Video Clip of the Week: Conway Twitty

You've probably heard that old cliche about how there are two kinds of music fans: The ones who love the Beatles, and the ones who love Elvis. Well, I'm here to tell you about the third kind of music fan... those who love Conway Twitty. That's the kind of music fan I am. That isn't to say I don't also enjoy the music of Elvis and the Beatles. But there's only one Conway. You'll never see Conway Twitty: Rock Band or millions of Conway Twitty impersonators. That's because... he's beyond compare.

Video Clip of the Week: GREEEEEAT ASS!!!

A lot of people will try to convince you that Heat was a good (perhaps even great) film. They're wrong. I love the internet because it allowed me to find this one scene from this one movie that has always confused, annoyed, and vexed me ever since I first saw it all those years ago:

V

Why were people hyping that FlashForward show as the new Lost when V clearly fits the description a lot more? FF has Penny and Charlie from Lost, sure, But V has Juliet... and the inclusion of Scott Wolfe fills that "former actor from Party of Five" slot. If FF wants to catch up, they'll have to cast Lacy Charbert or somehow track down Neve Campbell. (Talk about somebody who's "lost"!)

Oh yeah, and the pilot episode for V was also really good, while the pilot for FF was a snorefest.

Now, I'm not saying V is going to be the next Lost (or even the next V). I'm just saying that the pilot was really well done and entertaining. Whether or not it's going to become must see TV for us sci-fi geeks remains to be seen.

But it certainly got off on the right track, not just because the premise is lifted from a classic TV miniseries (and, frankly, a not so classic TV series that lasted just one episode), but also because the cast is a sci-fi TV fan's wet dream. I've already mentioned the always talented and completely radiant Elizabeth Mitchell who played Juliet on Lost, but we've also got the luminous Morena Baccarin from Firefly, Joel Gretsch from The 4400 and the Taken miniseries, a cameo by Alan Tudyk (who most people will remember from Firefly, but my girlfriend will know him as the pirate from Dodgeball), and this girl, who played "Supergirl" on Smallville.

I was also excited to see Morris Chestnut in the cast as well, but his credentials as a sci-fi icon are so far limited to this TV series. Let's hope it takes off so I can meet him at a convention someday. The only thing really disappointing about the cast was that they missed the opportunity to cast a real sci-fi veteran to give the show a little more history. Does every major character have to be in their mid thirties? If they had included a role -- or even a cameo -- for somebody like Marc Singer, I wouldn've been blown away. After all, the recent remake of Battlestar Galactica found a really amazing role Richard Hatch, the actor who played Apollo in the original series. This show needs to find a role for Marc Singer already!

But, all in all, it was a well done pilot that seems like it'll be a fun, interesting series about Aliens invading Earth. Let's just hope it's as good as the original mini series was and not as bad as the original ongoing series.

Check it out for free on Hulu and on ABC.

Things I Will Never Do On My iPhone

And if you know me and are confused, no, I didn't buy an iPhone... I still just have an iPod Touch. But for the sake of argument (and to boost any potential hits to this website through a search engine), I'm just going to refer to the device as an iPhone and leave it at that.

Anyway... here are somethings I'll never use an iPhone for:

Read a Comic Book
There are numerous applications devoted to putting comic books on an iPhone, from simple readers that allow you to download digital versions of the books to just the books themselves. Some of these applications are better than others, but all are completely worthless in my opinion. If you want to read a comic book, chances are good you like comic books. The screen of an iPhone is about one tenth the size of a standard American comic book, so the art either has to be shrinked down to the point where it's too small to read, or stretched out and pixelized so it's too ugly to look at. I definitely think that digital downloads will be the future of comic books, but not on an iPhone. No way, no how.

Read a Novel
I have the Kindle app, but I only use it for one reason: To send samples of novels to my iPhone so I can see if I want to go to a bookstore and buy an actual copy for real. It's a neat feature that allows you to read the first twenty or so pages of any book that is currently available for purchase on Amazon's Kindle store. I've never made it through more than five pages or so of any "book" on my iPhone, however, because it gives me a headache and just feels all wrong. The text is either too small to read, or so big that you have to "flick" the page after about two sentences. Sometimes I'll try to read an iPhone book while sitting on the toilet, but I'll usually just give up and read the back of a shampoo bottle instead.

Play any Game More Involved than Tetris
I love videogames and I think the iPhone has incredible processing power, but most games for it just aren't very fun. There's just something unpleasant about rubbing your finger across the screen for longer than, say, two minutes at a time. Also, the fact that you have to put your hands in front of the screen to control the games means you can't see what you're actually playing much of the time. Tetris is fun. Solitaire is fun. Some of the other puzzle games are fun. But I'm not going to play Metal Gear Solid on this thing, thank you very much.

Watch a Movie or TV Show
Apple obviously assumes somebody is watching stuff on their iPhones, because whenever I actually download an HD episode to watch on my computer (hooked into a TV!), it automatically downloads the SD version alongside it. Again, thanks, but no thanks. First of all, if I actually want to put a movie or TV episode on my iPhone, I have to remove about half of my music just so it will fit. Second of all, the screen is smaller than the palm of my hand! Who's watching movies on this thing? I own a Widescreen TV for a reason: I like being able to see what I'm watching.

But that's just me. I don't even have an iPhone.