Sunday, February 27, 2011

TV Show Reviews/ An Eventful Weekend

An Eventful Weekend
by Richard Mark Tanguay

This weekend marked the end of a three-year absence of an oven here at home!!! My father had finally gotten around to installing our electric oven-range which we had bought almost three years ago. They baked their first thing in an oven in almost three years: a cake!!! Tonight, my mother is going to make us a meatloaf, which we haven't been able to make in quite a while either!!! It is my hope that my father will now move forward with the completetion of the installation of our dishwasher, and the complete renovation of our kitchen and our porch. I am so excited to finally seethis stuff being completed!!!


Here are other things I am planning to do within the next year:


* Buy a Blu-Ray player for my livingroom television.
* Purchase an over the air Personal Video recorder, thus replacing the VCR/DVD combo in my living room.
* Buy a new bicycle and a new bike trailer for increased independance.
* Replace both of my digital cable TV boxes with HDTV cable boxes, as they can still work on standard video displays. I will also be ready when the time sadly comes for me to replace one, or both of my television sets.
* Look into pourchasing a new computer so I can do more stuff on here, on Facebook, on YouTube, adn wherever. I will also be able to do a video blog, and even a podcast whenever this takes place.


In other news, I have a few television show reviews. I will be reviewing The Onion's "Fact Zone", "Sports Dome", Current TV's "InfoMania", and even IFC's "Portlandia".

Portlandia:

I have watched a marathon of Portlandia today while in my bed napping and resting from the long weekend. While I do not have a positive review for this show, I have to criticize the show for the anal retentiveness of the characters. What a waste of my time to be watching some kooks who talk like they are insane, act like junior high school students, and even presnet material that is just stupid and doesn't make sense!!! This is what I sum up my review as!!! On a scale of one to ten, I give it a NEGATIVE TEN!!! I was much better off watching reruns of The Three Stooges!!! My apologies to Lisa Renee Foiles for degeneration of your new home city. :-(

Fact Zone:

What an embarassment of a television parody. The bleah-blonde news anchor is all bubbly, stupid, and always talks nonsense. I thought The Onion would have put in enough effort to make a decent presentation with one of their existing actors from their ONN podcast instead of hiring some new idiots with a junior high mentality who make fun of people with Autism, mock beastiality, and constantly put peoiple down!!! Again- I would much prefer to watch reruns of some REAL comedy like The Three Stooges, Beverly Hillbillies, All In The Family, Father Knows Best, SCTV, adn the like!!! As far as suggestions for improvements, I would recommend they give this Brooke Alvarez bimbo the AXE, replace her with either Clifford Banes or that other white-haired guy, and even start depicting those peopel on there as if they actually have lives instead of giving us this gobildy-gook-nonsense,and a little slapstick wouldn't hurt either, you guys!!! My rating on this show is a four out of ten points! Do better, Onion!!!

Sports Dome:

This is the only show in which I have a more positive review for. While they have wandered from their original soncept of the OSn sports podcast, they DO have a few good sides. They poke fun at the world of sports in the same old Onion style. On the other hand, they put down the female presenter by making it as if they are stalking her, and making her feel so uncomfortable. This is the only objection I have for this show. Those guys are just plain CREEPY, and I do not use that term lightly! And people tell me that I am creepy, strange, and stupid. My rating on this show is a five out of a possible ten points.

InfoMania:

I used to like this show quite a bit when it was a B-rated show, but when they messed with the format and made it all "cookie-cutter", I think they destroyed a perfectly good show! The peopel on there have become very creepy, stupid, and even in-your-face morally corrupt. These guys are like junior highers on steriods, but then again, so are most other people in this world today. This is what happens when people do nothing but emulate pop culture and stop living or thinking for themselves. Becuase of this, I only give the show two out of a possible ten points! If the original weren't broke, then why did you try to fix it?

Overall:

The comedy TV shows out there nowadays are a reflection of our overall society. These shows are all CRAP!!! This is why if it were completely up to me, I would get rid of my cable TV services, except for Limited Basic, and start relying strictly on video podcasts, my ATSC TV converter box, IPTV services, Free-To-Air Satellite services, and even my DVD/ Blu-Ray collection.

I hope I have enlightened you all to do the same, and hope to see you all next time around. :-)

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Blu-Ray Review: Family Guy Star Wars Trilogy

Hi Folks. Today I will give you my opinions and a review in regard to my recent purchase of the Family Guy Blu-Ray Star Wars Trilogy.

First things first: the packaging. Right now, I am staring at the outer package of this box set, and I can already see how slick and shiny it is, but that's not even the half of it! The front side features Stewie Griffin dressed up a Darth Vader, embossed, and printed in a gloss varnish. The back side features the Griffins dressed up as various Star Wars characters along with the Death Star and a couple of X-Wing fighters. The interior packaging is not as flashy, but does feature four of the characters aboard the Millennium falcon. On top, it has the words, "Look. We Got Four Or Five Of The Main Characters On This Ship.I Think We'll Be Fine."- A line form the second movie, "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side", a spoof of "Empire Strikes Back". The back side features the Millennium Falcon being attacked by a couple of Tie Fighters.

The first movie was called "Blue Harvest", and in my opinion, it was the best of the three because it was more true to the original "A New Hope" movie. The movie features the following cast of characters:

Luke Skywalker- Chris Griffin
Owen Lars- Mr. Pewterschmidt
Beru Lars- Mrs. Pewterschmidt
Glen Quagmire- C3PO (!)
Cleveland Brown- R2D2 (!)
Darth Vader- Stewart Griffin (!)
Princess Leia Organa- Lois Griffin (!)
Obi-Wan Kenobi- Herbert (!)
Han Solo- Peter Griffin (!)
Chewbacca- Brian Griffin
Governor Tankin- Adam West
Biggs- Jimmy (!)

...and many others I cannot recall at this time.

One of the things I was disappointed about was the fact they didn't spoof the scene at the end of the original Episode IV where they all get medals for defeating the Empire and destroying the Death Star. The one thing I was most impressed with was the fact they added such pop culture references as National Lampoon's Vacation, Big Red Gum, Redd Fox, Red Buttons, etc. Nonetheless, Blue Harvest makes for great entertainment for the entire family- provided they are 14 years of age or older. Then again, so are all three. I will, however, gives the first movie a 93 out of 100.

The second movie was called "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side".Along with most of the other characters from the first movie, it also featured:

Probe Droid- Jimmy (!)
Don Don- ? (!)
Yoda- Chris? (!)
Lando Calrissian- Some Weirdo Jewish Guy (!)
Boba Fett- Some Stupid Chicken (!!!)

...and many others I cannot recall at this time.

One of the things I was disappointed about was the fact they screwed things up with this sequel! I mean, the humor was nice, but they had a character play a stupid Probe Droid!!?? Come on!!! They could have done better than that!!! I also thought they could have done a whole lot better with the casting of Boba Fett, Yoda, Lando Calrissian, etc! I also think they put too many spoofs and pop culture references into this version of the film, which make it a pretty mediocre at best film. My rating is a 73 out of 100!

The third and final movie, "It's A Trap!"is the film I understand the least!!! They recycled most of the Family Guy characters as well as added some of the characters from the Cleveland Show, and American Dad. At least they could have used some of the original characters in their animated form to fill those roles. I did not care for the weirdo fish bowl playing Admiral Ackbar, or even Pewterschmidt playing the Emperor. I didn't even like the fact they had Chris kill his own brother by snapping his neck. Last time I checked, Darth Vader had his mask taken OFF!!! I was really looking forward to seeing Darth Stewie revealing his charred face to Chris and dying right then and there. The only thing I was impressed about this film was the fact they had even wrapped up the series!!! I give this lame version of "Return Of The Jedi" a 55 out of 100, or a big fat "F"!!!

So, let's check this out- 93, 73, and 55 make 221, divide all that by 3 and you get 73.666%, or a "C". This trilogy is not great, but at least it was okay in my book.


...and that's my movie review for January 20, 2011. I hope to have another episode for you guys next time around. Maybe I'll be talking about something REAL GOOD at that time. Bye for now. folks.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Episode I- Welcome

Welcome to my new blog.

For those of you who had been following my old blog on Facebook, this blog will not be written over there, but at blogger.com, where things are more sophisticated and advanced. I will be able to post some more advanced content such as video clips, audio clips, hyperlinks, and even publish with more sophisticated text fonts and styles. The overall quality of this blog will probably be a whole lot better than what I was able to achieve while i had been posting my episodes directly on Facebook, where you had to know where I was to be able to view my blog, and you even had to be a direct friend of mine to post comments on there. Thus, I wasn't able to exactly hear form everybody who was able to read the blog on there, but hopefully here on this new site, I will be able to achieve a much larger and more diverse audience so I might receive more than just the one or two odd comments from my friends. Hopefully, I will be able to receive more than just a small number of comments and input from the people who are able to read this new blog.

If you are reading this first blog episode, please be advised that this is only a pilot episode. Thus, we will not go into so much stuff on here tonight, but here is a synopsis of what I plan to cover on this new blog:

1. I plan to elaborate on the many things that are happening in this world from my point of view. I will also give you all my opinions, but please keep in mind that I will NOT even bother to be "politically correct", or "sensitive". This is because I believe the whole social system has been abused over the course of the last century. If you are a conservative, a patriot, a Christian, an American, or even a person who believes, like me, that the entire system has become so corrupt that it isn't even worth it to follow anybody or anything in or of this world. I also want to get this off my chest before I get comments calling me a kook- I have recently converted to Atheism and Anarchy for that same reason. In spite of this, I still observe some of the cultural rituals for myself. Since this conversion, I have felt more liberated, more easy, and more at peace with myself and with others. This is why I now believe "To each, their own.". If you want to believe in God and be depressed in the process as I used to, than that's your prerogative. As for me, I choose to attempt to be at peace with myself and attempt to clear my mind of all anger, fears, worries, etc.

2. I plan to give you all my observations regarding my overall life experiences. This will include, but will not be limited to: my experiences at my job, shopping experiences, family, my life online, my dreams and fantasies, my hopes and fears, and even the pitfalls, possibilities, and promises. Perhaps I could even find the answer to that universal question of "why?".

3. I plan to give you all reviews regarding any purchases I make, movies I watch, television shows I watch, DVDs, CDs, Blu-Ray Discs, comic books, etc. Hopefully, I will attempt to make a thoughtful and thorough assessment before I rush to judgement and give you all a review on the product(s) I purchase. I will also give you all reviews on stuff I buy elsewhere, and on the foods I buy at restaurants and the grocery store. Basically, I intend to give you all my personal opinion on the things that enter my body, and the things that enter my home from here on in.

So that's basically what I intend to do with this new blog of mine. It is my hope that you all read this little blog of mine and enjoy it to the fullest extent. Although you may not agree with me, I hope to hear form you all out there in the near future. Hope to hear from you all soon.

Until next time, this is Richard Mark Tanguay saying, "Have a nice day, and hope to see you around."

Coming next time: Hopefully, some media and some hyperlinks!!! ;-)