Mr.Bean – Heart Attack

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When I was young, I preferred Nancy Drew to the Hardy Boys. I guess I’ve always had a thing for smart girl detectives. . .

On September 22, 2007, Veronica Mars aired for the first time on the now defunct UPN network. It was brilliant. Over the course of its three seasons, the few people actually watching it got to see television at its best. When it wasn’t picked up for a fourth season, I actually took the time to write to the network and tell them what I thought of their decision. Suffice it to say that TV doesn’t usually stir such passion in me.

I have to start with our firecracker title character. Kristen Bell was perfectly cast in the role, giving her a depth of character I rarely see in any entertainment medium. Veronica was complex. Sure she was witty and intelligent. Of course she was good looking and funny. Yes she was the girl I always wished existed when I was in high school but would have to wait much, much longer to actually meet. She was also overconfident, occasionally petty and insensitive, and very prone to trusting her gut when she shouldn’t, often to disastrous consequence. In short, she was very nearly a goddess. When her heart broke, mine did too.

The rest of the casting was also very good. While virtually all of the characters were standard archetypes (the steadfast best friend, the bad boy with a heart of gold, the sleazy PI, etc…), the actors brought something to make them special and memorable. Enrico Colantoni as Veronica’s dad and Tina Majorino as Mac are particular favourites of mine. Michael Muhney as Sherriff Lamb also deserves a special mention.

This show was densely plotted. There was a single overarching mystery that ran the length of the season, there were also smaller mysteries that would get solved over a three or four episode arc, and each individual episode would have a mystery that would be solved during the episode. The third season broke from this in that there was no season long mega-mystery. Instead, the writers decided that it would be easier to get new viewers into the show if they broke the season in half and had two smaller mysteries rather than the larger one. I’m sure that opinions differ, but season three, while being very good, was definitely my least favourite for that very reason.

I don’t know why Veronica Mars failed. Maybe playing in the same time-slot as Lost was its undoing. Perhaps the network didn’t promote it effectively. Maybe the continuity heavy serial nature of the show was its undoing, although programs such as the aforementioned Lost or Heroes are just as continuity heavy and seem to be thriving. I’m sure the reasons for its demise are just as complex as Veronica was.

I do know that I can see Kristen Bell in Heroes now, and though I like the character she plays (Elle) it isn’t the same. So raise those glasses again and toast Veronica Mars. Two amazing seasons and one really good one, at least she never got the chance to age gracelessly.

]]> http://dorkandbeans.com/eulogy-for-a-friend-no-2-veronica-mars/feed/ 6 http://dorkandbeans.com/eulogy-for-a-friend/ http://dorkandbeans.com/eulogy-for-a-friend/#comments Sat, 06 Sep 2008 07:06:14 +0000 Ken http://dorkandbeans.com/?p=75 I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about a friend of mine that was taken too soon. This got me wondering why so many good things end before they should. That’s what this column is going to be about. Every week (or so) I’m going to write about something that I really enjoyed, be it a comic series, tv show, band, what have you, that ended before it’s time.

This first column is going to be about that friend of mine.

Stripes was shifty. Even his good friends could never shake the feeling that he would have sold them out for a suit of Plasticman armour and an NG-Super. He probably wasn’t even liked or respected by other members of his race. His fur was patchy and burned away in spots, he smelled bad, he had a double fistful of psychoses, he could barely speak any language, and he wasn’t very smart in general, despite calling himself Dr. Stripes and trying to charge you for his advice.

Despite all this, Stripes taught me how to be an adventurer.

No matter how poor an idea might have been, Stripes committed to it with his entire being. Assault on Chi-Town? Stripes was there with guns blazing. T-Rex eats all? There he is in the arena fighting for all he’s worth. Sell out the rest of the party for a cache of equipment? Stripes is balls deep into the scheme. He defined tenacity, proving that you may not get what you want, but you’ll have a dang good time trying to get it.

Stripes was resilient. He survived a fall from around 800 feet not once, but twice. And walked, okay limped, away to bark the tale. He survived more gunshot and laser wounds to his body than any three other people I know. I can’t imagine all the mental trauma and psychic pain he endured to end up with all those phobias and nervous tics. It just boggles my mind that he could endure after the sheer amount of punishment inflicted on him during his short life. He was a Wolfen legend.

So raise your bottle in toast to Stripes, an unparallelled adventurer and a friend without peer.

I debated for a while of what i was going to write about and how to make it interesting… I could talk about some gory stuff i have seem at work/school, like skin grafts that did not work so there is this open flap of tissue an inch thick hangin off somones body and being able to then stick your entire finger into the wound because it has tunneled. But i thought i would save some of that stuff for another time.

I think i will do some installments of how the group started and had chnaged over the years or maybe i’ll start it and people can pick up where i left off. We started playing at my grandma house that was for sale so i was staying in it while it was on the market. It was so long ago i can’t remember if we started of playing D&D or Rifts. Either way the first night we were playing we ordered pizza from panago, and one of those pizzas was BBQ Chicken and the White spent half the night witht the procelen god. Again my spelling is shitty. It Was good times and Garth is an amazing DM.

Its been so long i can’t remember the orginal core group: Garth, Me, The White, Ken, Gueab, Garret???? OK help with this?

Over the past week, a few things occurred to me that made me realize just how much of a Dork I really am.  My first clue really should have been that I write on a blog titled Dork and Beans.  Now I am sure that everyone’s list will be different, and I encourage you to share what makes you a Dork, in the comments section below.

The White’s Top 5 Reasons You Know You Are a Dork.

5. You know the two uses for a d12 as listed in the D&D Player’s Handbook 3.0 (and you skimmed through the book to ensure that their are only two).

4. You constantly find dice underneath the cushions of your couch, and not just any dice, but polyhedron dice.

3. You find bits of broken light saber from a battle long past(and you even moved and yet you still somehow find pieces).

2. When you go to play a board game you find that the game no longer has any dice, as you raided it years earlier for the 12th level fireball.

1. You have been playing DnD every Sunday night with the same group of Dorks for the past 10 years.

So, what makes you a dork?  Leave a comment below and share what makes you a Dork!

]]> http://dorkandbeans.com/top-5-reasons-you-know-you-are-a-dork/feed/ 7 http://dorkandbeans.com/the-dork-and-beans-logoidentity-development/ http://dorkandbeans.com/the-dork-and-beans-logoidentity-development/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:03:57 +0000 The White http://dorkandbeans.com/?p=31 It’s 10:48, and I am burning my eyes in front of my computer. I figure today I have clocked in over 8 hours of computer time, which I think is just above my average amount of time. Having an internet obsession plus a graphic design job tends to keep a person in front of a screen.

My goal for today was to come up with ‘good idea’ of what I would like to Dork and Beans logo to look like. I don’t want to ‘really’ start promoting this blog until after we have established at least a semi solid identity. So until I come up with a logo, I can’t do all the fun stuff…

So I plunked myself in front of my computer fired up Illustrator, Photoshop, and Fireworks (plus I had Dreamweaver going as well, I was working on my wedding website at the same time) and got to work. My original vision was to have the logo as a photograph of a can of pork and beans photoshopped to say ‘Dork and Beans,’ but this wouldn’t work out very well for future plans (like t-shirts). I now have a can of pork and beans in cupboard which I will never eat. My next vision involved creating a can styled after the yellow no named brand. This was really boring. In the end I headed to Google images and found an awesome can of Heinz Pork and Beans. I thought it was stylish plus it would be recognizable as a parody of Pork and Beans.

I feel the can is still missing something. I just can’t figure it out. I wanted to add an ‘and’ in the design somewhere so that it doesn’t just say ‘Dork Beans.’ I plan on playing around with it more tomorrow, but for now I was hoping to have everybody’s opinion on the design thus far and what kind of changes they would like to see.

For most of you this is nothing, wow another blog. But this is a huge step for a group of dorks. I am not going to ramble on about the humble beginnings of Dork and Beans, that is probably better left to someone that has writing ability.

The fact is: there is no real point to the Dork and Beans blog. It is just a group of dorks that write about whatever we feel like. I give you one warning though, we will get juvenile. If you hate dick and fart jokes, then maybe you should head back to the Martha Stewart blog.

Oh, and our language can be fucking awesome at times to!

At the time of writing the blog is no where near done yet. I have put up a theme, that will most likely get changed around a million times before we find something we like and eventually it will fall on me to design a unique look for the blog.

The first post of a blog is usually the most boring, so here I am getting it out of the way. The second post will be about as stellar as a kick in the junk…stay tuned.