Your Back In The Saddle Quizo Update

Notes from under the floorboards this week:

- So, yeah, the Eagles are pretty freaking good. I wouldn't get too wild just yet - the Rams are not, suffice it to say, a full set of examination papers - but if the Birds can beat the Cowboys next week I think we can be legitimately optimistic. DeSean Jackson appears as though he might be the real deal, and HOLY CRAP Asante Samuel is awesome. The Eagles aren't going to win by 35 points every week, mind you, but a man can dream.

- After playing the first 10 hours or so of Half-Life 2 probably 3 or 4 times in the last couple years I picked up The Orange Box a couple weeks back and I am determined to get through the whole thing this time. I just got to the part where the game moves from cool and intense to freakishly weird (super gravity gun!) but I have this nagging feeling that the game isn't actually GOING anywhere. This is at least partially because by this point in the first game you at least knew what the hell was going on, whereas now as near as I can tell I'm just flinging furniture at aliens for the hell of it.

- On the TV front, I am finally caught up on Supernatural and Friday Night Lights and have moved on to Rome, which is probably not as hilarious a show as I am finding it. I dunno, I just think it's funny that around the whole backdrop of the Roman revolution and Julius Caesar destroying the Republic there's these two guys who basically stumble around through the whole thing accidentally causing all of it. The show is great, though, don't get me wrong. It's hard not to be when you've got a hell of a cast - sweet zombie Jesus James Purefoy's Marc Antony is a freaking ANIMAL - and you're basically making a 13-hour version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar crossed with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Also being by FAR the most expensive show in television history helps. If I was spending $8 million an episode I'd probably make a pretty good show too.

- For those interested in such bookish, nerdly things, Brad Meltzer is going to be at the Chester County Book Company on September 17 and Neil Gaiman is going to be at some secret undisclosed location that is almost certainly the Center City Borders on October 1. The Meltzer deal should go quite well, that store is very nice and the the crowd fit very well in there. Plus Brad is very cool. The Gaiman thing, I dunno, man. The last time I went to a Neil Gaiman signing two thousand people showed up, and I'm pretty sure even half as many people at the Borders on Broad Street would cause the building to explode like a microwaved potato. Unless there is some other gigantic super-Borders around here that I am unaware of (hint: there is not). And Neal Stephenson's new book comes out this week. Yay! The sun? What's that?

- I caught on TV this past weekend the director's cut of Aliens, which I'd never actually seen (that cut, at least). The extra stuff doesn't do a whole lot for me, honestly; the bit with the colonists at the beginning, meh, and frankly the movie wasn't any worse off without ten minutes of footage about robotic machine guns. Yes, they're Aliens and yes, they're trying to kill us, Jim, WE FUCKING WELL GET IT. Two things did particularly strike me after seeing it for the first time in maybe ten years. For starters, for how much we remember it as this super-intense non-stop action blowout, it actually takes a LONG time to get going. Here's a trivia question for you: how far into Aliens is the first shot fired? Answer: NINETY-FOUR MINUTES. The second thing that you realize: that unlike a lot of things, Aliens IS just as good as you remember thinking it was when you were young. Going into it I actually expected to be a little disappointed, thinking it couldn't possibly live up to my memory of it as a drunk, obnoxious film student (as opposed to the sober, obnoxious Quizo Guy I am now). It does. No movie called "Aliens" really has any right to be that good, but it is. Interesting side note: after watching it I went online to read about it and found this whole exegesis about how Aliens is an allegory for the Vietnam War, right down to the fact that the Colonial Marines' vehicles and stuff were specifically designed to look like US Army equipment from Vietnam. Wild, huh?

- Finally, after an abortive attempt at Quizo last week, there is a rumor that my parents will show up again tonight. That is, to the more disturbingly competitive amongst you, some kind of enticement for some reason. It's not so great for me; all it means is that I have to listen to my father complain about the geography questions, which over ten years of playing Quizo with him I have never once seen him get a single one of right. For some real fun tonight, ask my dad what he teaches. For some more fun, ask him how he got the splints that are currently on two of his fingers. When you are done I will be waiting in the usual spot to receive your pity.

JLK