Possible replacement

After watching Crank last night (which was ok, but not the best film), I realized that should they decide at some point to kill off Jack Bauer but continue creating new seasons of 24, Jason Statham could be an adequate replacement for the role. I’m not saying I want to see Jack Bauer die, or Kiefer relinquish the role, but there’s only so many more bad days Jack can have before he either retires or dies. Right now it would be a huge mistake because it would hurt the show’s ratings, but down the road if Kiefer decides he no longer wants to work 16 hour days 6 days a week anymore, I could stomach watching Mr. Statham take a stab at it. I really couldn’t imagine anyone else even making an attempt. What do you think?

Kiefer & the WS

I was browsing Cd Universe earlier looking for new music when I clicked over to Video Universe and selected ‘TV on DVD’. The first thing that came up was the first 4 episodes of 24 Season 6. I clicked on Kiefer Sutherland’s name in the cast list and got a list of all the movies he’s been in that are available for purchase. A very perplexing thing was at the end of the list, however:

addstar

Curious, I clicked the button.

kiefer_wishlist

Sweet! Kiefer Sutherland is on my wish list. Does that mean I can buy him?

TGIF Sleepyhead

Ahhh Friday night. The sweet spot of the week. It’s all downhill from here, folks! I am getting so damn old that I took a bath and afterward was reading my 24-inspired novel, Operation Hell Gate, on the bed when I got sleepy and took a little cat nap. All before 9 pm. Can you say loser? This is what happens when your husband becomes addicted to World of Warcraft. Anyone want to be my online buddy? ;)

Oh and I’m pretty miffed at LaSalle Bank at the moment. I logged into my account earlier and spotted a $25 service fee. When Joe called to ask what it was for, they explained it was due to our combined account balance falling below the threshold they have in place for our account type. This was due to us taking money out last month to put in our IRAs as well as pay off a portion of our home equity loan we had transferred over to a Discover card last year so we could lessen the interest we were paying.

We don’t recall this minimum balance rule before and learned it was instituted in July 2005. They claimed to have sent notices in the bank statements at that time. My beef with them is two-fold. First, why send such an important notice of a change in policy with the statement? They have to know a lot of people just file them quickly or even destroy them. I would think they should send a separate letter like they do whenever their privacy policy changes. Also, why didn’t they put notices up on their website so customers would see them when they logged onto their online banking account? Oh I know the answer to both those questions: they didn’t really want people to know about it. The banks make their money off those fees. They are ridiculous to boot. I have to pay them a fee because I’m not letting them use enough of my money for investments as it is? Greedy much? Plus $25 every month the balance is below the amount they’ve set is rather excessive especially considering the fact there was no threshold before and the new one is $25,000!

Joe was so pissed he had them downgrade our account type so our required combined minimum monthly balance is lower and we’re transferring the rest of the money to another bank account where we can get more interest anyway. The girl didn’t even seemed fazed by his request which to me is the worst part of all this. These companies just don’t care about customer loyalty anymore and don’t make any effort to retain their business. Near the end of the call the representative told Joe she was waiving the fee, but the damage has already been done. The money is still being transferred because when Joe first complained, that is when she should have taken action to appease a long-time customer who had a decent chunk of change invested. Oh well, HSBC will profit from their mistake now. Hope that $25 they just had to have was worth losing thousand of dollars of investment money.

24: 8 am – 10 am

[Spoilers be here]

Wow, that was quite an explosive fourth hour, wasn’t it? Oh and I wasn’t sad to see Kumar Kal Penn go because he was lame. He needs to make another White Castle movie or something and leave the dramatic acting to those who can do it well.

Did I call the demise of Curtis or what? Damn, I’m good. And unlike Kevin, I never cared much for him. Quite frankly, I felt his character was one-dimensional. He showed more emotion in the twenty seconds before Jack shot him, in the neck no less, than I’ve seen in all the seasons he’s been in, so his death didn’t move me.

Watching Jack fall to pieces afterwards, however, did. That is some of the finest dramatic acting I have ever seen. Way to go, Kiefer! You really felt for Jack and could see what an emotional toll the things he’s experienced over the years has taken on him. I look forward to them exploring this more in upcoming episodes.

The thing I don’t like about this season (so far) is that there are just too many characters I don’t like, and not in the “love to hate them” way either: Milo Pressman, Nadia Yassir, Sanda Palmer, and Thomas Lennox just to name a few. They all suck! They make President Logan look good and I couldn’t stand him. I want to see more of Jack in the field and less of these half-wits. And Morris as Chloe’s ex-husband. Seriously? While I actually like him, he just doesn’t fit the profile of the type of man Chloe would date, let alone marry. I still can’t wrap my head around that.

I’d also like to know who the hell I saw Jack being intimate with in a recent preview. It went too fast for me to tell, but she had dark hair. Hopefully not Nadia. I would barf. Maybe Audrey dyed her hair a darker shade. Or maybe it was Chloe. Wouldn’t that be a riot?! Jack and Chloe, the ultimate anti-terrorist couple. Hey, it could happen. I was right about Curtis, in case you’ve already forgotten.

But alas, we have to wait one whole week for another beautiful episode. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself in the meantime.

24: 6 am – 8 am

Jack is back, baby! If you haven’t seen the first two episodes of 24, do not read any further.

Oh my god, I thought the first episode would never gain momentum! I really hate how slow things seem to progress at first. And just as I thought, Jack seemed to step back into his role quite quickly. Sure, he screwed up and read the traitor wrong, and made that little “I don’t know how to do this anymore” comment, but for the most part he’s the same old Jack, at least until later in the season when he gets in touch with his emotional side.

In any case, I prefer good old Jack to the defeated Jack who wanted to die. Mistake #1 for Fayed: telling Jack he was going to die for nothing. Mistake #2: Leaving the room before killing him. It’s just like every other villain in the world of fiction: they have to drag out killing the “good guy”, all the while explaining their evil plan to them. Just kill the guy already, damn!

It was fun trying to guess how Jack was going to get away, but how gross was it when he munched on that guy’s neck? I’ve seen Jack do some violent things before, but nothing like that! I seriously was peaking at the tv through my fingers because it was nasty!

I also noticed how Jack’s conveniently wearing a skin-tight shirt this season. I think that’s especially for us ladies. What do you gals think? Surely I have at least one female reader who lusts for Jack, right?

In any case, once things got going, the two episodes just whizzed by thanks to the power of our DVR. I can’t believe after tomorrow we’re going to have to wait a week for each new episode. 24 is like crack and I’m a junkie who needs her fix.