John Turner

In America, you’re (allegedly) innocent until proven guilty. Not so much recently, thanks to things like the PATRIOT Act, but in the beginning, that was the intent. So, I can’t judge Michael Vick quite yet, because he may be innocent, though the details of his indictment seem pretty damning. But, I can say this: if this is true, Vick should be treated to a few rounds of the exact same treatment he gave those dogs. [Read more →]

HBO’s Entourage has totally jumped the shark, and it seems I’m not the only one with that opinion. For me, the fourth-season opener was basically unwatchable…I was cringing and gritting my teeth through all 28 minutes or whatever it was. The show used to be outrageously funny with ferociously biting satire but now its like a really, really bad teen “coming of age” movie. The Vince character in this latest episode looked like a doofus trying to portray Pablo Escobar, and while I can’t stand the Billy Walsh character, I shouted in agreement when he dissed Drama during the table read. If I hear another bad pick up line out of Johnny Drama, I’ll scream and it won’t be pretty. Trust me. Oh, and if I ever see Kevin Connolly’s smirk in real life, I’ll rip it off his face.

Luckily for HBO, though, they have “Big Love” and now “The Flight of the Conchords”. “Conchords” has to be the funniest show I’ve seen in a long, long time. Funnier than “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” even. All due respect to Tenacious D, but JB and KG can only WISH their show was as funny as “Conchords”. Watching the premiere, I was on the fence until I heard the first song, “Part-Time Model”. The lyrics killed, there’s just no other way to put it:

You’re so beautiful
You could be a waitress
You’re so beautiful
You could be an air hostess in the ‘60’s
You’re so beautiful
You could be a part-time model

Funny and wickedly clever on so many levels…don’t miss the rest. This is a show I will not miss every week. Thank you, HBO!!

I haven’t listened to the radio in over 4 years. Any type of radio…FM, AM, satellite, whatever, I haven’t listened to it. The state of Detroit radio is the worst…there isn’t a single station I can listen to for any length of time, and I’m not one of those people that spends 3 hours a day in their car, so satellite radio has no attraction, either. But, I love music, so for the last few years I’ve been relying on movie soundtracks, TV commercials and shows (like Entourage and Weeds), and the referral engines at Pandora and iTunes for my music fixes.

You’d be surprised how much cool music can be found on TV commercials these days…they kind of sneak it in. I think the first time I realized this, it was a couple of years ago and I was wondering what song was playing during a Diet Coke commercial. It took me a couple of days to figure out, but I finally did (it was “Callin’ Out” by Lyrics Born).

Another site I’ve found really helpful is Soundtrack Info. Got a question about something you heard in a movie? Ask it there, and there’s a good chance it will get answered. Pretty cool!!

Every morning at work lately, when I crank up my iPod nano, the first song I must listen to is “Dance This Mess Around” by the B-52’s. I’m not sure what that means, exactly. The song is what, 30 years old? I think it was released in ‘79. Oh well, I can only hope whatever it is that’s got me hooked on this song is good, because I don’t think my janky HMO will cover it if it isn’t. If I felt like splurging on a purchase, I’d buy one of those iPod-capable clock radios and set it as my wake-up alarm.

I went to see “300″ yesterday. It was pretty good. Not as good as the hype, but pretty good. Another movie I saw over the weekend was “The Holiday” on DVD. The movie was pretty good, but for me the highlight was seeing the house that Cameron Diaz’s character lived in. My entire house is basically the size of that house’s living room, but I gotta say the decorating really grabbed me. I loved the neutral walls, dark wooden floors, and natural toned rugs and furniture with splashes of different colors. It looked really calm and soothing…I think I’ll try something similar in my own house.

Just watched “Stranger than Fiction” on DVD (thanks, Netflix!). All I can say is “wow”. What a wonderful, brilliant movie. It was exceptional on so many levels, it really can’t be described. Highly recommended…if you have the opportunity to see it, do so! I’m going to be adding it to my “Top Ten Movies of All Time” list, I think!

Engadget has a post about the recent vulnerability in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks. I didn’t get into all the details, but apparently all it took was someone watching the memory registers on their computer for changes…eventually one of the keys was shown in the clear, and that’s all she wrote. Big media companies will never get it…DRM will ALWAYS fail as long as it involves having to distribute keys to customers. As one commenter notes, you can’t have encryption if you need to distribute the keys for decryption. That’s a recipe for a crack. Instead of spending money on increasing value and making content better, big media companies are wasting millions, perhaps billions, fighting a battle they can never win. They’d be better off (as Steve Jobs also suggests) simply releasing their content in a way that encourages customer loyalty, instead of presuming all of their customers are thieving pirates.