SciFi Channel: you owe me an hour.

Here's the elevator pitch: take the cheerleader from Heroes, stick her in a shadowy government agency like Sydney from Alias and have them hunt super bad guys like Buffy from... well... Buffy.

I really wanted to like Painkiller Jane... a hero who heals rapidly, bad guys with mind control powers and a group of bad-ass G-men protecting the world.  Combine that with some cool music and stylish cinematography and you can't loose.

You know there's a "but" coming don't you?  Here's the thing: they hired creative writing students from the local community college to write the scripts.  I guess they needed to make sure there was money left over to hire someone to write little mini games for their web site.

Look on the bright side, remember how you were trying to figure out if you should record the new SciFi channel show starring the sexy female terminator from T3 or a rerun of Myth Busters?  Problem solved. 

The clever folks at the Cumbria board of tourism have come up with a novel plan to get "the YouTube generation" connect with the Poetry of William Wordsworth.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud ", a work apparently inspired by the beauty of the Cumbria Lake District.  To honor the anniversary the board of tourism has graciously given the poem a dust-off.. "to help the next generation of Lake District visitors connect with his work."

And just how do you help the next generation connect with Wordsworth poetry?  Well, it's plainly obvious, you turn it into a rap... performed by a guy in a squirrel suit.

You have to give them points for creativity... but marketing acumen? I'm not convinced your average Barney fan is really going to be making travel plans.

Still trying to wrap my head around being back to work (jet lag sucks).  Since I am unable to formulate an intelligent thought, I'll just share this nifty video with you (thanks Jason!):

Saint Patrick's day weekend is a three day weekend here in Ireland (hey, we don't get president's day), combine that with Paula still being sick and we had plenty of time to just vegge in front of the boob-tube. All we needed to do was find a good batch of entertainment.

We bought Revenge of the Sith about six months ago but we never got around to watching it.  We couldn't, of course, just start with episode III, we had to start at the "beginning", episode I (as painful as that would be to sit through).

Watching the whole series in the space of 5 days brought up a few of questions. 

1. When Obi-Wan dies he vanishes, leaving just his cloak.  When Yoda dies, he vanishes leaving no clothes at all.  When Darth dies, he leaves everything behind, clothes, meat-sack and all.
2. Why did Leia set out to bring Obi-Wan and the death star plans to Alderaan?  The rebel base was on Tatooine.  You're going to great lengths to find this guy, why send him on a wild goose chase?
3. At the end of episode VI when glowing Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin show up to watch the end party, why is Obi-Wan all old and Anakin all young?  Sure, George had to make his re-edits... but that one is just dumb.
4. If Obi-Wan and the rebels were going to such great lengths to hide Luke from his father why didn't they change his name to something other than Skywalker?  Combine that with stashing him on Darth Vader's home planet with Darth's step-brother and it makes me wonder how many brain cells Anakin had left functioning after being given the oven-baked ham treatment.

I guess it doesn't take a genius to poke holes in George Lucas's writing.  But honestly now, how were the Jedi able to keep peace in the galaxy when all it takes to defeat them is persistent taunting?

Jedi: "Stop you fiend! Put down those stolen power converters!"

Thief: "Oh no! The Jedi! Say, how's your mother?  She still mad that I dumped her and dating your sister?"

Jedi: "Oh!!! Why you! Grrr!! .... Aw nuts.  Let me help you carry those."

Thief: "Thanks"