Tag / Friends

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Vacation Recap: Los Angeles

dodgerstadium

We left off yesterday with me in a rental car leaving San Diego behind and heading towards the city of Angels.  The plan was to stop at Dodger Stadium on the way to my hotel and take in an afternoon matchup between the Dodgers and the Giants.  I’d given myself 3 hours to make the 2 hour drive so I would have time to get to the stadium and acclimate myself before the game started.  Trip Issue #3!  Things were smooth sailing until I got closer to LA, when traffic started to swell.  All told, the 2 hour drive ended up taking closer to 4, and I arrived in my seat during the 4th inning, by which time the Dodgers had fallen far behind.  One Dodger Dog later and many Giant home runs later, the game was over and I found my way to Glendale and the local Hilton, which would be my home for the next 4 days.

Saturday night, in search of a nice dinner, I headed out for a drive and decided to just wing it.  Somehow I ended up driving through Griffith Park and seeing some of the sights, but I didn’t find anything interesting as far as food went.  Eventually I ended up back at the hotel, where I caught the end of the Wisconsin loss in the NCAA tournament along with a tasty hamburger at the hotel bar.

muppet_starsSunday was the only day I didn’t have anything specific planned, so, after a morning walk to the local Starbucks for a nice breakfast, I headed down to Hollywood to check out the Walk of Fame and to get a good look at the famous Hollywood sign.  To be honest, the Walk of Fame was mostly creepy, other than the block or so around Hollywood and Highland, where Jimmy Kimmel’s theater is located.  I tracked down all of the Muppet-related stars and a few others of interest, including Ricardo Montalban, Mister Rogers, and George Takei. Continue reading →

by jim

Post Mortem – 30 Rock

30 RockOur look back at the shows that called it a day this year concludes with 30 Rock, the ratings challenged sitcom that somehow managed to survive for 7 seasons.  Way back in 2006, NBC’s fall schedule included 2 shows set behind the scenes at a network sketch comedy show.  Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip starred a post-Friends Matthew Perry and was created by wunderkind Aaron Sorkin.  30 Rock had a post-SNL Tina Fey and Tracey Morgan plus former movie star Alec Baldwin.  If you had to guess which show would last 7 years and which would last 1, you probably would have gotten it wrong.

While never a ratings powerhouse, 30 Rock was a critical darling and continued to be strong in to its final season.  Thursday nights will be less funny without 30 Rock going forward.

by jim

Post Mortem – Happy Endings

happy-endings-abcEvery year there is that one show that you enjoy so much that you can’t understand why nobody else is watching it and you hope and pray that it doesn’t get cancelled and then it does.  This year’s version of that show is Happy Endings, one of many faux-Friends type ensemble shows that debuted in the spring of 2011 and the only one worthy of the comparison.  I am not ashamed to say that I probably missed a third of the jokes in this show over the years, and that’s because they came at you so fast and sometimes with so little fanfare that they were easy to miss while you were still laughing at the previous one.

There was a brief moment of hope where it looked like the show would be saved by another network, but, alas, it was not to be.  Meanwhile, Two and a Half Men is preparing for its 11th season.  Seems reasonable.

by jim

Post Mortem – Go On

51SmpfypsMatthew Perry has had a few different series since Friends went off the air in 2004, each one failing to catch on with the American public.  The latest, Go On, managed to at least air for a full season before getting the boot, which is a shame.

Perry played a recent widower who joins a support group to deal with his grief, which had started to affect his sports radio talk show.  The show had some rough patches early on, but had managed to find a good groove as the season went on.  Alas, NBC, which at this point is regularly losing to Spanish language programming in the ratings, decided to once again move on from their former Friend.  Hopefully, he’ll be back soon.

by jim

Midseason Review – Tuesdays

We continue our look back at my expectations for the fall television season, and today we are focusing on Tuesdays.

7:00

Raising Hope – The quirky Fox drama returns for its third season with more of the same hilarity.

Nothing new to report on the Raising Hope front.  You know what you are going to get: no more, no less.

7:30

Ben and Kate – The premiere episode wasn’t bad, and I was pretty impressed with Dakota Johnson as Kate, but I could feel Nat Faxon’s Ben starting to grate during the first half hour.  I’m not sure how much more of him I am willing to take.

As it turns out, I wasn’t willing to take any more, since I never went back to watch any subsequent episodes.

8:00

Go On – Matthew Perry’s latest attempt to escape the shadow of Chandler Bing has aired three episodes already and it isn’t bad.  Perry plays a sports radio host who joins a support group after his wife died.

Like most of Perry’s post-Friends output, a lot of the heavy lifting is left to his charm.  There are flashes of something here, though, and if the writers can figure out how to consistently offer something beyond Perry’s innate likability, they will be on to something.

New Girl – Zooey Deschanel returns in one of last season’s break out comedy hits.  The show got stronger as the season went on and the writers found their footing, and I’m looking forward to its return.

New Girl continues to impress, and has even started to find interesting things to do with Winston this year.

Happy Endings – This went from a late season replacement to one of the most consistently funny comedies on TV last season.  The ensemble group plays well off of each other and the writers bring the funny every week.

Still funny, but it seems that hardly anyone is watching.  With ABC burning off episodes by airing them on both Tuesdays and Sundays, I fear we may be looking at the unhappy end of Happy Endings.

Continue reading →

by admin

Mix Tape Monday – Volume 18

Between 1989, my sophomore year of high school, and 1995, my fourth year of college, I put together a nearly 20 volume collection of mix tapes, containing my favorite songs that I had gathered either from the radio, a cassette tape, or (eventually) CD. I thought it would be a fun exercise to look back at all 20 volumes and which of my “favorite” songs I still listen to today.

Volume 18 covers the summer of 1995 and the lead up to the first of my two senior years of college.

Side A

Stone Temple Pilots – Dancing Days

The Led Zeppelin cover was taped off the radio courtesy of, I assume, Q101.

iTunes stats: 7 plays, most recently on 5/30/2012

PJ Harvey – Down By The Water

The surprise mainstream hit for the indie darling was taped off the radio from Q101.

iTunes stats: 7 plays, most recently on 5/15/2012

REM – Strange Currencies

The latest from the Athens, GA boys was taped off the CD.

iTunes stats: Never played

Live – All Over You

Live’s latest was taped off the CD.

iTunes stats: 5 plays, most recently on 8/15/2011

Soul Asylum – Misery

The latest from Soul Asylum was taped off the radio from Q101.

iTunes stats: 3 plays, most recently on 9/2/2011

Collective Soul – December

Collective Soul’s latest was also recorded from Chicago’s new rock alternative.

iTunes stats: 2 plays, most recently on 6/24/2010

Elastica – Connection

Elastica’s hit was taped off the CD.

iTunes stats: 7 plays, most recently on 5/25/2012

Juliana Hatfield – Universal Heart-Beat

The solo release from Juliana Hatfield was taped off the CD.

iTunes stats: 3 plays, most recently on 9/22/2010

Side B

Continue reading →