Parental Fail

From Engadget

This is just pure evil.
Next time you hear a story about a kid pushing his parents down the stairs, think of this kid.

The Wire: Season 5 Episode 8 (Spoilers!)

(Because, Indeed)

One more warning. SPOILERS! DO NOT READ if you didn't watch.

So half of my prediction of how awful 2008 will be came true.

Omar is dead. Killed on some City of God type shit. Knockout Ned RIP. If you don't know what I am talking about, please watch City of God.

As much as I wanted Omar to have some dramatic rainy showdown with Marlo after waging a series of urban terror attacks to draw him out, I knew that type of ending would not be true to the show.

Omar had to die on some bullshit.

The Associated Press of all places, has a pretty good eulogy to Omar.

• Omar had been in danger for a while. Targeted by Marlo's killers, he miraculously escaped a trap by leaping from a sixth-story balcony. Then he vengefully limped around the streets on a makeshift crutch as he harassed Marlo's minions.

  Viewers who paid close attention to Kenard were rewarded: As other fled in terror from Omar, the boy made a point of how unimpressed he was with the injured gunslinger.

  Williams brought a foreboding sadness to his performance in this, the show's fifth and final season. Omar lacked his usual swagger; he became reckless, desperate, alone.

  "You kind of see that he feels like the last of a dying breed," Williams said. "All the blood that's on his hands, it all comes to a head. At least that's where I was mentally when I was doing those scenes."

  Inspired by real stickup men series creator David Simon met during his time as a crime reporter for The Sun, Omar was also larger than life, with his intelligence, rigorous moral code and florid, profanity-free speaking style ("indeed"). Plus, he was gay, a fascinating wrinkle.

  While robbing drug dealers was lucrative for Omar, he often did good deeds and was hailed by critics and fans as a modern-day Robin Hood. As he told drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield while robbing him at a poker game, "Money ain't got no owners. Only spenders."

  Even presidential contender Barack Obama expressed his admiration for Omar — albeit with the caveat that he didn't endorse Omar's behavior.

A president who loves the Wire. The possibilities that provides are too much to go into right now.

What is hard for me to get is how many fans don't get this show or the Sopranos. So many people were pissed with how the Sopranos ended and it seems the same morons wanted some Neo/Mr. Smith Matrix showdown with Omar and Marlo.

• "His murder was swift and unexpected, probably not unlike the way many guys in his line of work meet their ends," fan Anthony Wilson wrote on his blog. But the stark realism of Omar's death stood in contrast to the optimism he represented.

  "He beat the odds time and again over five seasons," Wilson wrote. "I thought Omar was supposed to prosper. Why get him got now? Doesn't make sense to me."

  Williams, though, is prospering. Omar was the first recurring TV role for the 42-year-old actor, who acquired his distinctive facial scar when he was slashed with a razor during a bar fight. The wrap party for the show's fourth season was modeled after a high school prom and graduation, and it was an emotional night for Williams, a high school dropout who grew up in rough East Flatbush, Brooklyn. (My damn neighborhood)
  

He died because he was alone, no backup, no car, a broken leg and the entire drug dealing establishment out to kill him. He's not Batman, he had to catch one to the dome. This isn't Batman: Year One.

Reading HBO message boards is nauseating because there are so many stupid people on there but I saw one post that is pretty on point

• cliffg3134
  
  Posts: 53
  Registered: 1/28/07

  (14 of 146) Re: Episode 58: Clarifications Feb 21, 2008 10:21 AM Report Abuse

  The Kennard scene all makes sense if you go back in watch the episodes from season 3 in which omar was involved in that gun fight in which tasha was killed. When Bunk got to the scene Kennard was one of the three kids acting like they were Omar. If you sit down and think about it, Kennard idolized Omar and Omar let him down when he showed up on there corner in Season 5. He saw that Omar wasnt all that he thought he built up to be so he acted out of dissapointment. -- Game's the same, jus got more fierce

That is a great point. What better way to be your hero than to kill him in the sick diseased mind of the inner city.

And his death actually gave a key piece of info to the Baltimore PD to bring down Marlo. Two Eps left... I can't deal.

Now to completely destroy my year, Vic Mackey will be killed on the Shield.
I just feel it coming and I am still not ready.

Pour one out for Omar, the most compelling and idiosyncratic character to grace TV in quite some time.

Here Comes the Shark Jump!

In the last few weeks I have noticed that people are more sympathetic to Hillary and at certain points she looked so beaten down I got a little sympathetic for her but the above video kinds of wipes all that out. She really is the vindictive self-obsessed opportunistic politician she has been made out to be.

One minute she's crying at every campaign stop, then she has Bill Clinton tearing into Obama and now she's mocking the idea of being hopeful when she's not calling the states Obama won useless. The common argument is that we don't know who Obama is and what he's done, but who is Hillary and what has she done?

She's still shifting her message, tone and style and her Senate record is not more impressive than Obama's.

Hopefully her sad lashing out marks the end of her campaign. It's too embarrassing.

This Is Why God Invented Blogs

OhWord's classic deconstruction of Illmatic is more thorough than most graduate theses.

Reading that post confirmed what is becoming less debatable by the day.

Illmatic is truly the GOAT.

It's sad how Nas sounds more mature as a teenager in 1994 than he does in 2008 as he whores himself for attention with his "Nigger" album.

Sad.

Is This What You Want?

Um, yikes...

For All My West Indians

Who secretly wish they could have gone to Trinidad Carnival instead of dealing with the tail-end of this bitch ass winter.

Be glad you stayed home. Dudes are getting stabbed while trying to catch a dance...

• A woman turned in anger and stabbed a man she did not know for allegedly wining on her as bands paraded at the height of Carnival Monday festivities.

  Last night, a man, Juma Modeste, 28, was listed in critical but stable condition at the San Fernando General Hospital.

  Modeste, of Union Road, Marabella, was knifed four times in the chest and back by a woman described by police as a 21-year-old of Bayshore, Marabella.

  She has been arrested and faces a charge of attempted murder.

  The attack happened at around 10 a.m. Monday at Mucarapo Street, near a Carnival band judging point.

I'm sure the females reading this might be cheering on the stabber, but damn.
I went to Trinidad Carnival in 2004 and I sure as hell didn't get stabbed when I danced with strangers. I mean wow. What else can you say?

This shit makes Netflix and girlfriend look pretty good.

Obama Gets in that Ass (Obama for God!)

In one weekend he beats Hillary in

The Virgin Islands

Louisiana

Washington

and fucking Nebraska.

I mean damn.

And if that wasn't enough he wins Maine on Sunday. Yes, Maine. The state that is so racist against blacks it got a special NY Times writeup.

If he can take D.C., Maryland and Virginia this Tuesday and win 7 states in a row, I'm going to Disneyland.

I try not to become rabid in my Clinton hatred, (look at how the McCain hatred is eating away the Republicans) but she proves herself to be more robotic and less electable by the day.

I had an exchange with my boy over at Straight Bangin' and I realized that I've worked for several women in my lifetime and it reconfirms that my dislike of Hillary's candidacy has nothing to do with her gender.

But story after story of shady Clinton connections in the past and present (Why is Bill Clinton brokering uranium deals with dictators that Hillary criticizes in the Senate?) helps me realize that I was too young to understand why Republicans thought Bill disgraced the White House.

And don't get me started on the pandering ass comments Clinton is making at black churches,

• "All my life I have wanted to vote for a woman for president," Clinton told 800 parishioners at the Temple of Praise congregation in Washington. "All my life I have wanted to vote for an African-American for president. ... I wonder why God gave us this dilemma."

I bet after a mention of a dilemma from Jesus, at least 30 old black ladies from that Sunday service came running back to Bill.

But Why won't the Clintons list their income tax returns?

Frank Rich and the Wall Street Journal realize that the Clintons will not lose graciously.

David Brooks shows exactly how petty of a person Hillary is.

I'm not saying Hillary is Bush, but on a certain scale she has emulated many of the things Americans have come to hate in Bush.

• Pettiness and grudges
  
  
• Staged Media Events
  
  
• Racial Campaigning (McCain's black baby in South Carolina)
  
  
• Shady back rooms deal
  
  
• Lack of transparency
  
  
• Refusals to engage world leaders of countries we dislike
  
  

A friend pointed me to this "Something Awful" pseudo endorsement of Clinton which perfectly captures why her contrived nature and "vetted background" are a joke.

I never though a black man would be the best bet to stop John MadMan McCain from reaching the White House, but the Clinton's resume is so filthy that Republicans are actually cheering for her because they know how fun the the last 20 years of Clinton mud would be to dig.

I appreciate Obama's message of "we" versus Hillary's "I" but if he wins, I hope he doesn't take this reconciliation too far. Republicans are welcome to join in the post-Bush cleanup, but let's be honest, conservatism has failed as a political movement.

The G.O.P. part in 2009 and beyond needs to be minimal.

Social conservatism has failed. Abstinence-only education has teens getting more STD's and getting pregnant younger. Gay marriage and Terri Shiavo are not my business and many Americans feel the same.

Economic conservatism has failed. Check the national debt, trade deficit, the ballooning national budget, unemployment rate, strength of the dollar, the housing industry, the Dow Jones...................

Foreign policy conservatism has failed. Check out this thing called the fucking world. Democracy is not a banana. The shit can't be exported.

Where has conservatism succeeding but as a fucking theory that sounds good in a book?

Self-reliance and low government spending/involvement are great principles except when the party in charge of them runs up the national credit card and has AT&T filtering your Internet traffic while the President flies to your state in order to keep your brain dead wife plugged to a life support machine.

When I was young I thought communism was such a great idea until I started studying history and realized what a fucking disaster it was in implementation.

The Clinton ideal of centrism, in many ways, paved the road for the neo-cons to slip into power.

Please end the dynastic hot potato of Clinton/Bush. Soap operas are for the afternoon.

The Only That Matters on the 2008 Grammys

Is Steven Wright winning the award for Best Comedy Album.

Fuck a Amy Winehouse satellite debacle.

I first caught Steven Wright on Conan O'Brien, where his deadpan nonsensical humor caught me off guard. Who the fuck was this guy?

I went and dug out some of his material, which goes something like this,

• “It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.”

  “I went into a restaurant. The menu said, ‘Breakfast anytime.’ So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.”

  “I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.”

  “My doctor told me I shouldn’t work out until I’m in better shape. I told him, ‘All right; don’t send me a bill until I pay you.’ ”

Etc, etc. His humor isn't for everybody but I love it.

Earlier this year I realized he dropped an album of new material which I copped immediately. If I had made a Best Albums of 2007 list, please believe this would have been on it.

I actually didn't realize he released an album until the Grammy noms came out.

Here is his comp,

Field 20 — Comedy

Category 80

Best Comedy Album
(For comedy recordings, spoken or musical)

• America's Mexican
  George Lopez
  [Comedy Central Records]
  
  
• Dirty Girl
  Lisa Lampanelli
  [Warner Bros.]
  
  
• The Distant Future
  Flight Of The Conchords
  [Sub Pop]
  
  
• I Still Have A Pony.
  Steven Wright
  [Comedy Central Records]
  
  
• Songs Pointed & Pointless
  Harry Shearer
  [Courgette Records]
  

Lisa Lampenelli is as dirty as she is funny.



Flight of the Conchords was on my TV Top Ten. Dudes are hilarious.

George Lopez is meh and I don't know about Harry Shearer.

Seems like good comp but Wright deserves the nod. He is the antithesis of the whole shameful funeral procession the Grammys have become.

If anything on that show was worth watching, let me know so I can YouTube that shit.


UPDATE: Flight of the Conchords won.

I can't hate. Wright deserved it though.

HBO's In Treatment: Best New Show of the Year

And HBO lets you watch the first weeks for free online.

When I first I heard about this show I thought HBO had jumped the shark. HBO has long been obsessed with the realm of endless psychological analysis, (Sopranos and Tell Me You Love Me) but to make a show set entirely in a psychologists office with talking heads whining about their problems seemed like too much.

What happened to the kickass HBO of Deadwood, Sopranos and Band of Brothers?

However In Treatment overcomes the stuffy air of the psychologists office by creating a fascinating therapist and an equally set of interesting characters to match.

Each night, from Monday through Thursday you see a different patient in therapy and on Friday the therapist goes to his own shrink, which is particularly fascinating as his own marriage falls apart because he begins doubting his ability to actually help his clients.

Watching each character's personality challenge a different aspect of the therapist as he tries to peel away the neuroses as slowly as possible is memorizing. It will be interesting to see where these lives go.

With the writer's strike fucking up TV for most of 2008, you're probably not going to get TV much better than this all year.

How Did the Giants Win the Superbowl?

Seriously?

Please explain it because my head still hurts...

Eli Manning has a Superbowl ring and Randy Moss does not.