Alicia Keys is one of those artists. I have liked a good 85 to 90 percent of all the music I have heard by her and I have liked all of the music videos I have seen from her. ‘Un-thinkable (I’m Ready)’ is no exception. Not only is it a great song, but there is also a beautiful video to go along with it. Chad Michael Murray from ‘One Tree Hill’ is the male lead and the two of them have a lot of chemistry together. The lady who plays Tara’s mother on ‘True Blood’ also has a brief cameo and it seems like I have been seeing her in a lot of stuff lately. So much that I might even learn her name one day.

Check it out and let me know what you think:

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I thought the series finale of Lost was great. Exciting, touching, heartwrenching, and satisfying. For me, this ranks up there with the series finales of ‘Life On Mars (the original, I still haven’t seen the ending to the US series), The Shield, The Wire, Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse. In fact, it definitely makes my top five, I just have to think long and hard about which one it knocks out.

Go watch 'The Wire' instead.

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This isn’t exactly a review because I couldn’t make it through the entire first episode of ‘Happy Town’. A lot of people might not get it, but I found the music derivative of ‘Eastwyck’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ (two shows not really known for the backing music) and extremely distracting. On those brief occasions when I could block out the music, the dialog was filled with heavy exposition. The characters seemed like they were spouting out lines in a script instead of having conversations. After watching a show like ‘Treme‘ where everyone seemed to be actually talking with one another, this was painful at times. I finally had to tap out when the secret high school lovers were in the music room. I think they were talking about how life was too short or something, I know they had to give their entire family trees and the reasons behind their “Romeo and Juliet thing” when I realized life was too short to waste on a show I wasn’t liking at all.

The show wasn’t all bad. The locations and interior sets all looked very good. Some of the actors were good in their roles. MC Gainey, Steven Webber and Robert Wisdom all come to mind as people who were very good in the little that I saw of them. Of course they were all from three of my favorite shows (Lost, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and The Wire), so they have built up some good will with me. Amy Acker and Sam Neill are both fine actors and might have developed interesting characters, but I didn’t see it. Unfortunately, none of the other actors or characters stood out as being particularly good or interesting, which is a shame because I wanted to like the show.

Happy Town wants to be a truly scary TV show and it may hit its stride after a couple of episodes, but I won’t know because unless I hear glowing reviews from a number of people I know, I won’t be watching any more of it.

The only problem I have with the video is the song itself. In my head I keep hearing the chorus to ‘Bustin’ Loose’ by Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers.

The biggest thing that puts me on the fence is the theme music. I know it may sound a little petty, but the music sounds a lot like the theme music for ‘Eastwyck’, a show that was unfortunately overlooked by a lot of people. I’m pretty sure they want to be ironic with the music, but if ‘Happy Town’ wants to be truly scary, then the lighthearted music needs to go away. As evidenced by the rampant misuse of the word, people don’t really like irony.

As I was typing this, I thought of another truly scary TV show, it was a Fox show called ‘Point Pleasant’ and dealt with a mysterious girl who came to a beachside town.

Anyway, here is a glimpse of the first fifteen minutes of ‘Happy Town’ from the ABC website:

We currently have two dogs living in our house. Lola is a short-haired pointer mix (with what we aren’t sure but possibly pit bull) who is without a doubt a Mama’s girl. If Patti is in the house, Lola is either right next to her or laying down somewhere keeping a watchful loving eye on her.

The other dog is Ruby, a full breed boxer with papers and everything. She was a gift from a grateful client to Patti. She is a good girl, but she’s not a Mama’s girl. If anything, she is Lola’s dog. As close as Lola stays to Patti, Ruby is usually even closer to Lola.

They are both good dogs, but neither of them is MY dog. Isabella was MY dog. Like Ruby, Izzy was a full breed boxer, but unlike Ruby, she was born is a plethora of health issues that caused her death shortly after her one year birthday. I have described her on this site as “a very good puppy with very bad genes” and I stand by that. However, more than just being a very good puppy, she is the one pet who is no longer with us that I miss the most.

Ruby, her successor but never her replacement, will sit next to me and snuggle in close when she wants to go to sleep. When I lay on the couch, Lola will climb up next to me and sleep behind my knees. These are both things that Izzy used to do, but with her it was different. With them, it seems like they have found a comfortable spot but with Izzy, it was like she wanted to be where she was most comfortable. Do you know what I mean?

The two dogs we have now will come up and greet me when I get home but the reaction I get is the same reaction everyone gets when they walk through the door. When Izzy greeted me, you could tell she was giving me a greeting that no one else got. Even on the days when she was at her most painful, when even the wind blowing on her caused discomfort, she would rush to be with me.

So even though I love both dogs, I miss MY dog.

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My thoughts on St. Patrick’s Day are quite simple. If you refer to it as “Amateur Night for Drinking”, then most likely you are an asshole and have a drinking problem.’

Beyond that, I don’t get gifts or the day off, so I don’t care.

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I have putting off writing this blog post for one reason or another (I’m not really sure to be perfectly honest with you) but something today the question has popped into my head once again: Does Gmail’s spam filter still work?

I went from getting one or two spam messages in my Inbox a month to my current state of several a day. If that wasn’t aggravating enough, legitimate email such PayPal notifications concerning automatic subscription withdrawals or daily notifications for the Road Crew web comic are going to the Spam folder, while emails from someone called ‘Pharmaceutical Sales Rep’ are getting through.

I would probably understand the Pharmaceutical Sales Rep message getting through if the subject line didn’t include “gets 77% off for all orders today” and SEVEN previous messages with the phrase “gets 77% off for all orders today” hadn’t just been sent straight to Spam.

Catching every piece of spam is tough, as is avoiding false positives, but both are happening at an ever increasing rate and I have to wonder if Google’s preoccupation with rolling out new things such as Wave, Voice and Buzz aren’t causing them to neglect perfecting their spam filter.

In the meantime, I just have to keep scrolling through offers for ED meds, Russian girls who want to meet me, overseas businessmen who have a totally legal proposition for me, hot Forex tips, offers on Acai Berry and Vertu (whatever in the hell that is) and of course, Master’s Degrees I can get (overnight) just to make sure that I don’t miss an email from PayPal telling me there is a problem with my account and my subscription has been automatically cancelled. Again.