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March 31 Permalink

Drove home through even more snow that didn't stick to the ground very much. In the Indians-Orioles game, Jay Gibbons lost a ball in what Fred Manfra described as "quarter-sized snowflakes.

March 30 Permalink

Watched the Buffy episode "Lies My Parents Told Me". The Scooby Gang discover that Spike's trigger is the song "Early One Morning". Giles and Principal Wood conspire for Robin to eliminate Spike while Rupert occupies Buffy. Spike gets the better of Wood and Buffy is not happy with Giles.

Lots of flashbacks of Spike both as young William in England and as the 1977 punk. The time period when William became a vampire seemed later than in "Fool for Love" and he also looked older. Whitlock notes the "saving your dying mother with vampirism" plotline was stolen from The Vampire LeStat. William wants to take his mother to see Dr. Gull, the doctor that some theorize was Jack the Ripper.

We discover that young Robin saw his mother Nikki fight, but not get killed by Spike, although it took the First to confirm these suspicions to the adult Robin? Spike suggested in "Fool for Love" that Nikki wanted to die, but wouldn't a mother, especially a single mother, have more reason for living and seek to escape the slayer lifestyle?

Willow gets called away by Fred to L.A. in this episode although the Angel episode where she appeared has already aired.

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On the Angel episode "Players," the continuing plot has Lorne planning to restore his ability to read people. Cordelia sneaks up on him, but is quickly discovered by Angel, Wesley and Fred. In the other plot, Gunn helps Electro-Gwen recover a device that helps her physically touch human beings.

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Miranda is playing her first Civilization game where she's in charge and I only give advice. I guess I'm also her Secretary of State because I do her diplomatic negotiations. Since we only have one copy of the CD, I will never get to play the game again.

March 29 Permalink

Dreamed a two-humped bactrian camel walked by my kitchen window. And there wasn't a wooded park behind my house, but a recreational park. Beer league baseball teams played there along with three or four camels, with neither group bothering each other at all.

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Sucked up about half the leaves in the back yard. They were wetter than Black and Decker recommends so I spent considerable time clearing the clogs.

All three of us went to Southern States for animal feed and flower seed. Then we went to Galyan's for sneakers. New Balance feels so comfortable to me.

Miranda was occupied by watching the climbing wall. She said it was too high for her to try. I noticed the less svelte children had the most difficulty. Just as we left, a mother and daughter prepared to attempt the wall together.

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I was only right about Maryland losing. Texas beat Connecticut, Marquette beat Kentucky and Kansas beat Arizona all to confound me, especially the Wildcat championship.

March 28 Permalink

Saw the exhibit Through My Father's Eyes at the Smithsonian. It contains photographs taken of the Filipino-American community in California during the 1940s and 1950s. The exhibit only took up three rooms and you can see the highlights at the web site.

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The architects are pretty critical about the Great American Ballpark. I'll reserve judgement until I see it on television. Since I won't be seeing games regularly there, the TV experience probably matters more to me.

March 27 Permalink

Don't confuse Andy Serkis with Andy Sidaris.

March 26 Permalink

Michael Cassutt says that Firefly failed because it mixed Westerns, a backward-looking genre, with science fiction, a forward-looking genre. Honestly, there's nothing more backward-looking than The Lord of the Rings and though countless hours are spent drawing the line between SF and fantasy, the border's pretty gray.

Firefly failed because Fox had no patience, an easily predictable outcome. Dark Angel only lasted two seasons with a more obvious sex appeal. Sci-Fi, after just having dumped Farscape, wasn't goin to pick it up. I'm just surprised neither UPN nor WB would.

Back to genre mixing. The Western motif was just a gimmick. Was Kung Fu a Western? I don't think so. Firefly had enough anti-authoritarian commentary found in television genre to make it relevant. And even Cassutt violates his own argument when he can't explain Star Trek.

March 25 Permalink

Let's suppose that after listening to proposals from D.C., Northern Virginia and Portland, MLB decides they don't like any of the plans they're hearing, largely because not enough money is being paid by the public entities for the stadium and/or the ownership groups for the Expos. Bud and the gang who can't shoot straight can always leave the team in Montreal until they can contract it in about 2007 or so. But this leaves them open to a lawsuit from the Players Association and the governments and ownership groups in all three places, all of whom would target the antitrust exemption. And if there's one thing MLB defends like Masada, it's the antitrust exemption.

There's a Saturn commercial where the vehicle drives in slow-motion past lots of children. It ends with them leaving the town of "Childhood" behind with a sign saying "Old Age Ahead". The car takes a turn off suggesting the characters will take their time getting old. No problem, actually appropriate for a product marketed as a first car.

Then there's "Wedding". The car drives through a city where weddings happen everywhere. A couple nuzzles in the back of the Saturn. The commercial ends with the car passing the "Marriage" city limits.

Wait a minute! Is the car headed for Divorceville?

March 23 Permalink

Maryland easily got by Xavier. I think Michigan State will beat them in the next round. If the Terps somehow get through, I'm more scared by Connecticut than Texas.

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Watched the Angel episode "Orpheus". We find Faith had injected herself with a drug that got into the bloodstream of Angelus when he bit her. It sends them both into a La-la Land of interesting flashbacks. There's a lame slow motion power shot of Wesley carrying Faith, accompanied by Fred and Connor. The one in China with Angel, Darla, Druscilla and Spike was much better.

We find Angel came to America in 1902 stowing-away in the animal hold. Another flashback involves saving a puppy from a speeding car in 1920s Chicago. I watch this the same night Chicago nabs the Best Picture Oscar.

The best flashback is in a 1980 diner where blow-dried Angel trades the Donna Summer version of "MacArthur Park" for "Mandy". Do you remember any mention of "MacArthur Park" when Richard Harris passed away? I didn't.

Willow arrives and re-ensouls Angel. Real life spouses-to-be Alyson Hannigan and Alexis Denisof have a conversation where Wesley appears to be interested in Willow, but she shows interest in Fred. When the witch leaves, she quickly tells Fred she's seeing someone, but physics girl doesn't react at all.

Whitlock was more disturbed when Cordelia sends Connor to stopped the ensoulment of Angel, under the presumption that he must kill Angelus. No one is asking Connor what the hell got into him. I liked this episode a lot more than previous ones for the cheesy flashbacks and the return of Willow.

I went to a housewarming for the new home of Dave Choat and Diane Donaldson on Ednor Road in Silver Spring. The central log cabin portion dates back to 1850. Their garage is a three-car barn.

They have both a swimming pool and pond. A liveable fixer-upper, they plan to make many renovations including putting on gutters, replacing the siding and putting in some windows.

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Watched the CSI: Miami episode "Dispo Day". Speedle and Horatio get caught in a shooting when the bad guys hijack a truck carrying evidence to drugs to be incinerated. They shoot Speedle, but don't kill him and Horatio calmly knocks off two of them with two shots.

The trail proved interesting, but incredibly led to an obnoxious Geraldo Rivera-type television reporter. This guy organized a really bloody heist, just for the national exposure he got. Also, he uses an alias which, also incredulously, is just his given name spelled backwards.

Internal affairs suspects a leak of the dispo route so they polygraph the CSI staff. As they discuss it, Calleigh notes that "Presentation is everything," but I doubted that she would remove several layers of make-up before facing the lie detector. When it's her turn she laughs giddily, and tests positive for cocaine. Turns out she was investigating a marble tile warehouse where the cocaine was transformed into tile for transport and inhaled some white lady.

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On the Angel episode "Release," Cordelia is talking inside the head of Angelus with a decidedly masculine voice. She tells Connor not tell anyone about her very fast-growing fetus, always a sign of trouble in television land. When Angelus comes to visit his old hotel, the sanctuary spell gives son the smackdown.

Wesley and Faith find Angelus in a magic shop with a lot scaffolding. Britboy is dispatched quickly and, after much fighting, Angelus puts the bite on Faith. Willow appears next week.

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On the CSI episode "Crash and Burn," a Jaguar crashes into a cafe. The path inevitably leads to a suicidal grandmother, dying of colon cancer due to inaction by her HMO. The rest of the plot concerns Sara not figuring out her boyfriend Hank had another girlfriend the entire time.

The second story involved a creepy teen trying to kill his parents with carbon monoxide poisoning by leaving a foreign substance in their gas fireplace. When Sara tries to track the kamaikaze granny motive, she mentions low acetylcholine and high epinephrine levels in Japanese kamikaze pilots. Did someone actually make these findings from the smoldering remains of their bodies from their fuel filled planes?

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Finished off with the rerun of "Conversations with Dead People" from Buffy that we missed because Whitlock was in the hospital. This show manages five plots, one of which has no dialogue, but only one is really well done.

In the main plot, Buffy talks with a vampire who was a Sunnydale classmate before he joined the dark side. In another plot, Willow is alone in the UC-Sunnydale library when Cassie, a girl who died earlier in season comes in with a message from Tara and to convince the witch to kill herself. The silent plot involved Spike picking up a girl at a bar and putting the bite on her. Another plot had Jonathan and Andrew coming back to Sunnydale, only to have the short guy stabbed by his friend over a big evil talisman.

The fun plot was Dawn, all alone in the house, getting some really creepy Amityville visitations. It ends with the ghost of Joyce telling her,"When it's bad, Buffy won't choose you. She'll be against you."

I listened to the Oregon-Utah game on the way home from work. John Thompson noted the classic mistake when James Davis missed a three-pointer for the Ducks at the end when only a deuce was necessary to send the game into overtime. College players want to win the game because that's what they've dreamed off since they were kids. Just as I got home, East Tennessee State was just two points behind Wake. Just like Davis, Tim Smith inevitably tried missed the trey.

I went to Knossos at Wendell Wagner's apartment. As mentioned before the book was The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain. It's relatively short, perhaps properly characterized as a novella.

I brought a copy of Silver Screen Test featuring world-famous media fan Martin Morse Wooster. Jennifer Lauron brought her toddler Joseph. John Epperson made an interesting comment that the character of Satan/Philip Traum resembled "Q" from the Star Trek universe.

On the way home, I heard the end of the Maryland-UNCW game. When Drew Nicholas sank the winning basket, play-by-play man Dave Sims was screaming so incoherently that I couldn't tell if the Terps won or not. Being a national neutral broadcaster, either the buzzer beater or the upset would have been cause for excitement.

March 20 Permalink

We're reading The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain for Knossos. I leave you with this quote:

There has never been a just one, never an honorable one -- on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful -- as usual -- will shout for the war. The pulpit will -- warily and cautiously -- object -- at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers -- as earlier -- but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation -- pulpit and all -- will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

March 19 Permalink

I retract my previous evaluation of the current shortstops, mostly because of Miguel Tejada. I'd made the one-to-one correspondence of A-Rod to Robin Yount, Nomar to Ripken, Jeter to Trammell, and Vizquel to Ozzie, but who compares to Tejada? Julio Franco? Don't laugh. Check out his numbers for 1984 and 1985.

March 18 Permalink

Leave it to the NCAA to complicate the BYU snafu. The simple switching of BYU with Weber State or Wisconsin-Milwaukee would "upset competitive balance", whatever that means. Aren't #12 seeds competitively indistinguishable? A conference of #11 seeds probably wouldn't beat a conference of #13 seeds more than 52% of the time. They went through this exercise to justify the mysterious machinations of the secret room in Indianapolis.

I'm not trying to belittle the difficulty of their task. There's so much parity between college teams that picking between them is far from easy. But the myth of bracket alchemy is undermined by the NCAA's own actions. If the teams are so close in quality, then equivalent seeds, especially at #12, are, by definition, interchangeable.

Instead they look like a bunch of medieval charlatans, resplendent in their dark robes and pointy hats, decorated with moons and stars. We won't touch our perfectly constructed bracket. We'll change it only if absolutely necessary. In other words, if BYU actually makes it to the Sweet 16. The NCAA could have chosen the simple solution, but picked the complicated one that inflates their self-importance.

Not everything is like a hard-on.

Took the day off to do more editing. Finish one show except for some graphics and voiceovers. Saw Larry who recommended shooting three shows next time.

When I got home from picking up Miranda from Optimal Learning Center, we saw some deer behind our house.

March 16 Permalink

The melting is almost complete. I can see the leaves now to get rid of them.

The #6 seed for Maryland seems low. I think they can get by UNC-Wilmington and Xavier. My current prediction for the eventual winner: the Wildcats.

March 15 Permalink

This evening, my niece Victoria had a birthday slumber party. All week, Miranda said she didn't want to stay over, but we packed up her stuff along with a sleeping bag. Can't the kid take a hint?

Whitlock and I went to Hamburger Hamlet. We just had burgers, mine was heavy on the cheese. By the time we got out, we had a voicemail from my brother-in-law Greg that Miranda really needed to talk to us.

We parked quite far from the restaurant so the entire walk back was spent navigating voicemails. When we finally got her on the phone, she really wanted to come home. Can't the kid take a hint?

She was dressed in her pajamas and went home that way. She made another door hanger and a cup/pot as crafts at the party. Bea thoughtfully provided a slice of cake for us to take home.

March 14 Permalink

Others will remember her as Ella Farmer on The District or the Chief in Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? and Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? I will remember Lynne Thigpen as the lips and the voice of the disk jockey in The Warriors and Luna on Bear in the Big Blue House. Enjoy the sky, Luna. We'll miss you.

March 13 Permalink

Thought I'd make some short story recommendations. In the April issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Robert Sheckley has a nice short story called "Legend of the Conquistadors" about a planet overrun by alien invaders. How they finally drive them off the planet provided a chuckle in these dark times. Paul Di Filippo has a novelette in the same issue called "Seeing is Believing" that although it doesn't have any brilliant ideas, moves along breezily.

Maybe I've caught the CSI meme, but both the Di Filippo story and Charles Sheffield's last (?) story,"The Wasteland" in the March issue of Asimov's are procedurals. I don't know if illness caught Sheffield took quickly, but the story ends rather abruptly. However, I still finished it wanting to call Nancy Kress to tell her to sell it to the original Las Vegas show.

March 12 Permalink

Boswell thinks the Orioles should pass on Ken Griffey, Jr. However, a look at baseball-reference.com indicates that the most similar player to Junior is Frank Robinson. And Robby's been the most similar to him for the last eight years. You might be looking at four years averaging 26 HR, 84 RBI, BA .290, OBP .382, SLG .509 and OPS .891. Granted, those numbers can also describe Ellis Burks, Luis Gonzalez, Tim Salmon and Andruw Jones. That's still better than anyone else they have on their roster right now.

March 11 Permalink

Came home a little early to help Miranda with her homework on why she prefers outdoor recess. She had a previous in-class assignment on what she would look when she's 100 years. Miranda said she'd be dead and decorated the essay with her own tombstone.

March 10 Permalink

Twenty-five years ago, when Dan Aykroyd said,"Jane, you ignorant," it was funny because it parodied the discourse. Today, that is the discourse.

March 9 Permalink

Watched The Twilight Zone episode "How Much Do You Love Your Kid" alone. A financially-strapped couple have a school-aged kid. The husband insists he's got a slam-dunk interview in another city.

While Donna, the mother, played by Friends recurring actress Bonnie Somerville, is getting a facial, she receives word her son did not report to school. When she goes to the police, she realizes the boy's been kidnapped for a reality show. Donna has 60 minutes to recover her son.

She chases down the car with the boy in it until the vehicle crashes in a stream. The kidnapper escapes, but the son is safe with serious, but non-life threatening injuries. Donna's won half a million dollars, but she can double that if she finds the kidnapper in the next 15 minutes. The host even gives her a gun.

She chases the kidnapper to a house and discovers it's her husband. If he could have gotten away, he could have won $3 million. In rage, she kills her husband. Donna's just won a million dollars and the best defense money can buy.

As a game show host, people probably expect an arrogant prig, who enjoys putting people down. From being on both sides of the podium, my only interest is hoping the contestants have a good time. I ache when one of them really screws up. On other shows, I want to watch good players, not stupid ones. Okay, except for Strip Poker.

March 8 Permalink

Watched The Twilight Zone episode "Memphis". We start with the voice of Don S. Davis, Colonel Briggs from Twin Peaks and George S. Hammond from Stargate SG-1. He's a doctor telling Eriq La Salle he's only got six months to live.

This time, Dr. Peter Benton is on the other side of the bedpan, as Ray Ellison, a law clerk with a brain tumor. Ray comes from James Earl Ray who shot Martin Luther King, and Ellison from Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man. Colonel Briggs tells him that a specialist right here in Memphis has an experimental procedure that unfortunately, is too expensive for Ray to afford.

While walking on the street, Ray gets hit by a car and finds himself in 1968 Memphis. Vivica A. Fox, a widowed nurse with a young son, nurses him back to health. In return, Ray advises her on how to keep from losing the house to foreclosure.

Ray discovers the date and runs to where King is making a speech to warn him of the assassination. He gets arrested and Vivica has to bail him out. Ray leaves words of wisdom with the young son, Lucas, then runs to the Lorraine Motel.

He can't save Dr. King, but he keeps Lucas from being a hood ornament. Ray wakes up to Colonel Briggs informing him he's been in a coma for three days. Also, the specialist has found a way to pay for the brain treatment. Ray turns to find the specialist is Lucas, all grown up.

Eriq La Salle wrote and directed the episode. Whitlock couldn't watch the next episode "How Much Do You Love Your Kid" so we skipped over to the Angel episode "Salvage".

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They find Lilah's dead body and feel strange horror and remorse, even though only Wesley really liked her. The Russian-American faux-Brit talks to her dead body, while Stephanie Romanov fulfills the remainder of her contract speaking from inside his brain. Wesley then goes to meet Faith who breaks herself out of prison.

The Beast meets with his boss who turns out to be Cordelia. Wesley and Faith go out to face Angelus, but not before she gives a Connor a dressing-down that really turns him on. The Beast beats the crap out of Faith, but Angelus kills him anyway with a dagger the Beast forged from his own bones.

The sun's back out, but Cordelia's still unhappy. Charisma Carpenter's pregnancy gets incorporated into the show as she reveals to Connor she's been knocked up. Never mind that they had sex less than a month ago. So is the pregnant thing controlling her?

Took Miranda to the sock hop at Sally Ride. Among the songs played were "Limbo Rock," "The Macarena," "Get this Party Started," and All-Star".

March 6 Permalink

Watched the Enterprise episode "Canamar," which is named after a notorius Enolian prison planet. But the episode never gets to Canamar! Oh well, how much of Fargo was actually set in North Dakota?

Trip and Archer visit the Enolians, but after successful sightseeing, get arrested for smuggling and find themselves aboard a prison ship. Due to atrocious security, a career Enolian criminal commandeers the prison transport. Archer convinces him he can help because the criminal can't pilot the ship.

Along the way, they meet an Enolian patrol vessel but, with a little help from Trip, they escape. Archer pilots the ship to a planet to rendezvous with the Enolian criminal's accomplices. Archer will be saved, but everyone else will be left to burn in the atmosphere in a scene too eerily close to the Columbia.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise are in pursuit with an Enolian official for safekeeping. They find the criminal's rendezvous vessel. Back on the prison ship, the other vessel docks, but it's Enterprise crew inside. Firing all the way, they get everyone out, but the ringleader foolishly stays aboard.

An above average episode for Enterprise, because other than the bad prison security, nothing atrociously nad happens. Trip has a funny, annoying seatmate.

March 5 Permalink

Thanks to James Quintong for this one: Text-Messaged Confessions.

March 4 Permalink

After recently watching The Jungle Book, I recall that as a kid, I identified with Bagheera, which is odd that I picked the stodgiest character at that young age. Yet, he's still the coolest looking, with that sheen of black fur and Mr. French's English accent. It's sort of acting like Giles, but dressing like Angel.

March 3 Permalink

Submitted two episodes of Silver Screen Test. Matthew Kraft, the supervising producer, said that now that I have six episodes, they might actually give me a regular weekly slot. We can only hope.

March 2 Permalink

Watched the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Storyteller". Most of the story is Andrew shooting his own documentary. The seal on top of the Hellmouth is acting up and it takes the tears of Andrew to shut it down for a while.

I thought perhaps it might take Andrew's blood to do that. "Does it buy it all back? Are you redeemed?" demands Buffy. There's almost a Christ-like moment here I suppose, but I guess Mutant Enemy is inherently agnostic.

The opening shows Spike killing Wood's mother under Robin's voiceover for those of us who haven't figured it out yet. As an homage to "Invisible Girl," yet another shy one disappears like Marcy. At least she has a future in assassination. Why hasn't Marcy and her unit taken care of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein by now?

An unforgetable moment of last year's nerd trio dancing around in togas singing,"We are as gods!"

Anya and Xander find each other in bed again, then decide breaking up would be a very good thing. Why do people on television immediately think about breaking up just after they've had sex? By the way, what happened to that revelation that the Slayer coming back from the dead caused the First to act now?

Picture on the side of the deer that came right to our patio door because Whitlock threw food out there.

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Watched The Twilight Zone episode "It's Still a Good Life". A sequel of the original series episode,"It's a Good Life," Billy Mumy plays the godlike boy who is now a godlike man. Cloris Leachman also returns as his mother.

In the original, Anthony would send people he didn't like into the "cornfield". Now, forty years later, he's made most of the world disappear, except for the tiny town of Peaksville, Ohio. The citizens are terrified of him while he has not matured and continues with the personality of a child.

Now, Anthony has a daughter named Audrey, played by Billy Mumy's real-life daughter Liliana. Agnes, the grandmother, wants Audrey to use her powers to destroy her father, but she won't. Instead, she brings back the rest of the world and now there are people and things that must obey father and daughter.

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The second episode was entitled "The Monsters on Maple Street", this time a remake and updating of an original series episode. During a homeowners association meeting, huge explosions shatter glass. They discover no electric power and their cars won't work.

Suspicion falls on a new family who keep to themselves and are suspected of being terrorists. The father comes home with an operating car to a house with full power. However, when spy cameras are discovered, the community hits the boiling point and sets fire to the house.

In the denoument, we discover that the community was the unwitting subject of a military experiment to find out how long it would take them to fall apart. For some reason, one house didn't get its power cut off. Debbie Allen directed this episode which featured a homeowners association president that was one of the whitest black guys you've ever seen.

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On the CSI episode "A Doggone Shame," a vehicle chase ends with the driver surrendering himself and falling to the ground with a wooden stake in his head. This plots finds that the victim ran a gold mine scam, salting a mine with pawn shop gold, and selling it to dupes. Unfortunately, his last sucker got into a fight with him. The mark was shot dead, and the conman figured he'd hide the body in the mine, then dynamite the place. Unfortunately, he couldn't outrun the wooden stake with his head written on it.

In the other plot, a professional basketball player has one of his many children kidnapped. While they wait to see who'll pick up the ransom, the boy is found dead, dumped by the road. Investigations lead to a kennel, where they figure the boy was held. Unfortunately, he was much too unruly and multiple doses of dog tranquilizers ended up killing him.

The kidnapper is also dead from a shovel to the skull. CSI find some fibers from a place like Build-a-Bear. They reconstruct that one of the many women by whom the basketball players has fathered a child masterminded the kidnapping, then killed the kidnapper in guilt. The woman runs off and leaves her child by the dunker.

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Finished off with the CSI: Miami episode "A Simple Man". A prominent real estate developer, the husband of a councilwoman is on trial for the murder of a domestic he was having an affair with. However, a Jane Doe appears with the same MO and since the suspect in the first murder was in jail, cast doubts on his guilt.

Eventually they figure out he was the guy the first time. The second time, it was an aide to the councilwoman in a deliberate attempt to get the case thrown out.

Although this had your standard disgustingly corrupt politician, it had some plenty of scream-at-the-screen-worthy moments. Start with the classified housekeeper ad to lure the second potential victim. The perpetrator carefully used a laser printer and gloves to cover his tracks, but he used a friggin' postage meter to frank it with? This leads immediately to the councilwoman's offices. He couldn't have used self-adhesive postage stamps for crying out loud?

Then there was the girl who was interviewed to be Victim #2, but backed out because the arrangement made her nervous. She looked like a Brazilian supermodel, not the poor sort of girl, fresh from the airport that takes on domestic work.

Finally, Calleigh gets into a tiff with Hagen, a cop who needs a multiple shooting processed. Because she's busying re-opening a case for Horatio, Hagen's suspect goes out and kills a drug dealer. Now on many cop shows, this would be a classic budget dilemma. Limited resources means somebody dies and the only villains are the "politicians" or "taxpayers" who won't front an increase. But it's just another reason to think Horatio Caine is a flaming jerk.

While Gil Grissom is a nerd, a scientist fascinated with where the evidence takes him, Caine cares only for himself. Interesting that justice plays little role for either. Horatio could have waited for the trial and the appeal process to sort itself, but no. He makes many enemies among those in other departments for no other reason than his own self-aggrandisement.