Ways that Agent Carter could improve this coming season. (Some Spoilers)

For those of you who don't know who Peggy Carter is because you watch movies as an excuse to turn off your brain, below is Ms. Carter...

Cool, right? She looks determined, fierce, and she will kick anyone's butt if they get in her way. This promo still makes me hope for a high action spy show, similar to Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. What we got was less a big bang and more a deflating balloon. Don't get me wrong, I watched all eight episodes the week they came out. However, I din't stay up from 9-10pm to watch the episodes live.

This show had promise, the first S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. But as several different media outlets caught on, their is a woman as the main character. Reason's To Watch Agent Carter. Out of the 5 reason's that link lists for the amazingness that is Agent Carter only two real themes show up. "It's a girl, how interesting" and "it's part of Marvel. Why must we focus on the fact Peggy Carter is female for most of the eight episode series? Every episode, without fail, someone is randomly condescending to Peggy. Got it, the 40's and 50's were full of racists and sexists. Seeing as to how Peggy Carter garnered the respect of the solders in Captain America: The First Avenger, she has to be used to and unfazed by it all at this point?

 Nope, the first few episodes focus on how she has to prove herself to her bosses over and over again. And she gets mad about it every time. She's suppose to be the star and the coolest person, but she keeps getting bogged down into drama. This isn't suppose to be a drama drama, this is suppose to be thriller/action television. I understand being upset, but by the same thing every episode from the same person? She is a smart and deadly spy right? She can kill people and be relatively fine, but some guy in her office calls her"dame" and she's really that upset? People say meaner things while she's slapping them around, who cares about the tubby guy in the corners opinion.

I understand the need to get historical accuracy (although in the last episode a black patrol officer arrests two white people, bad guys they may be, in New York City in 1946) and for the most part I can forgive it. What is unforgivable is that the show is boring most of the time. Every time Peggy gets to show her British stoicism and badass spy moves while doing something really cool, it ends abruptly as it started and my quickening heart beat returns to a regular rhythm. Seriously, I started to look forward to the scenes with Jarvis, the butler assistant because at least he was funny consistently.

Look, I did end up liking the show, but for a show called Agent Carter, she was pretty uninteresting until the last two episodes. She was overshadowed by the more interesting villians, and more humourous sidekick. This shouldn't happen. She is the star, she should be cooler. She needs to do more espionage and fighting, and less heart to hearts with characters who get 8 minutes of screen time a season. This show shouldn't focus on that fact that "she's a women in a man's world" for two reasons. Reason one, it's been done to death, message recieved. Everyone who is gonna get it, got the message already and the people who don't get it won't understand even if you spell it out for them. My second reason is that who cares that she's a woman.
 Ripley from Alien series doesn't seem to care that she's a woman. She kicks ass regardless.

 Samus Aron from metroid kills space monsters without highlighting she's female.

Even in the same universe, Carter is outdone in action by the likes of Agent May, Agent the group badass of the show, Agent Skye, the techie superpowered powerhouse, or Agent Simmons, probably the smartest character on the show.I understand the need for depth of a character, but can't Peggy Carter be a character who isn't defined by her gender and is just a cool character? I'd love that so much. Make Agent Carter the most interesting character in her show at least.

My favorite Bond, My favorite James Bond.

So I was recently in a heated discussion with my friend over who was my favorite James Bond of all time. To start off with, Top Three Bonds in no order,

Sean Connery

Daniel Craig

and umm....

Roger Moore

Now than, as I was saying. My go to man to be Bond, would obviously be Sean Connery. He is the Bond for classic movies, well all of them are classic but the ones we all know off the top of our head. His firing stance setting the norm for every other actor. His quips to Q setting the annual teasing of the old gadget maker. His voice being the trademark accent used to ask for a Martini or in my case Chocolate Milk,"Shaken, not stirred." He is a badass. 

However after all of that giddy gushing over the classic Bond, he is NOT my favorite Bond. This will probably upset most people, but Craig is my favorite Bond. Daniel Craig is the Bond a young me thought of when older cousins explained James Bond. He was cool, controlled emotions, calculating, and a winner with the ladies. He is what I thought James Bond was all about. He is polite to everyone he comes in contact with even when he was hiding veiled hatred for a character, Craig can control his emotions and get the job done. Maybe not at first, his emotions getting the better of him in Casino Royale and somewhat wild in Solace. But that's what I like about him,and the movies. His growth into a deadly agent.

The older movies, regardless of how clever or charming they were, were not as awesome in my eyes. Old era Bond relied a lot on gadgets. He didn't really need to be skilled in tons of various things. Need to climb a mountain? Pen-rope. Need to blow up a car? Gum-Bomb. Need to check your phone messages? Deodorant-phone. So that is gripe number one. Point number two, is that the cheeky one liners were kinda worn out. What they really were were puns hidden in the musky voice of someone faking a British accent. We automatically think it's so very clever. But that's all it was. Just a bad joke about someone's genitals. Daniel Craig's retorts tend to be less double entendre, and more filled with danger and teeth. "That last hand, almost killed me." Something normal people would say, but only the intended hearer of that sentence would know how much trouble he was in.

3rd, and final point. Daniel Craig, IS British. Most other Bond actors are from the other isles or regions. But Craig is the quintessential Bond actor to me and feel fee to disagree. I'd love to talk Bond with you, because after all. I just love James Bond.

The things I have observed about raising kids

Let me start by saying that I do not have kids. So my views may be skewed right from the very start. I worked for the past three years at a gym, let us call it Little Chocolate. At this job, I got to interact with a lot of parents and kids. I got to teach little kids from the ages of about three up to eight years old how to swim for about two years, and I worked at the summer camp with kids between the ages of 3 and 12 for about 3 months. Now, for the most part I understand that it must be stressful to raise kids. You have to take into account what actions could be dangerous or scary for children, but there is a level of extreme that several people seem to pass.

I would get bored between my shifts and would visit the daycare room at my job between shifts. They played Old Disney Movies all the time, so it was a nostalgia trip plus I got to visit some of the kids I knew from the pool or lessons or whatever. One such visit I was yelled at by a lady who worked there. She told me I couldn't be there. Asked her why. She stated that because I was a boy, I couldn't be there....The fact that I have a Y chromosome makes me more of a risk around children. What a load of manure. It's not that I don't understand the fear, but really? You think I'm some kind of a creep just because we have different bits? Generally when I showed up it was when the girls on shift had reached their limit and were tired and unwilling to play anymore. I'd show up and become the entertainment at the time. We'd play hide and go seek, or legos, or watch movies, or the kids personal favorite, climb on the human playground.

I didn't voice my annoyance to this woman. I told her that I was friends with her boss's son, who also would frequent the daycare to hangout. So she grumbled something about how she would look into that, but she'd let me come in only if I covered up my offensive shirt.

This is what the shirt had on it

(Mind you I don't own the rights to this shirt, it was designed by a Mr. Greg James and distributed by threadless.com)

What about this shirt is offensive? Apparently because the two individuals have fangs I had to cover them up to enter the room. Why? Because it was going to scare the children. I don't know about you, but I know very few 2-8 year olds who have seen a scary vampire or werewolf movie. So the fact that the original design of the characters are older than I am wasn't going to even register in a little kids brain. What they did notice was the bright yellow sticky notes I was made to wear on my shirt to cover the teeth. A few kids asked me why I had the sticky notes. I tried to be creative and say that I had spilled something on my shirt and I was covering up the mess. But this lady was determined to destroy my plans. She said very loudly, "He is wearing those sticky notes to cover up the SCARY fangs on his chest." Oh good, now you have taught these children to be scared of something, even though they don't know what it is. They had no reason to ever equate the faces on my shirt with terror, but no she couldn't let them live without knowing that these faces were terrible. She couldn't have let it go, or could have said the images on my shirt were not real. Nope, dropped the bomb and walked back to the baby room without so much as a backwards glance. 

What I am trying to get across dear reader is that little kids don't know to be afraid of things until they have personal experience or until we tell them to be afraid. They would have been blissfully unaware of anything bad and been perfectly fine with that. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. The best scenario would have been to ignore the shirt completely and let it go uncovered. But by trying to hide the contents of my shirt, you just strengthen a kids need to know? And instead of coming up with a logical explanation, you devastate them with fear. I'm not saying that my way is the best way, but just telling someone that something is bad and not explaining why isn't helpful either.

Why my last name is what it is

So if you know me well, you know that my last name is a bit strange. Laing. Yes, I know it sounds lie Lang, but there is absolutely an I in there. For one thing, only about a quarter of the people I meet can spell it correctly first time. Now before you ask, no I don't know why there is an I in my last name. I didn't get to weigh in when the title was struck. My only reasoning is that a large and moderately liquored up Clan leader in Ye Olde Scotland put an I in there, and said something along the lines of, "You don't like it, good get out of my life!" 

And please don't come up to me and tell me it's spelled wrong. It's not, I've checked. I find it absolutely galling for people I barely know to inform me that MY last name is spelled wrong. When I meet someone for the first time I've never been inclined to say "Lexy? Naw, you're more of a Glados to me." I will be the first to say that I am horrible with names all around. Remembering your name, spelling your name, and remembering which name goes with which face. But who am I to say how you spell your name. You could spell your name Bri4quet, and pronounce it Brian for all the say I have in it. Might I suggest you spelled it wrong? Maybe. Will it change how you spell it? Nope. And that's okay.

This week's post is really short, so here is a picture of some cool dance moves.

And the Summer TV series is......

Nothing. As far as I can tell, most TV series don't start in the summer. In fact most shows start in the fall when people return to school and work and buckle down. I find this rather peculiar. Summer is a well known time for slacking off and not doing a lot. This seems like a more opportune time to begin a series. People have time to sit down and become engrossed in a TV series. Autumn is when all the under kids return to school and are theoretically doing homework and sports and other activities to important to ignore to watch the new TNT series premiering that night. Not to say that adults don't also watch TV, but  again Fall is the beginning of falling back into a routine of paperwork and grindstone, with the lingering memory of vacations fading from memory. 


Another point I'd like to make which is really just the odd ramblings of me is that a good majority of the shows I enjoy get cancelled rather quickly. I can't understand it. A show I became quite enamored with called "The Finder" was cancelled after one season. Why? The show was very interesting, it kept me engrossed the entire episode and had big B list actors and actresses who were fantastic working together. One season was not enough time for the show to spread it's wings and grow. The first season is always a introductory point for any show. The first season gives everyone a strong sense of each character and their back stories. This practice is a TV show staple. Scrubs didn't just start with JD and Turk embroiled in a everlasting Bromance. That 70's Show had to explain why Fez was in Point Place. Everything has to start someplace.


I get that not every show is awesome and good shows get dropped and that I can understand. What I can't stand is the fact that worthless shows along the lines of Jersey Shore and The Real House Wives of wherever. I was convinced to watch Jersey Shore once, and I would have much rather sat outside in the snow for the entirety of that muk MTV pawned off on us. And I have never seen any kind of Real House Wife show, but I have seen the clips from The Soup and I could feel the memory storage in my brain decrease. 


The argument for these shows is pointless. Countless people have said,"If you just watch the show, it will make you feel better about your life." What an awful thought. The only thing that will make me feel better is to watch some awful show for an hour. And these shows are not the end to my ramblings. What follows will be a list of rather intelligent or creative TV shows that have been cancelled, limited is some fashion, or been fighting constantly for airtime. Community, Terra Nova, Regular Show, Venture Bros, and Sherlock.


Now I understand watching people do incredibly silly things. But I use failblog on youtube to find things to give me a slight boost. And if you watch either of these shows I am upset with that is fine, but only if you strive to be better. Watching Jersey Shore for the sake of watching it to me is rather pointless. Again, this is only my opinion. You are welcome to disagree with me and you may be quite right. I just feel like Jersey Shore or Housewives have their place in our television society. I just wish to make the point of why don't the more critical thinking shows or the more sci-fi shows get a place somewhere as well? Can't they all be on tv. We have 7 days in a television week. Why must Jersey Shore be on 5 days a week, can't we put Terra Nova on for like a Thursday instead. Can't Snookie wait one day to prattle on about whatever?


And finally, I know I am gonna make a stir with a lot of people, but I HATE Glee. I hate it. I hate what it's doing to musical culture. I hate the characters. I hate the theme of the episodes. I'll discuss why I dislike the show some other time. Just finding out how many people read the whole post and get to this point. See ya next time.

My first memory of the ocean

My life has been full of weird moments. Moments that have stayed with me. Little things that my family has done over the years to cement my fears into, may I say, perfectly rational if unlikely paranoia. It has over time shaped the very actions I find to be normal anymore. This is the first installment of what I like to call, my downfall of normalcy.

My first memory of going to a beach was when I was in Elementary school. My family would take the annual road trip to Cape Cod, Massachusetts to visit my Grandparents. We would visit my Dad's parents. This would be the side of the family, that paraphrased, would kill each other if ever brought together under one roof. Anyway, one morning my Grandmother, Nanny, took me down to the beach. I was very excited, I had only ever seen a beach on TV when my dad would watch BayWatch. Alas, no bouncing or hair lifeguards were present, which was quite disappointing.

Upon seeing the water I went tearing across the sand, readying myself for the cold water and the joyous time I was sure to have.But before I could jump into that slightly blue water to "swim" with Ariel and Flounder, Nanny stopped me. She decided this was the point in my life where I should learn about sharks. She didn't start small with little kid science like, "Sharks are like Big Fish," or "Sharks are very smart." She went straight to the chapter on Bull Sharks. 

Have You Seen A Bull Shark?

That fish doesn't have your best interest in mind. 

My Grandmother goes on to tell me how Bull Sharks are made to ruin your day. First of all they can swim in Salt and Fresh water. Do you know what that means? That means if they want to, they WILL find you. It's not a matter of where. Secondly, they are adept at attacking in murky and muddy water. I don't know if you've ever been to Cape Cod. It's all dark and murky. The only time you can see the sand is when it's on the beach. As soon as you hit water, your guess is as good as mine. Third, they don't telegraph their attacks. They sneak attack you and drag you under. Hahaha, have you seen a little kid? We don't get above 4ft tall til middle school. I could "disappear if I walked out 5 feet from shore. 

Remember I was in 1st grade at most when she told me all this. I stood, basically in my underwear (early 90's swim suits were dreadful) processing this information. My Grandma stood smiling at me, saying "Are you ready to go in the Ocean now?" I looked out at the beach, I looked back into the eyes of that kind, but crazy old lady, and I said this....

Me: "Nanny....I'm going to go make a sandcastle."

Nanny: "How long do you want to make sandcastles?"

Me: "Til Bull Sharks aren't going to eat me anymore."

Needless to say, I only swim in pools now.

Waka Waka

Well this has been a long time coming. Goodness I haven't written anything here in over a month. I apologize for that. I have just been somewhat bogged down in life lately. Until recently I have been longing for home and been wishing I could find something to inspire me. Until last night, A few friends of mine did something with me that made me feel like a kid again. We watched the Muppets.

Now I know not everyone knows who the Muppets are. I had the fortune of seeing the rerun years of the Muppets on the old Disney channel when they still showed proper cartoons. Not today's Disney shows that try to Shoehorn a moral and lesson into each episode, put proper cartoons. The ones that were entertaining and subtle. The Muppets may have been a few years ahead of my understanding, but I still enjoyed it. Each character encapsulating a young child's attitude at any given time.

Kermet was the timid and shy child in all of us, who wanted to be liked but was just a bit to afraid of the lime light to take over. Did his fears come from the fact that his presence wasn't wanted? Or was it a selfless act of modesty. Or am I looking to much into a kooky green frog's mind set? Who's to say, but what I can say is he was one of the most polite characters from my TV life. Occasionally he had an outburst, but everyone has a limit, and 5 seasons is quite a long time.

Fozzie Bear being to goofy innocent that childhood brings. Yea we can be funny, and yea more times than not our jokes are going to bomb. But Fozzie never cared. He wasn't trying to hog the stage. He just wanted to make us chuckle, just a little bit. He inspired the tired and predictable puns that are rampant in any kindergarten setting.

The Great Gonzo, how could you forget about him. He taught us to be daring. To be rash and unpredictable. Did his antics always succeed? No...but he tried, and that is what I want us all to hold onto. If he didn't try he never would have been the Great Gonzo, he'd have been Just Gonzo, or Oh Yea Gonzo. He inspired ridiculous acts like wearing our towels like capes, and to proclaim our awesomeness to everyone we met. And I know for certain his daring acts inspired a young middle american boy to attempt the most somersaults seen anywhere, with the assistance of a flight of stairs and a gravity. Did my, er his misadventure work? No...but he tried.

Animal. What can I say about this Muppet. Animal was a run away winner with so many kids. He didn't have a lot to say. Nor could we understand half of what he said. But his actions were more important than his words. He was the irrational part of anyone's mind who has ever acted without thinking. He didn't act out in the hopes to hurt other people's feelings. He acted out what he thought. Later their might be signs of regret, but most of the time, Animal did what Animal did. If you had a problem with that, that was your problem and it wasn't going to bog him down. He embodied the irrational actions we are all guilty of. From this I pose the question, should we really make someone feel guilty for acting quickly and without thought? Should we hold it against them for acting on a whim. True we shouldn't get carried away all the time, but can you blame someone for being themselves. What we are doing is cutting off people's ability to express themselves and figure out what they are.

What I am saying from all of this is yes the Muppets aren't quite "safe for children". Their are exploding experiments, and prat hitting, and firing Muppets out of a cannon and other things that are suppose to be dangerous to impressional children. And to those people I say the following. Bollocks. Children are suppose to be impulsive, and a bit selfish, and be a bit dangerous. All in moderation. When that kid, who will remain anonymous rolled himself down the stairs, yea he got hurt. But I learned from that. Yea the plan seemed like an awesome idea, but it taught me to think things through to a certain extent. I was able to make a decision for myself. "Maybe I shouldn't do that again, the pros of this activity are not worth the pain of failure." Telling jokes in class may get you in trouble and get you get sent out into the hall, but from this you learn timing and appropriateness. "Maybe I shouldn't have said That's what she said when Ms. So-and-So was explaining the biology of that rat. Next time I won't shout it out loud."

Bring back the music, bring back the makeup, it's time to get it started, and bring back the Muppets tonight.