Pioneer on the Internet – Sean Gursky

“Friday Night Lights” was the television show I didn’t see coming.

When “Friday Night Lights” first aired I heard about it and knew it was getting some success. After a few years it fell off my radar and back in 2010 I was surprised to still see it airing. To me this was like Smallville, a show that had a seemingly simple premise but somehow managed to stay on the air.

I’m glad to say that “Friday Night Lights” blew away any preconceived notions I had about a TV show focusing on high school football in small town Texas. On the surface “Friday Night Lights” is simple, but after a few episodes you’re hooked by so much more.

The following quotes describe “Friday Night Lights” better than I ever could:

“For five seasons, “Friday Night Lights” was both the simplest and most complex show on TV. It felt like real life, and real life is complicated.”

TV Guide named the show among its Best TV Shows of 2011 praising the fact that “Friday Night Lights left its fans with the best portrait of a marriage ever on TV”.

The biggest appeal to the show was that there are real problems being dealt with in a real way by real people. It is a show about growing up and overcoming adversity. There is no reset at the end of an episode, situations carry over and aren’t magically resolved when you wake up. Not every story has a happy ending and you aren’t going to see five seasons of a dominating football team being supported by a picture perfect town.

Surprisingly, a show about football only uses football as a backdrop. You could go several episodes without seeing a game, and sometimes you only get a clip of it before you jump to the end of the game. This isn’t a sports show, it has more complexities than a teen drama, but it finds a happy middle between everything and was very appealing to Jenna and I.

After we finished watching the first season we immediately re-watched the pilot and enjoyed it even more on the second go around. This was the first time we have done this for any show and that was only the beginning of where “Friday Night Lights” started to separate itself from other shows. Unfortunately the second season did take a downturn in quality, with some silly plots and an absurd story line with a character. This was easily chalked up to a Sophomore Slump and the show quickly regained what made it special in season one and built on the characters and continued to deliver solid episodes.

In 2011 we started watching “Breaking Bad” and easily claimed the best thing we started watching and caught up on award. “Friday Night Lights” is a strong solid second place and deserves to be beside Walter White and his life in Albuquerque. This show is easy to overlook but it brought out an emotion I have only felt for a few shows (“Parks and Recreation” does this, but is grounded more in comedy), but always tread carefully between being too serious and comical.

This show should have had more success, but like a true underdog it fights and works for your affection and in the end you won’t regret it. Do yourself a favor and watch “Friday Night Lights”.

Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.

It has been a month with Optik TV, High Speed and Telephone service from Telus and I’m still as happy as I was when everything was hooked up. The honeymoon phase is over now and so to begins my first month of paying for the services.

Television
We are becoming accustomed to having TV again. I went from banishing cable all together to having all the channels and I like it. There are some shows that aren’t worth the effort of finding online and that’s where the benefit of having the full program grid of channels comes in. When our trial of all the channels ends we will likely purchase the Lifestyle package, because HGTV and Food Network are just too enjoyable to live without.

I am still waiting for the HD receiver to be upgraded to have the ability to pause live TV, a feature that is currently limited to the HD PVR. At the time of installation in February I was told that this would be enabled with a firmware upgrade shortly but for now I wait.

There were some feature updates to the HD PVR where the previous channels are displayed in the lower right corner of the screen. The firmware update is seamless, and if it wasn’t for any visual improvements I wouldn’t have known there was a change.

One thing I would like to see added is the way to mark a show as watched on the PVR. We are in the habit of stock piling shows for a lazy weekend and if we aren’t diligent on deleting them after watching it can be hard to know what we’ve seen and haven’t.

If you watched a recorded show, stop before the end and go back to your list of Recorded TV you have the option to resume from where you left off. This tells me there is the capability of knowing what you watched and it would be great if that could be transitioned into a visual indicator. Even if it was something as simple as having a green dot beside a recording you haven’t seen yet would be a huge benefit.

Because we delete shows as we watch them it’s not an immediate concern, but it would be nice to have a way to see how much space is left on the PVR.

Telephone
Nothing worth mentioning for telephone service. It works. It makes calls. It sends calls. We always look for the caller ID to appear in the top left corner of the television if the phone rings, and as Murphy’s Law would have it, we rarely get calls to experience this little feature.

Internet
I have had no problems with the Optik High Speed connection over the last month. It has remained reliable with consistent download speeds. The Internet is the most crucial service from Telus and, thankfully, it hasn’t given me any issues or doubts on my switch from Shaw.

The problem I’ve been working on since the network upgrade was the signal strength of the Actiontec V1000H from the basement to the living room. I upgraded my home server to a Gigabit ethernet card and that helped the speed of wired connections to transmit data but it didn’t resolve the buffering when I was streaming content wirelessly to the upstairs Playstation 3.

Looking on the Playstation Media Server forums there are several suggestions to improve performance but I felt it was the Actiontec V1000H that was at fault for not delivering a strong signal strength in the house. To remedy this I repurposed my DD-WRT powered Linksys to a room above the Actiontec router and used it as a Repeater Bridge.

The last time I tried to create a Repeater Bridge I was unsuccessful, but perseverance has paid off as it worked this time and my network has benefited because of it. The Playstation 3 went from 45-50% signal strength to 75-80%. Playstation Media Server still detected an estimated transfer speed of 5MB/s, but at least now I was able to stream SD and HD content without the need for buffering.

As an added bonus, I now have Galactica and Pegasus as SSID’s at home.

So say we all.

February 9th was my first day with Telus and here is a recap of my experience with Optik TV, Optik TV High Speed and Home Phone so far.

Installation
Two technicians arrived for the install within the scheduled window and spent 90 minutes running cables and setting everything up. The two TV’s I had hooked up were in rooms with a pre-existing coaxial and telephone drop but they still replaced a few lines. They were able to pull a phone line to my entertainment unit downstairs so the modem would sit where the previous one did. The technicians were friendly and helpful for any questions I had.

After everything was up and running I was given a quick run through the PVR functions, the Actiontec router interface and a few other tips on the service. They left me feeling confident in the tools and I didn’t feel that they rushed anything.

Television
I am sure this is a feature with Shaw, but having never used their PVR services (I used digital cable for several years) having the name and telephone number of an incoming call appear on your TV is incredible. I called the house several times just to see “SEAN GURSKY” appear in the top left corner (). We have to cover the length of the house to reach the nearest phone and if we were able to see who was calling we could determine if it was worth getting up or not.

The second biggest wow is being able to pause live TV. By no means is this feature exclusive to Telus, but I never really had the chance to play with this ability and it’s incredible. I never thought I would benefit from having a PVR but now I wonder how I lived so long without one. We will still continue to download shows but now we can fill up the PVR with shows that aren’t widely available or things we don’t follow episode to episode and enjoying watching when we have the time.

Telus has an iPhone app to browse the program grid, view your recordings and schedule a recording. The app is convenient and I could see myself using it frequently.

I did have two problems with the HD PVR but they were both solved by doing a system reboot.

The first was being unable to create a new account for Remote Recording. I was given an “Error 500: Service Unavailable” and every time I tried I got the same message. The next issue was not having any audio on HD channels over my HDMI connection. The video would come in fine, and audio on SD channels worked but just not on HD. I restarted the system and both went away and my question list for Telus support went from two to zero.

Telephone
With the move from Shaw to Telus we downgraded phone features. With Shaw we had caller ID, voice mail, call waiting and probably a few other ones that added to our monthly bill. A part of why the Telus bundle is so cheap is that the telephone is bare bones with one feature. We opted to have caller ID, as our phones have a built in answering machine and call waiting is not something we used that often.

Although, there is a semi-solution for call waiting with Optik TV. If our land line is occupied and someone is calling us they would receive a busy signal but on the television we would see who attempted to call us (the same way we do now in the top left corner of the screen). It’s not an exact solution for call waiting but it’s a nice alternative for the rare times we have two people wanting to speak to us at once.

Internet
I have similar download and upload speeds to when I was on Shaw High Speed Extreme. According to speedtest.net my download speed is nearly 15MB and upload is 0.8MB. If anything my upload speed is lower than with Shaw, but as I am no longer relying on torrents this is not a concern.

I have been using DD-WRT custom firmware on my Linksys router for over a year and I got accustomed to the features it gave me. Now with the modem/router combination of the Actiontec V1000H I’m finding myself a little restricted. There are plenty of administration features on the Actiontec, but it’s not what I was used to or I don’t fully understand how to recreate what I had on the Actiontec.

I had a hurdle trying to figure out how I could administer my SABnzbd install remotely. This wasn’t a problem before so it was a frustrating issue. Previously I set the proper “Port from” and “Port to” for port forwarding on the Linksys DD-WRT and it worked fine. With the Actiontec I wasn’t sure if I have the port forwarding information correct, if Telus was restricting a web server from running or something else. As simple as the Actiontec interface is I wasn’t sure what the optional part of the port forwarding information I had to set up. Ultimately I changed my SAbnzbd install https:// listening port to match the one I would connect to from http://my.ip:port and it worked.

The current issue I am having is signal strength from the downstairs Actiontec to the upstairs Playstation 3. With the Linksys I increased the strength of the wireless signal (TX power) and added Windsurfer parabolas on the antennas. This allowed me to stream SD content without an issue and even 720p across the house.

Currently the Playstation 3 has a 50% signal but it occasionally buffers on SD content. I transferred the Windsurfer parabolas on to the Actiontec but I’m not able to increase the wireless rate to anything above 100% () so I’m at a loss for what to do. I have a few things in mind to resolve the problem but they involve time and money. Currently I’m thinking of:

• Putting the DD-WRT powered Linksys in between the Actiontec and my home server ethernet connection and use the Linksys to boost the signal to upstairs
• Upgrade the network card in my server from the current D-Link 530TX to Gigabit Ethernet card
• Piggy back on the coax cable running upstairs to either transfer the signal from coax to Cat5 or use the coax cable as a lead to run Cat5 up to the living room

With that said, this is my problem and not one that was caused by the Telus service or installation. I need to upgrade my network and I just have to determine the best way to do that. My PS3 Media Server will send 93MB/s to the wired PS3 and 8MB/s to the wireless one (), thus filling a 100MB connection and could account for why it sometimes has issues and sometimes doesn’t.

At the end of the day the Internet connection is reliable, I have solid speeds and while watching Optik TV I never noticed my Internet speed to decrease.

So far my experience with the Telus package has been great. With Usage Based Billing taking a back seat my move may have been premature but I am enjoying life where grass is greener. I may still be in the honeymoon phase of everything so I will write another post in a few weeks to see how I am finding the services then and if there are any issues that have appeared.

If you looked at my contact history with Shaw over the last week they would think I was suffering from memory loss. I called to ask about cancellation policies, removed basic cable from my package, upgraded to Shaw High Speed Extreme and then called to schedule a service cancellation for my remaining products…all in the span of 72 hours.

When our cable was terminated on Monday I was surprised by what was left. I thought there would be a few channels like CBC or CTV that would come in, but they were fuzzy. Some channels I thought to be static came in clear like E! or MTV. I wasn’t able to pick up anything using Over The Air and I wondered if I made a huge mistake. We don’t need cable but it’s nice to have something to turn on for news or some other programming, which I thought would be the case with farmer’s vision.

I didn’t expect there to be nothing on the other side of a silent coax cable so I began researching. I went from looking at big and unnatractive OTA antenna’s, wondering if this would be too extreme for me and then wound up looking at Telus’ Optik TV option.

I was still confident on switching from Shaw to Telus but when I discovered the $15-$15-$15 for the first year deal for Internet, Phone and TV from Telus I contemplated signing up for TV…something I disconnected and thought I could live without only a few days before. I wrote down a lot of numbers and different scenarios and when the $15-$15-$15 promo ended after 12 months I would still be saving over $20 for all the services I had with Shaw. Those savings still covers Netflix and a Usenet subscription so I end up with more for less.

Optik TV is a relatively new service offered by Telus so I had a lot of questions about how it works, how it affects bandwidth, limitations of it and everything a Customer Service Rep told me (which was backed up by my online research) made me more sure of my switch to Telus than ever before.

I contacted Shaw and told them all the reasons why I was leaving and scheduled the Telus install for the second week in February. There is no guarantee that Telus won’t change their bandwidth policy and when that time comes I will be where I am now but at least I was able to tell Shaw how I felt with my wallet.

I have been with Shaw since 2006 and never had a problem with their services and was sad to go, but I hope I made the right decision and that I have a good run with Telus. After I have been using Telus’ services for a week I will write again and see if the move was worth it and if the future really is friendlier on the other side.

The recent news of Shaw enforcing their bandwidth caps have a lot of people upset, including me. I have been contemplating a life without cable television and relying solely on Netflix, streaming from the websites of the network and downloading shows for a few months now.

This all meant that I would be consuming more bandwidth, and with Shaw’s decreased bandwidth caps and charges for exceeding those caps I had very few options.

For the last half of December and all of January I have been struggling with the question of what to do. On January 16 I decided to take my scraps of paper with costs, caps and act on it by calling Telus and Shaw. There were no surprises with the call to Telus. The numbers they provided me matched my calculations and my call to Shaw was of little help.

I was told that other companies will charge, regardless of what they say. This video says that Telus won’t enforce bandwidth caps and I really want to believe them, but there is some underlying emotion that makes me dread returning to Telus.

It’s a numbers game, and be it bandwidth or cost, the future is friendlier and cheaper with Telus. I will save $9 a month if I bundle my Internet and home phone services with Telus, but with Shaw’s 30 day notice to cancel services I can’t make the switch overnight and will continue to hum and haw over this while I figure out if it’s best for me.

If I stay I am subject to bandwidth caps and paying more per month, but with Telus their situation could change and they could decrease limits and start enforcing, leaving me with no where to go and being inconvenienced for nothing.

In the mean time, I cancelled television to pay for the cost of Netflix and Usenet memberships. We will still have OTA channels and whatever else is on farmer’s vision but soon the coax will be cold and then I will really see how much bandwidth I consume when it’s my sole provider of entertainment.

It’s over.

It’s over and I feel empty. No other finale happening this week interest me. I feel sad and content all at the same time. I have been counting down to the series finale since 2007 and I never anticipated I would be so crushed on the days following the end.

I have not read any reviews or other opinions of the finale so I could remain unbiased, and for those who have not seen the finale, turn back now because I will openly discuss the series. Long story short: I am a fan of the finale. It satisfied me on my original viewing, it still entertained me on the repeat viewing and there is enough open for interpretation that fans will be given the chance to decide on their own. The finale will change how I view season six but it didn’t rewrite the history before it. Whatever happened, happened.

I was moved by the final act and thought it was great that everyone could get together and have a reunion. The sideways afterlife was a Vanilla Sky “Life Extension” life where you could do what you wanted, be who you wanted to be. Hurley saw himself as lucky, Jack had a family, and even though he was divorced they were still friends, Kate was born to run and Sayid wasn’t with Nadia but could be around her and watch over her. Baggage from their life carried over into their post life but how they dealt with it was how they always wanted to deal with it.

How the afterlife world was created and how they decided to meet at The Lamp Post Church are a mystery to me but they are ones that don’t change the fact that it happened. Daniel Faraday did not go with Desmond and the passengers because the Church gathering was for the survivors of 815, and his time to move on would come later. As to would Ben’s time, always an outcast, he would go when he was ready.

The island story in the finale was everything I could have hoped for. Not all mysteries were answered, and for a show about characters and the issues that affect them directly, I can accept this. The primary concern for the Oceanic crew was how to survive, to defeat the Locke Monster and leave.

Questions about food supply drops, how Tom, Ben, Richard were able to leave the island easily, who was shooting at the Losties in the other outrigger while they were time skipping were not important and didn’t need to be addressed. If a mystery was answered (Who were Adam and Eve?) then it was because it affected the group and was something they wondered too.

I believe Christian Shephard that everything that happened to Jack was real. That the people in the Church were real. Everything from September 22, 2004 until 2007 happened. The footage of the Oceanic wreckage at the end of the credits didn’t mean they all died. It was a gentle reminder to show how far we’ve come, and the ancient battle between Jacob and Man in Black was the backdrop that brought these strangers together. They were taught that if they don’t live together they would die alone, and we saw that even in death they go together.

The predictions I made before the finale were terribly inaccurate, but there were two that were partially correct if you draw outside the lines.

• Rose and Bernard will not be involved in any island conflict but they will be collateral damage from the battle, and Vincent will wait for them at the cabin like Seymour did in the Futurama episode Jurassic Bark.
• Lapidus and Richard are having a big BBQ on The Hydra enjoying the rest of the Dharma beer.

I figured Richard was still alive because a character like his wouldn’t die off screen. However, I did not expect to see Lapidus survive and when they landed on The Hydra I gave myself partial credit for the fact that the BBQ could happen. Rose and Bernard didn’t want to be involved in the conflict, they broke their rule by helping Desmond, and thankfully they were not collateral damage.

Although Vincent laying beside Jack as he died was one of the saddest things I have seen, if the Church reunion didn’t break me emotionally then this did.

Lost was a great series that had mystery and intrigue and characters were complex that they would be loved and hated over the course of the show. Part of the appeal was waiting a week for the next episode to air, to let time for the previous episode to sink in, to read theories and understand what the new questions are.

Lost is an easy show to binge on but it needs to be savored. The fantastic season cliffhangers are only topped by the brain melting premieres, the wonderful soundtrack gives life to the island and seeing the show start to finish is definitely rewarding.

I’ll miss you Lost. You confused and frustrated me, but gave me something to look forward to every week for years and I’ll see you in another life.

Update: I won’t seek out reviews or recaps of the show to understand the show, but I came across this one and I feel it says everything perfectly. Everything I believe about the finale, the Sideways and how it all goes together is written here and I feel it gives me a little closure.

That’s it. That was the final episode of Lost to air during the weekday. The end is near and the stage is set for the finale on Sunday. On top of all of that I have no idea what is happening.

I don’t know how to deal with this. Every year the Lost finale was an event for me, but to be on the verge of the final finale, the end all-be all of finales is tough. Whatever I felt for Battlestar Galactica ending will be dwarfed by this. I have been watching Lost since 2005 and soon all of that time invested will be behind me.

It is for the best that the finale is on a weekend and the following day is Victoria Day, so I have a chance to recover and prepare myself for public interactions on Tuesday. I have come to expect a mind bending twist in the final moments of a season finale followed by months of agony and suffering, but I got through the nine month hiatus because I knew it was coming back. After Sunday that’s it.

I am almost positive that whatever I know or understand about Lost will be turned upside down in the finale but I am going to throw some ideas out there, just to document how off track I was. None of this has been influenced by spoilers, everything is speculation and usually the craziest theories are the ones that tend to be partially correct.

• Jack will be unable to defeat Locke Monster, as he now has the same brotherly powers that Jacob had, so Kate, Hurley and Sawyer will do it. As Locke dies the monster transfers to Sawyer, thus pitting Jack and Sawyer against each other.
• No one will leave the island, even if the Locke Monster is defeated there will be no way for the survivors to leave and the team will help Jack protect the Light from other people that find the island. The show closes with Jack, alone for decades after watching his friends die of old age, working on a loom as a plane splits in two over the island.
• After one more betrayal to the 815′ers Ben will die at the hand of Jack.
• Rose and Bernard will not be involved in any island conflict but they will be collateral damage from the battle, and Vincent will wait for them at the cabin like Seymour did in the Futurama episode Jurassic Bark.
• The cut on LA X Jack’s neck is from an upcoming event in the Prime timeline, after which the Prime line ceases to exist and everyone switches over to the LA X timeline.
• LA X Claire will have Aaron at everyone around her will connect to the baby and remember everything.
• LA X timeline is what happened if there was no Jacob or Man in Black battle.
• LA X 815′ers will be given the choice to live in a world without love or to go to a time where they experienced that love and had a life purpose but at the cost of death.
• Dr. Linus will never have that dinner with Danielle Rousseau.
• In LA X the concert all 815′ers are going to will start with Faraday playing All Along The Watchtower/Final Four Theme on piano and that will magically transfer them back to Prime timeline.
• Lapidus and Richard are having a big BBQ on The Hydra enjoying the rest of the Dharma beer.

In closing, here is a fantastic fan made trailer for the final episode, The End.

There’s no Lost tonight. In four weeks I’ll be saying that every day, but in that situation I have no new Lost to look forward to again. After a healthy run of three months a week off was scheduled to prepare for the May 23 finale.

I haven’t written about Lost much this season, or about a lot of things in general, but that doesn’t mean I find this season any less amazing. I had faith in the LA X timeline, I thought The Temple storyline was good, and as the series accelerates closer to the end I have no idea what is going on or how it will end. I find it amusing that the characters I care about most (Desmond, Ben, Richard, Jacob, Man in Black) were not even around in season and some weren’t even mentioned until season three.

In light of Lost not being on it’s time to take a walk down memory lane with some scripts from previous episodes. This site has a few scripts from season one and two. I don’t normally read scripts, I imagined they were pretty tame, but if they include the amount of cussing, unsaid suggestion and written like something Quentin Tarantino would do then I should read some more.

One of my favorite Lost episodes was Season 2 – Episode 20 Two for the Road because of the shocking end and here is how some key moments were scripted:

SAWYER
(to Jack)
What? You brought her along for the sympathy vote? Well she ain’t in my head, Doc, so go screw.

Ow. ON KATE, uncomfortable that Sawyer has crossed into this territory. Jack deals with it another way — pulls out HIS fucking gun, sticks it in Sawyer’s face –

JACK
Take us to the guns. Right now.

Now Sawyer has a moment of realization. He doesn’t have his fucking gun! He forgot about it. He involuntarily reaches anyway for the back of his waistband, like you’d check for your missing wallet. Nothing! Double fuck.

SAWYER
That bitch. She stole my damn gun.
(off Jack’s look)
Ana Lucia.

JACK
How’d she do that?

Sawyer’s not about to tell Jack that –

SAWYER
Sonofabitch!

JACK
What does she need a gun for?

Locke knows why: to get fucking revenge. He realizes he might have seriously fucked up.

LOCKE
Jack. I need to tell you something.

BACK ON MICHAEL — And his expression changes — as if he’s in great EMOTIONAL PAIN that he can’t restrain anymore. A single TEAR slips down his cheek. And then, very, very softly, he says –

MICHAEL
I’m sorry.

ANA LUCIA
(confused)
For what?

Michael abruptly STANDS. Points the gun at Ana Lucia.

BLAM.

He shoots her. POINT BLANK.

And Ana’s eyes barely register surprise as she slides off the couch. SLUMPS into a seated position.

She looks up at Michael, still pointing the gun at her as she opens her mouth — but it’s not drawn out. No. Because a moment later, her body just… goes SLACK.

Her eyes stay open, but the lights are out.

Ana Lucia Cortez is dead.

VOICE (O.S.)
(confused)
Michael — ?

BLAM! BLAM!

And Michael is fucking SHOOTING before he even sees what he’s shooting at — INSTINCT now as he WHIPS AROUND towards the sound of that voice and REVEAL –

LIBBY.

SHOCKED. HOLDING THE BLANKETS SHE WAS GETTING FOR HER PICNIC WITH HURLEY. A BLACKENED HOLE now permeates in the center of those blankets as Libby’s knees fucking BUCKLE –

She hits the ground like a back of rocks. Over. DONE.

Oh sweet fucking CHRIST.

TIME STOPS. ON MICHAEL. FREAKING OUT. SWEATING. BLINKING. HIS GUN HAND FUCKING TREMBLING. FROZEN.

And then he BREAKS it. Pulls his eyes away from the dead women as he TURNS — INTENSE — walks over to the ARMORY –

GIACCHINO MUSIC starts to POUND now as his SHAKING HAND spins the COMBINATION DIAL — eighteen to the right — one to the left — thirty-one to the right. HE PULLS DOWN THE HANDLE –

THE DOOR SLIDES OPEN. DARK IN HERE, Michael, the gun at his side, BACKLIT by the living area behind him as we REVEAL…

Henry. Sitting in the corner. Untied.

And considering he just heard three gunshots and a STRANGE MAN is now standing in the doorway of his “cell,” the look on Henry’s face is not one of FEAR…

It is one of ACCEPTANCE.

He stands up. Faces Michael.

And Michael looks at him. ANOTHER tear slides down his face as he raises the gun…

And turns it on HIMSELF — PUSHING IT AGAINST HIS COLLARBONE.

Going from a show about nothing to a show about people yelling at each other is quite the leap but after watching all seven seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm I can see Larry David’s work all over Seinfeld.

After hearing about the Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm I watched “The Table Read”, laughed a lot, and decided it was worth it to start from the awkward and uncomfortable beginning. Jenna and I started at the beginning and loved it. It was awkward, embarrassing and hilarious all in one. Curb Your Enthusiasm is far from work safe, but you get so emerged in the dialog that you may not recognize vulgar language until some says something incredibly offensive and then you realize what you are watching.

Classic moments were Larry’s drawn out “pretty good” and whenever he would stare someone down hoping to see the truth in their eyes. Surprisingly, both moments were in a single scene here. Nearly every episode would have us performing some variation of a face palm or head hold while we questioned Larry’s actions. For the most part Larry David was put in terrible circumstances by doing what he thought was right or fair, but it was never seen that way.

The show would bring socially accepted situations or behaviors into question. Things that are accepted “as is” for most of us would get Larry involved in a shouting match with a complete stranger. The show does have a lot of yelling, which is mostly due to not having a script, but that’s how real life goes. You don’t pause for crowd reaction, you continue talking and if you are trying to make a point you just talk louder and force the other person out of the conversation.

In a lot of ways Curb Your Enthusiasm mirrored Seinfeld where nothing would happen. With the exception of a few seasons (The Producers, Seinfeld and restaurant opening) the others carried on without incident and would follow Larry and his friends around various stories and antics. Richard Lewis needing a kidney was a big story but I can’t remember what else happened in that season or how it related. The problem with binging on a show, especially one where the seasons just happen is that you can easily forget what one season was about to the next.

One thing there was never a shortage of was celebrity name drops and appearances from a familiar face. After a while you get used to seeing Ted Danson around or just expect Ben Stiller to be in the next episode, and it was refreshing to have other actors just show up, similar to Entourage but in greater quantity.

After Curb Your Enthusiasm I may venture into It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to continue the comedy against heavy dramas like Deadwood or Mad Men.

Like millions of fellow Canadians I enjoyed watching the 2010 Olympics from Vancouver. It was a fantastic seventeen days and I was able to see a lot of memorable moments play out live. I am going to miss switching between three Canadian networks and one American to get complete coverage and regardless of the day or time you knew something from the Olympics would be on.

One thing I am going to miss the most is the commercials. Advertisement is a necessary evil but I never felt one commercial overly annoyed me, even when played repeatedly. Some commercials still managed to excite me, get my blood racing and induce goosebumps. If you were lucky enough you would see the longer version of a commercial and feel a new surge of emotions all over again.

Here are some of my favorites from February:

Molson Canadian – Made From Canada (YouTube – 1:00)
It has great shots of Canada, inspirational words and as the commercial comes to a close you hear the powerful and always motivating music from Clint Mansell. I saw this commercial several times while I had a MGD in hand and felt a little guilt.

Visa – Go World
The “Go World” campaign was amazing. The commercials would change based on current events (like when Canada won its first gold, YouTube – 0:32) and as the medals accumulated the first names of the athletes would be added into the commercial. These were never dull and even after seeing the Dan Jensen (YouTube – 0:30) or Sara Renner (YouTube – 0:32) ad spots multiple times I still got emotional over it.

More TV spots available at YouTube or on their Facebook page.

Coca Cola – Whose Game They’re Playing
The first time I saw the “Whose Game They’re Playing” (YouTube – 1:02) commercial was in a movie theater in January and the way I felt then is how I felt all the way through February. It’s a great commercial, one that would always force me stop what I was doing and watch.

I have noticed that video montages have been appearing on networks as the Olympics came to an end, but one that really stands out was Stephen Brunt’s emotional discussion about being Canadian and celebrating as a nation. Even after multiple viewings it’s still good.

Thanks Olympics for giving us Canadians something to feel and cheer about, it’s been a fantastic seventeen days.