Noiseless Chatter Archive

I went back and forth about whether to review “Marco” on schedule. Something about it seemed to call out for more consideration than I could give it after only one viewing. So I decided to wait…and the next day, I found out that my grandmother passed away. Jimmy’s loss of an important person in his life overlapped with my own. By no means am I suggesting that this provided me with any useful insight…it was an interesting thing to have happened, and that was about it. And that’s about what I can say about “Marco” as a whole, after much reflection. Closing off an extremely promising first season, “Marco” feels like a significant letdown. Not just on its own merits, but in terms of where we’ll be when we return for season two. It’s not a bad episode of television by any means, but with the incredible strength of the previous seven episodes behind it (I still hold that the pilot was relatively weak), “Marco” feels…well, dead. And being as it contains Jimmy’s most emoti...

Just a partial return from me on Tax Day, the holiest and most introspective day of the year, to let you know that I intend to resume full service (and then some) next week. For now, Mr. Fabiola is letting his engine cool a bit. I appreciate your understanding during this time, but I look forward to getting back into a routine again, and having specific things to write about. That will be a big help. Losing my grandmother was rough…but seeing how it affected others she was close to — related and not — is what really hurt. The strained relationship I have with my family doesn’t make it any easier, as I ended up without much of an outlet for mourning. It’s hard…but it happens. It’s a part of life. Specifically, it’s the last part. It’s sobering when you lose a family member. I joke a lot with my friends that we don’t really feel like adults. When does that start? I don’t feel like a kid, either. I just feel like I’m somewhere in the middle…and many of my peers se...

Just a bit of a heads up that it might be a short while before things get back to normal around here. My grandmother passed away, and it’s hitting me in waves. I don’t know that I’m in a position to elaborate quite yet. I’ll need some time. But I do want to share my appreciation for everyone out there. It’s always hard when somebody you care about — and who cared about you — isn’t there anymore. But it makes it a bit easier to know that there are others — great friends, great readers, great coworkers, a great significant other — that are there for you. A loss is always a loss. And while I have more to say, I won’t be saying it now. Just take a moment (you can afford to) and let somebody know you love them.

Many times while writing these ALF reviews, I’m reminded of an episode Get a Life that aired shortly after my birthday in 1992. I was eleven. “SPEWEY and Me” was the antepenultimate episode of the show, but I didn’t know that at a time. In the few short years between my love of ALF (which ended in 1990) and my love of Get a Life , my comic sensibilities must have changed drastically. As much as I can pull it apart now — which, I hope you all realize, is exaggerated for effect — I can see pretty easily why I loved ALF as a kid. For starters, it was a puppet show. I already loved the Muppets, and while the Henson legacy has infinitely outstripped Paul Fusco’s, I didn’t care about that as a kid. The Muppets had better characters, better actors, better writers, better everything, really. But that’s something I only came to realize much later, through a more mature perspective. When I was a kid, I liked them because they were silly puppets. ALF, too, was a silly pup...

Reality of Mr. Fabiola is a long and storied one. For genuinely a while he was simply a robot, and even today he is still a robot. Mr. Fabiola is amazingly liberal when offering money to charity. It is not his money, regardless. As a robot Mr. Fabiola makes not have a delineating. He must stay joined with his centrality supply at excruciatingly seriously arranged times of the day, every day of the year. When he is depleted he will attempt unsecured wi-fi signals and use the charge card numbers he finds to make liberal blessings to a liberal segment of the most fundamental and strong relationship on the planet and utilize the charge card numbers he finds to make liberal favors to a liberal portion of the most principal and solid relationship on the planet. The subject of wrongdoing has never created. Mr. Fabiola admires the monstrosity of the laws of mechanical development, which state clearly that he is not to present the wrongdoing of any single person. As a result of t...

Before this show premiered, I had a lot of ideas about what it could be. “Heartbreaking” wasn’t one of them, but Jesus Christ would I be hard pressed to describe Better Call Saul without using that word now. When the possibility of a spinoff was first floated, the idea seemed to be that it would be a comedy. Technically, it still is, but it’s one that’s very much in the mold of Breaking Bad. Though the laughs may be more frequent, they’re still just the relief between tragedies. There’s only one more episode of the season to go, so speaking about its statement as a whole isn’t completely out of the question. If you were to ask me, I’d have to say that it’s telling us, on no uncertain terms, that Saul used to be a good lawyer. That statement requires some qualification, as the Saul Goodman who represented Walter White was good at his job, good at protecting his clients, and good at keeping legal entanglements to an absolute minimum. But as Mike says this week about cr...

Just a few short words about where I’ve been. Or, one short word: asleep. This entire week or so I’ve been feeling drained and lethargic. As best I can tell, it’s due to a medication I’m on, which has recently had its dosage reduced. This is good news, at least on the whole. But my body seems to want to hibernate until it adjusts…and that’s been problematic for a few reasons. The most visible to you is probably the lack of updates on this site. It’s something that I hope gets rectified soon. Especially since there’s something I really want to get written and ready for this week. I’ve been more or less useless outside of work, which soaks up what little energy I have. It’s nothing to worry about in the long-term, and I don’t feel sick or uncomfortable at all. Just dead, dead tired. So…yeah. I appreciate your patience. Again, I’m hoping to have something special ready this week, and to resume my normal level of erratic productivity soon. Goodnight.