Ever since I finished the wire, I’ve needed a new show to steal from the internet. I’ve been watching 30 Rock, which is good, but just doesn’t draw me in like a good drama, So I’m asking you, our readership, for recommendations. I don’t want to get into Lost or 24, and for some reasons The Sopranos doesn’t appeal to me (but I know it’s probably good, so I could be convinced). Breaking Bad has already been recommended to me so there’s the first nominee.
here are some shows I liked a lot (enough to watch every episode):

• Deadwood
• Battlestar Galactica
• The Wire
• Twin Peaks

It was the highlight of Square One, the cheesy math show I watched after elementary school on PBS. It’s like dragnet, but the detectives carry calculators in their shoulder holsters.

A bunch of the Episodes are on youtube. It’s still cheesy, but there are lots of jokes there’s no way I got when I was 9. Here’s part one of a classic, six-part cliffhanger in case you also want to reminisce:
YouTube - Mathnet - The Trial of George Frankly Pt. 1

It’s been a hectic summer for me. Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York. And that’s not counting weekend trips for ultimate. I took pictures of all those places, but had the most fun taking them in Philladelphia (and a few in NYC). Partly because it was my first time in Philly (I really liked the city), but mainly because I got myself a new camera.

I love the camera, and am relearning why I liked taking photos in the first place. I’ll soon be writing a post on why I love it and why, if you enjoy photography, your next camera should be a low-end DSLR, but in the mean time I thought you might want to see a few pics.

What did Fox News expect when it decided to report live on location in the middle of a “leftist protest” in Denver? How about a mob spontaneously chanting “F#$% Fox News” on air!

H/t Crooks and Liars.

Bonus link.

Give ‘em haircuts! That’s Denver’s strategy. “Make them all spiffed up for the Democratic National Convention, because they are part of our community as well.”

I give two months before this spreads to Seattle…

H/T Drudge.

Looks like some new technology will make the kind of doctoring we’re capable of in photoshop a realistic possibility for video. The software analyzes the shadows in a video to make a 3D model of the scene. Then it can take still photos of the same scene and map them onto that changing, 3D landscape. The Cool/Scary part is that those photos can be photoshopped before they are mapped onto the scene. So instead of doctoring hundreds or thousands of frames of video, soon we’ll be able to photoshop things out of a single frame or still photo and apply that effect to an entire video.

It didn’t take us long to get used to not trusting photos. I suppose it won’t take any longer for us to get used to it for video either.

It’s a little long, but it’s worth watching:

It’s a video of an elephant painting a portrait of an elephant, and it’s good.

I’m gonna try to do some research and hopefully find out more about this elephant, but in case I don’t get around too it I wanted to share the video.

I really want to know a few things like:
- is this an original composition or is it copying something a person drew
- can it do other poses?
- is it a self portrait?
- is this a relatively unique skill or can other elephants paint too?
- can I buy one of these paintings?
- can I buy one of these elephants?

stay tuned.

I just watched the trailer for Terminator Salvation. It’s barely more than a teaser, but I’m intrigued by the fact that Christian Bale is playing John Connor. I had assumed ‘Salvation’ would just be an attempt to squeeze some more cash out of the corpse that Terminator 3 left behind. Bale is so selective with the roles though, and It’s got me wondering: What if the script is actually good?

The once great batman series was nearly killed off by a horrible sequel (with no small amount of help from the govenator himself), only to be resurrected by an uncompromising new beginning that starred Bale. Maybe he can do the same thing for the Terminator Franchise. Maybe he’s on a mission to make awesome sequels to every bad movie Schwarzenegger was in! Maybe he’s in talks to make a new Conan!!

I don’t want to get too carried away here though. “McG” (that’s really how he’s listed on IMDb) is no Christopher Nolan. Still, he seems to understand why Dark Knight has been so successful. If this thing comes out half as good as Dark knight, I’d be thrilled.

Christopher Nolan, and Dark Knight, might be the best thing to happen to Hollywood in a long time. Maybe the industry will realize that compromises and studio meddling lead to crap. And that people can actually tell the difference between quality and crap. And that people will pay to go see quality. I know I’m going back to see Dark Knight in the theater again.