Endgame
The long, dark summer of no interesting sporting events begins:
— Reihan Salam’s new blog at National Review.
— Mark Krikorian seems puzzled by the idea of doing the right thing regardless of partisan considerations.
— Movies I watched this weekend: The Brothers Bloom is fun but only so-so, I’ve Loved You So Long is excellent but depressing.
— Kevin Drum on the alleged Twitter revolution.
— It’s just a coincidence, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be meat free this Monday and I am trying to be more conscious about meat consumption.
— America should stand aside from Iran’s political crisis until we hear a clear message from dissident leaders that they want us to do something.
Is True Blood any good? I think I watched the first three episodes and abandoned it. But some people seem to like it. Worth renting on Netflix?
71 Responses to “Endgame”
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June 15th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Other than the most interesting sporting event, Major League Baseball.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Is True Blood any good?
It’s stupid. Couldn’t stand the fake accents, which were horrible. No one talks like that, least of all in Louisiana.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
True Blood is very entertaining. The best post-Buffy vamp series I have seen (but obviously not on the same planet as Buffy).
June 15th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Stand aside, yes. But wear green.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I guess that Mr. Yglesias is not going to blog about the Lakers and his least favorite player, Kobe Bryant.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
“I’ve Loved You So Long is excellent but depressing. ”
It WOULD have been excellent except for the horrifically cliched last 10 minutes.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Two things:
re: #4 – Andrew Sullivan is a grand-standing moron staring in an endless fantasy of his own devising. Because Iranians really give a flying F#$@*$& what color our blogs are. Yeesh.
Also, is this the only way that the triumph of the Lakers will be acknowledged? I wanted an opportunity to make fun of Petey’s prediction of Magic domination.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Because MattY is a hack, he ignores the fact that there are not enough six-figure jobs at nativist think-tanks for people with weird last names. The only proper response is to close the borders to prevent others from stealing the VeryImportantJob of being angry about foreigners, Hispanics, and anyone resembling their own grandparents.
P.S. Any replies to this comment will most likely consist of ad homs, as nativists concede my points and show their childish, anti-intellectual nature.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Go go on the meatlessness, Matt. However, in some ways I think it’d be better to be meat-free every day [i]but[/i] one, assuming you aren’t ready for (ahem) cold turkey. It’s much easier to live without meat if you aren’t semi-dreading the event, and on the other hand you appreciate meat much more if you treat it as a minor special occasion. Not to mention the substantive health and environmental benefits of 86% vegetarianism compared to 14%.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
When I say post-Buffy I of course mean post-Buffy/Angel.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Speaking to the southern accents, and being a southerner myself, I thought they were pretty good. It’s very much a hick, backwater accent, though I can’t vouch for the Lousyanna angle. My relatives all sound like (most of) the characters. And, I’ve only watched the first three episodes as well. Second episode sucked, and I’m still withholding judgment on the rest. I try to think of it as a comic book. It works better that way.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
America should stand aside from Iran’s political crisis until we hear a clear message from dissident leaders that they want us to do something.
No. America should stand aside from Iran’s political crisis, period. The United States doesn’t have the right, or the ability, to micromanage someone else’s country. There was a time when you appeared to have learned this, but it seems that a brick fell on your head recently and caused you to forget the events of the last eight years.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I, personally, totally dig True Blood. It’s not as purely excellent as The Wire or Deadwood, but I find the characters far more plausible, intelligent, and engaging than most television characters and the will-nilly integration of all the vampire/supernatural crap into a world that’s more like our own than in any other vampire franchise is pretty amusing. One annoying thing is that people are always getting into fights and breaking up then getting back together.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Just finished watching the first season on DVD. We were on the verge of abandoning it a half-dozen times because of its myriad flaws. But the story was just compelling enough to overcome its annoying weaknesses. Also, it improves tremendously once they start focussing more on the supporting characters. Still, if you can stand not knowing how it turns out, I’d skip the rest.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Mrs. joe and I just started watching True Blood yesterday. It’s great.
But Brad is right about accents; vampires totally don’t talk like that.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
True Blood is totally fun. Best watched with low expectations and suspension of disbelief.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Wimbeldon!
June 15th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
If you want to restrict your meat intake, I have just words for you: Fakemeatfrom theChinesesupermarket!
Ya’ll do have them there, don’t you?
June 15th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Damn！I was so enamored with my idiot joke that I forgot to type “three words.”
June 15th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Damn!
June 15th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I’ll add to the True Blood comments, don’t expect typical “HBO drama” with all that implies, just good campy fun and to steal from Bill Simmons reviewing the Reader you get to see Anna Paquin naked, repeatedly.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
True Blood? Meh. My friend, whose taste in TV shows I respect, loves it, but to me, True Blood is Buffy gone southern-Gothic, which I guess means a little less metaphor, a little more naked tits. Nice racks abound on True Blood, but all in all, I’d rather spend the limited time I have for TV watching Mad Men and Weeds.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Among recent cable dramas, Breaking Bad towers over all. I assume the first season is out on DVD; the brilliant, even better second one just concluded.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
— America should stand aside from Iran’s political crisis until we hear a clear message from dissident leaders that they want us to do something.
I would say the million+ protest and innocents being gunned down is a pretty “clear message.” What do you want? A friggin battle plan from the head guy? A note from Jimmy Carter? Weak.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
True blood is ok. Not fantastic. The books are much more fun.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
No good sports in the summer? Ridiculous. I thought all good east coast prep school kids followed the summer tennis season.
True Blood is good, mostly because of all the hot sex and no holds barred cussing.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
US Open this weekend, then Wimbledon, British Open, PGA Championship, US Open (tennis); plus baseball the whole time and a smattering of World Cup qualifiers. Summer is by far my favorite sports season.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
True Blood is good, Matt, but don’t go in expecting the sort of depth you’d expect from, say, The Wire or The Sopranos. It’s more shallow and breezy, but also loads of fun. (And Anna Paquin is incredibly gorgeous to boot). Give it a shot.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Compare what MattY calls “the right thing” to my discussion of it here; see the posts linked further down that page for much more. Obviously, MattY is confused between the “the right thing (for the U.S.)” and “the right thing (for George Soros).” On information and belief, those are not the same thing.
P.S. You know how one or more people on past entries here have shown their immaturity and lack of intelligence by telling me to shut up, swearing in the process? Now, see this, bearing strongly in mind that I have no proof that who I think it was on those other sites is actually the person; it could be someone else at the same school.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
It’s like a Goth soap opera. Who the fuck cares….
Nothing like Dexter, or even the new Nurse Betty (both more interesting).
One of the funniest and most brilliant comedians to see is the guy who acts three characters, wrote and directed Summer Heights High from Australia. On HBO
June 15th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
“I’ve Loved You So Long” is made-for-TV obvious.
Except with subtitles.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Shut the fuck up, LoneWacko.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Two observations about True Blood: first, the accents are actually pretty good for northern Louisiana but are generally a bit overblown; second, the show does a better job than anything I’ve ever seen in any format of portraying modern deep Southern race relations.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
June 15th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
true bloods great; scooby doo vampire porn.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Is True Blood any good? I think I watched the first three episodes and abandoned it.
I thought it was pretty entertaining. Not as good (at least in the first season) as most HBO series, but even mediocre by their standards is usually pretty good by others’. I’ll be catching season II, though, via Netflix.
And I’m incidentally on the cusp of abandoning Battlestar Galactica. It’s semi-ok, I guess, but my ability to suspend disbelief has gotten weaker as I’ve aged, and the “science” in his series is pretty lame. (WTF? they can jump through space time but they can’t cure cancer?). Might give it one last go tonight.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Judd,
Idiots like you would have gone to war in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Not every problem in the world is a nail waiting for the US Military hammer.
The last thing the reformers in Iran need is to come into power after being supported by the US so they can be puppets like The Iraqi and Afghan leaders.
The fact that this is a homegrown revolt (ala Eastern Europe 1989) is why Iran will probably be a flourishing democracy long before Iraq.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Reihan Salam must be some kind of liberal troll, because his new National Review blog seems destined to cast his fellow conservatives in the harsh light of stupidity by comparison. We’ve been grasping a straws for a couple of years when it comes to non-ridiculous conservatives–Frum, Brooks, most recently Douthat–but Salam is the real deal. (Manzi isn’t bad either, come to think of it.) How someone could read Andrew McCarty or the rest of them without anything other than bemusement/contempt after reading Salam is a mystery to me.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Baseball? Did someones say baseball. I thought Matt said no interesting….
k1
June 15th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
True Blood is entertaining. Anna Paquin is good as the twitchy
mindreading heroine, but the real fun is in the minor characters
- Lafayette scaring the heck out of a bunch of homophobes,
the idiot Jason Stackhouse doing the stupidest thing possible
for the Nth time, the exorcist woman. And you can read in as much allegory as you like.
Not great. Perhaps less than the sum of its parts. But at
least it has its own distinctive flavor.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Rich in PA,
How about Larison, as smart conservatives go?
Larison’s latest piece on Iran is quite good- he’s no fan of Moussavi.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Hector- I’m embarrassed to say I know the name but haven’t checked him out. I will
June 15th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Catch up on the US Open Soccer Tournament, the best sporting event of the summer. Second round Tuesday.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I wouldn’t recommend True Blood Matt. I know some people like it but my sense is that if you didn’t like the initial episodes, it won’t grow on you. Its actually an activity I have chosen to join with my girlfriend but I find it only barely watchable and some parts are so bad, it literally makes me cringe. Its interesting enough to keep your attention but there is really no point in making an appointment to see it if you don’t have to. Just my two cents.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Someone who doesn’t even have the balls to think up a fake name quotes “joe from Lowell” pointing to something that has absolutely nothing to do with me? Even MattY and many of his commenters should be able to figure out what’s wrong with that (even if would take them longer than your average 3rd grade class).
As for the person above whose intellectual and testicular capabilities only allowed it to tell me to shut up, could MattY let me know whether the person who posted that is in Knoxville?
Remember: you’re never anonymous on the internet. Write everything like it’s going to be the #1 search result for your real name in Google.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I find the way True Blood portrays the relationship between sex and aggression troubling. But, that might just be a personal idiosyncrasy.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
A little late to this, but I tried to give True Blood a shot, but I can’t get past the fact that I am just sick of vampires. Ever since Anne Rice it seems we get a “re-imagining” of the vampire myth about every six weeks or so. Enough already. What’s next? Law and Order: Special Vampire Unit? Star Trek the Undead Generation?
I admit that’s all my hang up though. It could be a great show, and the idea of Anna Paquin nekkid does pique my interest, but GSD help me I am sick of vampires.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Matt: “America should stand aside from Iran’s political crisis until we hear a clear message from dissident leaders that they want us to do something.”
stras jones Says:
June 15th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
No. America should stand aside from Iran’s political crisis, period. The United States doesn’t have the right, or the ability, to micromanage someone else’s country. There was a time when you appeared to have learned this, but it seems that a brick fell on your head recently and caused you to forget the events of the last eight years.
I agree completely. Matt is one of these clowns who really never change their stripes. He was a “liberal warmonger” on Iraq and he remains one. He tries to portray himself as a “liberal internationalist” while he’s really a “liberal interventionist”, i.e. liberal warmonger.
This is why he’s in favor of continuing to fuck up in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As a fucking foreign policy expert, he’s really good about Washington urban development. In other words, he’s an idiot.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Personally, I think we should use our leverage at this critical moment in time. We can throw our support behind Ahmadinejad, and help him restore order, in exchange for his aggreing to stop denying the Holocaust and make peace with Israel. This strikes me as a good solution all around, not least because it would piss off people like Judd.
This is the only moment in the next few years at which Ahmadinejad is going to be vulnerable, and we should take advantage of that to demand concessions from him.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
what leverage?
June 15th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Jackal,
The fact that Mr. Ahmadinejad is in a desperate situation, and needs help from wherever he can get it, even from the Great Satan.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
On the other hand, if Mr. Ahmadinejad continues denying the Holocaust and threatening to wipe Israel off the map, we should throw our support behind Moussavi.
I care what vpolicies the leaders of Iran espouse, not what means they took to arrive at their leadership positions.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
So . . . does anyone have a critique of Matt’s Iran statement that is more grown-up than “No! Matt’s stupid and everything he says is stupid!”
Matt doesn’t look all that much of a face man, but the volume of ad hominem attacks here suggests he must be screwing a lot of guy’s girlfriends in between those CAP convention discussion panels.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
“True Blood” is fun at times but often comes very close to soiling itself. I liked Amy, the Wellesley grad V addict. Not her character so much, but the actress. Way hotter than Anna Paquin. Bill is pretty cool, and obviously the better male vampire cult hero than that tool Robert Pattinson. My wife rented “Twilight” last weekend and I thought it was pure garbage. Why does every movie that’s set in the Pacific NW have to be shot through blue filters? Everything looks like “The Ring.”
Matt, for a guy who desperately wants to impose sabrmetrics unto basketball, I don’t understand why you don’t like baseball.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Also, Matt’s right about Iran. The only thing we should be doing right now is mouthing polite moral platitudes and not associating ourselves with any given faction. Whatever we do without permission is just going to bite us back.
When the couple downstairs is having a row, you don’t send in her cheating ex-husband or his slut first wife as a crisis counselor.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
True Blood is not very good. Barely watchable (I got through the first season when it was on, somehow), but horrifically slow and largely unengaging. The main vampire dude is incredibly boring, Anna Paquin is only a little better. The rest of the cast is only intermittently interesting. I genuinely don’t understand why so many people are praising it. It’s really just not very good.
Also – baseball is the king of sports. It ought not be cavalierly dismissed.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
What’s next? Law and Order: Special Vampire Unit?
If Law & Order adds a vampire series, we can be sure of one thing:
All the evil vampires will be white.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:23 am
It is good to see that credit was given where credit was due -commentators en masse applauding Matt for calling the election a sham in the immediate aftermath of the election results …Not… What a thankless job blogging is.
But hey, you chose it. So in typical shitbird fashion I must criticize the idea of going meat free on Monday. One day? Are you kidding me? Must I provide blood links to sites that provide video of the horrific final moments -the inhumane slaughter of our beloved animal friends?
Instead embrace your inner peasant lad, and bodily devour the insipid culinary history of the Left. Pasta, rice, potatoes, and beans are all you need to know.
Well… not all you need to know. At least, as a progressive, practice what you preach on occasion. Especially when feel the spying eyes of a methane expert upon you.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:43 am
True Blood’s OK. If it was a little-heralded series on basic cable, I’d probably be hyping it. But it gets a lot of buzz and doesn’t even approach the quality of previous HBO shows.
For summer, I’m a fan of some of the USA and TNT shows. Burn Notice, Psych, Leverage, the new USA series Royal Pains. They’re all ludicrous but diverting and fun.
Via Netflix (first few seasons are available on Watch Instantly), I just finished watching seasons 1-6 of MI:5 (aka Spooks in its native UK). A good spy show with little of the jingoism or testosterone of 24.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:20 am
“I find the way True Blood portrays the relationship between sex and aggression troubling. But, that might just be a personal idiosyncrasy.”
Isn’t that pretty much inevitable in a show about vampires ??
Though in TB the humans are just as screwed up as the vampires.
Perhaps what’s disturbing is the mix of tone, from campy and
comical to grand guignol, with Sookie literally mopping
her grandma’s blood from her kitchen floor. You don’t know
what’s coming next, horror, pathos, or comedy: but if you can
take it, that’s the fun of the show.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:33 am
Wimbledon is at least “interesting,” what with the GoAT Roger Federer still around.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:51 am
When the couple downstairs is having a row, you don’t send in her cheating ex-husband or his slut first wife as a crisis counselor.
Gold.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:01 am
No interesting sports events?
I have two words for you: Formula One.
Even if you don’t care about the racing the political/business breakdown the sport is having is fascinating.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Wow, I was gonna say pretty much exactly what the other brent said @44.
I watched all the way through the first series and I told myself I wouldn’t watch the next season. And then last night I started watching the Season 2 premiere. So it’s got that annoying ability to make you want to see what happens even though you can’t stop rolling your eyes while watching.
I guess I did genuinely enjoy the Stephen Root character’s story line. But otherwise I really have a hard time of coming up with another solid acting performance. I think even Anna Paquin is pretty awful, and she’s been pretty good in other stuff.
Honestly, right now I think something like Rescue Me has a little more to offer.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:40 am
No interesting sporting news? The Tour de France starts in 18 days.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:26 am
#65: What he said.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I’ve been surprisingly disappointed in True Blood. Being a /huge/ fan of American Beauty and Six Feet Under (who I agree with Josh Marshall may be the best scripted television show ever), True Blood seems just kind of pat and done before and better by both Buffy and the Anne Rice Lestat books. It’s okay television, kind of along the lines of Stargate or Torchwood (with a lot more drugs and sex), but I was hoping for something…well, just something more from a show by Alan Ball.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Not a big baseball fan myself, but I wouldn’t call it uninteresting.
And, there is a lot of soccer: world cup qualifiers, the Conference champions tournament in South Africa this month giving us a taste of the World Cup next year, and the Gold Cup in July, which will probably be my only chance to see an international football match since they’re playing one of the semi-final games in Dallas.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:46 am
RE: True Blood, I actually kind of like it. Not as good as Rome or Tudors (no politics in True Blood), but its not full of the teen angst crap like Twilight.
RE: Summer Sports, Back in 2000 I started getting into Formula One auto racing and endurance racing. I like really technical stuff with lots of strategy, so both were a good fit. They allow you to spend hours looking into tiny aspects that have huge impacts on the final result. Try F1 and the American Le Mans Series races. Also there is the MLS, I prefer the English Premier League for its speed, but the MLS is really growing on me this season.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I watch True Blood weekly, but I basically put it in the same category as Desperate Housewives. It is brain candy, but very pretty brain candy. As a southerner, I am horrified by the attempt at southern accents. William Sanderson and Michelle Forbes are dead on but the rest suck Moon rocks. The story is totally unbelievable, and it gets more out there with each passing week. It started with vampires. Now we have vampires, telepaths, shape shifters, and something called a Maenad with a giant Paul Bunyan pig. I fully expect members of the Greek pantheon to show up any day now. It is a godawful mess. It is mostly about Alan Ball.
Having said all that, I still watch it. I don’t watch the Housewives. What’s the difference? Well, at least True Blood is honest about the sex. It’s stylish, pretty, and has a killer theme song. Forbes and Sanderson are always worth watching. It’s beerworthy. But to watch it as a serious sit-down dramatic offering? Save your money.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I have an alternative. Why don’t you try eliminating beef and expensive fish from your diet? If you want to go a step further, eliminate all mammals and all fish from your diet. If you want to go a step further than that, you’d have to go Vegan. There’s not much difference between eating a slice of cheese and a slice of turkey in terms of carbon emissions. Eliminating or reducing carbonated and alcoholic beverages from your diet will also reduce your climate impact.
http://www.eatlowcarbon.org/#