The 24 9 p.m. – 10 p.m. live blog experiment

So since Amanda is out on the Social Media Week town, I’m going to try my hand at my own 24 live-blog. First, I have to dinner though. So I’ll pick up 24’s Golden Hour — when the real time matches 24 time — in a few minutes. Stay tuned.

Previously on the Renee Show…

I really hope the CTU Agent Starbuck storyline gets wrapped up or further developed this week. I’m so tired of it.

The following takes place between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m…. Yes. Yes, it does.

9:04 p.m.: Bubba is the worst CTU head. He’s clueless. How did these folks get jobs this year? It’s a bad economy; CTU applications should be way up.

9:06 p.m.: Breaking into a police locker to get your former boyfriend $120,000? Sounds like a great move for the future of your career, Starbuck.

9:09 p.m.: Watching Jack listen to Renee is not exactly the old Jack Bauer I had in mind before this season started.

9:10 p.m.: 12th and Market St.? Are we are in New York or somewhere else? Geography, people, geography!

9:11 p.m.: Lot of potential action at around 9:40. Starbuck’s going to meet her ex-con boyfriend, and Jack will be arriving to buy uranium from the Russians.

Commercial Musings: Who’s more desperate for movie work: Tracy Morgan or Bruce Willis?…

9:16 p.m.: Sark is going to perform a one-man bone marrow transplant. Let’s see it.

9:17 p.m.: Jack Bauer is probably the prime candidate for a iPad. Imagine not needing a laptop hooked up to a satellite internet feed while in the field. Secret agent extraction? There’s an app for that.

9:20 p.m.: I’m starting to suspect that 24 Season 9 will focus around Renee. She’s become a more intriguing character than Jack. Although, talking a shower in the lair of the guy who tried to rape you a few years ago — maybe not the best idea.

9:22 p.m.: So their plan is to meet with the “buyer,” kill him and kidnap Renee? For a bunch of Russian mobsters, that’s a plan more worth of CTU Head Bubba Hunch than the 24 baddies.

Commercial Musings #2: Since I’m sure you’re all wondering, this Rotisserie chicken from La Taqueria is really hitting the spot. The marinade is fantastic, and the meat’s really moist. Anyway….

9:26 p.m.: Clearly Madam President didn’t watch how President Slumdog Millionaire dealt with his game show contestants. Who’s surprised by these human rights violations?

9:29 p.m.: Arrest her! Arrest her! Arrest her! “It’s next on my list after robbing evidence holding cell. I’ll clear up your hard drive space after that.”

9:30 p.m.: Nerd fight! Chloe and the guy staring at her ass are totally going to get into it soon.

9:32 p.m.: Now would be a great time for the CTU swat team to arrested White Trash Boyfriend. He’s right outside the front door.

9:33 p.m.: Uh, oh. It’s Week 2 of 24: SVU. I really hope this ends OK for Renee.

9:37 p.m.: This is a very dark side of 24. Very dark.

9:39 p.m.: Great for the peace process — arresting the guy trying to placate the British ambassador to the U.N. President Slumdog is not winning any genius awards anytime soon.

9:41 p.m.: It would be quite a twist if the other country’s president were disposed of instead of the U.S. president. 24 goes through more U.S. presidents than CTU heads, it seems.

9:42 p.m.: I would have guessed that Sark was going to kill the doctor, not this other guy who somehow managed to find them amidst the doctors in New York. HIPAA violation!

9:44 p.m.: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! THOSE GLASSES!!!! WOW. Jack Bauer is the talented Mr. Ripley.

9:46 p.m.: So all you have to become German is don some thick-framed glasses. Good to know.

Commercial Musings #3: So..sick…of Howie Long’s cop hair. Enough.

9:53 p.m.: I hope Renee kills Vlad in the most painful possible way. She definitely has it in her.

9:55 p.m.: Jack Ripley better have a good trick up his sleeve….And it’s Freddie Prinze, Jr., the sharpshooter.

9:55 p.m.: Hey-o! We get a Jack Bauer “NOW!” just under the 10 p.m. wire. Everyone drink.

9:56 p.m.: Please do not end this hour with the Starbuck story. Please do not end this hour with the Starbuck story. Please do not end this hour with the Starbuck story.

9:59 p.m.: Yup. I didn’t expect Sark to get shot their either. Obvious “twist” ending. Anyone want to bet that Sark turns on Dad now?

10:00 p.m.: Short hour. Three minutes of “Previously on 24″ and three minutes before 10 p.m. That’s a wrap though. With Starbuck’s White Trash ex on the way to rob an evidence warehouse and Jack on his way to rescue Renee, next week should be an action-packed episode after two weeks of exposition.

Episode Recap
Dammit’s: 0
We’re running out of time: 0
NOW!: 1
Deaths: 6

When ‘hello’ becomes literally sacrilegious

Earlier this morning, my friend Kelly tweeted about a town in Texas that seemed, well, a little off its rocker.

In 1997, a man in Kleberg County convinced his county commissioners to officially adopt HeavenO as the area’s official greeting. The man — Leonso Canales — believes that “Hello” is evil because it contains the letters H-E-L-L. He even has a website devoted to the cause.

This amused to no end. When I saw the Tweet, I Googled Kleberg County and gave the county courthouse a call. The first number went to voice mail, and I received a “Hi” in greeting. The second time, someone picked up with a “Good Morning,” and I was too shy to ask if they still used “Heaven-O.” Independently, Molly did the same thing, and we both sent replies to Kelly via Twitter at the same time.

Enter Dave, also over Twitter. He offered to call and actually talk to someone about this. His version of events, paraphrased:

Nice Lady: “Good afternoon, Kingsville County?”

Nefarious Dave Metz: (Very carefully choosing his salutation) “Hi, I was calling…my friend sent me this link online and I thought it was just wonderful about how you all are saying ‘heaven-o’ instead of ‘hello’…and, well, I just thought that was really great and I was wondering if you’re still doing that…”

NL: “Gosh, that was awhile back…!”

NDM: “Yeah, I know! ’97 it looks like!”

NL: (chuckling) “Haha, yeah, not as much anymore. A few people still use it, but for the most part it died out. I guess it was just a craze.”

NDM: “Well how about ‘hello’, have people stopped saying it?”

NL: “Well, I’ve only been here since 2003, but back then there was a lot of hype…lots of people were saying ‘heaven-o’ and it was really popular. Now it’s just back to normal. People say whatever.”

NDM: “Aw, that’s too bad, well, I was just calling because I thought that was really swell, but, have a great day.”

NL: “B-bye now.”

==

While Dave was busy on the phone, Molly decided to e-mail Mr. Canales about the origins of his movement. We wanted to know if HeavenO, with its late-1990s web design, was still an active movement. He replied:

Heaveno Molly,
 
The new greeting did start in 1997. Heaveno is the official greeting for Kleberg County.This awareness was not only intended for this county, but for our nation. The Hello greeting, I felt…, did not represented us with the right sincere meaning. Heaveno came up as an alternative. Hi, Welcome, Howdy are, to me, are alright. Those salutations have no negative connotation. The O in HellO is not enough to hide HELL. You have to be blind or ignorant not to see Hell in HELLo.  Sooooo, Ms.Molly, that’s the story.
 
Peace be with You, From Kingsville, Texas, I Thank You!  Leonso Canales,Jr.

That is the story indeed.

Things I hate

1. Law school finals.

New York in stock

This story on stock footage and the images of New York we see in movies is a great read. Romanticized images of New York permeate so many great movies. How that get there is almost as fascinating as the context in which the rest of the country — and world — views this fair city.

543,895

A little over eight years ago, I was a senior in high school and the news editor of my my high school’s weekly paper. When the Election of 2000 rolled around, it was the first presidential race of my life that mattered. Soon, I would be old enough to vote, and politics had ceased being some abstract thing that mattered to adults.

As Election Night 2000 unfolded, everyone around me realized we were witnessing a seminal moment in American history. George W. Bush and Al Gore couldn’t have been more different in terms of policies, and when the dust settled on Election Night, Gore had a command lead in the popular vote but couldn’t, as we know, wrap up the Electoral Vote.

The recount effort on behalf of the Democrats was a disaster. They lost the PR war; they lost the court case; they lost the election. And now, eight years later — eight long years filled with terrible foreign policy, recession-inducing economic policy, and backwards-looking domestic policy — it’s all over. In less than 12 hours, Barack Obama will become the next President of the United States, and we can put the day-to-day dealings of the Bush Administration firmly in the past.

Before we do that, though, think about the number 543,895. It’s not a lot of people really, but it represents the difference between Al Gore’s vote total and George W. Bush’s vote total in 2000. That year, over 500,000 more people voted for the man who lost the presidential election because of a poorly designed ballot in the not-so-great state of Florida.

While Gore wasn’t the first loser to win the popular vote — Samuel Tilden holds that honor — seemingly less has been made of that significant difference than of any other number in American history. The people who voted for Gore didn’t rise up. In fact, after Bush v. Gore, we all pretty much rolled over, accepted our fate and nominated a guy who couldn’t win in 2004.

So as President Obama takes the oath of office and American thinks back on the last eight years, just realize that we have been governed by a president who lost his first election for the White House by half a million votes.

When a trend isn’t a trend

This survey, featuring Halle Berry, a Bond girl in 2002, is running on the cover of this weekend’s Metro, and it’s annoying me to no end.

I get the premise. Let’s see if a bikini signals an impending death in a Bond movie, and then let’s stick Halle Berry on the cover in an effort to move papers. But the headline — “You only wear it once” — isn’t misleading; it’s just wrong.

The results of Metro’s survey showed that 45 percent of all Bond girls who wear a bikini on screen die. That means 55 percent don’t die. In my world, 55 percent is more than 45 percent. Therefore, the majority of Bond girls do not in fact wear it once.

Anyway, even if the numbers were reversed, a 45-55 split doesn’t really show any correlation between death and a bikini. The Bond girl’s choice of on-screen bathing attire is purely coincidental and has nothing at all to do with her life expectancy.

OK. Glad I could get that off my chest.

If we pray hard enough, will the recession go away?

The short answer is no. No matter how hard these people try, hard work and out-of-the-box solutions — and not some blind devotion to evangelicalism — are going to restore our economy.

Musings on The Shield’s Series Finale

If you’re a fan of The Shield and you haven’t watched the finale yet, what are you waiting for? stop reading now. There are some spoilers here. This is the post I wrote for The Shield Rap message board. The board’s moving hot and heavy so it’s getting buried.

I’m always intrigued about how the fans view the endings. I love how we can all come together to discuss it on message boards, but I think it also leads the fans to over-imagine how they would have done it.

Sure, we collectively may have wrapped things up better in our minds by answering more questions. But in the end, these series just have to end. They don’t have to answer everything; they don’t have to resolve every outstanding storyline. They end when their creators run out of story to tell. Sometimes, these shows don’t when to end. I think this one did.

I can see why people might not like it. In a way, the ending leaves things open ended, but it doesn’t leave it open-ended the way The Sopranos did. It leaves it open ended because, depending upon your view of justice, Vic didn’t get his. He’s alive. He’s got a job. He’s safe. In three years — the same amount of time it took to kill Terry, rob the Armenian mob, cover it up, deal with Antwon, track down Lem’s killer and dispense with Cruz Pezuela — he’ll be back on the streets. Considering all the sh*t he and Strike Team did, is that justice?

But the other side of that is the “major thing,” according to Shawn Ryan, that we learned last week, and that was Vic’s undying devotion to his family. It was never about the Strike Team or Lem or Ronnie or Shane. It was about family, and in the end, Vic’s family was gone. His gun was gone. He has to wear a suit and write reports, something he never could manage while working under Aceveda. So that’s his justice.

Does every detail about what happens next matter, I ask, in all seriousness? Ronnie won’t get offed in jail. He’ll find up in some solitary cell in protection with no life. Dutch will get Lloyd. Claudette will die. Aceveda will be the mayor. And Vic will be stuck knowing that what he did ruined everyone’s life including his. The road to justice is twisted indeed.

You’re doing it wrong

From The Daily News’ registration page. I don’t think they quite understand the difference between required and optional yet.

PSA

Never ever sign up for the calendar-sharing app called TimeBridge. It will steal your contacts and create a huge hassle. This is why opt-in e-mail options that allow the user to choose who gets the “sign up for this service” e-mail are the preferred industry standard.