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July 2nd, 2007

Entourage 4×03

Entourage Cast Photo and Logo The fourth season of Entourage has been rather lackluster thus far (as was the end of the third season), so I was hoping for something good out of episode number 4×03 last night. Unfortunately, we got more of the same boring stuff that has been happening for a while now. Has Entourage always been like this, with nothing substantive going on? Am I just now noticing it because the show isn’t new anymore? I don’t know — it feels so repetitive and blah lately!

Anyway, here’s what happened in “Malibooty.”

Vince/E: They took their difference of opinion about Medellín to the next level. E thinks “there’s a great movie in there,” but believes that they have to get rid of Billy in order to uncover that greatness. Vince thinks the movie is fine the way it is.

The argument escalated when E found out that Billy submitted Medellín for consideration at Cannes. E was livid because if word gets out that the movie was rejected from the festival (which he was convinced it would be), they’d never be able to sell it anywhere. Vince was okay with Billy’s decision and went so far as to tell E that he doesn’t know anything about movies and doesn’t know what to look for in a first cut. Basically, Vinnie called E “pizza boy,” which of course is how Ari always put Eric down.

E then went to Ari to ask what he should do. Ari told him he could sell the movie to Harvey as long as they’ve got a good trailer to work with. But when Ari finds out that E is there despite Vinnie’s objections, Ari cuts the talk short. E then goes to Harvey on his own.

In the end, E says he got Harvey to offer him $25 million for the movie. Harvey would get rid of Billy, and make a great movie out of the footage they have. Vince is impressed by what E did, but has some good news of his own: Medellín was accepted at Cannes.

Drama/Turtle: Drama has a chance to hook up with a woman he’s been trying to sleep with for 20 years or something. He convinces Turtle to come along because the woman has a friend there at the beach house with her. Of course when they arrive, the friend is fat and about 10 years older than Turtle, but he agrees to “take one for the team” so Drama can finally be with that woman. However, things don’t go according to plan. The woman who Drama wanted ended up wanting Turtle instead, so Drama had to be with the fat chick.

My Reaction: I’m just not into anything that’s happening on Entourage right now. I hate the fact that E is front-and-center in these episodes. The character totally grates on my nerves… seriously, I think he’s one of the most (unintentionally) annoying people I’ve ever seen. I hate how friggin’ smug he looks all the time and hope and pray for him to screw up big. The guy can’t even come up with an original idea on his own. This was the second time in a row that he basically just did what Ari told him to do, and then took all the credit when things worked out.

Speaking of Ari, what’s with Piven being on screen for just two minutes? Maybe that’s why the show is so boring recently. It was a lot more fun when Ari was handling all the stuff that E’s trying to do right now, so I hope they go back to that Season 1/Season 2 dynamic.

July 2nd, 2007

Planning a Trip to Melbourne

I spent most of Sunday chatting with my mom on instant messenger. It seems that she and a group of friends have decided to visit Melbourne in September, and she wants my help in planning the trip. She figures that since I spent a lot of time putting together an itinerary for my own Australia vacation (which ultimately fell through) a few months back, I’d be able to give her some pointers. Of course, since I had planned my trip for a different city entirely, I basically had to start over from the beginning.

My mom is very particular about the hotels she stays at, so my first order of business was to find suitable accommodation in Melbourne. Getting a hotel in a good location is more important to my mom than price alone because she wants to make sure she has convenient access to all the attractions she’s interested in visiting.

For example, my mom definitely wants to visit the Crown Casino to play some slots and Roulette while she’s in the city, so she would prefer Melbourne hotels that are near the southern bank. Obviously my mom’s not going there just to gamble, which means she has to take her other planned destinations such as the Melbourne Zoo, the Rialto Towers Observation Deck, and the Royal Botanic Gardens into consideration as well. Because of this, I think it would be better for my mom to find at least two (maybe even three) cheap Melbourne hotels to stay at during her 10-day trip so that she’ll always be centrally located for whatever activities she has planned.

I was able to find several good hotel leads for my mom to check out, so the next thing we have to work on is airfare. I like helping out and all, but I have to say that doing this much research has made me anxious to start planning a vacation of my own sometime soon!

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