1 Happy St

In that "24: Redemption" thing from Sunday, I can't figure out why Jack employed the "jump out of the tree like a ninja and land on top of the bad guys" move. That move never works. I remember trying that move once in grade school , but I missed my target by a couple feet. Ouch that hurt. But you know what? Even if I would have hit my target, I think that would have hurt just as much as it did from hitting the ground. Either way, I was still falling out of a tree, right? So what would the difference have been if I would have landed on a person rather than the ground? It's like in wrestling; if a wrestler jumps from the top rope and lands on his opponent, that's usually the crushing blow in the match. The guy who takes the brunt of a jump from the top rope isn't recovering from that*. But if a guy jumps from the top rope and his opponent slides out of the way at the last second, the jumper is the one who ends up in serious pain. I mean what the fuck is that?!? Personally, I think it would hurt more if you landed on the dude.

* I never understood why wrestlers tried this move. By my count (which is unscientific and uses little to no data other than my own memory), jumping off the top rope had a less than 50% success rate. Granted if you pulled it off, you were gonna be the winner. But with the success rate being what it was, I think it was a silly gamble. Sometimes wrestlers could be so dumb.

Back to Jack Bauer, the ninja tree move was the wrong play in my opinion. Maybe if it was only one guy who he was attempting to land on, it may have worked. But he was jumping on two guys. And it was two guys with automatic weapons in their hands. It had no chance.

24 SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

Okay, so Monday night, President Palmer is in a coma and is on the brink of death. That hospital machine that television shows and movies use to imply that a patient is about to die is working overtime with that loud, flat beeping noise, so things are looking bleak for good ole' Mr. Prez. Cut to thirteen miraculous minutes later. A screen shot of a seemingly well-rested Palmer talking on a cell phone, calling the shots again. What exactly happened in those 13 minutes?!?!?!?!

In the time it takes for me to make a frozen pizza, President Palmer managed to stop his hospital machine straight-line, snap out of his coma, gather himself enough to realize that his VP is launching an attack on a foreign country (a nameless foreign country I might add, at least as far as I can tell), knows which battleship to call to "cancel" his VP's Hitler-esque order, knows the phone number for that battleship (can you call 411 for this? Uh, hello, Battleship? It's me, the President), makes his call and somehow saves the day just in the nick of time. Oh, and it appears that he feels fine now, minus that scratch on his face that he's covering up with that stylish white bandaid.

I know I've asked this a few times already this season, but can somebody please tell me if the writers have simply given up? I'll accept that excuse. They had a good run. I'd be out of ideas too.

- I just had a slice of pineapple for the first time since I was in Hawaii back in October. I didn’t realize it until now, but Hawaii must have turned me into a pineapple snob because today’s pineapple really sucked.

- Remember when the Bears were beating the Saints in the NFC Championship game and all the players were smiling and dancing around and Lovie Smith was getting Gatorade dumped on him and the whole city of Chicago was planning a huge party? How long ago was that again?

- I’m worried about "24". It’s like the producers don’t even care what they make Jack do anymore. At this point, he could blow up a children’s hospital and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. I bet Bill Buchanan would even defend him for doing it.

- If you make a quick run to the store looking like you just woke up or you’re wearing sweatpants or something, what are the odds that you’ll see someone you know? 95%? Maybe 96?

- I hate that the movie theater makes me put my own butter on my popcorn now. For as much as it costs, the least they could do is continue handling that for me.

- If there’s a real possibility that having my cell phone turned on in a hospital can screw up a machine that is keeping someone alive, shouldn’t there be a better way to police that I actually turned it off rather than relying on the honor system?

- The first part that usually goes on all of my shirts is the left sleeve right at the elbow. Even now, I’m not sure what I do that makes that part of the shirt wear out first.

- This will probably be my last posting of the week. If it’s not, I’ll see you tomorrow. If it is, enjoy your weekend, don’t forget to fix your clocks, and try to enjoy the longer day.

- Why do some people talk faster at the part where they give their return phone number during a voice message? That’s really the only part we need to hear.

- I’m glad Steve Young was a running quarterback because it allows us to make comparisons to Michael Vick without any accusations.

- How long can I keep refilling the same Aquafina bottle before it gets too gross and I have to buy a new one?

- There is no "I" in teim, unless you’re a bad speller.

- I wouldn’t question the Starbucks cashier for putting out a tip jar as much as I’d question the moron who contributed to it.

- Alanis becoming a star before Christine, Lisa, and Alasdair is kind of an upset, but nobody ever talks about it.

- At what point will faster computer processors no longer matter? How much better can they actually get? Will the application open before I click on it?

- My work just offered me discounted tickets to a Blackhawks game. I’m thinking of going because I have yet to see that Russian guy live and I’ve heard good things. I’ve also heard good things about that Canadian guy. But there’s no way I’m rooting for that Slavic guy.

- I find it hard to believe this is the last that Jack Bauer has heard from the Chinese. And if it is, was there a point to that storyline?

- I have to hand it to the guy who still sports a pony tail. We point and laugh, but he sticks with it and doesn’t care.

- What did we do before microwaves? Did we eat it cold or eat it 30 minutes later? Either way, it must have sucked.

"24" SPOILER ALERT: STOP READING IF YOU'VE YET TO SEE SUNDAY NIGHT'S EPISODE

Last night's 2-hour episode of "24" covered the hours between 6am and 8am. In these two hours, Jack Bauer arrived in L.A. from China, got debriefed, shaved his foot-long beard, got handcuffed to a sewer grate, then was tortured, escaped death from a group of terrorists by eating a guy’s neck, drove across L.A. and broke into a house full of suspected terrorists, kidnapped two of them, jumped out of the way of a helicopter missile, followed a suicide bomber onto a train, kicked him off the train seconds before he could blow himself up, and subsequently saved the lives of thousands. Oh, and he called CTU like 3 or 4 times.

This morning, between 6am and 8am, I woke up, got dressed, and drove to work. And it was snowy and cold.

A new season of "24" starts in less than 2 weeks, and I couldn’t be more excited. Well I guess I could, but not about this. I’m not a big MNF guy unless the Bears are playing, so I’m pumped for finally having something to do on Monday nights again.

The thing I like best about "24" is how Jack Bauer can get himself out of any compromising situation just by dialing up someone on his palm pilot. It has to be the most connected palm pilot in the world. It’s like some kind of advanced form of moviefone for counter-terrorist agents.

If you need approval from the President of the United States to put a hit on a foreign diplomat, press 1 now. If you’re standing in front of a bank vault and you need Chloe to break its code so you can get in, press 2 now. If you’re hiding in some airport duct work while watching a group of fundamentalists hold the terminal hostage and you need the layout of the airport uploaded to your palm pilot so that you can move easily from room to room to thwart said fundamentalists, press 3 now. Sometimes I wish I had cell phone connections like Jack.

Meanwhile, I just called the helpdesk of my cell phone provider because they over-billed me $10 last month. I talked to 3 different people, but none of them could fix it.

Oh well, I guess I’ll leave the tough stuff to Jack.