Losing Basketball

I used to be able to lay and loved to play, but I haven't had anyone to play with for a few years and that's sad, but this meaningless complaint is more about losing interested and enthusiasm about watching professional basketball. I still sometimes watch college, but the pros lost me when the game turned into a ridiculously inconsistently controlled contact sport and the bullies took over. It's the way our culture has always been to some extent from early school days trough middle school and high school. It's finally reached the White House, but the bully culture was not in professional sports much. In fact, most sports were a refreshingly bully free and the bullies were booted out. Talent, finesse, skill, and above all else sportsmanship and a consistent enforcement of the rules made sports a level playing field.

Maybe money changed that. Or simply the culture shifted and ignores the unfairness, inequality, inequity, immaturity, and bias in order to cheer the flavor of the moment The Lebrons, the Trumps... cheered as heroes no matter what they do (and if really observed, they do very immature, arrogant, entitled, unsportsmanlike, and unethical things that few if anyone else would ever get away with). The real winners who win with skill, finesse, and talent on a level playing field are disrespected and constantly accused of cheating.

Take the last game of the NBA season for one small but undeniable example. Curry s called for a technical in the first quarter for almost nothing, at least nothing the video could show. Lebron chases a around the court referee arguing a call verbally and with gestures and the ref ignores him. The immature and entitled baby they call king of the nba is why this game is the only game I watched all season. I may have watched part of one last season, but I stopped watching pro basketball. It is nice to see a throw back team is dominating once again.

Unfortunately, the nba and the media still gave a lot more time to the bully that they did to the classy winners and they even tried to provoke division and controversy when interviewing Durant and I was impressed at how well Durant cut the question off and shot down the attempt with a firm and direct response. That is what deserves respect and air-time. Only Steven A and Rachel Nichols pointed out the truths, that Lebron and Cleveland quit, pulled a "No Mas", and showed no class or respect for the fans or the game. Curry, Durant, and the Warriors showed unprecedented class and sportsmanship.

Most of the media blitz focused on how amazing their king has been and was even in getting swept in the nba finals and sure enough, the excuse was already scripted, Lebron played the last three games with a broken hand. That he broke it by punching a wall during a antrum after the first game was downplayed. Instead of pointing out how immature, selfish, poor sport, stupid, and self-destructive the poor king really is to the impressionable children who have been convinced to idolize the him, the party line ignored that important life-lesson fact. No wonder the bullies are winning.

Good to see one lose for a change.

Good to see his arrogant boast to win 9 championships failed. Oh, he did make it to 9 championship games with a lot of help from very biased referees, but he lost 6 of them.

Better than Mike, yeah right lol.

So maybe most people ignored how he pushes people around on the court and gets away with it almost every time. How he gets extra points every game because he's sent to the foul line on so many soft touch foul calls. How he throws tantrums on the court and gets away with challenging officials way more than anyone else. How he apparently throws tantrums off the court and can be self-abusive with a dangerous temper. I blame the nba because they let him get away with never having to live up to the standards of play and sportsmanship enforced for most everyone else. Just look at what's ignored n the White House.

I don't watch the news, I seldom watch sports, I don't watch basketball anymore.

I miss the sports.

Remembering the X-Files (I and II)

Watching the episodes of the original series from one to the last, I am slowly, gradually, subtly reminded of just how much religious referenced I had to ignore just to keep watching the mysteries beyond that one explanation so many people seem to so easily buy into. Patronizing. Pathetic. Poor writing. Even Mulder invoked god for the story line, breaking his character's agnostic presentation. The writing is really very inconsistent sometimes, which destroys the illusion of characters and leaves the same old discussion in almost every show. The writers probably think it is mandatory to reach a larger audience and keep them from throwing the towel in on all the paranormal, but that sort of pandering to the ignorant frightened masses is the antithesis of a intelligent science fiction or fantasy.

I just admit, it is getting a bit too soap-operatic for me and I am not following the story line closely enough to know what is going on in the back stories (or some of the front stories, even). This was especially true as season eight rolled along and Mulder's incorrigible drive to find the truth was missing. I think that was what drew me to the show in the first place. Season eight found Scully playing the Mulder role and a new guy who, unfortunately for him, is forever unappealing to me because he tried to be Scully. It just didn't work for me. It's sad when people don't seem to fit their characters anymore. Even worse, as with too many shows, the characters have to be stupid to get into the dangers they get into.

Even Mulder stopped following his "trust no one" creed, probably because the writers were not smart or creative enough to write better stories.

Maybe if I watched it with someone who'd discuss it, it would be more fun.

Discovery

Why in all the logical progression of the Star Trek stories does Discovery resort (revert?) to referencing souls?. Throughout the series the writers were always very philosophical, virtually agnostic. They pointed out how so many different species have so many god concepts just as so many different civilizations on Earth have ad and still have so many different god concepts. Yet Discovery poignantly mentions losing souls when people are killed.

That could be a very bad sign.

The Strain

The Strain

I never watched it when it was on originally. Maybe because it was on FX and I seem to see FX as a mediocre station. Maybe because I was watching other things at the time. So after running out of shows I wanted to watch on Hulu and with CBS in the summer hiatus mode, I decided to watch The Strain. I guess I was hoping for an intelligent biological sci-fi story based in science.

Sadly disappointed, I find it more like The Walking Dead that I turned off after a few shows.

The arrogant self-important CDC Doctor is a real turn-off and returning to his bottle made him even less fun to watch, but this is enough to to turn off the show. A story seems to want to bring out the worst, rather than the best, in people. A story in which all of the characters, the good and the bad, turn into the same sort of killing machines leaves little hope for humanity and offers no redeeming qualities.

For the moment, it's not even worth any more time here.

New Space Again

Watching Legion tonight. I like the music made by the group called Legion, but they are two different experiences and I am enjoying the TV show. The opening of the fourth episode was interesting. Empathy vs Fear. Enjoying the ride so far.

Meanwhile, in this new space (different from the last new space, but in some ways the same), I don't watch as much TV. I work full time now, leaving a lot less TV time. Mostly it is the same shows, with a few new ones. I am marking this time here for when I have the time to cull through the listings to list what I watch here.

Missing a TV watching friend.
and chapter five held a sweet surprise
that woke up something deep inside
the child still wonders what is real
when we are not afraid to feel
remembering the fine line between fantasy and reality
in the magic of believing, anything can be

New Space, New Shows

Ok, so I moved from one space to another space and it is less comfortable in most ways and less private so I use headphones. CBS All Access and Hulu provide the TV entertainment. Also, just found The Office online and may get into it. On CBS there are the long time favorites, all the NCIS and spin-offs, Criminal Minds and spin-offs, and then Bull, Brain Dead, Doubt, Pure Genius, Training Day and more. Hulu has Bones, 12 Monkeys, Blindspot, and lots more.

Maybe I'll list them all someday.

Watching The Internet

Between CBS and Hulu I have more TV than I can watch in any given week, but I still miss shows I enjoy on Syfy, BBC America, and some other shows on some other stations. So I looked at the list of shows on the right side of this blog and found that I was able to check out a bunch of the ones on the various check these out lists and haven't taken the time to update those lists but at least I can mention the shows I've been able to check out here. Showing me that it has been a while since I updated, these shows were last year: Wayward Pines (FOX), Primeval: New World (BBC), Last Man on Earth (FOX), Dominion, Almost Human (FOX), Under the Dome (CBS), The Last Ship, The Crazy Ones (CBS), Halt and Catch Fire.

These shows were caught up with recently: 11.22.63, BrainDead (CBS), Chance (Hulu), McGyver (CBS), The Librarians (TNT), Timeless (NBC). All the shows listed in this entry are done or on hiatus or not interesting to me so the current ones I am watching are Chance, McGyver, and Timeless. I think The Last Ship and Halt and Catch Fire will be back.

I'll list the rest of what I am watching and maybe even babble about them another time...

Misfits

While there are some in the establishment who propose that the British Sci-Fi Comediy TV Show Misfits was just as good all five seasons, but after watching the first three seasons I agree with those who say the show sucked and really went bad after the second season. Even during the first two seasons I found it challenging to consider it Science Fiction. The science is basically absent and if logic was a smile, this show would be missing most of it's teeth. The story lines stretched the limits of logic to the point of annoyance at times. I mean, they don't even follow the proper rules of killing zombies.

The sophomoric humor provided a juvenile amusement mainly because you can tell the main character was enjoying being an obnoxious stereotype of a teenage sex-hound so much. Then, he suddenly disappeared without any reference and and was never mentioned again. His replacement seemed to try to follow in his footsteps, but several rather unpleasantries kept him from being enjoyable. First, he was a lot older so he presented must less forgivable for his misogynistic sexual hungers. He definitely did not appear to be enjoying life or himself so he was more pitiful than amusing. What started as a group of teenagers doing community service (shades of Breakfast Club blended with Heroes without as much eye candy, with less character building and bonding, and without much (if any) of the intelligence of either story line. Mix some Idiocracy or Dumb and Dumber, with less clever humor, in and we may have Misfits.

Sheer boredom and a desperate need for distraction and that often ridiculous hope for some redemption for anything as well as a few very good reviews of season five kept me sort of watching through the third season. Mostly I was typing, playing chess, reading, or falling asleep while the show was on. One annoying aspect of the show is that while it is rated MA, it is so variable in sound volume that watching it late at night is only ok if you have no one sleeping anywhere within earshot.

The first two seasons are silly fun with an amusing and potentially fascinating premise if you can get past the gratuitous sex (complete with the unrealistic Victorian practice of leaving underwear on that TV shows seem to continue) and womanizing. Season three introduces a main character way too old to be in a teenage community service group hanging out with and flashing his penis at teenagers, no less children. The missing ridiculously irresponsible teenager humor is replaced with an uncomfortable feeling way too serious for illogical soap opera the show turned into. The acting went downhill as well, not just in quality, but in the sense of fun and character development that gave the first two seasons as sense of novelty and amusement.

CBS All Access

I turned to CBS because I wanted to watch NCIS and it seemed to be either the only or maybe the best way to watch current CBS shows. CBS has a lot to learn from other TV streaming sites. It is slow and when watching with commercials, it cuts the show up poorly. Hulu has a much cleaner interface that plays much more smoothly and remembers shows watched and where viewing left off. CBS does not provide a very convenient or enjoyable user experience.

So far I have not found a way to identify shows I have watched on CBS All Access. That adds a very annoying waste of time when returning to a series because it forces the need to guess and watch through the first commercial and some of an episode before realizing I already watched that episode, then repeating that until I find the episode at which i left off. The slowness of loading adds waiting time and further diminishes the user experience. I suppose one solution is to keep track in a spreadsheet or some other document I maintain, but that is just another inconvenience.

Another flaw in the site is their choice to put only selected episodes of some shows on the site. This destroys the continuity of a show and diminishes the desire to watch a series. I've found that I will put up with these things for a series that was true long time favorite, but that shortens the list of shows and ultimately, makes paying each month less likely. More likely I will sign up once or maybe twice a year for one month each time and catch up on the top favorites, not watching shows that do not have full seasons available and not checking out much of anything new.

CBS needs to understand the online viewing audience they seek. I'd rate the user experience fair at best and poor much of the time. It is worth the annoyances for specific shows but I will let go of most shows I used to watch and might have watched on CBS.

Hulu

The primary inadequacy at Hulu is lack of current season programs. So the choice is go pay somewhere that provides current seasons or wait until a few months (or longer) after the season ends to watch the shows. Unfortunately, word gets out about shows to most anyone who goes online or talks to people and I don[t want to live under a rock. In fact, one of the major reasons I watch TV is to share the experience and even when I watch by myself I want to talk to others about shows and characters and stories and waiting months or a year to talk to people about what happens in fictional entertainment is often a let down.

The second flaw is the selection. A lot of shows I would like to watch are just not there.

The user experience is good, especially without commercials. The free month was the reason I tried without commercials. .

I am a newbie to online TV watching so I may update this as I learn more. For now, I like the user experience of Hulu but wish there were more shows as well as more current shows available.