Tag / HIMYM

by admin

iTunes Top 200 Artists: #178-188

It’s been 4 years since we last counted down the Top 200 artists in my iTunes library.  Since my iTunes stats are still intact, across multiple PCs, iPods, iPads, and iPhones, I figured it was time to take another look at the artists that have entertained me the most based on number of plays from late 2007 through January 1, 2021.

We continue today with our next batch of 10 artists, the remaining 3 tied for 188th place, 2 tied for 186th, 4 tied for 182nd, and the first tied for 178th.  5 of these bands and/or performers are newcomers to this list.

#188: Scorpions
iTunes stats: 46 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

The German rockers added 25 new listens to their 3 songs in my collection to power their way on to the countdown.

#188: Sixpence None The Richer
iTunes stats: 46 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

Named after a passage from a CS Lewis book, the Christian alternative rock band makes their debut on the back of 40 songs, which picked up 23 new plays.

#188: Will Smith
iTunes stats: 46 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

Appearing much higher on the charts as part of a duo, the solo work of the rapper/actor makes its debut thanks to 24 additional listens over the past 4 years.

#186: The Rembrandts
iTunes stats: 47 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

Adding in an additional song to the collection has helped the performers of the theme song from Friends to debut on the countdown.

#186: Robin Sparkles
iTunes stats: 47 plays
Previous ranking: #152

A 34 spot drop for the alter ego of Cobie Smulders’ character from How I Met Your Mother, who combines only 17 new listens to her 2 Canadian pop hits.

#182: Cardigans
Continue reading →

by admin

Book 8 (of 52) – TV (The Book)

TV (The Book): Two Experts Pick The Greatest American Shows Of All Time – Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz

Lamenting the lack of serious television criticism in book form, like there has been for years for film, former newspapermen Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz team up to rank the 100 greatest American television shows of all time, giving their explanation on why each one deserves its spot in the American cultural landscape.  Aside from The Simpsons, which has been on the air for 50 years or so and took home the top spot after much deliberation, currently airing shows were not eligible for consideration.

Separated into 4 categories, The Inner Circle, No-Doubt-About-It Classics, Groundbreakers and Workhorses, and Outlier Classics, the list runs the gamut from television’s earliest days, with classics like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners, to today’s (well, yesterday’s) biggest hits.  As we are living in the golden age of Peak TV, the majority of the list is certainly from the past 20 years or so.

My television watching has had me watch all or a good portion of 24 of these classic series, either in first run or syndication.  Those shows are:

The Simpsons
Cheers
Seinfeld
MASH
Louie
The X-Files
Lost
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Continue reading →

by admin

iTunes Top 200 Artists: #150-159

3 years ago, we first counted down the then Top 100 artists in my iTunes library.  Since that time, I’ve successfully managed to migrate my music collection to a new PC with the stats intact.  So, I figured it was time to take another look, expanding out the field to the top 200 artists, based on number of plays from late 2007 through January 1, 2017.

Today, we continue our journey with the last group of artists that make up the bottom 50 on our list.

#159: Divinyls
iTunes stats: 29 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

The Australian band touched themselves all the way up to tie for this spot on the chart.

#159: Bree Sharp
iTunes stats: 29 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

2 tracks from the singer’s debut album combine to place her on the chart.

#152: Violent Femmes
iTunes stats: 30 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

The debut album from the Wisconsin band contributes 4 songs that make up their total.

#152: Robin Sparkles
iTunes stats: 30 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

The alter ego of Cobie Smulders character from How I Met Your Mother combines her 2 Canadian pop hits to make up this total.

#152: Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
iTunes stats: 30 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

The punk rock supergroup, who only do covers, use 4 tracks to combine for their total.

#152: Lenny Kravitz
iTunes stats: 30 plays
Previous ranking: N/A

The son of TV’s Roxie Roker makes the list thanks to 4 tracks.

#152: Kanye West
Continue reading →

by jim

Post Mortem – A To Z

atozWay back on Halloween, NBC announced that A to Z, their new sitcom starring Cristin Milioti and Ben Feldman, would finish out its 13 episode run and then come to an end.  Despite positive reviews, the last episode to air prior to the announcement garnered an anemic 0.7 rating.

After her charming turn as the titular mother on the final season of How I Met Your Mother, I was looking forward to spending more time with Milioti’s work.  Sadly, this show, while not really bad, wasn’t particularly good either.  I hope to see Milioti back on my television again at some point, in something more worthy of her charm and talent.

by admin

Top 200 Albums – #186 – 196

itunes_imageMy latest desktop computer arrived in late 2007, at which point I transitioned all of my music off of my laptop. 2 iPods, 3 iPhones, and an iPad later, that computer is still my main repository of music, with iTunes updating its stats every time I listen to something.

Having already gone through cassette tapes and CDs, and digital music, it’s time to roll everything up with the Top 200 albums whose songs I’ve listened to as of September 2014, according to iTunes. Today we continue with the bottom of the list and look at the 11 albums tied for 186th with 22 listens.

#186: Various Artists – TV Themes Of The 80’s
iTunes stats: 22 plays
5 different theme songs from some of the most popular TV shows of the 1980s contributed to the total for this collection.

#186: Robin Sparkles – Make It Sparkle!
iTunes stats: 22 plays
The 2 faux-Canadian hits from the How I Met Your Mother character make up the total for this “album”.

#186: 2Pac – All Eyez On Me
iTunes stats: 22 plays
2Pac’s collaboration with Dr. Dre is the one song from this album that I have listened to.

#186: Rancid – …And Out Come The Wolves
iTunes stats: 22 plays
The two hits from this album split the total number of listens nearly down the middle.

#186: Belly – Star
iTunes stats: 22 plays
The debut album from the offshoot band of Throwing Muses had 2 songs contibute to this total.

#186: Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere
iTunes stats: 22 plays
The collaboration between mashup DJ Danger Mouse and singer CeeLo Green used 2 songs to make this list.

#186: Warrant – Cherry Pie
Continue reading →

by admin

2014 New Fall Season – Thursdays

old-tv-set1Thursday night is traditionally the busiest night of the week. Here’s what’s on the slate for this season.

7:00

Grey’s Anatomy – The medical drama enters its 11th season with a move to an earlier timeslot.  There are cast changes aplenty this year, so hopefully the show can continue its recent quality upswing.

The Big Bang Theory – The show returns to Thursdays in late October, following the midpoint of the NFL season.

Bones – The show moves back to Thursdays for its 10th season.  Beyond that, there’s not much to say about the show that hasn’t already been said.

8:00

Gracepoint – FOX hopes that taking a successful British mystery, Broadchurch, and remaking it for an American audience while keeping the same star, David Tennant, will make lightning hit twice.

8:30

A to Z – The pilot didn’t exactly reach out and grab me, but star Cristin Milloti, fresh from her turn as the titular mother in the final season of How I Met Your Mother, is exceedingly charming, so I will give this a longer chance to impress.

9:00

Elementary – Sherlock and Watson return for a third season of helping the NYPD solve their cases. Continue reading →

by admin

2014 New Fall Season – Mondays

old-tv-set1Day 2 of our look at the new fall television season brings us to Mondays.

7:00

The Big Bang Theory – CBS spent $275 million to broadcast 8 Thursday night NFL games, so The Big Bang Theory moves back to Mondays until late October.  The show continues to be a ratings powerhouse, so hopefully the move doesn’t shake things up too much.

2 Broke Girls – Once The Big Bang Theory returns to its Thursday perch, 2 Broke Girls will return to the Monday slot it inherited last spring from How I Met Your Mother.  At this point, the show is what it is, so there is no point on hoping that the writers move away from their lowest common denominator form of comedy.  As long as Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings continue to charm, I will continue to watch.  But their charms only go so far.

Gotham – FOX gets in the superhero game with this Batman prequel, set in the days just after a young Bruce Wayne has witnessed the death of his parents.  The show has been sold as more of the Gotham police force dealing with the criminals that will one day become Batman’s fiercest foes.

8:00

Sleepy Hollow – I am going to be completely honest and say I don’t really remember much about the first season of this show, other than it was a little crazy and it didn’t exactly grab me as much as it seemigly did everyone else.  I guess I’ll stick around until/unless I find something to take its place.

Jane The Virgin – The first CW pilot in years to not feature either vampires or superheroes is an adaptation of a Venezuelen telenovela.  Early reports are that it is one of the better pilots of the fall, so I guess I can give it a shot.

9:00 Continue reading →

by jim

Post Mortem – How I Met Your Mother

himymAfter nine seasons, How I Met Your Mother wrapped up its run on CBS back on March 31.  Sadly, the finale will likely color everyone’s thoughts of the series as a whole, and not in a good way.  Back in the early days of the show, with early cancellation a very real threat and with the actors portraying the children getting older, the producers filmed an ending of them reacting to Ted’s story.  Unfortunately, they chose to stick with that ending.

Had the show ended after 2 or 3 seasons, the ending, with Ted explaining that the children’s mother had passed away and them encouraging him to move on with Robin, would have been perfect.  Unfortunately, with the show running 9 seasons, the writers and producers spent so much time and energy keeping Ted and Robin apart that there was no satisfaction in them ultimately ending up together.

The sad thing is that they managed to hit a home run by casting Cristin Milioti as the mother.  The few glimpses we had of her in the final season, which was another misstep I’ll get to in a moment, showed she had amazing chemistry with Josh Radnor’s Ted.  Assuming she was available for more than what she was used, it was a waste to use her as little as they did.  Instead, the entire 9th season was focused on the weekend leading up to Robin and Barney’s wedding.  Which wouldn’t have been bad except the marriage ended about 10 minutes into the final episode.

Looking further back, the show was a favorite from the beginning, and continued to be a strong performer well into its run.  Which makes it all the more disappointing that it ended on such a down note.

by admin

CBS Upfronts

PersonOfInterestRelevance1CBS, which fell behind NBC in the battle for 18-49 year olds thanks to the NFL and Olympics, mixed up their schedule for the fall at their upfront presentation this week.  After inking a deal to simulcast 8 weeks of Thursday Night Football, The Big Bang Theory will temporarily move back to Mondays, bumping 2 Broke Girls off the schedule until November.  Katharine McPhee stars in Scorpion, which will take the 8:00 hour.

Person of Interest stays where it is on Tuesday and Criminal Minds continues on Wednesdays.  Kevin Williamson brings a new drama, Stalker, to Wednesday featuring Dylan McDermott and Maggie Q.  Once the football commitment ends at the end of October, BBT and Elementary return to Thursdays.  The Amazing Race moves to Fridays, where it will be followed by holdovers Hawaii 5-0 and Blue Bloods.  The Good Wife continues on Sundays, where it will be joined be OG CSI and Tea Leoni’s new show, Madam Secretary.

The Mentalist will start off on the bench, along with a new version of The Odd Couple, starring Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon.  Missing altogether is How I Met Your Dad, the “spinoff” of How I Met Your Mother that seemed like a shoe-in to get picked up.

by admin

Midseason Review – Mondays

old-tv-set1Day 2 of our look back at my thoughts on the new fall television season and what is new for the winter and spring.

7:00

How I Met Your Mother – Entering its 9th and final season, the show finally introduced the titular mother in last spring’s finale.  This entire season will take place over the weekend of Barney and Robin’s wedding, but should have some flashbacks and flashforwards involving the mother.

The show has worked best this season when the mother has been involved, which, sadly, hasn’t been too often.  The plan is for it to air without reruns through the series finale in March.

Bones – Also returning for its 9th season, Bonesstarts the year on Mondays but is scheduled to move to Fridays after the World Series.  Replacing it on Mondays will be

Well, FOX finally pulled the trigger and actually moved Bones to Fridays.  Not much to say about the show that hasn’t already been said.  It seems to just keep chugging along.

Almost Human – Brought to us by some of the good folks responsible for Fringe, I’ll give this a shot, assuming it ever does show up on Mondays.

We’re 9 episodes into the season and I’m still not sure what to make of this one.  More often than not, I find myself falling asleep during the show, which I guess doesn’t bode well for it.

8:00

2 Broke Girls – Entering its 3rd season, it is time to accept that this show is not going to change.  It will continue to feature two talented leads and surround them with base racial stereotypes and humor aimed towards the lowest common denominator.  To this point, the charm of the leads has been enough to overcome bad things about the show.  At some point, though, that is bound to change.

The status quo got shaken up a bit, first with the addition of the cupcake window at the back of the diner and then with the addition of the baking school. Continue reading →