Amazon Deals: Man with No Name, Three Stooges, more movies, video games, toys, etc

(All items are Prime Eligible/ship free with a $25 order)

A weeklong sale offers various Three Stooges collections for $12.49 a pop (50% off).

Amazon's finally consolidated all of their Warner deals (like Harry Potter, Wizard of Oz, Sherlock Holmes, Elf, The Notebook, V for Vendetta, The Goonies, etc) on one sale page. The prices remain ludicrously good (as low as $5.99 in a few cases).

The new movie sale of the week includes 131 movies at 40-55% off, including Muliplicity, School Daze, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, Can't Hardly Wait, SLC Punk, Bottle Rocket, And Now For Something Completely Different, His Girl Friday, and the classic drama Beverly Hills Ninja.

Two other box set highlights: The Blu-Ray edition of the Man With No Name Trilogy is on sale for $19.99 (70% off), and The Waltons Movie Collection is $16.53 (59% off).

The Video Game Deal of the Day offers The Sims 3: Pets for $29.95/40% off for PS3/Xbox.

There's a 25% off video game deal that includes a handful of family games (Everybody Dance, TRON: Evolution, El Shaddai, more Sims, Guilty Party, Toy Story, Epic Mickey, etc).

Relatedly, the MP3 Deal of the Day is The Greatest Video Game Music for $2.99 ($7 off the iTunes price). Final Fantasy, Tetris, and Mario aside, it's definitely a US-centric collection, but there's some good stuff here.

In the kitchen store, the Presto Poplite Hot Air Corn Popper is $17.54 (42% off).

FInally, some toy deals:

Blokus is $17 (35% off).

The new Easy Bake Ultimate Oven is $39.88 (20% off, and about $30-40 off some other retailers).

The Nerf Dart Tag Quick 16 Blaster is $19.98 (45% off).

And the Lego Space Tripod Invader is $15 (25% off).

Les Daniels

Just got the news that Les Daniels, author of any number of books on comics history, as well as some other good stuff, has passed away. Feh.

Assault

This is a video of an Oakland police officer opening fire with a rubber bullet without provocation against someone who has the audacity to film him. This isn't "crowd control" or "self defense" or anything else. It's assault, committed by someone who has been given a badge, and who should by all rights be rotting in jail right now. And no, it's nothing new, but it's rare to see it recorded so clearly:

Woohoo!

Today's RIPT Apparel shirt combines my favorite brewery with my sixth-favorite member of the X-Men*.

*I know six doesn't sound very high, but when there are about 500 or so X-Men or Xavier Academy students running around, it's actually pretty significant.

What's on our DVR?

adam_0oo asked what shows I'm watching in a comment to another post, and I figured I'd break this out into its own post. Note that this covers network TV stuff, not cable (so Leverage, Pretty Little Liars, Game of Thrones, etc. aren't listed here) We generally don't' watch all these in one week; we'll let shows pile up, and mini-marathon some of them when we have some free time.

New Stuff:

Comedies:

New Girl. Yeah, it's far from perfect, and my crush on Zooey is a big factor, but I'm also kind of hooked on having this broken a character starring in a sitcom. This is a lead who is barely above Sheldon on Big Bang Theory in terms of social skills, having been in one relationship (as best I can tell), and not having a clue how manipulated and abused she was in that. She has no idea how to act around anyone, and is every bit as falsely influenced by pop culture as the characters on BBT. Now if the guys were only a little more interesting, I'd be more excited about new episodes.

Suburgatory. Took me about a week to adjust to this one, but it's got a great cast (Ana Gasteyer, Allie Grant, Cheryl Hines, Alan Tydek, etc), likable leads (Jeremy Sisto and Jane Levy), and a wonderfully over-the-top false dichotomy of the suburbs and the city that gets both gloriously and hilariously wrong. And it uses that setting not only to explore the city/burb divide, but to explore contemporary gender roles quite wonderfully so far. It's not perfect (I'd like to see some exploration of gender roles beyond straight males and straight females, and Tudyk and Grant are both underused, considering their talents), but it's fun so far. Oh, and I think this might be the one show where we won't see Tudyk die.

Up All Night. The best new comedy of the year, hands down. Damned near perfect writing and three actors -- Christina Applegate, Maya Rudolph, and Will Arnett -- who do comic timing perfectly (and having Jennifer Hall as the fourth case member certainly doesn't hurt). They also clearly get parenthood, and avoid the cliched Mr. Mom/women shouldn't work jokes that a lesser show with this setup (lawyer dad quit his career, producer mom is back at work full-time) would resort to.

Dramas:

Ringer. Yeah, I know. We only started watching because of Sarah Michelle Gellar, but it's a surprisingly good piece of brain candy. There are lots of lovely twists, a cast who can handle the soapy material (Nestor Carbinell is probably relieved that his storylines actually make sense after the end of Lost), and some nifty guest stars (including Jason Dohring).

Revenge: The other cheesefest. I've posted about this before, and it's just a solid, well-acted show with a great cast of folks. Yeah, it's rich white folks hurting other rich white folks, but it's aware of its schlockiness, and has a group of likeable (or likably horrible) folks to follow. Plus, CCH Pounder just guest starred as, essentially, a non-heroic world version of Amanda Waller. Or that's what I've decided she is, at least.

Prime Suspect. It's not as good as the original. It's damned good, though (and I realize it's not been picked up for a full season yet, so it might well be the only one here I don't see all year long). Maria Bellow is great, and the crime are pretty damned fascinating, too.

Once Upon a Time and Grimm: Yes, two shows built around the same theme, going in completely different directions. I like 'em both, although OuaT is less of a high concept tale (Grimm is basically, "Buffy as a Cop" or "Special Unit 2 without the infrastructure"), and has me more hooked for now.

We've also been Tivoing Person of Interest, but haven't watched it yet.

Returning stuff:

Comedies:

How I Met Your Mother (still funny, often still as fascinating as a storytelling and structure exploration as it is a sitcom), Glee (getting weaker and weaker, and mostly an excuse for good cover songs and the occasional good character bit), Happy Endings (such a strong cast, and just a funny, often raunchy show), Parks and Recreation (the best-written and best-acted comedy on TV, bar none), and Saturday Night Live (which has been generally good to great this season). We'll be watching Breaking In when it returns, too (with Megan Mullally added to an already-great cast).

Dramas:

Castle (love the characters, don't mind the mystery cheesefests, which remind me of '70s era shows at their best), House (better than last season, so far), Criminal Minds (still solid, and now back to the way it should have been before being messed with by the network), CSI (found a second life, creatively, with the addition of Ted Danson, and it's been damned fine this season), and Fringe (god, do I just adore this show).

Shows that we've stopped watching over the last couple of years include The Simpsons (except for the occasional ep like Treehouse of Horror), Desperate Housewives, and Chuck.

This says it all

Regarding the Penn State rape cases:

Schultz's lawyer said his client was not among those required by law to report suspected abuse. He also argued that the two-year statute of limitations on the summary offense has expired.

If his defense is that he should get off on a technicality, that speaks pretty strongly to the truth of the incidents.

And yeah, Schultz might be right that the charge doesn't apply to him (although he's still a perjurer), but if you're the sort of human being who thinks all's fine because you weren't legally obligated to report child abuse, you deserve pain and misery.

And don't think, for a second, that Joe Paterno doesn't own a ton of responsibility here. As others have already noted, his "defense" is that he reported it up the ladder. Then did nothing. Living legend, my ass. Can't-die-soon-enough disgrace would fit the bill better.