Lessons From 24

I recently started watching 24 and even though I only started about two months ago I’m already a third of the way through season 4. Since I’m a little over half way through the series, I thought this was a good time to put down my thoughts and what I’ve learned so far…

• Jack Bauer is no match for anyone, not even 20 terrorists with assault rifles. Don’t worry though, Jack has a hand gun, which makes it a fair fight.

• The American slogan should be “Trust in Jack”. He always knows what to do and when he doesn’t it always works out for the best anyway.

• Anyone other than Jack shouldn’t be left to make decisions, not even the President and definitely not the director of CTU, unless it’s Tony Almeida.

• There’s always a mole in CTU. I don’t know why they do such a bad job a hiring new employees, but they should definitely looking into their hiring procedures.

• The good guys never go to jail, or never stay in jail. (see below)

• Presidential Pardons are less rare than the golden tickets from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

• Wear something comfortable to work, you just might be stuck in it for a year.

• From a quote in season 3, Jack does have more lives than a cat.

• Tony Almeida is just as cool, if not cooler than Jack.

• An episode isn’t quite complete if Jack doesn’t yell out “Dammit” at least once.

• It’s always best to talk in a loud whisper for dramatic effect.

Update

It seems like it been awhile since I’ve put anything about me up here, so I thought it was time for a little update. Let’s see…

It’s now mid-October and well, that means midterms. There is no worse time of the year. I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve decided that October really is the worst month of the year. It’s not like midterms in February, because at least then we get a week off for winter break and it’s not like finals because then we only have to worry about tests and no classes. Nothing compares to how brutal October is. You’re still trying to get out of summer mode come mid-late September, and then midterms hit you. This month might very well be the death of me.

Some time in September I actually had to go to the hospital. It was weird for me because I’ve never ever had to go to the hospital before, but in the span of one week, I went to two. You see one day in August I went to the beach with a few friends and Bryan and I decided to throw the football around a little. He’ll blame it on my catching like Randy Moss and I’ll blame it on his throwing like Brett Favre, but either way, he threw it, I tried to catch it and some where in the process, my finger was injured. I’m not quite sure how it happened. I remember reaching out for the ball and an extremely sharp pain. My finger swelled up to about double its normal size almost immediately. I assumed it was just a bad sprain, but after four weeks of the swelling not going down I went and got an x-ray. Turns out that stupid football chipped the bone and tore the tendon. It took me a month to be able to make a fist again and I was told by plastic surgery that my finger will be permanently swollen. Thanks Bryan, I’ll always have something to remember you by.

I guess the last thing to update you on is that I got a job. I am now and employee of Saint Mary’s University. I’m what they call a Residence Services Officer, or a RSO. There are two parts to of job. The first is customer service, which consists of sitting behind a desk and helping people. The great thing about this is that I don’t have to be super nice to everyone. It’s very different from Superstore and I like it. The second is security. This consists of patrolling the three residences of the university. You never know what you’re going to see while patrolling, and so far it’s been pretty cool. I actually have a job I like, this is new for me.

The past few months have been different, challenging and fun. I’m looking forward to more of the same.

A New Tree Hill

A few months ago I did a blog post wondering if One Tree Hill should even have a seventh season. Now that the new season has started, it’s time for me to weigh in once again.

Let’s start with the obvious, Lucas and Peyton are gone and there is a huge difference without them. There’s no more Lucas and Haley moments, Lucas and Nathan moments, Lucas and Brooke moments, Peyton and Brooke moments, and most of all, Lucas and Peyton moments. We’ve had six years of Leyton moments and it’s sad that there isn’t going to be anymore. The show started with Lucas and he carried it. And as annoying as Peyton could be at times, she held a vital part. It really makes no sense for their characters not to be there. I don’t know two more people who loved Tree Hill more than they did, and I know there wasn’t a way around that one.

The second most obvious, are the new characters. We have Clay and Quinn and so far I like them both. Julian is now part of the main cast. I guess he’s Lucas’ filler. I could definitely do with a little less Julian and a little more Clay. I find Julian is getting a little bit boring, but maybe it’s just me. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what they do with him this year. Clay, played by Robert Buckley, seems like an interesting character and I’m looking forward to finding out more about him. I was very pleased to learn that Quinn is not like Haley’s other sister, Taylor. It’s tough to judge her after one episode, but Quinn seems to have a better head on her shoulders.

I found episode 1 to have some very familiar topics or events occurring, including: Jamie’s birthday, it’s exciting for him, but nor so much for the rest of us. The time jump, why did we skip another year and a bit? The other woman/Nathan’s cheating theme in his and Haley’s relationship. Dan, shouldn’t he be dead by now? And last but not least, the Brook and Julian coming-and-going sequence. The writers have to come up with some more original stuff then this. I love this show, but I want new drama!