** Potential Spoilers**

Ah.

Sweet satisfaction.

All of my favourite shows are back. Heroes, Prison Break, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, both Stargates, 24, and Studio 60.

It is truly the most rewarding time to sit back and feel your ass grow.

In regards to these shows, I have to say that some of them returned with exciting new flourishes, while several others most certainly did not.

Heroes made an anti-climactic return. In the mid-season finale that aired several weeks ago, the series alleged supervillain, Sylar, escaped from his holding facility in the Primatech Paper factory, and presumably killed Eden McCain (who possesses the ultimate power of suggestion). With Sylar on the loose, and now possessing the power of suggestion, the return to Heroes would surely be an epic one.

But, it really wasn’t. The return to Heroes leapt several weeks into the future, and had Sylar - the main antagonist - reimprisoned by horn-rimmed glasses, the ambiguous mysterious character. The method in which this occured is entirely unclear, but the viewer is intended to accept it.

The return of Heroes has been disappointing. While it seemed as if the show was picking up momentum as it approached the catastrophic destruction of New York City, in reality, the show has slowed to a crawl.

Prison Break has returned with a few interesting plot twists, and has managed to recapture my interest to a degree approaching the awe that the show created in the first season. While Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows are still running from the law, the enemy is finally beginning to falter, and there is a successful climax in sight. Character development with Bellick’s character, as well as the two brothers who are being pursued, has caused the show to be interesting once again.

Battlestar Galactica returned with an absolutely superb follow-up to their mid-season finale (which is what should happen). The Rapture – the conclusion to the mid-season finale episode, The Eye of Jupiter – was absolutely fantastic, and further explored the nature of the Cylons, the identity of the final five Cyclons, the fate of the first Cylon-human hybrid, and – most importantly – it put Gaius Baltar back into the hands of humanity. But that is not all. With him came Caprica Six, which will hopefully factor into some terrible interesting plotlines in the remainder of the season.

The Office returned as humorous as ever, however the events surrounding the merger between the two Dunder-Mifflin offices appear to have meant nothing. While the show’s cast gained an extra five cast members when the two offices were combined into one, each episode since has seen the elimination of a new inductee, reducing the cast down to its original numbers, except for Andy and Karen. Furthermore, the show’s writers have worked the Jim-Pam romance back into the spotlight, which is starting to create some of the redundancies and social awkwardness of previous seasons. Out with the new, and in with the old, I guess.

Still, the show is worth watching.

A show that has lost its effect on me is Stargate SG-1. The conclusion to the mid-season finale involved SG-1 fighting a dragon and discovering Merlin, frozen in ice. Then, SG-1 delved into its tradition of Daniel Jackson – the know-it-all – being granted some sort of special abilities granted from above that make him super powerful. Throughout the series, he has been killed, ascended, all-powerful and all-knowing, reborn, killed and ascended again, a Goauld (once or twice), he has been granted the power and memories of Merlin, and – most recently – has become a Prior for the Ori.

SG-1 is slowly becoming tired and boring.

Stargate Atlantis is constantly becoming a better show. Stargate Atlantis is becoming the Spiderman (or Batman) of sci-fi shows, in the sense that it is developing – by far – the biggest “rogues gallery” I’ve ever seen. They are enemies with the Wraith, the Genii, the Asurans, and – even now – they have become enemies with Michael and his faster, stronger, Iratus bug hybrids.

Furthermore, the cast is much better than Stargate SG-1. Col. Shepherd does not make as many unnecessary jokes as Col. O’Neill did. Teyla and Ronon Dex are both alien characters, but they have much more personality and character when compared to Teal’C, their SG-1 equivalents. Finally, Rodney McKay is better than Samantha Carter. No question about it. He is sarcastic, arrogant, deep, and a coward. The episode that featured the death of Carson Beckett, and the emotional response from McKay was utterly fantastic. Utterly!!

I think Stargate Atlantis is doing better than SG-1 because it has a superior ensemble cast (with supporting characters Zalenka, and Maj. Lorne, as well as the now-deceased Carson Beckett), as well as a diverse range of enemies, and less bullshit science. In Stargate SG-1, Carter seems to be able to understand and create anything from Earth components. In Stargate Atlantis, they are struggling to use, understand, and maintain equipment made by a species that is far more advanced than mankind could ever hope for. As such, there is a lot less of those situations from SG-1 where Carter says, “I’ve been able to analyze the quantum flux capacitor field, and have morphed the tritillium quadro-sectic alloys to have a reverb function that will delve into the space-sub-par-quintillo-parsec…blah blah blah.”

In SGA, people demand that McKay figure something out. And then, with much perseverance, squabbling, and fighting with Zalenka, they manage to rig up some sort of solution that may or may not work in time, and usually involves no invention of their own.

24 came back for its 6th season, and it seemed to have improved. I’ll admit that they have certainly increased production quality, and they are highlighting the issues of public unrest, civil disorder, and blatant racism a fair bit more. This – all in all – makes for interesting sub plots and conflicts, the likes of which have not been seen since Season Two, when they suspected the Muslim boyfriend, when it was actually the snotty rich blonde girl.

Studio 60 has returned, but the main plot threads move on so slowly that I have not been able to accurately gauge if the show will pull itself out of the rating hole that it fell into after the pilot. Nevertheless, STUDIO 60 IS A GOOD SHOW AND I INSIST YOU WATCH IT!

That is all.

This post contains spoilers related to the movie known as The Prestige, starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and the voluptuous Scarlett Johansson.

I’m going to keep this short and sweet, because I have bigger fish to fry.

The movie had an incredibly interesting premise. Due to the setting in which the film was viewed, it was extremely difficult to understand. When you’re watching the film from poor seats that are positioned right in front of the entrance to the Bomber, it is nearly impossible to follow a plot.

The movie was good, from what I heard of it.

However, I called the final twist of the movie within the first five minutes. In the court scene at the beginning, where Christian Bale is on trial for allegedly murdering Hugh Jackman’s character, Christian Bale waves to a little girl in the custody of a man with a moustache and hat. As the two turned to depart, I thought to myself, “Huh. That guy on the balcony with the little girl looks a lot like Christian Bale.”

At that moment, I thought of an ironic twist to the movie. Perhaps Christian Bale, and the guy with the moustache, were related. Maybe, they were even twins.

I thought of how humorous it would be to pull out the Blackberry, and e-mail Binkle my predicted results for the movie, and then have him arrive at home and read it. In the end, I thought against it. I figured the light from the screen would be distracting, and besides, I would miss more of the movie.

But, in the end, I was right. The mustached guy was Christian Bale’s twin (or his other character). Hurrah! I was right.

In the end, the whole thing was disappointing. It might be a fantastic movie…but I suppose seeing it would have made it better.

I’m on the way home from work,and I just wanted to put up this post real quick.

I have a few topics to touch on.

- Life as the Taxman
- A story from Cfrb
- Brief blurb on The Prestige
- Rebranding “The Box” into something new, exciting, and potentially erotic and sexually satisfying (if you didn’t find it to be so already).

I’ll fill you in when I’m on a proper keyboard.

They raised the price by an extra 50 bucks here in Canada.

To that…Sony…I applaud you…

*clap*

*clap*

*clap*

You are stupid, Sony.

Well, it is now the 21st of January, and although we are now closer to Andrew’s birthday, I still spent the weekend celebrating my 20th with Andrew and Binkle in UW.

After another indifferent day of being the caped crime-fighter known as “Taxman”, the task was upon me to track down Binkle and make my way to UWP for an exciting birthday adventure.

I attempted to phone Binkle using the Blackberry (the one I am typing this post on) but I realized that his number was unknown to me.

So, the first adventure of the day began. Tracking down contact info for Binkle. So, I used the Google Talk feature of the Blackberry to contact Brian M. I asked him if he could check MSN for Binkle’s number.

Unfortunately, Binkle’s MSN, Facebook, blog and Google Talk did not have his number. So, I tried to check the UW Directory for his number.

Success!

He was listed. I had finally done it. So, I made the call. No answer.

Eventually, I e-mailed him through Gmail - a feature that I did not expect to work. After a trip down King St., and narrow avoidance of two traffic disasters, I arrived at the University campus.

Nothing terribly exciting happened while we waited the two hours or so for Andrew to return from hockey. An attempt was made to play Day of Defeat, but Steam continued to plague me with a virtual armada of errors.

When Andrew had finally arrived, Binkle and I were in a heated battle of 2 vs 2 Starcraft against some computers. Binkle, as was the theme of the evening, was experiencing difficulty with his resource management.

In the end, we gained victory due to some subtle influences to Binkle’s mining situation. We finally finished destroying the enemy.

At this point, I stopped typing with the Blackberry. Although, it should be made clear that due to the mind-bending science of RIM-related time travel, the Blackberry will make another appearance near the end of the story, which is when I begin typing the start of this story. And so, my post will exist as a circular loop, forever and always.

There was a brief debate between whether we would go to Mongolian Grill or the Mandarin. The debate was heated. Andrew and Binkle fought eachother in the lowest dungeon and on the highest peak. Eventually, Andrew pointed out the cost benefit of going to the Mongolian Grill, and - acknowledging that it was merely across the street - we decided that it was best.

And so, for the next few hours we engaged in mass gluttony, as we competed to eat the most bowls. All in all, I think I finished off the most, since I had 5 bowls worth of stirfry (the last one only partially completed), and I also had bowls of soup while I waited in line to get my stirfry.

But then again, Andrew should be congratulated for preparing and devouring an incredibly
spicy dish.

But - in reality - Binkle should be congratulated…for being the only one to maintain his dignity while we were eating the stirfry.

Also, I’d like to take a brief interlude to comment on the state of men’s restrooms. Why do we get the short end of the stick? The restroom in this particular establishment was in a state of disrepair. The paper towel dispenser was broken open and the contents were spilling out. But - more disturbingly - there was a sign above the urinal that said it was currently not working. Nevertheless, the bowl was full of human excretion, and there was a massive puddle that had snaked its way from the urinal to the sink.

Disturbing? Yes.

I hope you weren’t eating.

After our meal, we returned to UW Place to engage in a few good Starcraft matches. We did a few games against computers, but Andrew had an insatiable lust for 2 vs 1 matches. His reasoning was that the computer often comes at you with brute force, whereas humans are more calculating.

To me, that translated to being “I like fighting you and Binkle, because I win every time!” Which - in essence - is the reason.

First, I shall recount to you what I coined as the Battle of Helms Deep.

Andrew - Zerg
Jordan - Zerg
Binkle - Protoss
Let me just begin by saying that the starting conditions for this map sucked. It was a gigantic map, but we all started in the same region. We were all positioned in the top right corner, with my base nearer to the top, Andrew’s base to the right, and Binkle sandwiched between us.

As our bases expanded, we practically built into eachother. Binkle and I launched a few unsuccessful attacks on Andrew, and then he destroyed us. Incredibly quickly. I have never seen people get destroyed with such a small force as Andrew had. Of course, it got bigger with time. He had several mining bases (we all did), but they appeared to be working more efficiently.

In the end, Binkle was left with a few straggling buildings, and I was left with an unbalanced resource pile. Tens of thousands of minerals, and very little gas. I enacted the only plan that I thought would keep Andrew at bay.

I decided to use all of my minerals to build sunken and spore colonies around a single hatchery, that would continue to build drones. As Andrew attempted to attack - I thought - his forces would surely be cut down. In the meantime, I could build up elsewhere. He would assume that the reinforced base was my last stronghold, and spend all his time there.

Unfortunately, Andrew discovered my “salvaging our species” base on the opposite side of the map long before he attempted to attack my stronghold. It was actually quite funny. He had used a nydus canal on my base earlier. He had built it on my own creep, and walked enemies into the base.

On my “salvaging our species” base, I was cocky as to its survival. Andrew said that he was going to destroy it. And I said “What are you going to do? Build a nydus…”

It was mid-sentence that I noticed the nydus canal was already built beneath the mineral field. I cursed Andrew’s name unto the heavens, and begged God to smite him.

God did not.
So, while I lost my opportunity to continue the fight, I will have you know that I obeyed all of the wishes of my readers by fighting beyond all hope. I stayed with the stronghold base, and killed wave after wave of his forces, until he attacked me with Ultralisks, and all manner of beasts. Eventually, I was reduced to running around the map and building hatcheries.

And that was that.

Operation Guerilla Warfare

Andrew - Terran
Jordan - Zerg
Binkle - Protoss

This is another match where Andrew wiped the floor with us. While it was not a notable game, there were a few choice moments.

By the end of the game, all three of us had lost our main bases. However, Andrew - being Terran - was able to salvage his buildings more readily than Binkle or myself. I had relocated to a floating platform base in the northern parts of the map, and - from my safe haven - I constructed fleets of mutalisks to attack Andrew’s bases while I tried to restore my mineral flow.

Andrew, however, had reinforced the mining bases on the right side of the map with tanks behind supply depots, and missile turrets. This was unfair…because it is an unstoppable defense. There was no way to breach it.

The most notable part of this game was Binkle’s efforts. Andrew had a base established in the north (in a region where I had been mining), and it was providing him with the revenue to continue his war efforts. While I was fighting Andrew abroad, Binkle - foolish as he was - entered into enemy territory and constructed a pylon. Then, he constructed a Forge. Finally, he spread his destruction over all of Andrew’s base.

He attacked Andrew…with photon cannons.

And won.

That’s right. Much like “tower rushing” in Warcraft III, Binkle advanced on Andrew with defensive buildings, and decimated his mining base. When they pointed out what had happened, all I saw was a sprawling field of photon cannons. I did not occur to me what had transpired until later.

To this, I say bravo Binkle. Your persistence is inspiring.

Nevertheless, Andrew thrived better than we did. He had a giant battlecruiser fleet, which I could not defend against. And since my base was on an island, I could not have ground units as easily dispatched as he could. So, in time, my mutalisks were cut down. First, by his battlecruisers. Second, by his newly built wraiths and valkyries. Though they did their fair share of damage, there were too many air units and missile turrets for them to survive. He had an engineering bay floating nearly offscreen in the bottom corner that allowed him to continue building engineering bays even after his base was destroyed. If I had destroyed it, I might have gained crucial moments to attack a base while he tried to rebuild one. But…alas.

It was a sad, sad day.

What exactly can Zerg use against battlecruisers? It seems everything I have ever thrown at them is cut to ribbons…Usually before getting a decent attack in.

Andrew seems to know what works best, and he often references what “the Strategy Guide says” (cheater). I mean…he knows the range - in map squares - of units. What the crap? All I know about guardians is that they have good range. I did not know that they can fire for 8 squares until Andrew mentionned it.

Damn cheater. Give me a strategy guide, and I’ll show you a swift defeat.

Retire For The Night

I went to Andrew’s place to spend the night. I’d brought a sleeping bag and a pillow of my own, and Andrew graciously offered me the use of his air mattress (which he had acquired in a game of chance and fortune). So, I set to work pumping up the mattress with the hand pump, like the pioneers of old, while Andrew filmed the ordeal in one minute snippets on his cell phone.

Victory was hard to attain, but eventually, the mattress was inflated. Andrew - who had not helped - had collected a few choice video snippets (complete with narration) and a few standalone images.

Within minutes, I was passed out while Andrew was doing his pre-bed routine. To date, Andrew has been the only person who has not voiced any audible complaint about the fact that I snore. And considering how much he complained about Shaun’s stinky feet at Beyond so many years ago, I thought complaints would have been numerous. Perhaps - in comparison to stinky feet - snoring is not that bad.

The next morning, I woke up around 11:00. However, I had nothing to do. I couldn’t connect to the Internet. I couldn’t play XBox without waking Andrew. And my Game Boy Advance was in my backpack (which was on the other side of Andrew’s sprawling room). So, I went to sleep…again.

We eventually got up at 2:00 or at some time late in the afternoon, after Binkle called.
Uneventful Conclusion

We went to Tim Hortons and Sobeys in the morning. It was then that I began typing this very post (while the events were still unfolding). And so, we’ve come full circle.

In response to Binkle’s criticisms about the no posting, I’d like to kindly tell you all to take a needle and stitch your mouths shut…and your fingers together. The post is on its way, but I have more important matters to attend to.

Exams are approaching, and I am attempting to help my sisters with their first high school exams ever. Sam has Math. Vic has Geography. So, I’ve coached Vic on how to make proper study notes, and I am trying to keep her on task. I am reteaching Sam all of Grade Nine math (Ms. Leroux, you suck) and I am creating exam prep and a practice examination for her.

So, for those of you keeping track, my list of priorities are as follows:

1. Sisters and exams
2. Double life as the Taxman
3. Blog posts - Birthday Festivities, the Origins of Taxman, Jordan’s Guide To Game Console Spending, and The Unveiling of a New Era For The Box (yes, I have a lot planned).
4. Blog redesign - I think I have a finalised idea for a template.
5. Wii Challenge - It doesn’t look like I’ll be getting the Wii soon…so, yeah.

So, before you criticise me, I want you all to remember how infrequent your new content has been appearing, and remember that I am the one who has 367 posts to his name, not counting those before the mass delete of 2004. Keep this in mind, you have a fair deal of catching up to do.

Especially you, Caleb.