If you are still a fan of Heroes, then the following blog entry I'm going to write about is probably not going to be very favorable. However, if you find any of my points or statements invalid please feel free to comment. I like discussions with two sides.

Anyway, in my opinion I think Heroes is probably the biggest let-down of a franchise, since Rocky 2 and beyond. Well I kind of liked Rocky 3, and I liked Rocky Balboa so I guess I'll take that statement back. Although neither were as good as the Original. That's the problem with Heroes, NBC's drama about people with supernatural abilities for absolutely no purpose. Come on let's face it, these people have all these incredible powers and yet they do absolutely nothing to help society. It just seems useless? It's like Wolverine having his adamantium claws and not using them to fight, but rather trying to lead a normal life and occasionally use his powers. It's just a dumb idea? Wolverine has to fight, and fight for something which really is what Heroes doesn't have, that special something "TO FIGHT FOR."

The X-Men who Heroes was practically based on, had a purpose they wanted to bring peace between the Mutant and Human Population. That may not be technically right for an avid X-Men fan, but that was their purpose. What do the Heroes do except talk and talk some more and make idiotic decisions. Not to mention that the charactes don't really seem that compelling after one season, unless they work together against a real enemy.

Let's face it Hiro's ability to time travel ruins the show, Mohinder's narrative is never revolutionary nor interesting. Peter is dimwitted, Nathan's purpose seems to change at the blink of an eye, Claire belongs on the CW, etc....etc.....Not to mention Ali Larter has most certainly overstayed her welcome. The one person I don't mind is Sylar he's played well although last few years his character has yet to find an actual purpose.

All I ever see on tv.com about Heroes is usually a casting callof more actors joining the show, but I think to myself what's the point? They just appear in 2 or 3 episodes, don't realy do anything diabolical have no real purpose and are usually killed within one or two attacks. It becomes pathetic. I'm not saying the show needs incredible special effects, but seriously? It's a show about Heroes, with supernatural powers, dialogue without using their powers in an action fight is just stupid.

I originally thought Heroes would turn into a sort of tv series like X-Men, great dialogue, witty characters, and actual fight sequences. However the show has turned into a sloppy mess that is going on because of sex appeal. If NBC were in better shape, I'm sure it would give the show the axe, until then it's more of the same, same old garbage.

Talking about my two of my favorite long running animes still going on, Naruto and Bleach. Naruto of course has spun off to Naruto Shippuden while Bleach is pretty much the same. I know a bit less about Bleach because I only started watching it recently (well last year but I took a break after they rescue Rukia etc and came back to the show only recently. A bit of time constraints and laziness I guess you could say.)

Now this contains spoilers so bear with me.

Now let's talk about Naruto/Naruto Shippuden and the pros and cons of the series. I always wanted to do something like so I might as well.

Pro: Developed Characters- Since the beginning you knew Sasuke's motive, Naruto's motive, and the villains are pretty well developed as well. Not to mention supporting characters like Gaara.

Con: We get the Picture Sometimes- Sometimes the backstory of Naruto always is repeated a gazillion times especially during an epic battle. It sometimes becomes quite irritating, in the middle of the fight do you care about the life of Naruto for the 100th time?

Pro: Good Fight Scenes- I kind of thought originally the fights in Naruto were bad, but after the Jonin Tournament I really loved the battles especially Rock Lee vs. Gaara, Naruto vs. Gaara, and of course Sasuke vs. Naruto. I also liked a few Shippuden battles as well.

Con: Filler, Filler, Filler- Way to much filler at the end of Naruto toward Naruto Shippuden, and also Naruto Shippuden had some filler arc that I didn't bother watching because it just took away from the greatness of the manga. The show has way to many filler arcs.

Pro: Great Dialogue- The dialogue of Naruto has always entertained me, because of how rich in depth it always is. When they translate it into English (dub) it doesn't have the same quality as the poetic Japanese sense in the original subs.

Well I guess that's it for Naruto today, may'be I'll update this later. Now for Bleach

Bleach

Pro: Love the fights- The fights always play a big role in Bleach like they do in Dragon Ball Z or whatever, it seems like every episode there has to be a fight.

Con: The Bount Arc- The Bount Arc was originally interesting but it become way to long and overbloated seriously I was getting bored because there were so many Bounts and when you wanted to see Ichigo just fight Jin, these other Bounts were still there and never ever died. It became irritating not to mention the number of times Ichigo fought against Jin, seriously they had 4 battles the entire saga. Way to much for a main hero and a villain. Also I always found it odd that toward the end of the saga how is it Uryu is giving Kaviya a run for his money when Ichigo and Bankai mode couldn't even. It was a bit to much.

Pro: The Characters- I always find the characters in the show interesting even if there are a gazillion of them. Kenpachi Ziraki is definitely one of the better ones, and Byakaya Kuchki is also interesting. Even Ichigo, Uryu and Chad have interesting backstories. Also Toshiro Hitsugaya is also a very interesting and stubborn little Captain. Very good.

Con: Ichigo's battles- The biggest problem I have with Bleach is how many times Ichigo loses, unlike other anime like Dragon Ball Z or Yu Yu Hakusho, there is always a part of the arc where Goku or Yusuke or whatever just like gets this incredible power and they are super strong and practically undefeatable, it seems like for every battle Ichigo wins he loses the next two. Not to mention there is always some outside force that protects Ichigo when he's fighting a big battle. Like in the Bount Saga when he was fighting Koga (the big guy I think) a Soul Reaper interfered, or JimmyJack the former Soul Society captain interfered. Just let Ichigo win a battle, that doesn't come at the end of a major story arc.

I've been a Conan fan for a while now. Since like 2002, I enjoyed his humor and so did many others. The show was a perennial emmy threat, although Jon Stewart's show decimated it in a few recent years. Something I have always found puzzling. Anyway to the point, Conan's show was at it's peak up until 2005-2006 when I noticed the quality began to fall. The monologue was usually weak, the comedy segments were sometimes hit and miss, and the interviews were sometimes a bit to short. However the show was seemingly resurected during the 2008 writer's strike. Well guys like Leno, and Letterman seemingly struggled without their niche, Conan was on top of things, with a strike beard, doing weird stunts, creating a desk at the top of the stairs of his Late Night studio, etc....Not even Ferguson's level of spontaneity could compare to Conan.

However since Conan started the Tonight Show, I've noticed tat things aren't gelling that well, and the show at times seems to drag on a bit. Conan's a funny guy but he's completely taking away his frat-humor for more of, "I tell jokes that old folks like, and get guests young people like" type mantra. It's not him, and it shows. Since the show debut, I haven't seen the same Conan of Late Night during it's prime, instead I same him telling a few monologue jokes that just aren't funny. During Late Night, he would tell like a few jokes, usually Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith, George W Bush, etc but it was so limited that you really ignored this portion. Now in the Tonight Show he's telling one typical joke every night. You know where a Paris Hilton joke is going, and you can always tell where a Kirstie Alley joke is going. Come on it's almost obvious.

Not to mention with big name guests Conan tries to turn the conversation about him, like for example when Joaquin Phoenix went on Letterman, the segment was about the weirdness of Joaquin Phoenix, not about David Letterman. Conan on the otherhand seems to turn everything about him, like in a narcisstic level. It gets kind of irritating. Andy Richter isn't really working either, he tries to oversell the jokes and isn't as great Max Weinberg at the awkward deadpan humor of Conan.

I like Conan and his old spontaneity but the Tonight Show just doesn't fit in with his style of humor. When he was at his prime around 2003 and had to switch his contract he should have probably have gone to a different network, Fox or ABC or maybe even cable or something where he would be free to get away with the "Judd Apatow styled humor" we know inside him. Instead on the Tonight Show he's being kind of controlled to fit the "mold" of every tonight show host before him.

I watch him here and there, but it's beginning to become the same old schtick, Conan's show has become quite predictable and sometimes not funny, unlike Stephen Colbert's show which is almost always a riot to watch. I know there are a lot of Conatics (Conan Fanatics) who dig his show, no matter what he does. Heck Conan could do an entire show where he doesn't talk and people will say "This guy rules! He is always funny." However Conan needs to reinvent himself instead of the clean-faced comic making fun of himself, and become the bold, ballsy comedian we know that he can be.

No matter what you thought of Michael Jackson you to admit his death signified the end of an era. The tounge and cheek 80's era. Yeah sure some people might say that the 80's died as the decade passed, as Grunge and Gangster rap took the forefront. That's not necessarly true, atleast not in my estimation. I believe that the end of the 80's died last Thursday when Michael Jackson died. If there were every an artist that meant so much for the decade it had to be Michael Jackson. Sure Prince released like 7 albums during the period and his music was probably as good as Michael if not better, but Jackson's 2 albums released during the 80's had a profound impact on culture as a whole. In my opinion something always impacts the end of an era. For example the end of the 60's and the whole Peace idea died when John Lennon was senselessly murdered in 1980. The era of the 70's featuring glam, exploitation, experimentation, and soul probably died when the Disco backlash came in 1979, people were sick of the 70's and it's artists, and the death Keith Moon, the death of John Bonham in 1980, and most of all the arrival of punk began to prove that people wanted music that meant something more then just "sex, drugs and rock n roll." Now the 80's are an interesting era because I never think the 80's really died out, I just think the 90's came in full swing and the arrival of Grunge and Gangster Rap kind of silenced everything the 80's stood for. That of course being New wave, bubble gum pop, and music with a message. When you look at the 90's you can stay that era died with Kurt Cobain, Biggie, Tupac, and the arrival of the Spice Girls, after them the music scene shifted completely to boy and girl-bands and artists like N'Sync and Britney Spears. So back to the 80's, I said the 80's never really died and stick by my statement, the 80's music has probably been most revived in this decade then of the previous era's music. Even the fashion, and nobody was at the center of it like Michael Jackson. He was the revolutionary poster child for everything about the 1980's. Now however with his death, it just goes to prove that the era of new-wave and 80's synthesized funk is over. Another era buried away, sure as every decade there are still artists from then that still perform and make good music, but there's always one chapter that signifies and end to the idea, a belief, a beacon of the times. Sadly, Jackson's death is just that.

I am sad to be informed that Michael Jackson is dead at the age of 50. If there was one musical star in the last 20 years it has to be Michael Jackson. I mean no matter what he does it's always in the news. I'm just watching CNN and MTV to see Michael Jackson tributes all over on television. It's kind of bittersweet, I mean seeing videos on MTV are great, but knowing that Michael Jackson is dead it just doesn't feel right. Seeing that little 11 year old boy performing, full of life and energy and innocence, and now he's gone. Yeah lots of people make of Michael Jackson's personal life for the last few years, and he has been a bit abnormal, but he was indeed a musical genius. He made great songs and great records, like "Off the Wall" and "Thriller." It's so weird because Michael Jackson is everything that's right and wrong about the American dream. How he turned his family went from being poor to pretty successful, and also his constant media attacks labeling him as "Jacko." He recently signed on to do a bunch of shows in London, and I was very excited to see him perform, well not there but watch it online. However I guess that will never happen. Well whatever the case, Michael Jackson is one of the greatest entertainers of all time, and sad to see him go at the middle of his life, his death will be remembered along the lines of John Lennon and Elvis Presley.

Watching a documentary on the History Channel about American comic books, and I'll admit that during the 90's I was an avid comic book collector. I even still have the first issue of Spider-Boy thinking it would be worth a lot. I'm on wiki, and they didn't make to many issues. So that's a waste of an investment. Anyways, back then comic books were great. Nowadays nobody reads comic books, everybody's talking about mangas, Harry Potter, etc. Well I am kind of a manga fan, I'll admit it that much. So what's the problem with comic books? Well I recently went to the library and just was like checking out a few recent comic books, and then I began to see why nobody liked them anymore. They were kind of boring. I flipped through the newer stuff of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc and it was just fluff.Talking, and talking, and not enough story to really grab your attention. It's not engaging, something lots of the older comics had. I was reading Essential Spiderman, and I just like practically couldn't stop till I finished it. It was so engaging, no filler, just got straight to the point and had tons of great action. Even though it was in black and white, and was a bit torn up. The newer stuff is just boring, manga is much more interesting because of the reasons I said above, it's not flash, it has great storyline, dialogue is short and concise and it gets to the point. I wish American comics were like that, but they aren't. So my question is, what happend?

Is this whole Jon and Kate thing been blown out of proportion. They seemed like a typical married couple that loved each other for the most part. The only time I'd ever hear about them was when I was watching the Soup and seeing a clip of Jon trying to speak and Kate ignoring her. It gave me the preconcieved notion that Kate hated Jon or something like that. Then all of a sudden this TLC couple grabs the national spotlight and pushes the Octo-Mom aside, their on magazine covers, the Enquirere, etc. It's insane to fathom. Obviously the media spotlight, and the constant attention on their show have driven another couple from the brink of love to the brink of divorce. It's a bit to much don't you think? I mean TLC is manipulating them just for the sake of ratings, ruining their marriage and making their kids pawns in a ratings battle. It's a bit to much, and not to mention I'm sick of hearing about them. How is it that a guy who has never watched their show, knows so much about them? Man it's got to stop.

Hello everybody, I know everybody has been glued to the television following the protests of the Iranians following the recent election. Apparently Ahmadinejad has crushed Mousavi in the election, approximanetly 63% to 34%. Some people are wondering whether the election is rigged, it looks like that because Mousavi was the favorite to win the election and it seems a little alarming that Ahmadinejad beat him in such a fast process.

Not to mention the voting but have been a bit rigged. It makes me think of the 2000 election between Bush and Gore, where Bush won and obviously we know where the story ends. I cheer on those protestors, but the bruality is just to much. Clearly the United States shouldn't intervene as they did in the 1979 Revolution supporting the Shah, but instead support the people of Iran.

So what else? Went to the Airport today. I'll tell you going to an airport is always an exciting experience, I had to pick up a few people (well their luggage) but I just love the airport atmosphere you know? The smell of international freshness all over the area. I guess that's just me. It's also a fun place to rummage around, in fact I met a person there. Not a girl, remember I have a girlfriend.

Oh yeah for my final food of thought, congrats to the Lakers. I like the Lakers and picked them over the Magic, so I'm happy they won. I guess that officially makes them the team of this decade. The Lakers won 4 championships, the Spurs won 3, I think Miami won there, Boston won once, and uh Detroit. I guess that's pretty much it? Right. Oh yeah thanks to the NHL for giving a more exciting Stanley Cup Final with the Penguins vs. Red Wings game. Surprised the Red Wings lost the series, but that's the way the NHL goes.

Okay let me start off with a disclaimer, I did vote for Obama in this year's election. I however, for the most part do not endorse any particular party, I'm more independent if anything. I think politicians on the right and left are both corrupt. So yeah to my topic, watching Real Time with Bill Maher, I realized that Mr. Maher did have some valuable points about Obama being a celebrity. That got me thinking, about how Obama became a celebrity. I remember when he was running for a senate seat against that nutcase Alan Keyes. Then came his speech at the 2004 DNC, and he was brilliant. So what happened from 2004 to 2009 that turned this freshmen Illinois senator into a huge celebrity. I mean I was watching the Innagural Ball on television in January thinking to myself, "This thing has become to much a spectacle, then anything else." It was historic that an African American President had won the election, but seeing a red carpet at Washington DC with Jennifer Lopez mugging for the cameras kind of disgusted me. Obama had always had a special relationship with celebrities, I mean after all most of Hollywood donated money to him, but it just went to the point of being to ridiculous. I watched one of the Balls and a red carpet interview with Anne Hathaway, the actress, who was like "I'm so happy we have a great man as our president." I mean seriously? Obama is a good guy but we have to wait to see waht he does in Office to determine how great he is as a president. The whole Innagural was just to much for me to fathom, and on how Obama, a community organizer, became the spokesman of the Hollywood Celebrity Elite. Yeah Obama's a celebrity, and I wish he would go back to his roots and become the symbol of change this country needs. That's where Bill Maher's got a point, Obama became a celebrity. Look at his inauguration, it was like the opening of a Hollywood Movie. Obama certainly seems better then Bush, but he's got to get out of that "I'm a Celebrity" persona, and start making the change he promised.

So I'll admit I like Jay Leno and I like Conan O'Brien. I'll admit Leno has the better monologue but Conan's the more entertaining guy. Leno's got the better guests, but Conan's interviews are a lot funnier. Leno's headlines are entertaining, and so are Conan's sketches. The thing I like is that they are the perfect two man tagteam combination.

Think about it? You go from a bit "classier" comedy from Leno (if you can call it that, AHEM Dancing Itos) to the surrealist brand of Judd Apatow humor from Conan O'Brien. Its like switching channels from the Baby Boom Generation to Generation X. So what happens when Conan tries to leave NBC? Well NBC allows him the Tonight Show but the boneheads at NBC realize that Leno's a bigger draw for the Older audiences, so they keep him on at an Earlier timeslot. So Conan's out of New York, who do they bring? Jimmy Fallon from SNL! Screwing up the whole distortion of power on NBC.

Meanwhile Dave Letterman (not as great as he was in the 80's) has beaten his competitor in Leno, and Craig Ferguson (much more talented then Fallon) competes with him in the same time slot. So they first remove Conan and replace him with Fallon, and well he's new and so he's a bit bad but he still manages to get enough viewer support to come close to Ferguson's ratings or at times beat him.

Now you got Conan on the Tonight Show but because it's a institution for higher comedy, Conan's got to step up the standards and not be silly, because people find him a bit pompous. Perhaps what the NBC branch though when they put Leno over Letterman on the Tonight show? Whatever the case Conan's now a Los Angelino and I'm sure it'll effect his comedy, seeing as he'll be getting guests better then he ever imagined but at the same regard guests that he can't make fun of as much, ahem Tom Cruise.

Then you got Leno, the face of Late Night on NBC, whether you like him or not coming in prime-time competing with CSI, do you think enough people will watch Leno over a CSI episode? It just seems a bit ridiculous and all could have been prevented had NBC not tampered around with their schedule, now everything is a roll of the dice. To see whether it works or whether it fails