Grave Danger

Last night was the season finale of CSI. All shows will do something outrageous, some amazing cliffhanger or some mucho famous guest star (e.g., Alec Baldwin on Will & Grace) for their season finale. But CSI? They took it one step further and opted to have the genius that is Quentin Tarantino direct the two hour season finale.

BEST. EPISODE. EVER. There were so many classic Tarantino trademarks – the camera angles, the dialogue, the music, bringing back classic actors like Tony Curtis and Frank Gorshin – the whole thing was just amazing.

A couple memorable moments from last nights’ ep:
1) Right off the bat, hearing Nick sing along with that classic song in the radio – that was Tarantino right there.
2) The autopsy scene. How funny was that?? Laughed my ass off, thanks much. And that last line of the scene with Robbins holding up Nick’s heart to his dad and going, “Your son…had a great heart.” I mean, you knew it was coming and it was SO cheesy but at the same time you couldn’t help but laugh. That whole scene was awesome!

And a couple observations:
1) The focus of this episode seemed to be more on the characters and the relationships among them. We definitely got to see more of Nick and to learn about his family – at least on the surface. We got to see more of the strong, yet very different types of bonds between Nick and Warrick, Nick and Catherine, and Nick and Grissom.
2) Which brings me to point 2. Nick and Grissom seem to have more of a father-son bond than a coworker bond. I’m not sure what Nick said to Grissom in the coffin when he was speaking into the recorder, but at the end it took Grissom calling Nick the same name Nick’s dad used – “Pancho” – to get his attention and make him focus. Interesting.
3) We got to see more of Ecklie in this ep as well, and learned that he’s really not a bad guy. Past eps have made him out to be tough and harsh, but I liked how this ep brought out the caring, concerned, do-anything-to-get-my-guy-back attitude.

Bravo to the cast, to the director, and to all the crew for an amazing job.

Bravo indeed.

Mind Games

I was surfing the web this weekend and came across the blog of Wil Wheaton - yes, he was an actor back in the day, still is, but is now doing theater, etc. He was probably best known for his role as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek. Anyway, one of his recommended blogs directed me to the following puzzle.

You can find the puzzle here. Just click on the one that says "Crimson Room - English".

Here's the guidelines/rules:

There are 13 items hidden in this room in order to let you get out ofthis room.

If you found:
0-6 items, your IQ is very low, total idiot
6-8 items, Low IQ, you are an idiot
9-10 items, you are normal
11-12 items, your IQ is high, above the average.
13 items found and get out of the room, there are less than 4000people in the world can do it.

The only clue I will give you is to use the URL on the Memo to help you get out!

Now, I'm proud to say that I was able to find 9 items, so I'm in the safe "normal" zone. However, it's bugging me that there are more items that are proving to be quite elusive. It's proving to be quite frustrating.

So I'm posting this link and these rules to see if anyone can figure it out.

And FYI - I've tried the other one as well - the Viridian Room. And I've gotten quite a few of the items, and have found the combination lock, but can't seem to get it open.

I've also done the Blue Room/Blue Chamber - was able to get out of that one with little/no help. So that's significantly easier...

Let me know how you do and if you have any better luck than me!...

Reality Rap-Up

Oh. My. God.

Wow.

So I just watched the season finale of the Amazing Race this weekend. (I’d taped it Tuesday since I was watching the Veronica Mars season finale at the same time that day.) It’s the first season that I’ve watched the show and so I wasn’t expecting it to be at all what it was. What it was, was plainly put, the most exciting, edge-of-your-seat, roller coast ride 2 hours I have ever experienced in my TV viewing history. I mean, there were moments there that I went “There’s no way the producers didn’t plan that and make that happen!”

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, be forewarned that spoilers lie ahead.

For instance, Rob and Amber managed to get on this early flight to Miami. And the doors to the plane actually closed. And Uchenna and Joyce were right behind them and missed the plane and actually saw the walkway pulling back in towards the airport, away from the plane. They were asking the ground staff, “Isn’t there anything we can do? We really need to be on that plane!” and lo and behold, a mind numbing 10-15 minutes later, they actually bring the walkway back to the plane and open the doors to let them on!! I have NEVER in my life heard of that happening. And yet it did for them.

But I mean really, Uchenna and Joyce started the two hours in first place, and then through a series of errors/misjudgements, ended up in last place, but with all their possessions and funds stripped. All they had were the clothes on their back. So for the last hour, they were begging for money from strangers, even asking an ambulance waiting on standby to give them a ride (with unsuccessful results). And yet through all that, they stayed positive, they stayed kind to each other and to their teammates, and managed to come in first.

Seriously though, no one deserves it more than them. I want to be like them. They’ve been through so much – both of them have been laid off, they’re struggling to start a family, they’ve been questioning their marriage…it’s one of those situations you just think, “God, can’t you please, just give them a break! Give them this one thing!” And like I said, though they entered this thing with problems in their marriage, it took something like this with the stress and the pressure to realize that they really did love each other, and that this actually brought them together. (Unlike Ron & Kelly, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.) I think going a challenge and facing adversity like this as a couple really opens your eyes and shows you whether or not you’re meant to be together. I mean sure, they had problems at home, but they didn’t realize that in order to face them, they had to be a team – which, being the whole purpose and point of this race, taught them that anything they needed to face, they could face it (and overcome it) together. Hell, Joyce even shaved off her hair to make it through. Talk about taking one for the team – and Uchenna was so amazingly supportive through it all. What an amazing man!

I’m so incredibly proud of them!

And on a similarly related note…watched the end of Survivor last night as well. Again, spoilers to come, so skip the next few paragraphs if you haven’t seen it.

It was nowhere near the roller coaster ride that Amazing Race was. But still, 12 hours standing on that buoy. Man, I gotta hand it to Tom and Ian. Those guys are real troopers right there. Do you think they even realized they had the option to barter a deal or did neither one of them want to barter with the other? I mean, maybe Ian didn’t venture anything because he doubted that Tom would believe him anyway…which was why Tom made the first deal, but obviously Ian didn’t buy that either. He figured Tom was going to play him to pay him back for his renegating on his word with/for Tom previously. Which was why he did the only thing he could do – sacrifice himself. I think he did do it for the greater good – to gain Katie and Tom’s respect and trust back and to regain their friendship – but I think he also knew that there was no way that either one of them would be able to believeably offer a deal to let the other one go with them to tribal council if they gave up.

I knew Katie had basically coasted her way through to the final two, but I was amazed at how brutal her jury members were on her. I mean, really. I think Greg was downright cruel. He called her pathetic, lazy, and worthless. Geez, tell us how you really feel! I felt bad for her. I mean, if you say that she didn’t do anything around camp and sat out most of the challenges, that’s fine, but leave it at that and don’t start with the personal attacks, because that’s just not fair. It’s just way too harsh.

But I’m glad Tom ended up winning, because he SO totally deserved it. Kudos to him and a super big Kudos to Uchenna and Joyce. Both played well, played hard and deserved everything they got.