Oh boy! It's Bullet Sunday once again! This will have to be a quick one, because I have got a lot to do before I fly out again on Friday.

   
• iTunez! I have a laundry list of things I hate about Apple's "iTunes Music Store" (particularly after the last shitty upgrade they forced on us)... but dealing with App Store update insanity is currently the thing pissing me off most. It's just so damn irritating the way that the process never... NEVER... makes things easy on you. You're constantly being interrupted with bullshit alert messages that are so astoundingly stupid that you have to wonder if Apple is being staffed by morons. Take, for example, the "You Are Downloading Age-Restricted Materials" alert...

Yes, I know. And the reason I know is that I get this dumbass alert EVERY TIME I UPDATE MY APPS! Can't iTunes REMEMBER that I'm an adult so I don't have to go through this shit each time? And what's truly asinine is that the apps themselves are not adult-oriented... it's just that they access the internet where adult-oriented stuff might pop up. And it's not like underage kids are going to see this and go "Oh, I'm only 16, so I guess I'd better stop the update" either. I feel safer already!

And what about mystical crap like the "You Have Already Purchased This Item" alert...

Yes, you stupid pile of FAIL!, I want to download the shit I've purchased! Why WOULDN'T I want to download it. ESPECIALLY IF IT'S AN UPDATE TO SOMETHING I ALREADY PURCHASED?!?! I mean, SERIOUSLY?

And then there's my FAVORITE message. It's the "The Item You Tried to Download is No Longer Available" alert...

If it's no longer available, then why try to download it? But the biggest problem? THEY DON'T TELL YOU WHICH FUCKING APP IS THE CULPRIT! The error appears again and again and again until you manually download each app until you figure out which one is no longer available so you can manually delete it from the session. It's about the stupidest damn thing I've ever seen out of Apple. IF IT'S NOT AVAILABLE, THEN STOP TRYING TO DOWNLOAD IT YOU WORTHLESS PILE OF CRAP!! Can't you just eliminate it from the update session AND STOP BOTHERING ME?!? Completely stupid. BEYOND completely stupid. This is a bug of epic Microsoft proportions, and a total embarrassment to Apple.

The iTunes Music Store is so hopelessly idiotic now that it begs the question... DOES APPLE EVEN BOTHER BETA-TESTING SHIT ANYMORE? EVER?!? This is amateur hour stuff, and it's starting to really piss me off.

   
• Gleek! After listening to the non-stop raves from practically everybody, I finally broke down and watched the latest episode of Glee on Hulu entitled Wheels. Before I get into the horrors I was subjected to, I should preface this review(?) by saying that I can't stand musicals. It freaks me out when people suddenly break into song and dance for no particular reason, and the ... unreality... of it all drives me bat-shit insane. From what I understood, Glee was different because it was about kids in glee club, so there's context for all the singing and dancing crap. Except... the first thing I see? Some guy in a wheelchair starts mangling Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself then, you guessed it, starts wheeling around his school where nobody seems to notice that he's singing his guts out the whole time. Nobody says a damn thing...

It's not at all freaky that nobody notices I'm singing!

Guy in the wheelchair kind of set the tone for the "Breakfast Club" theory of random casting, except they took it to the next level. Handicapped Kid, CHECK... Jock Kid, CHECK... Gay Kid, CHECK... Bad Boy Outsider Kid, CHECK... Black Kid, CHECK... Asian Kid, CHECK... Spoiled Jewish Princess Kid, CHECK... Stupid Blonde Kid, CHECK... Pregnant Kid, CHECK... Down Syndrome Kid, CHECK... it goes on and on and on. It's as if they told the casting director "Give me one of everything!" so it would make the writing as easy as possible. Which makes sense when you start noticing that everybody gets double-duty BONUS FEATURES!! Pregnant Kid, for example, is also Slutty Bitch Popular Christian Kid, who is terrorizing her current boyfriend to pay her for pregnancy support when she knows that the real father is actually (drumroll of un-shock) Bad Boy Outsider Kid! And don't forget the teachers! Lawful-Good Glee Club Teacher simply must have his stereotypical nemesis with Chaotic-Evil P.E. Teacher...

We're the stereotypical bitches of Glee!

The only part of the show that was remotely interesting to me was Down Syndrome Girl, which may seem a little too "Corky" from Life Goes On, but actually kind of works. Too bad they had to go and spoil it by building a hokey mystery as to why Chaotic-Evil P.E. Teacher could possibly want to put her on the cheerleading squad (especially when the predictable answer is a retread plot device that has been used in a billion other television shows for faux-drama heartstring pulling)...

ZOMFG! Why is the Chaotic-Evil P.E. Teacher being so nice? Yep! Exactly why you'd think she is.

And, of course, what would the show be without the big musical number finale? We'll never know, because the writers are just that predictable. But to be EXTRA tacky and manipulative, lets take the Featured-Kid-Of-The-Week cliche (Wheelchair Boy) and build a musical number of love and acceptance... by making everybody sing Proud Mary in... you guessed it... WHEELCHAIRS! Wheee...

Uhhh... yeah. Really, really, didn't like Glee. Didn't "get" it at all. Though, to be fair, I am not a part of its target audience of musical-lovers. Except... even without the musical numbers... the stereotypes, cliches, predictability, and gag-inducingly obvious emotional manipulation would kill it for me. Oh well. It's perfectly okay that everybody doesn't like the same things. On the contrary, in this case it's critical for maintaining my sanity.

   
And that will have to do it until next week...

I don't know that anybody cares what television I'm watching, but it comes up from time to time so I thought I might as well get a post out of the way.

It's only fair to preface this list with my disgust and loathing of television in general now-a-days. Too many great shows get cancelled (=ahem= PUSHING DAISIES =ahem=) only to be replaced with complete and total crap (usually reality television dumbassery) and networks never even care about the people watching these shows. If they did, they wouldn't leave viewers hanging, and allow shows to wrap-up stories and plots in a satisfactory manor.

But oh well. Such is the risk of a television junkie.

NEW HOTNESS I AM GIVING A SHOT...

• COMMUNITY. I admit I was not too impressed with the pilot. But it's starring Joel McHale, who I love more than toast. Hopefully it will find its footing and live up to Joel's potential.
• FLASHFORWARD. I am very, very unsure they can maintain this story over the course of a season (I'm having flashbacks of "The Nine" here), but I liked the book on which it's been based (of the same name) so I'm game.
• ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE. I honestly don't give this show much hope, but I'm willing to give it a try because I like Jenna Elfman and really like Ashley Jensen.
• NCIS: L.A. I positively loathe the original "NCIS" but love Linda Hunt, so I'm giving it a shot. Hopefully the dialogue and acting will be upgraded from the slapsticky crap that plagues the original, and give us a show more like the originator of them both: JAG.
• MODERN FAMILY. This doesn't seem like it would be my kind of show, but the buzz has me really curious to check it out.
• COUGAR TOWN. I will probably dump it after one episode, but I am inexplicably curious to see what this show is about. Wish I knew why, because it has FAIL! written all over it.
• THE CLEVELAND SHOW. Will it be as funny as "Family Guy?" Probably not. But I very much want to find out.
• V. I cannot fathom how the remake will possibly manage to top the original without the incomparable Jane Badler as "Diana" but, after the raging success of "Battlestar Galactica," we'll see.
• HUMAN TARGET. A great comic book series with nice potential for a television series. They certainly cast the lead well... here's hoping that Mark Valley manages to work his "Keen Eddie" magic again.

RETURNING HOTNESS I AM WATCHING AGAIN...

• CASTLE. Probably my favorite returning new show. The premise is great. The chemistry between the leads is electric. The writing is smart and clever. The mysteries well-crafted. It is dipped in WIN!
• GARY UNMARRIED. One of the few new new shows from last season which actually manages to make me laugh. As if that weren't enough: Paula. Marshall.
• SCRUBS (retooled). I loved the original show, and am not sure how I feel about them retooling it minus a big chunk of the cast... but I'm willing to give it a shot for old time's sake.

OTHER STUFF I AM NOT QUITE DUMPING YET...

"How I Met Your Mother" - "Big Bang Theory" - "House" - "Grey's Anatomy" - "Survivor: Samoa" - "Parks and Recreation" - "Family Guy" - "American Dad" - "The Simpsons" - "CSI: New York" - "SNL" - "30 Rock" - "Psych" - "Burn Notice" - "Top Chef" - "Project Runway"

NEW CRAP I WON'T BOTHER WATCHING...

• GLEE. I'd rather be kicked in the balls then water-boarded than watch a show built around crappy singers covering popular music.
• THE FORGOTTEN. This looks like a copy of "Cold Case" with less talented actors. Since I already loathe "Cold Case" why would I watch a re-tread with (shudder) Christian Slater headlining?
• JAY LENO SHOW. When Leno (the most un-funny comedian on late-night this side of Jimmy Fallon) left "The Tonight Show" I threw a party to celebrate that I wouldn't accidentally land on his show when channel-surfing. When I heard he was getting yet another show to be not funny on, I was depressed for a week.
• TRAUMA. Oh boy! It's a "new and improved" version of "ER"... NOW WITH EXPLOSIONS! Pass.
• VAMPIRE DIARIES. Bitch, please. I refuse to read or watch "Twilight" so I'm hardly in a position to give a shit about all the crap that gets made into a TV series because of it.

OLD CRAP I WON'T BOTHER WATCHING...

• DOLLHOUSE. I don't care if it is Whedon... this was the most pathetically bad show from last year. Let's take a blisteringly hot babe (Eliza Dushku!) and implant her with the most boring characters possible. Week after week after week after week. Add in the mind-bogglingly lapse of internal logic and a dumbass character named "Topher" and it's a recipe for disaster that rivals "Viva Laughlin" for absurdity.
• LOST. If ever there was a show where the title perfectly describes the story, it's this one. When I quit watching two years ago, it was greatness that had degenerated into a senseless, meandering pile of FAIL! I can't imagine that it's going to end in a manner that will make the years invested in watching it pay off.
• HEROES. It's a show about people with super-powers who go out of their way to avoid using super-powers! This leaves us with a boring-ass joke of a show where the only thing to look forward to each week is guessing which character gets to have the FX budget and actually use their power. Like Lost, nobody writing the show has a frickin' clue what to do with the story.
• CSI: MIAMI. David Caruso is the single worst "actor" on television today, and I simply cannot fathom why anybody would want to be subjected to his "talents." I don't care how amazing the rest of the cast is, Caruso is such a douche that he destroys any chance they have to shine.
• NCIS. The slapstick bullshit and inane dialogue has smart people acting stupid, stupid, STUPID! It's almost scary how such a great cast and concept can be reduced to sheer idiocy because of failure in implementation. I cannot believe that this show was a spin-off from "JAG" which was such a great show.
• CHUCK. I hear they gave the whiny bitch kung-fu or something. But a whiny bitch with kung-fu is still a whiny bitch. Watching "Bumbling Chuck" act like a neurotic mess every week is supposed to be entertaining? Not to me it isn't.

OTHER CRAP I WON'T BOTHER WATCHING...

"Dancing With The Stars" - "Two and a Half Men" - "One Tree Hill" - "Gossip Girl" - "Lie To Me" - "Shark Tank" - "The Good Wife" - "90210" - "Melrose Place" - "So You Think You Can Dance" - "Biggest Loser" - "Hank" - "The Middle" - "Eastwick" - "New Adventures of Old Christine" - "Criminal Minds" - "America's Next Top Model" - "Better Off Ted" - "Law & Order: SVU" - "Private Practice" - "CSI" - "The Mentalist" - "Supernatural" - "Bones" - "Fringe" - "Super Nanny" - "Ugly Betty" - "Ghost Whisperer" - "Medium" "Numbers" - "Smallville" - "Brothers" - "'Til Death" - "Desperate Housewives" - "Brothers & Sisters" - "Cold Case" - "The Amazing Race" - "Three Rivers" - "Southland" - "Mercy" - "The Beautiful Life"

Here's hoping that most of the new shows I'm trying out will suck horribly so I won't waste too much time watching television!

But no worries. From past experience, I can pretty much count on it.

Given my genius-level intelligence, it should come as no surprise that I like the mental workout provided by the game show Jeopardy. The questions are always fairly tough at the higher dollar amounts, and I only manage to answer Final Jeopardy correctly half the time. This kind of challenge is what makes the show so much fun.

It is my understanding that every contestant on the show has been tested for a good knowledge of trivia and overall smarts. This is wise, because the competition wouldn't be much fun if the contestants were all idiots.

Unfortunately, the "smarts" they test for must not include basic math skills.

I am beginning to lose track of the number of times I've watched an otherwise smart person fuck up and lose everything during their Final Jeopardy wager because they couldn't add properly. They'll write down the wrong number for some dumb reason, answer the question correctly, LOSE, and then poor Alex Trebek has to explain to them that they're a moron.

Even worse are the "Daily Double" questions, where a contestant can double their wager if they answer correctly. You regularly see people who bet some pathetic amount when they are in last place, even though they should have risked it all so they could stay in the game.

It's sad, really.

If it were ME running Jeopardy, and some dumbass decided to wager $100 when they're so far behind that their only chance is to wager everything they have... well, my reaction would be a lot different from Alex Trebek's kindly smile and condescending banter...

Because, seriously, nobody that frackin' stupid deserves to be on Jeopardy... they spoil it for everybody.

And by "everybody" I mean "me."

Oh well. New episodes of Burn Notice start tomorrow! So very soon now I won't have to rely on game shows to see something new on TV.

I can't wait.

I just paid $4.00 for a bottle of Italian Spring Water at my hotel.

I wish I could say that when I close my eyes and drink it, the taste is evocative of Italy... but all I taste is wet. That's a darn shame.

So here I am in San Diego. It's a wonderful place that everybody should visit at least once in their life. If, for no other reason, to make a pilgrimage to the city of my birth. There isn't a temple here in honor of the occasion, but there really should be. Or maybe instead of a temple there could be a statue of me standing in Balboa Park. I dunno. There just needs to be someplace my worshippers can go to go pay their respects and place flowers to celebrate my greatness. And make a donation to the Dave Monument I'm planning to build in the land formerly occupied by Mt. Ranier National Park.

Hmmm... I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but San Diego would be the perfect place to put my Daveland amusement park! I will convince the city to plow under the San Diego Zoo and put Daveland there instead! What a great location!

Boy, being back to the city of my birth really has me firing on all cylinders tonight.

And speaking of San Diego... there's a few people in town wanting to meet up for dinner on Friday night, if you're in the area and would like to come along, please send me an email ASAP so we can make plans. My email address is at the top of the sidebar on every page.

Unfortunately, I landed to learn of the terrible news that Ricardo Montalban had died.

I, of course, loved him as Mr. Roarke on the show Fantasy Island. Every kid growing up in the late 70's did, because he was the epitome of coolness. He'd walk around in those flawless white suits being all friendly and good-natured and "Welcome to Fantasy Island" and stuff. But then he'd occasionally show his darker side... proving that he could be a total badass as well. It's unthinkable to envision anybody else playing the character except Mr. Montalban (indeed, even the brilliant Malcolm McDowell couldn't manage it when there was a failed revival series twenty years later).

But, to me and so many others, Ricardo Montalban will forever be Khan...

The role of the maniacal villain in the second Star Trek film was not an easy one to play. Indeed, I'd say it was a thankless and impossible role to play. As written, the part was so badly over-the-top... almost to the point of being comical.

Until it was performed by Ricardo Montalban.

He played the character deadly-serious, and turned in a performance so riveting that it cemented Khan as one of the greatest movie villains of all time (indeed, even the brilliant Malcolm McDowell couldn't top it in a follow-up film, Star Trek: Generations). After watching Star Trek II, I fell in love with all things Trek again, and I really have Ricardo Montalban to thank for it. He will definitely be missed.

Even if you don't like Star Trek, you should absolutely check out Wrath of Khan. Montalban's performance is totally worth it. Oh, and don't forget his masterful performance in the first The Naked Gun movie as well!

Lastly, I urge you to read a fantastic blog entry about what it was like working with Mr. Montalban over at Mark Evanier's News From Me site. He was truly an amazing guy and a class-act.

P.S. All my best wishes to my personal hero, Steve Jobs, for a speedy and full recovery.