Sunday, April 24, 2011

Kacey Wraps Up Alias

I so love Jamie’s Sark/Spike comparison. Arguably two of the hottest/coolest TV villains of all time.

So I finished Alias… just a few things I wanted to make known:
WARNING CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS:

I knew Vaughn wasn’t dead. No one really dies until the very end on Alias. Even then the writers couldn’t totally kill off Sloane. But then again death was too good for him.

Jamie comments: I totally thought he was dead, but only because I am pretty sure that Jennifer Garner was actually pregnant with Ben Affleck's baby at the time.  And I knew that Jennifer Garner & Michael Vartan had dated during earlier seasons of Alias, and I was thinking, it would kind of make sense to have him leave because playing the father of the child that she is actually having with her new man... well, that could be awkward.  But clearly, they are both professionals. Or maybe I have the timelines messed up.  Who knows.
I had reservations about new characters in the 5th season, but ended up liking all of them. And as Jamie reminds us- Rachel does get the best lines regarding Sark.
Plus more badass chicks- Rachel, Renee, Peyton (even though she’s evil)

Jamie comments: I like Rachel because she helps us come back to Syd at the beginning, having no idea that she is not actually working for the CIA and then having to deal with that.  I like Amy Acker in general (Come on, who doesn't love Fred on Angel), and Peyton is an excellent addition to the dark side. 
HOWEVER- I’m not sure what the point was of having story about Thomas Grace and his dead wife, until, I guess, he got to be the hero at the end. That was sad.

Jamie comments: I liked how the character of Tom showed us a different path for someone who loses a loved one due to their job.  We've only seen Syd, so this darker, sadder take was interesting.
I never did trust Irina. She is a bad mommy.

Jack became one of my favorite characters in the 5th season. I loved when he said “this is personal for me too” (or something similar) in regards to finding out who “killed” Vaughn. And I cried when he died (but who didn’t).

I was beginning to get angry when Sark didn’t reappear for a while… but then there he was and all was right in the world.

Jamie comments: I love him.  I also love Weiss (proving that it is possible to like both bad boys and nice guys) and wish there was more of him. 
What happened to Quentin Tarantino’s character? That was some first class acting. He reappeared once and then disappeared again. Was he working for Prophet 5?

Other awesome guest start that I forgot to note in my prior post:
Ricky Gervais- I think the first serious role I’ve ever seen him in.
Jason Segel- Because of my love for Jason Segel, it only made me love Alias more.

All in all I really liked the ending, It left me with that- “spies are everywhere and you never know who is watching you” sort of feeling.

COMING SOON
How I Met Your Mother Must Know References

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Jamie's Top 5 ways Sark is like Spike

Now that Kacey has finished Alias, here it is, the top 5 ways in which Sark (Alias) is like Spike (Buffy).  I spent some time thinking about this because, well, these two deviants are among my favorite television characters of all time.  There are some Buffy season 6 issues that complicate some of this as tortured, in love with Buffy, but still doesn’t have a soul Spike is complex… to say the least.  (minor spoilers in the list, significant spoilers in the last paragraph)

1) Blonde. Thanks to a weekly dye job for Spike (or Captain Peroxide as he as been called), both are blonde.

2) Neither actor is actually British. Seriously. I was surprised too.  Especially since David Anders (Sark) is also British in his role as Adam on Heroes.

3) Flexible Loyalties. In other words, they are survivors. Sark flat out says that his loyalties are flexible. He is constantly changing sides to save his own ass and come out on the winning side.  Plus, I think he gets bored and just likes to change things up.  While Spike is very loyal to his lady love of the moment, after that he is certainly all about survival. If he needs to team up with the slayer to make sure Angel doesn't end the world or steal Dru, he has no problem with that.

4) They like to cuddle. Arguably the best line in all of Alias (at least as far as lines not said by Marshall), definitely of season 5, when Rachel makes clear, just in case she dies, that it was Sark who wanted to cuddle after their ill advised but very hot one night stand. And come on, we know that Spike is a cuddler. Between the poetry and his manly admission that he is love’s bitch, he is clearly not opposed to some serious cuddle time.

5) Respects the skills of their female nemesis. They often belittle their male nemeses, but seem to prepare more for the ladies, who can kick their asses. This probably says more about the creators/writers of these shows (than the characters themselves) that one characteristic of their most beloved villains is that they never underestimate the skills of their opponent just because she is female. Evil, selfish, sadistic, yes.  But they are practically feminists. 

Both of these shows are so wonderfully done, and have such brilliant, badass leads that it makes me appreciate even more the complexity of their nemeses.  And unlike some (many?), I love the end of both of these shows.  Now, the penultimate seasons of each show can be a little challenging to stick with, but I think it’s worth it to make it to the last season and their respective finales.  Sydney lives happily ever after, and Buffy, well, she lives on to fight another day.  [Coming soon: a look at the Buffy Season 8 Comic because the story there is too awesome to end.]

Monday, April 18, 2011

Kacey Responds To Jamie Re: Twitter To Follow

Jamie,

While you covered most of my favorites- @maureenjohnson, @wilw, @Lord_Voldemort7, @NathanFillion, @ConanOBrien, and @sesamestreet there are few others that I thoroughly enjoy.

@rainnwilson- he cracks me up... and is a little twisted at times. All in all- good fun!

@TheEllenShow- I love her random tweets with funny pictures.

@ActuallyNPH- Often very funny... and I just love him- plus cute pictures of babies!

@S_SylvesterGLEE- its really a continuation of the hysterical things that Sue says on Glee.

@StephenAtHome- it's Colbert... it's awesome...

Friday, April 15, 2011

Jamie's Twitter Recommendations

We have a number of blog posts in the works, but it's been a while and I think it's bad form to go too long between posts.  So I was trying to come up with something quick, but fun... and what better fits that than something related to Twitter.  I may also be doing this to suggest that Sarah get a Twitter account.  Mostly because I think she would be hilarious.  So, here are my top 10 favorite people to follow on Twitter:


1) @maureenjohnson - I'm just going to call her the queen of twitter.  While there are many whose followers far exceed hers, there is no one with more committment to this particular form of social media.  Maureen is an author (young adult fiction to be precise) who is funny, random, and somewhate unstable, but in a loveable way.  Follow her, she'll put your essence in a jar and care for it until the end of time, or maybe even longer.


2) @wilw - Since we're calling Maureen the queen of twitter, then Wil Wheaton is to be dubbed the king of the nerds.  Highlights of his twitter posts are when he relays random conversations or his pets' thoughts, and I am personally a fan of his frustrated sports fan viewing posts. 


3) @Lord_Voldemort7 - Kacey actually just suggested this to me and I can't believe I hadn't always been following the Dark Lord.  This feed is so funny that I might switch sides.  Just kidding.  But maybe.


4) @ConanOBrien - Always good for one quality post a day.  He is especially good if you prefer to follow people who do not tweet excessively.


5) @NathanFillion - I don't know if it's that he is exceptionally skilled at this (any more than a number of other actors I follow), but he is consistently entertaining and come on, don't you want to know what this ruggedly handsome actor is doing.  All the time.


6) @minheeshock - Someone I actually know and would recommend following for all her random political, pop cultural, and other posts and thoughts.  If you are a french dip fan like me, you may also want to check out her dedicated french dip twitter account, @FrenchDipSEA.  Yes, she has a dedicated french dip twitter account.  Let's just say we understand each other.


7) @Pres_Bartlet - You really should follow the real President too, but whoever runs this President Bartlet account does an excellent job.  They have the voice down brilliantly, you can hear Martin Sheen saying these words.  Warning, the volume is a little high.


8) @billprady - This is really just for Big Bang Theory fans like me, but if you love Sheldon & friends, then you'll want to follow show co-creator Bill Prady. 


9) @sesamestreet - Don't you want to know what Big Bird, Grover, Elmo, Abby, Bert, Ernie, and all the other Sesame Street characters are up to?  You know you do.


10) @thatkevinsmith - I would recommend making a seperate list for Kevin Smith because he can, well, dominate your feed.  He is precisely what the "list" function was made for, and I suggest using it accordingly.  You can even do what I did and add all the various other Smodcast family folks to the list.


Okay Kacey, you're up, who are your favorite people to follow on Twitter. 

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Jamie Goes to The Triple Door for Nerds & Music

The Triple Door is my favorite venue for live music.  It's just so... well, cool.  And classy, it's definitely classy.  It's best if you sip martinis or order from the overwhelmingly large wine list while you watch the show.  So when I saw that a show titled "Nerds & Music" would be playing there, well, I couldn't help but be amused.  And of course, I had to buy tickets.  I am big fan of what I am going to call nerd rock.  I don't mean to imply that I coined this term as I'm pretty sure that I got it from a blog or an article or a video somewhere, but I'm going to go with it.  Nerd rock, for my purposes, is music that covers any kind of nerdy or pop culture topic.  Like Star Trek, Pirates, Harry Potter, or Robots.  My love of this genre (yeah, I'm calling it a genre and I suggest you all check it out) combined with my love of the Triple Door meant this show was for me.  Also, it started at 7:30, which meant I could get my roommate to come with me, and we could make it through the entire show.

Other than the removal of the salt and pepper calamari from the happy hour menu (which is a tragedy!) before the show, the evening did not disappoint.  The lineup included Mike Phirman, Hank Green, & Paul and Storm.  I had heard a little of Mike Phirman from his performance on the Nerdist podcast.  In addition to performing solo, he is part of the musical comedy duo, Hard N Phirm with Nerdist podcast host Chris Hardwick - these days a nerd extraordinaire even though people my age more likely remember him as the host of Mtv's Singled Out, back when the non-music video time on Mtv stood out.  On his own Mike Phirman does a little stand-up and plays some hilarious songs.  His use of the looping machine as well as his eloquent song titled Chicken, Monkey Duck were inspired.  
After Mike came Hank Green.  And a lot of cheers.  The audience was full of nerdfighters.  What's a nerdfighter you say?  Well, technically a nerdfighter is someone who, instead of being made of bones and guts and blood and such is actually made of awesome, and they seek to decrease world suck.  Also, they watch videos made by Hank & his brother John, aka the vlogbrothers, on YouTube.  Anyhow, as I was saying there were a plethora of nerdfighters, all of whom were quite excited to see Hank play.  Hank was... nervous.  He even took off his shoe to shake out a fear bubble.  But he powered through admirably (and quickly) and played a number of my favorite of his songs including Book Eight (about Harry Potter), What Would Captain Picard Do? (Star Trek), This isn't Hogwarts (Harry Potter), and various other songs, a number of which were also about Harry Potter. 
Finally, it was time for Paul & Storm.  I have seen Paul & Storm only one other time, which was at Wootstock last May.  Wootstock is a sort of nerd festival put together by Paul & Storm, Wil Wheaton, & Adam Savage, with music & stories and mythbusting.  For my overall review, I will say that these guys are not only musically talented, but also very, very funny.  I know that musical comedy is not for everyone, but I firmly believe that they could make anyone laugh at some point in their show.  There are two things, however, that I want to highlight, so you are prepared in the event that you have the opportunity to see them.  First, the cover band jokes.  Throughout their set you will hear the following joke.  One of them will say something (doesn't matter what), and the other will follow with, "that" (thing they just said) is the name of the ________ cover band.  Example, S: "blah, blah, blah savoring the awkward", P: "Savoring the awkward is the name of my Hank Green cover band."  It's a bit of an inside joke, but the kind of inside joke that you get by the first of second time they do it, and by the 10th time that night, you will be coming up with them on your own.  The other thing to know about a Paul & Storm performance is that when they get to their last song, which is about pirates, you should probably order another drink.  This will last at least 20 minutes.  On a good night it can go on for 40+.  The song itself is maybe two and half minutes, but with commentary and the audience participation and additional cover band jokes, well... you should just sit back and enjoy the show.  All of their songs are entertaining, but the Captain's Wife's Lament is definitely the highlight.
So that was my evening of nerds and music, which, for lack of a better term was nerdtastic.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Kacey Watches Alias

For someone who doesn’t have cable I watch a quite a bit of television- mostly thanks to the internet and Netflix. My viewing choices are widely varied, but all totally awesome. I have a particular love for anything JJ Abrams- I only recently learned Felicity was JJ produced and I totally watched that; I watched Lost religiously through the end and currently look forward to the wackiness of Fringe each Friday (well usually Saturday because I have to wait until it gets posted online), however it wasn’t until rather recently did I decide to watch Alias after Jamie watched it and communicated how incredibly awesome she thought it was. So I began about a month ago to watch it. I actually spent most of my Spring Break not even waiting for the disk to arrive in the mail, but instead finding sources online to watch it. I now have one more disk in season 4 left.

So this is where I’m at: CAUTION MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Sydney might be one of the most famous badass female characters of all time- definitely up there next Buffy.

Rambaldi: The Rambaldi stuff is the reminder that Alias is not only an awesome spy show but, as Jamie put it, a reminder that it is a JJ Abrams creation. It’s weird, you’re never quite sure what the “endgame” is, and it just gets more confusing each week.

Where is Sark? Jamie has this whole idea that I will let her explain to you that Sark is like Spike from Buffy. But since he escaped (again) I have yet to see him… Where is he? (He’s my favorite bad guy)

I knew Irina wasn’t dead- sort of like a soap opera, it seems you never really die on Alias.

Sloane=Ben Linus:
  • You never really know when to believe him because it seems he ALWAYS has a hidden agenda.
  • Sloane believes in the Rambadli blindly much like Ben believed in the island.
  • They both had weaknesses for their daughters.
  • Both very creepy and even when they seem good I still kind of hate them. 
  • Just when you think you’ve got him figured out, he does something to confuse you.

I love Marshall.

I miss Will, (well a little bit just Bradley Cooper in general) but can appreciate that the complication of Sydney having civilian friends could only go one for so long, even Buffy had to tell her mom after a while that she was the Slayer.

FINALLY: I have to admit I have become a little paranoid. CIA spies could exist anywhere and most people would never know it. I find myself walking down the street and wondering if people are really who they say they are. I probably shouldn’t be writing about this or think about it too much if I don’t want to end up like Will. So please disregard- I don’t think CIA has hidden agents everywhere….

Sunday, April 3, 2011

An Official Introduction

Greetings and Salutations


As the title of this page and the sidebar imply, we are 3 sisters.  And this is our blog.  Kacey wanted to call it 3 sisters discuss movies and TV and books and other important things, or something along those lines, but she has been convinced that may be a little long. 
For our first post we complied a list of things we feel are vitally important to knowing and understanding about us and wanted to share it with all those who are eagerly awaiting to read it.


1) If _____ was a character in Harry Potter she would be:
Jamie - Hermione because of her cleverness and highly logicalness… and she likes to go to the library.
Kacey - Mrs. Weasley, she takes care of everyone but is still a total badass
Sarah - She would have the wittiness and entertainment value of the Weasley twins, but the feistiness of Ginny.
2) If _____ was a How I Met Your Mother character she would be:
Jamie -  Marshall- she can lawyer you with her smarts and she is eagerly looking forward to carving a turkey with a lightsaber… well actually it will probably just be safer if she watches
Kacey - Lily, because she's a teacher and she loves Marshall
Sarah - Robin, sometimes she's a Woo Girl and sometimes a little goofy (and the only sister to have ever shot a gun), but overall totally awesome.
3) If _____ was a movie genre she would be:
Jamie - Musical… she has a soundtrack for everything and if she had any singing ability she would sing everything instead of say it.
Kacey - Children/Family drama, the kind where you cry because you're so happy.
Sarah - Action comedy
4) If _____ was a drink she would be:
Jamie - Wine, because it gets better with age and because she drinks a lot of it
Kacey - Anything with one of those little umbrellas in it
Sarah - Jagermeister, she can mix it, bomb it, and shoot it.
5) If _____ was a movie the song that played in the trailer would be:
Jamie - Take Me Out to the Ball Game… or some other sports pump up song like Zombie Nation.
Kacey - Don't Rain On My Parade
Sarah - Reggae Music
6) If _____ was a crayon color she would be:
Jamie - Ocean Blue….or sand color… something beachy.
Kacey - Pink
Sarah - Bright orange or yellow 
7) Which That 70s Show Character would she date?
Jamie - Eric Forman….definitely Forman
Kacey - Hyde
Sarah - Kelso
8) If _____ was a Buffy character she would be:
Jamie - Giles…and not just because she’s the oldest, but because she kind of a nerd who is actually totally awesome and will kick your ass. And she does take care of us.
Kacey - Cordelia once she moved to L.A. and got the visions
Sarah - Buffy, she's a badass who just wants to save the world
9) If _____ was a Muppet she would be:
Jamie - Scooter
Kacey - Miss Piggy, for the style alone.
Sarah - Statler & Waldorf, she's funny and would totally go see Fozzie's Ma at Christmas
10) If _____ was a cartoon character from our childhood she would be:
Jamie - Rainbow Bright
Kacey - Elmer Fudd
Sarah - Launchpad
11) If _____ was a Disney female lead she would be:
Jamie - Anastasia. She can totally take care of herself. And plus- John Cusack
Kacey - Belle, she loves books, appreciates inner beauty and could definitely handle talking cutlery and furniture
Sarah - Meg, again with the feisty.
12) If _____ was a food she would be:
Jamie - Anything you can put on a BBQ…. she is a master griller.
Kacey - Meatloaf
Sarah - Spicy Mexican, or more likely just bean, cheese, and a tortilla
13) Her superpower would be:
Jamie - reading at lightning speed and retaining tons of information… and picking the slowest line at the supermarket.
Kacey - Teaching anyone in the world to do anything.  And probably making them obey her.  But she'd totally use that power for good.  Mostly.
Sarah - Bringing people together to "love each other"
14) On Captain Planet _____ would be:
Jamie - Linka- no-nonsense, take charge kind of lady and wind
Kacey - Earth
Sarah - Ma-Ti, big heart and can talk to animals
15) Her job on Firefly would be:
Jamie - Can she be Beckett on Firefly? Does that work?
Kacey - the mechanic as Serenity would certainly talk to her and she would rock that pink dress
Sarah - the muscle, she would get stuff done. Jayne would fear her.
16) If _____ was on Lost she would be:
Jamie - Charlotte
Kacey - Penny
Sarah - Miles or Saeed
17) If _____ was on Glee she would be:
Jamie - Blaine with a little of Ms. Pillsbury's OCD
Kacey - Kurt or Mercedes
Sarah - The Beast or Puck