I just watched the season opener for "House" and it was probably the best TV show I have seen in years. And trust me, I watch a LOT of TV shows.
So what was so amazing about this episode? Well, first of all there was no old supporting cast. One can come into this 6th season knowing only that Dr Greg House is a selfish, arrogant, diagnostic genius and it all flows on from there.
I have never seen a season opener that is so intense, focused, dramatic and, lets not forget, entertaining!
I have watched quite a few season premieres of shows that we have been looking forward to. Nothing comes even close to the impact that "House" has. And its a double episode! Which genius thought of that?
Personally I had no idea where the plot could go on this series, it has always been a standard setup in each show:
1. Odd symptoms 2. House gets the diagnosis wrong 3. House annoys students / interns / anyone /everyone 4. House gets diagnosis right 5. Smiles all round!
This episode just blew me away and I look forward to watching the rest of the series.
The House season 6 premiere was a one-man show for Hugh Laurie, and I'm pretty sure all die-hard House fans had a grand time. And as much as I hate to admit it, much less admit it, I kind of did not miss the supporting characters. Maybe I miss Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) a bit, but only when she interacts with House, so I guess the doctor is still the integral part of that missing element.
Apparently "House" was the most watched premiere:
The two-hour season premiere of Fox's drama House emerged as the runaway ratings winner on the first night of the broadcast networks' premiere week. The show averaged a 6.1/16 with 15.8 million viewers at 8 p.m. before rising to a 6.8/16 and 17.2 million viewers in its second hour. It's a significant jump for the show, whose one-hour premiere last fall averaged a 5.6/16 and 14.4 million viewers.
I read a few blogs about 2nd Amendment rights and gun control - about 35 blogs actually. As a Brit living in Israel I have gone from a country allergic to the thought of gun possession to a country that depends on them being in every house, available for use at a moment's notice.
At the cunningly named 3 Boxes of BS (Soap Box, Ballot Box and Ammo Box –An average person's view on society, politics and firearms) Bob has an excellent article which left me angry, upset and slightly scared.
Once they arrived, he only had a little more than two months with them.
On Jan. 6, Rai, a 48-year-old convenience store clerk, was repeatedly shot inside the TL Food store on East Lancaster Avenue by Leonard Junior Coulter, a drug addict in need of money for his next fix. Rai, a native of Nepal who had just become a U.S. citizen seven months before, died that same morning at a Fort Worth hospital.
A legal immigrant, who worked within the system to come to our country and more cut down by a thug looking for his next fix.
Rai’s widow said it well:
Rai’s widow, Toukta Rai, took the stand to describe to Coulter the loss he had caused her and her family. She said her husband would have helped him that January morning, had he only asked.
“My husband had only 2 1/2 months to get to know his children when he brought them here and he never got to see them grow up like young adults,” Toukta Rai said. “He worked for 10 years to get them here from Nepal. Because of your selfish action, he is no longer with us. It is not right that you killed my husband just for your own pleasure of getting high.”
Go read the article to see the sting in the tale at the end. Well worth it I assure you.
After having their 11th child, an Arkansas couple decided that was enough, as they couldn't afford a larger bed. So her husband went to his veterinarian and told him that his cousin didn't want to have anymore children. His doctor told him there was a procedure called a vasectomy that could fix the problem but it was expensive. A less costly alternative, said the doctor, was to go home, get a cherry bomb, light it and put it in a beer can, then hold it can up to his ear and count to 10.
The Arkansas man said to the doctor "I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I don't see how putting a cherry bomb in a beer can next to my ear and counting to 10 is gonna help me." "Trust me" said the doctor. So the man went home, lit a cherry bomb and put it in a beer can. He held it up to his ear and began to count:
"1"
"2"
"3"
"4"
"5"
At which point he paused, placed the can between his legs and resumed counting on the other hand.
To raise support and create awareness for a new elementary school in Zambia, Africa, Greg Krause has committed to fly via jetBlue airlines for 30 days, virtually non-stop. He auctinoed off the rights to advertise on himself during the course of this journey, with the entire amount of the winning bid being donated to a new elementary school in Zambia.
Greg will be flying over 55,000 miles on close to 50 flights and passing through 25 different cities. This is all possible with the jetBlue All You Can Jet Pass. For $599 Krause purchased this pass and has been able to book unlimited flights on any of jetBlue routes.
4 Years ago, my parents were asked to start an elementary school in the village of Macha, Zambia. This school now has 75 students and a boarding home. One of the greatest needs is a reliable 4X4 vehicle to transport the children and bring supplies into this remote village. Together we can make a difference!
What a great commitment and sacrifice!
A non profit organization called Orphan’s Promise won the eBay auction to advertise on Greg's shirt. Let's just hope he has more than one shirt to travel with!
In my last post I added an image from Robb Allen's blog 'Sharp as a Marble'. I always found his blog interesting and actually laughed out loud (aka lol) at this one today.
Its about how to bloggingly behave.
Read the post and realise that lazy / selfish bloggers may have more than they bargained for on their pages.
They put up this (as I did)butafter stealing his bandwidth got this.
Well, its not Fall yet but Autumn is round the corner and Autumn rhymes with nothing. Except 'caught 'em'.But I digress. President Carter recently showed us all what kind of a nincompoop he is.
Normally I wouldn't bother to pass on my opinion to you all, but President Carter has made some rather stupid comments about the area where I live and I'd like the world to know what a complete fool the man is:
ATLANTA – Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act "based on racism" and rooted in fears of a black president.
"I think it's based on racism," Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."
Okay then President Carter, when exactly will people be allowed to show an opinion that isn't President Obama's without being called a racist? 2011? 2024?? Or just plain never argue with the Obamassiah?
Actually I'll allow the masterly Joe Saward in his Grand Prix Blog explain it. The mixture of love for Formula 1, in it's purer form, and the desire or need to blog;
Blogs are about opinions, not just straight journalism… I would rather write of the good things that Grand Prix racing has to offer, rather than the latest sleazy scandal. .... It is a universal truth that those who live by the sword must accept that they will likely die by the sword as well. Flav knew the rules of the game and he has only himself to blame if he has been caught.
And he continues straight into the meat of the matter, and the reason that I was shaking my head last night and kept telling Her Indoors (aka Mrs Jumblerant) 'I don't get it, I just don't understand why they did it'.
The sordid tale of Singapore 2008 has no place in F1. It is a tale of miserable cynical people, people with no souls. Where is the passion in doing such things? Where is the joy? Where is the pride? Where is the honour? It was all just to keep them on the Renault gravy train. To keep their jobs when they did not deserve to be kept....
Winning is not about finishing first, winning is about passion, about pride, about the joy and the thrill of the contest.
And if you have to manufacture that, then you are lost… and have no place in the sport.
Yes Joe, that is how I feel. And thank you for putting it so eloquently. That is why I read your blog.
So, what the gosh darned rooting tooting is that title all about then?
I am a fan of Formula 1. Any sport that can end in serious pain if you make a mistake gets my attention. Formula 1 has the added draw of having a large amount of information flowing throughout the year and not just on race day.
Crashes are not uncommon but generally do not alter the final result as they either happen at the first corner to some back markers or later on in the race to a couple of cars who are fighting for position and then take each other out.
There are some famous crashes such as Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton deSilva Senna's fatal crashes (in the same weekend), as well as Michael Schumacher taking himself or nearest competitor out, and a couple of beauties when cars went, literally, flying over others.
That's not the point though. The level of danger involved is the point.
Any crash involves pieces of car flying at high speed in all directions. This allows the energy in the crash to dissipate without harming the driver. But it also means that basically, bits go flying everywhere. Tyres have landed in the crowd killing spectators and we are coming to terms, in F1, with the fact that Felipe Massa is going to be out for the rest of the season because he was hit in the head by a piece of debris that fell off another car in front of his during a practice session.
He was hit in the helmet with a 800g piece of coiled metal at over 180mph that left him unconscious. He is recovering now and has a beautiful scar (above) to tell the tale.
And that is where today's revelations leave me with my mouth agape and my mind not comprehending what happened.
Nelson Piquet Jr.'s intentional crash, in the the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.
Today it was revealed that one team, Renault, had asked one of its drivers, Nelson Piquet Jr., to crash on purpose. The FIA stated that Renault had planned and carried out actions:
to cause an intentional accident with the aim of causing the deployment of the safety car to the advantage of their other driver, Fernando Alonso, who went on to win.
The team stated
“The ING Renault F1 Team will not dispute the recent allegations made by the F.I.A. concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix,”
Which is pretty damn shameful, dangerous and ultimately, suicidal for the careers of those involved.
So what also gets my goat here, and you may notice that I'm still very annoyed and shocked by it all, is that they actually thought that they could get away with it.
In an industry where millions of dollars hang in the balance for every point a driver can make people are going to be ruthless. And they are going to have very long memories.
The chap on the left, Flavio 'Flav' Briatore, has been in Formula 1 for a very long time. He helped to bring Michael Schumacher into the limelight. He was teh Team leader for Renault.
The chap on the left is Pat Symonds. He too has been in F1 forever and he was Flav's no. 2 man.
Today they both left their current (and probably last) Formula 1 team after the team admitted that these two individuals had in fact conspired with their no. 2 driver, Nelson Piquet Jr., to alter the outcome of the race.
Mrs J and I just went to the local mall to pick up our new iTouch which we won in a lottery. Any hints and tips about accessories, plug-ins, add-ons and other detritus which surrounds the iTune?
I had an exceptionally long day doing nothing of any relevance (the highlight of the day was cleaning out the communal garden of dead leaves - yeebloodyha).
On the assumption that there might be a Star Wars fan or two out there, let me invite you over to Damn Cool Pics where there are some amazing pictures from a Korean fan's apartment;
I guess this is by the front door to scare away intruders.
Today will mark 8 years since the attacks of World Trade Center I and II, The Pentagon, Shanksville, American Airlines Flights 11 & 77, and United Airlines Flight 93 & 175.
On that day 2,996 people were ripped from their lives. But as the media and society tend to do, they have focused on the killers. We’ve all learned more about them than we wanted to. On that day many of us made a pledge to never forget what happened.
Some of us bloggers are trying to keep that promise by learning about the people who died that day. Use the link below to visit their sites and read about the people they have chosen to remember.
http://project2996.wordpress.com/
Frank Bennet Reisman
When Frank Reisman was single, mountain climbing was his passion. The summer after the end of college, he hiked the Appalachian Trail alone from Maine to Pennsylvania, picking up dry food that his parents, George and Evie, mailed to him at post offices along the way.
After Mr. Reisman married, family was his focus. Every evening around 6:15 he returned home, where his wife, Gayle, and their two children, Kasey and Dillon, always waited for him to have dinner.
Living in Princeton, N.J., and working at Cantor Fitzgerald on the equities desk, Mr. Reisman, 41, was the perfect suburban daddy, his wife said. He coached Kasey's softball team and took Dillon to golf on the weekends. He taught them how to download music from the Internet and ferret out useful information. Because he left home before the children got up for school, he always sent them online messages from work.
On the morning of the attack, he phoned his wife, who happened to be out jogging. He reached his mom. "He said: `I'll be fine. Don't panic, Mom. I love you,' " Evie Reisman said, as tears welled up in her eyes.
REISMAN-Frank Bennett, 41, cruelly and tragically taken from his dearly loved and loving family and friends in the terrorist attack September 11 on the World Trade Center.
Frank is survived and will be sorely missed by his cherished wife, Gayle, his darling children, Kasey 11 and Dillon 9, and by his loving parents, Evie and George.
Wherever he went he made friends; with his kindness, sweet nature, sense of humor, intellectual quickness, and sincere interest in people he was the exemplar of the term ''GreatGuy''.
Frank attended The Elisabeth Morrow School, he graduated in '77 from Dwight-Englewood School and earned a B.A. at Skidmore College in the Class of 1981. Following college and a ''tune-up'' of winter mountaineering in the Adirondacks High Peaks he hiked the Northern section of the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Pennsylvania and then joined his family's manufacturing company, Natalie Lamp & Shade Corp. Afterwards, he was an equities trader with Franklin Resources and for the last 5 years has been at Cantor Fitzgerald's trading desk on the 104th floor of the WTC.
1. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
3. I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?
4. Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
5. That’s enough, Nickelback.
6. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
7. The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase “Regards” again.
8. Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.
9. There is a great need for sarcasm font.
10. Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what was going on when I first saw it.
11. I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.
12. The other night I hit a new low at an open bar. I had already hopped on highway blackout when, inevitably I had to find a bathroom. Eventually I decided it was probably on the other side of the bar so I tried to walk over there, but ran into a guy coming the other way. We played that, Both go left, Both go right game to no avail, so I finally put out my hand to guide myself past and that’s is when I realized, yup, that’s a mirror I just tried to walk through. And the guy on the other side is me. Even cats can recognize their own image.
13. How the he!! are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
14. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
15. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
16. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
17. A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
18. Was learning cursive really necessary?
19. Lol has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.
20. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
21. Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
22. My brother’s Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, “Cuz we beat you, and you hate us.” Classy, bro.
23. Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.
24. How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?
25. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a d**k from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
26. Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an attorney and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)..ummm…Goonies”
27. What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?
28. While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.
29. MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
30. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
31. I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
32. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
33. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.
34. Bad decisions make good stories
35. Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red RyderBB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!
36. Is it just me or do high school girls get s!uttier & s!uttier every year?
37. If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.
38. Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from, this shouldn’t be a problem….
39. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
40. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.
41. There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
42. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
43. “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.
44. I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’
45. While watching the Olympics, I find myself cheering equally for China and USA . No, I am not of Chinese descent, but I am fairly certain that when Chinese athletes don’t win, they are executed.
46. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dang!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?
47. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
48. When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
49. I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
50. Why is a school zone 25 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…
51. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
52. Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
53. It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.
54. I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
55. I think that if, years down the road when I’m trying to have a kid, I find out that I’m sterile, most of my disappointment will stem from the fact that I was not aware of my condition in college.
56. Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what do to with it.
57. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…
58. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the he!! do I respond to that?
59. It really pi$$es me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
60. I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.
61. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
62. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.
63. The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There’s nothing like being made to feel like a fat b@st@rd before dinner.
In today's vein of gun-blogging here is a nice little discussion point from Say Uncle.
...we should make guns illegal because a man with a gun and restraining order against him (illegal) violated that order (illegal) and shot his family (also, illegal). Why, if only one more law could make it a bit more illegal, then it would never happen.
Talk amongst yourselves for a bit. Then go and buy a gun!
Image via Wikipedia
butafter stealing his bandwidth got this.
