24: 6pm to 7pm

I join the folks over on Dave Barry’s Blog on Monday nights to do a Mystery Science Theater” style commentary about the TV show . People seem to like it there, so I’m reposting it here:

6 pm – Terrorist car guy, having just shot The Hobbit’s sister and boyfriend, leaves the building to go reprogram the key card in his car, where all terrorist keep their computer equipment, and do a Michael Jackson “Black and White” morph.

6:02 – Manilow yells some more at Bill at CTU, wanting to know what’s going on. Bill says that, apparently, Manilow is actually President of the United States, but he has no explanation for this.

6:04 – Kim Bauer, Jack’s daughter is at CTU! Audrey sees her and almost cries.

6:05 – Audrey tells Jack that she almost cried when she saw him, and Jack tells Audrey she cries at everything. Jack gives her the OK. She starts crying, and Jack tells that’s not what he meant. She can go ahead and tell Kim.

6:06 – Kim introduces Audrey to “Barry”. Audrey says that if “Barry” comes in contact with President Manilow, the universe will implode, and that Jack is alive.

6:07 – Kim looks as if she just found out that she’s making less money than everyone else in the case.

6:08 – There’s a Scary looking guy in waiting for Manilow, and it turns out he’s the vice-president. Since he’s second in command, I have absolutely no expectations for this guy whatsoever. I’m surprised this guy is actually breathing. Cheney Looking Guy looks surprised too, because he thought HE was the vice-president.

6:09- The Scary Vice President (SVP) appears to have more guts that Manilow himself, although he’s already starting to do Scary things. Manilow will let ANYONE talk him into ANYTHING. I’m just waiting for Scary to tell Manilow to do the Riverdance, because in the state he’s in, Manilow might just do it.

6:11 – Buckaroo is trying to make a deal with Jack, but won’t tell Jack what he wants to know. Jack’s having none of it, because if he knew the whole plot the show would end early.

6:12 – Terrorist car guy is IN CTU! This can’t be good.

6:17 – Curtis is on his way back. Jack is back. Kim is back. Everyone’s back. Even “Barry”.

6:18 – Jack goes to see his daughter, Kim, because he always has time for touching moments during the middle of terrorists situations. Kim’s mad. And “Barry” mouths off to Jack. Baaaaaad idea, “Barry”.

6:20 – Kim doesn’t want to her Jack’s explanation, and wants to leave. Jack asks her to stay, but she needs to talk to “Barry”. Kim begins to do an Audrey impression, and starts to cry.

6:21 – Terrorist Car Guy has a gizmo with the layout of CTU, which is as accessible to terrorists as Manilow’s cell phone number. He goes into what looks like the server room, and looks fans that lead to the ventilation system. My guess is that he’s not going to be putting apple pies in there so everyone can get a nice whiff.

6:22 – Tony’s back in the hospital area of CTU. He confronts Bill and wants to know what’s going on, but Bill says he can’t tell him. Tony wants to know who killed Michelle. I think that if Tony spots Buckaroo, Buckaroo is going to go “Banzai” at the hands of Tony.

6:25 – Buckaroo is strapped into the chair in the interrogation room, and Jack finds out that Kim is dating her shrink. Jack thinks that Robocop is going to be a tough nut to crack. Edgar pops up and asks Jack if he means “Beer Nuts”.

6:27 – Robocop ain’t talking, so he lets a random CTU guy start pumping Robocop up with some CTU drugs that make Robo press his lips together really hard. Jack tells random CTU guy to use the drugs that loosen his lips, not tighten them.

6:32 – Mrs. Manilow’s outside for a smoke and Cheney Looking Guy says that Manilow needs her. Cheney Looking Guy wants Mrs. Manilow to stop Scary Vice President.

6:35 – Yup…server room. Terrorist guy just shut down the ventilation system. Kerry tries to warn Edgar, but since she has no food, he snaps at her. She goes to check out the problem with the vent system.

6:36 – Mrs. Manilow goes to see Manilow, who tries to look aloof, which is good, because he’s been acting like a Loof. He asks her to forgive him, and they share a tender moment. Edgar hears this, and calls to ask about “Tender Vittles”, but they tell him to get back to work.

6:38 – Kerry goes into the server room to check and sees the vents. She tries to make a phone call with her cell phone, and for the first time in the last hour and thirty-eight minutes, the cell signal doesn’t work because of the cement walls. Terrorist Guy kills her.

6:43 – Terrorist Guy places the canister to go off in 15 minutes, which again, is the top of the hour, the time for all critical plot twists.

6:44 – Kim goes to see Chloe, and Chloe confesses that she knew Jack was alive. Chloe tells Kim to cut Jack some slack, since President All-State and Michelle bought the farm, Tony nearly bought a small garden, and Chloe narrowly escaped buying a timeshare.

6:45 – Bill goes to see The Hobbit, and tells The Hobbit that LAPD found his sister dead. The Hobbit says that’s impossible. The LAPD would have taken weeks to find that out. The Hobbit seems pretty broken up, because Gandalf isn’t coming. The Hobbit admits that the CTU key card was taken.

6:47 – Bill calls Chloe to check the card, and Chloe finds that the card was used! IT’S LOCKDOWN TIME!

6:48 – Buckaroo is made of pretty tough stuff. (They haven’t figured out he’s really Robocop yet) A buzzer on the medical device, the CTU lockdown signal and Jack’s phone go off at the same time. No one thinks this is the least bit strange. I suspect Edgar’s messing the the computers to distract everyone while he raids the candy machine.

6:52 – Bill sends Jack into the North entrance. Red shirt guard, in grand Star Trek tradition, gets beaten up and taken hostage.

6:54 – Terrorist guy shoots him when an alarm goes off when they try and use a service entrance, which was clearly marked “SERVICE ENTRANCE. ALARM WILL SOUND”. Terrorist guy grabs a walkie-talkie for his kid.

6:55 – Jack finds the dead guard and notices that the walkie-talkie is missing. Jack sends a fake message to Audrey and Bill about where the terrorist is, and she sees him onscreen so she knows what he’s up to. Edgar behind Audrey and Bill, and is in the background shaking a candy machine.

6:56 – Terrorist Guy goes to leave, and Jack catches him. Terrorist Guy drops the gun, tries to shoot Jack with another gun (do NONE of these guys know about Jack?) and Jack kills him.

6:57 – Jack finds the device on Dead Terrorist Guy, and tells Bill about the little device that Dead Terrorist Guy had. Bill orders an immediate Code 6 evacuation. The phone rings, Chloe picks it up. Edgar is in the server room, finds Kerry dead, and leaves the room just as the canister starts passing gas.

6:58 – Gas is in CTU, and people are dying. Chloe does the lockdown.

6:59 – Robocop looks like he’s in stasis. People are dying all over the place.

Edgar runs back into the room, sees that he’s sealed off and dies.

Ah man! Not Edgar!

This stinks.

24: 5pm to 6pm

I join the folks over on Dave Barry’s Blog on Monday nights to do a Mystery Science Theater” style commentary about the TV show . People seem to like it there, so I’m reposting it here:

5 pm – Bill goes in to see Tony, and the Doctor doesn’t want to tell him about Michelle’s death. Tony has a silly straw up his nose, and Bill tries to keep a straight face while talking to him.

5:01 – The Secret Service agents decide it’d be just fine to let the Russians and Mrs. Manilow stand out in the wide open, because no one would attack them in the wide open.

5:05 – Impecible English Speaking Terrorist (IEST), who apparently has quite a few Terrorist Engineers at his disposal, talks to Terrorist car guy about the plan. You’d think by now that the governement would have screened for this

5:05 – Terrorist car guy calls the boyfriend of The Hobbits sister, and the boyfriend wants to sell the Terrorist guy the Hobbit’s access card. I see NO problem in store for them whatsoever.

5:06 – Manilow starts yelling at Cheney Looking Guy and starts acting manly. Apparently he’s been reading this blog

5:07 – Jack’s calling in on speaker phone, saying that the servers were blown up. Chloe hears this and looks really mad about the servers. Jack’s going after Robocop, who is disguised as a human named Buckaroo Banzai

5:08 – Buckaroo is on the phone, and gets voice mail when he calls. “Dial 1 if you’re a terrorist waiting for a money drop, Dial 2 if you’re a terrorist that just blew up someone he knows, Dial 3 if you’re a terrorist that needs plans for a weapon, Dial 0 to reach an operator”. He dials 2.

5:09 – Curtis is using his cell phone inside CTU, which, as you may have noticed, has cement walls specially constructed to allow cell phones to work right through them, unlike the rest of the country where cell phones can be blocked by a stiff wind.

5:12 – Tony talks to the doctor and pulls out the straw from his nose. He sees the giant cotton pad on his face, and rips it off. The cotton pad, not his face.
Tony goes to the computer, looks up Michelle, and the computer comes up with her record as deceased.

5:17 – A helicopter arrives with Mrs. Manilow and the Russians, and SHE’S MAD! She’s finally figured out that he’s a wimp.

5:18 – Manilow lets President Russian in on the whole plot, except that pesky part where he knew this was all going to happen. He tries to pass off the missle shot at the car and the flame thrower as an “American custom”, but it doesn’t look like President Russian is buying it.

5:20 – Bill goes to talk to The Hobbit, who looks MAD. (Everyone looks mad tonight!) The Hobbit wants to call his sister, who is secretly believes will call Gandalf for some help. He also wants the keycard for Mordor, but the boyfriend wants to sell it. I still see no problem with his plan.

5:22 – Manilow wants to go see Mrs. Manilow, and he backs down from Mrs. Manilow’s assistant, after calling her Ellen and Evalyn Good career move!

5:23 – Edgar has a match! And some cheese doodles! And the right place for where the terrorists might hit… It’s a grocery store! Edgar runs out in a panic, screaming at the top of his lungs, until Chloe points out that it’s a hospital that the terrorists might hit.

5:24 – A terrorist, dressed as an orderly, comes out of the hospital closet…..er, so to speak. He put a canister under gurney. He giggles as he says the word “gurney”.

5:29 – Jack’s outside Buckaroo’s house, talking to Audrey on the phone. She tells him about the hospital attack. He sees Buckaroo’s wife

5:30 – Curtis is on the phone to the hospital, telling him that the nerve gas will go off in about 30 minutes. The hospital guy on the phone tries to tell Curtis that it’s a big hospital, and it’ll take more time, and if he could please have more time to do it.

5:31 – Mrs. Buckaroo looks worried, but stands up to Jack better than President Manilow would.

5:32 – Mrs. Buckaroo looks at the Buckaroo’s Terrorist computer, which appears to be a Mac, which is suspicious, considering that most of them use Windows.

5:33 – Top Secret Service guy goes to see Mrs. Manilow, and she thanks him. He thanks her for the opportunity to shoot people. She squeezes his hand.

5:34 – Cheney Looking Guy interrupts, and she tells him that the president can go “convey” himself. Cheney Looking Guy is mad that Top Secret Service guy didn’t squeeze his hand too.

5:35 – The hospital. Apparently Michael Bolton has entered the building, because people are FLOODING out of it. The hospital admin says that the high risk newborns are stuck there, and Curtis looks concerned they might actually hear the Michael Bolton music.

5:36 – Terrorist guy at the hospital calls IEST guy, and tells him to go to the basement and call from there. Even the hospital has those amazing cell phone friendly cement walls!

5:41 – Audrey give the background on IEST guy to President Manilow.

5:42 – Chloe finds out that Buckaroo has been downloading illegal music files!

5:43 – Jack patiently tries to explain AGAIN to Mrs. Buckaroo that Buckaroo tried to kill him. By blowing him up. Mrs. Buckaroo says that Jack must have misunderstood the bombing, and that Buckaroo must have been joking! Ha! That card! Now she accuses Jack of being a hater.

5:44 – Chloe find a shadow drive on the computer, using that amazing networking software of hers. Mrs. Buckaroo doesn’t know the password.

5:44 – Hospital again, the security there is actually on the ball, having seen the Terrorist Hospital Guy on camera. Curtis takes a few security guards downstairs to find Terrorist Hospital Guy, while taking advantage of that amazing cell phone friendly cement.

5:45 – Terrorist Hospital Guy sets the bomb timer for 10 minutes, because he knows that all major plot twists occur near the top of the hour.

5:46 – Curtis tells Terrorist Hospital Guy to freeze, and when he doesn’t , Curtis uses some bullets to make him freeze. He’s frozen now.

5:47 – Curtis finds the canister on the gurney, and one of the guards tries to touch it because he’s clearly an idiot. Most people would see a scary looking mechanical device sitting on a gurney with blinking lights (the device, not the gurney), having been put there by a terrorist that just got shot and think “Oooo! Shiny!”

5:52 – Hospital again, and the Intel bunny suit guys are entering the building.

5:52 – Chloe won’t be able to analyze the encryption in time.

5:53 – Jack jumps Buckaroo! Mrs. Buckaroo still doesn’t believe Jack. Jack tells her to unlock the briefcase. It’s full of money! Buckaroo tries to convince her that there’s a perfectly innocent explanation.

5:54 – WHOA! Jack shoot MRS. BUCKAROO! Jack threatens to kill her, and Buckaroo tells her that he won’t do a thing. Jack calls an ambulence

5:58 – Remote timer says it’ll go off in 1:11, near the top of the hour, on schedule. They run through a heavily occupied area, and dump it into a glass tank just in time! Yeah, Curtis! I’m not sure I’d take the mask off as fast as Curtis.

5:59 – Hmm… I guess I was wrong about the Terrorist guy in the car and The Hobbit’s Girlfriend and her boyfriend. He shot them. I never saw that coming.

24: 4pm to 5pm

If you’re wondering what this post is about, it’s something a bunch of folks do every week over on Dave Barry’s blog of the show “24”, and here’s my contribution:


4:00 pm – The Russian terrorist, who inexplicably speaks better English that most Americans, gets a call from yet MORE terrorists in the field.

4:01 pm – Manilow finds out that Mrs Manilow is in the limo! Finally, a way out! …No wait…. He wants to stop the motorcade to get her back.

4:03 pm – Manilow calls Mrs. Manilow, and tries to convince her to come back. She hangs up on him! Well, he tried. Guess that’s it for her!

4:06 pm – Manilow realizes that the Russians might find out that Mrs. Manilow has never ridden in a limo. …Oh, and that he gave the terrorists their route so the terrorists could kill them all. Whoops!

4:07 pm – Audrey tells Edgar to meet her in the server room, but won’t tell him why. Edgar looks really hopeful, and pops a breath mint.

4:08 pm – The Hobbit is slowly decending into craziness, and starts asking about Lemba wafers.

4:09 pm – Audrey and Chloe are both in the server room. The Hobbit would never think of looking there. Meanwhile, if Edgar walked in that server room in his present state of mind, he’d probably faint at what he thinks is going to find there.

4:10 pm – Jack gets a phone call from Audrey, and we find out that Jack is going to meet his previous boss’s replacement boss’s boss, that Jack investigated for selling secrets. This is going to be a happy reunion.

4:11 pm – Edgar is shocked to find Audrey and Chloe there together, and immediately demands to know if they’ve already eaten the secret stash of Cheetos Audrey alluded too.

4:12 pm – Manilow keeps thinking of wacky scenarios to get his wife out of the limo. That kook!

4:12 pm – Mrs. Manilow asks about route changes, and says she’s just worried about heavy traffic. Doesn’t she watch this show? There IS no heavy traffic.

COMMERCIAL

4:17 pm – Back at CTU, The Hobbit, asks this new person “Cary” who she’s on the phone with, she says “Homeland Security”, and he fires her. I’m sure she’ll remember that the next time someone asks her that, she will NOT answer “Homeland Security”. I can only imagine what would have happened if she answered “FEMA”.

4:18 pm – Audrey and Chloe get caught by The Hobbit, and Audrey confronts him. Audrey argues long enough to let Chloe send a new security update to the computer system of the company that Jack’s going to. The Hobbit tells Audrey he needs “Precious” and Chloe goes with him.

4:19 pm – Jack bypasses the crack security guard, and gets Audrey to get an assistant to go away from her desk.

4:22 pm – ROBOCOP, CUNNINGLY DISGUISED AS A REGULAR HUMAN, TAZERS JACK!

4:23 pm – Jack tells Robocop that the terrorist have Centox gas, and Robocop swears he only shot a few people, and doesn’t know about the gas.

4:24 pm – Jack asks to see a bunker, and Robocop leads him out of the office.

Commercial – TWENTY FOUR THE GAME!

4:29 pm – Edgar tells Chloe about an intercept, and it appears to be some chatter about the exact situation they’re in on the website by a famous humorist who’s name rhymes with “Brave Dairy”. He’s going to do some further investigating.

4:30 pm – Edgar and Chloe go to The Hobbit to tell him about the chatter that was intercepted, and since it has nothing to do with “Precious”, he doesn’t want to hear about it. He says he’s been embarassed enough for one day. (He’s wrong. There’s PLENTY more to be embarassed about.) Curtis tries to tell him to put people on the threat assessment, and is told to go play with an elf.

4:31 pm – Impecible English Speaking Terrorist (IEST) calls to make sure that there’s still no traffic on any street in LA.

4:32 pm – Audrey goes to The Hobbit to tell him about the threat, and even threatens to cry, but The Hobbit STILL doesn’t want to hear about it, unless it involves The Ring. At this point, I think The Hobbit is in on the plot.

4:33 pm – Chloe instant messenges Edgar to meet in the hall. He sees Chloe and Audrey there, but still no Cheetos.

4:34 pm – Audrey wants Chloe to hack the Hobbits account, so she can send a secret message. Edgar doesn’t want to do it unless he sees some Cheetoes RIGHT NOW. They convince him to help them send the message.

4:34 pm – Audrey tells Curtis that she wants to invoke “Section 112” to get Bill back in charge of CTU. Curtis doesn’t understand how getting Bill to dress up like a circus clown is going to help anything, until he realizes that she said “Section 112”, not “Section 212”. He’s still not sure it will work, since a mad Hobbit is a bad Hobbit, not to mention it’ll be a LOT of paperwork.

4:35 pm – Meanwhile, there’s ZERO traffic on the freeway in LA. That ALONE should make the Russians suspicious.

4:35 pm – Manilow and Cheney-Looking-Guy (CLG) are talking about as much as the end of a scene in a soap opera, right before a commercial…lots of meaningful glances, but ZERO DIALOG. …Wait, Manilow tells a little story his father told him about a man named Jed, who was shooting at some food, and wants to know how this fits in with what the terrorists are doing. (I think it’s a race between The Hobbit and Manilow to see who goes completely berzerk first). Manilow starts blaming Mrs. Manilow for the situation she’s in. Now he wants to pray, and wants CLG to pray too. Apparently he doesn’t know that CLG is a Cthulu worshipper, and that would be a REALLY big problem.

4:38 pm – The jig is up! The Hobbit caught Edgar orange-handed! How could he not notice the Cheetoes dust all over his terminal! Chloe sticks up for him, and so does Audrey. The Hobbit has red-shirted security guards with him, so you know he’s kind of serious. The security guards have no idea what they’re in for, since apparently they’re not familiar with Star Trek theory of security guards wearing red shirts.

4:39 pm – Curtis goes against The Hobbit, invokes Section 112! He is one mad little Hobbit.

COMMERCIAL

4:45 pm – Bill is back! Everyone is back into the swing. Manilow finds out that CTU knows about the terrorist plot, and is speechless. Manilow looks mad. They’re about to save Mrs. Manilow.

4:47 pm – Terrorists are in position…. Secret Service goes into evasive manuvers, a missle is shot at the motorcade and top secret service guy looks like he’s dead. The terrorists machine gun the car, pull a flame thrower out, try that…nothing is doing anything to that car. The top secret service guy is alive, and he looks mad! He opens the door and fires on the terrorists, even blowing up the guy with the flame thrower! YEAH! And secret service guy is going to be OK! YEAH!

4:49 pm – Manilow gets the bad news. His wife is OK. The terrorists are going to be mad. Silly Manilow…. terrorists are ALWAYS mad.

More terrorism! Wait, that’s Amercian Idol, tomorrow. At least they warned us.

4:54 pm – Robocop and Jack finally get to where they’re going. That must be one BIG building. They go into a basement, Robocop says he doesn’t know who’s working on the Centox project, and as a senior VP, he is able to sit down at a terminal and actually use it, which is again…unrealistic.

4:57 pm – Robocop leaves, and when Jack goes to check the phones, they’re all dead. Jack checks the door, and it’s locked. He checks the notepad that Robocop left behind, and it’s got a bomb in it. Jack says he feels stupid. I’m guessing that’s an understatement.

4:58 pm – Robocop leaves, telling whoever is on the phone that CTU doesn’t have enough info on them. He goes out to the car, saying Jack will be dead in one minute.

4:58 pm – Jack puts the bomb in small room.

4:59 pm – Robocop remote detonates the bomb, but Jack was safe because he pulled a floor tile and hid there.. He walks out of the room with his gun drawn. That’s our Jack!

4:59 pm – Manilow and CLG are working on a cover story. Phone call from IEST direct to the president, saying that this time Americans are going to get it.

next time – TWO HOURS OF JACK BAUER! MRS. MANILOW TELLS SECRET SERVICE ABOUT THE PLOT! JACK’S DAUGHTER RETURNS! JACK CATCHES UP WITH ROBOCOP! I GET THE CAPS LOCK UNSTUCK FROM THIS KEYBOARD!

Dave Barry and “24”

If you like Dave Barry and the show “24”, you should head on over to his blog on the nights they show new episodes. On the nights Dave is home, he posts updates while watching the show, and people make comments while watching the show live.

A couple of weeks ago, Dave asked if folks could write summaries of the show, and I started posting some of my own. A few people over there liked ’em, so I thought that this week I’d post my entry here:

Super quick summary:

3:00-4:00 – Jack gets a phone call from The Guy Previously Known as the Guy in the Dark Room, through Audrey at CTU. Jack gets into a gun fight on the roof of a building, no one calls the police over the machine gun fire, or the helicopter that’s flying around with black smoke after someone shoots at it. After all, this is LA, and this happens every day here.

Audrey works with Chloe to get information from the chip Jack gets from The Guy Previously Known As The Guy in the Dark Room. The Hobbit goes CRAZY looking for the One Ring, and SWEARS that Chloe and Audrey are keeping the information from him. He goes so crazy, he locks up Bilbo…er….Bill, when he thinks Bill, Chloe, and Audrey are working against him. He looks threatheningly at Edgar, who was eating a ho-ho.

In the meantime, the terrorists get a hold of the President, because it’s SUPER easy to get ahold of the president, (well, at least President Manilow), and ask him if they can pretty please have the motorcade route the Russian President is taking back to the airport. Mrs. Manilow hears this and completely freaks out. She’s never been in a motorcade. She jumps into the limo at the end of the episode. As she drives away, it occurs to her she heard something about terrorists and a motorcade.

Body counts:
A number of people get shot, a living room in a video game commercial gets shot, Stylish gets knifed by yet ANOTHER terrorist (they must pay these actors per episode), who’s apparently the REAL bad guy, at least until next week. Jack shoots at least two people, and brings down a black helicopter by shooting at it.

Dave, in answer to your question about what “the twist we wouldn’t believe”…. I think it’s that Jack actually got to shoot at people this episode.

Be sure and check out this week’s “24” action on Dave Barry’s Blog.