brykmantra.com

WOW.

That’s all I can say, just WOW.

And also: THE WAIT WAS NOT IN VAIN.

Also: “You gotta … maaaaake your own kinda music … “

And what was that guy shooting himself up with???

Before we “get down to business” (figure of speech; no actual “business” is involved), I need to give a shout to three new readers — Liz, Linda and Mary — who were sent here by Vickie, who’s their boss and can therefore make them do unpleasant things like reading weird blogs.

Anyway: Welcome, folks, and stop back by soon!

(If you don’t, I’ll write about you … ha!)

Okay: We now join our regularly scheduled blog post already in progress:

This might not seem to relate to TV, or to the new season, but bear with me:

On my very first day in Dallas in 1986, the headlines in all the papers and news shows were dominated by two words: “HOGEBOOM TRADED”.

A Hogeboom, I was soon to find out, was a football player for the Dallas Cowboys, and apparently he got traded, although I’m not sure I was ever clear on where he got traded to, or what was gotten in return for him.

Why do I bring this up? I just found out this morning that “Hogeboom” is the ex-NFL player on the new season of Survivor.

That’s comforting in a way, because I was beginning to think that I had somehow dreamed that headline all these years ago.

I finally find out what a Hogeboom looks like …

Speaking of highly-scripted “reality” shows: Maggie won Big Brother 6 last night. Ivette may be proud of her “fiery Cuban personality”, but it caused her to lose Rachel’s vote, and probably Howie’s, too, by alienating people who had every reason in the world to vote against her opponent.

I was glad to see that they had a studio audience for the finale; that helps put back some of the energy that Julie Chen-bot leeches out of the show. They had an audience on every episode of the first season, and that gave the studio segments a lot of energy.

Since they’ve done away with the audience, the contestants look like lab rats in a very somber and highly structured experiment, and no amount of soap-opera catfights can make it seem any more real.

Lost season premiere tonight! Woo-hoo!

Unfortunately, since The Wife is going to miss the broadcast, I won’t be blogging about it in any detail until after she’s seen the tape …

So I’d better get it out of my system now: The episode title tonight is “Man of Science, Man of Faith”. I’m guessing that Jack is the former, Locke is the latter, as they hinted strongly in the final episodes of last season.

Does this mean that the flashbacks feature them both? Will we get to see where their paths crossed at some point in the past?

If so, this would be a first. Up until now, we’ve only seen vague references to connections between the characters — like when the woman in Sawyer’s hotel room was played by the same actress as the lottery girl who announced Hurley’s winning numbers.

Oh well, let’s just hope tonight lives up to all the hype and expectations.

They owe us now, after the letdown of opening the hatch in the season finale.

But I will admit that what happened to the raft people was one heck of a cliffhanger; now let’s just hope they don’t drag the suspense out too long.

Anyway: Until the show starts, go to the show’s website — not the network site — and hunt for a few “Easter Eggs” …

Also: There’s going to be a special “refresher course” episode at 7C tonight, right before the Season 2 Premiere, in case you missed the first season, or you don’t remember all the numberous details, which is highly likely.

And speaking of dragging things out too long: We also watched The Biggest Loser last night. That show has an interesting premise, but the weigh-ins are deadly dull.

Seriously, they stretch those out for half an hour.

They’re aiming for Dramatic Tension, but they drive straight off the cliff of Let’s See What Else Is On.

The new Fall Season is in full swing! I don’t know why I still get fired up like a little kid at Christmastime when the fall shows come out, but I do.

So let’s proceed (Warning: Minor spoilers alert):

I’ve been seeing the ads for CBS’s How I Met Your Mother for months, and ordinarily I would dismiss this kind of thing as just another yuppie sitcom hoping that nobody notices that it’s ripping off Friends. The commercials show these two people flirting, and dating, and her throwing a drink in his face (to make her friend feel better). Not too different from things we’ve seen a hundred times before.

Two things, though, made me willing to give the show another chance. The first is the presence of Alyson Hannigan (“This one time? At band camp?”), who I’ll watch in just about anything.

The other factor is the great reviews that Neil Patrick Harris has been getting for his almost-over-the-top portrayal of the main character’s second-best friend (On the first night they met, he had said, “Lose the goatee. It doesn’t go with the suit.” “Um … I’m not wearing a suit.” “Second thing: Get a suit.”)

Then, to top it off, I read an article yesterday saying the finale seconds of the first episode had a great surprise ending — so I was hooked.

Sure enough, the ending was a shock: We hear the the main character telling his teenage kids (27 years from now): “And that’s the story of how I met … your Aunt Robin!”

And the kids are like, “You said it was the story of how you met MOM!”

“Hey,” he replies, “I said it was a long story …”

So this should be interesting.

I also managed to see most of Surface (even though it was on at the same time – that’s dedication!), which is NBC’s entry in the Lost ripoff sweepstakes. This show apparently involves a race of sea monsters, which has been spotted by a few people (one of whom took home an egg … which hatched (!)) and which is already known to some degree by some shadowy government agencies.

It might be an okay series, but with only three main characters and one mystery, it’s sure no Lost.

We also watched Prison Break, which is on its fourth episode. If any of the new shows have a chance of being as exciting and addicting as Lost, this is it.

In case you’re not familiar, Prison Break is about a young engineer whose brother (with a different surname) was framed for the murder of the vice president’s brother. The engineer designed the prison and is sure that he can break his brother out of prison before the execution, so he hid the blueprints for the prison in a full-body tattoo, and staged a bank robbery to get himself thrown into prison, with a mere month to spare before the execution. What he didn’t count on is that a Vast Conspiracy (which seems to be comprised of two dense-looking Secret Service Agents who take their marching orders from a Mystery Woman who seems to be running the Conspiracy from her kitchen, in which she always seems to be in the process of preparing meals).

Sure, it sounds pretty far-fetched, but there are always enough opposing forces in motion to make the story compelling. Colorful characters include the gruff-but-kindhearted warden (Stacy Keach), who had an indiscretion or two in his past and thus jumps through the ceiling whenever anyone says the word “Toledo”, and who is keeping the engineer around because he’s obsessed with finishing a replica of the Taj Mahal for his wife for their 40th anniversary (again: far-fetched); a vicious incarcerated crime lord, whose help the engineer needs to escape; a cellmate whose motivation for escaping is to stop his cousin from stealing his fiance; the brother’s ex-girlfriend, who is working on the outside to prove that the conviction was railroaded; and the pretty-but-feisty prison doctor, who just happens to be the governor’s daughter.

Yes, it stretches credulity, but still it’s cool. Check it out.

I watched some of Las Vegas, but it didn’t take me long to realize that they’re going backward, not forward, so I went back to Prison Break.

For one thing, they’ve added Lara Flynn Boyle, aka the Human Ironing Board, to the cast. Where do TV executives keep getting the idea that viewers actually like her??

And did they think there were too many female curves on the show, and they needed to add some straight lines?

Also, they got rid of Nessa (Marsha Thomason), the cool black British chick, who was a nice change of pace from the rest of the cast.

That leaves only one black character, and last night they had him dressed up in some sort of leprechaun minstrel outfit.

Scanner Fun: Here’s the answer section from the syndicated New York Times crossword that I worked couple of weeks ago. See, this is why I enjoy doing these puzzles — on Friday and Saturday, at least: When you can have a Ramones title, a Star Wars first-trilogy supporting character, and a statement of exasperation all in one day, that’s what keeps you coming back for more.

Here’s a game demo I saw a few weeks ago on Attack of the Show, and a couple of other places since then, but never got around to checking it out or posting it.

Today BoingBoing finally got around to posting it, acting like it’s brand new, so I took that as a reminder to download it … and it’s a lot of fun: It’s a Professor Fizzwizzle, a fun little platform/puzzle-solving game, with neat little graphics.

So check it out, it’s harder than it looks.

I’m using my blazing-sun bullet again because, even though Autumn starts in only two days, it’s 100 FRIGGING DEGREES out there today.

This week’s Walgreen’s flyer advertised three sweatsuit tops or bottoms for only $10 dollars, so I figured I’d stock up for winter — but the local store isn’t participating in the sale, not carrying that stock yet.

It’s frustrating to see something advertised but not available, but it’s also understandable how stores in the middle of FRIGGING HADES are in no rush to trot out the fur parkas.

Abucn of blogs have recently been mentioning the upcoming Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19), but hey — I’ve been there, done that, got the eye patch. Two years ago, on my old blog, I did 19 whole days of pirate posts, leading up to the day … so yeah, pardon me for not getting too worked up when everybody else just tossing up a link, plus maybe an occasional “scurvy bilge rat” or “walk the plank, matey”.

Want to really get into the spirit of the day? Then check out my pirate tribute from 2003, starting with the 19th and scrolling down to the 1st.

Venezuelan president Chavez says U.S. planning to invade his country.

Oh, you WISH you were that important.

Tell ya what, we’ll pencil you into our schedule right after we’re finished in Iraq and Afghanistan, and after we’ve dealth with Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Pakistan.

Oh, and France.

Plus, by that time, we’ll probably have to wax Putin’s butt to remind him who’s boss.

Get over yourself, Chavez. Get an economy, or start waving nukes around, then we’ll talk about coming down there to slap you around.

The Fall TV Season is here! I know TV reeks in general, but when I stop getting excited about the new fall shows every year, just throw me in a hole and shovel dirt on me.

I just found out this week that Brent Spiner is a regular on the new CBS series Threshold. I was considering watching it anyway, but the presence of Commander Data cinched it for me. Plus, I’m glad he’s getting work, in something that’s sci-fi related, in order to secure a lot of his old fan base, but different enough to give him an acting challenge (he plays a surly doctor who used to be a Sixties radical).

I was telling The Wife that he was on this show, and she said, “Oh yeah — ‘Mommy, you smell different!’” I said, “Close — you’re thinking of Invasion, ABC’s ‘Lost’ ripoff. The one I’m talking about is CBS’s ‘Lost’ ripoff.”

Not to be confused with Surface, which is NBC’s ‘Lost’ ripoff.

Anyway, I’m watching Threshold right now, and I guess the producers wanted to make sure nobody missed the ‘Lost’ connection: They hired Tom Cruise’s gruesome cousin, playing a part that’s almost identical to his ‘Lost’ persona: Super-strong, vicious, of mysterious origins, able to appear out of nowhere and disappear into thin air, and really really hard to take down.

And really, really gruesome. And creepy.

It’s like they watched ‘Lost’ and said, “Ooh, let’s have him do EXACTLY THE SAME THING on our show!”

That being said, though, it’s not a bad show, and a nice change from the mass invasion of clones of CSI and ‘Law and Order’ of recent years.

And these shows are open-ended, not wrapping up in a neat little package at the end of each episode.

These shows may be ripoffs, but they have the potential to be challenging.

I just read today that Mr. T has given up his gold chains because they’re an insult to God. I’m mainly posting this because I spotted him preaching on TV (and took this picture) a couple of years ago while flipping through the channels. Here’s a link to where I posted about it at the time.

Here are some TV-related items from BoingBoing:

First, a plea to the networks to have less celebrity poker and more celebrity Dungeons & Dragons. Hey, I’d watch it.

The second thing is for The Wife, who is researching digital video recorders: TIVO won’t let you save certain programs longer than 30 days. Apparently they’ll bow to the whim of any content provider and suspend your right to keep a copy of programs the programs that provider supplies; this policy basically ignores the Supreme Court “Betamax” decision of 1984, when home taping of programs was ruled to be Fair Use.

And it’s worth noting: That ruling, far from bankrupting Hollywood, helped to create today’s climate of widespread cinematic appreciation.

Hollywood and the music industry seem to be ignorant of how they’re shooting themselves in the foot with all their draconian “anti-piracy” measures.

The third item: Check out this video of 5th graders re-enacting the Whip It music video.

It does my heart proud to see today’s children have an appreciation for the classics.

It rained today! After a month of “possilibities of scattered showers”, we finally got a downpour, and in several parts of the city. Molly, like a lot of dogs, is deathly afraid of storms; when the Wife got home from work, she couldn’t find Molly anywhere, and was panic-stricken.

It turns out Molly was in the back of the house, hiding in my shower, the first time she’s ever done that.

Anyway, here’s some miscellaneous stuff:

Speaking of rain: Bush tells FEMA to prepare for Ophelia.

And this time he probably had his secretary add the line, “Please respond to confirm receipt of this email.”

That’ll take care of it.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is Free Music Friday over at Look at This. In fact, since he’s six hours or so ahead of us in the time zones, the links might already be posted. The site’s proprietor, ILuvNUFC, has graced me with a sneak peak at this week’s list of links, and I’m happy to say that he doesn’t disappoint.

Go check it out, and download a couple of gigs of tunage — before the other folks max out the bandwidth …

It was bound to happen: Redneck and Single.

The “bar napkin URL’s” from this week’s eWEEK magazine:

Pocket Mod, “the free, disposable personal organizer”. From their website:

With the PocketMod, you can carry around the days notes, keep them organized in any way you wish, then easily transfer the notes to your PDA, spreadsheet, or planner.

The PocketMod is a small book with guides on each page. These guides or templates, combined with a unique folding style, enable a normal piece of paper to become the ultimate note card. It is hard to describe just how incredibly useful the PocketMod is. It’s best that you just dive in and create one.

Yes, but can it keep ME organized? I might just have to put it to the test …

Also: Combobulate.com’s Cool Programs. This is a nice complement to the thumb drive applications I mentioned yesterday.

More Flickr fun: Instead of throwing a bachelor party, this guy’s friends spent an entire night helping him customize a 1950 Chevy in which to drive away with his new bride after the wedding.

I haven’t been posting anything from Attack of the Show lately, so let’s make up for it: Yesterday they featured a site that hosts free small programs for your flash drive.

Today, their guest was a girl who had auctioned off her 21st birthday on Ebay … which the show bought … and today was her birthday.

The only had to pay $177, but just being on the show probably blew that money away …

Also: Yesterday, on DVDuesday, FilmThreat Magazine’s Chris Gore talked about the fourth season DVD of Smallville, and he kept going on and on about how lame the series is.

The reason I bring that up is because I told that to our office Smallville freak, and she wasn’t having any of it …

Only one week until Lost! TV is about to be great again!

Speaking of Lost, TV Squad has spoilers on the new seasons of several shows, including Lost, and there are some hints about the “monster” that are pretty intriguing.

It’s almost halfway through September, but there’s still no sign of autumn temperatures. But we’re used to it, so let’s do some quick things:

It’s Presurfer‘s birthday today, so drop by and send your regards! Even if you don’t see this until tomorrow, go over and say hi to the old guy …

Most people need a hot cup of coffee to start the day, but not me: My eye-opener is a big 32-ounce tumbler of iced tea, so thick with tea oils that it has a nice brisk bite to it. Even in the winter I consumer hot drinks only sparingly.

Why do I bring this up? Because when I got to work this morning, I spotted something in my half-finished tea: It was a dead moth.

Oh joy.

I just hope it fell out of the tree I parked under at work, and hadn’t been floating in there from the beginning.

More work matters: My department discovered that we need a typewriter — seriously, a TYPEWRITER, I couldn’t make this up — so I was designated to go make the purchase: In part because I’m the most office-technonology savvy person in the office, and in part because I get stuck with the crap work that nobody else wants to do.

It worked out well though, because I finished up the transaction tout-suite and swung around to The Wife’s beauty shop for an impromptu visit.

It made both our days.

But back to the purchase: When I went into Office Depot, the older guy who greeted me said he didn’t think they had the archaic devices, but another employee was able to lead me to the Stone Knives & Bear Skins department, to show me the two models sold by the store.

The reason we needed one is that some federal agency requires a paper form in four parts with carbon paper; I took a form with me to the store to test-drive the display models to make sure they could handle the Bueaucracy Test.

Oh wait, I remember the federal agency now: The USDA. Hmm … is it a coincidence that department that runs the Forest Service (and thus is probably having its strings pulled by the timber industry) is requiring massively dead-tree forms in the age of electronic data transfer?

They’re probably in the pocket of the carbon paper lobby too …

I’ve previously mentioned that Flickr photos with the tag of “Lubbock”, my old stomping grounds, were a bit thin in number, but these days that group is starting to fill out nicely, due in part to Flickr member Steven Segraves, who has recently posted photos of Lubbock’s part in the Katrina relief effort, with which he is doing volunteer work. I for one was interesting in seeing photos of the evacuees’ living quarters.

Segraves is also one of the few Lubbock bloggers of whom I am aware, so check out his site, BadIce.com.

One more thing: Regardless of whether you’re for or against John Roberts being on the Supreme Court, there’s one thing that bothers me, that I haven’t heard anybody else bring up: Shouldn’t somebody actually serve on the Supreme Court for a while before being nominated CHIEF JUSTICE???

Regardless of what I think about Roberts’ qualifications or views, I can’t help but feeling, with him being rushed up to the head of the line to be the Chief so quickly, that the country is being railroaded into something — kind of like how Halliburton has been handed billion-dollar contracts without having to bid. Doesn’t the news media pay attention to these things?