Ace Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) dazzles as a savvy businessman and threatening yet cool customer on "Luck."

I’m aware how reductive it can be to encapsulate a Milch-ian work in one word. It could devalue the razor-sharp perception embedded in his dialogue, it could diminish the thought-provoking choices made with any given shot, and it could disrespect the dedication his actors make to their characters. But it could also serve as a guidepost for the casual fan who wants to understand this man’s mastery with thematic cohesion.

This week, the word is seduction. The track is home to the sirens. Whether lured in by the tune of revenge, the hymns of glory days, or the rhythm of horses’ hooves, men and women from all walks of life pass through Santa Anita hoping to be seduced, or looking to ensnare. This week, as he outlined for us in last week’s ending, Ace is looking to hire his liaison, or “go-between, for dealing with Mike, the underworld boss who was largely responsible for Ace’s sentence. The more I see of Hoffman’s performance the more I’m won over by his command.

For intimidation, he need only a sarcastic quip or a persistent stare. His most powerful weapon is his disapproval, which can causes young derivatives hotshot, Nathan Israel (played by Patrick J. Adams) to tremble while trying to give off an air of confidence. He becomes Mr. Bernstein’s latest victim when he questions the practicality of his financial recommendations. It’s unsettling not knowing if Ace will lose his own reigns, because even flashes of his “temper” forebode violent capabilities. I fear Ace without him ever lifting a finger, and that’s genuine power. His contempt can be so demoralizing that a blow to the head would be welcomed just loosen his stranglehold on your wits.

Israel is asked politely by his superiors to meet with Ace. Once in Bernstein’s penthouse the interrogation begins. Ace grills him about his interjections in the boardroom and what compelled him to question his requests to free up money to buy the Santa Anita track. His skepticism comes from deducing that he dabbles in illegal business that extends beyond the cocaine possession charge he took three years prior. Ace of course dresses him down, makes him sweat. When Nathan retreats to the “lavatory” he clues in Gus on his motives. He’s unimpressed by the kid’s smarts and ambition, as it takes style to thrive in this business. But he also recognizes that he could would make Mike’s skin crawl, making him perfect for the job of “go-between.” He offers him $1 million for a year’s employ humbling the cocky financial guru.

On the track, our four degenerate pals make a play for the horse Renzo lost at the claiming race. Jerry exhibits prowess as a negotiator, snagging Mon Gateau for $27,000 instead of his supposed market value of $40K. He also convinces Escalante to train him. At first, he’s reluctant, reasoning that he got rid of the horse because his legs are weak even after two years of rehabbing. Jerry then cleverly rebukes: “Guy comes to me about a girl I still have eyes for, I tell him she has crabs.” Escalante is a steep price, but the exhausting expenses don’t deter our “four amigos.”

The childlike wonderment in their eyes as they pet and feed carrots to their new investment suggests this venture was as much about fulfilling a dream as it is about the earning potential. Even Marcus, still loud-mouthed and blunt, forces a smile as he becomes acquainted with the elegant beast. Renzo can’t help but boast to complete strangers and Lonnie appears unaffected my the brutal beating he suffered at the hands of the insurance temptresses when he strokes his new animal companion. It’s touching to see these four appreciating majesty as opposed to feigning for their big play.

It’s a tough week for the jockeys as both Ronnie Jenkins and Leon take major spills. Ronnie is thrown from Walter’s horse, Gettin’ Up Morning, when the foal is bumped off the rail. Ronnie resorts to his diehard habits of snorting cocaine and downing whiskey to ease the pain of a broken collarbone (which he has apparently broken before lamenting that he breaks his collarbone more than he gets laid) and shattered pride. Leon smashes his head on the floor when he passes out trying to make weight in the sauna. The dangers and pressures of ushering these horses to the promised land is beginning to take its toll on the rookie and seasoned veteran alike, causing their agent Joey to stammer even more severely as his clients recover. In Ronnie’s case, he’ll be out 4-6 weeks, but as suggested by his relapse, his time might be running out completely.

As endeared as I have been with Walter, his story this week came off as a memory wipe. Because of Ronnie’s injury he’s forced to confront his decision to deny Rosie the privilege to be his jockey. His now routine monologue is him practicing what he will say to her, and though this deliberation gave me the warm and fuzzies watching the sweet old man get nervous, it amounted to little more than a complication. Despite Ronnie’s propensity for failure, he always had Rosie in waiting so I was never worried that Rosie would not get her shot. Nick Nolte nails his elderly regret as always, but the circumstances surrounding it were slightly contrived.

I had mixed feelings concerning the relationships that were ignited this week. A woman named Claire enters Ace’s life when she requests he fund her Thoroughbred Retirement Fund, a program that would pair up convicts with broken down race horses, but a spark was evident, and Ace expresses his desire to meet with her to Gus. The other was utterly devoid of chemistry. Jo, (Jill Hennessy) Escalante’s veterinarian, is aghast when he accuses her of mouthing off about Mon Gateau’s condition, resulting in the horse being claimed. She is rightly offended, but when he “apologizes” by hitting on her, she responds by sleeping with him later on. I interpreted their hookup as one predicated on convenience, and maybe even loneliness. But if there was supposed to be romance or affection there was none to be found. I’m okay with loveless sex, but the motivations behind it were absent.

Episode Three, proved to be a continuation of last week, but stood on its own two feet during the character moments. Ace in particular started to feel like a real person, and not just a generic ex-con set on revenge. Our four generates showed sides of their personalities that made them more relatable, and the adorable Rosie is returning! Overall, there was less to jump out of my seat for, and with the horse race sequence shortened the episode lacked that injection of adrenaline that keeps me attentive. Milch, Mann and company executed another fine episode with memorable lines and arresting moments of tension and transcendence, but the pivotal race next week and the introduction of Mike will offer the rejuvenation necessary to keep me and other loyal viewers revved up. For maintaining its stylistic brilliance, and allowing us to view our new friends through windows of delight and mischief aside from the pity and desperation of the past two weeks, despite the lack of thrills “Luck” proved “its got a good head” like Gus’ horse avoiding a collision, with a B+.

Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) whisks his new housekeeper Belle (Emile de Ravin) away from her father.

My viewing experience of “Once Upon A Time” is tainted, by expectation. I want it to be LOST. It’s creators want it to be LOST, and it never will be.

Last week I gladly declared that OUAT had found its identity and had squandered many of its pretensions and simply tried to be a damn good time. But this week, Kitsis/Horowitz seemed like a needy child tugging at its mother’s pant leg. I thought they were beyond seeking approval. All the Easter eggs and insider jokes like the Apollo Bars and the McCutcheon whiskey were just tributes to the landmark series they took part in. However with Emile de Ravin’s appearance as Belle (yes, of Beauty and the Beast fame) I wonder if Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, harbor a repressed need to catch lightning in a bottle again.

Surely, De Ravin’s guest appearance is simply an isolated homage, and lofty aspirations haven’t bogged down this creative team. Except, LOST is not the only acclaimed drama to catch OUAT’s wandering eye. They’ve snatched talent like Jennifer Morrison from “House,” Giancarlo Esposito from “Breaking Bad,” and tonight they made a “Game of Thrones” pun by naming a flower shop, “Game of Thorns.” I can’t decide whether it is endearing or desperate.

Much like some classic LOST episodes, tonight’s OUAT was a reveal episode. There was still a fairyback, one brought to life thanks to all those Disney rights! Ah, ABC, you treat them well. And there was “progress” in Storybrooke. But the real meat of the plot came during a two minute interaction between Mr. Gold and Regina where it was finally acknowledged that they both know of their former lives and evil power struggle. She goes all Destiny’s Child, “Say your name!” And he admits to awareness of “other worlds.” This wasn’t presented as a huge deal, it wasn’t even the final reveal of the episode, but it is a revelation with implications for the series at large. It is out in the open now, and if he knows the questions become, will he be a roadblock for Emma and Henry’s plans to enlighten the townsfolk (for my Losties, “Desmond-style”) or could he prove a formidable ally?

I was predisposed to be enthralled with tonight’s fairyback. Beauty and the Beast is almost certainly in my top three Disney flicks of all time (excluding Pixar) and Claire was one of my many beloved Oceanic 815ers so Emile de Ravin had me hooked with little effort. We’re introduced to the heroine as she stews by her father’s side, worried their village will be sacked as the Ogre Wars rage on (Am I the only one who would be fascinated by a detailed history of the events leading up to these wars?). I was mildly disappointed her dad was a rich, lordly fellow instead of an eccentric inventor. Anyway, Rumpelstiltskin appears as the solution to their suffering, promising to save their town in exchange for Belle’s services as his permanent housekeeper. Her betrothed, Gaston, insists she stay, but Belle is intent on breaking away from the social constraints of womanhood, seizing the opportunity to be heroic. She elects to go with Rumpy, much to his delight.

In the real world, there was much less interesting fare. Mr. Gold is robbed by a florist, Mr. French, after Gold nabs his van as collateral. Gold seems awfully upset over one particular item that Sheriff Swan hadn’t yet recovered and threatens that if she doesn’t detain Mr. French, he will get to him first. When he does, he beats the florist with his cane for information on the whereabouts of this item. He starts screaming about “her” and how it’s his fault that, “she is gone.” When he refuses to divulge the entire truth to Emma, he is cuffed.

In a Storybrooke subplot, Ashley returns. Who? Oh, that pregnant girl who is Cinderella in Fairy Tale Land (FTL). She’s overtired from taking care of the baby because her baby daddy Shawn is always at work being the breadwinner. Ruby (FTL identity: Red Riding Hood) suggest that she and Mary Margaret join her for a ladies night on the town. Both agree, especially Mary Margaret who’s once again unsatisfied by only being a part-time lover to David, who is still carrying on with his wife, Kathryn. I normally care about those two lovebirds, but the developments felt so wedged in, that I became detached. Next week their affair will come to a head when Kathryn finds out.

At Rumpy’s castle, Belles settles in after feeling initially weary about handing over her life to a “monster.” But as the “tale as old as time” foretold, Rumpy begins to treat her nicely, even pardoning her when she chips a cup. This is of course an allusion to “Chip” from Disney’s incarnation of the tale. You might say this reference made me groan, but I shall not complain as I promised last week. Rumpy begins to fall for her first, turning Gaston into a rose for his sweetheart when he comes to her rescue. Then, Belle’s opinion of her master (kinky) shifts when she falls from a ladder into his arms (the editing and VFX in this scene are ATROCIOUS). She begins to probe him for information about his past, when he was a man. She yearns to know the man she will serve forever better. In a move to test her affection for him, Rumpy asks Belle to go into town for more straw. If she comes back, he will tell her the story of the son he lost. He expressed that he expects her to never come back.

On her journey she runs into the Evil Queen. EQ informs her that her master’s curse will be broken, and his humanity restored if he receives true love’s kiss. Knowing that his beastly features and evil within can be eroded she returns to him. But when she shares true love’s kiss with Rumpy, he resists the change. He suspects her to be an agent of the EQ, trying to remove his powers, to weaken him. For her treason, Belle is thrown in the dungeon. After a tantrum in which the only glassware spared is the chipped cup, he releases her, never wanting to see her again. She calls him a coward as his son had when he killed to protect him, a genuine callback and reference that felt the most organic and essential of any they’ve attempted.

Shakeups in Storybrooke abound when Ashley accepts Shawn’s marriage proposal and Mary Margaret bumps into David. He hands her a V-day card, but accidentally hands her one addressed to Kathryn. This tips the scales for MM and she observes that they will find a way to be together, but this isn’t it. Back at SBPD, Regina bribes Emma with a half hour visit with Henry (this wouldn’t strike her as odd…awful sheriff….and where’s mystery writer/biker dude?) in order to converse with Mr. Gold. She confesses to encouraging Mr. French to rob him, asking that he bring her back…his chipped cup. She held this as leverage so that Gold would speak his FTL name. It’s a fun scene that recalls the legend that surrounds his name. As I mentioned before, this revelation that they both know could add a layer of mixed allegiances or simply heighten the risks involved in Emma and Henry’s pursuit of the truth.

While Rumpy slumps at his spindle over his reluctance to allow love in his heart, for fear of rejection, EQ visits hoping they can strike another deal. When he is not in the mood he accuses her outright of ruining their relationship. She cryptically answers that she had nothing to do with “that tragedy.” Puzzled, Rumps asks of what she speaks. EQ shares that upon returning home, her father had shunned her. He learned of her love for “The Beast” and has banished to a tower where clerics will cleanse her soul. Distraught, she threw herself out of the tower, falling to her death. This explains the sentimental value surrounding the cup in the real world, it’s all he had left of her. Or so he thinks. The very last scene of the episode shows Regina entering a secret wing of the hospital where “Belle” is locked up. What repercussions could this have for their eternal power struggle? I’m unsure, but again it opens up the dimensions for the real world adding a darker tinge to the episodes to follow. Gold, like EQ may not want to go back to FTL, but they want to vanquish each other. The more moral ambiguity that can be infused in these classics, the better. And with the sporadic investment in real world proceedings before this, another reason to care wouldn’t hurt.

Nearly all the real world happenings felt inconsequential. This irrelevant quality took a sharp 180 toward the end, but I can’t discount my utter boredom beforehand. Ashley had been gone for so long, her engagement felt like a formality. And when I start feeling blase about any plot point that involves Mary Margaret you know it hasn’t been well rendered. Despite these clear narrative shortcomings, it was pleasant to step into the world of “Beauty and the Beast” again, and it’s always a pleasure to watch Emile de Ravin smile sheepishly at me (ok, in my general direction). For it’s sheer entertainment value, and for effectively (and finally) incorporating the gritty, tragic elements of the FTL futility into the thrust of the Storybrooke setting, OUAT regresses but swings its pendulum in a positive direction with a B-.

Laboratory tests found high levels of BPA on 40 percent of thermal paper receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including McDonald’s, Chevron, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, WalMart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service, among others. BPA in paper receipts also contaminates paper recycling and is showing up in napkins, toilet paper and other common papers with recycled content. (Thinkstock)

Many of us already know the risks associated with regular use of products containing the plastic hardener and synthetic estrogen Bisphenol A (BPA)—and have switched over to BPA-free water and baby bottles and food storage containers. But the recent revelation that many of the receipts handed around every day in the U.S. contain the chemical has been a real shocker to those already worried about BPA exposure.

Many thermal papers used in the U.S.—receipts, event tickets, labels—contain so-called “free” BPA (that is, not bound into resin or plastic), which helps “develop” the inks to make the printed information visible. “While there is little concern for dermal absorption of BPA, free BPA can readily be transferred to skin and residues on hands can be ingested,” reports the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Laboratory tests commissioned by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) and carried out by the University of Missouri Division of Biological Sciences Laboratory in 2010 found high levels of BPA on 40 percent of receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including McDonald’s, Chevron, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, WalMart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service, among others.

“The total amounts of BPA on receipts tested were 250 to 1,000 times greater than other, more widely discussed sources of BPA exposure, including canned foods, baby bottles and infant formula,” reported EWG. Wipe tests conducted by the lab easily removed BPA “indicating that the chemical could rub off on the hands of a person handling the receipt.”

While BPA contamination of food is still a bigger problem, says EWG, a large number of Americans—especially the seven million who run cash registers—are nonetheless exposed to additional amounts of BPA through handling receipts. An EWG analysis of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data found that retail workers carry an average of 30 percent more BPA in their bodies than other adults.

Another more exhaustive study of BPA in thermal paper receipts and 14 other types of papers found the chemical in a whopping 94 percent of samples from the U.S., Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The State University of New York researchers behind the study, which was published in September 2011 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, estimate that receipts and other thermal paper products contribute around 33.5 tons of BPA to the environment in the U.S. and Canada each year. Even more disturbing was their finding that BPA in thermal paper receipts also contaminates paper recycling and is showing up in napkins, toilet paper and other common papers with recycled content.
On a more encouraging note, Wisconsin’s Appleton Papers, the world’s largest thermal paper maker, removed BPA from its products in 2006. And the EPA has since launched a program to evaluate the safety and availability of alternatives to BPA in thermal paper. Public health advocates and environmentalists, of course, would like to see BPA phased out entirely.

CONTACTS: EPA, www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/actionplans/bpa_action_plan.pdf; EWG, www.ewg.org; “Widespread Occurrence of Bisphenol A in Paper and Paper Products: Implications for Human Exposure,” Environmental Science & Technology, www.pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es202507f.

Obama's State of the Union address was, in the words of one prominent green leader, "a strong defense of the importance of clean energy to America’s long-term economic prosperity." (White House photo)

The economy dominated President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, but his discussion about energy and the environment took up almost seven minutes—or nine percent—of the hour-plus address. And while much of what Mr. Obama said was comforting to environmentalists, his statements about expanding natural gas production—albeit “without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk”—and opening up more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources did not sit well.

Even so, natural gas is cleaner burning than oil or coal, and reducing our reliance on foreign oil is a good thing overall. “Right now American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years,” Mr. Obama said, adding that “…last year we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.”

Michelle Wilson Berger of the National Audubon Society points out that when George W. Bush told us in his 2006 State of the Union that the U.S. was addicted to foreign oil, some 60 percent was coming from foreign sources. “Now it’s just less than half,” Berger says, adding: “The trend is going to continue in that positive direction and within a couple decades, it’s going to be even less, say something like 36 percent.”

Nonetheless, environmental advocates were hoping for less bullish talk from Obama on expanding fossil fuel development of any kind, given the dire climate predictions we are facing. But Obama isn’t giving up his commitment to renewables, despite the recent bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra after it had received upwards of $500 million in loan guarantees. “Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail,” stated Obama in the speech. “But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.”

Obama also called on Congress to pass a new standard aimed at boosting wind, solar, geothermal and other renewables, and to extend related tax credits to help diversify and green the country’s energy mix, adding that he wants to end tax subsidies for oil companies. In underscoring that Americans don’t have to choose between the economy and the environment, he cited the case of the revival of the American auto industry thanks in part to automakers’ willingness to innovate to meet aggressive fuel economy standards.

Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund considers Obama’s State of the Union “a strong defense of the importance of clean energy to America’s long-term economic prosperity.”

Speeches aside, 2011 wasn’t a bad year for Obama on the environment. He proposed raising the average fuel efficiency standard for new cars to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025—this alone, says Natural Resources Defense Council’s Frances Beinecke, “will save drivers more than $80 billion a year at the pump and cut our annual oil use by more than the amount we imported from Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 2010.” Obama’s recent rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline project—which would have transported dirty Alberta tar sands oil across U.S. soil—was another triumph, as were establishing the first national standards to limit mercury and other air toxins from power plants, proposing a visionary national oceans policy, protecting the Grand Canyon from uranium mining, and supporting clean energy investments at record levels.

CONTACTS: White House State of the Union 2012, www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2012.

LL Cool J will host the 54th Annual Grammy Awards taking place tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

Diana Ross will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award and performances include: Rihanna, Tony Bennett, Carrie Underwood, Chris Brown, Adele and more.

To honor Grammy-Award winning singer Whitney Houston, who died yesterday, Jennifer Hudson is expected to sing a medley of her hits. Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt will  pay tribute to Etta James.

Kanye West has seven nominations, topping Adele, Bruno Mars and Foo Fighters who each have six. Lil Wayne and Skrillex follow with five nominations.

8:00 p.m. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band open the show. Bruce asks: “America, are you alive out there?”

8:04 p.m. LL Cool J, host of this year’s Grammy Awards, begins the show by addressing Whitney Houston’s death and saying a prayer.

8:07 p.m. A clip of Whitney Houston singing her hit song “I Will Always Love You” is played.

8:11 p.m. Bruno Mars performs in the style of James Brown.

8:20 p.m. Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt sing “A Sunday Kind of Love” in tribute to Etta James.

Adele accepts her first Grammy of the night

8:24 p.m. The first award of the night for Best Pop Solo Performance goes to Adele for “Someone Like You.”

8:25 p.m. Chris Brown takes the stage performing “Turn Up the Music” and “Beautiful People.”

8:36 p.m. Fergie  and Marc Anthony announce Jay-Z and Kanye West as the winners of the Best Rap Performance category for their song “Otis.” Both rappers are not in attendance.

8:37 p.m. Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson perform “Don’t You Wanna Stay.”

8:47 p.m. Foo Fighters perform outside the Staples Center. The group has already won four Grammys tonight.

8:56 p.m. Rihanna sings “We Found Love” then joins Coldplay to sing  ”Princess of China.” Coldplay then performs their hit song “Paradise.”

9:12 p.m. The Grammy for Best Rock Performance goes to Foo Fighters for “Walk.” Lead singer Dave Grohl said they made the record in his garage with a microphone and tape recorder.

Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine joins The Beach Boys on stage

9:16 p.m. Maroon 5 leads the celebration of the Beach Boys with “Surfer Girl.” Foster the People sings the next song “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”

9:21 p.m. The Beach Boys reunite on their 50th anniversary and sing “Good Vibrations.” Maroon 5 and Foster the People join for the second half of the song.

9:30 p.m. This year’s Trustees Awards were given to Dave  Bartholomew, Steve Jobs and Rudy Van Gelder.

9:31 p.m. Stevie Wonder receives a standing ovation as he comes out to announce the next performer. Plays harmonica and sings as he introduces Paul McCartney.

9:32 p.m. Paul McCartney sings “My Valentine” sitting on a stool with an orchestra playing behind him.

9:36 p.m. Common and Taraji P. Henson honor the deceased Gil Scott-Heron and present the Grammy for Best R&B Album to Chris Brown.

9:38 p.m. The Civil Wars come out and say “We would like to thank all of our opening acts.” Jokes!

Taylor Swift plays the banjo while performing "Mean"

9:40 p.m. Taylor Swift embraces her country side while performing “Mean.” She plays a banjo and dresses like she is in “Little House on the Prairie.”

9:50 p.m. Neil Patrick Harris presents the Grammy for Best Song of the Year to Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth for “Rolling in Deep.” That was definitely one award most will agree on.

9:52 p.m. Katy Perry performs “E.T.” and dresses like a superhero for “Part of Me.”

9:57 p.m. Best Country Album is awarded to Lady Antebellum for “Own the Night.”

10:05 p.m. Adele begins her much anticipated performance singing “Rolling in the Deep.” So effortless and beautiful. We are all glad her voice is back. The show allows time for the standing ovation to go uninterrupted.

10:16 p.m. Taylor Swift announces the Glen Campbell tribute with The Band Perry and Blake Shelton.

10:21 p.m. Glen Campbell takes the stage singing “Rhinestone Cowboy.”

10:24 p.m. Glen Campbell is one of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipients. Other recipients include: Allman Brothers Band, Antonio Carlos Jobim, The Memphis Horns, George Jones and Diana Ross.

10:30 p.m. Carrie Underwood asks Tony Bennett to join her on stage to sing the duet “It Had To Be You.”

10:33 p.m.  The Grammy for Best New Artist goes to Bon Iver. He is so tall! The mic is definitely too low for him.

10:38 p.m. In Memorium video tribute honors those lost this past year including: Amy Winehouse, Nick Ashford, Steve Jobs, Heavy D, Johnny Otis, Marv Tarplin, Whitney Houston and many more.

Jennifer Hudson sings "I Will Always Love You" without crying

10:42 p.m. Jennifer Hudson sings “I Will Always Love You” in tribute to Whitney Houston. Such a sentimental performance. She ends with “Whitney, we love you.”

10:50 p.m.  Salute to today’s dance music takes place outside the Staples Center at L.A. Live with Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, David Guetta, Deadmau5 and Foo Fighters.

11:04 p.m. Drake introduces Nicki Minaj and calls her “intelligent, beautiful and driven.” Nicki titles her performance “The Exorcism of the Roman” and begins with a video parody of “The Exorcist.” She truly puts on a show while singing her song “Roman Holiday.”

11:10 p.m. Lady Antebellum presents the Grammy for Record of the Year to Adele for “Rolling in the Deep.” No surprise there!

11:18 p.m. Diana Ross joins LL Cool J to announce Album of the Year. The Grammy goes to Adele for “21.” She cries as she gives her thank you speech. Said the album was inspired by a “rubbish relationship.” Adele really cleaned up tonight but her wins were certainly well deserved.

11:23 p.m. Paul McCartney closes out the show with “Carry that Weight” and “The Love We Make.”

The terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center, damaged The Pentagon, and downed U.A. Flight 93 in Shanksville, Penn. are unique in several ways. They were arguably the turning point in American Warfare, turning our defensive procedures to a larger, more focused scale for our Homeland Security measures. It turned our full attention offensively to the Middle East, which has occupied our military efforts over the last decade. They have also had the distinction of being the first major U.S. tragedy to hit during the information age, making it one of the better documented historical events in our country’s existence. Using much of the video footage, audio recordings, and transcribed conversations between the individuals involved with the tragedy, The Discovery Channel has put together a new documentary tentatively called The 9/11 Tapes: Chaos in the Sky, a minute to minute recount of the morning of September 11 2001 through the eyes of the military and air traffic control units that dealt with the hijackings first hand.

The majority of Chaos in the Sky is told through the eyes of the soldiers stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod as well as air traffic controllers in New York City and Boston. The documentary is done in a minute to minute basis, covering the beginning of the morning at both Otis and JFK airport in Boston. When the initial hijack occurs, the recorded conversations in both Otis and JFK reveal the general feeling on all fronts was that they had a hostage situation on their hands and no high amounts of alarm were scene, being that there was a procedure in place for such things. This of course changes when the hijackers crashed American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. From there the documentary becomes a chaotic and somewhat frightening look at the nature of our vulnerability to such an attack and the actions that were taken by the officials who were in charge of handling it.

Though several specials about the attacks have been made in the last year (marking the ten year anniversary of the attack), Chaos in the Sky does have a very unique angle to it. This is mainly stems from how calculated and official the tone of the documentary is and the use of the official recordings from Otis. While most of the pieces put out about the attacks last year where focused on the civilian and public service aspects, this special focuses almost completely on the air traffic controllers and military pretense during the attack. This gives the documentary a very war-like tone, with much of the dialog becoming aerodynamic jargon and military code. There is also a difference in message from most specials about 9/11, with a large portion of the time spent pointing out the shortcomings of the official bodies involved, including the failure of the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) to inform North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) of the hijacked plane’s initial redirection in a standard amount of time, NORAD’s failure to scramble jets immediately, and the unorganized fashion the jets were eventually scrambled in that prevented them from arriving on the scene sooner.

It is the job of historians to record the events of the past in as accurate and unbiased way possible. Now, a decade after what is arguably one the first major world changing event for Generation Y, we can begin to look at not only what was done to our country, but also what could have been done in order to control it at the time. Chaos in the Sky is a great look at the events of the morning at 9/11 not just for it’s preciseness, but for its new view on the subject and is a must see for history and military buffs.

The special premieres TONIGHT, February 12 at 9 p.m.

Adobuere Ebiama, artistic director and co-founder of Can't Wait Productions

Adobuere Ebiama is talented and she knows it. She knows some other talented people from her native Dorchester too, like actress Gabriella Ciambrone. The two attended The Boston Arts Academy together. After a few years of ups and downs in the Boston theater scene, Ebiama decided she couldn’t wait around to be “discovered.” She has passion, skills, training and a network and that should be enough to start making the kind of theater she wanted work on and to see. She took her vision to Gabriella and together they founded Can’t Wait Productions.

Now in production for their first full season, the mission of Can’t Wait is to showcase local talent, tell the stories of the underrepresented and draw audiences of the kinds of people Ebiama and Ciambrone grew up with—people who may not have had the means or the inspiration to sit in the plush seats of the established Boston theaters where they might have been deeply moved.

Ebiama spoke to Blast about her “Can’t Wait” epiphany and the company’ s first season.

 *

BLAST: So what made you decide to strike out on your own?

EBIAMA: I think it was part of my impatience…

BLAST: Hence the name of the company?

EBIAMA: Yeah, (laughs) Can’t Wait Productions. A lot of artists, especially actors and performers, have this idea that I’m going to go to this specific city, like New York or L.A., and I’m going to make it—someone’s going to discover me—and they’re waiting for the right time and the right person to do something. I think that a lot of times talent gets wasted in the wait, because you could sit around waiting forever for someone to find you, and to figure out how special you are as an artist, but I prefer to create the opportunity for myself. I’ve had this energy for a while now and not known what to do with it because I’m waiting to use it for a show.  I should be using it all the time.

Of course I’m still auditioning. I’m still sending out headshots–all that jazz. But I don’t feel like I’m lying dormant, waiting for someone else to take control of my career. I feel like Can’t Wait Productions wants to make that theme apparent—that you can take control of you own career. I want to do the work that I want to see. When I’m looking for castings and that sort of thing, a lot of the same type of shows are being produced—and there are so many things, so many ideas that I have for the kinds of things that should be produced but are not.

BLAST: Like what?

EBIAMA: I grew up in Dorchester and the people that I know, their stories aren’t being told. I’d like to go to the theater and feel like I can relate to what I’m seeing more rather than feeling so detached.

BLAST: What kinds of stories?

EBIAMA: Stories of inner city. Stories of people of color that aren’t always tragic. Stories of Boston. There’s a chunk of people like me who just aren’t being represented enough.

BLAST: So are you looking for a lot of new works?

EBIAMA: We would like to use original works for Can’t Wait Productions because there are a lot of artists out there and a lot of new playwrights that have something to say in Boston and we would like to give them an opportunity to use our stage to tell their stories and that’s what we’re doing with our first season. They’re all original plays written by three women from Boston.

Another part of it is I really want to give actors in Boston who at least don’t know how to get themselves started, a foot in the door—maybe try to cast some actors who maybe haven’t been in too many shows—but are of course still right for the characters—give them that opportunity.

BLAST: Tell me about the first season. What are these three plays about? How did you find these playwrights?

EBIAMA: Well the first play is The Inside by Tasia Jones and Lydia R. Diamond. That’s about a 23-year-old black college student. It’s a one-woman show and she’ kind navigating her way through a post-collegiate party. [It’s] her inner monologue and her inner thoughts about the relationships that she has: her past relationships with men, her present friendships. It’s kind of like some of the things we all think about when we’re in our early 20’s and walking through a party… just observing and analyzing why you’re in these relationships, the people around you, and seeing how that effects you personally. It’s funny. And it’s interactive which I love. It breaks that third wall with the audience.

The second show is set for June. It’s by Paloma Venezuela. It’s called “Show Up.” Paloma is a good friend, who’s teaching in the D.R. right now. She went to school with Gabriella and I at Boston Arts Academy. She also went to Emerson. She’s an amazing playwright and screenwriter.

[“Show Up” is] about what would happen if all of the video vixens in these music videos that we see every day—if they dissapear. So it’s a comedy but it also has this underlying drama. Because it’s so easy every day to just—you watch television and it’s easy to see these women and have a certain perception of who they are based on how they dance and what they look like, but what she’s done is created a play [which] takes on their role and their understanding and their opinions and thoughts as women in these videos. So it’s entertaining, and it’s fun, and it’s light, but it also has some very specific opinions. We’re using multimedia in the piece.

BLAST: Video?

EBIAMA: Video and music—we’re hoping to have an original soundtrack of Boston musicians. So that’s “Show Up.” I’m thinking of directing that myself. We’ll see.

The last play is “Wednesday Double by Gabriella Ciambrone, our co-founder. She’s been working on this piece for a while. It’s about another young college student. A beautiful young waitress/bartender. And it’s set in this little café—this lounge where she’s constantly having to dismiss advances from patrons. [It’s about] how she’s working her way through school and the relationship between her and her customers. It touches on sexual harassment, what’s ok, what’s not ok—does she want this attention?

So the overall theme for this season, which kind of happened by accident, is the inner thoughts of women.  These are women from Boston so I think people from Boston can relate. Sometimes you think to yourself, “is anyone else thinking about this?”

BLAST: Who do you think your audience will be. Do you have a target?

EBIAMA: Well because we’d like to do the shows in Dorchester we really want the people that we grew up with to see the shows. We’d really like to get people 20-30.We want young people in our community to come out and see what we’re doing. That there is a way to channel your artistic energy toward something that you enjoy—we want to show the community that we are two 24-year-olds who created this company, and we want to bring art to you. You don’t have to troop all the way to Downtown Boston to see a good show. We can bring good theater to you, and you can come, and you don’t have to pay $30 for a ticket, and it can be good.

BLAST: What do you think theater can do for the community?

EBIAMA: I think it can give you a way to really channel your energy into something positive. I don’t know what I would be doing with all of this time and energy that I have spent organizing Can’t Wait Productions if I wasn’t doing it. I think a lot of times when people don’t know what to do with themselves they do—a lot of other things—reckless things, you know? When you have something positive you’re working toward—even if you don’t end up doing it for the rest of your life…at least your exercising your mind in some way.

Theater opens up so many great conversations.  If you see a great play you could be talking about it for days or weeks, it could open up political discussions or social ideas. I think a lot of times communities—I mean I’m not a politican or a psychologist or anything—but I think a lot of times in communities, at least where I grew up, people don’t talk about things. They don’t know who to take their ideas to. But I think if you create a base, and a foundation and a presence, rather than them feeling so separate form it, it will create a positive impact.

And it can be entertaining. It doesn’t have to be that deep. It can just be a place that you come on the weekends and you know that the company is there and they’ll bring you a great show and it’ll make your night.

So you’ve got a bit of a dilemma, the Mass Effect 3 demo comes out this coming Tuesday, but that also happens to be Valentines Day, and you’re sweetie may not be too keen on you skipping your scheduled dinner and viewing of The Vow to get a taste of the crew of The Normandy’s finale. What do you do?

If you’re a card carrying member of Facebook (and let’s be honest, who isn’t these days), you can head over to the Mass Effect 3 Facebook page and take part in a flash game — the result, early access to the Mass Effect 3 demo, like instant access.

So boom — you get your first taste of Mass Effect 3, and your girlfriend doesn’t miss out on her Channing Tatum flick. You’re welcome.

A series that has become unanimous with pop culture, the Simpsons continues to be the longest running animated series on television. Back in 1991, anyone visiting arcades may remember a video game based on the timeless series. This Konami classic provided perfectly themed brawling for up to 4 players in a variety of stages. Flash forward two decades and someone has been kind enough to us to bring this cabinet gem to the modern day arcade.

For those who missed the game on the first run, “The Simpsons Arcade” has the four main members of the family chasing Mr. Smithers and Burns in order to save Maggie. In perfect arcade harmony, there are only two buttons to press, attack and jump. Each of the members of the Simpsons family have different variations on these movements, leading each player to pick favorites depending on their play style. Gameplay rarely strays from the classic brawling we have come to expect from these games, sometimes mixing in a minigame for a good time.

The only negative to point out here is that you do not get much for the $10 entry price. Once you beat the main story either by yourself or with three other friends there is little else to do. You unlock the Japanese version of the game and there are harder difficulty levels, but it still consists of playing the same 6 levels over and over again. There is a cool feature in which the game will ask you how you want to deal with your deaths (free play or limited by quarters) adding a little hardcore arcade value for those looking for it, but in the end you can’t help but feel a little ripped off.

While the game presents some heavy nostalgia, in other ways it has you looking strangely back at your gaming habits. When I first played this as a kid I remember barely making it to the second level, even when my friends were playing with me. Now I managed to beat it in one sitting. I’m not sure if this shows how much I’ve grown as a gamer or exposes the internal flaws of arcade games being built to be a short term commitment. Nonetheless, the game features the original voice cast, has some well-done animations and it has been untouched from the original, which is precisely what anyone picking this up wants.

Blast Factor: Respecting its roots, “The Simpsons Arcade” is built to strike directly at your nostalgic bone and deliver on the classic arcade joy. However, expect to sink in more than a few quarters to relive these memories.

The Simpsons Arcade is available now for Xbox Live and PSN. A code for the Xbox 360 version of the game was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review

Is there anyone who can play charming yet unsettling like Denzel Washington? Even when he’s not playing a legitimate anti-hero, there’s always a vague sense of threat from his characters, in the stillness of his face and the wryness of his delivery.

Washington uses the trademark sociopathy to great affect in “Safe House”, the new spy thriller meant partially to re-charge Ryan Reynolds career after the “Green Lantern” disaster of 2011. Reynolds seems to exist mostly to get out of Washington’s way, the tactic followed by every white guy in a Denzel Washington movie which I like to call the “Ethan Hawke Defense.”

Matt Weston (Reynolds) at the beginning appears to have the un-sexiest job in the CIA, as a keeper of a CIA safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. He spends most of his time listening to French language tapes in an empty room, and telling elaborate lies about his work to his French national girlfriend. His uniquely boring life is upended when Tobin Frost (Washington) a former agent who’s been selling secrets for almost a decade, inexplicably wanders into a U.S. Consulate and allows himself to be captured (the trailer gives you a rough approximation of what will happen next).

Cape Town is shown in gritty, stunning glory, and director Daniel Espinosa makes the best use of location shooting I’ve seen in a long time. The city operates as both an ally and a potential enemy to the two fugitives, from its upscale downtown, to the chaos of Green Point soccer stadium, to the maze of a shanty town. There is very little politics in “Safe House”, but Espinosa doesn’t ignore the realities of Cape Town either, allowing the city to tell the story and add to the sharp realism of the action sequences.

The cat and mouse game at the heart of the story is a little played, and frankly most of it is stolen from other spy movies anyway. But the exquisite little details, ingeniously picked by the director and his stars, allow you to forget that this is a story that’s been told before: a spectacular crane shot of truck barreling through a shanty town’s throughways; the jaunty smile Frost gives when taking pictures of himself to add to a forged passport, the way Weston hugs his girlfriend and buries his face in her hair. The details make this movie special, make it more than just another Saturday-night throwaway picture. Washington’s charming villain is just the cherry on top.

After the new show, “X Factor”, underperformed in its first season, Cowell had to release the hosts Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger.

Cowell blames himself, saying that his expectations were unreasonable, and “It’s only because I opened my big mouth and said we were going to get 20 million [viewers]. If I hadn’t said that, everybody would be saying the show was a huge success.”

Cowell told Extra that he would have liked to keep Abdul on the show, but that she is understanding.

The only judge who remains from the original trio is L.A. Reid, because, in the words of Cowell, “There’s not a record executive out there who is as good as him for the job.”

Cowell mentioned Katy Perry, Madonna and Mariah Carey as potential options for new judges, but everything remains in the consideration stage.

Whitney Houston, music legend and pop icon, has died according to a statement from Houston’s publicist to the Associated Press.

Houston’s success began in the 1980s with such hits as “How Will I Know” and “Saving All My Love For You.” Yet it wasn’t until the singer chose to cover Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” for the 1992 movie, “The Bodyguard” that her musical career hit the stratosphere as an international icon.

Unfortunately, Houston’s music would eventually be overshadowed by her public battles with drugs, and her tumultuous relationship with Bobby Brown. Her addiction would also ravage her voice, once recognized as among the best in the world.

Only 48 years old, Houston’s official cause of death has not been released, and details remain unclear at the moment.

Alan Brinks and Erin Markey in "Green Eyes"

It’s as sexy and dangerous feeling as it gets. A tantalizing bit of voyeurism mixed with first-rate drama.

In their Boston-premier staging of this long-lost 1970 work by Tennessee Williams, Company One takes you to an intimate hotel room several floors up in the historic Ames Building between Downtown Crossing and the Business District.

Seated in one of 25 chairs, you are cordially introduced to your hostess, a femme fatale on her honeymoon (Erin Markey) who soon reveals the naked, bruised body, over which the evening’s argument will be fought.

Why the bruises? That’s what her husband (Alan Brinks), a sullen soldier on leave from Korea, wants to know. Between whiskey swigs, cigarette drags and clenched teeth, he accuses her of slinking off with another man on their wedding night while he was near blotto in a Bourbon Street bar. She parries that the bruises are his doing, and the fantasy, akin to the others he’s been slipping in and out of due to P.T.S.D. Each argument feels persuasive as they roll and tumble for dominance with seduction and violence the alternating currents of their long morning after.

The mortal combat of the sexes is timeless (and dramatized by none better than this master) but “Green Eyes” also zeroes in on 1950’s American gender roles (against which we’re still reacting), by showing the torture a soldier goes through when told he must enact violence against his instincts and without provocation in a foreign land and yet remain restrained and stoic in the face of ultimate provocation in the domestic sphere. Meanwhile, his wife vies for what power she is allowed through mastery of the most powerful weapon at her disposal: her sexuality.

“Green Eyes” is electric and unforgettable—and Company One is really on a roll.

Directed by Travis Chamberlain, “Green Eyes” plays through February 26.

Thanks to the Gallo Family Vineyard, a romantic Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to break the bank. Some inexpensive–but good!–wine and homemade dessert can make your evening sweet and sensible. The Moscato, a light-bodied wine with flavors of peach, honey and citrus, and Sweet Red, a light to-medium-bodied wine with flavors of apple, pear and tropical fruit, are just $5 a bottle, and pair perfectly with the below Gallo Family Vineyard’s signature recipes.

Fresh Pear Torta

I’ve always had this theory. In the beginning of every year, there’s that strange lull until we get new quality games, and perhaps it’s a bit unfair, but those games set the tone for what the rest of the year will be like. Terrible games are relaesed first? Get ready for a dissapointing year, but if we get good quality games within the first major release week, then that’s a different story.

If The Darkness 2, the new shooter from 2K games is any indication — we’re about to have a great year. Now, don’t get me wrong — it’s not perfect, but it’s fun, over the top and gory fun layered on top of quality writing and fine tuned mechanics. The Darkness 2 sets 2012 off to the right path.

The Darkness 2 is of course a direct sequel to the 2007 shooter based off of the Top Cow comic book series of the same name created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl. If you haven’t experienced either here’s a bit of a primer; the titular Darkness is an ancient mystical force that allows the one who posseses it access to a mysterious dimension and control over the darkling creatures that reside there.

The Darkness has currently chosen low life gangster and hitman Jackie Estacado as its host, and he’s parlayed that into a full takeover of his mob family — but of course things aren’t that easy. The Darkness 2 starts off with an attack on Jackie and the mob family, and a mysterious man trying to control the Darkness.

So what does that mean for you? Mainly lots of killing, maiming and shooting — luckily it’s all done so well. You’ll start out just as you do with any other shooter, but when The Darkness starts to beg Jackie to let it out again, that’s when the game starts to retain an identity all its own. The Darkness portrays itself mostly as two giant snake like creatures that portrude from your back, and proceed to make your enemies lives a living hell. 2K and Digital Extremes has done a great job making the actual Darkness abilities make you feel like an unstoppable force, which goes a long way in making the game feel so incredibly rewarding.

Take one of the game’s earlier levels, which finds you traveling through a subway system battling a litteral army of thugs. Not only can you use your average guns to take them out, but The Darkness adds a slew of cool abilities to your repertoire. Slash at them violently, grab them, literally rip them apart, take objects as cover — you can even summon darkling creatures to attack your enemies, and apparently they speak with an English accent.

The Darkness 2 also features an RPG style leveling system which allows you to use dark essence from your downed enemies to make your Darkness abilities even more powerful. One of the first abilities you’ll unlock is key — the ability to eat the hearts of your downed enemies to regain health, but I found that if I wasn’t led to a powerup that I absolutley needed, I never really really found myself going out of my way to level up these abilities. The Darkness 2 often felt like it could be finsished without even touching some of these abilities.

Perhaps that’s the Darkness 2′s biggest downfall — there’s just not a ton of content here. The single player game can be finished in a matter of hours, and there’s not really any reason to jump back in after you’ve finished it. Strangely, the multiplayer suite from the first game has been scrapped, but there is a respectable co-op mode, still though, it could turn a lot of online gaming focused players off from an otherwise entertaining shooter.

The visuals of The Darkness 2 though are remarkably well done. Rather than go for a phot realistic look, the folks at 2K and Digital Extremes have gone a route that makes The Darkness 2 look like the living embodiment of a comic book. The environments are all created as you’d expect, and then given a cell shading-esque top layer, which works very well for a game of this style.

Blast Factor:The Darkness 2 might not be a perfect shooter, but it’s an absolute blast and a great start to 2012. It’s violent, fun and performs well in some of the most hectic situations — we just wish there was more of it. If you like shooter, pulp and gratious violence, do yourself a favor and unleash The Darkness.

It’s ironic and perhaps heartbreaking that the woman who helped create an industry based on love and romance never seemed to experience those things in her own life.

It was said that Miss Esther Howland, dubbed the “Mother of the American Valentine,” lived vicariously through her card empire. To this day, she is often credited as the brain child behind the production of the first elaborate, European-style, hand-assembled valentines in America.

Today’s multi-billion-dollar greeting card industry is indebted to her foresight and talent.
I had never heard about Esther Howland until recently, but her story – which I stumbled upon while surfing the internet – intrigued me and captured my imagination.

Esther was born in 1828 and grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1847, she graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College). She was 19. Under the tutelage of Mary Lyon, the school’s progressive founder, Esther excelled in her studies, perhaps determined to follow the advice of her teacher who told her students to “go where no one else will go, do what no one else will do.”

After graduation, Esther received an elaborate English valentine from one of her father’s business associates. Was it a declaration of his love for her? No one knows for sure. And although Esther was said to be impressed by the card, she was certain she could do better.

As the story goes, Esther convinced her father, Southworth Allen Howland, owner of a successful bookstore and stationery shop, based in Worcester, to order lace paper and other supplies from England and New York City. From these materials, she made a dozen valentine samples, which her brother, a traveling salesman for the family store, added to his book and stationery catalog for his next sales trip.

Esther was stunned when her brother returned home with more than $5,000 (the equivalent of about $150,000 in 2012) in advance sales. Bolstered by this demand, she laid out plans for production, organizing an all-female assembly line. And like that, Esther’s valentine venture, which produced beautiful cards at a wide range of prices, was born. Advertising and word-of-mouth led to a $100,000 per year business (the equivalent of millions today).

Esther’s entrepreneurial vision was considered revolutionary, not only from a feminist standpoint (at that time few women started businesses) but also from the perspective of the American valentine industry – one that had been sorely lacking in grace, elegance, and beauty.

Although much was written about Esther’s impressive business successes, other aspects of her existence were a bit hazier.

Unfortunately, my internet sleuthing left me empty-handed when it came to some of the more intimate details of Esther’s life. My imagination getting the better of me, I began to creatively fill in the blanks. What was Esther like in her personal life? How did she really feel about love and romance? Did she have many suitors? Why did she never marry? Were the lines on the inside of her cards, such as the following, inspired by a real-life romance?

Love/or Love Deal’ youth

I read it in your eyes.

Or was Esther simply more interested in the romance of business than in the business of romance? Did she ultimately sacrifice one for the other? Without knowing the real specifics of her life, other than the fact that she was confined to a wheelchair at 38 and died single and unmarried at 76, I was left to imagine the answers to these particular questions.

I envisioned a rich but lonely woman staring out a window as she formulated the poetic words to be written inside her elaborate lace creations, words that she would never fully be able to comprehend. Maybe the closest thing to Eros in her life was the fantastical world of other people’s romances. Maybe she was content surrounding herself with the idea of love and was too busy running a valentine card empire to make room for a little romance of her own. Maybe Esther made the choice of career over love. Would she have been able to succeed in her business if she had chosen to also get married, raise children, and take care of a home?

As I continued to reflect on what I knew of Esther’s life and what I imagined it to be, it dawned on me that her legacy was truly what mattered. Because of Esther and, certainly, women like her, who proved to many that a female could successfully forge paths outside of hearth and home, it became possible for future generations of women to do the same. Esther’s ambition enabled today’s woman to have more choices in life, to realize her potential, to choose her own destiny.

If Esther consciously and purposefully made this sacrifice, it turns out it was more than just a personal one; it was a sacrifice for female posterity, a sacrifice that ultimately helped other women gain the ability to, in the words of her old Mount Holyoke teacher, “go where no one else will go, do what no one else will do.”

For your sacrifice, Esther, this is my valentine to you.

The other day we told you about how Minecraft’s creator offered to fund Tim Schafer and Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2. Not to be outdone, the fine gaming folks of the internet have raised over $1 million dollars for a new title by the studio via Kickstarter.

Seriously.

The idea of a completely funded major adventure title completely funded by fan money is a pretty cool and revolutionary idea. Shafer also confirmed that a documentary about the game’s development is also under way.

Here’s the one thing you need to know about computer and audio/video cables: They’re cheap.

“NO!” you exclaim, perturbed by my obvious and odious lie and my use of purple prose in this paragraph.

“But I spent $75 at Best Buy on an HDMI cable, and…”

Yeah, you’re an idiot. Though it’s not your fault. You, like many before you, have been duped by the markup gods and the big box retail game.

The truth is, depending on your technological needs, you can get away with paying little to nothing for cables and wires. Here’s what I mean:

Case #1: I have a new HD flatscreen television with a cable box. I do not have surround sound or an A/V receiver to hook up

You need: One HDMI cable. It will handle audio and video.

You could get away with: One component video cable (Red/Green/Blue plugs) and a Red/White RCA audio cable.

You should spend: $0. Comcast will give you either cable for free. Ask for the HDMI cable. It’s one wire that does everything instead of five wires. HDMI also supports 1080p, whereas component video only goes to 720.

What the stores have tried to sell me: An $89 — yes $89 — Monster HDMI cable. Again, you should spend ZERO dollars for the same quality.

Case #1a: I also have a Blu-ray player.

You need: To buy an HDMI cable, because it most likely did not come with your $30 Blu-ray player.

You could get away with: Asking your cable company nicely for a second HDMI cable. They literally have piles of these things.

You should spend: No more than $5. Don’t believe me? Click here.

The stores have tried to sell me: The $89 — yes $89 — Monster HDMI cable and a $35 optical audio cable. You don’t need an optical audio cable when you’re using HDMI. Ever.

Case 2: I have a flat-screen television, a brand new A/V surround sound receiver, a cable box, and a Blu-ray player.

You need: Speaker wire, a subwoofer cable, possibly a subwoofer Y-adapter, and three HDMI cables. You run one HDMI cable from the television to the receiver and one each from the receiver to the cable box and Blu-ray player. Same with a PlayStation 3. No audio cables needed. You run speaker wire from each speaker to its corresponding port on the receiver. DO NOT buy banana plugs or any other kind of accessory for the speaker wire. It’s simply another point of potential failure. Just use the bare wire.

You can get away with: Do not use component video cables. You’ll have to buy a separate coaxial or optical audio cable for surround sound (Dolby Digital/DTS) audio. Just use HDMI.

You should spend: $5 or less per HDMI cable and no more than about $15 for the speaker wire.

The stores have tried to sell me: The $89 — yes $89 — Monster HDMI cables, $35 optical audio cables, $40 Monster speaker cable and $10 speaker cable attachments.

Case 3: I have several home networking devices, including a NAS device, home theater PC, video game consoles, and a network printer

You need: Cat 6 cables and a gigabit router with Wireless N. You can use Wi-Fi for things like Wii, room monitors/security cameras, a smart thermostat, etc. For an Xbox 360/PS3, a computer, a NAS, and anything that is storing photos, videos, or music, you should make sure it is plugged into the network directly. Just my advice. Some will say Wi-Fi is there, but I say plug it in.

You can get away with: Cat 5e cables and a gigabit router with Wireless N.

You should spend: About $100 on the router (see this story) and $2-20 on each network wire.

The stores have tried to sell me: Extremely marked up routers and $20-40 cables. Think twice.

A runor has been swirling around the internet over the last few weeks that Rocksteady Studios, the makers of both Batman: Arkham Asylum and it’s sequel Arkham City are hard at work on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game.

They’re not.

Rocksteady head Sefton Hill told Kotaku that though the rumor was “amusing” they are not doing a turtles game.

Susan Eisenberg, the voice of Wonder Woman in the popular “Justice League” and “Justice League Unlimited” television series, reprises her role for the next DC Universe Animated Original Movie, “Justice League: Doom.”

Eisenberg will join several of her voicecast colleagues for the West Coast Premiere of Justice League: Doom at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills on February 16.

The all-new, PG-13 rated Justice League: Doom will be available February 28 from Warner Home Video as a Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and for Download. Both the Blu-Ray Combo Pack and DVD will include an UltraViiolet Digital Copy.

Eisenberg has focused her career in voiceovers for animation, video games and commercial use. In addition to her work for the past 12-plus as Wonder Woman for Justice League and Justice League Unlimited television series and the DCU films Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and Justice League: Doom, Eisenberg can also be heard in a variety of animates series, including Jackie Chan Adventures, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated and The Super Hero Squad Show, as well as video games like Star Wars: The Ford Unleashed – Ultimate Sith Edition and Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight. She is one of nine actors returning to the booth to record their original Justice League roles for the film, Justice League: Doom.

In anticipation of the West Coast Premiere, Eisenberg gladly offered some recollections and thoughts regarding her years of voicing Wonder Woman, including flirtations with Batman, her personal memorabilia collection, and the real reason Wonder Woman flies an invisible plane. Take a read …

QUESTION: What do you recall of earning the role of Wonder Woman some 13 years ago?

SUSAN EISENBERG: I can remember it vividly – because it was a big deal. It felt like a real life-changer, so it’s a huge memory for me. It was 1999, and I remember going to the call back and being with Andrea (Romano) and Bruce (Timm). Even the dialogue is still clear in my memory. And when I got the call that I got the role, it really had an impact on me.

Most jobs in voiceover don’t make you feel like they’re going to change your life, but this one did. And in many ways, it really did. I got to work for six years on a series, and I’d never done something that long term. And I was chosen to voice this wonderful, iconic character … and through these movies, I get to continue that role. It’s been fun and kind of surprising – people obviously know Wonder Woman, but it’s wonderful when they care that much that they actually recognize and acknowledge your work as the character. I walk into other jobs and people still say, “You’re Wonder Woman, right?” That’s really a kick.

QUESTION: What’s special to you about playing Wonder Woman?

SE: Wonder Woman is truly iconic. Everyone knows her. There’s something wonderful about playing a character who is recognized throughout the world. And I love her strength. I love that she stands for something and that she believes in what she believes. She’s very, very loyal and faithful and, in the beginning, I got to play her more vulnerable, and now I get to play her more adult and stronger. She’s a wonderful character.

QUESTION: You don’t have the benefit of weekly recording sessions to keep the voice fresh in your mind. How do you jump back into this role without a hitch?

SE: Working with Andrea and Bruce is a great because they were there at the start – Andrea has always directed me in this role, so she knows what she’s looking for. Listening to her direction is the first trick. Reading the script a few times also helps, especially to find the attitude and the voice. And as a refresher, I like to go online, check out YouTube, and play some old clips, or watch some of my DVDs. That helps to get me back in that space – and then Wonder Woman is right there in my head. But honestly, it’s not a huge leap for me – she’s pretty much in there all the time, anyway.

QUESTION: How much of what you do with Wonder Woman is through a change in your voice, and how much is really acting and attitude?

SE: A lot of it’s attitude. That’s why, if I’m speaking just normally, it’s not as if somebody next to me would ask, “Do you play Wonder Woman?” But then when I do the attitude and lower the register slightly, you will see this smile of recognition on the face of a little kid … or a true fan. And that’s always fun.

QUESTION: Who recognizes you more – kids who watch cartoon, or the adult devotees of the genre?

SE: Kind of both, and the reactions are different, but similar. It’s really nice to have people who are so passionate about these characters. So you get the 6-year-old child who has watched the cartoon and their eyes get big when they recognize that you’re this person behind the voice. But then you get the 40-something-year-old who has been watching, and loves this world, and loves this universe, and reads the comic books, and cares deeply about the genre. That’s fabulous, too. Just to have fans is a very cool thing. No one can complain about that. It’s good.

QUESTION: Wonder Woman has some very long battles in Justice League: Doom with a lot of physicality required in the vocal performance. How’d you handle that?

SE: The initial recording session is pretty straight-forward – we save most of the impacts and grunts and physical action for the ADR session. But as I was reading the script, I just kept thinking of Dwayne (McDuffie) and thinking, “You really layered it on me, didn’t you!” I’m going to have to be electrocuted and hit over the head and punched over and over and punch back over and over. You often have to be physical to sound physical. So – that’s a truly exhausting day.

QUESTION: What’s it like to have the gang back together again?

SE: You know, it’s thrilling because it’s a grand reunion. I get to be reunited with Michael Rosenbaum and Kevin Conroy and Carl Lumbly and that’s like having the League back together, if you will. I didn’t that expect that to happen, and I could not be more thrilled. Driving to the recording session, I was just so excited that we’d be in a room together. It is just so comfortable coming back into this. It’s the best gig in town. And anyone who does voiceovers would say that.

QUESTION: What are the scenes that appeal most to you in this film?

SE: I always like the quieter moments. So I like my scenes with J’onn, because those two characters really can relate to each other in so many ways, and I also liked my scenes with Batman. In both cases, those were some of the quieter moments with some emotional content. I enjoy the scenes where I have to kick some butt, too. But I truly enjoy the interplay with the other characters and the actors that play them.

I’ve never been shy about my feelings with Batman and Wonder Woman because, first of all, I love Kevin and I love working with Kevin. I think he’s amazing as Batman. And I love Batman and Wonder Woman together, and I think the fans do, too. You can go on YouTube and find all these wonderful videos of the two of them – showing their romance, put to music – so you know the fans love them together.

Playing Diana gives you a lot of different angles and emotions to play. Diana is very serious – she’s not like Flash where she’s funny and throwing out the one-liners. When she’s funny, it’s not necessarily intentional that she’s funny. And so I love the other aspects of her, when she gets to be flirty with Batman or when she gets to be funny with Flash or more earnest with J’onn. I especially like to play the flirty and hint at that romance between the characters. That’s a lot of fun.

QUESTION: How much equity to you take in this character?

SE: I’m enormously proud that I get to play her – it truly is a privilege and an honor. People have definite, strong opinions of Wonder Woman, and she’s known everywhere. She is this embodiment of female empowerment, and that’s a thrill, too, because there are little girls and little boys and they’re watching this and seeing that she’s so strong and so tough and righteous. It’s great to be able to provide that example of heroics through this character. I’m a guardian of that, and I don’t take it lightly. And every time I get asked to voice the role, I feel grateful – each and every time. I hope I keep getting to do it.

QUESTION: Has playing Wonder Woman changed you?

SE: In several ways. I think I’ve grown up with this part. I got this role 10 years ago, and just working alongside my fellow Justice League actors and with Andrea and Bruce has changed the way I work. And learning about this universe has changed me. You can’t have a part like this and not feel changed by it, because it’s enviable to have this job and play this character. There’s humility attached to that. You know you’re lucky. And that changes you, also.

QUESTION: What’s your attraction to voiceover work?

SE: I grew up doing radio commercials for my father’s business in Woonsocket, R.I., and I loved it. My father and my sister worked together – they would write the copy for me, and I would do the commercials for them. There’s something just so freeing about being behind a microphone as opposed to in front of a camera. There’s no worry about your hair or lipstick – on camera you get so self-conscious. Sure, there’s a self-consciousness in a room recording with other actors, because you want to be good. That’s just performance anxiety. I’ll take that any day over that camera and all those people staring at me. Some people are so natural with the camera – the can just pretend it’s not there. I am so aware it’s there.

QUESTION: What Wonder Woman memorabilia do you have at home?

SE: I have a lot of pictures and some beautiful cels – all gifts from the Justice League and Justice League, Unlimited. And some small things that people have sent me – mugs and little toys and notebooks with her on the cover. When we first started, we all ran out and bought our own action figures, so that’s right at the forefront of my bookshelf.

Best of all, I have all the scripts from the series. I keep them in a big bookshelf in my closet. I’m nostalgic about that stuff. It’s very sentimental to me to. It was a big deal this job – it really does mean the world to me. So I kept all the scripts.

QUESTION: Wonder Woman can fly. Why does she need an invisible plane?

SE: Because she likes to go in style. And why should she always be flying when there is a plane that can do it for her? I mean, why not have the private jet if you can have the private jet? Right? You’re going to begrudge her a private jet? I don’t think so.

Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and the gang try to dupe their strict, creepy landlord.

A hilarious “New Girl” is no longer equivalent to finding a diamond in the rough. Dare I say, it may be the most dependable new comedy. All the praises I’ve sung in recent weeks still apply. I’ve harmonized about its self-referential humor, or melodized over hitting its stride in respect to laugh-per-minute ratios, and I must preach again to the overworked choir. The writers have not fallen asleep at the wheel, continuing to pit that undeniable “Jess-ence” (trademarking it!) against every dysfunctional roommate and guest star with stellar returns.

This week, we confront the eternal struggle of People inherently suck vs. People are inherently good. Original sin vs. Redemption. The cold open presents this ideological standoff when Nick vies for the same parking space as another gentleman. Both quickly resort to hostile tactics to get what they want. When Nick beckons him to fight, his opposition pulls out a gun. Jess then talks the man down by conceding that Nick was being an idiot and that she was sorry about the altercation. The man then drove off and the powers of optimism prevailed. Unconvinced, Nick does not back down from his stance that people are jerks at their core.

When more appliances start to break down in the loft, Jess insists they ask the janitor to fix them. When the manly trio suggests they don’t because he is frightening, she takes it as a challenge. She enters his basement office armed with a plate of cupcakes. When she tries to appeal to his estranged side she lets it slip that there are four people living in an apartment designed for three. Apparently the gang had prepared for such an event and initiates an operation whereby they empty the contents of Schmidt’s room onto their balcony and he pretends to be a foreigner visiting LA. Landlord dude (played refreshingly off-putting by the hulky Jeff Kober) isn’t buying, but upon inspection he deemed the arrangement acceptable (only if Schmidt’s paints over a disturbing mural he describes as a sexually charged, zero gravity tea ceremony). Jess then attempts to coerce some maintenance work out of him and like putty in her hand he agrees. Nick immediately assumes the landlord, who we learn is named Remy (Jess astutely observes his tattoo that reads, “Hello, my name is Remy”) is only trying to get in her pants.

The standoff that follows is a clash between two stringent believers. In quick flashbacks, we are enlightened about where their divergent perspectives came from in humorously simplistic vignettes. Nick’s memory is of finding a fiver on the sidewalk and feeling elated. Instantaneously, a jogging man pushes him into the brush after snatching it away. Jess’ memory is of a sketchy, grimy man pulling up to her in a white van who asked, “Do you like candy, little girl?” Jess unflinchingly answered, “I sure do.”

Now, I’m sure those of you who are like Nick and I were weary of what would come next. But of course, subverting stereotype, the man replies, “Good, because my nana made way too much!”. The sliding door of the van opens and a wheelchair-ridden Nana hands her a plate of candy. Obviously the world is much more nuanced than the hyperbolic scenarios that played out in their childhoods, but the show, once again, credits its audience with a high degree of intelligence: we know these are intentionally stark representations are going for laughs. Still, it provides us with a bit of context with which to understand why they so strongly defend their outlooks. I’d be down for this brand of characterization in the future where we can laugh at these embellished personifications of their childhood while being enlightened about their motives.

After completing his handiwork, and opening up a little about how he and his ex-wife, “stopped humping,” Jess invites Remy to dinner as a token of gratitude. Winston and Schmidt seem unenthused, still with some lingering fear of the burly man, but Nick insists he’ll stay as watchdog, protecting Jess from the landlord’s libidinous intentions. As the dinner progresses, and Nick and Remy bond over their harsh breakups, Jess begins her victory lap. She suggests that Nick should not sell people short and make it a habit to “dip your toe in the pool of possibilities.” However, she may have spoke too soon; Remy misconstrues their honest evening conversations as a preface for a menage a trois. Unwilling to relinquish or surrender, a battle to outlast ensues where Jess refuses to admit defeat and she plays along with Remy’s fantasy. Like a trooper, she fakes delight in the prospect of an excruciatingly awkward (Nick endures Remy’s callusy caress for far too long as well) threesome, up until Remy requests that Nick kiss her. She then folds and the gang resigns to tolerate any shoddy workmanship thereon.

Schmidt’s B-story reenforces his role as the comedic tour de force of the show, while remaining only slightly detached from the show’s soul. This is acceptable as long as he’s not ancillary to the main thread entirely, which this episode accomplishes. At work, his boss Kim is giving him mixed signals. Winston draws from history, convinced that Schmidt is once again misinterpreting someone’s interaction with him as an appeal for sexual gratification. The micro-montage of such instances was quite amusing particularly his insistence that the delivery man was definitely suggestive when he informed Schmidt he had “a package” for him. The most ingenious turn of this plot, however, was how right he was. Kim’s alluring tone as she requests he “Clean out her hard drive” was overtly sensual, but due to his miscalculations of the past, he refrains. Cece (Jess’ model gal pal that he pines for) advises him to go for it, since asking permission would only be a turn off. Therefore, when Kim alludes to spending the night alone with a bottle of wine, Schmidt conjures up the wherewithal to pounce on her. Unfortunately, when the security catch him in the act they observe incorrectly that he is jumping her and pin him on the ground and cuff him. The coda of this storyline is wonderfully absurd as well.

When Schmidt states his genuine intentions to pursue her romantically she uses her same luscious voice to urge him to dial her in to the Tokyo conference call. Perceiving this as the green light, Schmidt strips down to his skivvies in anticipation, unknowingly putting on a show for a fleet of Japanese businessmen as he pratices his sexy poses.

The thematic cohesion paid great dividends as we learn the dangers of staunch belief systems. Sometimes people do have ill intentions while being mostly kind-hearted and sometimes those who are attracted to us can ask us for favors without an ulterior sexual motive. The sitcom realm is frequently black and white, and “New Girl’s” stabs at meta-commentary continue to please and establish a sophisticated wit that I believe will usher in viewers who were skeptical of the show’s naked premises of a female roommate shaking up the lives of three male roommates.

I was disappointed, however, that Winston was not afforded a shred of a C-story. His two major contributions were as passerby witness to the thwarted threesome and as the discoverer of a damning list of Schmidt’s 2007 New Year’s resolutions (some of which I will post in L.O.L.Ls) and when he is tasked with painting over the mural in Schmidt’s “interplanetary sex dojo,” a description which had me gasping for air I laughed so violently. Winston has not always been neglected, but when he is it reeks of laziness, because they’ve sewn the fabric for future exploration of his post-basketball life and his struggles with readjustment.

The tie-in of assumptions and misinterpretations is presented so strongly though, its mostly forgivable. Nonetheless, I was thrown slightly as to why Jess would persist in indulging Remy’s horndog tendencies just to prove a point. It would only serve to degrade Jess to engage in such a seemingly horrendous act, but I suppose the over-the-top elements speak to how strong Jess and Nick’s convictions are to be right. Also, it served the added function of strengthening the sexual tension by teasing the “pool of possibility” that they might kiss. I’m not the biggest fan of a will they/won’t they scenario for this show, but those two clearly exude the most chemistry so I will keep an open mind, as Jess would recommend.

Those reservations aside, this week churned out another 22 minutes of top-shelf jokes (a surprising number were delivered by Zooey Deschanel as she continues to debunk the myths of her comedic shortcomings), reaffirmed my man crush on Schmidt’s buffoonery, and enhanced Jess and Nick’s likability by offering a background for those who scorned their apparent one-notedness. My outlook for the series’ future reflects that of our incessantly sanguine title character. “New Girl” persists in the face of low, but premature critical expectations, beating the odds with sustainability and a B+.

L.O.L.Ls: Laugh Out Loud Lines

- When a stranger brandishes his gun, Jess shouts, “Oh my god, it’s like the Wire!”

- “I like your bucket of…gasoline. Super practical.”

- “I’ve got a fun exercise. I’d like every one to take a moment and think back to a time when you did something stupid, how they were treated, and how they wished they were treated.”

- “You look like you should be distracting James Bond at a baccarat table.”

Some of Schmidt’s more notable New Year’s resolutions from 2007:

1. Find the cocoon that will release your inner butterfly

2. Find out where Winston gets his sparkle and steal it

3. Start floating idea people call me Mr. Finish/Gametime Jones/The Hookup-erator

4. Just pick a color of Crocs and buy them already!

- Remy, the landlord, finding common ground with Nick:

“Did you go out looking for companionship, a little human warmth, and when you came to you were in the woods, covered in animal blood?”

“In my own way.”

- Nick to Jess: I think you could do a lot worse than Remy. He’s got strong arms.”

- “Great choice, Remy. Nick will make a fantastic underpants captain!”

Dear Neely,

Sincerely,
Lover Boy, Boston, MA

Takeaway points:

• 40 seconds: The amount of time you’ve been with someone is a factor, but try thinking less about WHEN you should say I love you and more about WHY you want to say it and you will have your answer.
• 54 seconds: There are 3 times when you shouldn’t say I love you. Tune in to hear what I have to say.
• 2:07: When you can feel really good about saying I love you.
• 2:47: A lot of times women are advised to let the man say I love you first. I explain why.
• 3:25: It should be less about gender and more about your motive for saying it.
• 3:45: The worst that can happen is that the other person doesn’t say it back but if you were saying it for the right reasons, at least you stayed true to the honest feelings you had. See this Seinfeld clip for George’s dilemma:

Submit your dating/relationship questions to neely@blastmagazine.com.

It must be difficult for anyone making a career decision to move to another country, let alone to make the decision when you’re thirteen. Cody Simpson — a cute blonde Australian boy — posted a couple videos of himself singing and playing guitar on youtube at the tender age of 13. Before he knew it, he was contacted by record producer Shawn Campbell and moved from Australia to Los Angeles to make an album with Atlantic Records.

His accomplishments seem boundless since: he has received over 110 million youtube views and well over 2 million facebook likes. His single, “On My Mind,” off of his second e.p. “Coast to Coast” reached #1 on Radio Disney and he has been on a myriad of television shows from the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” to “Live! With Regis and Kelly.” He is quickly becoming the next digital generation phenomenon.

Now at the age of 15, Cody is continuing to work hard in order to maintain his success.

When asked if there was a girl in his life – as his music mainly discusses relationships and love – Cody replied, “No, there isn’t at the moment. If the girl you’re talking about is named ‘Music’ then sure, I’m dating her. But really I am just focusing on my career at the moment. I’m a pretty focused kid and I am definitely very self motivated. And I think once I get everything established to where I want to be, than there is time for all that.  I got a while. I love to hang out with girls, but relationships are real hard for me at the moment. I have a lot of good friends, but nothing too serious.”

Cody is mature for his age. As a rising star, he is often compared to Justin Bieber. When asked what he thinks of being compared to Justin, Cody said, “I think a lot of people like to put things in boxes and say, ‘okay, he was discovered on YouTube and he sings and he is a teenager, so that means he is a new Justin Bieber.’ What? Like hold on a second…”

But despite the comparisons, Cody revealed, “Justin and I were just in the studio, like yesterday working together. Obviously I’m still at the more beginning stages of my career. But its cool to work with Justin and people like him. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the music and the creation of that. He is working on his next album and I am working on my debut. I think that this generation is definitely doing it big.”

On being a young artist, Cody said, “I think there are many disadvantages of being young and being a teenager. There are only certain things you can say musically and certain things you can do. I’m never really going to say anything risky or explicit in my songs. I definitely am more mature for my age. But I think as my fans grew up and as I grew up with my fans, we had to just create the music for them. A lot of people definitely expect a certain thing from a teen artist. But I think with my album, with the single, and the video, and this tour that I’m doing, I think I’m going to surprise a lot of people. I am really excited for the coming year. And I will see how it goes. I am definitely doing things that no one is expecting.”

A great example of Cody’s artistic and unexpected side is his cover of Drake’s “Marvin’s Room” — a song about drunk texting lost romances. But since the song is widely inappropriate for younger audiences, Cody decided to “re-imagine” it.

“I’m a big Drake fan in general. I love that song and I wanted to re-imagine it and create a version of the song I think my fans could listen to and they could relate to,” he said. “JoJo did the female side of things of that story, and then I wanted to create a story for my younger fans.”

So what is Cody doing when he is not recording, going on tour, or making music videos?

“I go to school in the morning usually. My tutor travels with me when I’m on the road. I think it’s important to stay in school,” he said.

But what about during his time off?

“I love to go surfing. I love to play golf. Golf is always relaxing when you have a day off. I love just being out in the ocean and I love just being out on the golf course.”

Now living in Los Angeles, golf and surf is easily available to him, though the surf is better “back home in Australia,” according to Cody. When asked about his life before fame, Cody misses “that time to chill with friends. I have friends back home that I am very close to that I still talk to every single day. We don’t really get to hang out too much. I miss them and my family and my lifestyle a little bit. I love writing music and [Los Angeles] is where you have to be for that.”

The future is promising. “I am creating my own album right now,” Cody said. “My single is coming out in the next few weeks. For right now, I am focusing on the tour.”

When asked where he would like to be in five years from now, he said, “I’ll be 20 years old, hopefully still making music as a respected artist and someone that has inspired a lot of people and has made some great music. That is all I really want to do.  I want to inspire my fans. I want to do work for charity in the next five years, definitely.  There is a lot of stuff happening to me and I want to make sure I am giving back to my fans and people less fortunate than me.”

Cody is currently touring the country. His tour dates can be seen here.

Parents, pay attention. This is what your kids are going to be hounding you for later on this year.

Activision has announced the next line in it’s popular Skylander series of toys/video games — the Giant Skylanders. The new line features sixteen new figures, eight of which will be giant sized, along with a new game. Don’t worry — you won’t need to plop down money for a new Portal, the one you have will work just fine.

Check out the trailer below for your first look at the new figures.

The Salt Lake City Tribune is reporting that Eat Sleep Play co-founder and the man behind such mega hits as God of War and Twisted Metal, David Jaffe will be stepping down and leaving the company following next week’s release of Twisted Metal for the PS3.

The report suggests that Jaffe (UPDATE: jaffe has confirmed he will leave the company) will be staying around for the game’s release, along with a bit of testing and polish, and then will segway into a new position,and a brand new company, which will focus on “big next gen ideas.”

As for Eat Sleep Play, the studio will reportedly transition from console games like Twisted Metal to more casual iPhone and iPad games. “”It’s a platform that is in our pockets almost 24/7. It’s kind of the size and types of games we’re playing,” said other co-founder Scott Campbell to the Salt Lake Trib. “You can certainly reach a lot more people. That’s pretty exciting for us.”

The company has also confirmed that as a result of the move, that they will see a number of layoffs in the near future. Here’s hoping all of those folks land on their feet.

Tim Schafer and Double Fine’s Psychonauts could be the most under-appreciated game in history, so naturally fans are no clamoring for a sequel, but even the most passionate fan doesn’t seem to hold a candle to Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson, who is willing to at least partially fund a possible Psychonauts 2.

Apparently everything started when Schafer gave an interview to Digital Spy, saying that despite the studio’s switch to smaller, digital delivery games like Stacking, Costume Quest and Trenched The Iron Brigade, he would love to do a sequel to Psychonauts…if “a few million dollars would suddenly become available. That’s where Notch has seemingly stepped in. In a tweet directed directly to Schafer, the Minecraft creator said simply; “Let’s make Psychonauts 2 happen.” Notch later sent a follow-up tweet assuring Schafer, and the rest of his followers that he was in fact very serious about the proposition.

Trying…to…keep…fanboy urges…down…

So just what does Schafer think of all this? In typical Schafer fashion,  he played off the rumors to Kotaku. “”I just woke up, is something strange going on?” The developer did take to Twitter to comment on the rumors later in the day — sort of.

“Man, so many tweets,” Schafer tweeted. “I assume this is all people asking for codes toHappy Action Theater and Rise of the Martian Bear?”Oh wait,” he continued. “Hm. This is interesting.

Microsoft and Lucas Arts have announced that Star Wars Kinect, along with the special edition Star Wars Xbox 360 will release on April 3.

The console, along with the game were delayed late last year after the game received majorly negative critical reception. Here’s hoping it’s tuned up from our time with it at last year’s E3.

Depending on what kind of gamer you are, this may sting a bit. It turns out that before Naughty Dog began work on their upcoming end of the world action title, The Last of Us, they were well into development of Jak and Daxter 4, but scrapped plans when things started to feel forced.

“We dug around trying to find the core of Jak and Daxter,” The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann told Game Informer Magazine. “Who are the characters? We had to reboot it essentially. Every time we got excited about an idea we’d take a step back and look at it and be like ‘It’s not Jak and Daxter, are we just slapping the name on it for marketing reasons?’

Druckman went on to add that his computer is currently full of rejected ideas for Jak and Daxter 4.

“It started feeling like a compromise,” Druckmann added. “The more we tried to make Jak and Daxter like we wanted to, it didn’t feel like things were matching up. We have folders and folders filled with scrapped ideas.All the ideas just started to feel like they were going so far away from what made Jak and Daxter Jak and Daxter,” added Evan Wells, co founder of Naughty Dog. “Even though we wanted to give fans another Jak and Daxter, we felt we weren’t going to give them the game that they wanted, and that we would end up either limiting the direction that the company had this passion for while simultaneously not creating the game that fans wanted. We just realized we were going to just do everybody a disservice.”

So does that mean that the series is done?

“Never say never,” he said. “It could happen. Naughty Dog’s got a long history and I think it’s got a long future so to say we’ll never go back is kind of crazy but right now we’ve got The Last of Us that we’re definitely going to be supporting. I guess there’s a possibility that the Uncharted team could move on to Jak and Daxter. It’s still up in the air, but I wouldn’t think that’s going to happen, because I think we’d run into all of the same problems with that team that we did with this team.”

Those looking for some (semi) new Jak and Daxter action will want to pick up the HD collection, when it releases February 7. Check back later for our full review.

Former Infinity Ward members Jason West and Vince Zampella formed Respawn Entertainment back in 2010 after a nasty and very public split from Activision. Now, nearly two years later, all we’ve seen from the new company’s first game was a set of blurry images, and an announcement that the game would in fact be multiplatform, but we may finally be getting a possible release window.

According to a reportedly leaked  marketing EA calendar and posted by French site Hardgamers, the publisher expects the company’s first game to hit sometime in the year 2013.  EA hasn’t commented on the rumor, we’ve reached out them and Respawn, but don’t expect comment.

Throughout my years working in the game industry, I’ve come to know a few gaming testers. You know what they do? Work long hours on single sections of games to find even the smallest bugs in your favorite games. You know what they don’t do? Get cockroaches dumped over their heads. But eh — maybe Sony is changing their interviewing processes.  Check out the Tester: Season 3 when it premieres on all of your favorite PlayStation branded devices to see who does gross stuff the best to get a job testing games.

 http://youtu.be/413N_FTYWxI

When Alan Wake’s American Nightmare hits Xbox Live Arcade later this month as part of Microsoft’s Xbox Live House Party, you won’t be visiting the same old woodsy locations. Rather, the folks at Remedy have taken everyone’s favorite darkness fighting author and put him into a haunted desert location. Check out these new screen shots to see check out some of the game’s new locations, weapons and enemies.

"Man's Best Friend" seemed to be the consensus favorite of last night's Super Bowl ads.

Without a doubt, the Super Bowl is the biggest TV event of the year. Brand name companies and their advertisers mark the day on their calendars knowing they will be paying an arm and a leg, but the exposure will be tremendous. But with every company looking to stand out, they brought their “A” game.

The Doritos contest strategy paid off immensely. According to USA Today’s Ad-Meter it was the most popular ad to air last night. Brand Bowl 2012, said it was the most tweeted about generating 48,498 tweets. “Man’s Best Friend,” a finalist in the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, had me cracking up. The commercial centers around a cat-murdering dog who bribes his owner with a bag of Doritos to shut him up.

Also earning a lot of laughs was the other finalist, “Sling Baby.” In this one, a kid taunts his grandmother because he has a bag of Doritos’. Grandma decides she will launch the kid’s baby brother using the bungee-cord jumper to snag it from him.

More on the side of controversy was David Beckham’s risque black and white ad commercial for clothing retailer H&M. The concept is simple. Closeups of Beckham in nothing, but their new man panties, zooming in on his chiseled chest and torso (as well as his tattoos), set to porn music, basically. Although, the women in my household, and presumably all across America, were hot and bothered, this wasn’t what incited an uproar. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) demanded that CNN commentator Roland Martin be fired immediately regarding his tweet about the H&M commercial: “If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!” This angered the gay activist organization, causing them to respond: “@rolandsmartin Advocates of gay bashing have no place at @CNN #SuperBowl #LGBT.” Roland retorted, “Well you’re clearly out of touch and clueless with what I tweeted. Way to assume, but you’re way off base.” He later tried to justify his remarks to his over 94,000 followers tweeting, “It’s hilarious when idiots…see my Beckham tweet as homophobic and I rip on soccer all of the time.” Whether he meant it as a slight at soccer and his fans or as a denigration of homosexual behavior matters little. GLAAD is not letting up, still rousing supporters and gay bloggers to initiate a campaign for his termination. To get up close and personal with David, click here.

Lovers of women in lingerie were not neglected, however. Adriana Lima, Victoria’s Secret model, appeared as a spokeswoman for Teleflora, an online flower delivery service. Needless to say, it was every bit as sexy as Beckham’s. Lima seems to be getting dressed for a night on the town as we watch her hook her bra and pull on her tights. And unlike H&M’s, it included dialogue: “Guys, Valentine’s Day is not that complicated. Give, and you shall receive.” Message happily received. Pay your respects to Ms. Lima here

Brand Bowl’s third most popular was courtesy of Chrysler. Clint Eastwood waxed philosophic about the recovery of Detroit’s motor industry. Apparently, Eastwood’s rhetoric on “Halftime in America” and us rallying as a nation to “come from behind,” touched the hearts of Americans like Eminem’s ode to Detroit did (set to his “Lose Yourself”) last year.

My personal favorite was from Fiat, who equated the beauty of their new sleek and sporty model with being seduced by an Italian supermodel (picture below). The reveal that he was kissing the window of a car completely caught me off guard, and was probably the most inventive premise of the night, while still going for sex appeal. For a laugh riot, click.

Filling out the remaining contenders, I was underwhelmed by Budweiser’s contributions, but thought the dog named “Wego,” was clever. Hint: If you call the dog, you would say “Here, Wego.” “Here We Go” is the Bud slogan. Going for the nostalgia factor, Acura and Honda shelled out the big bucks for tributes to pop culture. For Acura, Jerry Seinfeld starred in a parody of his “Seinfeld” show and Matthew Broderick showed up in Honda’s homage to his 80s classic, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Yeah, I got all the references, but it just didn’t tickle my funny bone like the others.

So, note to self: Wanna make millions on ads? Include babies, attractive and scantily clad women (but you can throw in a dude), and animal personification. Nostalgia is hit or miss, and involving your customers via contests can never hurt.

I won’t mention the game itself, because I know here in Boston it is a day of mourning, but I hope you at least enjoyed some of these crowd-pleasers up until the final whistle. Was one of your favorites not mentioned? Share links and your opinions of the ads mentioned in the comments section.

wireimage.com

What would the Super Bowl halftime show be without a little controversy? During Madonna’s performance, guest M.I.A. made waves when she flipped off the camera at the end of her bit.

While not as shocking as Janet Jackson’s nipple being exposed on live television, the gesture garnered multiple apologies from NBC and the NFL.

“Our system was late to obscure the inappropriate gesture and we apologize to our viewers,” said NBC spokesman Christopher McCloskey, according to hollywood.com.  NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that M.I.A. did not indicate any such gesture in her performance during the rehearsals.

Hmm, I would have thought that M.I.A. would ask permission to flip off half the nation on a “family friendly” television network.  Go figure.

More gorgeous horse races, scheming, gambling and intrigue on the second episode of HBO's "Luck."

HBO doesn’t do small-scale. Sure, “The Sopranos” was a family drama embedded in the all-consuming network of the mob, and “The Wire” never neglected the personal struggles within the deteriorating city of Baltimore, but both shows required a steep learning curve (a few episodes) before one could fully immerse themselves in these familiar yet foreign expanses. There was no denying, however, the web of interconnectedness from the get-go. Everyone shared a commonality of experience, the impact of their worlds’s stranglehold, the futility of escape. Whether tied to a family, an occupation, a city or a way of life, these dramas always emphasized the love/hate relationship people have with the place they came from, and how indelibly linked its character is to ours.

“Luck” follows this formula. Last week, it was a universe that seemed impenetrable for outsiders and the unestablished connections between the track insiders had us scratching our heads. I was compelled by the grandeur of this well-oiled, horse racing machine. So many cogs were operating, but the functions of each gear eluded me. Then I remembered the insistence and the infinite wisdom of “Luck’s” predecessor, “The Wire,” “…All the pieces matter.” With that in mind, the labor of the pilot paid off this week. The table-setting paved the way for exploration, and as viewers we begin to recognize where the tragic threads are being woven. Revenge plots are being forged, envy and greed threatens the glory in victory, and opportunities to climb the ladder present themselves.

THIRST was the overriding feeling of the episode. Every one had a compulsion, an overwhelming desire. Some were fulfilled, some were denied, but none subsided. All are bitter about changing world. One woman even mentioned President Obama (referring to him coyly, and farcically, as the Muslim President from Kenya) in creating an analogy about broken promises. These are people set in their singular ways about prosperity and success and they won’t be satisfied with their latest score. They’re going to play the game until they win big or you lose it all.

Ace Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) already lost it all. We finally learn the origin story of his three-year prison sentence. He fell on his sword, taking the charge for his grandson at NYU, and an unseen associate, Mike. Mike was stashing his cocaine at a co-op apartment that Ace had purchased for business and entertainment. He allowed his descendant to use the place for raging parties and one night the cops crashed it, arresting the grandson on a lofty possession charge. Ace was offered a deal. His flesh and blood would be set free if he would divulge the name of the supplier. They knew it was Mike, but they required official testimony. Ace had never ratted on anyone his whole life, and though Mike would have snitched on him in a heartbeat he took the fall so both Mike and his grandson would remian free. Nevertheless, all’s not forgiven.

The business dealings of last week come into sharper focus as we learn Ace is planning to buy the Santa Anita track and convert it into a casino. What remains undisclosed is how this transaction will factor into his vengeful scheme, but he’s on the warpath, no doubt about it. Gus, “The Greek,” owning a horse is also a piece to the puzzle, but as far as I’m concerned the slow reveal of the details is earned by Hoffman’s portrayal of a sleeping giant. He exudes a slick poise, but on occasion will unleash a lion’s roar to alarm his partners about his grip on reality post-incarceration. He is dangling the bait, and we’re waiting for for one of his investment “pals” to bite. His bluntness and sarcastic debonair make him both fearful and likable. His sinister unveilings of payback have you rooting for his badass “Bernstein temper” side and his tender reflections with Gus at day’s end bring him down to earth, like a Grandpa with lessons of hard work and determination to impart.

Our four “degenerates” come across some difficulties adjusting to their newfound fortune. Jerry’s gambling addiction runs rampant with the recent influx of funds and his willingness to keep playing despite huge losses reaches dangerous levels. He loses $7,000 in one night only to return the night after. But as he watches his thousands of dollars in chips slip through his fingers, his resolve to win only strengthens. When he barely ekes out the biggest pile of the night he’s floating on a cloud, impervious to harm, but with such a large margin or error and so little willpower to walk away, we might as well start counting the days until either the thrill of the chase overtakes him.

Renzo appears to be the most kind-hearted, if  not the most childlike, of the four, and wishes to repay his gratitude through a grand gesture. Now that he can afford to, he wants to lay claim to a horse. In order to manipulate the odds, trainer Turo Escalante (John Ortiz) enters his horse Mon Gateau (one of the degenerates’ Pick Six winners) into a claiming race. The only hitch is Renzo is eyeing that horse. With all the  good karma surrounding it, after it proved to be key to their jackpot, Renzo figures he should scoop it up as the perfect gift to the group. When Mon Gateau wins the race, validating Renzo’s interest, he’s hopeful that he will capitalize on his investment. But another claim was put in. A man named Mulligan had gathered the same intel and after drawing marbles, Mulligan wins the horse.

Marcus, my favorite of the group right now because of the biting insults and his weathered voice of reason, is disgusted by Jerry and Renzo for flaunting their money. He feels they are asking to be targeted by those willing to resort to violence to obtain their winnings. They are relatively tame in their extravagance, however, compared to Lonnie, who dons a new suit and hat. Marcus has a fit. Lonnie’s stray remark about “having two insurance women pay him to f**k” is also explained. Supposedly, these two women are indeed insurance agents, and they have orchestrated a scam involving Lonnie and a fabricated “slip and fall” (watch out for the irony in this term, I’ll come back to it toward the end of the review). As Marcus had predicted though, they learned of his recent cash infusion and change the plan. They took out a life insurance policy in his name and after seducing him and spiking his drink, attempt to kill him. As (wait for it) luck would have it, during their scrum they break through the motel window and a passerby whisks him away and drops him off outside of Renzo and Marcus’ room.

On the track, Escalante is furious after Mon Gateau is claimed and suspects Leon of loose lips. Preoccupied, he fumes at Gus when he makes a innocuous remark about his horse’s condition. Escalante takes a lot of pride in his expertise and when that authority is challenged, or undermined in anyway, consequences (inadvertent or otherwise) are to be expected. Earlier in the episode, Leon did confide in his agent, Joey Rathburn, wondering whether the horse that was put down last week wasn’t fit to race, and Escalante knew beforehand. It’s a heavy allegation and Joey says that he should just keep his mouth shut and ride exactly as Escalante advises. On a side note, Escalante continues to strain my ears with his thick accent, but David Milch and his writing staff are very aware. Another character references it, “I must need a vacation because I just understood everything you just said.”

Rosie, the ravishing Irish women who’s employed as exercise rider by Nick Nolte’s Walter Smith, makes a bold move and requests that she be Gettin’ Up’s jockey. She has established a strong rapport with the horse who continues to dazzle in workouts, but Walter has his doubts. Evidently, horse racing is a man’s world, but Rosie’s humble perseverance give Walter pause. Wanting the best for his horse he hires a Kentucky Derby-winning jockey, Ronnie Jenkins, who seems like the sure bet. Little does he know that Ronnie has a drinking problem and may have passed up the better candidate. In a kind gesture though, Walter asks Joey Rathburn (also Ronnie’s agent) if he’ll put in a word for Rosie at another track, Portland Meadows, and set her up with a good agent. Yet that wasn’t the moment most worthy of Walter’s highlight reel. During his discussions with Ronnie, he recalls how Gettin Up’s father, Delphi, was murdered. When his owner, “The Colonel,” (it is never made clear if he meant the KFC founder or not) the men who took over his farm spent irresponsibly and killed the horse for the insurance policy. He laments over what he could have done to stop it, and describes the sound of horses’ legs breaking as branches snapping. Nolte’s delicate treatment of this tortured soul has already won me over, along with the easy-on-the-eyes Kerry Condon as the trailblazing Rosie, I wish him the best in the episodes to come.

Some will complain that show moves too slow, but I would argue that with all the pawns being put in place for the endgame, maybe it moves too quickly. Because the intrigue is mounting. Balls are rolling as tensions rise and each character offers their own vibrance and zeal. Milch’s dialogue contains a firecracker wit, that adds a bounce to the deliberate pacing. Much like the horse races themselves, the show is high stakes, and as the characters’ need to quench their thirst becomes more desperate, the more invested we become in their “slips and falls” and who/what else will stumble in the quakes and aftershocks. Like Jerry at the poker table, each loss only drives me to come back and leave with the whole pot. The payoff is nowhere in sight, but my fixation on its possibilities match the yearning that intoxicates the “Luck” universe. The joys quickly fade, giving way to the race that lies ahead. Risk is equaling reward so far, as David Milch goes all in. For the audacious cast, the haunting sense of place, and the commitment to thematic balance (the scores and the failures, the lively thrills and the deathly devastations) HBO’s gamble comes out of the second turn (with seven episodes of ground to cover before we reach “the straightaway”) ahead with an A.*

*As of January 31, HBO showed great confidence in “Luck,” after over 3 million watched the series premiere, renewed the show for a second season.

It’s ok if your Valentines this year are Ben and Jerry, but friends don’t let friends spend the night at a pity party. Instead, grab your single friends and scope out these local events for a good time–you may even find your next date!

A Very Fine Valentine: The Timberfakes at Hard Rock Café

Since Justin Timberlake still won’t make any new music despite desperate internet pleas he do so, The Timberfakes, a Boston-based Justin Timberlake tribute band, have stepped in to bring sexy back to downtown Boston. With a set list that includes material from JT’s N*SYNC days, solo career and SNL spoofs, the Timberfakes playing at the Hard Rock Café (24 Clinton St., Boston) will make you feel 15 again. Friday, Feb. 10; 8 p.m., 21+ only. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door.

Revolutionary Chocolate at the Old State House

Head down to the Old State House (206 Washington Street in downtown Boston) with your history buff friends for an after-hours demonstration of 18th century chocolate making. Enjoy sampling the aforementioned historically accurate candies, because calories consumed for educational purposes don’t count towards that New Year’s Resolution you made. Ingest some interesting tidbits about Boston’s chocolate history while being guided on a candlelit tour of the tower, and see items from the collection rarely displayed in the museum. Friday, Feb. 17; 6 p.m. Tickets $7.50.

Mortified’s Doomed Valentine’s Day Show

Remember the painfully embarrassing puppy-love-and-war things you used to angstily scribble about in that Lisa Frank journal you were convinced was as secure as Fort Knox, but really your entire family knew about the push-button release? Don’t miss this special love themed event at the Coolidge (290 Harvard St., Brookline), featuring regular men and women “sharing their most hilariously embarrassing diary entries, lyrics, poems, and artwork from their teenage years…from unrequited high-school crushes and tumultuous off-and-on romances to bad prom dates and awkward sexual firsts.” You might be single, but you’ll be thankful you don’t have to live through that again! Monday, Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m. Tickets $15 in advance, $18 at the door, students with valid ID $12. 

Valentine’s Crawl with Crawl in Boston

Crawl in Boston is a social networking group that organizes bar crawls as a way for people to meet and explore the city, and, by asking for donations from each crawler, also raises money for local charities such as Horizons for Homeless Children, or this crawl’s beneficiary, the Hattie B. Cooper Center, which provides educational services to underprivileged children and families in Roxbury.  The Valentine’s Crawl is advertised as the biggest of the year and offers $3 drink specials–not to mention Crawl in Boston also claims to be responsible for at least five weddings! Check their Facebook event page for a list of bars, more info and to RSVP. Come on, it’s for the children, right? Saturday, Feb., 11; 12:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., $5. 

Project Cupid

Project Cupid is a charity fundraiser, so you can feel good about paying for a date. Boston’s most eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, including former NESN sportscaster Heidi Watney, will strut their stuff on the auction block at The Estate (1 Boylston Place, Boston) to raise funds for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Winning bidders get a dinner date with their “prize” at a local restaurant. There will also be auctions and raffles for sporting events and memorabilia, hotel stays, spa services and more. Saturday, Feb., 11; 6:30 p.m. $15 suggested donation at the door, with all proceeds going to charity.

Ann (Rashida Jones) waits impatiently for the slew of dates Leslie (Amy Poehler) has lined up for her.

At times, “Parks and Recreation” can feel like a delightful embarrassment of riches. There are so many balls in the air that you wonder how they could possibly be juggling them all. Just as you did with the pretty, popular valedictorian in high school, you dug deep to extract that one irredeemable quality. The pivotal flaw that you could exploit to prove she doesn’t deserve the student body’s worship. Then you confront that flaw and realize that even her imperfections make her likable. Then you hate your yourself, because you aren’t pretty, popular, or smart and your flaws just repel all the attractive people.

Excluding the last sentence (I think I’m swell), this has been my relationship with “Parks” as a critic. As a fan, I have laughed my ass off, fallen in love with all the characters, and even began to prefer hanging out in Pawnee over my hometown in suburban Connecticut. As a critic, it’s counterintuitive to my very existence to unconditionally adore any TV show. That same act of extracting flaws is turned toward more productive pursuits (in my humble opinion), the analysis of what makes for effective storytelling. In the case of “Parks,” I have crammed my reviews with praise for the writers’ ability to craft and maintain multidimensional characters and how they can cultivate jokes rooted in their specific traits. Tonight’s episode, however, reminded me of Ann: quite possibly the sweetest, most charming blemish.

Leslie’s best friend and ex-girlfriend to both Chris and Andy, is largely defined by those relationships. Who she’s dating and how exemplary her friendship with Leslie is, are her major talking points. Tonight spoke to the show’s stagnation with her role, and the stagnation it can foster when she either isn’t dating someone or when Leslie’s attention is focused elsewhere: such as Ben and her campaign. But what made this episode extraordinary was that it simultaneously answered that concern with rich possibilities for self-discovery that can add to the already intricately-woven tapestry that is the Pawnee Parks Department.

It’s February 13, or as Leslie has dubbed it, Galentine’s Day: a celebration in sisterhood. The adorable concept, Leslie  takes her gal pals to brunch so that they may love themselves as women, individually and communally, but separate from the men in their lives. Obviously, this year is different. Leslie’s in love. Silly, miraculous, sickening, dreamy love. And Ann, who churns through guys like today’s teenagers do cell phones, is alone. During her “confessional” she convinces herself that she is at piece with her singlehood, and at the table she congratulates the others (Donna, Leslie’s mom, April) on their relationships. However sincere, it’s laughable how sarcastic she sounds. Immediately, Leslie swoops in to save her dearest friend like a animal caught in some netting. This is not an original plot by ANY means. Ann and Leslie have played opposite roles, but the general principle of matchmaking prevails. What makes it feel brand new are the contributions from the rest of the gang. They’re not at all obligated to, but because Leslie would “lit’rally” do anything for them, they ask Leslie “How high,” before she even requests they jump. Sure, it wasn’t the cleverest plot ever conceived, but it gave us an excuse to return to the giving, thoughtful Leslie. It would be an exaggeration to say politics has changed her, but it has forced her to be self-absorbed, and before I could recognize how much I missed her magnanimity she reappeared.

The scope of her altruism extended to her valentine as well. Though they had promised not to exchange gifts, Ben had a stuffed animal made based on her recurring dream of a playboy otter (where do these ideas COME FROM), and she gave him—a cryptex. Inspired by the first movie they watched together on Starz HD, “The Da Vinci Code,” it’s a device that stores inside instructions on how to arrive at his surprise. Of course, he must know the five-letter code first, and he is clueless. Thus, the ingenious trio of sleuths, Ben, Ron and Andy is formed (not before Ron and Andy suggest the code might be f**k and actually “break it”). Hot on the trail, Ron tries to resist the allure of riddles and clues. Once he discovers he has a knack for the game, his patented giggle is unleashed, one that is only revealed when Swanson breaks down his meat-soaked, manly exterior and simply enjoys himself. The point is illustrated superbly in one outlandish, ironic scene, Ron enters “The Bulge,” Pawnee’s premier gay bar. He confidently saunters in, inquires about Leslie’s clue, retrieves it and then walks out giggling effeminately as the aroused patrons gawk at him, bewildered. It’s a truly mesmerizing scene that renders you silent until the awes dissipates and you erupt at how splendid it is to watch Ron own that room, as if it were his old stomping grounds, despite being the antithesis of the Swanson way.

At the annual couples dance, sponsored by the Parks Department, Jerry, April and Tom try to scrounge up candidates to be Ann’s date. Jerry incidentally hires a gay male escort and Tom contributes the cowboy wanna-be, Harris. Harris is played by Emerson College alum (rep my school!) Harris Wittels, one of the most frequent writers for the show. He makes an impression as a lives-at-home Phish Phanatic (he’s been to 308 concerts). Former flame, Chris, has sunken into the polar opposite of his usual optimism, all-encompassing sadness. As DJ for the event, he constructs the most miserable playlist. Tom, often a catalyst for parties trying to break the fun barrier, tries to cheer him up pointing out how many prospects could be out there in the dance floor. Chris’ pessimistic reply is that no one compares to Millicent Gurgitch: everyone except her father Jerry. What ensued was the laugh out loud nominee for best facial expression, a longing, gentle stare from across the room. Just the idea of Chris yearning for Jerry makes me burst out.

Eventually, Ron solves Leslie’s 25-clue scavenger hunt when he suggests that the only thing she covets more than romance is being right. He asks Ben if he has recently shifted to her way of thinking on a point of disagreement recently. Ben applauds Ron’s expertise and rushes over to Lil’ Sebastian’s grave. As fans beyond this season will know, Lil’ Sebastian is the miniature horse that captured the hearts of Pawneeans, no matter their creed. Ben (even Ron got visibly choked up at the horse’s funeral) doesn’t get it. The appeal escapes him. Leslie is blissfully unaware of his true feelings though, thinking he has finally come to understand his greatness. Her reward for Ben was to treat him to dinner, but when she suspects that Ann and Chris have left for a secret date to rekindle their feelings and remedy their loneliness he suggests it would be better that they spy on them. They would, of course, be breaking the same rule they had: a personal relationship between a superior and his subordinate.

All these shenanigans lead me back to my thesis on this episode’s depictions of growth. April, despite her usual ambivalence, or even sometimes active rooting for chaos, showed last week with Chris’ grieving that she puts others before herself in order to make them happy. Is it possible Leslie’s selflessness has rubbed off? At any rate, in this episode April assists the women she swore to despise ever since she kissed the man she’d later marry. Not only has her hostility softened, but she actively seeks to support Ann by offering an unlikely solution to a lack of well-intended male attention. Tom. No, seriously. This was no sabotage by April. And she makes a salient point. Tom, when you carve off the layer of swagger-ful facade, he is at his most basic elements a sweet guy who would dote on Ann, and make her feel like the most adored and important woman in the world, even against his better judgment. April also observes that Tom is the sole man to make her laugh and smile that night.

Upon LesBen’s arrival at the restaurant they had followed Ann to, it’s revealed to us that the Tom/Ann pairing came to fruition, at least for a few drinks that night. They were the secret date Leslie had speculated about. Suggestive of her improvement in approaching healthier romantic relationships, Ann decides to allow Tom the opportunity to audition. By all accounts, he fails miserably. He makes some wisecrack about getting to know each other so they may later “snuggle up, like little bunnnnnies.” Ann says, “Ugh, this was a mistake,” and it’s over. So Tom doesn’t make significant strides like April did, and Ron only told Leslie how titillating he found her series of riddles in reverse psychological code. And that’s okay. It wouldn’t have been so authentic if everyone had resolved their imperfections. Ann remaining a “beautiful spinster” is not a blight on the tapestry’s fabric.

For me, “Operation Ann” signified progress. Alan Sepinwall, a fellow critic whom I look up to, theorizes that maybe April’s marked spike in maturity could be a precursor to her breaking away from Andy. One of his commenters suggested maybe it is his Andy himself, and his pure heart, that has galvanized her good deeds. Either way, whether April blossoms into a benevolent young lady is immaterial. It matters not that Tom thwarts his chance to woo Ann. The vital ingredient this episode added to the mixture was motivation. As mentioned above, I applaud the “Parks” staff for their commitment to the authenticity of their characters. Their voices are distinct and their ideals, their motivations, their far, their desires are clearly mapped, by now. But my stamp of approval was earned when they broke their own conventions of the characters allowing them the forward movement to fundamentally change aspects of who they are.

We want to spend time with these guys because they feel real, because they assert themselves. They make mistakes. They live. And there’s no reset button that erases the previous week’s errors in judgment. There are rules, and damn it, they break them week to week, but not without consequence. The numerous slaughter murals that adorn Pawnee’s City Hall may not be an accurate representation of the kind souls we’ve come to know inhabit that town, but they do convey an undeniable truth of their world and ours. Nothing lasts forever. When discussing the roots of his despair with Leslie, Chris tellingly poses the question, “What if I have already achieved my personal best?” Because they pushed our pals along with the winds of conflict and change, and by testing their “babies” they challenged themselves (as writers), while not sacrificing the consistency and rhythm of its rise-and-fall jokes, the “Operation” was successful… A-

L.O.L.Ls: Laugh Out Loud Lines:

- “Thank you for being here. Let’s get started.” “Wow, Ron. Great attitude!” “Sorry, I was talking to these ribs.”

- “Does Ann have a little Indian in here?” “No I don’t think so…” “Would she like some?”

- “April hates Valentine’s Day, and brunch, and outside, and smiling. Haha, she’s weird.”

- “Let this be a call a wakeup call about how you present yourself to the world.”

- “Can we change the music? It kinda sounds like the end of a movie about a monk who kills himself.”

- “…Not as beautiful as my sister, but you know, the law.”

- “Screw romantic dinners, let’s go rub it in their face!”

- “I got lucky…AND I LOVE RIDDLES!”

Boston could not ask for more great drama this weekend. Even before a certain athletic competition commences against a team from a certain noteworthy adjacent metropolis, our fair city offers us one last chance to see three remarkable productions of deservedly award-winning plays.

“God of Carnage”

by Yazmenia Retha (translated by Christopher Hampton)

directed by Daniel Goldstein

presented by Huntington Theatre Company

The playwright who brought us “Art,” the tale of two men shifting out of a mentor/protégée relationship and into contention in their middle age, thanks to the catalyst of an expensive abstract painting, comes another tale of squabbling grown-ups.

Off-stage, two children have an altercation on the schoolyard. One has knocked a tooth loose from the other with a stick.

The aggressor’s repressed mother and ostentatiously unscrupulous, cel-phone-addicted father pay a visit to the parents of the victim: two liberals, dripping with self-righteousness, in an apartment cramped with pretentious artifacts which advertise their simultaneous affinities for  the primitive and the sophisticated.

As the couples jockey to see who can come off as the most magnanimous, veneers are stripped bare, alliances are formed and trashed, booze is swilled, insults are hurled and furniture is vomited on and anesthetized. It’s a beautiful spectacle of the socially grotesque, all the more amusing in that you know each and every one of these people—in fact you probably are one of them.

Karl Baker Olson (left) and Thomas Derrah (right) in a scene from the SpeakEasy Stage Company production of Red. Photo: Craig Bailey.

RED by John Logan

directed by David R. Gammons 

presented by Speakeasy Stage Company

RED is a story about Mark Rothko, the great modern painter whom you may, if you’re honest, know as the” solid-color-with-solid-color-stripes, guy. If you’ve seen “a Rothko” in person though, there’s a good chance you were moved by it. They are almost eerily soulful, passionate and affecting compositions.

Through the eyes of a young apprentice who lives out a classical, role-reversing servant/master relationship with Rothko, we watch the artist confront his defining challenge:  fulfilling a commission from the Seagram’s Corporation to create a series of murals for an obscenely posh restaurant in it’s shiny new skyscraper headquarters. Painting is holy for Rothko, and commerce heartless and filthy. It’s another classic conflict.

John Logan is a playwright at heart who has sold an impressive number of trashy screenplays to Hollywood, so this is a conflict with which he’s familiar. He paints Rothko as a capital “A” Artiste in way that can sometimes feel a bit contrived, but he—and Speakeasy’s inspired team of designers and actors—capture painting as a sacred ritual as compelling as an epic athletic competition, with the same strange, irrational feeling of gravity and consequence.  In the role of the eccentric tortured genius, Tommy Derrah shows off his tremendous presence, emotional range and self-effacing humor.

Superior Donuts, Lyric Stage

Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts

Directed by Spiro Veloudus

Lyric Stage Company

Two other masterful former mainstays of the A.R.T., Will LeBow and Karen MacDonald, join some fresh talent in making the characters in this slice of Chicago life unforgettable. LeBow plays an aging hippie of Polish descent, who since the untimely death of his wife, is languishing behind the counter of his recently vandalized donut shop, oblivious to the flirtations of MacDonald’s salt-of-the-earth, Irish “lady cop.”

That which the near-destruction of his shop fails to accomplish—a true shakeup of his life—is initiated by the arrival of a young, black, trickster figure, who is either an unappreciated novelist, a con man, or some combination of the two.

Steven Barkhimer is amusing as always in the role of a the winkingly Chekhovian Russian shop owner,who wants nothing more than to buy our hero’s donut shop in order to expand his adjoining electronics store.

Like RED, Superior Donuts falls back on it’s share of clichés, including some clunky soliloquies, but at its heart are completely winning characters who illustrate the positives and negatives of urban culture clash, and, like “God of Carnage,” “Superior Donuts” is genuinely and consistently funny.

It should come as no surprise to regular readers of Blast that I’m openly waiting with childish anticipation for Valve to even mention the words Half, Life and the number 3 in the same sentence, but they just don’t seem to be ready to spill the beans. When protests, mailings and sluething don’t work? What’s an anxious gamer to do? Well, apparently play the latest game in the series.

A group calling themselves “A Call for Communication” has organized a massive event, where over 30,000 people have pledged to sit down and play Half-Life 2 — all in an effort to get more communication from Valve. “We have decided to gain Valve’s attention by delivering a basic message: Your oldest and longest running fanbase would like better communication,” said one posting.

The event happens this Sunday from 11am-11:30Am PST. Now that’s my kind of protesting.

Here’s a cool video showing how Naughty Dog, the studio behind Uncharted made the debut trailer for their newly revealed PS3 survival game, The Last of Us.

The game is rumored to ship later this year. Fingers crossed.

Set-top boxes in the U.S. consume 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, equivalent to the annual output of six coal-fired power plants. Part of the reason is that they typically operate at nearly full power even during the two-thirds of the time when they are not in use. (Thinkstock)

We hear a lot about how much energy modern day flat screen TV sets consume, but the innocuous set-top boxes that drive them, along with their built-in digital video recorders, may be even more to blame. A recent analysis conducted by the consulting firm Ecos on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that “the average new cable high-definition digital video recorder (HD-DVR) consumes more than half the energy of an average new refrigerator and more than an average new flat-panel television.” Overall, set-top boxes in the U.S. consume some 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. This is equal to the annual output of six average (500 megawatt) coal-fired power plants and accounts for the emission of 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Part of the reason these boxes are such energy hogs is that they typically operate at nearly full power even during the two-thirds of the time when they are not actively in use driving TV screens or recording to built-in DVRs. “As a nation, we spend $2 billion each year to power these boxes when they are not being actively used,” reports NRDC.

To make matters worse, American consumers have little if any choice about which set-top boxes they get from their cable or satellite service providers. Since the providers usually own the boxes yet don’t have to pay consumers’ electric bills, they have little incentive to utilize or develop more efficient models. In Europe, Sky Broadcasting is beginning to distribute more efficient equipment to subscribers there. NRDC is urging the largest pay-TV service providers in the U.S. (Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon and AT&T) to heed the efficiency call with their own set-top box and DVR offerings.

Redesigning set-top boxes to power down when not in use is perhaps the biggest opportunity for energy savings. “Innovation to reduce power consumption when not in active use—such as has occurred with mobile phones, which also work on a subscriber basis and require secure connections—is sorely needed in set-top boxes,” counsels NRDC. Also, re-jiggering content delivery systems so that only one main set-top box sends signals to all the televisions in the house (or to lower power “thin client” boxes) could also cut down household electric bills and carbon footprints. The group adds that “better designed pay-TV set-top boxes could reduce the energy use of the installed base of boxes by 30 percent to 50 percent by 2020.”

Last year the U.S. government released new energy efficiency standards for set-top boxes within its EnergyStar appliance efficiency rating program. While this new specification is a step in the right direction, consumers have little knowledge about such options. NRDC urges pay-TV subscribers to request that their providers make available set-top boxes and DVRs that meet the newer EnergyStar 4.0 standards. The more of us that request such improvements, the likelier they are to happen. And the cable or satellite provider that can save customers money while reducing overall environmental impact may just win over an increasingly large sector of the American people that actually cares about being green.

CONTACTS: NRDC’s “Better Viewing, Lower Energy Bills, and Less Pollution,” www.nrdc.org/energy/files/settopboxes.pdf; EnergyStar, www.energystar.gov.