WEP '12, Day 61 - Ocean's Eleven Retrospective

Having caught part of Ocean's Eleven and most of Ocean's Twelve on TV recently, I decided that I might as well have a look at the entire sequence of films, Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen.  Netflix having kindly delivered Eleven and Twelve to me, I'm going to go ahead and give my thoughts on the films as I watch them.  I caught Ocean's Eleven Friday night, and here's what I thought.  As usual, and especially since the film is eleven years old now, there will be spoilers after the poster.

First of all, the movie's subtler than I recall it being.  A lot is conveyed with pauses and looks rather than overt dialogue.  That requires a good script and actors with decent comedic timing, and they managed both, for the most part.

Secondly, there's really a lot less overt humor compared to today's comedies.  There's very few pratfalls, no bodily fluids, none of the excessive raunchiness one might get from The Hangover or Bridesmaids.  True, they have the brothers from Utah and their constant bickering, but they don't overplay that card, and the scene where they drive Linus to distraction is artfully directed.  The humor here is understated, and I like it that way.

Something else that I noticed was that despite only a few of the characters getting all that much screen time (which is inevitable when you've got eleven people on Danny's team, plus Benedict, plus Tess), the characters are sharply defined.  Benedict is cold and dangerous, Danny is smooth and charming, Rusty is mysterious and witty, Linus is self-conscious and inexperienced.  And so on, and so forth. Granted, no one character is allowed time to show much in the way of depth beyond Danny pining for Tess, but heist films like the Ocean's movies really aren't about character depth, they're about the setup and execution of the heist.

So how was the heist?  Not bad, actually.  Oh, there are a few holes.  The "pinch" device they use to generate the EMP doesn't actually exist.  I don't think there was enough time for them to get all the loot out the way they showed it. Also, Terry should have realized that there was no way for Tess to have seen his final confrontation with Danny unless someone had hacked his security systems, and since the logical people to have done that were the thieves he should have known that Danny was in on the robbery then and there.  And since, as a corrupt murderous sort, he shouldn't have been concerned with something like "proof" before beating the truth out of Ocean.  Also, if the point of having Yen in the vault was so that he could jump around and not touch the floor, which makes it seem a bit odd when they just blow the door up and walk in afterwards.  Why didn't the alarm go off then?

Nevertheless, it still works.  The timing, the convolutions in the plan, the twists and turns, they're all pretty cool.  What concerns I have with the execution only become obvious in retrospect after repeated viewings.  During the film itself, one is caught up in the action and don't think about the details, you're more interested in  what happens next.  Which is as it should be.  Ocean's Eleven isn't the kind of tense drama where a hole in your suspension of disbelief kills the film for you the way it might, say, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  The scenario in Ocean's is inherently manufactured, and we all know that nothing about it really reflects reality.  The movie is about style and flash, and on those levels it succeeds.

This would be a good time, I suppose, to compare the Clooney Ocean's Eleven to the Frank Sinatra Ocean's Eleven.  The problem is that I've never seen the Sinatra version, so I haven't got any basis for comparison.  Maybe I'll watch that one after I finish doing Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen.

Overall, then, Ocean's Eleven was a fine version of a light heist film.  It was a one and film that accomplished what it set out to do.  It also was pretty clearly never intended to have a sequel.  So what would happen when they did one anyway?  Find out next time when I review in retrospect Ocean's Twelve.

WEP '12, Day 60 - Old Republic Log XXIV

Right, so I didn't actually do all that much, but I would like to talk a little more about Tatooine, as far as the Sith Inquisitor goes.  So let's get all Spoilery with it, shall we?

Kelynn, Level 35 Vanguard, Republic Fleet
Tasia, Level 29 Sith Sorceress, Alderaan
Alia, Level 12 Jedi Shadow, Coruscant
Leanra, Level 3 Imperial Agent, Hutta

Nothing but suns, sand, and SPOILERS!

Are you sure you're ready for the SPOILERS?

Right.  Tatooine from the Sith Inquisitor's side is pretty boring. Go in, pick up your new space pirate companion, help him track down the guy who betrayed him, then track down the corpses of the guys who betrayed the first traitor.  Nothing much to it.

What bugs me, though, was the fact that the main Planet Quest line actually merges with the Republic on by the time you hit the Dune Sea.  Out there you find the same beacons, including the one right outside the Republic Outpost, which is a bitch for Imperial players, go into the same ruined Czerka base, and get into the same confrontation with the sentient artifact of the Infinite Empire.  Granted, the actual story diverges at the end as the Imperial characters don't get a final confrontation with the Czerka guy who'd been plaguing the Republic characters, but even so, there was a lot of overlap.

Which wouldn't be a big deal except that the guys who marketed TOR claimed there was no duplicate content from Empire to Republic.  But that's clearly not true.  For one thing, besides who briefs you on the mission, most of the Flashpoints in the game are identical regardless of which side you're on.  And now there's the duplicate content on Tatooine.  Sure, they can claim the technicality that there are a few changes, but the fact that I'm level 35 with one character and level 29 with another and I've gone through a lot of the same stuff from planet to planet is pretty disturbing.  Especially now that I'm on Alderaan and I'm seeing "save the besieged outposts" and "poison the bugs" missions on both sides of the fence...

It's just a little worrisome, is all.

WEP '12, Day 59 - Amazing Race 20 Analysis Ep. 2

As usual, this analysis assumes you've already watched the second episode of Amazing Race 20.  Those of you who haven't are encouraged to watch it at CBS.com.  SPOILERS follow.

Most every leg of the race starts with the teams leaving from a Pit Stop.  Usually it's after twelve hours of rest, though occasionally you see twenty four or even thirty six hour gaps.  What that means, though, is that if you arrived during the day, you'll be leaving at night, usually very late at night.  For instance, Blonde Rachel and Dave arrived at the end of last leg at 2:46 pm, and are thus leaving at 2:46 am, which is a pain in the ass vis a vis trying to get anything done.

That's by design, though.  You see, the primary mechanism that the Race uses to keep teams from getting huge leads and thereby killing all the drama in the Race is called "bunching."  That occurs when the lead teams run into something that forces them to sit around and wait, which allows the trailing teams to catch up.  There are two types of bunching.  One is Travel Bunching, where the teams have to fly somewhere but the next flight is hours away, so that while they're sitting around waiting to board, the trailers catch up and with everyone on the same plane, the race is reset to zero when they land.  That happens most often at airports, but it can work for any type of transportation, including boats and trains.

The second type of bunching is Hours of Operation Bunching.  That's where the location or activity that's next for the teams doesn't open for a few hours, so the leaders get to watch their lead vanish one team at a time.  That's what happens in this one, as everyone catches up before the local courier arrives at dawn to hand out the next clue.

It also renders moot the full list of departure times that I jotted down as they appeared on screen, but there was still some interesting data to mine there.  For instance the top three teams were separated by all of three minutes, and that the gap between the lead plane and the second plane seems to have been about two hours.  Also that the Twins either got lost or were really bad at making empanadas, because there where nearly an hour behind the next team, Ralph and Vanessa.  Guess there's some missing drama there.

Speaking of screen time, one way you can guess which teams are going to be in it for a while versus the ones that are going out soon is that the more screen time you get in the early episodes, the more likely you are to get flushed out early.  Meanwhile, if you get short shrift, it tends to suggest you'll be there near the end.  So, since they only got Misa and Maiya for one episode, the producers tended to show as much as them as they could.  Considering that the Twins seem to have lost a whole hour in there somewhere and no one felt it was worth it to show us how, I'm guessing that the Twins will be around into the later stages of the Race.

Anyway, the teams head out into a Detour, the choice between two tasks.  One of the ways I tend to keep myself involved in events is to try and guess which one is the better choice.  In this case the choice was between setting up a solar oven and boiling some water with it, and collecting wood and clay then hauling it a mile on donkey-back and then making a fire.  Normally you should try to avoid gathering tasks, since you never want to be at the mercy of random chance to find something the way Misa and Maiya were in the first episode.  However, in this case you weren't searching for a single hidden object, you were just gathering stuff off the ground, so I thought that the fire task was the better bet.

Oddly, only Team Border Patrol agreed with me.  Everyone else did the solar oven.  And it turned out that I was right, since the Border Patrol guys managed to get lost and lose 20 minutes and still ended up in second place!  the big sticking point was in how long it took for the pots to boil, with some teams standing around for as much as 45 minutes waiting for the sun to do its job.

The next step was to take a bus eighteen hours to Buenos Aries.  Blond Rachel and Dave, Red Rachel and Brandon, Team Border Patrol, and Bopper and Mark all make the first bus.  The second bus has the Clowns, the Jersey Shore Boys, the Twins, and Ralph and Vanessa.  Finally, Team DEA and Kerri and Stacy make it to the last bus.  These last two are fretting because it seems all but certain that one of them will be eliminated.  But then random fate takes a stab at the second bus by somehow breaking a window on that bus, putting all four teams there in a competition for the bottom.

Now I've said in the past that one of the things I enjoy about the Race is that you can't get voted off the island.  You win or lose based on when you arrive at the mat, no more and no less.  But that isn't entirely true.  After all, there is the once or twice per race U-Turn which you can use to screw another team.  But there is another social element to the Race as well...how willing other teams are to help you out or team up with you.  Team DEA has that clearly in mind.  They've gone undercover as kindergarten teachers, since they're afraid that revealing their DEA skills will make other teams more likely to U-Turn them or not help them out.

The social element comes to the forefront in  Buenos Aries.  The final task, a Roadblock which means only one teammate can participate, involves figuring out the average weight of a corral of cattle during a cattle auction.  So you have to count the number of cows, catch the total weight of the corral during the auctioneer's pitch, then successfully do the division all while various bidders yell out numbers.   It's not an easy task, especially for frazzled and sleep deprived racers, so many of the teams end up working together.  But who to work with?  Blonde Rachel and one of the Border Patrol guys end up working together, but purposely exclude Red Rachel because Brandon had purportedly ripped a out of Team Border Patrol's hands during the pile up with the courier.  Mark watches Red Rachel self-destruct during the task and shows mercy, basically handing her the answer to the problem.  That doesn't make Red feel any better, though, as she continues to implode on he cab ride over to the Pit Stop.  Clearly the pair from Big Brother are going to be a high drama team.  Here's hoping they implode right out of the Race.

The middle two teams, still believing that they're fighting for last place, didn't cooperate at all, which only makes sense.  That leads to Kerri and Stacy ending up team number five, and Team DEA getting the Phil Fake-out where he pretends they've been eliminated, then reveals that the other teams had bus problems and they're still alive.

That leaves us with the remaining four teams screwed by the bus problem.  By the way, how does a window of a bus suddenly shatter?  Did someone take a shot at the bus or something?  Anyway, there's a little more math teamwork that ends up leaving Dave of the Clowns in the dust, and he and Cherie are duly eliminated.  That at least frees me from having to distinguish between the two Daves on the show.  It was also nice to get some validation on another [b]Suvivibility: Low[/b] team going out early.  Now if we can just get Kerri and Stacy out next, I'll really look prophetic.

Episode two standings:

1st - Blonde Rachel and Dave
2nd - JJ and Art (Border Patrol)
3rd - Bopper and Mark
4th - Red Rachel and Brendon 
5th - Kerri and Stacy (Cousins) 
6th - Nary and Jamie (DEA) 
7th - Vanessa and Ralph
8th - Joey "Fitness" and Danny (Jersey Boys)
9th - Eliott and Andrew (Twins) 
OUT - Dave and Cherie (Clowns) 
OUT - Misa and Maiya

Dead Team Obituary: Dave and Cherie

As I said, I'd rated this team as a low survivability team, primarily because I figured that they'd fall too far behind in a grueling physical task.  As it turned out, it was bad luck with the bus and Dave's poor math skills that did them in.  Who knew?

Something that I've noticed is that the show tends to try and slip in something inspirational about a team right before they go out.  It's like they've got this story about a team that hasn't got a good context as far as the Race itself goes, but since this is the last time we'll see this team, they might as well throw it in.  That's how we learned that Dave had beaten cancer twice, which made me even more suspicious than usual about their chances when I heard Dave relate the tale early in the episode. 

Given that they managed to leave the show with clown walks and cartwheels, I have to admire Dave and Cherie for sticking to their roots.  Of course, if they'd been more interesting during the Race rather than as they left it, maybe I'd feel bad about their leaving.

WEP '12, Day 58 - Old Republic Log XXIII

While I should probably do my next Amazing Race analysis, the problem is that I haven't seen the episode yet...I was, as noted, watching the Oscars.  And since we did have a Kessel Midnight Runners guild run tonight, I might as well catch up on the Old Republic Log.

Of course, with Morgan out away in the wilds of San Francisco this week, and Paul long since having left the game, the three of us that remained weren't going to be able to do a Flashpoint on our own unless we added a random stranger to the mix, and no one was that enthused about that plan.  Since I'd been running Tasia for the last couple of weeks and both Matt and Luke wanted to use their Imperial characters, we went Dark for the night.

That put us at Tasia, my Healer spec'ed Sith Sorceress, Vyrace, Luke's DPS Bounty Hunter Mercenary, and Mal'Drak, Matt's DPS Sith Marauder.  For the fourth spot I broke out Tasia's companion, Khem'val, who took on the Tanking duties.

Which reminds me, we need to either find or have Morgan create a fourth Imperial character so we can get an Imperial guild going.  Not that guilds actually DO much at this point, but it makes organization a bit easier.

Anyway, after an interminable forty five minutes or so getting everyone in the same place and giving Matt and Luke enough cash for them to go to Tatooine and get speeder bikes, we finally got going on a couple of Heroics on Nar Shadaa.  Problem was, the first one was a Heroic 2+ that was way below Tasia's level.  It worked great for Vyrace and Mal'Drak, but doing the whole thing only earned Tasia five experience points.  Being so overleveled did make it a breeze, especially since you could activate sliced Imperial droids along the way and get yourself some heavy firepower backup.

The second Heroic was a 4+ that Tasia could get some benefit out of, and indeed turning in the final quest brought her to level 29.  That one included one of those multiple stage quest objectives.  So we started out having to blow up organ crates, then steal neurotoxin, then use the neurotoxin to poison some cyber-implants, then finally track down and murder the boss of the place.  There were only a handful of social points in the whole thing, and it really just felt like a beefed up version of a regular zone quest.

Still, the character shuffle did lead to us each playing a different role.  Between my Static Shield, the Heal Over Time Rejuvenation that buffs my other heals, and my big heal Dark Infusion that Rejuvenation makes go as fast as my Dark Heal, Tasia can keep people up pretty darn well.  I'm too busy switching from heal to heal to do more than the occasional crowd control on offense, mind you, but Vyrace and Mal'drak have got the killing down just fine.  Khem'val, since he's only a Companion, couldn't hold aggro the way a real Tank would have, so I was healing a lot, especially in the larger group battles.  The boss battles, on the other hand, were pretty damn easy, letting me slip in a few Damage Over Time attacks as well.  In fact there was only one death all night long, and that was Khem'val.  The actual players rarely got below half health.

Indeed, I'm beginning to think that while the Trooper/Bounty Hunter is great with all the area effect and raged attack powers, the Counselor/Inquisitor lines may be better healers.  Tasia has three ways to either protect your health or heal it with an instant cast ability, which is huge, and then can use one of those instants to make the biggest heal go off in 1.5 seconds!  It's rare that any enemy can overwhelm that kind of healing, and overall I was pleased with Tasia's performance tonight.

Next week, we hope to have Morgan back so we can roll through Maelstrom Prison, the other half of the story that began on Taral V last week.  Maelstrom is rated at level 35, and both Kelynn and Visa are that level, with Dae'wan at level 36.  Pretty much regardless of where Shahistasa is, since the last time I saw her she was 33, we should be able to at least give the Maelstrom a reasonable try.

Oh, and to conclude, here's the orange gear that I got for finishing off the Heroic 4+.  The headband is fine, and much better than the stupid lekkuless mask, but I've got serious quibbles with the shoulderpads on the robe.  How does she get into cars or through doors with those things on?

Kelynn, Level 35 Vanguard, Republic Fleet

Tasia, Level 29 Sith Sorceress, Nar Shadaa

Alia, Level 12 Jedi Shadow, Coruscant

Leanra, Level 3 Imperial Agent, Hutta

WEP '12, Day 57 - Oscar Madness

I haven't got the patience to watch all of the Oscars, but I did pop in and out to catch the opening montage, the Cirque de Soleil performance, and most of the big awards.  Most years, I don't even do that much, but I have some fake money on the results through Hollywood Stock Exchange.  The idea was that you could "buy" various possible Oscar winners, and if you held them until today, any of the ones that you get correct are de-listed at HSX 25, while all the ones you got wrong de-list at zero.

That means by guessing three correctly, Best Picture (The Artist), Director (The Artist again), and Best Original Screenplay (Midnight in Paris), and since I had the maximum of 20,000 shares in each, I'll get HSX 500,000.  Since I bought all my shares for all nine categories for less than HSX 100,000, it represents a very nice return on investment, but I can't help but regret that I could have done much better with better guessing.

Granted, I only saw one of the Best Picture nominees this year, the aforementioned Midnight in Paris, and even that one I only saw last night and my picks for the HSX had been made weeks before, but even so I could have done better.

Much like with sports betting, I end up following my heart to much.  I know that the Bears aren't all that good, but I want to bet on them anyway.  Of the films with Best Actor nods, I've only seen Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, so I bank on Gary Oldman winning, when I should pick the guy from The Artist, based on the hype.

I guess I'm just nostalgic like that.

Anyway, having not seen many of the movies being rewarded tonight, I can't really comment on whether anyone actually got robbed tonight, but I can say that having The Artist, a silent film win the 84th Oscars would be pretty ironic in a "going full circle" kind of way that if the world really does end in 2012*, for the last Oscars to honor the kind of films that won in the first one.


* = World will not end.  Do not quit job or unload long term stocks unless that was what you were going to do anyway.

WEP '12, Day 56 - Cookie Bars

Right, so I've been playing around with a cookie bar recipe that's worked out reasonably well for me.  It goes like this:

1 Cup Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/8 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Chopper Pecans
1/3 Cup Butter
1 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Milk Chocolate Chips
1/3 Cup Coconut (Optional)

Preheat the Oven to 350 degrees.
Sift the Flour.  Add the Baking Powder, Baking Soda and Salt, and sift again.  Add the Pecans and mix well.

Melt the Butter in a saucepan.  Add the sugar and melt them together.  Add the Vanilla and Beaten Egg and mix well.

Pour warm Sugar/Butter Mix into Flour bowl.  Mix.

While still warm, mix in 2/3 Cup of chocolate chips.  Stir until chops are melted and mixture has a brown color.

Mix in coconut (Optional)

Pour mixture into pre-greased 9 x 9 pan.

Sprinkle remaining 1/3 Cup Chocolate Chips over the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

You can double the recipe by doing it in a 9 x 18 pan.

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And there you have it.  Everyone seems to love these, and I do too.  Enjoy!

WEP '12, Day 55 - A Sweep and a Miss

I find myself deluged by TV that I want to watch but have no time for.  In fact, let's look at the shows that I'd like to be watching.

Top Shot is the History Channel competitive shooting show that I should have covered in my Competitive TV Series but flat out forgot.  Top Shot goes for a pseudo-Survivor style contest where the contestants are split into two teams.  There's a challenge, and then the team that lost the challenge votes to lose a member.  The main differences are that all the challenges are about marksmanship in one way or another, and that when you're voting you end up voting for two people, and then those tow have a one on one challenge and the loser of that one goes home.  Really, you watch Top Shot for the shooting and the competition, not the crappy Survivor style team politics.

I already did cover Top Chef last month.  You can get the details here.  The only thing that sucks is that I've missed the last two episodes, including the finale, so now I'm dodging spoilers while trying to find time for a couple of On Demand hours back to back.  Luckily, Top Chef isn't nearly as hard to avoid as, say, Doctor Who is, so I don't know who's won it quite yet.

And then there's Celebrity Apprentice, the show that The Donald decided was more important to him than a run at the Presidency.  That whole campaigning thing would have disrupted the show's shooting schedule, you see.  Like The Mole before it, The Apprentice has decided to ham it up with B and C grade celebrities over the last few seasons.  And, for the most part, I've been ignoring it since the last "real" season.  Though, arguably, the only season Trump actually took seriously was the first one.

The problem this year is that both George Takei and Penn Gillete are on Celebrity Apprentice.  And I'm a fan of both those men.  So I'd like to watch the thing, at least until they're both off the show, but I just haven't internalized the show to the point that it ever occurs to me to watch it, except in retrospect.  And then it is, by definition, too late.  Though, of course, I'm sure there are On Demand and Internet options.

So there you have it.  Three shows that I'd like to watch but I'm not.  Maybe I'll find some time for them...and maybe you can as well.