Hey, Isn't Today Halloween?

The day passed by and I almost forgot it was Halloween. Busy day at work and all that. I did get some punk ass kids trying to trick or treat in my building once I got home; pre-teens obviously too old to be trick or treating. That would be fine if they actually had some cool costumes, but I think one was wearing a pirate flag as a cape, and that was the extent of his costume, and the other was just dressed in black. Oooo! Scary! Luckily I live on the top floor, and they were too lazy to venture to my door.

Now I'm watching "Halloween" as I cook me some dinner. Exciting! I didn't even carve a jack o'lantern this year. But my friend Dave did. Be sure to check out his Pumpkin House of Horrors!

And if you'd like to listen to something truly frightening, here's the Shaggs classic, "It's Halloween."

Ya! I Voted!

For the first time since I was old enough to vote, I won't be making it to the polling place come election day. I'm going to be on vacation, you see. But I am voting. Already have, in fact. Dropped my absentee ballot in the mail just this morning. So why do I feel like I just dropped it into a bottomless pit, never to be seen by human eyes again?

The cynic in me doesn't believe that absentee ballots are actually counted at all. Of course that can't be true, but has an election ever been decided by a count of absentee ballots? I kind of feel like come election night when the vote counters, or whatever, get done with that day's ballots, they look over at a pile of absentee ballots and sarcastically mutter, "Oh, let's not forget these guys."

Undoubtedly I have the whole process wrong. Nonetheless, I don't really feel like I've actually gone and done my civic duty. Maybe it's because I don't get to sport a condescending "I Voted" sticker for the rest of the day.

Stolen!

My parents' car was stolen last night. Bastards!

It's a piece of crap Honda Civic made during the last century (Ha! That's actually true!) with no radio, so why anyone would want to steal it is beyond me. It kinda looks like the one pictured. So, if you see a tan Civic hatchback with a bunch of pillows in the back, and a crooked fender, and someone behind the wheel who looks pissed that he's in such a crappy car, drop me a line.

A Storm's Approaching

Storm Large (and the Balls) will be playing the Red Devil Lounge this Thursday. But being that she won't be hitting the stage until after 11pm, and I have to work in the morning, and I'm OLD, I won't be going. Even though it is, literally, just a few blocks from my apartment.

Lame? Yes. Yes I am.

No YouTube Clips For You!

As you may have heard by now, YouTube has started to remove "Comedy Central" clips from their site.

I don't want to get into an argument about copyright laws, but this seems kind of a dumb move to me. First, Comedy Central's video viewing site sucks ass, so it's not like people will now be going over there to watch stuff. And second, most of the time, it was just clips from their shows that were making it to YouTube, which seems like nothing but free publicity to me. People see the clip, think "Me want more!" and then either watch the show on TV, or venture over to the Comedy Central site in a (usually fruitless) quest to see more.

I Got a Rock...

Tivo alert! "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" is airing on ABC tonight at 8pm.

Nothing says Halloween like clinical depression and the delusional stalking of imaginary celebrities.

Round-Up!

This week's reality round-up is now up on SFist!

Nobody's Watching Lost

The Nobody's Watching boys take on "Lost."

In case you've never head of "Nobody's Watching," it was a failed sitcom pilot that made its way to YouTube, and became a hit, giving new life to the show and its actors and writers. They have since done a bunch of short videos that can be found on YouTube and on their Web site.

Anyhoo, this is the latest. It's not the funniest thing ever, (that would be the Stanley Kubrick audition tape that's going around), but I do appreciate the cameo in it...

San Francisco Is the Island of "Lost"

Don't read this if you haven't watched the latest episode of "Lost" yet.

So, let me see if I'm getting this. The Others have lived on this island for a long time, for reasons yet to be explained. For some reason, they are wary of strangers coming to their island, so they try to clandestinely learn about the survivors of the plane crash. And maybe kidnap all their children (although that might be the work of Other Others). Then they find out one of the survivors is a spinal surgeon, and since one of them has a nice fat tumor on his spine, he goes out to get himself captured and then try and lure the surgeon, or have him set-up for an abduction back to....a second island that none of the Losties has ever managed to notice. That's a little bigger than Alcatraz.

I have indicated that I have all kinds of patience when it comes to this show. I firmly believe it's not the destination with this one, but the journey, and the journey has been a hoot. But this Others stuff is really beginning to wear me down. We have no explanation for why they continue to play mind games with these survivors, and the more that goes on, the less an explanation will really matter. It's still not clear whether the Others ARE the Dharma initiative, just survivors of the Initiative, or something completely unrelated. Someone is still delivering supplies to the hatch, so someone thinks those experiments are still going on, right? And speaking of the hatch, could they tell us what the hell happened to it already? Did that sonic boom cause anything to happen besides causing the hatch door to land on the beach? Was the hatch bunker completely destroyed? And what's with the giant foot statue?

I think the show worked better when they kind of trickled the clues in a little at a time. But now that they've devoted full episodes to the mysterious undertakings of the Others, without providing any real answers, it's just become annoying. How can they show us so much and tell us so little? There better be some awesome reveals in the next two episodes, because I want to go back to longing for the show when it goes on its three month hiatus instead of welcoming a break from the bullshit.

NBC Scrambles

"30 Rock" and "Scrubs" will be moving to Thursday nights on November 30th, giving that night two full hours of comedy as lead in to the gut-busting laugh riot that is "ER" at 10 o'clock.

This is a good sign for "30 Rock," as it means the network is actually thinking it will still be on the air a month from now. But putting it up against "CSI" and "Grey's Anatomy" is probably not going to mean better ratings, so the show is still basically on shaky ground.

There's been a lot of talk about NBC announcing they are all but giving up on producing more comedies and dramas to air during the eight o'clock hour, and will instead air reality and game shows. I had just been thinking how refreshing it's been that there are relatively few reality shows on network TV this season (comparatively) and here NBC comes along saying they want to change that. Frankly, I think reality TV hit its peak a while ago, and NBC's investing more into the genre is just a step backwards. NBC also has one of the only new dramas that can be called a hit ("Heroes") so I don't know why they aren't taking something away from that.

But the way networks work will always be a complete mystery to me. Like, why does NBC insist on running little spots at the end of shows that say something like, "Stay tuned for more '30 Rock'!" making us think there will be previews for next week, or a little stinger before the end credits, when it fact there's nothing but commercials. That's just sleazy!