herself instant street cred as the new Manhunter. Anyways, this comic is witty, dark, action-packed, and has awesome art. It is strongly tied into the DC Universe but also uncharacteristically mature and edgy for a DC title. Plus it has a strong, assertive, take-no-prisoners female lead, which is pretty cool. Sure, the premise sounds a bit like Daredevil, but trust me, this one is worth checking out, it's not quite like anything else out there.

DISAPPOINTINGLY CRAPPY:
SUPERMAN by Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee:
- Well, that kind of sucked. For twelve issues Brian Azzarello led his readers on a convoluted, vague, twisting journey which ultimately had no real payoff. Sure, the art, courtesy of legend in his own time superstar penciller Jim Lee was very nice, but the story, oh man, the story went nowhere. Basically, there was something about a bunch of people disappearing, in an event called The Vanishing. Superman goes to investigate, and is so determined to find the missing people that he willingly allows himself to be Vanished, thus entering a weird dimension where Clark Kent and Superman are two different people, the evil General Zod is wreaking havoc, and nobody knows what the hell is going on. Oh wait, the big twist is (SPOILERS ...) Superman created the dimension himself, as a way to save earth in case it ever met a similarly tragic fate to Krypton. What follows is a preachy, ambiguous meditation on religion, messiahs, and a bunch of other pretentious crap that doesn't need to be the dominant action in twelve straight issues of Superman. Brian Azzareelo has said in interviews that he is not really a fan of Superman, and that bias is painfully obvious throughout this story. If you're a diehard fan of Jim Lee check this out when the trade paperback collection comes out, otherwise, skip it.


Alright, enough nerdiness for one day.

Go Pacers.

Enjoy yer' matzoh.