Dan Dickinson: The Primary Vivid Weblog

We’re not even an hour in, but that doesn’t stop me!
The Friday Five
1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
Right now we have a tube of Colgate Fresh Confidence. I tend to change brands of toothpaste every time we finish a tube. Keeps my mouth from getting burnt out on one brand, like I did after using Mentadent for 3 straight years.
2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
Uh, anything soft. Just so long as it doesn’t feel like sandpaper. Right now we have Wegman’s regular brand.
3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?
Two pairs of shoes; one pairs of Adidas Gazelles for day to day casual stuff, and a pair of nice chunky black Sketchers for more dressy uses. Not to say that they’re my dress shoes, though.
4. What brand of soda do you drink?
I will drink nearly anything, so long as it doesn’t contain the words “Diet” or “Pepsi”. Pepsi Twist is a slight exception to this. In any case, like the toothpaste, I switch my current beverage around a lot. Currently in the fridge I have a 12 pack of Vanilla Coke and of Mello Yello.
5. What brand of gum do you chew?
Juicy Fruit. The taste, the taste, the taste is going to move you.

Via mefi, an article in Wired about the technology the military uses.
You want to know what sophisticated chat measures they use? MS Chat.

All I can think of now is Saving Private Dicklicker.

So everyone’s favorite quasi-real-time-drama wrapped up season 2 last night, and I’ve had some time to chew everything over…
Major props to the writers for managing to tie up the loose ends that looked insurmountable a week ago. Granted, it took a little bit of faith leaping to get there, but it worked out. Everything was completed to a satisfactory level.
I was a little saddened by the way Palmer dealt with the turncoats – keep the Cabinet, but lose Mike? Mike was the best part of Season 1 – and most of Season 2! In any case, I understand the justification for this, I guess.
Carlos Bernard needs his own show, where he just crosses his arms, gives the camera that look, and acts smug towards someone I dislike for an hour. I would watch it every week, I swear. It’d be better than anything on NBC!
Unfortunately they lost me in the last five minutes of this episode. The assassin (although we won’t know till next season if it was a success or not), Mandy, was in the first three episodes or so of Season 1. No one who started watching the show this season – and hell, even some of us who watched Season 1 (on DVD) – is going to go “OH MY GOD IT’S MANDY”. Well, actually, Katie did.
But I digress. Lots of people on various boards have asked “If a handshake is all it takes to bring down Palmer, why didn’t the bad guys do it sooner?” – and I think that’s a pretty valid question. As for whether or not he’s dead – it’s not going to keep me up for all hours of the night. I’d like to see Dennis Haysbert return, as he’s a wonderful actor, but I can understand if he wants to move on to greener pastures and they had to kill him off.
In any case, out of my two “drama” shows (the other being Alias; Gilmore Girls is too low-conflict for me to consider it drama), this had the far less shark-jumping resolution, so thumbs up. I’ll be picking up the DVD set for this season, believe you me.